"Lou, I still don't understand" I wondered "how could you not know who I am?"

"Sounds so self-assured, Harry," Pat sneered sarcastically, "like you're a movie star.

"You both understood perfectly. What do I mean," I growled.

We went to a table marked "Security". A shaven-headed sorcerer in an iridescent blue robe, at the sight of our gang, stopped solving the crossword from The Prophet and looked up at us.

"We're going to the Archive," we blurted out in unison.

The guard's gaze caught on my scar, dabbed at the guest badge that read "Harry Potter One Time Visit" and returned to my forehead again.

I managed to force a painful smile.

"Ahem, ahem," Pat cleared his throat from behind me.

The guard shuddered, for some reason he knew, and looked away from contemplating Voldemort's parting gift. Waving some sort of antenna around us, he muttered,

"Your wands."

Pat and I complied. Lou spread her hands, saying that I didn't have a wand and I won't.

"Eleven inches, phoenix feather core, has been in use for five months. Is everything right?" he read from the parchment tape.

"Yes," I agreed, "that's right."

"So… And here is thirteen inches, veela hair. In use for four months. Right?"

"Yeah," my friend said.

The guard looked at us again and grinned.

"You guys don't look like first years."

We chuckled in response, like - yes, it's funny, we ourselves are surprised.

But, passing by his post and looking at the crossword puzzle, I could not resist:

"Patronus," I said.

"Come again?" The guard didn't understand.

"Yes, here," I pointed to the newspaper, "the answer is a Patronus. In question number… Ay!"

Pat stepped on my foot and dragged me away from my post.

"Crap! It hurts!"

"Are you completely crazy?" my friend hissed, "he decided to be clever here! You still go with Fudge have fun!"

"Look who's Talking!" I protested.

"I'm smart when the topic" said Pat "and you're smart and always run up!"

"Nerd," I muttered.

"Dude!" did not remain in debt Pat.

"The assholes!" Lou typed.

People were looking at us. We put on an innocent look and walked to the elevators. The archive turned out to be a long room with an endless number of shelves stretching into the distance. The head of this realm of old parchment and dust turned out to be a wizened old man, rather tall, with an outstanding Adam's apple and pince-nez, which was definitely kept on his nose with the help of some kind of spell.

The archivist (I forgot his name a few minutes after I looked at the tablet) looked at us attentively and a little surprised over his pince-nez and asked:

"Have you made a mistake in the hall, young people?"

"Uh…" I was embarrassed, "no, it seems to be."

"We came to the Archive," Pat confirmed.

"Is this the Archive?" Lou stated. As if it's not clear. The archivist chuckled once more in surprise.

"Few people come here," he informed us, "especially young people... What question are you on?"

"And we would like to get the protocols on the cases of the Death Eaters and in general everything related to Vol... Ouch!" Pat stepped on my foot for the second time today. "You know. Whom."

"Why do you need it?" The old man asked in a suspicious tone.

"Creative work," my friend found.

"On the history of magic," Lou added, "recently."

"Very interested," I finished ingratiatingly.

The archivist lingered on my scar and shrugged.

"Lou, so what?" I asked again as we sat down at the large, worn table.

"I'm sorry, what?" she didn't understand.

"Explain to him, incomprehensible," Pat chuckled, "why you didn't know anything about him when every dog in the fence recognizes Harry Potter.

"That's not how I would put it," I said slowly, "but by and large, yes.

"So why?"

Lou rolled her eyes.

Well, you know my memory for names! And besides, we've always lived among Muggles, and Dad never liked all those medieval wizarding ways. He likes to live in a big way - the office there is in the style of "hi-tech", suits from Cardin... Well, you understand…"

I don't know, I personally didn't understand. All my life I've been wearing cast-offs for Dudley, and I never even dreamed of wearing Cardin suits.

"I heard your story, of course, in general terms. That, thanks to some boy, a strong dark wizard disappeared, about a scar... But I didn't even think that it was you! I sometimes thought, of course, that you are somehow strange... But yes, you never know who is strange! Sue is weird too. Or Nigel."

