What Doesn't Kill Us Chapter 16, a harry potter fanfic

Percy bit his lip and read through the last document, finally nodding his agreement to Spears.

The goblin chuckled, conveying gleeful anticipation. "If this is registered with the Ministry and the five galleons paid by this afternoon we'll be in business tomorrow morning!"

"I'll go straight there." Percy was running it through his mind over and over, but couldn't see where it would bite. "Can it really be this easy?"

"Groog willing, it can be." Spears grinned evilly. "Pressure is the mother of all mistakes and the Death Eaters are under enormous pressure. Humans, Goblins, everyone sees what they want to see when all they're looking for is a way out. That's why losers are such losers."

Percy nodded slowly, considering it. "So panic makes the loser."

"Exactly!" The goblin leaned forward over the desk. "A cool head can always find the profit. Look at what's going on now. It's almost exactly what Voldemort did to the other side. He pulled some impressive massacres off to get their attention, all unimportant nobodies without a spare knut, then made examples of a few big shots. This inspired panic and the wizards with the gold raced to buy the protection that his people were selling. The worthless bratnoods got rich and gained actual power in the government, but the brains behind it are gone."

Percy gazed thoughtfully back at the goblin. "I never thought of politics like that."

"Scare them and offer to save them, the endless cycle over and over." The goblin leaned back. "We can probably get the other side during next cycle if the dark snaps back, but I'll have to think about it. No matter! We aren't making the panic, but if our agents offer them a handful of galleons and a ferry ticket to France we can certainly take the profit. All the losers will see is the way out. Just put up their property as collateral, all very reasonable, an easy sale. After all, if they lose, then they won't need it anyway and if they win they'll take a hundred times that from their enemies. As long as our agents are motivated to steer them into our web we'll be able to give it to them good."

Percy nodded, aware that the Second Hand Shop would be an easy convert. "Maybe someone should talk to the aurors about it. I can't see anyone overlooking Walpurgis Night Loans, given that the Death Eaters are Knights of Walpurgis."

"No, we can't let the truth get out. People talk and the name is the bait, the very key to the ambush. All business of Walpurgis Night Loans will be carried out within goblin owned premises by qualified employees. What we do and to whom we do it is absolutely none of the DMLE's business." Spears nodded at the human seated across the desk. "All you need on your end is to sign that article of incorporation and file it for us. Then you just file the liens when payment comes due and DMLE can't lay a finger on anyone."

"I know, but t just seems too easy." Percy considered something. "They'll sign with a blood quill?"

The goblin nodded. "Indeed."

Percy smiled, a cold light in his eyes. "If I find additional ways to profit from this arrangement will that violate our agreement?"

"Not at all." The goblin nodded with respect. "We goblins do not believe that documents have spirits. We only go by the letter."

"Excellent." Percy signed.

Amelia Bones entered the secure archive chamber with its long tables of documents, where bureaucrats from the Departments of Heritance and Finance had at last reconvened.

Manpower was so short that she was covering the auror station herself and she simply had no aurors for any complex investigation. If it weren't for retirees and some auror families volunteering for office duty the DMLE would have already collapsed, unable to respond.

Though stressed, Madame Bones was immensely proud of the way that the Thin Red Line hung together, flue manned and an auror dispatched for every call. "Thank you all for your efforts. Is that it?"

Rutherford, the Ministry's best and most feared forensic accountant, laid down the paper containing his conclusion and nodded. "The timeline for the irregularities found in the archive is as follows. Potter was delivered to the muggles on Privet Drive on the evening of November the first. The Potter will was sealed under color of national security by order of Minister Bagnold and Acting Chief Warlock Paget one day later."

"Paget." Bones grimaced. As a street level auror dealing with the fallout from the murder of her own family, Amelia had not paid much attention to the political machinations of the day and so she and had forgotten about the late Jeremy Paget's final foray into the Wizengamot. "That's right. Dumbledore stepped down for a week." The slippery old man had neatly provided a good many Death Eaters from 'good families' with leeway to get off almost scot-free with that little maneuver.

