Build Up to Halloween
Cornelius Fudge, the minister for magic, had never really expected to claim the position.
Oh sure, it had been his idea to put his name forward for contention, but to be elected when Dumbledore was around... he had mostly expected to have his presence in the election give his role in the ministry a sense of legitimacy.
At first the authority terrified him, the potential for things to go wrong.
As time passed, he realised he had a knack for keeping things running and had started to relax.
After all, given that elections were only held when a minister resigned or died in office, he was collecting a lot of experience.
Granted, in an emergency he probably wouldn't be much use, but he had faith he would be able to find good advisors or have the strength of will to stand down until the status quo could be re-established.
The only problem was those incidents when his decisions didn't make sense when he looked back on them, but he probably just forgot some details of the situation.
In any case, he was quite satisfied with his ability to maintain the status quo, rather than allowing people to upset it and damage the wizarding world.
As a side note, most people would be surprised by how few letters he received in his official role, as after all most matters could be dealt with by heads of departments and those who had matters to bring up knew which department head to contact.
As such it was quite a surprise to receive a letter from 'the-boy-who-lived', as the media had dubbed him, and a pleasure to see the particularly fine-looking owl used to deliver said letter.
He had known about the boy being found and enrolled in Hogwarts of course, it was too important a matter to leave to just the department of international magical cooperation, even before considering that the other nation involved didn't have counterpart to the department. He didn't know the name the boy was going by, however, Dumbledore had determined that if that got out it could cause him problems in his school life, just that the boy was definitely attending Hogwarts.
He also knew about how Sirius Black had betrayed the Potters, who was there with contact with the wizarding world who didn't after all, but hadn't expected Harry (whatever he might be calling himself) to find out.
And for Harry to ask for the reasons Sirius gave for his betrayal... it was something he hadn't even considered.
Before the letter he, the minister himself, hadn't questioned why Sirius betrayed them.
In fact, he didn't believe anyone had.
And while the betrayal had been public knowledge, the cause of it definitely wasn't.
Cornelius tried to recall what he'd heard about Black, before giving up for lack of relevant information.
He checked the schedule Umbridge had drawn up for him (he didn't precisely like the woman, but her loyalty was without question, and he needed someone loyal and with the right set of skills to manage his time for ministerial matters), confirming that he had enough time free (set aside for dealing with whatever letters came through on the schedule), before heading out of his office.
If anyone knew what had happened with Black they would be in the DMLE.
[|]
Amelia Bones, head of the DMLE, hadn't expected the position, but then again given how little time her predecessors had held the position it wasn't as much of a surprise as she'd have liked.
That she'd lived through 'the unpleasantness', as the minister insisted on calling the rise of Voldemort (she refused to bow to his Taboo in the privacy of her own mind), was a greater surprise, but she liked to believe it was down to her skills and those of the skilled personnel within her department.
Since then of course she had to let a lot of those skilled witches and wizards go, from the minister reducing her budget from 'the reducing levels of crime' within magical Britain.
Not that the levels of crime were really reducing, merely the obvious crimes of the Death Eaters were replaced with subtle crimes that rarely made the papers, helped, not that she would ever say it without proof, by the close relationship between the criminals and the paper.
All in all, to say that she disliked the minister was an understatement.
"Madam Bones," the voice of the man himself said as he entered her office.
She suppressed a sigh, instead fixing the smile she had trained herself to use to keep the minister happier with her and less likely to strip her budget without reason, and greeted him in turn.
"Minister Fudge, to what do I owe this visit?"
There were limits to what acting she was willing to go through to keep him happy.
"You will no doubt recall the name 'Sirius Black'," he continued, for once getting nearly straight to the point.
"Who hasn't."
"I was recently contacted by someone who is interested as to why Black... did what he did."
"I'm sure it must have come out at the trial. You can find out from the court documents."
"I must confess I've not exactly got any experience with tracking such documents down, and I'm sure there must be members of your department who recall the details of the case."
Yes, it was another of these visits where he would drop extra work, admittedly associated with her department, on her.
"It could take some time to find them, a lot of people left the department over the years after all," she told him.
"Then please contact my office when you find out."
Bones watched the minister leave, and considered the request he gave her this time.
It was important for her people to keep track of cases, given that sometimes mistakes were made, so treating this as a training exercise could be for the best.
She grabbed a sheet of parchment on her desk and quilled a memo for her department to run an official investigation on the Black case.
