May 1994
Liz had no idea how the hell mages managed to make something she knew was important so boring — once again, she was wishing she'd brought along something to keep herself occupied with.
The last day of Dorea's father's trial, and also the first time he'd be directly questioned by the Wizengamot, had finally come. If Liz thought the build-up to her custody hearing was absurd — which it had been, she didn't understand why who she lived with was such a big deal it needed to be decided by parliament — Sirius's trial was even worse. She'd captured Pettigrew, what, back in February, the hearings and shite hadn't started until the end of April, and that had been a few weeks ago now. The delay for starting the hearings made sense, since they had investigations to do and were negotiating with France on the terms of Sirius being returned to the country, and of course politics continually got in the way, one big scandal or another cropping up (Liz's thing hadn't helped there), which slowed everything down to a crawl. Because all the nobles had to get an opportunity to stand up and make big over-long statements about everything, like the dramatic self-important bastards they were — Liz suspected how slow everything was in magical government was at least partly the fault of how the rules in the Wizengamot were set up. But they'd gotten through all that, eventually, until they finally got to the actual trial part.
And that was a few weeks ago, but they hadn't spent all that time on the trial itself — that would be ridiculous, even for mages. The Wizengamot was their parliament, after all, and no matter how big of a deal Sirius's trial was, they did still have to keep up with their ordinary business. They'd have a hearing every few days, calling in witnesses or arguing about something already in evidence, which could go on in circles sometimes, but it was only a few hours here and there. And, of course, sometimes hearings would be delayed when a new thing came up, and then the Wizengamot had to argue about that as big-time politics happened Liz couldn't really follow.
Part of the process for Sirius's trial was to figure out how exactly he'd ended up abandoned in Azkaban in the first place. There'd been a lot of interviewing people in the Ministry at the time — and sometimes taking memories, they had a special pensieve that could project a reproduction of the scene over the floor, very neat — and as controversies came up they'd go off on tangents, publicly relitigating those first couple years after the war. Daphne insisted this was terribly overdue, since there was a lot of crazy shite that'd happened in that time that had never really been looked at too closely, but it did slow down the trial. It turned out it wasn't just being caught 'red-handed' and Dumbledore saying he was the Potters' Secret Keeper, a lot of things had gone wrong, and a lot of people hadn't done their jobs properly, so of course the Wizengamot had to investigate every nook and cranny and air it all out.
(Daphne also pointed out that it was in the Wizengamot's interest to paint the Ministry as incompetent, since they could use the scandal to yank the centre of gravity of political power closer to themselves. So they weren't seeking justice on principle, they definitely had selfish reasons to get to the bottom of it, but still.)
Bagnold, the Minister in the latter part of the war and the first couple years afterward, actually came out smelling like roses — Erin Scrimgeour too, but she hadn't been run out of public life through vicious character assassination, so. Documents from the time, and the testimony of various officials and even Bagnold herself (the papers had a field day with her first public appearance in a decade), completely validated her efforts to reform the Ministry in the wake of the war, her effectiveness hobbled by intentional obstruction on the part of unidentified Death Eater sympathisers, and just random people who hated her politics (which had swung hard against the nobility near the end of her tenure). A whole bunch of people ended up being fined for their actions at the time, various Ministry officials going so far in their efforts to sabotage her they'd broken the law, a couple were even sent to Azkaban over the more egregious offences.
Most of these things were completely unrelated to Sirius's case, going off on tangents...except it turned out that some random clerk in Wizengamot Administration Services had 'misplaced' the report from the DLE about Sirius's case, containing the request that he be tried in front of the Wizengamot for treason, and with the shake-up in the DLE — including the Director himself being outed as a sympathiser who during the war had set up Hit Wizards and Aurors to be ambushed by Death Eaters, leading to his own trial for treason — there'd been enough distractions going on and enough important officials replaced that everyone just kind of forgot, and since it wasn't on the docket nobody had been reminded. Which meant that one person was almost single-handedly responsible for Dorea's father being stuck in Azkaban without trial for a dozen years. Oops?
(He was in Azkaban himself now, on a ten-year sentence. Most people didn't survive longer than five.)
Anyway, Bagnold had been thoroughly vindicated, the Prophet taking her side in a way they apparently hadn't at the time — though they still demeaned her over her personal life, which didn't really seem like anyone else's business to Liz, but whatever. Fudge's hearing had been an absolute disaster. He'd been the officer on the scene in Edinburgh, and there were some issues with his report (though not anything criminal), but the big thing was that part of why he'd been obsessed with catching Sirius was because he'd suspected Sirius was actually innocent, and feared that that becoming public would destroy his political career; and he used dementors in particular partially because ordering them around was a power he had as Minister, but mostly because Sirius couldn't tell anyone shite if he had his soul sucked out first. Yeah, Fudge had been sacked in short order after that, and was being prosecuted for crimes he'd committed during his term (though he probably wouldn't get prison time, just fines). The Wizengamot hadn't selected a new Minister yet, political alliances too unstable at the moment for that, but Fudge was gone and wasn't coming back.
Good riddance, as far as Liz was concerned — she still didn't know much about politics, but the bastard had put soul-sucking demons around Hogwarts, so he could go to hell.
Dumbledore's hearing had also gone badly. The Wizengamot had agreed to allow truth spells for the hearings around Sirius's trial, and the questioners had managed to corner him into admitting that he'd so easily believed Sirius was a traitor in large part just because of his name. Which had then led to an odd series of questions because, um, why? Sure, people being raised a certain way could have an influence on them, but the Blacks weren't a Death Eater family — during the war they'd been in Ars Publica, as noisily opposed to the Dark Lord as most people in that faction, and they were in Common Fate now, so. The only two Blacks known to have been in the organisation were Regulus and Bellatrix (Lestrange), and they did have a few prominent sympathisers, including Sirius's mother (and Narcissa), but his father was known to have fought against them, and had actually been murdered by Bellatrix in the end. There were a few exceptions, but the internal culture of the family was much more aligned with Ars Publica, so you couldn't really say he'd been raised into it, necessarily.
Of course, Dumbledore tripped over himself and said "Dark" when he should have said "Allied Dark" or even just "Death Eaters", and Monroe had immediately pounced — probably prepared for a slip like that, the two of them had history. With a few pointed questions she got Dumbledore to more or less admit that he thought the culture of the Dark was inherently evil, and people who'd been raised in it but hadn't fully 'reformed' were suspect. Sirius had fought for the Light, but he'd still fought like the Dark, both in the spells he used and how he talked about strategy and feuds and honour and whatever, so Dumbledore had suspected the whole time he wasn't entirely committed to their side, his estrangement from the Blacks and seemingly well-intentioned marriage with a muggle notwithstanding (which he had known about, seemed like the sort of thing that should give him second thoughts). When he'd learned Sirius had betrayed them, he'd been heartbroken, yes, but he hadn't doubted what he'd been told for a second.
Which wasn't exactly a smart thing for him to say, considering a good half of the entire country was Dark (a little over half, actually), and he'd just admitted that he thought their culture and religion and traditions and moral principles were evil, a life that people needed rescuing from. Not that the truth spells had given him much choice, but, needless to say, deeply insulting half of the country wasn't great for one's political career. His days as Chief Warlock were numbered, but the movers and shakers behind the scenes were squaring up a successor before actually moving to replace them. Over the summer, probably — Daphne said the rumour was it'd be Erin Scrimgeour, who was already old, would probably only keep the seat warm for a decade at most until they could agree on a more permanent one.
So, there were big events like that that came up, but most of it was all little stuff, what'd happened on this day or with this part of the process, blah blah blah, it was extremely tedious. Liz was glad she didn't have to attend the Wizengamot herself, because all this would get very old, very fast. Not that she really wanted to deal with the Wizengamot at all, but she hadn't looked into getting a proxy yet, she should get on that...
But anyway, the Wizengamot had mostly found out everything they felt they needed to know, so it was finally time to bring Sirius in and make a bloody judgement already. They had wanted to bring him in to be questioned earlier, but the negotiations with France had nixed that. As far as the French were concerned, they'd already verified Sirius's innocence to their satisfaction, and they insisted on him being given a short trial — after all, since he had been charged with treason, if it took multiple days he'd be kept in holding until the verdict, and the French considered that unacceptable. They suggested keeping him under house arrest on one of the Black properties for the duration, but the British had vetoed that idea. The compromise they came to was that the Wizengamot would get all their investigations and whatever inane shite out of the way first, and then the French would bring him in for the very last day of hearings, on the condition that they'd come to a verdict on that same day. Really, Liz thought they should have just questioned Sirius under truth spells and thrown out the case, gotten it over with right away, but she guessed the politics of it was important for people who cared about that sort of thing, so.
According to Dorea this time, her aunt had been told by the French government that the security people they'd be sending with Sirius (Hit Wizards, but not called that) would be given orders to refuse to hand him over into British custody — if the Wizengamot ruled against him, or even just didn't come to a decision that day, they were to bring him back to France. The British, naturally, weren't going to let him just leave, so they'd probably end up needing to take the French Hit Wizards prisoner too. Liz didn't need anyone to spell it out for her to put together that that would end badly.
(She kind of had the feeling that the French were trying to pick a fight with Britain, she didn't know what was up with that.)
Despite how terribly bored Liz had been during her first time in the Wizengamot, she'd decided to come on the last day as a favour to Dorea. (And also Sirius was her godfather — it'd look bad if she didn't go, and she didn't want to give the papers an excuse to write about her.) And despite knowing that Sirius's hearing and the verdict wouldn't be until the afternoon session, she'd decided to come for the morning session too — which was called that despite only starting around eleven — meeting up in the Blacks' rooms for an early lunch this time. They'd gotten all the way through the morning session, going through normal business and then a long, agonising back-and-forth about this or that bit in evidence, people making dramatic prepared statements about one thing or another, on and on and on. After what felt like forever they'd finally split for a break, long enough ago that Liz had already returned to her seat — people muttering as they milled around, Liz trying to ignore the weight of the minds around her, the seats for Order of Merlin members were much more full this time — her fingers tapping at her desk, irritably waiting for them to just get on with it already!
She was. so. bored.
(Liz was definitely finding a proxy soon, there was absolutely no way she could tolerate having to deal with this shite every damn day, just, bloody nobles...)
She'd been playing around doodling some more, just because she didn't have anything better to do with herself. It looked like she was getting a little better at it, but she didn't think it was that much of a difference — though she hadn't really expected to, since her handwriting was still terrible. She could mostly reproduce runes okay...though it helped to cast an illusion of whatever she was doing so she could simply trace over it. (Babbling had been a little amused when she'd caught Liz at it in class one day, but said as long as she was properly focussing on what she was doing, keeping the ritual element intact, that worked fine.) Doing the same thing for drawing should help, but she actually didn't care that much, it wasn't like this was anything important, and also out and casting spells in the middle of the Wizengamot would probably be obvious.
It was annoying, knowing she'd been a lot better at this when she'd been a little kid — flowers were hard...
She'd been sitting here for several minutes, didn't know how long — she'd added one little flower to the tangle of vines she'd drawn along the edge of a page, and then a second, and a third... — before she felt the deep reverberating booms of the session being called to order. There was a bit of a scramble for a moment as people returned to their seats, a brief delay before the fancy purple Hit Wizards began pushing the doors closed, sealing with a clank of the lock and a crackle of the wards. A hush fell over the room as Dumbledore stood at the Chief Warlock's podium (audibly, but it was plenty loud to Liz, snaps and hisses filling the air from minds all around), and the second session of the day started.
