Chapter 233: Let Me See
The earth-shaking explosions gradually subsided. Smoke billowed and fragments of rock rolled down the slopes.
After a while, the center of the blast finally revealed a huge crater, with a large sphere of earth in its center. The earth sphere squirmed rapidly, then suddenly unfolded like a flower, scattering its petals to reveal the figures standing inside.
Professor McGonagall flicked a bit of dust from the sleeve of her robes and strode forward, casting a magical detection spell on the surroundings. She finally let out a sigh of relief and looked back at the young wizards and Aurors behind her. Her gaze finally settled on the figure kneeling on the ground, pinning Peter Pettigrew down.
"Sirius..."
The figure was silent for a moment, then slowly looked up. A smile appeared on his pale, gaunt face. "Professor McGonagall!"
"You're Sirius!" Harry shouted in surprise, catching Sirius's attention. He turned and stared at Harry, his eyes turning red as tears streamed down his face.
The resemblance! The boy in front of him looked so much like James! Except for the eyes; Harry's eyes were like his mother's.
"James..." Sirius's voice was choked with emotion.
They all wanted to say something, but the Aurors had already recovered and surrounded Sirius and Peter Pettigrew. One of them shouted, "Drop your wand!"
"He's not a bad person!" Harry yelled immediately. "He was framed, you all know that! We've already caught the real culprit, Peter Pettigrew!"
Sirius smiled, looking at Harry. He tossed his wand to a nearby Auror, raised his hands, and allowed them to arrest him. A look of great relief was on his face.
"Professor McGonagall!" Harry immediately cried out to her for help.
Professor McGonagall walked over and shook her head at him. "Wait for the Wizengamot trial. Dumbledore is already there waiting. Don't worry, everyone will see that justice is done for him."
The sudden attack had obviously caught the Ministry's attention. A large number of people rushed to the scene and took them all back to the Ministry of Magic.
"Absolutely unforgivable! I will not tolerate this!" Fudge, the Minister for Magic, was furious and gave Scrimgeour, the Head of the Auror Office, a severe dressing down.
"They actually attacked our people right here inside the Ministry, in the corridor outside the Wizengamot Courtroom! They are out of control! I will have them all locked up in Azkaban! No, I want you to capture and execute them on the spot! I will sign a document authorizing you to use the most wicked magic!"
The entire Ministry seemed to have been stirred up, and many people rushed to the courtroom on the tenth floor underground. The crowd grew so large that Barty Crouch, who was in charge of maintaining order, had to use an Undetectable Extension Charm to expand the space. People were shouting and arguing everywhere, and the courtroom was as noisy as a marketplace.
Professor McGonagall finally led the trio to Dumbledore, and the young wizards were delighted to see a familiar figure standing beside him.
"Professor Lockhart!"
Lockhart turned around and smiled at them. "You certainly went through a lot while I was away from school!"
The trio had so much to say, but Dumbledore was already displeased with the commotion in the courtroom. He held his wand to his throat and shouted for everyone to be quiet.
"Order!"
"Order! Order! Order!"
Dumbledore's words were undoubtedly more effective than those of Barty, Fudge, or the Aurors. Soon, the entire noisy room fell silent. He looked around with a deep gaze, and in the end, he said nothing, just walked toward the chief seat of the Wizengamot.
Barty immediately signaled the Aurors to maintain order and brought Sirius and Peter to the chairs in the center of the court. The circular rows of seats looked down on the two men. The members of the Wizengamot, including Dumbledore, wore crimson robes embroidered with an elegant silver 'W' on the left side of their chests. Their gazes terrified Peter Pettigrew, making him tremble.
However, most of the people on the dais were looking at Sirius. With the exception of Dumbledore, whose expression was unclear, most of them seemed to feel a sense of disgust. They didn't care about a criminal's inner turmoil. In their eyes, this trial was not a case of an innocent person being cleared. It was a case of a man who willingly went to prison to cover for a friend, but now was unhappy with his imprisonment. He had escaped, captured his friend to prove his own innocence, and now wanted to clear his name.
Many members of the Order of the Phoenix felt a great dislike for Sirius. Those who, like Kingsley, had not had much interaction with him could only think that his scapegoating for a decade had given Peter the chance to lie low with the Weasley family for so many years, possibly leaking countless secrets of the Order.
