As soon as Alduin bid goodbye to Harry, he began to think about what he needed to do. He needed to arrange enough support in Wizengamot for granting Sirius a trial, and he needed to secure Pettigrew as well, and both were cases of extremely high priority.
Judging Pettigrew to be the more crucial, since without him Black's case rather fell apart, he headed to the castle to speak to Dumbledore. Of course, the authorities would get around to it as well, but they needed to actually have a case first, and dealing with the ruckus of Sirius being perhaps-innocent would occupy them for a while. The risk of escape was too great, for if Pettigrew got the smallest whiff of what was going on, he would bolt for sure. So Alduin went in person, and on the way, tried to put together a list of relevant people on the governing body of magical Britain.
He'd vote for the Traverses. The Smiths and Malfoys would support him, and the Black vote would automatically count as in favour. The Burkes, the Shacklebolts, the Proudfoots, the Boneses, the Ollivanders and the Shafiqs would likely be convinced too.
The Greengrasses would be almost certainly against it, he knew, though maybe if he spoke to Socrates...the Lestranges could perhaps be made to see the light by emphasizing Bellatrix's blood ties. Lucius could probably convince his old Death Eater cronies. After all, one suspected servant of Riddle being judged innocent would indirectly benefit them all. It could cast a shade of doubt, in a way, on all the other cases.
The Crouches and The Princes would be against it, there was nothing doing there, and so would all the public institutions, likely.
The Abbots would be convinced when they were made to see the monstrosity of someone being put to Azkaban without a trial, and the same went for McMillans, hopefully. Arthur Weasley was amenable to be convinced, too.
The Flints, the Bulstrodes and the Parkinsons he put down as maybe.
He had ten votes in the pocket, strong hopes for three more, and ten other possibilities. And twelve definitive nos.
He would need thirty-five votes to get a retrial, he knew, but he had no idea about the protocol if there had never been a trial in the first place. It should go without saying, but then, things were rarely as they should.
Still, he thought he had a good chance. This number of votes would raise enough of a ruckus, and there were not enough people strongly opposed to matter, as long as they managed to circumvent Bartemius Crouch somehow.
Yes, this should work. Now to prevent Pettigrew from slipping through their fingers…
Dumbledore couldn't receive him immediately, unfortunately, but after a few minutes' wait, Pomona Sprout finally left and Alduin took her place opposite Dumbledore's desk.
"More news about the Horcruxes?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. "So soon?"
Alduin shook his head. "No. A different threat arose. I need you to call your Head Boy here, as soon as possible."
"You suspect Percy Weasley of being a threat?" Dumbledore asked, clearly surprised.
"Not him. He has a familiar, however, which...well, there is fear the rat could be an Animagus."
Dumbledore raised his eyebrow. "Sirius Black? Surely you do not believe his form would be a rat?"
"It's a little more complicated than that. But I think it would be best not to alert Mr. Weasley in advance, in case the Animagus senses danger and bolts, but at the same time, the matter is somewhat urgent..."
"Very well, then." Dumbledore conceded, bending down to his Floo and contacting McGonnagal, asking her to bring him Percy Weasley.
"And until he gets here," he said, "you can explain yourself."
"A dangerous dark wizard is suspected to be hiding in the form of Percy's rat," Alduin began, "but not Sirius Black."
"And why is it you who is informing me?" Dumbledore asked dubiously.
"The operation is somewhat...covert," Alduin said delicately.
"I understand Aurors walking towards my office would raise suspicion, but surely a Floo call..."
"Ah, but then, we suspect some of Ministry's employees," Alduin said entirely truthfully.
"Oh my." Dumbledore frowned. "So who is this dark wizard, then?"
"Peter Pettigrew."
Dumbledore stared at him. "Pettigrew is dead."
"According to some recent information we have received, it appears he might not be," Alduin simply said.
"But that...that would change everything." Dumbledore was nearly whispering in his shock.
"Precisely," Alduin said with a nod.
Dumbledore was silent, contemplating the possibilities, until the moment Percy arrived.
"Yes, sir? You wanted to see me?" He asked hesitantly, clearly not accustomed to being called to the Headmaster's office out of schedule.
