Oh, by the way, if any of you doubted it, yes, I have a tendency to make the main character an absolute badass. I'm working on it, I swear. But you're warned.
Chapter 4: Sirius Black was something else
Bellatrix gasped.
That was it. Bellatrix bloody Black had gasped, Sirius Black had used the Imperius curse on two cruciatus-tortured people in St. Mungo's in broad daylight, and the world had yet to explode.
Now, if she tried to think about it, it made sense. If there was a way to bring back the Longbottoms' consciousness, it would be with a curse which forced the victim to obey. Theoretically, if Sirius ordered the two purebloods to come back to their senses, they would do so. Theoretically.
Bella had tried to put a mad man under the Imperius curse, once. It hadn't worked well. The thing was, the man had obeyed. In the way he had understood her orders. Since he was mad, it hadn't been quite what she had expected. Instead of telling her what he knew about the incident she had been interested in, the incident in which he had lost his mind, he had started to imitate a duck. For two hours. In the end, exasperated, the witch had killed the poor man. In this case, she wasn't even sure she hadn't been doing him a favor.
If Sirius wanted to reach the Longbottoms' minds, he'd have to get their disturbed brains to trust him, and for a crazy person to really trust someone... Let's say he'd be lucky if they trusted him enough.
Well, maybe trust wasn't needed, since they were under the Imperius curse, but her cousin would still need to formulate his orders so that they'd do what he wanted and not something completely different.
So the ghost waited.
She could see Sirius whispering to himself, his eyes unfocused, and she wondered how hard it could be to use the Unforgivable to heal a mind.
If Sirius succeeded... That would be a whole new study subject for the healers to work on. Of course, she knew there would be issues, but if they worked on patients who were already mental... The healers wouldn't be able to do much more damage. Unless one of them decided to order a mad man around and have him murder someone for example. But that, considering they could get through the uncomprehensible mind of a mad man, they could do it already.
A minute. Ten. Thirty...
As time passed, Bellatrix grew wary of her surroundings. At some point, someone was bound to come and bump into Sirius' wards. If he didn't speed up a little, they'd be on their way to Azkaban faster than it took to say "Unforgivable Curse".
If so, would she be forced to follow her cousin to the prison? There hadn't been a distance leash when she had awaken from her deathly slumber and passed through the Veil to the mortal realm as a ghost, or at least she didn't think so. By then, Sirius had already been taken to St. Mungo's, and she was still in the Ministry. But she had felt the need to see him, to shorten the distance, perhaps. Had it only been because their link had been a new one? She didn't know.
What she knew for sure was that she didn't want to go back to Azkaban. Not even as a ghost. Even less so as a ghost, maybe. If Sirius were to take her to Hogwarts one day, she'd ask one of the ghosts if the dementors had any effect on them. She hoped not.
Someone had yet to interrupt them, and the ghost thought the hospital was being unusually quiet. It was almost frightening. Maybe something had happened, and the healers were mostly busy elsewhere. After all, the Dark Lord had no reason left to play nice, everybody knew he was alive. Maybe he had done something, and there were a lot of hurt witches and wizards.
Bella winced at the thought. At least, if healers were needed, it meant there were survivors. After all, the dead didn't need medical care.
She stopped thinking about it, believing she had heard something coming from the front of the room. She listened with attention, but couldn't hear anything else than the ward's usual – and quite unusual – noises.
After a while, her attention shifted back to her cousin and to the Longbottom couple.
Looking at them wasn't easy, it brought a lot of guilt on her mind, but she did it nonetheless.
Sirius had put away the stolen wand. He didn't need it once the curse had been activated. He and the Longbottoms were close. Frank and Alice were holding hands, but their free hands were grapping Sirius'. They looked at him with awe, and Bellatrix wondered what it meant.
That's when she noticed something wrong with her cousin.
Sirius was slightly shaking. When she came closer, the Longbottoms shrieked and tried to get away as much as they could, but she didn't care. There was something bad happening, she was certain of that. And she wasn't going to let her cousin die before she could apologize to Andromeda. And maybe to a lot of other people.
