10

Chapter Ten – Misleading Black

St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries

Thursday 10th June 1982

Righting injustices in the Wizarding World could never have been said to have been a swift process, when they even happened at all, so it was little surprise that the wheels within wheels in the Ministry took another ten weeks to get to a point where a trial for Sirius Black was arranged.

It was a relatively brief event.

With testimony provided by Albus Dumbledore relating to the casting of the Fidelius at the Potters' almost immediately absolving Black of the betrayal, and re-examined evidence of his own wand via Priori Incantatem, plus his willingness to be questioned under Veritaserum, it was quickly established that Black should never have been sent to Azkaban. The real facts behind the explosion that killed a dozen muggles and the disappearance of Peter Pettigrew came out in front of enough witnesses and a Daily Prophet reporter that his story would run to several page in the next issue.

Sirius Back was a free man once more.

He'd been directed to get fully checked out at St Mungo's before going back out into the world, and it was there that Dumbledore was visiting him.

"I'm grateful, again, for your help, Headmaster," he said.

"Think nothing of it," Dumbledore replied. "I don't understand why none of this was brought up when you were first arrested, Sirius. It seems completely unreasonable that even the Lestranges were given a trial yet they threw you straight into Azkaban. Had I known that they were also indicting you for betraying James and Lily I would have made sure that they had the proper story."

Black didn't need to know that he'd arranged things very carefully to ensure that the facts never came out, and it was only through the desperation of needing to regain control of Harry Potter that he had resorted to 'correcting' that 'oversight'.

"I understand. It wasn't your fault that I didn't get a trial."

"No, but I do feel a little responsible for not having checked up on the evidence. I admit that I was taken in by the fact they were accusing you of killing muggles, and I regret to say that I thought perhaps your family influence had come through."

Black looked to be swallowing his supposed remorse hook, line and sinker.

"Nothing to be ashamed of, Headmaster. It's all behind us now. I just need to get fit and healthy again and make sure I've got somewhere suitable to live so that I can ensure Harry is raised properly."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled at that comment.

"I'm afraid there's been a little bit of a problem with Harry's placement," he advised.

"What do you mean? Where has he been?"

"Well, I'd originally placed him with family, but it appears that someone abducted him, and he is being raised elsewhere in the Muggle world."

"What do you mean?"

"I have tried to regain custody over him, but I'm afraid the couple involved have acted through the Muggle system and legitimately adopted the poor boy. I was even unable to get the Wizarding courts to overturn that decision, partly because I was never explicitly named as Harry's guardian in your absence."

"We must recover him at once!" Sirius insisted.

"Alas! I have already attempted to do so, but was rudely rebuffed."

"Surely not? Do they not realise who you are?"

"I'm afraid that, being Muggles, they don't understand the magnitude of Harry's importance to the Wizarding World."

Sirius frowned at that.

"What do you mean 'Harry's importance'?" he asked.

"As the Boy-who-Lived," Dumbledore said. "And defeated of the Dark Lord. He's a powerful symbol of hope to the Wizarding World that even in the darkest hour not all is lost."

"That makes no sense, Headmaster. How would anyone even know that Voldemort was gone?"

Dumbledore cursed to himself. It wouldn't do for Black to be asking awkward questions. He needed to redirect his attention.

"I'm afraid that rumour has already made it into the Daily Prophet, dear boy. It may be little more than speculation, but it's been nearly nine months and their particular version of what happened on Hallowe'en seems to have gained significant traction in the Wizarding World. Why, they were even considering making it 'Harry Potter Day'!"

"What utter drivel," Sirius said with a snort.

"Indeed. Anyway, I'm afraid that I've been unable to resolve young Harry's living arrangements, but perhaps once you are fit and well again this is something that you would be able to help me with, as Harry's official magical guardian."

"Of course, Headmaster. Anything to help Harry. He is happy and well, I trust?"

