Chapter 16
On the morning of the 30th of July, Harry was frying two eggs and a rasher of bacon for his very own breakfast in his very own kitchen, when he was rudely startled by a loud ringing noise. Glancing at the book-sized lump of metal on the kitchen counter-top confirmed it - that was the doorbell on his front gate. No wonder he'd been provided with an interface which would allow the clapper to turn intangible at his command; it was a very loud noise, much more attention-grabbing than the electronic chirps Harry was used to. He turned the hob off, but didn't bother picking up the frying-pan or scrubbing the floor. Instead, he grabbed his wand and rushed out.
Thankfully, it was only Ted Tonks, whom Harry had naturally kept informed of his change of address. There was no reason to believe any Godric's Hollow residents or visitors had noticed the new gate and tattled to Dumbledore or the Ministry; and safety was a matter of hours away. Ted looked distinctly agitated, though. Harry invited him in, pointedly informing the angrily rustling sloes that Mr Tonks was welcome as a guest.
"I take it something's happened?" he asked. "Do we have time to talk about it here, or should I be packing my stuff and going somewhere?"
"No, no, here's fine," said Ted. "Safe as anywhere and safer than most, for you. It's just the news. It's a lot. I was researching it anyway, ever since I last saw you - it bothered me, you see - and I was going to send you an owl later today or tomorrow, asking you to come in for a chat. And then I saw this morning's Prophet." Harry didn't quite follow, but focused his attentions on putting the kettle to boil and cleaning up the mess on the floor, before getting breakfast started again. Mr Tonks had already eaten, but accepted a cup of tea.
"It's Sirus Black," he finally said. "Your godfather. The one who's in prison. He escaped yesterday. It made the front page of this morning's Daily Prophet. Posters are going up all over Diagon Alley. Aurors pulled from their regular duties to look for him." He showed Harry the paper. "The thing is - the thing is - if he actually did what everyone thinks he did, he's a terrible criminal, and very dangerous. So even if I only knew the things that were public knowledge, I'd be warning you. But it's possible that he might be innocent, at least of some of it. And whether he's innocent or guilty, he's been locked up in Azkaban for nearly twelve years. He's unlikely to be sane. But he's still magically powerful and cunning enough that he's managed to escape a prison that was thought to be inescapable until now." Harry poured the tea, and dished his breakfast up. Ted was clearly waiting for some kind of response.
"That is a lot," he said finally. Ted went into more detail: about what Sirius Black's family was like, a family that Ted's wife had also belonged to before she was disowned for her marriage. How Sirius had sorted into Gryffindor, had been close friends with Harry's father and two others, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. Was or seemed outspokenly against everything his family stood for. Had run away from home to live with Harry's grandparents; had become an auror alongside Harry's father; had been trusted by Ted and Andromeda to babysit their daughter on occasion; had joined the Order of the Phoenix and fought in the war; had been named Harry's godfather alongside Alice Longbottom, whose own son was almost exactly the same age as Harry; Lily had been Neville's godmother.
"That's what we knew at the time," Ted said. "The rest is what was pieced together after Hallowe'en 1981. Your parents and the Longbottoms had gone into hiding." He explained about the Fidelius charm. "Sirius Black was known to be the Secret Keeper. They joked about it - something about his dating habits, and whether a faithfulness charm would change them. And on that Hallow'een, You-Know-Who learned the Secret. Sirius must have told them it. Aurors went to track him down, and when they found him, he'd already had a run-in with Peter Pettigrew. The whole street was blown up. Twelve muggles dead. The biggest piece of Peter they could find was his finger; they gave it to his mother in a box, along with a posthumous award for bravery. And Sirius just sat in the wreckage , laughing. He supposedly confessed to everything, and was taken to Azkaban. Everybody thought his family must have got to him, in the end. That he'd been a secret Death Eater, perhaps even You-Know-Who's right-hand man. The Order of the Phoenix had been worried about a possible traitor for months; they decided it must have been him."
"So he was their friend, and he betrayed them," said Harry. "Betrayed everyone."
"That's what I thought, until earlier this week," said Ted. "Until I saw your test. It's not just that he was named your godfather. He still is."
"And if he had been the Secret Keeper, and given the secret, that would have stopped him being my godfather?" said Harry.
"Yes," said Ted. "Certainly if he gave the secret away willingly to somebody he knew meant you harm, it would. There might be ways for him to have given it away unwillingly or unknowingly: I don't know whether legilimency or the Imperius would have worked to get it out of him, or whether breaking under torture would still count as a betrayal of the godfather oath, or whether they could have used Confundus or something to get Sirius addled enough to believe You-Know-Who was someone else it was safe to send to visit. Sorry, this is all rather morbid." Harry didn't actually understand half the concepts, but he thought he got the gist.