"Indeed." Rutherford gave her a mirthless closed lip smile. "The archive for the period beginning 1978 to present has been thoroughly searched and the Potter Guardianship Affidavit is missing. It existed, but went missing November the Third according to the file content record. We cannot identify the culprit save that they could access secure files and didn't seem to realize that the master index of the file content was self-updating."

Putting her monocle on, she examined her copy of the paperwork. "Probably not Dumbledore then. Whatever you want to make of him, he's not stupid." Amelia was not a fan.

Rutherford adjusted his glasses and looked at her curiously. "The only other notable directive from the Ministry during that period was the transfer of Sirius Black to Azkaban on the second, by order of Bartimus Crouch. He resigned his office on the fourth, immediately after conducting the trial of Bartimus Crouch Junior. No further certified record for Black exists."

Amelia's monocle dropped from a suddenly wide eye, swinging on its string. "Are you telling me that Sirius Black has had no trial?"

Rutherford's eyes widened with the alarm of a bureaucrat asked a direct question and he immediately began waffling. "The keeping of open trial transcripts and attendance records were suspended in the face of the terroristic threat, but coded transcripts devoid of identifiers that could be fully reconstructed by authorized persons were scrupulously kept. The seals on those records have lapsed and our reconstructions have included no certified record of any sort of hearing or trial being conducted for Sirius Black, or of any non-administrative incarceration authorized by the judicial committee's of the Wizengamot."

Bones was fuming now, as all of the waffles added up to a 'no.' "How about his prison file? A synopsis of that information is supposed to be included in the jacket."

Rutherford shrugged. "All we could find was the original administrative order transferring him to Azkaban and a rather poorly forged trial transcript that seems to have been quite incompetently adapted from that of a completely different trial, a civil matter no less. Whoever did it missed a good many names that had nothing to do with Sirius Black. It was inserted into the file just nine years ago, after a series of requests for the record was received from one Andromeda Tonks. Once again, the person that forged this transcript seems to have done so in complete ignorance of the existence of the file index enchantments."

Bones sighed, looking worriedly around the room. It was every bit as bad as she had thought, and instead of a full staff of detectives to sort out the mess she had only these clerks and a pair of ancient retirees, men that had been well seasoned when they had seen the Twentieth Century roll in from the bullpen. "This means that Black must be released, guilty or not. Every single prisoner will have to be checked against trial records."

She waited as various clerks took notes. This kind of abuse had happened at the Ministry of Magic before, and the loss of confidence and low repute of the institution resulted in a sixteenth century of near anarchy as British wizards and witches simply ignored or worked around the remains of the Ministry, few paying any sort of tax. It was only the witch trials, internal reform and the threat of foreign intervention to keep the secret that had brought the institution back from collapse.

The guilty party would have to be punished for this or else it could threaten the statute again. "If we can't pinpoint the culprit by the means used, perhaps we can look at motive and opportunity." Bones looked at the oldest auror, hoping that he was still able.

Hays, two hundred and eight years old, stood to speak. "There are many motives, means is as ever in any wand, but limited opportunity. We cannot however exclude the possibility that it is a confluence of corruption that has brought us to this sorry pass. The question of 'who benefits' ranges widely. Death Eater Lucius Malfoy, for example, had somehow gained the Black Proxy. We know that Arcturus Black died young and senile, very likely poisoned. Orion died soon after, preceded by his youngest. If not for the difficulty posed by Voldemort, these unlikely events may have been more thoroughly investigated."

The old man ignored the general flinch his naming of the dark wizard had caused, pleased that it had not affected Madame Bones. "The extralegal imprisonment of the Black Heir seems to bear the earmark of a contingency plan. Malfoy appeared, controlling the seat, full of fake contrition and real galleons to buy his way out of the dementors care. Note that the rascal had motive, means and opportunity, moving in the circles that he did. He subsequently made no secret of his intention to place his spawn on the Black Seat. His particular friend, then Undersecretary Fudge, certainly had the access to plant false documents."

Frustrated, Amelia began composing orders on her scratch sheet. "If one is looking for a highly placed pawn possessed of the sheer incompetence to fail to understand something as simple as the indexing system, one cannot get much of a better fit. So our most likely suspects are Lucius Malfoy and Cornelius Fudge. Dead, gone and good riddance. There is little benefit to be had in following that trail just now and no manpower to devote to it, but we shall certainly return to it later."

