Chapter 6: Guilty as Charged?
Sirius was seated on the bench where iron cuffs went around his wrists to keep him from getting up and attacking people. 'At least the bench is pretty comfortable,' Sirius thought. 'No wonder Ari looked close to falling asleep after the Veritiserum wore off.'
"Sirius Black, you have been accused of being a Death Eater and of being the one to betray the Potter's, leading up to the attack on Godric's Hollow, resulting in their death. You are also accused of murdering Peter Pettigrew and 12 muggles. How do you plead?" Madam Bones asked.
"Not guilty," Sirius answered immediately.
No one looked surprised at his declaration. Who would admit to being guilty for something like that?
"Do you have proof of your innocence?" Umbridge asked in her high-pitched voice.
"Besides the fact that if anyone lifted the shirtsleeve of my left arm up they wouldn't find a Dark Mark, no, I have no proof right now," Sirius answered. "It's kind of hard to get evidence in Azkaban."
Umbridge gave an unladylike snort. Arion tried to hold back laughter at that statement. After all, he had a very good point.
"Can someone administer the Veritiserum?" Fudge asked. The man who had given the Veritiserum to Arion gave it to Sirius and he lay back on the bench.
Arion's POVI watched as daddy completely relaxed under the power of that weird potion. I briefly wondered if the potion had the same affect on him as if did on me.
"State your name and age for the records," Madam Bones said.
"Sirius Alphard Black. I'm 31." Dad answered. I was surprised to hear this. Most of the adults I had been around that had kids my age were older then that. Hermione's parents were about 35.
"Are the events that your daughter, Arion, said true to the extent of your knowledge?" Madam Bones asked. Even though it was a legitimate question, it made me slightly angry. How could it not be true seeing as how I was under that truth potion?
"Yes, they are," he answered again.
"Can you fill in any gaps in what she said?" Madam Bones asked. My ears picked up at this. I wanted to know what completely went on that night.
"Around 8 o'clock on Halloween night I felt that something wasn't right, that something was going to happen. I brought Ari to Andromeda's house to go and make sure things were all right. I went to go and check on Wormtail…"
"Who is Wormtail?" Fudge interrupted. I wanted to know as well.
"Wormtail was Peter's nickname in school."
"What are other nicknames you used and why did you have them?" Madam Bones asked.
"I was Padfoot, James was Prongs, Remus was Moony, Adria was Mercury, and Lily Tigerlily. Marlene almost had a nickname, but she was murdered before we could come up with one. All of us except for Moony and Lily were Animagus," Sirius answered.
Everyone in the room except for Remus blinked. He actually looked a little scared. I knew why as I had started looking through his memories from the past couple of years. I knew he was a werewolf.
"So, you were all illegal Animagi?" Fudge asked.
"Except for those two."
"Why did you become Animagi?" Madam Bones asked while Fudge began fuming. I wanted to know what an Animagi was.
"I can't answer that as I took an Unbreakable Vow with my friend not to reveal the reason," Sirius answered.
"I can answer that," Remus said, quietly. Everyone looked at him. "I'm a werewolf."
Everyone who didn't know that except for Tonks started to freak out. The two of us blinked, looked at each other, and shook our heads. So what if he was? Remus wasn't going to all of the sudden start attacking us.
"QUIET!" Dumbledore yelled. Everyone was silent. Daddy actually looked really calm, but I could tell he was still under the truth potion. "We are in the middle of a questioning. Someone keep on asking Sirius questions."
"Right. So, what were the forms you could take?" Madam Bones asked. 'Forms?' I thought. 'Maybe it has something to do with turning into animals.
"I was a dog, James a stag, Adria a cheetah, Marlene a panther, and Peter was a rat. Hint some of the nicknames," Daddy answered. 'I wonder what form I would take?'
"So, you went to go check in on Peter. Why did you do that?" Madam Bones asked.
Before Sirius could answer, Umbridge said, "So he could kill him, obviously."
"Miss Umbridge, if you cannot keep control of yourself during the questioning, please remove yourself from the room," Madam Bones demanded. Umbridge got a really sour look on her face and stayed put. 'Too bad she couldn't leave. I don't like her. Period.' I was getting some weird vibes from her, especially as she kept on giving Remus a look between disgust and fear.
"I went to check on Peter because he was the Secret-Keeper for Lily and James," Daddy answered the question.
While everyone was going up in an uproar again, I was confused. 'Secret-Keeper? What's that? I have huge gaps in information here.'
"Wait! What's a Secret-Keeper? And, why is there so much arguing over this?" I asked, waiting for someone to answer. It was Remus who answered for me.
