Pre-Chapter A/N:I think at this point, we just have to accept that I will inevitably show up with two chapters a week. As for when those chapters show up, I think it's best I not make any particular promises. If you haven't already, I recommend turning on notifications for my stuff so you can see when new stuff drops right as it drops. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
XXXX- SIRIUS BLACK
Azkaban was a message. No one could think anything else. Bodies lay strewn all over. The dead, so plentiful that their bodies had been piled up, and still, there was barely any space for one to walk through. Voldemort was telling them something with this, and Sirius didn't think he liked what the message said.
"He took only the marked ones and some others— can't find a pattern so far. Killed everyone else," Alastor's gruff voice whispered to Dumbledore as they were led through the prison.
Why? Sirius wondered to himself. He heard the sound of dry retching, and did not need to turn around to know it was Remus doing so. On seeing the truth of the situation, Sirius had cast a sense-deadening charm on his nose. His Animagus sense of smell would probably not be having a good time around so much death. It was probably much worse for Remus, a werewolf, naturally immune to such spells, and with stronger senses to boot.
"Why has he done this?" Arthur Weasley whispered off to the side. No one spoke at full volume. Alastor had ensured no others would be here while they investigated, but still the atmosphere of the ruin just made one want to whisper.
Scratch that. It made one want to turn around and run for their lives, he clarified as he turned the corner and found a body stabbed straight into its cell, a long pole of rusted iron nailing it to the wall.
"I would have expected that he would have recruited them. Instead, this was a full-blown slaughter," Tonks added.
"Not a slaughter, no. A culling," Dumbledore's voice was no louder than anyone else's, but still when he spoke, they all went silent so they could not miss a thing.
"A culling?" He echoed.
"A removal of those viewed as unworthy. Undesirable. Do you see it, Sirius?" He asked.
"See what?" He asked.
Dumbledore sighed before he twisted his wand. Invariably, names began to appear above the dead.
"He didn't just take those loyal to him," he realised. Not a single name of the dead was one he recognised.
"He took those of ancient blood. Pureblood or not, not a single person left behind belongs to a house that has existed for more than five centuries," Dumbledore completed his thought.
"So he's going around killing everyone not of old blood?" Weasley asked.
"More like he sees no use in those not of the old blood, and he has taken those who are for some reason. Some cause."
"To add wands to his cause, perhaps?" Shacklebolt ventured.
"Perhaps. But I doubt these men and women were any less capable with wands in hands than those taken. There is a goal being sought here. It might just be a matter of wealth or not wanting to spill storied blood, but I doubt that. Whatever it is, this is extremely worrying," Dumbledore said.
"Why so?" He asked.
"You're wondering why so many dead people are cause for concern, Black?" Moody cut in, fake eye twisting this way and that while the real one settled on Sirius' form.
"He said it was, and I quote here, 'extremely worrying'. Pardon me if I ask for some clarification. We've seen what you-know-who has been doing for the past few weeks now. Senseless violence isn't new to him. So I want to know why this feels different to the Headmaster," he clarified, not backing down from the grizzled Auror. There was a time when Alastor Moody would have scared the crap out of him, but that time had passed.
He had an immortal alchemist in his house who threw around lava for fun when he got bored, and his godson seemed to be turning into some sort of god of magic in the past few weeks. And then there was Perenelle. In short, Sirius lived with scarier.
"Enough, Alastor. Sirius is right. The reason I find this extremely worrying is because it goes against everything I have known Tom to be. While never one to shy away from senseless displays of violence and depravity, he has a general preference for recruiting wizarding blood as opposed to spilling it. A lot of these people were killed before they even left their cells. Some were kissed in their sleep from their position. He did not even try to recruit the most of them," Dumbledore said, taking a breath before pushing his glasses further to his face.
"But he would only do that if he had enough soldiers for his cause already or if he decided he did not need them at all."
"Fudge. You think Fudge is compromised," Remus deduced.
"I think the Ministry itself has already fallen. The Daily Prophet has been burned to the ground in Diagon Alley, and just like with this site, the Ministry has ordered all its people to turn their eyes away from it," Dumbledore completed.
"I thought you pulled some strings to get us this look."
"It was not difficult. There is to be no investigation into the attack on Azkaban. The official decision has been that the wards controlling and restraining the dementors failed and they turned on both the guards and the prisoners," Moody said with a scoff.
"There's a dark mark carved into the side of the building," Arthur Weasley pointed out, ever helpfully.
"The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command," Dumbledore said with a sigh.
"What?" Sirius was clearly not the only one wondering where that had come from.
"Of course no one here has read Orwell," Remus cut in with a sigh.
"Who?"
