Chapter Two
Sirius taught me many things during the seventh year of my Hogwarts education, the one I chose not to attend. He taught me dueling, fighting, picking up girls and living life to the fullest. He also taught me something that may have saved my life or condemned me to an exile into the shadows of the underworld.
We lived in a white mansion overlooking a grove of cedar trees. Behind us, a pond stretched wide and far, with a variety of life taking up home there like frogs, garden snakes, mosquitoes, dragon flies and the occasional baby crocodile Sirius put to scare me.
The day he taught me the rune charm for summoning a demon was the day the newspapers showed this on the front page:
Picture: Bodies lay strewn on the ground in Diagon Alley attack. You Know Who and over thirty death eaters overpowered aurors, mass slaughter.
Headline: MASS SLAUGHTER IN DIAGON ALLEY
Article: The fight continues. This morning, You Know Who strolled down Diagon Alley's busiest hour, the time students of Hogwarts shopped for their school supplies. The morning air was fragrant with chocolate frogs and candy, and voices of children intermingled with the daily shenanigans of the Diagon Alley regulars. Hags and witches haggled over the price of newt's eye and frog scales. Finely dressed wizards purchased wands for their sons and daughters. Peace came to the Alley after a great period of distress, struggle. The Ministry assured us we were safe, that the Dark Lord had left Britain. This reporter, present on the scene, protests otherwise.
The first signs of an attack occurred at exactly seven a.m, when I felt a buzzing sound, and asking others in the alley going about their day they also heard the buzzing sound, as faint on the ears as the odor of lilies and chamomile flowers on the wind. I was picking the flowers for my wife. She had given birth two days ago. I wanted to show her my love… Other lovers, scholars, workers and ultimately all witches, wizards, and the members of a close knit community: The Magical World, all suffered a disastrous blow when the wards of Diagon Alley fell. The buzzing sound turned instantly very very loud, as if my ears would bleed and I'd be deaf. That didn't happen. The loudness receded, and the second sign of trouble was the heavy crack of multiple apparitions. I did not know where they came from exactly, but I do know when I saw the organized mob of black robes and skull white masks I feared for my life. Running into Olivander's wand shop I took safety there and watched from the dusty window: death eaters butchered everyone on the streets with killing curses.
I asked Olivander for the floo. He said he didn't have one. I was shut in, trapped in the small hovel of unused wands with an old man who was unfit for any sort of battle. The Death Eaters hadn't entered the shops, they were clearing the streets. I knew it was only a matter of time.
Another crack of apparition caused all the spellfire to stop completely. My mind exploded with sheer terror when my eyes greeted the visage of the Dark Lord.
He was tall, around six feet, with a lithe agility and grace that seemed to go against his age, which rumor has it is around seventy five or eighty five. His skin was stretched taught against his muscles. Cheek bones prominent, eyes full and bulbous, with a scarlet tinge that drew everyone in. He was dressed simply yet richly: black robes of silk, boots of basilisk skin, a chain of golden beads around his wrist that shimmered in the light, seemed to appear and disappear from existence randomly. I wondered what it was for. I also wondered if anyone dared to ask.
I watched him walk to a mother carrying her baby. She pleaded for her life and that of her son's. The Dark Lord allowed her to go. That was the only act of mercy I had witnessed in the whole ordeal. I do not know why the Dark Lord let a mother and her son go but I suspect it has to do with the Chosen One, Harry Potter, who survived the killing curse when he was a baby due to (rumor has it) his mother's sacrifice. Perhaps the Dark Lord did not want to meet similar circumstances.
Nevertheless he scoured the area, swiftly casting spell after spell unknown to me. The air crackled with power. I felt sweaty and hot, as if I were in a furnace. Crouched in a corner by the window, peeking surreptitiously, my only thought was to get back to my wife and child. One of his spells rocketed toward a ten year old girl in a purple dress, running toward a side alley. It burned her entirely as if she had been engulfed in a fireball. I will always remember her scream.
Multiple cracks of apparitions echoed throughout the alley. My spirits soared at the sight of masses of red cloaked figures, with eyes of determination, and steady wands. The aurors were here to stop this madness. Death eaters and aurors dueled furiously, while the Dark Lord watched, waited.
I knew exactly who he was waiting for, the Chosen One, Harry Potter.