There were a few minor things, blah blah, statements from this or that person, a few quick votes on routine business — Liz didn't know shite about any of that, so she ignored it all, just kept doodling. Eventually, someone stood to move they open the Court of Law, there was a vote for that. Dumbledore sat down, replaced at the podium by the Director of Law Enforcement, who happened to be Susan's mum(/aunt). Amelia Bones turned up in pictures in the papers enough that Liz had actually recognised her when she'd come to Hogwarts to pick up Pettigrew, though if not for that she might not have guessed she and Susan were closely related. Amelia's face was much sharper and squarer, mouth turning down at the corners making her look rather solemn and serious, her short-cropped hair a pale straw blonde — supposedly Susan looked more like her mother. (Amelia was her father's brother.) When she spoke Liz was a little startled, her voice low and sharp and booming, the pureblood Celtic-ish accent with a bit of a drawl to it — Amelia wasn't quite so tiny as Liz, but she was hardly a physically imposing woman either, her voice always took Liz by surprise — starting with a few ritual bits about the Court of Law being opened, blah blah.
As was apparently necessary when the Director of Law Enforcement was called up like this, she gave a brief summary of the major investigations and trials and whatever else that were ongoing, only took a minute or two before she asked the floor what business they wanted to address today — of course, she obviously knew that, it was just procedure. Someone moved they should return to the matter of Sirius Black, a quick vote to confirm that, and then Amelia rattled off a summary of previous witnesses and facts in evidence, reminding people what they'd gotten through (as though anybody here didn't already know all that). While she was talking, an aide back at her desk fished out a box from underneath, and then booklets were flying off toward everyone's seats. There was something worked into the wards that would distribute materials to everyone, which was pretty neat.
While the talking continued, Liz idly flipped through the booklet — after all, it wasn't like she had anything better to do. Reports from Adjustment about the physical evidence at the scene, and the DLE about Sirius's arrest — including the belongings he'd had on him, apparently the DLE still had his wand (he'd been wearing muggle-made clothes at the time, because he was such a Death Eater, you see) — transcripts from previous sessions of the Wizengamot and summaries of related investigations by DLE officers. The latter things were often truncated, referencing other cases where discoveries in the process of Sirius's had forked off into other matters, go to the Office of Records and ask about this case number, blah blah. Liz noticed that her custody thing and also a subsequent proceeding (but currently stalled) case against Dumbledore were both referenced in multiple places, especially in the transcript of Dumbledore's interview and related stuff, because of course.
(The DLE had actually begun proceedings against Dumbledore for...basically kidnapping, since, as had been pointed out during her hearings, he hadn't actually had custody of her yet when he'd taken her and put her with the Dursleys. He had ended up with it a soon later, so Dorea said the worst he'd get is a fine, and probably not even that — though she could sue him anyway, of course, she was still thinking about it.)
But it didn't look like there was anything particularly interesting in here, so it wasn't doing a great job at keeping her attention. Liz ended up doodling in the margins — she was mostly certain this was hers to keep, it hadn't occurred to her to wonder until after she'd started — while the talk around her went on, people making a few statements, asking Amelia about this or that detail, blah blah.
After what felt like bloody forever, someone finally suggested they bring Sirius in for questioning. At this point, someone sitting at the floor stood up. That was extra, it hadn't been here for Liz's first visit — there was a long wooden table down the middle of the floor, one side lined with chairs set facing the government seats, where witnesses and their advocates and such called in from outside of the Wizengamot would be able to sit when they weren't actually needed. Today there was only one person there, an unremarkable-looking middle-aged man dressed in... Well, it didn't quite look like a muggle suit, but it was clearly a similar thing, with the trousers and the jacket and undershirt and everything — though the jacket was too long, looking more like the sort of thing in old timey photos and shite, the colour and lapels cut different, more detailed, and it was all too colourful just in general, deep blue and yellow, the shirt a soft white. He also had a little...bob hat looking thing, with some metallic decoration stuck into the brim Liz couldn't make out from here, though he wasn't wearing it at the moment, set on the table in front of him.
This was a Mr Renard Lefèvre, who was some kind of official from the French government — presumably from whatever they called their foreign office over there, Liz neither knew nor cared. His general style struck Liz as vaguely muggleish (if old-fashioned and too colourful), but France had kind of murdered all their nobility and had an explicitly communalist government now, so. (No wonder they didn't like the British, honestly.) He spoke English relatively decently, though with a very obvious accent. There was a brief exchange, Amelia asking him to present the person of interest in his custody, Lefèvre reminded them of the terms negotiated by their governments before agreeing. The Hit Wizards pulled the doors open again, Lefèvre plucked up his hat and replaced it on his head (set at a rakish angle, of course), turned on his heel with a sharp flourish and sauntered off, disappearing back into the Antechamber.
The French delegation, including Sirius, had arrived just last night, had stayed in one of the fancy apartments here for foreign dignitaries — Dorea had come early this morning to meet him, briefly. It wasn't that far away, it should only take a couple minutes for Lefèvre to come back with him, the Chamber broke with low muttering in the meanwhile. Shite, this was taking forever, why was everything at the Wizengamot so slow...
Liz heard them coming before she saw them, voices from the crowd in the Antechamber, shouts and calls of questions and the snapping of cameras, the flashes visible from in here. Lefèvre was the first to step inside, a group of five people following close behind him. Four of them were clearly security, in formal military uniforms of some kind — black and blue and white, boots and trousers and long jackets, the buttons and some shite on their left shoulders glittering gold, blue and white berets with a reddish insignia she couldn't make out from here. Looked very muggle to Liz's eyes...though she noticed a little bit of a shimmer around them, like a heat haze, probably from the enchantments on their uniforms, and she could just barely make out what must be wand holsters under their sleeves at both wrists. But again, that wasn't really a surprise — magical France was far more modern than Britain, due to the Revolution and all.
Sirius also looked very muggleish, but Liz got the distinct feeling he was doing that to fuck with people — she really couldn't imagine why else a pureblood would show up to the Wizengamot wearing bloody denims. The leather jacket was also in a muggle style, and was that a band tee shirt he was wearing under it? Yeah, definitely doing that on purpose, he could have gotten 'proper' clothes if he'd wanted to. Anyway, Sirius looked very much like a lot of other purebloods she'd seen, face long and narrow and pale, features sharp and dramatic, black hair cropped short to form a curly halo around his head — in old pictures he had long hair, but Liz guessed they hadn't had brushes at Azkaban, he must have been forced to chop it all off. He was rather short, as the old pureblood families tended to be, especially next to the French guards around him. He was walking with a bit of a swagger, his thumbs stuck into his pockets, smirking up at the muttering lords and ladies around him, because apparently he found this whole thing amusing.
When they got to the table, Sirius plopped down into a chair and then leaned back, his feet crossed at the ankle on the table — he was wearing leather boots with a pretty thick sole, Liz suspected those were muggle-made too — hands raised to lace his fingers behind his head, grinning toothily up at Amelia. Yep, he was definitely fucking with them.
There was a delay, the Chamber dense with a constant muttering and hissing, it took a moment for Liz to realise they were waiting for the French guards to leave — they didn't, two of them sitting at the ends of the table, the other two looming over Sirius and Lefèvre's shoulders, standing rigid with their feet shoulder-width apart and hands clasped behind their backs (where they could quickly reach their wands without being seen). Liz was pretty sure they had orders from their government to not leave Sirius alone until he was exonerated, so. After a long, tense moment, hostile simmering in the minds around her, Amelia just waved at the Hit Wizards, and the doors were pulled closed again. There were a few quick exchanges with Lefèvre, and Sirius was finally called to testify.
He stood, his hips cocked and arms crossed, staring up at Amelia. "Amy, nice to see you, been ages. How you been?"
Liz was pretty sure Amelia's lips twitched. "You can confirm for this assembly that you are Sirius Orion Melanos, of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black?"
"Yep."
"The same Sirius Black who was born on the Third of November, Nineteen Hundred and Fifty-Nine, on the property known as Ancient House."
"That's me."
Amelia nodded, clicked her fingers at someone in the government seats without turning to look. "By previous consensus of this body, all interviews related to these proceedings are to be conducted through a single questioner and verified with truth spells. It was determined that I would be this questioner, and that Director Fox would serve as Truthspeaker. Do you consent to these terms?"
"Gladly."
"Director Fox?"
One of the people at the government seats, who'd stood up when Amelia snapped her fingers at him — a rather ordinary-looking middle-aged man, auburn hair, his robes plain and modest — gave her a little bow before speaking. "Lord Black, I don't—"
"Sirius," he interrupted. "The Black name is passed on by selection, while I was sitting around in prison Cassie gave the title to my daughter," with a sideways nod to where Dorea was sitting with Andi at the Black seat.
With another little bow, Fox said, "Yes, of course, I apologise. As I was saying, Lord Sirius, I don't believe we've ever met. My name is Ambrose Fox, Director of Mysteries and Chief Unspeakable."
"Pleasure to meet you, Ambrose. Come here often?" There were a few soft titters, but also an uptick in the hostility that was honestly starting to make Liz a little antsy, a fair number of the people around her irritated with Sirius so blatantly not taking the Wizengamot seriously.
"Mm, only when I must. You will notice the device on the desk in front of me," he said, gesturing at the thing — about head-sized, a skeletal frame of a silvery-looking metal (probably actually steel) holding suspended a sizeable clear crystal. "When prompted, the crystal within will change colour to indicate the veracity of a statement. Cool colours are more or less true, and hot colours are more or less false. The precise hue carries suggestion of the type of falsehood and whether it is done in error or by design, but there are far too many variations to enumerate just now." Touching something on the base of his device Liz couldn't make out from here, a few little sparks dancing in the crystal, Fox said, "Repeat your name and birthdate, my lord, for confirmation."
"Sirius Orion Melanos Black," he said with a bit of an ironic drawl, "Third November, 'Fifty-Nine."
The crystal glowed a soft, pleasant blue. Turning to nod at Amelia, Fox said, "I am prepared, Director," before sitting down again. His hand stayed in that spot on the device, presumably keeping the thing running.
Amelia nodded, shuffled the papers on her podium around for a second. "I have a list of questions prepared by my officers ahead of time. If you wish not to answer any of them, that is of course your right, but any reluctance—"
"Director," Scrimgeour called, rising halfway out of her seat, "if I may?"
It was hard to tell at this angle, and Liz couldn't clearly feel her mind from here, but she suspected Amelia shot Scrimgeour an exasperated look. "What is it, Erin?"
"It will only take a moment. Before we begin the questioning, I thought there was one matter we might wish to settle." Turning toward the floor, a sort of suggestive lilt on her voice, "Lord Sirius, if you might bare your forearms for this assembly?"
Sirius let out a little huff, his eyes tipping up to the (transparent) ceiling for a second, but he started pulling off his jacket anyway. "You know that isn't proof of anything — the Dark Lord didn't Mark all of his followers, just the First and Second Circles."
"The common assumption was that you were a member of the First Circle, so whether or not you have been Marked is a relevant detail to put in evidence."
"Yeah, yeah, I get it." His jacket dropped to hang over the back of his chair, Sirius held his arms out, palms up, the skin of his forearms so pale they almost seemed to glow in the sunlight from above. "There you go, white as a corpse but no ugly arse curse scar anywhere. Satisfied?"
Some people obviously were satisfied, muttering and sharp hot flares of feeling shooting around — surprise and anger and dread and vindication and, just, far too much for Liz to keep straight, she winced against the storm and tried to pull herself in, hunching down over her desk a little — but someone in the Light seats stood and pointed out that it could be concealed with magic somehow. Liz thought that Sirius had said something about it too, and Fox's device was glowing a mossy green, meant that that was shite, but Amelia told Fox to go down and check anyway. (Being the Chief Unspeakable, he was basically the magic expert in the room in addition to their lie detector.) Fox went down there, asked permission from the French security people before drawing his wand, and—
"You know, normally when a bloke pulls his rod out on me, he at least buys me a drink first." There was a lot of irritated simmering at that, the annoyance thick enough she could almost taste it, but Liz still found herself smiling — because at his own trial for treason was definitely the time to be making sexual innuendos. It turned out Dorea's father was very silly.
