Even an hour later, the old house was still echoing with the sounds of fierce fighting.
It was Sirius Black brawling with Moody.
Or more accurately, it was Moody one-sidedly beating up Sirius, after all, although Moody was disabled, his alchemical prosthetics still gave him enormous strength.
The scene made Harry and the others panic. They wanted to rush in and break it up, but both Sirius and Moody threw them off harshly. Using spells was too risky, they might hit someone by accident, so all they could do was stand aside and shout at them to stop.
Hermione, clever as always, turned her eyes toward Link for help.
Unfortunately, Link had absolutely no intention of stopping the fight.
In his eyes, Sirius attacking Moody looked more like an extension of self-punishment. Because of Regulus, Sirius's grief had swelled to the point of nearly overflowing.
Of course, that had nothing to do with Link. The fact that he'd told Sirius the truth was already generous enough. Otherwise, Sirius might have gone to his grave never realizing what an extraordinary man his brother had been.
Shaking his head, Link was about to return to Flamel Castle.
But just then, Sirius, his face already swollen like a pig's from Moody's punches, suddenly lunged forward, completely ignoring Arkam's threatening presence, and grabbed Link's arm.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Link's voice was icy, and the tip of his ebony wand shimmered with a warped black glow.
He hated any kind of physical contact with Sirius, in any sense of the word. And he promised himself that if Sirius couldn't give him a reasonable explanation, he would personally take Moody's place and fully satisfy Sirius's apparent need for self-punishment.
When it came to tormenting people, the power of curses was ideal.
"Link! Don't!"
Moody rushed up as well, afraid that this dangerous man might actually do something to Sirius.
But Sirius ignored him completely. Trembling all over, he gripped Link's arm tightly and said, "Regulus can't keep bearing the stain of being called a Death Eater! He was a true hero! People need to know the truth! I need… I need you to clear his name! Please… I'm begging you…"
"No."
Moody barked again, but like Sirius, Link paid him no mind.
He simply stared silently into Sirius's eyes. After fully sensing the firmness and desperate pleading in them, Link sighed.
"All right."
"What are you thinking, Link!? You can't do that!" Moody growled through clenched teeth. "That'll expose us! Once the Death Eaters realize what's going on, everything we've worked for could go up in smoke!"
"But Regulus Black was a true hero! I think he completely deserves an Order of Merlin, First Class!" Link raised his voice. "Of course, it'll take some maneuvering, there'll be certain costs."
"I'll cover all the costs! Every single one! As long as you help clear Regulus's name, I'll give up everything if I have to!"
Sirius declared firmly. As he spoke, he pulled out an old-fashioned key from his pocket,
The key to the Black family's vault at Gringotts.
Link shot him a cold glance. "I'm not extorting you. The cost I'm talking about is time. Like Professor Moody said, now just isn't the right time."
"Then when will it be?!"
Bang!
Before Sirius could finish, Link flicked his wand, and an invisible force sent Sirius flying, slamming him hard into the floor.
"You have no right to bargain with me. I don't owe you anything."
Link's voice was frigid.
Under his icy gaze, Sirius finally seemed to come back to his senses.
He struggled to his feet, gritting his teeth against the pain, and nodded slightly to Link.
"This is my fault. Thank you for overlooking our past grudges and helping me again."
At that, Link said nothing, he only nodded silently.
He had no desire to stay here any longer.
"Apparate."
With a flick of his wand and a muttered address in his mind, a familiar wave of dizziness swept over him. When it cleared, he was standing in the entrance hall of Flamel Castle.
"Young master! You're back! Madam and Miss are having lunch right now,"
The house-elf Small Button greeted him eagerly and hurried to lead him toward the dining room. But before they reached it, Mrs. Flamel and Emily had already stepped out.
"Link, did you have a good time with your friends?"
Mrs. Flamel smiled as she spoke, reaching up to smooth down a stray lock of his hair.
Link had just opened his mouth to reply when Emily suddenly came right up to him, grabbed his collar, and started sniffing him.
Arkam, curled around Link's shoulders, instinctively opened his jaws to hiss in warning, but Emily smacked him away with one hand. The snake ended up curling pitifully on top of Link's head instead, he simply couldn't win against her.
