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A swirl of colors greeted him as Harry Potter opened his eyes with a groan. He looked around in confusion, trying hard to remember what had exactly happened. He recalled carrying the cat over to Hogwarts with him, and with a sudden jolt, he remembered that he had performed the familiar ritual.
But it was different this time. He had already performed the same ritual with Hedwig, and he didn't encounter anything like this.
'Have I botched this somehow? The words were right though,"
Harry didn't have much time to ponder as his body was suddenly lurched forward by an invisible force. He found his body dropped in what seemed to be an old-fashioned living room.
As the scene followed, he realized he was watching what seemed to be the life of none other than Bellatrix Lestrange. His eyes widened when he saw the young beauty that Bellatrix was. There was no hint of the madness that adult Bellatrix exhibited every time. He wondered what had happened to transform this gentle girl into the murdering psychopath that her adult self was.
Little did he know that he was going to get all the answers he wanted, or that the same was happening to the innocent little cat that he had claimed as his familiar.
He jerked upright, his mind numb with shock at what he had just witnessed. He simply couldn't believe it. Bile rose inside his throat as he recalled the horror the young girl had gone through. Robbed of her sanity, her mind, her entire being. Harry couldn't help but feel deeply saddened and he belatedly recalled that tears were running down his face.
Suddenly, he snapped his head sharply to the right where the cat was, however, instead of a black cat, a young girl in her late teens by the looks of it was looking at him with wide eyes, tears cascading down her face. Harry scrambled forward, cradling her in his arms as fresh tears leaked out of his eyes.
He didn't think of anything. What mattered was comforting this woman who had endured so much. It didn't matter that she had committed heinous crimes in the past. She was not the one to blame. She was never in control. Her entire personality had been taken away, her will bound as she was forced to watch the maniac that she had been converted into commit acts of tremendous horror.
Hours passed and the broken pair clutched each other tightly, neither willing to let the other go, crying their grief out.
Harry slowly pulled back, his arms still wrapped around her, and gazed at her tenderly. However, it seemed that she didn't want to let him go, as her grip on his shirt tightened.
"Bellatrix," Harry began before a choked sob cut him off. He wrapped his arms around her, rubbing her back soothingly while whispering sweet nothings in her ear. She was shaking uncontrollably, and Harry was at a loss for what to do.
"Bellatrix please," he tried again, slowly pulling back but staying close enough for her to keep her hold on him.
"I cannot even imagine how you must be feeling," Harry started, and she tensed.
"Yeah, I know... I saw it all,"
The broken look in her eyes brought a fresh wave of tears and Harry blinked furiously.
"I don't know what happened, one moment I was completing the familiar ritual, and the next, I... I saw your entire life..."
Bellatrix could do nothing but bury her face in his chest, and Harry simply held her. Softly stroking her back until she calmed down. It took a while for her to bring her breathing under control.
"I saw it too," her soft voice murmured in the silence as she looked up at him. Their faces were close to each other, and he could feel her breathing on his lips as he kept his eyes on her amethyst eyes.
"I saw what those horrible monsters did to you since you were a child,"
Harry's eyes widened and his grip on her arms slackened. Unbidden tears poured out of her eyes as she cupped his cheek.
"I saw your entire life too," she whispered.
"And I also saw what I did. Their screams..."
She broke down, and Harry sat there, shellshocked. Her gutwrenching sobs brought him out of the cloudy haze and he quickly gathered her in his arms yet again, stroking her hair softly.
"Shh... it's not your fault. You're as much a victim as anyone. That woman was not you, you get me? She was not you. You're a precious woman, Bellatrix, never forget that,"
Her wide eyes greeted him before his own eyes widened. The shock lasted only for a moment before he closed his eyes and started reciprocating. Their lips moved together in perfect harmony, and Harry could feel his heartbeat escalating with every second their lips stayed locked together.
Slowly they pulled back, and Harry saw her face flushed with embarrassment.
"I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me," she mumbled, her eyes looking anywhere but at him, and Harry smiled softly.