"It appears," Dumbledore said before Alduin could even open his mouth, "that your pet rat has been subjected to some very dangerous dark magic."
Percy's eyes widened. "It's been growing more and more frail and ill as days went by, it's true," he said, "but I never thought...I thought he was just getting old!"
"It is more serious that that, I fear. Do you have it here, Mr. Weasley?" Dumbledore asked.
"No, it's in my dormitory..." Percy was looking nervous now.
"Could you fetch him for us, please?" Dumbledore asked in his 'friendly grandfather' tone. Alduin remembered how he used to find it condescending, but it did seem to calm Percy down.
He nodded and turned to leave, but Alduin stopped him. "Use this," he said, conjuring a bag and casting a few spells on it ensuring that once in, the Animagus couldn't escape. He'd been prepared to go catching an Animagus, after all, although a different one. "And try not to alarm the animal," he instructed Percy. "We suspect some of the Dark magic could be connected to the person who cast it, and we do not want them to know we are onto them."
Percy nodded seriously, took the bag and left.
There was long silence as they waited for him to return, both men lost deep in thought. When he did, he very carefully put the bag on the table, he contours of the rat inside just barely visible through the thick fabric. "You won't hurt him, will you, sir?" He asked.
"No," Dumbledore assured him kindly, "but perhaps you would wait outside?"
Reluctantly, Percy nodded and left. The moment he was gone, Dumbledore began casting spells on the bag, and then finally vanished it and in the same breath, cast the spell to transform an Animagus into their human form.
Peter Pettigrew sat on the table, unable to escape from the narrow space Dumbledore's spells have constricted him to.
"Well, well, well," Dumbledore muttered, conjuring ropes and tying him up for a good measure. "What a surprise, Peter. We all thought you were dead."
Pettigrew looked completely panicked. "I- I was so afraid, I had to hide, I was afraid he would find me!"
"Who?" Dumbledore asked innocently.
"Sirius Black!" Pettigrew exclaimed.
"But he has been in Azkaban for the last twelve years...why would you think he could hurt you?" Dumbledore asked him, now sounding confused.
"I...I knew he could escape, I knew it!" Pettigrew was wailing.
Dumbledore's tone of voice suddenly changed, became hard and sharp. "All the more damning that you never came forward to warn us, then," he said. "But no matter. I am sure the Ministry will sort it out."
"T-The Ministry?" Pettigrew squealed.
"Of course. What did you expect, my boy?" Dumbledore was back to his jovial tone, and now it was almost cruel.
And then Dumbledore Flooed the Auror office, and in twenty minutes, Kingsley and Giacomo were there, picking Pettigrew up and taking him away with them.
"Well," Dumbledore said, "now to locate Sirius."
"Kingsley already has him in custody," Alduin said flatly.
Dumbledore gave him a hard look. "You should have informed me."
"Given that you never tried to get him a trial in the last twelve years, I had some doubts about how much trust I could put in you as far as this went."
Dumbledore looked away, not having an answer to that.
"If I could bother you with one more thing," Alduin said, "could you call an emergency Wizengamot meeting? I'll Floo my allies to ensure they support a trial for Sirius."
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The Dementors from the gates of Hogwarts were gone, and the Prophet was full of articles about the scandalous discovery that Pettigrew was alive, and likely a murderer.
Harry's head, however, was preoccupied by one thing and one thing only.
Sirius Black, his godfaher, was innocent. He'd never betrayed his parents.
It wasn't much of a relief – Pettigrew betrayed them instead, so it was as if, instead of Neville, it was Sophie or Ron who betrayed him – but it required him to revise his entire mental picture of the man.
He was not a villain. He was his dad's best friend.
Yet even notwithstanding Alduin's advice, he couldn't quite say he liked the way Black talked to Alduin when they met. He should probably cut the man some slack, he'd been in prison with Dementors for years, but still.
Harry though of Lupin, and how he had so many issues with him too, and how Alduin told him his father was far from the ideal he had hoped for as a child.
He would like to get to know this Sirius Black once he was cleared, he decided, but he wouldn't hold out too much hope.
