This trial is getting out of hand.
That is, out of my hands, not of Sirius'. Sirius is awesome, as usual. I, on the other hand, am not sure how long this will take to say everything...
Chapter 16: And the worst
Silence.
Sirius had asked one question, and the only answer he got was silence.
"The Potters had been more of a family to me in four years than the Blacks had in sixteen. The year I spent at the Potters', and the three years following, I felt more at home than I had ever been at our London house or at Black Manor. And I'm not talking about the color choices and decoration. The Black estates are very black, granted, but I happen to like it that way. No, what I'm talking about, is warmth. The best I got from my mother, from my uncles and aunts, was disdain and disappointment, because I wouldn't believe or at least pretend to believe, that because I was a Black, because I was a pureblood, I was better than the lot of you."
Someone tried to say something rude, but the silencing charm over the spectators' seats worked very well, and no sound left their mouths. Yet it wasn't as if those were Sirius' words. They were his family's, and most people understood that. This one hadn't, apparently.
"The best I got from my father and grandfather was silence, because though they didn't quite believe everyone besides us was scum, they still thought themselves better than the average, not-Black, not-pureblooded wizard, and I won't even talk about muggles. They said nothing to me about my beliefs, that's true, but they said nothing to my mother either, and that was worth any acceptance in her eyes. I was the traitor, the blood traitor, the Black Traitor."
Some people winced. They remembered the nickname from their school years.
They also remembered what it had come to mean, after that fateful Halloween night.
The Black Traitor. A whole new meaning. And this time, not one to be proud of.
But what if they had been wrong?
"I tried to talk back for a while, and all I gained from that was hatred. So I shut up and ignored the family members who hated me. But no, some of them just had to continue, because even if I shut up, it wasn't enough. I had to see it their way."
Yes, because the Blacks were amongst the worst of the purebloods. They were the most powerful, and the most frightful, and the richest family of wizards in Great Britain, everyone knew that.
The Malfoys?
Small-timers.
They were rich, but not as much as the Blacks. They were blood supremacists, but they didn't try and mentally torture their children into believing. Those who didn't fit into the perfect-Malfoy-shell were ignored, not destroyed. They had impressive knowledge in the Dark Arts... but the Blacks had instinct and even more knowledge, when it came to those.
Same thing for the Notts, same thing for the Greengrasses. The Gaunts were long out of the picture, too, and that wasn't a secret to anyone.
Of the Noble and Ancient Houses, none could rival the House of Black.
To put it in simple words, back when the Statute of Secrecy hadn't been even thought of, the wizards lords and the witches ladies had been actual nobility of the Kingdom of England. Well, they still were, even nowadays, but now they were something like a secret nobility.
Anyway.
There had been only one duke amongst these nobles.
When the Statute had been decreeted, there had been thirty-seven Houses of wizarding descent. Most of them figured amongst the sacred twenty-eight, but not all of them. Not all of them were pureblooded, after all, but they were all very old families, sometimes older than Hogwarts itself.
The Lords Nott, Greengrass and Gaunt had been marquesses. The Lords Rowle, Malfoy, Avery, Crouch and Prewett had been earls. The Lords Drennan, Abbott, Carrow, Fawley, Longbottom, Rosier, Flint, Ollivander, Shacklebolt and Weasley had been viscounts. And lastly, the barons: Lords Potter, Yaxley, Goyle, Bulstrode, Lestrange, Wenlock, Macmillan, Slughorn, Burke, Parkinson, Selwyn, McLeod, Shafiq, Oliphant, Travers, Hawksworth, Bones and Sykes.
Four of these lords were missing this day, because Harry was too young to take the Lordship, because the Lestranges were wanted for Death Eaters activities, because the House of Gaunt was very dead except for a snake-faced asshole on the run, and because Lord Drennan was suffering from a violent bout of dragon pox somewhere in Ecuador.
And there had been Lord Black. The duke of Black.
