A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my Patreon for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story!

Rita's article proves to be everything Harry wanted it to be~

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The story doesn’t run in the next edition of the Daily Prophet. Or even the next one after that. But then, Harry isn’t too worried. He’d told Rita to do her due diligence with this story and he expected her to follow his orders. In the end, it takes a few days… but finally the Daily Prophet’s headline reads rather damningly.

SIRIUS BLACK INNOCENT?! INFAMOUS AZKABAN ESCAPEE AND HEIR TO BLACK FAMILY FORTUNE IMPRISONED WITHOUT TRIAL!

Sitting there reading the story, Harry remains stone-faced, not wanting to give anything away to those around him. Certain individuals knew Sirius was innocent of course. Dumbledore. Lupin. Him, Hermione, and Ron. Ugh, and Snape.

But the rest of Hogwarts, as they read Rita’s article, are completely blindsided by the thought. As far as they’re all aware, Sirius Black is the man who betrayed Harry’s parents, escaped from Azkaban, and terrorized them all year long last year. In their eyes, Sirius is the reason Hogwarts was surrounded by Dementors all year long.

The article tears that all to pieces and paints a different set of individuals as the villains of this tale. Interestingly enough, Rita doesn’t linger for very long on Sirius’ betrayal of the Potters. She did, however, manage to get a quote from Lupin himself where Remus had said that IF Sirius wasn’t the Potter Secret Keeper, it WOULD have been Peter and that might have explained why they fought just as easily as the opposite being true.

Harry wondered whether Remus had actually given that quote or not. It sounded like he was trying to defend Sirius after spending over a decade believing him a traitor, without exposing the fact that he was in contact with the escaped fugitive. It made sense, but Harry also wouldn’t put it past Rita to just manufacture a quote from Remus without even contacting the poor werewolf. Given Lupin’s status as a ‘magical creature’ in a wizard-dominant magical world, even if he tried to claim he hadn’t said such things to her, no one would believe him over the Daily Prophet’s most sensational reporter.

But that wasn’t even the true meat of the article. Remus’ quote and the idea of Sirius Black not even being the Potter Secret Keeper are barely mentioned before Rita launches into her true goal for the article… exposing a massive conspiracy within the Ministry itself to rob the Black Family of its fortune.

She does so first by exposing the fact that there are no records of Sirius Black receiving a trial. That in the aftermath of the Dark Lord’s Fall, certain Ministry Officials decided there was no need for certain wizards and witches to receive due process. Rita cleverly compares the trials of Sirius’ cousin Bellatrix Lestrange and her cohorts, among them being Barty Crouch Jr., to Sirius’ lack of one. The fact that Bartemius Crouch Senior had been the one to decide Sirius’ fate without a trial, but made sure his own son still got one, is spelled out quite clearly in the front page article.

Furthermore, it seemed Rita really has done her due diligence and research. Not only had she confirmed the lack of a trial or any relevant paperwork for one Sirius Black at the Ministry, but she’d also followed up with the goblins of Gringotts. As Harry had already known, Sirius was his grandfather’s last living heir when the older wizard passed during Sirius’ incarceration.

The moment that the old Lord Black passed; the Ministry had attempted to get at the Black Family Vaults. By Wizarding Law, they technically had a right to said vaults so long as Sirius had been properly convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. In fact, they had a right to Bellatrix’s vaults under the same law if they could either get Lord Black’s approval or prove Lord Black to be a criminal. Since they didn’t have the old Lord Black’s approval, they’d waited until he was dead to make their move.

The problem was, they couldn’t prove Sirius Black was a criminal because he wasn’t given a trial. And so the goblins had held the Ministry off, with Gringotts refusing to grant access to ANY vaults belonging to any members of the Black Family that might have been incarcerated in Azkaban Prison for as long as Lord Black did not sign off on the seizure.

It was the smoking gun, to borrow muggle parlance. It was ‘proof’ that the Ministry was corrupt and that Sirius Black had only been imprisoned because they wanted to eventually seize the Black Family’s assets. An Ancient and Noble Family of Wizarding Britain, targeted by an aggressive and corrupt Ministry… a chilling picture to be sure, and one that would have all of the Purebloods up in arms, no doubt.

