AN: Happy Easter/Pesach Sameach!
-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-
The Resurrection Stone had to undergo the same procedure as the Cup did before anything else was to be done with it, so Alduin asked Theodore and Perpetua for help once again. As they prepared, though, he had other things to worry about. Pettigrew's trial was up, to clear up what was left uncovered from Sirius' hearing.
"Did Kingsley take part in preparing this, too?" Alduin asked Nathan as he seated himself in his customary spot in one of the courtrooms.
Nathan shook his head. "No. It was thought best that different Aurors worked on the Black and Pettigrew cases, to avoid influencing one another."
Alduin frowned a little. "It seems it's too interrelated for that, but what do I know, I'm not an Auror."
Nathan nodded. "Frankly, Kingsley thinks it should be treated as one case too, but no one asked him. Though that will probably change now."
Alduin gave him a surprised look. "What do you mean?"
Nathan smiled. "He's been promoted, do Scrimgeour's Deputy."
That was the best news Alduin had heard in a while. "Really? Give him my congratulations."
Nathan snorted. "Well," he said, "he complained that it should be really you who was given the job, since he got the promotion because of his arrest of Black and successful clearing up of that mess, and as he said, it was mostly your doing."
Alduin shook his head. "I just gave him a tip. I wouldn't have had a clue how to find Sirius, and I wouldn't have been able to plan the capture. Your brother is just being way too modest."
"Well, that is certainly unusual!" Nathan replied with a laugh.
Dumbledore standing up and calling in the prisoner interrupted their conversation. Pettigrew was brought in by Aurors, too, but he had on shackles to prevent him turning into his Animagus form. A rat was much harder to catch than a dog.
It was hard to establish anything positively with Pettigrew. He refused to testify under Veritaserum, and there were no positive witnesses naming him a Death Eater. Alduin knew from Lucius that not even he had known, and that meant probably no one did. So it all hinged on Pettigrew's unconvincing reasons for staying in hiding for so long, letting his own mother mourn him, and on character witnesses testifying to his cowardice.
"Is it your belief that, if Peter Pettigrew was approached by Death Eaters and forced under the threat of violence to betray his friends, he could have withstood such threats?" Dumbledore asked all of them.
"No," they all invariably answered.
Dumbledore himself testified about there being a traitor in the Order for a year at least before the Potters died, and that all the leaked information were consistent with what Pettigrew knew or could have known. Snape confirmed that, for about this long, there was talk about a spy in the Order, though his identity was unknown. "We knew what kind of person he was, though," he added. "The Da- You-Know-Who frequently said that he was weak and easily cowed."
Alduin privately thought that if that was the case, Snape really could have figured out it wasn't Black. But he could understand personal hatred blinding him to that – it was not as if he hadn't committed the same mistake.
Pettigrew mostly begged in desperation on the stand. His opening gambit caused an uproar in the courtroom, when he tried to explain how he wasn't the real traitor but that, instead, Remus Lupin was the one to blame, and as proof of that, cited that the man had an affinity for everything Dark, being a werewolf.
A clerk from the Werewolf Registration Office had to be brought in, then, and once she verified that Lupin was, indeed, a werewolf, there was an even greater uproar, one that was only assuaged a little when Dumbledore took the stand to testify that yes, Lupin was a werewolf, but that he lived at peace with the wizarding society, and that he now willingly took Wolfsbane every month, so there was no reason to expect he would be sympathetic towards Riddle.
Most of the courtroom didn't seem too placated by that, and even Alduin was a bit disgruntled. "That explains the Animagi," he muttered to Nathan, "but I sure hope Dumbledore has someone checking Lupin actually does drink the Wolfsbane every month. Falling asleep before he does it just once, and only waking up after moonrise, would be enough for a disaster..."
In spite of the impression this information made, however, it didn't change the suspicious circumstances of Pettigrew in any way, and after a few hours of the proceedings, the man was gone far enough that he gave up his original plea of not guilty and instead insisted on fear under threats of violence. That was a recognized extenuating circumstance, and so as Alduin had expected, the Wizengamot voted in favour of giving him fifteen years in Azkaban for his trouble, instead of a life sentence.