"When a person goes under a charm called a Fidelius Charm, they chose a person to hide the secret of their location in. Anybody could go looking for the person under the charm and no one could find him or her unless the Secret-Keeper gave away the information. We believed your father to be the Secret-Keeper for Lily and James. Obviously we were wrong," Remus explained to me.
"Thanks. Finally, I get something answered," I said to him. Remus smiled at me and looked back at Sirius. Everyone had finally calmed down.
"Were you not the Secret-Keeper for the Potter's?" Dumbledore asked, as everyone else seemed so surprised that they couldn't ask the question.
"No. James asked me, but I convinced them to change to Peter at the last minute since everyone would think it was me since I was their closest friends and powerful. Never thought the Death Eaters would use someone like Peter," Daddy said, sounding upset at mistaking that piece of information.
"After going to check on Peter, what happened?" Madam Bones asked.
"I found his hiding place deserted. I thought it weird because there wasn't a sign of struggle. The bad feeling in my stomach intensified and I went straight to Godric's Hollow. That's where I met up with Hagrid. Ari told you the rest of it, up until the point when the confrontation between Wormtail and I came to a conclusion," Daddy concluded, answering in a way that showed he agreed with what I said about his confrontation.
"Ok, now, Moody, you wanted to ask Sirius a couple questions?" Madam Bones asked the man with a bunch of scars.
"Yes, I did, didn't I?" Moody said, looking up. He had been looking down during Sirius' testimony. His face was almost scary, except his one good eye showed he had a good spirit. That other eye, though, freaked me out.
Moody got up and walked over to Daddy. "While you were an Auror, wasn't there a top secret experiment? One that would be important for the war?"
"Yes, there was."
"What was the experiment? That was tied in with the Department of Magical Transportation, was it not?" Moody asked.
"Yes, the experiment did have to do with transportation. There were ten people who were randomly selected in the Auror and Transportation departments, including the people themselves and their families. They wanted to test and see if a person in danger would be able to use a portkey put under the skin and see what the side-affects would be. The people selected had an object put inside somewhere on the body where it wouldn't be noticeable. The portkeys were activated by code, mainly a series of letters and numbers. There was an additional spell to make it nearly impossible to find the person who got the portkey by modern day techniques. An older way of finding magical signatures had to be used. Only one portkey was ever activated since soon after the experiment started, the war ended," Daddy explained. I had an odd sense of forbidding come over me.
Dad took a deep breath before finishing his answer. "Arion was one of the ten people chosel. I had already lost Adria, so I wanted a way to make sure she would be safe. If you look at her locket, there is probably the un-traceable spell still on the locket. It was chosen to be in her left shoulder and I chose an orphanage for where she would go to, knowing they would take care of her if something happened. When I confronted Peter, he blew apart the street with a spell that killed anyone that did not have enough magical energy. I assumed that Arion would be killed, so I activated her portkey, thinking I would be able to go and get her, or tell someone in my trial if someone asked where she was."
Everyone was silent. You could hear a pin drop. Actually, it was creepy because it was silent since everyone was staring at me. I refused to look anyone in the eye. Or, the face, for that matter. I was busy digesting the information I had just found out.
"Ok, we are going to now have the jury go out and vote on the verdict. In the meantime, you can talk as long as no one talks to Black," Fudge said.
End of POVNo one really talked about anything of importance. Arion and Tonks talked about the difference between schooling in the wizarding world and muggle world with Remus putting in his input every so often. Narcissa was completely silent, not really getting along with anyone or even caring about Sirius. Everyone else had his or her own conversations, looking over at Arion every once in a while. Moody was curious about the side-affects the portkey may have had on Arion. Sirius was twiddling his thumbs and staring up at the ceiling. No one noticed the weird beetle on the wall.
The jury came in. A man with balding red hair came in last and walked up to Fudge. "We have reached a verdict," he said.
"Alright, what's the verdict, Arthur?" Fudge asked.
Arthur Weasley opened up his mouth and…
A/N: Ok, here are the two chapters I promised. I still have to work on Chapter 7, but I should have it next week or so (I'll borrow my brother's laptop some more until we get my computer fixed...), so I will keep up with the writing. As for the chapter title, I had no idea what to call it. Also, I am sorry I left you all at a cliffhanger, but I felt that it was a good place to end and, as I said, I don't have the next chapter done. So, please review and give ideas, especially chapter names!
Updated Author's Note: Okay, someone was nice enough to give me a chapter name for this chapter, so kudos to 1Malone!
Updated May 28, 2007
