Annihilating Albus

Summary: One responsible adult realises the inevitable (much earlier than he would have under a different author!) and decides to do something about it.

Legal Disclaimer: anything you recognise in this story belongs to someone else, most likely to JK Rowling and/or her business partners. Any characters you don't recognise are mine. The specific plot in this fic may be mine; I say "may be" because fanfiction is vast, and one can never be sure there isn't a very similar one elsewhere. I'm not getting anything out of writing this except the pleasure of seeing how many ways JKR's Rube Goldberg machine could have been jammed in a sensible world.

Writer's block disclaimer: I started writing this months ago, with the idea that it would go on to the end of Voldemort, but at one - thankfully logical - breakpoint, I found myself unable to proceed to my satisfaction, so I decided to cut my losses and publish as-is.

(Prologue) December 20, 1984

Millicent Bagnold considered the report from the warden standing before her. Apparently Sirius Black had escaped. Tracing the magic around the cell indicated that it had been more than three weeks since his cell had been occupied. Even two years ago, this would have been caught by the regular auror rounds, but she herself had eliminated those in a cost-cutting exercise some months ago - over the objections of many Wizengamot members and Ministry heads.

If this came out now, her career would be toast. Besides, he'd been gone for three weeks - no doubt he had died in the sea around Azkaban.

"What do you do when a prisoner dies?"

"We pitch him into the sea, ma'am."

"Well, if it's been three weeks, I am pretty sure he is dead, I suggest you simply write the report that way, but misfile the report. Don't bring any more attention to it, and don't talk about it with anyone else. There is no point in panicking the public - if he had survived he would have been raising hell already."

And there's no way in hell I am going back to that woman and telling her the problem has started again, not after the dressing down I got from her the last time I gave her some bad news!

And that is how "The Iron Lady" unknowingly helped our young heroes!

September 1, 1991

The boy turned heads. Tall for his age, slim, with the most alluring green eyes anyone had ever seen, dressed in casual-looking, but clearly expensive, muggle clothes, he was walking past platform nine, towards platform ten, a huge dog wagging its tail madly beside him.

The muggle part of the station was used to all sorts of weird things. If someone had walked in wearing mis-matched clothes, or oddly coloured hair, or a body fully pierced and/or tattooed, no one would have spared a glance.

But this was different. It was almost as if a young prince, albeit without his retinue, was out in public. One almost expected the ever-present papparazzi to swarm around him - and only the fact that no one seemed to know who he was appeared to have prevented that from happening!

Curiously, a red-headed family that was also clearly headed for Hogwarts, were pretty much the only people on the muggle side that did not give him even a second glance.

The boy sailed through the barrier without pause, as if he had been doing this for years, his dog close behind.

The reaction on the other end was not much different than on the muggle side. Heads turned. People gasped. Younger girls, not to mention a few older ones, sighed. If there were a convenient sofa to fall back upon, some of them would have swooned dramatically.

In fact, if it weren't for the dog, which looked like the mythical grim, at least a few of the girls would have approached the boy in some manner.

And if it weren't for the fact that his famous scar was pretty much gone, they would have realised he was the Boy-Who-Lived, and in that case it is doubtful if even a real grim would have stopped them!

He remembered what his godfather had told him just before they left Privet Drive. "Head to the last coaches. You want people to see you and talk about you. Someone is bound to tip off Dumbledore, and you want that – keep him off balance."

As he walked, he looked down at the dog, and grinned. Sure, he was nervous - what young man wouldn't be, when going off to school for the first time - but the dog's enthusiasm was infectious, and he was happy to have him along.

"You're lucky the only person who knows your form is already on our side", he whispered to the dog once they had settled themselves in a compartment.

"Woof", said the dog, a bit grumpily.

"Yes, and the rat, I know, but we don't know where he is. And besides, he'd be risking his own exposure if he tried to expose you."

"Woof", with a single tap of his right forepaw to the ground. Yes.

The train was now well under way. Harry was reading a book, and Sirius was in his dog form, looking out of the window like any dog would.

A few students entered and made conversation with him, but most of them took one look at the "grim" and left.

The most curious of these was a young red-head, who approached the door, opened it, then drew back as if he was bitten, and rushed off quickly. What made this incident curious was that he appeared to be cursing someone, rather than running away in fear.

"Oh well, some people are crazy", muttered Harry, half to himself, half to his godfather.

A short while later, two children, clearly both first years, entered. The boy was a little pudgy, somewhat nervous, and clearly upset about something.

The girl was quite the opposite. She did not appear nervous at all, at least on the surface. Indeed she would have almost seemed brash, but for the telltale nervousness that you could occasionally see in her glances.

"Hi! We were wondering if you've seen a toad somewhere around? Neville's lost his, you see", said the girl.

Harry smiled at them both, and asked them to sit down. "Hi! I'm Harry. Nice to meet you both, what are your names?"

"I'm Hermione Granger".

"And I'm Neville Longbottom". The dog glanced at the boy with interest.

"Now that's over with", grinned Harry, "what's the toad's name?"

"Trevor."

"Accio Trevor", said Harry loudly. His dog promptly swatted his paw on Harry's knee.

"Oops", said Harry. "Accio Trevor the toad".

Hermione was already staring at Harry in open jealousy - clearly he was a first year too, and yet he already knew spells.

But what distracted her completely from that was the dog correcting him. What on earth was this dog?

Neville, meanwhile, was staring at the dog in some consternation.

"Harry, is that a grim?"

Harry ran his fingers through the sleek, dark coat of the dog. "I don't know. He might be, but he's never harmed anyone that I know of, so I don't really worry about it."

"Umm, when did you get him?"

"He appeared a few seconds after the killing curse hit me-" and here he had to pause. He'd only introduced himself as Harry, and the scar wasn't there, so they hadn't guessed. But now they were staring at him in shock - and it was hard to say which of the two was more so, the pureblood boy or the muggleborn girl.

"Yes, I am Harry Potter; sorry I forgot to mention that!" he continued after a few seconds. "Anyway, for some reason the person who took me away from that cottage and dropped me at my muggle aunt's house could not see him. He's been with me ever since, and has been a huge help to me and my godfather ever since."

"Little lies help redirect attention away from the truth, Harry. Magical people are very superstitious; if you say I appeared as soon as the killing curse struck you, they'll stop looking too closely at who I am."

"Or", Harry had responded with a smirk, "they'll cart you off to the… what did you call it? The Department of Mysteries".

Neville looked like he was going to shut down from information overload. Hermione was close, but she didn't know about the godfather business so she was better able to focus on the one fact she did understand.

"Wait wait, you're Harry Potter!" shouted Neville, having finally come to his senses!

"Why yes, thank you for reminding me! You see, I tend to forget my own name if I'm not reminded every hour or so", he grinned. Since she was sitting next to him, he nudged her shoulder playfully.

That little action, more than anything else he could say or do, made Hermione lose all her nervousness, and feel very comfortable with this boy she had met only a few minutes ago. With a feeling of warmth she had never felt in a her mostly-friendless life so far, Hermione swatted him on his shoulder and smiled while saying "Prat!"

By this time, Neville had worked himself out of his state of alarm.

"Your godfather - it's Sirius Black, isn't it? He's supposed to have-"

"Stop right there, Neville. My godfather was innocent of pretty much everything people think he is guilty of. His only mistake, and it is one that is shared by my mum and dad also" - here Harry hugged the dog, who had started whimpering lowly - "is that they all trusted the wrong person. It was Peter Pettigrew who betrayed my parents, and by the way he is still alive, the traitorous rat, and if I ever find him-"

The dog swatted him again.

"Yes yes I know, Padfoot, I will have to keep him alive so my godfather's name can be cleared."