"Nigell is not weird," Pat objected, remembering our former classmate, "he's just a nerd."

Sue is not strange either" I was offended for my ex-girlfriend, "she is just without brakes."

"Oh, come on," Lou waved her hand, "I mean, I had no idea that you were wizards, because you should have studied at Hogwarts. If I had known, I would not have become friends with you in life."

"Why is this?" Pat and I were surprised at the same time.

Lou shrugged and put on a blank expression. I know her, she won't say anything else. I think that our crazy friend harbored one well-known grudge against the magical world. When a huge pile of parchment scrolls and filings descended in front of us, which filled the entire table with an uneven pile, Pat asked incomprehensibly:

"What's this"

"Probably what they asked," I guessed.

"We have a one-time visit, right?" My friend asked sourly.

"Yeah" Lou nodded her head, looking dejectedly at this twenty-year-old pile of parchment.

"Then it will last for a week," Pat stated grimly.

"I'm about to die," I informed my friends four hours later, "Voldemort won't even have to try."

"I told you to wait for Hermione," Pat said, massaging his closed eyes, "she would be delighted with this pile of rubbish."

"Would we come here for Christmas?" I asked mockingly, "as if you don't know how government offices work on holidays."

I got to know this personally. I well remember the Halloween evening in the hospital, when nurses dressed as witches rushed around the backyard of the clinic along with laughing loudly and pretty drunk police officers posing as vampires and other evil spirits. There was a police station nearby.

"I'm going to go for a walk," Pat said, and stood up, stretching until his joints cracked.

From time to time one of us said this phrase and went for a walk. Usually this walk was to the end of the corridor - there was a toilet. Lou went out twice - and Pat and I waited with bated breath for trouble. Maybe he will meet the Minister and confuse him with a janitor, or take a wrong turn and wander into the Auror headquarters, at best... But nothing, both times it worked... If, of course, we had found a detailed list of Death Eaters, we would have been long gone. But everything turned out to be not so simple. In this pile of old parchment were not only open records of the hearings, but simply papers about the events that were attributed to the hands of Voldemort's minions. It was not enough to read about the atrocities of the Death Eaters for a long time. It was not just a lack of time - it was just creepy to read about it. Therefore, we quickly switched to a division of labor - Lou separated the protocols from other papers, Pat and I studied them. My friend was absent for quite a long time, but when he returned, there was not a trace of his languid, tired look. He looked excited and his eyes were manic.

"Have you taken drugs?" Lou raised her eyebrows.

She sat with her cheek propped in her hand, and looked as if she was about to fall asleep.

"Did you drink the potion?" I guessed, "just had a drink?"

"Do you know where I went?" Pat asked happily.

Lou's fantasy was no longer enough for us, and we just shook our heads.

"I went to the Experimental Magic Department!" Pat stated.

"Why?" I didn't understand.

"What do you mean why? Interesting, I've heard a lot. And there is such..." my friend said reverently, "such... Ooooсh!" Pat rolled his eyes in quiet delight and after a couple of seconds added contentedly: "Now I know where I'm going to work."

"You wanted to go to university," Lou chuckled.

"I'll figure it out somehow," he waved his hand.

"And this is the crown of our painstaking work," I declared, and proudly laid out a medium-sized drawing paper in front of Hermione.

"Are you sure this is a safe place to discuss such things?" Hermione looked around worriedly.

The four of us sat at a table in a half-empty McDonald's. Naturally, no one paid any attention to us.

We spoke quietly.

"Come on," Pat twisted his lips in a grin, "do you really think that there is someone who cares about us here?"

"At worst, they'll think we're crazy," Lou said cheerfully, dipping a potato slice into the cheese sauce.

Hermione shrugged her shoulders and began to carefully study the plan, which, in fact, was simple to the primitive and not the fact that it would be very useful to us. But I could assuage my conscience by saying that I am doing my best. The conviction that I had to do something did not leave me. Because I am a hero. Yes, yes, it's funny, damn it...

"Why are the names circled in different colors?" Hermione finally asked.

