章 43: C043 - Life goes on

It was still the same day after Harry and I stopped the Slytherin men from assaulting Penelope.

After watching everything that happened with the aurors as they locked up the 'lunatic' Pettigrew, I went up to my room with Penelope who was released from the hospital wing and wrote a letter to Patrick, who would give Pettigrew's confession to the Daily Prophet and the confessions of Bolin with a little extra from me to Rita Skeeter.

I had changed my mind about Rita not knowing about it. I wanted Snape to suffer for harboring and enabling a bunch of rapists.

I just hoped this wouldn't constitute me breaking my word with the talking hat where I wouldn't drag Hogwarts' name through the mud... but there was literal sexual assault on helpless witches going on here, and they seemed scarily organized and comfortable in their ability to get away with it. I gave my promise thinking that all I needed to do was keep quiet about Snape marginalizing Harry for having the same eyes as his mother, not whatever that shit was.

Nyx, the owl I stole from Draco Malfoy, was napping on her stand next to Hedwig as they usually did during the day if neither of the two owls was sent to deliver something and I could tell she was happy to be of servcie but still a little disgruntled for getting woken up so 'early'. Especially during the colder months, the two birds liked staying up there with us much more than fighting for warmth in the owl tower. Though, technically, it was already summer. I figured they just got used to it.

"You two live like spartans," Penelope commented as she looked around the room.

I joined her in looking around and noticed that other than books, our brooms in their boxes, and the owl post, this room looked exactly like it did when Harry and I first entered it together.

"Men," I said with a shrug, and Penelope had the nerve to giggle and counter, "Boys!"

I let that stand and sent Nyx on her way when I was done with my letters. It was a very short flight because Patrick had a little mailbox he would check every day next to the Shrieking Shack. So I hoped my owl wouldn't be too cross with me for waking her.

Hedwig, however, looked at me like I owed her money when the familiar warmth of Nyx was missing from next to her.

I gave the sassy bird a treat to not feel bad about it, immediately realised I was played when she hooted a pleased note as she devoured the snack, and left the room with Penelope shortly after that.

The two of us caught the very end of lunch and since she didn't want to be alone, she joined as I taught Harry and all the other girls from Ravenclaw's first year the absolute basics of the basics of magical combat: dodging instead of freezing in place when a spell was sent your way.

Penelope joined me in sending tickling hexes and other such harmless pranking spells at the girls at random, and I got all of them to sweat heavily. I knew they were all annoyed at the end, just as I was with Flitwick early on, so I gave them an offer: "You think I'm just teasing you, not taking you seriously, right?"

Nobody affirmed my statement, but I didn't need them to do that to know I was right.

"How about this? You choose three or four among you and send some spells my way, and I'll do my best to not get hit. That way, you can see whether or not I'm doing this just to make a fool out of you."

I had merely worked them out for less half an hour, but all of them were way too eager to join in on shooting me with spells. They did not stop at three or four, all of them eagerly took out their wands.

And so I was peppered with way more than just spells from everyone. Lisa even threw a shoe at me in the middle. Still, with my increased reflexes and extensive training, I deflected, dodged, and returned spells with a much higher success rate than the group had against spells from only Penelope and I.

Three minutes into the exercise, I heard Hermione mutter, "But that's not possible!"

"That's so outlandish," Mandy added in agreement as she stopped casting spells my way.

"This is so unfair. How come it looks so easy when he does it? Is he dancing leisurely or dodging spells?" Lisa complained with a pout.

"Uh, I saw and still see how exhausted he is when he comes back from his sessions with Flitwick... I think this is the result of pretty intense training," Harry offered with a wry smile, still panting a little from his own dodging efforts before.

"Yeah, Flitwick is a slave driver. I couldn't ask for a better teacher," I affirmed with a grin as I still dodged spells from Isobel, Sue, and Penelope.

"Aaaah!" Sue suddenly shouted as she dropped her wand on the table next to her and ran to me in a martial-arts-esque pose.

