Okay, here's the next chapter of this. I was going to put the trial itself here and its outcome, but it ended up being way too long. Besides most of this chapter is about its leadup, not the trial itself anyway.
I hope you enjoy.
Disclaimer: Sorry, I got nothing. As it happens, I'm nearly broke, so I'm obviously not J.K. Rowling, or I'd be rich right now. Don't own anything of hers either.
When Amelia Bones left Black behind in the Ministry holding cells, the first thing she did was Apparate home to take a shower, to wash off the dirt and grime of Azkaban once more. She sighed. It seemed that every other day for the last month she had been going to Azkaban to remove another former Death Eater from the punishment they so richly deserved.
First it had been Severus Snape. Amelia was still not sure how that particular Death Eater had gotten off without punishment, since, as far as she knew, there were no close friends or relatives who had any significant amount of money. Lucius Malfoy, perhaps, would have used his money to bribe Snape out of Azkaban, but he was still there when Snape had been retrieved.
Next, had been Malfoy himself. That had not been a surprise, of course, but Amelia could wish that the Malfoy fortune wasn't so used. She had spent the last fifteen years in the Hit Wizards, trying to catch criminals, yet corruption still meant that the real bad ones went free while minor criminals like Mundungus Fletcher spent months in Azkaban. Not that Fletcher didn't deserve to be in prison, of course, it was just that Death Eaters like Malfoy and Snape got off free after torturing and killing countless innocents.
Then there had been Karkaroff, Avery, MacNair, and more. They all had steered clear of Azkaban, on trumped up claims of being under the Imperius Curse. Of course, the truth was that they had paid the Ministry off to get them out of Azkaban, or in Karkaroff's case had betrayed his fellow Death Eaters to the Ministry. They deserved to be in Azkaban, without a doubt. Amelia was sure that every one of them had participated in Muggle killings at the very least, and almost certainly the deaths of wizards as well. Perhaps one of them had even been the ones to kill Edgar and his family.
Amelia bit back bile at the thought of her older brother, who had been brutally murdered along with his entire family only the year before. Coming to his house for a Christmas Eve dinner, along with her younger brother and his family, and finding the Dark Mark floating above…that was an experience that she never wanted to have again. The only experience that had left her feeling worse had been the murder of her parents, even if it had been nearly six years earlier. To have her father physically jump in front of the curse meant for her had been the worst feeling possible.
Yet the people who were responsible for all these deaths and others like them were getting out of Axkaban scot-free.
But Black…this one confused Amelia, more than a little. The evidence was clear. Pettigrew, dead; the Muggles, dead; the Potters, dead. Everyone knew that Black had been James Potter's best friend, and, although many would not know this, she had heard that he was Potter's Secret Keeper as well. But the Potters had been killed by You-Know-Who, and Black was found without a scratch on him in the middle of a destroyed street with the bodies of thirteen Muggles and the Potter's other friend Peter Pettigrew lying around him.
But why did he act the way an innocent man would? His first question had been for the son of the man he betrayed. That was not the action of a guilty person. And then he had claimed that he had never had a trial. That had to be untrue, hadn't it? Every suspected Death Eater had been given a trial before being put in Azkaban, even Mulciber, who had been caught three days after You-Know-Who's fall on a rampage through a Muggle town. He had thirty Muggles dead before him and another one under the Cruciatus, but he still had been given a trial.
Surely Black had been given one too?
But Amelia could not remember him ever having been given the trial. She would have thought it would be a media circus, with reporters having a field day. But as far as she could remember, it had never gotten into the Daily Prophet.
For some reason, Amelia felt that Black had been telling the truth about not getting a trial. She didn't think he was in fact innocent, as the facts were all against him, but it was entirely possible he had gone straight to Azkaban without the courtesy of a trial before the Wizengamot.
Amelia decided to check, for it never hurt to be sure. After her shower and a quick bite to eat, she strode to the Floo. She said "Harold Bones' House" and stuck her head in the Floo.
