The door to the small, dusty shop opened. A worn, battered bell sang out a tiny ring. The man sitting in his chair behind the counter smiled. His weathered hand reached out and plucked a thick leather manifest off a shelf. His ancient fingers pried open the stiff binding and began flipping from page to page.
Eventually the old man stopped on a blank page. He set the thick volume on a nearby shelf. He'd need this book later.
Then he looked up and smiled at the rather small young man who couldn't seem to decide whether to walk into the shop or to close the door and walk away. The old man's welcoming smile must have worked. The young man walked into the shop.
"Hello," the thin voice said. The young man seemed nervous.
"Hello," the old man responded before standing up from his chair. "What may I help you with?" His voice filled the entire room and had little echoes ringing from spot to spot. His voice, his personality filled the space almost to bursting.
The young man took an involuntary step back.
"Well, uh, I've been all over Diagon Alley trying to find the shop that carries Chocolate Frog cards. My friend collects them and he's missing…err, Circe, I think. I wanted to see if I could get that one for him."
The old man nodded once and then beckoned the young man closer with his curled finger.
"That's a very kind gesture, young master. I do, indeed, have some cards, but not the set you're looking for. I have several of the original Chocolate Frog cards, back from the 1780s."
His hand was already under the counter, locating an album. He pulled it out and set it on the counter.
"That sounds expensive," the young man said. "My friend might like it…but the cost, it might make him…."
"Jealous?"
The young man looked down, but then nodded.
"Yes, yes. Quite right to avoid inciting the baser emotions."
The old man returned the album underneath the counter without even opening it. Then he fixed his gray eyes on the young man.
"I suppose you wish to ask me what I sell here."
The young man looked up, a bit startled, from his inspection of the crevices of the floor. "Yes."
"I sell everything and anything."
The young man obviously didn't believe him. "How?"
The old man smiled more broadly. "Magic."
Harry tried to mask the sour expression that erupted, for a moment, on his face. "Everyone says that when they really don't want to explain."
The old man nodded. "Yes, it is convenient. Probably too convenient and eligible for misuse as an explanation. I do use magic, among other things, to procure items worthy for resale, but my techniques are far more profound than that." The young man seemed not to understand. "Let me say that my methods are trade secrets. I would not want anyone else to be able to do what I do."
A glimpse of understanding entered the young man's face. "So, what might someone like me purchase from you?"
A large, genuine smile burst over the shopkeeper's worn face. "Oh, clever question! Very good. As I do not know you, however, I cannot answer you. But…you can tell me what you desire above all else…and then we can work from there."
"Desire?" the young man said. His face went slack for a brief moment, as if he were suddenly deep within his past trying to reconstruct or remember something. "'It does not do to dwell on dreams, and forget to live.' Someone told me that when all I could think of was my desire."
The old man nodded. "I do not sell dreams, yet it is wise advice in general. Please tell me what had you so engaged."
"I looked at…a magical artifact that showed me a life with my parents, had I not grown up an orphan."
The old man had a sympathetic look on his face. "Yes, all too common these last years. So…you wish to have your family back?"
The young man seemed upset by the idea for a moment, before he shook his head. "That's impossible. But…I know nothing of them, other than how they looked. I wish to know my family. To appreciate them. To have a family history if I cannot have a mother and a father."
The old man looked into the young man's eyes for a few moments before his hand dropped under the counter and brought out a thick volume.
"You must tell me your name, then, if I am to try to locate something appropriate."
"I am the last Potter. Harry Potter." The young man expected a reaction of some sort. The old man changed nothing of his appearance or demeanor.
"Potter." His fingers flipped through the thick, ink-stained pages. "A common name, I think. Possibly too common. But…oh yes, that might very well be the thing."
"Sir?"
"Just one moment. I have something in my back room that you should examine. Just a moment, young master."
The young man stood in the odd store for a few minutes. His eyes wandered over shelves that contained contraptions he didn't understand. Days afterward, if he spoke of this place, which he never did, he might have compared the space to a Borgin and Burkes that didn't feel like it was going to swallow him whole.
This store felt…comforting.
It was a highly magical place. Even a young wizard with only two years of schooling could tell that. It felt like a more intense version of the Great Hall of Hogwarts, the flows of magic, the enchantments layered everywhere about.
Harry turned on his heel and looked at a shelf built into the counter near the door.
It contained items that he had never seen or heard of before. There was the skeleton of some kind of lizard…walking inside a glass bottle, but never moving from its position. Walking, walking, walking, a perpetual motion machine.
There was a green bottle that appeared empty but emitted small rings of smoke from its top. Green, then yellow, then tan, and then a deep purple. The colors cycled like this without change.
