Another Prisoner, Another Professor

"Harry," Hermione said hesitantly. It was an hour later and they were sitting in the common room; everyone else was at dinner. "I know you're angry - "

"Yeah," said Harry. He was lying on one of the couches, staring up at the ceiling.

" - but you really don't know Black's side of the story. Maybe you should ask him - "

"I don't want to ask him," Harry said. "I don't even want to see him. He left me with the Dursleys, Hermione!" He sat up. "I could have been raised by my dad's best friend, but he didn't want me."

"Harry - "

"Well, if he wanted me, he would have come and got me, right? But no, he thought he'd rather go off to Africa on his bloody motorbike and leave me at Privet Drive. Your parents love you, right? They hugged you and paid attention to you and cared about your teeth and gave you money to buy Crookshanks and all that. The Dursleys hate me. They don't even let me eat until I'm full. I don't want to hear whatever stupid excuse Black has. He was all depressed because Lupin was a Death Eater and my parents and Peter what's-his-name were dead? Well, too bad!"

"I was thinking," said Ron. "Dumbledore gave you to the Dursleys, right? Maybe he wouldn't let Black have you."

"I doubt it," said Harry. "All Black would've had to do was ring the Dursleys' doorbell and say, 'Hello, my name is Sirius Black, I'm Harry's godfather, I've come to get him,' and they'd have shoved me out the door. Why are you on his side?"

"We're not," said Hermione at once. "We're just saying, maybe if you ask Black - "

"I'm not going to," said Harry. "He's - he's a liar, he told me all this crap about how in the anti-dementor lessons we had to deal with fears and we might end up learning some personal things about each other. I thought - " He didn't know how to say it. It wasn't that he'd forgotten that Black was a teacher, exactly, but he'd thought that he was something more than a student to Black. And I am, Harry thought. I'm his godson, but he doesn't give a damn. "His boggart's Lupin," he blurted out. Suddenly he wanted to tell Ron and Hermione every single secret of Black's that he knew; he almost wished he knew more to tell them. "And his Patronus is a dragon and he's got this brother named Regulus who disappeared. But no, he couldn't have told me he was my godfather, he didn't even tell me he knew my dad." A thought struck him. "I should have figured it out - he told me he was at school with Snape, and Snape and my dad were at school together, I should have realized they would have at least met. But I shouldn't have had to figure it out, he should have told me!"

"Harry," said Hermione, "I've been thinking. We heard Black telling Dumbledore about how he wanted to see the Mirror of Erised - he sounded desperate. Like it was something that's been bothering him for a long time. Maybe - maybe after your parents and Peter Pettigrew died and Lupin went to prison and his brother disappeared, he couldn't handle it."

"What do you mean, he couldn't handle it?" said Harry irritably. He wished Hermione would stop trying to made excuses for Black.

"I mean, maybe he wasn't well enough, mentally."

"Like what, he was a nutter?" asked Ron.

"Not a nutter, but - just think, Harry." Hermione leaned forward in her chair. "Imagine how you'd feel if, I don't know, I was really on You-Know-Who's side and told him where Ron was hiding and he killed Ron, and then Neville tracked me down and I killed Neville, and to top it off - "

"I haven't got a brother," said Harry.

" - and to top it off - Fred and George disappeared. And then someone handed you a baby and told you that you were in charge of raising him."

"I'm thirteen," said Harry. "Black was grown up, he was my dad's age and my dad had a baby."

"He couldn't have been very old," said Hermione. "Looking at him now, I don't think he's any older than thirty-five. But that's beside the point, anyone might not be able to handle it if all those things happened and then they were supposed to raise a baby, on their own, especially."

"It was him or the Dursleys," said Harry. "He couldn't have thought that they'd do a better job of it, he's not stupid. And okay, let's say you're right. He couldn't have visited? He couldn't have sent me presents for my birthday? He couldn't have stopped by and told the Dursleys that if they didn't buy me some clothes that fit and get my glasses fixed he'd hex them? He abandoned me, Hermione. He just left me there. He didn't want me."

"Look," said Hermione. "I won't say I know how you feel - "

"Because you don't," Harry immediately replied.

" - but I can try to imagine it, at least, and it must be awful. But maybe if you talk to Black you'll find out something that will make it less awful."

"Or maybe he just didn't want me," Harry said. He didn't want to have to look at Ron and Hermione anymore; he lay back down on the couch. "If he wants me to know why, he can bloody well tell me himself. But he doesn't want to, does he?"

"Maybe he does," said Ron. "Maybe he just doesn't know how to tell you."

"He can find me and open his mouth and start talking, that's how he can tell me." Harry closed his eyes. He wanted to be able to forget about it all, but he knew that he couldn't. He wished he had never met Black in the first place.

"I should have figured out about the school," said Hermione after they had sat in silence for a minute. "The Schwartz Academy for Lycanthropic Wizards - Schwartz is Black in German."

"You know German?" asked Ron, incredulous.

"Not really - I went to German language camp for three weeks when I was nine, but I don't remember most of it. No wonder Black kept telling us that we should focus on Lupin being human, he used to teach a school full of werewolves. He must have had to hear a lot of things from people like Fudge about how werewolves were just dangerous beasts."

"He could stick up for them," said Harry hotly, "but he couldn't stick up for me!" No matter how hard he tried to close his eyes and block it out, the rage kept rising to the surface. He sat up again. He was angrier than he'd ever been in his whole life; he thought that if Black were to walk into the common room he would probably throw him to the ground and knock out his teeth and take a vicious pleasure in doing so.