They all fell silent. Both Neville and Hermione clearly had a bunch of questions, so Harry began by filling in Hermione on stuff that Neville - and the wizarding world - already knew (or thought they knew anyway).

After Hermione had got a brief but reasonably complete summary of the history, he turned to Neville. "You're probably wondering how I know all this, right?"

Neville nodded.

"My godfather escaped that horrible prison a few years after being thrown there. Do you know he was chucked in without a trial, or even rudimentary questioning? He basically woke up in Azkaban, after the fight with Pettigrew."

"But how do you know he's telling the truth?"

"He's been living with me for the past seven years. If he really wanted me dead, he could have killed me any day or night. And in any case, once I was old enough to understand these things, he gave me a wizards oath, plus he took truth serum while I asked some questions."

"Where have you been living? In Potter Manor? I don't think Sirius Black is very welcome in his family, from what I overheard my gran and my great-uncle talking one day."

"Dumbledore left me on my muggle aunt's doorstep. That's where I've been all this time, but of course my godfather had ways to do magic without being detected by the ministry, so he taught me a lot. A heck of a lot, and some really powerful stuff too".

Neville nodded. "Yes, the Black family were always very good at things like this, and many more besides". For the moment, Neville ignored the incongruity of a member of the Black family living in a muggle house.

The open wonder - tinged with what could only be a "left out" feeling - in Hermione's eyes was palpable. "Will you- I mean do you mind, err, teaching me some of it? I'm just a muggleborn-"

"Stop, Hermione. You're not 'just' anything. My mother was also a muggleborn, and it's generally acknowledged that she was the smartest witch Hogwarts had seen in years! I don't want you to think coming from a non-magical family puts you at too much of a disadvantage in school."

"But you-"

"My situation requires it. You'll see as time goes. Also, please understand - the facts of my situation are neither pleasant, nor something to aspire to."

An hour or so later, someone rudely opened the door, and barged in: a blond boy, who might have been handsome if he lost the sneer and smiled pleasantly. There were two hulking boys standing just outside, like engorged doorposts.

"You must be Harry Potter", said the boy, without preamble. "I'm Draco Malfoy. Lose this riffraff and come on to my cabin."

"Riffraff? You make snap judgements like that you might lose your head one of these days", laughed Harry.

Then he stood up, drawing himself to his full height and towering over the blond boy.

"Yes, I am Harry Potter, but I am also Heir Black. As a subordinate house, you have not shown me the minimum respect required. If either of us were of age, this would be a serious problem, but as we are both too young, you get off with a warning."

Malfoy went red. "You cannot be Heir Black, I am the heir. Grandpa Arcturus would neve-"

Harry held up his hand, with the heir ring flashing visibly. That shut Malfoy up very effectively, but Harry leaned in for a few more words.

"And you tell that godfather of yours", he hissed quietly, "if he tries the same tricks on me that he tries on all Gryffindors, he will need all the blood pressure medication he can brew for himself and his current 'master', Dumbledore."

Malfoy looked very surprised.

"Oh this is precious - you did not know Snivellous was a Dumbledore lackey? Look Malfoy, you're clearly nowhere in my league, why don't you make it easier on all of us and just get out before you're further humiliated?"

"I don't know who you think you are Potter", said Malfoy defiantly. "My father says you're no one special; your mother used some arcane spell to reflect the killing curse back to the Dark Lord. And since your mudblood mother is not here anymore, you're just a half-blood who happened to get into Hogwarts. I'd watch my back, if I were you."

"Oh you caught me by surprise, slipping in the m-word while saying something reasonably accurate. I'm letting you go this time, but next time you use the m-word, you'll pay for it. And you can pass the word around to all your pals in Slytherin."

"What will you do?"

Harry did not respond. He just made a shooing motion that sent Malfoy out the door.

After that, naturally, his new friend Hermione had even more questions for him. Luckily, Neville knew as much as he did about the Malfoys, so Harry let him answer.

A sour-faced Snape attempted to stop Padfoot from entering the castle with him, but Harry refused to listen to him. The man grew angry, threatening him with immediate expulsion; Harry laughed in his face and continued to walk on.

Left with no alternative but to physically restrain Harry, the man reached for Harry's shoulder, but a low growl from the dog stopped him. Glaring at boy and dog, he left, presumably for the headmaster's office.

As soon as Harry was sorted, Dumbledore stopped him.

"Mr Potter, you cannot bring a dog to school. Only cats, owls, or toads are allowed as pets".

"I'm sorry but Padfoot has been with me for years now, and I am not about to let him go."

"You will have to, Mr Potter. We will arrange to have him sent back to your home."

Harry shrugged. "If he goes, I go too. I don't need to be at Hogwarts to learn magic; Gringotts tells me my family has enough retainers who would be happy to teach me privately. In any case, I don't understand the logic of your rule - in the muggle world, dogs are the most common pets by far."

Dumbledore cursed himself inwardly. He could not, for the life of him, imagine how Petunia would allow Harry to spend more than the bare minimum of time in the Alley, but evidently that is what had happened. Dammit, I should have sent Severus to take him shopping, he growled at himself.

"We are not in the muggle world, Mr Potter, and you are not a muggle."

"No, but I was raised as one. As I understand it from Aunt Petunia, you were the one who left me on their doorstep on a cold November morning the day after my parents died. So if I have muggle ideas and instincts, you have only yourself to blame."

Dumbledore stared balefuly at Harry. Harry stared back.

The impasse was broken by a cough from Professor McGonagall. The sorting was getting delayed and students were getting hungry.

Dumbledore backed down, at least for now. "We shall discuss this later", he said, nodding at McGonagall to call the next student.

Harry shot back instantly. "There's nothing to discuss. Both or neither - those are your choices". He then turned around and walked smartly back to the Gryffindor table, where pretty much everyone except Neville and Hermione gave him the cold shoulder. Evidently talking back to Dumbledore was not something they appreciated.

There were two people who looked about ready to have a heart attack during that whole episode. One was, as expected, Snape. A single glare from himself was usually enough to scare any student shitless, yet this arrogant bastard had not backed down an inch. Worse, it appeared he was ready to take on the headmaster, thus proving the son to be worse than the father. At least James Potter had never disrespected Dumbledore.

The other person to visibly take offense at Harry's behaviour was a tall, red-headed, boy with a badge saying "P" pinned to his chest.

"Potter", he shouted, "how dare you talk back to the headmaster? You don't deserve to be in Hogwarts", he said. Glaring at Harry, he speared a roast potato and put it in his mouth.

All of a sudden, Percy - for that was the pompous prefect's name - started choking. His face was red till now, but it now started turning blue.

Harry calmly walked around the table, got behind him, and kneed him in the back while holding his shoulders steady with his hands. The piece of potato flew out, and the choking stopped. Sure, it was replaced by a painful wheezing sound of someone trying to suck in long-deprived oxygen while also staving off the pain of being kneed in the back, but at least his face was going from blue back to red.

Harry walked back to his seat just as calmly. "Never speak with your mouth full. Or your brain empty", he said coldly to the prefect. "Next time something much worse could happen, and I might not be around to save your pompous ass".

September 2, 1991

"Harry, I would like to speak to you; please come to my office directly after breakfast."

"Sure Albus, no problem", said Harry.

After last night's episode, however, no one seemed willing to call him out on his blatant disrespect. But Harry wasn't willing to let that particular sleeping dog lie. He wanted a reaction.

"Out of curiosity, Albus, how many of the students ranged around this table do you address by their first names?"

Dumbledore did not reply.

