The-Garden-They-Lost (III)

~~Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire, England~~ (August 20th, 1994)

Lucius Malfoy was not a happy man… Harry Potter survived and according to his sources within the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, the whole mercenary group he hired had been wiped out, which meant someone had interfered. He was sure that it wasn't someone from the light side or they wouldn't have killed the mercenaries. The Light side kind of rolled like that…

Not only that, Avery somehow managed to get his arse handed to him by a 14 year old. He knew that Avery wasn't the best fighter out there, but he still didn't expect the man to lose to a 14 year old… That was simply pathetic. Avery was supposed to go to Azkaban for life for using the Cruciatus Curse, but they were able to cut off his sentence to 5 years of imprisonment. Sometimes, he couldn't believe how easy it was to manipulate the Wizengamot.

Thankfully, Avery wasn't killed. Well, what else could he expect from the vaunted Boy-Who-Lived? The next paragon of light! Not that he was complaining in the first place as he wouldn't be alive right now if the Light side wasn't choking down on morals at every step. That was also the reason why they were winning the War and they would have won if the Dark Lord didn't become obsessed with the Potters and the Longbottoms for whatever reason.

Though that wasn't the last of it… Surprise, surprise… The Dark Lord went to kill the Potters without any backup and got himself killed instead… Lucius groaned as his gaze focused on the Dark Mark on his left arm, which was getting darker with each passing day…

He had heard some whispers from some of his former associates, saying that the Dark Lord is coming back. The Dark Lord always said that he was immortal, and to be honest, Lucius never believed him much on that, but if the Dark Lord was really coming back then Lucius knew that he was in a world of pain.

First of all, he needed to come up with a very good excuse for repealing the Dark Lord and his cause after his death and then he needed to come up with a very good excuse for losing the Dark Lord's precious diary…

Lucius didn't know what exactly the diary was, but he knew that it was very important to the Dark Lord and the diary could supposedly give a person access to the legendary Chamber of Secrets, though he wasn't sure about the last one as the diary disappeared into obscurity after he handed it over to the youngest Weasley brat.

The diary was given to his father by the Dark Lord for safekeeping and before his father passed away, he passed on the diary to him for safekeeping. He remembered his father asking him to keep the diary safe at any cost as the diary was very important to the Dark Lord and now that he had lost the diary without much to show for it… He knew that there would be retribution.

Lucius grabbed the firewhiskey bottle from his desk and poured himself a generous drink before chugging down it one go before his gaze once again focused on the Daily Prophet resting on the table… He growled at the moving picture of Harry Potter and snarled in rage as he tossed the glass toward the wall.

The glass shattered… Not that Lucius cared. His sources inside Gringotts had informed him that Harry Potter had been blood adopted into the Black Family by Sirius Black even though the boy had decided to keep his original name. It wasn't much of a consolation since Sirius Black was still alive, but at least, the boy won't be able to occupy the Black seat in Wizengamot…

Maybe, Cornelius could help him with something… Though he would need to convince the Minister to interfere in Family matters before anything else. It won't be easy as Cornelius was a coward at heart, but if he could convince his Undersecretary to play along with him, which wasn't going to be hard, then he might be able to get Cornelius to act.

'Cornelius, that boy has too much political power with the Potter and Black headships under his control… I am afraid that he might create an imbalance in our society, especially with him being not educated in our traditions and culture' Lucius mused in amusement… If he pitched the idea like that then he could already see Cornelius agreeing with him.

Lucius decided to pour himself another drink to celebrate, but then he remembered that he had tossed the glass… His gaze focused on the glass shards lying on the floor and decided to get it cleaned. "Dob…!" Lucius came to a halt when all of a sudden, he remembered that his house elf was missing too!! That was when he finally lost his composure and started to curse like a sailor…

<Line Break>

~~X-Mansion, Salem Center, New York~~ (August 21st, 1994)

Charles Xavier slowly took off his Cerebro helmet and placed it on the stand in front of him with a somber look on his face. His prized machine turned itself off, but right now, Cerebro wasn't one of his immediate concerns… For the last couple of weeks, he was trying to locate the newly triggered Mutants, but all of his efforts have turned out to be fruitless.

He was almost certain the newly triggered Mutant was a fellow Telepath, an extremely strong one at that and that is exactly where the problem was… He wanted to find the Mutant and bring him to his school so that he could provide guidance. With great power comes great responsibilities, but right now, that Mutant didn't even know how to handle their powers, and that terrified Charles quite a bit. That Mutant was probably a ticking time bomb for all he knew.

Though that wasn't the end of his problems… This Mutant could use their powers to hide from him and Charles wasn't amused by that fact, not in the slightest… How was he supposed to keep an eye on his fellow Mutants if they could hide from him? How was he supposed to stop his fellow Mutants from harming the normals if they could hide from him? How was he supposed to guide his fellow Mutants to help and protect humanity if they could hide from him?

Eric could also hide from him, and with this new Mutant being able to hide from him didn't fill him with any confidence… Who knew what this new Mutant could be doing? This new Mutant was an extremely strong Telepath and Charles knew that such power could be tempting… Charles could wrap a person's mind to his whims with enough time, Jean could too, and he suspected this Mutant could too… With that kind of power in their hands, this Mutant could very well walk down a dark path….

Charles released a sigh before shaking his head as he started to leave the Cerebro chamber… He will try again tomorrow and maybe, he will have some luck then…

<Line Break>

~~Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts~~

Albus slowly pulled himself out of his Pensieve and leaned back in his chair with a contemplative look on his face…. He was able to acquire the memory of the fight from the Weasley twins and after reviewing the memory for the fifth time, Albus was sure that Harry was holding himself back for whatever reason… He had noticed the signs all over the place.

Anyone else in his place would have failed to notice the signs, but the signs were obvious for someone like him, especially when he was holding himself back in a similar fashion all the time… After all, he didn't want to kill anyone by accident. That was the reason why he never fought the Death Eaters with everything he had or he might have killed them all, but Harry was only 14 years old and he was already too good for someone of his age, so why was he holding himself back in the fight?

Avery wasn't the best fighter, but he was still quite good with a Wand… It should have been simply impossible for Harry to beat the man. Albus stroked his chin with a thoughtful frown on his face… He was glad that Harry had jumped to protect the Weasleys without wanting anything in return, but he couldn't help but feel that there was something more to it… The DMLE was trying to suppress the news about the bodies found inside the forest, but no matter how tight Amelia was sailing her ship. It was simply impossible to hide something like that from him.

Was Harry somehow connected to the bodies found inside the forest… The Aurors had inspected his Wand and they didn't find anything illegal or dark on there, but Wands could be easily cleaned, and if it was Tom residing in Harry's body, then he could easily clean the Wand, but Tom wouldn't have tried to save the Weasleys if he wasn't playing the long game.

Things weren't looking good… If Tom has taken over Harry's body then they have already lost the War. At least, he would have his answers during the Triwizard Tournament and he was also able to acquire a DADA teacher for this session, so everything wasn't bad… With a sigh, he entered the Pensive again to view the rest of the memory. He was pretty amused by the way Harry treated Barty Crouch. He never liked the man, especially after the War.

No matter how much Albus tried, he couldn't blame the boy for treating the man like that… Though a pained look appeared on his face as his gaze landed on the lying figure of Ginerva Weasley. Currently, she was getting treated at St. Mungo's and everything was looking good. Her spinal cord was damaged due to the elongated exposure to the Cruciatus Curse, but according to the Healers, the damage wasn't too much.

Albus was helping the Weasleys with his own gold… He knew that he would need all the gold he owned as soon as the War broke out, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he didn't help out young Ginerva…

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