Bella gulped. The wizard wasn't only shaking. At first she thought it was his makeup running, but that was stupid, since Sirius didn't use makeup. No, he had black tears blurring his sight, he had spat some black liquid on the beds and his nose was bleeding thick – and a bit too dark – blood.
She had to stop him from doing whatever he was doing. Sirius was certainly not healed, and she guessed using dark magic had worsened his state.
So she put her hand on his shoulder, hoping the cold would wake him up.
It didn't.
"Oh so good and magnanimous master!"
Bugger. Sirius and his stupid orders.
The wizard winced, but he didn't seem to realize she was calling him.
"Oh so good and magnanimous master, will you please snap out of it?! Merlin's beard, he doesn't even hear me!"
And of course, that was the moment someone decided to try and come in. Bella heard the man bump into Sirius' ward, and all of a sudden she was glad her cousin was so good at making wards even with a wand which wasn't his. The healer shouted something about some medicine related insult, and all hell broke loose in the Janus Thickey Ward. Patients began to cry and shriek and shout and make a lot of noise, the healer ran out of the room to get some help, and Bellatrix was completely panicked. She hadn't been in a panic since something like twenty years.
"Sirius Orion Black, oh so good and magnanimous master! If you don't come back to your senses, you'll go back to Azkaban without a trial, once again, and I'll make sure your life will be hell in there! Especially if I have to follow you, because if that's the case I won't ever leave you alone and you'll hear me whisper all the atrocities I've done in my life and everything about the Death Eaters' crimes that I know of!"
And just for good measure, she slapped through him. Sirius shuddered even more after that, but he was so focused – and, she suspected, losing it – he didn't even flinch at her yelling.
But then the impossible happened.
The ghost saw a glint in Alice Longbottom's eyes, something full of hope, fear, hatred, love, she wasn't sure because it was so quick, but she saw something. So far, there hadn't been much in the woman's eyes. Mere curiosity, a bit of fear, maybe, but the mind of a very young child. And nothing which could suggest comprehension.
Alice Longbottom let go of Sirius' hand and nudged her husband so that he'd do the same, and some recognition passed through the man's eyes. Soon after that, they were back to gazing into the room with an innocent look on their faces.
Ten seconds passed, and Sirius gasped for air. He looked around him as if he was lost and searching for landmarks. When he saw the ghost and the two patients, he understood and turned to Bella.
"What happened?! Why did you stop me? I was almost there!"
"Someone is coming, you dunderhead of an oh so good and magnanimous master, and take a look at your clothes! While you were away in the mental land of the crazy ones, your body was having some kind of fit. Now take this wand, clean the sheets and yourself before anyone get to see you in this state, and let's go!"
Sirius looked at his hospital gown and his suspicions disappeared altogether. Bellatrix hadn't tried to stop him from getting his friends back, she had really been worried about him – or about what would happen to her if he died. But anyway, she had acted for his sake.
He quickly made the blackish stains disappear, looked one last time at his two friends, and left the room just before the healers came in. He left the wand in the corridor where he had stolen it, hoping its owner would simply think he had lost it at some point. Then he and Bella somehow made their way back to their own room. Eleanor Rowle was still sitting next to the door, and there still was no sign of any guard or healer. It was strange, but after all, Voldemort had been seen. He had no reason to hide anymore. Something had surely happened that had called for all the help available.
Once inside, Sirius locked his door again before sitting on his bed.
Bellatrix hadn't told him what she had witnessed about the Longbottoms. She didn't want him to have false hope. But if what he had done had worked... The news would be so enormous they'd hear about it.
Once inside, Sirius began to pace around the room, and Bella had to threaten to go outside and tell tales of their childhood to the first person she'd meet for him to lie down and rest.
The ghost smirked when she saw she had been right and Sirius had fallen asleep in less than two minutes.
Bellatrix spent the next hours wondering if a ghost could somehow sleep too, and was disappointed to see once again that no, she wasn't likely to succeed in falling asleep. She had searched for memories of Binns' lessons, and even that hadn't made her more prone to sleep.