She actually tried to shoulder throw me, but her kick to my leg in an effort to destabilize me failed and so she just got my arm and draped it over without succeeding to lift me off my feet with her hips.

"Uh, sorry," Sue said after an awkwardly long pause with my arm pressed against her front, but she still didn't release me.

"I take it you were taught martial arts before coming to Hogwarts?" I asked with a chuckle.

"Uhhh, uhuh. Guess I haven't told you yet? My dad runs a jiu-jitsu dojo in London," Sue explained with an embarrassed grin.

"Oh? I don't want to sound obnoxious or ignorant, but I thought your family had Chinese roots?"

"We do. My dad learned judo in the British Navy, not in China or whatever... he switched to jiu-jitsu when he stopped serving and opened a dojo shortly after..."

"Cool," I praised and continued. "Can I have my arm back?"

"Ah!" Sue shouted and ran away when she noticed where my arm had been the entire time.

"So Professor Flitwick teaches you muggle hand-to-hand combat, too? Or is that just how you survived the orphanage?" Isobel asked with a tilt of her head - as blunt as ever when she really wanted to know something.

"Uh, no, not really. I learned the absolute basics of fencing from him, but other than that, there was only stamina training, dodging, and magical education."

"Professor Flitwick knows how to fence?" Hermione asked in a curious tone.

"Know how? No, that's too tame a statement. If I'd have to grade him with my limited experience, I'd say he's a grandmaster or the closest thing to it. Don't let his small frame fool you, Flitwick's faster on his feet than I am if he wants to be," I answered with a shrug.

"Hehe, thank you kindly for the praise, Talion," a cheerful voice offered from behind me. I mechanically turned around and saw my mentor and our head of house stand behind me.

"H-how long have you been there?"

"After your stunts in recent times, I figured someone has to keep an eye on you," the diminutive professor explained without answering the question. "You did a fine job with your approach to teaching them."

He looked around the room for a moment before he asked, "Do you want to see Talion break a sweat? The two of us still have training scheduled for today, technically."

Flitwick, though happy I rescued Penelope, seemed annoyed with me and let it be known by demolishing me in front of the girls and Harry as they cheered him on. And I figured out why eventually. If I had told the truth about being alone, I had risked Penelope's life as well as my own by going into a four versus one with wizards four to six years older my senior.

As I was on the ground, panting heavily and colored like a colorblind clown who did his makeup during a hurricane, I heard a few of the girls snicker, but even more I saw Isobel, Sue, and Hermione especially giving me looks like I impressed them immensely.

My hormonal body was sending me messages that I did well, but my mind was keeping me in check, thankfully.

"You train him this hard always?" Padma asked curiously. "Is this why he's sometimes sleep-eating at the dinner table in the great hall?"

"It's quite cute when he does, is it not?" Flitwick asked with a wicked grin, and I had to sigh.

Mental note: Never allow Flitwick to be worried again.

"Don't worry. Talion is my precious student and hope for a future British dueling champion. I know when to stop," Flitwick explained with a soft smile when he saw how tense some of the girls were.

"I mean, those ink birds you sent around him just then... there were so many of them, and they came from all directions. He may look like this now, but I thought it was pretty impressive how long he lasted," Sue offered in explanation after seeing nobody jumped to my defense.

-----

There was a fire under Harry's butt for the remaining break. Not just the training with the girls, Harry attended all of my training sessions. That included a long run on the magical treadmill-equivalent I created together with Flitwick sometime after Christmas.

Instead of a moving belt as a running surface, the equipment came with a floating harness that magically held you in place and a polished granite slab that virtually had no friction on one side. Running on the thing took quite some getting used to, but it beat running up and down the stairs for a nice run outside by a lot.

Yeah, my habits since coming to the school changed immensely, but I was still no fan of climbing stairs despite not feeling winded at all even going from the dungeons all the way to the astronomy tower.