"Thought so. For future reference, headmaster, please address me as Mr Potter. If you call me Harry, I will be forced to call you Albus, and I don't really like the idea of being on such familiar terms with someone who left me on a doorstep when I was fifteen months old and just orphaned."

"Of course, Mr Potter, I apologise for the familiarity." So saying, Dumbledore made as dignified an exit as it was possible to make.

"Anyone notice he neither denies nor defends leaving me there like a bottle of milk?" grumbled Harry, quietly. "So much for being the wizarding world's 'saviour'!"

Padfoot, sitting next to him, nuzzled his ribs gently. Hermione, on his other side - after a moment of hesitation - gave him a gentle sideways hug for a brief few seconds.

By the time Harry got to Dumbledore's office, it was past 5pm. Padfoot was, of course, with him, and managed to climb the curving stairs with some difficulty - his body was almost too long to take the curve easily.

"I'm afraid you cannot have your dog go everywhere with you, Mr Potter", said Dumbledore when Harry and Padfoot walked in.

Harry shrugged. "Can not? I certainly can - haven't had a problem till now. Now if you change that to may not, we can discuss my departure. Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?"

Dumbledore sat back in his chair, motioning Harry to sit in the one opposite him. He then looked intently into Harry's eyes.

After a few seconds, he gave up.

"Har-" started Dumbledore, but paused on a low growl from the dog. "I beg your pardon, Mr Potter, I wanted to ask you how you were finding Hogwarts, but I now find a more interesting question. How exactly does your dog understand everything that is happening around you? Actually, when did you acquire him? I wasn't aware that the Dursleys tolerated pets."

"He showed up a few seconds after the killing curse hit me. Your man - Hagrid, I believe his name is; I recognised him at the boats yesterday - was clearly unable to see him. In fact, for the next day or two, he was visible only to me. He first appeared to Vernon about four days after you left me there. Scared the shit out of him, I can tell you. After that they changed my diaper for the first time."

(None of this was true of course, in fact Harry had a pretty rough three years, though he was too young to remember it, until Sirius appeared in the Dursley's house in late November 1984).

"How- how- how do you remember all this? You were just over a year old!"

Harry shrugged. Never give Albus any information willingly, Harry. Make him work for it, and even then, mislead him where possible. Or distract him by going off on a tangent if you can't supply a misleading answer!

"I strongly suspect he is a real grim; I just tell the students he is not because I don't want them to panic."

Dumbledore sat back in his chair, a brief look of shock on his face. "Mr Potter, I really must insist that your grim leave Hogwarts. Now that you have told me it is a gri-"

"I never said he was, I said I suspect he is. But what do I know? I'm just a kid, and that too one who was brought up in the muggle world."

"Mr Potter, please think about this from my point of view", said Dumbledore, in a conciliatory tone. He absently picked up a lemon drop. Before putting it in his mouth, he said, "I will have to call the Department of Mysteries", and rose to go to the floo.

Suddenly, he started choking. His hands grabbed at his throat in abject terror, and his face turned blue - far bluer than Percy's had gone the previous night.

Harry looked at him coolly. Unlike in Percy's case, he could not get behind Dumbledore - Percy was sitting on a bench, while this was a high-backed chair.

Harry walked coolly to his front, squeezing himself between the table and the chair, and kneed Dumbledore - not without some difficulty in positioning himself - in the stomach.

…and ducked to avoid the lemon drop coming out of Dumbledore's mouth at high speed.

Harry waited a full five minutes for Dumbledore to calm down. Then he got up, bent over the table to look the old man in the eye, and said, "It would have been such a tragedy. Not to mention the irony - the greatest wizard in the world, dead by choking on one of his famous lemon drops. I'm glad you're OK though".

A pause. "You are OK, are you not? Or should I call for Madam Pomfrey?"

"I'm fine", wheezed Dumbledore. "We will continue this discussion later, Mr Potter, you may go now."

"Headmaster, you might find that every time you try to do something that I do not like and agree with, something odd happens to you. Or even downright dangerous, like now. Drove Vernon half crazy with fear until he learned to simply leave me alone."

"Are you threatening me, Mr Potter?"

"No I am not threatening you, I am merely stating facts and suppositions as I know or believe them."

Harry turned around and left the room, his grim almost swaggering along behind him.

His hand on the doorknob, he took the time for a parting shot. "Headmaster, my magic seems to react more violently toward people who openly show anger and hatred, like Vernon, and somewhat less so toward people who merely annoy me, like you did. Perhaps you should have a word with the resident death-eater. There is no telling how my magic will react to his normal behaviour, especially if it detects the dark mark on his arm and decides that he represents my parents' murderer."

As they climbed down the stairs, Harry whispered to Padfoot. "You said being able to do only one spell wordlessly and wandlessly would be pretty useless. I have used the delayed engorgio twice so far - pay up!"

Looking quickly around, Padfoot found an unused classroom. He nudged the door open and walked in. Once Harry was inside, he turned back into Sirius, then locked the door.

Handing Harry two golden coins, he said, "yes, you have. But eventually people will guess that the so-called bad things that are supposed to happen are always of the same kind, and then someone will make the connection. I want you to practice a few other spells. Unusual ones, ones that have physical effects - not curses and jinxes, but mostly charms. Levitation is a good one to start with. Banishing, summoning, and the icy-floor spell should be next."

Harry nodded. "I've almost got levitation down, actually, but I'm trying to make it happen when I am not even looking at my target. Here, watch", saying which, Harry stared fixedly at the door, made an almost unnoticeable twitch with his fingers.

Sirius rose jerkily into the air for a few seconds, before falling down again.

September 6, 1991

They only had potions on Fridays, it seemed - rather sparse for such a core subject, Harry thought - so the first four days went by like a breeze. Flitwick, McGonagall, and the other teachers were quite nice, and behaved professionally.

Snape, of course, was bound to be different. It took all of Harry's persuasive skills to get Padfoot to back off from any of a variety of punishments - many of them illegal! - that Sirius wanted to inflict on Snape.

Harry had sat himself in the first row. Padfoot had, just as he had done for the other classes, stationed himself in the corridor right outside the door at a spot where very few people, if any, in the class could see him. Both of them knew that having a pet inside the classroom would not fly, and that was reasonable, but since most people thought this was a Grim, they didn't even want to distract the class by being seen either.

So far, none of the professors had objected. How could they, anyway?

The headmaster had relayed his conversation with Harry to them, including Harry's threat to simply leave Hogwarts. Most of the teachers did not have a problem with the dog being outside the classroom and out of the line of sight of the class, but Snape had ranted long and hard at Potter, though it was not clear if he was talking about James or Harry.

In any case, he was already in the class when the bell rang and the students trooped in, so he may or may not have noticed the dog waiting outside.

However, he was just as nasty as Harry had known he would be - both from Sirius's descriptions of him as a student, as well as from talk in Gryffindor House.

By the end of the class, Harry was very ticked off with being singled out by Snape, as well as Malfoy's attempts to sabotage his potion. He had only just managed to catch the snail shell that Malfoy had tried to throw into his cauldron. Naturally, Snape had refused to listen to a word he said, threatening detention if he attempted to cover his incompetence by blaming someone.

"In this class, you are responsible for your potion", he had thundered. "If your potion blows up in your face, it is your fault! And that goes for all of you", he had finished with a sweep of his arm.

Hmm he forgot to call us dunderheads, thought Harry.

September 13, 1991

Life went on, most of it pretty mundane (for Hogwarts).

His classmates had slowly gotten used to him and his dog. It helped that Padfoot never seemed to pay attention to anything that happened, unless someone was threatening Harry. And even that, had to be intentional - Neville had accidentally bumped into Harry rather hard in the common room, when they were both late and rushing to breakfast. He had instantly turned ashen, and looked with mounting fear at the dog, but Padfoot just sat there with a doggy grin. He seemed to actually be laughing at the whole thing.