Never mind that Fudge probably had no idea that some minor official in his Ministry was carrying out their routine tasks by sending Gringotts repeated messages attempting to seize a criminal wizard’s assets for Ministry use. As far as Rita’s article was concerned, Fudge was the one behind it all and he and his Ministry hadn’t just betrayed the public’s trust, they’d endangered the Wizarding World’s children by siccing Dementors on Hogwarts the entirety of last year.

Harry himself gets one single mention in the entire article. At the very end, as if to drive one final nail in the coffin, Rita points out that if Sirius Black really was innocent all along, then the Ministry didn’t just try to steal the wealth of an Ancient and Noble Pureblood Family, they also robbed the Boy-Who-Lived of his godfather for over a decade of false imprisonment.

Rita makes it sound like she’s been researching this for the past year and some change ever since Sirius escaped from Azkaban two Summers ago. She acts as though everything she’s uncovered has come from either unnamed sources in the Ministry or amused goblins at Gringotts who find the Ministry’s attempt to seize their clients’ assets without following proper procedure to be the height of entertainment.

Of course, anyone who actually knows Rita would know that’s a pile of shit. Sure, she can hold onto something if it means she’s going to eventually use it in one of her hit pieces disguised as autobiographies. But spending almost a year and a half on one article for the Daily Prophet? She would never waste so much time with such things.

But her readers and the readers of the Daily Prophet… they were sure to eat this up. And depending on how the dust settled and the fallout from this article, Rita might very well win awards. Either that or the Ministry would try to come down on her rather hard. Hm, but that wasn’t part of Harry’s plans. Which meant his next steps were obvious.

“Harry…”

Pulled from his thoughts, Harry pauses as he looks over at Hermione. The Great Hall is jampacked by this point in the morning, and everyone has their nose buried in their copy of the Daily Prophet, all of them voraciously devouring the article that Harry had just read. Some have already finished it though and are beginning to talk among themselves. All around him, he can hear conversations about Rita’s writing. Mostly, people are disgusted with the Ministry of Magic and questioning whether it could really be true or not.

No one is really talking about Sirius as though he might be innocent, but they also aren’t really lambasting him either. In the end, Sirius is a small piece of what might be a wider conspiracy by the Ministry to seize more power for themselves and further marginalize the old Pureblood Families. Something none of them want, obviously.

Focusing on Hermione though, the brunette looks rather pale and wide-eyed at him. As one of the few people who is very aware of Sirius’ innocence, it’s clear that she’s wondering how exactly Rita found out about it. Giving Hermione a reassuring smile, he takes hold of her hand under the table and offers it a comforting squeeze.

“We’ll be okay Hermione. Hey… maybe this will lead to a trial happening after all.”

He keeps his voice as quiet as he can of course, for Hermione’s ears only. Still wide-eyed, she nods at his hopeful tone. Meanwhile, Harry is very specifically not looking at the Great Hall’s High Table. He can practically feel eyes burning a hole in the side of his skull. And not just one set of eyes either. Dumbledore is definitely studying him right now… but the far more intense gaze comes not from the Headmaster, but from Hogwarts’ resident Potions Master.

Severus Snape hates Sirius Black with every fiber of his being. He dislikes Harry quite a lot as well, but of course Harry is well aware that Snape loathes himself more than he loathes Harry. Harry just looks like James Potter. Snape, meanwhile, is the bastard who helped get his only friend in the whole wide world, Harry’s mother, killed.

That said, it’s obvious Snape thinks Harry had something to do with this. Whether that’s just his bias talking or something else… it doesn’t truly matter. Severus Snape doesn’t matter. Fuck, Albus Dumbledore barely even matters.

In fact, Harry would go so far as to say that… as far as Rita’s latest article was concerned, nobody at Hogwarts truly mattered. What mattered was what was happening at the Ministry right now. Cornelius Fudge’s Ministry had honestly never been tested like this before, not really. Even last year when Sirius escaped, that had been small beans compared to this. Considering Fudge’s overreaction then and the way the Ministry had sicced Dementors on Hogwarts… well, it stood to reason that Harry should keep a close eye on how Rita’s article would shake things up at the Ministry over the next twenty-four hours.

