If anyone ask, I was revising for the mock exams, and definitely not writing this, understood?
Even more so if it is my mum asking.
Chapter 17: A blessing he wasn't allowed to taste
"Innocent you claim to be, Lord Black, yet you have admitted to being guilty of several crimes earlier on."
As she said these words, Emilia Croyne couldn't help but think that he had given them away to be tried when no one had ever known about it. He had been vague, sure, but everything that had happened until now seemed to indicate he was going to keep his word, and tell them everything they needed to know about who Sirius Black was, and why he couldn't possibly be the wizard everyone had thought him to be for so long.
Somehow, she felt that included even the things he would rather keep to himself.
Somehow, she felt not many people were going to like what would come next, because if with only three accusations undone and one of his own proved, he had managed to crush all their beliefs, what could he do with the five that were left?
For now, the damaged were Lord Shafiq, who had clearly asked for it, Lady Selwyn, who was still blinking in disbelief about the animagus thing, and Lord Fawley, who was desperately trying to hide behind Lady Olyphant since he had seen the grim form of their fellow lord. Oh, and the Minister for Magic, who had all but left his glaring contest with Black as a loser, and that, only because the Black lord had deemed it unnecessary to go on scaring the hell out of him any longer. And of course, about everyone else in the courtroom, because even if they hadn't been individually targeted, they had all felt the pressure in Sirius Black's words.
All in all, even the ones who were on Black's side weren't unscathed, for his words had hurt them in another way, reminding them they hadn't been able to do anything for him, they had even doubted him, they had sometimes loathed him before seeing the truth. Reminding them of these losses they had felt at the death of the Potters, for those who had been their friends. Reminding them that it was happening again.
So far, they had talked about the accusations of treason, mass murder, and escaping from Azkaban. These, he had proved wrong, or necessary. There was also the matter of him being an illegal animagus, but it wasn't really serious, considering, and he had done way more than the time he could have been sentenced to for that particular offense. Actually, knowing it had been a time of war, and having an ace up one's sleeve could save one's life, and he had done nothing wrong with this power, the most he'd certainly have gotten would have been a fine.
That left the accusations of breaking into Hogwarts, a feat he hadn't denied, escaping once again under the very nose of the previous Minister for Magic who was currently hiding behind a witch large enough to hide two men like him in the spectators' tribune, using the Dark Arts to kill Bellatrix Lestrange – not that Croyne blamed him for that one – and his self-made accusations of attempted murder as a minor and several uses of the Dark Arts on human beings.
Speaking of which, didn't that relate to this peculiar report of his auror trainee days that she had read in preparation for this trial? If that was the case, the temporary Chief Warlock wasn't going to blame him for these uses of dark magic either...
But there was still the issue of the Unforgivable he had claimed the use of...
And that, Emilia Croyne didn't know what to make of it.
But maybe she could just listen to what he had to say, after all. It wasn't as if she was doing a listing of the accusations and answers he had for each in case one went forgotten, and, as stipulated in his deal with the Ministry, it became a never-to-blame-again-crime-because-hell,-that-was-the-deal.
Oh wait.
She was.
The temporary Chief Warlock looked at the accused, and he looked back at her.
She didn't fear him, and Sirius liked that. This witch knew her job, and even if she knew he was to be feared if crossed, he wasn't one to be feared for his beliefs or actions.
After all, Sirius knew he was a dangerous man, but not in the bad way. He was dangerous, but only when it was asked of him. He was dangerous, because he was able to defend himself, the ones he cared about, and as many people a wizard could defend. He was dangerous, because he was able to exact revenge, and wasn't afraid to go against the laws when the laws weren't what they should have been. He was dangerous, because he had the capacity to be terrible, and not because he had the mind to be so.
He was to be feared, if one wished to be his enemy.
He wasn't to be feared by those who had nothing against him.
A smile twitched on his lips, and Sirius answered the silent question at the end of Emilia Croyne's sentence.