They were all part of a secret nobility, now, so they didn't use their rank. But no one had ever forgotten that the Blacks were the only family whose head was a duke.
The House of Black had been the grandest – and still was, now that Sirius Black was claiming its Lordship, now that the House had a head again.
For such a Noble and Most Ancient House, it was obvious to those amongst the public who were familiar with the history of wizarding nobility that this powerful family could only be strict about what they asked of their members.
And no one, during the last decades, no one had ignored what exactly the House of Black had slowly fallen into for many centuries, always deeper, always further away. What beliefs.
And they all knew, though they surely didn't know the whole story, they all knew how easily the Blacks could use dark magic. They all knew the cruelty they could display.
They could very well guess what would be done to the second heir to the Lordship if he refused to act as such.
They could guess it hadn't been pretty, and at the same time they couldn't say they knew.
Secrets and power, this was the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.
"Those who thought like me were burned off the family tree at my home. Andromeda, Alphard. Those who cared about me, even if they didn't agree with my views, couldn't say anything, because if they did, they'd have ended up in the crossfire. Regulus, Narcissa."
The witch hardly refrained the surprise from showing on her face, as her cousin admitted having been aware of her feelings about the whole thing. But Narcissa Malfoy wasn't sure it made her feel relieved or even more guilty. She wasn't sure why she had come to this trial in the first place.
Acid tears – or at least it felt like they were acid – formed in her lashes, and the blond woman looked down to hide them. She couldn't express her emotions, not here, not with all those people watching, not with Death Eaters seeing her.
She felt a hand upon her own, and she looked at it, for she didn't dare to look up and expose her tears. But she recognized the ring on the hand, and she instinctively knew it was her sister's.
The tears doubled, but she eventually got her self-control back. She raised her head, and nothing could be seen of her precedent turmoil.
Yet, Narcissa didn't make a move for Andromeda to remove her hand, and somewhere up in the shadows of the ceiling, a ghost saw everything and smiled.
"Those who loved me because I was family but hated me because I was more than a Black, because I was a person, with my own beliefs, those despised me, and at the same time, tried to get me to change my mind with their twisted ways. They thought that maybe, they could hammer their views over mine and so make me forget all that made me an individual. They thought that by pushing me out of the picture, they would see me crawl back into place for the love of my family. They thought that by hurting me, they could get me to agree with them, even if not heartfully, at least in words and acts. My mother, Bellatrix."
The ghost went more into the shadows.
She could finally see it, after all those years. It had needed her to kill her cousin and to die by his hand, to come back to the afterlife, but now she knew how mad she had been, how wrong she had been, about Sirius.
She had loved him as any cousin, at first.
She still loved him.
But between now and then, there were years of accumulated insanity, and deep hatred for the blood traitor, for the Black Traitor. A hatred she couldn't understand anymore, but which kept haunting her like she was haunting Sirius.
"And then, then! There were my father and my grandfather. They had power over everyone in the family, Arcturus because he was the lord, the head of the family, Orion because he was his heir, as I was his. But they didn't do anything either. Sure, you could say they were both blood supremacists, and I won't tell you you're lying. It is the truth. Yet, blood purists and Death Eaters are worlds apart. The first are obnoxious, the others are dangerous psychopaths. The first usually love their own flesh and blood before their beliefs, the others care for purity more than for family. They could have at least made Walburga and Bellatrix shut up, made them leave me alone. I was a disappointment, and just let it be. But they couldn't, because some family members were so enthralled by Voldemort they could have done the unthinkable: wipe them out, if they made one wrong move."
There, the audience thought for a second that Black had glared at the ceiling, but that was ridiculous, wasn't it? So they dismissed the strange moment. Except those who didn't, and started to frown at the dark part of the room above their heads.
Bellatrix scowled, hidden by the chandelier. She knew he was angry at her, and frankly, she was angry at herself too, but did he really have to look at her and almost blow up his own strategy? Hadn't Sirius been the one to be most adamant about keeping everyone in the dark, until it was time?