So she was carelessly floating around the room while gazing into nothingness when the door opened, revealing not only the Rowle girl, but also Sirius' half-breed friend, Alastor Moody and an auror she didn't know. The woman was most likely there to keep an eye on the visitors.
Bellatrix stuck herself to the ceiling, but she had the horrible feeling this trick would not work with Moody's magical eye.
"Has he been conscious since last time?"
Bella listened to Lupin's voice.
She found herself surprised to like listening to his voice.
The man was a werewolf, she knew that, but if she hadn't... Well, there was also the fact that he was only a halfblood. But, nonetheless, when she heard this wizard talking – because he was first and foremost a wizard, when Greyback was first and foremost a vicious beast – she had this feeling in her chest. This feeling that the werewolf held more nobility than most of the purebloods.
Sirius had gotten an invaluable friend, she knew it only listening to Lupin's voice.
In a way, he reminded her of Dumbledore. Kind, calm, knowing, yet capable. If he hadn't been bitten by Greyback, he would have been someone. Bella knew it in her non-existant flesh.
Eleanor Rowle shook her head.
"Not as far as I know. What is certain is that he didn't ask for anything or anyone through the door, so I guess he was asleep. But, well, since I'm not a guard, and I'm here of my own will, it wasn't my duty to monitor him, I believe."
The young woman glared at the female auror. They hadn't even let anyone in the room while the guards were away, and if Sirius Black had suddenly needed medical care, even a healer couldn't have come into the room. If anything, Eleanor was frankly displeased with the Ministry right now.
The auror held up her hands and glared back.
"Sorry if we're a bit busy with Death Eaters running free in the whole country! Maybe you could ask your big brother to slow down the pace, Miss Rowle."
The young woman winced at the accusation, but she wasn't going to stay silent. Yes, her brother was a Death Eater, but she loathed him as much as she hated Voldemort. After all, the young pureblooded witch had halfblood and muggleborn friends, and she even knew a bunch of perfectly non-magical muggles. Hell, she knew some men and women who were brighter than most of the known, pureblooded Death Eaters, and they were only muggles. Jane Mauss, for instance, was a genius in science, and could be frightening when she wanted to. And to do that, she didn't need a wand or any magical powers.
"If I were to meet with Thorfinn, believe my words when I say I wouldn't waste time talking to him, and would more likely stun him on the spot before taking him here."
Bella refrained a laugh. Thorfinn Rowle was an idiot, that she knew, but he was a bit more powerful than that. An idiot, and powerful. The worst combination ever.
But then the ghost saw Eleanor's face, and all of a sudden she wasn't so sure the young witch wouldn't be able to take down her brother if she was given the chance. Thinking back to her conversations with Thorfinn Rowle, Bella tried to remember if he had said anything about his sister. Their conversations, if they could really be called that, had been scarce. Bellatrix hadn't been really eager to talk to the wizard, for he was an utter fool.
Thorfinn Rowle did seldom talk about his sister, and when he did, it was mostly to belittle her for her friends. Blood traitors, halfbloods, muggleborns, even muggles! But she also remembered one occasion, when he had let it slip that she had gotten full marks in all her exams. And when Bellatrix had asked the younger Death Eaters about the girl, wondering if she was really not fit to be one of them in the future, after all, she was a pureblood... Witches and wizards alike had shuddered at the mention of her name and had never answered her question.
At the time, Bellatrix had been this close to believe they were scared of Eleanor Rowle, though she couldn't figure out why.
The young witch and the auror were still glaring at each other when Remus Lupin sighed and asked them to be a bit calmer. He was here to see how Sirius was doing, not to hear insults being thrown between strangers.
"Alastor, would you tell me if he's better? Last time we came he had almost eliminated the darkness which had invaded his body, according to the healers."
The ex-auror grunted something that sounded vaguely like a "yes" and his magical eye went to the sleeping form in the bed. Almost immediately, Moody's face became even more of a mask of horror; he had frowned and winced at the same time, causing his disfigured visage to morph into something even Bella wasn't sure to be human-like.