I felt hope rise to a higher octave within me, as spells ricocheted off walls and all the colors of spell fire merged into a pulse of organic powerful light. The sheer intensity of magic concentrated at this location served to induce euphoria and triggered an impulse in me to run outside and join the dance of magic. A wizarding war is unique. It can be as addictive as a drug, as pleasurable as a drug, and as lethal as a Bengal tiger.
The Dark Lord walked among the carnage, cleaving a path before him with the scythe that was his wand, using a variety of spells, curses, hexes, jinxes with no effort at all. Within minutes the aurors were retreating under the brute force of the Dark Lord's attack.
Then, a single crack of apparition saved the day.
He came as calm and unruffled as if he were dropping by for a cup of tea. His robes, as ugly and garish as always were dastardly brown, with pink dots spotted on them. His long beard shifted with the wind. Blue eyes surveyed the scene with calm, cold eyes.
Albus Dumbledore was here. I cannot begin to describe what I felt at his presence, but it was unlike anything I'd felt before. The man emitted something, some radiation of magical power that far outweighed anything on the field, including the Dark Lord's presence. That power was humbling… to everyone, I believe. The sheer force of his blue eyed gaze blanketed us all, suffocated us with a power we could feel, as tangible as a thick coat. I smelled the odors of a warm summer day enhanced by a thousand times. The scent of grass overpowered me to my knees. What was going on here? A wizarding battle is usually a trivial thing, fire a few spells and whoever falls loses.
This was no ordinary battle. Two Lords had come to duel. The Dark Lord's strength was palpatable, as if carnage came in human form; a sense of death filled the battle field the moment the two caught sight of each other. I knew, then and there, that I wouldn't survive this day, and fully expecting to die, I stood up and walked outside.
Or rather, I was summoned outside, as were others who hid in shops and buildings.
The aurors continued their battle, this time with a little more force and confidence. Death eaters desperately fought the onslaught and seemed to succeed very well.
The two giants eyed each other from across the battle field. Unhurriedly they began to walk toward each other and everyone, death eater or auror, knew well to keep out of their way.
"You cannot win," Dumbledore announced, "Not against all of us, united."
It was true. We could feel the bond between us, facilitated by a magic only Dumbledore knew.
They fought then after a verbal exchange I could not hear. The fight took all forms of magic into account and displayed them to the extent of a life spent studying these branches of magic, immersing oneself into it the way a person would submerge himself in a bath tub of warm water. Transfiguration occurred, charm work occurred, dark arts occurred, but those words cannot express the depth of their minds. Magic flowed between them at a very intense pace. The speed of sound meant nothing to them, one moment here, the next a flash of the Dark Lord and Dumbledore there, on the rooftops, an instant later back on the streets, transfiguring broken cobble stones into dragons and lions and snakes as big as a quidditch pitch.
Wizarding duels can be short or dreadfully long. This one had no sense of time, or rather, time had left this place in response to the magical energy expended on each other by the two very powerful wizards. I felt disconnected from my senses, rather like walking around in a dream. I drew my wand, however, and waited, watching amid the chaos of the dueling aurors and death eaters.
The Dark Lord raised his wand, uttered something cold and viciously powerful, and a jet of black light sweeped across Diagon Alley, killing everything in its path, including his own death eaters.
Dumbledore countered with a shimmering cascade of blue spheres.
It was too late. The slaughter could not be stopped. The Dark Lord and his remaining death eaters disappeared with the sound of a crack that seemed to sweep a curtain off my perceptions. I was back again, back to being my normal self.
Being caught up in a true wizard duel is absolutely mind bending. I just hope it doesn't have to happen again yet I know it must… until the Dark Lord is stopped there will always be brave wizards willing to fight him, like Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter.
-Written by Richard Skeeter for the Daily Prophet
When Sirius read the newspaper he took me aside from my flying – I loved to fly over the pond in the mornings – and sat me down over a cup of coffee. I knew he only drank coffee when there was something troubling him, so I listened patiently as he floundered around with the Daily Prophet looking very flustered.
"There's a Black tradition," Sirius began, "Of a particular runic spell being passed down from father to first born son." He searched me with his intensely troubled eyes.
"What's the spell?" I asked eagerly. I was barely seventeen and eager to know everything about magic. My thirst had not been slaked or satiated by any means.
Sirius Black cleared his throat, his grey-black hair perfectly combed, and his face shaved. He looked like a banker rather than an ex-con. "Well, there are- I mean, let me start off with some basics. How many branches of magic are there, Harry?"
