CHAPTER 65: The Devil's Greatest Trick (Part 4)

Shadowfield Estate

January 23rd, 1996

9:45 a.m.

As a kid, there had always been a room none of them were able to enter. Even the adults didn't dare even look at the room unless they were given explicit permission from Grandfather Arcturus. The main study of the manor was where his grandfather spent most of his time and where he kept anything of true value. Whether it was important documents or powerful magical artefacts, they were stored in a drawer charmed so that only the master of the house would be able to access them. He would be rolling in his grave if he ever learnt Sirius was now sitting in his old chair.

More than his parents, his grandfather was a massive cunt. He was sane and cold, a complete contrast to the madness he witnessed in his parents, but that only made him so much worse. For he knew everything that was happening in the family. The bastard would probably know his daughter-in-law was pregnant before she even knew. And, being the massive cunt he was, he loved his power. But more than that, he loved to show it. Force it upon his own family for his amusement. To show he had the biggest balls in the house, that he was the true power of the Blacks. There was a reason everyone else hated him, prayed for his death, even attempted to kill him themselves.

But he had to give it to the bastard. For all the times he promised himself he would never show an ounce of respect to anyone with the surname of Black, he could not help but unwillingly respect just how cold and ruthless the old man was. For the moment he found out his own son was plotting to overtake him, he had his whole family murdered in front of him. He only finished him off after a few months locked up with the corpses of the ones he loved the most. All while convincing everyone at the Ministry that they had moved to take care of the Black properties in Australia with an unnerving ease.

It was that unwilling respect, that proved it to him in the end. The big epiphany he had had during his years incarcerated and laid out like a buffet for the dementors. People didn't change. They couldn't stray from who they truly were, hard as they might try. It was their nature, the one thing they couldn't avoid or change. Because as much as he'd tried to convince himself that he was a good man, distancing himself from the Blacks and fighting against Voldemort, it hadn't changed anything. Because if he hadn't spent every waking moment after Hogwarts containing himself, restraining every single action he took as he tried to prove to Remus that he was a good man, a changed man - that he wasn't the monster he had been accused of being - he would have made his grandfather and the way he dealt with his enemies look like an introductory course on cruelty.

They were all monsters. The ones that survived always were. People thought he didn't know that. That he didn't realise his mind had gone to waste just as much as his parents and that he was acting just as madly as they were. That he was as cold and ruthless as his grandfather with how he handled Potter. But he did. He knew full well. But he was the only one seeing things as they were, rather than pretending he could still be a good man. That any of them would come out of this with their hands clean.

"Kreacher!" he snapped at the air, and the little monster appeared in front of him. It glared up at him before giving the shallowest bow he'd ever seen.

"Master called." The creature croaked out.

"You know why."

It scowled, but answered nonetheless. "The boy is still at Grimmauld. He hasn't tried to escape."

"Tell me what he's doing."

"He talks to the blood-traitors and the deformed man, and when he doesn't, he keeps to his room."

"What does he do in there?"

"Kreacher doesn't know. The room has been warded against House-Elf magic, Kreacher can't go inside."

"Bastard," Sirius spat. "Go. Get out of here, you useless fiend."

"Can I help you with something, Black?" Moody's voice barked from outside the half-open door.

With a snarl, Sirius stood up, sending the chair rocking backwards, and pushed the doors to the study open so hard they crashed against the wall. "You're the one in my house, Moody. I don't remember inviting you here."

"Albus asked me to check on you, and he was right to do so. You're using your House-Elf to spy on the boy?"

"Yes, I am." He said coolly. "Someone has to, since all of you grew weak and let him out of his cell."

"He should have never been in there to begin with." Moody snarled, his staff striking the floor as he stepped forward. "I know Albus told you about him, about what happened. How can you stand there and still think you're right?"

