Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction based on the Harry Potter universe. All recognisable characters, plots, and settings are the exclusive property of Joanne K. Rowling. I make no claim to ownership.
Edited and beta-read by: Himura; Bub3loka, Ash, and Kingfishlong.
Also, if you're feeling generous, want to support me, or want to read ahead, you know where to find me.
1st of June 1992, Monday
His nightmares continued. Once or twice a week, Harry would awaken in a cold sweat. Compared to his previous life, the dreams were painless and foggy, and he couldn't remember anything.
Except for a pair of malevolent red eyes.
Alas, asking Hermione or Dumbledore for help and advice was no longer an option. After consulting with Madam Pomfrey and sifting through the library, he concluded it was just regular nightmares. Even his attempts to clear his mind before sleep with Occlumency produced mixed results and the nightmares continued, if even more irregularly.
Would Voldemort attempt to steal the Philosopher's Stone?
Shortly after All Hallow's Eve, Harry would have said yes.
Now? He wasn't so sure. The Gringotts robbery had happened as before, and the trolls had crashed on All Hallow's Eve in greater numbers than he expected, but that was it. There had been no dead unicorns in the Forbidden Forest, and Hagrid had received no dragon egg in exchange for giving information about Fluffy. All those things that set off alarm bells in his young mind last time simply did not happen.
Of course, the sliver of suspicion about Quirrell remained, and Harry kept an eye on the Defence professor. He hadn't burst into flames upon direct touch, and he was doing nothing suspicious aside from dating Trelawney and unknowingly pouring oil into the Hogwarts Rumour Mill.
The former was suspicious, but judging by Trelawney's perpetually happy smile, it couldn't be the Dark Lord. Harry had never seen the Divination mistress so radiant, and he couldn't imagine Tom Riddle making someone smile like that.
If Quirrell and Snape were not possessed by Voldemort, who was his spy or servant?
Petrov? The new caretaker was unsavoury, but not in the 'I follow the Dark Lord' sort of way. The other teachers were just as Harry remembered, including the annoyingly friendly and patronising Slughorn.
As the months passed, another question had emerged in Harry's mind.
Did he even need to get involved?
After all, Voldemort would have failed to take the stone if Harry had not meddled last time. If he had stayed in his bed and slept, Dumbledore would have arrived not to save the reckless Boy Who Lived but to find the Dark Lord staring at the Mirror of Erised. In fact, Quirrell had almost snatched the Philosopher's Stone because Harry had been there and had survived only by the grace of his mother's protection.
Worse, he was a weakling as a first-year student; his knowledge and experience mattered little, for he did not have the power to use them fully, even if he had made decent progress since he started last summer.
Yet, as the end of the year approached, Harry grew skittish, and a feeling of unease heightened within.
Despite the usual enthusiasm of the other students–not for the exams but for the return of summer heat and the coming vacation–it was too quiet and peaceful for his taste. He even spent a few evenings strolling around the Forbidden Corridor or trailing after Quirrell from afar, but nothing of note happened. Tens of hours that could have been spent on practice and further reading were wasted. The Marauder's Map showed nothing suspicious either, and Dumbledore never left the castle overnight.
Was he being too paranoid for no reason?
So Harry Potter decided to do nothing this time. While he couldn't trust the headmaster for his word anymore because of the deceptions and omissions, Dumbledore was a powerful wizard and matched Voldemort spell for spell in the battle at the Ministry's Atrium. If last time, the headmaster would have the whole trap thing taken care of, why would a first-year go off and fight the dark lord?
…If there was any dark lord lurking around.
Perhaps he was getting paranoid?
So Harry trained, studied, and practised, enjoying his seemingly peaceful school year and preparing to live with Sirius in the coming summer. After years of hiding, exchanging letters with his Godfather felt surreal.
The end-of-year exams weren't a problem—until, of course, each Professor decided to hand him and Juno extra papers and asked for additional practicals. Being an overachiever was rewarded with more work and testing, much to Diana's amusement.
All the questions and spells on their additional tests were from the second, third, and even some from the fourth year - it seemed that the Professors had decided to gauge their overall level. It wasn't tough, but Harry deliberately flopped most of the fourth-year tests since that was the very limit of the magic he could do.