Yet, her anger disappeared quickly, as she heard again and again her cousin's words.
Was he right? Had she been so far gone, she'd have gone after her own family for the sake of the Dark Lord?
The ghost bit her non-existant lower lip.
Of course she had been. She had been that far gone, for she had gone after Sirius, that time in the teenager's seventh year. She had used multiple slashing hexes on her own cousin, and even a few Cruciatus curses. She knew it, he knew it, and none of them would ever forget how far her madness had led her.
Silence fell upon the courtroom, until Emilia Croyne thought it acceptable to go back to the main topic – which wasn't how wretched the Blacks had been, and, namely, Bellatrix Black-Lestrange. Yes, because, of course, no one had missed the hint to the first attack on the Black heir, years ago, which had seen him in St. Mungo's for three days and made him cut the sleeves of his school robes to show how afraid he was of Death Eaters.
"You pretend Peter Pettigrew is alive, and was the one to blow up this street fifteen years ago. Would you mind explaining what happened then, and how come we only ever found one of his fingers?"
The temporary Chief Warlock searched for the Black lord's eyes, but he was too busy snorting his disgust at the "rat". Why a "rat", anyway?
Sirius put his elbows on his legs, entwined his long fingers, and rested his chin upon them. A dark look loomed upon his face, and some people shifted on their seats when his gaze went around the room. Again. People were really shifty, today.
"That night, I went to see if Peter was alright. But there was no one. I thought something had happened to him, but... There wasn't a trace of struggle. Sure, Peter wasn't much of a duelist, but he wasn't a complete waste of space either. He was your average, common wizard. There should have been something."
The aurors and various law enforcers present nodded as he said this. They knew what he meant.
"But there wasn't. Anxious, I thought he had maybe gone out, and been found there. That would have been a foolish move, and not even Peter would have done that so soon after going into hiding, but it was the only thing that made sense. I went straight to James and Lily's."
It had been the only thing to make sense, because the idea that the rat had been the traitor all along had never even entered his mind. Sirius would have slapped himself, if he had been alone, and if he hadn't already done that a billion times during the last years.
"You know what I found there."
Everyone in the audience felt that yes, they knew.
Harry would have liked it better if they didn't. Actually, he'd feel better if there hadn't been a reason for them to know, like, it never happened.
To everybody's surprise, Sirius' face became hateful – and a bit frightening, if even Harry thought so. He straightened his back, separated his fingers, balled his hands into fists, and looked up, high into the ceiling, as if he couldn't even care to look at them.
Those ignorant fools!
"Of course you don't know what I found there! Not a single one of you has the slightest idea of what it was. Not even those who went home one day to find the Dark Mark above their house, and the bodies of their loved ones lifeless on the floor of the living room. You don't get what it was, and you will never understand!"
He was going to get into some people's bad books, Sirius knew that, but he didn't care.
He had thought about this moment, the moment when he'd talk about James and Lily, dead. And he had come to the conclusion it'd be for the best to say it all, even if at first, some would take it badly.
His point was to show the world his contempt for these people, who had dared to think themselves worthy of judging him on the spot, and condemn him without a second thought, wasn't it?
He had thought about it, and had reached a conclusion, and he'd stick with it.
There was no need to think about it, now.
Sirius could just let go of his anger.
"You don't know what I found."
Yes, some people looked outraged, others hurt. They had suffered from Voldemort's madness, too, their families had known his terror. How could Sirius Black dare say otherwise?
"There wasn't a Dark Mark above the house."
No warning from afar.
"Half the house was a ruin."
Horror as he had come.
"James was near the entrance, dead. Lily was between the door of the nursery and Harry, dead. And Harry was crying, an ugly cut bloodying his forehead."
Yeah, and so what? It was terrible, they got it. They understood that. But not everyone had had a baby left to care for, and Harry Potter had survived the attack. Black was far behind, when it came to their own suffering.