He was rather worried when he went to the training session with Snape after the weekend drama, but Snape never referred to it with a single word. His curses did seem to fly a little faster and a little sharper, true, and he dismissed Harry without any kind of comment on his skills when their time was up, but compared to what Harry had expected, it was like nothing had happened.
Harry wondered what this must be like for Snape. He must dislike Black even more strongly than Alduin did – much more strongly – and yet he now learned that the man was innocent, and had been unjustly imprisoned for twelve years. Harry could not imagine what that was like.
He though of his godfather, too, and what it was like for him to be back in the world after so many years. Though since he was still kept in a holding cell at the Ministry, perhaps not that much of a difference so far. But being without the Dementors had to be a relief.
Did he regret being captured again, Harry wondered as weeks passed and there was still no trial in sight? He had been free, though hunted, for a time, and now he was back to being under lock and chain, and with no future hope of escape, since him being an Animagus was known now. It was probably not a nice time for him still.
Harry was rather preoccupied by these considerations, and so as it was, he was not much in the mood for Quidditch, even though he did what he could, at Ron's insistence, to watch the new Ravenclaw Seeker in action for the first time to learn how she flew. It helped to keep his focus that she was...well, rather pretty, and Harry found it no hardship to keep his omniculars focused on her.
Draco still caught the Snitch, though.
She was an interesting distraction during the match, but it didn't keep Harry's mind off the problem of Sirius for long, and he soon grew maudlin again, entirely the wrong temper for the approaching Christmas or the Hogsmeade outing just before.
Ron tried to cheer him up by sharing gossip. "Seamus wanted to go with us to Three Broomsticks," he said quietly but gleefully, "but Lavender insisted he accompany her to some tearoom or something. He didn't look very thrilled!"
Harry thought Seamus never looked very thrilled when Lavender tried to spend some time with him. Even in his preoccupation, he had noticed that in the last couple of weeks. "I didn't know there was a tearoom in Hogsmeade," he only said. "I thought it was just the one pub."
"Nah, there's more. Fred and George definitely told me about some other shady place where weird people go..."
At that moment, Harry spotted Hermione and Su and headed to them. "Are we still up for Three Broomsticks?" He asked. He'd found out the girls hadn't been there either, and since he spent the last visit with the Slytherins, he figured it might be a good idea to get together with his Ravenclaw friends for a while at least. But he didn't know them so well, and so he asked them to join the Gryffindor group – he couldn't quite imagine spending time with just them.
"Sure," Su said. "I guess it'll be interesting to see. Do you know if they sell butterbeer in bottles? I promised Wei I'd bring him some."
They headed down to the school gates, mercifully free of Dementors now, and talking about classes carried them all the way to the pub. It was completely crowded, and they only found one table with three chairs. Harry was frowning at it and trying to figure out what to do when Hermione took a parchment out of her book-bag, tore it into smaller bits, and started to transfigure chairs from it.
Harry stared.
"Wow," he said simply, and then again, "wow."
"What?" Hermione asked him, apparently confused.
"Just...I couldn't do that."
She frowned at him. "We did object transformation in first and second year."
"I know, but...parchment to chairs? Actual, solid chairs," he added as he sat down, "which hold up when I sit? I guess Horatio is right about you after all."
Hermione rolled her eyes and looked at Su, who shook her head. "I might not be as amazed as Harry," she said, "but I still wouldn't trust any chair I transfigured, so I'm leaving this one up to you."
And so Hermione got enough chairs for everyone, and the others bought her a butterbeer for her trouble. It ended up being a pleasant few hours in the pub, but still, Harry couldn't entirely drag his mind from Sirius and all the problems related to him. He couldn't enjoy Hogsmeade half as much as he did last time.
It was a bad time for everyone, apparently, because just as they were about to leave Three Broomsticks, Seamus entered, flustered.
"Lavender broke up with me," he explained when they kept asking him what was wrong.
"Why?" Harry asked once the furor of the first reaction died down a bit.
"I don't rightly know," Seamus replied, sipping at his sympathy butterbeer Dean immediately got him. "Said I was boring and she felt like I wasn't really interested in spending time with her. I didn't know what to say to that, and she just sat there for a long time and then she said 'I guess this is goodbye then' and left. I really don't understand what happened."