[|]
Returning to his office Cornelius considered the matter of the boys owl.
Unless he had bought a new owl just for this communication he was short a post owl.
And given that he had been living in a distant country, and the way that many people treated sending old owls to serve as Hogwarts post owls, it was unlikely that he would have another way to contact the people 'back home'.
Some people would try to distance Harry from his life before Hogwarts, but preventing him contacting them would make the boy distrust them. And it could be best to keep him at a distance from the wizarding world for a bit, else people would be clamouring for the boy to be minister, even if he was too young and immature to do the job properly.
But if he sent the owl back, how would he contact Harry to tell him what madam Bones found out?
Dumbledore. Dumbledore knew who the boy was, and a letter to him to pass on a second to the boy would work to tell the boy what he discovered.
As such he quilled a letter to the boy.
Harry (as I shall call you until you feel fit to share your name), he began.
As I do not know off-hand what drove Sirius Black to his betrayal I have tasked members of the DMLE, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, with uncovering the court records of the case. Madam Bones, the department head, has warned me that it may take some time to find the records, and I did not feel that holding on to your owl until I had answers, so I am sending this letter back to you to make it clear that I am doing something.
When I have an answer I will send you a letter via your headmaster, who I have contacted many times on various matters. He may not be accustomed to acting as a messaging service, but I am sure he will agree that you have the right to knowing why Black did what he did.
Cornelius Fudge,
Minister for Magic
He considered the letter for a moment, before folding it and attaching it to the owls leg, at which point the owl immediately took off to deliver the letter.
[|]
Time passed somewhat quickly for Harry, once he was used to the routine.
There were occasional deviances from the regular events, like Neville being taken by professor McGonagall for a new wand (with her muttering about how much easier it was with muggleborn, not having interfering relatives with no idea about wandlore) or professor Sprout deciding to pair up students from different houses in her lessons so Harry had to work with a 'Dudley Dursley' instead of Neville.
Given how knowledgable Neville was about herbology, and the importance of herbology to potion-making, this was less than ideal, as far as Harry was concerned, but he was hardly going to argue with a teacher about their lesson plans.
Hedwig had returned with a letter from the minister by the weekend, so he decided to send a letter home about the situation, that apparently he'd had a godfather from his original parents who had betrayed them, and was having the matter investigated (without mentioning that the investigation was going through the ministry of course).
There wasn't much else he could do about it until the minister contacted him again, after all, and Jiraiya would probably appreciate learning that he wasn't the worst godfather ever, nor even Harrys worst godfather.
He ended up with a weekend routine of sending another 'no news yet' update home, then visiting first Hagrid, learning about his time at Hogwarts and incidentally about the personalities of many of the combatants from the war, and Lupin, to hear about his parents and sometimes the differences in lessons between now and then.
Lessons continued as he was becoming accustomed, albeit with Neville becoming a lot more successful and confident with his spellcasting.
All in all, he was pretty much idling while waiting to hear just why Sirius Black betrayed his parents.
[|]
Bones was getting frustrated about the Black case.
She had expected it to serve as a straightforward training exercise, tracking down the records of an old trial and passing them back to the minister.
Instead she was now into a second month and her department was all but tearing apart the records office without finding anything about the trial.
About all they managed was finding certain inconsistencies with other cases from the time, on both sides of the war.
Given how much time had passed, there wasn't any point in investigating further, but the fact that there were such inconsistencies frustrated her no end.
"Madam Bones, are you still looking into that matter for me?"
She barely suppressed a growl at the ministers voice.
"Of course minister, but my department is finding the records... somewhat hard to track down. In fact, it's almost as if..."
A sudden realisation crossed her mind, and she dove into the pile of parchment the search had unearthed.
"Madam Bones?"
She ignored the minister, tracking down the records of trials covering the period after Blacks arrest.
She hadn't looked closely, with the initial hearing everyone assumed that the trial would be there, but actually checking the records of trials showed what she had been about to suggest as a joke.
"There wasn't a trial," she breathed, holding the parchment.
Fudge hesitated. "I'm sorry?"
"Sirius Black was never given a trial. He was found at the scene of an obvious crime and arrested, they had a hearing and placed him in Azkaban for holding but they never got around to a trial."
"I can't believe this, a man in Azkaban for a decade without trial? There isn't any doubt about his guilt is there? I mean, the only thing worse would be an innocent man in that place..."