After a few moments of her head spinning, she found her vision expanding to include the living room of her brother's house. At the moment, she could see her sister-in-law Catherine holding her daughter in her arms.
"Hello, Catherine. How's Susan?"
Catherine looked over to the fire with a smile. "Amelia! How nice to see you. You must come over for dinner next week, I insist. And Susan's very well, thanks. We thought she got the Dragon Pox a few days ago, but it turned out it was just a case of the cold."
"I might come join you some time, Catherine," Amelia responded. "But work is very busy right now."
"Of course, with all of the Death Eaters you are catching, I'm sure. But really, Harold would love to have you. And Susan always misses her Aunt Amelia."
"Perhaps. Is Harold there? I've a question I'd like to ask him."
"Sure. Harold!" Catherine called. "Amelia's on the Floo for you!"
Amelia's brother hurried into the living room. He had a square jaw much like Amelia's, and short brown hair parted in the middle. "Hey, Amelia. What's new?"
Amelia smiled, but quickly got down to business. "Harold, do you have access to the trial records at the DMLE?"
Harold responded, "Sure. Emily Catlan gave me the key to the records office just last week to get a couple of files for her. Why?"
"I need to know if Sirius Black got a trial."
"Black? Why would you need that? He's obviously guilty."
"Oh, I agree he's probably guilty. But there's the possibility he was sent to Azkaban without a trial, and I'd like to check. Besides, he's getting a retrial tomorrow, and if he was already given a trial I'd like to see the transcripts. I'm the case witch for Black for the trial."
"Sure, Amy. I'll get it for you if you want. But why is Black getting a retrial? Didn't he kill those Muggles in front of witnesses?"
"Don't call me that," Amelia said threateningly. "Anyway, I understand his mother bribed the Undersecretary to the Minister to give him a trial. Old Millicent Bagnold has basically retired. I understand she hasn't gone to work since You-Know-Who fell. Anyway, that's another odd part about this whole business. With Malfoy and MacNair, I heard some whisperings about bribes even before they were freed on a technicality. But with Black, I only hear about a trial, not any form of rigging. In fact, I understand Black's mother insisted on Veritaserum."
"But that sounds like he might actually be innocent," exclaimed Harold. "If they're willing to use Veritaserum."
"Sure," responded Amelia, "but in this case, I wouldn't be too certain. For one thing, there's more evidence against him than against Avery, Malfoy, and all the other freed Death Eaters. For another, if Black was actually innocent I don't think that the old Black hag would want him freed. From what I understand she's a pretty nasty blood-purist who would probably disown her son for supporting us against You-Know-Who. No, if she gives him a trial, then he's probably guilty."
"Huh," responded Harold. "Well that's interesting. I'll get you the trial records tomorrow morning. When does the trial happen?"
"Ten."
"I'll bring you the trial transcripts and any other information I can find on Black by eight tomorrow."
"Thank you, Harold." Amelia said.
As she withdrew her head from the fireplace, she heard Harold respond, "I want you to come to dinner next Friday, Amelia."
The Hit Witch shook her head with a wry smile as she reemerged from the Floo. Harold was a mid-level worker in the Ministry of Magic, but he never failed to try to entertain guests at all times. 'Networking,' he would say. In Amelia's opinion, he was just trying to keep busy. He had always hated being bored, even as a small child.
Barnabus Cuffe sat in his office, staring into his cup of tea. The past month or so had been the best of all of his tenure as Editor-In-Chief of the Daily Prophet. You-Know-Who was gone now. Covering the Death Eater trials had been incredibly good business, even those like MacNair who had gotten off due to bribes.
He was especially excited about the trial that was said to be coming up in a few weeks, as he had heard from an Auror informant that the Aurors were going to bring in Augustus Rockwood, the Unspeakable, on charges of being a Death Eater. That trial would certainly rake in the Galleons.
