[warning: Mob/Harry mentioned, past extreme underage sex mentioned, blood and violence mentioned. Just mentioned.]
That evening, Harry arrived at the office on the third floor and knocked on the door. The door opened automatically.
The walls of the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor's office were adorned with two prominent red and gold banners, indicating the owner's fondness for Gryffindor. Below the banners was a five-drawer cabinet, on top of which sat two black magic detectors, a basket of magical fireworks, and a pet chew toy made in the shape of antlers (which, of course, Harry didn't recognize). On one side of the room was a large motorcycle that Harry had seen on the streets when he was a child, wandering around.
On the desk was a pile of scattered student papers. There was also a picture frame, and although Harry couldn't see the front of the photo, he felt the frame was somewhat familiar. In an unremarkable corner behind the desk was a silver cage containing a Dementor. Harry recognized the silver light that enveloped the cage as the power of a Patronus, which Professor Lupin used to keep this dark creature captive.
"That's for the fifth-year students," Sirius emerged from the inner room and, upon seeing Harry looking, said nonchalantly, "you need to learn the Patronus Charm early so that you can resist if attacked by Death Eaters with Dementors."
"Who taught you that theory in class? Was it that bastard Voldemort? Do you really believe what he says?"
"...," Harry fell silent.
"Dumbledore also said that he forced you. So did he? Or did you do it voluntarily?"
"..." Harry didn't feel like he was forced. He thought he was willingly follow his father's orders. He just went along with it.
"Why did you have to follow him?"
"..." Harry felt like he couldn't answer that question.
Faced with many questions afterwards, Harry mostly remained silent while Sirius became more and more agitated. Meanwhile, in the corner of the room, the guardian charm around the cage quietly cracked open. The power of the Dementor seeped out of the broken cage, causing the temperature in the room to slowly drop, but neither of the two people in the room noticed.
"Dumbledore said you could be saved. Did he make a mistake?" Sirius's words were mixed with anger and disappointment. "Do you know how many people were killed by Death Eaters in this war?"
"..." Harry knew exactly how many people died. He never wanted to see those people die, but his father... his father needed them to die. Harry had always tried to be a good son.
"This is not a problem of apology!" Sirius's emotions were getting more and more intense. He grabbed the photo frame on the table and flipped it over to face Harry. "Do you remember him?"
It was only then that Harry recognized the four people in the picture. It was the Marauders, back when they were young and wearing Hogwarts uniforms. They were all smiling happily.
"This is a relic of Remus, which I picked up from the scene of his murder. I think you've seen it before?"
"I want to tear Peter apart, that rat, that traitor, he doesn't deserve to be in here. But I can't bear to destroy what Remus left behind. I can only leave him here to remind me every day how despicable Death Eaters and betrayers are."
Both of them remembered the scene at the Remus Lupin family that night.
"How old are you, child?" The werewolf in Harry's memory asked. Harry saw the concern in Remus Lupin's eyes during this recollection. It was then that Harry realized he had cared for himself. And he had killed him without hesitation. Harry's heart twinged with pain. The figure was engulfed in a green light.
Then he seemed to hear his father's voice: "You'd better make yourself useful."
And still his father's voice: "Not bad. Come a few more times and you'll get used to it." The voice became clearer and clearer.
This situation was not right. Harry looked to the corner of the room, where the silver light of the patronus spell on the cage had become extremely dim, and the dementor was about to break free.
Harry immediately realized that the power of the patronus was maintained by positive emotions such as happiness and joy, and that the fluctuations in Sirius's mood would certainly affect the restraint on the dementor's cage. Harry felt that he should not rashly use magic to kill the dementor, otherwise he would expose the fact that he could perform wandless magic and lose his freedom.
However, once the opportunity was missed, it might never come again. Perhaps no matter which parallel universe he was in, dementors were something Harry would be afraid of... When he later discovered how greatly the dementor had affected him, he was already powerless to resist.
Now, he was trying to tell Sirius to calm down, but Sirius turned to look at the cage, and his passionate emotions were not focused on this.
"Aren't dementors the natural allies of you Dark wizards? Aren't they the dark power you love? What are you afraid of?" Sirius gasped heavily, trying to calm down, but he couldn't calm down at all. "Do you know what I saw just now? I saw the Dark Mark hanging in the sky, and the body of my good friend, in his own room. James and I were too late, we couldn't save him - we couldn't stop you!"
