The Truth and Trolls
On the morning of Sunday, October 13th, Harry, Hermione, and Draco were quizzing each other on History of Magic facts at the Slytherin table in the Great Hall. Harry had finally fallen asleep in that class for the first time, so the trio decided to give up on it completely. Instead, they’d gone through Professor Binns’ syllabus and made an outline of what they needed to know for exams. Using that outline, they came up with a schedule to study the information themselves. There was no way they would learn anything otherwise.
Getting the syllabus was easy enough, with only minimal subterfuge involved. They waited until lunch time, then Draco and Hermione both began asking the dead professor questions and arguing about his responses until he was completely absorbed in the conversation. When he was, Harry approached him and asked quietly if he could see the syllabus. Too distracted to realize what it was Harry was really asking for, the professor told him yes and continued his discussion without pause. Harry copied it with a spell he’d been practicing, then went to save the other 2 by saying they were needed elsewhere.
Ever since then, History of Magic became Harry and occasionally Draco’s official naptime. Hermione could never sleep through a class, but with the knowledge that she was still learning everything she needed, she allowed herself to take the time to complete homework for other classes.
They knew there was a “pop” quiz coming up, so they were studying double time to make sure they wouldn’t miss a thing.
Their studying was interrupted by an unfamiliar owl landing on the table between them. He stuck his leg out for Harry to retrieve a very official looking letter. Harry saw that it was from the Public Information Services and his heart immediately shot to his throat.
To be honest, once they’d handed off the file that they’d put together, Harry had allowed the whole topic of Sirius Black to fall to the back of his mind. It fell so far back, that he’d very nearly forgotten completely about it. It was only in those last few moments of full consciousness before bed that he thought of it at all. Or when someone brought up the topic of his parents, or that fateful night all those years ago. With the novelty of seeing him beginning to wear off, that didn’t happen too often anymore.
“This is it,” Harry addressed Draco and Hermione. Hermione stopped speaking mid-sentence to turn her full attention to the letter in Harry’s hand. Neither she nor Draco needed to ask what “it” was.
“Go on,” Draco encouraged. “Open it, see what it says.” Hermione nodded eagerly, across from him.
Harry’s fingers were trembling just the slightest as he tore the letter open. He was far more nervous to hear the response than he thought he would be when he first decided to send the inquiry. He was so anxious, his fingers nearly crinkled the letter as he removed it from the envelope.
As tenderly as he could, he unfolded the letter and read it aloud:
“Dear Mr. Potter,
“We here, at the Ministry of Magic: Public Information Services regret to inform you that the information you seek does not exist. We recognize that this is an unheard of occurrence, and wish to inform you that the necessary steps have been taken to rectify this.
“An investigation into the records of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement has revealed that there never was a trial for the conviction of Sirius Black III. This was an egregious error on the part of the DMLE. Here at the Ministry, we maintain a motto of “innocent until proven guilty.” This clearly was not enforced in the case of Mr. Black. To correct this, Mr. Black has been immediately removed from the custody of the dementors at Azkaban, and is now being contained in a holding cell at the Ministry of Magic Headquarters, awaiting an actual trial.
“The date of this trial is to be the 31st October, 1991 at 9:00 in the morning. This shall be a private trial, with no audience. As you requested, we will send you the results and all information pertaining to the case, as soon as they are made available.
“We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you, and appreciate your patience as we work alongside the DMLE to solve this issue.
“Best regards,
“Alton Pennywhistle
“Chief Clerk and Librarian
“Public Information Services Department.”
“I can’t believe it!” Hermione breathed. Her eyebrows were drawn in anger and Harry could tell he and Draco were in for a rant if they didn’t cut her off soon. “There really wasn’t a trial? I thought that Aunt Wally was just misinformed, but she was right? What kind of government would do such a thing? People are supposed to trust the Ministry of Magic! How can they do that when they won’t even give their citizens due process? And no one would have even known about it if we hadn’t gone looking! I wonder how many other people have been locked away like this! How can the ministry treat people so completely unfairly?”
“I know!” Draco jumped in before Hermione got carried away. “At least we’re helping Sirius Black. At least we’ll know the truth now.” Hermione looked as if she still had more words to say, so Harry jumped in as well.
“I wonder what it was that Mr. Malfoy knew,” he changed the subject. “Remember, your Mum said he knew something that would make them put a rush to this whole process?” Draco nodded. “I wonder what it was.”
“Probably some kind of black mail,” Hermione spat, clearly not liking how easily that could be done. “The Ministry is so corrupt!”