Further down the shelf there was a silver and deep blue stone that pulsed with magical energy, a warm, pleasing magic.
His hand reached out to touch the stone. He couldn't stop himself…nor, if he was honest with himself, did he want to stop.
He wanted to feel that beautiful magic.
"Be careful, young master," the old man said, his presence once again palpable in the small shop. Harry's hand dropped to his side, then he turned around slowly with a sheepish grin on his face.
"Never touch a magical object unless you know precisely what it does."
Harry's eyebrows nearly went to his hairline when he finally caught onto the import of the warning. "Oh, right. Sorry. I should have thought about that. I usually get in trouble for doing something before thinking about it."
"It's no problem, young master. Just be careful. That particular stone is quite beautiful. It carries a wonderful curse…."
"Excuse me, but how can a curse be wonderful?"
The old man walked from the doorway to his backroom to his normal spot behind the counter. He could almost reach out with his arm to touch the odd stone, but he did not. "It imparts to anyone who touches it a kind of euphoria. The closer one remains to the stone the better one feels. Many people, it is rumored, have perished after touching the stone as they refuse to find food or water…as it would mean moving far away from the cursed stone."
"Why keep it here?" Harry asked.
"It is useful. Not everyone would use it for ill intent. Say that a dangerous creature took up residence near your home. You could purchase this stone, arrange for the creature to touch it, and then move the stone somewhere further away. The creature would inevitably follow."
"It doesn't just work on people?"
The old shopkeeper smiled and shook his head. "Of course not. Magic can do almost anything one asks of it…provided one knows how to ask and is willing to pay the full price. Indeed, let me show you a fine work of magic, the item that I believe will teach you about your family."
Harry smiled and his eyes moved toward a thick book on the counter that hadn't been there before the storekeeper disappeared into his back room.
The old man reached that part of the counter first and turned the volume around so that Harry could read it. The dark gray leather seemed blackened over a good portion of the cover.
But he could see part of a coat of arms and the word "Potter" in the upper left portion.
The old man turned back to his ledger recording the books he owned and read his own notes. "I've had this volume for thirty-two years, bought as part of a lot from the wreckage of a manor house after a fire. I only got around to cataloging that box eight years ago it seems…my, my, I really do have too much in my warehouse."
The old man's eyes looked up and then he stared at the partially burnt book. "It's of a fine quality and is several hundred years old. I have not been able to open it…so that likely means it's blood bonded."
"Blood bonded?"
The old man nodded. "It is an ancient practice, fallen into disuse it seems by your not recognizing the term. Precious artifacts and spell books were bonded to a person or a family line. As a security mechanism, it's hard to bypass…."
Harry nodded. "So, if my blood opens this book, then I'm related to the people who wrote in this book?"
"I believe that would be true," the old man said.
A wide, deep smile emerged onto Harry's otherwise cautious face. It was a chance to have contact with family, distant family. If his blood was the right blood.
A few moments later Harry asked for a knife or something sharp. The old man reached under the counter and produced a thin glass rod. He snapped it in half and handed one piece to Harry.
Harry eagerly jabbed the tip of his thumb. A few drops of his blood fell onto the burnt side of the book. Nothing else seemed to happen.
Harry looked like someone had just told him treacle tart had been banned at Hogwarts. He set the broken half of the glass rod on the counter.
The old man picked it up and thrust it back at Harry. "It has your blood on it. Never forget that blood is a very important part of many types of magic. You should keep this with you until you are able to destroy it completely."
"Thank you. And thank you for finding this book. I'm just sorry it didn't seem to work…."
"Touch it. Lift the cover of the book. Don't assume."
Once he heard the order, Harry couldn't stop his hand. His finger caressed the charred leather, then hooked underneath the book board. He pulled his whole hand back gently, expecting not the slightest give. But…the cover opened.
His gentle movement changed. The cover flew the rest of the way open and Harry's face was almost inside the book. Inside was a spell. A spell to dry a piece of clay. A spell for a potter.
Harry flipped through the book. More spells for a potter. Then spells to protect a house. Then other things. Things he didn't understand at all, even as the handwriting became more familiar and the words less archaic.
It was a spellbook. It was a spellbook created and maintained by Harry's family.
"This is great!"
The old man looked at the volume and then smiled. "A Grimoire is a special thing, young master. It is the accumulation of generations of wisdom. A family with a powerful collection of spells – and a long abiding purpose for all of its members – is far stronger than any other. But, you must be careful with this book. You can choose to share the knowledge as you wish…but how do you know if the recipient will remain an ally or friend? Would you choose to equip an enemy; to give him your best tools and weapons?"
Harry promptly closed the book. "I get your point. Keep it secret."
"It is a Book of Shadows for that reason; hidden and secret."
