The breathless Sirius bursts like a whirlwind into the living room of his friend's house, and what he sees throws him into a storm of emotions—he begins circling James's corpse and whining, tugging at his long, shaggy hair with his twisted hands. Muffled sobs alternate with loud growls until a child's crying from the upper floor suddenly pulls him out of the abyss of despair and makes him stop and listen.
"Harry," he whispers and rushes toward the stairs. "Lily! How are you?"
Someone descends the stairs from above toward the young Black—first legs and the hems of a grayish, dirty robe appear, and then the whole of Rubeus Hagrid, the gamekeeper and Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts. In his arms, Black's godson, one-and-a-half-year-old Harry Potter, twists around, pounds with his little fists, screams, and cries with all the strength of his vocal cords.
"Hagrid, what are you doing here? Why did you take Harry away from his mother?" the young wizard rushes heatedly at the enormous man. "Give me my godson. Harry, Prongslet, come to me, come to Paddy-foo..."
The child stops crying and stretches out his arms toward his godfather, but Hagrid's huge hands do not even allow him to turn around. An expression of stubbornness and resentment is stamped on the dim-witted half-giant's face.
"Sirius, well, the Headmaster himself, Professor Dumbledore, sent me here. Go, he told me, and take the little one from the house of his dead parents. He must undergo a standard medical examination if he met an Avada with his forehead."
"What Avada, Hagrid, what are you talking about? There is no protection against an Avada, and you're talking about his 'forehead'—why would you say that?" young Sirius objects and once again reaches out to take the child.
And once again Hagrid turns slightly sideways to prevent him.
"I don't know anything, Professor Dumbledore ordered me. Go, he says, take the boy, and if young Black appears, tell him that 'the Master orders him to obey.'"
The last words he hears seem to replace Sirius with someone else—he immediately begins nodding his head and trembling all over. His facial expression changes sharply, he starts smiling and mechanically repeating, "Of course, of course, I understand, I understand everything..." like a broken barrel organ. Suddenly, some thought flashes through his mind, and, his gray eyes gleaming, he tugs Hagrid by the dirty sleeve of his robe:
"Hagrid, hey, Hagrid!" he begins speaking cheerfully to the gamekeeper. "Why don't you ride my motorcycle? Prongslet loves riding my mechanical beast. Take it—you won't get to Hogwarts any faster." A sudden guess about the enormous man's methods of transportation flashes in his eyes. "You can't Apparate, can you? How did you get to Godric's Hollow? Riding a Thestral?"
"Ah, Sirius, don't joke with me like that, Professor Dumbledore gave me a lift... I wasn't supposed to say that, forget it," the dim-witted half-giant catches himself and changes the subject. "A motorcycle, you say? Let's take a look..."
What they saw did not surprise the members of the Wizengamot and the guests present in the hall. They had already seen so many new things that, had Voldemort entered now and announced that he was Merlin's reincarnation, they would not even have blinked.
"You bastard!" the flighty and enraged Sirius shouts at an equally flighty little man whom they recognize as Peter Pettigrew. "How could you betray our friends, little Prongslet, to You-Know-Who? They chose you as Secret Keeper, submitted to Dumbledore, and you... you... Do you know, you worthless creature, that your lord killed James and Lily?"
The short man looks at his friend with a kind of resignation and tries to calm him down so he can explain the true picture of what happened:
"Padfoot, please, listen to me, and then you can kill me if you want."
"Shut up, traitor, you are responsible for their deaths..."
"But the Dark Lord didn't come with me to kill the Potters. There was a mistake, they misunderstood..."
"They would never become Death Eaters!"
"No one was going to offer them a place among the Death Eaters. He wanted a neutrality pact..."
"You... you...! I'll kill you, Peter! You're defending Voldemort, you've turned away from the Light!"
"Sirius, stop it! What Light? I didn't betray anyone. I was only helping to end the war in the Magworld," Peter Pettigrew continues trying to hammer his truth into his friend.
"Aaah, why? Why did I agree with James to make you the Secret Keeper instead of me? It's all my fault. How could I have allowed you near my friends? If I had continued insisting that the Fidelius be bound to me, they would still be alive now."
The short wizard casts a Petrificus in his friend's direction so that he will shut up, stop rushing madly from side to side, and acting in every possible way like an insane lunatic. But even in that state Sirius, as always, was at his best. Automatically, upon seeing the tip of the wand pointed at him, he throws himself onto the asph... ahfsp... well, that paving Muggles use to cover their streets, and presses himself low against it, casting a Bombarda Maxima at Peter along the way.