"I suppose so," Dumbledore prevaricated. "As much as any young child whose parents have been untimely taken away. I just hope that his current guardians find themselves able to deal with any bouts of accidental magic – it appears that young Harry is destined to be a most powerful wizard once he grows."

"Well, I'm sure that won't be an issue," Sirius growled, "once we get him back to where he should rightly be."

Behind his benign, twinkling, eyes, Dumbledore was delighted with the way the conversation had turned. If he could continue to keep Black onside and under his thumb he'd have no difficulty in persuading him that he didn't really want a toddler underfoot all the time, and it would be the simplest of things to suggest that he be returned to the care of his Aunt.

"That's right. In the meantime, please don't fret about it, and concentrate on getting fit and well again, so you are a suitable father figure for a young boy."

If anything was guaranteed to push Sirius into making sure he regained his health rapidly that would be it, and Dumbledore was counting on it so that he would push his own case as Harry's guardian more forcefully as soon as he was able to.

DOHPDOHPDOHPDOHPDOHPDOHPDOHP

Crawley, West Sussex

Saturday 17th July 1982

Despite Dumbledore's best hopes, and a repeat visit to St Mungo's to keep Sirius focused on 'rescuing' Harry, the Healers and Mediwitches responsible for his recovery insisted on him staying there for a further week.

During that time, Sirius had also had a visit from Remus Lupin, and got a rather different story from him about where Harry was and why, and how Dumbledore seemed to be obsessed with having the poor child live with the Dursleys.

"He won't even explain why," Remus told Sirius, "just expects us to swallow the line that 'living with his blood relatives is for the best' and apparently gave some codswallop to the custody hearing that he forced about putting up some kind of protections or wards there that would protect him from Death Eaters."

"If he could do that now, why couldn't he have done that for James and Lily last year?" Sirius asked.

Remus merely shrugged. "I suspect he could have done, but chose not to. Why is anyone's guess."

Sirius had been careful not to give Dumbledore any idea that he was questioning the Headmaster's intentions for Harry, but it had been a simple job to persuade Dumbledore to provide the Grangers' address when he asked for it, and so it was that he was here at their front door.

"Hello, Mrs Granger," he said to the brunette woman who answered the door. "I'm Sirius Black. Headmaster Dumbledore tells me that this is where my godson Harry is living now – is that correct?"

Remus had insisted that he make himself presentable before dropping in on the Grangers. He didn't want to frighten them off, after all, and arriving as the portrait of a man who had suffered in Azkaban would scarcely go down well in the rather well-to-do part of Crawley they lived in. Thus he was dressed in casual but clean black jeans and a smart polo shirt, and had made sure to shave carefully that morning.

Unknown to Sirius, Remus had also telephoned the Grangers the previous day to let them know that Harry's Godfather was about and was hoping to pay a visit.

Having been primed by Monica Wilkins as to who Sirius was, she looked him up and down, and reluctantly agreed that he might have a valid argument for seeing Harry, and let him into the house.

"Doug!" she called up the stairs. "Can you give Monica a ring, please. We've got Sirius Black here to visit Harry."

"Yes, please come in," she said as she turned back to Sirius, and escorted him into the living room.

It was only a few minutes later, as Helen Granger was offering Sirius a cup of tea, that the doorbell rang again. Doug Granger came down the stairs and answered it, and brought Monica into the living room as well.

Sirius was slightly nonplussed. He looked back and forth between Helen and Monica, clearly noting the similarities between the two women.

"Mrs Granger, Miss Wilkins," he said. "I understand there is some confusion over where Harry should be living? Dumbledore seemed to think that you had abducted him, but his actions and the legal record don't really support his words."

Monica spoke for all of them.

"I'm afraid that Albus Dumbledore seems to think that he has the need to determine where Harry lives and how he is brought up. I think we've made it clear to him several times, as have the Ministry's Legal Services, that this is not the case. His attempt to place Harry with his Aunt and Uncle was... misguided... at best, and possibly much worse."