With that in mind, while he does wait to make sure no one from the Faculty is going to seek him out over this or try to drag him into another meeting with Dumbledore, Harry ultimately slips out of Hogwarts again as soon as he can possibly get away without his absence being noticed. From there, it just makes sense to head straight back to Amelia Bones’ office and see how the Director of the DMLE is doing.

However, when he first arrives in Amelia’s office, he finds himself alone. The DMLE Director is nowhere to be seen and Harry has to admit he doesn’t really feel like looking for her. Instead, making sure he’s completely undetectable, he begins perusing through her desk and looking over the files she has out in the open.

Unlike the first three files he gave her, it would seem Amelia has been taking her time with these next three. That makes sense because while Harry has given her plenty of evidence to handle the newest set of Death Eaters, there’s no denying that they’re a little higher up on the food chain. ‘Respectable’ members of society, if you will. More than that, the lightning raid she’d pulled off against the first set of Death Eater scum could really only work once. This next time, she needed to have all of her ducks in a row before she moved.

Still, from the look of things she’s well on her way. Harry finds himself nodding in approval as he looks over the work she’s managed so far. Until finally the door to the office opens and a harried, exhausted Amelia Bones comes inside, closing it behind her with a loud sigh. Harry watches with a raised brow as she makes her way over to the desk… only to freeze up. He’d barely moved anything, but he HAD moved a few files. Still, surely she wouldn’t…

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

The certainty in her voice has Harry cracking a grin. She really is quite an interesting individual, Director Amelia Bones. He likes her a lot. With a twist of his magic, Harry reveals himself as the same figure wreathed in shadow as before.

“Well done, Madam Bones. Most impressive.”

Strangely enough, Amelia actually flushes a little bit at that. She straightens up as she looks at him, clenching her jaw for a moment before sighing.

“Did you have anything to do with this mess? Skeeter’s article has the entire Ministry of Magic in an uproar. Fudge is trying to have my Aurors arrest Skeeter for her ‘lies’, but I’ve had my people doing some investigating instead and what I’ve found so far… it’s chilling.”

Humming, Harry just nods his shadowy head.

“Sirius Black is innocent. He was not the Potters’ Secret Keeper. Peter Pettigrew was. Peter betrayed the Potters to the Dark Lord, causing the Fidelius Charm to fail that fateful evening. When Sirius realized what must have happened, he went after Peter, leading to the events that Cornelius Fudge bore witness to. Sirius didn’t blow up the street, Peter did. Nor did Peter die in the resulting explosion. He cut off his finger and faked his own death before escaping in his illegal animagus form… that of a rat.”

As Harry speaks, Amelia’s eyes grow progressively wider and wider, until eventually she sinks down into her chair behind her desk, putting her head in her hands. Only for a moment though, with the Director showing her fortitude as she snaps up her head a second later with her eyes narrowed.

“So Sirius Black was imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit. Why did he wait over a decade to break out of Azkaban then?”

“He blamed himself for trusting Pettigrew and considered Azkaban a fitting place for his failure to protect his friends. But then it came to his attention that Peter Pettigrew had survived and been living as a pet rat at Hogwarts for the entire length of his imprisonment. Needless to say, Sirius Black’s drive for vengeance overwhelmed his self-loathing and need for penance.”

Amelia slowly nods at this, before fixing Harry with a pointed look.

“Are YOU Sirius Black? You certainly seem to know an awful lot about his headspace and these events that only he and Pettigrew were present for.”

Heh, not a bad deduction, admittedly. With the information she had at hand, it certainly made sense for him to be Sirius, perhaps with some sort of magical artifact held by House of Black that allowed him to circumvent Ministry Wards. For a moment Harry even considers lying to her and letting her think he was Sirius. But… no.

“I am not Sirius Black.”

It’s interesting how easily Amelia believes him. She just nods, her shoulders slumping as she leans back in her chair with a sigh. The Director of the DMLE looks withdrawn and weary, and like she hasn’t slept in days, perhaps ever since the night Harry made her sleep even. He wants to take her to task on that. But this is more important.

Right now is the perfect time to destroy Fudge’s credibility once and for all and begin the process of replacing him with Amelia. But if Fudge fires Amelia first for insubordination, that would be annoying. Which means Harry should help out in some way. But what was the best way to help Amelia confirm the truth of Rita’s article, exactly?

[ ] Offer to produce Sirius Black himself - 10%