If the faculty would punish him with more work for being diligent, he might as well show them he was merely human. He shuddered to think about what they would expect if he did well on the fourth-year material. Would they give him OWL-level tests? Have him take the exams early?
That would go well with the Prophet. Harry could already envision it; Boy Who Lived is Merlin come again!
Just thinking about it gave him a headache.
"Very good, you two," Flitwick beamed after they finished the additional Charms testing and managed to cast a Cheering Charm to his satisfaction. "I believe your results will be ready by Wednesday."
Harry and Juno slipped out of the classroom, feeling drained. The rush of joy after being struck by the charm had now drained, leaving a feeling of emptiness behind.
"Only Transfiguration and History left now," she yawned. "That Cheering Charm took more out of me than I thought."
"I reckon we did it better than some older years," Harry assuaged.
Juno had been pushing herself more and more, and the exams saw his friend with deep bags under her eyes. The DADA exam had been more than exhausting; Quirrell forced them to duel each other until they could no longer stand. To his chagrin, Juno had gotten harder and harder to defeat since she had grasped silent casting.
"Maybe." She rubbed her eyes, looking dead on her feet. "I probably shouldn't have practised so hard in the morning. I think I'll take a nap. See you at dinner."
And just like that, Juno headed back to the Ravenclaw Tower.
Harry also felt sluggish. Casting third-year spells was draining, but it wasn't enough to exhaust him alone. No, the exhaustion had been piling up slowly but surely. After a year of relentless studying and training, he felt weary. It wasn't the bone-deep exhaustion Harry had felt on the run, but it was close.
"After the end of the exam, I'll do nothing for a week," he promised himself as his feet carried him across the castle without any particular destination. No more resting by studying runes, flying, or exploring the castle in search of the Come and Go Room that kept evading him.
Just as Harry went around a corner on the second floor, he heard a distraught voice from up one of the spiralling staircases.
"-help him, headmaster. You are his only hope!" It was Hermione. "I just woke up, and there's no trace of Professor Quirrell since!"
Feeling his insides twist into an uncomfortable knot, Harry looked around and, seeing nobody, withdrew the invisibility cloak from his pocket, hid underneath and prowled forward.
"Fret not, Miss Granger," Dumbledore responded kindly. "I shall check up on it. Why don't you go to the Hospital Wing to take a Calming Draught from Madame Pomfrey while I deal with these matters?"
As Dumbledore had expected, the move on the Sorcerer's Stone was made while he was absent from the castle. The long Wizengamot meeting had been a complete farce, with all those overproud fools dawdling so that they could push some backdoors on the new Auror Act.
Alas, he couldn't leave the Mot until the meeting ended once the doors were sealed, at least not without breaking the antiquated protections and inviting all sorts of unwanted scrutiny.
Now, he entered the trap chamber, and the air lingered with sulphur, brimstone, and that malevolent feeling dark magic left behind. Malice, hatred, and pleasure mingled in a fiendish blend, making the Death Stick thrum with desire. He knew that stench of death in the air all too well; Voldemort had been here, albeit vastly weakened.
Fight, kill, destroy!
The whispers were easy to ignore, but they were there, slinking about at the corner of his consciousness until he cleared his mind, voiding it from everything.
Dumbledore stared at the shattered storeroom—or what was left of it, to be precise. Under a film of dust, gashes and cracks covered the floor, and some tiles had been ground into fine powder while the rest had turned into chips and pieces. One wall reminded him of a broken mirror; a large spiderweb of cracks crept from the centre of a wide hole that had almost pierced the thick castle wall.
Quirrell's fallen body in a pool of blood showed no signs of life, and a wave of his wand confirmed it–the man was dead. And he had shown such promise.
Of course, the Mirror of the Erised was gone. That was certainly one way to bypass the final part of the trap, but Tom had always been cunning.
The old warlock didn't take long to figure out what had happened, though some things didn't exactly align. In hindsight, it shouldn't have been as surprising that someone else than Tom was after the Philosopher's Stone.
"Quite brutal," Dumbledore murmured, turning to the invisible stalker trailing in his wake. "Don't you think so, Mr Potter?"
After a minute of knowingly looking at the spot where magic weaved between a barely noticeable void, Harry Potter finally pulled off the cloak.
"What gave me away, Professor?" His tone was cautious, and the boy dared not meet his eyes. Harry Potter, a student in his school, didn't trust him.