Amelia had been watching the property registry and had seen title to The Fudgery in Cheswick transfer, indicating that the former Minister had fled. Not that it would do him any good. She could find a house elf if she knew its name and Fudge had one named Millie. She didn't expect him to give up his servant wherever he ended up hiding.

The second Auror, Claudius Key, stood. He had been an auror for over a century and had watched the 'eccentric' Dumbledore's rise to influence with a decidedly jaundiced eye.

"Though not a conventional 'benefit,' we know that Dumbledore, stood down as Chief Warlock or not, could have easily intervened in this miscarriage of justice. Instead he took advantage of the absence of Sirius Black to set up some kind of blood wards based on the proximity of Potter's squib kin. Then we have Barty Crouch, certainly no friend of Malfoy, who nonetheless went to extraordinary lengths to harm Black. I suppose it could have been a case of blackmail, but once his son was caught he had plenty of opportunity to rectify the situation without exposing himself. He seems intent on destroying Black for his own reasons, yet we can find no motive. A case might be made against them both for gross negligence."

"It would be a waste of effort to pursue at this time. Is there anything else?" Amelia had no illusions over her ability to deal any damage to Dumbledore. The man was slippery as an eel and his little escapades could never be pinned on him, the strategic 'leave of absence' being a favorite trick of his.

Carefully reading the entire document through, Bones appended her signature to the affidavit of finding. Looking up, she met each of their eyes in turn. "I will get Black out as soon as possible and make an announcement, but no one is to communicate upon these matters until it has all been formally laid before the Wizengamot. Thank you all for your efforts. " She just had to hope that these old career men were loyal to the Ministry itself as an institution.

Janet mixed a little paint on the palate, painting it on a card and trying to get the shade that she would use right, then bit her lip. It was harder than it seemed, because it subtly changed when dry, so she would have to plan every brush stroke. Trying to paint Hedwig was very ambitious for someone of her skill, but she had snapped a photo of the owl and at least had pictures to work from.

Janet smiled, wishing that she could have spoken with the boy longer. Harry just seemed so different, with his self-possessed attitude and exotic owl. Her life had been one of endless stifling sameness, right down to the people. She could practically predict every word out of the mouth of every person that she knew. Harry, in spite of his claims, seemed utterly foreign in spite of being so English.

Nibbling on the end of her brush, she heard a 'kir-iiik.' Turning, she stared with disbelief at Hedwig, who sat on the branch outside of her window, looking in.

"Hedwig!" Janet hurriedly opened her window, which slid to the side, then laboriously removed the screen, accidentally dropping it into the yard. She just hoped that her mother wouldn't see it and think that she was trying to sneak out or something.

The owl made a deep clicking sound and then hopped onto her sill.

"Did you lose Harry? Well, you can stay with me if you want, until you find him." Hesitantly, she began to pet the owl as Harry had. Thoughtfully, she sat her water glass where Hedwig could get to it.

Looking carefully at the card and at the owl's feathers, she could see that every one of Hedwig's feathers had a slightly different hue, all depending on the quality of the light. This was going to be a nightmare. "What do you like to eat?"

"It can be had here." Dobby gestured at an incongruously neat shop, overshadowed by the spindly half-timbered daub and wattle ruin across the street even as he stared at an approaching hag. The hag brightened as it saw Harry and then halted, rapidly backtracking after noticing Dobby.

Harry, distracted by all the strange magic around him, didn't notice the hazard or pick up on the way that Dobby was allowing himself to be seen. "It's all so amazing!"

"The magics here is old and has many wards all too close. Wards be fighting each other and magics always pulling, trying to be free, calling out for many things." Dobby's vigilant eyes bored into two eager red sparks that were watching hungrily from behind a pitch black windowpane on the upper floor of a rickety unpainted wooden building that might have once been a townhouse. He resumed watching all about when the sparks noticed and vanished.