"Harry - I still think you should - "

"Forget it, Hermione! Forget it! I'm not talking to Black, I'm not asking him anything, I'd skive off all his classes for the rest of the year if I could, I don't want to see him. There's nothing he can tell me that'll make me forgive him, d'you understand that? Nothing! You know, I bet he did let Lupin into the castle."

"Harry," said Ron. His voice was low and alarmed. "You don't really think - "

"Yeah, maybe I do!" Harry could feel his heart beating rapidly in his chest. "They were mates, right? They taught at that school together. What if he knew about Lupin all along and just never got caught? Malfoy's dad managed to stay out of Azkaban, Black could have done it too, he's got the money. How do we know he's not a Death Eater? Remember when he thought Dumbledore couldn't trust him?"

At that moment he realized what he had to do. "That's it, I'm going to go look at those records Snape told me about."

"What records?" asked Hermione, hurrying to follow Harry out of the common room.

"Snape told us that if we wanted to find information about Lupin, we should look in the published records of the Wizengamot from twelve years ago," Ron said.

"And you didn't tell me?"

"Why, so you could tell us that we ought to take Snape's advice?"

They kept arguing; Harry couldn't hear it clearly anymore, he had run on ahead of them. By the time he reached the library he could feel sweat on his back. For some reason, Snape's direction had stuck in his head: two shelves over and five shelves back from the section about werewolves. When Ron and Hermione caught up with him he had already found the enormous black book and was reading the entry about Lupin's case, his eyes moving quickly across the page.

3 November. Case of Remus John Lupin brought before the court. Prisoner was not present; testimony given by Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, concerning his firsthand knowledge of the prisoner's involvement in the deaths of James Edmund Potter and Lily Evans Potter by serving as their Secret-Keeper. Eyewitness testimony given by Lucius Junius Malfoy concerning the prisoner's murder of twelve Muggles and one wizard, Peter Albert Pettigrew. Additional testimony given by Aurors Henry Robert Dawlish and Rufus Philip Scrimgeour concerning their investigation and arrest of the prisoner. Prisoner sentenced to life in Azkaban.

"He wanted me to know that Lupin betrayed my parents," said Harry. "Snape did."

"Evil git," said Ron, glaring at the book. "And, wait, Malfoy's dad saw Lupin kill those people?"

"I bet that was part of how he avoided going to Azkaban," said Harry. "Must have helped to be able to send someone else there."

"It doesn't say that anyone else gave eyewitness testimony," said Ron, scanning the page. "So they convicted Lupin because Malfoy's dad said so? This - this is weird, Harry. Since when has Malfoy's dad ever been on our side?"

"What, you don't think Lupin helped kill my parents?" Harry said, his voice louder than he meant it to be.

"I didn't say that! Obviously Lupin sold out your parents to You-Know-Who, it couldn't have been anyone else. But the Muggles and that bloke Pettigrew - okay, how easily can you see Lucius Malfoy doing it himself and then blaming it on Lupin to get out of Azkaban?"

"Easily," said Hermione, finally looking up from the book. "There are too many things wrong with this trial. First of all, I don't even know if it's really a trial, it doesn't look like Lupin got a defense. He wasn't even there. Second, that's all that had to happen for Lupin to go to prison? I'm not saying I don't think he betrayed your parents," she added hastily, noting the look on Harry's face. "But it's a horrible justice system. What if - I don't think this happened, but what if, for example, someone had bewitched Dumbledore and made him lie about Lupin's being the Secret-Keeper? What if it hadn't been Dumbledore who said he knew that Lupin was the Secret-Keeper, what if it was someone like Malfoy's father? Is that really all that has to happen for someone to go to Azkaban, someone in a position of authority saying they know who did it?"

"I guess," said Ron. "Wow, I hope I never get arrested."

"Lucius Malfoy could have killed those people," Hermione said quietly. "And he's still walking around free."

"He ought to be in Azkaban just for giving Ginny that diary!" exclaimed Ron.

Hermione looked at her watch. "I think that if we go to dinner now we might be there in time for pudding," she said. "You ought to eat something, Harry."

"Rufus Philip Scrimgeour," said Ron, glancing at the book as Hermione closed it and put it back on the shelf. "You don't suppose he's Astrophil, do you?"

Harry didn't want to eat anything. When he was younger he had dreamed of some relative coming to take him away from the Dursleys; he had never imagined that such a person might exist and willingly leave him there. One part of his mind insisted that Black must have had a reason, but the other part knew there was nothing to justify it. Black hadn't been in prison or in hospital; he'd been traveling all over the world. Harry couldn't help but imagine what his life might have been like if Black had wanted him. He would have grown up rich, probably as rich as Malfoy. He would have been a part of the wizard world and never made to feel as though his powers were strange or abnormal. In his mind he saw a version of himself that had never existed, a little black-haired boy of about nine, sitting in a lavish parlor and reading Quidditch magazines. Perhaps Black was in the next room and about to call him to dinner. Perhaps Black ruffled his hair and told him he was just like his father, that his parents were great wizards and would have been so proud of Harry. Perhaps this little boy, having never known the Dursleys, having never slept in a cupboard beneath the stairs, went to bed every night smiling, knowing that someone loved him...

"I don't think Black let Lupin into the castle," said Hermione as they walked to dinner. "I know you're angry with him, Harry, but I don't think we have enough evidence that he did it. We shouldn't be like the Wizengamot and conclude that people are guilty without a proper trial."

"Besides, whose idea was it that Black let Lupin in?" added Ron. "Snape's."

"At least Snape is honest," said Harry bitterly. "At least he doesn't pretend that he cares about me when he doesn't."

"I think Black does care about you," said Hermione after a moment's pause. "He spent all that time giving you - "

Harry stopped at the top of the stairs. "Hermione," he said, "if you keep trying to make excuses for Black, I'm never speaking to you again."