"What do you mean? Remus mentioned that Dumbledore had imposed on Petunia to take him in, which I thought was a bad idea, but why is he so opposed to him living elsewhere? When he came to see me in St Mungo's he was encouraging me to take him in."

"Was that actually what he said?" Monica asked, "or was he merely looking for you to take Harry as his guardian, after which he would require you to send him back to the Dursleys?"

Sirius thought for a moment about what Dumbledore had said.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I had assumed the former, but Harry's not really of an age to be living without a mother figure, so I hadn't really thought about it that far."

"Did you come here intending to take Harry away?" Helen asked.

"No. Not unless he wasn't being cared for properly. May I see him?"

"Of course. He was just about to nap when you arrived, so he might be a little grumpy, but come on upstairs."

Half an hour later, Sirius was back in the living room, having fully reassured himself that Harry was well and in caring and capable hands, and had a massive smile on his face that belied his feeling of perplexion.

"I don't understand," he said. "Why would Dumbledore think that Harry would be better off with Petunia?" he asked.

"What do you know about Prophecy?" Monica asked in turn.

"Not a whole lot," Sirius admitted. "There are thousands of the stupid things in the Department of Mysteries, from what I hear, so they can't all have come true, otherwise we'd hear more about it. I can't say I have much time for Divination."

"My understanding is that Dumbledore believes that Harry is covered by a specific prophecy involving Voldemort," Monica said. She laid out what the Prophecy said, and how she had actually already been to the Ministry and confirmed that it had been fulfilled, one way or another, yet still Dumbledore seemed to think Harry had a role to play in the Dark Lord's downfall.

"That's insane!" Sirius exclaimed. "If it's already fulfilled then why is he taking such an obsessive interest in Harry?"

"He thinks that Harry still has to kill the Dark Lord."

"But he's already dead – surely even if he did then it's already done!"

"Yes and no."

"What do you mean?"

"Voldemort's not completely dead."

"What?"

"Well, despite the fact that there was no body at Godric's Hollow to confirm it, I know that he made Horcruxes to try and tie his soul to this plane of existence."

Sirius paled.

"Horcruxes? That's really nasty magic."

"Indeed. So someone needs to find and destroy them before the Dark Lord can really be discounted, even if he has been vanquished for now."

"Wait! Them? He made more than one?"

"We think he's made six... or perhaps intended Harry's death to create the sixth."

"Oh Merlin! That's... that's utter madness... How can he have any sanity remaining?"

"We don't know. We just know that, unless the Horcruxes are destroyed, in about a decade he's likely to have regained sufficient strength to possess another magical human, at which point he becomes a real threat once again."

"Oh wow! That's bad," Sirius said. "But how do you know all this? You don't look like the type to be delving into the Dark Arts, and I can't believe that you would have got all of this from Dumbledore."

Monica, Helen and Doug looked at one another, and Monica made an instinctive decision.

"Do you practice Occlumency, Sirius?" she asked.

Sirius blinked at the apparent non-sequitor.

"Yes. And a good job too, otherwise I would have gone completely mental in Azkaban!"

"Good – keep it on high alert anytime you're around Dumbledore. Or Snape, for that matter. Both have a tendency to use legilimancy on people pretty casually, and have few qualms about using what they find out through such means."

"But that's illegal!

Monica just raised her eyebrows at him.

"Okay, okay! I think we've established that not everything Albus Dumbledore does is completely by the books!"

The Grangers exchanged another odd look.

"You should already have known that," Monica said. "You were part of his illegal vigilante group, after all!

"But-"

"No, I know. It was for the 'greater good', wasn't it? It amazing how that seems to be used as a sweeping justification for anything that people want to pass off as acceptable despite it being against the law.

"Anyway, here's what you need to know, and how it happens that I actually know what's going on here."

