Chapter 103 - 103- innocent’s story

Harry's POV

Knowing today was his beat chance for a private conversation with Sirius, Harry waited for an hour looking at the map in 5 minutes integrals, looking for the name in the hallways.

Now, while during the day the map's ability to show people's location isn't as useful as it sounds, as during the day the sheer number of people roaming around in the castle makes it almost impossible to locate the person you are looking for, at night, it becomes the ideal object to locate people who are at places they shouldn't be.

So, it shouldn't surprise anyone that in less than a minute the dog animagus showed up on the map Harry was on his way toward him.

Getting the fugitive into his room didn't go as he planed - stun, levitate, and grab, as apparently the dog seemed able to sense him even with the notice me not charm and able to make himself see through it.

So instead, he talked to Sirius as if he was talking to a real dog and took him to his room with a makeshift magical rope before stunning him in it and taking out the little potion he bought from Gringotts, as apparently the bank didn't mind using Veritaserum on people who are caught trying to steal from them.

Forcing the dog back to his human form with the 'Animagus reversal spell', Harry poured three drops of the truth serum into the man's mouth and used the the incarcerous charm before casting Rennervate.

Now, while trusting veritaserum, which isn't impossible to resist, isn't the best choice usually, with the man's unpreparedness, him being stunned and living twelve years in hell on earth, not to mention Harry's foreknowledge about the original story and hate for the Potters, Harry was willing to take his chances.

You see, veritaserum doesn't work as most magical people think, it doesn't force you to tell the truth like a robot, instead, it makes you unable to think of lies by supercharging the drinker's Hippocampus and slowing his prefrontal cortex so it would make it harder to lie.

The reason veritaserum isn't used in court is that with Occlumency and enough preparations, it is possible to make fake memories, therefor bypassing the veritaserum.

So by making sure he is unprepared, it is extremely unlikely he would manage to lie.

"Wha, what happened?" Sirius asked as he woke and started to struggle against His bindings.

"Please, mr. Black, don't struggle." Harry said and waited until the fugitive calmed down.

"What do you want?"

"The truth, of course, now, tell me, what exactly happened on the night of All Hallows' Eve 1981?"

"I was in a muggles' pub, as not only they have many more options in what to drink, and which lady to pick, they also didn't have the wretched feeling that seemed to be anywhere in the wizarding world, and while usually I would be with either Remus or Peter, as James was hidden, this night Peter said he had important mission from Dumbledore and Remus still wasn't feeling good from his transformation three days before.

So there I was, talking to a s.l.u.tty cat when a weird feeling washed over me, something like when a charm is being broken by sheer power, and then it was like a dam broke in my mind as the location of James and Lilly's house, along with the memories in it were flooding into my mind."

"So wait, you weren't the secret keeper?"

"No, Peter was."

"Okey, continue."

"So, knowing something is wrong I ran as fast as I can to my motorcycle before flying it to the Potter's house."

"Why didn't you Apparated?"

"By that point I was drunk and unable to do it without Splinching myself."

"As I arrived, I saw from the window that Dumbledore already there and that both James and Lily were up and holding you and Marcus respectively, yet, before I could do anything more then walk into the front lawn I was hit by a stunner."

"What happened when you woke up?"

"I was in a holding cell in the ministry and being told my trial is about to begin, not understanding what did I do I asked, just for the aurors stationed there to tell me that it is for being Voldemort's right hand man and the murder of Peter Pettigrew.

I tried telling them I didn't know what they were talking about but they didn't listen, no one ever did, in the holding cell, nor at the trial, not Lily, nor Dumbledore, hell, James and Remus didn't even came to talk to me.

In the end after all those years in Azkaban I almost started to believe it myself.

It was only when the minister gave me the newspaper with a picture of the Weasley family and I saw the rat on the young boy's shoulder that I knew wormtail is still alive and he left me stranded on that place to die, and worse, he betrayed your parents, so I broke free by changing into my dog form and starving myself till I was thin enough to slip through the bars and then took the boat of one of the few human guards and drove it the fastest I could."

"What are your plans?"

"I plan to catch wormtail and clean my name."

"So you took this risk and came to hogwarts instead of leaving Britain out at least Magical Britain just for the chance to clean your name?"

"Of course, and than after a few well deserved jinxes to several people who didn't came to my defense, everything would be alright again, I would have my friends again, Remus, Lily and James, and of course, a chance to get to truly know you, my godson."

The hopeful look on the man's face almost crumbled at the the disdainful look on his godson's face at the mention of his three friends.

"I see... " Harry said as he made Sirius drink the antidote. "well that's disappointing, maybe we will talk again after they let you down again but for now..." Harry said as he raised his wand.

"Obliviate"