Harry had lost track of how long they'd been sitting in Hill's office. Sirius had been talking for a long time, while something that closely resembled a Quick Quotes Quill scuttled across an ever lengthening roll of parchment. The only difference with Hill's quill was that it recorded Sirius' exact words without embellishment. When they'd first entered the office, Hill had produced the quill and parchment and demonstrated for them by carefully describing the circumstances in which they found themselves. Harry had watched the quill while Hill, and later Sirius talked, until he had no doubt that it was transcribing events both faithfully and accurately.

Once the quill had been set up, Hill had trained his wand on Sirius, muttering a Sincerity Charm, and asked Sirius to tell his story, beginning with the events leading up to Pettigrew's disappearance and leaving nothing out. And so Sirius had begun, telling what to Harry was a familiar story, about how it had been known that Voldemort was looking for the Potters, how it had been feared that there was a spy in their midst. About the Fidelius Charm and the change of secret keeper. About Peter's betrayal. About his faked death, which had set Sirius up to take the fall. About being sent to Azkaban without a trial.

At this point Hill stopped Sirius and sent Harry out for the case files, which he'd asked St John to pull. They'd consisted of a single roll of parchment--the unfinished parchment on Hill's desk was already longer--but Hill pointed out that this was hardly surprising. There had been no trial, after all, and no need to mount a case.

"Yes, I remember," Hill commented. "I was a junior solicitor at the time. It was obvious to everyone that Black was guilty…"

Here Sirius made a strangled sort of sound in his throat, the kind a dog makes when it stretches too far on its leash and is yanked back. Hill looked straight at Sirius, as he continued. "There was no other conclusion to be drawn. Evidently everyone was wrong."

Harry found it rather unsettling that Hill had betrayed no sign of surprise at Sirius' story up to this point. Most of the wizarding world feared Sirius as the Dark Lord's right hand man, one of his trusted inner circle. Learning that public perception had been wrong for the past seventeen years ought to have shaken him, but he showed no outward sign of it.

"I see no sign through the Sincerity Charm that you are lying to me, Mr Black," Hill went on. "And no sign you're keeping anything from me. But I do need to ask you one thing. Why did you laugh when the street was blown apart? Because that, as much as anything else convinced people of your guilt."

Sirius hesitated, thinking it over, and then gave a twisted sort of smile. "We were all friends at school, you know. James, Remus, Peter and I. And we liked to pull pranks as much as we could. But Peter bunged things up for us more often than not. He wasn't particularly talented at anything. And yet he pulled one over on all of us. No one suspected him. He got the last laugh. And the irony of that… Sometimes you just have to laugh so you don't break down and cry. Then there was the shock on top of that. My best friend and his wife were dead. And it was my fault, really, wasn't it? I more or less handed them over to Voldemort myself. And through Peter… Peter of all people."

Harry watched his godfather the entire time he was speaking. It was difficult for Harry to fathom that Sirius could still feel responsible after all these years. There was just no way he could have known. There was no way anyone could have. But Harry could see the expression in Sirius' eyes--he'd seen it before in the Shrieking Shack--it was the look of someone who would bear a burden of guilt with him to the grave.

Sirius went on with this story at Hill's request, telling how he'd seen the picture in the Daily Prophet, which showed that Peter was still alive, and how Sirius had managed to escape Azkaban himself. How he'd almost had Peter at the end of Harry's third year, but how Peter had escaped at that time and returned to Voldemort. He went on to describe the sort of missions he'd gone on for Dumbledore and the Order during the war.

Here Hill stopped him again. "Would there be any sort of record of your activities during the war?"

"Dumbledore may have kept some. But I couldn't tell you where."

"I'll make enquiries. The Dark Lord's most trusted servant would hardly have been fighting on Dumbledore's side these past years."

"You would think not," commented Sirius dryly. "Do you need me to tell you about Peter's capture? I believe the Aurors were going to question him under Veritaserum."

"I can get those details from them, then. What I'm more concerned with at the moment is your escape from Azkaban."

"What?" cried Harry, unable to contain himself. "You've just now said yourself that you believe Sirius' story, and you're wondering about why he escaped from prison? He was innocent. He shouldn't have been there in the first place!"