And at least, these deaths had ended He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's reign.
Wasn't it something to feel, if not better, if not happy, at least, proud of?
The Potters' deaths hadn't been wasted, unlike many others.
Dark looks were sent to the Black lord, and those who knew Sirius, those who had known James and Lily, wondered what exactly he was doing – this wasn't the way to get everyone on his side!
Sirius, as if he knew exactly what they were all thinking, looked down and at his audience.
A wide and unpleasant smile was splattered on his face.
"But at least, their deaths hadn't been a waste, and Voldemort was gone."
Remus blinked.
He wasn't going to...?
Yes. He knew that face. Sirius was going to do it.
Not that it wasn't a valid point. But still. The werewolf hoped most of the people here this day would get over the shame Lord Black was planning to pour down their throats, for it was going to be a lot. Apparently, Sirius had decided he would use every single reason he knew for them to be ashamed. And there were quite a lot of these, because there wasn't only those about him, but also those about the acquitted Death Eaters, about Harry, about the continued existence of prejudice... about James and Lily.
Before Sirius got to go any further, though, Lord Shafiq let his anger out.
"Exactly! I don't see what you're complaining about, Black, for at least their deaths were useful!"
Sirius didn't look at the lord just then. He waited for a second before turning his regal gaze and looks to the young lord.
When he did, understanding dawned upon some of the audience, who shrank back in their seats.
"Useful."
Sirius's voice sounded but a whisper, yet everyone heard it.
If people thought he was going to laugh this time too, they were wrong. It was exactly the kind of things which had gotten him laughing bitterly at himself before. But it wasn't about him.
Sirius wasn't going to laugh at James' and Lily's deaths.
Lord Shafiq refused to back away, and so he tried another tactic. But he had to say, the Black lord was frightening him beyond measure right now.
"Such loathing in your eyes, Black! And you wonder why we don't trust you?"
But the Black lord ignored him.
"Lord Adrian Shafiq. Such a pleasure. If you hadn't noticed, to you it is Lord Black."
Emilia Croyne watched the scene unfolding, unsure of what to do. The young Shafiq Lord had interrupted the right process of this trial, and let's not talk about his manners. Usually she'd have told him off for that, but...
"Let me ask you one thing, Lord Shafiq."
Black had everything under control, apparently, and the young Lord Shafiq was completely overwhelmed. Croyne wouldn't have been surprised if the Black lord had anticipated all that was happening, even though she could say his anger wasn't staged.
"Would you feel better if your cousins' deaths had been the ones putting an end to Voldemort?"
Shafic tried to claim loud and clear that yes, he'd feel better, but strangely enough, his voice died in his throat.
"Would you feel better if, as you walked into their house and found them dead and cold, as you realized that somehow, Voldemort had been vanquished thanks to their sacrifice, you could only think of how, soon, people, strangers, will be celebrating their deaths for it has given them their freedom?"
The young lord wanted to speak, he wanted to tell Black he was wrong, it wasn't like that, he'd be sad, but proud, and relieved...
Horror struck the majority of the audience. That was it. That was what they had done all along.
Sure, poor Potters, they died. But hey, Voldepants too, cheer up!
For years, they hadn't been able to see that.
They had felt relieved.
"Would you feel better if they had died giving us all freedom, and you knew, the moment you saw their lifeless figures, that no one would consider their deaths important enough next to the Terror of the century being vanquished? Because that is exactly what I saw, when I saw them dead, and Harry, alone, with no one left to take care of him, no one beside me, and may I remind you how much I failed even at that? You all adore Harry, that is, when you're not shunning him for being the liar he isn't, and you gave James and Lily a statue to their memory, true. But all you think is, 'what a grand sacrifice, so noble, such a reason to be proud and grateful to them!'. You don't see the suffering, the fact that Harry isn't a savior, but a child who never knew his parents. You refuse to understand it wasn't only a selfless sacrifice, but a tragedy! At first, you honored them, but soon enough, you forgot, and Godric's Hollow became a spot for tourists, and Harry was just another celebrity, and the Potters, those figures without reality, those symbols, maybe, were not people anymore."