"It's me! I came up with!" Lou cheered. Pat and I looked at each other indulgently. We had to carefully control this whole process in order to appease the creative energy of our friend and not turn a strict scheme into an oil painting. Lou with felt-tip pens and in a fit of inspiration is worse than a hurricane.

"So" she began to explain briskly, "in red circles - these are the main suspects. They are free and active. In green circles - all those who are sitting in Azkaban. They seem to be neutralized. And in the black circles..."

"Those who died," Hermione guessed, "why is Voldemort in the blue circle?"

"And we decided that blue suits him," Pat answered in all seriousness.

We laughed. After a few seconds I said:

"Actually, just like that. We don't know anything about him."

Hermione took another thoughtful look at the diagram, grinned and pointed at one of the names circled in red.

"Tell me, please, does this mean you consider Professor Snape a potential suspect?"

But Pat insisted on it. I suggested putting him on the "green" list (well, yes, Azkaban, Hogwarts - what's the difference...). Lou suggested not bringing it in at all. "He is not dead," my friend said calmly, "and not in Azkaban. Rules are rules.

"But the most important thing," I solemnly began, "we heard this..."

Or rather, they overheard. In general, it was like this. After another two and a half hours of work, we gave up. I felt like hippogriffs were jumping over me. Big, big pack. Maybe even with centaurs for a couple. The archive was on the fifth floor. We arrived there by elevator, but on the way back Pat rested - he treated elevators in the same way as he did the subway.

"Harry, you've been climbing up to sleep in the tower every day for almost half a year," Pat said, "and is it difficult for you to walk three floors on foot?"

"That's why it's difficult," I grumbled, but agreed.

The staircase in the Ministry of Magic was old and, by the looks of it, little used. The old, rough-hewn stone steps and gloomy torches on the walls created a gloomy picture. A door led to each floor. And near one of them, leading to the sixth floor, Lou stumbled. Before she could say "Oh," Pat suddenly covered her mouth with his hand and nodded towards the door. There were muffled voices. The three of us froze in place, looked at each other and strained our ears as much as possible.

"...no point, Lucius," said an icy male voice with palpable fury.

"Walden, you didn't find the right place to tell me this," drawled the already familiar Mr. Malfoy.

"He's crazy, Lucius!" ignored his interlocutor, "I told you this from the very beginning! He is out of control! His antics are insane!"

"That's why we need him," Malfoy senior said confidently.

"Really?" his accomplice was feignedly surprised, "yes, one manticore is worth something! Where did he get her from? The entire Committee is in awe!"

My heart beat faster at the word manticore. In detectives in such cases they say that the pieces of the mosaic began to come together. This is how I felt about myself then - our theories, at least part of them, were taking on a real embodiment.

"It didn't go according to plan," Malfoy agreed, "but in the end... Oh Travius!" he suddenly exclaimed loudly and with mock joy, "You haven't appeared for a long time."

"Work, work," answered a third voice, "oh, and Walden is with you…"

The voices drifted away and the last thing we heard were Lucius Malfoy's assurances of the joy of meeting and being invited to tea. Lou pulled Pat's hand away from her mouth and hissed indignantly:

"Don't ever do that again!"

"Sorry," my friend said automatically, and we exchanged the same rapturous, dumbfounded looks.

"I told you," said Pat suddenly, "that you have to go up the stairs!"

"That's what happens when you choose uncharted paths instead of well-trodden paths," Pat concluded smugly.

Hermione fell into thoughtful silence for a few minutes, meditating on the Death Eater diagram. Then she pointed again at the name in the red circle.

"Walden McNair?" she asked.

"Yeah," Pat grinned, "he works as an executioner for the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures. Cheerful man."

Hermione winced. She obviously didn't like the idea of executioners.

"So," she began to reason, "Malfoy, McNair, and definitely some other former Death Eaters are behind this."

There is also someone who sent a manticore to Hogwarts. Malfoy tries to use him. According to McNair, he is not all right in the head. And he's most likely the "bad man" your snake was talking about, Harry.

"The question is who is this?" I said.