Barnabas took a deep sip of his tea. Now that things were returning to normal after nearly ten years of constant terror, the Daily Prophet would be able to recover to the power it had once held. He remembered being a junior correspondent in the days before You-Know-Who's rise. That had been exhilarating! Every story in the wizarding world had to go through the Daily Prophet's offices, and he had been in the middle of it. The Daily Prophet's stories had brought down governments, created officials, and set official policy.
But then You-Know-Who had come, ushering ten years of terror and fear. The Daily Prophet during that time had been unable to exercise the power it once had, as the Death Eaters struck fear in or killed any reporters who dared report against their interests. Barnabas himself had been attacked once, and only saved from death by the pure luck of having been within shouting range of an Auror patrol. That had been in the early days of the war of course, when the Aurors still had some reach, and after that brush with death he had been forced to have some restraint in what he wrote.
But now the You-Know-Who was dead, struck down in his prime by a mere boy. And Barnabas intended to lead the Daily Prophet back to its former place of glory and power.
Barnabas was interrupted from his musings by the approach of a small paper bird, which fluttered in through his office window and was barely saved from immersion in his tea by his hand. He took it, recognizing it as something from a trusted informer, a young man within the Hit Wizards who had always given Barnabas prime information.
He unrolled the paper bird, to read in shaky lettering:
Sirius Black to get retrial. Trial tomorrow. Bribe by Black's mother. Insists on Veritaserum.
The letter was short, but its contents made Barnabas sit up in his chair and stare. This information was worth the front page for three issues, at least! Without further ado, he called in his editorial staff and his top writers. Time to get to work.
At eight on the morning of the trial, Amelia Bones was up and alert. The Black trial was in two hours, and she wanted all the information she could get. It was true that she could not have any say on the outcome of the trial, but for all of her life Amelia had liked knowing as much about a situation as she could, lest she be taken by surprise.
That was truly why she hadn't become an Auror as she once had wished. She still wanted to fight Dark Wizards and help the wizarding world as her father had done, but she just couldn't stand the chaos and fog of war that an Auror had to face every day.
Instead, Amelia had joined the Hit Wizards, and found work catching minor criminals and detaining the dangerous ones, freeing up true Aurors to go out and fight Death Eaters. Amelia was actually a better dueler than most Aurors, but as her father's old friend Alastor Moody had once said, she just didn't have the right mentality for the brutal combat and chaos of an Auror's work.
Amelia Flooed to her brother's house at promptly eight o'clock that morning. She calmly walked out of the Floo, making quite a dignified picture, until she tripped over her niece's rattle. She fell flat on her face in a heap, to the chuckles of her brother and the delighted gurgles of her one year-old niece.
As she picked herself up from the floor, she scowled fiercely at her brother. "What possessed you to put a toy right across the Floo? Surely you realized that somebody would trip over it? What if it had been the Minister calling, or, Merlin forfend, Alastor Moody?"
Harold paled at the thought of the paranoid Auror coming out of the Floo and responding to a perceived attack, but then chuckled again. "Ah, cool down, Amelia. I knew that you would be here at eight exactly, so I put the rattle there on purpose. Nobody else would wake up early to arrive here at the exact strike of eight."
Amelia, still glaring, held out her hand. "Do you have the files I asked for?"
"Loosen up Amelia," Harold said. "There was no harm done, except to your pride. And nobody else was even here."
"That's not the point," Amelia responded in an icy voice, as she advanced on her brother. "The point is that you purposefully tripped me when I couldn't respond."
Harold backed up from his sister's angry face. "Alright, alright, Amy. I'm sorry."
Amelia's face relaxed, and she let loose a tiny smile. "It's always fun to scare you, Harold. I'm glad I still have the older sister glare down right." Harold relaxed, and Catherine let out a light chuckle as she watched her husband and sister-in-law interact. Then Amelia got back to business. "Now, did you find the files for Black's trial?"
Harold frowned. "No, and that's the odd part. I looked all through the files at the Ministry, and I couldn't find a thing. I even got Grant Fugend to look at the classified files of the Wizengamot, and I still couldn't find anything."
