"You'd give me a trial, but not one of your own Midgardian mages?" Loki asks. "Should I be honored?"
The other grownups ignore him.
"You wizards have interrogation serum," Dad says in a voice like ice. "Snape used it on me. Trials shouldn't be a problem,"
Steve starts going on about justice and fairness, and Moody just grunts. "Wasn't my decision. We all thought he was a traitorous Death Eater."
"Even terrorists get trials," Steve argues, standing tall, his arms crossed.
"Like the HYDRA scum we've been taking down." Mr. Stark shoots Moody a look.
Harry's seen some of that on the telly, when people in suits say that HYDRA guys are going to jail forever.
"Where's my godfather?"
"In Azkaban. Wizard prison."
"But nobody said he's going to jail forever on the telly," Harry says, confused. Moody just said he didn't get a trial, and Harry knows what trials are.
Steve sighs. "Yeah, that's the problem. He just got thrown in prison."
"Are wizard prisons like ours with cinder block cells and bars? Or is it like in movies where they stick someone in a magical force field cube?"
Moody looks at Mr. Stark like he's the mad one. "We have walls. But it's the dementors that really keep prisoners in line."
"What are those? Like huge three headed dogs that eat people?"
"That's a cerberus." a bigger kid says as he walks past.
"Dogs don't have three heads!" Harry laughs, then turns to Steve. "Can you draw one with three heads? And Loki can make it move."
Steve nods, but he's still looking at Moody.
"So he needs a trial," Steve says, like Moody broke the rules. "And if he's mind-controlled, then…"
Steve glances at Dad.
"Why are you so convinced he was mind controlled?" Tony scowls at Steve. "Sometimes people just betray you because they're assholes."
"Innocent until proven guilty." Steve says it like it's a rule that can't be broken, except it sounds like it was.
"So, assuming you guys actually give him a long-overdue trial now, are us lowly muggles going to be allowed to witness it?" Mr. Stark folds his arms. "I mean, we did blow your statute of secrecy to shit."
"Shit!" Harry beams.
"Language!" Steve looks between Mr. Stark and Harry, frowning at Mr. Stark.
"Like you never swear," Dad says, and Steve turns to Dad like he might start to cry.
"Shit!" Harry shouts, delighted that he's getting away with saying a bad word.
Steve asks more about a trial, while Mr. Stark turns to Thor and Loki. "What are your prisons like? Do you have force fields? I guess you-" he points directly at Loki "-were close to finding out up close and personal."
The trial of Sirius Black is going to be the first wizard trial on the telly, because wizards don't even have telly.
"I was the first mage tried on your Midgardian screens," Loki says, bragging like he has to do it before anyone from Earth. He seems just as proud that he was the one to show all of Midgard the existence of magic.
Instead of people in suits talking, Sirius Black's trial has a bunch of people in robes in some kind of dungeon. The Ministry of Magic, Moody had said. He's there now, on the telly, and so is the old guy, Dumbledore, with the long silver hair and beard. Moody said Dumbledore pulled some strings to get this trial to happen fast.
Harry doesn't see any strings.
Harry leans back against Dad's legs, sharing snacks with Jubilee and other older kids. He hopes Dumbledore doesn't come back with Moody.
Harry realizes quickly that magic trials are just as boring as HYDRA trials, except for the scary black robe things that drag Sirius Black to a chair. The chair's chains wrap around his arms, and Dad breathes out loudly.
Sirius Black has long, dark hair like Harry and Dad. He's skinny, and his skin is like paper. His eyes are empty like Dad's are sometimes, like he also has bad dreams almost every night. Harry doesn't think those scary black things ever bring him hot cocoa after bad dreams.
They ask Sirius Black if he'll drink a serum, and didn't Steve say he got one of those? Harry glances at Dad, seeing Dad's lips press into a tight line as something is tipped down Sirius Black's throat. It doesn't make him big and strong, like Steve.
Mr. Stark starts taking money, betting that Sirius Black going to say the bad guys took his brain, like Dad. He never seems mad at Dad for his brain being stolen, and he believed Mr. Barton and Loki. But Mr. Stark seems to think Sirius Black is as bad as HYDRA. Maybe even worse.
The minister on the telly asks Sirius Black his name and other boring things. Harry would really rather watch sports. He doesn't even know this man, hasn't even seen him in the pictures in his photo book of his dead parents.
Harry flips through his album again. All the pictures move, sometimes the people walk in and out, and he watches the photos to see if Sirius Black ever pops in any of the photos. But he doesn't.
Harry looks up when he hears someone say Sirius was supposed to keep where Harry hid as a baby with his Mummy and first dad a secret, but he didn't.
"It wasn't me," says Sirius Black. His voice sounds even scratchier than Dad's did when he first found Harry. "It was Peter Pettigrew."
Moody stands like a statue, both eyes glued to Sirius Black, saying Black killed Pettigrew with a curse, and Steve looks at Harry like he shouldn't be in the room.
"The little rat sold out Lily and James to Voldemort." Sirius Black snarls, as angry as when Steve talks about HYDRA taking Dad's brain.
There's a lot more talking. Something about Peter Pettigrew turning into a rat, and confusing words like "unregistered animagus".
"Of course they can turn into animals." Mr. Stark shakes his head. He's still frowning, but he's not quite looking at Sirius Black with hatred anymore. "So now any animal could be a wizard or witch in disguise? Good thing I don't own any pets."
"Can we get a dog like Lucky?" Harry asks. "Not Nighty."
He wonders if Grandpa'fessor can find Snuffles. Snuffles looked a bit like Nighty, but Moody said he was a great guard dog. Nighty wasn't.
"And have it turn into a wizard?" Mr. Stark asks. Thor starts telling of how Loki turned into a snake and a horse, but then Steve shushes them, eyes on the telly.
The minister on telly shouts at everyone to be quiet, banging a hammer that's a lot smaller than Thor's. Harry snickers.
He still doesn't really know what's happening. Mr. Stark says that the Peter guy hurt people, and made everyone think it was Sirius, so Sirius got in trouble instead.
Harry knows what that's like. Dudley had broken Aunt 'Tuna's vase, and got mud on the carpet, and crumbs on the couch, but Harry was always the one who got in trouble. Even though he was never allowed to eat the biscuits that made the crumbs.
Sitting beside Harry on the floor, Jubilee offers Harry another biscuit from the sleeve of them. She's told him they're called cookies here, but he doesn't know why.
"Cleared of all charges," the Minister says, banging his small hammer.
Jubilee pumps her fists in the air, small sparks shooting out of them. "He didn't say he was mind controlled! Cough up! Whoo! I won money from Tony Stark!"
Stark pulls out his phone and tells Jarvis to transfer some.
"Make it extra, because you thought he was guilty," Jubilee grins at Mr. Stark, who rolls his eyes. Steve shakes his head.
Sirius Black sags as the chains unwrap from his arms. He looks both more tired and like a huge weight is off his shoulders. As Dumbledore and Moody head towards him, Sirius Black asks "Where's Harry? I have to see him."
The video stops before anyone answers.
Sorry I didn't get to Sirius actually meeting Harry, but that's probably going to be trickier to write and I figured I could at least post this in the meantime.