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Chapter Forty—Before the Wizengamot

I should let you know that vengeance might come from unexpected directions.

Harry frowns as the words appear in his journal and sends a thought back to Aradia. What do you mean?

The words that appear in the journal next have a palpable weight of smugness to them. Be content to wait and see.

"You are not concentrating, Mr. Longbottom."

"You said that you were going to call me Neville, Professor Snape."

Severus bites back his own temptation to snap at the boy, and inclines his head. "Yes, I did," he says. "Pray excuse me. But also, pray tell me why your concentration is so scattered and it looks as though your Occlumency defenses might wither in one blast of strong sunlight."

He gets a faint smile from Neville as the boy rubs his eyes. Severus produces a Headache Draught he specially brewed to take care of the pain to one's mind following Legilimency, and tosses it at the boy when Neville opens his eyes to catch it. Neville does fumble, but he doesn't drop the vial, and downs the potion with a sigh of relief.

"The thought that Black murdered someone right in the middle of our common room," he finally mumbles.

Severus grimaces. That is understandable. Albus seems to be relying on Minerva to provide any helpher Gryffindors need, while dealing with infuriated parents based on how many owls they send. Severus thinks that Minerva is both temperamentally unsuited for the task and also overwhelmed with her own duties as professor, Head of Gryffindor, and Deputy Head.

It's possible that Albus might give more weight to an owl sent by Augusta Longbottom than other parents, of course, but Severus understands well enough by now that Neville would never ask her and she would never think to do it on her own.

"I could speak to your grandmother about getting you an audience with the Headmaster," Severus suggests.

He doesn't expect the bitter laugh that bubbles out of the boy's throat, or the way that he wipes his face with his hand again. Then Neville whispers, "She doesn't think that I ought to rely on even the lavender plants that soothe me, never mind anything else."

"What?"

"Lavender and some other plants help me better when I have a nightmare or a headache than a potion, when I'm at home. But Gran thinks that it makes me weak. I have to sneak around her rules and have a house-elf bring the plants to me."

Severus stares at him. In truth, this does not surprise him with what he knows of Augusta Longbottom, but—

He did not believe that she would use such bloody-minded belief in "strength" against her own grandson.

What am I saying? Of course she would.

Severus ends up shaking his head. "I promise that you need not fear such scorn from me, Neville."

"I know. But it means that I won't get any relief if you write to Gran and tell her that I'm upset about the killing in our common room. She would just send me a Howler telling me that the Boy-Who-Lived needs to be tougher than that." Neville blinks and stands taller. "I'm ready to continue, sir."

Severus studies the boy for one moment more, and offers the only comfort he can think of. "It may be that the Wizengamot will convict Black and he will not return to the school."

"Do you really believe that, sir? With Dumbledore speaking for him?"

Severus does not, not when he has his own bitter experience of exactly how highly Dumbledore thinks of Sirius Black behind him. He ends up swallowing and lifting his wand. "Attempt to block my Legilimency probe, Neville."

"Yes, sir."

Severus loses himself in the rhythm of Occlumency practice, but the whole time, his mind is working at the problem of Augusta Longbottom and Neville Longbottom, at the problem of Sirius Black and the dead Peter Pettigrew, attempting to find some solution that will promise Neville some relief.

In the end, he has to let the Boy-Who-Lived go back to his Tower without having been able to think of something, but he promises himself, silently, that he will go on thinking. He will not make such a promise aloud until he has something more to offer than silence, however.

"You must present yourself as calm and confident in your acquittal, Sirius."

"Of course I'm confident in my bloody acquittal! I was killing a traitor who would have gone on trying to kill or corrupt the children in Gryffindor Tower if he'd lived."

Albus manages not to close his eyes and groan aloud, but it's a near thing. He walks close behind Sirius as they make their way into the main chamber where the Wizengamot sits.

Albus eyes them as he moves to his own seat, the heavy and elaborate oaken chair of the Chief Warlock, near the top of the chamber. He can't remember ever seeing the Wizengamot so silent before. He doesn't know if that's a good thing or not.

On the one hand, it might mean that they're thinking deeply about the case. On the other, it might mean that they've already made up their minds.