If I were the headmaster, I would definitely equip some elevators at Hogwarts - even the British Ministry copied the muggles who invented them well over a century ago. Or escalators at the very least.

"My elves found a smuggling ring in London," Harry said while panting after he finished running.

"Oh? And you're telling me this why?" I asked with a dry voice without looking up from one of the books I took out on the topic of Animagus.

"This is different. And I'm telling you so we can discuss it," Harry explained with a sigh.

"Glad my reprimand got through to you. Go on."

He stared at my with an aggrieved look and said, "You literally stole my moment in an official Quidditch game, forever making me think even as our team's seeker that I'm only the second best seeker on the team... I still think your retaliation was completely over the line..."

I gained a sly grin and drawled, "If knowing the truth is so hurtful..."

"Ugh, shut it you wanker. Anyway. These smugglers my elves found aren't smuggling smokes or anything. It's kids," Harry offered with a deep breath in and an exaggerated roll of his eyes.

"How bad?" I asked and stopped my banter.

"Really bad."

"Have your elves seen or heard anything about the police?"

"One of the higher ranking ones runs it for this side of the world... or so they said."

"International child smuggling ring? I don't think we're supposed to get involved with that. If anything goes wrong, their lives... the blood of literal children, it's on your hands. Have them detail it all and give it directly to someone really high up at MI6 or the whatever minister runs the muggle justice department. For good measure involve Interpol, I'd say."

Harry nodded silently, but I got the feeling he wasn't too convinced. So Dumbledore succeeded in having a child of prophecy with an unrealistic hero complex anyway. For now.

However, realistically, I fully understood Harry's mindset about this particular case. Sure, we were kids ourselves and we shouldn't have to deal with this... but this was far beyond what regular, decent folk could stomach. Maybe I should tell him to send some of this elves with the kids they already knew about and have them saved in case the authorities miss them somehow. By the looks of things, he'd do that anyway.

"Did you get any more invitations for interviews again?" I asked eventually and Harry started looking irritated.

"Yeah. This Miss Skeeter won't leave me alone. I don't even know this Peter guy and if he did what he claimed he did, I don't want to know him either..."

"I'm afraid your fame and infamy doesn't work like that. And it will only get worse with S getting involved."

Harry cringed and answered, "He's asked me to his office for the seventh time this year."

"Still asking you to suck it up and go back to your aunt?" I asked with a sarcastic smile.

"Worse. He somehow found out I was planning to go to Aunt Alice this summer and told me of his reservations bothering an ill woman," Harry sighed. "About how my presence would burden her and possible worsen her condition..."

"Textbook gaslighting..."

"Textbook gaslighting," Harry confirmed. "Weird that you wrote a short textbook about this term just to call it 'textbook gaslighting', by the way."

"I work in mysterious ways," I said with a shrug. "I'll be done with my book on Occlumency shortly, too. Look forward."

"I found a book about the mind arts in the forbidden section, now that you mention it," Harry admitted and I lifted my eyebrow because I didn't know he sneaked into the forbidden section in the library. "I know, I know. Anyway, the book had a few pages missing and was generally really unhelpful. As if everything was written in fables instead of knowledge. Worse than most spell books."

"Well, the topic is kinda arcane and putting it in relatable allegories is what I'm trying to do, too. You know what? I'll give you a draft of what I got so far," I pondered out loud. "Plus, the attacking form of the mind arts is terribly illegal if you're not a pureblood or S, working for his greater good."

-----

I received a letter from Amelia Bones four days after Pettigrew's apprehension and I was asked to go to Flitwick's office after dinner.

It was still in the middle of the break and I spent another evening teaching my peers the wonders of getting sweaty while dodging spells, though Mandy, Padma, and Hermione stopped joining the workout and only soaked up the wisdom I dished out while learning the shield charm. When it was time for the meeting in Flitwick's office, I walked there wondering what Amelia might need from me of all people.