"I don't intend to pretend I am not guilty of anything. I did questionable things, but I am not ashamed of it. I did these things, because you people gave me no other choice. Who could have asked of me to stay in Azkaban when I had no reason to be there to begin with? Who could blame me from fleeing a dementor's Kiss which I never deserved? I did what was necessary for my survival, and for the sake of my godson."
That was for escaping twice from Ministry custody.
Now came the things which weren't as great.
"However, I also did things I am ashamed of, and I won't say I did never know the grasp of ill intent. I have wished to murder Peter so many times I lost count. Azkaban is a great place to entertain unpleasant thoughts, and I won't say how many times I have dreamed of making the ones who kept me there without knowing anything suffer as much as I did. I am far from being an angel. I can be cruel and ruthless. But I never do what I do without a reason, be it good or bad. Usually, I stick with justified."
Protection, necessary evil, fighting off, and not revenge, prevention or hatred.
"Usually."
The young lord wasn't looking anywhere in particular, or at anyone. He was just there, sitting still on his chair, and looking.
Looking at what, at who, or, really, at when, few knew, and many didn't want to know anymore.
They had feared him as an evil traitor for years, and now they could only see a man whose life had been a succession of prejudices and assumptions. They weren't going to say they believed him yet, but they knew that, no matter the truth, guilty or innocent, they were the ones who had destroyed this man, and made him what he now was.
They felt – and that made them terribly ill-at-ease – they felt that even if Lord Black ended up being the worst Death Eater ever, it was their fault for letting him degrade into this. For having refused to see him for anything else than a Black, now, then, and even before that, when he had been a child. For having believed it was just so easy to get out of what his family before them had made him.
It wasn't Sirius Black's fault, not entirely anyway, if he was who he was.
His choices were his own, of course.
But the man, and the child before him, had always been a clever individual. He had seen, from the beginning, that there was something wrong in his family. He had been able to get away from the purebloods' beliefs. And worst of all, he had seen the true face of the ones who should have loved him unconditionally.
Sirius Black had known all along that his family loved him, but would never accept him. He had known their thoughts to be twisted, and there was no way to make them right.
And that, that had hurt more than anything else.
It wasn't that his mother hadn't loved him. It wasn't that his father hadn't loved him. It wasn't that he had believed they did when they did not, or didn't when they did.
It was that he had been lucid enough to understand there was no distinct line between good and evil. Orion and Walburga Black hadn't been angels, but they weren't demons either. They were humans. And their son had seen it, and he hadn't had the luck to hide behind them being perfect – which would have ended up with him being as endoctrinated as they had been but loved in acts as well as in facts – nor had he been fortunate enough to see them as ultimate evil, as enemies.
Even as a child, he had been able to tell how rotten the world was, and yet how there was good in everyone, even if sometimes that good was not used once in their whole life.
The whole public could tell, now, that Sirius Black was far from crazy or stupid.
And they knew, now, that he had always seen through their facades, and what they had thought of him, the first impressions, the changes of heart, the masked disgust or the will to give him a chance.
Be it he-is-a-Black-and-they-are-but-a-bunch-of-bastards or anyone-must-be-given-an-opportunity-to-change-for-the-better, the young lord had always known – or if not known because he wasn't privy to their thoughts, and because at first he had only been a child – at least he had known it was a possibility.
And they knew most of them had thought this way, that be it to give him a chance or to despise him inwardly if not outwardly, he was a Black before anything else, and they had always seen him as a man who'd started there, "being a Black".
Unlike many, he had grown up knowing what they mostly thought of him, and he had lived accordingly. He had lived proving them wrong on some points, right on others, but always knowingly.
They had made him what he was, at least partially, because they hadn't been able to forget his last name, and they had always acted accordingly. And him, unbeknown to them, had always been able to see that, when he should have been in the blissfully ignorant years of childhood.
They weren't responsible for his choices, that much was clear. But they were responsible for the restricted number of choices he had been given.
