//------------------------------//
// Chapter 21:  Rita Skeeter RW 
// Story: The Girl who Didn't Just Live 
// by computerneek 
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“Why do you keep turning yourself into a girl!?” Lucius Malfoy demanded.
Silver sighed, having just put her necklace on as soon as they got home, after playing Draco to dismount the Hogwarts Express.  She’d carefully not mentioned her femininity at Hogwarts to him; he’d probably go crazy if he found out that she’d spent all of about an hour and a half as Draco up at the school- and that entirely consisting of the seconds it took to feminize her all-male wardrobe, roughly ten seconds each morning and evening.  All of the rest of the time, she’d been Silversong, complete with a girl’s dormitory assignment.
Not that she had used her own bed very often, despite it being a girl’s bed; she’d spent most nights cuddling with Hailey or Hermione- or, in one memorable instance at the end of the year, both of them at once.
“Because I am one,” she told him calmly, folding her arms.
Lucius glared at her, his fingers working by his side.  The summer before, he’d tried to stop her from putting it on after her birthday party…  only to find out that trying to stop her was a great way to get electrocuted.  She wasn’t sure why it used lightning for that, but it did- and she wasn’t complaining.  Once, she’d seen Lucius tell Dobby the House-Elf to stop her from putting it on- but Dobby had merely glanced in her direction, and promptly told Lucius that stopping her was physically impossible…  which hadn’t surprised her, considering its origins.
“You’re a boy,” Lucius declared.  “You’re my son, not some girl!”
Narcissa, who had been waiting in the entryway, winced.  “Lucius, please,” she pleaded.  “You’re-!”
“I am not having a son that plays at being a girl, Sissy!”
It was Silver’s turn to wince.  She wasn’t sure why, but hearing Lucius’ derogatory nickname for her mother felt more… wrong than it usually did, even if she found the rest of his statement amusingly accurate.  “Father,” she said.  “I am not a son playing at being a girl.  I am a girl- your daughter, who used to play at being a boy.  And Mother doesn’t like it when you call her that.”
Lucius nearly inflated with rage.  “You are a boy,” he hollered, reaching forward to take a fistful of her robes, “and my son, not some-!”
A sharp cracking noise stopped him, moments before Silver slapped his hand off her robes.  A shock of electricity seemed to connect their hands for a fraction of a second, but while Lucius lept backwards, howling in pain, she didn’t feel anything.  Well, except a strange surge of power through her body, but she didn’t think that had anything to do with it.  She put her hands on her hips, and gave him an evil smile.  “I heard a Royal snapped at you a month ago,” she intoned.
“A Royal?” Narcissa asked, turning to Lucius.  “What did you do?”
“He tried to get Dumbledore sacked by threatening the other members of the Board of Governors,” Silver supplied, still smiling.  “She told you to do something else too, didn’t she?”
“How do you know?” Lucius demanded.
She shrugged.  “Oh, she’s only one of my best friends,” she chuckled.  “As a matter of fact, she’s the one that gave me this necklace- and enchanted it.”  She raised her necklace to look at it.  “...  Huh, it’s broken.  I wonder when that happened?”  She mended it with a wave of her hand, getting the strange feeling that it was unenchanted, then looked up at Lucius.  “And if I remember right, she said she told you to do a third thing- to say something to me, did she not?”
He bared his teeth.  “I don’t have a daughter,” he snarled.
She shrugged.  “Then I guess I don’t have a father.  Whelp, a good thing I haven’t been using the family name then, isn’t it?”
“I am your father!” he hollered.  “And you are my son, not some girl!  Now take off that necklace!”
She sighed, sweeping the necklace off over her head.  She had a funny feeling that it’d be alright- and sure enough, she remained as a girl, despite performing the action that had turned her into a boy less than an hour before.  She dropped it on the floor next to her.  “Well?” she demanded.  “Do I look like a boy to you?”
For some reason, Narcissa had put her hands over her mouth and was backing against the wall in what looked like fear.
Then, quite suddenly, something popped into Silver’s mind.  Something she could do to Lucius, which would maybe help him understand…?  She wasn’t entirely sure how the Curse of Misidentity would do that, but she had a feeling that it would…  so, she did it.  Cast it, really- it felt like a spell, though she didn’t need a wand at all.
It didn’t seem to do anything.
“That was just an illusion!” Lucius snarled.  “Take off that necklace for real!” he demanded.