Nathan, who had voted for life sentence, was disgusted. "We'll have everyone complaining they were threatened to get out of punishment now," he said, "if even self-admitted traitors can get out of a life sentence."
"Well, the evidence was only circumstantial, and his admission would be rather suspect given the kind of emotional pressure he was under," Alduin pointed out. "If we gave him a life sentence, he would have had good grounds for complaint, and it would have dragged on at any rate. Fifteen years with Dementors is quite a hard punishment, to my mind."
With a little bit of luck, he thought, by the time that was up, Riddle would be over and done with.
-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-
The news about Lupin being a werewolf caused enormous ripples at Hogwarts, and there was so much pressure from both students and teachers about not being willing to study with him that Dumbledore was forced to announce, one day at dinner, that Lupin would resign and leave the school before the next full moon.
"And here I was thinking we could have one Defence teacher the whole year," Harry muttered under his breath when he heard.
"What, you'd have preferred for the werewolf to keep teaching us?" Seamus, who'd been by far the most panicked of his friends at the discovery, asked.
Harry shrugged. He didn't exactly adore Lupin, but he was a good teacher and Harry certainly never saw any signs of the man wanting to eat them or whatever Seamus was worried about. He was at least glad that Lupin wouldn't be leaving until just before the exams, so they could get all the revision they needed out of him, though the classes have become tense.
Not that that was that much of a difference to the rest of his time. With the exams approaching, everyone was becoming tense, all the time. Harry had never seen anyone in his life in so much studying frenzy as Percy Weasley was at the moment. When people came to him for help, as the Head Boy, he tended to snap at them and send them to "someone who isn't facing the most important exams of their life." It was a rather complicated business, since the fifth years had their OWLs ahead of them, too – Horatio and Roger were going insane – and so the only ones actually available at the time were the sixth year prefects, who were consequently overwhelmed.
At least everyone was studying for the exams now, so the amount of mischief they got up to was somewhat reduced even without proper prefect supervision. Even Fred and George actually had opened books before them, though Merlin only knew what sorts of books they were.
Harry was not in such a terrible frenzy himself, but he had to admit that having two more subjects to study for did add a considerable amount to his workload. Especially as the Runes were hardly simple.
On the other hand, he only needed to take one look at Hermione and Su, who both had Runes and Arithmancy, to stop complaining and be thankful for his choice. Apparently, Arithmancy was hell.
"It's extremely interesting!" Hermione said brightly, one afternoon in the library. "But I do admit it's hard."
Su groaned. "Interesting my foot," she said. "If so, I haven't gotten to the interest through the sea of equations yet."
"You don't like maths?" Harry asked. "I though chess and maths weren't so unlike..."
"In what way exactly? Maybe that they both require you to think, but that's about it." She shook her head. "I like how chess makes me think in angles, consider future possibilities and combinations and probabilities."
"But that's what Arithmancy does, too!" Hermione argued.
Su grimaced. "Yeah, but in a very different way. If someone told me to count the most probable way my opponent is going to play their game, I can tell you I'd lose interest immediately." She shook her head.
"Do you wish you had taken Creatures instead, then?" Harry asked.
She gave him a look. "I don't hate Arithmancy that much," she replied, and Harry only laughed as he packed his things and headed to his lesson with Neville.
In the end, they had started their training as part of Neville's preparation for the exams. It was going relatively well so far, with Harry intentionally focusing more on drilling a few basic spells than on anything elaborate. It was useful, he knew from his lessons with Snape, and it was also helpful for the exams, plus with all the stress lately he didn't think Neville had any energy left to be learning new spells anyway. As it was, it was drills and then duelling, which, in how physical it was, really offered a nice respite from constantly staring into books.
"Hey, Harry," Neville greeted him, already waiting in the empty classroom they used. "How is Cho?" It was Saturday, after all, and they last spoke when Harry had been headed out for a short walk with her.
"Well enough, but even more stressed about the exams than we are," Harry replied. They were the last before her OWLs, and from what she said, the teachers all acted like they should regard them as sort of OWLs in miniature. That didn't exactly help anyone to calm down.
Harry, selfishly, was rather relieved. Cho's stress meant she was making less demands on Harry's time, which was something he was in sore need of. After the exams, he promised himself, I'll make it all up to her.
