NOVEL NEXT Chapter 2: The Bitch
He won’t break the contract. That’s the decision Harry ultimately comes to as he stands there, Bagman droning on about this and that. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to start listening. See, he might be bound to the Goblet of Fire for the duration of the contract, but he’s not bound to their silly made up rules. Hell, they can’t even kick him out of the Tournament if he breaks them. All they can do is give him shitty scores and wag their fingers and shake their heads at him.
Eventually, Harry and his fellow Champions are allowed to leave, which is how he finds himself making his way through the corridors of Hogwarts with Cedric Diggory walking alongside him. It feels strange, to be back here again. Especially considering what happened to Hogwarts in his original timeline. But he didn’t exactly have time to spill tears over it. There was too much to do now that he was back.
“So… I guess we’ll be competing with one another this year.”
Harry’s eyes dart over to Cedric as the Hufflepuff boy makes an attempt at being friendly. Snorting in derisive amusement, Harry just shakes his head.
“It would seem so.”
The memories of this conversation come back to him just as Cedric leans over and gives him a nudge. Harry tenses up, very nearly drawing his wand then and there… but no, its not an attack and he needs to adjust quickly if he wants to avoid any unfortunate accidents.
“Just between you and me… how’d you do it?”
Heh, even now, even after he and the disguised Barty Crouch Jr. laid it all out for them… Cedric still thought he’d somehow snuck his name into the Goblet of Fire. Letting out a sigh, Harry just gives the other wizard a dark, amused look.
“I didn’t. I was entered against my will. But that’s not something you’ll understand until after the First Task, Cedric.”
The expression on the handsome Hufflepuff’s face is honestly quite gratifying. Confusion and disbelief war across his features as he tries to decide how he wants to answer Harry’s words. He never gets the chance of course, because a moment later they reach the end of the corridor where they part ways. Harry splits off towards Gryffindor Tower without so much as a farewell, leaving Cedric staring after him.
Still, the conversation wasn’t a complete waste of his time. Talking with Cedric had been precisely what he needed to remember what else happened tonight. Namely, the way he would be ambushed the moment he made his way back to Gryffindor Tower. Needless to say, Harry didn’t have time to deal with the entirety of his House all clamoring for his attention. Nor, from what he recalled, did any believe him if he tried to tell them he didn’t put his name in the damn cup.
But their faith in him, one way or the other, wasn’t relevant at the moment. Harry was on a time table here, and he wasn’t going to let anything stand in his way. As such, he draws his wand while approaching the Fat Lady’s portrait and turns it on himself. Wordlessly, he casts an incredibly powerful disillusionment charm, rendering his form completely invisible.
Only then does he approach the Fat Lady in her portrait. She’s currently speaking with another painted figure, who’s telling her all about the commotion in the Great Hall from earlier that evening. The commotion he had technically caused.
“Balderdash.”
Neither painted figure actually seems to recognize Harry’s voice, caught up in their own conversation as they are. But the Fat Lady still does her job at least, her portrait swinging open to reveal the Gryffindor Common Room beyond.
… As well as the multitude of wizards and witches dressed in red and gold that are waiting within. Dozens if not hundreds of eyes stare out at where Harry is standing, but no one can see him as he slips inside and the portrait door closes behind him. The tension breaks with Harry halfway to the stairs, and one of the Weasley Twins calls out to everyone.
“False alarm folks!”
Groans fill the room, even as Harry ascends the stairs two at a time, making his way to his dorm. There, he doesn’t hesitate to rip open his chest and pull out his Invisibility Cloak and Firebolt. Though, he does pause for a moment as his hands run over the Firebolt. It’s an old broom by his time traveling standards, but he still remembered it fondly to this day. A smile flits across his invisible features for a moment as he begins to straighten up and-
“Harry?”
Stiffening, Harry curses under his breath. Seriously? He let his situational awareness lapse for one second and he finds himself being ambushed. Though, as he turns around and dispels the disillusionment charm to properly face Ron Weasley, he has to admit… it could be worse than his best friend.
“Is that how you did it then? Was that a disillusionment charm? Had to be the strongest I’ve ever seen.”
