Rita Skeeter POV
There are days in a journalist's career that shimmer like bottled lightning—days when history writes itself and all one must do is keep the quill steady.
Today was such a day.
The morning air over the Ministry of Magic was thick with nerves, the kind of electric anticipation that makes even the stone gargoyles on the atrium balconies look as though they're whispering about the scandal to come.
Rumor had reached every corner of wizarding Britain overnight: Sirius Black, convicted mass murderer and betrayer of the Boy Who Lived, was to be retried.
An emergency session of the Wizengamot, called at dawn, convened before the ink on the Prophet's morning edition had even dried.
I, Rita Skeeter, was the first reporter through the security wards.
Naturally.
As a sensationalist reporter this juicy piece of news practically had my name all over it.
The courtroom deep beneath the Ministry—Courtroom Ten, the old high chamber of the Wizengamot—had not seen this many cloaks since the first trials after the war.
The air itself felt heavier than normal, thick with the mingled scent of dust, damp stone, and dread.
Every seat along the high benches was filled: witches and wizards of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, minor family representatives, and the usual array of opportunists wearing power like perfume.
At the dais stood the Minister for Magic himself, Cornelius Fudge, playing judge in what he clearly hoped would be his redemption arc.
The poor man looked half-melted under the torchlight, his lime-green bowler hat clutched in white-knuckled hands.
"Order!" he barked before the first murmur could swell into a roar. "Order in the Wizengamot!"
No one listened.
When the iron doors at the back of the hall swung open, all conversation died at once.
The prisoner was brought in.
Two Aurors led him—Kingsley Shacklebolt and a young woman I did not recognize, both tense as wampus cats about to pounce.
Between them shuffled Sirius Black, gaunt as a corpse, his once-handsome face hollowed into a mask of shadow.
Shackles clanked at his wrists and ankles, runed with containment spells sealing away his magic.
His prison robes hung loose from a body that had long forgotten sunlight.
And behind them—oh, the Ministry will deny it later, but every witch and wizard in that room will remember—the Dementors came.
Two of them, gliding silently through the side doors like fog given form.
The temperature dropped instantly.
Breath misted in the air.
Thankfully i was using a quick quotes quill or my ink would have frozen in seconds.
Even the mighty Lucius Malfoy shuddered.
The chains on the central chair slithered to life as Black was seated.
They wrapped around his limbs, chest, and throat, locking with a series of metallic snaps until he was bound from shoulder to ankle.
He looked around then, eyes pale and too bright.
When they landed on Fudge, he laughed—a dry, rasping sound that scraped the silence raw.
"Good morning, Minister," he croaked. "Lovely of you to remember I exist."
A ripple of unease moved through the benches.
Fudge straightened, adjusting his bowler as though it might shield him from the weight of twelve years' guilt.
"You are here, Black, to hear testimony, and the revealing of uncovered evidence to be brought before the Wizengamot."
Black didn't reply to this he just listlessly drifted his head down, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
It was clear the energetic Black had been 'sucked' just a little by one of his dementor guards causing him to recoil inwards, but not faint outright from the attack on his soul.
At that, a stir from the gallery—Dumbledore had arrived, sweeping into his seat like an old storm cloud come to rest.
Even the Dementors seemed to recede slightly in his presence.
And seeing their prescense he silently cast a full body patronus to keep the dementors back while shielding everyone present from their aura.
But it was not Dumbledore's voice that carried next.
"Madam Bones, proceed," Fudge ordered, gesturing toward the woman seated opposite.
Amelia Bones rose, parchments in hand.
"For the record," she said crisply, "let it be noted that Sirius Orion Black was arrested on the twelfth of November, 1981, on charges of mass murder, conspiracy, and treason against the Ministry of Magic. From our initial investigation upon this inquiry, No trial was ever conducted. The defendant was sent directly to Azkaban by order of Bartemius Crouch, Sr., without legal representation or public record."
A murmur swept the room again.
No one liked to hear it spoken aloud—their collective shame made manifest.
Fudge banged his gavel.
"And now, the defense."
The entire hall turned as one.
The man who rose from the defense table was not one most recognized.
Young—no more than twenty perhaps—dark hair slicked neatly back, his robes unadorned but of fine make.
His eyes, though, carried a calm that silenced even the gossiping old purebloods.
"Adrian Arclight," he said with a polite bow. "Acting counsel on behalf of the Arcana Collective, representing the defense."
The name rippled through the chamber like a whispered curse.
Arcana.
That elusive individual who founded an institution of magical scholars and researchers that sought to bring about a technological revolution—respected by all, allied with none.
Their involvement lent the affair a strange, weighty gravitas.
Arcana was a name only know to the public for the last half decade as so, as a genius, one who had already reached presigious heights alongside Dumbledore for his repeated inventions and creations.
Fudge's mouth worked soundlessly for a moment before he cleared his throat.
"Yes, well, do get on with it."
Adrian inclined his head and turned to the court.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the Wizengamot," he began, voice calm but cutting, "for twelve years this man has languished in Azkaban without the courtesy of a trial. He was imprisoned not by proof but by assumption—an assumption born of fear and hysteria. Today, we will establish not only his innocence, but the Ministry's failure to uphold its own laws."
If Fudge turned any greener, he'd have matched his hat.
Adrian at first went through the standard information such as the origional arrest records where Sirius willingly turned himself in without a fight when the Aurors arrived.
But rather than see this as a sign of his compliance with their requests, it was seen as an admission of guilt.
And sure when he was fed verituserum, he indeed confessed that he 'felt' responsible for the potter betrayal, as well as the deaths of the muggles.
But just as Fudge felt vindicated.
Adrian carried on with his questioning instead.
Felt guilty was not the same as being guilty.
When questioned next directly on if he had betrayed the Potters.
"NO!" was sirius blacks response.
Then the questioning turned to who did if not him, he was the potters secret keeper after all.
Only to reveal he infact was not.
It was a double-blind.
At the last minute they switched, going from black who was a public figure, known to be Potters most trusted, and active frontline fighter in the war against the death eaters.
To one who easily hid in the shadows, a man who without making reason to draw attention could simply hide away for years never being noticed.