The Mysterious Case of Sirius Black

.Five.

It had been a month since Rose and Martin had arrived at Hogwarts. Black had been sighted near Dufftown, but it was to no avail. A few hundred Witch Watchers were deployed in the area, but nobody could find Black.

The first two weeks were spent interviewing professors, ghosts, and house elves. Martin had even gone as far as finding out whoever was in Hogwarts at the same time as Black and reaching out to them via owl. Most people did not respond but the people who did seemed to have the same response as the people occupying Hogwarts Castle. The evidence board which was cluttered with notes seemed to represent this well.

Sirius Black was very popular along with his three friends James Potter, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. 

Black had a nasty temper.

Black hated Slytherins and anything to do with blood purity. 

Black ran away from his pureblood supremacist family at age 16 to live with James Potter. 

Rose sat atop her desk, staring at the evidence board in annoyance. Nothing seemed to make sense to her. Why would Sirius Black betray and ultimately lead to the death of his best friend. The man who took him in. Everything suggested that he didn't do it, but she knew better. Where was Pettigrew's body if he didn't really kill him? That question was swirling through her mind.

It was the fact that all that was left of the man's body was a measly finger that caused her to pull evidence from the Godric's Hollow Massacre of 1981 case file. To Rose, nothing sat very well with her about that case. Bartemious Crouch had foolishly imprisoned as many suspected death eaters as possible, not bothering to put any of them on trial. The Ministry had wanted to fix the damage Voldemort had done to the wizarding community and believed that premature imprisonment was the way to solve their problems. 

She had asked Martin a few days ago to ask his friend from the evidence locker to send over the evidence from that case. It was there that the expedited evidence pass benefitted them. Instead of having to wait a month to get clearance, they immediately had it. All they had to do was wait for the box to arrive at the Castle.

"Martin, is that it?" Rose asked as the man stood up. Something had caught his eye, causing him to move towards the window. Prior to that, his hands were gripping his head as he moaned about how this was the most stressful case he had ever worked on.

An owl flew into the room from the now open window, carrying a brown cardboard box. 

"Yeah, I think this is it. Jisoo from evidence sent it over as quick as she could," Her partner answered, "Why do you want them though? Godric's Hollow was such a long time ago." He gave the owl a few treats, rubbing its head gently, before taking the box over to his desk. He used his wand to gently open the box.

Of course, none of the pieces of evidence inside the box were from the original case. They were merely exact replicas. It would be considered unsafe to have the exact pieces out and shipped to anyone who wanted it. The main priority of the people working at the evidence locker was to prevent any mishaps from happening and this was their way of ensuring no tampering was done. 

"I just want to see something about the explosion," she mumbled in response, pulling out the files, "Black was said to have caused Pettigrew to blow up, leaving-"

"Only a finger," Martin finished for her, glancing at the files, "But that doesn't make any sense. Looking at the photos, logically there should be a lot more blood and guts everywhere." Rose nodded, examining the photos. The one that stood out the most was the giant crater in the ground. It was clear that the sewage system was exposed and rubble was everywhere. The only cause of this could have been the reductor curse, Rose concluded.  

She began hanging the photos on the board in a whole new section. Pictures of mangled bodies and bloodied streets filled most of it, however the closer the photos got to where Black and Pettigrew were suspected to be standing, the less blood there was. In one photograph, Black was pictured being apprehended by a young Cornelius Fudge. There was little to no blood on his body.

"I think there's something suspicious about this case," Rose began, "According to the report, Cornelius Fudge says that a heap of bloodstained robes and a few fragments was all that was left of Pettigrew's body besides his finger. However, we never see those fragments in any pictures. And it was never confirmed that any other body parts beside the finger were Pettigrew's. Black's clothes in this picture are also extremely clean. There's only a little bit of blood on them. If Pettigrew did explode, there would be much more blood in the area. What we can see, is all the other destroyed bodies. But Pettigrew's basically disintegrated, which doesn't make any sense to me. It isn't consistent at all. Even the Killing curse wouldn't cause his body to disintegrate."

"And the difference between the explosions is- wow. It's completely different. With this muggle's body, it was completely torn up, but it was still mainly in one piece," Martin said speculatively. Rose nodded in agreement.

"The explosion was clearly pointed towards a crater in the ground, clear in the photo which is revealing the sewer, which begs the question how did Black aim in that direction if he was facing Pettigrew the whole time," she said curiously. Rose turned to her partner, whose face seemed to pale as he looked at something at the center of the board.

"What's that?" she asked, looking at the photograph, "Pettigrew's finger?" The photograph captured the bloody finger of Peter Pettigrew, cleanly separated from the man's body. 

"Doesn't it look too," he trailed off for a moment before coming back to focus, "precise! This is way too precise to have been blown off!" Rose looked at him with wide eyes.

"Martin if you're suggesting what I think you're suggesting," she said hesitantly. He grabbed her hands, an intense look filling his face.

"I know it seems crazy but we can see it all here. Look at how this finger was cut and tell me that wasn't the diffindo charm," he said seriously. She looked back down at it and felt herself become sweaty. Her heart began to pound as she started to face the facts and it hit her. Black loved the Potters like they were his blood family. He was Harry's godfather. Black historically hated blood purists. The blast was behind Black. The finger was cut too precise. Nothing remained of Pettigrew's body. 

Sirius Black did not murder Peter Pettigrew. 

"I need air, I need air now," she gasped, running towards a window. Throwing it open, she gasped heavily, trying to get fresh air circling in her body. Martin stood next to her, trying to breathe as calmly as possible. 

"Pettigrew's the one who betrayed them," he said confidently, "Think about it. Black had no motive to kill him. But like Rosmerta said, Pettigrew was always trailing behind them. He probably got sick of being the fourth wheel and decided to help kill Potter while framing Black."

"They arrested the wrong guy," Rose murmured.