The few people that were also late clearly heard Harry's response. "Oh come on Neville, Padfoot can tell if someone did something intentionally or not. And besides, he probably knows you and I are god-brothers - he's that smart!"

Neville, who had known that his mother was Harry's godmother, and that Lily Potter was his, breathed a sigh of relief. "I- I- I wasn't sure if you knew. I suppose Sirius told you?"

"Of course", grinned Harry. Luckily, the rest of the random assortment of students did not catch the latter part of the conversation.

Ron was another curiosity. It seemed as if he would have liked to be friends with the boy-who-lived, but seeing how he had reacted to Percy had made him both awed and wary. The three younger brothers did not really like Percy, so the take-down was fun, but then, Percy was family.

Ron never did make up his mind about Harry. Every time he thought something had happened to give him an ice-breaker, something else would happen to take the moment away.

But now the first year Gryffs were back for a potions class. This time, Harry was determined to protect his cauldron from any harm from Malfoy, even if he had chosen to let Snape have his rope for a few more classes.

The shield he had around his cauldron frustrated Malfoy no end, but unfortunately, instead of making him desist, it made him even more determined to cause harm. Since he could not get to Harry, he managed to throw some, as yet unknown, ingredient into the cauldron that Neville and Hermione were working on.

The cauldron started bubbling dangerously, and Hermione and Neville only just managed to get out of its "fallout zone", so to speak. Neville's shoes caught some of it, though, and he had to quickly take them off before whatever corrosive substance it had become would start eating his skin.

Snape - yet again - would hear absolutely nothing against his godson, leaving Hermione and Neville with detentions, and the loss of ten points apiece. Neville was inclined to be philosophical ("that sounds better than defeatist", he had said!) about it, but Hermione was fuming.

"Harry, we need to get this Malfoy brat, and get him real good - in a way that no one can even remotely attach to me or you". Hermione had cornered Harry that evening and was clearly fishing for ideas.

Padfoot, always with Harry outside of classes, gave a doggy looking grin and started wagging his tail happily, while Hermione reached down and scratched behind his ears.

"He'll get the message in the next class, don't worry Hermione!"

And for all her making puppy-eyes at him he would not tell her what he was planning to do.

September 20, 1991

In truth, of course, he had no actual plan, except to sabotage Malfoy's potion using his signature move (not that anyone but Sirius knew!) - a wandless, wordless, slightly delayed, engorgio.

The spell worked beautifully. Harry conveniently forgot to bring enough of the bat spleen for his and Hermione's potion, and walked to the ingredients supply cabinet. Which was way over behind Snape's desk. From there - despite the distance - he managed to cast a reasonably high powered engorgio on the contents of the cauldron.

A few short seconds later, the entire contents of the cauldron exploded, drenching Malfoy in the half-completed potion. The explosion was big enough - depite being contained within the cauldron for the most part - that no discernible components could be identified.

No one ever knew what had actually happened. (Many, many, years later - long after Hermione had gotten her own potions mastery - she would deduce what must have happened. "You see", she had explained her conjecture to her husband, "one property of the puffer eyes, even in their crushed form, is that when they expand inside a medium that also contains any kind of mammalian body part - such as a bat spleen - the eyes internal chemistry is destabilised, and they release a contact toxin that is very damaging to the magical core. Most people don't think of this because it would never happen normally, but you were never normal!")

What the students knew and could see, however, was Snape showing a human face. Very few people knew Draco was his godson until then, but now everyone knew. (Curiously, that did not help either Draco on Snape in any way; if anything it made people think even worse of Snape.)

Snape carried Draco in his arms, running all the way to the hospital wing. As the school later learned, Draco's magical core was badly damaged, and he would need several months to recover.

September 21, 1991

The incident made headlines. Of course, everyone had an agenda.

Snape wanted revenge for what happened to his godson, but did not know whom to blame. Purely for convenience, he chose to make Harry his target.

Lucius Malfoy was feeling the same way, except in his case the target was Dumbledore. To that end, he called for public questioning of everyone who was in the room that day, to be conducted by the Hogwarts board in the Great Hall the following day, Sunday. With a ministry presence and a press contingent observing.

The minister, long known to be in his pocket, quickly agreed.

The preliminary investigation did not, of course, find anything useful. None of the students had seen anything. Harry and Hermione kept a low profile; Harry in particular was thanking the stars that he had not told Hermione what he would be doing and how. When questioning her, she honestly said she had no idea what had happened.

Snape, had asked that Harry be given truth serum.

This backfired badly on Snape and Malfoy.

Firstly, the board refused to use the truth serum on a minor, especially when Snape himself was forced to admit that at the time the explosion happened, Harry was about as far away from Malfoy as was possible to be within that room.

Secondly, when a board member asked Harry why Snape would suggest he was any more likely to be fault than any other student, Harry's reply was devastating.

"In our first potions class, Malfoy threw something into my cauldron, causing the whole thing to explode. Our resident death-eater's only response was that if anything happened to my cauldron, it's my fault. In the second class, Malfoy attempted something again, but I had a cauldron shield up, so he switched his attention to my friend, Neville Longbottom, and nearly managed to get him sent to the hospital wing."

"Whatever came out of the cauldron ate into Neville's shoes", he had continued. "God alone knows what would have happened if it had hit Neville anywhere else."

"What was that substance?", asked Madam Longbottom, now a lot more interested in this inquiry.

"How would we know? We're barely a couple of weeks into our first year."

"Professor Snape, what was the substance?"

Snape did not know - clearly he had not bothered to investigate.

"Why was that incident not even reported, let alone investigated?" asked the Longbottom matriarch.

"Because there were no injuries", said Snape.

"And because Neville is not his godson", snarked Harry.

Neville was called up and asked what had happened. He dutifully explained what happened, and then spoke about how and why he escaped.

"Hermione and I escaped only because Harry had already warned us what Malfoy was trying, and we were already prepared. We were standing as far away from the cauldron as we could while still preparing the potion, and we were tensed, waiting to jump backwards at the first sign of trouble. If not for that, who knows what would have happened."

With a disgusting look at Snape, Harry took up the tale.

"Malfoy clearly was planning to do something more, but he failed, so naturally the fault must be mine. I wish my godfather were also a professor here, then maybe he would put Snape in his place. At the very least he would stop him from taking out his petty, childish, revenges on the son of the man he could never beat when he was in school, and the woman who wouldn't give him the time of day after he repaid years of friendship by calling her a mudblood".

That was when Dumbledore realised something had gone badly wrong in Little Whinging. Not that he had not had hints before, but this was too much information, and too specific. Petunia could not have known all this.

September 27, 1991

Life slowly (very slowly) settled down again. Malfoy was not really missed - partly because no one liked him, and partly because Theodore Nott had apparently decided to fill in.

Twice in the past three days he had called Hermione a mudblood, and twice he had found his tongue grown to fill his mouth, making it impossible to speak, and very hard to even breathe. The second time, Harry had bent low to whisper to him.

"You seem to have taken up Malfoy's duties, but did you not notice Malfoy had stopped using that word?"

A nod.

"And did Malfoy not tell you why?"

A shake of the head.

"Well, now you know. It'll go down in a minute or two, but imagine the results if it lasted longer. Or worse, if you had a bad cold and a stuffed nose on top of this. Oh sure there's pepper-up, but the hospital wing is sooooo far away", he crooned at the scared boy.

Back to Snape, though, it was the fourth potion class that turned out to be the last straw.