"C'mere," he opened his arms, and she looked surprised for a moment before snuggling up to him. A degree of closeness previously unseen was palpable between them, and Harry couldn't help but wonder what the ritual exactly did. By now he had concluded that the cat he had been intending to make his familiar was Bellatrix in her animagus form.
"Do you have any idea what happened between the two of us? Why we saw each other's lives? How you broke through whatever binding there was?"
Bellatrix shook her head, and Harry sighed.
"We should ask Professor Dumbledore then, he would know what happened."
He felt Bellatrix tense slightly for a moment before she gave a slow nod.
"There's barely something he doesn't know, and we have to decide how to proceed from here as well. His help will be needed," Harry whispered and felt her nod in his chest.
"Should we go then?"
At her nod, Harry slowly stood up, dragging her up with himself, and draped the invisibility cloak over both of them.
And he was spot on. While initially flabbergasted and quite alarmed, the headmaster had listened intently. After borrowing his memory of the events, he had seen and verified the authenticity thereof, and there was no denying the fact that Bellatrix had been destroyed by forces so dark that it sent a shudder through the wizened old man.
Dumbledore had been struck silent for a moment when he gazed at Bellatrix. Gone were her signs of torture caused by a decade-long stay in Azkaban. Gone were any signs of aging. The current Bellatrix looked barely older than 18. With soft lustrous black hair that reached the small of her back, her face featured a pair of soft, amethyst eyes that seemed to sparkle whenever she gazed at him. Her cute button nose and those full luscious lips evoked a strange sensation within him, even more so when he recalled their passionate kiss barely an hour ago. Bellatrix was a true beauty.
Initially, he was confused at the feelings he got whenever he looked at her, and unbeknownst to him, Bellatrix felt the same. It took Dumbledore explaining their bond for them to realize the magnitude of his action. Apparently, by claiming her as his partner for life, Harry had invoked an ancient bonding ritual, one which had restored her to her optimum self, casting away any inhibitions on her mind and magic, and in essence, bound them for life. The headmaster explained to his intended listeners that the act was performed without any ulterior motive on either part, which invoked the ancient magic.
When Bellatrix had expressed the intentions of her alter ego, the headmaster had calmly informed her that her actual self was never involved, and since her personality had been altered by a heinous ritual, magic did not extract any price, instead, it sought to fix everything it deemed necessary to make both of them as compatible to one another as possible.
The headmaster had informed them that they would always feel a heightened degree of physical attraction toward one another, something which prompted priceless flushing of the skin, much to the old wizard's amusement. Not that they denied him, both of them knew it was true, and one look into the other's eyes confirmed that fact.
When asked about any other perks of their unintentional bonding, the headmaster had speculated heightened pleasure during coitus, something which provoked intense blushes from the pair yet again. There was no way they were ready for that kind of stuff. Another side-effect, Dumbledore grimly admitted, was the fact that they had seen each other's lives in their entirety, and he believed that it would make them ideal partners for one another. After all, who was better than the one who has seen everything about you, both good and bad?
Their discussion had continued late into the night, and they had come to the point where they had to make a decision. Bellatrix could not go into the outer world with her current identity. Dumbledore had suggested she take up another identity, and the girl was all too eager to forsake her name and title. She reasoned that it had brought her nothing but misery. Harry understood.
Adopting another identity required a minor ritual, something Dumbledore had no trouble setting up inside the Room of Requirement. Half an hour was all it took, and she was Valerie Swann, a muggle-born witch, and Hogwarts' new transfer student. They concocted her background story, and she became Harry's first and only childhood friend who had to move away when they were ten because of reasons previously unknown, but now revealed to be her magical homeschooling.
Valerie and he acted their part, both of them pretending to be shellshocked at her introduction, unable to believe what they were seeing. The entire school was flabbergasted to see the usually anti-social Harry Potter eagerly hug the new girl in front of the entire school when they came back from the Christmas break for the new semester. The scene in front of them was so surprising that they either didn't pay any attention or ignored the fact that they had had a student transfer midway into the school year, albeit at the start of a new semester.
