The Headmaster of Hogwarts twirled a glass trinket in his hand, into which he had placed a fragment of the unbearable girl's soul—the part of her into which he had summoned all her love and tenderness for Potter.
Hermione, freed from the ropes, slept on the chair, unaware of what the bastion of Light and Goodness, Professor Albus Dumbledore, had done to her. Namely, taking advantage of her despair, induced by the vision in the mirror, and her desire to die, he had split her soul and created her Horcrux.
She was already emerging from the trance, and Albus should delay matters no longer. Therefore, taking the Sword of Gryffindor, which hung on the wall behind the back of the Headmaster's chair, he struck the glass trinket with a sharp swing and shattered it into pieces. A plaintive girlish squeak swept through the shelves of the office and faded away forever.
The bushy-haired swot abruptly opened her eyes and looked questioningly at the respected Headmaster of Hogwarts, then her face became covered with red blotches of shame, and she asked in a broken voice:
Did I fall asleep, Professor?
It's all right, it's all right, my girl, nothing terrible happened. Fawkes burned up, but he is already rising from the ashes, alive and well. Would you like to watch?
Yes, but...
It's all right, just watch. Young Ronald will wait for you outside.
Closer to lunchtime, Hermione Granger suddenly appeared, swooping down on her fiancé like a rabid hippogriff. Her eyes spewed fire and brimstone, and her hair flew around like a brown fan of coils and curls.
Harry James Potter! – Hermione's screech vanished somewhere among the ultrasonic frequencies, but that was not what stunned him; it was the absence of the rest of his surnames and titles. Had she forgotten them or what? – How could you take Professor Dumbledore himself to court? What bit you? What could you possibly accuse him of? Why, he is the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, holder of the Order of Merlin, First Class, President of the International Confederation of Wizards, Headmaster of Hogwarts...
In short, he had not expected such a severe dressing-down of the blood-guts-dismemberment kind; he had even forgotten what that was like, but the voice of his beloved croaked so familiarly that he looked around fearfully, wondering whether Molly Weasley herself was prompting her from somewhere.
Where had this come from?! After all their conversations while resting on the island, when she had cried on his bony shoulder, listening to his account and explanation of the background of his disagreements with Albus (during his life as Harry Potter; the boy had never breathed a word to anyone about his other life as Riddle), because of which he had sued him and Albus had nearly been stripped of all his honours and authority.
Amelia Bones arranged a meeting with Harry Potter and his relatives, at which she tried, incoherently and at great length, to explain why Dumbledore had not been put on trial and sent to serve at least a life sentence in Azkaban. Because of the absence of that inner core which made Madam Bones a true police bloodhound, her listeners concluded that something extraordinary had happened at the latest session, something that had derailed the investigation halfway through and interrupted the plan that had been developing so well. The trap had been broken. Or someone had broken it during the session.
Albus Dumbledore, exercising his right as Chief Warlock, closed the session of the Wizengamot, disregarding all the evidence against him, but his authority had been severely shaken, and the wizards no longer looked upon the vanquisher of Grindelwald with such unshakable faith.
One way or another, Dumbledore had wriggled free, emerging from the confrontation safe and unharmed and very, very well informed.
For the time being, he retained his position as Chief Warlock, but every movement, word, and conversation of his was now being watched under a microscope. He was still the Headmaster of Hogwarts, but voices of doubt were raised on the Board of Governors about whether Albus Dumbledore was really performing his duties of educating young wizards so well. Some began suggesting that perhaps it was already time to send the old professor into retirement.
But Hermione knew all of this... Or did she no longer know?
Before they parted, Amelia was advised to take her niece away from Hogwarts and go abroad, far away from Dumbledore and his vengeful curs.
During her verbal deluge, Madam Bones let slip that she had followed Harry's advice and used an enchanted artefact from the Department of Mysteries to look at the wizards' auras, where she saw an entire network of attachments to the Head of the Wizengamot. This changed the picture so drastically that a completely new plan had to be devised to destroy the authority of the Headmaster of Hogwarts and knock him from his pedestal in the eyes of the Wizarding World.
According to Amelia, a large number of wizarding families were connected to Albus Dumbledore by umbilical cords. No wonder he was considered the most powerful sorcerer since Merlin—of course he was! When the cream of the Wizarding World grants its own—and not inconsiderable, judging by these wretches around him—magical power to one man. A very clever old man. I would respect him if he did not occupy all three prize-winning places on my list of worst enemies.
It was fortunate that Harry and those close to him had severed their umbilical cords to the Headmaster—Dudley assured him that they had disappeared immediately after the ritual words were spoken—but Dumbledore's crimes were so great that, having escaped the lawful Kiss, he faced an evil fate devised, prepared, and already set in motion by the last representative of the Potter family.
So that the Wizarding World would not follow its master if his death were violent, the Headmaster would have to be kept alive. Therefore, Harry prepared himself for a chess game in which the king had to be placed in a stalemate position.