Monica proceeded to tell Sirius about how she had come back in time specifically to make sure that Harry had an easier life; about all the manipulations that Dumbledore had pulled off, and how he had basically set Harry up to sacrifice himself in order to finally dispose of Voldemort.

Sirius was by turns shocked (at some of what Dumbledore had done, at the advances in magic that had allowed Hermione to send herself and her magic back in time), enraged (at the Dursleys' treatment of Harry, at Snape's treatment of him at Hogwarts), enthralled (by Harry's adventures) and disturbed (by what Harry had endured and what Voldemort had done).

By the end of the explanation, Sirius's third cup of tea had grown stone cold (Helen had poured it whilst Monica talked about the search for the Horcruxes in 1997-8) and Doug had made dinner for them, which was ready to eat, and woken and fed the children.

"So many questions!" Sirius groaned as Monica and Helen finally brought him up to the present day with their decision to raise Harry along with Hermione and put every obstacle they could in Dumbledore's path as he tried to return Harry to Privet Drive.

"Well the first one is ours," Helen put in. "You're still happy for Harry to stay with us, I hope?"

"Yes, of course," he replied. "He seems happy here. He's well cared for. He's got a proper family that actually care about him. Why would I want to take him away? As long as I can come and visit, then I'm convinced this is the best place for him, no matter what that old bastard at Hogwarts thinks!"

"Then the most important thing is that you stay firm on that point with him. You're Harry's legal and official guardian in the Wizarding world as far as anyone knows – subject to anything that might be in James and Lily's wills," Monica pointed out.

"He's been here once and Monica had to threaten him to make him go away again," Helen noted, "but if we can trust you as well to back us up – and stop him, if necessary – then that's one more defence in place."

"Absolutely!" Sirius promised.

DOHPDOHPDOHPDOHPDOHPDOHPDOHP

Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts

Tuesday 18th July 1982

Albus Dumbledore sighed.

Once again his teacher for Defence Against the Dark Arts was leaving after just one year in the position, and he was going to have to find a replacement for the position.

He was starting to think that the rumours of the position having been cursed by Voldemort back in the seventies when he had denied the burgeoning Dark Lord the position might in fact have some vestige of truth to it.

Despite all his efforts to persuade the most recent incumbent – an American Hit-wizard by the name of Chase Manhattan (not his real name, surely!) - to stay on for another year, the man was insistent that he had to get back to his family in New York.

Thus, the Headmaster's primary activity since the end of the summer term just a few days prior had been to try and identify potential candidates for the post for the next academic year.

His searches so far had unearthed little of value. Those who were qualified for the role were either unavailable or unwilling to teach at Hogwarts, and those who were even vaguely interested in teaching seemed either poorly qualified or were barely out of Hogwarts themselves.

"I'm afraid that well-qualified individuals no longer see teaching as a career," his Deputy had bemoaned to him when he had raised the problem at breakfast the previous day, "and the pay isn't sufficiently high for those prepared to use it as good experience for future careers to be willing to put up with the inconveniences."

"Inconveniences?" he had asked.

"Yes – the responsibilities of teaching all seven years, overseeing detentions and patrolling the corridors, the lack of quarters for family, the petty student rivalries. I'm amazed that you managed to get young Severus to agree to teach; I would have thought that he would have taken up an opportunity with one of the potion brewers or at St Mungo's, as a step to finding a role where he could work with experimental potions. He certainly won't get that opportunity here."

Dumbledore brushed her comments away. Severus was a far cheaper hire than she realised, and was a huge saving when compared with the long-tenured Horace Slughorn he had replaced.

But even with that saving and not having to pay anything for Cuthbert Binns he was finding it difficult to remain in budget. He had hoped to have made savings by eliminating the Divination course a bare three years ago, but had then had to find a way to fund it again once he realised he would have to protect Sybil Trelawney.