"Be that as it may, Harry," replied Hill, "he did, by his own admission escape from Azkaban. Whether he was innocent or not has nothing to do with it. He has not yet been officially exonerated by the Ministry. Now from all that I've heard here today, unless I see some fairly damning evidence to the contrary, I have every reason to believe that Sirius Black will be exonerated by the Ministry, but until that time, he is, technically, still an escaped convict."

"But what does that mean? You can't just send him back to prison. He's innocent!"

"I believe that he's innocent, but he has not yet been proven innocent in the legal sense. And until such time that he is, I'm afraid my hands are tied." Hill sighed heavily. "I'm bound to follow the system, Harry. Usually it works…"

"System? The system wasn't followed in Sirius' case. He didn't even have a trial! Any of the suspected Death Eaters we're prosecuting at the moment are going to get their chance to state their case. Sirius didn't do anything, and he didn't have that chance."

"Yes, and that may very well turn out to be a mitigating factor in all of this. That and any evidence they had in Black's original case was purely circumstantial. I'll see what I can do, Harry, but I can't make any promises."

Harry wanted to protest some more, but Sirius intervened. "Leave it, Harry. We've told our story, and now we'll just have to trust that things will work out the way they ought to."

"They can't send you back to that place, Sirius! Mr Hill, can't you work something out? I can vouch for Sirius. He isn't going to do anything."

"As I said, Harry, I'll see what I can do," said Hill. "But there are no precedents in a case like this. No one has ever escaped from Azkaban before, and I can't begin to guess what anyone would want to do about it. The more evidence of Mr Black's innocence we can present, the better. So far we have his story, and possibly Pettigrew's. We may have evidence that Dumbledore trusted you, but that isn't at hand, so I can't present it at the moment. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to see if the Aurors have finished with Pettigrew. This may take a while. Harry, you can stay with your godfather if you want. St John can continue to fill in for you."

He took up the parchment, along with Sirius' case file and left the room. Harry turned to Sirius. "So how did you manage to catch Wormtail?" He knew they had other issues to discuss, but Harry wasn't quite ready to delve into them yet.

"There isn't really a whole lot to tell. His friends were defeated, so he had to go into hiding on his own. It was mostly a matter of tracking him then. You see, I was able to get close enough to him during the battle in dog form to pick up his scent. In the confusion he didn't realise I was there. I tried to catch him then, but he got away from me. But I was determined to track him, and I did. Odd thing about him though…"

"What was that?"

"His hand was missing."

"His hand?"

"Yes, the silver hand…" Sirius trailed off, but then he hardly needed to remind Harry of the circumstances under which Wormtail had received that hand. "I wonder how he managed to lose it."

"It was magical. Voldemort gave it to him. He couldn't just lose it…"

"Well, no I suppose not, but I think we have more important things to discuss. I got your letter. What was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

"What do you remember about that day?"

Sirius grimaced. "Lots of smoke. Explosions. Fighting… It's not anything I want to dwell on."

"But about Voldemort specifically?"

"I remember you duelled with him. There was a light, too bright to look at, and then he was gone… And I saw what Malfoy tried to do to you. I ran over to see if you were all right. And I've just now remembered… The hand. There was a hand on the ground where Voldemort had been standing. I didn't think anything of it at the time, because of all the explosions…" Sirius shuddered. "But now that I think about it… No, that can't be it…"

"Was there anything else on the ground there?" Harry asked, a shiver of foreboding running down his spine. He had a feeling he knew what else might have been left there, but would Sirius make the connection? The night of Voldemort's re-embodiment was indelibly etched into Harry's mind. It had been fodder for countless nightmares in the intervening years. Sirius had only heard his account of that night in Dumbledore's office.

"I can't really remember."

"No blood? No dust?"

"It was hard to tell. I'm sure there was blood but that's hardly surprising. What are you getting at, Harry?"

Harry swallowed. "In a way, it's related to Wormtail's hand I think…"

Sirius looked intrigued. "How?"

"I think that if Wormtail doesn't have his silver hand anymore, it's a sign. Voldemort is really gone this time…"

"How do you know this?"

"When I duelled with him in Hogsmeade, I used a spell on him…"

"A spell… Yes, I remember the light from it, but perhaps you'd better start at the beginning."