XXXXXX- LUCIUS MALFOY
"Yes, Narcissa?" he called, welcoming her to his room while he stood pacing in front of the fireplace.
"Lucius," she said on entering.
He turned to her, making a gesture for her to remain silent, and then he turned his attention to his mark. It was not stinging. There was none of that light ache that told him his Lord was paying attention to him. It was unlikely that his Lord would be thinking about Lucius now of all times, but Lucius had not gotten here by being careless.
His caution was the strength that allowed him manoeuvre and survive— even thrive— where so many died with nothing to their names but the fact that they had lived at some point. Once he was sure, he swung the door closed with a wave of his wand.
"The privacy of family," he whispered in French, activating the ward that stretched only across his room. It would prevent them from being spied on by any means— conventional or otherwise.
"How is your sister doing?" he asked, feeling his fingers still trembling as the adrenaline rush from the night still remained with him.
"As expected. Dementors. Those creatures," she sighed. He nodded.
"Do you think she will recover?" he asked, doing his best to keep the fact that there was only one answer he wanted to hear to that question, but it was unlikely that that would be the one he heard.
"The Dark Lord is putting his whole attention on it. He's with her right now. Trying to stitch together what remains of her mind with his legilimency, no doubt," she said.
"And the rest of them?"
"Only Severus was able to survive dementors for any period unscathed. His experience is letting him work on the others now. Perhaps Rookwood will be the first to recover— he does not seem as out of it as some of the others," she said. He nodded.
"And so Bellatrix remains my greatest threat for the position at the Dark Lord's right hand," he concluded.
"I think you count Severus out too quickly. He's already proving himself invaluable with his work on potions, and the last I checked he was a superior duelist to you," she said.
"Severus is a half-blood. While he has done a good job to rise as far as he has in our number, he can make it no further. No, the Dark Lord would never make such a mistake. The purebloods would never respect a half-blood, no matter how skilled. Now he is listened to for his role as the healer of the organisation. As the Dark Lord's second, he would be fighting an even more uphill battle," he said.
"Would you be surprised if either Rabastan or Rudolphus removed his head from his shoulders if he dared order them about?" he asked next.
"Wouldn't be all that surprised if they tried to kill you as well if you ordered them about," she replied with a wry smile.
"For those two at least, you can say I have that number. Your sister is the only one in that list that worries me," he admitted.
"And you are wise for that. Because you should know that even I won't be able to stop her if she gets it into her head that you are trying to take her position at the Dark Lord's side, I will find myself widowed in short order," she said, and he chuckled as he thought things through.
"And you will not be able to remove her from the situation ahead of time?" he suggested, and even before he completed the sentence he knew it was a mistake. He read the way her smile froze on her face as she gave him an assessing look.
"The next time you suggest kinslaying to me, husband of mine, will be the last time you have the tongue to speak such foul words," she said, face straight as she delivered the threat.
"Noted," he said. There was that Black insanity that had drawn him to her in the first place.
OCTOBER 7TH, 1995— HARRY POTTER
"At this point, you're more than ready," Nicholas said, looking down at me from his position.
"I still haven't beaten you," I said, beginning to push myself off from the ground.
"If you had, then I'd be very disappointed in myself, young man."
"I thought you said you weren't that good a fighter."
"Yes, but just as your training has made you better, you have made me better as well, as I spend time training you and get the chance to work on skills I have not had cause to improve in years," he said.
"Still doesn't matter. I expected we would keep going until I found a way to beat you at least once, you know?"
He scoffed. "You would have us keep going for a year at least, in that case."
"You think it would take me that long to get good enough?"
"You're already more than good enough, all things being equal. The issue is that winning a duel is more than a matter of skill or power. You cannot beat me because I have spent all this time teaching you. I know what you will do as surely as you do, and any more time spent duelling me would likely be far from useful for your goal of getting better as a duelist. The only thing that can get better is your skill at fighting me, and while that gets better, I will get better at fighting you as well. Think of it as a race where I start just a little bit ahead. Say a hundred metres ahead in a 5-kilometre-long marathon. Even if you were running faster than I was, let's say 0.2 times, it would still take you a while to pass me just by virtue of how far ahead I was in the beginning. You understand?" he asked.
"I think so. So what you're saying in words that make sense is that neither of us are getting better as duelists anymore, only at duelling each other. And the more we keep facing each other, the better we get at duelling each other and then run the risk of falling into bad habits that would be exposed by a competent opponent," I said.
"You're the only one in danger of that to be fair, but yes. You understand me well enough," he said.
"So what now?"
"Now, we begin making preparations to enter Japan," he said.
"Preparations? Like packing what we need?"