But anyway, Fox quickly checked for concealing magics, announced to the Wizengamot that Sirius definitely didn't bear the Dark Mark, before returning to his seat among a storm of whispering. (Liz got the very clear feeling that, even if he weren't responsible for her parents being attacked or the thing in Edinburgh, a lot of people had assumed Sirius really was a Death Eater anyway.) Once Fox was back at his lie-detector, Amelia got right into the questioning — which was far too fucking long. They'd had an absurd number of investigations and hearings going on, so they'd established a long bloody timeline, and they wanted to get Sirius to confirm or deny pretty much everything they had to do with him. Which was a lot of shite.
It looked like Amelia meant to go through it all chronologically which, because magical nobles are bloody ridiculous, apparently meant going all the way back to his childhood. Because that was relevant, for some reason? Sirius was surprisingly frank about his childhood being an abusive mess — well, a neglectful one, at least, maybe not quite outright abusive. By the sound of it, his parents hadn't had much interest in the actual children part of being parents. He would see them at meals, of course (sometimes at least), and he and his brother were in part homeschooled by their mother, but those lessons were the only real interaction they had outside of formal events, and he hardly saw his father much at all. A lot of the time he and Regulus would just be left to make do on their own, or dropped off at Ancient House to run around the gardens with the cousins. Growing up he had more of a relationship with his aunt Cassie, his uncle Alphard, and his grandmother Melaina than his parents, and he didn't see much of them either. And some of his other aunts and uncles actually were outright abusive, so the kids had strategies of avoiding them as much as possible, trying to cover for each other, it sounded kind of miserable, honestly.
Not as bad as when Liz was little, no, but still.
Of course, his mother had been a raging pureblood supremacist — as were most of the adults he grew up around, honestly, though more often it was about the nobility in particular being super special and whatever, purebloods in general not so much — so he'd been taught all that shite growing up, and hadn't had much reason to doubt it. He even admitted that he'd been brought to get-togethers of Death Eater families as a kid (though they'd still been the Knights of Walpurgis then), hanging around with the other children while the adults were off having tedious discussions about whatever boring shite adults talked about, never really gave it much thought at the time. In fact, he'd been literally six years old when he first met the Dark Lord, who'd been a somewhat creepy but relatively inoffensive cult mystic type using the alias Melanion at the time (which was apparently a thing, Liz had never heard of that before). He hadn't started to figure out how terribly wrong a lot of the shite he'd had crammed into his head was until he'd started at Hogwarts, and actually met people outside of the nobility (who weren't servants) for the first time.
Which had resulted in his parents' treatment escalating to what was definitely abuse, over the course of the next few years — because see, now that he was actually questioning the family's beliefs and politics and shite, he was a bad son, so. Mostly from his mother, he suspected his father hadn't even known about it. Intensive lessons trying to re-brainwash him, complete with curses when he snarked back, which just made him snark back harder, because he'd been a contrary little shite. It got worse and worse, escalating even further with the murder of his father in spring of '76 (which was part of why Sirius suspected his father hadn't known about it), until Sirius refused to attend a Death Eater gathering for the winter solstice that year — actually Death Eaters by then, "Melanion" had started going by Voldemort and doing the whole Dark Lord thing some years earlier — and his mother resorted to using the Cruciatus on him, and rather than give in he just ran away from home. After hiding from his family (aware he'd run off and searching for him) in the London Underground long enough for the shakes from the Unforgiveable torture curse to wear off, he'd apparated (illegally) to Rock-on-Clyde, where the Potters had immediately taken him in — Dorea (née Black) was his godmother, Charlus had offered him protection with hardly any questions asked, and that was that.
They'd broken a bit there as someone (re-)introduced a record from the Wizengamot into evidence. Apparently, the Lord Black at the time (Arcturus, Sirius's grandfather) had demanded the Potters return him — not to his mother, instead he would stay with his grandparents. Sirius didn't dislike them nearly as much (he'd actually rather liked his grandmother), but he'd been understandably wary of returning to somewhere his mother could easily get to him after that, so Arcturus and Charlus had ended up negotiating a deal instead. The Potters could keep him, he was disinherited but not disowned, when he wanted to come home come and have a talk about what the terms of his return to the family would be, blah blah. Which was kind of interesting, because Liz had been given the impression that Sirius had been kicked out of the family, but it sounded like they'd been on...relatively good terms, with some of them, anyway.
...Which, she guessed that he hadn't been flat disowned might have something to do with why people had so easily come up with the story that the whole thing was made up to trick the Light into trusting him. Oh well.
And then they got into the actual war part, which was at least vaguely interesting, even if it went on way too long. Sirius getting into the Order of the Phoenix, and then later on the Aurors, various shite about people he knew in there and events inside the Ministry, blah blah. Questions about this battle or that mysterious death, all kinds of things — it'd been a very complicated time, and Sirius had been both a wartime Auror as well as a vigilante fighter, so there was quite a bit to get to. There were a few interruptions that came up, because while most of the Order had kept themselves to stunners or whatever, Sirius had been one of the few in the group to actually use lethal curses.
He had killed people. In some of the major battles, no small number of people.
Of course, the DLE had already issued a blanket pardon to the members of the Order of the Phoenix for their activities related to the war, so he couldn't be held criminally liable for any of that stuff. There were lords and ladies in the Wizengamot who had relatives who he'd killed at one point or another — and they hadn't been able to demand satisfaction at the time, with the war going on and Sirius being a Black but a ward of the Potters, it'd been complicated. Sirius, completely unrepentant, said everyone he'd killed had been Death Eaters or fighting alongside them, and he refused to give their families blood money to buy them off, just on principle. They could challenge him to a duel over it if they liked, but short of that the offended lords and ladies could piss right off.
(There was a bit of displeased muttering at that, minds simmering with displeasure nearby, but Liz caught hints of amusement from further away, even a few audible chuckles, the response to that clearly very mixed. Probably a Light and Dark cultural thing, she was still sitting with the Light...)
Liz was going to assume nobody planned to take him up on the offer of settling it with a duel. They were having this conversation in the first place because he'd successfully killed so many people in a fight — after a decade in Azkaban, he was probably rusty, but he was a powerful mage and obviously bloody mad, she doubted anybody would want to risk it.
As the war got bad, things had been really intense, fighting practically every day and all, so Sirius had taken to going out partying to blow off steam. At muggle clubs and shite, for safety reasons. (He wasn't exactly likely to run into Death Eaters while too drunk or high to properly defend himself at a muggle establishment, after all.) It was at one of those places that he'd met Abigail Young, and accidentally got her pregnant. Because, as much as he might act like a rebellious little shite, he was still a good pureblood boy at heart, when he found out he'd immediately offered to marry her — which had required convincing Arcturus to sign off on it...which he stubbornly refused to do, actually, racist bastard, they'd married under muggle law in '79 and Cassiopeia retroactively legitimised it under magical law shortly after taking over the House in '81. He'd put Abigail up in a muggle flat — carefully paid for off the family's books through a private account with Gringotts, so the Death Eaters couldn't find her — and Dorea was born in early 1980. (Dorea had been born at Clyde Rock too, and Lily had been her godmother, Liz hadn't known about that.) There was a little bit of talk about bringing Dorea's mum in here to confirm all that, but Fox's device kept giving off cool colours (what was the point of magically confirming someone was telling the truth if you didn't trust it?), and also would mean having a muggle speak at the Wizengamot, perish the thought, so.
And then, after what felt like far too fucking long, they finally got to that Hallowe'en. Or, not really, once they got on the topic they immediately had to backtrack, and explain about the Fidelius and Secret Keepers and whatever. Sirius didn't know how the magic worked, but that didn't really matter — it made a secret that was impossible to discover by any means, only its Keeper able to spread the knowledge. It was old magic, Dumbledore had found it somewhere, in the war they'd used it to protect safehouses and the like. Sirius had originally been the Potters' Secret Keeper, but Lily had had a bad feeling. She claimed to be a Seer, which Sirius had taken at face value — the Light tended to think such things were just superstition, but the Dark were more open to it — but she couldn't convince Dumbledore something was wrong. James, also super Light, didn't really believe her either, thought it was just nerves (they were all having a rough go of it at the time, war could be like that), but, being a good husband, he'd considered the fact that it so obviously bothered his wife to be good enough of a reason to do something about it anyway, so they'd proceeded with Lily's plot to switch the Secret Keepers.
No, Sirius didn't know how exactly she'd done that — it'd taken a ritual, he assumed it was soul magic. It fucking hurt, but he wasn't a Dark Arts expert, if they really wanted to find out they could have a necromancer invoke her spirit and ask (which was apparently a thing), but he had nothing. They'd sent out notes to everyone with the new Secret, Sirius imitating Pettigrew's handwriting as well as he could — they'd also changed the wording slightly, suggesting there'd been a problem with the initial wording, to reduce suspicion — and Sirius had proceeded to run around being very noisy, annoying, and obvious, so the Death Eaters would focus on him.
Of course, it turned out Pettigrew was actually the traitor, so a few months later that Hallowe'en happened. Sirius had known immediately, was the first on the scene — Liz knew that wasn't true, Severus had been the first to show up, but the crystal kept glowing a bright green, so Sirius probably just thought that was the truth — had been the one to remove "Hazel" from the wreckage. Hagrid had appeared not long later, told him that Dumbledore had sent him to bring "Hazel" to Hogwarts before the authorities could arrive and make things complicated (there could be Death Eater sympathisers with them, who knew what could have happened), so Sirius handed her over and Hagrid flew off. And Sirius set off to exact revenge.
Though he didn't really know why, what he'd been thinking at the time. He hardly even remembered it, honestly — he knew he'd checked Pettigrew's usual haunts, talked to his mother, and in the end snuck into the old library at Castle White for information on how to put together a ritual to find him — but it was all a bit of a blur. Basically he'd had a psychotic break or something, hadn't been in his right mind. The shrinks in France had all kinds of fancy words for it, something about dissociation, blah blah, you know how healers can be, Sirius hadn't really understood much of it. Just, so intense of a freak-out that part of his brain had been shut off, and he hadn't really been thinking clearly.
He didn't remember what had happened in Edinburgh very well. When he finally tracked down Pettigrew, the traitor had started hysterically blibbering at him, which had been very confusing, breaking through the fugue he'd been in just a little bit...and then there'd been an explosion, fire and roaring and screaming. When his vision cleared again, he was in the middle of the bombed out street, dead and dying people all over, and Pettigrew was gone. Apparently he'd been laughing when the authorities arrived, but he didn't remember that, just feeling overwhelmed, angry and horrified and hurt and kind of amused that Pettigrew had managed to trick him like that, all mixed up too much, lost in his head enough he hadn't really been aware of what was going on around him.
The first clear memory he had after Hallowe'en was when they came to retrieve Karkaroff from his cell, weeks later, the Patroni escorting the group pushing back the pall of the dementors enough for him to wake up. He didn't remember being arrested or being brought to Azkaban at all.
Many in the Wizengamot were rather sceptical of the story — unsurprisingly, since Sirius claiming to not really remember it meant his defence was based mostly on vague feelings of what had happened, very few concrete statements in the whole thing. But for the few clear statements he did make, their lie-detector kept glowing in blues and greens, and Lefèvre had a report prepared by the healers in France (duplicated and distributed to all the members) which explained their understanding of what had been going on in Sirius's head in greater detail. It was in very technical language, but as far as Liz could tell it was basically just what Sirius had said — after the long, constant trauma of the war, a big shock in the form of his brother in all but blood being set up to be murdered by one of their closest friends, and Sirius's mind had had enough, and he'd kind of just shut down. But Pettigrew had been out there, and he'd betrayed them, so even in his fugue Sirius had still ben motivated to get revenge. He just hadn't been fully conscious of doing it.
Which was apparently a thing people's brains could do? Flipping through the report that'd been floated over to her desk, the healers did seem confident about it, had all kinds of fancy academic language to describe it, only some of which she really understood. The description of this "dissociation" thing itself was kind of unsettlingly familiar — it sounded a lot like a thing that used to happen to her sometimes, which was just uncomfortable to read (she tried to avoid thinking about being back with the Dursleys if she could help it) — but that it was familiar she guessed did suggest it was definitely a thing that happened. She didn't know, she was a mind mage and she still didn't really understand how the things worked.