And there was so much more he could have said, and there was so much more he wouldn't say. And the witches and wizards in the courtroom felt terrible, as they remembered how they had forgotten about the fact that people had died, that a child had been orphaned, that night, too. And even the members of the Order of the Phoenix felt guilty – though they had always remembered – for once or twice at least, they had thought how lucky it was, even if it was a pity.
And Harry didn't dare to take his eyes off his godfather, because if he did, he felt he'd have to meet someone else's eyes, and he couldn't, he couldn't.
And Dumbledore's twinkle disappeared, for he knew too well that feeling which Sirius had experienced all these years. He knew it couldn't be good to never allow the good to take over the bad, as both of them were constantly doing, even if they hid it well. Yet, it felt so wrong, so ungrateful, so traitorous to make a tragedy into a happy event.
And Sirius had seen it all along.
He had known, the first time he had looked at James' body. He had remembered all that James had done for him, and all that they would never be doing together, now that he was dead. He had know, the moment his eyes had found Lily. He had understood how Hary would never have his mother to comfort him, now that she was dead. And as soon as he had seen Harry, well though distressed and a bit bloody, he had known how the world would react, and how no one would really care about their loss.
And the worst was that he knew they had never even tought about it that way.
"Your cousins' deaths, Lord Shafiq, and all the other meaningless deaths which were brought upon us by Voldemort, they had one thing for them: they were useless. That made them tragedies. James and Lily never got this chance. They had the great honor of being useful, not a waste, our liberation! And so they had no right to be anything else, least of all a tragedy."
Sirius looked for a long while at the young lord, who couldn't say a word, and looked as if he was going to faint. He looked, and his eyes were so cold, and his face was so hard, some of the lords and ladies had the impression, for a second, he himself was a corpse.
Then the Black lord turned back to Emilia Croyne, and the witch held his gaze as no one else in this room – except his friends and Dumbledore – had been able too.
"You asked what happened to Peter, didn't you? I will tell you. Hagrid arrived not long after that, and he asked me to hand Harry over, for him to go to his aunt. I was his godfather, and I knew Petunia would be a nightmare to my godson, but I guessed Lily had done something when sacrificing her live for her son's, and that Dumbledore knew it too. It was highly possible blood magic was involved, and Harry would be safe, just the time for me to go and hunt down the damned traitor."
Of course, at first, he had thought he'd come back, and get Harry, and that they'd go live at Black Manor, for example, if the headmaster deemed it too dangerous for the baby to leave the blood wards. It wasn't as if Arcturus had supported Voldepants or anything, he wasn't a danger, and Harry Potter was distant family, so... Beside family, no one could reach them behind the Black wards. Sirius would have had to keep an eye on his mother when she'd come and visit, and maybe on Narcissa because of her husband, and of course on Bellatrix if she got away despite all her crimes. But it wasn't so terrible.
Because there was no way Peter would escape his wrath, right?
"So I went after the rat, and I found him. Shock! Unscathed. For a while, I had entertained the idea he had broken under torture, and maybe not much of it, because Peter wasn't so courageous to begin with, and well, I'd have resented him if that was the case, but I wouldn't have hated him beyond saving. It'd have taken time, but I would have forgiven him. But no, here he was, walking in the street, only looking a bit anxious, but perfectly fine otherwise."
Only one explanation: he had told them on the spot.
"It could have been fear, it could have been threats, and so a treason, but more of the disappointing kind. They could have figured out he was the real Secret Keeper, though I wondered how, and he could have chickened out as soon as they had come for him. Disappointing, but understandable."
After all, he hadn't chosen Peter for his bravery. He had chosen him because Peter was just so not right for the job it was the perfect cover.