Dobby couldn't harm humans, not unless they were intruders in his house, but dark creatures that considered his master food were pests, and agressive pests were not to be tolerated. "Elfs must go around back, but Master should go in front door."

Harry frowned. "Why?"

Dobby grinned at this innocence. "Masters not allowed in Elf window."

Harry looked dubious, but what did he know? "I'll go then." Harry squared his shoulders and entered the shop, called 'Madame Firkens Enchantments,' gasping as a purple blob of magic sprang at him from the right. Jumping to evade, he spun to face the door, warily watching the magic slowly withdraw back to the threshold. Backing deeper into the shop he watched carefully, but the purple magic was dormant.

Turning, he looked about. It was an old fashioned sort of establishment, a long rectangular room with a glass sheathed counter filled with magical items running down one side and extensive shelves stuffed with goods on the wall behind it. Several pyramids of rune-labeled jars were stacked on the floor on his side. There was a beaded curtain leading to another room behind the counter at the wall farthest from the door, but no one was in sight.

Harry stepped farther in, then cleared his throat. "Hello?"

There was a clatter from behind the curtain and a woman's startled voice called out, 'Who is it? Who is it out there?"

Harry flushed at the genuine note of fear in the woman's voice. Had he gone and walked into someone's house? "Um, Harry here. Sorry, but I thought this was a shop. Was I supposed to knock?"

The beads swished open and a youngish dark haired woman emerged wand first, not quite pointing at him but held warily in her hand. "I'm Isabella Firkens and yes, this is my shop. How did you get in? The threshold enchantment should have told me that you were there, but I had no warning until you called out."

"I came through the front door. Perhaps you should get a bell?" Harry met her bright blue eyes firmly. His abilities were not the business of a stranger. All he needed was for someone to write another of those books. "I'm told that you sell glamours."

She nodded, deciding that he was harmless, fully emerging and putting the wand away. "What are you looking for?"

"I need to deal with people. Muggles." He hesitated, and decided to explain further. "My elf has a stone that lets him fool the muggles into thinking that he's just an ordinary forgettable bloke. I want something similar. I want the coppers to ignore me and the ironmongers to take me seriously." He hated when they asked for his Dad.

"A perception pendent then." Isabella gave him a penetrating stare and then shrugged. The pendants were often abused by criminals stealing from muggles. "Your magic might not be up to powering one just yet. You look a bit young for something like that, Harry, but there is no law against selling them. If it works for you it will run three galleons."

Harry winced at the price, then brightened at the thought of his money. "Can my house elf come in? He's carrying the gold."

Dobby had hoovered Tom's tribute vault of its latest accumulation, an astonishing 212 galleons, during their visit to Gringotts. Bonecrack had been delighted to see the gold removed, immediately assessing the registered vault holder a low balance fee and taking the sum out of a previously negotiated line of credit, happily adding to the compound interest onslaught.

Isabella shook her head. "There is a window for elf purchases around back, but I'm not giving any house elf access to my shop. Once you've let one in it's impossible to keep it out afterward and even if they mean no harm they can be ordered to steal or to bring others in. The magic they take can also cause problems with certain enchantments. You may come back with the coin, but never an elf."

"Oh. I didn't know that." Harry cast a pensive look at the threshold. "Will that magic try to get me again?"

Isabella smiled. "It shouldn't be a problem,"

"Right." Harry walked out, briefly revealing a bulbous-eyed house elf looking through the door.

"For me," Isabella concluded. She hadn't exactly lied, but she was much more interested in finding out what was wrong with her threshold enchantment than in selling a pendent. Even with the rapid improvements in the neighborhood lately, such protections were vital in Knockturn.

"Is okay, Master Harry. Dobby does not mind." As Dobby handed over the galleons, he smiled cheerfully. He had had finally learned not to cry at such genuine shows of kindness, even to expect it, but it still warmed him immeasurably when his noble young master showed concern for his feelings.

"You can go home if you get bored waiting around." Harry had often been forced to wait outside of shops by Petunia, usually after being loudly accused of harboring some ambition to engage in shoplifting, as if he'd ever stolen from a non-Dursley. It had always been humiliating to be forced to wait under the critical eyes of those that had heard her. Somehow, her complaints of 'making Dudley shoplift' had mutated in her diseased mind into him being a shoplifter, which he was not.

