Pre-Chapter A/N:I think at this point, we just have to accept that I will inevitably show up with two chapters a week. As for when those chapters show up, I think it's best I not make any particular promises. If you haven't already, I recommend turning on notifications for my stuff so you can see when new stuff drops right as it drops. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
The Daily Prophet for the first day of August 1995 did not go out in the morning. The news reaching the editors was too confusing for them to feel comfortable releasing an issue. So they did something they were not renowned for. They went out; they conducted interviews. They took pictures of the various sites that the disasters had taken place at, and when they felt they had a good picture of things, they weighed and agonized over the decision of whether to publish or not. Feeling uncharacteristically brave, Barnabas Cuffe overrode all concerns and decided to move forward with the publication.
Cuffe Manor would be razed to the ground within a week of the publication, but both he and his wife would have taken residence in an unknown safe house prior to that. The publication that led to the burning of Cuffe Manor went out on the evening of the first of August 1995, a special evening edition of the Prophet that sold at half price and had only a single front-page story.
Given pride of place was the picture of Bones Hall with the newly guardianless Susan Bones being consoled by an Auror whose hair darkened from grey to black in the picture in the foreground. Bones Hall in ruins was the background. Half the storied manor was naught but rubble. The other half burned with blue flames, and the whole of it was lit from above by a single specter in the sky—the storied Dark Mark.
The title for the story read: "A Dark Day for Wizarding Britain: He Who Must Not Be Named Returns". The article told the story of what had happened the night before. He Who Must Not Be Named was personally seen by no less than dozens of wizards as he singlehandedly embarked on a campaign against the 'who's who' of Wizarding Britain.
"Amelia Bones, the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Alexander Burke, Head of the Accounting Department, Reginald Fawley, Head of the Department of Magical Transportation, and Ellias Brown, Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures are just some of the most notable casualties of last night's rampage against the Ministry itself. There are credible accounts that say he visited the homes of several other Department Heads, but those homes remain standing and those men and women remain alive, making this writer wonder what they did to secure their lives. What they were willing to promise He Who Must Not Be Named in exchange for keeping their positions.
This writer also wonders why the home of Minister Fudge was not visited at all, according to several notable sources. Remember that Minister Fudge was the one who assured the wizarding world to ignore the warnings that came from Hogwarts Headmaster and Wizengamot Chief Warlock, Albus Dumbledore. He assured us that there was no reason to increase the funding due to either the Aurors or Hit-Wizards and now has us in a situation where He Who Must Not Be Named has returned, and we are even less prepared to face him. The question then becomes, was this incompetence, or was it corruption?
Is Minister Fudge in the pocket of He Who Must Not Be Named of his own free will, or is he just too stupid to realise he has become yet another useful idiot? This journalist believes the former, but the latter is not far from believable by any means."
"This is shite!" The Minister could be heard roaring from his office as he tossed the paper into the flames. The flames flashed green a second later, and a man stepped in.
XXXXX- THE DARK LORD'S SERVANT
"Oh, thank you, Lucius. Thank you for coming. I assume you've seen the shite they're writing about me." Lucius gave the man a look before he walked past him and took a seat in the office chair right opposite the Minister's.
"Take a seat, Cornelius. Clear the room," he ordered.
"What?"
"I know you heard me, my friend," he replied with a raised eyebrow.
"Give us the room," the Minister ordered with a sigh as he turned to his Auror guard. A guard he held ever closer now that the attacks had taken place and so many had been killed.
"Is it true, Lucius?" he asked, and Lucius silently wondered if this man was truly as empty-headed as he played himself out to be. For the longest time, Lucius had felt it to be a camouflage of sorts, a tool he wielded to make those who he was opposed to, and even his allies, underestimate him. Take him for a less dangerous man. But perhaps Lucius had overthought things. Perhaps he was actually just that stupid in the first place. That would be inconvenient.
"Take your seat, Cornelius, and then we shall speak," he ordered again, and this time he was not refused. He so did dislike having to repeat himself but Cornelius' position, unearned as it was, had earned him a few privileges. He would keep them if he managed to remain useful.
"I'm seated now, Lucius. Answer my question, please. Is it true?"
"Depends on which part you refer to, my friend. Surely you've seen the remains at this point." Lucius had seen pictures from his tools in the Auror office. His Lord had been far from delicate in his treatment of those who refused to capitulate. It was only Lucius' care for the man that had seen Cornelius spared the same fate. The security around the Minister's Manor was too tight for anything less than a full mobilization. And his Lord had learned his lesson from his first war. This one was going to be no war. This was going to be much more elegant, and less bloody if all went to plan.
"Is—is you-know-who, you know?"
"Is He back? Is that your question?" He did not bother to whisper like Fudge was. That time was behind them.
"Yes, yes. Is he?"
"What makes you think he was ever gone in the first place?"
"Wh-what? But everyone knows. Potter—"
"I would advise you to stop believing the drivel the public carries about as truth. You must be a more enlightened man as the Minister for Magic," he said, beginning their story.
"What? But what do you mean? Nothing was found of him and Harry Potter has the scar. Dumbledore said—"
"You should already be familiar with the headmaster's propensity for dishonesty at this point, Cornelius. Now will you listen as I answer your question, or will you continue to interrupt me with trivial matters?" he asked, waiting patiently. Cornelius sighed, visibly gathering himself before he spoke.
"Okay, please explain to me."
"My Lord was never defeated. He simply took a step back. He is immortal and a child like Potter would never have stood a chance against him had my Lord intended to exact his will. There is nothing special about the boy other than the fact that the Dark Lord chose to spare him after killing both James and Lily Potter. He was spared because My Lord could sense that he would grow into a promising wizard one day, and My Lord does so hate to shed promising wizarding blood for no reason, and he will be given the same choice as all of wizarding blood in turn." Cornelius nodded along, seeming to understand before he froze.
"You said 'my lord,'" he pointed out. Lucius kept his expression carefully blank before he spoke again.
"It seems I did," he agreed.
"But-but the Imperius!"
"I lied, Cornelius. I have always been a loyal servant of the Dark Lord," he said, watching the way the man's face moved with the realization.
"So that means—"
"Yes, I am here with an offer for you. The same offer that I am sure you realise that all your department heads received, offers that most of them were wise enough to accept."
"The Prophet was right."
"Indeed. Now it is your time to make a choice. Either I leave here with the knowledge that you have been recruited for the cause and will do my Lord's will as necessary, or I leave here with a target painted on your back." The man seemed to whimper at his words.
"Please, Lucius. I thought we were friends."
"And that is why I am the one giving you this offer, and not My Lord himself. It is for our friendship that I assured the Dark Lord that you could be brought onside without drastic measures. Do not see to it that I am proven wrong, Cornelius."
"Can I— can I have some time to think about it?" Lucius scoffed.
"Think about it? Do I seem to be a wizard asking you to a ball, Cornelius? This is serious business. You are either onside or not. And you will declare the truth of it to me before I leave."
"Wha-what would I be expected to do if I were to become onside?" Cornelius asked, and Lucius smiled. A slow, smug thing. He did so enjoy being proven right.
"Nothing more onerous than what you do already, I promise. You just need to turn a blind eye to one or two things, and to sign one or two laws when they come up. We will handle things in the Wizengamot to give you as easy a job as possible. Cornelius, working with us will feel like nothing has changed, because little will have," Lucius said, and wasn't that the truth. It was not a thought he could have in his Lord's presence but he knew that his work in the last decade had done more to advance their cause than a hundred dead mudbloods.
His Lord's first mistake had been attempting to gain victory by working from without the ministry and gaining power through force. While force has its place in a cause like that, Lucius could see now that his approach, taking things slowly and steadily, subverting the ministry to their cause rather than attempting to conquer it outright was a more effective approach. And the perfect approach could only come from combining both. His Lord's proclivity for violence and Lucius' political skill.
"O-Okay. And I'll be safe?"
"The Dark Lord will see to it that you are the most untouchable man in wizarding Britain," he said with a smile as he watched Fudge form a smile of his own and stretch out a hand. Lucius took it, pleased to have things going according to plan.
XXXXXX- TWO MONTHS LATER: HARRY POTTER
I skated along the sand, propelling myself with my magic backwards as two massive dragons made of sand chased me across it. I slashed my wand across my body, forming runes with only my intent and without the bother of drawing them—one of the skills Nicholas had in his arsenal that he had not found much use for but I found as useful as breathing at times—and then I cast the spell. Positive and negative charges clashed, and several bolts of lightning shot from my runes, tearing the sky asunder as they passed, and destroying the dragons in one swoop.
I kept skating, avoiding the worst of it as some shards of glass fell down from the heat. The beach between the two of us had been turned into an Armageddon. With all the training we'd been doing, it had quickly become too dangerous for us to duel going at full blast anymore so we implemented limitations. Sometimes we dueled with only transfiguration or with only charms, but today was different.
My limitation was that I could use only runic magic, and as we had quickly found out, that tended to favor massive displays of power over more subtle means….to put it lightly.
"Tired yet, Harry?" he said from across the wasteland the beach had become.
"Just getting warmed up," I lied through my teeth even as my heavy breathing betrayed me.
"Okay then, come along," he said, waving me forward.
I drew a rune in the air with a flex of my magic before pushing out with my wand. "Ventus maximus," I whispered, creating a massive gust of wind that practically lifted up the entire wasteland in front of me, sending it right at my opponent. I sagged in on myself, struggling to keep my feet as I felt a sense of emptiness fill me.
I was oh so fucking tired. Using the runic version of any spell seemed to take a minimum of double the amount of magic. That one had taken more like twelve times what a standard ventus would have. And adding that to the mess that had been the fulgur tempestas I'd unleashed earlier and what had been close to fifteen minutes of dueling on top of that meant I was literally on my last legs.
The wind died down, and in front of where Nicholas had been standing was a wall. It was made of what looked to be solid stone, and glowed with runes placed on it. I watched it as part of the wall crumbled to reveal the man looking little worse for wear.
"Impressive. If I hadn't added the impenetrability ward to the wall, you'd probably have tossed me straight into the sea," he said with a smirk, as he pushed off against the ground and floated over the wasteland between us to reach my side.
"How'd you even cast a ward that quickly?" I asked, relaxing and allowing myself fall back on my arse. Today wouldn't be the day I beat Nicholas, but I could feel it coming. Eight months of dedicated magical progress was showing. I could do things now that would have been a dream to me earlier. Even Grindelwald had been forced to admit that I was stronger than any of his teachers back at Durmstrang—even the Highmaster had been.
"I didn't," he said.
"And yet there was a ward on the wall regardless," I observed.
"Exactly. I am sure you will tell me all about it during our classroom lesson today," he said. I nodded. That tended to be how things worked these days. He couldn't do dedicated lessons anymore as I'd passed that level so now we worked on bits of magic I felt I wanted to work on, or alternatively he would show something during our duels and then he would challenge me to figure it out before our lesson and I would present my best guesses.
"Sure. Right after I figure out how you never manage to get tired no matter how much I push," I said, recalling one of my earliest inquiries. There had to be some trick to it.
"The explanation that I might just be that much more powerful than you are still proving insufficient?"
"Considering you never outright say it and only imply it says even you don't think that is the case," I said.
He shrugged, hand in his pocket, and turned back to the beach with his other hand—wand hand—raised.
And then it began. The sand that had been glassed by my lightning was the first to shift, vibrating and shifting from glass right back to sand. Even the semi-liquid bits turned back to fresh dry white sand. And then came the wall that he had formed—or what remained of it. The black stone dissolved into sand, and the trench my ventus had torn between our positions was slowly filled by the sand. More and more of it flew upwards from the sea, drying itself off and joining the sand already collating at the bottom of the hole until the ground was level again.
Next, he stabbed his wand forwards and all the smaller bits—the footsteps I felt in the sand, the remnants of an ice spell I'd called into being at some point, and the corpses of several of his transfigured creatures disappeared in one go.
"At least Perenelle won't be mad at us for ruining the beach view this time," I said with a sigh as I looked across the perfect beachscape.
"At least," he said.
I pushed myself to my feet as I noticed Perenelle coming out of the house. Behind her floated a pitcher of fresh juice and a pair of glasses.
"Thank you," I barely managed to say before I began to devour the drink, my throat practically aching for it.
"Has Sirius returned?" I heard Nicholas ask, and kept a keen ear out as Perenelle said no.
"That's been about five hours now," I cut in.
"Well, it's not the first time the Order is failing to stick to time with their meetings," Nicholas replied.
"I wonder what they'd need so much time to talk about, even. It's not like they ever manage to get anything done, do they?"
"Well, you are the one who chose not to honour either of Albus' invitations," Nicholas said.
"What we're doing here is even more important," I refuted.
"More important to you than killing your dark lord?"
"Voldemort and I will have our date no matter what. My job is just to make sure that when we do, I'm the one who makes it out alive, and working with you is the fastest way to make that happen," I said.
"And I told you Albus is an even greater wizard than I by some margin. His offer for you to teach at Hogwarts and be trained by him was everything you needed and more," he said.
"Did you want me to abandon you, old man? Is that it?" I asked.
"No. Of course not. It's just—you know what? Never mind," he said, picking up his own glass and turning towards the horizon.
"Did the Prophet come in finally?" I asked Perenelle. The issue hadn't come in yet, and while delays were expected considering how far away we lived, this was beyond the pale.
"Not yet. Maybe whatever news is delaying it has to do with what's keeping Sirius for so long."
"I hope not," I said. Because whatever it was, it couldn't be good news.
A/N: Here we go with a new chapter.. Next four chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.