Sirius sits down in the chair in the center of the courtroom's floor, not looking intimidated by the stares coming his way. Albus hopes that others will see the expression on his face as calm instead of manic.

"We are here to hold the trial of Sirius Black for the killing of the traitor Peter Pettigrew."

Albus breathes a little. It's Giselle Ogden who's speaking, and she's a long-time ally and someone who will understand the value that Sirius has, since she was once part of the Order of the Phoenix. And it's a good thing that she both sounds calm and is referring to Peter as a traitor, that she believes Sirius's version of events.

Of course, someone immediately interrupts her. "I want more evidence that Pettigrew was a traitor before I agree to describe him that way, Giselle."

Albus holds back a sigh as Giselle bristles and turns to face the other side of the chamber. He's deplored to her before her rivalry with Helena Greengrass, but he supposes it won't take more than a few minutes of sniping.

"If you had examined the man's own description, Helena—"

"Forgive me, but I don't think that someone trying to excuse ripping a man's throat out with his teeth will have any interest in writing an unbiased description."

Other members of the Wizengamot settle back in their seats as the sniping between the two old rivals builds. Albus keeps an eye on Sirius. At the moment, he seems fine, at least in his expression, but the way he shifts, Albus is sure that Sirius is tapping one foot on the floor beneath the hem of his robes.

Always a bad sign.

The argument continues until Albus has the right to intervene as Chief Warlock, since the two members have wasted more than five minutes of time. "If we might get on with it?" he adds, and looks down his nose at Giselle and Helena. Neither of them look repentant, but they do settle down enough that Albus can nod and turn to Sirius.

"Please tell us the incident as you remember it, Mr. Black."

Sirius shifts his shoulders. The formal tailored robe, which Remus said he should wear, feels stiff and unnatural on him. He would have liked to come in informal robes to show the Wizengamot members that he's just a person like them, someone who has the right to react to threats to his beloved godson.

But both Albus and Remus seem to think this is the way he needs to handle it, for now. And now Albus is asking him a question.

Sirius takes a deep breath and begins. "I was in the Great Hall in my Animagus form. Everyone knows about it, and the Gryffindors like it when I spend some time with them before classes…"

He tells the story of following the rat's scent out of the Great Hall and up to Gryffindor Tower. A lot of people are leaning forwards in their seats, listening intently. Sirius takes some heart from that. At least they aren't rushing to condemn him right away.

"And I was so upset about him denying what I knew to be true, I didn't even think about what I was doing." Sirius closes his eyes, not because he doesn't want to see the Wizengamot members' faces, but because it's the best way to remember what he actually felt like at that moment. "I knew he was a traitor. He knew he was a traitor. That he would deny it, and act as though I was the crazy one, and I had never caught up with him before, when I can remember it, as clear as day—"

"What exactly was he claiming, Mr. Black?"

Sirius starts and opens his eyes. The Wizengamot members are leaning forwards to stare at him, and he's reminded that this isn't just a trial for his future freedom, but for Harry to have a good influence. He can't seem crazy here.

He sits up. "He was claiming that he wasn't the primary Secret-Keeper, and there was a way that You-Know-Who could have tortured him into forcing him to reveal the secret."

"That is not the way the Fidelius Charm works."

Sirius gives the woman who's speaking a grateful smile. She's older. Griselda Marchbanks, maybe? "Yes, madam, that's right. And in any case, Pettigrew was the Secret-Keeper after I suggested that we switch to fool the Death Eaters. More fool me," he whispers, thinking of the way that James laughed when he suggested it and said that of course no one would suspect Wormtail, and Sirius was brilliant.

"You could not have known that things would work out this way, Sirius."

Sirius gives Albus another grateful smile, and then his smile freezes as he hears someone clearing his throat on the other side of the room. Sirius hasn't heard that voice in more than ten years, but he knows exactly who it is, and how much he hates them.

Sirius twists around to glare at Lucius Malfoy, the slimy bastard who married his cousin Narcissa. That was the last time Sirius saw him, at a family gathering, and maybe he should be grateful to see that Lucius hasn't changed from his slimy self. But he's not.