It had been somewhat bizarre in the beginning to see Harry Potter walking together with someone, let alone a girl, but as the year passed, it became the new normal. It helped when people got to know that the two of them were childhood friends.
They could feel their attachment growing the more time they spent with each other. And they spent a lot of time together, sometimes having lighthearted discussions about random things, while sometimes they delved into more serious topics.
It was during one of their discussions that Harry admitted that he wanted to deal with Sirius Black for the role he had played in the deaths of his parents. Valerie had been confused for a moment before she informed him, much to his shock, that Sirius had never been a Death Eater and that it was Peter Pettigrew who had betrayed his parents and possibly killed those twelve muggles as well. Harry had felt numb for a moment, but when Valerie told him that Sirius was his godfather, Harry lost it.
That was the second time Valerie had seen his rage. Raw, scorching, and terrifying.
They had wasted no time and quickly informed Dumbledore. The headmaster had been flabbergasted at the revelation but assured them that he would do something.
However, it seemed Sirius had other ideas. It was a cold late-February evening and they were taking a walk together on the grounds when they saw a large black dog dragging a struggling Ron Weasley under the Whomping Willow. Wasting no time, they followed.
That was when Harry first met his godfather, and to say he looked filthy was an understatement. The man looked at them, and for a moment, he looked like he had seen a ghost. Only later did they know that he had looked like that because Harry looked so much like his father, while Valerie looked so much like a young Bellatrix.
Sirius quickly started blabbering about how he was innocent, and that the rat had been the one to betray his parents as well as kill those muggles. On their confusion, Sirius told them that Pettigrew was a rat animagus, posing as the Weasley pet rat for years. Ron Weasley kept cursing them, but Harry paid him no mind.
Wrenching the rat out of his grasp, he handed it to Sirius after stunning it. The gaunt man wasted no time, placing it on the floor. One spell later, the rat was replaced by a portly man, his head balding, his mouth set into a squeaky form which was a side effect of being in his animagus form for too long, and his posture slumped as he stayed stunned.
What happened next was something none of them could've guessed. Somehow, Lupin came in and fired a spell at Sirius which was quickly blocked by him before Valerie disarmed him. The man looked shocked for a second before looking around. Only then did he see the unconscious body of Peter and his eyes widened. It didn't take them long to fill him in and he quickly hugged Sirius. That was the exact moment Snape arrived. Snape being the asshole he was, gloated how he was going to enjoy turning Sirius in, along with Lupin as his accomplice, when Harry drew his attention to himself.
"Look to your left, see if it rings a bell,"
Snape sneered and looked down at the unconscious wizard, and his eyes bugged out.
"Seems like you understand now, huh? So what will it be? Are you going to behave or do I have to take some drastic measures to make sure you don't fuck this up?"
Snape wisely kept his mouth shut, and with an intense glare, pocketed his wand. Harry looked at him for a moment before nodding. Had he turned around, he would've seen the look of absolute adoration Valerie was giving him.
Stunning the ratman for good measure, Harry bound him and cast a Petrificus Totalus. Levitating him in the front, he started walking, prompting the others to follow.
"Mr. Black," Valerie called as they started to enter the tunnel, "morph back into your animagus form, the Dementors can be anywhere on the grounds, and Professor Lupin, it would be better if you stay here. It's full moon tonight,"
The escaped convict and the werewolf looked surprised for a moment before they nodded. Harry flashed her a quick smile as Sirius transformed. Their walk through the tunnel was spent in silence.
And indeed, the dementors were nearby, hovering on the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest.
The procession paid them no heed and started walking back to the school. The students were gobsmacked at the sight of Harry Potter, Valerie Swann, and Professor Snape accompanied by a black dog walking with a bound and petrified man levitating in front of them. A few of them cringed when they saw the livid look on the face of the potions master and they wisely stayed out of the way.
The group ascended the staircase and arrived in front of the gargoyle.
"Acid Pops," Harry called out, and Snape's eyebrow twitched slightly.
The gargoyle twisted and moved, and a spiral staircase rose. They made their way up to the Headmaster's office in silence.