"So, since he is my godfather, either he gave the secret away without meaning or wanting to, or somebody else was the Secret Keeper?" he asked.
"Yes," said Ted. "And I checked something else, too. There's no record of him ever having had a trial. So it's not even been proven that he was the one who blew up the street and killed those people; or whether it was murder or manslaughter while he was out of his mind with grief."
"Can they do that? Throw people into prison without trial?" asked Harry.
"Technically," said Ted, "habeas corpus pre-dates the Statute. So in theory you can't. In practice, some hearings are distinctly perfunctory, and with the right judges, it needn't take much. The Minister and the DMLE had extra powers during wartime, too. They wouldn't need to formally log a hearing, as long as at least two people of Wizengamot judge stature signed off on the Azkaban transfer, listing a sufficient amount of evidence, and they put in a motion to discuss it at the next Wizengamot session. The presence of the allegedly guilty party, and any opportunity for them to defend themselves, is optional, even for hearings."
"They put Hagrid in Azkaban for a couple of months this spring," said Harry. "Pretty much because the minister wanted to be seen to be doing something."
"Yes, and he was released with an apology; he accepted the apology without taking legal counsel, and the whole thing was buried in the back pages of the Prophet, as minimally as was legally possible to count as having 'published' his innocence. It followed the letter of the law but not the spirit; and Hagrid has fewer rights than most, anyway, because he's part-human and never took his OWLs."
"That's not fair. It's all Tom Riddle's fault Hagrid got expelled, anyway. He set him up."
"And that would be something for Hagrid to discuss with a legal advisor, if and when he wanted to get his wand-rights back."
"And Sirius Black?"
"Also needs a good lawyer. Rumour has it the Minister's pushing for a Kiss-On-Sight order, and the Dementors are getting restless." Ted then had to explain what Dementors were. Harry was appropriately horrified.
Much of the rest of the morning was spent hashing out what restrictions on Harry's movements, for his own safety, Harry might agree to follow for the rest of the summer, or while Sirius Black was at large and possibly dangerous. In particular, Ted didn't want Harry to be outside the protection of wards, without a witch or wizard to hand who was capable of defending him. Of course Ted had no actual authority over Harry, but he explained his genuine concerns, and the kind of restrictions he would have put his daughter under had such a thing happened when she was Harry's age. In the end, Harry agreed not to spend time in the Muggle world on his own this summer; and also to allow Ted to side-along-apparate him from Godric's Hollow to the public apparition point in Staines, to catch the train with him from Staines to Little Whinging (some ten minutes) and to walk with him from the station until he was within sight of Privet Drive.
They also spent a great deal of time discussing the desirability of Harry's placement in a suitable household with wand-capable adults to help defend him. Ted wished he could just open up his spare room - "after all, I'm no slouch with a wand, 'Dromeda's a former Black, and Dora's an auror trainee" - but he was professionally disbarred from doing that while working for Harry as a lawyer, and he couldn't pass his legal duties for Harry to another member of the firm due to the confidentiality level of their agreement with Gringotts.
Harry vaguely felt he should be offended, but having an adult show genuine concern for his wellbeing was oddly nice. And that evening, he received his first ever birthday cards. Hermione's present was amazing. While he was very happy for the Weasleys having won all that money, though, he was somewhat put out that they were going to be in Egypt for the rest of the summer, preventing him from moving in with them. It was a selfish impulse and he tried to squash it, but there it was. Who else did he have, after all? Alice Longbottom was in St Mungo's, a permanent resident for over a decade, and while he liked Neville well enough, he didn't want to live with Neville's strict and stern grandmother, or his possibly murderous great-uncle, let alone subject the twins to them. They sounded like magical versions of the Dursleys. He realised, with a jolt, that if Neville was 'almost exactly' the same age as him, then Neville's birthday must be within a day or so of his. He had no birthday card or present, but he wrote a note, sending birthday greetings, and expressing a wish to meet for school shopping 'at some point in the next couple of weeks, whenever suits you best.' Perhaps he could buy Neville something then.
"Don't take it until you've had a good rest, Hedwig," he said affectionately. "I don't want you pushing yourself too hard. I'll be off early in the morning tomorrow, but we'll find you a nice tree to perch in if you need more rest first. And Erroll, of course."