And that's what Harry did. He told the story one final time, or so he thought, of how Hermione had found the spell after they'd all searched for weeks. And he told Sirius exactly what had happened when he'd used the spell in the duel.

When he'd finished, Sirius stared at him for a moment in disbelief. "Let me get this straight… You found a spell which would defeat Voldemort but at the cost of your own powers…"

Harry nodded, and then braced himself for the onslaught.

"Harry, what the hell were you thinking? No, don't even bother answering that. You weren't thinking, were you, because if you were you'd never even have considered anything even remotely like that!" Sirius got out of his chair and began pacing back and forth. "I can't believe Dumbledore let you do something like that!"

"He didn't know," Harry said quietly.

"You took on something of this magnitude without telling Dumbledore?"

"What good would it have done me to tell? It was my choice to make in the end, wasn't it?"

"So you and Hermione took it upon yourselves to do this spell…" Sirius had obviously not heard what Harry had just said.

"No," said Harry a bit louder, "I just told you it was my choice. Hermione didn't do anything but find it and translate it. After that she didn't have any choice but to go along with it."

Sirius ran a hand through his dirty hair, causing it to stand on end. "Well, she knew about it. I thought she was more clever than that! Why didn't she tell anyone? Why didn't she stop you?"

"Because I made her promise not to. She understood that I had to do this. Why can't you?"

"It wasn't worth it, Harry. We could have found another way to defeat him!"

"At what cost, Sirius? More lives? More innocent lives?"

Sirius stopped pacing and turned to look straight at Harry. "And you haven't paid a price? You have your whole life ahead of you!"

"I'm one person, Sirius, and I didn't lose my life."

"You could have!"

"But I didn't!"

"You didn't have to do this!"

"I did! It was the only way!"

"There had to be another way!"

Harry was standing by now, himself. "What was it then? If there had been one, Dumbledore would have found it! We were losing!"

Sirius threw up his hands in frustration and began pacing again. "You're just as stubborn as your father! You should have told someone you trusted!"

"I did, I told Hermione. I couldn't tell you, could I? Just look at how you're reacting when it's too late to even do anything about it."

"Of course I'm reacting like this!" Sirius fairly shouted. "What did you expect me to say? Oh, Harry you have no powers left, but it doesn't matter because Voldemort is gone. Thanks for that. Cup of tea?"

"Keep your voice down, Sirius! I already told you I want this kept a secret. I don't know how strong the silencing spells on this office are."

"Oh, and how are you going to keep this from getting out?"

"I've managed so far. I've even found a job."

"Some job, Harry. You're a filing clerk. You ought to be playing professional Quidditch! God, you could have done so many things, and you just gave it up!"

"I'm getting by. I don't need magic to live. Muggles do without."

"You are not a Muggle. You will never be a Muggle! You weren't meant to be one!"

"There's no point in arguing about it. It won't change anything."

"Maybe there's a cure, another spell, something. Have you even looked?"

"We asked Remus…"

"Remus? Remus! Are you telling me he knew about this and he didn't say anything to me?"

"Yes, he knew but I asked him not to tell you. I felt it was something I should tell you myself." Sirius looked as if he wanted to keep arguing, but couldn't come up with anything. "Anyway," Harry went on, "we asked Remus what he knew about it, and he didn't know of anything. He said I had to learn to accept it."

"Well, that's not surprising coming from him, but as smart as Remus is, he doesn't know everything."

"Do you know of anything then?"

"No, but I'm sure there's something out there. There just has to be." He was beginning to sound desperate. "God, I just wish you would have told me about this sooner!"

"I couldn't do that," replied Harry calmly.

"Why the hell not?"

"Because you had to go after Wormtail. Look at how you're reacting now. If I'd have told you any sooner you'd have dropped all that. I couldn't let you do that."

"Well of course, I would have dropped everything! What kind of godfather would I be if I wasn't there when you needed me? I haven't been able to be there for you the way I ought to, Harry, and this is just one more occasion I couldn't be there."

"And that's exactly why I didn't tell you! I'm sorry, but I needed you to catch Wormtail, because that's the only way you could prove your innocence and have a chance to be my godfather. If you didn't catch him you would have remained a fugitive and then where would you be? On the run! I couldn't let you give up your chance at freedom!"