"Come in," the voice of Albus Dumbledore sounded, and the door opened. As they walked in, Harry saw the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Oswald Fudge, and a red-haired woman sitting on the chair opposite the headmaster.
The minister stood up, confused at the interruption, before the stunned and bound body of Peter Pettigrew came in, and his eyes bugged out. Harry saw the redhead looking at the ratman with wide eyes as well.
"This is a surprise," the jolly voice of the headmaster sounded as he came around his table. "Why don't we take this to the conference room?" He implored before waving his wand. The cupboard to the side slid open, and it gave way to a passage.
"After you, Cornelius," Dumbledore's voice was amused. The minister was in shock before he caught himself and shakily nodded. The procession made its way to the conference room, and Snape levitated the stunned and bound man to a nondescript chair, reinforcing his bindings with another anti-animagus spell on top. With a wave of his wand, Dumbledore locked the room.
"It seems certain new evidence has come to light. If I'm not wrong, this is Peter Pettigrew, presumed dead, killed by Sirius Black along side 13 muggles by way of a blasting curse," Dumbledore began, his voice slowly growing severe.
"I presume you have Veritaserum with trial-clearance, Madam Bones?" Dumbledore asked the redhead, who started before fishing out a vial from the pocket of her robe.
'So this is the head of the DMLE,' Harry thought, as he looked at the headmaster push Pettigrew's mouth open and drop three standard drops of the colorless potion. One quick Ennervate and the traitor slowly blinked his eyes open.
"Madam Bones, if you would?"
The woman steeled herself and took charge. What followed was an expose of the highest order, and as the interrogation proceeded, Fudge went paler and paler. Finally, the interrogation ended and Fudge dropped audibly on a chair, his head held in his hands.
In the Great Hall, the school populace watched in shock as the interrogation was played out on the giant screen right in front of the Headmaster's podium. A marvelous idea by Dumbledore, one that made sure the events were not buried under the rug.
When the minister saw the floating orb, he glared at Dumbledore outside direct view before the man quickly signed off the order to remove the dementors from Hogwarts as well as to rescind the Kiss-on-sight order for Sirius Black, granting him full pardon while Madam Bones quickly finalized the paperwork for Pettigrew's shipment to the Azkaban resort.
As soon as the pardon was signed, the black dog morphed back and lunged at Harry, hugging him tightly. Smiles, sneers, and shocked faces greeted the pair, one of which was trying to get as far away from the filthy man as possible. Seeing his godson's antics, the man clutched him harder. Harry looked over his shoulder to Valerie for help, who only gave him a sweet smile in return, making the young wizard sigh. Seeing no other option, Harry wrapped his arms around Sirius and hugged him back.
The rest of the year passed in a monotonous manner if you didn't count the growing affection between him and Valerie. Harry had never had anyone in his life who had cared for him, and he had kept mostly to himself even after coming to Hogwarts. However, Valerie evoked something entirely different within him. Their closeness intensified, their kisses more frequent, and they held hands whenever they were together. It was becoming second nature to the couple, and they were surprised by the magnitude of their feelings for each other.
Several students approached Harry and Valerie to ask about the entire ordeal with Pettigrew. They calmly explained the events, holding back several details but giving away enough to satiate their curiosities.
Sirius had gone back to his ancestral home and had hired an interior decorator from wizarding France to give the grim place a makeover. His letter stated that the work would be complete by the time the school year ended, and Harry was looking forward to his new home.
He had informed Sirius that his girlfriend would also be staying with them, something the older wizard quickly agreed to. They had still not decided whether they would inform anyone about Valerie's true identity and what had transpired in her life. They decided they would cross that bridge when the time came for it.
The time passed quickly as the year ended, and soon they were making their way to London aboard the Hogwarts Express. They had a compartment all to themselves, and as Harry sat by the window, he looked down at the sleeping visage of his girlfriend (wife) who was cuddling up to him and wrapped his arms tightly around her. He would always cherish her with all he had, he thought, as his resolute face gazed outside at the passing landscape.
To be continued...
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