“I think it must have been something more than just blackmail,” Harry mused. “What if he knows something about the case that we don’t? I can’t shake the feeling that Aunt Wally knew something too. What if your father also knows?”
“But why wouldn’t he have come forth already, then?” Hermione asked, unbelieving. “We all know Aunt Wally hates her son, but even she tried to say something in the beginning. Narcissa said they didn’t like each other, but why would Mr. Malfoy hate Sirius Black enough to let him rot in Azkaban for ten years?”
Both Harry and Hermione looked to Draco. Mr. Malfoy was his father. If any of them could figure it out, Draco could. “I haven’t the slightest idea, honestly,” Draco shrugged. “It’s not something he’s ever talked about with me. I couldn’t even begin to guess.”
“There’s more to the story,” Harry purported. “There is, and I want to figure out what, and how I fit into all of it. Draco, do you think you can ask your father what he knows?”
“How would I even go about asking that?” Draco scoffed. That was a very loaded question, and not exactly a casual topic of conversation.
“I don’t know. Just, ask him outright if you have to.”
“I guess, but that’s not the kind of thing I’d want to send through a letter. I’d rather talk face to face. Unless he visits the school on business, the next time I’ll see him is for the Yule holidays.”
Hermione sighed heavily. “The only thing we can really do for now then, is wait for the results of the trial.”
Harry nodded. He was impatient to know more, but Hermione was right. The trial was less than a month away, he figured he could wait that long for answers.
The next 2 weeks seemed to drag on forever. Harry tried to do everything he could think of to keep himself preoccupied, but his mind always seemed to wander back to the trial. Then, he’d work himself anxious worrying about the results. He would get caught up in the what ifs, and every possible scenario that could occur. He would have to catch himself and find something to do.
He wasn’t always able to do that, and sometimes Draco or Hermione were the ones who had to pull him out of it. He was really grateful for his friends in that time.
One of the things Harry used to distract himself was by paying close attention to all of the Trinkets he saw. He thought he’d been seeing them everywhere before, but after Aunt Wally and Narcissa came to the school, he was sure that at least a third of the student body had them. Even some of the Professors had them.
To his surprise, Professor McGonagall was a Trueblood. Knowing that Truebloods were particularly powerful had he and Hermione admiring the woman much more. Although, Draco seemed rather unimpressed. He was more interested in Professor Flitwick’s green Trinket.
It seemed like the whole school was taking bets on what creature he was mixed with. The going bet was that he was mixed with goblin, but there were a few other common guesses as well. Some were even outrageous like dragon, or giant. There was no possible way the tiny man was mixed with giant, and Hermione insisted that humans and dragons could not interbreed. That didn’t stop the few bets from coming in anyways.
Harry put a galleon on goblin, while Draco put a galleon on some type of fairy. He was sure that the man was far too good at charms to not have some fairy in him somewhere. Hermione refused to take a bet, insisting that the whole thing was meddlesome and rude.
A lot of the Gryffindor students seemed eager to figure out what Dumbledore’s Trinket would present as. He hadn’t taken to wearing one at all, but the Weasley Twins started up a bet that he’d be a trueblood. Harry was inclined to agree, but wouldn’t join the betting for that one. He was generally against anything that involved Dumbledore, as a rule. He still didn’t like the man.
From what Harry could tell, almost the entirety of Slytherin had Trinkets now. There were no truebloods in the house at all, nor were there any squibs. However, Draco explained that squibs don’t get accepted to Hogwarts, so Harry supposed that made sense.
There was only one other creature-blood in the house, aside from Blaise. Surprisingly, it was the crazy 4th year girl who thought the giant squid was cute. She wouldn’t admit what she was, but Draco was absolutely certain that she was part mermaid. She had to be, otherwise why would she sympathize with a sea creature so much? Hermione didn’t know if human-mermaid interbreeding was possible, so she added it to her never-ending list of things to research.
One thing she did manage to cross off the list was figuring out what Lilin were. Apparently, Lilin—or the Children of Lilith—was a collective term for incubi and succubae. It was strange to think of Blaise as being an incubus, especially considering what they were rumored to need to sustain life. Although, it certainly explained why both the boy and his mother were absolutely gorgeous.
After a bit of prodding, Blaise explained to all of his classmates that the legends they’d all heard were not the truth. He wouldn’t need to be concerned with any of that stuff anyways, until he was 21 and those types of traits began to develop. Until then he was a normal boy. Since he was only part incubus, he wasn’t even entirely sure which traits he would or wouldn’t get. He was just certain he wasn’t getting all of them.
