Sirius though… was an entirely different matter. Harry knew Sirius, had interacted with Sirius. Harry had loved Sirius like he imagined he would love a father. Sirius was the first person who wanted to care for him. He'd offered him a home, before things had gone pear shaped. Sirius was the closest thing to a father figure Harry ever had.
It had devastated Harry in a way that he couldn't describe to lose him. To this day Harry continued to place the majority of the blame for Sirius' death on his own head. Sirius was the fifth death Harry attributed to being his fault, after his parents, Quirrell and Cedric.
Harry sighed loudly and moved his thoughts onward with some effort. He didn't know what it was, but he was having a hard time controlling his emotions. It was both irritating and unnerving to him to feel like he was losing control of those feelings.
He turned his thoughts to other matters. He had checked the listings of Death Eater trials after the fall of Voldemort closely. His nominal control of his anger slipped for a few moments when he discovered that the results were much the same as in his world. The table and shelves around him vibrated wildly from the magic he was throwing off for a few moments. Luckily the archivist had been on a lunch break, or Harry was sure she'd have come over and thrown him out on his ear.
The reason for his anger was easy to understand. A lot of people, mostly notable pure-bloods had loudly cried "Imperius Curse" and had been let off the hook. The Malfoys, the Carrows, the Crabbes and the Goyles among many others all managed to escape going to Azkaban. Harry was certain large "campaign donations" played a part in that.
He did note that Peter Pettigrew's name was never among the lists of Death eaters. Harry wondered if it was because Peter had never had a chance to betray his parents, or waited now for the chance to do so. He also noted that Regulus Black, had been imprisoned as a Death Eater.
Harry wondered if he hadn't turned on Voldemort in this universe, before a horrifying thought occurred to him and he wondered if Regulus was imprisoned wrongly. He resolved to find out details of any trial.
Harry had noted that there had still been an attack on the Longbottom's a week after the night of Voldemort's fall. However an Auror corps in this universe at the time, was NOT reeling from the loss of one of its best in James Potter, and the betrayal of another in Sirius Black. It had apparently responded to the attack far more quickly.
As a result, it wasn't both of the Longbottoms hadn't been tortured into insanity for the remainder of their days. Instead Frank Longbottom had been injured by one of the Lestranges, though he'd taken the wand arm of Rabastan Lestrange in the fight.
The Aurors had not arrived before they could hold Alice Longbottom under the cruciatus though. They had tortured her into insanity, and were working on Frank when the Aurors showed up in force. Harry wondered what a Neville Longbottom that had one of his parents was like.
Harry also wondered if the cruciatus was truly what caused Alice's condition. If it was, then Harry knew he might be able to break through the near comatose state she was in with his skills in legilimency. It just hurt.
He had discovered that after finding more than one Death Eater tortured into complete catatonia by the Dark Lord they pledged to follow after they disappointed him in one way or another. Harry had learned to go into their minds, push through the memories of the pain of the cruciatus curse and sort of… restart their conscious thoughts.
If the condition was caused by the cruciatus, that wasn't entirely certain. Harry had discovered several family spells in the Black library that might cause the same effect, though he had learned the counter curses to those as well.
Of course, while their condition might have been caused by the cruciatus Harry had never had a chance to test his theory. They had died in St. Mungo's when Voldemort destroyed it.
Harry shook his head and refocused on the information he had gathered. One of the changes that were most disconcerting to him was that Death Eater attacks continued to this day. Though they seemed sporadic and mostly on muggles. Every few weeks there seemed to be a random attack that was reported in the paper without any suspects.
Unfortunately, Harry wasn't sure if this was different than in his own world. He just didn't know enough about what happened in the magical world during his time with the Dursleys that he could tell if it was the same or not. Nor had he paid attention to such news in the paper during his first few years of school.
Then again it wasn't like the Prophet on his world or the Herald on this one went out of their way to draw attention to the attacks, especially if the attack was on muggles.
The other thing that bothered him a great deal was the similarity of events over the timeline. Especially right before and since Iris Potter started Hogwarts. Events he was watching closely for. Someone attempted to rob Vault 713, and just like in his timeline it had been emptied earlier that same day.
He'd chuckled a little bit when he saw the announcement that Iris had become the youngest Seeker in a century. He couldn't help a small bit of amusement and pride to note that because Hogwarts in this world seemed to start when the kids were twelve, rather than eleven that he had the record beat even if no one here would ever know.
Nothing else of note had occurred that year, though he saw a very small notification about the disappearance of Quirinus Quirrell in one of the articles about the end of the school year.
Harry was particularly interested in the events that occurred in the second year of school. He saw the reports of several petrifications over the course of year, and the claim about the Chamber of Secrets being opened.
Harry had clenched his fists when he neared the end of the year. On the front page of one of the issues of the paper was an article trumpeting the arrest of a "person of interest" that had been involved in the circumstances surrounding the first time the chamber had been opened. There was even a picture of Cornelius Fudge appearing officious in front of Hogwarts.