Hermione snickered. "Sorry," she giggled. "But that wraps Harry up in a nutshell. He jumped on the back of a twelve foot tall mountain troll to save my life at age eleven. And killed a basilisk with a sword... the Sword of Gryffindor, no less... when he was twelve. And drove off about one hundred dementors with a single patronus charm, last year, when he was thirteen. So, yes; Harry is most definitely a most unusual young man."
"The stories are true?" asked Deece, clearly shocked.
"Well, what Hermione said is true," Harry shrugged, looking to the older witch. "However, those silly books where I'm supposed to have spanked a naughty nundu and the like; they're lies. You know the ones? Harry Potter and the... whatever."
"I know the ones," smirked Deece. "Daphne has the whole set, back home."
"Mother!" Daphne whined and blushed, before dropping her face into her hands, clearly mortified.
"Ooohhh! I like those books," Stori happily said, cutting in.
Harry chuckled and said, "It's alright, Daphne. I heard they were big sellers. I'm no longer surprised when a fellow student admits they had one, more or all of them in their possession at home."
"Is that what those... people... alluded to, Mis- Harry?" asked Matthias. "What favour you were going to ask of me?"
"Partly, Matthias," Harry replied. He sat a little forward, stared straight at Matthias and said, "What I'm about to tell you is going to come as quite the shock. And, if you want my oath on it, I'll give it to you."
"I... don't think we need to go that far, Harry," the older man frowned. "Just ask it and I'll see."
Harry nodded and said, "Sirius Black is my godfather. My sworn godfather. He would sooner give his own life than harm me."
"But... that's not possible!" exclaimed Deece. "The man attacked your parents. He led He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to your parent's cottage!"
Harry turned his eyes to Deece and said, "No, Ma'am; he did not. You, like pretty much everyone else in the wizarding world, believe a lie. It was Peter Pettigrew who was my parent's Secret Keeper. It was Peter Pettigrew who led Riddle, the wizard you call He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, to my parent's cottage.
"My godfather, in a moment of grief stricken rage over the death of his best friends, my parents, made a Merlin-bedamned foolish mistake of going after Pettigrew on his own. He finally caught the rat in a muggle street near his muggle home. It was Pettigrew who cast a blasting hex at the street, blowing a gas main in the process, before cutting his own finger off, and escaping in his unregistered animagus form of a common brown rat down the now opened sewer system.
"The blast from the explosion knocked my godfather out. He woke up in his prison cell in Azkaban. He never had a trial. And no one even interviewed him to simply ask if he was actually guilty. Bartemius Crouch, with Millicent Bagnold's support, just dumped him in Azkaban. Merlin; even all the marked Death Eaters got a trial. But, not my godfather."
Both adult Greengrasses looked back in shock.
With a small smile, Harry asked, "Want me, now, to give that oath as to what I just told you was the truth?"
Matthias replied, "No... no, I do not." He sighed, then ran his fingers through his hair and looked back at Harry. "How do you know this?"
"I've met him, as has Hermione," said Harry. "A couple of times, actually. Both of us have also met Peter Pettigrew. He was hiding out at the Weasley's, and here in the castle, in his animagus form."
Matthias seemed to muse things over for a bit and asked, "Harry, do you know what a pensieve is?"
Harry frowned and said, "No. Sorry, I don't." That was information he couldn't share from the future.
Matthias nodded and called a house elf, "Jelly!"
The little elf appeared and Matthias gave it instructions to get his pensieve from the Greengrass home. The elf was back in a few moments with the pensieve appearing on the coffee table.
"Alright, Harry," Matthias said, bringing his wand out again. "This is a magical artefact that allows people to see the memories of others. If you can think about the memory of how you know Black is innocent, I can draw that memory out of you and place it in the pensieve. Then we can see it for ourselves.
"And, don't worry. Once we've seen it, I can return the memory to you. So, will you allow me to do this?"
Harry frowned a bit and looked at Daphne. She nodded back.
With a firm nod back at Matthias, he asked, "Alright, Matthias. What do you need me to do?"
"Concentrate hard on the memory of where you learned of Black's... your godfather's... innocence. Think hard on the entire event. I'll draw the memory once you give me the okay to do so," Matthias instructed.
Harry gave another nod and thought hard about the night in the Shrieking Shack. Once he thought he had the whole thing in his mind, he gave a firm nod and said, "Now."
Matthias reached out to Harry's temple with the tip of his wand and began to gently twirl it. To Harry, it felt a little cold and he began to feel as if the memory became quite 'fuzzy'; almost like an afterthought. While he'd viewed quite a few memories in the old timeline, he'd never given one.
When Matthias was done, he drew his wand away. Once the wand tip passed in front of his face, Harry saw what looked like fine silvery cotton wool surrounded the tip - his memory. It's extraction felt quite weird; and he realised the memory he had of the event was now almost fleeting. He couldn't quite focus on it.
Matthias moved the tip over the centre of the pensieve and, tilting the wand down, allowed the silvery mass to slip off the end and into the stone bowl. "Roughly, how long does this memory take, Harry?" he asked.
Thinking about it, Harry now only had a general idea. With a shrug he murmured, About twenty to thirty minutes, I guess."
With a slow nod, while looking at the bowl, Matthias said, "Then I shall be back in about twenty to thirty minutes." And then dropped his face into the liquid within the bowl.
Pretending to be surprised by the motion, Harry was about to reach out and draw the man back out. However, Deece was quicker and said, "It's okay, Harry. This is normal."
Looking at the now immobile man, Harry thought for a few moments and called Dobby. When the little elf appeared, he said, "Dobby, could you please organise a serving of tea for everyone?"
.
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