… Now he remembers how this conversation goes as well. More specifically, he remembers how it affects their relationship for the rest of their year. Truth be told… Ron Weasley was a man that Harry would trust with his life. He was a stalwart brother against the evils they’d faced together, and there was almost no one that Harry would rather have at his back.
It still hurt, even considering Ron’s death. But at this moment, Harry didn’t have the time or the emotional capacity to deal with Ron at this age.
“I know you’re jealous, Ron.”
The red head’s eyes widen at that, but Harry is already making his way forward. He overrides the young wizard before Ron can speak.
“I know you think that I put my name in the Goblet of Fire. I know you’re angry that I didn’t help you put yours in as well. I won’t bother trying to convince you that it wasn’t me. I will ask you to recall what happened in our First, Second, and Third Years though. First Year, you almost die getting me past the Chess Board and Professor Quirrell tries to kill me. Second Year, Lockhart would have obliviated both of us if not for his poor choice of magical implement. And I had to save your sister from possession. Third Year, the Dementors tried to suck out my soul not once but multiple times.”
Shaking his head, Harry sighs.
“It shouldn’t be that hard for you to accept that someone is trying to kill me again, Ron. By now, its par for the course, isn’t it?”
For a moment, Ron looks speechless. But… as Harry expected, he’s not ready to hear it laid out in common sense terms. His best friend’s face begins to contort in anger and he starts to snarl.
“You-!”
But Harry cuts him off with a hand on his shoulder and a smile on his face.
“I forgive you for being a jealous pillock at this point in your life, Ron. I know that deep down, you’re my brother and you always will be. Now… I have to go. I’ll see you soon.”
With that, he leaves a mystified Ron behind, slipping back out of the dormitory and down the stairs with his Invisibility Cloak hiding both him and his broom now. Though, he doesn’t quite leave everything to chance. It’s a very minor Confundus Charm that he casts on Ron. Nothing that will necessarily control his mind or anything like that. All it does is dissuade Ron from telling anyone that Harry left. The boy will go to bed and hopefully spend some time thinking about what Harry said, and he will not inform anyone that he saw Harry walking away with his broom and cloak.
Slipping past the party taking place in the Gryffindor Common Room, it takes Harry about ten minutes to get out of the castle, what with his knowledge of Hogwarts’ secret passages. Then, he mounts his Firebolt and flies off into the night.
-x-X-x-
The stagnant air of Azkaban Prison is silent, save for the occasional howl or scream. In one of the cells however, a certain prisoner refuses to give anyone the satisfaction… for now, anyways. Bellatrix Lestrange’s broken mind is a strange thing. Sometimes, she’ll howl with the best of them, or even just howl to be howling. Sometimes she’ll cackle madly, laughing her head off in wild insane amusement at seemingly nothing.
… And sometimes, like tonight, she huddles against the back wall of her cell, legs pulled to her chest, and doesn’t make a single peep. Shivering violently there, she says not a word and lets not a sound pass between her cracked lips.
Her shivering only grows worse as a Dementor makes its presence known, slowly drifting on by. She’s not unused to the dark creatures after all these years. However, she feels a momentary flick of surprise and anger when this Dementor stops in its tracks right outside her cell.
It wasn’t fair. She didn’t have any happy memories left for the creatures to take. Normally, they didn’t even bother with her at this point. Sometimes when her insanity was at its peak, she would develop happy memories randomly, but they would always be quick to strip those away from her. Right now though, she was as clear minded as she possibly could be. There was no enjoyment of her circumstances to be had here, so why was this dementor scraping the bottom of the barrel?
Slowly, as her shivering gets worse and worse, Bellatrix Lestrange lifts her head to see what the fuck is going on. Only to stiffen in wide-eyed shock at the sight of not one, but TWO cloaked figures standing outside of her cell. There’s the dementor of course, floating off the ground and looking dangerously at the other… the other who is not floating, the other who is not a dementor at all. A wizard in a hood stands there, his features hidden from her.
But of course, Bellatrix doesn’t need to see his face to immediately know who it is! Scrambling off of the wall, she crawls forward, madness shining in her wide eyes as she giggles insanely.