The knowledge pained the headmaster greatly. Yet Albus hadn't done anything to be deserving of trust lately, had he?
"The cloak might make you invisible, but sight is only one of the senses," he pointed out, not unkindly. There was no need to mention that only after a decade of studying the Cloak could he barely perceive the slight void it created when worn. "Of course, the footprints in the dust only confirmed my suspicion."
A young pair of green eyes moved to the ground below, blinking in confusion at his feet, before turning back up to face him, full of resolve. While filled with worry, they looked too old, too jaded and at that moment, Albus Dumbledore knew he had failed yet again.
The boy's fists clenched, "Why… why aren't you worried?"
"Worried about what, Mr Potter?"
"The stone," Harry lifted his gaze and angrily waved at the broken room. His fingers were trembling, but the headmaster couldn't say if it were fear or fury. Perhaps a mixture of both. "Voldemort has Flamel's stone, doesn't he? He can come back to life now!"
"Hardly," Dumbledore chuckled. "The stone is hidden quite well in my quarters in a pair of good old socks." And in a compartment protected under a Fidelius Charm by Nicolas.
"Then…"
"Yes, Voldemort has a fake—an extremely well-made imitation by yours truly." An extremely explosive imitation if Tom proved fool enough to use it. "You see, I dabbled in alchemy after studying under Nicolas Flamel, and I dare say I know enough of the subject to fool even Voldemort."
Harry's jaw dropped, but the headmaster continued, "I must profess myself pleasantly surprised at your ability to uncover the secret, Mr. Potter. Take ten points to Ravenclaw. But anyone could have tried to steal it, for immortality and endless riches are among the most tempting prizes. Were you not tempted?"
"No?" The young boy was taken aback as if the thought had never passed his mind. "Living forever… sounds lonely."
"Ah, to be humbled by the wisdom of youth." Dumbledore stroked his beard, marvelling at how the young succeeded where the old failed. He himself had been tempted by Nicolas' stone a few times, too many times, yet Harry Potter did not even contemplate using the thing as if it was nothing more than a common rock by the road. "Yet I can't help but wonder. Many consider Lord Voldemort dead, but not you."
"I… Hagrid once told me Voldemort is too evil to stay dead," the boy muttered, looking away. He had heard students telling half-truths too often not to recognise such again, even without resorting to baser things like Legilimency. "And I'm inclined to agree."
"Rubeus isn't wrong," Albus agreed and decided not to press the boy further. Doing so might make him clam up instead, and there was plenty of time to investigate later after the current problems were dealt with.
"But," Harry's voice was laden with guilt and self-loathing, as if everything was his fault. "Now Professor Quirrell is dead. I could have…"
"Could have what, Mr Potter?"
The boy looked ready to cry, and his words came out jagged, like shards of broken glass, "I could have warned the other teachers. Maybe even tried to stop him!"
"And get yourself killed?" Dumbledore shook his head. "And besides, you have no more proof than I did. I admire your spirit, dear boy, but this is not work for young children. How would you know when the attempt would be made? How would you know who would make the attempt?"
Harry Potter just clenched his jaw, stubbornly looking at the destruction around them.
Albus smiled wanly, "To be fair, I possessed no answer to these questions any more than you did. The world doesn't rest on your shoulders, Harry. It is a crushing burden I wouldn't wish on anyone, let alone a young boy."
"...What?" Anger turned to confusion, but a moment later, his face turned dull and utterly bereft of feelings.
Occlumency.
Once, Dumbledore would have been worried and suspected of some dark magic influence–it was not normal for the Killing Curse to leave a scar or for the target to survive, yet both had happened. But no, the boy did not possess a cruel bone in his body–or a greedy one, as the earlier questions had revealed. The dark magic lingering in the scar was gone, and the last year had proven Harry Potter was just a boy, albeit very talented and driven. He must have learned the art from his friend.
He clasped his hands, smiling sadly. "I believe it's time to call the DMLE and let them do their job. Unless, of course, you have some questions."
"Too many to count," Harry muttered so quietly that Albus barely heard him.
"Do not be shy with your inquiries," Dumbledore urged. "I am more than willing to indulge your curiosity, Harry. If you'd allow me to call you so?"
