"Sirius, I am a werewolf, I could not have gained custody of Harry."
"Did you try? Did you ever reach out to him? No, the answer is no. What have you been doing all these years, Moony, while you were so busy forgetting about your friends and family?"
"Excuse me!? Dumbledore told me not to reach out to Harry. I am a werewolf, no I did not fight him for custody, it would have never happened. But I never forgot about Harry!"
"Sure, sure, whatever. I mean Dumbledore lost track of him so he was a great guy to trust with Harry, but fine. You still forgot about me easily enough."
"I did not -"
"I didn't get a trial, Remus. I didn't get a single person to vouch for me. Not my only remaining friend since childhood, not any of my friends and colleagues at the Ministry, not even Albus bloody fucking Dumbledore, the literal Supreme Mugwump could not give a shit about whether or not I was given a trial."
"You admitted it! They said you admitted to it!"
"I was distraught! I felt like - feel like it's my fault for Lily and James, yes. I argued that Peter should have been the Secret Keeper and not me, but I did not kill those muggles. You seriously thought I could have committed a crime like that? You really thought I would betray James, my brother?" Sirius was shouting by the end of his rant, looking the part of serial killer madman with a harsh gleam in his eyes. The anger was curtained by faint tears.
"I didn't know what to think! Everyone was telling me otherwise, that you were guilty. And you were no saint either. Why wasn't I asked to be Secret Keeper? Why didn't you trust me either?"
"Goddamnit Remus, James didn't want to put you in that position! He was trying to protect you. Dumbledore had you off infiltrating the enemy lines. We knew Voldemort was recruiting werewolves. We knew he was winning them over. Voldemort offered werewolves freedoms and protections you would never get under Fudge's administration. James and I refused to put you in the position where you would have to pick between your friends and your basic human rights. He never would have blamed you if you had sided with Voldemort because of that, he wanted to make sure you hurt as few people as possible if you made that choice."
Oh. "Oh."
"We should have talked about it before he died. But you were away so often, and it was hardly a discussion we could have at an Order meeting, was it? Never tell me that James did not trust you. He trusted all of us, and look where that got him." Sirius cleared his throat, turning away to covertly wipe a few tears. It was obvious now. Sirius may have survived prison without physical scars, but not without mental ones. Looking over his friend again, it was clear in the tense arch of his shoulders and the madness in his eyes.
"I guess I was madder at you than I had thought," Sirius said. "I've had twelve years to hold grudges I guess. I think I should leave now." Remus nodded. He wanted to say something but wasn't sure what could possibly make things better.
"Congrats on your freedom, Sirius," he murmured, and they parted ways.
...
Dolores Umbridge was acting… well, Jasmine did not want to be rude, but honestly, she didn't even know how to phrase it nicer than absolutely insane. Over the past week, she'd grown sickly and pale, faint tremors moving through her hands. If Yaxley did not know the woman so well, she would have assumed she'd gotten ahold of some drugs. But Dolores was the type to alert the aurors if she even got a whiff of someone using Quixlan's Pepper-Up formula (a perfectly legal, mild stimulant) at work. But either she was huffing Fae Dust or she'd been hiding a serious illness for most of the year.
Either way, her increasingly old-fashioned and unpopular decisions regarding her Educational Degrees were really starting to cause trouble. Jasmine Yaxley had pried a decree enabling corporeal punishment out of the hands of Argus Filch just a few days prior. She'd gone immediately to Dolores, but the woman only giggled and declared that it was perfectly legal all the while shaking and murmuring about shadows and cupboards and other nonsense. The Minister had signed off on all of Umbridge's actions, but legality and morality were not the same and it would ruin everything if it got out that they allowed such a thing. She made a quiet notion to have Filch removed, but it was looking like nothing would be done about Dolores.
"Has Fudge gotten back to you yet?" Hermapheous questioned.
"He's not going to help," Jasper insisted again. "It will make the Ministry look bad if he recalls her now. We've only just finished our proposal. If we go into negotiations with the Board of Governors with one member gone because she's bloody lost it, then all of this will be for nothing. Hell, Fudge'll probably sack us too."
"So we stand by and do nothing? It hurts the Ministry worse if it gets out that the Minister has sanctioned spanking children!"
"She wouldn't dare touch any of the pureblood children, it's very unlikely that things would become a scandal," Hermapheous said in an assuring voice. Jasmine threw up her arms in frustration.
"Jas, calm down. It's not our place to disagree with the Minister. Please drop it."
She sighed. That was the crux of it, wasn't it? Their world did not take well to change, to questions, to differences. If their group wanted any chance of getting Hogwarts back up to muster, they had to stay in their lane. But Jasmine could not strike the feeling that letting this continue was going to blow up in their faces.
....
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