After admitting all that, Blaise became nervous that the others might judge him. He ultimately turned out to be nervous for nothing. Draco cracked a joke about his part incubus status not being enough for him to cheat off Blaise’s DADA homework, and—after a short bout of laughter—everything returned back to normal. Blaise was clearly relieved.
As October came to an end, the weather got colder and the decorations for Halloween started going up. Soon enough, it was the 31st and the entire castle was decked out for the holiday.
The majority of Slytherin was complaining about it.
Halloween was a muggle holiday. Most of the traditional families didn’t celebrate it. Instead, they celebrated Samhain, the eve of the new year on the lunar calendar. Hogwarts also used to celebrate Samhain. It wasn’t until Dumbledore took over that it was changed to a Halloween celebration as a way to be more muggle friendly. Aunt Wally had warned Harry all about it, going on to explain how Dumbledore didn’t consider the fact that it would alienate the “purebloods.”
Over the centuries, more and more muggle influences were added to wizarding society. Wizards eventually adopted the solar calendar as well. That was one of the main problems Aunt Wally had against muggles. She claimed they were infecting their world and erasing wizard culture.
She used that as a part of her argument as to why muggleborn children should just be raised in wizard society. She wanted to keep the 2 separate. She didn’t care if the only thing separating the 2 was an 11% difference in DNA. Their entire worlds were different and if they weren’t going to live together due to the Statute of Secrecy, then she wanted them completely apart.
The traditionally raised wizards that composed most of Slytherin House had similar ways of thinking. Even if they didn’t go so far as to hate muggles outright, they did harbor a bit of bitterness for their own culture and holidays being ignored.
Despite the contempt for the celebration, the Halloween Feast was never anything but spectacular. So the Slytherins found themselves in the Great Hall with the other Houses. The hundreds of floating candles had been replaced with lit jack o lanterns and a colony of bats flying. They were dipping and diving, weaving in and out between the pumpkins. Occasionally, some of them would sit on a pumpkin for a rest, or on top of one of the tall trays that were filled to the brim with various candies. They seemed to be avoiding the roof itself, but given the enchantments on it, there was really no surprise there.
The tables were covered in all manner of food. The spread was similar to the start of term banquet, but with more autumn themed dishes. There were apples, turkey, soups, pies, carrots, sweet potatoes, and the list went on and on. Then, of course, there was the mountains of candy. The tables were so laden in candy that Hermione was having a hard time believing that the school was actually offering it to them.
“It’s almost like they’re promoting tooth decay,” she complained. She frowned at Crabbe and Goyle as they loaded their plates high with anything sugary that they could reach. Between the two of them, there wasn’t a vegetable in sight.
Harry started off with a baked potato smothered in toppings, but before he could even take his first bite, the doors to the Great Hall flew open. They slammed against the walls, echoing loudly and startling the room into complete silence. Professor Quirrell came thundering in, disheveled and turban askew. He ran straight to the Head Table, hollering as soon as he got there.
“Troll!” he shouted to the headmaster, frantically. “Troll in the dungeon!” He took a breath and more calmly explained, “Thought you ought to know,” then fainted where he stood.
Instantly, the Great Hall exploded into chaos. Screaming came from all directions as the students panicked, climbing out of their seats and running in every direction. No one seemed to know where they were going, they all just ran around in a panic. Heedless of the calls for order from the Head Table, the students were too frightened to sit still, but too nervous to head for the door.
Hermione got an idea and grabbed Draco by the collar because he was closest. She pulled him close and shouted into his ear. “Tell everyone to calm down!” she told him. “If the troll’s in the dungeon, we’re safe in here! Tell everyone you see to sit down and be calm!”
He nodded at her, looking paler than usual, then reached over to a Ravenclaw girl who was standing near him and shouted Hermione’s directions in her ear. Hermione repeated them to Harry, who then told Millicent, who then told Pansy, who told another Ravenclaw girl, then so on and so forth.
Hermione told everyone she could reach the same thing, and they all repeated it to whoever they could reach. In under 2 minutes, everyone had returned to their seats and the screaming quieted down enough that it was about the same level as the general chatter had been. It was more frantic whispering than anything else.
Dumbledore stood up at the front of the room. “Thank you, for settling down so quickly,” he addressed the students. “Prefects, please lead your Houses to their dormitories, immediately. Teachers, if you will follow me to the dungeons-”
“WHAT?”