Worse still... just thinking that Ron brought Peter into the same dorm as Harry Potter, and that Peter was with them for classes, gave him countless opportunities to harm Harry, was a chilling thought.
Peter had so many opportunities. The Weasley brothers took Harry away from his blood relatives and his magical protection to the Burrow, while the Weasley parents, who didn't know Peter was there, were busy with their own things. At that time, Peter Pettigrew, a powerful wizard, was only surrounded by a few young wizards.
Not to mention the time Harry and Ron took Arthur's flying car on an adventure; the only people in the car were Harry, Ron, and Peter, two first-year graduates and a grown wizard. There were too many situations like this. The adults had also enjoyed roaming at night when they were young, so they could easily imagine the danger.
So... everyone inevitably started to wonder. Did Sirius really betray James Potter? Did he work with Peter to cover it up? This was an unavoidable suspicion. Such a judgment could only be made by Dumbledore.
This judgment wasn't as simple as just having a good heart and believing Sirius was innocent. To believe he was innocent meant that he would be given more time alone with Harry in the future, and that he would return to the Order of the Phoenix and stand with his comrades. Even more, considering Harry's terrible blood relatives, Sirius, as Harry's godfather, would have the right to fight for custody of Harry. If this judgment was a mistake...
Dumbledore had experienced betrayal in his life and had paid a heavy price for it. The countless cold bodies of people who had once been full of hope were a terrible lesson. Just thinking that one mistake could one day lead to Harry's brutal death, and to the disastrous ambush of many Order of the Phoenix members by Voldemort...
Only Dumbledore would be willing to be so forgiving. If it were Grindelwald, he would have found an opportunity to kill Sirius to end the matter once and for all. It was for the greater good—to sacrifice one for the sake of many.
You couldn't blame Grindelwald for his choice. Just look at Sirius Black slumped in his chair, sneering at the members of the Wizengamot as if in defiance, an expression of agitated provocation that made it hard for anyone to feel any sympathy for him.
In the entire vast courtroom, perhaps only Harry and his two friends genuinely hoped for Sirius to be cleared. Oh, and Lockhart. Lockhart believed in Sirius; he didn't hold any ill will toward him. But he didn't have the standing to come forward and vouch for him. Sirius's personality was too impulsive and hot-tempered. If he vouched for him, there would surely be a lot of trouble in the future. If it were Remus Lupin, Lockhart would have stepped forward long ago.
So at this moment, everything depended on Dumbledore's hundred-plus years of life experience and wisdom, and that one ability that was often mocked by a future generation but was truly only used at such critical moments: Legilimency.
Dumbledore's power in this area was terrifying. No one knew he had already cast this powerful spell on certain people, easily peering into their minds, observing the emotions behind every thought, and the nature of the magic that erupted from those emotions. It was an extremely advanced form of spellcasting. The lower-level form only allowed one to peek into someone's thoughts, but such thoughts are always colored by personal bias, and a person's mind often gives rise to countless terrifying dark thoughts.
At such a time, you couldn't make a decision just by hearing one inner voice. You had to observe whether the thought was truly consistent with the person's actions, and the way to observe this was to see if the thought resonated with the depths of their soul and stirred up magic, and what the characteristics of that magic were. There was no standard; it could only be judged by life experience. For example, Dumbledore had more than once felt Snape's desire to strangle Harry Potter, but he could tell that Snape was just thinking it. In practice, you would even find that many mothers have had the thought of strangling their own child, but it was just a fleeting thought.
The trial began quickly. The trio was called to the stand one by one to give their testimony and answer questions. Many past truths were slowly revealed to everyone, but too many people were just watching Dumbledore, waiting for his decision.
The world didn't work the way Harry and his friends thought it did. It wasn't about right or wrong; it was only about the will of the powerful. Because right and wrong are sometimes very blurry. Right and wrong are just concepts of judgment, and the standard of judgment is in the hands of the powerful.
Sirius could be deemed to have been framed, but he could also be seen as not. After all, he took on all the blame and went to prison, so he could be sentenced for a Perjury Charm and sent back to prison. Not to mention his escape from Azkaban, which had too many terrible repercussions. Many people in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement wanted to kill him for that alone, regardless of his innocence.