"Either the healers lied to you, Lupin, or Black is having a dark magic relapse."
The werewolf rushed to his friend's side and removed the bed's sheets in a hurried gesture.
Sirius was shaking a little, his hands gripping his hospital gown so tightly his joints were white. He was sleeping, and seemed to be having a nightmare, for he was muttering things in his sleep. From where she was, stuck to the ceiling, Bella could see the very black tears dripping and defiling the white pillow she had been aimed at with not long before. Lupin gasped when he saw the drops of blackish, thick blood, which had left a trail from Sirius' nose to his chin.
"What the hell is that?!"
Now that she wasn't panicking, unlike the first time she had seen the phenomenon, Bellatrix noticed that his cousin was also bleeding from his ears, though not as much as from his nose. Worried, she tried to move to get a better angle.
Alastor Moody's magical eye went white at the very time the ghost moved, now directed to the ceiling. The ex-auror stiffened at what the eye showed him, but he said nothing, pretending to be too preoccupied with the wizard whose blood had been half-substituted with a liquid substance definitely affiliated with dark magic. With a discreet wand move behind his back, he silently cast ghost-proof wards at the walls, the ceiling and the floor, hoping it would hold long enough for him to interrogate the witch's ghost hiding under the ceiling once the others'd have left. Ghost-proof wards were unstable at best and generally didn't last long.
While his magical eye was keeping tabs on Bellatrix, the other one looked at the shivering form of her cousin, Sirius Black. He didn't need the special uses of his other eye to see something was utterly wrong with the boy. Hell, he had seen enough the first time he had looked, with both eyes.
Truth be told, Mad-Eye wasn't even sure Black was still human after the stunt he'd pulled with the Veil in the Department of Mysteries. The same way he wasn't sure Voldemort could still be counted as a human being either.
When the Rowle girl came back with two healers, he was wondering about Black and his real side. Sure, Black was a member of the Order of the Phoenix, even the ex-auror's legendary paranoia wouldn't question that fact. The boy had lost too much for the Order during the first war, and yet he had voluntered to be part of it again as soon as Voldemort had been reported alive. He had stayed in a house he hated for almost a year, going out once only, he had killed his cousin, one of the worst Death Eaters ever, Bellatrix Lestrange. He had earned his spurs.
Even though Lestrange's ghost was stuck to the ceiling of his hospital room at this very moment.
No, Moody did not doubt Black's allegiances. He trusted the boy as much as Alastor Moody could trust someone. That is, after a legilimency test – not very useful on a Black he had to admit – a veritaserum test – though the lad could have taken an antidote beforehand – and the statement of Dumbledore himself's trust in the man – even if some Death Eater could have taken polyjuice and impersonated the headmaster at some point.
What Mad-Eye feared wasn't the boy's beliefs, for he knew them to be the same as his owns. It wasn't Black's loyalty either, for he knew where it laid.
What he doubted was the lad's natural skills with dark magic, and the possibility that Black would lose himself to the Dark Arts, even unwillingly, for he knew that some of the members of the House of Black had a real instinct with the use of the Dark Arts. Bellatrix Lestrange had been one of those, and Sirius Black was definitely one of those too.
The healers were busy with Sirius, trying to understand what had happened, how it had come to be, and why the hell they had been kept out of the room for so long?! – but nothing really came out. They tried to clean the sheets with a spell, but the black stains would only fade a bit, confirming they were due to some dark magic event. In the end, the healers couldn't do much, and left shaking their heads, reassuring the Rowle girl and Lupin that they'd be in the room at the end of the corridor, ready to come if they needed help.
Nonetheless, their intervention had caused Sirius to calm down, and their spells had stopped the bleeding. They hadn't been able to identify the cause, so it was likely to happen again, but treating the symptoms was still slightly better than doing nothing.
Lupin worried for a while over his friend, and Bella really thought that the hell with his lycanthropy, at least the wizard was a decent man. She knew lots of purebloods who could have benefited from his example if only they would open their eyes and understand that every werewolf wasn't a Fenrir Greyback. Soon enough the ghost stopped her thoughts from going there, finally conscious of her change of heart.
