A/N: Okay, I really have got this chapter out quickly for me. And I mean real quickly, but before I start on it, there is something I need to address.
Bella's pregnancy (before they know it as a pregnancy) will not be totally like a normal one. That is due to the magic from both Bella and the baby, which, in my mind, is a logical explanation for any inconsistencies between a real pregnancy, and Bella's.
So, on with the fic!
Disclaimer: Do not own, wish I did.
Chapter 29
Confessions of the Dead: Potter and Black Innocent, Lestrange Woman Reformed.
Possibly the Worst Ministry Foul-up for Centuries!
By Tabitha Commère
It is not a widely known fact of why ghosts linger amongst the living when they themselves are not. However, there are two reasons for this. The first is that they were scared to die at the time of their death. The other is that they have unfinished business. Should a ghost remain on this plain due to unfinished business the ghost will try to finish it before moving on.
One such ghost is Peter Pettigrew. Loyal readers of the Prophet will know that a little over fifteen years ago, less than a day after He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's first fall, Peter Pettigrew was blown into thousands of pieces by one Sirius Black, but not before shouting for the whole world to hear the words 'Lily and James, Sirius! How could you!' The largest part of his body was a finger and the he was awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class
However, now it appears that the entire world was deceived by some trickery on Pettigrew's part.
Recently discovered floating around central London by the Ministry, he was brought in, simply to be asked where he had been for the past fifteen years, as a ghost rarely takes a whole fifteen years to come back down to our plain, and to be told to avoid highly populated Muggle areas. But the answers given by Pettigrew in accordance to his whereabouts were, to say the least, shocking, though assuredly true due to the Dead's inability to tell a lie.
It appears that Pettigrew had spent almost twelve of the thirteen years hiding out in his unregistered rat animagus form with a family of pureblood witches and wizards. The most recent three years have been spent in the presence of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, as one of his servants.
At this point in time it is reported that the Minister, multiple witnesses and several Aurors were called in to help deal with Pettigrew's spirit should it have grown violent. Once all of them arrived Pettigrew's questioning continued.
Pettigrew stated when asked that Sirius Black was innocent. The whole affair in which he was framed for the murder of twelve muggles and Pettigrew himself was staged in order to incriminate Black and get him out of the way. Pettigrew went on to say that he had even cut off his own finger to assure the public of the man's guilt, and that he himself had been the Potter's Secret Keeper, not Black as the world had been led to believe.
Pettigrew's questioning went on further, and the ghost also revealed a couple of interesting facts. The first, and foremost after Black's innocence, would be that regarding young Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, who was also labelled as a Death Eater.
Whilst Harry Potter was placed in Azkaban mainly for breaching the Statute of Underage Sorcery, that in itself was in self-defence against a fully trained Death Eater whom he was later imprisoned with, within the same cell, Potter was later accused of being a Death Eater, having vanished, along with his wand, during an attack on Azkaban. This, however, has been proved false by Pettigrew's testimony.
And finally we come to the last person Pettigrew talked about: Bellatrix Lestrange, or rather Black due to her husband's unfortunate demise at the hands of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Name (another detail revealed by Pettigrew)
Although Pettigrew did not deny the fact that Bellatrix bore the Dark Mark, he did say that she was no longer a Death Eater. When asked to elaborate, Pettigrew said that Bellatrix had betrayed He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named by rescuing Harry Potter from the Dark Lord's, ultimately being caught, and then rescued by Potter, both of those two events leading to 'Lord Thingy' (as our esteemed Minister called Him numerous times) to suspect of Pettigrew's own betrayal. Being thought that he was a traitor by the Dark Lord, Pettigrew had been killed by the same person he had once called 'Master' and betrayed his best friends in order to do it.
But Pettigrew does bring to light many interesting things. One Death Eater has completely changed her ways (if the fact that she had save our Saviour's life isn't proof, then nothing is) and the ministry has sent not one, but two innocent men into Azkaban without proper trial. This brings to light many serious doubts about the competency of the people that have been given power over us. Perhaps we should get a new Government. Or, perhaps, we should get a new Minister. In this reporter's opinion, a new Minister is almost certainly needed.
Harry and Sirius had both been shocked to say the least when they had come down that morning, only to find three apples out of the bowl and on the table next to a jar of raspberry jam and a jar of mint humbugs, however that shock was miniature compared to when they saw Bella on the floor, the Daily Prophet grasped in her hand, the front page baring the exact same article as the one above.