Harry had learned to steal food to survive and he certainly had no compunction stealing from the Dursleys or any other enemy, but he had nothing against random shopkeepers. Harry had been able to pay his way just as soon as he'd discovered that discarded bottles were worth money.

"Dobby will stay." The elf saw the red sparks in the window again, the creature eyes eagerly tracking his master, and rage blossomed in the small elf's heart. "Master should not worry, his Dobby will find something to do!"

"Alright then. See you in a bit." Harry pushed back through the door and once again leapt over the purple magic. "What!"

Isabella was fascinated. "You were looking! You can see the magic."

"Well, yes." Harry shrugged awkwardly. After training with Dobby he could sort of feel it too, and he was also beginning to see it a little even without his glasses. "I've a pair of enchanted specs."

"Interesting. I'm working on a pair for myself, but they aren't easy. It will be a masterwork and take years, maybe as long as a decade." She moved to a drawer and withdrew a thumb sized bit of clear quartz.

This interested Harry. "I inherited mine, but I've read some of my great and so on gran's notes. Couldn't understand one page of it to be honest. You must be quite a good enchanter to even consider it."

"I do alright." Isabella smiled at the complement, more used to demands and obnoxious complaints as befitted a lowly half-blood merchant. She wouldn't last a week in the business if her usual customers knew the truth of her mundane parents, but she had been very lucky.

Her German great grandfather had followed the advice of a chance met Hungarian that he'd shared the last of his schnapps with on the ferry and 'Englished' his last name of 'Fikers' into 'Firkens,' coincidentally misspelling the moniker into the name of a dying magical line. A security enchantment on the immigration post had erroneously recorded him as a squib of that family, an event that he and his later family had been oblivious of until Isabella had gotten her letter, whereupon she was labeled a half-blood scoin of the now-extinct line by the dysfunctional Ministry without ever actually making a claim.

Isabella rarely got complements from those that typically patronized her shop. Though from illustrious families, most were 'home schooled' and could barely cast a lumose spell. They struggled to pass an OWL and depended on power amulets like those that she painstakingly harvested to manage the occasional display of a full power spell. It seemed to be just enough to keep them from the social disaster of being labeled a 'squib.'

Not that Isabella cared for gratitude. Contribution of sufficient galleons were thanks enough. Placing the crystal into a tall cylindrical beaker, she moved it about until it was correctly positioned. "Put your hands on the outside of this glass and will your magic to fill it, Harry."

Harry was well used to moving his own magic about. "Like that?"

"Ah yes, your magic is strong. The pendant should work very well for you." Isabella wondered who this boy could be. A muggleborn wouldn't have a house elf, but no pureblood family that she knew of would let a child walk about Knockturn with just an elf for protection.

The terror was pervasive. Many a gangster had vanished into the night and fog, the mean street swept clean, shoddy taverns fronting brothels and serving illegal potions mysteriously burnt to the ground, dark creatures that had purchased 'protections' to work the rackets ruthlessly exterminated. Even the bond slaves recently freed from their cribs and workhouses were wary as the criminal order that had so completely prevailed was abruptly and brutally crushed.

Kingsley Shacklebolt moved down the center of Knockturn, head on a swivel and wand out, but nothing confronted him. Not long ago patrolling alone would have been suicidal, but most of the scum that had ruled here had recently met a bad end.

He could have probably asked for backup from the Heavy Mob, but he wanted nothing more to do with them, ever. He carried a pistol in his boot, but would never tell anyone else of that particular legal loophole.

Coming across a pair of very old fashioned shoes and a few scraps of scorched fabric in the street, Shacklebolt halted and frowned, puzzled. Reaching out with the toe of his boot, he tipped the closest shoe on its side and watched as a small amount of ash trickled out.

Curiously, he looked up the street to where a witch was industriously casting to clean the walk. Looking at the ashes again he walked carefully around them to approach. She was youngish, dark haired and under thirty if he was any judge. Not exactly the sort that one expected to find this deep in the stews.