Snape had been in a snit all week, following the failure of his attempt to get Potter expelled. To rub salt into the wound, his godson was in St Mungos - granted, he was not in critical condition, and merely needed rest to let his core recover, but it seemed like that would take the better part of the academic year, and he would have to repeat first year when he finally got better.

Snape was not already in the room when the students had arrived. As he walked out of his inner office to the main one, he saw Padfoot - from his angle he could.

"Potter", he said quietly, "get that mongrel away from here; the potions dungeon is no place for a dog."

"Sorry sir, I don't see what harm he is causing by waiting for me out in the passage. Surely you don't have any potions ingredients stored along the wall there do you?", said Harry politely.

"Regardless, I will not have a dog in my dungeons. Get him out, or get out!"

Harry had long ago done most of the potions that would come up in first year, and many in the second year too, so this was no loss to him. He grabbed his bag and walked out.

Not expecting this, Snape stopped him. "If you walk out now, you will never come back to my class. Ever."

Harry shrugged. "You're not giving me a choice that I am happy with, and in my opinion you are being quite unreasonable. I can bend only so far."

"You insolent bastard", screamed Snape, boiling with anger. He raised his wand, without actually thinking of what spell he would be using. Harry's demeanour changed slightly - far from being afraid, he appeared to be happy about Snape's wand hand raised against him.

Snape was no fool. He suddenly realised the trap he had almost fallen into, and lowered his wand.

"I will have the board expel you, Potter!" he said in an even tone.

But his equanimity had come too late.

"I could care less, Professor Snape. As for you, I wish to inform you that I will be submitting a pensieve memory of this entire episode to the board of governers, and recommending that a death-eater should not be teaching the boy-who-lived, or in fact be in any position of power or authority over him. I know you have the dark mark, and I know you are the one who told Voldemort about the prophecy."

Snape was like a marionette with his wires cut. "How- how- how-" he stammered, then sat down. He was too stunned even to be angry.

Harry scowled at the potions master, part in memory of that conversation, and part in more recent anger. He then turned around and walked away, Padfoot grinning and wagging his tail behind him.

The fact is, the three years that Sirius was in Azkaban were very, very, informative. The Lestranges (and Crouch junior, when he was alive), were loud, and since they were not quite in adjoining cells, they had conversations which everyone else was privy to. Dumbledore thinks he and Snape are the only ones who know of the prophecy, Sirius had told him a year or so ago, during a serious (no pun intended) discussion. But Voldemort trusted Bella, and he told her everything. And she loved to gloat. Sirius had found out a lot of things this way. In fact finding out that Snape didn't even have a trial, and, on top of that, was being offered a teaching position at Hogwarts, was one of the reasons he had decided to "check out of Hotel Azkaban Plaza".

September 28, 1991

Bright and early that Saturday morning, Harry was summoned to the headmaster's office. As he and Padfoot made their way up the stairs, they both reflected on their conversation late last night. Things were coming to a head, and there was no point waiting any more.

When they stepped in, they found Severus Snape standing there, his expression gleeful. He had informed Albus that Harry somehow knew of the prophecy and - worse - of his role in its conveyance to Voldemort. They had come up with a simple plan: obliviate. Snape was waiting for that glorious moment.

Albus, meanwhile, took one disgusted look at the dog, and immediately schooled his face into something closer to disappointment. "Ha- excuse me, Mr Potter, can that dog not leave you alone at least sometimes?"

"Well, headmaster, you have your dog with you, so I have mine", smirked Harry.

"And by the way, he does often leave me, headmaster", he continued. "He leaves me alone whenever he is sure I am in no danger", said Harry coldly. "Your office, and you yourself, however, are the worst kind of danger to me that he has seen, so in this room, he will always be with me."

Dumbledore's eyes reflected his anger - an anger he appeared to be trying desperately to control.

"Whatever your personal opinion of Professor Snape, Mr Potter, he is a professor and deserves respect. You cannot call him a dog, and for this I need to punish you." Saying which, he suddenly pulled his wand out of his waistband.

Padfoot was no slouch. With one jump, he had cleared the top of Dumbledore's desk, grabbed the wand in his mouth, and landed on the other side.

Simultaneously, Harry had fired a stunner at the potions master, taking him out of the fight.

Dumbledore was not in a mind to notice what happened to his precious death-eater. He was too busy fighting the exodus of magic caused by the wand switching its allegiance to someone else. But how is this possible? This is only a dog. Maybe a grim, but even so, not a human, not a wizard. How could this happen?, he thought with shock.

"You should not have attempted to draw your wand, Dumbass", said Harry. "Oh and by the way, from now on, in private, that is what we will call you."

"We?" Dumbledore turned away from the dog, which still had the death stick in his mouth and was growling, and turned to the boy.

"Sure, me and my godfather."

"Your godfather is Sirius Black, a murderer who is spending his last days in Azkaban", said Dumbledore. "Has someone else come to you claiming to be-"

"I suggest, Mr Dumbass", said a new voice behind him, "that you sit quiet while we figure out what to do with you."

"Harry", he said, turning to his godson. "When I took his wand, I felt a rush of power - quite unlike anything else I have ever experienced. There is something special about this wand, and it even speaks to me. I can hear it in my mind. We'll have to research this, but I am keeping this wand. For good."

Harry nodded. Something to research later, but meanwhile… "you reckon you can obliviate these two bastards as needed?"

"I was pretty sure I could, even before I acquired this wand, but now? Child's play! But I won't be removing their memories; I'll be replacing them. But before that, we need to ask them several questions."

By the time they were done with their questioning, they were struggling to contain their anger. This would require some really careful, long term, planning.

"In the short term, though, I should simply obliviate them of the last two days", said Sirius. "But there is something to consider, and you need to decide".

"The students will all remember what I accused him of."

"Yes. Word will get around, and it will be clear that someone had obliviated at least Snape."

"Me?", said Harry, innocently. "Me, a mere firstie, obliviate such a powerful fighter?"

Sirius laughed, and quickly obliviated the last day and a bit from both men.

Meanwhile, he had also been thinking of the injustice of how Dumbledore had treated him, compared to Snape. Snape really deserved more than a simple two-day obliviation. A confirmed death-eater, with at least three cold-blooded murders, preceded by torture, to get his mark, teaching his godson! No bloody way, he thought.

A word that Remus had once made-up, to describe what he would like to do to certain officious people in the ministry (who appeared to be merely following orders, except rather zealously), came to him: skillkill. (Well, Remus had originally called it "workill", but Lily had suggested "skillkill", and that was the name that had stuck!)

Turning to Harry, he asked, "how would you feel about dropping the formal complaint to the board, in favour of more direct methods of getting rid of him?"

"What are you proposing?" asked Harry.

"A long time ago, in a bout of wishful thinking combined with righteous indignation, Remus came up with the concept of skillkill. This is a special obliviation in which you erase only the skills that a person has. Most normal obliviations are based on time - the last few hours, days, etc. With skillkill, they will remember everything. They will even remember acquiring and applying the skills that they now don't have, so it'll really hit them!"

"But was this an actual spell?"

"Nope! Just wishful thinking. But now, with this wand, it appears that I can do it. It's telling me how, even though there's no real spell to do so!"

Harry grinned! He loved magic, and clearly Sirius had lucked out with this wand too. Sure, he'd need to investigate this further, but that could wait.

"I assume the last day or so is already gone, since you just wiped them out, and this is for everything prior to that?"

Sirius nodded.

"Do it!"

Guided by the wand in using this more granular, albeit no less permanent, form of the obliviation spell, Sirius erased from Snape's mind all potions knowledge beyond fourth year. He felt a little sad about the current OWL students, but shortly after his escape, Sirius had spend some time looking up OWL and NEWT scores over the past two decades. It wasn't likely to be a real loss except to Slytherins, and who cares about that lot, he reasoned.