"So Black didn't get a trial, after all?" Amelia asked, frowning.
"I'm not sure. Just because I couldn't find the records doesn't mean that he didn't get a trial at all. It's possible the files got misplaced or destroyed since the trial. Or possibly it's classified even above the level of an ordinary member of the Wizengamot."
"Do you really think that?" Amelia asked skeptically.
"No, I don't," Harold admitted. "The timing is all wrong. He was captured only a day after You-Know-Who's fall, and the Wizengamot had trials for nearly a week straight afterwards. There wasn't time to try Black, especially not in a secret trial. Anyway, there should have been some sort of paper trail. The Wizengamot and the Ministry just can't keep something completely secret."
"It just doesn't add up. For one thing, I would have thought that they'd want to make an example of Black. He was the betrayer of the Potters, after all." Amelia said, voicing the thought that she'd had since she returned home from Azkaban the night before.
"Well…" Harold said reluctantly, "I might have an idea about that."
"What?" Amelia said, impatiently. "Why wouldn't they give him a trial?"
"Well, I heard, just rumor you understand, that the Obliviators badly messed up at the crime scene. There were at least 3 Muggles still alive, but the Obliviators missed them, and let them bleed out on the ground. If Black was brought to trial…" Harold trailed off.
"…Then the Obliviators would testify, it might come out, and then the Ministry would look bad. Damn," Amelia swore. She didn't often use profanities, but this was certainly a perfect place for a curse word or two. She hated finding more proof that the Ministry was not the perfect government she wished. "Where'd you hear this?"
"I got it from Emily Catlan down the hall from my office. Her husband's cousin is an Obliviator, and he said that Fudge was tearing strips out of his team. The cousin wasn't completely sure what it was about, but that was the rumor going around," Harold replied.
Amelia couldn't help but smile about her brother's connections. He always had been good with people, and he put his position in the Ministry to good use finding more people to get information from. A Healer could barely sneeze in Saint Mungo's before Harold heard about it in his office in the Ministry. She then thought about the implications of this new information, and winced. "So could this be a ploy by Black's mother to bring down the Ministry?"
"Possibly." Harold thought about it for a few minutes. "I heard the rumor about Black's mother giving the bribe when I went in to work this morning. You were right; it is odd that there wasn't any mention of rigging for the outcome of the trial. The Blacks certainly have enough money to buy him out of jail. If Walburga Black really wanted her son to get out of Azkaban and go free, she would have been able to create a farce trial with no actual deliberations. Instead she's insisting on Veritaserum for her son."
"So you think she's going to use her son to expose the incompetence of the Obliviators?"
"And make the Minister look bad, yeah. Maybe she has another candidate in mind, or possibly she's going to put her support behind a real bad blood-supremacist like Lucius Malfoy."
"That wouldn't work, would it?" Amelia exclaimed in horror. "Could the Black and Malfoy fortunes combined get Malfoy into power?"
"I don't think so. They would still need more votes on the Wizengamot, and Dumbledore probably has enough of a voting bloc to keep Malfoy out of office," Harold responded.
"Well that's good. But that still leaves us with the question about Black's trial," Amelia said. "Well, I don't think that—"
She was interrupted by Catherine reentering the living room. "Amelia, Harold," she called. "I think you'll want to take a look at this."
She was bearing a copy of the Daily Prophet, which had presumably just arrived. On the cover there was a picture of a mad looking man laughing maniacally. As they watched, the man in the picture was bound by the wand of another wizard, one whose body was outside of the frame of the picture.
Black to Get Retrial!
Ministry of Magic—LONDON. Yesterday evening, noted criminal Sirius Black was removed from Azkaban prison and brought to a holding cell in the basement of the Ministry of Magic. Sources say that Black is scheduled for a retrial, to take place today at ten o'clock at the Ministry courtrooms. He will be brought before the full Wizengamot for a reprisal of the charges brought against him a month ago, a few days after the fall of You-Know-Who.
