A Mouse Triggers a Retrial of a Miscarriage of Justice

The moment Sirius Black heard from Dumbledore that Peter Pettigrew might not be dead, but had instead transformed into a rat and hidden beside Harry Potter, he immediately flew into a rage.

"No! He surrendered to Voldemort!"

"He was the one who got James and Lily killed!"

"He was the Secret-Keeper of the Fidelius Charm!"

"That filthy rat—why didn't he die in the explosion?"

"He deserves to die! He deserves to die!"

Seeing Sirius Black on the verge of despair, Dumbledore comforted him. "There is still time. Peter does not know that he has been exposed... Are you willing to come forward and identify him?"

Sirius gritted his teeth. "Of course. I'd love nothing more than to tear him to pieces!"

The reason he had surrendered without resistance back then was because he believed Peter was dead. Once his great vengeance had been fulfilled, Sirius wanted nothing more. He only wished to enter Azkaban and atone to his best friend James by tormenting himself.

If he had not presumptuously changed the Secret-Keeper, James and Lily would not have had their address exposed and drawn Voldemort to their door.

If the person who had come today had not been Dumbledore, if Sirius himself had discovered that Peter was alive, Sirius Black would have broken out of Azkaban without hesitation, stormed Hogwarts, and torn Peter to pieces with his own hands.

Dumbledore soothed Sirius Black's emotions. "Leave everything to me. Peter will pay for what he has done."

As Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Dumbledore had the power to clear Sirius Black's name. He believed that Cornelius Fudge, as Minister for Magic, would also support a retrial for Sirius Black, because it would help bolster his reputation.

The newly appointed Minister for Magic still needed Dumbledore's support in many areas. He was a politician through and through, and whenever faced with a choice, he would always pick the option most beneficial to himself.

Thus, the Ministry of Magic swiftly formed a special task force to reopen the bombing case. A squad of elite Aurors headed to Hogwarts overnight to detain and arrest Peter Pettigrew.

No matter how slippery Peter Pettigrew was, he could not escape the inescapable net woven by elite Aurors and Hogwarts professors. After being struck by a spell, the ugly, bald-furred rat transformed into a sleazy middle-aged man.

"Peter! It really is Peter Pettigrew!"

"He really isn't dead!"

"He's an illegal Animagus!"

"Incarcerous!" "Stupefy!"

With the headmaster and professors of Hogwarts as witnesses, the Aurors interrogated Peter Pettigrew on the spot.

A Potions professor who preferred to do good deeds anonymously generously provided a bottle of exceptionally effective and exceptionally foul-tasting Veritaserum, prying open the door to the interrogation.

Given Peter Pettigrew's cowardly, death-fearing nature, his will was utterly incapable of resisting the effects of such potent Veritaserum. On top of that, the anonymous Potions professor's methods and skill were truly superb. In his daze, Peter spilled every last one of his dirty secrets.

He was the traitor. He was the one who leaked the secret. He was also the one who faked his death and escaped after blowing up the street.

The Aurors also questioned Peter about whether the Weasley Family had sheltered or protected him. After receiving a negative answer, the suspicion hanging over the Weasley Family was cleared.

Whether those confessions could serve as evidence in court did not matter. What mattered was that Dumbledore now knew the full course of events and knew who the truly despicable traitor was.

It was true that Dumbledore cared little for fame or profit, but he had a temper too. Moreover, his prestige and influence in the wizarding world were beyond imagination. If he wanted to, he could even become the leader of the International Confederation of Wizards.

But this centenarian preferred teaching children at Hogwarts and protecting the castle he had guarded for decades.

Perhaps this was Dumbledore's form of self-imprisonment—because across the Channel, there was another person like him, confining himself within another cold and gloomy castle.

Before long, the wrongfully imprisoned Sirius Black was released, while Peter Pettigrew, burdened with countless crimes, was sentenced by furious members of the jury to the harshest punishment: the Dementor's Kiss.

However, Britain was a place that produced no shortage of saintly do-gooders, and the wizarding world had its share of them as well.

Some wizards believed that the Dementor's Kiss was too severe. They wrote to the Ministry of Magic, demanding that Peter Pettigrew's sentence be reduced to life imprisonment in Azkaban.

The moment such arguments emerged, a series of sponsored articles appeared in the Daily Prophet.

Some laid out Peter Pettigrew's baseness and crimes in meticulous detail. Some declared that killing such scum among wizards was the only way to appease public outrage. Others directly slapped labels on people, claiming that anyone calling for leniency for Peter was a remnant of the Death Eaters...

Another sponsored article was written from Harry Potter's perspective. An innocent child had lost his parents because of a vile traitor and had spent more than a decade as a lonely orphan.

The only person who could manipulate public opinion with such mastery was someone who had once served as an Eastern minor official in a previous life. Naturally, the money for those sponsored articles was provided by the wealthy and generous Savior, Harry.

After learning that he had a godfather, Harry paid especially close attention to the case. When he heard that Peter Pettigrew, the chief culprit behind his parents' deaths, had been sentenced to the Dementor's Kiss, he happily downed three bottles of kvass in a row.

Yet his good mood did not last long. Harry soon saw the absurd remarks of those compassionate people in the Daily Prophet, and they made his liver ache with anger for an entire afternoon.

In the end, Harry sought out his dubious strategist, Zhang San, for tactical guidance. With a sweep of his pen, Zhang San drew up a three-step strategy for Harry:

First, seize the high ground in both public opinion and morality, exposing the hypocritical facade of those who claimed to stand for justice;

Second, write an open letter expressing support for Minister Fudge's wise leadership, praising the Ministry of Magic for flourishing under his guidance, and use the Savior's reputation to endorse him;

Third, secretly write to Fudge and make Harry's position clear: Peter Pettigrew had to die.

Zhang San stated that once these three blows landed, no one in the wizarding world would be able to protect Fudge.

Cornelius Fudge had only just taken office. If he could win the support of the wizarding world's Savior, he would certainly be willing to casually crush an insignificant little rat.

He had already reaped enough benefits from the "Black Miscarriage of Justice":

He was the one who had taken the lead in defending the authority of magical law—Sirius had been imprisoned without trial, so a retrial had legal legitimacy;

He had acted decisively to initiate the retrial process, striving to ensure that no villain was spared and no innocent person was wronged;

Furthermore, he had earned the goodwill and support of Dumbledore and Harry Potter, while also taking the opportunity to win over the Weasley Family.

When Ron learned of this, he went numb. He truly could not accept that his pet was a sleazy middle-aged man... He felt like his whole world had fallen apart.

Percy the Third was thoroughly disgusted too, because Scabbers was a secondhand pet only "adopted" by Ron this year. Percy had been Scabbers's previous owner.

Ron had kept Scabbers for less than a month, but poor Percy... heartbroken, devastated!

After this incident, Headmaster Dumbledore decided to impose stricter supervision on the pets students brought to Hogwarts.

Every pet had to undergo spell-based testing to verify its true species before being allowed into the school. Animagi were simply too troublesome—wizards could not tell with the naked eye which animals had been transformed from humans and could only rely on Revealing Spells to identify them.

Of course, Zhang San, as a ghost cultivator, could also help determine whether a pet met the requirements. Human souls and animal souls were fundamentally different, so no Animagus could hide from his eyes.

Animagi transformed their bodies, but Zhang San saw souls.

A perfect professional match.