"You've been drinking!"
Emily raised her voice, saying it as a firm accusation.
"Just a little. And I took an antidote beforehand, so it won't do me any harm."
Link explained with a stiff smile, the kind of smile that only looked more awkward the longer you looked at it.
This was, after all, the first time in two lifetimes he'd ever had to deal with a wife after drinking.
Fortunately, Emily wasn't the nitpicking type.
In truth, she hadn't been checking for the smell of alcohol, she'd been looking for Hermione's scent.
And by that measure, Link had clearly passed.
Emily rolled her eyes at him but didn't press the matter further. Instead, she reached up to smooth the wrinkles she'd made in his shirt collar and said, "Forget it, a little drinking's fine. Have something to eat, then go rest. Oh, by the way, we're going to Paris later to see a fashion show. Do you want to come with us?"
"Me? I'm afraid I don't have time," Link said with a wry smile. "My training isn't finished yet."
"You poor child."
Mrs. Flamel sighed, brushing his cheek gently. Both she and Emily looked at him with the same pained expression.
But that sympathy didn't last long.
They both knew perfectly well that Link would handle everything, he always did, as countless times before.
After saying goodbye to Mrs. Flamel and Emily, who were preparing to leave, Link helplessly returned to the spell-training chamber with Arkam and the Snitch to resume his practice of Apparition.
BOOM!
The heavy doors shut, and the expression on Link's face grew serious again.
Time was running out.
All of Hogwarts was covered by Anti-Apparition wards.
That meant that once term started, he'd have almost no way to continue his Apparition training.
And given how the storyline had already gone off the rails, Voldemort and his Death Eaters could officially launch attacks on Hogwarts and the British Ministry of Magic at any time. Link needed to master high-level Apparition as soon as possible to strengthen his combat ability.
So, during these final weeks of summer, he would have to train like mad, his goal, push Apparition to level four.
Of course, that would be incredibly difficult.
But Link believed he could do it. Worst-case scenario, he just wouldn't sleep.
Thinking that, his gaze hardened with resolve.
He neatly lined up thirty-two bottles of Invigoration Draught in a protective crate in the corner, then drew his wand and began casting.
Immediately, a series of sharp popping sounds filled the training chamber, each accompanied by faint ripples of spatial distortion.
The closed-door training for Apparition had begun.
———
Meanwhile, at the Ministry of Magic, Cornelius Fudge was sneaking down a hallway, head covered, hugging the wall as he crept toward his office.
His eyes darted warily, his movements small and cautious, he looked exactly like a thief.
He'd seen this morning's Daily Prophet and other papers.
The articles attacking him had made him furious.
As Minister for Magic, Fudge knew well how to manipulate public opinion, which only made him more aware that these reports, full of exaggerated and fabricated details, would cause enormous damage to his public support.
But there was nothing he could do. The public loved gossip about the private lives of powerful people; they only believed what they wanted to believe. Whether something was true or false didn't even enter their consideration.
At the moment, Fudge still didn't have a good solution. His performance in the Wizengamot trial had been atrocious.
From his many years in politics, he knew the best move now was to plead not guilty, arguing that Dumbledore's witness testimony had no legal validity and was fabricated.
It wasn't an entirely baseless defense either, Dumbledore's witness submission procedure had loopholes. Strictly speaking, that old woman's testimony shouldn't have been admissible.
If he could establish that point, not only would the accusations against him evaporate, but Harry Potter could be retried, and for giving false testimony, might even face harsher punishment.
But while that sounded simple, actually pulling it off was much harder.
He needed the cooperation of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and its head, Amelia Bones, had been acting very strangely toward him. She neither supported nor opposed him, seeming to want to follow the law impartially.
Of course, Fudge thought she was just playing hardball, waiting for him to offer more benefits.
On top of that, he still had to deal with attacks from Barty Crouch Sr. and his faction.
He figured that unless he was willing to spill some serious gold, he'd never make this go away.
And if those were his long-term worries, he also had plenty of immediate ones.
Like the swarm of reporters camped outside his house and at the Ministry.
The reason he was skulking around like a thief now was because of those damned paparazzi.