He certainly wasn't going to be able to find a way to increase starting teacher salaries to be able to attract good quality applicants – not least because the tenured staff would have to be given equivalent raises, otherwise they were just as likely to quit.

And thinking of Trelawney and the Prophecy she had uttered brought him back to his current conundrum.

Having already dismissed the idea of approaching Remus Lupin for the Dark Arts post – the first parent to realise he was a werewolf would be on to the Daily Prophet and that would be the end of the matter – and having started to doubt Lupin's continued loyalty to him, he had asked Sirius Black to come to the castle with the intent of interviewing him.

And here he was.

"I'm glad to see that you are well recovered, Sirius," he said, as the man settled down into the seat opposite his desk. "I assume Saint Mungo's gave you the all-clear?"

"Yes, thank you, Headmaster. I'm still supposed to be taking a daily nutrient potion, but other than that I think I'm getting back to my old self. Not perhaps quite as sharp as I was immediately before my incarceration, you understand, but certainly working on it."

"And where have you settled down? Not Grimmauld Place, I assume?"

"Merlin, no!" Sirius responded. "My mother's still living there, and I wouldn't go within miles of the place if I could possibly avoid it. I've kept up the town house that I bought after Uncle Alphard died and am living there."

"And is it your intention to have Harry live there with you once you've extracted him from the Grangers? I would have thought that it would rather cramp your style – after all, you'd scarcely want to bring the ladies back to your house with a toddler living there too."

"I hadn't really thought that far ahead," Sirius prevaricated. "I've been busy trying to get myself well again. But still, Harry seems safe and happy where he is now, so I didn't think there would be too much rush to be making any decisions about that yet."

"You've already been to see Harry?" Dumbledore asked with a frown. Whilst he'd been keen to get Black up and running and in a rush to get Harry back from the Grangers he had expected to be invited along, and had hoped to run interference.

"Oh yes! Doug and Helen were quite happy for me to visit and play with him. I'm not sure how well he remembers me yet, but that's not a problem."

"You don't think it would be better for him to be looked after by his blood family? I would have thought that you would have much more sway over his living conditions if he was being cared for by Petunia and her husband?"

"I'm not sure that I'm really the best person to be making those decisions, Headmaster – Doug and Helen seem to be doing a wonderful job with him, and it's lovely to see him playing with little Hermione. It's good that he has a sibling to learn with, especially since he won't have one by blood."

"If you don't feel qualified to make those decisions, perhaps you should turn over guardianship to myself?" Dumbledore suggested gently, but realised immediately that he had pressed too far, as he saw Sirius's frown turn darker as his anger began to rise. Whatever influence he had hoped to wield in getting Black to place Harry back with the Dursleys had just been shot out of the window.

"You make no sense, Headmaster," Sirius said, biting the words off as he tried to control his temper.

"How could you possibly be a better guardian? You have no children of your own. You've become distant from those here at Hogwarts over whose education you are supposed to be leading. I'm nowhere near as clever as Monica is, but even I can see that you have an unhealthy and illogical obsession with having control over Harry, and particularly with him being raised by Petunia."

"You don't understand, Sirius my boy. There are greater matters at stake here."

"Such as?"

"You must know that Harry will be targeted by those seeking revenge for their master's death at his hands."

"I think you overstate the risks, Headmaster. After all, both Monica and myself are very much capable of assisting the Grangers should they need, and they are never more than a phone call away. Besides, surely Harry would be at just as much risk if he were living with the Dursleys?"

"Ah, but as relatives by blood I can set up additional protections at their residence that would provide a genuine deterrent to any former Death Eaters that might wish the young child ill."

"Blood wards, Headmaster? I didn't think you delved into the Dark Arts like that. That's something that my family have a long and dubious history with, and I can assure you that they aren't anywhere near as good as a protective force as you might think."

"But with Harry there to power the wards they would become nigh invincible."

Sirius looked grimly at the Headmaster.

"You're not using my godson to power wards."

