Published at 27th of May 2024 12:14 am

Chapter 222: Darker Hearts

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5 May 1994, Hogwarts, Scotland

Harry woke up in pain, as he had the previous couple of days. He raised his trembling hands to the table next to his bed and quickly gulped the potion on it. Slowly, he felt his body cool down and stifle the burning sensation that had woke him up. He sighed in relief, slumped back to the bed, and stared at the familiar ceiling of the hospital wing.

He had stayed in this place for a few days now, and he had truly forgotten just how horrible it was. The monotony, the boredom, was borderline torturous, and Harry had found no way to engage his mind other than the few books that Daphne brought him. He couldn't use any magic, couldn't do any experiments, couldn't even wander out of the hospital wing without Madam Pomphrey popping out like some kind of monster from hell to bring him back to his bed.

Honestly, if it wasn't for Daphne keeping him company, he would have gone insane after the first day. He was very thankful for the blonde, spending every minute of free time with him. She probably felt guilty for his condition, since she was used as a hostage and was why Harry didn't fight off Pettigrew. He tried to reassure her many times that it wasn't her fault, but she wouldn't listen.

Other than Daphne's visit, Blaise and Tracy came to see him a few times. Professor McGonagall came once as had Professor Flitwick, her new deputy. Snape hadn't shown up, but Harry never expected him to do so anyway. Astoria joined her sister a few times as well, looking just as upbeat as ever, even if she was slightly more affectionate than she used to be. Daphne probably told her what happened.

Of course, there was also the fact that Neville Longbottom visited him on the day Harry woke up. He still didn't know how to feel about their conversation, but at least everything was out in the open and strangely enough he didn't feel guilty about it anymore.

Oh, sure, gaslighting Neville was a bratty thing to do but Harry had no other choice at the time. Neville had just tried to betray him to Tom Riddle of all people, just a few hours prior and Harry really had every right to throw him under the bus, especially since it was the only way out. It didn't help that every single other outcome would have ended up with the boy who lived being obliviated by Dumbledore, which was very dangerous since erasing important memories, especially in a growing mind, could easily cause mental damage.

And hadn't Harry paid him back when he told his grandmother about the Horcrux in his scar and saved his life, maybe even his soul at the time? Yeah, Neville had no right to complain about what Harry did considering how much he helped him in the past year alone. Honestly, he had gone above and beyond to make up for what he had done, and he strangely found that he stopped feeling guilty about it.

He didn't know if that was a good thing or if it was a sign he was growing into some kind of sociopath.

A voice interrupted Harry's train of thought, "Well, don't you look pensive, brat."

Harry cursed in his mind at the lack of his Arcane Hearing. Was he really that blind without it? He turned and saw Arcturus sitting next to him with an amused smile on his face and huffed, "You're late."

The Black Patriarch really was. Harry had expected the man to stay with him ever since his abduction, but he had practically disappeared since the third task, "I like you and everything, Harry, but Dumbledore was just fired as both headmaster and Chief Warlock. Whoever the Grindelwald impersonator was, his proclamations snowballed to destroy everything Dumbledore had tried to hide. Even most of the progressive families have been distancing themselves from him. I never thought I'd see anything like it in my lifetime."

Harry sighed inwardly. Dumbledore's downfall was akin to a giant earthquake that rattled the political scene in magical Britain, and perhaps even the rest of Europe. Grindelwald really had planned the man's downfall splendidly, and everyone knew that chaos was a ladder, "And what did you do in the meantime, then?"

"Oh, I put the final nail in the coffin. I hired teams of warders thanks to my contacts in the French ministry, and they tore down Dumbledore's wards from his prisons and rebuilt them from scratch. Every single secret passage was removed, and every single trap or secret room was revealed. It was a 'donation' on my part, and it did cost me a small fortune, but it was nothing compared to removing any influence Dumbledore might have in the ministry. And do you know the best part, after Gringotts audited his accounts, we found out that Dumbledore had put all his finances into the school's budget to avoid paying any taxes on that front and hide any obvious financial gain from his monopoly over alchemical substances in Britain. And with him being let go as headmaster, he barely has any gold left."

Harry shook his head, "I wouldn't be so sure. Dumbledore seems like a man who would have multiple stashes lying around in the chance that something would go wrong."

"Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact that most of the man's gold is gone, and the man has no longer any influence over British politics. That's not even mentioning the way people have been talking about you, how you've been standing up to him and he was targeting you specifically. The whole thing with the dying body double in the third task was proof that he had planned to abduct you and fake his death. There's even a rising demand to arrest him."

The last Potter couldn't help but snort, "I can't picture a team of trembling Aurors trying to arrest the man. It's like people forgot just how magically powerful the man is."

"Of course they did. Dumbledore himself is the one that did his best to make people forget just how dangerous he is and now it's biting him in the ass. The fact that he's telling everyone that Grindelwald was back doesn't help in any way."