"Why," his voice cracked. Harry Potter lifted his gaze and looked at him directly, green eyes shining with hope and caution, "Why did Voldemort attack me that night on All Hallow's Eve?"
Of course, the boy struck exactly at the heart of the matter.
Lily's wit and James' precociousness come again, and Dumbledore could see those two bright students looking at him through their son. Yet the boy was too young, and his shoulders were too small to bear the burden.
"...And what made you come to such an interesting conclusion?"
For nearly a minute, the boy stared at him in silent judgement, his face full of resentment and, more importantly, disappointment. It broke Dumbledore's heart, but he did not back down. While Harry was sharp, he was too young and had not demonstrated anything to prove worthy of shouldering such a weight.
"Thank you, professor," Harry replied, his voice hollow and his fists clenched with such strength that his knuckles turned wide. "But I think I'll return to the library to study. I still have two more exams."
Albus sighed, "In Hogwarts, aid is always given to those who ask for it, Mr Potter. And, of course, my door is always open should you need assistance."
The words infuriated Harry Potter further, judging by his quivering lip. The boy just muttered an excuse and stormed out. Dumbledore was tempted, oh so tempted, to break his own rules and peek into Harry's mind. Yet it would have been a severe breach of trust, even if he went around his fledgling shields undetected.
The conversation left a bitter taste in his mouth; Harry Potter was one shrewd child despite his age.
Yet it seemed that his stay with Petunia had not allowed him to gain a measure of youthful innocence. Instead, judging by his drive, he was filled with questions and a measure of discipline and ambition.
Dumbledore felt like an old fool. Perhaps… he was one. Had he sent another talented boy onto a dark path?
No, not yet. Being angry with his old meddling headmaster, and for good reason, did not mean Harry Potter would become a dark wizard. Yet it was a dire reminder that his actions had consequences. Now, he would have to observe the boy closer. Hopefully, Sirius Black's easygoing demeanour and his Ravenclaw friends would mellow him out.
Albus Dumbledore loathed even thinking of fighting another of his students, but he would do it should his hand be forced.
Shaking his head, he banished the errant thoughts away from his mind. He had far more urgent problems on his hands. With a swish of his wand, the room was sealed, and Albus approached to inspect the corpse.
Something felt off with it. But what?
Dumbledore shuffled through his memory and frowned. Quirrell had never worn dragonhide boots before. And these boots didn't fit very well, and the sole was caked with dirt. But Quirinus always kept his appearance pristine as a matter of pride.
"Dragonhide is very resistant to magic," the headmaster muttered absentmindedly. "Enchantments and transfiguration rarely hold onto it without sufficient power."
As he spoke the words out loud, he stretched his senses to the limit and could feel the subtle magic woven into the body. It was nearly impossible to notice until he focused on it. 'Probably because of the crafty hybrid notice-me-not charm woven into it.'
Such finesse!
With a flick of the Elder Wand, Quirrell's body wiggled and stretched until it turned stocky, his neck thickened, his skin took a bronze hue, and his head became balding and scarred.
As he suspected, Petrov's greedy attempt had forced Tom to make his play early. The Bulgarian monster hunter had no connection with the dark lord or any of his followers, and it wasn't difficult to figure he wanted the Stone for himself.
Was Quirrell possessed by Voldemort?
Or was he simply doing his bidding in exchange for other rewards, which would be one way to explain his increased competency?
The seamless skill of the transfiguration melded with a modified charm was far above what Quirinus had shown before but within the bounds of the skills one could acquire during a year-long sabbatical, if unlikely.
No, the vile, malignant intent lingering in the air was unmistakable. This was Voldemort's magic, albeit quite weakened.
Dumbledore's mind reeled at the implications.
Worse, it seemed there was another layer of meaning behind framing Snape. Without Severus, Dumbledore had no willing access to a bearer of the Dark Mark or a way to track Voldemort's progress. Perhaps a visit to Karkaoff was due?
And Quirrell had been in a relationship with Trelawney. Was she compromised? Had the prophecy leaked? If so, why was Harry Potter left alone?
So many questions and not enough answers.
The year had undoubtedly been a disaster, and the price of his hubris had been too high. Yet Dumbledore still had a few moves he could play. Worse, while his suspicions were confirmed, he still lacked tangible proof that Voldemort lingered in this world.
As his mentor always said, opportunity and misfortune often went hand in hand.
