To be said all in one breath: One day while Harry was having tea w/ Snape and his pretty pink flamingos, Fudge was turned into a marshmallow and Bob also know as Voldemort and you know who and he who must not be named and the dark lord and the all around bad guy and tom riddle and that weird guy and that guy we don't like and the guy who was punished for being slightly evil and very mental who was eventfully sent to an alternate universe, where the evil purple dinosaur of death, Barney and his gay minions of teletubbies ruled supreme, ate him. (Phew!) He slowly went insane and he returned to wreak havoc on Sirius and Harry who banished him and drive them insane by singing that evil song I love you. Then he made it his life's goal to hug every single person ever born. He vanished somewhere in Chicago where he attempted to hug the Mafia leader. Every one else lived basically happily ever after.
Oh dear lord where did that come from?… Sirius!!!!!!!!
Sirius: Not me!
Ummmmmmm… yeah right!
Sirius: Seriously!
That has got to be the oldest joke in the book.
Sirius: it bugs me too. But it wasn't me! It was Carlie/Prongs!
Carlie/Prongs: heyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! It was SaraBeth/Moony!
SaraBeth/Moony: Stop Calling me Moony!
Everyone else: Okay Moony.
SaraBeth: That's it! I cannot work in these conditions. I'm going to my trailer.
Sirius: Since when did she have a trailer?
Since I am the author and I invented it.
Sirius: She's not even in this story.
Neither is Carlie/ Prongs.
Sirius: True.
Carlie/Prongs: So?
Anyway, that is NOT the story. Please ignore that above paragraph I own nothing. On with the real story and I am going to go find out who really did write that!
Sirius, Carlie/Prongs, SaraBeth/Moony: It wasn't me!!!
ANYWAY, just before school started, Harry received a letter.
Hey Harry,
You'll never guess what happened. Dumbledore pushed the ministry into giving Sirius a trial! With all the new evidence( you, me, Hermione, Professor Lupin, your parents!) they have to. Plus they never gave him a trial in the first place. Did you tell your dad that? I think he just might go down there and kick some butt. Dad told me about him turning Fudge into a squirrel last time. Well, see ya there.
Ron.
"Dad!" James ran into the room. Sirius jerked awake in his bed. He glared at Harry, then shook his head.
"You had to wake me up, didn't you?"
"Yep." Harry grinned and waved the letter in his face.
"What Harry? What?" Harry handed James the letter. He read it and frowned.
"Sirius, they never gave you a trial?" He asked. Sirius shook his head.
"Why should they? There was no evidence to support me. " Sirius said in a dead tone. The hallow dead look James hadn't seen since that first night, flickered in his eyes, snuffing out the light in them. James shivered as he wondered what horrors his friends must have gone through go be transformed from the man he knew so well, to the shell of his former shelf. His temper flared. No one could do this to his best friend, no one. Sentence him to a long painful death without a trial and be spared the best buddy wrath? Uh… No!
"Well, there will be now. They're giving you one." He showed Sirius the letter. He read it. A mixture of emotions flickered across his face.
"Well, will you do it?" James asked. Sirius glanced back at the letter and up at James. Then slowly he nodded.
Two days later a crowd gathered outside the courthouse in Diagon Alley for the trial of the century.
People filled in and the room was packed.
The key witnesses sat in front.
Harry, Ron, Hermione, Remus, and Dumbledore sat side by side. Mari, Addi, Cassi, and the twins sat behind them. James and Lily waited in a separate room, they wanted to be a surprise.
The room fell silent when a group of tough looking ministry members entered the jury box. Harry noticed Mr. Weasly was among them. He was the only one who looked as if he wanted to help.
Fudge banged his gravel on the table "Quiet! Quiet!" The noise in the room died instantly.
"We are here to determine the innocence," He sneered on the word innocence." Of one Sirius Black."
Just then, dementors appeared each on one side of Sirius who looked very pale, but with a determined look on his face. He sat in a chair in front of the room facing the jury.
He glanced over and gave Harry a wink.
"Stand up." Fudge ordered. Sirius got to his feet. A wizard handed him a piece of paper. He put his hand on it.
"Do you, Sirius Black, swear to tell the whole truth?"
"I do." The wizard held up the paper. It remained white.
"That's the parchment of truth. If he lies anytime during the trial, it turns black." Remus whispered to Harry.