"You are arguing that you killed Mr. Pettigrew in a fit of rage?" Lucius asks, so careful that Sirius wants to grip his head and slam it into a wall. He takes a deep breath and calms himself as best he can. It wouldn't be good to explode into violence in the middle of the courtroom. "But you had known that he was a traitor, as you named him, for more than a decade?"

"That's right," Sirius snaps, ignoring the way that he can see Albus making a little motion with his hand. Albus might want him to be cautious, but Sirius doesn't need to. Lucius has nothing to do with this, except that he might be a Death Eater who thinks Wormtail deserved mercy because of that. "We were hunting him all over the Continent until we figured out that he was back in Britain."

"We?"

"Remus Lupin and I."

"Ah." Lucius casts a glance at Remus, who took a chair behind Sirius a minute after he walked into the courtroom. Sirius hasn't turned to meet Remus's eyes since then because, frankly, he doesn't understand the way Remus is acting lately, but they don't need to expose any cracks in their defense to the Wizengamot. "I would quite like to hear from Mr. Lupin."

"I didn't witness the incident," Remus whispers. Sirius knows that if he were in wolf form, he would be cringing and rolling over on his back.

"That is not what I meant, Mr. Lupin. I meant that you must have known Mr. Black was an Animagus and all about the details of Mr. Pettigrew's supposed treachery."

Sirius exchanges a concerned look with Albus. What is Lucius up to?

"Er, yes. I suppose. That is, yes." Remus is trying to sound a little firmer. Sirius looks back over his shoulder and sees his best friend sitting up, his eyes fixed on Lucius as if trying to figure out what his game is, too. "Of course I knew all about this."

"Would you say that Mr. Black is strongly influenced by his Animagus form?"

"Well, Mr. Malfoy, if one believes the theories that one's Animagus form is an expression of one's soul, then yes. Of course."

"I didn't mean that, Mr. Lupin." Sirius hates the way that Lucius sounds, all gentle and oozing patience. "I meant, would you say that Mr. Black's actions are influenced by the fact that his Animagus form is a dog? Instead of, for example, a fox or something similar?"

Remus pauses, apparently sensing that this is a trap. Sirius already knew it was, but he has to admit, he doesn't know where Lucius is going. They can't get Sirius on being an illegal Animagus, since he registered when he and Remus came back to Britain.

"I don't know about that," Remus says at last, temporizing. He was always good at that when they broke some stupid school rule and had to get out of it by talking to the professors. "I would say that he hasn't spent long periods of time in dog form in the past twelve years. We were always together on the hunt, and he hated Pettigrew, but I don't think more than I did."

Yes, I did, Sirius would have to say if he were under Veritaserum and being asked the question. Remus has never really hated anyone in his life. Sirius has been the one who had the strong passions that nearly led them to disaster where Severus Snape was concerned, and—

And did lead to this, although Sirius doesn't know whether he would call it a disaster yet.

"Then you would say that Mr. Black acted as a man and not a dog when he confronted Mr. Pettigrew in the middle of the Gryffindor common room?"

"I wasn't there, Mr. Malfoy. I thought I made that clear."

"But what would you say, based on what you know of his behavior?'

Sirius tries to smile reassuringly at Remus. He's not sure his friend sees it. Remus is letting his eyes flick around the courtroom, and whatever he sees on the faces of the other Wizengamot members is making him sweat.

"He wasn't there," Sirius says, when it becomes obvious Remus is not going to answer.

"But the question pertains to the case," says the old woman Sirius has heard the others call Helena. She leans forwards until she looks as if she might creak out of her seat. "I find myself interested as well. How much would you say that Mr. Black acted like a man when he confronted this—Wormtail, Mr. Lupin? And how much like a dog?"

Sirius suddenly sees the trap they're hurtling towards. He turns to face Helena of whatever last name she is. "That isn't relevant to the case," he says sharply.

"On the contrary, Mr. Black, a vital element of your defense—"

"I said he wasn't there!"

Sirius is humiliated with the last words emerge in almost a bark, and he doesn't like the way that Malfoy's eyes flash or how he nods to someone sitting next to him who has the look of a Lestrange. Before Sirius can speak again, though, Albus interrupts with that quiet, firm voice one can't help but obey.