The question, now, was this: what had been his choices between the bad, the worse, and the worst?
Sirius had a pretty good idea of what was going on in his audience's heads, and he had to admit he reveled in it. For once, he had the opportunity to make them see, and to make them understand.
And that he would do.
Of course, there were also the few Death Eaters who had come because, well, they were curious, or supposed to be here, since, you know, "heads of Houses", or gathering intel...
He wasn't sure of what was going on in their particular heads, but if they weren't bullshitting everything he said – because obviously, "endoctrinated idiots" – he was certain they weren't enjoying the show. He could live with that.
And then, there were those he knew, those ones who knew, who knew him and what he could do when he was angry... But even amongst those ones, few knew what he was going to talk about.
Who knew?
Harry, Hermione and Ron. Dumbledore and Remus, of course.
No one else in this courtroom knew about what he had done all those years ago.
They had asked for it, so he would tell them. But he doubted they wanted to know anymore. He could see it in their eyes, that many of them wanted out already. They didn't want to hear about the truth anymore, because they knew it wouldn't be pretty, and worse, they knew that if he was the one to say it, he'd manage to make them feel horrible, because that was what he did.
But they had asked.
"I will keep their name a secret, because they might want to stay anonymous. If not, they are welcome to come and complete my claim. But one day when I was sixteen, I tried to murder a fellow student."
Sirius had wondered for quite a while how he should act this one out. He couln't look too contrite, not with what he was going to say, but being completely indifferent was simply not an option.
Finally, he would go with honesty. After all, wasn't that what he had promised them?
Honesty.
Even when it wasn't to their liking.
Sirius wasn't sorry about what he had done to Snape. But he was ashamed. So his smile disappeared, and his face was hard and cold, but not repentant.
"To be accurate, I tried to have a fellow student killed. I didn't come to them with a knife or a spell. I wouldn't have murdered them, so to say. Only, they'd be dead, if James hadn't come and stopped them before it was too late, because I had told them where to find what they wanted... without saying what they wanted to know was in the form of a fully transformed werewolf."
Many heads turned slowly to the only werewolf in the courtroom, who also happened to be the accused's friend. Where else would Black have found a werewolf to murder someone else with?
Emilia Croyne, on the other hand, was looking at the Black lord, and she guessed he was making it a point not to look at Remus Lupin, who looked pale as death, his eyes closed.
"One nosy student, who wanted to know something which wasn't their business, and wanted it so badly they weren't even able to tell there was something fishy in me admitting they just had to find the right secret passage out of Hogwarts, follow it until the end, and undo the locking spells on the door. One student who hated us enough to try and have us expelled, as if we could have gotten a werewolf in school without the headmaster actually knowing it, and who wanted nothing more than to get rid of him, because, you know, 'werewolf'."
Sirius almost spat that word, as if a caricature of what they did, these bastards who thought themselves better than anyone else because they were humans, because they were wizards, because they were purebloods.
But even busy as he was making his contempt known, he didn't miss the dark look two lords / Death Eaters exchanged, as if they had suddenly realized who he was talking about.
Well, if they had, Snape surely wouldn't be happy. On the other hand, they would be even less likely to suspect Snivellus of being a traitor. One does not just go over to the side of the guy who had almost fed them to a werewolf. Not without a pretty good reason. And according to Death Eaters, the death of a mudblood was far from being a good reason, even if said mudblood had been Snape's best friend for years and he had obviously had a crush on her.
"They knew, and they wanted to have proof, and then get the unfortunate werewolf expelled, as if it was his fault one Fenrir Greyback had decided it'd be fun to bit a five-years-old boy. A boy who had been lucky enough to be eleven when Albus Dumbledore was headmaster, and to be given a place in Hogwarts with some precautions to be taken during the full moons. A boy who had suffered the madness of being a werewolf, and the pain of the transformation for years, and who had worked hard to keep up in class when he missed an entire day or more of lessons every month. A boy who helped everyone if they only asked, and who was one of the best souls in Hogwarts."