"Because that only proves my point. You're a realist, Moody. You have dealt with the worst kinds of monsters this world has, just like I have. And for all of them, there's a point of no return. Whether it's something they did or something that was done to them, it doesn't matter. There's no coming back from that line, from being broken to your very core. Tell me, after everything that Snape put Potter through, the whole of it, do you really think there's an ending here where he doesn't become a monster? Where he doesn't go on a rampage and become the next Voldemort? Because, as I see it, there's no real difference between them at this age."

"They're far from the same-"

"Now that there, that's a bloody lie, and you know it."

"By that logic, you're no different from the Dark Lord either."

"No, I am." He said, his voice calmer than he'd expected it to come out. "I was too weak to kill him when I had the chance. Voldemort wouldn't have been. I'm not making the same mistake twice."

"You're not going back to Grimmauld," Moody growled. "You're not getting anywhere close to that boy."

"Yes, I am. Because one of these days, hell, tomorrow even, that little brat is going to try to escape. He's duped you all so hard you don't even realise it, you haven't even considered the possibility. And when that happens, and Kreacher tells me, that's the moment I'm going back to Grimmauld. Back to finish the job. So if you want to stop me, if you're really genuine, you should put me down now. Because I will never stop."

"Sirius…"

"I'm not joking around," he snapped, and he reached for Moody's staff. The man had a tight grip on it, but his goal wasn't to yank it away. He pressed the top of it against his forehead and stared him dead in the eye. "Do it. Kill me. Right here, right now. Kill me or get the fuck out of my house."

His hand shook, gripping the staff tightly. He refused to break eye-contact. Even with his heart pounding against his chest and as it became harder to breathe. And for a second, he thought Moody was actually going to do it. He could see it in his eyes. But he didn't. His eyes put out the fire behind them, and he yanked the staff out of his grip. And he wanted to scream, to sucker punch him and spit in his face, but he didn't.

"See," he said instead. "You're weak. Just like I was. Because you either don't have the balls to do what is necessary, or you actually agree with me and can't bear the thought of that. Can't accept the fact that I have been right all along." Moody didn't say anything, but then again, he was a man of few words. Sirius looked him up and down before sneering at him. "You know your way out," he said, before he turned and began walking down the corridor.

"Sirius," Moody's voice echoed through the hall, even with its low tone. "If you put a foot back in Grimmauld Place again… you're gonna have a bad time of it. I'm gonna make damn sure of that."

"We'll see," he shrugged, not looking back as he kept walking forward.

Blackstone Residence

January 21st, 1996

5:35 p.m.

The silence of the house had always held a sort of anxiousness to it. It was unnatural. Something he had grown unaccustomed to after spending years inside a bloated castle filled with kids and teachers alike. And even then, it was something that had always made him jumpy before he started Hogwarts. You couldn't help but think you were being watched. At times, he even felt his grandmother in the hallways behind him, lurking behind him silently. Rationally, he knew that wasn't the case. She rarely left her room, and the only times when she did were when she needed to go outside.

Augusta Longbottom had stopped hanging around the halls of Blackstone Residence long ago. Her food was delivered to her room by Vipny, as was everything else she demanded of her and the other House-Elves in the manor. And if it wasn't Vipny she needed, then he would be hauled over to her room and forced to listen to her scream and yap, venting out her frustrations on him before he was finally released.

Neville had never understood why they never left the manor. Besides the kitchen, his room, and the master room, all the other rooms only served to gather dust. And if it wasn't for his love of Herbology, the Greenhouses would be as well. The other buildings within the grounds were locked and rarely opened, only when Ron or Hermione came around and wanted to do something other than hang out at the manor or talk about important things they didn't want anyone else overhearing.

They would have been better off in a dingy flat. At least, that way, it wouldn't feel so empty.

You would have been better off without her. His mind said, and Neville immediately tensed. He looked and his watch and saw there were still five minutes before he needed to go. He closed his eyes, but he could still feel it walking behind him. It had no footsteps, it never did, but he never failed to feel it.