“I did,” she answered him darkly.  “It didn’t do anything because I am a girl.”
“You’re a boy-!”
Anything further that Lucius might have said was cut off by a very bright flash of light and a loud bang.
Moments later, Luciosa Malfoy, a young woman wearing a long dress, was standing exactly where Lucius had been, a look of utter shock written on her face.
Silver doubled over laughing.
A second later, Narcissa joined in, though she didn’t double over and her laugh was more of a snicker.





The Dursleys were a little bit late to the train station, judging by how Hailey was waiting on a bench outside the station when they drove up.  “Have a good term?” Petunia greeted.
“Yup, pretty good,” she agreed, lifting her trunk and carrying it to the trunk of the car, where Vernon then hoisted it in, having a much harder time lifting it than Hailey did.  Finally, Hailey returned to the bench- and what looked like a smaller version of her, who she’d been sitting next to.  “By the way, Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia- this is Angriana, and after a few certain…  events this year, she doesn’t have anywhere to live.  Do you think we could take her in?”
“Events?” Vernon asked.
She nodded.  “Yeah.  Events, which resulted in the destruction of the only place she’s ever called home.”  She scowled.  “Not that it was a very good place, in the very stone mouth of a very stone statue that stood in a very stone room underneath a very stone castle without so much as a bed to sleep on, but…”  She shrugged, and Angriana looked up to smile timidly, exposing bright yellow eyes.
“Sure,” Petunia agreed.  “We’d be happy to have you, Angriana.”





It wasn’t until dinner that Silver and Narcissa found out exactly what had happened with Luciosa.  She’d skipped lunch and hidden away in her study, so neither girl had seen her all day.
When she appeared in the door, her face a brilliant scarlet, neither Silver nor Narcissa could hold in their laughter.  Thanks to her knowledge of the curse, it was rather obvious to Silver exactly what she had done.
Any time Luciosa started trying to force someone into an identity that wasn’t theirs, such as trying to force her to be a boy, the Curse would force her into an identity that wasn’t hers in the same way, for exactly twenty-four hours.  To top it off, if she fought said false identity, it would make it stronger instead.
So, Luciosa stood in the entrance of the dining room, wearing a frilly, poofy ball gown and high heels, probably from trying to undress.  She was by far the curviest girl in the room, probably from trying to curse the curves off- and her hair was hanging just a few inches off the floor, probably from trying to cut it.
On top of that, her hair was a bright, gleaming silver with two royal blue stripes in it, making her look like a larger version of Silver.
At least, Silver knew, it would let her change into nightclothes…  or more accurately, when she went to go to bed, the dress would transform into nightclothes.
“How am I supposed to use the bathroom in…  this?” Luciosa asked.
Narcissa stifled her laughter.  “Y-You haven’t used the bathroom?”
Luciosa averted her eyes, blushing even more furiously.  “I did,” she muttered.  “Then…  it got bigger.”
Silver stifled her laughter as well.  “I know a lot of muggles, when they have insane wedding dresses, either don’t, or have someone to help.”
There was a pause.
“Shall we have dinner?” Narcissa asked.





After dinner, and after having Narcissa help her with the bathroom real quick, Luciosa vanished straight back into her study.
Narcissa, meanwhile, joined Silver in the lounge.
Silver looked up from where she was lying on the couch.  “Hi Mom,” she greeted.  Being a noble daughter was really…  boring.  About as much as being a noble son was, actually.  There was a part of her that worried about her pajamas that night; she still had an all-male wardrobe, and without the necklace and its transformation thing, she wouldn’t be able to feminize it.  The rest of her was worried about her curse; it was a lot more painful for him than she’d expected…  and she didn’t know how to remove it.
Her mother sat down on an armchair, then sighed.  “Silversong?” she asked.
“Hmm?” she offered.
“Do you…  know the Royal that cursed Luciosa?”
She paused, then nodded.  “Yeah.  Why?”
There was a pause.  “Do…  Do you know what she’s waiting for?”
She looked at her mother.  “What do you mean?”
“I mean, with that curse…”  She sighed.  “What will it take for her to remove it?”
Silver looked back up at the ceiling.  “Oh.”  She paused.  “Can you tell me the color of her silver hair?”
Narcissa blinked, evidently taken aback.  “Uh…  you just said it’s silver,” she observed.  “Just like yours.”