In any case, this bastard did not deserve to live, considering what he had done. I'm only getting started on him and Dumbledore, though Dumbledore does not know it, he chuckled inwardly.

Finally, Sirius summoned Dumbledore's original wand - beechwood, it seemed, though only someone like Ollivander would know what was inside - glamoured it to look like the wand he had lost to Sirius, and they both left.

September 29, 1991

The next morning found Snape arriving at the breakfast table in a wild panic. He came upto Dumbledore and whispered in his ear. This caused a hubbub from curious students.

Dumbledore, shocked, immediately cast a silencing barrier around the staff table.

This caused the noise from the students to become louder. Dumbledore, with a brief look of annoyance, made the silencing barrier go both ways, so they would not be bothered by the chatter.

They should have simply gone off to one of their offices.

As it was, Sirius had - earlier that morning - placed a listening charm on the cushion on the armrest of Dumbledore's throne. All Harry needed to do was attach the other end to something, and the whole conversation would be out here.

He was, originally, going to attach it to his table napkin - the cloth would muffle the sound enough so that only he and Padfoot could hear it. But, seeing the double silencing spells Dumbledore setup, he had a sudden impulse.

With a subtle wave of his wand under the table, Harry attached the spell to Theodore Nott's pumpkin juice goblet. Being metal (gold, most likely), and being the shape it was, it rather amplified the voices so that pretty much the entire hall could hear.

"What do you mean, Severus?", they heard Dumbledore say.

"I am unable to recall anything with regard to either potions, or spells, beyond 4th year. None of the OWL material either - I would fail my OWLs if I tested today."

"That sounds like a prank gone wrong, Severus. Do not worry; I am sure it will come back to you", said Dumbledore, as he turned back to his breakfast.

Minerva looked at the two, then turned to her old friend Filius and gave him a meaningful glance.

"Severus", called Filius.

Snape turned to Flitwick, and was immediately hit with a powerful, wandless, legilimency attack. Completely unable to stop anything, he tried to jerk his face away, and failed to do even that. He tried to make some sound of protest, but all that came out was an incomprehensible mumble.

Dumbledore did not even look up from his food and his newspaper. "You worry too much, dear boy. Enjoy your breakfast, relax for the rest of the day in your room - it is Sunday after all - and you'll be right as rain tomorrow."

As he said the last two words, he happened to look up, and noticed, to his utter surprise, that Flitwick was looking really angry. And getting angrier by the minute.

With great effort, Filius controlled himself. "So", he said, in as much a normal voice as he could muster, "the rumours I heard making the rounds yesterday are true. You did indeed offer something to your Dark Lord that eventually caused the death of the Potters, and young Harry to be orphaned when he was barely more than a year old."

He stood, pulling himself to his full height of three feet nine inches, but looking very dangerous for all that.

"You know, Severus, Lily was one of my very best students, ever. I regarded her as easily equal to me, given a few years, and I had come to look on her as a surrogate daughter of sorts. As far as I am concerned you do not deserve to be alive, let alone teaching that child!"

Minerva nodded. "Albus, you have protected this- this-". She had to stop to gather herself, and decided to change tack. "Severus Snape, as deputy headmistress, I am revoking your right to give or take points or detentions. If what you say is true, then you won't be teaching here for long anyway."

"Now Minerva, that is not your dec-"

"Yes it is. Check the school charter."

Mild-mannered Pomona, whom Snape would never have suspected of harbouring such ill-will toward him, spoke up. "He has been a disaster since the day you gave him the job, and if you try to prevent Minerva from doing her job, we three may decide to make an example of not only him, but you also. Enough is enough. He is out of the castle by tonight, or I call Amelia".

Dumbledore did not know how this had happened, but he knew how to fix this. He pulled out his trusty wand - the world's most powerful wand - with the confidence of decades of familiarity. It had never failed him, and obliviating a few hundred students and a dozen staffers was well within its power.

He waved the death-stick under the table, while he soundlessly cast a mass obliviate.

He waited a few seconds, then said, magnanimously, "Now that that is settled, let us resume our breakfast".

He was so supremely confident that he did not even wait for the confirmatory 'glazed' look in people's eyes, so he was quite surprised to hear Pomona continue: "What is settled, Albus? Will Severus leave, or do I call Amelia".

It took Dumbledore a few seconds to realise that his mass-obliviate had failed.

Severus, seeing that Dumbledore had failed to obliviate the assembly (oh he knew perfectly well what Dumbledore would try and had tried!) decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and rose, presumably to go to his office and pack. Filius, nodding at Minerva, followed him. "I'll make sure he does not take anything that belongs to the school".

This brought suppressed laughter from at least the Gryffindor table.

The students were actually silent as a tomb all through the last few minutes - no one wanted to miss the drama. Draco, as the godson of the person being vilified, would have been the sole exception, but sadly he was not around.

Dumbledore had forgotten that he had put up a 2-way silencing spell, and in any case, both he and the rest of the staff were far too caught up in the drama to wonder why the students were so quiet.

During all this, the defence professor had sat quietly, watching the fun, if one may call it that, without revealing anything about what he thought of it. However, when Snape prepared to leave, he stood up and followed him.

Shortly before lunch the same day, Harry was once again summoned to the headmaster's office. Now that he knew the kind of support he could expect from the other three heads, Harry immediately went to Professor McGonagall and asked her to please come along for the meeting.

Minerva, in turn, asked Filius to come along. When they all entered Dumbledore's office, he turned to them, feigning puzzlement.

"I do not recall asking for you, Minerva and Filius. Is this urgent? Shall I ask Mr Potter to come back at a later time?"

"We are here to see what it is you want with him", said Professor McGonagall.

"That is betw-", began Dumbledore, only to be interrupted.

"I have no wish to be alone with you",said Harry, while at the same time Professor McGonagall said "I am his head of house, and I have every right to be here."

Dumbledore sent Harry a brief glare, then turned to Filius. Before he could say anything, however, Filius took the wind out of his sails. "I am beginning to wonder, Albus, how much of a role you played in the fate that eventually befell my favourite student and her husband. I have therefore decided that - regardless of your opinion - I will be involving myself in Harry's affairs from now on. Minerva and I have discussed this, and she supports my stand."

At this, Harry's dog - which always accompanied him - walked over to Filius and gave him a doggy grin, tail wagging a bit more than usual.

"I think Padfoot is saying 'thanks', Professor Flitwick", interpreted Harry.

Woof

Dumbledore gave up. Deciding he didn't actually have too much to lose, he started on Harry.

"How do you know all this, Harry? Who told you all the things that Petunia would not have known?"

"Siri, of course. My godfather".

A bomb could not have stunned them any more.

"Your godfather is a convicted criminal, serving time in Azkaban", said Dumbledore.

"Huh! Convicted - funny word that. You know that word implies there actually was a trial, right?"

He waited for Minerva and Filius to glare at Dumbledore for a few seconds.

"You know very well he was never convicted, and more than that, you know very well he was innocent, and that Pettigrew was the secret keeper", said Harry.

Suddenly turning to Filius, he said "Sir, thank you for your support. I am prepared to swear on my magic that Dumbledore knew Sirius was innocent."

Seeing two of his three senior-most heads going against him, Dumbledore decided to brazen it out, while calling for reinforcements.

Stepping quickly to the floo, he called Cornelius Fudge, and gave him a one-line summary that was guaranteed to bring him running. "Sirius Black has apparently escaped from Azkaban years ago, and Harry Potter knows where he is."

