Betrayal of the Best Kind
Love
By Draco664
Love
Harry wordlessly passed Cho's letter to his godfather. Sirius took it and quietly read. He looked up and stared into Harry's emerald eyes.
"What do you want to do?" he asked his godson.
Harry looked down at his feet. "I don't know. I, I had feelings for her. Deep feelings. I remember. I don't remember the feelings, but I remember having them. I honestly thought I loved her. But during my ten months in hell, I spent the entire time forcing myself to remember the look of loathing she gave me at the trial. That made me feel, I don't know, dirty? violated? Sirius, I don't know the words to describe what I felt. All I know is that bringing those memories to mind when the dementors were around protected my sanity.
"Now, looking at that letter, I'm starting to get scared that I didn't succeed."
Silently, Sirius collected Harry in his arms. The two of them stood there holding each other tightly.
Harry was the one to break the embrace. "I just don't feel anything Sirius. Nothing! When I thought of her touch, it used to give me goosebumps. Now, I'm not even sure it ever happened."
With a burst of anger, Harry spun and kicked over the table. "I'm half a man, Sirius! " he yelled. "I can't feel what I'm supposed to feel. All because some bastard decided to frame me for murder. Why? What the hell does it prove? That they can?"
Sirius didn't even blink. "Keep going."
Harry spun and looked at his godfather incredulously. "What?"
"Keep going. You might be on to something."
Harry frowned. "OK. Why frame me. To humiliate me? To get me out of the way? Did what they planned to happen actually happen? I don't know Sirius. They broke me. I can't feel anything but anger and hate. In Azkaban, that was good. But not now. Not now."
"What if they wanted to break you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Severus and I have been spying on Voldemort's new recruits. They are planning an assault on Azkaban, to release the Death Eaters there, and to offer the dementors the chance to join them. What if Voldemort wanted to have you there, so he could just walk in and pick you up?"
"Snape is spying on them? Isn't that too dangerous?"
Sirius shook his head. "Not as a Death Eater, Harry. He knows the methods of communication they use, where they meet, how they recruit people. With that information, we can keep an eye on who joins, and keep track of how many he commands."
Harry thought on this. "When is the assault to take place?"
"No idea. We don't have an ear in the inner circle."
Harry slumped down to the floor, sitting cross-legged. "Wonderful. Either he is trying to recruit me, capture me, or kill me. I don't know which is worse. Mind you, I don't know which is best either."
"If we can get your name cleared, the Ministry will probably want you to try and infiltrate the bastards."
Harry looked up at him. "The very people who wouldn't listen to me in the trial, would want me to fix things for them?"
"No Harry. To fix things for everyone."
Harry looked over at the inverted table, the transcripts now littering the floor. "Sorry about the mess."
Sirius looked around at the interior of the Shrieking Shack; at the rotting floorboards, the collapsed roof, and the boarded windows. Not one piece of furniture was fully intact. "No problem, just don't make a habit out of it. The neighbors wouldn't want this place to become a dump."
Harry started chuckling. It felt good. He laughed harder, and louder. Banishing the troubles of the past year. Clutching his sides, he rolled on the floor, tears streaming.
Sirius smiled and breathed a big sigh of relief. He started laughing himself.
After several minutes of soul cleansing laughter, Harry sat up, wiping his eyes. Occasional giggles escaped him as he composed himself. He got to his feet, and righted the table. Tearing a scrap of parchment, he started composing a letter to Cho, hoping it would help him feel again.
Dear Cho,
I cannot tell you what I need to say. I simply do not know the words to describe how I feel. I doubt I'll know what to say until I see you.
I do want to see you. Please meet me at the lighthouse on the cliff, northwest from Hogsmeade. I will be there this Friday evening, at eight pm.
Harry.
Harry looked over to his godfather. "Has Hedwig visited you recently?"
Hermione sat at the Gryffindor table eating her breakfast. Ron was yet to make an appearance. That boy was infuriating sometimes. They had had another argument last night before storming off to their respective dorms. It did not escape her notice that as she did the other Gryffindors in the tower started exchanging money.
Was her relationship with Ron just some big joke? Was everyone laughing at them? At her?
Things just hadn't been the same without Harry here. Hermione had tried to get copies of the statements that were used to convict him, but her request was denied by the ministry. Didn't matter really, when she was at the trial, the facts just seemed overwhelming. Harry killed Vincent, and tried to lie about it. Yes. Definately.
Mind you, Professor Pritchart's questioning style left a lot to be desired. The questions she asked were very specific, and didn't really help establish what had happened. She hadn't even asked the Malfoys what they had been doing together.
She sighed. This year had just been terrible. Her revision for her OWLs had suffered. Both with the help she was forcing Ron to accept, and with her own nagging suspicions about Harry's guilt.
Ron finally wandered in, yawning and scratching like a bear after winter. His hair stuck out all over the place, and he still had sleep in his eyes. Plonking himself down next to his girlfriend, he filled his plate and started shoveling scrambled eggs into his mouth with what looked like production line efficiency.
Hermione was irritated. His appearance and behavior would be good for a fifteen minute tirade at least. Yes, that would make her feel better.
She took a deep breath to begin chastising her boyfriend, when hundreds of owls swooped in delivering the morning's mail. A flash of white caught her attention. She let her breath out explosively when she recognised Hedwig, and watched as Harry's snowy owl dropped a letter on Cho's plate.
Hermione watched as Cho looked at it expressionless. Not that that was in any way unusual. No one had seen an expression on Cho's face for months. Hermione had tried a couple of times to talk to her, but to no avail. Hermione wryly thought that she would have got more warmth and reaction if she had spoken to an ice sculpture.