Instead, she observed Eleanor Rowle.
The young woman was a mystery. Not only she was a Rowle and worrying over a blood traitor, but she was also doing it to the surprise of almost everyone. The supporters, Death Eaters or not, of the Dark Lord were flustered by her course of action. The Ministry officials were looking oddly at their colleague. Dumbledore's people were being wary of her. It was widely known that she simply didn't take part in all the fuss, staying away from the upcoming war...
Or did she?
Purebloods, blood traitors, halfbloods, muggle lovers, muggleborns. She had friends in every layers of the wizarding society, and some whispered she knew personally some of the rare muggles who knew about the wizarding world due to special circumstances, those who weren't only parents or siblings of muggleborns.
If Eleanor Rowle wasn't acting in the war, her beliefs were obvious enough to anyone who cared.
Yet, somehow, her family had never even thought about disowning her, as the Blacks had done with Sirius. Sure, the Rowles weren't as much of a purist bunch as the Blacks had been. But most of the family was still favorable to the pureblooded ideology, her own brother was a Death Eater, two or three other family members were suspected of being the Dark Lord's men... A rumor Bellatrix could confirm to some extant.
This was enough to create gossip of the worst sort. The purists all said she was with the muggle lovers, the unprejudiced purebloods and the other claimed her position within her family was way too suspicious, and no one dared to ever ask her what she of all people thought about that.
So, it was a fair question, in Bella's mind, to ask: what did the thirty-years-old witch want with her cousin?
Sirius' situation was similar to the young woman, and at the same time way worse. All his actions since the First War were that of a man of the Order of the Phoenix, Bellatrix knew that.
The public didn't.
The Death Eaters and the Dark Lord knew he was their enemy. Yet they surely wondered about the blatant use of a very dark curse by the only remaining wizard going by the name of Black. Had Sirius Black changed his mind? Had the grip of the Dark Arts finally affected the man? Could he finally be swayed to the dark side? Or, more humorously, had he at last seen the light?
Dumbledore's supporters and the common wizard were certainly thinking he had fallen, after thirty-six years of defiance, to the natural fate of the members of the House of Black. Most of them, at least. Lupin and Tonks, as she liked to be called, trusted their friend and cousin. Bella felt a bit relieved at the thought. But she also knew what the others would say. After all, Remus Lupin was a werewolf, and Andromeda and Nymphadora Tonks were members of the House of Black too, though disowned. The conclusion was obvious: like Sirius Black, they had finally fallen.
Because Blacks could only be evil, and werewolves could only be evil, so even if the Dark Lord wanted all of them dead, the public could only think they were evil.
Bellatrix was enraged at the thought. She hadn't been a good example, she knew that. She had never pretended to be one. And now, she was sane – and dead, but that wasn't the point. Sirius, Andromeda, and from what she had seen, Nymphadora and Lupin, were all truthworthy. All those who said otherwise were fools, as prejudiced as those they fought in the first place. The prejudices weren't the same... but they weren't any better than the bigots'.
The ghost wondered what Dumbledore thought about Sirius now. She knew the man was no fool as she had said he was so many times, following her Lord's lead, and her mad worship of the Dark Lo... of Voldemort. She knew the old wizard wasn't happy with the use of the Dark Arts, and she could understand that.
To her, to Sirius too, it was all about instinct, so they weren't going to lose themselves in them, not if they had something to hold onto, something important enough for them to stay on the good side of the world. Back then, she hadn't had this thing, but Sirius had it. That was why she had gone mad and he hadn't. Nothing to do with the use of the Dark Arts. The Blacks weren't affected by something so petty, and it wasn't her usual arrogance talking. It was the truth.
But to other witches and wizards, the darkest magics had always been a short way to their downfall. Fighting their temptations was something most of the wizarding community wasn't able to do properly once they had gone beyond the pale. Each person's borders were different, but there was always a moment when they crossed the line.
Members of the House of Black excepted.