"Mr. Black, you are charged with betraying the Potters and assisting in their deaths. You are charged with associating with he who must not be named, and turning to the dark side. You are charged with using the unforgivables on twelve muggles and one wizard, namely Peter Pettigrew. Your new charges are as follows. You are charged with flight from justice and aiding in the escape of a condemned hippogriff. How do you plead?"
" Not guilty to the old charges and guilty to the new." A wave of talk rose in the room. Harry, Hermione, and Ron exchanged looks. Remus looked worried.
"Now on with the questioning. Prosecution, you may go first." A menacing wizard approached Sirius.
"Mr. Black. The Potters chose you as their secret keeper, did they not?"
"Yes."
"And the location of the people using the charm can only be revealed if the secret keeper chooses to do so, Stop me if I'm wrong."
"Yes."
"So when they chose you, you decided to reveal the location."
"Stop."
"What?" the man looked confused.
"You told me to stop you, if you were getting anything wrong. You were wrong." Several giggles rose from the audience. The man turned red and glared at Sirius who gazed innocently back at him.
"And what did I have wrong?" he growled.
"I wasn't the Potters secret keeper. And I didn't betray them."
"Sirius, don't do anything stupid." Remus prayed.
"Really? Could you maybe tell the court who did?" The man smiled arrogantly as he leaned against Sirius's chair.
"Your honor, could we call the next witness?" Dumbledore asked.
Fudge nodded.
One by one, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Remus and Dumbledore all told the court what had happened that night two years ago.
The prosecution challenged all their statements, saying they could hardly go on the words of three kids, and a werewolf.
"Well, tell me. If James and Lily Potter were here, would you trust what they said and accept their words?" Dumbledore asked. The man nodded.
"May I present James and Lily Potter." James and Lily came out, gasps and cries of surprise came from ever corner of the room. James grinned at Sirius as he passed him.
"Hey Padfoot, doing okay?"
"Better every second."
"Great."
"How do we know this is real?" the prosecutor roared. James grinned.
" Thomas Rowe, right?"
"Yes."
"Well, do you remember that night is sixth year when Remus, Sirius and I found you in the tower with-"
"Alright! Alright! It's you!" The man recovered, barely.
"J ,J, James and Lily Potter, was Sirius Black your secret keeper?"
"No." James said loudly. "We wanted him to be, but he had doubts, about himself and his abilities to withstand Voldemorts rage. So he devised a plan. Use Peter. Our friend Peter Pettigrew. Everyone would think we were using Sirius when we were using peter. So Voldemort would go after Sirius and Peter, the REAL secret keeper would be safe."
"But Peter was the spy." Lily said." He tricked us into believing he was on our side. He betrayed us all. He sentenced Sirius to a life of hell and killed us. And you all fell for it. You didn't once stop and ask him what really happened. You just sent him straight to prison. With out a trial! " She was getting mad. Harry had never seen his mother mad, but she was glaring at Fudge and the other ministers with murder in her eyes.
"Thank you."
Then the man turned to Sirius.
"Can you tell us who betrayed the Potters?
"Peter Pettigrew." Sirius said simply. Everyone turned to look at the parchment. It remained white.
The man frowned
Peter Pettigrew is dead."
"No he's…" Sirius's voice died as he spoke. He stared at something under Harry. Harry glanced up at him. A look of shock was on his face. Then before anyone could say anything, Sirius leapt.
He dove under the bench where Harry was sitting and grabbed at something.
Remus bent down and yanked him out. He came out, his hands clenched tightly around something, a grin of triumph on his face.
"Padfoot, what on earth are you doing?" James asked him. Sirius simply held a finger to his lips. The room fell silent. A small squeak came from Sirius's cupped hands. Then another, and another.
" It's him." He said.
The room burst into noise.
James led Sirius, whose hands were still clamped tight up to the judges.
"You want proof Pettigrew is alive? We'll give you some."
He grabbed the wand Harry tossed to him and handed it to Sirius. Remus stood beside them.
"One…two…three!" Sirius dropped the rat and they pointed their wands at it.
" Transformus Wormtail, Peter!" they all said. There was a flash and the rat began to grow. Slowly it changed into Peter Pettigrew.
