It made a twisted sort of sense. When he was six, Sirius had used his parents' list of forbidden activities as a list of things to do. When he was sixteen, Sirius had run away from home and announced that he hated his entire family. When he was nineteen, Sirius had refused to attend his own father's funeral.

Of course, when he was thirty and being tried for mass murder, Sirius would refuse to answer a letter from from his exorbitantly wealthy and extremely well-connected grandfather and instead choose as his official representatives in court a trio of children who had specially stated that they had no legal knowledge.

No, that was no legal qualifications. A very fine distinction, Arcturus knew, but a distinction nevertheless. The children had had the sense to push for a delay so that Sirius could clean himself up a bit. Of course, because it was Sirius making the final call, he had refused to take the delay.

Arcturus was so worked up about it that he almost missed Director Bones beginning the questioning. "Mr. Black, you deny any foreknowledge of the attack on James and Lily Potter?"

Sirius nodded.

One of the identical assistants, Arcturus was almost sure that it was the one who had urged Sirius to claim mental incompetence, whispered something to Sirius, who said, "I had no foreknowledge of the attack."

"Objection," Undersecretary Umbridge said. "Leading the witness." That was a mistake. No doubt Minister Fudge wanted to make himself look good for the first big event of his tenure, but appointing an interrogator with little experience in law was a terrible idea.

Now that Arcturus thought about it, Fudge had been in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, so he might not have the strongest grip on how exactly this was supposed to work either.

Chief Warlock Dumbledore gave a look of mild disappointment to the interrogator's seats. "Usually, the term 'leading the witness' is used to refer to questions asked by the interrogators. Although-" He turned a bit to look at Sirius and the boys. "-coaching the defendant through questioning is generally frowned upon."

"Understood," the Witness for the Defense proper said. He turned to his brothers, and in a sort of stage whisper loud enough for the entire courtroom to hear him said, "The next time you want to point something out to him, say it loudly enough for everyone else to hear. It's less suspicious."

"Got it." Oddly enough, it was the boy who hadn't whispered advice to Sirius who answered.

"Moving on then," Director Bones said. "We have sworn witness statements from no fewer than five people that Lily Potter performed the Fidelias Charm on her residence, the place where she and her husband were murdered, and that you were the Secret Keeper. Do you deny this?"

Sirius blinked, looking rather confused. For a moment Arcturus was afraid he was going to drift off again, but it seemed that he only needed a few seconds to work out his answer in his head before he spoke. "Lily Potter performed the Fidelias Charm, yes, but I wasn't the Secret Keeper."

"Hem, hem." Undersecretary Umbridge leaned a little farther over the edge of the parapet. "One of those statements is from Albus Dumbledore who is, among other things, the Chief Warlock supervising this trial. Are you suggesting that he lied?"

It was a very good move and Arcturus braced himself for the response he was almost certain Sirius would give.

"No," Sirius said. He looked absolutely horrified by the idea. He began to say something else, but Arcturus couldn't make it out over Umbridge. There had to be some kind of spell on the Interrogators seats, that was the only way the voice of a small woman speaking in normal tones could overpower the sound of a large man screaming.

Arcturus gave himself a few seconds to file away the idea for later consideration before he forced his mind back to what Umbridge was saying. "So you weren't the Secret Keeper, but Dumbledore wasn't lying when he said you were? That might make sense to deranged murderers, but-"

"Are the Interrogators allowed to presume guilt?" one of the assistants asked. It was the one who had last spoken, who Arcturus was starting to think of as the commentator in contrast to his brother the adviser.

Undersecretary Umbridge stopped talking in the middle of her sentence, and even Dumbledore looked a bit taken aback by the question. In the moment of confusion, Arcturus noticed the Witness cast a quick spell at his brother's back, probably a counterspell to whatever spell had let the commentator speak over Umbridge.

