July 2nd 1994, 12 Grimmauld Place, London, England

With a loud pop Sirius appeared at his room in Grimmauld Place, Harry lay against his knee still asleep as Sirius placed Harry's things on the floor, it was the only place he could think of that would be safe, no matter how much he hated the house it was one of the safest places he could go, his grandfather and father had ensure that the place was warded as if it was a fortress during the wars. It would be an easy place to hide for a bit. He slowly picked Harry up and lay him down on his old bed.

The large bed was wedged into the corner of the room and looked old, a spider crawled along the edge of the bed and the mattress was torn, the bed sheets covered in holes. The wooden headboard had the words "Toujours Pur" engraved into it, however it was also dented and covered in black marks from where Sirius had burnt the old painted motto off. Only for his mother to physically carve it into the wood. The walls of the room were covered with so many pictures that it was near impossible to see the regal wallpaper his stuck-up mother had insisted on plastering around the house, many of the pictures had a permanent sticking charm on them so that his family didn't tear them down, the posters ranged from the team photo of the Gryffindor quidditch team he and James had played on together, (Him as chaser and James as seeker) to bikini clad muggle girls and motorcycles.

Laying on a wooden table beside the bed there was an old picture of the four marauders from their final year of Hogwarts, they had enchanted 4 banners to fly above them, one for each of their nicknames and James had enchanted his to fly around like the snitch, the photo showed him jumping to try and catch the banner as the other three lay down under a tree and watched. He picked up the photo and looked down at his younger self. The photo had been taken a few weeks after the war had officially started, none of them truly understood how hard the fight would be. In fact, the war would destroy the marauders all together. Sirius turned his head to look at James. The same feeling of regret that he got whenever he thought of his best friend filled his thoughts. Flashes of what could have gone differently filled whizzed through his mind, all the decisions that he had made that may of contributed to James dying. Trusting Peter. He looked the portrait James in the eye and made a silent promise to himself. He would make Harry happy, keep him safe. It was the least he could do to pay back his best friend.

He took another quick glance around the room, it was a true representation of the teenage Sirius, he had even put-up Gryffindor banners on the wall, it represented his rebellious nature, his love of his friends and even his fascination of motorbikes was shown. Sirius was probably the only wizard in the world with a room decorated like this.

Sirius took a deep breath, he pulled his mind out of the memories in his room, he had to focus for Harry's sake. He flicked his wand at a discarded piece of clothing on the floor and transfigured it into a large board. He always found that writing things down helped him produce ideas, it was how he produced most of his best pranks at Hogwarts with the marauders. He made a silent note to himself to tell Harry about the time they cursed McGonagall to stay in her cat form for an hour, the terms worth of detentions was definitely worth it

He started to break down his plan, the first step of it was already done, getting Harry. He wrote it down on the board and gave it a small tick. He had a bad feeling that it was also going to be by far the easiest step.

He began to think things through, what did he want to accomplish? What did he want for Harry? He instantly wrote onto the board, Keep Harry, and Protect Harry. Keeping Harry was for sure going to be an issue, whoever left Harry at Privet Drive would want him to return their, (and he had a strong suspicion that it was Dumbledore who had left him) and despite Sirius being Harry's godfather he was still an outlaw, something that was going to be extremely hard to fight against. Although he had spent the last year running around from the ministry of magic, he had never tried to prove his innocence, he had always been focussed on finding Peter. There had to be a way to prove that Peter was guilty and not him. Then an idea struck him, he had never received a trial! He could use that to at least buy himself a trial, from there he could push through a case for him being innocent, all he had to do was get someone on the Wizengamot to suggest the idea! It was a risky plan, by submitting himself for a trial he could instantly be thrown back into Azkaban and lose any progress, but it could work.

Sirius scribbled onto the whiteboard, learn about the current state of the Wizengamot and Prove my innocence. There was just one issue in his plan, if he was going to try and use the politics of the wizarding world to prove his innocence then he would also have step into the Wizengamot, he would have to take the Black's ancestral seat, he glanced at Harry's sleeping form, Harry would have too as well. The Potter seat was left open to after all, and that meant he was going to have to teach Harry all about wizarding politics and the house of Potter. He added to the board, Educate Harry.