A clandestine idea formed in his mind. The headmaster took nearly fifteen minutes to weigh the potential consequences.
Tom was not the only one who could play a game of deception. Dumbledore did not like it, but it was not the only time he faced choosing between bad and worse, and he'd always choose what was best for Hogwarts.
Did his former student always have to force him to choose between what was right and what was easy?
Enormous power pooled at the tip of the Elder Wand as the headmaster began to focus as the fallen body twisted and shuffled back into its previous shape, clothes and dragonhide boots included.
3rd of June, Wednesday
Cassiopeia's feet slammed onto the warm sand, and she spun to kill the inertia. Yet her stomach still churned with nausea, and she heaved over, barely managing to keep her lunch. The sweltering heat didn't help either.
"Bloody international portkeys."
Someone snapped their fingers before she could even step forth, and a pleasant, soapy coolness enveloped her. A translucent bubble instantly wrapped around her clothes.
"Why a full-body bubble charm, Lynny?"
The house elf before her was also covered by a bubble, making her body look misshapen and wavy. Her eyes were the amusing shape and size of lemons but were exhausted. "Master be sick from pox again."
"Damn it, Arcturus," Cassiopeia murmured to herself and pulled her wand to cast a second bubble layer. Couldn't the old grouch find a better time to get sick? "Lynny, where is he?"
"He be at the south beach, mistress."
Cassiopeia's eyes wandered as she made her way through the verdant greenery. The Black Family Island was a tropical paradise—nearly six square miles of lush greenery shaped like a half-star. Even now, the palms swayed under the gentle sea breeze, and the air was flush with chirping and birdsong. A small, crystalline spring gushed from the hill at the centre.
Lord Caelum Black claimed the island over three hundred years ago, and his sons had hidden it from the muggle and magical world. The only way to find the place was if someone in the know brought you over.
Since it was claimed, every Lord Black used it as their summer retreat away from Wizarding Britain's woes and scheming. The island was crowned by a grand manor built from Assyrian marble and the finest purple heartwood overlooking the south.
Arcturus had been here ever since Lucretia's death two months ago. Estranged daughter or not, blood was still blood, and even the old grouch mourned her in his stubborn way.
Cassiopeia found him by the small pier, longing in Hawaiian shorts on a deckchair underneath a palapa umbrella. He would have looked like a rich old man resting on a beach if not for the obvious ailment. The Dragon Pox looked particularly nasty. Her cousin was covered with a heavy, half-green, half-purple rash from head to toe, and his skin had sagged like old leather.
"Arcturus," she greeted. "It looks bad."
"Because it is bloody bad," he sneezed a handful of crimson sparks, his voice even raspier than usual. "I took a double dose of Gunhilda's Cure, but it barely did anything."
Cassiopeia frowned and stepped aside to avoid the sparks lest they break the bubble, "It's less effective after each bout of sickness."
"This is the third time," Arcturus wheezed, spitting more sparks. "I can feel the heat eating away at my insides now."
"Why don't you return to the Isles? Dragon Pox grows worse with the heat, you stubborn mule."
Her cousin closed his eyes. "Bah, it's high time I joined Melania. I don't have much strength to struggle this time."
"You proud fool," Cassiopeia hissed. "Were you going to just pass away here without saying a word? What about House Black?"
"Is that what you've come for?" Arcturus laughed, only to choke on a sputtering of sparks again. "When have you ever cared about House Black?"
"I might not have been the best of us, but I do care, you bloody hypocrite. Did I not train Juno when you asked me? Did I not help you deal with Selwyn, Engbergs, and Freemane over the years?!"
Heaving angrily, it took all of her control not to curse the annoying tosser in front of her. Why did all of her kin have to be gormless, wankers, or both? Not Juno, of course; her great grand-niece was a sweetheart through and through.
"Good." His smile was twisted and ugly, showing off a mouthful of half-rotten purple teeth. Oh, Merlin, the Pox was even worse than she thought - the disease had already reached his bones, and even his sclera had veins of poisonous green creeping in. "You can be Juno's guardian until she's of age."
Cassiopeia bit her lip, "I know nothing of raising children, Archie. I am even worse at politics - I know some subterfuge, but my strengths are dark magic, fighting, and killing."
"There's nobody else."
"What about Druella?"