Liz caught a bit where one of the healers talked about how Sirius's abusive childhood, which he never had gotten the proper help to overcome and was not even that far removed from at the time, might have made him more susceptible to this sort of mental disturbance, which was very uncomfortable to read — she folded the report closed and returned to her doodling instead.
Of course, nothing much happened for a decade — Azkaban could be like that. It was often said that dementors sapped a person's will to live, that they eventually just gave up and let themselves die, but that process could be delayed if a person had sufficient emotional fortitude, or a powerful enough of a motivation to hang on through it. Being deeply devoted to a cause of some kind could work quite well. The most fanatical of the Death Eaters were still alive after over a decade in there, though how sane they still were varied, and Carlotta Pinkstone — an infamous anti-Statutarian, who was currently serving a 25-year Azkaban sentence, the longest of three she'd gotten over her life so far (which was slightly insane) — had already been in there for nearly a decade by the time Sirius was locked up, and she'd still been perfectly lucid when he left — apparently they'd have occasional conversations shouting down the hall at each other, breaking to trade insults with the more awake of the Death Eaters. The longest-serving prisoner in the history of Azkaban had been one of the leaders of the failed communalist movement in Britain, an Irish bloke named Dáire Ó Broin, who'd been arrested in the 30s and finally slipped into a coma and died just a few years ago, having been locked up with dementors for fifty-seven years. And, reminder, most people didn't last longer than five.
Tamsyn had mentioned him in their recent politics talks. Apparently there'd been vigils held by communalists across Europe, and even a riot in Glasgow — the magical community there was a mix of Gaels and Cambrian- or English-speaking Brits, little flare-ups of violence weren't unusual — that had gotten bad enough they'd needed to send in the Hit Wizards to put it down. In the days afterward Ó Broin and the riot had featured prominently in an editorial printed in various neo-communalist papers written by Grindelwald himself, because apparently that was a thing that happened sometimes — the prison they'd stuck him in was much nicer than Azkaban, people were writing him all the time, though it was assumed the ICW officers holding him read all of his correspondence. It was a whole thing, was the point, Ó Broin was actually kind of a big deal...
...and Sirius mentioning that he remembered the old rebel's death, and how sad was that, was more than a little politically inflammatory. If Sirius was at all discouraged by the displeased muttering at the name, the sizzling of hostility in the air (which he couldn't feel anyway), it didn't show on his face or voice. Of course, he decided to add the detail that he and Pinkstone had sung an Irish nationalist song as a memorial the next night — badly, neither of them actually spoke Gaelic — at least in part just to annoy the British nationalist Death Eaters in the neighbouring cells, so Liz was pretty sure he was doing that on purpose too.
Anyway, once Sirius was out of his weird episode, he'd managed to stay consistently lucid for a while — he'd been absolutely convinced he'd be exonerated once his trial came around, and he was rather paranoid some Death Eater the Ministry hadn't bothered prosecuting might get to his wife and daughter while he was gone. (He hadn't really been concerned about "Hazel", he'd assumed she was with the Tonkses.) As it became clear he wasn't getting a trial, his resolve weakened, which got him into thinking that Dorea and her mum were really better off without him anyway — after all, he'd gotten all his friends killed, he was the worst, ruined everything he touched, he'd made sure they'd be provided for and maybe it was best he not be there to fuck it up — which just made it worse. He started slipping in and out of more dissociative episodes (according to the French healers), functional enough to remember to eat food put in front of him but not really much more than that, huge blank spots in his memory of those twelve years. According to Pinkstone, there would be weeks at a time where she wouldn't hear from him, which he just wouldn't remember at all.
(Yes, Pinkstone had some way of reliably keeping track of time, even after a decade in Azkaban, and no, he didn't know how — and if he did he wouldn't tell them, who did they think he was, fuck right off with that. Severus let out a little huff, his mind ringing, apparently amused despite himself.)
Sirius was shocked out of another funk when it came time for the Minister to do an inspection of the prison, which was a thing that happened every once in a while, the Patroni chasing away the shadows in his head. As he usually did when anybody of importance came through the maximum security ward, Sirius threw on a formal, politely irritated nobleman act — how are the arrangements for my trial coming along, hmm? I wouldn't want to make undue trouble, but being stuck in here really is quite tedious, you see... For whatever reason, after a brief exchange Fudge handed over the newspaper he happened to have on him to alleviate Sirius's boredom if only for an hour — in retrospect, perhaps a guilty conscience over getting Sirius put in here at the first place, but he hadn't known about Fudge's involvement at the time — to which Sirius made a joke about never having the time for the crossword before his little sabbatical, which seemed to unnerve the Minister, the inspection hurrying along.
Inside the paper, Sirius found one of the articles about little Ginevra Weasley's death and the political scandals going on in the aftermath. Apparently Sirius and the Weasleys' mother were first cousins, which Liz hadn't been aware of before (and also didn't care about), and he remembered near the end of the war being told of Ginvera's birth (and sending Molly a congratulatory bottle of gin to take the edge off), so Sirius had read that article much more closely than he might have otherwise. And so he noticed a rat that was definitely Peter Pettigrew sitting right there on their youngest boy's shoulder.
Most Weasleys didn't go to Hogwarts, but Sirius knew his aunt Lucy had arranged for her great-grandchildren to go — so that youngest boy would be at Hogwarts. The traitor would be at Hogwarts. With 'his girls', Dorea and "Hazel" both.
That was unacceptable. Before, he hadn't thought the risk of trying to escape was worth it — after all, Azkaban escapees were considered too dangerous to be left alive, so would be immediately executed — but now that 'his girls' might be in serious danger, Pettigrew could murder them at any moment and nobody would be able to do anything about it, no, he had to do something about that right now. And so he'd broken out.
Interrupting, Amelia asked, "Yes, and how did you manage that, precisely?"
Sirius cocked an eyebrow at her. "Does it matter? You've already agreed not to charge me for it, and it's not like I hurt anyone on my way out. They didn't even realise anything had happened until I was long gone."
"If there is such a glaring hole in the prison's security, yes, then it does matter. I know you benefited from the oversight yourself, but surely you agree there are some people we would rather not let escape from that place."
"Personally, I think we should execute the ones with the longer sentences. It would be a mercy, against the dementors." There was an odd, sharp feeling echoing around the Chamber, which was odd, seemed reasonable to Liz. "Besides, none of them can replicate what I did, it's not a problem."
"Humour me, Sirius. Besides, I'll admit I'm curious why you didn't bring Pinkstone with you — I understand the two of you established something of a rapport."
Sirius sighed, long and harsh. "I couldn't, we would have been caught. I slipped through the bars, waited in a corner until the next mealtime, and dashed through the door while it was opened for them to bring the food in."
There was a little bit of muttering, Amelia giving him a sceptical look. "Forgive me if I find that hard to believe. No matter how much weight you lost while imprisoned, I doubt you would be able to fit through the bars, and someone would have noticed you going by."
"As a human, maybe — after a decade out of the sun I was a terribly pale bastard, near about glowed in the dark." Sirius's lips pulled into the grin. "Black fur, though, is much harder to notice in the shadows."
There was a muttering in the hall, swirling around Liz's head confusion and irritation and, weirdly, terror, but Amelia just gave him a flat, unamused look. "You're an animagus."
Sirius kept grinning. "Yep." Another surge of muttering went around, the confusion and also the terror mostly gone — Liz guessed some of the sillier people in the audience had assumed Sirius had used some kind of weird black magic or something. She did catch a note of disgust, though, which was odd, did some mages not like animagi?
"You could have escaped at any time."
"Well, not at any time. I couldn't have slipped through the bars until after I'd lost a fair bit of weight, and I needed to learn how the guard rotation worked or I might have gotten caught — you know, aren't a lot of dogs wandering around Azkaban, that's suspicious enough on its own. Swimming to the mainland was the worst part, thought I was going to freeze to death. But yeah, wasn't hard."
Liz bit her lip to keep herself from giggling — oh yeah, escaping from a prison island guarded by soul-sucking demons, first person to do it literally ever, wasn't like it was hard or anything. It didn't really feel like anyone thought it was as amusing as she did, though. There was mixed up spiky slimy all kinds of shite all over the place, the only person she could clearly make out was Severus, who seemed more exasperated than anything. Up at the podium, one of the assistants with the people at the government seats was trying to get Amelia's attention, but she waved him off, shuffling through the papers on the podium with her other hand. "Azkaban has measures to contain animagi, which would ordinarily have been put into effect — but it seems you aren't on the registry."
Sirius was still grinning up at her, shamelessly, hips cocked and arms crossed casually over his chest. "Nope."
"I don't suppose I would get a straight answer if I asked why you failed to register."
"Moral objections."
"...Moral objections."
"Sure. I get a bad feeling when a government starts putting together lists of their citizens who have gifts certain figures among them feel to be unnatural. Can't imagine why," Sirius said, in a light, bouncing, sing-song tone — almost mocking, making it very clear that he very well could imagine why, and thought other people pretending not to get it were being extremely thick. Though, Liz honestly didn't get it, she hadn't realised some people didn't like animagi — though it did seem like something some of the racist idiots who freaked out over 'unnatural' shite like talking to snakes might be stupid about — and she was only vaguely aware this registry thing existed in the first place, but— "I mean, have you seen the werewolf registry? That there's some Nazi shite, if you didn't notice. Can't blame me for having suspicions about the Ministry's intentions, can you?"
Ooooohhh. Oh. Liz got it now.
Because people were stupidly racist about werewolves (despite it being a curse and not– whatever), the low-simmering hostility directed at Sirius suddenly wasn't so low, flaring hot and sharp around her. Even though it was directed at someone else it was still very unpleasant to be surrounded by, tingles of nerves already crawling along her neck (eyes on her skin like ants, the echo of it on the air), Liz tried to pull herself in and focussed on her breathing. (She was fine, honestly...) There was some muttering, a few people even standing to try to talk, but Amelia just glared them all down, the lords meekly returning to their seats under the Director's cold, stony gaze — which was honestly very amusing, distracting Liz from her pointless fucking anxiety, a smile reluctantly twitching at her lips. Once there was a modicum of quiet in the Chamber, Amelia said, "There are no laws on the books to limit the freedoms of or even unduly monitor animagi."
Sirius shrugged. "Not right now there's not, no. You'll have to forgive me if I don't particularly trust the Ministry. In any case, one must be a 'qualified' mage—" He included the air quotes. "—to register, and I managed it before sitting my OWLs, so I couldn't have legally registered at the time anyway."
"You achieved the transformation before OWLs." Amelia might be trying to aim for sceptical, but she didn't quite cover the impressed note on her voice.
"'Course. Both Jamie and I did. James Potter, that is, we learned it together — along with the traitor, though he didn't manage it until sixth year. How else did you think I recognised the rat in that photo?"
There was a bit of a tedious diversion there, as Sirius was asked how exactly he (and James and Pettigrew) managed to become animagi while still in school. It wasn't unheard of, but generally people figured it out as adults — it wasn't exactly easy magic, after all, it was quite rare. (Though, actually, hadn't Tracey said something about a werewolf animagus she knew who wasn't on either registry? When she thought about it, she had the feeling animagi were rather more common than the Ministry realised.) Anyway, materials on how to do it were age-restricted, it was illegal to sell them to people under twenty (and people who didn't get a NEWT in Transfiguration) — which was bloody asinine, considering the age of contract was thirteen, but whatever — and the only place they might have found anything helpful at Hogwarts was in the Restricted Section. Which wouldn't be an impediment to them, actually, since James would have had the same invisibility cloak Liz had snuck in there with.
Of course, there were several books on the subject in the library at Ancient House — Sirius had simply flooed over to the old Black manor, tracked one down in English (Pettigrew's Cambrian had been terrible), and then flooed back to Hogsmeade with it. Which, letting Sirius do something like that had been a crime, but the person doing it would have been the person who legally owned the library, and his father was long dead now, so.