Just as the prefects began trying to corral their classmates together, Hermione stood up from her seat and screamed the word in such a furious shriek that it echoed across the Great Hall and plunged the room into instant silence again. All attention was on her, but she didn’t even appear to notice.
“Headmaster, that’s a terrible idea!” she contradicted. She was talking loud enough for her voice to echo. There was no way the man wouldn’t have heard her, despite how far away he was. “The Slytherin dormitories are in the dungeons! We’re nowhere near them in here, and there’s only a few entrances to this room. The entire school is already here, so this is the safest place.
“You should go to the dungeons with just a few teachers, and leave the rest to stay here and protect us just in case. It makes no sense to send us wandering the halls with only the prefects to protect us.
“It’s only one troll. If you could defeat Grindelwald, surely you could stop a single troll on your own. Why would you need nearly every fully trained wizard in the castle to get together to stop it? Especially, if that means leaving all of the students to protect themselves? That’s a terrible idea!
“Also, someone needs to get Professor Quirrell to the infirmary! That’s another place that’s nowhere near the dungeons.”
Dumbledore raised his hand to silence Hermione, but when she continued, he spoke over her. “Thank you, Miss Granger, for your wonderful idea. I think I rather prefer your plan. However, I will have to deduct fifty points from your House for the random outburst and disrespect of the headmaster. Now, please have a seat, Miss Granger.”
Hermione’s mouth fell open in shock. She hadn’t thought it completely through when she stood up to berate the headmaster, so hadn’t really known what to expect to become of it. What she definitely hadn’t been expecting was to lose so many house points. She flushed red in embarrassment and returned to her seat, stiffly.
“Alright then, students, you shall stay here and are welcome to continue your feast. Professor McGonagall,” he looked over to the woman. If Harry didn’t know any better, he’d think she were trying to suppress a smile. “You shall come with me to the dungeons. Professor Flitwick, will you please bring Professor Quirrell to the Hospital Wing for an examination?”
Flitwick immediately went to work, casting a silent spell on the downed professor to keep him still, and floating him out of the room, using the same spell he’d been teaching the first years earlier that day.
Dumbledore instructed a few other professors to guard the doors to the Great Hall, and for the Head Boy and Girl to help them, then he and Professor McGonagall left.
The room remained in tense silence for another 20 seconds before Professor Snape cleared his throat loudly from his place guarding the entrance. “Miss Granger,” he called in his usual curt tone.
She stood again, looking fully chagrined, and eyes locked on the floor. She knew she was in for it, now.
“I would like to reward you with one hundred points for your incredible problem solving and decision making skills, and for the impressive ability to remain levelheaded in the midst of a crisis.”
Hermione’s mouth fell open in shock for the second time that night, but she recovered quickly and nodded. “Thank you,” she said in a low voice that still rang out in the eerily quiet hall.
“You may now, all return to your feasting,” Snape dismissed.
The Slytherin table burst into cheers, and even a smattering of people across the other tables were clapping for Hermione too. House rivalries or not, what she did had been incredible. Standing up to the headmaster and telling him he was wrong was not something to be taken lightly. That wasn’t even taking into consideration how quickly she’d come up with an effective plan that was far better than Dumbledore’s himself.
Hermione took her seat, and the applause quieted down, returning into more nervous chattering as students slowly began working up the nerve to continue eating.
About 10 minutes later, Professor Flitwick returned. Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall returned another 30 minutes after that and announced that the troll was taken care of. The nervous tension in the room lifted into excitement once more as the students began gossiping about what must have happened in the dungeons.
With the all clear, students soon began leaving the room and heading back to their dorms. The Slytherins seemed to hang back a little longer than the rest, nervous about going right to where the troll had been, despite the promise of it being gone. Finally, Professor Snape did his duty as Head of House and comforted his students by reminding them that they were all idiots, then leading them to the common room himself.
The next morning, the excitement of the night before was still on everyone’s minds. Even Harry’s. So much so, that when a tawny owl landed on the table beside him, offering him a medium sized package, Harry initially had no idea what it possibly could have been.
It wasn’t until a moment later when Crabbe and Goyle began loudly discussing trading the remnants of their candy haul from yesterday that Harry remembered that more than just a troll break in had happened. It was also Halloween, the 31st. Which meant the package before him had to have been the file about Sirius’ trial.
After collecting the Daily Prophet from another owl, Draco caught sight of Harry’s package and elbowed Hermione to draw her attention to it as well.
For a moment, Harry was paralyzed. This file held the answers. Perhaps not all of the answers he was looking for, but a good number of them. First and foremost, it had the truth of Sirius Black’s innocence.