"The question is why he sent the manticore," Pat held up a finger.

"That elf told you," Lou snorted, "a murder is being prepared at the school."

"OK," my friend agreed, "who do they want to get to?"

"I remain where I am," I said stubbornly.

"Yes, why my dad required to them!" Pat rolled his eyes, "by the way, they have a good relationship with Malfoy, as I understand it."

"Tell me that they are best friends, and I will cry with tenderness," I quipped.

"Let's close this topic for now," Hermione said conciliatoryly.

We fell silent. I was the first to break the silence.

"There is some bad news. Malfoy saw us at the Ministry."

"When?" Hermione asked excitedly.

"Oh!" Lou was indignant, "the fountain is really stupid! And a centaur would never look at wizards with such obsequiousness! So what if he saw us. We were in the Archive, there's nothing like that. He can check..."

"And to find out that we are digging for former Death Eaters," I finished distantly, "taking into account the fact that you, Lou, senior Malfoy has already seen and are following you, most likely on his tip."

"I'm not to blame!" Lu exclaimed in annoyance, "it's just karma!"

"What?!" The three of us turned to her in bewilderment.

"What did you think?" she raised her eyebrows, "one compensates for the other. They heard what they needed - they themselves fell under suspicion. Karma, I'm telling you!"

"Is that Pat's mom?" Hermione asked, picking up a framed photograph.

"Yes, she is," Lou confirmed.

We were sitting in Pat's living room. It was evening and, in fact, everyone was waiting for him.

"Beautiful," Hermione said thoughtfully, "looks like Ingrid Bergman."

I chuckled.

"Yes, our Potions master has a good lip," said Pat, entering the room.

Hermione was confused.

"So, are we going?" - he asked.

"Let's go," I agreed.

The point was that we were invited to a party. Well, not exactly to a party, but to a club. Night. Can you imagine how interesting? I personally have not been to such places yet, so I agreed without talking. In general, it all started with the fact that Pat went to Cambridge the next day. We were still in London, but just in time for Christmas we were going to move in a crowd to Sirius. You better not know what kind of nonsense we told to my godfather, explaining why we need to go to the Ministry. He pretended to believe, but I think sooner or later we still have to tell him about all our adventures. And it would be better if all this sounds like a finished, and already past story. And my friend, the next morning after talking at McDonald's, began to make incomprehensible maneuvers. No, of course, they are understandable to him, but not very much to us. Or rather, me - it was I who lived with Pat. Hermione, who lives twenty minutes from London, stayed with Lou. In the morning he called Nigel. Nigel Pitman is our former classmate, and, in fact, not a bad guy. Such a quiet peaceful nerd, biased in biology, one of the few excellent students in our class. Pat, too, of course, was an excellent student, but even the most daring did not dare to call him a botanist. Half an hour after breakfast, Nigel called him back, Pat threw him a couple of phrases in response and told me that he urgently needed to go to Cambridge University. He looked so pleased, as if the rector himself were summoning him to accept him without exams.

"Why?" I asked him logically, trying to save my sock from the paws of three black kittens. Aunt Meg managed to distribute the other four. My friend let in a fog, and his lengthy answer could be reduced to one word - "need"

He did not invite me with him, but promised to tell me everything "later". Probably something to do with his theories that magic is not magic.

Or he wanted to smuggle some kind of chemistry. He can, because Pat had several acquaintances from the scientific student youth. "Take the girls, take them to the movies," he advised me. I didn't take them to the cinema. But they dragged me to the shops. The most useful thing I've gotten with my exchanged galleons is an awesome dog-head pipe for Sirius for Christmas. Then we walked down Diagon Alley, where Hermione bought a couple of books and Lou bought a crystal ball. Pat returned tired, but extremely pleased. And he said that on the way back he accidentally met Rosie Miller, and she invited us to a club that was half owned by her brother. She invited, of course, Pat and me, but it was understood that we were free to bring anyone with us. It was simply impossible to refuse such an offer.

"Lou is being watched," Hermione continued to grumble, "maybe we're being watched too now. And we are heading to a place with the suspicious name "Mad Dog Roy", alone, looking at the night. Will they let us in at all? We're underage."