Sirius took a step out of his thoughts, it was a simple plan, four steps. Keep, Protect and Educate Harry, whilst gaining his freedom. He sighed. He had never been interested in the Wizengamot as a teenager, but now it looked like he was going to have to get involved.

Turning around and seeing that Harry was still asleep he went to step out of his old room for a second, opening the door as quietly as he could he stepped outside. He muttered under his breath the words, "Kreacher." Suddenly, there was a crack and the house elf appeared in front of him.

Kreacher had a bulbous, snout-like nose, bloodshot eyes, many folds of skin, and white hair growing out of his bat-like ears, he had clearly not aged well since Sirius last saw the elf when he was 16, Kreacher snarled out, "So my blood-traitor master has returned, oh how disappointed Mistress would be if she saw Kreacher coming to him." Sirius shook his head at the elf, clearly time had done a number on the elf's sanity as well.

He said, "As fun as it would be to trade barbs with you Kreacher I need you to go to the Ministry of Magic and get a copy of the Wizengamot records." Kreacher's eye twitched as he thought about trying to disobey but he disappeared again with a crack.

Sirius sighed, at least having a house elf, no matter how insane, would be useful. Taking a step back into his room he looked down at the bed and saw that Harry had woken up.

Before he knew it, he had been tackled into a hug as Harry exclaimed, "Sirius! You came!" Harry had a large grin plastered all over his face

Sirius replied, "Of course I did Harry, after all no godfather leaves his second favourite godson lying about." He flashed a grin at Harry.

Harry looked up at Sirius and remarked, "Buckbeak does not count as your godson now."

Sirius laughed "No no, Buckbeak isn't my favourite, but I was particularly fond of a spider I saw lying around in the room." Harry shook his head despite giving a small snort.

Then suddenly, Harry grew quite sheepish, "Thanks for getting me out of there."

Sirius met Harry's eyes, "Don't even mention it, your grandparents took me in when I ran away from home."

"Really?" Harry asked

"Really, I suppose people haven't told you much about your Grandparents, have they?" Harry gave his head a small shake.

Sirius explained, "Well, your Grandparents were Dorea and Charlus Potter, they were two of the greatest people I've ever met, along with being extremely powerful wizards and witches, respectively."

Harry enquired, "What happened to them"

Sirius gave a small sigh, "One day Lilly, James and I went out to fight against some giants who had got loose and started attacking a muggle village. However, they were only a diversion sent out by Voldemort, with the three of us gone he sent death eaters to attack Potter Manor."

"I have a manor!" Harry exclaimed; his eyes wide open in shock.

Sirius chuckled, "Well it's not really as large or glorious as a manor, it's more of a countryside house, but yes it's technically called Potter Manor."

Harry silently mouthed, "Wow."

Sirius continued, "Clearly there's a lot more I have to teach you about your family then I thought, but back to the story." Harry eagerly nodded his head, "Well we don't know exactly what happened, but we suspect around ten death eaters were sent on the mission to kill them, they blasted through the wards surrounding the house and started fighting your grandparents. They did a damn excellent job at fighting them to, we found eight dead death eaters on the premises."

Harry looked curious, "What are wards?" he asked.

Sirius looked a little surprised, "You haven't heard of them before?"

Harry shook his head. However, they were interrupted by a loud pop as Kreacher apparated back into the room, dumping a stack of dusty papers on the bed, Sirius sighed, "Perhaps that is a lesson for another day, it appears we've got some papers to go through." He said indicating to the papers.

"What on earth are they for!" Harry said

Sirius smiled, "These are the Wizengamot records, we've got to figure out who's got seats somehow"

"The Wizen-What?" Harry asked.

"The Wizengamot, come take a seat, "he said, indicating towards the bed, "And I'll explain"

Harry slowly walked over to the bed, glancing at the burn marks covering the wood, he sat down on the bed and began to read the top bit of paper. The top page was spilt into two sides, one was headed, 'Members present' and the other headed, 'Members absent.' Harry scanned down the piece of paper, he recognised quite a few names on the list. Malfoy, Nott, Abbot. Feeling increasingly confused Harry went to look at the list under the absent category. Much to Harry's surprise there were two names. Potter and Black.

