Interlude: Horace Slughorn

31st July 1989: late afternoon, after Harry's trip to Diagon Alley

Loud sounds of banging, exploding, or panging did not generally exhibit any emotions. However, there would be few who wouldn't be able to ascertain the tiredness of the loud crack that resounded throughout the Scottish Highlands that day.

Slughorn waved his wand at the wrought-iron Hogwarts gates that had suddenly replaced the puerile Surrey and stepped through the small opening he'd created. A wonderful view of the beautiful castle in which he was a teacher opened up before him, but the scene left him cold. When was the last time such a thing had occurred?

"Surely not since the end of the war," the old man said as he began walking up to the institute, feeling all his years and weight, metaphorical and otherwise. He could have simply apparated to the three broomsticks and taken a short trip through the floo to his pleasantly cool office in the dungeons. But Albus had wished to speak with him, and he preferred taking a bit longer to get there. He needed to sort his thoughts.

Harry Evans, the problem on his mind. Terribly bright, precocious, and interested in magic beyond his grasp and the grasp of most wizards. Even he at his age had only mastered median levels of Occlumency and he was considered accomplished for the feat.

He brought up a tissue to wipe at his runny nose. The boy. He reminded him of Lily, just that he took all the qualities she'd had and amplified them. Intellect to genius, coquettishness to precociousness and control to mastery. It hadn't escaped him that for their entire interaction, except perhaps immediately after the boy had gotten his wand, Harry had only shown him what he'd wanted him to see. In that way, he reminded Slughorn of another student, one much older now, whom he'd harboured in his house.

He entered the castle and started laboriously making his way upstairs to the headmaster's office. The castle was empty of students and professors alike, the draw of spending the summer elsewhere being too much for the staff. Dumbledore would be in his office, however. Being the headmaster of Hogwarts might not have been the older man's only position, but it was likely the only one that he felt he had left. Slughorn thought similarly; he'd had a chance to run away and leave the life of education and intellectual toil behind. Retire and enjoy the connections he'd made while teaching. Throw elaborate dinner parties with money assured by the semi-regular sale of rare potions like Felix Felicis.

The chance had long passed and the only thing left from the days in which he would have taken that chance was a profound sense of moral disgust. Losing Lily like that, likely to one of his own students, had broken him. Something Albus had used to his own advantage to reform Slughorn into something more befitting his own philosophy. For all that Horace had avoided taking a stance his entire life, preferring to hedge his bets and enjoy the seduction attempts from both sides, the blood war hadn't left him any other choice. The crimes committed had been so hideous he'd become unable to run.

It remained to be seen if Harry Evans would be a student he'd need to go out of his way to protect or one of the students he'd need to protect others from. Horace sincerely hoped his worries were unfounded, but unlike Albus, he didn't have the energy to believe in the innate goodness of humanity, or children anymore. Not after...

"Candy pop," he said to the gargoyle in front of the headmaster's office, paying attention not to lock eyes with any of the paintings present in the corridor. They were entertainment-deprived from how empty the castle was and would take any opportunity to try to involve him in a conversation. The doors opened and he walked up the stairs, greeting the bearded old man sitting at his desk late into the afternoon and writing what seemed like a policy proposal for the Wizengamot if the format of the parchment was any indication.

"Good evening, Albus," Horace said as he sat down in the plush armchair that had appeared under his behind after he'd walked up to the desk. He sighed in contentment as Albus quickly finished up his work before putting away the quill and folding his hands under his chin to lock blue eyes on blue.

"Thank you again, Horace, for undertaking the trip. Considering the circumstances, I thought it better to send a professor."

"Of course, a half-blood whose magical parentage is dead barely has any more knowledge than a muggle-born."

"How has young Harry Evans been doing, he lives with his aunt, correct?"

Horace nodded, "He seemed well informed, as much as he could be. His aunt likely knew at least some things about the magical world from her sister. She was very displeased to see me and wanted to send the boy to another school, but I managed to convince her otherwise." He laughed bitterly, while Albus sighed.

"Despite anecdotal evidence to the contrary in this particular case, Hogwarts is one of the safest, if not the safest school in the world. It's good you managed to convince his family."

Horace hesitated, "It was partially the boy himself that did the convincing, his aunt and uncle seem to trust him a lot. He said that he would leave Hogwarts if another conflict started brewing on the horizon, saying one could see the signs of an incoming war before it happened."

"Even the best diviners cannot predict the specifics of the future," Albus said non-committedly to that factoid. "Otherwise?" he asked.

Horace hesitated again, but this time he gave into his desire to not disclose the full story. For all that, there had been some similarities between Tom Riddle and Harry Evans. Both orphans, intelligent, talented with magic, if the display he'd glimpsed through Ollivander's window was any indication... There was just as much Lily in the boy and most importantly, Harry had grown up in a seemingly loving family. He knew, however, that if he were to say things as they were, Albus would be wary of the boy. The man had a Voldemort-shaped hole in the rational part of his brain and it had been partially his handling of Tom that had contributed to making the man what he was today. Although, who knew, some wizards were simply destined for the wrong kind of greatness. "He reminds me of Lily, he takes after her," Horace thus said instead. "I imagine he'll be a student to look out for."

"We always need more of those," Albus mused and started getting up from his chair. Likely to wish Horace a good night and dismiss him.

"Albus, about the new professor," Horace said before he could be told to leave. He might as well address an issue that he saw if he was already here. The headmaster paused but remained standing, looking at him. "Is it smart to let a ministry asset teach Defence against the Dark Arts? Furthermore, the woman is a curse-breaker not a handler of dangerous beasts, or an auror. "

The headmaster ran a hand through his silvery beard, revealing stripes of lime green on the robe below as it parted. It made the purple ensemble even more questionable. Albus frowned, which was a rare enough thing to happen. Horace knew he'd struck a nerve. "I sincerely doubt that a ministry official was given leave to teach without a reason myself, but you know how desperately we need professors for this subject. Who knows, perhaps she'd break the curse on the position."

"I wouldn't get my hopes up, " Horace grunted, "if we wanted a real chance of getting rid of the curse we'd take a curse-breaker from Gringotts, rather than one from the ministry. Everyone knows that the best ones don't work for the government. The pay is just not good enough. "

"I wouldn't let her hear that opinion," Albus warned, "she seemed quite proud of her accomplishments, which I completely understand. They are why I hired her instead of that charming escaped convict from China who was trying to use the position to gain diplomatic immunity. "

"Good night, Albus, " Horace said with a grimace. His patience with the man always disappeared when he brought up one of the ridiculous applications they got for the Defence against the Dark Arts position every year.

"Good night, Horace, I wouldn't worry about it too much. We've managed before and we will manage again," the man said, standing amidst his instruments as they whistled, blared and jumped. Horace's eyes got stuck for a moment on a silver compass, meant to seek out splintered pieces of souls. But ever since the day it had been created, it had just been spinning around in circles. Useless. A painting sneezed from where it had been listening in on their conversation. It startled him from his thoughts and made him realise how tired he was. He ran a head down his face as he left the office, Dumbledore staying behind, likely to continue working in his tower.

"Don't stay up too late," he muttered in lieu of another platitude, knowing that with Albus' age, the man was likely feeling the bite of the approaching night much more strongly than he.

"For that matter, I can unfortunately make no promises." Was the answer he got.

-/- Interlude: Gellert Grindelwald

2nd of November, 1979

Gellert lay in his cot and analysed the ceiling of his cell for the thirty-ninth time that day and as sure as water was water, there was a new crack developing in brick A63. He stared at the furrow and tilted his head, noting that it looked like a lightning bolt and thus, the rune Sowilo. Sun, warmth, positive renewal. He looked outside through the iron bars to the outside. A world of perpetual darkness as the enchantments keeping the sky cloudy around Nurmengard did their work.

He hadn't wanted to give his prisoners the luxury of sunlight. Perhaps if he'd been a less cruel man his own imprisonment would be less dreary. How ironic, that all dark lords ended up being hoisted by their own petard. He sometimes thought that the universe itself might have a sense of irony.

If it did, he would have liked to use the opportunity to tell the universe that he didn't appreciate its sense of humour. He turned his gaze back to the crack, lying stiff and unmoving in the part of the cell that he slept in; he refused to call it a bed.

A rune. He methodically started analysing all the bricks making up his cell, trying to see if any other cracks had formed and if any of the old ones could have meanings attributed to them.

Nurmengard lay still as the dark lord swept his gaze slowly through his room. Hours passed. Guards patrolled past the cell. A piece of mouldy bread was thrown through the iron bars that constituted the entrance. No additional crack of any interest was found on the walls. He idly brought up a bony hand to scratch at the scab that he'd developed recently after cutting himself on one of his overly long fingernails, before deciding against it.

The fact that there were no other rune-like constructs on the wall, made the rune that had appeared, all the more significant in Gellert's mind. If it was not a natural formation, then it meant something. He wasn't the greatest believer in prophecies and divination. He rather thought of himself as a rationalist. But for some reason his mood lifted and he expected something to happen throughout the day, even if it was only a ray of sunshine peeking through the cloud cover.

Nothing of such a nature occurred and the rune was slowly forgotten, dismissed. Another disappointment in a long string of unfortunate and meaningless events. The dark lord returned to doing what he'd been doing since his imprisonment. Bitterly regretting, hopelessly planning and drawing in whatever minuscule amounts of magic he still had access to in his condition and folding it, not letting it dissipate in a pointless attempt at supplementing his health. He kept it all, every drop he had access to. The lake within him grew.

2nd November 1981

A harsh rattle woke Gellert from a dismal sleep and he immediately snapped to attention to stare at the young man making a ruckus by knocking on the iron bars of his cell. A guard, clutching a newspaper and wearing a hateful smile.

"Another one bites the dust," he said while fluffing the newspaper and beginning to read. "The dark lord that terrorised the British Isles for nearly a decade was recently vanquished in a raid gone wrong, by what the British claim was a baby..." he read. Gellert righted himself up slowly with aching bones, gripping the stones that his cot was made of for support.

He looked at the young man, who was looking at him expectantly and tilted his head curiously as if asking, 'What's it to me?' Dismissal was a weak man's greatest weapon. The guard blustered, apparently not expecting the reaction. He looked around, to the left, to the right. He wasn't supposed to be talking to the Prisoner, the only one still held in the square alpine tower of Nurmengard.

The guard looked back at the newspaper trying perhaps to ignore the dark lord's gaze, "Albus Dumbledore expressed his belief that-", he read aloud, before Gellert raised a hand at the boy, expanded a minuscule amount of his magic and ripped the newspaper out of his hands to hold it in his own. The guard's expression turned from blustering to terrified to angry. He pulled his wand and raised it at the prisoner and cast a spell, "accio!" he called, unnecessarily loudly. The newspaper didn't budge and Gellert couldn't withhold a smirk.

"How did you do that?" the guard demanded, "you're not supposed to be able to do magic, let alone summon away a man's possessions," he said, revealing that while he remembered something of his education, he was too dumb to connect the concepts.

"Ownership, magical presence, overlapping over the property. Lessened effects from bad actors on held items," Gellert rasped with an unused voice, causing the boy to freeze up. Perhaps he hadn't expected Grindelwald to rise up to his taunts? "While ownership is a powerful concept, nobody expects a toddler to wrestle an adult, no matter the leverage. In other words, you are obviously lacking in the department that represents mass, or rather, control, in the context of magic," he explained.

The guard banged aggressively on the bars but didn't reach inside. He wasn't that dumb. The cell was Grindelwald's territory and anybody that entered, he could do with what he pleased. Which is why no one did, no matter how stupid they were. "Give me the paper," he hissed.

"No."

"I can make your life unpleasant." Was the threat. An empty one, Gellert's life was already completely shit and beyond repair. The dark lord taunted by waving the newspaper.

"You can't, while I have this, still," he said. The only thing the other man could do was stomp petulantly on the ground, like a child. While Gellert held the newspaper that the idiot had so graciously delivered to him, he couldn't do anything in fear of it being revealed that he'd breached protocol. Assuming of course that the man was invested in keeping his job. The quality of the guards had quickly lessened over the years, as the veterans of the conflict that had been fought retired and the position became something for people too dumb to make anything else out of themselves. Perhaps auror trainees got assigned the task for a bit? He didn't know, he hadn't talked to another human in seven years, since the ICW had last come begging for him to reveal the location of his stashes. A request he'd refused, just like they refused his request for access to books.

Gellert looked up from his musings and saw that the guard was gone. He looked down at the newspaper in his hands and started reading about this so-called boy who lived and the idiot dark lord who'd died at a babe's hands.

-/-

AN: It's been brought to my attention that this Grindelwald interlude has some similarities to the Grindelwald interlude in "Harry Potter and the boy who lived," by the Santi. It's a really awesome story, unfortunately its been abandoned for eight years now. I'd definitely recommend a read though, despite that. It was probably at the back of my mind when I wrote this, even though the similarities are kinda only due to the interaction of newspaper + guard. There's only so many ways you can depict a man in prison, so I guess I just struck similarity on accident. Sorry about that? Idk, pretty random.