A very nice beginning, I look foreward to reading more of this.
One possible point that I have thought over and wondered several times which Sirius might pull off here as he seems to have quite a bit of influence there.
Why doesn't he go to a foreign ministry and ask for questioning under Veritaserum regarding the day he was arrested and his role.
It looks to me like a good way to prove his innocence and would be a nice egg in the face of the Geezergamot :)
Author's response
I will admit there is a continuation of the story floating around in my mind where Sirius visits France and does just that. rather that portion of the story gets written or not who knows. As I said this was on my hard drive for over a year before I cleaned it up and posted it. Plus there's Motorcycle to deal with.