“M-Milord? T-Truly? Have you finally come for your most loyal servant after all this time?!”
That proves to be a mistake. Her sudden surge of happiness causes the dementor to whip its head towards her, a hollow sucking sound coming from its empty ‘face’ as Bellatrix cries out in fresh terror and renewed fear. Still, she does not pull away. In fact, despite her happiness being sucked out of her as fast as it can be made, she crawls forward, her hands reaching the bars of her cell.
Suddenly, the hooded figure thrusts his wand into the face of the Dementor and calmly incants a spell.
“Expecto Patronum.”
Bellatrix is expecting a silvery snake to burst out of the dementor’s mouth and send it running, but that doesn’t happen. Instead, the dementor begins to shake, violently. Almost as though it’s trying to get away… but it can’t. Underneath its tattered black cloaks, motes of light begin to shine through. The silver glow looks a little bit like cracks to Bellatrix’s blurry vision.
Then, with a sudden whooshing sound that causes Bellatrix Lestrange to fall back on her ass, the dementor… implodes on itself. Sucked into a glittering bright point of light at the end of the hooded figure’s wand, the dementor seems to permanently expire, dying a quicker death than it deserved, but also a quicker death than Bellatrix would have thought possible.
“… As to be expected of milord. Please, Dark Lord… please free your loyal servant so that I might once again do your bidding. I will-!”
It’s then that the cloaked figure pulls back his hood and looks at her, shocking Bellatrix to her core. It’s not the Dark Lord that has come for her. Not her darling Lord Voldemort. No, instead it’s the eyes of that mudblood Lily Evans set into the face of that blood traitor James Potter. She might never have even met Harry Potter before, but Bellatrix knows her Lord’s greatest enemy on sight all the same. This… this is Harry James Potter.
As the bars in front of her vanish like they were never there, Bellatrix hisses in outrage, scrambling back at the sight of her Lord’s Nemesis suddenly before her. For a moment, she tries to flee… but then she remembers herself. She is an instrument of her Dark Lord’s will…
Flinging herself forward, Bellatrix howls as she tries to attack the Potter boy with nothing but her bare hands. That goes about as well as can be expected, with her suddenly frozen in midair by his surprisingly powerful magic.
“Relax, Bella. This will only take a moment.”
Bellatrix shudders. His tone reminds her so much of Lord Voldemort that it hurts. Not only that, but he called her Bella. Could it be… could the Dark Lord have possessed his greatest enemy and then come for her?
“M-Milord? Is it you after all?”
But Harry Potter shakes his head in amusement as he steps closer, killing her hope in an instant.
“No, Bella. Tom Riddle is far from here in too weak a form to possibly help you. I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for me.”
At confirmation that this IS her Master’s great enemy, Bellatrix tries to struggle, truly she does. She fights against the magical hold to the best of her much diminished ability. In the end, without a wand and after over a decade of wasting away, she can’t do anything but watch as the Potter boy brings his own wand to his temple and slowly begins to extract a memory.
No… not one memory. See, the way the memory extraction spell worked, you pulled out a memory in the form of a silvery strand and then put it into a pensieve. But as Harry slowly pulls from his temple, it’s not a strand of memory he pulls forth, but an ever-growing blonde of silver. Bellatrix watches in confusion and incredulity as the young wizard removes enough memories that he should be brain dead by the time he’s done. He’s pulled out enough from his temple to account for someone’s entire life.
Bellatrix’s incredulity turns into budding horror when he finally finishes, only to turn his wand tip and the massive blob of glowing silver towards HER instead.
“W-What are you doing?! Get that away from me you foolish boy!”
Emerald eyes flashing, he just chuckles at her misfortune, once again reminding Bellatrix a little too much of her Lord.
“Sorry Bella, but according to you, this is going to hurt a lot. Still, you claim you deserve it so… here goes nothing.”
Before she can even begin to parse that statement, just as Bellatrix Lestrange is starting to wonder if Harry might be just as mad as she is… he shoves the silvery glob right into her forehead, forcing the memories into her mind. And thus, Bellatrix Lestrange, eldest of the Black Sisters… remembers everything.