He quickly turned and looked at Sirius and went to start asking more questions, but Sirius started talking before him, "You see before even the Ministry of Magic was around, there were forms of regulating the magical population of Britain, there was a group of 10 witches and wizards in the year 1000 who came together to form what they called the Wizengamot, they would make laws and since they were the most powerful witches and wizards in the land they would also enforce those laws." Harry kept looking up at Sirius, trying to absorb all the information.

"When the ministry of magic was founded the two merged together, although the way the Wizengamot works now is quite different, but they do that same job. They vote in laws and decide the punishment for those who break the law."

Harry asked, "So did you go in front of the Wizengamot when you were thrown in Azkaban."

"Ah" Sirius said, his facing turning grim, "you see, technically I should of, but it being the middle of the war the minister of magic at the time decided to throw me straight into Azkaban, without a trial."

Harry looked outraged, "They can't do that! Why don't they give you a trial now! That way people would find out your innocent!"

Sirius smiled at Harry's anger, "Everyone just assumes that I had my trial in private, but trust me, not having a trial is something I plan to correct in the next few days."

Harry nodded his head, "So how come are last names are written down on here?"

Sirius said, "Well you see, the Blacks and Potters are what we call Ancestral Houses, remember the original 10 I mentioned?" Harry nodded, "Well when the person who was part of the Wizengamot dies they would pass it on to an heir, unless they had no-one to pass it onto. When there was no heir, their seat would be given to another family" Harry nodded his head in understanding, "So eventually members would get cycled out, and at one point the Blacks and Potters joined the group."

Harry asked, "So I'm going to have to make laws and things like that? It doesn't sound exactly exciting"

Sirius responded, "It may not be as fun as riding around on your broomstick, but it's an important job." Sirius put his arm around Harry's shoulder, "If I'm being honest, I'm not enthused about it either, but who knows maybe we'll learn to enjoy it."

Harry smiled and said, "So how does the current system work?"

Sirius picked up the top piece of paper from the pile and said, "So you see all the members who are present?" Harry nodded, "Well all the members are split into different categories, the first are called Ancestral Houses, there are 10 of them because they take after the original 10 members of the Wizengamot. Ancestral houses hold the most power, they each hold 5 votes. They are also the only members who can pass there seat down through their family."

Sirius continued, "next are the Noble houses, they each hold 2 votes, but how they get onto the Wizengamot is very different. A person can apply to be a Noble house and the members of the Wizengamot will vote them in, they can then keep that seat until they die, or the Wizengamot votes them off."

Harry nodded his head, absorbing all the information. "Then there are the ministry seats, who go to the Minister and various heads of departments, put together they get 10 votes between them."

Sirius kept going, "Then there is the Chief Warlock who is in charge of all the meetings and decided what they discuss each meeting."

"Wow", Harry muttered, "It's very complicated, isn't it?"

Sirius chuckled, "You'll wrap your head around it eventually."

"So how do we get our seats?" Harry asked

Sirius explained, "You just kind of show up, normally you would have to provide evidence that you're the heir, but since you're the only Potter left, you can just take it."

"So how about you? Are there other Blacks out there?" Harry asked

Sirius replied, "Yes, the Blacks are a very big family, but luckily for us, my grandfather named me heir a long time ago, and that's very public knowledge."

Harry kept asking questions, "So what we just show up and sit in our seats, and ask for you to get a trial?"

Sirius replied, whilst twirling his wand around. "Well, it'll be a little bit more complicated than that, first the whole Wizengamot would have to vote for me to receive a trial, and if I show up before that decision is made, I will be thrown back to Azkaban on the spot."

"So how are we going to get you a trial" Sirius was getting slightly amused by Harry's constant onslaught of questions.

"Well, we get in contact with someone from the Wizengamot, they would propose the idea of me having a trial, and you would give a big speech about me, that should be enough to persuade people" Sirius replied through a grin

"Why would me giving a speech make people vote it through?"

"You vastly underestimate your fame Harry, if you ask for something then people are likely to do it, you will hold a lot of power in the Wizengamot because of your fame, the public will back any decision that you make."

Harry nodded, "So who do we contact?"

