Chapter Text
Remus stumbled through the floo into McGonagall’s living room covered in mud and grime from months of living with werewolves. It had taken almost a week for McGonagall’s message to reach him and he came back as soon as he could. That hadn’t meant that he didn’t hear things on his journey home. Things he wasn’t ready to believe.
She offered him a cup of tea. When he looks back years from now, he’ll wonder why it seemed an important detail to remember. Perhaps, it’s because in moments of trauma our brain desperately tries to cling to any fragment of normalcy. He had told her no and demanded to just know what happened. She had set down her own cup and, hands shaking, had told him the truth.
He stumbled into a chair as she explained that Lily and James’ secret keeper had betrayed them. That Voldemort had found them. That they had died protecting Harry, but their love had allowed him to live.
It felt like a part of him had died with them, like the grim reaper had reached into his chest and ripped out the pieces of him that had been moulded by James and Lily, like he was bleeding out every compliment they’d given him, every warm hug when he needed it, every gentle kiss goodbye from Lily on the cheek, or playful punch from James, it was all pooling in a pile at his feet.
McGonagall just looked at him and kept talking steady and slow. He wondered how she couldn’t see the blood. He wondered why she didn’t ask him why his heart was no longer inside his body, why she wasn’t screaming, why she wasn’t calling for a healer.
She explained that the Ministry now believed the war to be over, that in their death the Potters had managed to banish Voldemort. She tried to hide her own hesitancy to believe that he was truly gone. She told him that Sirius had been found among a dozen Muggle corpses and with the finger of Peter, who was believed to be dead. That he’d been arrested and charged with murder. That he was to be sent to Azkaban for life without a trial.
She only stopped talking when he started to cry and she left him alone for a bit, understanding that sometimes when we are drowning having someone nearby and knowing they can’t rescue us only makes things worse. So, she stood in the kitchen instead and pretended she didn’t hear Remus breaking. She set herself busy making more tea even though Remus said he didn’t want any and tried to not think about the bright young redhead, who had wandered into her classroom so determined to learn, using everything McGonagall had taught her to protect her son and having it not be enough. Tired not to think about the brave young boy with glasses and unruly hair, who was one of the best Quidditch players she’d ever seen, sprinting down the stairs so consumed with protecting his family that he’d left his wand behind. Tried not to think of the rebellious, snarky boy, who she used to give biscuits to in her office when he came back from break bruised and beaten, now rotting in a cell in Azkaban. Tried not to think of the unseeming mousy-haired boy, who had once wrapped McGonagall in a hug while telling his friends to flee the scene of a prank, betraying them all and leaving a bloodbath in his wake.
As she stood there, trying not to think that maybe if she’d taught them differently, they’d be somewhere else instead of here, she hoped that Remus would come to the same conclusion that she had. The understanding that Sirius never would have betrayed his family, that the evidence didn’t line up, but that Peter, Peter who had always been so desperate to be seen, to be wanted, was the only one who could have made such an irreversible mistake.
When it sounded like Remus’ tears had subsided for now, she made her way back into the living room and set the tea she’d prepared beside him. Remus smiled gently as he realized she’d made it just the way he liked it. Glad that this one tiny thing hadn’t changed.
“He didn’t do it,” Remus managed to say, though his voice came out hoarse and gargled like he was underwater.
“I know,” she told him, sitting down beside him and realizing for the first time how tired she was. “There’s only one person who could have.”
They sat in silence for a moment. The weight of their shared revelation hanging heavy in the air.
“He has to raise Harry,” Remus said, breaking the silence. “It’s what…” he paused, not ready to say their names out loud yet. Not ready to cement their death in reality in another way. “It’s what they would have wanted.”
“So, what do you propose we do?”
“We force a trial.”
Three weeks, countless newspaper interviews, sleepless nights, and slander campaigns later they had managed to pressure the Ministry into giving Sirius a trial, arguing that it was unjust to sentence anyone to a lifetime in a prison without a chance to speak for themselves, knowing that if Sirius could say the right things that when combined with the evidence they’d gathered, they’d be able to set him free.
Six months after the Ministry agreed to a trial, Remus walked into the courtroom and saw Sirius for the first time in over a year. He realized how much had changed in that time. Sirius looked older somehow, more sullen. Remus wondered if maybe that was what living around so much death did to you. That every time you lost someone who mattered to you, they took a piece of your life with them.
Sirius looked up from where he was sitting, chained, in the centre of the courtroom. His eyes met Remus’ and he seemed to straighten for a moment before turning his head away to gaze at the floor.
When asked, Sirius told his story, trying to explain it like it was happening to someone else and hoping that it would hurt less. It didn’t. He confirmed what Remus and McGonagall had suspected, that Peter had taken his role as secret keeper for the Potters and that Sirius had chased him down in a rage after arriving at Godric’s Hollow.
He listened as McGonagall was called forward to testify to his character and tried not to shrink under the warm, sympathetic grin he gave her. He never felt worthy of the kindness she gave him, not after the hell the Marauders had put her through. She probably spent more time dealing with the four of them than all of her other students combined.
After her came Remus, and Sirius listened with shame heavy in his heart as Remus spoke of Sirius as a friend, as someone he trusted, as a good person. He knew that he’d stopped being all of those things over a year ago, at James and Lily’s party when Remus and he had kissed, but it had been more than that. It had been the last time all four of them were together. The last time Sirius had seen Remus before today. He didn’t deserve Remus standing up for him after what he had done and yet, he was still here.
He was so wrapped up in his daydream that he almost missed the last thing that Remus was saying, “Sir, Sirius Black isn’t only an innocent man, he’s Harry Potter’s godfather. James and Lily gave their lives for the wizarding community,” he said, tripping over their names still. “They deserved more than how they died. They deserved to have a better life. Please, don’t deny their son that opportunity. We can never repay them for what they did for us, the very least we can do is honour the wish of who they wanted to care for their son.”
Whether it was Remus’ heartfelt testimonial, the lack of evidence against Sirius, or McGonagall stature as a well-respected witch, Sirius would never know, but as long as he lived he would never forget the sound of those two words being uttered by the judge: “Not guilty.” And for the first time since James and Lily’s death, Sirius felt alive again.