Harry stroked the cover as if the book were a valued pet. "A book isn't a person; it can't talk to me or answer my questions…but I feel happier with this burnt old book than I have in a long time. It's a connection."
"I am glad I had something for you in my back room. It's a very personal item, but I'm afraid I do need to charge you one galleon for it."
"That's all? This…."
"One galleon only," the shopkeeper said, smiling. "I agree that it is a good deal for you, but I only need one galleon for it."
Harry nodded and smiled. "I would have paid a lot more for this. But…here is your galleon." The large gold coin fell on its edge on the counter and twirled for a moment before gravity pulled it down.
"I have not often been accused of excess generosity, young master." The old man's gnarled fingers snapped up the coin and it disappeared inside his robes.
"Thanks again, sir. Maybe I will come back another day and talk with you again. School doesn't start up for a few more days…."
"It would be a pleasure."
The door closed and the light inside the shop seemed to dim.
The shopkeeper returned his 'book of books' to its place and then sat down. He turned and picked up his leather-bound manifest and found the first blank page he had previously opened the book to. He scrawled the number 147 at the top of the page and began describing his meeting with the young master.
Minutes passed and the quill continued its narration. When he finished, the galleon he'd received from the young master reappeared in his hand.
The old man pulled out a worn box from under his counter and opened the lid. It seemed far too small to hold as much gold as was now inside it. But…magic was magic.
He dropped the coin inside the box. "My one hundred forty-seventh galleon," he said, closing the lid and returning the box to its home.
Business was slow. Very few found the door and none ever returned, even if the shopkeeper would have liked the company.
He had a long way to go until he could sleep or leave the two rooms of his shop. The penalty…for his freedom…was a payment of 5,000 galleons, no more than one from each worthy soul.
This punishment was nothing compared to what some of the true ancients had once faced: Ixion and his wheel, Sisyphus and his boulder, Tantalus's unending thirst as he lay in a pool of undrinkable water, Prometheus and the eagle ripping out his liver day in and day out.
The old shopkeeper blotted the wet ink from his thick customer ledger and set it back on its shelf. Then he returned to his chair…and waited. It could be a day or a decade before the door next opened…before he could earn another galleon and get a single step closer to release.
At least this young master had been nice and kind. Some of the people considered 'worthy' by the enchantments on this place…well, weren't nice or pleasant.
He thought it likely the young master would pass the test he had just carried from this store. He never found out one way or the other – part of the enduring punishment, boredom mixed with unanswered curiosity – but he believed this one would succeed in whatever test he had to pass.
Destiny usually offered the necessary tools to succeed…but it was up to the individual whether to pick them up and wield them.
The old man relaxed in his chair and, within moments, he forgot entirely about his last customer. From time to time he read his ledger to amuse himself, as he could read none of the books available for sale here. But he never remembered any of it unless he wrote it down…and even then his long-term memory retained nothing of the details.
The past was beyond him. The present was his damnation. All that remained…. His eyes remained fixed on the door, hopeful.
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
Harry Potter awoke, excited. He had five more days until his third year at Hogwarts began, but the book he now possessed was so much better than going back to school.
He had spent most of his time before falling asleep yesterday looking at the most recent entries. He had gotten to learn something about his family, his grandfather and his grandmother. He had read a brief announcement of the birth of his father.
Today…today, he wanted to return to that shop and thank the strange man who had found this precious book.
He got up, got dressed, and walked downstairs to the main room of the Leaky Cauldron. He had a proper breakfast, far more food than he'd ever been allotted at the Dursley's, and then set out into the Alley.
But he couldn't remember precisely where the store had been.
He wandered around until almost noon trying to locate the small shop. He'd thought he was close a few times, but nothing.
When he went into a small lunchery, his mind wandered away from the idea of finding the shop. Indeed, he placed the entire experience, sans the acquisition of the Grimoire, into a hazy portion of his memory.
The afternoon saw Harry out in London proper. He hadn't spent any time in the capital city. He had never been inside a massive toy store or inside Harrod's or walked along the Thames or seen the Houses of Parliament.
For the next several days, up until he began his third year at Hogwarts, he spent part of his day among the Muggles. He walked through the British Museum and wondered why he felt drawn to a few of the artifacts in the Egyptian and Greek exhibitions. He bought food in SoHo and ate at his first Chinese, Indian, Italian, and Russian restaurants. He caught a film in Leicester Square, ate far too much greasy popcorn, and blushed when he saw all the dirty advertisements posted in and around the phone boxes there, showing pictures of young women available to do anything for the right sum of money. He did wonder why so many of them claimed to speak Greek.
He bought new clothing. He acquired new shoes that actually fit him without requiring two or three layers of socks. He acted like a normal person, like a tourist come to a foreign locale. In a way, he was a stranger in a strange land, even if the place should have been familiar and commonplace to him.