What had started out as a voice, a temptation, had grown stronger lately. He began feeling its presence. Behind him. All around him. But when he'd gathered his courage and turned around, there would be no one there. Until it became a shadow. Creeping closer every time it spoke. Speaking more and more with every day. Its voice foreign yet striking, it held a distorted sort of familiarity to it. And as the shadow got closer, it became less static, stalking him around the room. Even began following him if he tried to escape it.

You don't need her. You'd be better off if the bitch was dead.

"Go away," he said. He covered his head and rested his shoulders on his knees. Refusing to be scared. Or at least making it easier to be brave.

You know I'm right. You want to do it. You've wanted to since you learnt what being dead really was, haven't you?

"That's not true."

You've wished for it. Prayed for it. You would gladly trade her if it meant getting mummy and daddy back, wouldn't you.

"That's not-" the words died in his throat. "That's not the same. That's…"

You can't have them back. They took them from you. Just like they took Cedric and Viktor. Like they're going to take Hermione and Ron. Fleur and all the Weasleys. Every one that has ever loved you, they are all going to be killed by him.

"No, they're not. No. No, I'll stop him. Stop all of them. I'll protect them. I'll do whatever I need to do. I'll make sure I do."

Like you did with Cedric? With Krum? You can't stop this. But that doesn't mean you have to live like this. Being ignored by the Order, ostracized by all the people who claim they're trying to protect you? HA! As if. They just want to keep you away. The screw-up. The idiotic little boy who couldn't save his friends. Dropping to the ground because of a little headache and stopping them before they could grab the Portkey. Fleur knows it. She told them all. That's why they hate you. Why they don't trust you. And they never will.

"Yes-"

No.

"I don't need them." Neville snapped. "I haven't before. I have Ron and Hermione and…"

And what have they done for you? They haven't stopped the Ministry. Stopped Umbridge. Hell, Dumbledore didn't even bat an eye when your own grandmother humiliated you in front of him. He cares about Potter. He cares about everyone but you. Why take it? Why not just leave. Kill the bitch and run away?

"No. No. No, I don't want that. I-"

You can't lie to me.

"I'm not!"

Yes, his mind screamed before a hand yanked at his hair and forced him to stand up. And as he blinked and tried to get accustomed to the light, he saw the hazel eyes he saw every morning staring back at him. The same chubby face and tight clothes he was forced to wear every day. He immediately pushed his copy away, but it held its grip tight. And that's when his heart stopped and the shock overtook him again, as he realised the thing could touch him. You are. Because you're weak. Because, even though you want to. Even as you say you will do it over and over, every time she slaps you, berates you, humiliates you, you are still too weak to do it. You find a way to excuse it. To tell yourself that she loves you. That one day, she'll tell you she's proud of you and all the other things you wish she would. But it's a lie. As big of a lie as the love anyone claims to have for you. So pick up your wand… and kill her.

Neville's watch rung from his wrist, and when it did, the thing was gone. There was no him. No shadow. Not even its presence within the room. But as he grabbed his coat and opened the door, he heard it whisper in the back of his ear. You know the spell, Neville.

His heart was beating as he rushed through the halls and down the stairs, uncaring of the sound he made as he did so. His grandmother wouldn't care, anyway. He ran down the stairs, almost jumping down the last few steps, and when he reached the entrance he pushed open the large door to the manor without even bothering to close it.

The Knight Bus got there almost as soon as he summoned it, and after he paid his fee and stepped inside, he didn't look back as it sped off towards Diagon Alley. And still, even while sitting with a bunch of people - though barely managing to stay upright as the bus careened around corners - hearing them talk and laugh and being assaulted by more sound than he had since the Longbottom ball, his body was trembling. The hair on the back of his neck still stood right up. It wasn't there anymore, but he knew better than to think it was far away.

It took around twenty minutes before they arrived in London, and he was grateful he managed to step off of the bus before he bent over and vomited his lunch all over n the pavement. Being a minor and not being allowed to use magic, he gave an awkward smile to those around him before he went into the Leaky Cauldron.