She nodded.  “Yes, just like mine,” she agreed.  “Well…  it’s a bit of a secret, especially to Dad, but-!”
“You can still call her Dad?” Narcissa asked, blinking confusedly.  “Yet I can’t stop myself from calling her my sister wife?”
She shrugged.  “I was the one that cast the curse,” she muttered.  “Of course I’m immune to its area effects.”  She sighed, looking up at the ceiling.  “I wish I’d known how bad it’d be before I cast it…  because I can’t remove it.”
“You…?” Narcissa asked.
She nodded.  “Yeah.  This necklace is broken- it’s just an ordinary necklace now, and I seem to actually be a Royal now, with or without it.”  She scowled.  “Not sure why.”  She sighed.  “But yeah.  At least it’s set to fall off after a year.”
“A…  year,” Narcissa muttered.  “So she’ll be…?”
She let out a snort of laughter at the thought of Lucius being stuck in that ball gown for a year.  “No, it’s…”  she paused.  “I’m not sure how best to describe it.  It’s…”  She paused again.  “It’s a rehabilitation-type curse, so it’s only active for twenty-four hours at a time.”  She turned to Narcissa.  “He’ll turn back after spending twenty-four hours as a girl…  which means yes, he’s going to have to sleep as one.  Either that or pull an all-nighter.”  She turned back to the ceiling.  “On the other hand, it’ll trigger- starting another twenty-four hours- any time he starts trying to force someone into an identity that isn’t theirs.”
“Such as her trying to force you to be a boy,” Narcissa muttered.
She nodded.  “Whatever aspect of the other person’s identity that he’s trying to change…  the curse flips against him for those twenty-four hours.  And if he fights it, it only gets worse.”  She sighed.  “So every time he starts trying to force me to be a boy, he’ll spend a day as Luciosa- but it’ll be the boyish Luciosa we saw in the Entrance Hall, until and unless he tries to fight it each time.”  She paused.  “And no, it won’t force him to wear that dress to sleep.  It’ll give him a nightgown, probably- though what it’ll look like, I don’t know.”  She shrugged.  “Probably be easier for him to use the bathroom.  And that dress won’t return in the morning, it’ll go back to the basic one he had this afternoon, until and unless he tries to fight it again.”





“Always telling us about escaped convicts, aren’t they?” Hailey commented, glancing up briefly at the new kitchen TV as she served breakfast.  The TV had apparently been acquired as a ‘welcome home for the summer’ present for Dudley, who had been complaining about the long walk from the fridge to the TV in the living room.
“Always,” Vernon agreed, then sighed, looking over his newspaper.  “This one’s just plain filthy.”
“Funny,” Angriana mused, studying the screen.  “I swear that guy was on the front page of the Daily Prophet this morning, too.”
The reporter picked exactly that moment to move to the next report.
“Hangon,” Vernon scowled at the TV.  “You haven’t told us where he’s escaped from!”
Hailey tilted her head.  “Hmm.  If he was in the magical newspapers, it’s probably Azkaban.  I wonder where he got a weapon…?”  There was a pause, before a second Hailey walked in to hand the first a newspaper and disappear into thin air.  The Dursleys had been a bit alarmed the first time she’d shown them that capability, but by now, they were used to her being able to do multiple things at once- and be in multiple places at once, too.
As an example, she was also in Diagon Alley, simultaneously helping six different shopkeepers prepare for the day’s shopping rush- and she would continue, like that, for much of the day, helping alleviate the struggle by working ‘part-time’ at twelve different shops to help them keep up.  She’d placed an enchantment that was vaguely based on the Confundus Charm on Diagon Alley so that nobody would notice she was doing that…  nor that, with the goblins’ agreement, there were a hundred of her working at the bank, all disguised as identical goblins.  There just weren’t enough real goblins to keep up with the rush at the bank any more- and the part where each customer took close to an hour to deal with, on average, merely meant that they needed far more people than any other shop in the Alley.
Even Ollivanders, which would have just two of Hailey on the salesfloor, selling wands, and several more in the back with the wandmaker, helping him make wands.  All the way back in September, she’d visited him during her first class with Lockhart and, as he already knew about the gods, she’d told him about herself.  She’d also explained the massive numbers of students coming in future years, and he’d promptly offered her an ‘apprenticeship’ with him; she’d taken it just as quickly, so by now, she was almost as skilled at making wands as he was.