He had the best week of his life, not least because of the time he spent reading his new book, the charred connection with the past, with his family and their accumulated wisdom.
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
For some reason, the attack at Halloween – when Sirius Black sliced up the portrait guardian of Gryffindor Tower trying to get at Harry – prompted Harry to return and reread portions of the Grimoire. He'd become so caught up in work and the Sirius Black business that he hadn't spent much time examining the book in a few weeks.
On November 2, after not paying much attention in his classes, Harry sat down outside on a still-pleasant day and pulled the Grimoire from its hiding spot inside his cloak.
He read for a few hours, until he began to lose the light in the sky, and had a few ideas to protect himself.
Hermione seemed so busy this year, so Harry decided he needed to work on this project without even asking for a bit of help from her. He knew several of the things – spells and wards and rituals – were a bit beyond what he could comprehend. But…he was best at doing, not understanding.
He learned his spells and prepared for the worst, but more important than that was that he began to really learn and understand the nature of the Potter Family. He began to know why his father had fought against Voldemort, why his grandfather had once fought against Grindelwald, why every generation or two a Potter fought against tyranny. Some times it was to help end a goblin rebellion – without slaughtering all of the prickly, yet still sentient beings – and other times it was to help end a series of witch hunts – without slaughtering all of those prickly, yet still sentient Muggles. Once a Potter had even helped end the Annual Grand Werewolf Hunt on the grounds it was cruel and unnecessary. Some Potters fought in the political realm; some were military leaders; others wielded their influence from the merchant class, as master potters or importers of trade goods or master constructors and wardsmen; a few had even gone into teaching to lead the next generations.
All of this was new knowledge for Harry. Beyond his father's love of Quidditch, he really hadn't known much of his personality, let alone that of his grandfather and other forbearers.
That made its impression even more strongly than his increase in practical magic, in his increased ability to defend himself, in his enlarged arsenal of clever tricks and techniques to preserve and strengthen the Potter line.
Most importantly, through his connection to the past, Harry began to understand the concept of duty. The concept of the Potter Duty. Bravery for a cause. Power used with restraint and direction.
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
17 April 1897
I hesitate to write down this newly crafted ward, not because it isn't valuable, but because it is almost too powerful to be safely deployed.
I implore my successors to exercise caution when working with the Energy Shield, developed by David Odgen Potter, my first cousin, after becoming fascinated by a muggle named Nikola Tesla. The man has been working with a type of energy called electricity and has demonstrated several unusual properties. David Potter wondered about this electricity and developed a method for harnessing it before he generalized the ward.
The Energy Shield described below takes in all forms of energy to strengthen itself. The caster expends an enormous amount of his own magic to commence the ward, then the natural environment powers and strengthens it from there. It accepts magical input as well as electrical discharge from lightning. It even works against the energy contained in a discharged bullet or a vicious wind storm. Once the ward has been erected nothing can pass through it, including fresh oxygen. That is the principle danger inherent in the design: once the ward is erected, the caster and anyone else inside the ward are completely protected from all outside actors, but have a limited amount of breathable air available to them.
Also, anyone or anything attempting to cross the ward…ceases to exist. All energy, even that contained in a living animal, such as a bird, is harnessed by the ward. This is the secondary danger of working with the ward. A careless caster could easily lose a hand or his whole person if he falls or bumps into the surface of the ward.
David Potter lost his eldest son, Johnathan, while he constructed this ward. The five year old ran right up to it before David turned and waved his son to stop. But the boy tripped on a stone and fell headfirst into the ward. The upper portion of his body ceased to exist. David took nearly a year before he completed his work after the tragic accident.
Note bene: Anyone working with this ward must be in a secured location. David's unsecure development work cost him and the family dearly.
This ward configuration has brought a great depth of tragedy to the family, but it may well be our finest creation. It can stop a Killing Curse or a rampaging werewolf. It is an ultimate level of defense in case of an attempted invasion of our estates. Permit only the strongest, magically and mentally, to learn this ward. It can kill those with insufficient magic or the lack of proper understanding of how and when to use it.
To use: prepare four runic tablets, bone or slate preferred. Runes must be written in wettable ash or ground iron ink. Blood must not be used under any circumstance (see below)
Prepare the four runic arrays copied on the next page. These are not standard elements of any formal runic language, but are most closely related to the Kar-loth variants of Norse runes.
Place the rune tablets at the perimeter of the protected area. The caster should be aware that the power required to commence the ward is related to the square of the area protected. Thus, a four foot area would require 16 units of magic, whereas a ten foot area would require 100 units. The largest area safely cast by David was eight hundred square feet, equivalent to 640,000 magical units, the upper limit of the strongest of the wizards in the Potter Family.
