A/N: Hooray! This is my first Harry Potter fic, as well as my first AU (Alternate Universe, I just discovered) fic. It takes place starting the summer after fourth year, but I don't know when it'll end. Please read the AN at the bottom. It has some info that hopefully will clear up later questions. I'll continue to try and anticipate questions, so there will always be AN's.

Disclaimer: If I owned the Harry Potter books, Sirius never would have died. Hence, I am a teenager writing on under a penname, not to mention that I get no money off this. More's the pity. J.K. Rowling gets all credit.

Someone Beside Me

"We bow to each other, Harry. Come, the niceties must be observed… Dumbledore would like you to show manners… Bow to death, Harry… I said, bow,"

He held his head high, trying to fight it, but Voldemort raised his wand and he could feel his back bending in spite of himself. In the background the laughter of hooded figures rang clear.

"Very good." Harry stood tall again, but he was more scared than he'd been in his entire life. "And now you face me, like a man… straight-backed and proud, the way your father died…

"And now - we duel."

He tried to say something, but before he could even think of a spell he was hit by excruciating pain. He couldn't concentrate, he was being pierced by white-hot knives, his head felt like it would split from pain, he was screaming, he didn't even know where he was -

"Boy!"

Harry woke with a start. He wasn't in the graveyard, he was at the Dursleys', in his bed.

"Whassup?" He said hoarsely, opening his eye a crack to look at his furious uncle. Had he woken his mother's family with his screams? That would explain the expression on Uncle Vernon's face.

But his uncle wasn't alone. Two men flanked him. Both were large and strong-looking, wearing long black cloaks with badges that Harry couldn't make out in the feeble light from the moon. And both men carried wands.

Wizards.

"These - men - say that you broke your law," Uncle Vernon spat. "You're a criminal. Get out."

Harry gaped. Of all the things he'd thought it might be, he hadn't expected this. "What? I didn't do anything!"

"Cedric Diggory." One of the wizards said pointedly. "You are wanted for questioning in relation to his death." The other wizard began prowling around the room, summoning Harry's belongings and tossing them methodically in the trunk.

"What are you doing with my things?" Harry cried, outraged.

"If you're a murderer, your belongings will be confiscated. If not, they will be returned to you with a full apology." The first wizard said. "Lumos."

The room filled with light from the wand, and Harry could see from the badges that the two men were, in fact, Aurors. He was being taken from his bed for questioning, presumably at the Ministry. Fudge wasn't pleased with him. This wouldn't go well, he could tell.

"What happens if I refuse to come?" He asked, weighing his chances. It was a gamble. If he used magic to try and escape, either he would be in major trouble for using magic, or he would get away and be declared an outlaw.

The Auror searching his things held something up. His wand. There went that idea. Of course, he wasn't really in the condition to fight a duel anyway, having just woken up from a nightmare. And he hadn't been eating much lately, something that he now regretted. "Are you sure you want to know?" The Auror said, with just the barest hint of a smile. An unfriendly smile, Harry noticed with unease.

Harry opened his mouth to reiterate that he was innocent, but before he could so much as draw breath -

"Stupefy!"

There was a flash of red light, and Harry knew nothing more.

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The first thing Harry saw when he opened his eyes for the second time that night was the face of the Minister of Magic. Rage boiled in his veins at the man before him, to the point where he wanted to spit at Fudge's feet just to show what he thought of him. In the end, however, he decided that wouldn't be so wise. His best chance of getting out of this before ending up in Azkaban was probably to be as calm and polite as possible. But Harry had no delusions, even having not being informed of the charges yet. He knew he was in trouble.

So he took a moment to check out his surroundings. He was lying on a hard cot in a prison-like cell, but the lack of inner screaming - his mother - made him think the place was devoid of dementors.

"Why am I here?" Harry croaked, though he thought he knew.

Fudge gave a short bark. "Cedric Diggory, my dear boy. You killed him. Surely you didn't think that the law would let you get away with murder, did you?"

"I didn't kill him," Harry said firmly, sitting up.

"Then how did he die? People don't drop dead of their own accord, and by your own admission you were the only one present."

"I never said that! I told you, Voldemort killed him in front of Peter Pettigrew and me."

"You are delusional. You-Know-Who is gone, Harry. Dead. How could he have returned when all his supporters are in Azkaban or dead?" Fudge jibed. "Well, all except Sirius Black. And Pettigrew is dead as well, killed by Black. But there's no way even a dark wizard like Black could have raised You-Know-Who from the dead."

"Pettigrew is alive. And not all Voldemort's" - Fudge flinched - "supporters are in Azkaban. I gave you names, Minister," Harry had to force himself to be polite. "It's up to you to act on them."

A vein pulsed in Fudge's left cheek. "I have no reason to trust your word, Mr. Potter. In fact, I would say that if Cedric Diggory were alive you would be in St. Mungo's mental ward right now. As it is, we cannot place a murderer in a hospital, so we have to find another place."

He sighed and spread his hands. "I am sorry about this. I liked you. Sharp boy. But spreading stories about You-Know-Who being alive to get attention is going a bit far. You and Dumbledore both. Tell me, why do you do it? Surely there are other ways to get attention."

Harry could feel his temper rising. "You think I like publicity? You think I like having people gawk at me wherever I go because of nasty articles? In case you've forgotten, Minister, my parents are dead. Don't you think I would rather have them back?" He stood, drawing himself to full height, which unfortunately wasn't very tall. "You have no charges against me. There is no evidence. I expect to be released immediately with a full apology."