And shortly after that there was another argument, this one stretching on much longer, very tedious. Someone in the government seats — Amos Diggory, Director for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, a member of Ars Brittania (the crazy racists in the Light) — stood to say something about, yes, fine, that's all perfectly understandable, especially since he was underage and in a time of war and everything, they would waive the fine just this once. So long as he came down to the Ministry to properly register at his earliest convenience. With that little tidbit, Liz was now pretty much convinced that there was something sketchy going on with the animagus registry — she hadn't been sure before, but that it was apparently the DRCMC that ran the thing, yeah, not a good look. Sirius, of course, told him to go to hell, he'd be doing no such thing. They could try to fine him if they liked, but he wouldn't pay up, and good luck trying to make him.
Unsurprisingly, the Lords and Ladies of the Wizengamot weren't happy about that — though Liz noticed most of the people objecting were from the same half of the Chamber she was on, must not be a thing the Dark cared about as much. Someone went so far as suggesting the DLE issue a warrant to force him to register; Sirius said that was adorable, if he wasn't going to pay a fine what made them think he'd obediently walk into the DRCMC to be registered like a good boy? (Liz suspected there was a dog joke in there.) They'd have to arrest him and drag him there, and they couldn't make him change shape to get a look at him, so they wouldn't be able to properly register him anyway. Someone on the Dark side of the Chamber pointed out that not being registered wasn't a crime serious enough they could detain him over it, so the DLE would need to petition the Wizengamot for permission, which they weren't likely to get; also, Amelia came out and said she wouldn't ask them in the first place, because dragging in reluctant animagi to be registered was a pointless waste of her officers' time. (Liz got the clear impression that Amelia didn't agree with the registry existing in the first place.) Then there was a tangent complaining about Amelia's suggestion she would refuse to enforce the laws set by the Wizengamot (which was her job, no matter how stupid those laws were), someone else pointed out that the stuff around the animagus registry was actually Ministry policy, and the Director of Law Enforcement had the right to enforce such policy as he or she saw fit, someone asked the WAS person to check the code and see if the animagus registry really was just Ministry policy, someone else suggested if it was just Ministry policy then Diggory was clearly overstepping the legal mandate of his office, and maybe they should have an inquiry about that, which then started another argument, ugh, for fuck's sake...
No wonder magical Britain was such a backward mess — it took fucking forever for these idiots to get anything done.
Thankfully, after far too fucking long, they finally got back on topic. Since Sirius's wand was still in evidence, he'd made his way to Castle White in Brittany to find one he could use in the old catacombs there — someone would have noticed him coming through the wards at Ancient House, but the saltwater in the Channel should have interfered with the signal. (Dorea was quick asked to confirm she hadn't noticed the intrusion at Castle White, so he must have guessed right.) He knew Pettigrew should be at the Burrow (the Weasleys' home), but the wards there were excellent and he didn't want to run into Molly without proof of his innocence, especially at her house when her children were around (she was a scary duellist, apparently), so he had to wait for the beginning of term. In the meantime, he'd done some tracking spells to find Dorea, but, not wanting to incriminate her, had just watched from a distance — Liz remembered Dorea saying something over the summer about being sure she'd seen him following her, so, she guessed that had just been confirmed. He'd also tried to find "Hazel", but he couldn't get any of his tracking spells to work, assumed Tonks or Dumbledore must have done something big to keep her hidden.
Of course, the things that had actually kept her hidden were the ring Severus had given her back in second year and the wards on his house, because he was paranoid like that. Good to know his stuff actually worked, she guessed.
He went up to Hogsmeade before term started, and was actually inside the grounds before the dementors were posted there — slipping through the forest unnoticed as a dog was trivial, but he hadn't needed to get past them, because he'd already been there. Which, yes, meant that posting the dementors there was even more pointless than it'd seemed, Liz hoped Fudge got thoroughly fucked by those fines. Also, the suit students' families were pressing over the damage to their health (which Liz was also a claimant on) was still ongoing, so, yeah, Fudge was so fucked. Anyway, Sirius had mostly hung out with the community of wilderfolk in the Valley — who'd also been having a terrible time of it because of the dementors and the constant war against the acromantulae, they were—
Oh yeah, there were acromantulae in the forest, didn't you know? Sirius remembered they'd been there when he was a student — because he'd visited the wilderfolk back then too, in dog form, obviously — though the nest had been much smaller then, the centaurs and wilderfolk hadn't had any trouble keeping them contained. It was much worse now, the natives of the forest were being slowly pushed back, many had died. Really, they should do something about that, they'd inevitably get out and start attacking Hogsmeade or muggle villages. They didn't have natural predators here, you know. (Phoenixes and dragons and bloody basilisks, because apparently Asia was terrifying.) Did people not know about the acromantulae? The centaurs were in contact with the Ministry, hadn't they said anything about it?
It turned out, people didn't know about the fucking acromantulae that were apparently living in Hogsmeade Valley. Weren't acromantulae giant man-eating spiders? What the fuck?! This tangent Liz thought was actually understandable, because apparently there were giant man-eating spiders in the forest around a school for children — that was almost as bad as the dementors, really, what was wrong with this country? There was a lot of shouting back and forth, initially just because most people thought Sirius was making that up for some reason — acromantulae were tropical, could they even survive the winter here? — which was silly, because the truth-detecting device was still working, but then Dumbledore confirmed he was aware of the colony's existence, so yeah, the Wizengamot basically blew up at the revelation that there were acromantulae on the grounds of a school for children, it got very noisy in here. It didn't help when Diggory, rather sheepishly, admitted that the centaurs had complained about the acromantulae, but his people hadn't taken them seriously, assumed it was some weird celestial metaphor or something — the centaurs could be weird and poetical sometimes, how were they supposed to know they'd meant literal giant man-eating spiders? There weren't supposed to be acromantulae in Britain!
After a whole lot of shouting and arguing and swearing, Amelia eventually managed to get control of the Chamber again — but only after saying the DLE would immediately begin putting together a team to exterminate the things, and also start an investigation into how they'd gotten there in the first place. (Someone must have smuggled them in, because acromantulae simply shouldn't be here.) There was a little bit of protest at the idea of just killing them all, since they were intelligent, maybe they could try to have them relocated to the East? But, the practical difficulties in doing that would be absurd, and also the magical governments over there wouldn't cooperate — they had enough difficulty trying to keep the native population away from the muggles already — no, it was easier to just kill them all.
Also, who gave a fuck? They were giant man-eating spiders, nobody really considered them worthy of being treated like people. Which was maybe a little racist of them, but if acromantulae would stop eating people, maybe they'd talk.
(Of course, most mages didn't really give a damn about centaurs or wilderfolk either, but eventually the spiders would be a threat to the humans in the Valley — it was better to exterminate them now before they could multiply out of control even further.)
So, that diversion was perfectly understandable, but still tedious, it took some time before they actually got back to the reason they were here. Sirius admitted to damaging the Fat Lady's portrait — he'd been frustrated and not thinking clearly, his bad — offered to pay restitution to Hogwarts for it. He also offered to pay restitution to anyone injured in that quidditch game. Apparently he'd actually been there, watching as a dog — he'd somehow known Liz would be playing, though he didn't explain how he'd found out. He had no way of knowing whether the dementors had attacked because he was there, or just because the combination of everyone being keyed up for the match and miserable from the weather was like a big tasty chocolate cake to them (Sirius's analogy), but he still felt guilty about it. He'd already sent "Hazel" a Firebolt for Christmas as an apology for getting her hurt, so. Severus had already been pretty sure it was Sirius, but she guessed it was nice to have confirmation on that.
There was a brief aside about how Sirius had gotten the money for that — easy, he'd just taken out a loan with the goblins, figured he would pay it back as soon as he was exonerated — some people calling to complain at the goblins about doing business with a fugitive. Someone pointed out that the goblins were technically an independent country, so they had no obligation to obey the Ministry when doing as they liked wouldn't violate the treaties between their governments, which it wouldn't in this case — there was a lot of irritated grumbling at that, but they quickly moved on.
Anyway, then he told them about Dorea asking to meet with him shortly after that game, sneaking out to the greenhouses in the middle of the night. After telling her the story, she agreed to look into the rat for him, and if he could please get seen far away from Hogwarts so they could convince people to pull out the dementors, that'd be great, thanks. (Dorea confirmed quick the meeting happened as he said — which continued to be very silly, because the truth-detecting device was still going, why even have that thing if they weren't going to listen to it?) So he'd gone back south, living in (trashy) muggle hotels and going out to be intentionally spotted, sometimes getting into little skirmishes with the authorities when he lingered too long. He'd managed not to actually hurt any of the people trying to take him in — stunners and binding hexes and the like, a lot of them were old comrades from the war so he'd been being careful — but there might have been minor property damage, he was willing to pay restitution for that too.
As soon as he saw in the papers that Pettigrew had been captured, he'd crossed the border into France, and walked right into their government offices to ask for asylum. And that was that, end of story.
Well, that wasn't quite the end of the questioning, actually — there was a bit about why he'd surrendered to the French authorities instead of just letting himself be seen again and brought in that way. Which wasn't complicated, Sirius hadn't trusted the British authorities to treat him fairly. Quite reasonably, Liz thought — after all, they hadn't last time — but much of the room seemed a bit annoyed by that. Nobles could be self-righteous bastards, after all, Liz wasn't really surprised they took him not trusting them and going to the French as an insult, but. Also, the French government was neocommunalist these days and kind of hated the Wizengamot, so he expected they would get a kick out of an excuse to tweak their noses, so they'd have extra incentive to have his back. Lefèvre looked very amused by Sirius just coming out and saying that — it was funny, but Liz wasn't really in a place to appreciate it, the hot anger and hatred around her making her instinctively hunch into her seat (quiet and out of the way), ugh...
There were a few little things after that, people asking (through Amelia) for clarification on one thing or another, from back in the war or after his escape, nothing extremely important. Really, Liz thought most of what they'd talked about here could have been dealt with at some other time and place — a lot of what they wanted to know was, yes, about what had happened that Hallowe'en and Sirius's time as a fugitive, but much of the rest of it was to do with other investigations they had ongoing, and they'd basically asked for his life story, it was so tedious. Liz would later learn that the details about his early life had actually been useful for more precisely calibrating the truth-detecting device before they got to the important stuff, but still, seemed like they'd been here far longer than could possibly be necessary.
Anyway, after a few more questions, Sirius's questioning was over, and he was allowed to sit down again. And then there were long, meandering statements from one lord or another, before they finally began winding down to the actual vote. Amelia did a monologue reminding them of what the charges were — two counts of treason, one for being a Death Eater and the other for a major violation of the Statute of Secrecy; one count of murder (Pettigrew); and twelve of class-five muggle-baiting (because killing muggles wasn't considered murder in magical law, but it was still illegal) — and what the important facts in evidence were — she was very explicit about Sirius being completely innocent, not even trying to be impartial about it. She summarily dismissed the muggle-baiting charges and also the murder charge (since the bloke was still alive), which was apparently something she was allowed to do as Director of Law Enforcement — she did pause to confirm with the WAS bloke that it was properly put in the record, but that was all it took. She couldn't just dismiss the treason charges, though, so they had to have a vote for that.
And it would be the slow way, each of them standing up and saying aye or nay. For each charge individually, so they had to do the whole thing twice. Because of course.
When the vote finally started, Liz was a little confused when the first few people said "nay", including Dorea (her first official vote in the Wizengamot, Liz was pretty sure) — then she belatedly realised that the question was whether he was guilty, so that was actually the right way around. Good thing Potter was much closer to the end of the list, if she'd been at the beginning she would have fucked that up.
Stupidly, given how completely obvious this was, there were maybe ten people who voted to convict Sirius as a Death Eater (and Longbottom abstained). Dorea would later explain that those were mostly all families who'd had feuds with the Blacks in recent generations, and were probably just voting against Sirius because it was Sirius. Which, that was stupid, but fine, whatever.