Tonks was the one to silently growl as a wizard tried to move away from the said "boy", who was a bit older now, but still a werewolf. Andromeda turned around, glared at her daughter who immediately stopped, smiled at Remus even though his eyes were closed, and then glared at every single person who dared to even make a face at the werewolf. They stopped right away.
Then a witch rose from her seat, and went to sit next to Remus, who opened his eyes in surprise. She only shrugged, and looked back at Sirius, who winked playfully. She laughed a silent laugh.
June Summers had gotten an outstanding in Defense against the Dark Arts at her N.E.W.T.s thanks to Remus' help in sixth and seventh years, and Sirius surely hadn't forgotten about that.
But the young lord turned back to the temporary Chief Warlock.
His face was once again a grave mask.
"I was sixteen, and a bit of a fool."
Several eyebrows arched at that. They doubted Black had ever been a fool, even if he hadn't always been very nice to his classmates. If anything, every time he had done something that could be considered as foolish, he had known it and done it anyway, because being serious and reasonable and perfect just wasn't interesting.
Sirius, of course, acted as if he had seen nothing of the simultaneous-eyebrows-arching motions.
Of course he had known all along, but he had been sixteen. Snivellus had been a pain in the ass for too long already, and then he had become a threat. He had had to make a choice, and maybe it hadn't been the right one, but at least it had been an efficient one.
Snape had had to shut up, after that.
No, his mistake had been to think he could handle the anger of his friends afterwards.
"But more than anything else, I was fed up with the threats and glares, and I didn't want one prejudiced bastard to destroy my friend's life. So when it was time for the full moon, when he taunted me once more, I grabbed the student and acted as if I was angry. And I was, sure. But not like that. Not as if it could prevent me from thinking straight. They didn't see that, and they started saying things about secrets we'd rather not see divulged. I played along, and in they end, they thought they had gotten me to spill it, when in truth, I knew exactly what they were playing at. They wanted proof. I gave them one. I told them how to get to where the werewolf was being confined during the full moon, and they went."
Remus' hands were white and red as he twisted them in all sorts of ways. Sirius didn't miss that either, but he didn't stop, because now that he had started, he had to finish, and the sooner the better.
"My goal wasn't to get them killed, but I knew it was a possibility, and frankly, I didn't care. The best was for them to be frightened beyond words, and if that wasn't possible, for them to get called to Dumbledore's office. Because the thing was, if the headmaster knew they knew, they were powerless. If the headmaster did not know, they could have gone to the newspapers, or talked to someone who would have talked to someone, and Dumbledore's decision or not, and authorization from the Ministry or not, my friend wouldn't have been able to stay at Hogwarts."
And that had been a very reasonable way to get rid of the Snivellus issue.
Only, it hadn't been the only one, and Sirius still couldn't believe he had let himself so out of control at the time. But it had happened, and he would assume his responsabilities.
Or at least, he would let everyone know what they asked for if they started messing with him.
"Of course, I won't try to delude you into thinking I hadn't realized the risks. It'd be useless. We all know what may happens when there are a transformed werewolf and a teenager in the same room. It wouldn't be believable if I said I hadn't realized. I knew they could get killed. I told them anyway."
As she listened to this story she had never known, Bellatrix had to admit it sounded bad for her cousin. After all, he had done something terrible, which almost put him equal to someone like her.
She was even surprised Sirius had ever acted like that. It wasn't as if he was the crazed one in the family. To think Walburga hadn't been happy with her son's ways. If she had known how close to a Death Eater's his ways were...
Good thing she hadn't known, really, or she'd never have let him go.
In the heads of Houses' tribune, Theodore Rowle caught his niece's meaningful glance from the spectators' tribunes. He had been watching the whole trial with interest, but this had come to a point many people were too taken aback for it to continue normally.