Dumbledore wasn't stupid, Bella mused. He had to know being a Black meant you could go anywhere in the realm of darkness and come back unscathed. Therefore he knew there was no limit to what a Black could dare and still get away with. The Blacks were ruled only by their beliefs and their personalities, never by dark magic.
The ghost was so busy thinking she missed the look which crossed Eleanor Rowle's face for a second before disappearing. But the look had been here, and Remus hadn't missed it. He smiled gently to himself, remembering their last year at Hogwarts, and the girl's first year. The past wasn't enough for him to trust a Rowle... but it was enough to give her a chance.
"Right, the visit has gone on long enough, now everybody out."
The werewolf looked curiously at Moody, not seeing why the ex-auror was throwing them out, but he did as he was ordered to. Eleanor left too and winced, conscious that now, she had to go to work. The auror tried to stay behind when she saw that Moody wasn't willing to move, but a glare from the older wizard made her shiver and run away with as much dignity as she could manage.
After all, this was Alastor Moody, not some random possible Death Eater or passerby. If she was to leave him alone with Sirius Black, Scrimgeour wouldn't dare to punish her. She sighed, hoping the official announcement would be made soon. Everybody knew this was coming, but for now, Fudge was still officially Minister for Magic. As soon as Scrimgeour would be Minister... the auror would have a new head of the auror Office. And really, the sooner the better.
Mad-Eye closed the door behind them and hexed it not to be opened from outside under any circumstances. He then walked to the sleeping form of Sirius, his wooden leg rattling on the floor.
Moody considered the wizard he had known for years with a renewed interest, his magical eye disturbed by the waves of darkness running under the man's skin. He had been told what Black had said to Lupin and the aurors before blacking out, and didn't particularly mind the wizard's choice. But with what he could see... He was worried, and even more stupefied that Black could even sleep.
Most of the wizards he knew would have been screaming in pain, but Black wasn't. Again, most of them hadn't survived twelve years in Azkaban. Even those Voldemort had freed during the last year were in a worst state that Black was. Not a two years difference, more like a twenty years difference. The Lestranges, Dolohov, Rookwood... They had suffered their time in Azkaban, and if their insanity wasn't visible at first, it was here, rampant, crawling under their skins. Black was still haunted by his own time in the prison, Moody knew that, but he was sane.
Sirius Black was something else.
If he had been anyone else, he'd have been dead for years.
If he had had another kind of personality, Alastor Moody would have feared he'd soon have a new Dark Lord on the rise. With this much power, this much determination, many wizards and witches would have gone down that road.
Not Black, though.
"Get down here, Lestrange. And don't try to pass through a wall or anything else, I've set up ghost-proof wards on this room the moment I spotted you."
Bella let out a little shriek, and left the ceiling without thinking any further.
Face to face with Mad-Eye Moody, she concealed a hiccough and tried to regain her patronizing Black smirk. She soon felt her face shift into the arrogant and familiar mask.
"Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody. What can I do for you?"
The ex-auror's unreadable face morphed into something Bella qualified as stern, but with all the scars and bits missing, she wasn't so sure of her judgement. Moody could have been smiling widely and she wouldn't have known.
"Why are you stalking your cousin?"
So this was an interrogation. Not so surprising for an ex-auror.
Very well.
"Why should I answer?"
Bella had a hard time not to stare at the ever-rotating magical eye, but she managed to be attentive to the man's bodily language nonetheless. The only thing being, once again, that as far as his face was concerned, she didn't have the slightest idea of what to think of it.
"The Ministry would be eager to know there is a Death Eater's ghost running around St. Mungo's. You know there are regulations concerning ghosts, therefore you know the Ministry has a way to make them obey. If I report your existence, you'd have to tell everything you know about your beloved master and his schemes. If I don't... you'll have to do it too, but at least it wouldn't be to Scrimgeour."
"This oh so great and magnanimous master / cousin of mine plans on telling on me during his trial, according to what he told me. So it won't change much of anything."
Moody squinted his eyes, wondering about Bellatrix's statement.
