The-Man-They-Freed

~~Azkaban~~ (July 5th, 1994)

Sirius Black shot up from his cot when he heard several footsteps heading in his direction and the footsteps seemed to be in a hurry… There were some days when he was mostly lucid while the rest of the days he was barely coherent… Coincidentally, today was one of those days when he was mostly lucid…

This was not good. Sirius frantically shook his head as he tried to back away into one of the corners. He did have visitors from time to time, but all of them would come to gloat or mock him, but this time something felt different… They seemed to be in some sort of hurry…

Did they finally decide to give him the Kiss? He wouldn't be surprised if they did… He had been tossed into Azkaban by that fucker Crouch and Bagnold without a trail, so what's stopping them from giving him a Kiss… Sirius slumped back against the wall with a defeated look on his face. There was no fighting it if they were really here to give him the Kiss.

He almost burst out laughing bitterly at his cruel fate, but he still remembered what happened to him the last time he laughed like that… Sirius stared at the ceiling of his dark room… "Forgive me, James, Lily… Remus… Harry" Sirius mumbled solemnly.

His eyes started to pool with tears, but he quickly wiped his tears with the rags he was wearing when he heard the door of his cell unlock with a loud clang. The door was pulled open and his hands went up on pure instinct to cover his face when the light filtered into his room.

"Sirius Black?" A masculine voice called out softly from the door.

Sirius blinked rapidly, his eyes trying to adjust to the sudden light… It took his eyes a few seconds to finally get adjusted to the light creeping inside the room. He found a couple of silhouettes standing at the door of his cell and after a couple of seconds more, his vision finally cleared enough for him to clearly make out everything.

Sirius lowered his hands and stared at the man who called out to him. "Yes?" He crooked out. His voice was raspy and cracked, which was not that surprising…

He might have been able to hold on to his sanity in some manner, but that was it… Azkaban was not kind to its residents and even though he was able to hold on to his sanity for all these years with those monsters prowling the hallways, it didn't mean that he came out unscathed… After all, some of the days he was barely coherent.

Then there was basically the fact that the inmates weren't given much to eat or the fact that there was no one to take care of the prisoners or the fact that nobody cared about the health of the inmates… There were a lot of things Sirius could rant about, but now was probably not the time…

"My name is Rufus Scrimgeour, I am not sure if you remember me. We have received an order to transfer you to the Ministry holding cells" The man said as he stepped forward.

For the next few seconds, Sirius simply stared at the man… "...Yes, I recognize you" Sirius said slowly as he stood up. He knew that there was no struggling or fighting them. They have their orders and they will carry them out… Sirius thought bitterly. His opinions be damned.

The last time he met the man, he was only a Junior Auror… Sirius turned a bit to stare at the others standing by the door. He didn't recognize any of them, once again, not surprising… He barely recognized Rufus Scrimgeour in the first place and he knew the man during the War.

"So, what's happening? Did you guys finally decide to give me the Kiss?" Sirius asked bitterly as he stepped forward. Before Rufus or anyone else could answer him, something else clicked in his mind. Rufus said that they were going to take Sirius to Ministry holding cells, so they probably weren't going to give him the Kiss.

After all, he was currently in Azkaban, the nest of Dementors… This was probably the best place to give him the Kiss if things didn't change dramatically while he was rotting in here. When he was still working as a Hit-Wizard, the Kiss was given in Azkaban. Maybe, they were planning to toss him through the Veil of Death…

Yeah, that is probably why they are planning to transfer him to the Ministry holding cells…

Meanwhile, Rufus and the other Aurors winced at Sirius' bitter tone… What happened to Sirius Black, one of their colleagues, was simply horrible. There was no excuse for the grave injustice the man has experienced… What happened to the man was wrong and they only felt relieved when it happened.

Goddammit!! The man was one of their own… He worked with them, he fought beside them during the War and he was sent to prison without a trial by Barty Crouch Sr. Not only that, Sirius Black was the Heir was the Black Family when he was sent to prison and the other Purebloods would raise a massive stink as soon as the whole incident came to light.

Minister Bagnold, bless her poor Soul, will most definitely be blamed along with Barty Crouch Sr. who is responsible for the whole shit storm, but the two of them aren't the only ones who were going to be blamed… The Auror Department as a whole will be blamed for this… Rufus released a sigh, as he forced himself to stop thinking about all that glum stuff…

"No. Some evidence has… finally come to light" Rufus revealed after a small pause. "We were finally able to catch the real culprit" Rufus added with an unsure look on his face. He had no idea how to reveal the truth to the man.

Sirius stared at the man, looking completely stumped… "Real culprit?" Sirius asked dumbly. He couldn't make any heads or tails of the whole situation.