The Rowle lord had to say, Sirius Black was one interesting pureblood.
First of all, he'd managed to get every single person's trust, if not in him, at least in his words. And all that, while story-telling them how he had broken several laws and planned on murdering two people so far. For good reasons, yes. But still.
He was so going to see to it that Eleanor and the Black lord get married, if his niece kept on giving the young man those looks. Family dinners would become so entertaining...
And it would have the much appreciated advantage of driving away the family members with questionnable jobs involving dark capes, stupid masks, and the Dark Arts.
Back to Croyne, the temporary Chief Warlock was still trying to process the piece of information. More than the fact that Sirius Black had tried to feed a student to a werewolf when he had been only sixteen years old, she was more astonished that he had confessed to having done it willingly.
This was even worse than having used an Unforgivable, she realized, and he still had told them, when no one in twenty years had ever known anything.
She wasn't able to say anything, but fortunately for her, Lord Rowle had raised his hand from the heads' tribune. She nodded to him, giving her assent.
"Lord Black, you mentioned the intervention of the late Lord Potter in the... rescue of this student. Did he know your plan beforehand?"
The young lord looked Theodore in the eyes for some time before answering. The older lord had a feeling the wizard would have smiled, if the conversation had allowed it. But as they were discussing how his sixteen-years-old self had tried to get a classmate killed, he hadn't.
"None of my friends knew about it. James was too nice to do something like that, even if it was necessary, and yes, I am talking about the borderline bully who was my friend, and not another James. James Potter was a teenager with an overinflated ego and a tenacious jealousy, but he never did anything really dangerous to anyone, unless to defend himself or others. He could be horrible when he wanted too, and a downright prat, but he wasn't dangerous. As for the rat, he would have gone to James right away if I had told him what I planned to do. He'd rather give the dirty work to someone else, you see, and at the time, he wasn't yet a traitorous bastard. And do you really think I'd have told Remus I wanted to use him to frighten / possibly murder a student? I'm not stupid, thank you very much. First thing, he wouldn't have let me do it, and second, he couldn't be held responsible if he didn't know anything."
Sirius saw a doubtful look on many faces, and rolled his eyes.
"My bad, I didn't formulate that as I should have. Of course your stupid anti-werewolves laws would have considered him responsible if an idiot walked right into the place he kept himself locked up during the full mon, with locking spells and layers of protections, knowing full well what they'd walk into, but believing that somehow, they'd get out unscathed, or maybe the werewolf was in a cage or something!"
The young lord snorted disdainfully, and even if he was right, he knew that Frank was making faces at him – again – from behind the Burke lady. Frank wasn't an idiot, and had understood right away who this tale was about.
Even if the former auror was quite horrified with what his friend had just admitted to have done, Frank also knew how Snape had been with the Marauders that year. Saying that the Slytherin had been bullied would be a lie: both sides were horrible to each other, and if the Gryffindors had been humiliating him more times than not, the Slytherin had never shied away from using dark magic against them, sometimes even spells which were obviously straight out of a Dark Arts book. And each time one of those spells had reached one of the other boys, Sirius had been the one to lessen the effects, and if needed, to get his friends to the infirmary.
As for himself, the Black heir had never been hit with anything truly dangerous. The worst spells aimed at him, he dismissed with a quick flick of his wand. After all, he had a thing with the Dark Arts.
And as he'd just proved, Sirius didn't need the Dark Arts to be terrifying.
"What I meant exactly, dear public, was that if he didn't know anything, and it turned to the worst, Remus wouldn't have been able to say to Dumbledore how it had happened. The fuzzy memories from the transformation could easily have been erased or turned into something else. You wouldn't believe what one learn when they grow up in the House of Black. My relatives had strange ideas on education, if making me read How to make a body disappear in eighteen lessons at ten years old is any indication. Then again, it was aunt Cassiopeia's, so I shouldn't be surprised... Yet I still am."
Now, that caused a silence in the courtroom.