Black was arrested in Muggle London within 12 hours of the deaths of the Potters and the destruction of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named by the Boy-Who-Lived. Ministry Obliviators and Aurors under the command of Cornelius Fudge took custody of Black in the midst of a massacre. 13 Muggles and Peter Pettigrew lay dead on the street, as a madly laughing Black (see picture above) was brought to the Ministry for their deaths. He was charged with Muggle-Baiting and Murder, and sentenced to life in Azkaban.
Yesterday, however, Black's mother, Walburga Black, a noted Blood-supremacist whose husband was arrested twice for Muggle-Baiting, arrived at the Ministry of Magic. What she did while within the confines of the Ministry is unknown, but within an hour of her departure late yesterday evening, Black was released from his cell in Azkaban.
The Daily Prophet refuses to speculate on the nature of Lady Black's interactions with the Ministry, but can only conclude that her actions directly led to the decision to retry Black.
For a detailed explanation of Black's crime, see p. 2.
For details on the Black family, see p. 4.
For an analysis on the laws for Muggle-Baiting as applied to the case, see p. 8.
For the second time that day, Amelia Bones swore. "Damn. The trial's going to be a media circus. And how did the Daily Prophet get a hold of this so fast?"
Harold read over the article once more. "Worse, how's the public going to react to this?"
In countless homes around the wizarding world, the morning edition of the Daily Prophet fluttered in through the window on the legs of owls. The first thing these wizards and witches saw was the face of Sirius Black laughing madly at them while bodies lay dead in the distance.
Alice Longbottom had been drinking her morning coffee in her safe house in Kent when the owl rapped on her window. She had not been having a good day. She had barely been taken out of hiding upon the deaths of her friends the Potters when Dumbledore had told her and her husband to return under the Fidelius again. Apparently the Order's spy, that creepy Snape boy who had been two years younger than her at Hogwarts, had heard that the Lestranges were looking for revenge.
Then only this morning Neville, their one-year-old son, had decided it would be fun to try and pet a Devil's Snare outside in the greenhouse. How and why Frank had let Neville into his greenhouses, she did not know, but he had barely managed to snatch Neville away before the plant had suffocated him to death.
When the owl landed on her table, she absently gave him seven Knuts for the paper and took another sip of her coffee. Suddenly, she spat out coffee all over the table as she read the article. "Frank!" she called, horrified.
"What is it, dear?" Frank Longbottom called from outside.
"Sirius…" she spluttered. "He's getting another trial."
"What?" Frank said incredulously as he walked through the door, holding Neville under his arm.
"They're retrying Sirius," she repeated, staring at the picture of her former friend.
"What?" Frank shouted, angrily. "After what he did? He betrayed Lily and James!"
"Apparently his mother bribed the Ministry." Alice glared at the paper bitterly. "I always though he hated her. I guess that's just another thing he lied about."
"Well, Dumbledore will take care of this," he growled angrily. "There's no way Black is going to go free after betraying Lily and James to You-Know-Who."
At that same moment, Minerva McGonagall burst through the doors to Albus Dumbledore's office at Hogwarts.
"Albus!" she shouted desperately. "Have you seen the paper today?"
Dumbledore looked up from his desk, where he was studying a new article in Transfiguration Weekly about the effects of partial transformation on an avian Animagus.
"No, I haven't, Minerva," he replied, his eyes twinkling. "Should I suppose there is something in the Daily Prophet this morning I would be interested in?" He took the proffered paper from his colleague's hand, and before looking down, absently asked, "Would you care for a lemon drop, Minerva?"
McGonagall growled. "Albus, read the first article in the paper. We can't let this happen."
Albus looked to be about to respond in his usual infuriatingly mild manner, when he caught sight of the front page. The twinkle instantly vanished from his eyes, and his face showed a sign of the steel that made the Headmaster of Hogwarts the most respected and most feared man in the Wizarding World. "What time is it now, Minerva?" he asked, calmly.