He was a little annoyed that she was refusing to take payment for any more than one of her.
She looked at the front page.  “Yup, Azkaban.”  She turned the page.  “Hmm…  Interesting.  That story said he was armed and dangerous, but this doesn’t say anything about that.”  She tossed it onto the table next to Vernon, then turned back to the counter to get the last two plates.
Vernon snorted, put down his local newspaper, then picked up the magical one and unfolded it to read.  “Interesting,” he mused.  “Your world’s a lot smaller, but it seems to have a lot more going on.”
“It does,” Hailey nodded.  “The ‘Colorheads’ that’ve been appearing out of nowhere and attending Hogwarts already outnumber Magical Britain, but eight thousand children is basically nothing to Britain as a whole.”
Vernon chortled, then paused.  “What’s this Wizengamot?”
“That’s Magical Britain’s lawmaking body,” she answered.  “It technically answers to the Queen as well, but I don’t think she knows about them in the first place- and I know that some of their laws are in direct contradiction of Her Majesty’s laws, yet still enforced.”
“Idiots,” Vernon grumbled.
She nodded.  “Yup.”





Marjorie Durlsey, Vernon’s sister, was nothing but a pain, as far as Hailey was concerned.  She loved to have Hailey around so she could verbally abuse her- and watch her bulldogs chase her around the lawn.  She’d also chosen that summer to visit- and more specifically, for a week starting on Hailey’s birthday.  It wasn’t a very good birthday present.
Those same bulldogs, however, were deathly afraid of Angriana- and with good reason.  The girl might have looked like an eleven-year-old child, but when she accidentally cut herself while cooking, not only did she heal abnormally fast but the few drops of her blood that escaped…  burned a hole in the cutting board.  The knife also had to be replaced, half of the blade having melted- and she had eaten the meat she’d been cutting herself, as unlike the Dursleys, she was immune to the toxins in her blood.
At least that had happened before Marjorie had arrived; Angriana simply didn’t cook with guests in the house.  She’d been worried about the bulldogs, until she’d found out that the dogs could somehow sense what she was.
And since she liked staying near Hailey, neither of them had to deal with bulldogs very much at all.
Fortunately, there was some extra spice right in the middle of the visit- even while Marjorie, who was supposed to be called ‘Aunt Marge’ (even though she was Dudley’s aunt, Hailey’s aunt-in-law, and Angriana’s complete stranger), was picking on them…  verbally.
“Uh, hello?” Petunia asked, opening the door to answer the doorbell.
“Good morning, I’m Rita Skeeter with the Daily Prophet.  Is Miss Hailey Potter available?”
“Ahh-!” Petunia began.
“Sure,” Hailey said suddenly, stepping out of the living room- and just as suddenly wearing her shoes.  Angriana followed her, also magically wearing her shoes; another confundus-based spell on the house kept Marge from noticing.  “What do you need?”
Rita blinked.  “There’s two of you?”
Hailey laughed.  “Nah, this is Angriana.  She’s…  a friend.”  She paused, briefly.  “And yes, she looks very much like me, doesn’t she?”
Petunia chuckled.  She knew Rita was a witch- she had mentioned the wizarding newspaper- but she knew exactly how to dress up in non-wizarding clothing.  She’d done so well that she actually fit in quite well in their non-magical neighborhood- and one could be excused for thinking she couldn’t possibly be magical.
She then stood back as the two girls arrived at the front door.
“We’ve got guests right now,” Hailey informed her, “so how about we walk somewhere?”
“Ahh…  Sure,” Rita said slowly.
“So what brings you to Privet Drive?” Hailey asked, as she and Angriana stepped out the front door and closed it behind them.
“Ahh,” Rita muttered, glancing briefly back at the door as they started walking down the front walk.  “Well, firstly, I’d like to thank you for the voice recorder.”
Hailey smiled.  “Oh, that.  And before you ask, Angriana knows too.”
There was a pause.
“Alright,” Rita nodded.  “That works.”  She paused.  “So…”  She trailed off.  “Lockhart,” she decided.  “You mentioned a Curse of Reversal on the recording.  How exactly…?”
“Does that Divine Curse rehabilitate him?  Well, it’s technically a rehabilitation-type torture curse, for one.  Every month or so, it’ll check to make sure he’s not continuing the offensive actions- in this case, his stealing of other people’s accomplishments- and if he is, it’ll erase the most recent year of his memories and rewind his body to the exact age he was in the newest memory he’s left with.  If he doesn’t continue those actions, which he actually seems to have reformed off just one reversal, then it’ll leave him be.”
