Serpent's Bloodline: Legacy of the Basilisk

Amelia Bones was searching through hundredth of files. Her whole office was full with them. Some of them had been read by her and discarded, others were still waiting to be read. She grumbled.

Nothing.

Three days of search in the archives and nothing. Not even a trace of a trail…

Again, Amelia growled and for a moment her eyes turned to the newspaper on her desk. The newspaper had been published three days ago.

Now, it was nearly buried beneath files. Just the second part of the offending article that had started Amelia's fanatic search through the ministry files was still in the open. It read:

Dear Mr. Twist,

I must tell you, you have been shocking me. I - like maybe a lot of other witches and wizards - was not aware about the law that states that evidence has to be found first. I had to look up my rights myself before I even could think of answering your questions.

It is truly a shame that there is no class in Hogwarts that tells the students their rights in society. I cannot even understand after I researched it why I never tried to be aware of my own rights until now - the only thing I can come up with is that there is no one who knows their rights and as such no one criticizes one if you yourself don't know…

As it is, I do think many other witches and wizards do know nothing about their own rights - like myself just a few days ago - and think because of that everything the Ministry states, is true. Now I suddenly start to doubt it myself.

I, of course, have never been in front of the Wizengamot to be tried. What if it is normal procedure to not even try to secure if you are guilty?!

So I, like every intelligent citizen would do, decided to look up other trials just to secure for myself that the Wizengamot normally is a fair institution.

Of course, the first name that came to my mind to look up was, like you have also mentioned, the mass murderer Sirius Black. He is after all the most known criminal in this day and age after his escape from Azkaban two years ago.

So I went to the ministry to look up his court script as well.

I was truly agitated when I finally was able to receive an answer to my question about the court script of Sirius Black. While getting the court script of Mr Potter just took me a few minutes, getting Black's took hours - and at the end I still left with empty hands and just a sentence wiser.

" There is no court script of Sirius Black's trial" I have been told. "As there was no trial to begin with."

Horrifying news, I know. I was shocked as well. So I looked up other trials.

My results are frightening and it pains me to say this: You are quite right, Mr. Twist, to worry. The most of the trial I looked into where held with just one witness to attest for their crimes. No Veritasserum. No shared memories. Just the plain word of one witness to sentence a person to a life of horror in Askaban…

And to send a person to Askaban - even someone whose crime is as famous as Mr. Black's - without a trial is truly appalling! I do not dare to think how many others whose trial I did not look into were tried with no evidence except of hear-say or put in prison without a trial.

The most horrible part in it, my dear Mr. Twist, is that as it stands it could happen to anyone. Every witch or wizard who is just near a crime scene could be accused and tried without being able to prevent it.

And they are not like Mr. Potter who is a famous light figure in our world - and who seems to know the law book like his own robe pocket.

Sadly it still stands, that the Ministry has the full control about who is tried with how much evidence.

So do hope that you will never be part in an investigation. You could wake up in Askaban just because you bought your milk at the wrong place to the wrong time.

Xenophilius Lovegood

Editor of The Quibbler

Amelia growled again. This could not be true! Could it? She sighed and returned to her search. She simply had to find those dammed papers about Sirius Black! Something like the papers about his imprisonment… or the interrogation by the Aurors…

Until now she had found nothing. Nothing at all and it worried her more than every other thing she had discovered in the years in the ministry…

Her eyes turned again to the files in her hands and with another grumble she returned to her search.

Why, oh why had there been so many Blacks?!

Amelia was sure that at the end of the day she would have learned to hate the name 'Black'.

"I hope this search is worth it" she sighed.

And when there truly was no evidence of anything about Sirius Black that would make his imprisonment legal - Amelia knew she would go to hell and back to ensure that the right thing was done in the end…

Even if she had to destroy the ministry stone by stone to reach her goal…

Barnabas Cuffe sat at his table in the office of the Daily Prophet and was sorting articles when someone knocked on his door.

"Come in!"

The door opened and a woman Barnabas had not seen since she had lost a letter to the Daily Prophet in Ottery St. Catchpole entered.

"Ah! Becky!" he greeted her happily. Rebecca Amorin gritted her teeth.

"It's Rebecca, Boss" she said stiffly.

"I know, I know, Becky, my dear" Barnabas said, still smiling. "So, my girl. What brings you to my humble office in the first place?"