After some time, Theodore Rowle thought it would be good to get the trial back on tracks. The Black lord was decidedly having way too much fun with all this, it'd be indecent if it wasn't his own trial. Or maybe it was indecent, because it was the young lord's trial.
Emilia Croyne, blinking from time to time, just waved him to go on when he raised his hand again.
"If I get your meaning right, you intended to make it look like it had happened... another way?"
"Another way than by being chewed upon by a werewolf? Of course. I'd have made it seem so what had happened was the exact truth, but without the werewolf bit. There are quite a few dangerous places in Hogwarts, though I know for certain one cannot just stumble upon them, because there are powerful repulsing charms to keep the wandering student away. But I was never a wandering student, and every secret passage or deadly trap James, Remus, Peter and I found were so on purpose. I could very well have led that student to one of our hideouts, and not without warning them that it wasn't so easy to get in, and that some things guarding it were possibly deadly, because they had been pestering me to know the truth about this or that. It is basically the truth of what I did, after all. They aready knew Remus was a werewolf, they only needed proof, and they surely hadn't missed the fact that it was a full moon. I'd have been responsible for leading them knowingly to their death, but not for their sick curiosity, nor for their habit of being nosy about others' business."
Some people mumbled in the public, but thanks to the silencing charms, nothing was heard in the courtroom. Lord Rowle took a moment to watch the odd expressions it made on their faces, and then went back to the problem at hand.
No matter what these people thought, Theodore knew that the young Black lord was right. At most, he'd have been charged with deceiving his victim to their death, and not actual murder. One who knew there was a werewolf behind a door and wanted desperately to find something to destroy the said werewolf's life couldn't be considered as a simple victim if they walked in.
And there was one thing that Sirius Black had said that made him infinitely different from Death Eaters, or even common criminals.
"And we should believe you when you say you'd have surrendered yourself once the deed done?"
Being able to commit a crime and to accept one's responsibility weren't usually qualities that went well with each other.
"Once again, I never intended for them to get killed. I knew it was a risk. But it wasn't my goal. If a plan of mine goes astray, I take responsibility. But the prospect of failure will never be one to stop me, because some times one has to act for things to be as they should, be it by changing, or by staying the same. I had to protect my friend. Even at the cost of my well-being."
And with that, the Black lord had once again said how unlikely it was for him to have betrayed his best friend that Halloween night.
Theodore was rather pleased with himself, because it looked like not many other people were able to think straight anymore.
In the end, it was Emilia Croyne who broke the silence again.
"Lord Black, do you even regret those actions?"
Sirius sat straighter on his seat, and took the time to look at the faces in the courtroom.
The officials looked rather disturbed, and Scrimgeour was somewhere between glee and horror. On the other side, the lords and ladies seemed completely lost, not in what had been said, but in what they were supposed to think now. That left the spectators, friends, and family.
Remus looked like he was about to vomit, but it was actually better than before. Dora had joined him and June Summers, whom the metamorphmagus was eyeing warily. Sirius squinted. What was it that his young cousin's facial expression was reminding him of, exactly?
Yeah, no.
Let's not think about that.
His eye traveled to Andromeda and Narcissa, and the two were almost glued to each other in a sisterly embrace. Busted.
Sirius took a moment to look up at the ceiling, wondering what Bella was thinking of her sisters' reunion and the fact that she couldn't be with them right now.
Then he went back to his audience – though Bellatrix could be seen as some sort of uninvited public.
Harry didn't look utterly disturbed – only slightly – by the latest topic, maybe because he knew already, and because he didn't like Snivellus more than Sirius had at the same age.
At last, the young lord looked at the other members of the Order of the Phoenix. They had become as shifty as the other spectators were, and he sighed. He had guessed that this particular truth wouldn't go down easily – after all, it was about him trying to murder another teenager.
So Sirius looked back at Emilia Croyne, and he sighed again.