Fudge spent only a few minutes calling his old pal Crouch, and his favourite auror, Dawlish. Crouch was unavailable, so he briefly considered asking Amelia to join him, but decided not to. That woman will do everything by the book, and clearly something is off here - best get it all sorted quickly and quietly, he thought.

The two men landed on the hearth in Dumbledore's office a few minutes later.

"Aah! The second of the four architects of my godfather's unjust and illegal imprisonment! What happened to dear old Barty? Not up for a reunion is he?" taunted Harry.

Fudge went red with anger. "I do not know what you think of yourself, young man, but I will see you in Azkaban for harbouring an escaped convict. Now tell me where he is or it will go much worse for you!"

"As I was telling your old pal Albus just now, in order to be a convict, you must first have a trial, and all three of you, along with Bagnold, made sure that never happened. And by the way your threats mean nothing to me."

Dumbledore decided to change tack a little. "When did you say he came to you, Mr Potter?"

"When I was four years old."

"And how do you know he is telling the truth, whatever he may have told you?"

"He had literally hundreds of opportunities to kill me. I'm still here, aren't I?"

"And he was living with you all this time?"

Harry shrugged.

Dumbledore looked shrewdly at him for a few seconds, then grabbed a blank parchment off his desk, and, muttering "Portus", under his breath, turned it into a portkey.

"We will be back in a few minutes, Minerva, Filius."

"Where do you think you are going", asked Minerva.

Harry, meanwhile, had paled. "Minister Fudge, you cannot harm my godfather. He has been protecting me from harm from my relatives for the past seven years, and if I lose him, my life will be in danger from them!"

Fudge had an unholy look of glee on his face. "You cannot stop us, young man. We will make sure this criminal does not threaten anyone else ever again."

One look at the auror told Harry he thought the same - the anticipation in his face was very visible. Still, he had to ask.

"Auror Dawlish, you are sworn to protect the innocent. Do you also intend to harm my innocent godfather? I am telling you right now he has not had a trial - you can check if you don't believe me. I am also telling you if he is harmed and can no longer protect me, my relatives will kill me. Please don't hurt my godfather!"

"Your godfather is a criminal, and he should have been kissed by the dementors instead of merely being imprisoned. He would have shown no mercy, and I intend to show him none."

Harry looked at Dumbledore. "Professor Dumbledore, you can check with Mrs Figg about how they treated me before Sirius arrived. If I lose Sirius, I feel sure Vernon will kill me, or at least seriously injure me. Please organise a trial for him and he will come! Please don't harm the one person who has been protecting me all these years!"

Poor Dumbledore, blinded by his eagerness to take back control of Harry, did not realise the trap he was walking into.

"I will do what must be done, Harry" - aah so we're back to Harry now that he has the upper hand, are we, thought Harry - "and sometimes that means we have to harm people."

No one noticed the dog starting to wag his tail, a look of glee on his face to rival that on the minister and his henchman. He then barked once, turned once, and sat down at Harry's feet.

"Albus", said Minerva, while this was going on. "If Mr Black has really not had a trial, you need to make sure he has one. Imprisoning someone without a trial is unconscionable at best, and illegal at worst."

"Dumbledore", growled Flitwick. "It increasingly seems to me that you had an even bigger hand in all this. Not only do I suspect you are responsible for orphaning Harry, it seems like you also ensured his godfather would not be able to take him. I do not know what you are attempting to do, but I am coming with you, to make sure you three do not abuse your powers. We will take Mr Black to the ministry, then we will check if he has had a trial, and if he has not - well he shall have one, but more importantly, I will give you hell if I find out this was intentional on your part. Do not underestimate the power of the goblins!"

Dumbledore was becoming more and more agitated at the rebellion in his ranks. "Enough", he thundered, thrusting the portkey at the others.

Fudge, Flitwick, and Dawlish touched it, and they all disappeared.

Harry sat silently, looking off into space. After a while, he turned to the only other person in the room.

"Professor McGonagall, may I be excused. I need to go to my dorm and think about this."

Upset and sad at Dumbledore's behaviour, Minerva could only nod.

Harry left, head hung, his dog following with drooping ears.

The moment they got to the bottom of the stairs, however, they gleefully took off at a run toward the Gryffindor common room. Jumping into an empty classroom on the way, Harry asked the dog, "did I do good? Did I ask questions with the right wording?"

"Yes Harry", said Sirius. "The way you phrased it, harming me would be seen as tantamount to harming you. At least, that's what I think it will be."

"What do you think will happen to them?"

"No idea, kiddo. I'm not an expert on wards, but I suspect they'll be bounced back violently and land on their butts in the next county!" grinned Sirius, before turning back into Padfoot.

Together, they stepped into the common room - their hearts quite a bit lighter. Tomorrow would bring what it may, though these two had a pretty good idea what that might be.

September 30, 1991

Shortly after breakfast, Harry was summoned to the headmaster's office.

He seemed a bit surprised to see Professor McGonagall in Dumbledore's chair, but took it in his stride. At the far corner was Professor Sprout, with a young witch in some kind of robes (trainee auror, though Harry did not know it) standing next to her.

A stern faced woman with a monocle was also in the room. Upon seeing Harry, she softened a bit; giving him a small smile, she bade him sit.

"Mr Potter", she began, "what can you tell me about Sirius Black?"

Harry told her. He told her how even his diaper was not changed more than once a few days during his first year or so (yes, he remembered). He told her of being starved, sleeping in a cupboard under the stairs, and crying for someone to take him. He told her of wanting to die, despite not being very sure what that meant. And then he told her how, in late 1984, his godfather had appeared, as if by magic, and started taking care of him. He told her everything he had taught him.

"Sirius was the first person to tell me what my name was - the Dursleys only called me 'freak'. Sirius was the first person to show me pictures of my mum and dad. He told me stories of their pranks at school, of their friend Remus Lupin, and of the boy they thought was a friend, but who betrayed them all - Peter Pettigrew."

"Finally", he finished, "he told me how he had tracked down Peter after my parents were killed, only to be caught by a sneak attack he would never have suspected Peter of. Despite the stories that only a finger was found, he is convinced that Peter is alive and well and in hiding somewhere."

"So you don't believe he was a death-eater who tried to get your parents killed?"

"As I told someone a few days ago, he had hundreds of opportunities to kill me."

"I would like to speak to Mr Black; is there a way for you to contact him?"

"He won't come unless you swear on your magic to give him a fair trial, by veritaserum, and the trial should not include Dumbledore, Fudge, or Crouch."

Madam Bones looked a little started at that. "Why those people particularly?"

Harry shrugged. "They were the ones who chucked him in prison without a trial. Well those and Bagnold, but she's dead now so that's not relevant."

Not getting a response from her, he spoke again. "Madam Bones, what exactly happened? Why are you asking me these questions?"

Amelia sighed. If anyone had a right to know, it was this boy.

"Of the four people who went to your muggle home looking for Sirius, only Professor Flitwick came back completely unharmed. Dumbledore is in a coma. Fudge is dead. Dawlish is not actually dead but he is probably wishing he is; he appears to have lost all sensation and muscle functions in his limbs, as well as lost most of his magic. As a near squib, magical medicine barely works on him, so he is effectively a quadriplegic for the rest of his life."

"We have no idea what happened", said Prof Flitwick, continuing the narrative. "It all happened so fast - within seconds of the portkey landing - that I did not actually see anything and so we're unable to even guess what actually happened."

Bones thought for a few moments.

"You said, Mr Potter, that he would come out if I gave a magical oath that he would have a fair trial?"

"Yes ma'am".

"Well, I swear on my magic that if Sirius Black were to give himself up to me, I will ensure he has a fair trial as soon as possible, in an emergency session if needed, and that the trial will not include Dumbledore or Crouch". She felt no need to include Fudge, since he was dead anyway.