"The Interrogators are charged with gathering evidence, both for an against the defendant, and presenting it to the assembled Wizengamot," Dumbledore said. Arcturus could only wonder what he was playing at, because that was a cop out if he had ever heard one and Dumbledore had gone out of his way to play along with the Witness for the Defense.

Perhaps that was it. Dumbledore wanted to make sure that he wasn't playing sides, wanted to appear impartial, so he was settling for letting Undersecretary Umbridge look bad rather than reprimanding her for unprofessional behavior.

"I believe we have gotten off topic," Director Bones said. She shot a glare at Undersecretary Umbridge that Arcturus was willing to bet half the court missed. "Mr. Black, do you have any explanation for why half a dozen upstanding citizens would believe you to be the Potter's Secret Keeper."

Sirius smiled, a sheepish sort of smile that Arcturus had seen frequently on Orion's face. It was generally accompanied by a transparent excuse and an attempt to shift blame onto nearby persons. It was not at all the kind of expression that made someone look good to the Wizengamot. "Because I told them so," Sirius said. "It was- It was my fault. All my fault. I-" Sirius broke off into incoherent mumbling.

The Interrogators all turned and looked at each other, like they weren't quite certain how to respond. To Arcturus's surprise, Minister Fudge was the one who spoke first. "Mr. Black, who was the Potter's Secret Keeper?"

"Peter Pettigrew."

There was a moment of shocked silence from the audience, before the room filled up with frenetic whispering. Two rows ahead of Arcturus, he could see Rita Skeeter's quill triple in speed.

"Mr. Pettigrew is one of the people who named you as the Potter's secret keeper," Director Bones said.

Sirius frowned, apparently confused. Arcturus couldn't blame him as he wasn't entirely sure what Director Bones was trying to get at. "Of course he did. It wouldn't have worked if people had known he was the Secret Keeper."

"So you were in cahoots with Peter Pettigrew," Undersecretary Umbridge said. Director Bones glared at her, but Umbridge didn't seem to notice. "What was the point of faking his death?"

"Faking his death?" Sirius had a strange look on his face, a sort of cross between fury and horror. "Pettigrew's dead. He blew himself up."

"Blew himself up?" Minister Fudge repeated. "You turned him into a rat."

Director Bones cleared her throat. "Perhaps it would be best if we asked Mr. Black for his account of the events that took place on October 31 and November 1, 1981. Mr. Black?"

Sirius blinked, and turned to the Witness for the Defense. "They think I turned him into a rat," he said in what might have been intended to be a whisper. "He was already a rat."

"Right," Witness Weasley said in a clear voice that carried over the entire courtroom. "Madam Bones wants to know what happened the night the Potters died."

"They want to know what the rat-"

Sirius was cut off by the commentator. "No, I think they want to know what you did."

"But if the rat figures into it at all, you can talk about him," he adviser added. The pair of them were taking this entire 'rat' business in stride, and Arcturus couldn't help but wonder why they had decided to take this case. What did they know that everyone else didn't?

"Right." Sirius gazed off into space for a few seconds before starting to talk. "I went to check on him and he wasn't there. He wasn't- It was all quiet, all peaceful, no Dark Mark to show an attack, but Pe-Pettigrew was gone.

"So I went to see James, to make sure, and... and-" Sirius was making a funny sort of sound that Arcturus really hoped was crying. Laughing, even laughing hysterically, when talking about finding friends dead was the kind of thing that looked terrible. "There was coming out of the house... Harry."

Sirius's face lit up in the goofiest grin that Arcturus had even seen on anybody, including Melanie when Lucretia had been born. "Harry's alive," Sirius announced as if it were a remarkable turn of events rather than something everyone already knew.

"Did you think he was dead?" the commentator asked.

"Mr. Weasley," Chief Warlock Dumbledore said reproachfully.

"Sorry, Professor," the adviser said at the same time the commentator said, "But it's totally relevant. If he thought Harry was dead and-"

"I didn't think he was dead," Sirius interrupted. "I just forgot he existed for a while. Does that make sense?" He turned to his witnesses, obviously expecting an answer.