"Truthfully, Chief Warlock? I don't. I don't, because that student has been sworn to secrecy after the incident, and I have been punished as I believe I deserved to be, and so, Remus was safe. I did what I had to do, and if they hadn't been stupid enough to go and search for a werewolf under a full moon, this would never have happened. I don't regret keeping the ones I care for safe."
The temporary Chief Warlock squinted, and Croyne noticed she was holding her breath, waiting for more.
Because there had to be more.
Sirius Black wasn't a nice guy, that much had been made clear by the man himself from the beginning. But he wasn't a wizard who did something bad and didn't care about it either, or she had been wrong about his personality from the beginning.
Where was the man who had made them feel the shame they should have felt the day they had refused to listen to him?
Where was the wizard who could make fair and unfair the bane of their consciences?
Had she been wrong all along?
And if that was the case, how could he be here, and tell them the truth, and nothing but the truth? Was he not afraid of punishment? Was Sirius Black truly able to tell the truth for the truth, and nothing but the truth, when there wasn't freedom promised at the end?
It wasn't as if he was forced to tell the truth by the sinemendatium potion. All it did was keeping him from lying. He could have twisted the truth for it to sound better. Or just not said anything.
But he had talked.
And the truth was that Sirius Black had still things to say as an answer to that particular question.
His voice startled more than one when he talked again.
"However, I do regret that I let my anger control me like that. I am ashamed of it, for every time I ever let my feelings dictate my actions, something went wrong. James barely stopped that student in time, because I told him at the last moment. Peter escaped and killed twelve muggles in doing so because I was unable to think rationally. I spent twelve years in Azkaban because I hadn't been able to speak right away when the aurors came. Peter escaped again, two years ago, because I forgot it was the full moon again and was focused on the damn rat only. Every single time I let my emotions get in the way, I overlooked one thing, one single thing, and it made my world hell."
Emilia Croyne didn't feel like she had the right to ask how the werewolf incident had affected him afterwards, because she had a feeling no one would like the answer. Certainly the young lord's friends hadn't liked what had happened at all... and maybe that had been the seed which had cost him his best friend's life and the others' trust in him."
She didn't get to ask, and she was thankful for that.
"I don't regret doing what I had to do, Chief Warlock Croyne, but I am ashamed that the only times I allowed myself to be humane, it proved to be a disaster. And that is the exact reason why I can't allow myself to regret anything like that."
With these two sentences, the courtroom froze.
The unease that had taken over the public as Sirius Black had told them about the attempted murder he was guilty of disappeared. Suddenly, no one thought he was a monster anymore.
The only thing which went on and on in their minds was that Lord Black felt that being someone normal was a blessing he wasn't allowed to taste, or it would turn into a curse.
A hand was raised in the lords' tribune, and Croyne took the opportunity to let Lady Ollivander, cousin to the famous wandmaker, speak in her stead. Right now, the temporary Chief Warlock wasn't feeling up to the task, and she could tell she wouldn't be before several minutes.
This trial was proving to be testing.
Lady Ollivander was even older than her cousin Garrick Ollivander, and his abduction had added to her white hair and lined face more than she cared to notice. She shared his pale silver eyes, and when they met with the bright silver of the Black lord's, many felt as if something had been triggered – what, they didn't know.
"You intended to modify your friend's memory, correct?"
Sirius tilted his head, but didn't look at the said friend, as some had expected him to. Remus knew that already, he had told him his whole plan after the incident.
That was, he had told him when the werewolf had deigned to hear him out.
Three months later.
After Sirius had shut down the connection between his feelings and his brain with his strongest occlumency shields for more than two months, because he couldn't bear the hostility between him and his friends – who had been, at the time, more "former" than "actual".
Because this Sirius had completely freaked out the whole student body, and not only the Slytherins, for once, and more than anybody else, the other Marauders. After two weeks, the teachers were already trying to get Dumbledore to break the teenager's mental shields, and after one month, James, Remus and Peter had been dreading the time he'd come to their dormitory to sleep. In the end, they had decided they had to talk to him, because it was as if Sirius was nothing more than a body and a brain, with no heart nor soul.