"Excuse me, Miss?" Watching her wand, he was happy when she slipped it into a holster.

She turned, unsurprised by his approach. It didn't pay to not keep one's eyes open in Knockturn. "Yes?"

"Auror Shacklebolt. Did you happen to notice what happened down there?" He pointed at the shoes.

"I did. Well, I didn't actually witness anything directly, but I heard all about it from the little fellow. Those are the remains of the vampire that… inhabited the ruin across from my shop. It called itself Lebrun and if you had come just a bit later I would have already tidied it away."

Kingsley frowned, looking at the vacant lot across from the shop, wishing that he'd stopped for a cuppa. "What ruin?"

"We, that is, Misters Voss, Umber and myself, Isabella Firkens, local merchants with respectable establishments on this block, have already vanished the cursed thing. Isn't it lovely with that rotten old eyesore gone?" Isabella smiled with satisfaction. "Perhaps I shall plant some flowers."

Kingsley nodded, noting the bright paintwork and immaculate cobbles along the street where there had never been care taken before. He pulled out a small Ministry Omnibook and riffled through it. "Ah. I have the address for this lot on the tax rolls. Owner deceased, heirs unknown, in arrears since 1845. Unsalable at auction. There was a demolition order in 1901, never carried out. Who got the vampire?"

"A customer of mine was browsing and his elf was waiting in the street. From what I could gather, the little fellow saw the thing eyeing up his master and took exception. I didn't see it myself, but I'm informed that the elf simply popped into the lair, grabbed the creature and then popped it into the sunlight before it could react. It was gone in a second." She couldn't help her snort of laughter.

Kingsley smiled and took out his notebook. "Hmm, how to report this. Can't really call it a death." He clicked the ballpoint pen began to write, speaking the words as he got them down. "The Vampire Lebrun met its demise upon this day by the cleansing light of Sol." Smirking, he put away the notebook. "Maybe DMLE should get a few house elves on staff. It ordinarily takes a team of five aurors with containment spells to safely put one of those down. Was it the only one?"

"Yes. We vanished a bit of its lair at a time, watching for others, but there was nothing else in the place. Lebrun was the only one that anyone ever saw. The Vipers wouldn't let it turn its victims, but it worked for them, so we couldn't do anything about it before. Good show getting rid of that bad lot."

Shacklebolt was quick to disassociate himself from Moody's circus of mayhem. "Thank you for the thought, but the aurors are not responsible for the battles between various gangs. Is there a name for the elf or the customer that I can add to my report?"

Isabella smiled at the notion of betraying a customer. "I'm afraid that I never inquired. Very nondescript, those two."

Kingsley nodded with a wry smile. Cleanup or no, names were rarely given in Knockturn, as one could never know what the backlash could be. "Perhaps you should call in at the Ministry. Such properties can be had very cheaply."

Harry sat at an outdoor table in front of Fortescues, just digging into a jumbo ice cream surprise, enjoying the anonymity that his two pendants provided him. He wished that he had some company, but Dobby wouldn't eat with him in public. Anonymity had its downside.

He was just breaching the first layer of the massive confection when one of his classmates walked up, cap in hand and stood silently in front of the table.

Harry contemplatively licked a spoonfull of chocolate cherry, considering how to handle the situation. Without Draco involving them in his stupid little games, his bodyguards had remained inoffensive and generally unobjectionable. There was no reason to continue a conflict that neither of them had ever been invested in, so Harry decided on a policy of magnanimity. Nodding, he acknowledged the waiting Slytherin. "Goyle, sit down, take a load off."

Goyle looked conflicted and then sat. "Draco's not answering the flue. Vinny says that Mister Malfoy is dead. Is it true?"

Harry shrugged. "I never saw a body with my own eyes, but the goblins are convinced. I wouldn't bet on them being wrong."

Goyle shifted nervously and opened his mouth, but Fortescue bustled up.

"Welcome! What can I get you?"

Goyle looked paralyzed, so Harry gestured at the massive ice cream dish in front of him. "Bring another one of these. My treat." Harry fished out a sickle and a handful of knuts passing them over.