"Do you mean subjects? I dunno, I guess maybe ten or fifteen?"
"Wrong, Harry," Sirius said, nursing his drink in the palms of his hands. "There are thousands, most of them ancient and lost to us, some still in existence passed down in secret, and some hidden… in caves, mountains, oceans… Magic has no limitations, Harry, which is what the essence of magic implies, art without limit.
"When I was eleven years old, the night before I would attend Hogwarts, my father took me aside to a local inn, and told me about this spell. He said it was a thin branch of magic, obscure and forgotten by most of the world. He said he knew it because his father knew it and told him the night before he would attend Hogwarts and so on, father to son, for millennia."
"Go on," I said.
"The spell, Harry," Sirius said, looking at me with a ferocious gleam in his eyes, "calls forth a demon into this world."
He proceeded to draw runes on old bits of parchment. I tried to talk some sense into him, "There's no such things as demons, Sirius," I said in desperation for I was a little bit afraid Sirius was loosing it again. His twelve year stay in Azkaban had made him a very different man from the friend James and Lily knew. He was hard, crafty, and imaginative. It made for a bad combination.
"There is," Sirius protested, continuing to draw using quill and blue ink. The parchments laid out before me on the table showed numerous runes that I could make no headway with, no matter how I looked at it or from what I head read in Beginner's Guide to Runes over the past few weeks – upon Sirius's instructions.
"What do these runes signify? A demon is what exactly?" I asked, trying to go through the academic route to get to him and stabilize his wonky persona and intense mood swings.
He did not explain right away. Instead, looking intensely at the pictures on the parchment he said to me, "Harry, there are things in this world too dangerous to fall into the wrong hands. I know this because my father burned the knowledge into my soul using an archaic spell of his own creation. I know this… because I have to know it. You don't, you have no obligation and I do not want to trap you, to imprison you." He took a long sip of coffee before continuing.
"I have lived in the worst hell hole in the entire world and the knowledge came to me, to the forefronts of my disarrayed brain. The way to summon a demon, Harry, and fight for you is the ultimate family weapon, used in ancient times to protect themselves against other vicious and power hungry clans of purebloods."
"I'm curious, Sirius, what sort of magic are you talking about here, light or dark?"
I fixed him with a very Hermione look, as if rule and law were the touchstones of good manners and he was being rude.
A shadow passed his face. "I'm telling you a very dark, dark piece of knowledge, in the hopes that it may save your life."
His look sobered me, "Alright, teach me," I beckoned and he taught me, slowly, ponderously. It took a week before we made the first experiment with demon summoning.
Our mansion overlooks a grove of cedar trees, and we went there. Sirius had dressed in a Native American poncho, and he carried a curious black bag he said we would need. I memorized the runes and went through them in my mind as we walked down a familiar trail through the groves. We stopped at a place where darkness reigned due to the height of the trees, circling us in a cocoon of sensory isolation. He lit a fire with stones and sticks instead of using his wand. "Our magic will contaminate the sight, and make the spell work wonky," Sirius explained as he drew runes into the grass with a penknife.
"So what happens if I cast a spell here?" I asked.
"The demon will be deformed, or nothing will happen," Sirius said, "Either way, a waste of time and energy."
"I see," I said, "Have you done this before?"
Sirius gazed at me with a faraway look, "Once, in my seventh year, with your father."
My eyebrows rose, "My father summoned a demon?"
"He summoned a spirit," Sirius said, "From the beyond. It was old magic, Potter magic. In return I summoned a demon."
I cleared my throat and began helping him draw the runes. Once we finished, we lit candles in a circle, sat down at the center and spoke the ancient charm in a loud voice that sharpened the silence.
Eliahaar Megatha Mongicka
Soowanni Hyuggachark Mijghaszan
Om Seepoin Demm Oinn
Blasoy Erry Wesjulla Rijizzini
The silence returned after the chant, and a shiver rose up my back like a cold hand playing the piano on my nerves. "Sirius," I hissed, "Nothing's happening!"
"Wait," he hissed back. We made eye contact, and then broke apart quickly. We were both scared.
The air thickened and an aroma of lemons floated through the clearing. The air shimmered, became denser, and cooled to a liquid ball. A small creature appeared from the ball of bluish green liquid. Its red-black eyes were those of insect type, body of frog scales, reptilian wings and a strange antenna on the forehead, with three mouths on its face arranged randomly.