(However, one test, utilizing his own blood for the runic inscriptions, resulted in a near complete drain of his magic and the creation of a ward with an area one tenth the size he expected. David's being rendered unconscious stopped his casting and saved his life.)
The activation phrase is res naturus facticiusque potestam purum invictumque fieri.
A finite incantatem intoned by the caster will end the ward.
The length of time the ward may safely remain erected depends upon its size. One person inside a maximally sized ward, eight hundred square feet, should have sufficient air to survive for three hours. Two people will halve the safe length of usage.
David and I speculate, but have not tested, that multiple casters of this ward will expand the area of the ward on a logarithmic, rather than arithmetic, scale. It seems a difficult proposition to locate two or more Potters with sufficiently attuned magic to attempt a casting of this nature. I leave this opportunity to future generations….
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
The evening had swung from highs to lows. First, Ron had been kidnapped. Then, Harry had met Sirius Black…and Peter Pettigrew. Then he had learned much of the recent history he knew was wrong. Pettigrew was the traitor; Black was an innocent and Harry's godfather.
He had briefly pondered the possibility of living away from the Dursley's and starting a new kind of life.
Now…now, there was a werewolf loose, his godfather was incapacitated by the proximity of a hundred dementors, and Harry was the only one around to save them.
His first instinct was the Patronus Charm, but his first attempts were weak, barely stable mist shields.
Then he remembered the odd little necklace he had kept around his neck since early November. The four pieces of slate with odd runes on them, his first freeform project for Ancient Runes class. (He'd survived one class with Sybil Trelawney before he went to McGonagall and asked to take Runes instead; the first class hadn't happened yet so there was no problem at all.)
He ripped the four rune blocks from his neck and threw them on the ground. He felt himself wobble a bit on his feet from the close proximity of the dementors, then he managed to pull out his wand, jab it in the air, and call out, "res naturus facticiusque potestam purum invictumque fieri."
The sudden magical drain felt like his every cell was shrinking, like the very lifeforce was departing him. A golden shield, irregular in shape rather than an even, smooth dome, sprung into existence. The covered area wasn't large, but the shield was darker in color than he'd been led to believe by the Grimoire.
When a Dementor, aiming to Kiss Sirius Black, slammed into the ward, it disappeared and the ward flashed a deeper gold. The ward also expanded outward a few inches in each direction.
Harry barely noticed it before he swayed, from the Dementors and the expenditure of so much energy. He collapsed unconscious on top of his godfather's legs.
When Harry awoke, the golden dome was brighter and thicker and its outer boundary was even further out from Harry and his still unconscious godfather.
There were a number of people surrounding the golden dome, the Minister of Magic, the Hogwarts Headmaster, several red-cloaked wizards and witches, and two Dementors.
"You, young man." That was Cornelius Fudge. "Potter. Potter, you're in this…this thingie with a dangerous convict. You've got to tell us how to get you out of there…."
As not even sound could penetrate the ward, Harry didn't hear a bit of this. But he saw the idiotic Minister turning colors, pointing at his godfather, and generally behaving like a cartoon character from a Warner Brothers episode.
It wasn't hard to guess what the dumpy little politician wanted. Harry looked at Albus Dumbledore who had a blank expression on his face. Then he looked at the two Dementors. Then he looked back at the incensed Minister of Magic.
"No." He knew they couldn't hear him, but the single syllable should be clear enough.
That was all he said before he pushed himself off the ground and stood up. He didn't rise to chest level on any of the Aurors, but his single word had them all riveted on him.
"What?"
"Harry," the Headmaster said. "You need to get away…."
All of them began to speak at once, but Harry couldn't read lips. He didn't even try.
He rifled through his pockets and discovered a tattered bitch of parchment and a mostly crushed quill. There was still some ink in it. He knew he hadn't stuffed it in his pants…oh, right, he'd cleaned up after Ron in the Common Room. Dirty young man.
Harry wrote, "This man is Sirius Black, my godfather. He did not harm my parents. In fact, I met the little rat who did. Peter Pettigrew is alive…."
Harry held up his message.
"Daft," Fudge said. "You've been brained, what with all this nonsense."
Harry couldn't hear the words, but the body language was clear enough.
He wrote again, a bit smaller to conserve space. "The man who betrayed my parents is an animagus – an unregistered one – who takes the form of a rat. He spent the last decade hiding out in his rat form to avoid paying for what he did…."
"Harry," the Headmaster said, "that's all well and good. But we should discuss this back in the castle, alright?"
The Headmaster pointed back toward the castle.
Harry shook his head. "No. I'm not leaving here until I have this all worked out with you," he said, not caring they wouldn't hear his words.