Peter is no fool either; he bends to the left. As a result, the spells of the two young wizards strike not where they were supposed to, but entirely different targets.
Peter's Petrificus knocks twelve Muggles off their feet, and the effects of Sirius's Bombarda catch them while they are lying like stone statues on the same asphalt. The energy of the Bombarda is enough to turn a dozen buildings on both sides of the street into ruins, damage a gas pipeline, ignite the gas escaping from its damaged pipe, and kill the Muggles who never regained consciousness.
Sirius loses his mind when, looking around, he sees the results of the clash and begins laughing madly, dancing, and shouting:
"I did this! It's all my fault!"
The cracks of Apparition are heard, and a squad of ten Aurors, led by the legendary Alastor Mad-Eye Moody, deigns to appear.
"And now," Madam Bones said in a tired voice, "we must sum everything up and make our decisions..."
But her speech was interrupted by the loud strike of the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot's gavel, and he slowly straightened, smoothing the blood-red folds of satin robes around himself and drawing the wizards' attention to his person.
"As the Head of this most exalted assembly, I hereby close today's investigation due to insufficient evidence. We, who are vested with authority, have no right to destroy the lives of ordinary people whom we have sworn to protect with all our strength. The memories you have demonstrated here, Madam Bones, contain no additional information beyond the events already known to the entire Wizarding World. I admit that I used the assistance of some of my friends in the name of the Greater Good and salvation from Voldemort's terror, but so many years have passed, peace and tranquility reign in the Wizarding World, and I simply forgot to close the connection between us. I will remove it immediately after the session ends."
"But..." was all the Head of the DMLE could say as she watched Albus Dumbledore leave the hall.
The members, the press, and the public—all of them watched dejectedly as the old wizard departed, having destroyed and trampled into the dirt, with a single strike of his gavel, all the hopes those present had entertained today of witnessing a sensational scandal.
Amelia lowered her hands onto the tabletop and, interlacing her fingers in a prayerful gesture, merely said to herself:
"Harry, Harry, where have you ended up?"
Young Potter lay on the dirty floor of the long-extinct Gaunts' shack and struggled against the feral Horcrux that, the moment he put on the ring, had charged into the boy's head like a wild ram with the intention of seizing control.
It was met with hostility and ordered to surrender. But this Horcrux was special. In it, the Tom Riddle who had created it had left his emotions and feelings for a courageous girl who had been forced to marry another man because Lord Voldemort had not been considered noble or wealthy enough for their daughter. The young man grieved over the loss with all his heart until he remembered Horcruxes. And he made this one in the ring of his magical ancestors, the Gaunt family.
"'I will not surrender,' the lovestruck Horcrux shouted inside the boy's head. 'I must take revenge on them, and you will submit to me,' the body's owner tried to persuade him.
"'Tom, everything will be settled. Just touch the shining sphere. Then we will merge and sort everything out.'
"'You'll swallow me, and I won't remember anything. I'll forget everything about her,' the newcomer continued to worry.
"'I promise that you won't forget anything. We will simply become one, and everyone will receive what they deserve.'"
This had continued in the same manner for a long time. The sun had long since passed noon, the shadows had lengthened, and evening had begun to approach unnoticed.
Finally, the fragment in the ring agreed to do what was necessary and touched the magical core, bringing with it the entire range of memories and feelings that had remained unforgotten during so many long years of imprisonment within the ring.
Hot lips in the twilight... a mass of long, coal-black curls covering the snow-white hemispheres of breasts... the intoxicating scent of love... tears of separation... promises to love forever... Helga Hufflepuff's cup, over which he had previously cast his spells... the scream of a dying Muggle, Bella waving her wand and speaking the ritual words that divided the soul.
Then she laughs long and hysterically while cutting the young man's corpse into pieces.
Cold in the heart. Cold in the soul.
"Hello, is this the Granger family? Yes, I'm Hermione's classmate, my name is Harry Potter. We met you in Diagon Alley. Yes, thank you. Could you please call Hermione? I want to speak with her."
Hermione met her friend Harry Potter at the bus stop and immediately tried to stir him up with her questions. But the boy, exhausted after reuniting with today's Horcrux and the difficult emotions that followed, did not engage and merely remained silent.
That was how they reached the Grangers' house—in silence. Harry would not have minded using Apparition or the elves' assistance, but to do so he needed knowledge or an idea of where he was supposed to go. So he agreed to use ordinary transportation, although it had completely exhausted his patience. But the girl was like a diamond among rubbish to him, and he had no intention of letting her slip away.