"I called out to him, ready to punch him in the face and then listen to his explanation. And what did he do? As soon as he recognized me, he became pale as death and started shivering in fear."
And that, Sirius was certain, wasn't an act. Peter knew him better than most, and the rat had known what his friend was able to do to him as soon as he would understand what had really happened. He must have been on the run, in fact, since the very moment the word had spread the Dark Bastard had disappeared, and not only from his fellow Death Eaters, but also from him, Sirius, and on a lesser scale, Remus and the rest of the Order.
"Then I knew. I knew what he had done, I knew who was the traitor, I knew he was the reason my best friend, a brother in all but blood, and his wife, a woman with a golden heart, were dead, and it was because of him that my godson was now an orphan."
Whispers in the courtroom, coming from the representatives and the heads of Houses. The spectators would have spoken too, if they hadn't been silenced by the charm on their tribune.
What would they have done if they had been in Black's shoes?
They didn't know him personally, most of them, but they knew enough to say he didn't like treason one bit, and was more than able to use the Dark Arts if he needed to.
"I admit I might have reduced him to smithereens, if I had been given the chance. But first I wanted to hear him say it, and you'll agree that a dead person usually has difficulties speaking."
Bellatrix couldn't help but nod. Interrogating people was difficult when they were dead. She should know, with her past.
"I drew my wand, but before I could even say a word, the rat cut off his finger. Then Peter turned around, and ran across the street, his wand behind his back shooting random spells, and screaming how I, and not him, mind you, it wasn't as if he had sold dozens of people to Voldepants to save his own skin! – how I had betrayed my best friend, his wife and my godson all at the same time, and how could I, really, didn't I have a heart?"
As he talked, Sirius' voice turned to a disturbing sneer, and by the end of his sentence, he was half-imitating a pinched voice which was surely supposed to be Pettigrew's, and half-spitting the words away from his mouth.
"I only got the time to use protego, and the street exploded. The bloody traitor had escaped by the sewers, and we already talked about what happened next."
Most of the audience was too stunned to say a word, but amongst the heads of Houses, Lady Selwyn scoffed. She couldn't deny the Black lord was utterly convincing, but still, by the sewers?!
"And how did he do that, if I may ask? He turned into a rat, perhaps?"
Emilia Croyne stayed quiet despite the interruption, for she had wanted to ask the same thing. She looked expectantly at Black, whose only answer to the rude lady had been to raise an eyebrow and look at her haughtily.
If anything, Lord Black was a master at belittling people.
Amongst the public, Sirius could see Remus almost strangling himself in surprise, and the others who knew about the Marauders being animagi watching the Selwyn lady with astonishment.
He took one second to morph his face back into something indifferent, calm, composed.
Then he smiled at the witch who had questioned the truthfulness in his words.
"You nailed it."
Lady Selwyn only blinked. And blinked again. And again.
Actually, many people blinked at that.
"I beg your pardon?"
Sirius refrained an urge to roll his eyes and kept his smile splattered on his face. This one had, like many others before, no warmth in it, but it wasn't as unpleasant as the last one. A bit condescending, perhaps, but well, Sirius thought he had a right to be patronizing towards anyone who still doubted him, or worse, who thought he was stupid enough to make up such a blatant lie.
If he said something such as "Peter is an animagus", sure, it was unlikely, but it was still the truth. He wouldn't go around saying absurdities, truth serum or not, during his own trial, if they weren't true. False absurdities were way too easy to reveal for what they were.
"Peter cut his fingers, blasted the street, turned into a rat and ran through the sewers."
Blinks.
Again?
Well, they had good reasons not to catch on – except those who already knew, but since those individuals were either Death Eaters having heard of that from their illegal meetings, or members of the Order of the Phoenix who had kept the secret as to where one of the most wanted fugitives of the wizarding world was hiding, it was pretty expected from them not to say anything. Of course, most of them were content with not reacting and showing they knew, rather than participating in the blinking contest.
