The interrogation finally ended nearly two hours after it began.
By that point, the atmosphere inside the underground chambers of Slytherin Castle had become almost unbearable. The small room was lit by enchanted lamps whose glow seemed dimmer than before, while the air carried the lingering scent of Veritaserum, sweat, and exhaustion. Empty potion vials rested alongside stacks of parchment covered in notes, corrections, and testimonies. Everyone present looked drained, though none more so than the man sitting shackled to the chair at the center of the room.
Peter Pettigrew looked broken.
The former Marauder no longer resembled the frightened rat Harry had dragged out of the Weasley household. His face was pale and wet with tears, his thinning hair clung to his forehead, and his shoulders slumped as though the weight of ten years had finally crashed down upon him all at once. For two hours, Cassandra and the others had questioned him, forcing him to repeat the same events again and again while under the effects of Veritaserum. Every answer had been checked, challenged, and verified. Yet the story never changed.
Peter Pettigrew had betrayed James and Lily Potter.
Peter Pettigrew had given Voldemort their location.
Peter Pettigrew had sold his closest friends in exchange for his own survival.
And afterward, when Voldemort fell, Peter had murdered twelve innocent Muggles, severed his own finger, transformed into a rat, and disappeared while leaving behind enough evidence to convince the entire Ministry that Sirius Black was responsible.
The confession had been repeated three separate times under Veritaserum. Each version matched perfectly. There were no contradictions, no hidden loopholes, and no signs of deception. By the time the interrogation ended, nobody in the room had any doubts remaining. Peter Pettigrew was guilty.
And Sirius Black was innocent.
The realization settled heavily over everyone present. David looked as though he wanted to strangle Peter with his bare hands. Joseph stared at the prisoner with open disgust, while Charles sat silently, his expression grim. Even Cassandra, whose professional detachment usually kept her emotions hidden, looked disturbed by the sheer scale of the betrayal.
Only Harry's reaction seemed unusual.
Everyone had expected anger from him. After all, Peter Pettigrew was not merely another Death Eater or political enemy. He was the man responsible for the deaths of Harry's parents. If anyone in the room had earned the right to be furious, it was Harry Potter.
Instead, Harry sat quietly at the table with one hand supporting his chin. His expression wasn't angry. It wasn't devastated. If anything, he looked annoyed.
David was the first to notice.
"Harry?"
Harry blinked and looked up from his thoughts.
"What?"
David exchanged a glance with Joseph. "You've been staring at the same spot for several minutes."
For a moment, Harry simply rubbed his face and sighed.
"I'm an idiot."
The statement caught everyone off guard.
Cassandra frowned. "What?"
Harry immediately regretted speaking. He couldn't exactly explain the real reason. Nobody in this room knew about the System. Nobody knew about the quests, levels, rewards, or blue windows only he could see. So he simply shook his head.
"Nothing important."
But internally, he felt incredibly stupid.
The confession had reminded him of something he hadn't thought about in a very long time. A quest. One of the oldest quests he possessed. Harry could still remember the notification appearing years ago after he first learned about Sirius Black. At the time, he had glanced at it briefly before dismissing it. There had been no time limit attached to the objective, which meant there was no urgency. Sirius Black was locked inside Azkaban and wasn't going anywhere. There would be time to investigate later.
Harry grimaced slightly.
There had always been another crisis demanding his attention. Dark artifacts. Bloodline curses. Werewolves. Political conspiracies. The Serpent Court. The endless stream of problems that seemed determined to occupy every waking moment of his life. Whenever he noticed the quest quietly waiting within his interface, he simply told himself he would look into it later.
Now an innocent man had spent ten years inside Azkaban.
Logically, Harry knew he could not have known the truth. The entire wizarding world believed Sirius Black was guilty. Yet the irritation remained. The quest had never disappeared. It had sat there patiently for years, silently insisting that something about Sirius Black wasn't right.
Grandpa Theo noticed Harry's expression and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
"You look like you're blaming yourself."
Harry snorted softly.
"Not blaming. Just annoyed."
Theo raised an eyebrow.
"Because?"
"Because I should've paid more attention."
The older wizard studied him for a moment before shaking his head.
"You didn't know."
"No," Harry admitted. "I didn't."
And that was the truth. Regret wouldn't change anything now. What mattered was the present. They knew the truth. Peter Pettigrew was alive. Peter Pettigrew was guilty. Sirius Black was innocent.
Everything else could wait.
The conversation eventually shifted away from Peter's confession and toward the obvious question of what happened next. Cassandra had already begun organizing the interrogation records into neat stacks while reviewing her notes for what felt like the tenth time.
"We have enough," she said suddenly.
Everyone looked toward her.
David frowned. "Enough for what?"