Their shock shrank, of course, as their brains slowly began to process what they had read in the newspaper they had pried loose from Bella's hand, and slowly, though slightly quicker than before, grins spread across their faces as they realised what it meant for the two (well, three is you counted the unconscious Bella) of them. They were free. They were no longer wanted men. And the world knew it.
Pretty soon the grins on their faces stretched from ear to ear, Harry's being slightly larger as it meant he could attend Hogwarts again. Then he realised Bella was still unconscious.
"Enervate," He muttered, bringing her around in an instant. She sat up disorientated for a slight moment, then looked to Harry.
"Does this mean what I think it means?" she asked hopefully as she noticed the paper in Harry's hands, hardly daring to believe it.
"That depends on what you think it means," said a still grinning Sirius. "If you think that we've declared war on the moon, then it isn't."
Bella growled quietly, and grabbed the nearest thing to her, the jar of humbugs, and hurled it at him. It missed and hit the opposite wall, clattering uselessly on the floor thanks to an anti-shatter charm on the glass.
"You know what I mean!" she snapped.
"Oooh, moody!" Sirius taunted, and quickly dodged as the three apples and the jar of jam came at his head in quick succession. "Hey!"
Three days later, on the twenty eighth of January, in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Bella was tapping her fingers on Dumbledore's desk, Harry was trying to calm himself down enough so that he wouldn't accidentally change into his snidget form and Sirius was pacing, all in nervousness and anticipation. Dumbledore had managed to, somehow arrange for them to meet with a representative from the ministry that day.
A thousand questions kept running through their heads as they waited. Though they believed that Dumbledore wouldn't double cross them - it certainly wasn't in his best interests - who knew for certain that it wasn't some elaborate ploy by Fudge in an attempt to capture them? Of course, it was very complicated if it was, and would appear to the public that if it was just an attempt to capture them it would be disrespecting the dead.
What if, and this question came mainly from Bella's mind, the ministry believed that Sirius and Harry were innocent but Bella hadn't reformed? And they took her back to Azkaban? Which would inevitably be attacked by Voldemort once again, and so leaving her to face his wrath, all on her own.
What if the ministry decided to give them all a trial, but took them back to Azkaban to await it? What if- no, it wouldn't bear thinking about those things right then. It was already bad enough that they had started. If they were to carry on they would constantly be assuming the worst in the next couple of minutes before the representative was scheduled to arrive.
Harry glanced down at his watch impatiently. There were still precisely two minutes to go, and he was already as nervous as hell, his brain, despite his best efforts, going through all of the possibilities all over again. What would he be like in another two minutes? Would he accidentally change into his animagus form out of his nerves? Or would he simply explode from the nerves? Okay, so the second choice was unlikely (as far as he knew, you never could tell in the wizarding world), but it didn't help him in the slightest.
Harry glanced down at his watch again. One and a half minutes to go until the representative would be late. Why in Morgana's name hadn't they scheduled it earlier? At least it would be over by then! Of course, he would have gone through exactly the same things then, only slightly earlier in the day, so it would be possible that his nerves would have been dulled slightly due to sleepiness.
Ever so painstakingly slowly another minute left until the exact time they were supposed to arrive, which probably wouldn't be exact. The Ministry wasn't known for its promptness. In fact, they seemed to turn up early when you didn't want them to turn up at all, and turn up late when you wanted them to turn up as soon as possible. That was just one of their many more irritating, ah, qualities, right alongside sending innocent people to a place worse than hell.
Ten seconds left - nine - maybe they would be a few seconds early, Harry thought hopefully - six - five - or they would probably be about half an hour late - two - one - and.... nothing.
Harry, Sirius and Bella all glared at either the fireplace or the door, none of the three of them quite sure which entrance would have been used. Trust the ministry to not arrive exactly on time. Okay, so Sirius definitely wouldn't have, and Bella almost certainly wouldn't have gotten it down to the exact second, and Harry inevitably would have arrived a few minutes late, but that didn't count! These people (and the term is used loosely in most cases) were supposed to be running their country! And they couldn't even get anywhere at an arranged time! It was no small wonder so many people complained about it. They were so inconsiderate!
However, a few seconds later the door opened, and the representative walked in, putting a stop to their anger. The official looked decidedly nervous, probably the fact that he had drawn the short straw and was now faced with the unenvious task of giving two accused Death Eaters the news that they were free and that the ministry had made a mistake - and one of them his wand back so said wrongly accused ex-convict would undoubtedly end up cursing him - and to tell the other that, well, he'd rather not think about it at that point. Well, actually he hadn't drawn any straws, but Fudge had actually been too scared of informing them himself, so he had assigned the task to the first employee he had seen.