"Are you all right?" Neville asked worriedly.
"Yeah, I guess...just bewildered. It was fun while it lasted, I guess? I mean, maybe she's right in a way." He blushed. "I really liked kissing her, but I didn't really know what to talk about, you know? It's not a problem when we're all together, but when we were alone, I just had no clue."
"Hod did you manage that first date, then?" Ron asked, traces of jealousy in his voice.
"Um, well, it was mostly Lavender talking," Seamus said. "I just listened. But I guess she ran out of things to say?"
They talked it over some more, the whole time they waited for him to finish his drink and then as they left the pub, but Harry's mind drifted back to Black once again. He wondered, not for the first time, what exactly happened between Alduin and his father's friends to make them acts so weird around him. He considered asking his cousin, but he wasn't sure if it wasn't bad manners. What if it was some painful memory? On the other hand, it was Harry's own father. He really wanted to know.
On the way back up to the castle, he nudged Neville and said quietly: "Do you think it'd be weird if I asked Alduin about why Lupin and Black speak so badly about him?"
Neville shrugged. "It'd probably be an uncomfortable conversation," he said. "But I get why want to ask. I think you should. You need to know what to think about Black."
That was very true. Right now, Harry had no idea, and mostly everything was a swirl of confusion to him.
Once in the Great Hall, Sophie disappeared from a while, and when she returned, she plopped down next to Seamus. "If I'd known your relationship would result in this much drama," she said, "I'd have never asked Lavender out for you."
"Why, what did she say?" Seamus asked immediately.
"That she broke up with you because she suspected you didn't love her, only she managed to spread this into a fifteen minute speech."
Seamus looked astonished. "Well, I mean...I probably don't? I liked her, I mean, but...isn't love the word people use when they want to get married or something?"
"Or have sex at least," Dean muttered.
Seamus looked a little horrified at the idea. "Then I definitely didn't love her," he said.
"Probably a good thing she broke up with you, then," Sophie pointed out.
"Do you really think she wanted me to sleep with her?" Seamus' eyes were wide, and he looked around at his friends beseechingly.
"Well, she didn't talk about that in the dormitory, that's for sure," Sophie commented.
"You're too young for that, aren't you?" Dean said. "I mean, I'm not sure what the rules are in the wizarding world..."
"You can start at fourteen," Ron said. "I remember Fred and George talking about it on their birthday."
"Gee, thanks," Dean replied. "Now I have the idea of your brothers having sex."
"Wow, fourteen's early," Sophie commented. "It's sixteen in the Muggle world, I think."
"The law says we can have sex," Dean muttered, "and meanwhile, I still kinda think kissing a girl is gross. Is something wrong with me?"
"Maybe you just prefer boys," Neville suggested, but Dean's face made it clear what he thought about the idea.
"I'm not gay," he said.
Neville looked confused. "What does that have to do with anything?"
Harry sighed. "It's the word Muggles use for people who prefer their own gender," he explained awkwardly, blushing.
Ron frowned. "Why? Do they think they're happier?"
Harry had never thought about that. "I dunno. They just do."
"Muggles are so weird," Ron declared.
"You're weird," Sophie said. "How do the wizards call it?"
"Nothing, I guess? Just, someone who sleeps with blokes a lot? Or, you know, girls if it's a girl."
"Who's weird now?" Sophie asked.
"Anyway," Seamus said loudly, seeming a little uncomfortable with the topic, "it's not like the law's forcing you to have sex, Dean. And if people like Lavender feel ready, maybe it's a good idea."
"It bothers you, doesn't it?" Dean asked.
"Well, I mean...wouldn't it bother you?"
"I'd be horrified," Dean replied.
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AN: Apologies for shocking my US readership by the low age of consent. It tends to be lower in Europe than in the US – we have 15 in Czechia – and wizarding world being old-fashioned in many ways, it seemed fitting that it would be lower than in the Muggle laws in the same area. After all, witches and wizards reach legal adulthood a year earlier than Muggles, too.
Also, assuming talking about love meant thinking about sex just seemed like a very teenaged thing to do, even if they're horrified.