Sirius commanded, "Demon, I have summoned you and bid thee to destroy the tree!" He pointed at an aged cedar tree. The demon leaped toward it and clawed, chewed, and assaulted it with every capability in its physical capacity.
"Do you see, Harry?" Sirius asked. I looked at him, nodded.
"Let's go home," I said.
Sirius drew his wand, as did I, and we both shouted: "AVADA KEDAVRA!" The beast died and disappeared in a plume of red smoke that dispersed to the sky.
We didn't say anything to each other that day, both off in our own worlds. I read a novel about aliens and detectives and then went to sleep on an empty stomach.
I dreamt of the demon. The eyes clawed at my heart and my scar hurt in the morning.
I felt dirty.
I witnessed the death of Lord Voldemort. My shackles of binding prophecy broke and a burden lifted off me as I faced the fallen body of Lord Voldemort, unmoving on the grassy, muddy ground of the Forbidden Forest. The moonlight shimmered around him and I walked two steps closer to get a better look at his face.
Meanwhile, the air seemed to warm as if a summer breeze had blown by. Voldemort looked cold and desolate, like a skeleton made of bone and clay.
I turned to the source of the warmth as a current of wind blew by my hair. The area where the demon had fallen bubbled. Smoke rose upward, a harsh black fog that touched me and burned my eyes, throat, and skin. I leapt back, grabbed my wand and shouted, "Protego!" A silver shield shimmered before me, blocking out the limbs of the shadow-smoke.
My demon, I thought, has nine lives.
I wondered whether to turn tail and run, or to blast the demon with an Avada Kedavra. My shield held, the silver effectively combating the mist. It reminded me of dementors, the way their black shimmering cloaks looked like smoke.
It gave me an idea. I took down my shield and thought of my happiest memory: the night Hermione and Ron and I had in our summer of fourth year when we watched the Quidditch world cup and shouted, "Expecto Patronum." A bright mist of light erupted from my wand, taking the sold shape of a stag that charged into the mist, driving the demon away.
I felt a tugging on my chest as if a bond between me and the demon existed, and was being stretched. I wanted to chase the demon but held myself in check. Voldemort was a mere corpse. I walked over to the dark lord and kicked him in the stomach. I got no response. A hiss alerted my attention to a long black snake as thick as my thigh. Protruded fangs threatened at me, and I stepped back. The snake lunged toward Voldemort, wrapped him in her coils and did not move.
I knew what I had to do. Raising my wand, I said, "Incendio!"
Fire burst out of my wand, burning and chewing on the snake and on Voldemort's body. They perished into ash and smoke and nothingness.
Walking out of the forbidden forest, I thought to myself, I won! I fulfilled the prophecy. Laughing, I went to the greenhouse where Sprout grew marijuana and clipped a few buds off for my personal use. I sat myself down on the potent soil of the greenhouse and proceeded to take out my Native American pipe. I lit a bowl and breathed in the smoke deeply, letting my lungs burn at its heat. I let it out, felt a wave of dizziness.
The smoke smelled sweet and nice, like a gentle bath that lulled me into a state of complete calm and relaxation. My scar didn't hurt anymore and the weed was very nice, on a night like this. I thought about Becky and our future together, and wondered if we would marry someday and have kids.
I didn't know about the future but I did know this: I had won.
The prophecy and the battles had changed me. I was stronger, harder as a person. I matured from a child to an adult and in that transition I saved the world by summoning a demon on the advice of Sirius Black.
But the demon still existed.
My soul, fragmented.
I was cold and harsh and all trouble, no warmth no softness rested inside me. I didn't know who I was anymore, but I knew I wasn't the same person.
I smoked my weed and went to my peanut butter and jelly smelling bed and went to a long deep sleep.
I woke up awake, and that was saying something. My sleep was dreamless so I was not tired as usual. I went down to the kitchens for a bagel and said hello to the surprised house elves. Then I went to my room and smoked a cigar, while masturbating vigorously. I took a shower, shaved and dressed in my finest clothes.
Waiting for me downstairs in the common room of the Gryffindor tower, which was thankfully empty, was a broomstick, a fine present all done up with a purple rainbow. I opened the present, sure of the broom make: firebolt.