Harry was afraid to open it.
He wanted so badly to hear that the man was falsely imprisoned, but that would mean he wrongfully spent a decade under the torture of the dementors at Azkaban. He didn’t know how he would be able to live with the guilt of knowing his own part in that.
The only thing that would have been harder to hear would be that Sirius Black had been guilty the whole time, and that he’d put his faith in a traitor. His parents had put their faith in a traitor.
“Open it, Harry,” Draco urged.
Harry swallowed hard and—with surprising steadiness—tore the package open. He just began to pull the file out when Professor Snape approached the trio.
“Miss Granger,” he called. “The Headmaster would like to see you in his office. Now.” He raised an eyebrow at the last word, as if to rush her.
She hesitated for a moment, but stood up slowly. She had hoped she’d be able to get away with only the 50-point deduction from yesterday, but it would appear Dumbledore wasn’t finished with her.
“I’ll open it later,” Harry told her before she walked away. “When you get back.” She shook her head at him.
“No. You’ve been waiting this whole time. Read it. Figure out the truth. You and Draco can tell me all about it later.”
Harry nodded jerkily to her, having half hoped for the excuse to put it off. Hermione sent him a supportive smile. It didn’t quite reach her eyes, but it was comforting regardless. Snape made an impatient noise behind her, and she turned to follow him.
With no other distractions, Harry pulled the file from the large padded envelope. He leaned closer to Draco, so they could see the contents together and they both gasped at the first page they saw.
It was Sirius Black’s original mugshot from 1981. It started off with him keeled over, hands covering his ears and fingers knotted in his long dark hair. 2 pairs of arms reached into the frame and jerked him upright, pulling his arms down as well. It revealed his face, twisted with a grotesque combination of elation and fury as he cackled hysterically at the camera. His manic smile exposed most of his teeth as he fought against the arms holding him in place.
That was the very first time either Harry or Draco had ever seen the man. Harry could feel his stomach crawling up his throat as he realized that there was no possible way that the man in this picture was anything less than psychotic. Whatever shreds of hopeful optimism he had left, instantly turned to dread.
He quickly turned to the next page which was the man’s original intake information for Azkaban. It listed off the man’s basic physical information along with the belongings confiscated from him, where in the prison he was being placed, information such as that. The next page was a list of monthly behavior reports for his first year, ending with a physical examine and a smaller mugshot.
He appeared to have lost nearly 3 stone. He was clad in ill-fitting prison stripes and what appeared to be a tattered blanket. His hair was significantly longer, tangled, and half covering his face. Through the mess of his hair, his eyes could just barely be seen giving a dark glare directly into the camera. He was so still, that if Harry hadn’t caught him blinking, he might have thought he was looking at a muggle photo.
The next few pages were similar to the third, one for each year up until the last. Each picture, he looked worse and worse.
By 1990, his hair was long enough to sit on, and so matted that any attempts to pull a comb through would have probably broken the comb. His eyes were dull and lifeless with bags dark enough to bring forth thoughts of sleep deprivation as a form of torture. His cheeks were sunken in, and he was deathly pale. His lips were dry and obviously peeling, with bruises on his jaw and neck. The prison garb looked as if they were the exact same pair as the first photo and hadn’t been washed since. The opening over his chest showed the corner of a tattoo that hadn’t been there before and a clavicle pressing sharply against his brittle skin.
He slumped over as if he could barely stand, and his eyes were directed at something out of the frame. He didn’t appear to be looking at anything, that’s just where they appeared to have landed.
Harry couldn’t help but to feel sorry for the man. The first picture was terrifying. The last one was just pathetic.
“It’s weird…” Draco mused aloud.
“What is?” Harry asked. There were a lot of things about the pictures that would have been considered weird under ordinary circumstances, but according to stories he’d heard about Azkaban, it all sounded pretty standard.
“The notes…” Harry turned to Draco and frowned, not knowing what he meant. “In the beginning, the monthly behavior notes all say that he’s strangely quiet.” Harry went back to look, and they did. “After that, there’s a few that say he’s unreactive toward the dementors. Then in June of each year, there’s an inspection by the ministry and it notes that he’s the only one to ever talk to the people that come through. Look.” Draco pointed at the June entry for 1988. “It says that he asked the Minister for Magic if they could have better food, then told him the dementors weren’t very good cooks.”
“I don’t understand how any of that is weird.” Harry didn’t get it. It made sense for Sirius Black to be quiet, or want to talk to the only other humans that were really around.
