Summer had begun, but peace was not one of the gifts it brought.
At the Ministry of Magic, the golden morning light slanted through the high atrium windows, glinting off the inlaid runes that lined the marble floors.
Normally, the start of summer brought a rare calm—families off on holiday, school-aged witches and wizards returning home, and the bureaucracy of the Ministry shifting to its slower seasonal rhythm.
This year, however, the Ministry was alive with tension.
A chorus of overlapping voices filled the vast chamber, parchment memos zooming overhead like restless birds.
The Department of Magical Law Enforcement had doubled its staff rotation; the Improper Use of Magic Office was prepared to contend with the hundred of muggleborns returning to their homes restricted from performing any magic outside school for fear of exposing the wizarding world.
All of it routine… and yet, the tension was palpable.
Because the Minister himself was prowling through the hallways again.
Cornelius Fudge, hat askew, sweat beading beneath his round spectacles, had spent the better part of the month "inspecting" departments that had run fine without him for years.
Each visit left chaos in his wake.
He'd demand files, question staff about Dumbledore's "influence," and then depart with promises of "reform" that filled even seasoned Aurors with dread.
Dumbledore had been untouchable for decades—a force as constant as the Ministry itself.
But now, in light of the recent news spread via the daily prophet along with reports coming from hogwarts along with the death of a ministry auror whilst a teacher there, had given fuel to Fudge to resist Dumbledore and his 'attempts' to control the ministry.
The seeds of paranoia had taken root, and Cornelius Fudge watered them daily.
"Half the public sees him as a saint!" Fudge ranted in his office to a trembling undersecretary. "And saints are dangerous, Delores. Saints make people forget their governments."
"Yes, Minister," Delores said weakly. "Quite right, Minister."
It might have gone on this way—petty power struggles, with only minor plays being made by one side or the other, at least until that letter arrived simultaneously in multiple departments.
A sealed parchment, plain and unsigned, had arrived that morning by Ministry owl.
It was addressed directly to the Office of Magical Law, stamped with a single line of text:
"Appeal for Convicted Felon."
This letter would have found its way into the fireplace in a flash if not for the fact that minutes after it was, a knock resounded on the ministers door, and after checking Amelia Bones, head of the Magical Law Enforcement Department stormed in demanding a word on the letter received.
It was at this moment Fugde realized that the letter was not sent solely to him, it was sent to ever single member of the Wizenagmot.
Snatching the paper from Amelia's hand Cornelius looked over the contents which were relatively simple.
In light of recently uncovered evidence a re-trial was requested for wrongly convicted felon Sirus Black.
The request should have been absurd.
Sirius Black was one of the most infamous prisoners in wizarding history, locked in Azkaban without mercy or question.
His name was synonymous with betrayal—the man who had delivered the Potters to Voldemort himself or so the public was led to believe.
The request should have gone straight into the bin just as Fudge had done.
Instead, it was routed through the proper channels, as protocol demanded.
And there, the rot was discovered.
There was no record of a trial.
No courtroom transcript.
No signatures from the Wizengamot.
No sentencing hearing.
Sirius Black had been sent to Azkaban without trial.
The discovery spread like Fiendfyre through the Ministry.
By noon, half the building was whispering about it; by two, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had launched a quiet internal audit.
By three, the Wizengamot's outer chamber was full of arguing officials and flustered clerks rifling through decades of archives.
At five, a trembling Senior archivist found the original arrest order.
Signed by Bartemius Crouch, Sr.
Stamped by the Ministry.
No court approval.
No hearing date.
No witnesses.
Just an arrest, before the accused was taken without struggle to Azkaban where he was locked up ever since.
~
That was when the Wizengamot convened.
The circular courtroom was lit by blue torches that cast long, skeletal shadows over the stone walls.
The air was thick with dust and old magic.
Madam Amelia Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, sat at the center dais, her monocle flashing as she read through the parchment again and again as though the words might change if she just glared hard enough.
"This cannot be right," she muttered. "No trial, no defense, no official record of testimony?"
"It's right enough," said Tiberius Ogden, one of the oldest members of the Wizengamot.
His beard twitched irritably.
"We all remember the time, Bones. It was war. Crouch was locking up Death Eaters by the dozen. Nobody questioned him then."
"Perhaps they should have," Amelia replied sharply.
Across the chamber, Lucius Malfoy leaned forward in his seat, elegant fingers steepled.
"And now we find that one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight was thrown into Azkaban like some half-blood street criminal. If this is true…" His gray eyes gleamed. "Then perhaps the Ministry has more to answer for than the Black family's disgrace."
The room stirred uneasily.
Even Dumbledore, seated silently near the edge of the dais, seemed older than usual.
His hands were folded, his expression grave.
"I was never given notice of his trial," he said quietly. "I assumed, as did most, that it had been carried out in my absence. I was wrong."
Dumbledore the primary actor in the fight on the light side, had all but abandoned one of his pieces due to his mistrust and the accusation against him alone.
Never thinking twice about the man's lack of struggle upon arrest or seeming acceptance of his sentance that was carried out.
The words carried more weight than thunder.
By nightfall, the decision was made.
The Wizengamot would authorize a proper trial.
Azkaban was ordered to release the prisoner under full Auror escort.
The Minister of Magic was not pleased.
Cornelius Fudge had nearly torn his hat in half when the news reached him.
"Do you realize what this will look like?" he shouted at Amelia Bones. "We've told the public for twelve years that Black was guilty! That he killed thirteen Muggles and betrayed the Potters! And now you want to say—what—that we forgot to try him?"
"I'm saying," Amelia replied evenly, "that justice cannot depend on convenience, and if the letter we all received is correct that rush to sentance him put away an innocent man while the real perpatrator roamed free all this time."
Fudge's face purpled.
"Justice is what the people believe it to be! Do you want riots? Dumbledore already thinks he runs this country, and now you're handing him a scandal!"
But the order had already been signed by the Wizengamot itself.
The machinery of law had been set into motion, and even the Minister couldn't halt it now.
The next morning, the world changed again.
The air above the North Sea was a dull gray when the Aurors' launch boat cut through the fog.
The rigid form of Azkaban loomed ahead, rising like broken teeth against the horizon.
The guards led them through the iron gates, through wards that hummed with old, cold power.
And there, behind enchanted bars, lay the wreck of a man who had once been Sirius Black.
Hair matted, eyes sunken, his face a map of madness and endurance.
He did not speak until they told him why they had come.
Then, for the first time in twelve years, Sirius Black laughed.
It was not a sane laugh.
But it was alive.
Ultimately he had lived out his life for the past twelve years honestly believing he deserved his fate.
But now, now someone or something was fighting on his behalf... but why?