"All right…" Sirius made an obvious effort at calming himself before he went on. "You're perfectly right about that. And I would have come. Because you're more to me than just James' son. There, I've said it. He asked me to be your godfather, and I've never felt like I was anything other than a failure at it."

Harry was rather stunned at this pronouncement, and he didn't quite know how to react to it. "You know," he said at last, "Remus was right about you. You try to come off like this big, scary bloke. Mad Sirius Black and all that. But inside you're nothing but a puppy dog!"

Sirius' mouth dropped open in surprise. "I can't believe Remus told you that! James used to call me that. Drove me mad with it."

"Sirius," Harry went on quietly, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. It's not that I didn't want to tell you. But it wasn't something I could put into a letter. And you weren't there…" Sirius opened his mouth to protest, but Harry rushed on before he could say anything. "I understand why you weren't. I'm glad you weren't because it meant you were looking for Wormtail, and you've caught him now. My news could wait. Nothing's been changed by the fact that you didn't know sooner, now, has it? But if I had said something sooner, perhaps you wouldn't have caught Wormtail.

"And if you're put out with me for giving up my powers in the first place, I'm sorry. I learned of a way to put a stop to Voldemort, and I had to try it. And it looks as if it might have worked, so it can't be all bad, can it?"

Sirius nodded once. "All right, I don't want to argue about this anymore. We aren't getting anywhere with it, are we? But this is going to take some getting used to. It's such a shock…"

Harry sighed. "I know… I'm still working on dealing with it."

Suddenly Sirius was standing in front of him and enveloping him in a hug, which Harry returned awkwardly. Pulling back, Harry grimaced. "Sirius, please don't take this the wrong way, but… Well, how long has it been since you've had a proper bath?"

"Sorry about that. I suppose I am getting a bit gamy…"

"I suppose that's one way of putting it."

"Harry, what did you mean just now about dealing with it?"

Harry shrugged and sank back down into his chair. "Mostly it's getting used to doing things a bit differently. I'll manage. Ginny…"

"Ginny? Ginny Weasley? What's this now? Something else you've been neglecting to tell me?" His tone was much lighter now. "You've been staying with the Weasleys, haven't you? How long has this been going on?"

Harry felt himself beginning to blush. "About a year now," he mumbled.

"A year? Looks like that book I gave you last year came in handy then."

"Erm, yeah… I mean no," he tacked on lamely, blushing even more.

Sirius looked at him knowingly. "Well, you're past the age where I need to be having talks with you, aren't you?"

"Yes," Harry said quickly. This was almost as bad as having Mrs Weasley walk in on him and Ginny.

"Then all I need to tell you is to be careful then."

"Not much chance of anything happening, anyway. Her mother was watching us like a hawk all summer, and now she's back at Hogwarts for her seventh year."

"Well I hope you write to her more often than you do to me."

Harry couldn't look at Sirius. He was guilty on both counts. "I don't know how to write stuff like that. She wrote to me, and… I can't write that sort of thing. I don't know how."

Sirius seemed to consider, as if he was searching in his memory, and Harry had to wonder if he'd ever been in a position like this. "Well, you just have to write it. Don't think about it, just do it. And don't ever read back over it, because if you do, you'll never send it."

"I should, I know. After everything she's done for me, she deserves it."

"Can you tell me about it?"

"She saved me. She's saved me twice now. She saved my life with that talisman she made me…"

Sirius let out a whistle, cutting Harry off. "She made you the talisman?"

"Yes, but that's a secret, and she doesn't like anyone to talk about it. And she helped me get out of a really bad spot this summer. She saved me from myself, really."

Sirius looked as if he wanted to bring up the fact that he should have been there for Harry too, and he opened and closed his mouth a few times, as if searching for the right way to put it. "Don't start again," Harry cut across him. "I don't want to argue about that anymore. Let's just say I haven't had an easy time adjusting to everything, but it's been getting better. And I couldn't have done it without her."

"In that case, you'd better write to her. And don't say anything stupid." Harry was grateful to Sirius for keeping it light. He wasn't sure how much he wanted to examine his feelings for Ginny in front of Sirius.