Yes, the broom looked magnificient. On the desk there were many letters, a pile high. On the tables and chairs also letters rested, sporadic and littered with boxes of presents. The whole room was a housing spot of gratitude throughout Britain, resonating in my chambers in the form of praise, gifts, and thanks.
It seemed the whole of the wizarding world knew what I had accomplished. I felt proud yet exposed, as if naked without my clothes.
I took a walk by the lake, and marveled at the scents, the feel of the ground hard beneath me, the early morning light that captured me in silk chains of beauty. I never wanted to leave Hogwarts, leave my home because here I was safe. I lit up a cigarette and felt the nicotine head rush affect me different today, more sensitive to the effects I felt happy and energetic, as if I could jump to the sky. The euphoria hit me softly like the waves made by the wind on the lake.
"Hello Harry," Dumbledore said gently, his eyes a twinkling explosion. "How are you doing after last night's ordeal?"
"I'm feeling healthy, professor," I said, "I'm going to be a professor myself, aren't I?"
"Yes, you are," Dumbledore said, "Perhaps the curse has been lifted," he raised his hand and pointed it to the sky. "It is after all a new day."
"Maybe you're right," I said, taking out my native American pipe, "But in the mean time I say live and let live, and enjoy the moment."
Dumbledore looked at me curiously. I smiled and lit myself a bowl. Dumbledore didn't say anything, but stood there with me, enjoying the weather.
"So how did everyone know about me, and about the duel?"
"Nobody really knows," Dumlbedore admitted, "But last night all the death eaters mysteriously perished of a heart attack. The cause of death was listed as unknown magic."
"So you inferred Voldemort had been destroyed and spread the good news?"
Dumbledore beamed at me, "I'm sure you will be a brilliant teacher, Harry," he said, "Now isn't it time to prepare for your classes?"
"You mean lesson plans, don't you?" I said with a sigh, "Yes alright, I'll do that but I think I'll go back to my apartment, I haven't seen Becky in a while and I want to relax."
"Everyone congratulates you, Harry," Dumbledore said, "You're a hero. But tell me, what happened last night?"
I shrugged because I didn't want to tell Dumbledore my soul was cracked and about to break and that I could feel the process happening, I was becoming more and more disconnected from the world.
I hastily said good bye and went to the library. I felt a rage in my heart unlike anything I'd known before. My chest hurt and my face was flushed red. I was really angry for no reason at all.
I read books all day and absorbed myself in my reading.
A single reporter entered Hogwarts by sailing across the lake in a conjured submarine. It was a brilliant piece of magic Dumbledore would come to admit later. The reporter's name was Collin Creevey, and I had known him as an eager boy with a servile mind. He had changed to an eager man with a servile mind, mixed in with ingenuity and sheer guts. I granted him an interview.
We sat facing each other in an empty classroom. I had my back to the chalk board and he, as if a student, sat eager to learn and soak knowledge in, with parchment spread out in front of him. "So, Harry, it's been a while since we've last connected, hasn't it? I've quit my job as a teller at the potions apothecary – I was no good anyways – and now the Quibbler's hired me for a few galleons an article. I'm here to write about you, Harry, and boy, there's a lot to write about."
"You're basically a hack writer, then?" I asked him, and at his confused expression explained, "Hack writers get paid by quantity not quality. I watched a documentary about the early beginnings of the publishing industry in the muggle world once," I told him, "Its not something to be proud of actually."
Collin laughed and said, "Sounds about right, but I enjoy my work and most of the time I get my free reign on things. Get to take brilliant photos too." He had brought his camera with him and asked me for a few shots. We took one of him and me side by side with a large fish hanging between us as if we were fishing buddies, and one of me holding aloft my wand like a sword, and one of me flying on the firebolt across the lake. I reviewed the pictures and asked him to omit one of them where I had my wand pointed backwards.
When we came back for hot chocolate, we continued the interview, if one could call it that. It was informal, the way two old friends would reacquaint with each other. I felt at ease.
Then he popped the big question: "How did it all happen, Harry? I guess that's what everyone's most interested in, how did you defeat the Dark Lord?"
I expected this and answered readily, "Well, first of all, Collin, and I say this not only to you buy everyone out there so better put this part in, call him by his name, Voldemort, and not some gibberish like the Dark Lord or You Know Who. Voldemort is as mortal as any man, and though highly skilled in magic, he is not some infallible god like being." I chuckled, "I've perhaps come to know Voldemort as a person, and few can say to know him better than I because we share a connection. Shared I mean." I pointed to my scar.
