Chapter 28 Messages

The pages came out and removed the furniture that made the Chamber into a courtroom. The Speaker resumed his seat and said, formally, "Is there any other business before this Chamber?"

Harry Potter had remained seated while the pages worked around him, and now he stood up and spoke for the first time that long day. "Mr. Speaker!"

"The Chair recognizes Harry Potter, upon the privilege of the Warlock." The Speaker replied.

"Privilege of the Warlock?" Sunny whispered to Jonas.

He nodded. "Warlock has the right to address the Chamber, just as if he was a Member. He doesn't vote, though. Dumbledore only ever did it once, but Potter has done it a lot more."

"Mr. Speaker, I wish to speak on behalf of Sirius Orion Black. As all in this Chamber have seen, Sirius Black has erred grievously and broken the law. Yet also he has paid for those errors, as the High Court of this Realm has found. Error and injustice there were in those years, and as is now well known the burden of them fell on him. In the years when he was a hunted fugitive he might have turned against the Realm and joined the foes of the Realm, but he did not. Rather he fought against them, standing with the valiant few of the Order of the Phoenix against the return of Voldemort."

Sirius had started to walk toward the exit, but when Harry began speaking he turned to listen, his face swiftly assuming an expression of shocked astonishment.

"Atonement he has made, and now I petition this Chamber, the highest authority of the Realm, for a Pardon for Sirius Black, in recognition of hard and dangerous service to the Realm in the years when the power of Voldemort was rising and peril was come upon us all."

The Speaker turned and addressed the Members. "The petition of the Warlock is submitted to this Chamber. Do any wish to speak to this petition?"

"Mr. Speaker." The voice was that of Amelia Bones.

She continued after being recognized. "Justice is a celestial ideal. Law and due process are the imperfect tools by which fallible mortals seek to realize that ideal. In the past we forgot that quest, as we have been reminded this day. Sirius Black was denied that due process. I believe that we, also, need to make atonement. I speak in favour of this petition."

Two more Members spoke to the petition, both in favour. The Speaker called the vote, and it passed by a two thirds majority.

"Sirius Black, be it known to all the Realm by these present that you are granted Full Pardon for past offences in recognition of your services to the Realm. Your good name is restored and all rights and privileges that were formerly yours are now returned to you."

The Speaker turned back to the Members. "This sitting is adjourned."

Harry took a deep breath and turned to go. Today was done. However tardily, he had made good on his pledge to speak out and to act where he saw injustice. It had been more complex and far harder than he had ever imagined when he had made that pledge. He decided that he was going to have dinner before he Apparated back to Hogwarts. Tomorrow was another day of teaching classes.

Harry turned as a hand touched his shoulder. It was Sirius, looking whipsawed and baffled, not the sad betrayed look that Harry would never forget. Harry had retained the hope that Sirius might speak to him again someday. That didn't mean that this was going to be "All is forgiven."

"Harry, what ...?" Sirius simply ran out of words for the questions that were boiling in his mind.

"Harry, why didn't you just tell me how it was going to come out?" He said, after a moment.

"I didn't know, Sirius." Harry said quietly. "I wasn't there to tell them how to decide. I was there to make sure you got due process. Injustice has to be answered with justice. Justice has to be seen to be done."

"Harry, he betrayed your parents!" Sirius said, his voice pleading.

"Tell me about it." Harry said drily. "You wanted vengeance. When you set out for vengeance you dig two graves."

"He deserved to die!" Sirius said angrily.

"Perhaps he did." Harry replied quietly. "What about the innocent people in that street? Did they deserve to die?"

"Pettigrew killed them." Sirius said defensively.

"It could have been you just as easily. We don't know who killed them, we can't know who killed them. You didn't care about them any more than Pettigrew did." Harry said, still quietly. "You would have killed Pettigrew in cold blood while he was pleading for his life, but you missed. By the grace of God you are not a murderer."

Harry decided that he needed sleep more than anything else, but there was one thing more that needed doing. "Take my arm, Sirius."

Sirius took Harry's arm, then realized that he had obeyed that quiet order without question. He opened his mouth to ask where they were going or how it was even possible from the Chamber, but the sensation of Apparation took him before he could.

They arrived in front of the gates of Hogwarts, the castle outlined against the setting Sun. Harry held out his hand in a welcoming gesture. "You once told me that you wanted to walk through these gates as a free man. Walk with me, Sirius."

They walked together through the gates of the castle into the courtyard, and Sirius watched the ebb and flow of the life of the school continue as it had when he was young, as it had for so many centuries.

A young student with a prefect's badge came up to Harry, looking breathless. "Professor Potter. The Headmistress' compliments and she asks to know if you will be teaching classes tomorrow."

"Yes, I will, James." Harry replied gravely. "My business in London is done."

"I will tell the Headmistress, Professor." He said. "Good to see you back, sir. It's not the same without you."

Sirius watched the boy head off on his errand. By years Harry was but little older than that student, but the unforced respect that the prefect had shown him was not always given to teachers of much greater age and experience. He watched as the news spread across the quad at the speed of magic as it had when he had been a student, and the looks of relief and pleasure that followed it.

