the valerian in your thoughts

chapter fifteen

4th year

Summer 1992

Callie's father called her in his office on a warm afternoon during her well-deserved summer break, in which she now was separated from her new friends. Callie herself wouldn't like to admit that she was relieved to have some Slytherins by her side now, because it was well-known what effects friendship could have on one's ability of judgement, but at the same time, she couldn't deny the feeling of comfort they gave her. Olivier Michon didn't mind it though; he himself thought of his daughter of being too strict with herself and saw is as a disadvantage to always shut herself off whenever it came to other students. As he has been a Slytherin in his school years as well, he was sure that they would take care of one of their own.

On that day, Callie felt uneasy as she walked along the wide left corridor that led to both her parents' offices, because as far as she was concerned, she wasn't capable of remembering anything she had done to upset her father in the past few weeks. And normally that was the only case she was allowed to enter this part of the mansion.

When she knocked on the large, wooden door with the same round arch that was on the opposite side of the corridor, where Callie was sure her mother was now in to work on the prophet's next issue, she already heard her father's deep voice in it.

He was talkingt to somebody.

Who could possibly have his permission to even set foot in his precious working space? Surely no coworker of his; they always settled business in the Ministry.

Indeed, her father was not alone when she finally entered after a long breath and to her surprise, she immediately recognized the person in a brown-grey, dirty coat, and her heart seemed to stop.

'Sirius Black.'

The man with long, brown curls and a rather untamed beard compared to her father's was sitting in one of his chairs in front of his large table. Olivier Michon had already expected to see a surprised, and rather cautious reaction when spotting an, officially called, mass murderer in her own home.

'Callie, dear, sit down.'

She followed his hand sign to position herself next to Black, scooting all to her left. The man did not blame her; after all, Callie still didn't know about Sirius' background. Her father began to talk again,

'I see you are concerned, darling. How could I blame you? I am sure you have heard about Sirius' persecution all of last year and the Ministry's belief to find a mass murderer, but they are as much in the dark as you are, my dear.'

He sighed, exchanging a short glance with Black, who had his head low.

'It pains your mother that with every publishment about this man, more lies are being spread without her control.', her father carried on, 'But even our family can't do more than providing a safe space for an innocently sentenced man.'

He paused to switch his look between his daughter and Sirius Black, whose similarity to his brother was spookily evident and continued,

'When I attended Hogwarts, one of my friends was Regulus Black; I have told you many stories about him before and also described the pain it caused me to hear about his death years ago. It is our family's obligation to help his brother in this rather difficult situation. Sirius Black has neither betrayed the Potters nor murdered Peter Pettigrew. Whatever the media has told us had always been a lie...'

He then continued to tell Callie everything she needed to know. Sirius Black had been one of the three best friends of Harry Potter's father, James Potter. On the night they were killed by Voldemort, Black had been accused of having given him their location, betraying them. In reality, it had been one of the other three, Peter Pettigrew. Twelve years, he had spent in Azkaban for a crime never committed by him. And he was also Potter's godfather.