The door opened in the next moment, and Hill came striding into the room. Sirius took his seat again. "Right," said Hill without preamble. "Here's where we stand. I've showed your deposition to the head of the Department, along with your old case file, and the evidence gained from Mr Pettigrew. While he is in agreement with me that there were some irregularities in your case of seventeen years ago and that there is ample evidence to put your guilt in doubt, we cannot ignore your escape from Azkaban. Now…"

He paused for breath. "There are no precedents in this case, as I stated earlier, since no one has ever escaped from Azkaban before, but since you are still technically a convicted criminal until such time as we can see about your getting an exoneration from the Minister of Magic, you cannot be allowed to go free. What we are prepared to do, however, is allow you to remain in the custody of your godson, provided you take an oath that you will not attempt to escape. While he is at his place of employment, you shall remain at his current place of residence in Ottery St Catchpole. You shall not leave Harry's place of residence unless you are accompanied by Harry himself. I strongly suggest to you that you remain in the house unless you are summoned in to the Ministry on official business."

Sirius blinked a few times, and Harry fought off the urge to laugh. "So I'm to be placed under house arrest? I'm hardly going to attempt to escape if I want to prove my innocence, am I?"

"Of course you wouldn't, but the head of the Department requires it. It's for form's sake more than anything else. We just can't let you go when you haven't been officially exonerated yet, you see, and I'm going out on a bit of a limb here. We're assuming the Weasleys won't object to your presence in their home, Mr Black."

"They won't," said Harry quickly. "They know all about Sirius."

If Hill was surprised at all by that statement, he did not let it show. "Then I think it might be best if you take Mr Black back to the Weasleys' with you." He looked at his watch. "There won't be much sense in you coming back into the Ministry today, Harry."

It was Harry's turn to blink in surprise. "But…"

"Don't argue with me, Harry. I know we're busy, but things are going to get worse before they get better. Take advantage of some time off while you can."

"Wait," Harry said quickly. "How are we going to get out of here without attracting attention? I can't leave from the Apparition point. All sorts of people are going to see us."

"You're right. You can leave from my office. I'll cover for you so it doesn't look funny, all right?"

"All right, then," said Harry. "Just let me collect my things. Wait for me here, Sirius, I won't be a moment."

When Harry stopped at his desk, he noticed a few of his things had been displaced in a rather suspicious manner, and he was extremely happy he'd stuffed his unfinished letter to Ginny into his pocket earlier. He wouldn't put it past St John at all to go through his desk… At least he was going home early, and St John was going to have to do Harry's job for the rest of the day.

"How are we going to manage to leave from here?" Sirius asked quietly when Harry came back into Hill's office. "You wouldn't be able to Apparate out of here even if you could…"

"I've got a Portkey. Hold on to my robes."

With a final nod to Hill, Harry reached into his pocket and turned the hands to six o'clock. Within minutes, they found themselves in the Burrow's kitchen, where Mrs Weasley was sitting at the table sipping at a mug of tea. She jumped, spilling tea onto the front of her apron when Harry and Sirius appeared.

"Goodness, Harry!" she exclaimed. "Sirius! What on earth is going on?" Harry thought she looked a bit preoccupied.

"Would it be all right if Sirius stayed here for a while?" Harry asked.

"Why yes, of course it would, but… Won't the Ministry be looking for you?"

"They're already aware of where I am, Molly," replied Sirius.

"But how…"

"Sirius!" Mr Weasley had just come hobbling in from the living room. He'd evidently been in there and had heard the commotion caused by Sirius' and Harry's unexpected arrival. He limped towards a chair, wincing as he sat down. "What brings you here?"

"He's caught…" Harry began, and then he stopped, remembering his confidentiality agreement. Was he allowed to discuss this with the Weasleys? The information he had was something he'd learned at the office, but yet it was nothing Sirius wouldn't have told him under other circumstances. "Erm, Sirius, I think you'd better tell this. I'm not supposed to talk about anything that goes on at the office, but you haven't sworn not to tell, have you?"

"No… All right. I've caught Peter Pettigrew, which means I can prove I'm innocent of any wrongdoing."

