Chapter 777 - 777: 0777 The Reasons

"Finally, it's over."

Once everyone who'd come to see Harry had finally left, he let out a long breath and sank back in his chair.

And this despite the fact that Hermione had just laid out the current situation completely, accurately, and thoroughly.

Not only that—she'd made a point of it, too, stressing that things had gone too far now for anyone to keep sitting on the fence; doing so would only end up hurting them.

And yet the visitors still hesitated, unwilling to commit themselves fully to the fight against Voldemort's faction.

Part of it was simply that Voldemort's side really was powerful.

After all, during the First Wizarding War, Voldemort had never once managed to take Hogwarts.

But this time he'd done it and worse, he'd beaten in open battle the one man he was supposed to fear above all others: Albus Dumbledore. That alone had been a devastating blow to morale.

The other part of it was that they still clung to a kind of wishful thinking.

This applied mainly to the half-blood wizards among them.

Just as Hermione had pointed out, if they threw in with Voldemort, they could at least scrape by as second-class citizens—part of the privileged tier.

But Hermione saw through them clearly enough, and she hadn't minced words about it: not every half-blood could hope to rise to the rank of a Service Class. You needed real, outstanding ability for that—otherwise you'd end up nothing more than a Working or Merchant Class.

As for someone like Severus Snape, he was a rarity beyond rarities. In the whole of Voldemort's camp, there was only the one of him.

Even so, a few people still clung to the hope that they might be the exception.

Why shouldn't I be the lucky one?

That, more or less, was the thinking behind it.

Faced with that, Harry had stepped in without hesitation.

Which left Hermione a little exasperated. Because all Harry had actually done was repeat, in slightly different words, everything she'd already said.

And yet these people, of all things, found Harry's version more convincing than hers.

So, it wasn't just Harry who was worn out by it. She was too.

Just then Ginny caught sight of how tired Harry looked, and hurried over, gently rubbing his temples for him.

"Thanks, Ginny—I feel much better already."

"I just don't like it!"

Ron, who'd been silent until now, broke in with a disgruntled mutter:

"Why do we have to keep courting these people, anyway? If they won't trust us, then let them go running to You-Know-Who instead—let's just see if he'll even take them."

"That's not quite fair, Ron."

Lupin's voice came as he explained.

"Right now, what we need is to bring together every bit of strength we possibly can. If we simply let them go over to the enemy, then whether he accepts them or not, the result is the same either way—the anti-Voldemort side loses that strength. It's like when Dumbledore sent Hagrid to the giants, back in the day, and sent me to the werewolves. Even if we couldn't talk them into joining us, at the very least we kept them from joining the other side."

At that, Lupin gave a self-deprecating little laugh. "Looking back now, I'd say that particular mission of mine was something of a failure…"

Because people in the Order threw Voldemort's name around so often these days, Ron no longer flinched at hearing it the way he once had.

Even so, he still couldn't quite stop the shiver that ran through him.

"It's just—seeing the way they all looked just now, it makes my blood boil."

"All right. That's enough."

Harry gave Ginny's hand a light pat, then rose to his feet and turned to Lupin, a hopeful look in his eyes.

"Professor—I'd like to go see him."

Lupin blinked, startled for a moment, then understood. Thinking of everything that had been weighing on Harry's shoulders lately, he gave a small nod.

"All right. Tonks and I will go with you."

Having said that, he turned to the others:

"Same as always—the rest of you head back to the square, and mind you stay safe."

Since they couldn't fully trust the visitors, the place where Harry received them was never the Order's headquarters itself.

Of course, the safe house they were using for the moment was secure enough in its own right.

Every visitor needed a guarantor, and each one went through a rigorous security check before being allowed anywhere near Harry.

There was no room for carelessness.

They'd already had one incident where a supposed ally, placed under the Imperius Curse, had tried to ambush Harry.

Fortunately, the Order's protection around Harry had always been armed to the teeth, and the attempt had failed.

Just like now—while the real Harry received these potential allies here, elsewhere, more than one person had taken Polyjuice Potion to wear his face.

Dumbledore had insisted on it.

Given Harry Potter's singular importance, there was no such thing as being too careful.

Just as they were about to leave the safe house, Hermione noticed Harry's eyes were rimmed red, and couldn't help speaking up.

"Harry…"

"I'm all right, Hermione." Harry forced himself to manage a smile. "You don't need to worry."

Hermione said nothing.

By the time Harry followed Lupin and Tonks out of the safe house, all anyone watching could see were the two of them—and even they had changed their appearance.