"He's not lying. The man in the stadium really was Grindelwald."

That seemed to take the winds out of Arcturus and the man slumped down into his chair, "You're serious?"

"I wasn't completely honest to the Aurors. I didn't wake up in the castle. I woke up in some fortress, probably where Grindelwald stayed in. I think one of the man's agents had stolen my prison from underneath Dumbledore's nose and when I escaped, I found them there."

"What happened?"

"We fought," Harry summarized, "I was tired, magically spent, and injured. Every spell I cast felt like my blood turned to lava. They were going for the kill, so I did the same. There weren't any survivors. Arcturus, Sirius was amongst them."

"I thought you said killing him was impossible," The Black Patriarch muttered with an impassive tone.

"I used the Colt. I didn't have the energy to do anything else that might have even delayed him. But then, soon afterwards, Grindelwald came. I tried using the Colt again, but he stopped it."

"I thought you said that a bullet from your weapon, once fired, couldn't be stopped."

Harry sighed, "I did. It's supposed to be impossible, but he did it anyway. Do you know of anyone else who could have done anything like this? If it wasn't Grindelwald, then it's someone that's just as powerful."

"He did look like him. I thought it was done in poor taste or to build on the fear we had of the man."

"No, he would have chosen Voldemort. For all his mistakes, the man really knew how to make people scared of him. They're still terrified of using his name even today."

The Black Patriarch shook his head, "You don't understand. Most of us never really took Riddle seriously. The people who were really scared of the man were the younger generation, not mine. But those of us who fought in the real war, the great war, remember what happened when Grindelwald decided to fight seriously. We remember when he and Dumbledore could change landscapes in a few short minutes of combat. To even try to interfere was to die. Do you seriously think that Dumbledore getting all those positions in our government was out of gratefulness, that the rest of the Wizengamot would have allowed someone to hold that much power? No, we were trying to appease him as best we could and when we realized what the bills and laws, he was putting forward were doing, we used the Voldemort upstart to make the part of the population that wasn't scared shitless of him try to rise against him. It was a mistake, of course, but if a new Great War is coming, whatever victory we won here will be barely more than an illusion. The moment Grindelwald shows his power again, the public will clamour for Dumbledore once more, and we will have a conflict on a scale that we haven't seen in over fifty years."

Harry froze, understanding the implications of what was probably coming. The endless fight between the Light and Darkness, the one that even Voldemort wanted to stop, was probably going to restart. Yeah, he wasn't going to stick around for that. The moment the war truly began, he was going to pack his bags and move to a country as far away as he could. The were no points in useless heroics, after all.

However, before he continued his train of thought, something was wrong with Arcturus, "You practically ignored the fact that I killed Sirius."

"What is there to talk about," the older man replied stonily, "My grandson died in that fire. The man you killed was a mass murderer, a psychopath who killed people in their homes and carved up their faces like smiles. He was a man who was trying to kill his own godson out of some kind of misguided revenge, and I will not mourn his death."

"Are you sure about that? You don't sound alright…"

For the first time the man's eyes turned harsh, "Maybe I'm not, but it's not like you're any better. I can tell that you remember what happened in that prison. I can tell that you're a different person now that you got out…"

Harry suppressed to urge to flinch. He wasn't successful considering the sudden look of shame on Arcturus' face, "Look, I'm sorry that I lashed out. I don't know what came over me but that doesn't change the fact that what I told you is still true. You need to talk to someone about it. It doesn't have to be me, but you can't keep what happened to you to yourself. It will eat you up. I tried the same about the war, and it was driving me mad until I confided in my wife. I would suggest that nice Greengrass friend of yours. She seems like a nice girl."

"She is," Harry nodded, "but I don't want to burden her with what happened. She… She wouldn't really look at me the same way afterwards."

"I think she's stronger than that. Why don't you think about it?"

The last Potter simply nodded before remembering one last detail, "Out of curiosity, have there been any signs of Remus Lupin since the third task?"

"No. He was fired anyway when the files in Dumbledore's office revealed that the man was a werewolf. Apparently, that fact was hidden from the board when he was hired. Most people think he fled to avoid being prosecuted since he had to notify the werewolf registry saying that he had a job. Was he involved with your abduction in any way?"

"I don't think so. But there's something not quite right about his disappearance. The man was obsessed with my mother and thought that I was going to be her second coming or something. But he and Sirius knew something about me and called me 'the key' whatever that meant. I just don't like having people that have plans involving me being in the wind. Do you mind looking into the man's disappearance?"

Arcturus nodded, with an odd look on his face, "Potter, Black, Pettigrew, and Lupin. It all comes down to those four. I'll look into it. Hopefully, it won't be something sinister. We already have enough on our plates with the whole mess with Dumbledore and Grindelwald."

Yeah, Harry hoped so too. Unfortunately, if there was something he had learnt, it was that luck was very rarely on his side.

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