The second vote was a lot closer, enough that Liz was actually kind of worried for a little bit near the beginning. Less because she actually gave a damn what happened to Sirius (she didn't, really), but she knew Dorea would be miserable, and also they might end up going to war with France? She didn't know, it was complicated. But anyway, on the charge of breaking Secrecy, they actually got their first "aye" when Ainsley came up, and for a second Liz wondered if the Light was just going to vote against Sirius because the Blacks were evil...but then Atwell, the very next person and also an enormous Light arsehole, he voted "nay", so maybe not? Definitely not, because the next person after that was an "aye", and the Averys were a Death Eater family. So it wasn't a Light and Dark thing, what was going on?
They went back and forth between "aye"s and "nay"s for a little bit, for no real reason Liz could tell — though she wasn't up on politics, she could be missing something — and then they got several "aye"s right in a row. Liz wasn't keeping a count this time, she hadn't thought she would need to, but she thought they were pretty close to even now? Luckily, there was then an even longer string of "nay"s, and as it went on they did get more "aye"s, but Liz was pretty sure they were in the clear.
Daphne would later explain that a lot of the more extreme blood purist people had voted to convict — they tended to take threats to Secrecy dead seriously, and apparently thought it was worth punishing Sirius for confronting Pettigrew in the middle of muggle Edinburgh. Despite Pettigrew being the one to cast magic first, but fine, whatever. Some of them hadn't, depending on their other loyalties, but add in those ten people who hated Sirius on principle enough to convict him as a Death Eater despite obviously not being one, yeah, it'd been closer than expected. Not close, he'd still been exonerated by ten votes — in comparison, Liz's custody thing had only squeaked through by three — but it hadn't just been her imagination.
As Amelia declared that Sirius had been cleared of all charges, there was a bit of muttering and hissing from the Order of Merlin seats behind her — it seemed louder than it really was to her, since she could also hear their thoughts fluttering about — but there was hardly any reaction from in front. Obviously, the actual members of the Wizengamot had already known what would happen. Raising her voice over the muttering just a little (Liz honestly wasn't certain how loud the peanut gallery was to everyone else, being a mind mage was weird), Amelia reminded Sirius that he was to report to the DRCMC to be registered as an animagus — there was a bit of a drawl to her voice, making it clear she didn't expect Sirius to actually do that. But that was it, he was free to go.
Sirius didn't move right away, though, still grinning up at Amelia. "I will be suing the Ministry for damages, of course. Twelve years of wrongful detainment in Azkaban, dear oh dear — how many galleons you think I should open my claim at? five thousand? or twenty-five, maybe? Where will the Ministry find the gold, I wonder?"
There was a lot of angry muttering in the crowd, the heat prickling at Liz's skin, but if anything Amelia just seemed faintly amused. "I'm not your solicitor, Black, I'm certain it's not my business. Get off the floor so I can close the Court."
Rising to his feet again, he snapped off a (muggle-style) salute. "Ma'am, yes ma'am."
There was a brief break, then, as Amelia said a last few procedural things ahead of stepping down from the podium, Sirius and the French moving to clear the floor. Once everyone was standing up the table and chairs were just vanished, the Hit Wizards were already working on opening the doors to let the French out. Sirius walked straight toward the Black seat, a bit more stiffly than before, without the swagger he'd had walking into the Chamber — nervous about something, if Liz had to guess. (And she did have to guess, too many people around to pick out his mind from here.) Dorea and Andi had stood to meet him, Sirius paused to the side of the desk, clearly said something. There was a brief exchange, and then Dorea was hugging him, Andi looping her arm over his shoulders, Sirius hunching over a little, his face vanishing in her hair. Liz definitely wasn't the only one watching, she picked up a surge of soft, bubbling warmth — kind of like a d'aaww, how adorable feeling — but there was also a fair bit of...unease of some kind, didn't know what to call it. Not sure what that was about.
The French guards left, but Lefèvre didn't, following Sirius to the Black seat — once the hug was over, there was a brief discussion, then Andi conjured him an extra chair. The four of them were sitting by the time Amelia finally closed the Court, stepping down from the podium so Dumbledore could take it up again.
Liz blinked, glancing around. That was...odd. There'd been a bit of unease, dislike, anxiety, that sort of thing directed at Dumbledore before — there were a lot of people who didn't like him, even some of the Light were getting fed up, and of course they were worried his political days were numbered, so there'd been negative feelings directed at him even from the Light. But this was more than it'd been before, and...sharper. Distrust, and suspicion, and anger, something about it feeling tight and, and, betrayed, she thought. And she wasn't picking that up just from Dark people, this was coming from nearby, the Light seats. It was all jumbled together, and Liz wasn't great at identifying what things were in the first place, but she was certain the Light members were definitely unhappy with Dumbledore, more than they'd been before.
And it hadn't even been that long for there to be such a big shift, she had no idea what could have made that happen so quickly. Nothing had even really happened? She meant, that talk had gone on fucking forever, but most of it was all stuff they already knew, fished up in one investigation or interrogation or another — which was part of why the whole thing had been so damn tedious. There were some pretty big revelations in there, sure, and some of them Dumbledore was involved in, but there hadn't really been anything new that looked bad for him. They'd already known he'd missed a traitor and let one of his allies get locked up without a trial, she didn't know what—
Oh! The acrumantulae! They hadn't known about those before!
...Dumbledore's supporters had just figured out that he'd known about an acromunatula colony on the grounds, increasingly growing out of control, and he hadn't done anything about it. So near a school for children, one that he just so happened to be the headmaster of. A school where many of the noble children happened to be nine months out of the year. And they were not happy about it.
Biting her lip to hold in a giggle, Liz smirked.
With the press of the crowd on all sides, first on the Wizengamot floor itself and then in the Antechamber — spectators held back by an enchanted barrier and a row of Hit Wizards, journalists shouting questions, the staccato strobing of lights from dozens of camera flashes quickly giving Dorea a headache — it took Dorea, Andi, Sirius, and Renard some minutes to escape, repeatedly waylaid by one Lord or another or blocked from moving on by a wall of bodies. Before they even got out of the Chamber, Sirius chatting with Lady Ingham (once again in duelling clothes, which continued to be weird), Dorea glanced back to see Liz and Snape hadn't bothered standing, presumably waiting for the way out to clear. There were several Lords and Ladies who wanted to talk to Sirius quick — mostly supporters, a few were even acquaintances from back in the war — and Sirius delayed in the Antechamber a little longer than necessary to shout (alternately bland and inflammatory) answers back at reporters. After what felt like far too long, they eventually reached the line of Hit Wizards blocking off the back hallways, the privacy wards protecting the meeting rooms and apartments abruptly cutting off the noise of the crowd.
"Well!" Sirius chirped. "That was fun."
Andi let out an exasperated sigh, but Dorea wasn't fooled — the smirk on her face was very subtle, but Dorea had known her too long to miss it. "Honestly, Sirius, must you delight in aggravating our peers?"
"Says the woman who broke a betrothal contract to run away and marry a muggleborn in a foreign country where the family couldn't stop her — how inspiring! I got it from you, Nghyfnither, just following your example."
"I'm touched, truly."
Renard, chuckling a little, said something to that, but Dorea might not have caught it even if her French was good enough. (She sort of understood a little, but couldn't really speak it herself.) She was was struck with a wave of tingling weakness, her vision speckled with sparkles and greying at the edges, skin numb and tingly. She reached for where she thought Andi's arm had been a second ago, but missed, though a firm hand caught her arm before she could fall — Sirius must have noticed something was wrong. "Dorea?"
"I'm all right, just, camera flashes." Her voice sounded a little flat and shaky to her own ears. Rubbing at her forehead with one (unsteady) hand, she focussed on taking slow, careful breaths, fighting back the dizziness. Though, she thought it was already receding, the colourful sparks in her eyes dimming, the floor no longer teetering under her, she thought she'd be fine in a moment.
"Does Andi need to do a purge, or..."
"No, I think the ritual caught it. Just give me a minute."
Sounding a little uncertain, Renard said something in French Dorea didn't quite pick up. She did understand Sirius explaining she had epilepsy, all the camera flashes weren't exactly good for her, the three adults continuing to chatter along on a tangent while she kept breathing. Bit by bit, she stopped feeling quite so dizzy, the grey around the edges of her vision pushed back further and further until it was finally gone. Though she was left with a headache, because of course. Straightening again, Dorea let out a long sigh, self-consciously straightening her robes (Sirius letting go of her arm as she did). "I'm okay. Sorry about that."
"You have nothing to apologise for, dear," Andi said. "They seem to have gone rather overboard on the cameras today."
"Bastards. You're hardly the only person with the stealing away wandering around here at the moment, that's just reckless..."
Resisting the urge to sigh again, Dorea said, "It's fine, Sirius. Come on, let's go."
In the days running up to the trial, Renard had kindly arranged for her family to have dinner here afterward — having to go all the way past the spectators would have been a terrible pain. (And also, Dorea now realised that she likely would have gotten a seizure, if just that short moment had affected her so badly.) They'd be able to wait out the crowd here, make their way out after the building had been mostly emptied. The Tonkses were coming, and Mum, Richard, and the boys — Mum still hadn't seen Sirius since October '81, and of course Richard hadn't met him at all — and also Liz and Professor Snape would be there, though it might be a while before they caught up. Liz hadn't met Sirius yet either, or...just Ted, Dorea thought, she should know everybody else already.
Hopefully Snape being here wasn't going to be a problem. Dorea knew they hadn't gotten on when they'd been in school — Remus had mentioned it, at some point — but that was ages ago. Sirius was still somewhat volatile from his time with the dementors, though far improved from when she'd met him at Hogwarts (the French healers had done good work), and if it was going to be a problem she thought he would have reacted when Renard and Andi had been talking about the guest list this morning. There had been some kind of a look on his face, she hadn't been sure how to read it, but he hadn't said anything, so...
Now that she was thinking about it, she was honestly more worried about how Sirius and Liz meeting was going to go — Sirius could be a bit...gregarious, and Liz was, well. Also, he was a hugger. Maybe she should have warned him...
After a brief walk, the couple minutes enough for Dorea to recover the rest of the way from her little episode, they walked into the meeting room Renard had commandeered for the purpose. Dinner wasn't on the table yet, though there was a hint of tea and spices on the air, oh good, lunch had been ages ago, she could use a biscuit or two to—
A figure slammed into Sirius in a leaping hug, pushing him back a step as he flailed to catch them. More out of surprise than from the force, Dorea assumed: his attacker was barely waist-high on him, a little girl with bright sunny-yellow hair. She meant, not yellow as in blonde, but actually yellow, not a colour human hair could naturally have, almost hurt her eyes to look at. All but bouncing on her toes, arms still wrapped around his legs a little above his knees (which probably didn't help with his balance), she leaned back a little to grin up at him. "Hello, Siri!"
Sirius blinked down at the girl for a second before breaking out into a grin himself. "Well, if it's never not little Nymphadora Tonks! Get up here, you..." Sirius bent down, hands slipping under her arms to quickly pluck her up off the floor, Dora letting out a shrieking giggle.
Which was very silly, because she was supposed to be twenty-one years old, and here she was pretending to be a little kid. Dorea's cousin was so bloody weird sometimes...
Hugging her against his chest, her arms wrapped around his neck, Sirius looked over her shoulder to Ted nearby, who must have followed her toward the door. "Ted," he said with a little nod. "How you been?"
"Well enough." He got close enough to hold out his hand, Sirius shuffled Dora over to one arm — Dora still hugging him around the neck, supported by one arm looped under her bum (which looked like a very normal thing for them to be doing, but was actually very strange, because Dora was supposed to be twenty-one years old) — so he could take it. "Yourself?"
"Oh, you know, the usual."
"Sparking off international diplomatic incidents and possibly a change of government is the usual for you, is it?"
"Only on a good day. Come on, sweetness," Sirius said, bobbing Dora against him with a little hop, "you've got to let me go. I have other people to go say hi to." Dorea was certain she didn't imagine his eyes flicking to Mum and Richard — still sitting at the table, near where the boys were entertaining themselves on the floor.
