Chapter Six: In which our heroine FINALLY visits the Ministry of Magic
Abbie looked around in amazement. The lobby to the Ministry of Magic was the largest thing she had ever seen, and this was saying something.
As a long time resident of the Beverly Hills area, she had seen a large amount of giant homes and buildings, none of which could compare with the Ministry. The walls were lined with large fire places, which would randomly burst into emerald green flames, and a person would emerge from the flames. Windows that were parts of offices went up for several stories, disappearing into the vast darkness above the lobby. In the center was a gold fountain with a witch, wizard, house elf, centaur, and goblin in solid gold. A little way from the fountain was a gated off area where a phone booth would descend into occasionally.
The hall was filled with witches and wizards of all shapes, sizes, and colors. The most notable of all of these people, was the large group of people who were dressed like muggle lawyers. The women had their hair pulled back into tight knots on the top of their heads; they wore grey business suits with black high heels, carried leather briefcases, and files and folders under the other arm. The men wore black robes with silver pinstripes, carried leather briefcases and wore shiny black dress shoes. Behind this group came a young woman with platinum blond hair falling down her back in a black dress with matching jacket. She was reading one of the files and not watching were she walked; as she read she was eating an apple, and readjusting her glasses. She narrowly missed walking into fifteen people before she reached the lifts. Behind the lawyerish people came the staff of people who worked for them; mainly the people who pushed the large carts of documents needed for a trial around.
The staff people halted the use of the lifts for quite awhile, giving Remus and Abbie enough time to pick up their visitors badges before getting on the lifts to the Auror's offices.
At least two dozen people filled the space; the two dozen were all wearing silver badges with their names and 'Sentencing Appeal' on them. So Remus and Abbie found a seat and waited to be called into the office.
"What's up with all of these people, Uncle Remus?"
Remus looked down at his niece. "Today is the one day of the year you can appeal Ministry sentencing. They start today and work well into tomorrow morning to see if they can help you and release your loved one."
"Oh. Will it take long for us to be called in?"
Remus was about to reply as the door opened and one of the lawyer women came out. In a tired voice she called out "Remus Lupin, Abigail Black. Appealing on behalf of Sirius Black, convicted mass murderer."
Remus and Abbie stood up and followed the woman into the office. The inside of the office was cramped with two desks, three filing cabinets, and a water cooler in it. Now, with three lawyers, including the blond woman, a stenographer, several cardboard boxes full of court documents, and a pile of briefcases and empty coffee mugs occupied the already cramped room, and adding two extra chairs for Remus and Abbie, made it a tight fit for everyone in the room. Once they were all settled, the blond stood up from behind the desk.
"Mr. Lupin, Miss Black, I am Allie Woods. Your appeal was given to myself, and my colleagues this morning, and I have had little time to review the case and trial." This of course explained why she had almost crashed a half dozen times earlier that day. "May I introduce Ms. Amy Schlichtmann, her brother is tied up in a very famous and well publicized Muggle legal battle," Allie gestured to the woman who had called them in, "Lindsey McDonald, the newest member of our firm. He just graduated from Harvard Law School in Boston. Perhaps you have heard of it?"
Abbie nodded. "Yeah, that's the best law school on the East Coast. Probably the best law school in the US."
Lindsey nodded too, "I feel the same way, although I might be a little biased."
Allie cleared her throat to bring the topic back to the matter at hand. "Now we've looked over the basics of the case, and it's all in order."
Abbie laughed, "No it's not 'all in order', Miss Woods. There are quite a few important pages missing from that file."
Allie looked stunned. "That's impossible, Miss Black. There is nothing missing from these files."
Abbie opened up the blue backpack and withdrew the notebook, testimonies, police and Auror reports, and the will of her mother. She handed the pile over to Miss Woods with a look of annoyance on her face.
"You will find in the notebook the English terminology of each and every document, the Will included. There is nothing in any of these documents that shows my father confessed to all of the murders," Abbie shuddered as she said that "or that Versertium was used at all. There is no documentation of questioning of the suspect, and there is no documentation whatsoever that a trial was even considered for my father. For the love of God, they didn't even check him for the friggin' Dark Mark!"
At this point Abbie was starting to get hysterical; she wanted her father, and wanted to see him now. "If you've got any decent bone in your body you'd help me get my Daddy back. I haven't seen him since I was three! Three! I've lost my mom to that friggin' rat Pettigrew, her parents to an explosion at an archeological site in Egypt, and my Daddy is in Azkaban, and my only other living relative is probably going crazy back in Los Angeles, because someone tried to kill me! There was a person on a broom with a bomb or something outside the window of our fifth floor apartment! For Christ's sake, all I'm asking for is a little help from you people!"