“Azkaban makes people go crazy, Harry,” Draco explained. “People lose their minds after just a few weeks in the place. My Dad went there once for an inspection, he said all he could hear anywhere he went was people screaming. Some of them asked for help, others begged to die, some of them were even just laughing like maniacs or shouting nonsense. But they were all screaming. Being quiet is definitely weird. And none of them are ever responsive. They’re more likely to carry a conversation with the wall than actually talk to the few people who show up. It’s because of the dementors. They’re the ones that drives everyone to insanity.”
“But,” Harry finished the thought, “he’s unreactive to the dementors.”
“Exactly.”
“How could that be?”
“I don’t know…”
Hesitantly, Harry turned to the next page. Where he should have found the behavior notes for 1991, he instead found info about his release to the Ministry of Magic on October 12th. There was another mugshot that didn’t look much different than the last, with more info about his physical status. After that, were notes about the trial.
There was a long list of people in attendance. They each had something to do with the original case, as well as the current Head of the DMLE. To neither Draco, nor Harry’s surprise, Albus Dumbledore was among the list of people involved, but was not in attendance.
There were pages and pages of details about the case, including a brief segment of Sirius Black being questioned under veritaserum, and a number of pensieve memories from the various parties involved. They were all interspersed with snapshots of the proceedings.
Surprisingly, Lucius Malfoy made an appearance in the courtroom more than once. Harry supposed it made sense, considering he was supposedly holding some particularly useful information. That must have meant—like Harry had guessed—that it was more than just your ordinary blackmail.
The trial notes didn’t go into excruciating detail, so while it was easy enough to follow, Harry didn’t find himself with too much more information than he’d already had. What he did know, was that the final verdict was that Sirius Black was innocent.
The trial proved that the man was innocent of having betrayed Harry’s parents. Lucius’ testimony even supplied the name of the true traitor, as Peter Pettigrew. In the back of his mind, Harry wanted to know how exactly Lucius had known that. The thought was overpowered by the realization that Sirius Black was also found innocent of the deaths of the 14 people that he’d supposedly murdered. According to Sirius’ pensieve memory, the whole thing had been a trap set up to frame him by the very same Peter Pettigrew. He was the true culprit of the whole thing.
Pettigrew was an unregistered animagus. A brown rat, according to Sirius’ memory. He’d faked his own death by blowing off his finger in the explosion he set off, then escaping into the sewer.
After the trial notes was a paper describing the terms of his release, the Ministry’s plan to pay him 5,000 galleons in restitution, and reinstating his title and all of his assets that had been under Arcturus Black’s name after his incarceration. There was also a short message about a private trial to be held against the Ministry Members who were at fault for the mistake. There was no date set and no list of names.
When he finished reading through it all, Harry passed the whole file over the Draco. He was utterly gobsmacked. It was too much to take in. He had so much fluttering around in his mind after all that. Through it all, he tried to cling on to 2 main things. The rat—Peter Pettigrew—was the real traitor. And Sirius Black was innocent.
His godfather was innocent. And now, he was free!
It was hard to describe the mood Harry was in after that. He didn’t really understand it himself. He allowed Draco to drag him off to potions without any fuss and didn’t even register any surprise at finding Hermione already there in her usual seat at the front of the room. He sat down beside her quietly, and Draco sat on her other side.
“So what happened with the Old Goat?” Draco asked. On another day, Hermione might have scolded him for it, but today she didn’t seem bothered by the rude name.
“I’ve got detention,” Hermione huffed miserably. “Every Saturday until the Christmas Hols.”
“That’s rubbish!” Draco complained. “You pretty much saved everyone’s butt’s with your advice! He should have been rewarding you, not giving you detention. Even Professor Snape recognized that.”
“Whatever,” Hermione waved the thought away, but she was clearly still upset about it. No doubt, this was the first time she’d gotten a detention in her life. “It doesn’t matter. Anyways, what’d the file say about Sirius Black?”
Draco glanced to Harry, saw that he was still off in his own head, then answered himself. “He’s innocent. Just like Aunt Wally said. Turns out Peter Pettigrew is the one who did it all. He framed Sirius and faked his own death and everything.”
“That’s terrible!” Hermione grew even angrier. “And this whole time, he’s been off in hiding while Sirius Black has been in Azkaban? Meanwhile, Harry’s been raised by his evil family? All thanks to Dumbledore?” Hermione growled in frustration, just in time for Snape to glide in the room and catch everyone’s attention on him.