"That woman is worse at raising children than I was," Arcturus scoffed, looking even more agitated. "Neither of her daughters came out right, and she's more likely to drink away the Black Family Fortune than to raise her granddaughter well. And she's not even a Black, but a Rosier."
Her nostrils flared with annoyance when she realised he had always planned for things to happen this way.
"Damned scheming bastard!"
The insult only made him wheeze with amusement. "Juno doesn't require much; the girl knows how to care for herself by now. You only need to teach her what you know and lend your advice and wand. Of course, you can always leave her at Longbottom's mercy or in Malfoy's hands."
"And let the git wed her to that whiny blonde twerp of his?" Cassiopeia huffed. It was little wonder everyone hated Arcturus Black. Even with one foot in the grave, he was a manipulative arse, playing games with people as one would play chess. "I'll do it."
"Good," he barked out, and she had to avoid the streak of sparks erupting from his mouth again. "Now out with it. What brought you here?"
"I thought you'd want to see this," she said, throwing him the morning edition of the Daily Prophet. On the front page, a wanted poster was visible.
WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE - GRIGORI PETROV
On Monday, the infamous Bulgarian monster hunter brutally killed the respected Professor Quirinus Quirrell and stole an important artefact from Hogwarts before fleeing the school while Chief Warlock Dumbledore was chairing the important Wizengamot meeting-
Arcturus Black laughed so hard that eerie amethyst tears streamed down his cheeks, "The Board of Governors are finished."
Yet the abrupt action caused him to wince and shudder. It served the old arsehole right. But he wasn't wrong. With the Board forcefully going around Dumbledore to hire Grigori Petrov, this would destroy them. The cunning headmaster shrugged away all blame, courtesy of the overly lengthy Wizengamot meeting.
Cassiopeia squinted her eyes, "Not worried about Juno?"
"She'll be fine," he waved weakly, face twisted in agony. "Besides, it's no longer my problem. Tell Lynny to get me something for the pain and fuck off and let me die in peace."
Cassiopeia stormed away from the crotchety bastard, swearing under her breath.
4th of June, Tuesday
Change was rare in Azkaban. Every day was dark, dreary, cold, and mind-numbing, even without the sinister presence of dementors. There were no human wardens in the prison, only soul-sucking abominations. Each cell was damp and stank of shit and piss. Time itself lost meaning, and even the days would have been impossible to count if not for the regular meals.
Not that the meals were any good; it was all tasteless slop, just enough to keep them alive yet too weak to do anything.
Augustus had given up trying long ago, but his cellmate kept counting; it had been over eleven years since then.
Yet after the long years of drudgery, they had lost a cellmate and gained two new faces.
"Sneaky, silly Snivellus," Bellatrix crooned, echoing through the high-security wing of Azkaban. "Come now, say something!"
The mad bitch continued taunting her new cellmate, who still refused to utter a word. Pettigrew, the dumb rat, however, had eventually deigned to explain why between his whimpers and wails from his secluded cell at the corner where Black had previously resided. Severus Snape had supposedly let in seven trolls in Hogwarts during All Hallow's Eve, and Dumbledore didn't save his hide this time.
Augustus Rookwood ignored Bellatrix's hysterical giggles as he always did and stared at the dark, joyless ceiling, trying to preserve as much of his warmth as possible. A few of the other Death Eaters had lost their sanity, but most of them held onto the last vestiges of it.
"Hey," a hoarse whisper echoed from the cell to his left.
The former Unspeakable crawled to the heavy bars, trying to waste as little strength as possible, "Barty?"
The young Crouch, or well, not so young after eleven years in Azkaban, was all skin and bones with a pallid face. What was once a handsome wizard had become a living skeleton with yellowy teeth. He was one of the few inmates who had yet to lose his fire; the hatred burned bright in his dark eyes, even hotter than the day they ended up here. The dementors sucked away all the joy and happiness from Barty Crouch Junior and left him only with fury and zeal.
Not everyone was like the Black witch, who got more dangerous as her sanity dwindled. Despair and nightmares could crumble a man with ease. Wilfred Mulciber, in the cell to his right, had lost his mind completely. Two years prior, he had chewed on his fingers and bled out to death.
Many didn't last long in Azkaban, and you needed… something to tether you to sanity and reason. Occlumency also helped, but there was a limit. All those tricks only delayed the inevitable - the dementors' presence gnawed at your mind like a hungry demon, no matter what.