When they had, the Black heir had let the shields down, and had been back, to everyone's relief.
Everyone except the Slytherins, who quite liked that version of Sirius Black, not because he was on their side, but because he hadn't been hexing them or frightening them out of their minds when he thought their actions were more shameful than usual.
Sirius sure as hell wasn't going to talk about that before all those strangers, some of which had witnessed the change, for they had been students in that time, but most of whom had no idea what exactly had happened back then.
He had already told them why the Marauders had been at odds for three months. He wasn't going to tell them what his weaknesses were.
So the young lord only looked at Juliet Ollivander, and never to his friend, as he answered her question.
"I did intend to modify his memories, because Remus is too honest for his own good. Too honest, for people like you, who would have had him carted away to Azkaban at sixteen without even asking what had actually happened. Too honest, for people who can't see there is more to someone than their blood... or their species."
Many people, amongst the lords, the ladies, the officials and the spectators, shifted on their seats.
Sirius was far from surprised at his audience's reactions.
There were the ones who believed hard as nails they were better than anyone else, for various reasons, reasons that often were blood purity and magic, making the halfbloods and muggleborns, and muggles, inferior beings. Those hadn't felt bothered by what he was implying, of course.
Those who really didn't care about all the talk about human or not human, magic or not magic, and just said everyone deserved to live, and, please, be left alone, for there was no reason to bother someone about their capacity to use magic or about their blood – those people only nodded their approval, and for some of them eyed the shifting people disapprovingly.
But there were also those who liked to pretend they weren't prejudiced, and who felt they shouldn't be, and yet were. Or those who pretended they weren't, because it was a better image to show the world, when in truth and in private, they were.
And last but not least, there were those who didn't care about blood purity, and yet were asses to the others species, because hell, they're not like us!
The Black lord had just implied that, more than it being about "muggle or not muggle, that is the question", it was also about "human or not human". That the ones who prided themselves in not being prejudiced only lied to themselves. And, finally, that there shouldn't be distinctions between conscious beings, other than the fact that centaurs were four-legged and goblins weren't tall. Not the same body, not the same mind, sure, but alive and conscious like anyone else.
Another lord claimed the right to speak, and Emilia Croyne gave it to him, thinking about how well the Black lord could get their attention away from the actual point of every question: his guilt. Yet, even knowing what he was doing, the witch couldn't ignore how his ways were getting to her, and maybe, that had to mean something. Something like, he was guilty of some things, but he was right when he explained how he had come to such ends. How he wasn't so guilty, in fact.
"In the end, Lord Black, you are trying to make us see how not prejudiced you are."
No, I'm trying to make you forget about my crimes by turning your own flaws against you. Sirius guessed he couldn't roll his eyes and answer that to Lord Abbot, who was still angry with what had happened earlier, outside the courtroom. So he didn't, and made a sickening smile instead.
Benjamin Abbot gulped when he saw the smile he was given, feeling once again that he wasn't going to like what would follow.
Still, he went on, determined to undermine the other lord's confidence. He didn't believe in Sirius Black's innocence, even if he had to admit that what the young lord had said during the trial made sense, so far.
Maybe it was more that he didn't believe Black to be good, than him to be guilty of being a Death Eater. One could be a danger to society and an evil bastard without working for another evil bastard.
"But these are only words. And prejudiced or not, you have proved yourself to be a dangerous wizard, more than able in the Dark Arts, and not afraid of doing 'what has to be done'. If we judge you innocent and you walk free, what guarantee do we have that you won't just do 'what has to be done' and curse your enemies into oblivion, whoever these enemies really are, muggles or Death Eaters? After all, the Dark Arts are rather useful, if illegal, to take care of such issues."
Sirius squinted at the Abbot lord. His smile became thinner, and slowly turned into a smirk.