"That man, Black there, will be Kissed as soon as we get our hands on him." The Minister waved forward the two Dementors.
Harry became so enraged that his magic did something unexpected. Instead of blowing up the Minister, as he had his Aunt Marge, the golden dome rippled and two massive portions blew outward, impacting the two Dementors, dissolving them back into their constituent energy. Then whole structure glowed even deeper gold and pushed outward several more inches. Then the two 'arms' contracted back into the dome.
The Dementors were gone.
The Aurors had drawn wands.
The Minister had a terribly pale, pasty looking face. After all, the Dementors had stood to either side of him. "Those were the only two that would remain…that dome is why the others left…and why we're missing twenty of the blasted creatures." He was in shock and muttering to himself.
The Headmaster looked most concerned. He obviously had never seen a piece of magic like this.
Nor had Harry…but this ward responded differently from how the Grimoire described it. It almost seemed like it responded to emotion. Perhaps being powered partially by the destruction of creatures that fed on emotions had changed what it could do. Harry made a note to think on this some more…and to write all this down in the Grimoire some day.
"I'm sorry about that," Harry said. "My emotions…well, I didn't know this thing reacted like that." He remembered that they couldn't hear him. He began writing, "There will be no Kissing of my godfather. He had no trial, he's never been convicted of anything…."
"He's been at Azkaban for years," Fudge said. "He must have had a trial!"
"Show me the transcript," Harry wrote. "I want to read it."
Fudge turned to an Auror and, with a grimace, nodded at him. The man promptly disappeared from the area.
"You're going to be in a lot of trouble for this, Potter," the Minister said. "The Dementors were…are allies of the Ministry. And we can't have you going around killing them. What if they rebel? What if they attack us in retaliation? What will people think if our prisoners aren't guarded by Dementors, eh? Ever think about that?"
Harry said nothing and didn't bother writing a response to whatever angry diatribe he'd just received. He stood as tall as he could and waited. Didn't these people realize he couldn't hear them? Idiot wizards.
The Headmaster started in again, but Harry didn't even bother to look at the old wizard. He wasn't leaving this dome until he set things right. He had a slight position of power right now…but none once he released the ward.
He did not know how long he'd been in here or how much oxygen remained…but he would rather die with his godfather, now that he was restored to Harry, than let the man be Kissed for something he didn't do.
The Auror returned. He had nothing in his hands: no documents of any sort. The man walked over and began whispering in the Minister's ear. The short politician became even whiter. His skin began to glisten with sweat visible in the artificial light cast by several of the Aurors.
Eventually Fudge looked to Harry. "Fine, he gets a trial."
Even Dumbledore looked surprised at that statement. Fudge rarely backed down, no matter how wrong-headed his position was.
"Swear it…on your magic," Harry wrote. He'd had to use the inverse side of the parchment. He had little space left to conduct this negotiation.
"Well, I never," the Minister said. "I've given you my word, as Minister."
Harry saw that the man hadn't used his wand. "Commit your magic to ensuring my godfather gets to his trial alive, healthy, and with his soul intact. Swear it!" His small, sloppy handwriting became larger and ragged with his anger.
"Harry, you can't ask such things of the Minister of Magic," the Headmaster calmly stated.
"He tried to kill a man who'd never been tried," Harry wrote. "He sent Hagrid to prison last year just because he could. I want an oath."
"I have given my word. Potter, let's get moving." Fudge was trying not to commit to anything but an easily violated promise.
Dumbledore walked over and began to whisper in the Minister's ear. The politician then looked at his red-cloaked Aurors and all of them looked flummoxed, too. Eventually he nodded and drew out his wand. "I, Cornelius Fudge, do swear that Sirius Black will be healthy and alive at the trial I will arrange for him…."
"No," Harry said. He'd been reading lips this time. He sat back down and wrote a bit more on his parchment. "You are swearing, but you are not risking anything. Swear on your magic…or on your life!"
Fudge looked incensed but said nothing. Instead, he looked at Dumbledore again. The Headmaster nodded.
"I, Cornelius Fudge, do swear on my magic to protect Sirius Black and deliver him, healthy and alive, to the trial I will arrange for him before the Wizengamot."
A pulse of light from his wand sealed the oath. A few moments later, Harry released the ward.
"I will sit with my godfather every moment until his trial," Harry said.
A disgruntled look crossed Fudge's face before he nodded. The man had obviously planned to delay Sirius' trial for some time. Having the Boy-Who-Lived tied up in all this…well, it limited the Minister's options.
The Aurors rushed the space trying to capture Sirius Black. Harry's godfather was still passed out from the near desouling he'd received from a Dementor, so he wasn't much of a threat. The Minister had only a moment before he barked out a command, "Stop."