"Yes. And figuring out how to get in in the first place."
"What? I thought you had a way into Japan?" I asked. The way he had been so sure about getting in and getting his stone made it seem like he had a way in already.
"The concepts of a plan, I'm afraid. I'll need to confirm or disprove a few things first to be sure. Most I will handle on my own, but a few I will need you to take point on," he said.
"Sure. I've been getting bored only seeing this place day in and day out," I said.
"Indeed. This should even give you and Sirius some time together without Perenelle and I hanging over your shoulders," he said next.
XXXX- OCTOBER 16TH 1995 (NICE, FRANCE)
I tried not to have my mouth open as we were led on a tour of the facility. It was truly that impressive. While brooms were far from an academic interest of mine— when it came to making them at least— I knew enough to know that I enjoyed flying them more than most things out there.
"So, Misters Black, Potter, what do you think of the present lineup?"
"Outstanding to say the least," Sirius said.
"Yes, I agree with my Godfather, but I must say that we need something a bit more… extreme."
"Mr. Potter?"
"All the brooms you've shown so far are production models. While they are impressive, the uses we have in mind will require something more than what you sell to the general public."
"Mr. Potter, you must know that Firebolt Brooms does not take custom orders. We put the very best we have into our production models. You can either have the Firebolt X, made specifically for Quidditch with a focus on both speed and sharp movements, the Firebolt Y made for the racing circuit where we cut everything else out to focus on straight-line speed, or the standard Firebolt made for the public market with a few more restrictions to prevent accidents," he said. I would almost have believed him if I wasn't leafing through his mind like a book right as he spoke.
"So what you are trying to tell me is that you have no non-production models right now faster than the Firebolt Y and more manoeuvrable than the Firebolt X. Perhaps something you intend to name the Firebolt Extreme once you get the approvals in a matter of years?" I probed, watching the shock appear on his face.
"What? How? That's a secret. Have you been spying on us?" he asked, moving from confusion to defensiveness admirably quickly.
"None of that matters. The point is that we have these," I said, pointing at the certificates in Sirius' hands that had given us access in the first place. Bearer shares. Somehow Nicholas had managed to get in on the Firebolt Broom manufacturing company at the ground floor and had fronted them a good portion of the gold they had needed to get off the ground and make their first four or so products and in return had received a ludicrous amount of bearer shares. Bearer shares that meant we were now the single largest shareholder in the best broom manufacturing company in the world.
"Indeed. And you still refuse to answer any questions as to how you came about them," he said.
"I could have tripped and found them in the streets for all you know. The point is that they are authentic and they entitle me to a good chunk of this company of yours. And when a majority shareholder needs something, you don't ask silly questions, my good man, you get to work. Because your grandfather's company or not, I am still in the position to have you replaced, Mr. Senna," I said, stepping closer until I was in his space. Predictably, he took a step back.
"We are not allowed to sell Brooms without certification."
"That is why you will not be selling them. You will be giving us four models for let's call it advanced real-world testing. If you somehow manage not to piss me off any further today, maybe I'll even tell you the flaws the broom has after I get the chance to test it," I said.
"Mr. Potter, while you are right that you are so entitled, I still must urge caution. The Extreme is the fastest broom ever made. Period. And she handles so delicately that even the smallest motions can have outsized effects. Even with the threat of my job, I hesitate to permit an allocation. If anything happened to you, your life would be on my conscience, and that is worth more than any job to me," he said, and annoyingly enough, he was being completely honest.
"Fine. What is the best time your testers managed to make around that circuit of yours with the Extreme?" I asked.
"Three minutes and nine seconds," he said. Sirius whistled. That was actually impressive.
"Give me three tries with the broom. I'll get better," I said, turning to him.
"And if you don't manage it?"
"I'll forget about the broom and consider letting you buy out a quarter of my shares," I said, taking advantage of the one thing all humans had in spades— greed.
"Deal, Mr. Potter," he said, and from there things moved quickly.
I used my first attempt to get a feel of both the course and the broom. Senna had been right. The thing was faster than a bullet and handled like a dream. The broom was probably more limited by the rider than by itself most times. But I was no ordinary rider. I had senses and reflexes that were ritual-enhanced, a talent with a broom that was generational, and a shit ton of magic as well as the ability to use it.
So once I was sure I had a good enough feel, I shot off for my second attempt. The circuit was a blur around me, and I finished in three minutes and nineteen seconds. That was good. And looking back, I could see Senna practically about to shit himself.
For my last attempt, I didn't hold back. By the time I crossed the finish line, the clock said two minutes and forty-six seconds.
A/N: And that's another chapter gone. Japan comes soon Next four chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)(same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.