"If I was any more stressed," Neville replied to his previous comment, "I'd be too sick to get out of bed in the morning."
"Well," Harry told him with a grin, "time for some stress relief!"
-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-
Alduin's contentment about Pettigrew's sentencing evaporated extremely soon. Two days after the trial, the front page of the Prophet boasted the news: "Pettigrew escaped!"
There weren't many details to the story, though much speculation. Apparently, Pettigrew had managed to transform into his rat form while being transported to Azkaban, and had bolted.
Alduin tried to call Kingsley immediately, but he didn't catch him till the evening, when Kingsley told him he's prefer to come in person to discussing the matter over Floo.
The moment he stepped out of the fireplace in Travers Manor, he said: "We're in some deep shite."
"What's going on?" Alduin asked impatiently as they walked towards his office.
"Pettigrew had inside help, that much is obvious," Kingsley replied, clearly furious. "My personal bet are the Lestranges, but I don't have any particular proof."
Alduin exhaled, opening the door for them. "You think they let him go to make contact with Riddle."
"Precisely," Kingsley agreed with a sharp nod, preceding him inside. "They have the most to gain if he came back – both of their heirs are locked up in Azkaban for life with no chance of parole, and you know the old man is too old to have children even with the help of magic. If Riddle came back, on the other hand, they would be certain to get out."
There was sense to what Kingsley was saying, but still, Alduin had his doubts. "Why would they think Pettigrew had any chance of enticing him back, if he was unwilling to come on his own?" He wondered, motioning Kingsley to one of the armchairs and taking the other.
Kingsley looked a little uncomfortable at the question. "Well...you know rumours about the Quirrell trial leaked out," he said at length. "Rumours that Quirell was in contact with Voldemort, that he somehow enticed him to came back to Britain, even in a weakened state. Perhaps they hoped that what one follower could accomplish, so could another."
"Yes, well, I don't think Dumbledore is going to lend them the Stone as bait," Alduin commented drily.
Kingsley snorted, but immediately grew serious again. "Nevertheless, they may succeed," he pointed out. "They are bound to offer him something."
"It makes you wonder why they didn't go alone, why they waited for Pettigrew," Alduin muttered.
Kingsley shrugged. "Likely none of them wanted to risk getting killed by half-mad Riddle. No one knows what state he's in."
"He certainly didn't seem very sane when I met him, that much is true," Alduin conceded.
"We have to prepare for the very real possibility that he will come back, and soon," Kingsley said. "And an Auror department where the Lestranges can get in and bribe guards to let a Death Eater escape is not a good starting point."
"Do you have any idea what to do?" Alduin asked.
"Well..." Kingsley hesitated, then stood up and walked towards the window. "Scrimgeour's position is very endangered right now," he said then, quietly. "They were talking about sacking him already because of the Sirius affair, but then they contended with making me his Deputy instead, to balance this out. Now, though...and, well, if he goes, there are indications that I should replace him. I'm considering whether to take the offer, if it comes."
Alduin gave him a surprised look. "I should say certainly! Don't you want to?"
Kingsley gave a deep sigh. "I like fieldwork, and it would be the end of that. On the other hand...well, if Giacomo was the other option, or someone else I wholly trust, I'd be willing to leave it to them. Unfortunately, I know who the other people considered are likely to be, and it's nothing to write home about. And Auror Section does need to be whipped into shape, desperately so. Plus...well, it's been just a day since Pettigrew's escape and people are already talking. It's widely known it must have been an inside job, and will you look at that, Giacomo is a Slytherin, the only one we have in the ranks at the moment. Because clearly everyone just forgot that Pettigrew was a Gryffindor. As the new Head, I'd be able to stop that kind of thing."
"All the more reasons to take it, then," Alduin said with a smile. This, at least, was some silver lining to the Pettigrew disaster.
Kingsley sighed again. "I might be worrying over nothing. I might not actually be offered the job, or Scrimgeour may stay where he is."
Alduin rolled his eyes. "Look, Kingsley, if you want the position, I'm pretty sure I can make it happen, if it's already so near to happening anyway. But you have to decide if you want it or not."
Kingsley stood silently for a while, looking out of the window into the dark grounds of the Manor.
"Fine," he said then, "I want the position."