Dumbledore seemed to enjoy the trial a bit too much, Sirius noticed. Then again he himself was enjoying the show just as much, and he suspected that Bella, up there above her chandelier, was very pleased with it too, so he wouldn't judge.
After a moment, though, Emilia Croyne finally asked the question which was weighing on everybody's mind – that was, on the mind of all those who had gotten past the fact that turning into a rat was exactly what the damn traitor had done.
"Lord Black, are you perhaps suggesting that Peter Pettigrew is an unregistered animagus?"
Well, there was also transfiguration, but transfiguring a whole human being into an animal, let alone the fact that it was oneself, demanded to be extremely powerful, which Pettigrew definitely wasn't, able to concentrate, which was hardly possible with Black just behind the wizard and dying to manhandle him to his early grave, and enough time, which had simply not been an option back then.
So that let only one possible way for Pettigrew to turn into a rat, and that was being an animagus.
"Peter is an animagus. A rat, to be precise, brown, watery eyes, a bald spot on the top of his head, and, unsurprisingly, one missing toe."
And of course, who but Scrimgeour to snort in disbelief?
"Don't you think we would have known if Peter Pettigrew was an animagus, Black?"
Sirius made a show of turning to look at the Minister and then, rolled his eyes.
"That I don't know, Minister. Are you implying you knew all along, and never reported it? Because Peter is an animagus. I should know, I was the one who managed the incredible feat of getting him there despite his blatant lack of talent."
"And how would one teach to someone else how to become an animagus without being one themselves, Lord Black?"
Sirius didn't miss the uncharacteristic "Lord" in the Minister's sentence, nor the obvious disdain in the older man's voice. Circe, it was going to be a real pain to get Scrimgeour to see the truth, if he wasn't even willing to figure that out on his own, with all the hints Sirius had already given.
Because the Minister surely wasn't stupid. If it had still been Fudge, the young lord could have indulged such a refusal of what was obvious. But this was Scrimgeour there, not Fudge.
The man was hidebound, that was it.
So Sirius squinted, and asked as seriously as he knew he could sound.
"Are you daft, Minister?"
Remus was holding his head between his hands back there in the spectators' tribune, Harry was looking at his godfather as if the Black lord had grown, nevermind a second, but a third head, and Narcissa and Andromeda were trying their hardest not to snigger together, under the flabbergasted eyes of their niece and daughter.
Sirius didn't bother to look, but he knew Frank was mimicking strangulation in the heads' tribune. He knew the man well enough to guess his silent threats.
"I don't believe you are. Yet, you do everything to make me believe so."
Scrimgeour swallowed his hurt pride and rightful anger, waiting for more. If he let the Black lord do as he pleased, maybe the wizard would finally make a mistake.
Because so far, Sirius Black had been many things, but never out of line.
Obnoxious, surely, and yet never to those who treated him like any other accused: possibly guilty, possibly innocent. Condescending, certainly, and yet always to those who made a point to do the exact same thing towards him. Manipulative, obviously, and yet for now, he hadn't tried to secretly defend a blood purist's opinion or anything related to Death Eaters ideals and activities.
It was surprising, actually, how much of a Slytherin the former Gryffindor had been all along. Courageous, to what seemed like insanity, and at the same time, cunning enough to get everyone to trust his word, if not his personality.
That was, until now.
Because, frankly, Pettigrew, an animagus? Why not He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named as a ballerina?
But Black was talking again, and once more, the Minister for Magic felt the urge to believe this wizard, this man, who was certainly uttering nonsense, and yet, sounded so truthful. The feelings, the choice of words, were too much to be a lie. The depictions he made, not only of others, but also of himself, were too harsh sometimes, too derogative, not to be honest.