Black had talked to his cousin about his plans. It wasn't something he had counted on. And why the hell had the ghost called Sirius "oh so great and magnanimous master"?
As if she knew what he was thinking about, which was unlikely since ghosts couldn't use legilimancy and anyway Moody was a master Occlumens, Bella winced and pointed her transparent finger to her sleeping cousin.
"If you're wondering about the 'oh so great and magnanimous master' part, let's say he pranked me into doing it. I'm kind of stuck into doing anything he orders me, such as not going back to the Dark... to Voldemort."
Moody blinked at the news, for it was totally unexpected. He also noted she was doing her best not to call her last master "the Dark Lord", and wondered why. The ex-auror surely couldn't picture the witch as having had a change of heart upon death.
"Interesting..."
Bella ignored the emergency call in the back of her ex-Death-Eater mind.
Alastor Moody wasn't someone a Death Eater would want to be trapped in a room with, especially unarmed. But Bellatrix didn't care anymore about what her Death Eater past-self would want or not.
"You and Black are linked thanks to his bold and borderline illegal stunt in the Department of Mysteries the other day, aren't you?"
Bella said nothing. She still wasn't feeling well about being in the same room as the ex-auror, no matter what her newly found sanity would imply. And anyway, wasn't the answer kind of obvious?
Moody shook his head, dismissing an unpleasant thought, and focused back on the sleeping wizard.
"I take it he woke up at some point. Any idea why he is in that state?"
He wasn't particularly hoping for an answer, but he knew that one had to throw a hook in order to take a fish, so that was exactly what he was doing – throwing hooks.
The ghost had answered more questions than he had expected so far, and she had shrugged as if to deny the idea without actually speaking when he had mentioned a link.
Bellatrix Lestrange had been strangely truthful.
Almost as if...
That couldn't be.
But the dead witch looked hesitantly at her cousin before deciding to respond.
As if she was trying to ascertain what were Black's priorities.
As if she was looking out for her cousin.
"He woke up. Just this morning."
Moody arched an eyebrow, waiting for more.
The ghost bit her lower lip. When Sirius would wake up, he wasn't going to like it. But it was in his best interests. Bella knew that if he continued to act as he had this morning, his recovery would take much longer. If he ever recovered.
"You might want to ask Lupin about a wandless spell to break a door ward."
Moody frowned, realizing it surely meant Black had left his room at some point. If Lestrange was telling him the truth, it was certainly that whatever the wizard had done during his escapade, it had led to his current health condition.
"As for his... relapse, I can't really say anything. Though..."
The ghost looked away, not wanting Mad-Eye to see her unease.
"If the Longbottoms get any better in the next days, my oh so great and magnanimous master would be pleased to be kept informed."
After that she said nothing else, and stared stubbornly at her cousin while floating above his bed.
Moody left the room rather fazed.
As he walked to the entrance of St. Mungo's he wondered what the hell the ghost's last words had meant. He even considered passing by the Janus Thickey ward, but decided against it, in a hurry to talk to Dumbledore about the Black situation.
First issue: Sirius Black, alive, despite being pushed through the Veil in the Death Chamber.
Second issue: Bellatrix Lestrange, ghost, linked to her killer.
Third issue: Frank and Alice Longbottoms, up till now considered beyond any help, but suggested as recipients of an unexpected recovery by the second issue.
Fourth issue: the Ministry's position about the first issue, unknown for now.
With the Voldemort and Death Eaters issues on top of the Black situation, the Order of the Phoenix was going to be really busy for a while.
Two muggles jumped when the old and disfigurated wizard left the hospital and landed in the street, scaring the hell out of them. One second later, though, they wondered why they had acted like that, the charms protecting the entrance of the hospital picking up on their noticing and erasing the event from their mind. Usually, muggles didn't even notice the witches and wizards coming in and out of St. Mungo's, who were forced out of their mind as soon as they saw them, but Mad-Eye Moody was hard to ignore.
Moody grunted something incomprehensible and moved to a dark alley where he apparated, away from prying eyes. The landscape his eyes fell on after that were those of Hogsmeade.