The room was stunned into silence. Peter's eyes darted around the room, from the hated glares of his old friends, to the wide-eyed stares of the crowd. His gaze landed on Mari. Her face was pale and she was staring at him with a unreadable look on her face. Then she handed the baby she was holding to Addi, who was looking at him like you look at something a dog would drag in.
Mari walked up to him and slapped him across the face.
"How could you?! They would have done anything for you! How could you turn your back on them like that?"
He didn't answer. Then "I didn't betray them! He tired to kill me!" He pointed at Sirius. Sirius's reaction was very different then it had been in the shack two years ago. He only shook his head.
"We would have died for you, Peter." He glanced at the parchment. It was as pure white as ever.
Slowly the story came out. How the three friends had undergone the animagus transformation to be with their friend. How later they had turned to Peter to keep the Potters secret. How he had betrayed them and Sirius had realized it too late. How, maddened with grief and guilt, Sirius, not Peter, had searched for Peter and cornered him in a crowded street. How Peter had hidden his wand behind his back and preformed the deadly curse that left twelve people dead, and transformed and fled, leaving Sirius to take the blame.
When they had finished, the jury left.
Everyone waited in silent anticipation. They were only gone for 15 minutes.
Then slowly they filed back in.
Mr. Weasly handed a guard a slip of paper. The guard took it and handed it to Fudge. Fudge stared at it, the cleared his throat.
"We the jury, find the defendant, one Sirius Black, guilty,"
"No!" Harry cried. There were more cries of injustice from the audience. Sirius gripped his hands together.
Fudge pounded his gravel again and when there was silence, he contented." We find him guilty of the crime of flight from justice. We find him guilty in the crime of aiding the escape of a condemned hippogriff. We find him guilty in the crime of undergoing an illegal animagus transformation.
We find him not guilty of the crime of following the dark arts and being a death eater. We find him not guilty in the crime of betraying the Potters. And not guilty in the crime of murder.
But we feel that the time spent in prison is punishment enough. He will have to register with the Improper use of Magical Creatures, as will James Potter and Peter Pettigrew. But then he is free to go."
The crowd exploded in yells of triumph. Sirius just collapsed in his chair, a look of satisfaction on his face. I'm free. After all those years, after everything, I am free.
The moment didn't last long as Mari, Addi, Cassi, James, Lily, Remus, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore, and most of the audience ran up to him and enveloped him in a huge hug.
"Da! Da! You're free!" Cassi yelled. He picked her up and spun her around.
"You bet I am!" Mari then handed him Remy who smiled up at him and giggled. Jamie grinned and laughed when Remy grabbed Sirius's hair and began to pull.
"No, no, baby. Leave Daddy's hair alone." They all laughed.
Just as they reached the door, Sirius glanced back. Peter was staring at them, his eyes filled with envy, from where the dementors were handcuffing him. His eyes met Sirius's and he looked away. For one second a feeling of sorrow fleeted across Sirius's mind. The days of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs were truly over. The he saw James and Remus watching Peter as he was led away. The four shared one last glance, one look that said more words then they could ever say. One look that held twenty years worth of words that would never be said. Then Peter was gone.
As they left the building the crowd outside gave a huge cheer. Sirius smiled softly.
"Mr. Black. What will you do now?"
"Do you have any hard feelings against the ministry?" Reporters crowed around them.
"Look, it's been a long day. And I just want to go home and be with my family." He told them, wrapping his arm around his wife and shifting his son's weight with the other.
They went back to Hogwarts and celebrated all night.
Okay, one little authors note here .two really.
Okay, I've been thinking and I totally rewrote my name is Cassiopeia. I added Jamie and Remy at an older age. See, to fit in with what ended up happening later on in this story, I had to have both Jamie, Remy, and the next set of twins already born. So I changed it that Jamie and Remy were born about eight months after their father was imprisoned. He had no knowledge of them until his escape. The twins that were born Harry's fourth year instead were another two boys named Gemini and Polaris. Tell me if you'd like me to change this plot line now or finish this story and then repost it. Which would be less confusing? Please review and tell me.
I've kind of been disappointed lately by the lack of reviews that this and my other stories have been getting. I really would like people to write more reviews. They tell me whether or not you like the story. They tell me if I should change anything, and so on. Please, I really would like more. If I don't get any feed back and I don't know that anyone is really enjoying my story it seems like there's not much of a point to keep posting these. Thankz.