Harry looked at the dog. The dog looked sombrely at him for a second, then turned into Sirius Black.

October 8, 1991

The healers had said that Dumbledore was improving rapidly, and would be up and about in a week. When he had regained consciousness, Amelia Bones, acting minister for magic, had visited him in hospital and taken a preliminary statement from him. Once he was up and about, she immediately called for an emergency session of the wizengamot.

Dumbledore was not given any time to get back to his former strength. Plus, he was really wondering what was up with his wand - it did not seem to be as powerful as it used to be. So, all in all, Albus Dumbledore was feeling as naked as he had ever felt in all his long life.

Worse, he had not realised he was on trial. As soon as he entered, the acting minister had proclaimed that the Wizengamot was "in session", for the sole purpose of determining the facts of various events that had transpired in the immediate aftermath of Halloween, 1981.

To compound the problem, Dumbledore realised that Croaker, the head of the unspeakables, was also in attendance. No one knew when was the last time he, or indeed any past head of the unspeakables, had attended - clearly something was up.

The session started off very mildly, although there was a distinct lack of hero worship in at least a few of the members. Acting minister Bones led the questioning, starting straight off with Croaker.

"Mr Croaker, please identify yourself."

"My name is Algernon Croaker, and I am the head of the unspeakables."

"Can you briefly state why you chose to involve yourself in this matter?"

"I am not at liberty to state why I am interested in the case overall, but I can say that - upon getting information about the muggle location where Mr Potter has been staying for the past several years, and the result of the attempt to apprehend Lord Black" - this shocked most people in the hall, but especially Dumbledore - "from there, Acting Minister Bones asked me to examine the place".

"What did you find?"

"I found a set of blood wards, designed to be lethal to any magical person who sought harm to Mr Potter, but only produce the usual mild prickling sensation for witches and wizards (and, presumably, other magicals) who do not intend him harm."

"And whose magical signature was on these wards?"

"As far as I could tell, there was only one: Albus Dumbledore".

Everyone looked at him, so Dumbledore rose from his seat.

Dumbledore sighed - a long and sad sigh, that made well over half the audience suddenly feel guilty. His wand may be acting up, and he may be feeling physically not upto his normal form, but his mind was as sharp as ever, and his ability to use histrionics not impaired in the least.

"Those were dark times for all of us, my friends", he said. "Young Harry was liable to be the target of more than one dark wizard as soon as word got out that he had survived an encounter with Voldemort, and that Voldemort had been defeated. I saw no other option than to take him quite out of the wizarding world altogether."

"However", he continued, "while I did place offensive wards, they were not designed to be as lethal as they seem to be. Also, we had not gone there to harm Harry, so there was no reason for the wards to react this way. I feel sure Black has tampered with the wards."

Amelia Bones waved his objection away. "I see no reason for even offensive wards. Why not just defensive ones?"

"As I have already said, those were dark times, and Harry Potter needed the best protections magic could give him."

"But", asked Amelia, "at the time this happened, both of Mr Potter's godparents - Alice Longbottom, and Sirius Black - were alive and well. Why did you not hand him over to one of them? What gave you the right to take this on yourself, to take this child away from the guardians his parents wanted for him?"

Seizing the opportunity to focus on Black, Dumbledore blithely ignored the 'godmother' angle and went on the offensive.

"Amelia, we all know that Sirius Black was the traitor in their little group, and he was the secret kee-"

"Stop lying, Albus", hissed Amelia in anger. Quiet as it was, it was pitched so that everyone could hear her quite well. "We know that you cast the Fidelius, and we know the secret keeper - and traitor - was Pettigrew."

"Aah, so Black did get to you somehow", said Albus, chuckling. "You have always had a soft spot for him, my dear, but you should not let it guide your thinking. Sirius was the secret keeper, despite what he may say. I am not the one who is lying, it is Siri-"

Once again he was interrupted. Kingsley Shacklebolt - a man whom Albus Dumbledore was starting to think of as someone to be trusted enough to induct into the order, if it needed to be revived - suddenly proved to be not such a good candidate after all.

"We tested Sirius with truth serum, and also a magical oath. Would you like to swear on your magic that Sirius was the secret keeper?"

The slippery old man smoothly changed tack. "And is he also claiming that poor Peter was responsible for the twelve muggles killed the following day?", he scoffed.

"Yes. He has also given us pensieve memories, and my department verified that they are accurate and untampered. The ministry has exonerated him earlier this morning", said Croaker.

Once again seizing on a diversion, Albus's voice rose. "You cannot exonerate such a dark wizard without the Wizengamot's approval!"

Suddenly, a strong notice-me-not charm dissipated as a voice called out from a seat on the front row. "You cannot throw the heir of an ancient and noble house into Azkaban without a trial either, yet you and your buddies - Crouch, Fudge, and Bagnold - managed to do that quite well", drawled an elegently dressed Sirius.

The audience gasped, and many made to draw their wands. "Anyone who attacks Lord Black will answer to me", thundered Madam Bones. Allowing a few seconds for people to calm down, she continued. "There was indeed no trial. We found this very suspicious, because even Bellatrix Lestrange got a trial, and she had murdered and tortured far more than what Lord Black was believed to have done."

Albus was not done yet. "Even so, Black must have escaped from Azkaban - that itself is a crime."

"Indeed it is a crime, but only for convicted criminals. Since he was not convicted, we cannot charge him with the escape."

"Then Black must have tampered with the wards, as I said earlier. He should be charged with murder for this tragedy!" shouted Dumbledore.

Amelia pointed to Shacklebolt. "We asked him about it under the same conditions - truth serum and oath - and Lord Black said he was not a warding expert, and that he assumed the wards would merely bounce the attacker off, perhaps causing some mild injury but nothing at this level."

Dumbledore looked defeated. "But- but- even so, we were not harming Harry", he whined.

Croaker paused to smirk at Dumbledore, then continued. "From a pensieve memory supplied by Minerva McGonagall, I found that Harry Potter had clearly stated that he considered the presence of Lord Black at his residence to be a significant factor in keeping him from harm. It is pretty clear that magic took anyone harming Lord Black, as harming Harry Potter too, and reacted accordingly."

Dumbledore finally remembered Harry's questions. He grasped at the straw. "That means Harry and Sirius were fully aware we would be harmed! They should be tried for the murder!"

"As I said just now, Dumbledore, Sirius thought the wards were merely defensive, and would at worst throw you a fair distance."

Amelia summarised. "It is apparent from Black's testimony that you have been playing some deep game with Mr Potter's life, including illegally incarcerating Lord Black. In fact, of the four people Lord Black blames, you were the only one who knew that he was innocent. And yet you yourself were hardly affected, while the other two are dead, or as good as. The Wizengamot would like to know what game you are playing, but at the moment the most serious charge we can lay against you is the placement of illegal, lethal, blood words."

With that, his goose was cooked.

He was removed from all his positions, including that of headmaster, but suffered no other, actual, punishment. This was largely in deference to his years of service, but also, he still had far too many people loyal to him!

About 2 months earlier…

A man, and a goblin glamoured as a muggle, meet in a private room in a muggle restaurant.

"What did you find?"

"Offensive, but not lethal."

"And now?"

"Upgraded to lethal".

"Thank you. Now obliviate this conversation from me. Be sure to use a goblin spell."

"My pleasure!"

Author note: I've been trying for some months to move this along to a conclusion, like in my other one-shots, but the writer's block persisted, and I eventually gave up and decided to post this. It's kinda complete as far as Dumbledore is concerned, and I'll pick it up again when I next have some vacation or free time, and better ideas than the cliched crap that is currently laying siege to my brain!