"I saw my best friend die, and the murderer is right in front of me! And yet, they still ask me to stay calm!" He was almost roaring.
Harry heard a jumble of memories swirling in his ears. "Get down, you little freak, don't make me say it twice," he heard his own childhood screams, and then a harsh whip cracking sound, "Shut up, you're making too much noise."
He felt as though he had fallen into an endless void woven of memories. Sirius's voice came from somewhere far away, "But I have to stay calm, don't I? You're James and Lily's child, and you're still my godson! We thought Harry was dead, and it was our fault, but you, damn it, what have you done?! We can't even make it up to you properly!" Sirius grabbed Harry by the collar and shook him vigorously.
"Harry, what have you done..." Sirius's voice choked, and he struggled to speak, "Did you hesitate when you killed him? How can I forgive you? Huh?"
"... " Harry couldn't answer. He was being held and shaken by someone, completely powerless to resist. The rushing memories had engulfed him, and he was breathing with difficulty, like drowning.
"He didn't do anything wrong..." Little Harry would instinctively sympathize with others' pain.
"Worthless." His father's contemptuous voice.
"Be a good boy, and we can all avoid trouble."
"Harry, kill him." The memories gradually became clearer.
"Harry, do it." Harry saw himself raising his wand - Avada Kedavra.
"Please, don't kill me." "Let us go." And Harry himself continued the dark magic experiment, numbly.
Sirius released Harry's collar and threw him aside. He fell and sat on the ground beside him, "Whose family doesn't have a few blood relations who've joined the Dark? I have experience in this. My entire family were Death Eaters. Bella, do you know her? Or perhaps a close friend who joined the Dark, Peter Pettigrew, do you know him? Are they your allies?"
Memories and reality intertwined. He heard Sirius's angry questioning and saw his young self being stuffed into a strange hotel in a suitcase.
He remembered many unfamiliar adults. It hurt a lot.
He remembered how hungry he was, so hungry that he felt weak and his vision went black. His uncle had only given him a little bit of milk.
"You're a worthless waste of space, an evil little monster. Even your monster parents don't want you!"
A stranger stubbed out his cigarette on his arm. Even in memory, the pain was so vivid and intense.
"This little weirdo is really weird, able to quickly recover from multiple injuries. We can play with him as much as we want." He could almost see his uncle Vernon's fat and huge figure.
Amid screams and agony, he heard Sirius's voice again: "James feels worse than me. He won't admit it, but I can tell. How should we treat you? You're just another Peter. Should I tell him that? Do you know what James does every day? He protects others. He has always risked his life and fought on the front line against Death Eaters! What right do you have, why should he suffer for you? Shouldn't I advise him to be more clear-headed, that some so-called relatives are beyond redemption? Shouldn't you just rot in Azkaban with Bella and the rest, or get kissed by dementors?"
This reminded Sirius that there was indeed a menacing Dementor behind him. He had almost forgotten about it in his raging anger.
The Dementor had already drained all the positive emotions in the office but was still hungry and greedy for more souls to fill its stomach.
Sirius waved his wand, and a tiny silver light glinted from its tip. His emotions were too turbulent, and he couldn't even steady his breath, making it impossible for him to summon his patronus by focusing on happy memories. He also knew that Harry, as a dark wizard, had neither a patronus nor a wand. Suddenly, Sirius panicked. Although he said that Harry deserved to be kissed by a Dementor, he didn't really want it to happen here.
"Crucio." It was his father's voice, and he heard his own screams.
He was thrown into the castle's corpse-processing area, surrounded by a sea of broken bodies. Worms crawled all over him.
Harry saw many other people... They were either terrified, indignant, or friendly, their faces so vivid and lifelike. Then, they died in Harry's hands. And then his father's voice again: "Well done, Harry."
Then came the image transmitted by magic, the Death Eaters' attack on the village, screams and flames everywhere, a hell on earth. Meanwhile, in his laboratory in the castle, he was opening the Dark Mark, receiving the power transmitted from the Death Eaters.
He wanted to spare the Muggle. Harry remembered his father's disdainful face: "You better not be useless."