But unfortunately, Dumbledore was ultimately willing to believe Sirius. In that case, there was nothing more to be said.
Peter Pettigrew was stripped of the 'Order of Merlin, First Class' he had been posthumously awarded for being 'killed by the traitor Sirius Black while hunting him.' He was sentenced to life in Azkaban. Because Sirius's Animagus form was revealed during the trial, Peter Pettigrew would be sent to a special cell to prevent such an escape from happening again.
And Sirius, who was declared innocent, was given compensation by the Ministry of Magic under Dumbledore's guidance. The Black family's ancestral home was awarded to Sirius. This was not an easy thing to do, because Sirius had been disowned by his family and was technically no longer a Black. It was considered against etiquette for him to receive the family's assets. A family is more than just a bloodline. For someone who was unwilling to inherit the Black family's legacy, who had not worked to bring glory to the family, to seize the assets accumulated over generations was something many pure-blood families could not accept. Disownment was final; it declared that a person was no longer part of the family, and no matter how much of the same blood flowed in their veins, all ties were severed.
But there were no other male heirs in the Black family, and even Sirius's brother-in-law, Lucius Malfoy, didn't want to get involved in the matter. This seemed to be a happy ending for everyone. The true criminal received his due punishment, the innocent man was cleared, and Harry and his friends were overjoyed. If the Aurors hadn't been blocking the path, they would have jumped up and run to Sirius.
However, just as Peter Pettigrew was about to be escorted to Azkaban, he let out a sharp cry. "I have a secret to confess! I have a secret to confess!"
Immediately, the crowd that was about to leave stopped in their tracks, and the entire courtroom fell silent. Everyone turned to look at the propped-up Peter Pettigrew.
"Give me a lighter sentence, and I'll tell you this secret!"
Someone secretly glanced at Dumbledore, but the old man just watched Peter in silence. Finally, Fudge stepped forward and shouted at Peter, "A lighter sentence is impossible, but I can make your life in Azkaban less difficult. You can choose to speak or not."
Peter Pettigrew only screamed for a lighter sentence. When he realized no one was going to listen, he was once again escorted down the dark and eerie corridor by Fudge's command, yelling hysterically.
"He's not Sirius Black!"
"He's not Sirius Black!"
Everyone was stunned. The Aurors who were unbinding Sirius from the chair immediately aimed their wands at him again, casting spells to make the chair's chains extend and bind him.
"Let me go!" Sirius shouted. "Peter, even now, you still want to frame me? After all I did for you..."
An Auror immediately cast a spell on him. In an instant, Sirius's upper and lower lips seemed to have grown together, and he could only make strange muffled sounds.
"It's true, I'm not lying!"
Peter shouted, finally getting the Aurors to pull him back to the prisoner's chair. Relieved, he mumbled, "Do you really think I was that easy to catch? I just had a battle with Sirius before I was found! I was seriously injured, but I bit off his left ear!"
"This person is not Sirius Black at all! He doesn't have a single scratch!"
"I swallowed his dog ear! It's still in my stomach!"
Was this logical? It wasn't logical at all! The two most powerful wizards in the world were present. Could they have failed to see if this was really Sirius?
Dumbledore was visibly startled, then looked at Grindelwald, who had appeared quietly at some point. Am I old? Did I make a mistake? He had just performed a thorough check of Sirius's mind with Legilimency. Could he have been wrong?
Grindelwald shrugged, indicating that he also didn't believe the person in front of them was someone else.
"Let me see!"
Lockhart stood up excitedly. He had finally found some entertainment in today's oppressive and boring trial. He enthusiastically squeezed past the people next to him, pushing toward the front. A few Aurors blocked his way, but when he glared at them, they gulped and stopped resisting, just feigning their efforts as Lockhart gently pushed them aside.
"Let me see! This is too interesting!"
Lockhart bent down, looking excitedly at Sirius in the chair, and licked his lips. He gently took his wand from his pocket and slowly placed it on Sirius's forehead.
In a flash, the entire courtroom went completely silent, as if everyone was holding their breath, watching this scene with bated breath. This exciting? Could there be another twist?