Harry himself walked behind them, hidden beneath his Invisibility Cloak.

The three of them followed a winding path, and once they reached the designated spot, all Disapparated together.

When they reappeared, they found themselves in a stretch of wild, empty countryside.

Lupin and Tonks looked warily around, then nodded to each other and started forward.

Harry, still cloaked and invisible, followed close behind.

Before long, they came to a graveyard.

Near the centre, a headstone stood blank, with nothing carved on it at all.

Lupin and Tonks exchanged another glance, then stepped aside, leaving the space to Harry and Sherlock.

Harry didn't remove the Cloak.

He lowered his head and gazed silently at the headstone.

No matter how many times he came here, he could never stop himself from remembering the happy times he'd shared with Sherlock Holmes.

Their first meeting, on the Hogwarts Express.

Facing down the troll on Halloween. Cracking the code behind the bloody message Quirrell had left.

The creature crawling through the Forbidden Forest. The long look inward before the Mirror of Erised. Standing face to face with Voldemort over the Philosopher's Stone…

Studying together. Fencing together. Boxing together. Living side by side…

Before he knew it, tears were streaming down Harry's face.

"We'd agreed—hadn't we—that once we graduated, I'd become an Auror…"

Harry murmured.

"So why did you have to go first? 'I never lie—except when it's necessary.' So why, of all things, did you have to lie to me about this?

"Everyone keeps telling me to look forward. But I can't. I can't do it.

"Voldemort. Moriarty…"

Lupin and Tonks noticed a few drops of water suddenly fall onto the grass in front of the headstone, and exchanged a look.

"Remus… Harry, he…"

"Sherlock was his best friend."

Lupin shook his head slowly. "I understand how he feels. When it was James and Lily, I was exactly the same… and then, when Peter happened, I went through it all over again."

"But wasn't that whole business with Peter proven to be a misunderstanding? He isn't even dead."

"I'd almost rather he were," Lupin said with a bitter smile. "The old Marauders—one of us dead, one of us a traitor, and only two of us left, limping on…"

"I won't let you talk about yourself like that, Remus!"

Tonks took Lupin's face in both hands, her eyes fixed on his.

"You are the man I love. You are the father of my child. You are a hero who has fought against evil not once, but twice!"

"Thank you, Tonks."

Lupin smiled gently and reached out to stroke her hair.

Just then, the two of them turned their heads together.

Both of them saw the grass underfoot showing signs of having been walked over, and a moment later, Harry's low voice reached them:

"Let's go."

Lupin and Tonks nodded together.

Hand in hand, the two of them walked back the way they'd come.

As they walked, a faint crack sounded, and they vanished into the air, as if they had never been there at all.

With the coming of a great snowfall, time slipped quietly into 1998.

In the wizarding world, the fighting between Voldemort's Death Eaters and Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix grew ever more intense.

It was bitterly ironic: the very Aurors who were supposed to be hunting down Death Eaters kept siding with them instead, turning their wands on the resistance.

On the open field of battle, Voldemort who now held the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts firmly in his grip had become, in name, the ruler of magical Britain.

Given that, he'd taken to fighting on the front lines himself less and less, and had begun turning his attention abroad instead.

The day the British Ministry of Magic formally opened communications with its French counterpart, it caused an uproar.

"You must be joking!"

Fleur Delacour slammed her hand on the table.

"Have the people at the Ministry been hit on the head with a baguette or something? Actually dealing with the Dark Lord?"

Gemma watched Fleur fume, and tried to calm her. "Fleur, take a breath…"

"How am I supposed to calm down!" Fleur snapped. "I thought his reach was at most confined to Britain and now he's ready to push out of the whole of Europe?"

"It's a bit early to be talking about all of Europe."

Gemma gave Fleur's hand a gentle pat. "I know what's worrying you. But don't even setting aside whether the two of them can actually come to any agreement, even if they do, Voldemort's reach in France will never be what it is in Britain.

"Besides, Madame Maxime and Beauxbatons will certainly stand with us."

At the mention of Madame Maxime and Beauxbatons, Fleur's expression finally eased a little.

"Oh, that reminds me on the Muggle side of things, Mycroft's actually been doing rather well, stopping that bastard Moriarty more than once…" Fleur sighed. "But he's only a Muggle, after all. If only Sherlock were still here—"

"Yes," Gemma murmured, hearing this. "If only Sherlock were still here."

Having said that, the two of them exchanged a glance, and each saw in the other's eyes that same shadow of grief.

A moment later, Gemma turned away...

You can read more than 40 chapters on:

patreon.com/MikeyMuse