Abbie was crying freely, she was very emotional and it took very little for her to get worked up; he face was red and blotchy, and her nose was running. She had the look on her face that was often on the face of a spoiled child who hadn't gotten their way; she crossed her arms and huffed. She would not be speaking directly to any lawyer for the rest of the day, Remus observed.
Miss Woods, Ms. Schlichtmann, and Mr. McDonald, on the other hand, looked positively dumb struck. A thirteen year old child had gone through court documents and simplified them into understandable terms herself. Allie threw the notebook to Lindsey who caught it and flipped through it quickly.
He was amazed; everything she said would be missing was missing. He compared it to the original documents, and the copy the firm had received, and saw that they too were missing the same documentation. Lindsey motioned to the other lawyers to come over to the second desk were he sat.
He spoke lowly so they wouldn't be overheard by Remus and Abbie. "She's right Al, any trial documentation was never included if it exists. The Senior Partners aren't going to be happy about you missing that crucial piece of evidence. This could be the wizard equivalent to your brother's case, Amy. Without the polluted water sources and dead kids, of course." He added hastily when Amy glared at him.
Allie raised an eyebrow at that, and Amy spoke. "The wizard equivalent to A Civil Action, this could be our big break guys. Jan will go nuts when I tell him I've got a court appointed case as big as his; and he took his voluntarily." The other lawyers nodded and the stenographer kept typing away to keep up with the conversations.
Allie broke away from the little gathering and spoke to Remus and Abbie. "We'll take the case; it might take longer than normal for this appeal to be made, seeing as he had already spent eleven years in Azkaban. It could take anywhere from a year to ten years to sort this out; and the longer it takes, I'm afraid that it will costs a lot of money if this case takes longer than three years."
Allie was obviously testing them; Remus looked at Abbie for her response to the proposal. Abbie just raised an eyebrow at the lawyers in front of her. "I've got the money for this. Just tell me when you can start reviewing case files and get my father out of prison." Her voice was cold and unfeeling, her eyes, which were grey like her father's shone out with a mixture of sadness, anger and fear.
Allie cleared her throat nervously. "We'll do our best, and then some to get your father a trial, Miss Black. We are going to start this afternoon once we are finished here." With that Abbie and Remus were escorted out of the office and Amy addressed the assembled witches, wizards, and squibs.
"This office has reached its quota of cases, if you still wish to make an appeal, please file to the first floor, where appointments can be made."
An hour later in the hotel room in the Leaky Caldron, Abbie learned briefly what an influence her father's family had on the wizarding world. If she was to walk into any shop, all she had to do was state her surname and would receive immediate service. Although Remus strongly suggested against it because it would draw unnecessary attention to herself.
As it was, the daughter of Sirius Black appearing out of nowhere on the Ministry's Appeal Day was somewhat suspicious; on his way back from the shop on Horizontal Alley, Remus had heard many theories on why Abbie had waited this long to make an appeal. The most outrageous of these claims wasn't that Abbie was the illegitimate child of Sirius Black, and his best friend's wife Lily Potter; but the fact that Abbie wasn't his daughter, but his lover.
After a few days, the pair moved into the flat above Marauder Magical Mischief Providers, Inc., and Abbie was ready to get her supplies for the upcoming year. Remus signed off on the legal forms and such, but pretended to refuse to sign the Hogsmeade permission form. When Abbie had found out it was a joke, she refused to speak to Remus for a few days.
Finally Remus considered taking her to Diagon Alley to get her supplies; he had sold out of supplies, and the local school which was in session from July to February, didn't use many of the things required for Hogwarts students. So, one bright morning in August the pair set out to Diagon Alley for an all day shopping trip, leaving Albert and his daughter Jenny in charge of the store for the day.
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Little Bunny FuFu… He wants some reviews!
Reviews would be lovely after two updates in one day you know. Just a heads up that I'm going away for the holiday weekend (Independence Day for us Americans :] ) and coming home to reviews would make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. And because chapter 7 is still on my old computer and I'm praying and hoping that the hard drive will work when I hook it up to a monitor to look for it. But REVIEW please! This is my baby. I've been working on it for years, I'm already writing chapter 19. So just review please!
To my American readers, have a safe, healthy and Happy Fourth of July! :]