Dora leaned back a bit, her hands planted on his shoulders, so she could look him in the eye from less than a foot away. "I'm glad you're out, Sirius. I never believed you really did any of it, betraying Uncle Jamie or killing all those muggles." Andi winced, just a little — Dorea knew that she had believed Sirius was responsible for the explosion in Edinburgh, if not the story about him secretly being a Death Eater. Pretty much everyone who'd known him had thought it sounded very much like something he might do, but Dora had been...maybe a little older than Ben (she thought) when it'd happened, and a terribly stubborn little shite, it'd come up before that she'd never believed the most fun of her uncles was guilty of the crimes he'd been accused of.
With a little huff of laughter, "And that's why you're my favourite cousin." Sirius shuffled her around to get both hands under her again, planting a big, noisy kiss on her forehead — Dora let out a squeal of protest, flailing as though trying to push his face away, but she broke into giggles a second later — before bending over to plop her back on the floor again.
"Why are you a little kid, anyway?" Dorea asked her. Her metamorph cousin looked to be maybe five or six, clashing a bit with the denims and (somewhat skimpy) sleeveless blouse she'd decided to wear today.
Dora frowned at her. "I was playing with Ben and Sam," she said, as though this were the obvious answer, and Dorea was being very silly for not realising that herself. Of course, Dorea was aware that when she was playing with little kids she tended to age herself down to match them — she'd done the same thing when Dorea had been little, enough that she'd actually thought they were around the same age the first few times they'd met — but Dorea had been too young at the time to realise how bloody weird that was. Before she could figure out what to say to that, Dora skipped off to rejoin the boys, Sirius reaching to give her bright yellow hair a last ruffle before she could escape.
Mum and Richard both stood as they approached, though the boys were babbling away with Dora, not paying any attention to what the adults were up to. Sirius slowed down a little, hesitating — a glance at his face, and he looked a little absent, probably lost in memories for a second. (Apparently that was a thing that could happen sometimes after long-term dementor exposure.) He hitched to a stop a couple steps away, just staring at her — and slightly up, turns out Mum was just a couple inches taller than Sirius, because purebloods were tiny — an awkward silence looming over them, Mum giving him an uncertain smile, Richard glancing between the two of them. Finally Sirius just said, "Abigail."
Her smile twitched. "Sirius. That's the wrong jacket."
He let out a little huff, a mix of amused and irritated. "I was wearing it when I was taken in. They still have it, with my wand and such."
"Didn't Lily enchant that old thing herself?"
"'Old thing', pff, I believe you mean classic. And yeah, she did — I better get that back, it's not like she can just make me a new one..."
"Oh dear, I suppose you'll have to make a fuss with the Ministry. I'm sure you're just broken up about that."
"Somehow I'll manage."
Dorea wasn't sure who started it, there'd been a kind of false start for a blink, but then they were hugging — Mum half-hidden under his jacket, Sirius's face buried in her hair. There was whispering, but it was very quiet, even standing this close Dorea couldn't pick it out. She was pretty sure Sirius apologised for something at some point (probably for the obvious getting-himself-locked-up-like-an-idiot reason), but. The hug went on for a while, she was pretty sure they were rocking just slightly (thought it was hard to tell for sure), Dorea felt a smile on her own face, bobbed a little from one foot to the other to bleed off the tingly energy, the urge to do...something, she didn't know exactly, not wanting to interrupt.
At least it looked like this meeting was going well.
"Oh!" With a twitch, Sirius jerked back to arm's length, eyes gone wide. "You're pregnant!"
Mum made a rather watery sounding mm-hmm, fanning at her pinking face a little as she pulled away, cleared her throat before speaking. "Ah, due in September. You can tell?" She wasn't quite showing yet, though Dorea thought it couldn't be far off — Dorea actually had been able to see it when they'd been getting dressed this morning, but it wasn't visible through her clothes. If Sirius had been hugging her tight enough, though...
"Yeah, I have magesight, you know, I can feel her there."
"'Her'?" Dorea repeated, perking up a little — she had been hoping it would be a girl...
Sirius blinked at her for a second before turning back to Mum, frowning at her belly. "...I think so? It's hard to tell for sure, the differences between men and women really are very small, especially in infants, and with your magic all around—" Sirius made a sort of flittery circular gesture, indicating Mum. "—it can be hard to tell them apart. So, I could be wrong."
"Gail's a muggle you know, she doesn't have any magic. Richard Walker," he added, offering his hand.
Sirius reached to shake it without hesitation, giving Richard a smile and a sharp little nod. "Sirius Black. Thanks for looking after my girls, mate."
"My pleasure."
His eyes flicking to the boys, still obliviously playing around with Dora nearby, he drawled, "Yeah, I see that." Mum, smirking even while dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief pulled from somewhere, leaned in to smack him on the shoulder. "Ow, Abbie, hey," he whined, playing it up by gingerly poking at where she'd hit him. "Anyway, of course she has magic, every living thing does. Especially humans, anything that can think — consciousness is a kind of natural magic, you know. Muggles can't do magic, but they are magic just as much as mages are."
"Oh, that's interesting, I didn't know that. It does make sense when you think about it, but..."
"It's not the sort of thing the stuck-up inbred pricks back there are going to admit to, is it? They like to feel special, you see, and admitting that your people aren't so very different from ours isn't exactly helpful to that end."
Mum and Richard and Sirius talked about that for a little bit longer. Dorea was a little distracted from the conversation, because Sirius claimed he was much more certain the baby was a mage than he was that it was a girl — even Andi and Ted were surprised by that one, they hadn't heard of any way to tell before the age of two or three, and definitely not in utero. Though apparently a baby would sometimes do accidental magic before even being born, it was extremely rare, usually only when a muggle mother was in lethal danger. (Ted claimed the theory was actually that that it was the mother doing the accidental magic, instinctively channelling magic through their unborn child, but the point was that whatever made mages mages came in well before birth.) Anyway, Sirius said it was a magesight thing. He wouldn't have been able to tell before but he was much more sensitive now than he used to be, and the baby was far enough along to channel already — not, like, directed magic, the brain shouldn't be developed enough to do anything consciously yet, but the basic machinery was there already. It wasn't out of the question Mum and Richard could have a magical child, since Mum would have to have unactivated potential for Dorea to be a mage herself — Ted couldn't explain how that worked, exactly, too complicated, but it was the current best-guess theory for how muggleborns happened — and Dorea would guess being conceived on such an intensely magical place as the Greenwood probably helped.
And Dorea didn't know how to feel about that. Not that she didn't want one of her baby siblings to be magic, exactly. She was well aware that she would outlive Ben and Sam by a wide margin — mages tended to live twice as long as muggles, or even more than — and she already barely knew them, since they were so little and she was off at Hogwarts all the time, and she didn't know how likely she was to be in their lives much after that either. She would try, yes, but. Her youngest sibling (sister?) being a mage would make that part less of a problem, since their (her?) lifespan would be closer to Dorea's and they would both be going into the magical world, so it wouldn't be a bad thing, but Mum and Richard wouldn't... Well, there were difficulties, that was all.
Ooh, she would have to adopt them into the Blacks after they were born — if she didn't, the baby would legally be a muggleborn, which, well, being a member of a Noble and Most Ancient House made things much simpler. Or they could just get Sirius to be their godfather, that might work just as well. Wait, actually she'd have to check the family law, and the marriage and divorce papers, Mum might still technically be a Black, which meant the baby (and also Ben and Sam?) would be too. Hmm...
Distracted by her thoughts, Dorea was a little startled when Sirius suddenly transformed into a big fluffy black dog. Apparently he'd decided the best way to be introduced to her baby brothers was to be a big friendly dog at the time. Because of course.
(Dorea noticed Ben kept glancing back and forth between her and Sirius, confused — she was aware Ben never had quite understood that Richard wasn't her dad too. If Sam even noticed that detail, he obviously didn't care, too busy petting the big friendly dog and giggling to himself.)
Sirius was still a dog when the door clicked open again, Liz stepping through, closely followed by Professor Snape. Those white formal robes really were very pretty, all soft and fine and feminine, Liz hardly looked like herself in them — she hadn't gone quite as far with the jewellery and her hair as her first time at the Wizengamot, but still. Sirius-as-a-dog seemed to flinch a little, letting out a soft whine. When he turned in that direction, he froze, staring up at Liz.
Staring back at him, Liz blinked. After a second of silence, she glanced at Dorea. "Why is Sirius a dog?"
In a blink, Sirius wasn't a dog anymore — Sam staggered back, surprised, Dora (still a little kid) managed to catch him before he could fall. "Your mind is really loud."
Liz scowled. "For fuck's sake, I know. Shut it," she snapped, pointing over her shoulder in Snape's general direction. She must have picked up something from him, because he hadn't said anything, his face perfectly blank. "How can you even tell? You're not a mind mage."
"Magesight. You're filling the whole room, you know."
"Oh. Um. Oops."
Sirius let out a sharp bark of laughter, sudden and unexpected enough Liz twitched. Starting to walk toward her (and Snape), he said, "It's good to see you're— Well, I couldn't find you over the summer, I was worried... I actually broke into the Prophet's records to make sure you hadn't died or something." Oh, he hadn't told her that, she hadn't realised...
Liz hadn't moved from the door, still closely watching Sirius approach, frowning. "Anti-scrying wards."
"Not a bad idea, there are still—" He cut himself off with a sigh, as he hitched to a stop only a couple steps away from her. There was a short pause — Dorea couldn't see from this angle, but she thought Sirius glanced at Snape for a second — before he said, "I'm just glad to see you're alright. I've been hearing— Well. You look a lot like your grandmother, you know, didn't see that coming. Your hair was lighter when you were little, more red in it."
Liz quick glanced at Dorea, presumably realising that Sirius was referring to Dorea's namesake — she'd seen pictures (Dorea Potter was Cassiopeia's sister), and they did look rather alike, she hadn't really noticed that before. "I know. About my grandmother, not the hair."
There was another brief pause, the two of them staring at each other. And then Sirius went for a hug. He was saying something as he stepped up to her, quiet enough Dorea didn't catch it from here. There was a sharp crackle, more felt than heard, a tang of ozone on the air — Sirius cringed, "Woah..." retreated a step, his arms still up but more in a placating gesture, hands held between them. While the two stared at each other for a second, Snape sniffed, arms crossing over his chest as he stared impassively at a wall, seemingly uninterested in the reunion.
It took a moment, Liz seemingly struggling to unstick her jaw, but she eventually found her voice again. "Don't touch me without asking first."
"Right, right, that's— Of course. Yes, um." A brief awkward silence, everyone seeming to hold a breath, watching the two of them — except the boys and Dora, still playing around with the colouring books and pastels they'd brought with, and also Snape, who was just as quiet but without the tension about it. "I don't know what Snape has been telling you, but—"
Dorea winced — she definitely should have warned him first, this was not going to end well. Judging by the deepening frown on Liz's face, it wasn't even starting well. "About you? Practically nothing."
"...I'm your godfather, you know."
"Yes," Liz said, her voice low and sharp — practically daring Sirius to go in the direction Dorea was pretty sure was going.
Or maybe he had more brains than that, hesitating for a brief moment, glancing over his shoulder toward their audience. But then he reached for his wand — Liz stiffened, just for a second, before relaxing a little as he cast...sound palings of some kind, Dorea thought, when they started talking she didn't hear a word. So Sirius, in fact, couldn't read the room, he'd just wanted to broach the subject in private. Of course.
Whatever they were talking about in there — the possibility of Sirius suing for custody, Dorea was all but certain — the conversation deteriorated very rapidly. It wasn't long before Liz was glaring up at him, eyes narrowed in anger and fists clenched at her sides, hissing something inaudible — at least Dorea thought it'd come out hissy, her jaw wasn't really moving much, speaking through her teeth. Probably not actually in Parseltongue, because the conversation kept going, Liz twitching just slightly as Sirius gestured, leaning a little away from him, eyes following his hands. (Dorea felt a creeping unease as she noticed that, when she actually paid attention sometimes it was very obvious that Liz had been abused.) There were a few more quick exchanges, and Sirius stepped closer, reaching to take her shoulders — moving too quickly, frantic, not seeing how uncomfortable he was making her — and in a blink Liz's wand was in her hand, needing to pull her elbow back at an awkward angle to properly aim it at him, as close as he was. That signal came through loud and clear, Sirius taking a couple big steps back, hands raised in surrender.