"What sort of connection is this?" Collin asked, "Can you read his mind?"
"No, but he could read mine," I told him, "He could plant dreams in my head, and I had to work hard every single day to separate myself from what he put to confuse me with. It's a tough discipline but in the end I think it helped me, matured me."
"Helped you in what way?"
"Well, I guess the constant mental warfare with Voldemort crystallized my own identity, my inner being and helped me know who I am and who I'm not. I'm one of the good guys," I said. "I know that for sure."
"So last night, when the death eaters suffered cardiac events and passed away suddenly, what happened?"
"I took a walk in the Forbidden Forest," I began, "Got kidnapped by centaurs who wanted to trade their future well being for me. Voldemort came, scattered them, we dueled, end of story."
"Must have been quite an adventure," Collin said. I nodded.
"Indeed it has Collin," I said, "My whole life has been an adventure and that tale has ended. Voldemort's gone. The Boy Who Lived prevailed," I said, the corners of my lips curling into a smirk. "I guess you can say, the Boy Who Lived, lived to win after all."
Collin put that as the final sentence in the article he wrote. It was a big hit.
"Can you tell us more about your experience last night, in defeating Voldemort?" He didn't stutter the name. I was proud of him for that.
"Um," I said, and thought up a brilliant plan. "I can't, because I'm actually going to write an autobiography."
Collin's eyes widened, "Really? Why I never would have thought," he said, "I wanted to write a bio on you myself but I hadn't had the time yet. I guess we'll find a lot of things we don't know about you, huh?"
I nodded, "Damn straight," I said, "But the work will take a while so I won't be answering any questions during the writing period. It will all be answered in my book."
"Have you thought up a title?"
My mind raced, "Yes I have, I'll call it the Harry Potter Adventure," I said. "It will be quite long, too, so the work will take me many months."
We shook hands a few minutes later.
I packed my bags and took the ferry to Hogsmaede, where I disembarked with a single brown sack as my only piece of luggage – I had shrunk my stuff for convenience. I expected Becky to be waiting for me at the harbor dock and I wasn't disappointed. She wore a summer yellow dress, her black hair fluttered gently with the wind, and her hands were folded above her breast. She didn't seem too happy.
I went up to her, kissed her on the lips and said, "So?"
"So. Had fun at the Castle?" Her eyes were hard.
"Come on, lets go home," I took her hand and led her to my apartment building in Hogsmaede. It was a three bedroom structure with a good eye on the furniture, which Becky had picked for me. We made ourselves comfortable on the balcony, a beer in our hands. I drank hurriedly and relaxed right away, feeling my strained muscles melt into puddles of happiness. Flying excessively over the last few days had turned my back muscles to jello. The soreness left after I downed three or four beers. As we drank, I talked to Becky about all and everything except the Night. She knew I didn't want to talk about it and left it alone. She listened to me quietly and said, "Do you want to go to bed?"
I nodded. I undressed her on the balcony, slowly, pausing to give her tiny kisses on her jaw line as I nuzzled her breasts with the palms of my hand. Her skin was soft and creamy and she smelled like flowers. The soap was new, as was the shampoo. Her hair smelled like fresh green grass and other fresh green things that reminded me of a blooming nature park.
She was a delightful screamer in bed. I rode her until we were both tired and sweaty. We got some dinner from the fridge, heated it with a few house charms and ate in silence. Then she said, "I can't do this anymore."
"I know," I said, "I know. I could tell."
"It's not you, it's me."
"No, no it's not." I shook my head. "I know you Becky, and you know I know you."
We passed the night in silence. She left in the morning, bags packed.
I knew this would happen. Becky was a free woman, and didn't like being chained by the press any more than I did. She already got all the attention she could handle as the Minister's daughter. She didn't need anymore as the Boy Who Lived's girlfriend, especially with my recent spike in popularity. She could barely leave the apartment without being mobbed by reporters and media figures. I knew her troubles, had lived through them and could empathize. I gave her a peck on the cheek and told her not to be a stranger but I wasn't surprised when she never wrote to me again. I informed a reporter a few days later we had broken up and the details would be in my autobiography.
I spent the next month preparing lesson plans for the kids I would be teaching. I spent a lot of the time roaming the muggle world, playing tennis with doctors and lawyers, meeting hot six foot blonde tango dancers and spending all the cash I had left in my Gringotts vault buying several real estate properties. I hoped for a rise in the market prices the coming year or I would be out a severe penny. I rented the estates out for cheap and made a decent income, had my muggle lawyer run the business aspect for me for a cut.