Mr Weasley let out an exclamation of surprise, while his wife smiled, and placed a hand over her heart. "Oh, how wonderful for you!" she said.

"Mr Hill has arranged things so I can stay here while I'm waiting for the Ministry to decide what they're going to do with my case, but I'm more or less under house arrest while I'm waiting," added Sirius. "Is that going to be a problem for you?"

"No, of course not," said Mrs Weasley. "As long as I know a horde of Aurors isn't going to break down my door and carry you off in the middle of the night. I've had as much excitement as I can take for the next while."

Harry knew she was referring to Mr Weasley's accident last week. "No, that shouldn't be a problem," said Sirius. "But are you sure? If I'm only going to be a reminder of…"

Mrs Weasley cut him off. "Don't talk such nonsense. Charlie may have given up his life to save yours, but I know that you'd have done the same if the situation had been reversed."

Sirius looked stunned for a moment. "Thank you," he rasped. Then he cracked a half smile and went on. "It's just a bit strange… They've put me in the custody of my eighteen-year-old godson until they've decided."

"Does that mean I get to give you orders?" asked Harry. "Because I command you to go take a bath. And burn those robes while you're at it."

While Mrs Weasley took showed Sirius up to the bathroom and got him some clean clothes to change into, Harry continued up to Ron's room. He had a letter to finish, and he didn't know when he'd have a few spare hours to work on it.

*

Dear Ginny… Ginny remembered the way her hands had shaken as she unfolded the parchment when Hedwig had first delivered it. (It had arrived, ironically enough, along with another offering from the twins, a selection of magical prophylactic devices, which apparently came in different sizes. Her brothers had made a bit of a production about saying they didn't know which size to get, so they'd let her decide.) She'd had to suppress the urge to let out a squeal of joy. It had been a huge relief to finally have a letter from him after so many days of being disappointed. Now she couldn't stop herself from taking another quick peek at it, even though the breakfast table wasn't the ideal place to read it with so many curious classmates about. She'd lost track of how many times she'd read it over the past few days.

Random sentences leapt out at her as she scanned down the page.

I didn't know I could miss anyone this much… I know what you meant about your heart hurting. I feel the same way… Whenever I see a flash of red, I look up. I can't help it. I want it to be you so much, even though I know it can't be you… I can't wait to see you. Send me the Hogsmeade dates as soon as you know when they are.

Ginny's heart sank, as it always did when she got to this part, and she couldn't go on. Harry was going to be so disappointed when he got her reply and he learned that there wouldn't be any Hogsmeade weekends in the foreseeable future. She folded up the letter and put in into her bag. She'd be able to read it over again in greater depth during History of Magic.

But as she rose from the table and headed towards the entrance hall with its marble staircase, Hermione pulled her aside. "Ginny, have you seen the newspaper today?"

"No, why?"

"Just look at this."

Ginny took the paper from her friend, noticing the picture of Sirius Black on the front page. It was an old picture, the one that had been plastered over the Daily Prophet for months during her second year. His haunted eyes blinked slowly at her from under his tangle of matted hair. Heart sinking at the thought of what it would do to Harry if he were caught, she began to read.

The Ministry of Magic, in what seems to this reporter an incomprehensible decision, has seen fit to pardon escaped convict Sirius Black, writes Rita Skeeter. The reader will remember that Sirius Black was sent to Azkaban almost seventeen years ago for the murder of Peter Pettigrew and twelve other Muggles, all of whom he summarily dispatched with one curse. Black was also reputed to be in league with You-Know-Who during his first reign of terror, and some even placed him as high as second in command among the Dark Lord's followers. Not a week ago, he was sighted at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in the company of a man who claimed to be Peter Pettigrew.

Undisclosed sources at the Ministry of Magic have informed the Daily Prophet that according to Black, the alleged Mr Pettigrew has spent the better part of the past eighteen years disguised as a rat. One must question Black's sanity in light of the fact that he spent twelve years in the company of Dementors. The alleged Mr Pettigrew is apparently corroborating Black's story, leading this reporter to wonder if Black's friend isn't in need of a good cure at St Mungo's himself.

Ginny slowly lowered the paper and handed it back to Hermione. She felt torn between happiness that Harry's godfather was a free man at last, and disgust at the way the story had been portrayed in the press. Judging from the look on Hermione's face, Hermione was entertaining similar thoughts.

