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Chapter 1: The Trial

 *Edited*

 Sirius Black slumped against the brick wall of his concrete cell, reading the Daily Prophet. He was staring at a moving photo of two young wizards accompanied by a young witch, all were waving towards him. For hours he looked at the boy in the middle, with round glasses and hair that stuck up at the back. He looked so much like James, but the picture didn't show his bright green eyes that Sirius still had the memory of from all those years ago, when he gave the child to Hagrid. The headline 'The Boy Who Lived Strikes Again' stood out in bold and under it was a full page article about how the boy defeated his teacher who was possessed by you-know-who, with help from his two best friends of course. Sirius had read and reread the article so many times that he felt he could recite it in his sleep, but only now did the most important thing pop out.

The boy next to Harry, whose name was Ron Weasley, as the article said, had his pet rat on his shoulder, which hadn't struck Sirius as unusual at first. But the more he looked at the picture, the more he thought it looked like a rat he'd seen before, he was just trying to figure out where.He was still staring at the rat a week later, when the minister arrived to see a prisoner. The minister didn't faze him now, he comes every week or two to sign the paper work for someone to receive the Dementors kiss.

Sirius had woken early that morning, although he wasn't actually to sure he had been sleeping in the first place. He still couldn't work out where he had seen the mouse before. But then at 8:13 precisely, the penny dropped. This whole time he had only been looking at the colours of the rat, but he figured a lot of rats had the same colouring. And then he turned ice cold, and looked at the animals front paws. An outsider wouldn't have even cared to look, but Sirius knew better, because instead of five fingers on each paw, one of the front paws only held four, just like someone who used to be a friend of Sirius', before he betrayed his best friend to a murderer. Peter Pettigrew was alive, and incredibly close to Harry Potter.

As the minister strolled past Sirius' cell, Sirius decided that he was the only one that could do anything. "Minister! Minister, listen! He's in danger! Harry Potter is in danger!" That caused the minister to turn on his heel towards Sirius.

"Are you threatening him, Black?" The minister snared.

"No minister, look!" He pushed the article through the bars.

"He's in no danger, he defeated you-know-who!"

 "No, look at the rat! He's missing a finger! Peter Pettigrew never died, he cut off his own finger at shot the curse from behind his back to kill all the muggles, the turned into a mouse and ran. He's an animagus, so am I, and so was James." He tried to explain.

"That's a nice story Black, but there's a problem with it. All animagus are registered in the ministry, we would know." Sirius shook his head at this.

"We're unregistered, we have been since we were fifth years. Watch." He held up a finger to the minister, signalling for him to wait. He transformed into a great big dog and the minister gasped. He quickly turned back."Yeah, Peter can do that too, but he turns into a rat, that rat is owned by the Weasley family. Harry is very close to the Weasleys, their youngest son is his best friend." The minister looked flabbergasted.

 "I think you should come with me, Black." He unlocked the cell and made sure Sirius was properly chained at the wrists and ankles so he couldn't escape, and pushed him along by the shoulder. "You are going to a court room instantly, we will have you take Veratiserum. If what you say is true, you will be released and Pettigrew captured. If you're lying, you will go back in Azkaban." The minister finalised. Sirius smiled with relief, he couldn't live with himself if he just let Peter be that close to Harry. As his godfather, it's his job to protect him. As hard as that is to do in Azkaban, he finally could do something worthwhile.