Neville had always thought Harry only had an aunt and uncle, and Harry had mentioned before that those two treated him badly—they wouldn't even sign his Hogsmeade permission slip.
Now, to suddenly hear Harry actually had a godfather—the shock was way bigger than when Kael showed up in the Gryffindor Common Room.
"You have a godfather?" Neville asked in surprise. "How come you've never mentioned it before?"
"I only just found out myself." Harry grinned as he stuffed candy into Neville's pocket.
He hadn't been able to talk about it before—because of Sirius's situation, he had to keep it a secret and told no one.
But now it was different. With Sirius being declared innocent after the retrial, he could finally tell everyone the good news openly and proudly.
Still, Harry didn't get carried away. After all, he'd only heard about it—he hadn't yet seen the newspaper or a letter, so he purposely didn't mention Sirius's name.
Watching the excited Harry, Hermione felt happy for him too—she knew full well just how long and how hard he'd waited for this day.
But... she ducked her head, looking like she was lost in thought.
Soon, Harry came back, set the half-empty bucket of candy on the table, and just stared blankly out the window. Every time an owl flew by, he would jump up involuntarily, only to look disappointed when it left again.
"Don't you guys think there's something strange?" Hermione suddenly asked.
"What's strange?" Harry kept staring out the window, answering half-mindedly.
"Kael, obviously," said Hermione.
Ron fiddled with his new quill. "What about him?"
"Did none of you notice?" Hermione shot them a look of disdain. "How did Kael know Sirius was acquitted?"
"The newspaper, duh!" Ron said, like it was obvious. "He said so, didn't he? The Daily Prophet did an emergency reprint because of it."
"Then what about all that stuff?"
Hermione pointed at the Golden Cauldron on the table. "Clearly Sirius bought it in Diagon Alley. You ever think—if he wanted to give it to Harry, why not just use an owl? Why bother having Kael deliver it in person?"
Ron looked up; Harry also stopped watching the window.
Yeah, now that they thought about it, if it was for Harry, why bother having Kael deliver it?
Maybe Sirius wrote the wrong address? But they were all at Hogwarts...
"Don't you get it yet?" Hermione shut her homework in annoyance, looking at the two puzzled boys. "It's simple—I'll bet Kael was with Sirius at the time—he was in Diagon Alley too!"
"What?" Ron said in disbelief. "But that's impossible... I mean, there's no Hogwarts Express on weekends. How did he get back?"
"He must have some other way," Hermione said. "And—don't you remember? At lunch, Professor Dumbledore called Kael out of the Auditorium, and he only just got back."
"You mean..." Harry frowned. "He already knew about Sirius's retrial then, and went out of the school to see him?"
"I think so..."
The three of them immediately fell silent. They didn't understand—why would Dumbledore tell Kael about this?
Harry felt a bit sour inside—he was Sirius's godson, and yet he was the last to know...
"Ow!"
Deep in thought, Harry suddenly felt a sharp pain in his hand. Looking down, he realized a Bludger-sized owl was pecking his hand—with a letter beside it.
"Oh, it's a letter from Sirius!" he exclaimed excitedly, ripping the envelope open in seconds.
Hermione and Ron crowded around, eager to see as well.
On the other side of things, the news of Sirius Black's acquittal was spreading through Hogwarts at lightning speed via the Daily Prophet—those with a subscription told everyone else right away. Now the whole school was talking about it, and even the Triwizard Tournament was forgotten for the moment.
Twelve years in Azkaban, waiting for a chance at revenge—could any adventure be more legendary than that?
Hogwarts, after all, was full of teenagers in the prime of their lives—this was exactly the kind of thing they loved.
By dinner, nearly every student in the Auditorium was talking about it. Even Fred and George didn't care about their trunk anymore—they crowded around Harry, curiosity etched all over their faces as they tried to get more info from him.
Harry, too excited about the letter, accidentally blabbed, so now pretty much all of Gryffindor knew that Sirius was his godfather.
Everyone was desperate to get some insider news you couldn't find in the paper.
The others, unable to squeeze in, could only gossip and guess on their own.
"I'm telling you, Black totally did it on purpose..." At the Hufflepuff table, Mikel declared confidently, "He was willing to give up his freedom and get locked up in Azkaban just to kill those Death Eaters inside."
"That's not easy, though," someone pointed out. "With Dementors everywhere, even Black couldn't just kill Death Eaters like that."
"That's why it took him twelve years!" said Mikel. "Besides, don't forget, he was the first to ever break out of there—he must know how to handle Dementors."
His theory actually got quite a bit of agreement.
If he could escape, then he must have a way of dealing with Dementors... makes sense.
"Once he killed all the Death Eaters, he came out to expose the real traitor and clear his own name... You have to admit, that's pretty damn incredible."
Mikel went on, his eyes shining. "If only Professor Dumbledore could invite him to be the Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts next year."
"Not that I don't like Professor Moody—I mean, after next year..."
The 'curse' of the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts was legendary—five professors in five years, and not one repeat.
So even a Legendary Auror didn't spark much hope... Lockhart was as famous as Moody, a member of the Merlin Knight Order too, but look how that turned out.
The students buzzed with gossip about Sirius Black—even the staff at the teachers' table were much the same.
Dumbledore's secrecy had been top-notch; no one had leaked a thing—and except for a select few, most professors only found out today as well.
Hagrid was clutching a copy of the newspaper, and had been out of it for half an hour now.
He used to curse Sirius Black left and right, and often said if he ever caught Black, he'd knock all the food out of him—or else he was as useless as a Flobberworm.
And now, everything was suddenly flipped. Black was innocent; the real traitor was someone else.
No way he could beat Black's food out of him now, but he sure didn't want to be a Flobberworm either.
"Now what the heck am I supposed to do..." Hagrid thought, completely bewildered.