The overcast skies covered in perpetual darkness didn't help—the last time Azkaban was graced by the sun was before the Dark Lord Ekrizdis turned the fortress into a monstrous den of despair all those centuries ago.
"The dementors are patrolling our hallway less," Barty rasped out.
Augustus squinted his eyes, "Are you sure?"
"Yes, only two patrols between each meal."
…That would explain how his mind felt less sluggish. "Can you tell since when?"
"Since Pettigrew was brought over," Barty slumped on the cold floor. "I think."
"The rat can't affect the dementors nor the prison's defences," Augustus frowned. His mind felt muddled.
"What about the runes they carved around his cell?"
"Runes?" The former Unspeakable rubbed his tired eyes.
"Yeah, the ones to stop him from transforming into a rat," Barty scowled fiercely—he hated traitors and cowards far more than he hated muggles, mudbloods, and half-breeds.
"Dementor's presence should erode all runes. Unless…" unless those morons made the runes resistant to the soul-sucking fiends. Yet the line between resistance and repelling was thin.
Barty mumbled weakly and started to weep, "It doesn't matter. Nothing matters anymore."
Even the darkening of the Mark in the last few months didn't bring them hope. Or maybe it did, and the fiends sucked it all away? He couldn't remember.
Feeling too tired, Augustus Rookwood dragged himself to his dirty cot, collapsed on it, and dreamt of Brenna's death again.
1992, 5th of June, Friday
His skin was cracked like a broken vase, and blood and darkness threatened to spill from the angry fissures. The fight against Petrov had tested his possessed body to the limit, and it had begun to break down again. The exhaustion after his escape was mind-numbing; he had been forced to sleep and meditate for a day.
He could try to sacrifice a handful of children to delay the inevitable, but the Dark Lord had grown impatient. For too long he had waited, and the time to return was nigh.
After three days of struggle, he had managed to pry the Stone out of the cursed mirror and shattered it in his fury.
Thankfully, he had prepared a wide selection of ingredients in his safe house after selling Quirrell's stash and his grandmother's house.
He stared at the churning cauldron, obscured by a thin, silvery sheen. The concoction was almost ready, bubbling a lively golden colour. The only thing left was the ruby stone grasped in his cracked fist, searing hot and pulsing with power.
It was finally time for him to forge a more powerful body than before and grace the world with his majestic presence. The crumbling man shrugged off his clothes and, stone in hand, dipped and dived into the enormous bubbling cauldron.
Yet the moment the Stone touched the liquid, everything erupted.
"Damn you, Dumbledoreeeee…" It was the last thing Voldemort's soul managed to roar out before being scattered by the angry red plumes blooming in the shape of an enormous mushroom.
Author's Endnote: Bang!
Juno and Harry's mad competition has finally taken its toll. Harry didn't have a good plan (he never did in canon anyway; we all know it was mostly luck…), and Dumbledore's shrewdness pays off (for now).
Starring: Harry 'Fuck you and your lies!' Potter. Albus 'If you want to give me a rope so badly, I shall use it to hang the Board of Governors' Dumbledore. And Tom, 'Behold, the return of- wait! Noooo' Riddle, Arcturus 'I am going to be a smarmy arsehole until my death' Black.
Harry really wanted to trust Albus Dumbledore, but Albus Dumbledore didn't want to saddle an eleven-year-old boy with such a burden. Rightly so, but how could he know this was no regular eleven-year-old?
And did Albus Dumbledore just decide to follow Voldemort's ruse so he could take complete control of the school and board without losing what little prestige he had in the process? Absolutely.
That said, I've heard the readers complain about the multi-PoVs thing. After much deliberation, I'll try my hand at a different writing style (a minimalistic amount of different PoVs-two or three at most, perhaps sprinkled with an interlude chapter now and then) as soon as year two starts. The summer arc is already written and shall remain as it is (ayo, PoV galore…sorta). For some other unhappy ones, you would be thrilled to find out that Harry will be more active than he was before (and far more relevant to the plot now that he has had a year to train up) as a direct consequence.
I update a chapter every two weeks(Thursday or Friday)! You can find me on my discord(hVMvHF7g2m), where you can read ahead or simply come chat, discuss, or ask me or others some questions.