"I think we have exhausted the usefulness that our questioning of Professor Lupin can provide us. We must go with the testimony of the people who were there, and the only one in this courtroom is Mr. Black."

"You said, Albus," Helena says, thumping a hand on the arm of her chair, "that Mr. Black was overcome by rage when he tore apart Peter Pettigrew, that his Animagus form was influencing him. But this Mr. Lupin says that he hasn't known Black's Animagus form to influence him. Of all the people in this room, he should know Black the best, shouldn't he? If it wasn't because he was a dog hunting prey, why did Mr. Black rip Mr. Pettigrew's throat out?"

Sirius wishes he could tell them to call him Wormtail. It's all the name he deserves, now. But he has the feeling that he might already have spoken too freely.

"He did it because he was caught in the middle of vast anger at a friend's betrayal," Albus murmurs. His face is perhaps a little paler, but it's still serene, and he doesn't show Sirius any of the hand signals they've agreed on that would tell him to shut up or do something else. Sirius just keeps watching. "What does it matter whether the rage he felt was a man's or a dog's?"

"I think it matters a great deal," Lucius says silkily. There's a man whose throat Sirius would like to rip out. "For example, if this is the way he acts as a dog, then all Mr. Black has to do to avoid murdering someone is not turn into a dog again. We could bind his Animagus form instead of sending him to Azkaban. But if his Animagus form influences him or this is the way he acts as a man, then I have concerns. I have a son in your school, after all, Chief Warlock."

"The little bastard isn't even in Gryffindor!"

Lucius turns and gives Sirius such a wide-eyed stare that Sirius is suddenly certain he fucked up, although not exactly how. "If murdering someone in their common room is how you treat students of the House you were a part of, forcing them to witness blood and gore and violence, then I do wonder how you would treat Gryffindor's notorious rival House, Mr. Black."

"There is no concern on that front," Albus interrupts loudly. "Mr. Black does not enter the Slytherin common room and does not teach classes."

"Really? Because my son wrote to me of Professor Black covering classes for Professor Lupin occasionally when he's ill. I would say that that means he holds enough authority to concern me for his interactions with Slytherin students."

"I never did anything to your son, you prick! Or you! Shut the fuck up!"

The anger that strikes Sirius is incandescent and quickly burning, unlike the rage he carried towards Pettigrew, but he slumps back a minute later with the damage done. Lucius turns with glittering eyes to the rest of the Wizengamot and gestures at Sirius.

"You see how this man threatens intemperate language in the middle of the Wizengamot, against someone who never betrayed him or stood as his friend, who is only speaking as a concerned parent. What will happen if he does take a dislike to a Slytherin student, or thinks he finds a traitor again? Murder in the common room might be the least of it!"

Sirius stares at Malfoy with his mouth open. Even seeing the trap at the last moment, he never thought this would happen.

"You are bringing up unjustified and unjustifiable suspicions, Lucius," Albus says, and his voice is calm and commanding and manages to slow Sirius's pounding heartbeat a little. "There is no reason to suspect that Sirius would ever hurt a student. He never has—"

"That is a lie."

Murmurs spread through the Wizengamot, and people crane their heads to look back at Lucius. Sirius stares at him and wonders what the idiot is going on about now. Sirius certainly never did anything more than make a few jokes on the days that he taught Defense classes with Slytherin students in them.

"You will need to bring your evidence forwards, Lucius, or trust that Professor Black is indeed in control of—"

"I question his control, given that he already murdered one man out of what was apparently uncontrollable rage," Lucius says dryly, but goes on before Sirius can challenge him on that. "But, in fact, I am speaking of a near-tragedy from Sirius Black's student days, when he tried to have another student murdered."

"What?" demands the woman Sirius thinks might be Griselda Marchbanks.

"Yes, indeed." Lucius looks around the courtroom and revels in all the eyes on him, the pompous prick. Sirius measures the distance between them with his eyes and longs to cross it in a bound. Then Lucius would see who has uncontrollable rage around here. "At the time, Mr. Black was part of a gang of students who called themselves the Marauders, and had a rivalry with a Slytherin student in their year, Severus Snape. Mr. Black set him up to be murdered."