"Yes" Rufus nodded his head. "We finally caught Peter Pettigrew" Rufus revealed and Sirius' eyes grew wide in a comical fashion. Rufus was worried for a second thinking that his eyes might pop out of his eye sockets. After a few moments, the shocked and surprised look on Sirius' face turned into a snarl…

"That rat bastard is alive?!!" Sirius snarled in rage. Rufus could practically feel the anger rolling off the man.

"Yes, and we finally caught him thanks to Albus Dumbledore" Rufus explained and his voice turned bitter when he said Albus Dumbledore's name…

He knew that the man was probably up to something and Amelia agreed with him. Rufus had seen enough of the man and to be honest, he stopped trusting him during the War. The man was more worried about the death on the side of the Death Eaters than the deaths on their side.

Sirius opened his mouth to say something, but he quickly closed his mouth. Albus Dumbledore helped them catch Pettigrew? How? Something didn't match… Before he was tossed into prison without a trial, he would have probably sung his praises, but he had a lot to think about while rotting in here. He was glad the man helped him, but he was no longer going to trust him blindly as he did during the War.

"We are going to hold a trial in front of the whole Wizengamot so that we could call off all the charges" Rufus explained when he noticed Sirius contemplating something.

"So, I am finally going to have my trial?" Sirius asked in glee and stepped forward while nodding his head. "About fucking time!!" He growled as he whooped his hands up in the air in complete joy. He could think about all 'serious' stuff at a later date… He giggled at his own joke. Right now, he was looking forward to his freedom.

Sirius passed by Rufus as he started to approach the door. The Aurors standing by the door moved aside to give him some space, but all of a sudden he stopped and whirled around at his heels to face Rufus. He stared at him with a steely glare…

"Please tell me you are going to give that rat bastard a Kiss?" Sirius asked Rufus, looking extremely hopeful with a vicious glint in his eyes and Rufus finally realized that he wasn't going to enjoy the boat ride back to the mainland…

<Line Break>

~~Director's Office, DMLE~~

Amelia Bones rapped her fingers on the desk and glared at the parchment in front of her… She fucking knew that something was wrong when Albus Dumbledore of all people handed over Peter Pettigrew to them… Amelia leaned back in her comfy chair and rubbed her temples. It was a massive clusterfuck!!

At least her chair was really comfortable or the pain in her arse would have doubled. Unsurprisingly, she was completely taken by surprise when Albus Dumbledore handed over Peter Pettigrew to her…

First of all, Peter Pettigrew was supposedly killed by Sirius Black almost fourteen years ago, but there he was, stunned and tied. Secondly, Peter Pettigrew had a Dark Mark branded on his left arm. Thirdly, it was Albus Dumbledore who handed over the man to them… While she believed that the man wasn't inherently evil, she would never trust him as far as she could throw him.

The man was up to something… It was a gut feeling and in her line of work, she had learned to trust her gut. It had saved her life a lot of times… The man was also holding meetings with the Minister regularly, which was a clear sign that the man was up to something. Then while interrogating Peter Pettigrew, they noticed several gaps in his memories.

They wouldn't have noticed if they hadn't used Veritaserum to interrogate him. Using Veritaserum on an unwilling person was obviously illegal, but she knew the laws like the back of her hand. Peter Pettigrew had been declared dead fourteen years ago and as far as the law was considered, the man was a corpse, and there were no laws stopping her from forcibly feeding a corpse Veritaserum.

The man had some very interesting things to tell them under the influence of Veritaserum… So, when the memory gaps were finally noticed, she called a couple of her Obliviator friends. It took them some time, but they also noticed the gaps... Yes, Albus did a marvelous job, but he wasn't an expert when it came to Obliviations.

Amelia snorted in disdain… The man had obviously interrogated Peter Pettigrew on his own and then he removed the memories he felt were too sensitive for the others to know… How she hated the man!! How much she wished that she could arrest him and roast him over coals, but it was never going to fly with half of the Wizengamot kissing his wrinkled old arse. Amelia scrunched her face in distaste…

The man was obviously going to be praised for capturing Peter Pettigrew while her Department was going to be blamed when they weren't at fault… That bastard, Cornelius Fudge will definitely push the blame on the previous administration and her Department for this huge blunder. Amelia pinched the bridge of her nose…

The whole thing was a fucking mess and now she needed to find a way to deal with the whole clusterfuck on top of everything else… She also needed to find everything she could find about what Albus was planning and there was only one man who could probably give her some clues. Amelia slowly stood up from her comfortable chair and made her way toward the Floo.

She grabbed some Floor powder and tossed it inside the fireplace. When the fire finally turned green, she took a deep breath and placed her head inside the fireplace…

"Alastor, are you there?" Amelia called out in a tired tone because that is exactly what she was feeling. She hasn't slept in the slightest since they brought in Pettigrew and it seemed that she wasn't going to be able to sleep for quite some time…

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