The ex-auror walked to Hogwarts without caring about the aurors appointed to the school since the Ministry's recognition of Voldemort's return. He could beat half of them in the blink of an eye, and the other half knew better than to attack Alastor Moody. Not only the ex-auror was one of the best, but he was also paranoid, and one suspicious gesture towards him could end up with a jinx or a hex right in the face. He was only asked to prove his identity with a blood test, a safety measure which actually made him nod in approval.
The school had just recently been deserted by the students, and the whole castle was dubiously calm. On the other hand, when the students were there, Moody thought the castle was the location of too much action and therefore difficult to be watched over.
The ex-auror made his way to Dumbledore's office, passing by Minerva McGonagall and her trunks, almost ready to leave for the summer break.
The headmaster was waiting for him in the Gargoyle Corridor. They silently passed the gargoyle, went up the stairs and locked the office's door. There, Moody cast some complementary safety spells, and once reassured that no one was listening or could listen to their conversation, he started telling Dumbledore everything he had gathered from his visit to Sirius Black at St. Mungo's.
The headmaster frowned when he mentioned Bellatrix Lestrange's ghost, looked concerned when Alastor told him about the boy's health, and his eyes twinkled when the ex-auror told him about the enigmatic statement about the Longbottoms' future.
"I guess Sirius' rehabilitation will change many things in the political landscape of the british wizarding world. He is, after all, Lord Black, and owns one of the most substantial wealths of our society. He's also a powerful wizard, and having him by our side, and able to act in broad daylight, can only be a good thing. When I discovered he was innocent... But even as Chief Warlock, I couldn't do anything that didn't involve him surrendering himself to the Ministry as a first thing to do, and given Fudge's decision to have him Kissed on sight..."
Moody nodded at that, quite familiar with the issues the "Kiss on sight" order usually raised.
"About Black..."
Albus raised an eyebrow, encouraging him to continue.
"Are you sure he'll be cleared of all charges? Scrimgeour is bound to be Minister for Magic before the end of the week, and from what I heard, he's keen on sending Black back to Azkaban."
The old wizard, sitting behind his desk, took a look at one of his silver instruments. Moody didn't recognize half of them, but if Dumbledore had them, they were surely useful.
Albus sighed and looked back at Moody.
"I'm afraid it won't be easy, but Sirius will manage. He is, as I said, Lord Black. His mother tried to disown him when he ran away, but his grandfather ignored her decision, and when the Ministry asked Narcissa Malfoy, last free member of the House of Black not disowned, to take the position, the Ministry's magic rejected the decision."
Mad-Eye knew the Wall of the Lords, just outside of Fudge's office, would never accept to change one family's lord or lady when the current one was still alive, and worthy of the title... what the Minister had never understood about Black, persuaded as he was that the man was a mass murderer. Still, there were occurrences of the Wall refuting a lord or lady when the concerned individual was utterly unable to fill the position. And no matter how the ex-auror tried to think about Sirius Black, he couldn't see how the lad was the correct person to be a Noble and Most Ancient House's lord.
Black was hot-headed, reckless, too bold for his own sake...
Then he remembered an encounter with several Death Eaters during the First Wizarding War. The way Black had acted to defeat the ennemies, but also not to endanger the hostages.
Yes, Black could be seen as completely unfit to the position of head of House. But that was because he didn't care for the consequences of his acts. If today, with a Second Wizarding War against Voldemort on its way, Sirius Black was proposed the Lordship of his House... Who knew what he could achieve?
Black was a potential danger to all of the Houses in the Wizenmagot, and basically to the whole political british wizarding community. He could be crafty, cunning, clever, and a danger to anyone who would stand in his way... if he had an incentive.
Such as, remaining free. Not being sent back to Azkaban. Not being Kissed. Protecting his godson. Helping in the war. Securing his friends' positions and power. Hindering the unknown Death Eaters by politically fighting off the purist agendas.
Actually, Alastor Moody was certain Black would be a force to reckon with, if only someone would convince him of his own importance in the wizarding world.