The Battle Mage
For the second time in three days, the notorious Black Family settled around the large dining table – though this time Hadrian was still asleep upstairs. They were muttering and shifting uneasily until Arcturus cleared his throat at the head of the table.
"For those who were not present in Grimmauld Place at that time, yesterday afternoon, Noelle appeared with Hadrian and a file, and promptly passed out from blood loss. This is the file in question, and I'd like you all to read it now and tell me what it's missing," he said, passing it to Noelle on his right.
She knew she was still pale, but she eagerly flipped open the file and read through the contents. As she read further down the page, a fearsome snarl influenced by her animagus form ripped from her throat, a heavy scowl marring her face.
"Crouch and Bagnold didn't give him a trial at all?" she hissed, her pupils contracting to enraged slits.
Shouts of outrage and promises of terrible retribution sounded up and down the table as Sirius' file – containing only a single page detailing what he was accused of and the date he was captured and thrown in Azkaban. The date was the same. Within hours of capturing Sirius, he had been taken to the dank prison.
Arcturus shot sparks from his wand to get the attention of his House and he turned to her, "Noelle, please explain what happened yesterday."
She nodded and began, "I went to Gringotts to claim the Potter Ring as Regent, request that my brother's Will be read – which I must be there for in… three hours – and to officially list myself as Hadrian's guardian. Apparently, Dumbledore had the Wizengamot vote to close the Will and place himself as my nephew's guardian. I told the goblins to return all the artifacts, heirlooms, and books, to the Main Vault, and to return all the funds he had stolen with interest from all parties involved. I also told them to reclaim, repair, and ward the Potter Cottage in Godric's Hollow and make the Ministry pay through the teeth for using it as a landmark."
She earned vindictive chuckles for that, but continued with a grimace, "If I had known there would be any danger in collecting a simple file from the Ministry, I would have left Hadrian here. As it is, I want the public to get used to seeing him, because I'm not going to keep him locked up until he goes to Hogwarts."
Marissa – Alphard's wife – had been prepared to take Noelle to task for putting a toddler in such a dangerous situation but had to admit that she couldn't have known there would be any in the office of the DMLE itself. It also made sense to expose Hadrian to the public quickly and to let the fame and publicity wear off as much as they could.
Gideon, Narcissa's husband, said what she had been thinking, "You couldn't have known, Noelle."
"When we arrived at the Ministry, there was almost a stampede in the Atrium to see the Boy-Who-Lived," her lip curled in disgust before she smirked, "Until I threatened to hex them all and called them cowards and weak-willed sheep, that is."
There was laughter all around the table and Cassiopeia cackled, "Please let me see the pensieve memory later." There was a general agreement at that before everyone dissolved into muffled chuckles.
Noelle's smile faded as she said, "His file was disillusioned, in the back, under an anti-summoning charm, wards, curses and detection charms. I bypassed them all but tripped a hidden curse. If I had been alone, I would have most likely remained unscathed, but I had to shield Hadrian and shadowed back here instead."
"Is that what lowered your core so drastically?" Andy's fiancé Julius asked curiously, ever the Healer.
"It's an old technique used as a last resort by most battle mages because you can completely ignore wards when you use it, like I did to get from the Ministry to here. It takes a set amount of your magic as basically a toll when you pass through. The issue was that I brought Hadrian with me, and I paid both his toll and mine so that we could escape."
Arcturus was scheming with narrowed eyes, "Do you have any idea who hid the file so extensively?"
She shook her head, but Pollux asked, "Noelle has to go to the Will reading in a few hours, but what are we going to do about Sirius?"
Noelle said, "I'm hoping that my brother included the identity of his Secret Keeper in his Will and I can call an emergency Wizengamot meeting as Potter Regent to get him a trial. If not, I'll call the emergency meeting anyway as Potter Regent and do my best to get him a trial, but with how bad this will make the Ministry look, I doubt anything less than a confirmed statement from my brother will get him one."
They exchanged grim, but resolved glances, vengeance clear in their eyes. There was a reason the Blacks were so feared. Even Voldemort catered to them to an extent. Their wizards were cunning, knowledgeable, and powerful, and their witches… their witches were forces of nature. Continents away, magicals spoke of the Blacks with awe, jealousy, or fear evident in their voices. They were powerful, rich, influential, and had pedigrees a mile long, but most importantly, they valued family above all else.
Perhaps Britain required a reminder of just how ruthless the Blacks could be.