The place was brimming with light and sound. The Leaky Cauldron was the most popular pub in the entirety of Wizarding Britain, and though it made it the most expensive by far, it was still always filled with people at almost any hour of any day. There was barely any space to sit anymore. Thankfully, Eli appeared to have gotten there earlier than their agreed upon time and had managed to find a booth for them. The older boy smiled as he saw him, standing up and greeting him properly.

"I was happy to hear from you," Eli told him as the two of them sat down after they exchanged their pleasantries. "After what the Prophet said about Potter being found a couple of days ago, I was worried you wouldn't be able to meet up again for a while."

"I managed to sneak out," Neville said, trying not to blush. It had always been hard for him to make friends, true friends. Especially after his first two years at Hogwarts, when everyone began to think him a fraud and a weak wizard overall. With the whole Boy-Who-Lived thing hanging over his head just about every day, it was hard to find genuine friends who cared about him more than just for the image. And though his relationship with Eli had started as purely a partnership to find justice for Graham, it hadn't taken long for Eli to treat him more like a friend than a business partner.

"So he's there? At the house with you. Have you spoken with him?"

It had been harder lying to Eli as time went on. The older boy was a genuine person, one who had never doubted his word and took him into consideration for his ideas. But that's the way it was supposed to be. He couldn't say anything about the Order. It was supposed to be a secret, something his grandmother and everyone else involved had reminded him many times since the summer. But what had they done for him? Why should he follow their orders if they didn't even try to hear him out, or even include him in anything?

Why should he lie about them to someone who was an actual friend?

"I… Eli, I have to tell you something."

"What is it?"

"Potter didn't get home only a couple of nights ago. In fact, he hasn't even slept at Blackstone at all."

"What are you talking about?" Eli asked, straightening up in his seat and looking at him, the betrayal carved on his face. "You lied?"

"Potter never… he never really escaped. He didn't run away or go missing. I… my grandmother and I… we're part of this group. We- they try to help people. And they were convinced that Harry was the one that murdered Montague. That he framed Tracey for it and got away with it. So, they locked him in a cell and… and they snapped his wand and that was it."

"They snapped his wand?" He wasn't even looking at him, his face lowered to the side. "Locked him up?"

"They did, but then something happened. I don't know what, they were really vague about it all. And then they just let him go. Moved him up to his room and left him there for a few days before he was finally allowed out."

"But why? You said they knew he killed my brother." He looked up at him, his eyes pleading. "They… they must have had evidence. Something concrete to warrant having his wand snapped. Why would they just let him go?"

"They said they were wrong. I don't know what happened or what Potter told him, but they said he was innocent. He did nothing wrong. That Sir- the man who locked him up… that he was wrong about it all."

"And are they right?"

"No," Neville said so quickly, it came out harshly. "Whatever he told them, it's all bullshit. I saw what he did at the Three Broomsticks to those men who attacked us. They ended up just like Graham did. Same style, same spells used. He lied."

"Are you certain? Because if you're not, Neville, then we'd be going after an innocent man. And if…if Merlin forbid, we do anything rash, and he ends up not being the one… then that's something we're going to have to live with for the rest of our lives."

"He's the one. I just know it."

"Have you tried telling this to your friends? The people in your group."

"They don't listen to me." Neville said bitterly. "Besides, even if they did, Potter's got them under his spell. They're protecting him now, visiting him. Doing whatever the fuck he asks of them."

"Maybe they feel guilty." Eli shrugged. "If they believe he's innocent and were involved in something where Potter's wand was… fucking snapped, I can see the guilt making them do something along these lines." He paused for a moment. "So the whole thing about finding him and him being a runaway… that was all a lie?"

"It was a ruse to explain his disappearance. But now that they've gone and let him go, they need an excuse as to where he was all this time."

"And he cooperated?"

"For now," Neville sighed. "He has them on his side. It's not going to be easy to make him pay."

"Make him pay?" Eli echoed. "We're doing this to get justice for my brother."

"I know-"

"So, what did you think that meant? Because the way you sound, it seems like you don't want to turn him over to the DMLE."