"Thank you, Mister Potter. It should be here shortly." Fortescue walked back to his shop, wondering why his celebrity customer hadn't yet drawn the usual crowd.

Goyle gaped when the dish appeared on the table. "This is for me?"

"Yeah, eat up." Harry wasn't really all that interested in talk and began to follow his own advice.

Greg stared for a second, and then picked up the spoon. "Thank you, Mister Potter."

"Call me Harry." Harry just managed not to laugh at Goyle's incongruously high pitched voice.

Goyle looked at the treat before him and considered the total number of people in his life that would have thought to get him something. His mother and Mrs. Malfoy were it. "Yah, call me Greg."

The two sat in companionable silence, shoveling down ice cream until brain freeze forced a pause.

"Whooh that's good." Harry breathed through his nose, trying to get back to eating condition.

"So good." Greg gripped his temple, waiting for the pain to pass.

"What brings you by today, Greg?" Harry decided to wait until he could really get past the freeze.

Gred took a deep breath and took a second to remember. "Me Da, he's gone visiting in Spain, but he said that I will have to follow Draco on account of us owing them. Do you think that's still true?"

Harry frowned. "No. Lucius Malfoy was just the front man for Tom Riddle, taking care of his master's business. Now he's karked it and Riddle can't help himself, so there's no more business and no more debts."

"Riddle?" Goyle stared with incomprehension.

Harry grinned. "Some people call him 'Voldemort,' but Tom Marvolo Riddle is his real name."

"Cor." Goyle swallowed, an expression of utmost dread flickering across his features at the utterance of the name. "Riddle isn't pureblood."

Harry shrugged. "Tom is smart like Hermione. He gathered up a lot of riffraff in his gang and put them to work in the rackets. Someone told me that he eventually marked the lot as his slaves and set them to shaking down the respectable wizards. It made him rich but Malfoy has stuffed it all up for him, so even if he's alive he's not rich anymore."

"Me Da's marked." Greg swallowed, then grimaced in distaste. "They… I don't want nothin' to do with that mankey lot."

Harry nodded. Tom would have gone after losers and outcasts, all the low hanging fruit until his gang was big enough to start pressuring the toadies and cowards. "If you're not marked then just piss off summers. That's what I'm doing. You get your wand rights with one OWL, so study something easy and take the test when you can, then go do what you like."

"'M fourteen. We was held back to go with Draco."

"Then you know what to do." Harry frowned. No wonder they were so big. Why had Dumbledore allowed the Death Eaters a favor like that?

Goyle didn't actually know anything about the world, history and geography being what it was at Hogwarts. "Were can I go? What could I do?"

"You're a wizard, Greg. Find a wand that you can use and so long as you don't break the statute or attract attention you can go where you like." Harry shrugged.

"Can get Gran's old potion's gathering tent." Goyle frowned, thinking about it. "No one's using it. Could just pitch it somewhere, with the notice-me-not charms."

Harry nodded encouragingly. "There you go. All you need is a few spells and charms to get along. I'm told that using the repair spell on old things can get you money. Just summoning lost muggle money through a sewer grate with accio could get you enough to eat. Life is easy for a wizard, so why go about in a mask?"

Goyle stared for a long moment, thinking of his father's love of violence and his incipient madness. Shaking his head, he sighed, realizing that the man would never give him a thing, only take. "Cor, I can't think why either." Grabbing the spoon he resumed the ice cream feast.

Padfoot lay dozing fitfully on his pallet, twitching and dreaming of freedom. This was his last night in Azkaban. On the morrow he would be off with the tide or food for the crabs, free as a breeze or bloody smash on the rocks below.

He was dreaming a dream of escape to Hogwarts, where all of his friends were waiting to greet him, where the Great Hall was serving a delicious feast, of finding everyone just as he remembered, when his sensitive ears pricked up and he rolled to his paws, lips curling into a feral snarl. There were footsteps, human footsteps. Three sets, not routine at all. It didn't sound like the reluctant plod of Alfie Dunbar.

Quickly shifting to Sirius, he prepared himself, pretending to lounge comfortably and choosing the quip that he would use if they stopped to inspect. Screams, rage, begging and pitiful pleas of innocence got one absolutely nowhere with the guard force, but a cheery greeting and a joke bought the occasional favor.