Sirius took a deep breath of the free air, standing in the quad of his old school as he had so often dreamed of doing during so many dark days and nights. Now it was real. Now he had time to recover himself a little from the crushing despair and soaring relief of this day.

Recklessness had been Sirius' weakness since the days of the Marauders, and now he was faced with the uncomfortable fact that he had not changed much. He had risked his own life and those of others heedlessly many times over. Mad-Eye and the others had reproved him for that repeatedly, but he had ignored them.

He realized that Harry had spoken the harsh and exact truth. He truly had not cared for the innocent bystanders in his rage at Pettigrew's betrayal. By luck, undeserved good fortune, he had escaped the consequences of that recklessness - again. Whether there was innocent blood on his hands was not knowable, but now he had stared down into the abyss of dire consequences for that fault.

Harry gestured wide at the sunlit quad. "By the decision of the Court you are a free man with your good name restored. Don't waste that gift."

Sirius followed that gesture. Now he could hope that his own children could be part of that cycle of life. This was only one of the many treasures that life held, that he had come so close to throwing away for a moment's bloody satisfaction.

Time to grow up, Sirius. He thought. You have left it very late in the day.

Harry looked over at Sirius. "I will, if you feel up to it, resign the office of Head of the House of Black to you. You are again eligible to hold it."

Once, and not very long ago, he would have accepted that without thinking and considered it his by right. Now, he thought about it. The Head of an Ancient and Noble House should be the one best fitted to hold it. That one was not Sirius Black.

Sirius bowed his head. "The Head of the House of Black is a just and powerful man. I do not see that the House would benefit by a change."

Most fathers hope their sons will live up to them. I have the rest of my life to try to live up to my son. He thought.

Jonas McShine looked over his cluttered battered desk at Sunny. "Hell of a message someone sent today. I don't think it was just Potter, either."

"Message?" The younger woman replied. This was obviously a teachable moment in her apprenticeship. It was also a test to see if she could keep up.

"Figure it out. Was Black some nobody off the street?" Jonas said.

"Not even close. Scion of an Ancient and Noble House, family money, war hero, godfather of the Warlock." Sunny replied at once.

"Right. That money hired one of the best lawyers in the Realm to defend him. The Warlock was right there in the courtroom. What did that get him?" Jonas continued.

"Acquitted of what he didn't do or couldn't be proved, convicted of what he did do and sentenced to Azkaban time." Sunny said, slowly. "But how do we know it wasn't stage managed? Sentence him to time served and let him walk?"

"Good question, kid. You're learning. The Criminal Negligence charge. How close was that?" Jonas said.

"Near as a toucher." Sunny replied. "There was doubt there."

"Just enough, as it turned out." Jonas replied. "He got the maximum on the other two charges. The max on Criminal Negligence is five years."

"Potter still could have moved to have him Pardoned." Sunny maintained.

"Sure. After he did his time. It was a High Court decision. Wizengamot can't overturn its own conviction. Custom of the Wizengamot doesn't allow it. If they were going to do that, it would have been tried at the Assizes, not the High Court." Jonas replied.

He shook his head, and continued. "Trying to stage manage a High Court decision is dicey at best. Fudge tried that with Potter's trial over the Dementor attack, and it blew up in his face. Too many factions, too many moving parts. Greengrass is too smart for that. Whiffletree is a hardcore law and order type. As far as he's concerned Potter is a loose dragon. He wouldn't give Potter the time of day."

At the older man's gesture, she continued. "The message is that money, family and clout get you a fair trial on the evidence and that's it."

The older man nodded, and gestured again for her to continue.

"Black was on the run for a long time." The younger reporter said slowly. "How hard were they actually looking? He was a pretty convenient bogeyman for Fudge. As long he was on the dodge this whole thing could just be let lie."

"Good. Twelvetrees." The older man said.

Sunny didn't have to think about that. "She didn't give a rats for the politics. She found Black, took him in, and put together the case that convicted him. Nobody had the clout to shut down her investigation, either. Darrow went up one side of her and down the other and got nothing."

The older man smiled grimly. "You want that one coming after you?"

"I'll pass, thanks all the same." Was the dry reply.

"Me, too." The older man said. "The trial vote. That went down as slick as goose grease. Was that an accident?"

"Well ..." Sunny said uncertainly, then broke off at the other's head shake.

"There are no accidents in that Chamber. Cock-ups, yes. This wasn't either. Someone whipped that vote. Potter, you think?"

"I don't see it. He's apolitical." Sunny said.

"Comes across that way." The older reporter said, skeptically. "More to the point, he doesn't have the network. Greengrass does. He was the Speaker. Wouldn't have been a hard sell. There were a lot of people who wanted this behind them. Wand work still had to be done. Take a lesson, kid. You need to know the Chamber on this beat. Memorize every seat in that room and the occupant of them, and know who the serious players are. That includes some people who don't have a seat. Miranda Greengrass isn't just the Minister's arm candy, she's his wand hand and enforcer."

"So you've got the Minister and the Warlock backing up the Aurors on the street and keeping a hard eye on the courts to make sure they stay on the straight." April said, slowly. "Hell of a message, all right."