"He's already tricked the Aurors once!" Neville snapped. "He did it and worse, he somehow framed Tracey Davis for it. If we go at him and we miss –and he somehow manages to get off scot-free again – he's not going to let bygones be bygones. He'll either kill us or- or try to frame us for something else somehow."

"What are you saying?"

"We need to make him confess. We- we need to make him talk. How we do it doesn't matter. We get a confession, a detailed one about what he did to both your brother and Davis, and that's it. We turn him in and testify against him. "

"What, so we beat him up? Torture him?"

"Howe we do it doesn't matter." Neville repeated darkly.

"We don't even know if that would work. If Scrimgeour would even accept that as an actual confession."

"It's the best chance we have to get him," Neville yelled, his voice cracking in the process. "He did it, we all know he did. Everyone at Hogwarts knows he did. Fuck, maybe even Scrimgeour knows that now after he saw what he did at Hogsmeade. What are we supposed to do? Just sit back and watch as someone like that, a- a monster gets away with it all without facing repercussions? Without anyone standing up to him?" Neville slammed his hand on the table and Eli immediately reached to grab it, looking at him with a fierce expression.

"No. Of course not. I want this just as much as you do, trust me on that. But we can't go down and stoop to the level of these types of people. We can't allow ourselves to become the monsters they are." For a moment, Eli faltered as he looked away. But he seemed to gain back his courage when he spoke. "My parents were the worst type of people you could imagine. They'd get angry about anything. If I grabbed my fork the wrong way, they'd shout at me. If I didn't tuck my shirt in all the way, they'd beat me. Even though I was barely four, they never held back. And with Graham, they were even worse, not feeding him for days if he cried too loud. It wasn't a surprise that they were… were idiotic pure-blood fanatics. That they later became Death Eaters."

It took a moment for the words to reach his brain, for it to begin to process them, and when it did he immediately flinched. He yanked his arm away from Eli's and made to stand up, but Eli seized his other arm.

"Just please hear me out," he hissed. "Please. I- I'm not like them."

"Your parents were Death Eaters."

"And I hated them. Hated everything they stood for. How they treated me. My brother. How they would rant about Mudbloods and Blood Traitors and say they deserved everything that was happening to them. Please, you have to believe me. We aren't inherently tied to those of our blood. Can you really say we're all like our family? Like our parents?"

Neville stuttered, the words escaping him. He wanted to run. To pick up his wand and fight. To do anything that would see him leave this place alive. But he couldn't fault Eli's words. He wasn't like his family. He wasn't brave and strong like his father. He wasn't wise or talented like his mother. And he definitely wasn't a… he wasn't like his grandmother.

"Show me your arm," he said.

"My arm?"

"Yes," Neville snapped. "Just- show it to me."

"Okay," letting him go, he pulled both sleeves down and showed them to him. But all he saw was white skin and a half a dozen moles that riddled his arms. There was no dark mark on them. "I'm not a Death Eater. And I have no intention of joining He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, even if he comes knocking with a request."

"You- you believe he's back?"

"Of course," he said. "Both you and that French girl said it happened, of course I believe you two. My parents, what they said about him, the way they spoke… there's no doubt in my mind he's involved in the Dark Arts enough for a feat like that."

Neville gulped, feeling his heart calm down as he tried smiling, but ultimately failed. "Your parents… what happened to them?"

"The Aurors caught them, thank Merlin. They saved me, saved my brother. I don't know if I could have made it another year with them… or if they would have killed us just for fun. I never visited them while they were held by the DMLE, never even bothered to go to their funeral when they died. I hated them, and still do, for how they treated my bro-" Eli cut off, as he gained a distant look in his eyes. "It didn't matter in the end because he died anyway. I couldn't save him. A monster no different from my parents made sure of that. I don't want to turn into that type of monster. I don't want you to turn into one. We can't go down this path, we can't act just like them and justify it by saying we're doing this to find justice. We have to be better than them."

Neville snorted bitterly. "That never works. It only ends with them taking advantage, killing and murdering as they please, as we all continue being idiots for the sake of convincing ourselves we're doing the right thing."