His nervous humming trailed off when the quick footsteps came straight to his cell. Terror gripped him. He still didn't understand why all of the other prisoners had been taken. Were they coming for him now, just when he was about to jump? Could someone have spotted him at the window? No, there would be brooms at the window with a dozen guards rushing him and in any case no one could possibly see him in the dark. The loose mortar was always carefully gathered, wet down and meticulously replaced so that there was no sign of tampering should someone pass by on a broom for a visual inspection.

There was a rattle and a clank as the cell door swung open. Sirius presented a mildly surprised face even as his heart hammered and his terror spiked. It was against regulations to open the door. Was it all for nothing then, his short lived freedom gone?

"Sirius Black?"

It was a girl, looking very like a young Bella. Obviously a Black, but who? "Sorry, luv, he's just popped out for a bit. If you lot want to wait I can trot along and fetch him for you."

Alfie laughed. "Good one, Sirius! I tole them you wasn't marked when they came for that other lot." He turned to the older woman, who was occupied inspecting the cell through her monocle. "Laugh a minute is our Sirius."

Tonks peered at him uncertainly. She had been six when he'd been taken. "Uncle Sirius? It's me, Tonks. Nymphadora Tonks. We're here to take you out of this place."

Sirius stared, unbelieving. He made a good show of sanity, but he did it by living within the moment and controlling his thoughts, mostly repeating the same few every day to avoid happy memories that might attract Dementors. All of this mad change was upsetting the careful balance of his mind, overwhelming him. "Little Nymmie… She's just a kid."

Nymphadora smiled, her hair cycling through several outrageous colors. "No Sirius, it's been twelve years, but it's over. You're going home."

"Home," mused Sirius, feeling faint. Home with Aunt Dorea. Something wrong, bad. Was this a dream? He didn't sleep as Sirius to avoid dreams. Was this real? Of course it had been twelve years, he knew that. If he was wrong his tidal calculations could be off and he would die when he jumped. Was this real? He had to keep it together! "Who did you say you were?"

The older woman cleared her throat and stepped to the fore, prompting Sirius to cringe. What was this? The door being open unnerved him. The Dementors could get in!

"Lord Black, I am Madame Bones, Director of the DMLE. It has recently come to the department's attention that you had been confined here illegally. We are here to get you out."

"What? Am I going to trial?" Try as he might, Sirius just wasn't ready for anything different and couldn't make sense of it.

Bones felt pity as she realized that he was simply not there. Sirius Black had a dash of his old charm, a smattering of his former mannerisms, but it was just a bit of clockwork that soon ran down. He wasn't alright by a long shot.

She noted the subtly carved notches where the prisoner had somehow made toeholds for working on the bars of the window. Idly, she wondered how long it would have taken the staff to discover his absence and find his body on the rocks below. Glancing at the stupid-looking guard, she once again decided that there could be no use of them as anything but guards, even as she pursed her lips at his complete lack of vigilance.

The fortress was composed of an alloy of aluminum oxynitride, orihalcum and mythril. Though very resistant to magic, it had possessed neither cells nor bars when acquired by the Ministry. To convert it into a proper prison had taken a lot of internal walls, doors and bars inset into impervious brick walls built up by muggle masons. Every cell would have to be inspected by someone competent.

One sidelong glance at Tonks told her that she was on the brink of losing the metamorph, so there could be no dirty work assigned there. Thanks to the turd in a bowler hat the only one available to walk Azkaban was herself.

Essaying a polite smile, Bones said, "No, Lord Black. You were never formally charged with a crime, thus the lack of an actual trial. Even if there was any scrap of evidence suggesting guilt, no trial is legally possible at this late date. We will take you to St. Mungos for a checkup as a courtesy, but you are free to go right now, anywhere you like. I will be vigorously pursuing charges against the authors of your misfortune, but I suggest that you see a solicitor about obtaining compensation for your ordeal."

"What?" Sirius stared at the open door. He lived by routine, by timetables, in intricate planning, all carefully static scenes inside his own head. Confronted by an open door, he just didn't know what to do.