“It seems like he’s reformed?” Rita asked.
She shrugged.  “Sure, he’s been continuing his publicity stunts, but he’s sworn off publishing any more books as Gilderoy Lockhart- beyond reference books, at least.  He’s also set himself up a pen name, Rockhirty Gladelot- a Voldemort-style anagram of his real name- under which he’ll continue publishing storybooks like he already has, yet I’m told he’s going to be a lot more honest about who’s accomplishing the feat.  He’s also mentioned he’ll be using the skills he’s gained throughout his career so far to, rather than take credit for things other people did, find the right people to do them for him, then tell the story, as embellished as usual but with honest names.  He said he’s planning on using art for the covers of the Gladelot books, rather than portraits.”
“Voldemort style?” Rita asked, tilting her head.
“Yup,” Hailey nodded.  “Tom Marvolo Riddle, Voldemort’s birth name, is an anagram of the phrase ‘I Am Lord Voldemort’.  And, when there are no children around, of ‘Mr. Tom, A Dildo Lover’, among other things, but who’s counting?”
Rita snorted.  “Really?” she asked, then glanced down at Angriana.
Hailey glanced down at her too, then back up at Rita.  “No, Angriana is around a thousand years old; she’s not a child at all, merely looks like one.”
“And probably acting like one at least a little bit,” Angriana observed.  “I mean, imagine living a full thousand years in a flame-lit, stone chamber with nothing to do, then finally getting out to have some fun.”  She chuckled.  “I’m doing that now.”
“Sounds…  unpleasant,” Rita observed.
“Oh you have no idea.  Couldn’t even get out to eat or drink; a stupid magic spell took care of that for me.”  She sighed.  “I’m glad that blasted spell got, well, blasted.  To pieces.”
“Especially considering that spell also trapped her in that Chamber, forced her to obey anyone that said something to her in her native tongue, and forced her to resurrect if ever she managed to die.”  Hailey sighed.  “That curse was a piece of work, but it turns out battleship cannons work pretty hard.”
“I imagine you probably used your powers to pull her out of harm’s way, then?” Rita asked.
“Yup,” Hailey nodded.  “Took a few days before I could pull her back into this universe and release the stasis I used to protect her in the interim, but I managed it.”
“So that’s why I came out on the train,” Angriana observed, then paused.  “Were you hiding me from Dumbledore?”
She nodded.  “And Fudge.  Neither of them would have been very happy about your sudden appearance, in the wake of what happened.”
“Ahh,” Rita muttered.  “Is there a story I can tell there, or…?”
“Probably a bad idea,” Hailey observed.  “If people learn what she is, they’ll start trying to kill her left and right, just for being alive.”  She sighed.  “Just like me- most people respect Royals, but there are some that want to remove them from the equation.  Like…  Lucius Malfoy, in particular, would do just about anything to kill a certain Royal right now.”  She chuckled.  “Too bad it’s not possible for a mere wizard to kill her, and he has no idea who she is.”
“She’s…  not you, is she?”
“Nope, she’s not.  She actually wasn’t a Royal either, until I turned her into one.”  She chuckled.  “But he thinks she’s me.  Well…”  She shrugged.  “He thinks she’s the one that slapped him across Dumbledore’s office a few months back, which is me, but he doesn’t remember anything about what I actually looked like.  Royal anonymizing spells can be amazingly effective.  Anyways, Lockhart’s planning to tell the story of the Chamber of Secrets already, and credit ‘the appropriate people’ in his book- though he doesn’t know about Angriana, so of course she won’t appear.”
“Ahh,” she nodded.  “Yeah, that’ll do it.  I wonder how big that book’s going to be.”
“Probably huge,” Hailey observed.  “You know how he made entire books out of people defeating single werewolves or vampires- and this time…  Well, the digital records made by the Chamber Investigation Team throughout the year would make a pile about two hundred meters tall if written down and stacked.  A lot of that info is actually redundant, but if you trim out the redundancy, you still get around a thousand pages or so of actual, historical records.  Add the Student Instructor Program records for the year, some of which were relevant, and the pile suddenly gets as tall as Hogwarts Castle once again.”  She chuckled.  “But aside from all that, was there something else you wanted?”
