The Shadows Solace Book I: The Growing Years Prequel

Chapter IX: The First Pictured Appearances

The article very first article that Rita and Nyla had put together; it caused quite a stir among the populace of witches and wizards; mostly due to how huge it was and how it had to be divided into several sections to fit in one issue. The people had become eager and hungry for more afterwards. To see of the highly gifted Potter heir and his miraculous powers, as much as it had caused unrest with the Ministry of Magic.

Unrest that crept in among more than several departments; the unease of what might have been allowed to transpire ran rampant from one person to the next with nary a chance for others to really investigate. The most unrest sat within the Law Enforcement offices and the office of the Minister most prominently.

Several high-rank aurors underneath the Minister personally; they had shown up at Potter Manor unannounced...mere days after the publishing of the article. To question Petunia about her theories regarding the innocence of one Sirius Orion Black. Adriana and Petunia had found it surprising that the Minister was interested in this at all; believing that she would have felt relief at his incarceration, until the aurors told them that Minister Bagnold herself had her own suspicions about it too.

But she hadn't had enough time to look into the matter with everything that had piled up in the aftermath of the war's end. They said that she felt it wasn't an excuse, but it was all she had to offer in her defense.

Petunia then cautiously held her ground as she told them all of what she knew from what she'd been told of the happenings before the events or all of what she had pieced together where cracks were formed, and all of what she theorized based on the evidence that was overlooked at the time of the Black Heir's imprisonment.

Harry's constant looking around for something called 'Padfoot' seemed to sucker punch the aurors with ill at ease in their bodies. Sirius had been one of them; as had James before the tragedy, and it had been like a shock to the system to think one of their own had betrayed another.

Throughout the questioning, it had become clear to all three of them that Black might indeed be innocent of the crimes he had supposedly committed. Clear that their department may have acted too hastily and assumed too much. That they had, in fact, allowed the true traitor to escape from justice. The aurors had tested the blood-bond on the child with permission from Petunia; and adding fuel to the fire for complications, it proved positive just as the story they wove had.

Harry also was not suffering immense pain from it being severed, so they had more reasons to suspect the innocence.

Tom was remaining quiet to all the proceedings and marveling at how Harry seemed to interpret what was happening. The child was far more perceptive than most his age would ever be, and he was glad the aurors had not dug deeply into searching for bonds on the child; there was no telling what they would find if they had, and he could ill afford to be exposed to them now.

Petunia was ever-watchful of her nephew, and her presence had kept the aurors in-check while casting magic about and on her charge.

Even when, for all intents and purposes, everyone there knew that she couldn't have stopped the aurors if they had gone overboard or out-of-bounds. Adriana could have only stepped in if they had caused Harry to experience pain in some manner; her oath and her vows as a healer preventing her otherwise from magic use for combat or even restraining.

It was after all this was found out and several days later, that the wizarding community learned that their own Minister Bagnold had more insight to what some others had wanted from the incarceration of Black. Minister Bagnold; she had once counted Albus Dumbledore among her staunchest allies, but she had learned early on that Albus suspected Black as the betrayer.

She admitted freely in a released press statement that she did not know for sure if he truly suspected Black, or if he had simply acted as if he knew he was the one in order to regain control over a situation he saw as spiraling out of his grasp. She freely spoke now that she had suspected that he had wanted Black out of the influence range of his godson, disregarding the consequences to the child because of the blood-bond; removed from his life potentially for good, due to his familial ties to those in the darker sector.