"We can't know his guilt for sure without a trial," Bones answered. "That is the entire point of a trial. But after all this time... can we run a fair trial properly?"
"But to suggest we could have left an innocent in Azkaban for a decade-"
"Would you prefer the press hear that you would leave a man in prison without a trial or that you investigated the case of a man wrongly imprisoned by the previous administration?"
"Right, right. We need to investigate properly. Who was responsible for him not getting a trial?"
"Hard to say for sure, it was a period of confusion. Dumbledore took over as chief warlock and there was the scandal with Crouch."
She paused. "I'm sure I heard something about Crouch being involved in the Black case. Let me see... he handled the hearing, recommended leaving Black in Azkaban until the trial could be arranged and placed himself in charge of scheduling the trial. After that Black was sent to Azkaban minimum security-"
"Minimum security?"
Bones put down the parchments she was searching through. "Explain."
"I examine Azkaban on a regular basis as you know, make sure it remains secure and everything. Well, Black is in maximum security, with the other Death Eaters."
"I see... looking through the records, Crouch ordered the transfer, once enough time had passed to not be suspicious. And by the looks of it, he never started to prepare for Blacks trial, he deliberately covered up that Black never saw his day in court."
"Given the sort of man Crouch is, that could mean he was just confident in Blacks guilt..."
"No, he'd want the day in court to justify himself. Wait... didn't Crouch have his son turn out to be a Death Eater?"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"He could have been victim of the Imperius, used by his son to deal with one of Dumbledores people."
Fudge was nodding already. "Right, we need to transfer Black to minimum security again, get him his trial as soon as possible and send some aurors around to check on Crouch. If we can deal with this quickly enough we shouldn't face too much public backlash."
"For a case like this the entire Wizzengamot will want to be present. To avoid prior commitments the earliest day we can manage would be Halloween. Hardly an auspicious date..."
Fudge shook his head. "No, that would be perfect. Either we see the last loyal Death Eater sentenced on the anniversary of his masters defeat or the loyal friend of the Potters exonerated on the anniversary of their death. It's perfect!"
"I'll set things in motion," Bones managed through clenched teeth.
The discovery that Black hadn't had a trial, just left presumed guilty for a decade, reminded her of her thoughts on the man during the war.
They had fought side by side, even if he was only loosely connected to the DMLE, and in those days she had felt he would be a valuable member of the department if they could convince him to leave Dumbledores group of vigilantes and troublemakers (she knew that they didn't consider themselves such, and could concede that the obvious corruption within the department during the early days of the war could make it seem a good idea to find another way to fight back, but in the end the DMLE was still responsible for doing more to fight Voldemort than the Order).
When Blacks guilt had been declared, and he was placed in Azkaban, she had assumed that the lack of exoneration proved his guilt and questioned how much of his behaviour was merely a ploy, not to mention asking what sort of person could do such damage to his own allies in the name of his cover, had poisoned her memory of his actions.
Now that she had evidence that he was victim of a frame job, though, memories of the man he really was were coming back.
Along with regrets that she allowed one of her friends from the war to suffer so long...
[|]
It was Halloween, a holiday less than entirely familiar to Harry, before he received any more information on the matter of Sirius Black.
In an attempt to gather as much information on the wizarding world as he could, he had signed up for their paper, the 'Daily Prophet', as soon as he'd had the concept explained.
That morning, when the paper arrived, he was frozen at the headline.
The Black Trial
Sirius Blacks Long-Awaited Trial Today
[|]
Of all the things that Halloween could bring, a trial for Sirius Black was not one that Lucius Malfoy had expected.
It might have made him fear for his plans to have Draco inherit the Black fortune, but with Harry having vanished he had learnt that Harry was next in line, and with his return, anonymous as it was, no matter what happened with the trial Draco was not going to inherit.
Instead, it was time to see how he could best make use of Blacks inevitable exoneration.
After all, with what he had learnt about the family Black, there was no way Sirius would have simply gone to Azkaban if he were guilty...
AN: So here we see a more competent than canon minister, albeit one still too obsessed with stability and public perception. And as for the timeskip... well, not much tends to happen over the year when you really look at it, and with this being the week of Halloween I wanted to reference that.
As a side note, Tonks will be a year younger than she should be according to the wiki, for a plot point inspired by an incident in the first book.