"Not really," the commentator said after a couple of seconds thought, but it made a frightening amount of sense to Arcturus. Dementors sucked away a person's happy memories, leaving them with only the worst experiences of their life. If Sirius had only happy memories of his godson, and really what unhappy memories was he going to have of a friend's baby, then Azkaban would take them. If Sirius really thought about it he might notice a baby-shaped hole in the night James and Lily Potter died, but it was rather obvious that he hadn't done much thinking in the past several years.

"What happened when you reached the house, Mr. Black?" Witness Weasley asked.

"I met Hagrid," Sirius continued. "He'd taken Harry from the house. I told him that I was Harry's godfather and asked him to give me Harry. He refused, reminded me that if anything happened to his parents Harry was supposed to go and live with Lily's sister."

"Harry Potter was sent to live with Muggles?" Minister Fudge said, probably more loudly than he intended. Either that or whatever spell was on the Interrogators broadcast a whisper over the entire courtroom.

"Objection," Witness Weasley said. "Relevance."

"Sustained," Dumbledore said. "Please continue."

"I gave Hagrid my motorbike," Sirius said. "It would be safer than walking, and I didn't know if Harry would still be a target. Then I went after the rat- Peter Pettigrew, I mean. I caught up with him the next afternoon in... I'm not sure where. Someplace with lots of muggles. I went up to Peter, I told him he was going to pay for what he had done. Then he shouted 'Lily and James Sirius, how could you' and the entire street turned to watch. I went for my wand, he went for his."

"So you confess to breaking the International Statute of Secrecy," Undersecretary Umbridge shouted. She had a look of triumph on her face, as though Sirius admitting to have drawn a wand on Pettigrew decided the case.

Sirius opened his mouth, thought better of whatever he had planned to say, and shut it again. Or perhaps he had forgotten what he was going to say, that fit in more with what Arcturus had seen of Sirius.

"Madam Umbridge, I don't think that drawing you wand constitutes a breach of the International Statute of Secrecy," Witness Weasley said. "If I remember correctly, you have to actually perform a spell."

"More than that, whatever spell you perform has to be noticed by a muggle and require Ministry intervention," Director Bones added.

Umbridge fixed her with a glare that could have curdled milk.

If it hadn't been for the flick of her head, Arcturus wouldn't have known that Director Bones had even noticed Umbridge's displeasure. "That's assuming that neither the wizard or witch performing the spell nor the muggle witnessing it are in immediate danger. And that the muggle in question isn't a family member or government official entitled to know about the magical world. So you and Pettigrew both drew wands."

"Yes," Sirius said. "Pettigrew got off the first shot, but he blew it. I think he wanted to hit me with a blasting curse, but he forgot to aim or something. Took out most of the street. I only just got a shield charm up in time."

"And you thought that was funny, did you?" Minister Fudge asked. "You were laughing up a storm when the DMAC showed up to clean up."

"A little bit," Sirius admitted. "Then I realized that Peter had got a whole bunch of muggles as well as himself and it wasn't funny anymore but I couldn't stop laughing." There was a note of hysteria to his voice, as though he might start laughing again. "It was like when James slipped a laughing potion into my soup at dinner one night. I-"

"That's enough," Director Bones said. "Do you have any other witnesses or evidences that could collaborate this story?"

"No," Witness Weasley said, "but you mentioned Peter Pettigrew as providing a witness statement. Permission to cross-examine him."

Sirius looked as surprised as everyone else in the room. "But he blew himself up. He's dead."

Witness Weasley shook his head. "He got away. Spent the past eight years living as my brother Percy's pet rat. We were going to tell you all this before the trial, but all our requests for a meeting with you were denied." He shot an accusatory look at the assembled Wizengamot, some of whom appeared rather embarrassed.

Minister Fudge cleared his throat. "That was- Your brothers are both underage. I mean-" He took a deep breath. "Permission granted. Bring in Peter Pettigrew."