“Ahh…  Yes, there was.  Sirius Black.”
“Sirius?” Angriana asked.  “We read the story, but I don’t see what it has to do with us?”
Rita chuckled.  “As with any story coming from the government, there’s stuff I’m not supposed to report- that I can’t report without being imprisoned, sometimes.  For example…”  She sighed.  “Before he escaped, he spoke in his sleep.  Always the same words- ‘He’s at Hogwarts’, over and over again.  Minister Fudge thinks he’s talking about Harry Potter.”
Hailey let out a snort of laughter.  “I doubt it- nobody by that name has graced the halls of Hogwarts in decades.  But what kind of information could he have gotten inside Azkaban?”
Rita raised an eyebrow, and lowered it again.  “That’s what I’ve been wondering, too.  Fudge said that when he inspected the place last week, Sirius was all calm and reasonable, like the Dementors weren’t even affecting him, and asked for his newspaper so he could do the crossword on the back.  Supposedly, that’s when it started.”
“The newspaper, a week ago?  What was in it?”
Rita drew a newspaper out of her purse, and handed it to Hailey.  “I tracked down the exact issue it would’ve been.”
She looked at it and scowled.  “The Weasley family, huh?”  She sighed.  “Anyone else mentioned at Hogwarts?”
She shook her head.  “Nope.  That’s the only story about anything even remotely associated with Hogwarts.”
“And it doesn’t say anything about Harry, of course.  So if it all started from this…”  She scowled, inspecting the photo.  “But why would he want to go after Percy, Fred, George, or Ron?  He doesn’t know about…”  She trailed off.  “Unless his target is someone else in the picture that would just happen to go to Hogwarts with one of them.”  She scowled.  “But the only option for that would be Scabbers, Ron’s rat.  What business would he have with a rat?”
“Who knows,” Rita muttered, then paused.  “Maybe that rat is an unregistered animagus?”
“Good question,” Hailey nodded.  “One moment while I contact a Royal friend I have that’s near him right now.”  She switched to the Obelisk Network.  “Hey, Ginny?  Have you noticed anything strange about Scabbers?”
There were a few seconds of silence before Ginny’s reply to her Obelisk message came back.  “You mean aside from the human-like psionic signature I noticed when I was five, but didn’t understand until I was nine?  Or perhaps how his lifespan is long enough for him to still be alive now?  Not really.  He does seem a lot more agitated since that story about Black’s escape a few days ago, and bits of his fur have been falling out.”
Hailey rubbed her chin with a finger.  “That sounds like a fear reaction to me- and Black is known to have been saying ‘he’s at Hogwarts’ in his sleep ever since he saw that photo of your family, with Scabbers on Ron’s shoulder, in the Daily Prophet that Fudge gave him.”
“You mean-!?  Oh.  Oh My.”  There were another couple seconds of silence.  “Yeah, that Animagus detection spell Sunset came up with declares him human.  I think you’re right, he’s Sirius’ target- and he knows it.”  There was a pause.  “A psychic scan says his name is ‘Peter Pettigrew’.  That’s the name of the rat-faced coward that sold your parents out to me, but I never thought he was an animagus.”
“Thanks,” Hailey told her, before speaking out loud.  “Sirius was sent to Azkaban for killing Peter Pettigrew and thirteen muggles, right?” she asked.
Rita nodded.  “That sounds about right,” she said.  “But if Peter is dead…”
“He might not be, though.  According to my friend, Ron’s rat, Scabbers…  is actually the unregistered animagus of someone named Peter Pettigrew.”  She paused.  “I suppose there’s a chance he’s another Peter Pettigrew, so it raises a few questions:  Was Peter an animagus?  Did he fake his own death?  On what evidence was Sirius convicted?”
“The largest piece of Peter they were able to find was a finger,” Rita muttered.  “That…  If he was an animagus, specifically to something small, he could’ve just cut it off, transformed, and blown up the street or something, and it’d look like he’d been killed.”
“And Scabbers is missing a toe,” Hailey observed, inspecting the photo closely.
“If your Royal friend wants to expose themselves, we could probably clear Sirius’ name in a few minutes even without any orders,” she observed.  “But without exposing them…”  She paused, rubbing her chin thoughtfully.  “The trial- and witnesses- might just give us something to work with.  I think I’ve got court records to examine and muggles to interview.”
Hailey nodded.  “I’ll let you get to it, then.”