"Enough to free Sirius Black."
The certainty in her voice immediately drew everyone's attention. Cassandra wasn't prone to exaggeration, especially regarding legal matters.
"We have a living witness," she continued. "A confirmed Death Eater carrying the Dark Mark. Under normal circumstances, this should be more than sufficient."
David nodded slowly, though Cassandra's choice of words caught Harry's attention.
"Under normal circumstances?" he asked.
Cassandra paused.
Something in her expression changed.
For the first time since the interrogation ended, she looked uncertain.
"There's something about this case that's always bothered me."
Cassandra leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. "Sirius Black was supposedly responsible for one of the most infamous crimes in modern British magical history. Thirteen murders. The betrayal of the Potters. Allegedly serving Voldemort himself."
Joseph nodded.
"And?"
"And I don't remember ever seeing records of his trial."
The words immediately drew everyone's attention.
Jason frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I mean exactly that." Cassandra's voice became sharper. "Cases like this generate mountains of paperwork. Witness statements. Ministry investigations. Wizengamot hearings. Public records. There should have been a trial so famous that every Auror trainee studied it."
Her expression darkened.
"But I don't remember one."
The implication was too disturbing.
Joseph slowly leaned forward. "You're suggesting there wasn't a trial?"
"I'm saying I don't know."
Cassandra's eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
"But tomorrow I'm going to find out."
The room grew quiet again as everyone processed the possibility.
Peter Pettigrew being alive was already a scandal large enough to shake the Ministry. But if Sirius Black had never received a proper trial before being sent to Azkaban...
That wasn't merely a miscarriage of justice.
That was political dynamite.
Someone would have to explain how someone from one of Britain's most influential families spent ten years in Azkaban without due process. Someone would have to explain how the legal system failed so completely. And powerful people rarely enjoyed answering those kinds of questions.
Harry looked toward the dungeon corridor where Peter Pettigrew remained imprisoned and then back toward Cassandra.
"How long?"
Cassandra gathered her notes and stood.
"Give me couple of days to search the archives."
Then she paused and glanced toward the distant windows high above the underground chambers, as though she could already see the Ministry waiting beyond them.
"And if what I'm thinking is true," she said quietly, "then Sirius Black is going to be the least of their problems."
For the first time that night, everyone understood that Peter Pettigrew's confession might not simply free an innocent man.
It might expose something rotten at the very heart of the Ministry itself.
The following morning, Cassandra Vale found herself buried deep within the Ministry archives, surrounded by enough paperwork to make most Aurors flee in terror.
Normally, she hated the archive. Most Aurors did. There was nothing glamorous about spending hours surrounded by dusty shelves, forgotten records, and filing systems designed by bureaucrats who seemed determined to make information impossible to find. The Ministry archives stretched for entire floors beneath the main building, containing centuries of records that ranged from priceless historical documents to complaints about stolen cauldrons.
Today, however, Cassandra wasn't there because of an assignment.
She was there because something about the Sirius Black case had begun bothering her.
The previous night's interrogation had raised questions she could no longer ignore. Peter Pettigrew's confession had proven Sirius Black's innocence beyond reasonable doubt, but while reviewing the details of the case afterward, Cassandra had realized there was something she couldn't remember.
She couldn't remember Sirius Black's trial.
At first, she had dismissed the thought. After all, the First Wizarding War had ended amid chaos. Hundreds of investigations had taken place simultaneously, Death Eaters had been arrested across the country, and emergency legal proceedings had become common. It was entirely possible she simply couldn't recall the details.
Still, the thought nagged at her.
And the more she searched, the stranger the situation became.
Towering shelves stretched endlessly in every direction, disappearing into dimly lit aisles where enchanted lanterns floated near the ceiling. Boxes drifted through the air under the control of filing charms while quills updated indexes automatically. The archives possessed their own strange life, a silent machine dedicated to preserving Britain's magical history.
Cassandra sat at a long oak table already buried beneath stacks of records. Files surrounded her in small mountains. Several boxes remained open nearby while dozens of parchment scrolls lay scattered across the surface.
She had started with the obvious locations.
First Wizarding War Trials.
Death Eater Proceedings.
Emergency Sentencing Orders.
Post-War Arrest Records.
Every major case from the final months of the war passed through her hands.
Yet the file she wanted remained absent.
Hours passed.
The absence itself became disturbing.
Every major Death Eater possessed records. Some files contained dozens of pages while others filled entire volumes. Testimonies, evidence lists, sentencing decisions, witness reports—everything was there.
Bellatrix Lestrange had records.
Augustus Rookwood had records.
Even obscure supporters with minor charges had documentation.
Yet Sirius Black, supposedly one of the most infamous criminals in modern British history, had absolutely nothing.