"We have to make it work," Eli said, his smile bearing the weight of this world. "What's the point of it all if we don't?"

Grimmauld Place

January 25th, 1996

4:30 p.m.

It had been almost a month since she had talked to Head Auror Scrimgeour. Almost a month of waking up every morning early for breakfast with her parents as she eagerly awaited the post. And though it did some days, bringing letters from her friends or issues of magazines to which she had subscribed, the letter she wanted, the one that kept her up every night, never came.

She had regretted talking to Head Auror Scrimgeour since before she went to bed that night. Hermione had never been the best person when dealing with stressful situations. Whether it was a life or death situation or some stupid pop quiz, she had always frozen whenever things became too stressful. Her brain just stopped, and she was forced to depend on her undeveloped instincts. She needed a plan as well as fifty-seven contingency plans for every situation before getting involved in something as big as trying to blackmail the Head Auror of the DMLE. And she had done it on a whim. Because Harry Potter had just refused to leave her mind. Because there wasn't a night she didn't fall asleep and relive that night when she stood by and let it all happen.

And so, she had gone ahead and done something stupid. She'd said too much, been overconfident and tried to make the offer so enticing. She hadn't realised at the time that she had all but told Head Auror Scrimgeour she was an active participant of the Order of the Phoenix and what they had done to Harry. Or, at the very least, an accomplice that had gone about her business and kept her mouth shut about the whole thing.

At this point, she didn't know what she dreaded more. Spending another day without Scrimgeour writing back, or finally getting a letter from him.

And then there was Harry Potter. Walking Grimmauld Place every day, cleaned up and wholly different from the boy she remembered from school. Hermione could appreciate how a traumatic experience like what she'd seen Sirius do to him was more than enough to change a person, and though Professor Dumbledore and all the other adults tried to hide it, she could tell something bad had happened to him. She had tried to go into his room and see him, but had been denied by Andromeda and Professor Moody both. She hadn't seen them that concerned since the attack on her house, and even with the Azkaban siege all over the papers, she was not convinced that was it.

Hermione had tried to confront him the moment he finally began leaving his room. To talk to him, if only to apologize for not doing anything, as she watched Sirius break his wand. But he never even gave her that, any time she would try to catch his attention or outright walk up to him, he'd just ignore her and walk away. It was the same with Ron and Neville, it was like he was avoiding them specifically. He wasn't picking any fights with them or anyone really, he was keeping to himself, and spending a lot of time in the library reading.

At first, she'd tried to ignore it. Ignore him. But the anxiousness began eating her from within, she had one job for the winter break and had made no progress with it. It was naive to think it would be easy to resolve something like figuring out her core values, what she was going to devote her life to, in a short school break. But she expected to at least get somewhere. However, Head Auror Scrimgeour refused to answer, Potter as well. And if she couldn't even solve her own feelings towards the main issue on her mind, how could she go about defining the main reason for everything she's going to do?

Unfortunately for her, she was never one to sit around and wait for the answers to float down to her lap. And though Potter didn't hold the answers to her questions, he was how she could begin solving her own internal puzzle. So, she began following him. For weeks, she watched him when he thought no one was watching, overheard him when he talked to Professor Moody about wandlore or asked a hundred weird questions about portraits to Ginny. And it wasn't just with Potter, she also began snooping in on the adults. She wasn't the only one interested in Potter, after all, they all talked about him.

But apart from his fixation on trying to fix his wands, and his slightly weird habits like when he talked to himself inside his room or the one time she found him cutting up a portrait and somehow managing to put it back together with Spellotape for seemingly no other reason rather than boredom and curiosity, she didn't find out anything.

Which was how she ended up where she was, outside the first floor corridor, as she had been for the past three minutes. The one thing she hadn't dared to do, mostly out of fear of being caught than anything, was going into his room. Potter was never far from that place, somehow always managing to keep an eye on it even as he was in other places of the house. There was only one time every day when the place wasn't watched, and that was when he took a shower. It often took him around eight to twelve minutes, so she didn't have a lot of time. And she'd already wasted three in her indecision.