"But he was not," Albus says, and his voice presses down in a great blanket of tranquility over the chamber. The Wizengamot members settle themselves, and for one moment, Sirius thinks—

"But the attempt was made," Lucius says, and his voice is loud and contemptuous. "Mr. Black was excused at the time on the account of his age. Even though the student he tried to murder was no older than Mr. Black himself. I assume," Lucius says, and steps forwards with silver edgings on his robes flashing in the dim light that fills the chamber, "that this excuse has now grown, as we might say, thin."

"That has no relevance to this case," Albus says, and his voice is almost a bark this time. "You should not be bringing it up, Lucius, not when Mr. Black has had no chance to—"

"I was given this information long ago," Lucius says softly. "At this time, I thought I would never use it. After all, I certainly never thought that Sirius Black would return to Hogwarts and claim a position of responsibility, or murder a man within its walls. But now that this has happened, I must wonder why what happened in the past was not seen as an indicator for what would happen in the future—"

"That isn't the crime we're here to try, though," says Albus's ally Giselle.

"No, but it has bearing on it, doesn't it? That Mr. Black is not simply a man who became caught up in anger against an old enemy—an old friend—but that he is essentially violent, and thinks of murder as a tool to solve his problems." Lucius's robes swish as he turns to look down his nose at Sirius. "Don't you."

"Sirius, no!"

Sirius hears Remus's warning distantly, as if from underwater, or in another world. He is already changing, his body flowing into the form of the great Grim-like dog, who is a Grim, maybe, a harbinger of death. He is so angry.

He springs.

Stunners hit him from multiple directions before he gets anywhere close to Lucius. Sirius crashes to the floor, snarling and fighting his way up through the darkness that the Stunners want to impose on him. He manages to stagger to his feet, but then someone else Stuns him, and he goes down.

He hears Lucius speaking smug words, and he hears Albus shouting something, and Remus is kneeling next to him with a hand on Sirius's side. Sirius manages to bare his teeth and snarl weakly when someone tries to move him who doesn't feel like Remus.

"Sirius, for Merlin's sake, shut up!"

That does sound like Remus, and Sirius wrinkles his lips into place over his teeth. But he can see from the expression on the faces of the Wizengamot members that it's probably too late.

The voting goes quickly, after that, and Sirius is human again by the time he hears that he's to serve a year in Azkaban for the attempted attack on Lucius and five years for the murder of Pettigrew. He rages and changes and tears at the Aurors who come to arrest him, but it makes no difference in the end. They strike him with Stunners calculated to handle a Grim, and the next time he wakes up, he's in darkness and cold and silence.

Silence, until the Dementors come.

Lucius smiles a little as he sweeps out of the courtroom. He never thought he would get the chance to use the information Severus entrusted him with so long ago like this, but it is just as well that he has, and someone who might attack Draco and hinder the Dark Lord's return is out of the way.

He touches the handle of his wand. It's also a good thing that no one would ever think to demand the wand of a Wizengamot member to scan it for Priori Incantatem.

A simple nonverbal Inhibition-Releasing Charm can do wonders for one's cause.

"He's in Azkaban."

"I will get him out, I swear to you, Remus."

Remus barely listens to Albus's assurances. He's too numb, and the glass of Firewhisky in his hand trembles. The soft phoenix song from Fawkes's direction can barely get through to him.

Azkaban.

Sirius, how did we end up here?

Did I not tell you that vengeance might come from entirely unexpected directions?

Harry smiles down at the words in his book and thinks back, Are you saying that you had something to do with Black's sentencing, Aradia?

One might have crossed paths with Lucius Malfoy. One might have planted a suggestion that he would not even remember hearing.

Harry laughs a little as he thinks back, You're wonderful.

"You sound creepy when you laugh like that, Potter," Michael Corner mutters.

Anthony glares at Michael, and Harry lets his friend handle his defense. He's too busy thinking about what he wants to do next, with Black unexpectedly out of the way.

Exploring some of the more deadly aspects of his gift with Steel seems pertinent, if he and Blaise are going to become killers.