Rufus Scrimgeour crushed the odd feeling in his chest, for he knew he was being a victim of Black's speech, and he couldn't afford that. He had to unmask the wizard, for he was too dangerous to be left to his own devices – or worst, to Voldemort's.
"The reason I was able to help Peter to become an animagus, Minister, is that I am one myself."
Croyne sputtered, in shock – as many others did.
When she managed to catch her breath, the temporary Chief Warlock looked at the defendant with recognition in the eyes.
"And that would be the offense you mentioned, of 'illegally attaining a form of magic which has to be registered', I surmise?"
Sirius smiled slightly, and nodded to the witch.
"You know you have to tell us more, now that the cat is out of the bag, don't you, Lord Black?"
"Not an issue. To make a long story short, I have known a werewolf for quite a long time, and even back in school, I was friend with him. Peter, James and I realized in hardly more than a year why he was always away once a month, or to put it as he tried to make us believe, why he was 'visiting his ill mother' at regular intervals. Every time he came back, he was battered and weak. We soon decided we had to do something, and, since a transformed werewolf is a danger only to humans, the logical way was by becoming animagi, so that he wouldn't be alone during the full moons, and wouldn't end up tearing himself apart. James and I managed that by our fifth year, and then we helped Peter who finally achieved the impossible during the following summer."
This was utter madness, was the general thought of the audience.
Sirius Black was talking about animagus transformation as if it was something difficult to attain, but just so much. There was a reason there were so few animagi out there! Becoming one took time, determination, hard work, and natural ease in transfiguration. But here he was, almost joking about it, and even talking about helping an average wizard into it with success!
Seriously, what was the deal with Sirius Black?
Amongst the public, Minerva McGonagall couldn't refrain a smug look at the feats of her former student. Sure, he had done it by himself, but she had always known how great a wizard he could be. One of the reasons why she had been so shaken when he had apparently turned his coat, actually.
"Would you mind to demonstrate your claim, Lord Black?"
"But certainly, Chief Warlock."
Sirius smiled pleasantly, and, as he saw two aurors walk over to his seat, he rose on his feet elegantly. The aurors pointed their wands at him, ready to intervene if he tried to do anything, and nodded for him to proceed.
A large part of the audience gaped as the young man morphed into a large and dangerous-looking black dog. The animal was grand, in a way. Bear-sized, yet slender enough to really look like a dog. Astonishing silver eyes, that dutifully kept their human form's color. A dark fur, which seemed to evaporate into thin air after a few inches of dusky hair, but where exactly, no one could tell, because the outline of the dog seemed to be blurred...
Or spectral.
A lord strangled a scream.
Everyone looked at him, and he was pointing a finger at the animagus, standing all of a sudden on shaky legs, and his face turning pale before their very eyes.
"A grim!"
All eyes darted back to the Black lord, back in human form.
"Ah. I could have warned you beforehand, I guess. And don't be so shaken, Lord Fawley. Seeing me won't cause your imminent death, unless you believe it so strongly you end up giving yourself a heart attack. That's what happens, most of the time, you know. Grims aren't harbingers of death. I should know, I see many of them on a daily basis, and I'm still alive."
Emilia Croyne tried to keep everything in order for the time being, but she was fighting a losing war. She eventually relented, and waited for Ambrosius Fawley to calm down, so that they could go on with the trial. Never before had she presided such a case, and it was proving to be tiresome.
Once everything was back in order, she looked back at the Black lord, and asked tiredly if this, perhaps, had anything to do with his escape from Azkaban. Sirius smiled; it was time to come clean.
"Indeed, it has. As an animal, I was less affected by the dementors than as a man. And it was easier to swim back to shore as a dog, obviously. But not anyone could escape from that place, even if they were unregistered animagi such as myself. I knew I was innocent, and that kept me saner than even the grim could. Not a happy thought, so it stayed. Just innocent, and incredibly strong-willed."
The young lord turned to the Minister of Magic and smirked at him.
"An innocent man, that's what it takes to escape from Azkaban."