"It's about 9 right now. Are we going to prevent the trial?" Minerva asked hopefully. The news that one of her Gryffindors had been a spy for You-Know-Who had affected her very badly. The thought that he might get off without punishment made her blood boil.
"We won't be able to prevent the trial," Albus responded. "However, I must gather some influence to ensure that Black won't be freed. Gather the Order if you wouldn't mind, Minerva. I have a few calls to make."
Minerva left hurriedly, drawing her wand and casting a hasty Patronus as she went. As Minerva left, Dumbledore strode to the Floo and called "Snake's Lair." He chuckled bemusedly at the name of Severus' home. Leave it to him to make show his House affiliation in the most ostentatious manner possible.
The first Severus Snape knew of the success of his plans was the sight of Albus Dumbledore's head in his fireplace looking up at him. Having just gotten up, Severus did not know of the trial and thus had no idea why the Headmaster might have Floo called him so early in the morning.
"Headmaster," Severus said politely, nodding his head at the powerful wizard.
"Ah Severus, I see you are up. Would you mind if I stopped by for a moment?"
"Of course not, Headmaster," Severus said, his mind whirling. What could have happened for Dumbledore to want to visit him? Had the Lestranges carried out their attack? Was there a need for a Potion of some sort? Had the Dark Lord returned? Severus quickly checked his right forearm and breathed a sigh of relief. The Mark was just as pale and faded as it had been for the last 28 days.
When the Headmaster stepped across the threshold of his fireplace, Severus immediately asked "What do you need, Headmaster?"
Dumbledore smiled at him, but Severus noted that the twinkle was absent from his eyes. Something had happened, obviously, something bad. "Well, Severus, I was wondering if you have seen the Daily Prophet this morning?"
"No Headmaster," Severus responded, a sneer on his lips as always. "I have never felt the need to read such trash."
"Well, Severus, I believe that this morning you might find some information that interests you greatly."
Severus took the paper that Dumbledore was holding and looked at it curiously. At the sight of the front page article, Severus felt conflicting emotions. One the one hand, the sight of his childhood tormentor standing there, and the knowledge that he would receive a retrial, filled him with a deep and abiding anger. On the other, he remembered Lily's laugh, and the smile on her face, and felt relieved that his plans had worked.
Severus slammed his Occlumency shields up, pushing his conflicting emotions into the background of his mind and focusing on Dumbledore's face. "As I told you yesterday, Headmaster, I have some belief that Black may be innocent. However, why his mother would try to get him out of Azkaban if he were indeed innocent, I do not know."
"Ah, Severus, you see, it is clear from this new information that Sirius Black is guilty. We already knew that he was the Potters' Secret Keeper, and now we find that his notorious blood supremacist mother wants to get him out of Azkaban."
Severus hid his gratification that Dumbledore did not know of his actions and responded. "That does seem likely, yes, Headmaster."
He had decided not to argue against the Headmaster again until he understood that odd sensation of power he had felt the day before from Dumbledore. Dumbledore had not exuded that power before the Dark Lord fell, as far as he knew. What it was, Severus was not sure, but it seemed to persuade people to agree with Dumbledore. Severus did not know whether it was intentional or not, but until he did he wouldn't argue against the Headmaster.
"I'm glad we are in agreement then, Severus," Dumbledore said. "Now, I'd like to ask you a small favor."
"Yes Headmaster?" Severus asked, cautiously. Was it possible that Dumbledore did know about his talk with Walburga Black?
"I'd like you to bring some Veritaserum for the trial. I am unfortunately not as confident as I would like of the effectiveness of our legal system. I am, however, sure that I can convince the Wizengamot to allow the use of Veritaserum, which would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt Black's guilt."
Severus stifled a sigh of relief and thought amusedly that his plan had worked even better than he could have hoped. "Of course, Headmaster. I have three extra vials of Veritaserum that I brewed for the Malfoy trial."