"No." Fudge stood as well, and Harry had to admit that the older wizard looked much more intimidating than he himself did, even with his face beet red. "Evidence we may lack, boy, but there is considerable circumstance, and the fact that you may be… ahh… unhinged. But just for you, I will re-adopt a policy abolished after You-Know-Who's fall." Fudge smirked. "Guilty until proven innocent. You will now be escorted to Azkaban to await trial."

"And when will that be?" Harry spat through clenched teeth.

"When we get around to it. After all, the Ministry has a lot of work to do dispelling rumors."

Harry stayed silent. He knew that, at this point, nothing he could say or do would help his case. Fudge just wanted to save his job. Dumbledore, he thought desperately. He'll get me out of this. He's gotten me out of worse before… he'll come get me before they turn me over to the dementors…

"And don't go getting ideas about Dumbledore saving your hide," Fudge warned, as though reading Harry's mind. "He won't know. Dawlish! Shacklebolt!" He called through the cell's barred door.

Two Aurors entered the cell. Harry noted with mild interest that they weren't the two who had collected him from the Dursley's. The tall black-skinned one - Shacklebolt? - gave him a small wink behind Fudge's back.

"Accompany Mr. Potter to Azkaban Fortress and ensure that he is settled in. Quietly, mind you," Fudge added. "Don't breathe a word to anyone. If this gets out I will hold both of you personally responsible, and it will mean your jobs." He turned to Harry. "No tricks, boy, or it will be the worse for you. I don't have to be nice to murder suspects." He turned and left the cell, leaving Harry alone with Dawlish and Shacklebolt.

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Harry had never been to Azkaban before, but the haunted look that still appeared in Sirius's eyes had been enough to put him off the place before ever seeing it. The cold began penetrating his heart when he was still in the boat, and by the time he was actually on the island Harry could hear his mother screaming in the back of his head. Shacklebolt had taken his wand, and without it Harry had no hope of driving the dementors back.

"Come on," Dawlish growled, pulling him through the heavy iron gate. Shacklebolt took his other arm, more gently, Harry noticed.

"I'll get him squared away while you speak to the dementors," the tall Auror told his partner. Dawlish nodded curtly while Shacklebolt led Harry away through the doors, out of earshot. "It's okay, Harry. Nobody can hear us here."

Harry looked up at him. "Why?" he said bluntly. His dementor-fogged mind couldn't think of a single reason why Shacklebolt wasn't being as brutal as Dawlish, from whom Harry knew he'd have some bruises when morning came. If it comes, he thought darkly.

"I work with Dumbledore," The wizard told him in an undertone. "Just since the summer, but I believe You-Know-Who's back. I'll make sure Dumbledore knows of your arrest by dawn. We'll get you out soon; don't worry."

He led Harry into a cell in the innermost part of the fortress. Again there were no windows, and it was bare of furnishings except for a bucket. Harry supposed that it was to be used as a chamber pot.

"I wish I could make it more comfortable, but the Ministry would know," Shacklebolt commented. Seeing Harry's surprised look, he added, "Wand signatures, you know. They're not monitored in most places, but with Azkaban being a prison…"

Harry stored this information away for future reference. He hadn't known that wands had signatures, and made a mental note to ask Hermione for more information.

Dawlish appeared in the cell door. "We're going, Kingsley." He looked at Harry. "A dementor will be on guard outside your door from dawn until dusk. If you're not insane already, and I'm rather inclined to believe that you are, you soon will be."

Kingsley Shacklebolt gave Harry a final, almost pitying look before following his coworker, shutting the cell door behind them.

Harry sat down on the damp stone floor. He could barely think from the inner screams and other memories that he was trying so hard to suppress. In between attempting to remember happier times, Dawlish's parting words came back in a rush. The truth in them stung, and Harry's heart felt even colder.

If he had to spend much time here, he would go mad. There was no escaping it.

Or was there? Sirius had kept his sanity by remembering that he was innocent. As his godfather had said, it wasn't a happy thought, so he could retain it.

Shacklebolt was telling Dumbledore. Surely he would be out by the afternoon. In the meantime, he had to remember that he was innocent… innocent…

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A/N: Heck, I'm trying. I actually have the first three chapters and part of the fourth written, but I have to type them up since I wrote them longhand while on vacation - of a sort - in Antalya, which is in southern Turkey.

To anyone who's read Believe or Not So Helpless- I am not giving up. I just have to say that, since it's been a while since I updated and I don't like it when people give up on stories, so I always feel the need to reassure people. No offence meant, honestly. I've been sick a lot lately (flu four times in two weeks! New personal record!), and I just got the news that my dog died a continent away, so I haven't exactly been in a fluffy or hopeful mood lately. Mac was such a sweetie, and he was only three! He got hit by a car and his spinal cord was completely severed. There was no chance of recovery, but I can't quite imagine going home and having him not be there ready to eat our cookies off the counter again.

Anyway, enough about me and my issues. I'll put the gang at Grimmauld place in the next chapter. It's going to be mostly AU, but a bit canon, like the Order and the prophecy and the characters. Oh yeah, and I'm trying to keep the people in character but if I fail don't be surprised. Fudge is not completely evil or anything. He's just too ambitious, and is being a bit ruthless. Hey, I had him apologize, so he's not completely soulless. Although maybe that makes him worse… well, you decide. The point is that I'm not trying to make him a Death Eater or something like that. Fudge is purely an idiot.

As always, please review! I need to know what you think. It's very important to me, so let me know even if you hate it. If you do hate it, would you tell me why so I know what to change? Thank you!

As always,

Lunaterra