While Liz was still saying something to Sirius, Snape stepped back to pull the door open — she didn't think he was under Sirius's privacy spells, but he must know what she was thinking. (Because mind mages could be creepy like that.) Liz snapped off a last comment, then turned on her heel, quick enough the hem of her robes swished around, and stalked straight out through the door, seemingly unsurprised to find it already open. Sirius took a few aborted steps after her, but quickly stopped, his shoulders drooping.
As cool and calm and unflappable as ever, Snape looked past Sirius to the rest of their group, his voice smooth and level. "Miss Black," with a little nod to her, "Andromeda, Ms Walker. It appears we won't be staying for dinner." Dorea was probably imagining the faint note of amusement.
"Of course, Severus," Andi sighed, sounding very exasperated. "Go, before you lose her." He gave her one of those tiny little bows the purebloods did, agreeing, before starting to retreat through the door, pulling it closed after him.
In the last possible second his face shifted, spearing Sirius with a smug, mocking sneer. And then the door gently clicked closed, and they were gone.
That meeting did not go well.
Dorea didn't get a chance to talk to him about it until well into dinner, maybe a good hour and a half later. It took a little bit for conversation to start up again in the wake of Liz's dramatic exit — and it was rather awkward at first, tentative and consciously casual, Sirius withdrawn and sullen. When it came time for the meal to start, food popped up to the table by the elves somewhere below, Dora (now looking maybe fifteen) wormed into one of the chairs next to Sirius, and Dorea took the other. In part, if she was being honest, to make sure Mum didn't end up taking it. She'd noticed the way Richard had been watching the two of them and, well, she was pretty sure he didn't really think there'd be a problem there — Mum and Richard were close, and her relationship with Sirius had been ages ago, he knew that — but there was no reason she couldn't make things a little less uncomfortable when it took so little effort on her part. Besides, Sirius obviously didn't mind, throwing her a grin and looping his arm around her shoulders and planting a quick kiss on her hair.
(Yeah, as much as the touching didn't bother Dorea, she completely understood why Sirius had made Liz uncomfortable.)
Some of the dishes on the table were unfamiliar — the elves were, of course, aware of who was staying here, and apparently wanted to be accommodating by providing French food. Dorea didn't exactly travel much. But it was fine, Dorea wasn't picky. Dinner went smoothly enough, chatter quickly filling the air, alongside the clinking of forks against plates and wine glasses against the table. Some of it stories from when Andi and Sirius had been young — they hadn't exactly had happy childhoods, but there'd been good moments here and there — things from the war, a couple bits from when Mum and Sirius had been together, or when Dorea had been little and he'd still been around. But mostly it was about politics, both within Britain and in the ICW at large, only some of which she understood — she tried to more or less keep up, since she was a Lady of the Wizengamot (on paper), but she didn't really follow international politics.
Sirius had seemingly recovered from his disappointment over Liz, chatting and laughing with everyone else. But he was faking. It was pretty subtle, and Dorea didn't know him well enough to be confident reading him, but he made it kind of obvious — every once in a while he'd go quiet for a moment, staring down at his plate and morosely picking at his food, before seemingly forcing himself to participate in the conversation, a bright smile plastered across his face. It wasn't entirely fake, he was having a good time — the laughter seemed real, at least — but it was obvious to Dorea, at least, that what had happened with Liz was still bothering him.
It was during a lull in the conversation, Mum off in the bathroom again (naturally), Richard fussing over Sam, who'd gotten something all over his shirt (naturally), the Tonkses bickering over something — by the sound of it, Andi and Ted were nagging at Dora, but she hadn't being paying attention so couldn't guess what about. (Could be anything, really.) Sirius was in one of his glum moments again, leaning against the table, blankly watching the wine slosh around in his glass. Unusually still for Sirius — Dorea had learned by now that her father was a very energetic person, he hardly ever stopped moving — his queer grey eyes bleak.
She nudged him with an elbow. "Don't worry about it. Apologise, you'll do better next time."
"Hmm?"
"Liz."
"What? Oh, that." He let out a sigh, flopping back to collapse into his chair. "I really walked into it there. I guess I get the no-touching thing, but— Is that everyone or just me?"
"No, that's pretty much everyone." Liz wasn't quite so sensitive about it as she used to be, she would tolerate touching from her friends now and then. But that's all it was, still: tolerating it — the feeling Dorea always got was that she was putting up with it for people she liked, just to be nice. So obviously that wouldn't apply to Sirius, who was still a stranger to her.
"Mm. Right, some people are just like that, but she's more, ah, prickly than I expected."
"What were you two talking about in there?" She could make some guesses, of course, but she didn't actually know...
"I just offered to let her stay with me over the summer. She looked a bit, well, I don't know, so I said if Snivels wouldn't let her I could petition the family courts, and—"
Dorea cut him off with a sigh. "Yeah, that's where you went wrong — she just got through a custody battle, she will not be happy with you if you drag her into another one."
For some reason Sirius looked a bit taken aback, turning to blink at her. Which was odd, she didn't know what was so surprising about that. Hadn't he been reading the papers? "I guess I didn't think of it like that. I just thought— I don't know, I don't know why the hell Albus put her with Snivellus of all people," he mumbled, bitterly, taking a sip of his wine.
...Okay, she really didn't know where to start. "You didn't call him that in front of her, did you?"
He frowned for a moment, clearly trying to remember. "I might have, I'm not sure. Why?"
"Don't do that again. I mean it, Sirius," she said, cutting him off before he could say anything, "if you want her to like you, insulting Professor Snape to her face is not the way to go about it."
Giving her a suspicious sort of frown, Sirius said, "You're talking like she actually likes that greasy little git or something. Or, not so little, I guess — Jamie and I were taller than him when we met, but he shot up bloody quick in fourth and fifth year. Always thought he'd taken a potion or something, mad bastard..."
Dorea was just going to pass over all that extraneous stuff — no matter how odd it was to think of Snape being short, he was so bloody tall...or him being a child, for that matter... "Of course she likes him. Why else would she have asked to have him made her trustee?"
"What are you talking about? I thought Snape was Albus's choice. He always did trust that slimeball way more than he should — has a soft spot for redemption stories, you know."
Dorea nearly asked, You mean like you? but that would take them off on a tangent, and she didn't want to get distracted. "...Sirius, have been reading the papers?"
"Yes, of course." Sirius paused for a second, frowning. "The French papers, anyway — the Prophet doesn't have a great reputation overseas, to put it mildly, it's not easy to find. All this shite with Albus is a big story, you know, it came up."
"So you didn't see Skeeter's article."
"Still think it's bloody weird that the Prophet gave Rita Skeeter a job, nosey little muggleborns aren't really their kind of people. But no, last thing Skeeter wrote that I've read was a pamphlet she put out solo sometime in the spring of Eighty-One. Why?"
And the mistake Sirius was making finally clicked — Dorea let out a sigh, rubbing at her forehead, mostly to give herself a second. France had a neocommunalist government, their legal system and their culture was far more modern than magical Britain's in a lot of ways. She wouldn't be surprised if they had ideas about what personal details concerning minors were and were not appropriate to print in the newspapers. Skeeter hadn't gone into that much detail, true, but she'd still pushed the line further than Dorea thought would be acceptable on the muggle side, it was very possible foreign newspapers wouldn't have reprinted that sort of thing. It was very possible they'd only given the broad strokes, Dumbledore coming out with a bloody nose and Liz's custody transferred to Snape, and left it at that. So Sirius knew some of the story, but...
He didn't know Liz had been abused, and Snape was the only adult who'd done a damn thing to help her in her entire life. He might have pieced something together, from how she'd acted in their one brief interaction, but he didn't know nearly enough.
Which put Dorea in the odd position of not wanting to talk about Liz's private stuff, but at the same time needing to if she wanted to prevent Sirius from putting his foot in his mouth again, and completely ruining any chance for them to have any kind of relationship whatsoever. Which would Liz be more unhappy about it, Sirius being an oblivious arse or Dorea telling him things without her knowledge or permission? It was hard to say, they'd never really talked about any of this before...
She bit out another sigh — for fuck's sake, this was going to be miserable...
"What is it? Dorea?"
"Come on." She stood up, cast a featherweight charm on her chair with a flick of her wand and a muttered incantation. "Bring your chair," she said, even as she started dragging hers toward a corner.
"What? Why are we...?" Despite being obviously confused, the expression almost comically strong on his face, he followed her anyway, his own chair just dragged on its back legs, screeching a little against the floor. Richard and Andi both glanced their way, but seemingly decided the two of them just wanted to get better acquainted in private — either that, or they'd picked up enough of their muttered conversation to know what this was about, and were leaving them to it.
(Dorea half-wished someone would interrupt them, but nobody did. Mum even came back from the bathroom to go right by Sirius and kneel down on the floor with the boys. So, she guessed she was stuck with doing this talk on her own, brilliant. She did know Liz best of anyone here, but still...)
"There's some things you need to know about Liz — and we're going to be at it for a while, so I'd rather not stand the whole time."
"Right, hold up a second..." When Sirius joined her in the corner, he'd come with fresh glasses of wine — which would be getting a bit much for Dorea, honestly, she'd have to watch that — and slices of the chocolate cake she hadn't gotten around to yet. Alright, then. While Sirius cast a couple privacy spells unprompted, likely realising she wanted this conversation to be private, Dorea cut her cake into bite-size pieces, considering how she wanted to go about this talk. There was kind of a lot, and it wasn't exactly a pleasant topic, she wasn't sure what order to get to things in...simplest was probably best, so she didn't get lost...
She started talking the instant Sirius sat down across from her — the quicker she got to it the quicker it would be over with. "Right, so. I met Liz the first night at Hogwarts, down in the Slytherin dorms. I suspected there was something going on with her almost straight away, though it's hard to say where I got that feeling. She was really quiet and standoffish, I guess, but it was more than that, there was just something..."
[how many galleons you think I should open my claim at? five thousand? or twenty-five, maybe?] — Five thousand galleons is ~£1.25 million (1994), so twenty-five thousand would be ~£6.25 million (1994). Given he is nobility and the Ministry brazenly violated its charter by imprisoning him without any due process whatsoever, the numbers he's throwing out actually aren't unreasonable. Of course, it isn't like Sirius needs the Ministry's gold, so you can assume he plans to get even some other way.
[In the last possible second his face shifted, spearing Sirius with a smug, mocking sneer.] — Ha ha, she likes me better than you! I win! xD
My brain is basically fried noodles at this point, so I don't really have anything else to say about this. I kind of hate the second scene, I just stubbornly pushed my way through it because I wanted it to be done with, but if comments from people have told me anything it's that I have zero ability to evaluate whether my own writing is good or not, so. I guess we're just gonna run with it.
The next chapter includes leaving Hogwarts for summer, so I'll be titling it Fourth Year I. Because I finally finished year three, holy shit. I'm going to take a break from writing this one for a little while so I can plot out fourth year before getting started. I have absolutely no idea how long that'll take — there are a few different plot lines going on, and I am still going to be writing for other things, so, delays happen.
Maybe I'll actually post something for one of my other fics for the first time in months, no way! I do have a chapter for By Gods Forsaken halfway done, and probably around the same for Children of the Gods, and I just recently decided I'm going to cut the scene that was stumping me in The Long Way Around, so we'll see what happens. In the political write-up I've mentioned a couple times, I've explained up to position 101 out of 130, so that may or may not be coming out soonish, depends on how much commentary there's still left to get into. Over the last few days I wrote a few thousand words about the history of how the economy got settled into its current form and public education in the real world and on the magical side, so it could come out to a lot, we'll have to see.
Right, that's enough from me. Woo, third year done! Yaaaaayyy...