Knowing Dumbledore's habit of magically enslaving entire families, and remembering what had happened to his parents after they became close to that spider, Harry feared that a slave connection might also be hanging from him, invisible to his own eyes because he could not examine himself from the outside. His cousin Dudley, whose ability to see auras had suddenly awakened but remained suppressed, could not help because of his lack of knowledge and ignorance. Therefore, Harry accepted the existence of the red rope a priori, and to break it he needed a girl—new blood. He knew only one such priceless girl—Hermione Granger.
He was prepared to carry her in his arms, do everything she wanted, and endure all her whims, as long as she chose him and married him one day.
The thought of a mass of chestnut curls among which the dark circles of Hermione's white breasts modestly peeked out struck the boy to the very depths of his soul, and he reached inwardly to help her with the matter that had brought him to her home.
He switched the spectrum of his vision and began examining the entire grounds, at the center of which stood the Grangers' beautiful two-story cottage. Over everything, a barely visible dome of magical origin shimmered faintly. Harry approached and stepped through the membrane of the dome, stopping so that it coincided with his body. Closing his eyes, the boy surrendered himself to his sensations—yes, these were Muggle-repelling charms, nothing more. Whoever had cast them over the Muggles' home was probably out of his mind. He either wanted the family to live a lonely life—without relatives or friends—or he was a complete fool, or he had some far-reaching plans for Hermione. He did not want her to be friends with Muggle children—girls and boys, young men... Ah, young men!
Understood.
But it was not dangerous to her.
Harry grabbed Hermione's little hand and made her lead him inside the house. While tea and sandwiches were being prepared in the kitchen, the boy began looking around the house without changing the spectrum of his vision—he was searching for special signs. Everything on the second floor was peaceful and calm, just as it was on the first. All that remained was to look in the basement and the garage—Harry had developed an idiosyncrasy toward garages after finding that apparatus in his relatives' house, so he decided to leave the garage until last.
Returning to the kitchen, following his nose and obeying the rumbling of his empty stomach, Harry encountered a pair of worried brown eyes. Very frightened eyes.
"Hermy, what happened? Why are you looking at me like that?" the boy rushed toward her, noticing nothing but the girl's face.
"It was as though something pricked me right here," she pointed at her abdomen in the stomach area. "It suddenly began to hurt, and then I felt nauseous. I couldn't hold it back—I vomited into the sink, but I still feel sick, and the pain is getting worse. What is it, Harry?"
Looking downward and seeing the familiar umbilical cord attached to the girl, the boy understood why he had been drawn here immediately after Little Hangleton.
"An old tick, Dumbledore, has attached himself to you so he can suck your magical power out of you."
"Harry, don't say..."
"Hermione, be quiet and don't interfere in adult affairs with childish remarks!" Harry imperceptibly began speaking to the girl like an adult, which he actually was. Hermione did not notice this, blinking in astonishment. "We are wizards. We are ruled by the thirst for power, greatness, and impunity. Dumbledore more than anyone. Follow me, and I will prove that my words are true."
And the boy, ignoring both the rumbling in his stomach and the girl's protests, grabbed her by the hand and dragged her after him, guided by the grayish rope along which knots had already begun moving back and forth.
The apparatus was found, just as the boy had expected, in the garage.
And how could one not develop an idiosyncrasy after that?
A lanky red-haired boy on the top floor of a strange construction with the comical name "the Burrow," which stuck up in the middle of a large, neglected vegetable garden, was having a nightmare. Not the kind during which his Hogwarts dormitory neighbor Harry Potter screamed like a slaughtered pig, but no less frightening.
Ronald dreamed of spiders—enormous, hairy ones with huge mandibles that clicked as they circled the boy. The entire surface of the hated spiders was covered in reddish fuzz with a poisonous-yellow sheen. The Gryffindor, despite having been placed in the house of the brave, was terribly afraid of spiders and wanted to hide from them, but they kept circling and circling without pause and seemed to be waiting for something from him...
The most frightening of them all was the largest one—as his father had once told him, it must have been the mother spider—because it constantly tried to touch the red-haired boy, and that was so disgusting, so disgusting that...
...Ron woke with a scream, drenched in cold sweat.
The pattering of countless little legs belonging to monstrous creatures invisible in the darkness of night swept across the floor and moved away toward the stairs of the house.
Ginny's thin, giggling laughter followed them like an echo.
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