Cassandra leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes tiredly.
"That's impossible."
"Talking to yourself now?"
The familiar voice made her look up.
Standing nearby was Monica Sweetleaf.
Cassandra hadn't seen her in nearly a year.
The two women had trained together during Auror training and had survived the same brutal instructors, examinations, and practical evaluations. They had once spent almost every day together. After graduation, however, assignments had scattered them into different departments, and opportunities to meet became increasingly rare.
Monica smiled as she looked over the mountain of paperwork.
"Cassandra, what in Merlin's name are you doing?"
Cassandra gestured helplessly toward the files surrounding her.
"Research."
Monica raised an eyebrow.
"You?"
"Very funny."
Monica laughed and pulled out a nearby chair before sitting down.
"What are you looking for?"
Cassandra hesitated briefly.
Not because it was classified information.
Simply because the answer sounded ridiculous.
"Sirius Black."
Monica blinked.
"...Sirius Black?"
"Yes."
The confusion on Monica's face deepened.
"Why?"
Cassandra shrugged.
"Nothing major."
Then she added casually, "I'm Harry Potter's guardian."
"And Sirius Black was supposedly Harry's godfather."
The word supposedly immediately caught Monica's attention.
"Supposedly?"
Cassandra offered a faint smile.
"I'm trying to learn more about Harry's parents."
The explanation seemed reasonable enough.
Monica nodded slowly.
"I suppose that makes sense."
Then she looked toward the stacks of files again.
"So?"
Cassandra sighed heavily.
"So there isn't anything."
"What do you mean?"
"There is no trial."
Monica frowned.
"What?"
Cassandra reached for several files and tapped them one after another.
"I checked every major trial conducted after the war. Every emergency hearing. Every Death Eater sentencing. Every relevant archive I could access."
She spread her hands.
"There is no Sirius Black trial."
The words hung heavily between them.
For a moment Monica simply stared at her.
Then she frowned even deeper.
"Maybe you're searching the wrong section."
"I thought so too."
Cassandra pulled several index books toward her.
"I checked the indexes."
Then another stack.
"The duplicates."
Another.
"The restricted archives."
She shook her head.
"There is nothing."
The silence that followed felt strangely uncomfortable.
Because both women immediately understood what that implied.
Monica eventually spoke.
"...But he went to Azkaban."
"Yes."
"He was convicted."
"Apparently."
Monica frowned.
"Then where are the records?"
Cassandra had no answer.
After a few more minutes of conversation, Monica eventually stood and stretched.
"Well," she said, "I'll leave you to your mystery."
Cassandra smirked.
"Running away already?"
"I have actual work."
"Research is work."
"Not for sane people."
Both women laughed.
Then Monica turned toward the exit.
Before leaving, however, she glanced back one final time.
"You know, you can investigate Sirius Black all you want."
"What does that mean?"
Monica shrugged.
"It means I have no interest in getting involved with that particular mess."
Then she waved casually and disappeared between the shelves.
Cassandra watched her leave before returning to her files.
Or at least she thought she was alone.
Several aisles away, hidden behind rows of ancient records, another figure stood perfectly still.
The person held an open file and appeared to be reading.
In reality, they had not turned a page in nearly ten minutes.
Every word of Cassandra's conversation had been heard.
The moment Monica disappeared from sight, the hidden figure quietly closed the file.
Then they turned and walked away.
Just another Ministry employee disappearing into the archives.
Cassandra never noticed.
At least, not then.
The first sign came later that afternoon while she was leaving the archives.
Halfway down a corridor, she suddenly felt the unmistakable sensation of being watched.
The feeling was familiar.
Every experienced Auror knew it.
Years of investigations and dangerous arrests had sharpened instincts most ordinary people lacked.
Cassandra stopped walking.
Then turned.
Only Ministry employees moving through the corridors.
Messengers carrying paperwork.
Clerks hurrying toward offices.
A pair of Aurors discussing assignments.
Everything looked normal.
Yet the feeling lingered.
Throughout the day it happened again and again.
A glimpse of movement disappearing around a corner.
A door quietly closing moments after she entered a hallway.
Nothing she could prove.
But enough to make her uneasy.
Someone was following her.
Which only made it more concerning.
Because ordinary criminals didn't follow Aurors.
And ordinary Ministry employees certainly didn't care about Sirius Black's missing trial.
Standing outside her office that evening, Cassandra slowly looked across the crowded Ministry atrium below.
Hundreds of witches and wizards moved through the building.
Any one of them could be responsible.
Her search for Sirius Black had attracted attention.
Which raised a far more dangerous question.
If the missing trial was truly just a clerical mistake...
Then why was someone trying so hard to watch the person asking questions about it?
[Abandoned]