He didn't want an overzealous Auror costing him his magic.
"Dumbledore, will you make us a portkey for Courtroom Number Ten? I'll work on getting a quorum of members there overnight. I don't want this blasted oath hanging over my head very long…."
Harry smiled at that admission. He accepted the enchanted pebble from the Headmaster and listened carefully when the old school teacher told him how to use it. Harry lifted his godfather's hand so that it touched the pebble Harry held in the palm of his left hand. He said, "Justice," and the device activated.
Harry arrived inside 'Courtroom Number Ten,' fell on his butt and felt a bit nauseous, but had no idea where he really was. He realized he was really very poorly educated about the world he lived in. This place was new; a portkey was new.
He turned to check on his godfather and found that Sirius was beginning to come awake. Apparently the rather violent portkey had been enough to wake someone out of a Dementor-induced shock.
"Harry?" the haggard man croaked.
"Yes."
"Did they catch me?"
"Sort of. You're going to get a trial…."
"Really?"
Harry nodded.
The disheveled former convict stared off into space and remained quiet for a long while. Eventually he said, "thank you."
Harry said nothing. He was tired. His body was still tired from the massive amount of magic he'd channeled just a few hours earlier.
But he refused to sleep or let down his guard.
He didn't know how long it was until people began entering the room. Some of them were dressed in gaudy maroon robes. Some of them were yawning and still in their pajamas.
Those people eventually stumbled into a side chamber and reemerged wearing the maroon robes everyone else did.
A few people stared at Harry and the unmoving Sirius Black. Harry's godfather was trying to process what was about to happen. Harry kept a hand on the man's shoulder, a protective gesture.
Slowly the number of groups of gossiping maroon-wearing witches and wizards grew. Eventually Fudge stumbled into the room in his suit, disappeared into the anteroom, and reemerged in maroon robes. Dumbledore followed him in, already enrobed.
At that, the gossiping witches and wizards began to seat themselves. All of them began to stare at Harry, now that it was the proper thing to do.
Fudge and Dumbledore were the last ones to take their seats. Then Dumbledore took an old stone and knocked it on the wooden railing. "This session of the Wizengamot is called to order. We have been called by our Minister to adjudicate the case of Sirius Black versus the Ministry of Magic…."
That finally got some murmuring going on. They had seen Sirius Black sitting on the stone floor, but until Dumbledore told everyone his name, no one reacted much at all. Harry was not impressed.
"Point of order," one old man said, "Sirius Black has already been convicted by this Court…."
Dumbledore shook his head. "I'm afraid your memory is incorrect, Lord Porridge. No record exists of his trial and we have no pensieve memory available in the Hall of Memories."
The old man pursed his lips and sat silently.
"Now, Sirius Black is accused of conspiring with the terrorist known as Voldemort…." This got Dumbledore a number of flinches and a few hisses of protest. He continued speaking. "He is also accused of killing a number of Muggles and the wizard known as Peter Pettigrew. Minister Fudge has asked to personally administer the veritaserum."
Sirius stood up from the floor. He refused to sit in the hideous chair complete with chains. The Minister had to stand on the tips of his toes in order to feed Sirius three drops of the truth serum. He did it himself to ensure Sirius received a true potion rather than a clear poison. Aurors had been known to take things into their own hands from time to time.
Fudge returned to his seat before Dumbledore began the questioning. "State your name."
"Sirius Black."
"On what date did you become a Death Eater?"
"I never did."
That got a reaction. Some tried to call out that he was fighting the truth serum, but Dumbledore waved them down. "Contrary to what some gossip rags like to play up, no one has ever beaten veritaserum. Why…I suppose I could get some most interesting stories out you, Lord Stebbins, right?"
The man was a notorious philanderer. He blushed a bit and shut up.
"You were sent to Azkaban for being a Death Eater, for killing Muggles, and for killing your friend Peter Pettigrew. Do you deny these charges?"
"I do."
Dumbledore waved his hand again to silence his colleagues on the court. "Tell us, please, how the Potters came to die on Halloween 1981."
"My dear friends James and Lily had been urged into hiding in early 1981. They did not tell me precisely why. For months they changed from safehouse to safehouse, but Death Eaters used various magical means to track them. They had a young child with them and the danger and the stress was running them ragged. Lily stumbled across an arcane, almost disused spell called the Fidelius Charm, which permitted the hiding of a secret within the soul of a person. When they took up residence at Godric's Hollow, we let it slip that I was their protector…but we actually entrusted the secret to Peter Pettigrew."
"You claim, then, that this Peter Pettigrew betrayed the Potters and was a Death Eater or sympathizer?"
"Yes."