Over wine, late at night, I would work on the autobiography. I started with the cupboard.
The thing I remember most about my early childhood is the dark and empty corner my relatives gave me for a bedroom. The tiny cupboard in the stairs, despite its modesty and humble setting, was cozy and felt safe to me. I could go into the cupboard, sit for hours on the tiny cot, stare at the cobwebs from the light leaking under the door and imagine myself… flying on a motorcycle or eating ice cream on the Leaning Tower of Pisa, or scaling the Pyramids in mountain gear, or swimming across the ocean to undiscovered lands. I was king in the cupboard, and I let my imagination roam wild and free. My Uncle said I had an abnormal imagination, very unhealthy. I disagreed in silence lest I be punished by being denied a meal.
My childhood was a happy one. I was never spoiled, but never truly hurt either. My magic protected me in the most fundamental ways – a broken arm would heal within a few hours, cuts and scratches disappeared very quickly, and my hair always remained messy despite Aunt Petunia's best attempts to cut it down to stubs. I remember running from Dudley, who chased me with his gang of bullies, and ending up on the roof top of the school building. Although I had no friends and couldn't count on my relatives I felt my separation from society a tangible thing, the dividing line being my strange incidents which I would keep very close to my heart.
Hogwarts changed everything for me. I met people I truly liked – Hagrid, Ron, Hermione, and I grew up in every way that mattered. I was no longer a loner, though that part still exists deep inside me, but I still cowered away from my new found fame. The disparity between my poor beginnings and the great attention thrust upon me by the wizarding world confused me. I never asked anyone's advice how to deal with this, with life. I just carried on the best I could, living each day one at a time.
A letter came from Dumbledore requesting me to take the train to Hogwarts, escort the students the way Professor Lupin had done in my third year. He said there were still people who supported the dark lord and hadn't taken the mark, who wanted to play a greater role in the hoodlum of politics by means of force. Dumbledore heard rumors of a possible plot to kidnap youngsters and ransom them for hoards of galleons. I was to protect them.
I thought Dumbledore placed too great a trust in my abilities. Nevertheless I arrived at platform nine and three quarters a few hours early and made my way on the train picking a compartment in the back where I was sure I wouldn't be readily disturbed. I opened my textbook, the required reading for the course I would teach that year and began to read it for the hundredth time: An Auror's Manual of Life on the Force.
The book had three components, dueling, living off the land, and the art of negotiation. I figured the first and the last section was truly important and decided to teach each class according to the level of difficulty they could handle. The first years would learn basic dodging skills along with a few hexes and charms, and the seventh years would learn how to duel by dueling me. Everyone, including me, would learn how to negotiate their way out of dangerous situations.
My lesson plans were loose and flexible. I hadn't smoked a lot of weed the past month but when I did I came up with some great ideas for interesting lessons, which I hastily scribed on a notepad the size of my hand. I flipped through my book of ideas and stopped at a page with a single phrase on it scrawled messily in black ink: Camping in the Forbidden Forest = Final Exam
I thought of Voldemort's final resting place, and ripped the page out of the spiral ring of the notebook and threw it out the window. A knock on the carriage door informed me visitors were here. I opened the sliding door and met the gaze of surprised third years. Beckoning them in I shut the door. There were four of them, two boys, and two girls. They stared at my scar.
As Lupin had done I did not pretend to sleep, but talked to the children, coaxing their stories out of them. Max was a muggle born son of a cobbler, Lisa was the daughter of a halfblood bookshop owner, Alfred was the son of a pureblood businessman and Jacy was the daughter of a chemist.
We played a game of chess. The train passed by the mountains and a forest and a stream gushing with water, its scent faint on the breeze blowing through the open window. I was soundly defeated by the foursome who had teamed up against me. We laughed and joked and they asked me if I was really going to teach them, and what. "Defense against the dark arts," I proudly replied, "Lisa and Alfred would probably have heard of me, and of the use of such skills."
"It's the dark lord," Alfred explained, "He scared the crap out of us for decades, killing and stuff. Harry Potter here stopped him."
"Did you murder him? The Dark Lord." Max looked at me skeptically.
"Ahem," I cleared my throat, "How about some chocolate frogs?"