The Headmaster grimaced slightly. "Ah, yes. Well, I would certainly hope that this trial will go better than the other. Fortunately, there are few ancestral allies of the Blacks left, so the Wizengamot will look more favorably upon a request for the use of Veritaserum. In fact, I will be travelling to the Lord Greengrass and the Lady Marshbanks to try to convince them to support me in this request."
Dumbledore accepted Severus' offered vials, and left through the Floo once more, to marshal his resources and ensure the re-imprisonment of Black.
As the members of the order gathered to discuss this latest development, and as families throughout the wizarding world received news of Black's retrial, Sirius Black himself was still languishing in a cell in the depths of the Ministry.
He had spent a well-rested night in the holding cell, free at last from the debilitating effects of Dementors, but it did not make up for the month he had spent in Azkaban. When he woke up, he immediately curled in on himself and closed his eyes, expecting the daily visit of a Dementor to make his life a living Hell once more. When it did not come, he opened his eyes slowly, fearing that the events of the night before had only been a dream.
As he opened his eyes, he stared around at his surroundings in wonder. It had not all been a dream, and he was here, in the Ministry holding cells. Sirius laughed a fuller laugh than any he had let loose since that hysterical one as he realized that his best friend, his brother, was dead, and another man whom he had once thought of as a friend had betrayed them both.
The prisoner looked around slowly, to see through the cell bars the witch from the night before striding towards him. What was her name? Oh yes, it was Hit Wizard Amelia Bones.
"Get up, Black. It's time for your trial," the witch said commandingly.
Two Dementors followed closely behind her, and Sirius curled in on himself some more as he felt the awful, cold presence of the Azkaban guards approaching him again. The witch looked at the Dementors with distaste and cast her ram Patronus once more. The ram filled Sirius with warmth again, protecting against the sadness and pain the Dementors filled him with.
"Thank you," he croaked, slowly pulling himself up.
Bones looked at him with nearly as much distaste as she did at the Dementors. "Well, you need to be in good shape for the trial, don't you?"
Sirius nearly collapsed once more as he realized the truth of the statement. He was going to get a trial! In only a few hours, he would be free once more; free to see Harry, Remus, Frank and Alice…even McGonagall would have been a beautiful sight for him at that moment.
Bones did not wait for Sirius to answer, but strode out of the cell once more, her ram Patronus and the pair of Dementors both following Sirius as he followed her. The procession reached the Ministry lifts at the end of the holding cells, and they filed inside. A soothing voice sounded in the confines of the lift as they went up several levels. Finally, the voice said, "Level Ten, Wizengamot Courthouses," and they all filed out of the lift once more.
"Come along, Black," Bones said, leading the way down a long corridor. "You'll be tried in Courtroom Ten."
Sirius followed her willingly, sticking as close to her ram Patronus as possible. His vocal chords still sore from long unused, he nevertheless tried to talk to his escort. "Where is Harry now?" he asked.
He was curious about this point. Probably with the Longbottoms, he thought, or perhaps with Remus, although given his furry little problem, that was improbable at best. Maybe Dumbledore himself had taken his godson?
The witch replied suspiciously, "Why do you want to know, Black? You're the reason he's an orphan now."
Sirius didn't bother contesting that point, as it was true. Even if he hadn't been the one to betray James and Lily to You-Know-Who, he had been the reason they used Wormtail as the Secret Keeper. In his mind, that meant that Bones' comment had been entirely true.
Instead he rasped, "Want to know he's okay."
Bones' expression softened slightly, and then tightened into suspicion once more. "He's away, far from where any Death Eaters like you could get at him."
Sirius barely heard her, and just muttered "oh, that's good," to her comment. He was too preoccupied by the small door in front of him to really listen to her. He was at the Courtroom finally, ready for his trial! He would be free in just a few hours! It seemed almost too good to be true after the events of the month before. He took a deep breath and walked inside, followed by the two Dementors that were his captors.