Dumbledore sat stumped for a few moments before he resumed his questioning. "Why did it appear that you had killed this wizard, then?"
"A few hours after my friends were killed, I caught up to Peter on a Muggle street. He screamed at me, 'why had I done this' before he used a silent curse to blow up a part of the street. He got more than he expected as he hit some kind of gas line. He transformed into his animagus form and disappeared. I stood there, laughing at the preposterousness of it all. The weak little Peter had gotten one over me; had finally learned a silent curse; had gotten lucky with his wanton destruction."
Dumbledore stared a few moments straight into Sirius' eyes. "Why didn't you explain this then?"
"My mind was fractured, I suppose. Fudge was there that day, then Barty Crouch showed up. They didn't ask me a single question. I was in Azkaban within the hour. No one ever came to interrogate me or set up a trial; no one, save the Dementors, came around on a regular basis; no one save for Bagnold and then Fudge even bothered to taunt me and they only did it as part of their annual inspections."
Dumbledore sighed and then looked at his fellow jurists. "Are there any questions from the panel?"
Heads shook no. They were beginning to understand the horror of what had happened…what could have happened to any of them. Black, right now, should have been a member of the Wizengamot after his mother's passing. He was…just like one of them, save for his twelve years in Azkaban. An innocent among the Dementors. More than one had shivers running down her spine.
Dumbledore brought the stone down twice. "The Court finds no grounds to hold a formal trial. Sirius Black is cleared of these accusations…."
Harry Potter pushed himself forward again. "I wish to hear from Minister Fudge and this Crouch person…and even you, Headmaster. Under veritaserum. Why did this happen?"
That got a round of applause. Even Dumbledore turned a bit pasty. A stern, elegant witch grabbed the stone from Dumbledore's hand. "I will handle this from here, Chief Warlock."
"Very well, Chief Witch Brockwell."
Dumbledore stood down and dragged Fudge with him. The Chief Witch summoned a few Aurors to her for some instructions and then they left the Courtroom.
It was well past dawn before Harry and his newly freed godfather left the Ministry of Magic. Sirius had a formal apology. Fudge had been forced to stand down as Minister and a large portion of his wealth was used as compensation for Sirius. Barty Crouch had been found with his supposedly dead son, Barty Jr. In a fit of pique, for a true Death Eater escaping from Azkaban while an innocent languished there, both Crouches were sentenced to death. The estate was dissolved and the bulk given to Sirius as further compensation.
Even Dumbledore took a hit. For not forcing a trial or even interviewing a detained suspect, he was removed from his role as Chief Warlock. He maintained his seat on the court, but was informally advised to skip the next dozen sessions or so.
Harry left the building with a few new admirers and more than a few newly vehement enemies. Some detractors had even proposed charging Harry for destroying more than twenty Dementors.
The Chief Witch, tongue firmly in cheek, smiled and asked, "Which law did Mr. Potter break?"
No one had ever conceived of the possibility of destroying a Dementor. The Wizengamot had never made it a crime to attack or harm them. In any case, the self defense clauses would cover most of the destruction.
The angered witches and one wizard finally conceded defeat.
At the moment Harry didn't care. He had had a vision of a life without the Dursleys; a vision that was yanked away with Pettigrew's escape. Then, a turn of luck and a spine of steel had allowed Harry to reclaim the vision, to make it a reality.
As the pair hit street level, Sirius asked, "I'm not complaining, but why did you do that, Harry?"
"A Potter does his duty, even if it might cost him his life."
Sirius nodded. All the Potters Sirius had ever known – James, the patriarch Harold, James' uncle Winston, even James' mother, Katherine – behaved this way and believed in duty overriding all other concerns.
Sirius let a tear fall, then recovered himself and hailed a cab. He asked to be taken to Charing Cross Road. He was silent with his thoughts while they traveled. He was a bit embarrassed he couldn't bring himself to speak, even after this great service to him. But…it was overwhelming, freedom, knowing Harry, seeing Crouch reduced to less than an Azkaban convict.
All of this fed into his deeply bred sense of vengeance. The Blacks did not let crimes against them go unanswered. It was a point of shame, actually; it explained why he had abandoned Harry that night to go off chasing Pettigrew. The Black Blood…a curse that never relented.
He thought to the future. Gringotts. He needed money if he was going to be able to rehabilitate himself in the coming weeks and months. A private healer. A course of potions and treatments. Getting a home arranged fit for Harry to live in starting in just a few days.
Harry let his godfather dwell on his thoughts. He was just too happy to do anything else. He accompanied Sirius as far as the Leaky Cauldron, where he used the Floo to travel to Hogsmeade. He had a tremendous smile on his face when he walked back to Hogwarts from there. His future…it seemed so open, so bright
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