"They'll let us in," Pat said confidently, "we've been invited."

"I'd take Sirius," I said a little apologetically, "but he's in Albania."

"Where?" Pat rolled his eyes.

"In Albania" I repeated, "will be back in a couple of days. Dumbledore sent him on some business. Details were not provided to me."

"Yeah, Dumbledore has more room to investigate," my friend drawled dreamily and a little enviously, and turned to Hermione, "and we have you"

"In terms of?" she hurried.

"You're seventeen," Pat said confidently, "and if anything, you'll protect us."

"Yes, exactly," I remembered, "and Lou boasted that she knew how to stand up for herself. Karate or Jiu-Jitsu?"

"Here they are, Hermione," Lou grumbled indignantly, "modern men. At the first danger, everything is immediately blamed on the fragile female shoulders!"

A nightclub called "Mad Dog Roy" was the place... Cool. Creepy-looking guys at the entrance, at the sight of which I felt like a ten-year-old, a dark corridor hung with some kind of posters that were indistinguishable in the dark, and a medium-sized room filled with rumbling music and cigarette smoke. Well, if the police come here and get us all raked in, that would be the final brushstroke on my portrait that Rita Skitter is so painstakingly painting. Pat sighed happily, and Hermione said distantly:

"I hope my parents never know I've been to a place like this."

We really wouldn't have been allowed in here if it wasn't for Rosie. She herself stood behind the bar, although the barmaids did not seem to need help.

Rosie hasn't changed much since I last saw her, except that her hair was cut shorter. She was older than Pat and me by two years, and was one of those girls who, having been brought up among street punks, from childhood can do everything that girls from prosperous families are not supposed to - fix a carburetor, drive decent boys into the paint with obscene expressions, hit hard , if it's necessary. Her older brother - Bart Miller - was a boxer, and this was one of the reasons why she was feared at Camp. Another reason was that her right hook was also good. In short, I liked her.

"Why "Roy"?" I asked her after greetings.

"Because Mad Dog Bart sounds even worse," she smiled. "Roy is my brother's companion."

Actually, it was a pleasure to talk to her. In fact, she was an unusually sensible person. It is a pity that I cannot lay out all my problems to her - maybe she would provide me with the right solution. Hermione, however, felt out of place here. Probably just out of the habit of Muggles. Lou persuaded Pat to go dancing, but he did not let her, saying "I know your dancing!". Yes, I didn't want to fight today somehow... When Rosie was away for a couple of minutes, and Lou and Hermione went to check the plumbing in the girls' room, I called Pat to answer:

"And why the hell do you think she likes me?"

"Can't you see how she looks at you!"

"How so?"

That's when I heard the eerily familiar "Harry!" behind my back, and I couldn't believe my ears.

"Sue!"

I happily stated as she hung around my neck and pressed my lips into a kiss that finally threw me back to pre-Hogwar times. She pulled away and looked me over with her wild eyes. It didn't take long for me to realize what had changed in her appearance.

"How you have grown," she was surprised, shoving me with her elbow, "I liked it better when we were the same height!"

"I haven't seen you since... When you still had hair," I answered dumbfounded, "what happened to you? Did you escape from Auschwitz?"

Sue laughed and ran her hand over the short bob on her head.

"You are fool, Potter! What else Auschwitz! I made a permanent - and it turned out to be so lousy that I took and cut off everything. Everyone says - cool... Oh! Pat Random! You are here too! Damn, haven't seen you guys in years. Fuck you from school hit the road, huh?"

"I'm glad to see you too, Sue," my friend grinned.

"Well, tell me, what's new with you?"

Pat and I looked at each other. I replayed everything that had happened to us in recent months in my head and laughed.

"Yes, almost nothing!.."