And at the same time, he had to emerge victorious.
The large elven circle of his house-elves would help their master. They themselves had proposed a plan that was extremely unpleasant for Dumbledore and advantageous for Harry.
The plan contained, as its first and only point, a Horcrux in his skull, supposedly left there by Lord Voldemort. Damned Albus, damned faggot!
In this flighty Gryffindor Know-It-All, he could not recognise his sweet fiancée, whom he had repeatedly warned to stay away from the Blood Traitors. He had told her never, under any pretext, to remain alone with anyone from the red-haired family. Not even to allow the little bitch near her, although Hermione had disregarded Harry's warnings and looked after the freckled pest. He had hoped that her stubbornness would not come back to haunt her in some serious way.
But apparently, she had been caught. From his very first glance at Hermione's fanatically blazing eyes, that realisation stabbed Harry straight in the heart.
Then he remembered how suddenly and deeply he had passed out the previous evening, barely after entering the second-year boys' dormitory. Someone had made sure that his fiancée was left without protection. Dudley had also slept like a baby. But why had she not hidden in her room? Why had she been talking to someone from...
The Weasleys! It had been a carefully prepared trap. For large and stupid white birds.
Until the very end, he had hoped that matters would not reach this degree of corruption, but the sight of Hermione told him that he had truly lost her—not physically, for she was still standing opposite the dark-haired boy, clenching her teeth and fists and boring a hole into his unfortunate skull—but her, Hermione herself. There was no point thinking about it any longer; the girl had probably been captured and had her brain taken out. This beautiful and driven girl, whom he had first loved as a friend and then truly loved, her mental "Self," already belonged to the Blood Traitors—and Potter's heart ached with the premonition that it would not end there. He would not have placed bets on the likelihood that she had been filled to the brim with Love Potion. Had she been older and not betrothed, they would already have bound her in marriage to the red-haired moron Ronald.
Harry peered at her aura with his special sight to see the damage inflicted upon his fiancée's body and magic, and what he discovered, on the one hand, confirmed his suspicions and, on the other, reassured him.
They had indeed been dosing her with potions—Love Potion, Amortentia, Forgetfulness Potion—but they had been only weakly absorbed by her, warping into something else and, apparently, being quickly expelled by the girl's system; otherwise, her aura would have blazed with lust and desire. It was blazing, that was obvious even to a blind man, but not with passion—with anger, righteous anger, as she believed. No other feelings possessed her, despite the wide range of potions.
At least thanks for that.
Thanks also for the fact that the Weasleys had not dared to violate the honour of an innocent girl; they were probably afraid of the consequences. By raping the bride of the Boy, the vanquisher of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, they would at that very moment have become his blood enemies, and that was fraught with trouble.
They did not know that this fate would befall them anyway—to become the blood enemies of the reincarnated Lord Voldemort. But for now, they did not know that. The harder the blow would be.
But then Hermione turned, and the dark flaw in her aura on the side of her back became visible from Harry's position. Staring wide-eyed at the flaw, he forgot to breathe.
"So that is what the aura of a person who has made a Horcrux for themselves looks like!" - someone screamed inside the boy's mind, while he could not believe that the enemies had gone that far.
That was why no love elixirs had any effect on Hermione. There was nothing for them to act upon if all your emotions had been cut out and only anger and naked logic remained.
The dark-haired boy said nothing to Hermione; he merely took her hand and Apparated directly from the corridor of Hogwarts, leaving behind several dozen students whose eyes had glazed over with bewilderment.
He had no time for moles.
It became vitally important for him to apply Plan "B" with regard to one girl with curly brown hair and another with curly black hair, imprisoned inside Hufflepuff's cup, hidden in the dungeons of Gringotts. If only he was not too late!
They appeared once again in a corridor, but in an entirely different castle—the bastion of misery in the North Sea, Azkaban.
A savage frost struck them immediately, and the girl's teeth began chattering staccato. She turned blue all over and went numb from the freezing draught, clinging to his hand in a death grip and looking wildly around, not understanding what was happening or where they had ended up. Her eyes, like two wells, looked fearfully at Potter, not recognising her fiancé in him, not even recognising her fellow student, afraid of who he was.
Should Harry have explained anything to her if, after the first turn around a corner, she would forget his instructions? No, he had to begin with the backup plan and not think about revenge, not think about the fate Albus Dumbledore had intended for her—to live and die in poverty, among a horde of red-haired children, chained to the stove, the sink, and the laundry.
In Goodness.
Yanking her roughly, Harry dragged his grief after him down the corridor, heading towards Bella's cell to warn his other beloved that it was time to finish what had been started. She would be glad about it because she had already suffered enough for her mistake in the past.
______
[Please leave a few reviews and Power Stones]
The work on patreon is now complete.
If you enjoy my work, you can Support me at:
[email protected]/cw/Phoenixfic
________