They'd completely disrupted his daily life. Being cornered and hounded by them had humiliated him in front of everyone at the Ministry.
"Those blasted reporters! After all the Galleons I've sent their way, and now they turn around and bite me, ungrateful mutts, the lot of them!"
"And those useless Hit Wizards in charge of security! They just let those reporters waltz in! One of these days, I'm going to fire every last one of them!"
Fudge muttered under his breath, his eyes fixed firmly on the wooden door ahead.
His office. Once he got in there, the morning's misery would finally, at least temporarily, be over.
Thinking that, he quickened his pace.
But just as he reached for the handle, a familiar voice sounded behind him.
"Well, well! Isn't this the Minister himself? What's with this getup? Haven't seen you for one night and already you've changed hobbies, cross-dressing now, are we?"
It was Barty Crouch Sr.
Fudge gritted his teeth and turned around to see Crouch standing there with three young Wizengamot members, all of them watching him with mocking smiles.
Judging by where they stood, they must have been watching him creep along the wall for quite some time, and only spoke up now that he was almost out of sight.
That made Fudge's face burn even redder.
He didn't want to respond, he just wanted to hurry into his office. Admitting he'd been chased by paparazzi was too embarrassing.
But before he could escape, the office door opened on its own.
Umbridge and Percy stepped out one after the other. Judging by their expressions, Percy had been consulting her about administrative work.
The two of them nearly ran right into Fudge in his ridiculous getup, making the situation even more awkward.
"Ahem."
Fudge cleared his throat. In front of his subordinates, he couldn't afford to look weak.
He straightened up stiffly and said to Crouch, "Everyone has their private hobbies. There's nothing strange or shameful about that. Just like you, Mr. Crouch, you enjoy training your son into a Death Eater and then throwing him into Azkaban to die, don't you?"
Fudge's counterattack was brutal. His words stabbed straight into Crouch's chest like a knife, wiping the smile clean off his face in an instant.
The three young councilors beside him also went silent, retreating a little. Clearly, they too knew the story of Barty Crouch Jr.
In fact, it was hardly a secret in the Ministry anymore. Fudge loved to tell that story whenever he bragged about his election victory, just never in front of Crouch himself.
"I don't need the Minister to remind me about my son's past," Crouch said coldly.
"And you're right, having private interests isn't strange in itself."
"But since you call my son's case my personal hobby, then that means when a hobby comes into conflict with the Ministry of Magic, or the entire British wizarding world, it deserves punishment."
"I've already paid the price for my so-called hobby. So tell me, Minister, are you ready to pay yours?"
"Pay the price? I don't see why I should pay any price," Fudge shouted. Crouch's bluster didn't scare him, in fact, Fudge only ever lost his composure around Dumbledore.
To him, Crouch was just a defeated opponent. "What, covering my head with a cloak is somehow harming the Ministry and the people now?"
Then he laughed loudly and looked toward Umbridge and Percy.
The two forced themselves to laugh along, but their smiles were stiff, it clearly wasn't funny.
"I'm talking," Crouch suddenly raised his voice, drawing everyone's attention back to him, "about your little hobby of abusing the Ministry's power for personal revenge, of sending Dementors to attack Harry Potter."
"Your hobby of embezzling Ministry funds for your own indulgence."
"Your hobby of bribing reporters to hype your image and manipulate public opinion!"
"Rubbish!"
Fudge roared, his forced smile collapsing completely. "You're slandering me! I've never done any of that!"
"You know perfectly well whether I'm lying," Crouch said coldly. "But I'll remind you of this, many people have already filed official complaints against you. This time, you're finished."
With that, Crouch sneered and strode off toward the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, the young councilors following behind him.
Fudge's eye twitched violently as he watched them go. He knew Crouch meant business this time.
He needed to act fast.
Otherwise, if Crouch joined forces with those younger councilors, and with Link's backing, he could be completely ruined.
"Damn… Crouch!"
Fudge ground out between his teeth, then abandoned the idea of going to his office entirely and turned straight toward the Department of Mysteries.
Behind him, Umbridge and Percy exchanged uneasy, ambiguous looks.
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