"See this is the challenging bit, we ideally need one of the ancestral houses to back you, since they hold the most power." It seemed as if Harry's questioning was done, he scanned down the list of members once again, there were a few names there that he didn't recognise at all, such as Wenlock and Travers. A few that he was only briefly familiar with, he was sure that one of the Slytherins in his year was called Greengrass, then there was Malfoy. No way in hell Draco or his father would help him, not matter what was in it for them. Then he exclaimed, "Neville! His family is on here!"

Sirius looked over at the list, "He's one of the kids in your dorm, right? The one that I picked the list of passwords off?"

"Well, ye, but he would be happy to help us out!"

"I'm sure Neville would be happy to help us, but the head of the Longbottom family is Augusta Longbottom right now, Neville's grandmother. And let's just say she isn't the friendliest person."

Harry's face fell, "Oh. Well, I don't know anyone else on the list that could help us."

Sirius reassured him, "I'm not saying it isn't worth a try, it's just it isn't the easiest option by a long shot."

Harry, sounding a little defeated, asked "Well do you know anybody who could help us?"

Sirius scanned down the list, "Well, my cousin is Narcissa Malfoy, I might be able to leverage support out…"

he was quickly interrupted by Harry "No. Not happening."

A little surprised by Harry's reaction Sirius asked, "Why not?"

Harry replied, "The Malfoy's are horrible people, especially Draco."

"Well, I'll take your word for it, it kind of leaves us with the Longbottom's as the only option thought." Sirius made a mental note to himself to ask about the Malfoy's later.

"That's fine." Harry said, sounding confident.

Sirius laughed, "You'll think differently after you meet Augusta."

Harry shrugged his shoulders; Sirius knew they needed another plan. They couldn't just show up at the Longbottom's and request an alliance, without knowing anything about what happened in the Wizengamot for the last few years. He sighed, he needed someone he knew, who would know enough about the Wizengamot to help them out, and there were very few options. He wasn't going to reach out to Dumbledore, despite Sirius' rising questions about the man, it would be improper regardless as he was the Chief Warlock. Then an idea hit Sirius, he could ask Remus!

Sirius said, "I think I may have the solution, Harry."

Harry looked up at Sirius, "Well, what is it?"

Sirius' grin spread all over his face, "There's a certain ex-defence against the dark arts teacher of yours who will undoubtedly help us out."

"Professor Lupin?" Sirius shuddered at hearing his friend called a professor, Sirius would need to break Harry's habit of calling Moony a professor "He's not on the list, would he know things about the Wizengamot?"

"Not necessarily, but he's spent a lot more time out in the Wizarding World than either of us now." After all Sirius himself had missed out on the last 13 years.

"Or you just want an excuse to spend time with him." Harry smiled

Sirius conceded, "Fine, but it's worth a try"

Harry asked, "How are we even going to contact him, we have no idea where he will be."

"True, but I have an idea." It was a slim chance that it would work, a very very slim chance. But it was worth atleast a try.

Sirius flicked his wand and called, "Accio two-way mirror." Then one of the draws on the bedside cabinet began to shake, and a small handheld mirror flew out. The mirror was covered in dust and cracked in a few places.

"What is that?" Harry asked.

Sirius had a smug smile on his face, "This is something Me and James invented, it's a two-way mirror that when you call out the other person's name, the other mirror will start to buzz, and then the mirror's screen will show the other person, and it allows you to talk to each other. James and I used to use them to talk to each other whilst we were in separate detentions."

Harry hung onto Sirius every word at the story of his dad, "So, if you and my dad used them, how will it help us find Professor Lupin."

Sirius justified himself, "Well, you see, there's a chance that Moony will have found James mirror, to find me. It's a small chance, but it's worth a try."

Harry nodded in agreement, "Well go on, try it."

Sirius called, "James Potter" they waited for a few seconds, but the mirror stayed blank.

"Maybe you need to say Professor Lupin's name instead?" Harry suggested.

But Sirius shook his head, "No that's not how they were enchanted to work." He sighed; it was worth a try atleast. He threw it down onto the bed, disappointed that it hadn't worked.

"Oh We- "Harry went to speak but was cut off by an awfully familiar voice, coming from the mirror, "Sirius? Is that you?" It had worked.