The woman in the door stared at him as if he had lost his mind in the dumpster next door and then entered fully and closed the door behind her.

"Have you read the newest article in The Quibbler, Boss?" she asked.

"Which one? This interesting one about the Blue striped unicorns in America or the amazing description of the mating habits of Nargles?" Barnabas returned grinning.

Rebecca Amorin snorted.

"Neither and you know it, Boss."

Barnabas sighed at her words and stopped joking.

"I have" he simply said.

"And?"

"Nothing" he answered. "We gave away the first letter for a reason."

"But… we cannot do nothing! We are a newspaper! If this is true than it would be the most interesting story since…"

"No."

"So… you will just sit there, look out your window and pretend the article in The Quibbler does not exist?!"

"There is nothing I can do, Becky."

This time the woman growled.

"We. Are. A. Newspaper! We cannot do nothing!"

"So what do you want me to do?!" Barnabas hissed. "Should I just publish the article without caring what the ministry says?! They will punish us severly if I do. We need its aid. It has the most influence on our newspaper and we cannot simply turn away from them!"

"Then try to get others in our boat!"

"Of course. Let me write to the Malfoires and tell them: 'Hey, I don't know if you know but the English part of your family is using us to imprint their views in the rest of the population. Would you please talk to them and stop them?!' That's insa…"

"Genius" Rebecca interrupted.

"Excuse me?!"

"That's genius! You told me yourself that the French part of the Malfoy family have a large percentage of holdings! They can change everything!"

"You forget that they're Malfoys…"

"Then we just tell them that Lucius Malfoy declared himself the Lord of Malfoy. They will not be pleased. The Malfoys are after all a part of their family and should by all means not have a lord on its own. They definitely will not follow a part of their family that has acted without their lord's conscience."

"Maybe Lucius Malfoy is allowed to act for the lord in Britain" Barnabas said.

"Maybe. But if he isn't…"

"Becky…"

"Try it" the witch said. "If it goes wrong and the ministry is charging you, tell them it was me. I will take the fall if I must."

"But…" Barnabas stopped when he saw the glind in her eyes.

"Very well, I will" he finally said. "But don't get your hopes up, my dear…"

The answer was a smile before the witch left him so that he could write the letter.

Barnabas just sighed after the door closed. He had never considered…

"Well" he finally said, mentally saying good-bye to his job, office and freedom. "Even if it bites me in the ass - Becky's right. I have done nothing for too long…"

And Barnabas would take the fall if it went wrong. There was no way he would destroy Becky's carrier for something simple like a letter…

Albus Dumbledore meanwhile sat in his chair in the headmaster's office and stared at the article of Oliver Twist in The Quibbler.

He sighed.

Sixteen years of careful laid plans - and now a simple article could destroy them if it found its way in the wrong hands…

"Fudge would never let something like that be published in the Daily Prophet" Albus reminded himself. "There is no way for the article to create huge impact…"

But just its existence was troubling.

Albus Dumbledore sighed again. It was not really the content of the article that troubled him - not that he liked the prospect of a free Sirius Black - but the questions that had been asked. When this Oliver Twist would not stop soon…

Albus did not want to think about the consequences of a child criticizing their society. Of course there were many people that would not be pleased - but the words of a child, a teenage boy would lead to questions by the people themselves - and that someone, even if it was someone like Xeno Lovegood, did not fault the child for its views… troubling, indeed.

And then there was Sirius and Harry…

The article had not simply printed the letters. No, it had also printed the trial scripted itself - or parts of it, anyway. Albus was sure that there would be some interested ones that would hurry to the ministry to get a trial script themselves…

Normally, this would not have bothered Albus. But the trial had shown a Harry Potter Albus Dumbledore did not like to be known. Until now Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter had been seen as two parts of the same side. But now…

Now, Albus Dumbledore had done nothing to help his pupil to get of… It had been all Harry Potter himself. It showed independence on Harry's side and also an unwillingness to let Albus protect him. No, Albus did not like it one bit…

"And if I am right and it's truly Voldemort who is using Harry…" now, this impact Albus did not even dare to think about. No, he knew what to do. Somehow… somehow he had to stop this Oliver Twist fellow before he could create havoc in the wizarding world…

Now to the next problem: How to stop a phantom like Twist?!