Cho looked at the letter as if wondering what it was. Eventually she picked it up and opened it. Must be a short letter, thought Hermione, as Cho stood up seconds later and walked calmly to the head table. Cho handed the scrap of parchment to Dumbledore, who read it quickly. Dumbledore looked up at Cho and nodded. He passed the note to Professor Pritchart, who in turn passed it to Snape.
All three stood up and started walking from the hall. As the Headmaster drew level with Hermione and Ron, he looked over, and, as if deciding something on the spot, beckoned them both to follow. Hermione elbowed Ron in the ribs, a little harder than was strictly necessary. ("Mmmmph! 'Mione!") After a brief spray of eggs, the pair followed.
It took Harry and Sirius until Friday afternoon to put all the transcripts back into something resembling order. Harry still had occasional violent mood swings, but they were becoming shorter and less intense. Since the burst of uncontrollable laughter, Harry had been focused, almost to the point of obsession, on his upcoming meeting with Cho.
"I'm going now, Sirius. I can't wait around any longer." Harry said.
Sirius looked up in surprise. "Harry, it's the middle of the afternoon. Waiting here, waiting there, what is the difference?"
His godson looked at him with those deep green eyes. Eyes that reminded Sirius so much of Lily.
"The difference between waiting in a small room and waiting in the 'free' open air." he said pointedly.
Sirius nodded. "Go. I'll get started on these. See if there is anything we can find from the testimonies."
A faint pop, and the magnificent phoenix spread its wings, and launched itself through the gap in the boarded window. Sirius shook his head at the tiny gap Harry could slip through. "Another phoenix trait, I guess." he muttered to himself. He turned back to the parchment stack, and began leafing through them.
It was nearly nightfall, when he suddenly leapt up, and charged to the fireplace. Throwing a pinch of powder in the fire, he yelled "Albus Dumbledore!"
Professor Snape strode impatiently around Dumbledore's office. The headmaster had just finished organising invisibility cloaks for everyone on the manhunt. Commandeering that many on such short notice should have been impossible, but Arthur Weasley was making a good interim Minister, and had cut through red tape with such effectiveness that even Dumbledore had been amazed.
With everyone kitted out, the pair were about to leave for the designated apparation point, when Sirius' head appeared in the fire.
"Albus! I need to meet you urgently!"
Dumbledore sighed. "Very well Snuffles, floo to my office in exactly thirty seconds." He then turned to professor Snape. "Severus, please give Victoria control of this operation. You are her second in command. I want Harry captured alive; unhurt if possible, but alive."
Snape looked at the headmaster. "You think Black may know that we have a trap for Harry? That he is trying to stop you from going?"
"It is possible, I will wait to hear what he has to say before I make a judgment."
Snape just nodded, and walked quickly from the office.
Dumbledore looked at the door, pondering the potion Professor's last words. With a green flash, Sirius stepped out of the fireplace, holding the sheaf of evidence Dumbledore had sent him previously.
Turning to face his visitor, Dumbledore gestured to a chair. "Sirius, please take a seat. I see by your stance that you have something of importance to discuss."
Sirius nodded with a grin. "Just proof that Harry is innocent."
Dumbledore immediately sat down at his desk. "Show me!" he said excitedly.
Sirius nodded again. "First of all, did you know that Fudge was so determined to get a conviction that he stacked the jury?"
"I didn't even notice who was in the jury, I was too busy trying to keep Harry from going to Azkaban."
Sirius snorted. "Good job, by the way."
Dumbledore glared at the fugitive. "Do you have anything relevant to say, other than conspiracy theories about the jury?"
"It's no theory. Look, Fudge has close ties with eight members of the jury that I could see. One is a nephew, one a cousin, one is a sister-in-law who used her maiden name on the register."
Dumbledore's anger faded. "Go on." he urged.
"Three are his main business associates, one is nothing less than his best friend from Hogwarts, and one is an undersecretary from his office."
Dumbledore could only shake his head.
"Albus, I wouldn't be surprised if the other four also knew him. If you stuck funny hats on the jury, Fudge could have been forgiven for thinking they were throwing him a surprise birthday party."
"Damning to the ex-minister though that may be, it doesn't help Harry." replied the headmaster.
Sirius spent the next quarter of an hour telling the increasingly intrigued headmaster about the excursion he and Harry had made to the scene of the murder, and how they determined that Harry had been struck from behind. "It is a scenario that fits both the physical evidence of only one stunning spell cast and Harry's story. It also explains why the ennervation charm couldn't wake him."
Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, excitement fading, the tips of his fingers lighly touching each other in front of his face. "That doesn't fit with the Crutiatus curse in Harry's story." he objected.
Sirius shrugged. "He did say never saw that spell cast. How hard would it be to pretend to be under the influence of that curse?"
The headmaster frowned. "Why would Ms. Chang pretend to be under the influence of that curse anyway? Forgetting the fact that all eyewitnesses state she was not at the scene."
Sirius smiled. "She wasn't there."
"Then Harry's story goes out the window."
"You've forgotten Barty Crouch, Jr already?"
Sirius watched in amusement as Dumbledore blushed. "Point taken."
Sirius pointed to a particular sheet. Professor Pritchart claims under veritaserum that Draco followed someone with long hair. Nothing else. No gender, height, shape, even hair colour. Harry assumed it was Cho, what if it was Lucius Malfoy?"
"Assuming Lucius took something from Ms. Chang to put in a poly-juice potion, who struck Harry from behind?"
"Lucius testifies to who was there. So does the attacker."
Dumbledore's heart skipped a beat as realisation sunk in.
"You really should screen your Defense against the Dark Arts teachers better." Sirius chided him with a grin. "I believe your record is three Death Eaters, a fraud and a werewolf in the last five years. No wonder no one wants the job. It invariably ruins all future prospects."
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