But the truth is that there was no other choice. It became apparent she wasn't going to get anything out of Potter unless she found something in his room. And with the bathroom close enough to the room where she would be able to hear when the water stopped, it wasn't as risky as it seemed. So as she steeled herself with her Gryffindor courage, she quickly opened the door and stepped inside, shutting it quietly behind her.

The room was a mess, with clothes all around the floor and some on the bed - though that looked cleaner than the rest - while the desk was filled with parchments, quills and inkwells. If she was going to find anything, she was going to have to sort through the chaos. So, she did, she immediately went to his dresser and opened all the drawers, looking in between his clothes without trying to make it obvious it had been searched. And when she didn't find anything there, she crawled over to his desk and began ruffling through the drawers there.

The bottom two drawers were filled with some more books, most of them about Wandlore, though there were a couple of advanced Defence Against the Dark Arts books in the pile. All rather mundane until she reached the top drawer and opened it, her eyes travelling across the large, rolled up cotton fabric that took most of the space and to the two pieces of wood that Hermione recognised immediately. Her eyes stayed stuck to them, and she almost felt the urge to reach for it, to see if she still felt even the slightest bit of magic coming off from the snapped wand.

Too engrossed by it, it took her a moment to realise she didn't hear the water running anymore. She closed the drawers and immediately stood, but before she could go for the door, she heard rapid footsteps making their way down the hall. With no time to think or run, Hermione jumped into the half opened closet, managing to close the doors slightly right as the door to the room was opened.

Hermione stood still, not even daring to breathe as she saw Potter make his way across the room. He was wearing a towel on his hip and another over his back. Her eyes widened, but just as she was about to close them and look away, she was stunned in place when he took off the towel covering his back and revealed a massive, deep gash that covered all his upper left back. And for a moment, she was too caught up by the sheer brutality of it that she almost missed its shape. The realisation elicited a gasp from her, one that she tried to cover up with her hands, but knew was too late the moment Harry's eyes turned towards the closet doors.

She was frozen in place as he strolled towards it, her heart stopped by the look of raw hatred behind his eyes and when he opened the door and towered over her, she feared she wouldn't be getting out of this room. Overcome by fear, she didn't even know how to react before he suddenly grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out of the closet.

"Get out," he bit out, the words rough and hard. It was clear he wanted to say more, the effort in containing the clear rage she was seeing was almost admirable. And when his words didn't move her, he spoke again. "Get the fuck out."

Hermione let out a breath she didn't realise she had been holding, immediately turning around to dash for the door before she felt her arm getting grabbed, and she was twisted back to him. He held her close and firm, looking down at her with such hatred, she could feel his ragged breaths on her face.

"I know about Scrimgeour," he gritted out. "I know about your fuck-up that could bring the whole fucking Order out. You say anything to anyone, you even think about it again, and I will tell Dumbledore myself. I'll tell Scrimgeour myself and blame it on you. You're done playing this little game. You're done snooping around, hanging about me like a lost puppy. You try to bother me again, or don't stop your friends from getting into my business again, and I will burn your world down to the ground. Do you understand?"

"Yes," she couldn't have said it quicker, nodding frantically as the grip on her wrist was beginning to get too painful. "I'm sorry. I'm… I didn't know, I didn't me-"

"Get the fuck out." He said coldly, and she did just that.

That's it for this chapter, thank you all for reading!

Next chapter you'll get the final preparations for Harry's plan, as well as an important talk between Albus and Harry. Be excited!

By the time I'm posting this, I'm ELEVEN chapters ahead, and I'm about to start the arc titled Lost Souls, which is one of the final arcs before we reach the climax of fifth-year! If you are interested in learning how to get early access to them, join my discord server using the following link: discord . gg / jyPfbGqhJT

As always, thank you for reading, favouriting, and commenting! I appreciate all of you! :)