Part eleven

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After leaving Godric's Hollow, Sirius, overcome with grief and rage, tracked Pettigrew down, determined to kill him in vengeance. However, Pettigrew outwitted Black: confronted by Sirius on a city street, he shouted out that it was Sirius who betrayed the Potters and then created a huge explosion on the street with an extremely powerful explosive curse (likely the Blasting Curse), killing twelve Muggles in the process and enabling him to fake his own death and escape in his Animagus form, leaving a severed finger behind as evidence. The surviving Muggles who witnessed the event were pretty certain they saw Sirius murder their twelve companions and Pettigrew with the curse, and Fudge claimed to have seen Sirius laughing maniacally at the scene of the crime.[24]

Sirius was arrested by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and sentenced by Barty Crouch Snr to life imprisonment in Azkaban without a trial for thirteen counts of murder with the curse giving the information about the Potters' whereabouts which lead to their death and service to Lord Voldemort. The surviving Muggles were Obliviated and given an excuse by the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee that a gas leak occurred before they could remember who really cast the Blasting Curse. Pettigrew was unjustly awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class for his confrontation with Sirius, which, along with the finger that they recovered, were "posthumously" given to his mother. As time passed, due to misconceptions, many believed that Black drew his wand and killed Pettigrew before the other had a chance of even drawing. Even the other remaining Marauder, Remus, believed it was Sirius who betrayed their brotherhood.[24]

Sirius balck in azkaban pm
Sirius during his imprisonment in Azkaban
Marked as Prisoner ᛈᛉ390, Sirius was placed in solitary confinement at the mercy of the Azkaban guards, the Dementors. Driven to the brink of madness, he retained his sanity by focusing on his innocence, which he said in the Shrieking Shack was "more an obsession than a happy thought"; it could not be detected by the Dementors but still allowed him to maintain a sense of self and regain enough strength to transform into his Animagus form in his cell. Since Dementors have difficulty sensing the less complex emotions of animals, he was able to remain relatively unaffected by them. However, the Dementors evidently were not concerned about these apparent temporary disappearances since they thought it meant he was losing his mind like every other convict in their custody, including Bellatrix and some of her fellow Death Eaters.

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