"Good." Sirius said. "Anyway, you were meant to go to the Longbottoms according to the will. Alice Longbottom is your godmother and was your Mum's best friend. Frank was a couple of years older and like an older brother to your Dad. They were married, happy, and had Neville. James and Lily figured they would be the best guardians for you and I couldn't disagree with them. Back then, I was a young single male with only occasional baby-sitting experience. Don't get me wrong – if I hadn't ended up in Azkaban I would have happily raised you but they were the better choice."
"What happened to them?" Harry asked, curious. "Neville never talks about them and I know he was raised with his Gran."
"They were attacked a couple of weeks after you got rid of Voldemort. My cousin Bella, her husband, his brother and Barty Crouch Junior tortured them into insanity. They're in St Mungo's."
Poor Neville, thought Harry. He wondered what was worse; losing his parents or what had happened to Neville's – either way they'd both lost the opportunity to be raised by their Mum and Dad.
"From what I can gather from Remus, the Longbottoms were going to challenge for custody before they got attacked. Dumbledore told them your aunt had taken guardianship and they knew that wasn't what was in the will." Sirius said. "Only no-one could find a copy as mine was in my vault and you need a Potter to open the Potter vault. With no will, legally you would have been placed with the Dursleys anyway as your aunt is your closest living relative."
Harry sighed again. "So Professor Dumbledore just did what would have happened anyway?"
"Pretty much." Sirius said.
He let that fact sink into him. "Do you…did he know about…about how it was for me with them?"
Sirius grimaced. "I think he suspected you didn't have the best life there, Harry, but do I think he knew the detail of it? I don't know; only he can tell you for certain."
"It's just…" Harry tore some grass from the ground and let it fall through his fingers. "I thought he cared about me. But if he cared about me, wouldn't he have checked up on me? Made sure I wasn't living in the cupboard? I just…I don't understand." His previous anger and hurt rolled through him again and while he focused on keeping hold of his magic again, he missed Sirius's angry glower at the mention of the cupboard.
"You're right that someone should have checked up on you. It's the job of the Wizarding Orphan Office. Only for your safety, I assume, Dumbledore didn't record your placement with your aunt with the Ministry." Sirius explained. "Now, Dumbledore should have checked up on you himself but he'd promised your aunt minimal dealings with the wizarding world. Remus thinks Dumbledore also kept other people away from you, friends of James and Lily like Remus and Hagrid, so no-one could lead Death Eaters to your door." He shrugged. "In this case, I think there was inaction because he cared about you – do you see?"
Harry nodded.
"However, don't take my understanding for what he did as agreement with what he did – or didn't do rather." Sirius continued. "He could have made different choices. He could have just turned up once a year on your birthday, for instance, to check on you – or he could have sent Remus who can easily pass for a muggle and who would have given you a link to your Mum and Dad. Or he could have installed a monitoring charm that told him how your relatives treated you – your Mum used to use one with babysitters – fair frightened the life out of me the first time she recounted everything I'd done when I sat for you. As it stood, he left your relatives unchecked and obviously they believed they could get away with treating you…not exactly as they should have."
Harry considered everything Sirius had said. "It's like the chessboard, isn't it? That Remus did?" He poked at his laces. "This is one of the decisions you didn't like?"
"Yes," Sirius agreed, "exactly like the chessboard." He shifted position, moving into a cross-legged lotus position from their yoga exercises. "The thing about actions – or non-actions but let's stick with actions for the time being, is that an action on it its own only tells you part of the story."
Harry looked at him dubiously. It sounded like it was heading towards another politics lesson. Sirius sprang one on him every week.
The first one had been the layout of wizarding government. That had actually been interesting. The DMLE sounded very cool made up the Auror Force, the Hit Wizard Force (for hunting down dangerous criminals), and the Prosecution Service (which sounded very similar to muggle courts dealing with who could be prosecuted and taking the cases to court).
The Department of Mysteries, on the other hand, sounded like something Hermione would prefer since Sirius had told him the bulk of it was a magical research department. There was also a small Magical Forensics Department that handled magical reversals, obliviations and investigations into weird or violent crimes which sounded slightly more interesting, and the Magical Intelligence Department (MI7) sounded very interesting as it was basically about spying. What was very cool was that everyone in the DOM was called an Unspeakable and the work was highly confidential.
Sirius had explained that both the DMLE and the DOM were part of the Ministry of Magic, but the rest of the Ministry had what he called Legislative powers. The individual departments determined the government policy, created laws and worked to get them passed – same as the muggles, and liaised with the DMLE on enforcement. The Minister was voted in on the basis of his or her known political agenda. It all sounded very boring to Harry but at least he finally understood what Arthur Weasley did and why the Ministry had attracted someone like Percy.
The last part of the government was the Wizengamot, the magical equivalent of Parliament or at least the House of Lords and about as interesting. Unfortunately, Sirius had pointed out to him that he had no choice but to get somewhat interested because the Potters had a seat in the Wizengamot, and whether he sat in it himself (unlikely) or gave his proxy to someone (which his Regent would have until he was of age anyway), he should have an opinion.
The second political lesson Sirius had ambushed him with was actually even more about the Wizengamot – namely the set-up. The history of the Wizengamot was deeply boring and not even Sirius's animated puppets could make it less so. Harry had written as much as he remembered in his journal for Hermione though.
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