He was wrong to apologize to his father. How could he disappoint his father and cause himself such pain?
He would not make that mistake again. He would try to be a good boy.
"Harry will be obedient, Father, don't abandon me."
He saw green light and then many lifeless bodies staring at him with empty eyes.
Due to his injuries and blood loss, the extremely weak little Harry heard Uncle Vernon's voice in a daze: "Rare blood type? Is it really that valuable?"
"He said your blood is the most delicious." The person stuck the needle into Harry's skinny arm.
"Expecto Patronum!" Sirius tried again in panic, but it still didn't work. The Dementors continued to approach them.
The presence of the Dementors made the cold feel even more real. Harry seemed to be back on some cold nights of his childhood, constantly being bled, feeling cold all over, shrinking into a small ball on the cold, hard floor, trembling uncontrollably, with his hands and feet feeling numb like being pricked by needles. It seemed that only the machine connected to his nose was diligently injecting nutrients into his stomach.
On another night, Uncle Vernon said that he had to recover before meeting people tomorrow, otherwise he would be punished. He had no idea how to do that. He could only hug himself tightly in the small cage, because the knife wounds on his back and arms made it impossible to sleep.
On many other nights, the injuries caused by dark magic experiments were not healed, and Harry felt cold all over his body, with cold sweat on his forehead. He still continued to work, only receiving praise from his father when he kept up with the progress.
Then came that fateful snowy night. The young Harry curled up in the snowy corner of the wall, praying desperately for his parents to save him in his dying moments, but heard the person say, "I'm here to kill you."
In many nightmares, the people who hurt him, the people he hurt, together called him a freak.
"Harry, run…" Sirius tried to wake him up.
Just then, with a loud bang, the door of the office was blown open by a blasting curse. In the smoke, a beautiful silver-white stag rushed in, instantly dispelling the Dementors, and then stopped next to the two of them.
The patronus looked at Sirius, then lowered its head and gently rubbed Harry's cheek. With a power that calmed the heart, it dispelled the abyss of memory with warmth and hope. The illusions before Harry gradually dissipated. He remembered what his father had once said, "You're not a freak."
"Thank goodness Hermione came to find me. Are you both okay?" Lily arrived just in time and saw that neither of them was hurt, so she put her mind at ease. "What's with the Dementor?"
"It was an accident..." Sirius finally breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "It was a Dementor prepared for the fifth-year students' class. It broke out of the cage and almost attacked us."
"I see. You both need to rest..." Lily didn't need to be told; she could guess that they must have been emotionally disturbed to be affected by the Dementor. The patronus jumped to Sirius' side and rubbed against him.
Sirius reached out and touched the silver-white stag's antlers, sighing, "He really looks just like James. Wasn't his patronus a doe before? How did it change to him?"
Lily smiled slightly. "Of course, after I learned Animagus, his patronus changed to me, a lioness. My patronus changed to him too. We really need to look out for each other."
"Look out for each other..." Sirius sighed. He looked in Harry's direction, then looked away.
"Harry, are you okay?" Lily came to Harry's side and helped him sit up. When her hand touched Harry, he flinched as if he had been electrocuted. Lily noticed that Harry's face was pale and his robes were almost soaked with cold sweat.
"I'm fine," Harry said.
After this incident, Harry became even more silent and skipped several Defense Against the Dark Arts classes. He didn't know how to face Professor Black.
Soon after, Harry disappeared from Hogwarts. Dumbledore's office was burgled, and the Dark Prince's mask and wand were also missing.
What happened was self-evident.
Hermione remembered what Harry had said to her yesterday evening, "Don't join the Order of the Phoenix. This war is completely meaningless. We don't need more people to die meaninglessly."
She didn't understand why Harry had suddenly told her this, but she promised to consider it carefully before making a decision.
Why didn't she realize that was a farewell? She had been saved by Harry in the castle of you-know-who before, and she had seen Harry there, who was not happy at all. She knew that Harry actually liked Hogwarts, and staying here was much better than being with that man! She should have realized Harry's plan and told Professor Dumbledore. When talking to Professor Dumbledore about the situation, Hermione was constantly angry with herself.
Then she came out of the headmaster's office, clutching the amulet that Harry had given her yesterday to ward off curses. Maybe they would really never see each other again, she thought.