"But Sirius-"

"No! Firstly that's no way to help a youngster develop their magical talent, if they've got a leech coming out of them to power something like that, and secondly it's a completely unproven and dangerous method of protection."

"But Lily's sacrifice-"

"What sacrifice?" Sirius's voice rose in volume as he challenged the assumption.

"She gave up her life to protect her son."

"Headmaster, there are thousands of mothers who have tried to protect their children by sacrificing their own lives. There wasn't anything different in Lily doing it, even if you know that to be true."

"I am sure-"

"Do not even try and finish that sentence," Sirius advised firmly. "The only way you could know it to be true would be if you had actually been present when Voldemort killed James and Lily. If I discover that you were, and you stood by and let it happen, then I will be taking advice from Professor Flitwick about forms of duel that I can challenge you to."

Sirius paused and took a couple of calming breaths.

"As it happens, I don't believe that you were present," he continued. "However, that also means that you cannot know whether Lily sacrificed her life to save Harry or not. You don't even know whether it was Harry that vanquished the Dark Lord or if it was something that James or Lily did before they died – some trap they laid or ritual they undertook to secure Harry's life or specifically to defeat Voldemort if he came knocking.

"You can't, therefore, tell me that you can place wards at Privet Drive based on Lily's sacrifice that will be invincible, because you don't even know what happened at Godric's Hollow that night. You've just assumed what has happened."

"But it must have happened that way-"

"Why? Because of the Prophecy?"

"Yes! Wait – how do you know about the Prophecy?"

"That's not really relevant. I'm actually pretty disgusted with you and the way you've been trying to play both sides with this. If, as you say, it must have happened that way because of the Prophecy, then the Prophecy must have been fulfilled. And yet you've insisted to Monica that Harry has to be raised the way you want him to because the Prophecy still needs to be fulfilled. You can't have it both ways.

"Secondly, unless you've taken up a sideline in murdering women who protect their children you have no idea whether or not the wards would work – it's a completely unproven and theoretical area of magic."

Dumbledore hesitated.

"And whilst you might have a lot of respect in Wizarding Britain, Headmaster, that doesn't make you infallible, nor does it mean that just because you have assumed something happened in a particular way then that is how it must have happened. Especially when you are making that assumption based on how you believe a prophecy needs to be fulfilled."

"You've given this a lot of thought, Sirius."

"Yes! You're trying to run Harry's life, and he doesn't need you to. Of course I've given it thought! But most of this isn't my own work – Monica's clearly had you pegged all along, from the day you first met her. She says that wizards don't seem to understand logic, or just ignore it because they can do magic.

"You might be able to confuse most people with your secrecy and obscure and ambiguous wording, but you won't fool her, and you won't fool me either. We're not going to blindly follow your lead just because you're Albus Dumbledore."

"I see you've had more contact and been more influenced by her than I would have liked."

Sirius sighed exasperatedly.

"It isn't for you to judge. Or to decide who should or should not influence me. I can make my own decisions, thank you very much. I don't need you standing over my shoulder and telling me how I should run my life, who I should trust and what colour underwear I should pick out!

"Haven't you got it yet? Stop interfering in people's lives, Headmaster, and concentrate on running your school."

Dumbledore frowned.

"Yes. Well. On that subject, I had hoped I might speak to you about coming to teach here at Hogwarts."

Sirius blinked.

"Me? Teach? I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"I'm sure you noticed, Headmaster, but I'm not exactly the most stable of characters. I would have thought you would have asked Remus."

"The Board of Governors would be unlikely to countenance having a werewolf in the castle. Let alone the parents of all the pupils here."

"I'm afraid I can't help you, Headmaster. I can't commit to anything at the moment when I've got Harry's upbringing to consider." and keeping you away from it, he added to himself.

"Very well," Dumbledore said, with his air of disappointment at someone not willing to do his bidding clearly evident. "Thank you for your time."