"Well, erm, Mr Potter, Mr and Miss Black, uh, I'm, ah, here on behalf of the, um, Ministry to, ah, urm," the official managed to stumble of the words quickly, hoping to get out of the room as quickly as he could. "Announce that, ah- meep!"
Bella had finally had enough of what he seemed to be having trouble saying, and now had her wand aimed directly between his eyes. The representative looked even more terrified than before.
"Hurry up and say what you've got to say before I decide to hex you into a hundred thousand pieces!"
"Announce that all charges have been dropped on Harry Potter and Sirius Black, and that most charges have been dropped on Bellatrix Black, the rest are to be dropped as soon as she has read and completed the conditions of her pardon in the letter that shall arrive by owl post on the twenty-ninth of January. Good day and here's your wand back Mr Black," the official said at such a speed it was hard for the three of them to understand, and almost immediately after throwing Sirius's wand in his general direction, the terrified man left.
"Bella, I think you scared him," Harry said, after blinking several times. Bella rolled her eyes and glared at him.
A/N: I would have uploaded this chapter last Monday, but there were a few reasons I didn't. The first was that I started redecorating my room, so I didn't have much chance all week to get on the computer. The second is that when I finally did get on to computer to put this up I found I had several annoying reviews remarking about the lengths of my chapters (okay, so nothing new there, but they were really patronising remarks) so I vowed to myself I would never put a chapter up ever again unless it reached 2,000 words, which I had to write another 1000 words for this chapter to meet this requirement. I suppose that point it good news for those of you who enjoy the longer chapters, considering the fact that now they'll be twice the length of before on average. Oh well, that's my excuses out of the way.
coolone007-2: Difficult questions to answer, those are. I'm fairly sure I will send Harry back to Hogwarts. As for Hermione, she's been busy with school work and a, uh, few other things that she's managed to keep secret from the world.
Blackhand/Exzlayer: Thanks! It's great to see people who don't mind short chapters!
Finn Mcgovern: Hmm, good point about the prophecy, I really should start to focus on that I suppose, the elves too. And probably Harry's view on Dark Magic, and practically everything else you've mentioned in your review... but that's going in the sequel, mainly. Yes, weird cravings are a sign of pregnancy, and one of the few I know about.
NatalieJ: Ah yes, stupid school with their stupid education and their stupid GCSEs. And do you know the unfairness of it all? THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT ABOLISING THEM! Anywayz, longer chapters are on their way, I swear, and so are the kiddies!
MMockler4Tonks: Fine, I wasn't planning on giving Bella any kids in the AU version though. I just can't see a fic where Harry and Bella are together and on Voldemort's side where they have kids.
Silverscale: Thank you! But... who's Ranma?
harrysgal8: Oh, and where is that?
EmeraldThrone: Well I was having a tough time with writing! Plus I wanted to get in a cliffhanger, for some unknown reason. Does this chapter compensate though? And I'll review yours as soon as I can find your profile...
Amscray: Yes, it was a nightmare, one that popped up out of nowhere. Oh... that Napoleon XIV sounds kinda... indescribable.
Dana: Well, I can't guarantee the first one, but I'm certain I'll write people's reactions once they find out.
Nutty AL: lol, um, I'm not quite going to go for disguise bit, or Bella enrolling as a transfer student at Hogwarts and getting sorted into Gryffindor, but Harry and Bella having more romance seems like a good idea at this point in time.
Ryua Malfoy: Lol, I'm not quite sure where I got that combination. I think I had been thinking about the feasts at Hogwarts at the time (there's usually mint humbugs there), picked out a jam and glanced over at a fruit bowl, and the answer struck me. Yes, Peter is dead, and as you can probably tell from this chapter, he was trying to complete his unfinished business.
Potts: It's simple enough, someone in the ministry leaked out the information, though it isn't completely obvious.
Fire Gazer, Shadowface: Thanks!
Kittyofwonder: For me, this chapter is super long!
A. Person: Okay, fine, you can wait until I actually announce it. At least you've got further in the guessing than anyone else. Yep, Bella does get pregnant, and it's great to know I've written this in a believable way. Even if I have put people horribly OOC. Yes, a cookie would be cool... if you've still got them...
NateP: Yep, the chapter they find out in will definitely be interesting.
LadyRaven13: That she is.
Joe Mama: Oh, right... I'll be sure to correct that sometime...
What the Hell?: Yes, that was a chapter, and if you're gonna critise me for the length of my last chapter, I can assure you it's longer than the original versions of the first few chapters, several of which failed to reach 500 words.
LOL: Uh, in case you haven't noticed, this fic has a word count of over 40,000, not just 20 words.