"You're right on time," Flitwick commented and turned back to his fireplace where Amelia's face was visible through a so-called 'floo call'.

"Hello Talion," she greeted curtly and it looked like this wasn't a well-meaning wellfare check to see how I was doing.

"Aunt Amelia, how may I help?"

"You may listen. Peter Pettigrew died while giving his statement in the Wizengamot and all his previous testimonies are being treated ramblings of a madman. Sirius, who got a re-trial pending, lost his biggest chance to prove himself innocent," Amelia described and I was gobsmacked.

"Really? They get away with THAT?"

"An auror in my employ was found to be under the Imperius curse, we don't know what he did to Peter but we suspect poisoning," Amelia answered with a scowl.

"And that isn't raising every single alarm bell in the ministry? That someone would use one of the three unforgivable curses to kill a witness by using a literal wizard police man? A witness who revealed that a pureblood lord was unlawfully and innocently incarcerated for over a decade? They sweep it under the rug instead?"

"You don't see me celebrating, Talion. I'm as appalled as you are."

"No, I don't think you are, Aunt Amelia. You're a respected witch - why are you not using your tremendous influence to make a big stink in the press?"

Amelia stayed quiet before sighing, "... because I can't. I will lose all further standing and possibly even my position if I meddle in this."

"Wow, that's bonkers," I mumbled. "So why are you telling me this?"

"Lord Arcturus Black asked for you. The fossil came back from his self-imposed exile and reached out to me. Do you know why he would do that?"

I didn't need to think about it because I knew why. I told him point-blank that Dumbledore was my guardian and not to be trusted because Dumbledore might be involved in removing the ancient Black family from the political landscape. I originally hoped something would come of it... but now, I honestly forgot about sending that letter after Malfoy threatened me after a Magical Etiquette lesson.

Well, I phrased it all rather bluntly and implied a lot of things, but by passively ignoring everything that went wrong during Dumbledore's tenure as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, our headmaster was complicit in the Black family's current state, in my opinion.

"Did he tell you why?"

Amelia's face in the wooden logs of the floo call scrunched up in annoyance before she answered, "Okay, so you do know why. And no, he did not tell me. He only told me to tell you to be in the Three Broomsticks tomorrow for lunch an hour after noon. I'll be there, too. Don't make me regret actually taking my lunch break for the first time in years."

-----

With Flitwick's express approval, I swung on my Firebolt after a short study session in the library after breakfast the following day and flew towards Hogsmeade. Harry himself was busy with his newest mandatory meeting with Dumbledore, which likely served as good distraction for my absence. But I also got the feeling Dumbledore's increased attention on Harry meant he already more or less forgot about me - at least in the short term.

Or my reactions to all the confunded people and my behavior after the attacks on me was satisfying to him. Like I passed some kind of character fitness test.

I entered the almost empty inn with my broom casually carried on my shoulder and Madam Rosmerta greeted me with her signature charming smile while polishing some glasses with a white kerchief.

"Hello darling. Are you here for some lunch?"

"Uhuh, apparently Lady Bones is meeting me together with an older gentleman?"

"Ah, that's you. The auror boss and the well-dressed fossil are in the last booth to the right," the well-endowed barmaid pointed out and I looked at her with a raised brow.

"He can't hear me. And he really looks like he traded in his bedding for a coffin decades ago," she explained with a wink before shaking her head in amusement.

"I see. Why are you polishing the glasses by hand, by the way? Aren't there spells for that?"

"And what should I do with no customers all day? Watch the fire in the fireplace or stare outside the window?"

"Fair point," I answered and inwardly shook my head for my unnecessary prying. Maybe I'll gift the woman some gossip magazines from a muggle kiosk or something.

I walked over to the people expecting me.

"Young Macnair, I assume?" An aged voice asked as I stepped to the booth Rosmerta pointed to.

By Merlin's saggy ball sack. Her description of the man was on point.