"I wish I'd made her promise to be honest longer," Hermione muttered.

"What?" asked Ginny, perplexed.

"Remember back in fourth year--well it would have been third for you--when she was writing all those horrible, sensationalist articles?" Ginny nodded. "And then she stopped for a while?"

"Yes… There wasn't anything by her for a long time. Dad was pretty pleased about that."

"It's because I found out something about her. She's an illegal Animagus. She can turn into a beetle. Anyway, I caught her and made her promise to change her ways for a year, or else I'd report her. And she did. Only I see now I should have made her promise to quit forever."

"Can't you just turn her in now?"

"I'll have to check, but I somehow doubt it. She knows I know her secret. If she's clever at all, she will have registered."

"And she just had to bring up Harry again, didn't she? She can't go more than a day or two without dropping his name…"

"Did Harry mention anything about this in his letter at all? From the way things are stated in this article, he must have known something was happening."

"He didn't mention it, but maybe he couldn't. If this had anything to do with his Ministry job, he'd be bound by his confidentiality agreement, wouldn't he?"

"I suppose so…" Hermione broke of and bit her lip. "It's wonderful that Sirius has been able to prove his innocence after all these years, but this article… I'm sure he was exonerated, and not pardoned. There's a difference, you know. If people believe Rita Skeeter's version of things, how is he ever going to find a place in the wizarding world?"

Ginny looked at Hermione sadly and shrugged her shoulders. She had no idea how else to respond.

*

Harry sat at his desk and tried to concentrate on his work, but it was difficult. In the days since Sirius had received his exoneration, it was difficult to think of anything else. He'd been ecstatic for his godfather when they'd first learned the news. Not only would Sirius' name be cleared of any wrongdoing, but the Ministry was willing to overlook his escape from Azkaban, as well as offer him a healthy compensation for the years he'd lost. Sirius had wanted to refuse the money, but Mr Weasley had counselled him not to make any hasty decisions. It should have been cause for celebration, and it had been. For one day. Sirius had been declared innocent, but from the treatment he'd received in the press, public opinion didn't seem to agree.

Just yesterday, he'd taken Sirius to Ollivander's on his lunch hour to buy a new wand, to replace the one that had been snapped when his godfather was sent to prison, and Harry hadn't missed the way people has seemed to shrink away from Sirius, as if they were afraid he'd suddenly turn around and curse them all. The reception at the wand-maker's had been rather frosty as well, making Harry rather grateful that they were able to find a replacement wand in a short amount of time. Mr Ollivander had seemed pleased about that, too.

Harry had expressed his outrage to Ginny in a long letter the day the Rita Skeeter article had appeared, and he'd been surprised at how much that had helped, especially when Ginny had sent him a reply in the same angry tone. It was comforting to know that she, at least, agreed with him about the unfairness of the situation. Of course, the Weasleys who still remained at the Burrow were outraged, as well, but Ginny's reaction seemed to touch him all the more.

Now he was tempted to write to her again and tell her about yesterday's shopping trip. He wouldn't have time for that before this evening, if then. The office was swamped. He'd had to work through his lunch hour today, and it looked as if he'd be staying after hours, as well. St John had been making snide comments under his breath to Harry about what a pity it was that Harry wasn't getting any more time off these days, which did nothing to improve Harry's mood.

He looked at his watch and saw there was about half an hour to go before the office officially closed for the day. From the pile of paperwork on his desk, he realised it would be past nine before he could go back to the Burrow. He sighed. If he was going to write to Ginny, he'd be staying up late to get it done.

It was almost six before he looked up again, as a shadow fell across his desk. Hill was standing there, accompanied by a man who looked vaguely familiar to Harry.

"Harry," said Hill, "this is Damian Bode from the Department of Mysteries. He needs to have a word with you."

Harry's heart sank and at the same time he felt a twinge of alarm. Was he ever going to get out of here? "But I'm not finished my work yet," he protested.

"No time for that now," said Bode. "This is official Ministry business. It takes precedent over everything else. If you'd just come with me, Harry…"

Harry had no choice but to follow.

To Be Continued…