Maybe Lou is right about karma. The bad balances out the good. Although, it seems that karma is something else... But even if this is so, then according to the results of my short life, happiness is bought at a high price. It all happened when I went to the toilet. There was no one there except for me and the inscription in lipstick on the mirror with the phone of a certain Dolly. I wonder who wrote this, if the toilet is for men? When I was already washing my hands, another guy came in, five years older than me. He looked a little distracted and nervous, his eyes were completely unfocused. I thought it was just an ordinary drug addict. And then he jumped on me. It all happened very quickly, I didn't even have time to come to my senses, as I got hit in the jaw. The glasses went to hell. The guy wanted to twist my arm, but I'm still a beaten man, I managed to escape and even kick him under the kneecap. I wasn't even scared, I was just angry. Well, I didn't want to fight... But this psycho attacked me again, and managed to pin me to the wall, pressing down my throat with his hand. I even managed to wonder how he got so much strength - he's a little bigger than me. Only a few seconds lasted a silent confrontation - I tried to unhook him from me, he, apparently, wanted to strangle me. I had the last chance - and I managed to use it. Miraculously pulling my wand out of my jeans pocket, I just poked him in the stomach with all my might. He recoiled sharply, pushing me as he did so, and I flew off towards the sinks. Clutching my sore neck with my left hand and my magic wand with my right hand, I was ready to defend myself, spitting on all the decrees and laws. But this madman, looking at a wooden stick pointed at him, at the sight of which any other would burst out laughing, suddenly opened his eyes in horror, screamed and blew out of the toilet. Then it suddenly dawned on me that these were not drugs at all, but the effect of the unforgivable curse of Imperius. And that's when it hit me. The sharp burning pain in the scar was such that sparks flew from his eyes. It was like someone was putting a hot iron to my forehead over and over again. I don't remember if I screamed then. Probably not - after they thoroughly strangled me, I simply could not. The world around me disappeared, I simply dissolved in an unthinkable, hitherto unknown to me pain. Or not… it has been like that… for a long time… I just forgot...

Waves of other people's feelings over and over again covered me. Malice. Hatred. Despair. Hopelessness. Loneliness. Betrayal. Revenge. All this swirled in me in a terrifying kaleidoscope, turning the insides and tearing my head apart. Instead of a lighted room, some dark, vaguely familiar walls flashed before my eyes... Someone's scream... a bright flame...

I found myself on my knees, my hands convulsively clutching the edge of the sink. The light blinded my eyes, I squinted hard, as if I had just stepped out of a dark room. Everything blurred. The scar burned, as if a huge bell was beating in his head. I was nauseous and covered in cold sweat. There was a long, skinny guy with a goatee next to me. His face blurred, but I still saw how he in joyful excitement sniffed the white powder. Cocaine. This is the drug addict.

"Well, what, guy, you got in - and go for а fan?" he winked at me, and happily added to his reflection in the mirror, "you're just awesome!"

The door slammed shut behind the cheerful shiraloy. I took a couple of breaths and leaned my burning forehead against the cold sink, but it didn't get any easier. Crawled to look for glasses. They showed up nearby, and I commended myself for having taken it into my head to cast a simple unshattering spell on them back at Hogwarts. Holding on to the edge of the sink with trembling hands, I got up and looked critically at myself in the mirror. I looked, to put it mildly, lousy. I was pale as death, covered with small beads of sweat, and a thin trickle of blood was flowing from the left corner of my mouth, which had already begun to bake. The bruise hasn't come out yet. But the scar burned bright burgundy. There was an icy vacuum inside of me. I turned on the faucet and washed the blood off my face. I tried to say something aloud - the voice husky a little, but not in such a way that it would be immediately noticed in the roar of a nightclub. I did all this automatically, and for some reason I was afraid to look my reflection in the eye. I must have felt like a person who is discovering the symptoms of a deadly disease, which I had so long and carefully brushed aside. I was scared, honestly.

"Where did you fail?" Pat exclaimed. "I was beginning to think you were sucked in."

Everyone had incredibly cheerful faces. Surely Sue did her best, she will make the dead laugh. Yes, there would be a number if I now stated that I had just been almost strangled, and then I very clearly felt an amazing cocktail of emotions from one notorious dark wizard. But I, despite the wild pain in my head, stretched my lips in a smile and said: