Chapter 37: Revelations
Saturday, 20th May 1995.
Harry looked at the large wooden house as he and his friends quietly approached.
Neville and Luna had decided they would tag along, and he had missed them a lot during the time away from the castle. Hermione squeezed the hand she had been holding since they had left the common room and gone to find the other pair for the trip and Harry allowed her presence to calm him further.
He didn't expect this meeting to be as painful as the one with Professor McGonagall that had led to his presence here in the first place, but the very idea of the questions he had for this professor was already stirring up memories he usually tried his darndest to forget.
As they finally approached the house, they noticed the large figure digging about in the garden to its right.
Having completed their Magical Creatures studies the year before, with a couple of trips to meet the expert in all things magical beasts, Harry hadn't had much cause to even get this close to the giant man fussing over several enormous cabbages.
Rubeus Hagrid was a gentle bloke according to everyone Harry had ever spoken to about him, but he currently held information about the darkest night in Harry's short life, and after Edward's letter, Harry needed to know more.
"Good morning, professor," Luna said, redirecting Harry's once more spiralling thoughts and drawing the attention of the man in front of them.
"'Ello there. Ah, Mister Potter. I thought you might come for a visit at some point, given how much trouble your father and his friends caused me when they were here." Hagrid smiled at the group. "I see the rumours are true, you do go everywhere with the young lass. I assume that this is Miss Granger?"
Hermione gave a polite nod in response as Hagrid looked over the group. "And Miss Lovegood. Not quite up to my classes just yet. But Willy says you're quite the creature enthusiast. Even told me of a few I hadn't heard of before myself."
"Daddy was a big fan of magizoology before he passed. Mum says she humoured him a lot, and I'm not sure what that means, but she always looks wistful when she says it. Or when someone sends in a new sighting for the Quibbler. Though she only publishes it twice a year now in Daddy's honour."
"Right. Sorry to hear about that. He was a wonderful man, your father. As were both of yours." He added, turning to look at young Neville. "Frank was a right bugger when 'e was your age. Always causing mischief."
"You knew all of them?" Hermione asked curiously.
"O' course. I've been the Groundskeeper here at Hogwarts for almost fifty years. Only been a professor for a few. Seen many a youngster come and go through these grounds. You tend to remember certain ones more than others. Didn't hurt that..." Hagrid trailed off for a moment, seeming to see the students for the first time again and thought better of his statement. "No matter, how is it I can help you?"
Harry swallowed hard before he spoke for the first time all morning. "We were hoping we could talk. About Halloween 1981."
Hagrid's beady black eyes seemed to lose their sheen all of a sudden. "Oh. Are you sure you want to hear about tha'?" He asked.
Harry steeled himself and set his face. "Yes. I need to know."
Hagrid gave a deep sigh and scratched a spot in his thick beard as he looked at Harry oddly for a moment. "Very well. Best come inside. Shouldn't talk about things like that out in the open. I'll make us some tea."
Hagrid quickly led the foursome inside and Harry was momentarily distracted by the enormity of everything inside.
It made sense that a man of Hagrid's size would need larger than usual furnishings and the like, but seeing it was still odd. The students quickly took up seats at the massive table Hagrid was assembling a tea set on. The man quickly filled a kettle with water from his wand and gave the outside a tap, setting it boiling in moments.
With a slightly careless wave of his wand, the kettle rose into the air and poured out five enormous cups of tea, occasionally spilling a bit off to the side of them as he absently looked in the cupboards for something. He eventually turned back to the table as the kettle settled back on the tabletop and he placed two plates of biscuits on either side of it as he too took a seat.
"Help yourselves. Made 'em myself, o' course." Hagrid smiled, the gesture lighting up his face and Harry knew the man didn't have a cruel bone in his body. Something that helped further settle his nerves at the upcoming discussion.
"Thank you, Professor," Hermione said, reaching for one of the biscuits and dipping it into her tea before taking a bite. Harry could see that even with the absorbed liquid, the biscuits were quite hard as Hermione tried chewing hers softly.
Perhaps baking wasn't Professor Hagrid's strongest suit. Copying his girlfriend, Harry took a small bite of a liberally softened biscuit and swallowed it down to help lubricate his once more dry throat.
"So." He said softly, drawing the attention of the entire table and a further squeeze from Hermione. "I heard recently that you were there the night my parents died."
"Yes and no. I wasn't there when it happened. I wish I had been. Might have been able to do something about it." Hagrid replied, looking forlorn.
"Then how did you…?" Hermione asked, trailing off at the end.
"Well, if you want the story. It's best told from the beginning." Hagrid took a large gulp of his tea and his eyes seemed to drift from the table as he began to speak. "Back when… You-Know-Who was about doing his thing, I was asked to be a part of the Order of the Phoenix."
"Dumbledore's vigilante group."
Hagrid's eyes flicked to Hermione at the matter-of-fact statement, clearly confused about how a muggleborn girl knew details like that.
"Tha's right." He shook his head of the question and moved to continue. "I wasn't the only one. Both of your parents joined up as well. The Potters were fresh out of Hogwarts with their friends. And the Longbottoms already well-established Aurors, the pair of them. Alastor, er Professor Moody that is, was in it too. We fought the Death Eaters wherever we could, but we had limited success. Things looked bleak if I'm to be honest…"
Harry watched the man silently. He knew all of this already, of course, having been told many times by Sirius and the others about the previous war during both their studies and in stories of the times before his family was broken apart.
"Tha' night. Well, you two might have missed it this year. Every year, Halloween at Hogwarts is a bit of a big thing. We decorate the castle and have a big feast. It's been an important day for magic for a long time. Tha' night wasn't any different.
"A typical school day, with kids playing up and needing disciplining. In particular, the eldest Parkinson boy had severely injured two other students, and Professor Dumbledore was dealing with it when he was informed something had happened. Not sure how he knew, but he couldn't leave the school.
"So he asked me to go. I was the only member of the Order at the school at the time besides Professor Dumbledore himself. I wasn't going to be much help with the students, but I could absolutely go help a couple of friends. He gave me a portkey to Godric's Hollow and I left immediately. By the time I got there though…"
Hagrid trailed off, lost in his own memory before Luna made a sudden noise as she cut a biscuit in two, the sharp sound of the knife on the plate jolting the large man back to the present.
"Sorry." She whispered with a small smile.
"S'alright. They're hardy. Anyhow, I could hear cars and bikes heading away, one of 'em even looked like that big unwieldy thing Black used to ride, but I rushed over to the house. The door was blasted in, but it otherwise seemed mostly intact from the front. James was inside, lying in the lounge. There was debris everywhere, so I know he fought hard. He loved you so much your dad did. You can be certain of that."
Harry smiled brightly at the man, if there was one thing Harry was absolutely certain of it was how much his parents loved him. "Thank you."
Hagrid nodded before he continued. "Upstairs was your mum. Died in front of your crib. Fought to the last by the look. The room was a mess and there was a big hole blasted through the roof and the outside wall. You-Know-Who was a wreck in the corner, but… there was no sign o' you but a bit of blood on the mattress in the crib. I was too late to be of any help."
"It wasn't your fault, Professor," Neville said, contributing for the first time. "The Death Eaters were bad enough, but this was," he paused for a moment, "Voldemort himself. There was nothing you could have done."
"I could have helped fight him off. Given the other two time enough to get away. Still not sure why he attacked them that night. There wasn't even any sign of his followers being there like normal for such an attack. Suppose Lily and James had messed up his plans a few times. Even duelled with him as a pair a couple of times. It was a sight to see, James and Lily back to back or side by side flicking spells all over. They were a fierce pair of fighters."
Harry smiled again as he recalled the few times his parents had demonstrated such skills in their frames. Facing off against one another to show proper duelling techniques or against other family members to show how easily a large battle can go from organised to chaos.
They were a fearsome duo. Of that, there was no doubt.
"What happened after that?" Harry asked softly.
Hagrid seemed to jolt out of a memory of his own at Harry's words and his black eyes focused on Harry tightly. "Well… I couldn't just leave them like that. I took your mum and dad into their room and laid them on the bed. Tidied them up as best I could. They deserved that at the least. For freeing the rest of us of that monster for good. I might have cried by their bedside for a bit because the next thing I knew Professor Dumbledore was there.
"He picked me up and set me right. Thanked me for coming like I did and told me I could do whatever I pleased for the rest of the weekend. He'd already summoned the Aurors and he'd help them finish up. I took him up on the offer and headed to a little watering hole in Harrow that we'd all gone to one time. Celebrating a win we had over those buggers… It was rough those next few days, before it really sunk in that it was actually over."
Harry laid his small hand on top of Hagrid's own massive one on the table and drew his eye once more. "Thank you, professor."
"Call me Hagrid. E'ryone does. And you're welcome. I wish I could have done more to help them."
"You did plenty. More than most people. You helped stand up against Riddle and his fools."
"Riddle?" Hagrid asked confusedly. "What's he got to do with it?"
Harry glanced at Hermione in confusion to see her shrug in response. "Tom Marvolo Riddle. The man who would become Voldemort."
Hagrid shuddered at the name, something Harry hadn't noticed before when Neville had said it. "No, that can't be right. He was… I went to school with Tom Riddle. He wasn't nothing like… was he?"
"I'm surprised you didn't know," Hermione said. "Harry and I researched the topic heavily as soon as we were old enough to understand the mechanics of it all. It's quite an easy trail to follow if you know where to look. Tom Marvolo Riddle drops off the face of the Earth and suddenly Lord Voldemort pops up in his place with followers made up of people who used to follow Tom around?"
Harry continued in her place. "Remus was also able to trace the family names. Marvolo was a member of the Gaunts who were members of the 'Sacred Twenty-Eight' for all that rubbish matters, which isn't much. But a lot of those families ended up following Riddle.
"On the other side, we aren't certain, but timeline-wise, the murder of the entire Riddle family in Hangleton shortly predates Tom's rise. All were mysteriously killed in ways the muggles couldn't ascertain. The youngest being Tom Riddle who lived a stone's throw from the Gaunts' rundown shack nearby."
"And Riddle was raised at Wool's Orphanage from the day he was born after his mother died giving birth to him. She named him and that was it. Marvolo for his grandfather and Tom for his father according to the notes with the birth certificate." Hermione finished, seeming a little sad at the loss of even more parents to the tale of Lord Voldemort's vanity.
Hagrid looked gobsmacked by the information they had just imparted to him and Harry figured that they would get no more from him today.
Harry smiled as he stood, and the others matched his movement. "Thank you for the tea and biscuits. And for telling me. A lot of adults would try to 'protect me' from such information, but knowledge is not harmful in and of itself. We'll leave you be."
Hagrid looked up from his thousand-yard stare at the table. "Right, yes. You be off. Come by anytime for a chat. I'd best be… Gotta see Professor Dumbledore about a thing or two. You all pop along and have fun."
In his hurry, Hagrid preceded them all from his own home, leaving the door wide behind him. Harry shook his head softly at the action, pulling the door quietly shut behind him as they left the house. It seemed like they had imparted more information to Hagrid, and seemingly now to Dumbledore, than they had received in return.
But a small missing piece of the worst night of Harry's life and a few of the oddities he'd encountered growing up were now in his possession.
"You good?" Neville asked quietly, placing his hand on Harry's shoulder.
"Yeah. I'm good." Harry replied, and the group moved away from the wooden house, off to enjoy the rest of their weekend.
ϟ
Wednesday, 24th May 1995.
Nym listened intently to Viktor as he described some of his lesser-known moments from his meteoric rise onto the Bulgarian national team.
Their current destination had spurred the Champion to share with the group, but Nym was confused when he suddenly cut off mid-sentence, staring ahead in disbelief. She followed his eye-line and let out a gasp herself as she finally saw their destination, previously hidden behind a small hill.
The towers had been visible for some time, poking up over the surface, but the angle of their approach had concealed the body of the stadium until this moment, and instead of the typical green lawn of the pitch, there were crisscrossed patches of what appeared to be hedges growing up out of the ground.
Nym heard Harry sigh next to her before he continued forward, now obviously resolved to something she was as yet not privy to. As they all quietly approached the bouncing figure of Ludo Bagman, he finally caught sight of them and waved them forward.
"Good, good. Was wondering if you'd gotten lost. Barty is still under the weather, so it falls to me to give you the information for the final task." He said buoyantly, overly excited by the competition as he had always seemed to be.
"Are all ze people working in your Ministry zis stupid?" Fleur asked blatantly, knocking the wind out of Ludo's enthusiasm instantly.
"What now?" He asked, confused.
Fleur just waved her hand at the stadium behind the man and he turned to look at it before swinging back, still apparently speechless.
"The World Cup was this year," Harry stated. "It was almost held here until England made it into the finals, even though we were knocked out in the preliminaries. An event so complex that it only occurs every seven years. And yet, in that same year, you cancel Quidditch at Hogwarts for the entire year so you can grow some hedges for a month or two before the year lets out."
Ludo was still speechless and at this point, Nym was trying her hardest not to laugh at the fool. "The Head of the Department for Magical Games and Sport everyone. How do you think the League will take it when they learn this was why you lot cancelled Quidditch? Do you have any idea how many people in their seventh year right now want to go on to play in the League?"
"What do you mean?" Ludo asked.
"You cancelled the matches," Viktor growled. "Meaning none of those students haff been able to practise their craft. None of the League scouts could come to games. I vould not have made my national team had my government made such choices."
"But… we needed the stadium" Ludo meekly rebutted, not sounding convincing at all.
"Why?" Nym replied. "You lot built stadiums and stands for the other two events. Why did you need to use the pitch for this one? It's just a maze."
"Exactly!" Ludo latched onto the final word, seeming to believe he was back on track. "You will have to enter the maze and find the Triwizard Cup at the centre."
"Which couldn't have been done over on one of the hillsides nearby why…?" Harry asked, knocking Ludo off-balance once more.
"But…"
"I think Fleur was right. Whose idea was this?"
"Mine," Ludo said meekly.
"And you were once a professional beater?" Nym asked with a smirk. "You'd think someone with your background would do anything they could not to cancel Quidditch."
"Precisely," Fleur said. "Just hold ze games closer togezzer. You could have completed ze draw by now."
"There is a spot just down there, in a small valley that would be perfect for a maze with large stands on either side for spectators," Harry explained, pointing down into the valley nearby. "Or a compressed draw as Fleur suggested. Instead, you lot courted a school-wide rebellion by cancelling the most popular sport they play. Fleur's right, you're all stupid." Harry finished roughly turning on his heel and beginning to walk away.
"Wait. I haven't told you the rest of the Task." Ludo called at his back and Nym shook her head.
"We're the best and brightest of our respective schools according to the Goblet of Fire. Not children," Nym paused, glancing at Ludo one final time before continuing, "or Ministry employees. We can figure it out."
"But…" Ludo mumbled one last time, cutting off as Viktor stepped right up to the man, giving him the dirtiest look Nym had ever seen on her fellow competitor, one that would have rivalled the ones the man's Headmaster liked to cast about, before storming after Fleur and Harry.
Nym grinned at Bagman, now totally deflated, not bouncing about like an excited child before she too followed the others, jogging to catch up to Harry, who was not heading for the main school building.
"Vhere are ve going?" Viktor asked, an angry tone to his voice still.
"Just checking exactly how stupid that lot are. My new friend will know the answer, I hope."
Nym recognized their destination when it came into view over the small hill and she wondered how the massive wooden structure ever really remained hidden given its size. "Hagrid?"
Harry nodded and they approached the cabin in silence. He gave a firm rap on the door and excited barking came from within.
"Settle down, Fang. I'm glad you're back, but calm down. Who's there?" Hagrid asked, swinging the big door open. "Oh, it's you lot. Come in, come in."
The giant man waved them inside and the four champions slipped past the big figure and settled around the table inside.
"I'd offer you some tea, but I broke my kettle this morning when Fang got back from the vet, and he must have buried one of the pieces. How can I help you?"
Nym turned to face Harry, unsure of what he hoped to get from the jovial giant.
"We wanted to know if the Ministry asked you to provide any creatures for the coming Task," Harry asked, deadpan.
"How'd you know about that?" Hagrid asked with shock. "You're not supposed to know about the Task."
"Bagman just told us." Nym corrected. "It's a maze, in the middle of the Quidditch Pitch, which is the reason Quidditch was cancelled all year instead of having a compressed draw, or inviting the three schools to field a team each and have some friendly matches."
Viktor growled openly at the idea he could have flown during a match this year but it was taken away from him by abject stupidity.
"Oh, well. I guess I can tell you then. They did ask me to, at the start of the year. But Professor Dumbledore came by a couple of months back and said that it wouldn't be required anymore. Shame, Fluffy was looking forward to it."
Nym blanched at that. "Fluffy? You were going to put Fluffy in the maze?"
"Don't you worry about Fluffy. He's a right pushover."
"Maybe for you Hagrid. He's your pet. How does one deal with a Cerberus in the tight quarters of a maze with only a wand?"
Hagrid leant back and seemed to give the question some serious thought. "I suppose that would make it more difficult. But Fluffy's easy. Just play him some music and he falls right to sleep."
Harry looked at Nym in disbelief. "So you aren't providing any creatures or spells for the Task now?" He asked, glancing back over to the giant.
"No," Hagrid replied dejectedly. "Even had a few of Aragog's kids lined up, too. The smaller ones mind. The big ones get a bit too rambunctious these days."
"I don't zink I wish to know what zis Aragog or its children are," Fleur said, looking paler than usual.
"Ah, I've had Aragog since he was a baby. Be more than fifty years now. Had some good times with tha' ol' chap." Hagrid replied, leaning back as if lost in those memories.
Harry and Nym locked eyes and she could see him tamping down the panic within. She realised what he was thinking, as bad as that all could have been, it was now no longer something they would need to deal with.
"So it's just going to be a regular maze then?" Nym asked.
"Well, not quite. There will be enchantments to be overcome, but that's not going to be nearly as fun as some of the creatures they'd been planning to pop inside. They'd lined up a sphinx. Do you know how hard it is to get them out of Egypt these days?"
Harry nodded and Nym knew that he understood exactly how hard such a thing was. It had been in Egypt that he and Hermione had first met with Newt Scamander during their Magical Creature studies. The famous man had been advocating for the very legislation that now so prevented their export when they had met him.
"Anyway, I probably shouldn't be telling you all any of that. My mind runs away with me when I get excited, and some of the creatures on that list. I'd have given anything to see some of them up close." Hagrid said wistfully.
"Perhaps a summer abroad vould be good for you," Viktor suggested. "I know ve have several enclaves in my home country vhere you could see such beasts."
"I'd love to, but it's expensive to travel like that. I live a simple life here as you can see."
"If you want to go overseas, I'd happily pay for it for you. Consider it repayment for the trouble of asking then reneging on needing your expertise in the Tournament." Harry offered.
"I couldn't ask that of you," Hagrid replied.
"You didn't, I offered. Plus, you told me what I wanted to hear on the weekend. That was important to me. I'd be happy to do it. I'll have Sirius come by and you two can figure out where you'd like to go. He'll make it happen."
Hagrid looked amazed at the generous offer. "Still, who'd look after the school? I am still the groundskeeper."
"I'm sure the grounds can keep themselves for a month or two." Nym smiled.
Hagrid looked torn for a moment as he considered the offer before a wide smile broke behind his thick beard. "Oh… alright. Tell Black he can come by and we'll talk. I won't promise nothing, but I'll have a talk with him."
"Excellent. You're going to love it, I'm sure." Harry said. "We'll leave you to ponder where you'd like to go. Unfortunately, right now, I have some homework and an antsy girlfriend waiting back in our common room."
"Yes, and we all know which of those is more dangerous to ignore," Nym said with a laugh at Harry's expense.
"Oh shut it you. Thanks for seeing us, Hagrid."
"Anytime, you lot. Anytime." The man said, as lost in thought as the last time Harry had visited.
ϟ
Friday, 26th May 1995.
Albus slowly climbed the final spiralling steps leading up to his study, weary from a very long day.
Discussions with the Tournament Committee at the Ministry had been exhausting as they had attempted to squeeze concessions from him before everyone fully signed off on the Final Task's design.
Ludo had also moaned throughout the meeting about the lack of respect the Champions had shown him when he had informed them of the upcoming task, and Albus had to admit he had struggled to keep from openly smiling at some of the things they had said.
Many of their suggestions had been offered by his own staff when he had announced the Ministry's desire to cancel the sport for the entire school year.
But the heaviest weight was the fact that Barty was still absent from the meetings. It was unusual for the man to take personal time. In the past decade, he'd taken less than four weeks of personal time away from his jobs, and hadn't even done so for his wife until the final few days of her life. For him to be absent for over a month was unheard of.
Albus had visited his home and the man was well enough to come to the door and send him away, yet could not be involved with the preparations of the final task of the event he worked so long to arrange.
The whole thing left a bad taste in his mouth and Albus worried about what these portents might mean. Couple that with the conversation he'd had with Hagrid on Saturday, and Albus was completely off-kilter right now. How the young Potter had managed to track down all the information on Tom that he had himself was baffling. He had even done so while remaining hidden from the world at large.
This thought focused his eyes towards his desk where he had prepared a letter outlining the few aspects he personally knew of Riddle's life that Mister Potter had not shared with Hagrid. Such as his suspicions about how the dark lord might have truly escaped his death in the end, though he had yet to find actual proof of such. only rumours of movement in the east the past few years that had him concerned when viewed with activities stirring here at home as well.
He stepped over to the desk and unsealed the drawer on its right side. Every charm and enchantment was intact as he unwove them to allow it to open and he lifted the envelope from inside.
Were he not bound by the concessions, he could deliver the letter personally. But he was still forbidden from speaking to either child alone. And Sirius was still refusing to see him at all, more so after the incident involving the Second Task.
He sat heavily in his chair, laying the letter down on the surface of the desk and sighing heavily. He did not like that things were progressing outside his line of sight. Albus could feel that something was coming, and his intuition said it was related to Tom and the boy.
His eyes flicked to his Pensieve as he considered reviewing the words that had so long ago bound their lives together.
So many times he had reviewed them, considering whether the prophecy had been fulfilled all those years ago. Tom had most certainly been vanquished, if only for a time. And he had no real proof that his spirit had remained tethered beyond his suspicions about the Diary he had yet to find a way to destroy.
His eyes drifted down to see it still tucked in the same drawer in which he had secured the letter, shimmering under a shield of his own devising.
He would not take the same chances with it after the screw-up with Potter's rejection letter. This drew his thoughts back to the new letter once more.
Albus wondered whether sending it via one of the school owls would technically violate the agreement he had made. He did not want to risk aggravating them all now, not when it appeared he might finally be getting close to being able to have them trust him once more.
A soft trill from Fawkes drew his mind back to the present and he turned to face his long-time companion. The bird was looking at the nearby window and Albus followed its gaze to see a pristine white owl perched in what he was sure had been a closed window. The second bird was watching him intensely as if analysing him.
"Hello. Can I help you?" He asked, noting that several of the figures in the frames about him seemed perturbed at his habit of talking to birds.
The owl leapt from the sill and soared about the room, coming to land deftly on his desktop and began to stare into his eyes once more. It was the most beautiful snowy owl he had ever seen, and yet there was a deep fire in the eyes that now watched his every move closely.
It broke eye contact and turned its head sharply, noting the position of his wand lying on the desktop a few inches from the letter.
The owl glanced back up at him for a moment and he wondered just what was running through its mind, slightly frustrated that legilimency had no effect on animals. The bird took a sudden hop forward and bent down, grasping the letter on the desk in its beak and rising up, preparing to take flight.
Albus reacted, his hand sweeping up his wand and preparing to cast when Fawkes chirped sharply at him.
He was shocked, Fawkes had not been so short with him in some time, but the message was clear. His friend wanted him to put the wand down.
"What is in that letter is highly dangerous, my friend. It cannot be allowed to leave."
Fawkes gave a strong series of chirps and squawks, each with a tone of required obedience he had never heard from the phoenix before. But his companion was certain that this bird would take the letter where it needed to go.
Albus stared at the bird on his desk as it matched his gaze in return, not flinching in the slightest at him having drawn his wand. It was not the slightest bit afraid of him simply tilting its head to one side as if giving him a questioning yet bored look.
"You will see this letter safely to Harry Potter?" He asked, feeling stupid for asking something of a bird for the first time in his life.
The look he received in return would have put Minerva to shame. The very idea that this bird would fail at her purpose had insulted her deeply. The bird's eyes flicked to the two words finely scrawled on the front of the envelope and managed to roll her eyes at the question he had asked.
She managed to bark at him in reply without dislodging the letter in the slightest and then she bent down and shot up into the air once more, sweeping once around the room before zipping over Fawkes's head and out the window.
Albus swallowed heavily as he glanced at his friend and wondered if he had done the right thing. The suspicions he had outlined in that letter would be disastrous if they fell into the wrong hands. But what was done, was done. The owl was away.
"I hope that you are right, my friend. For all our sakes." He said, laying the wand on the desktop once more and interlacing his fingers. "For his sake too."