𝐃𝐔𝐋𝐂𝐄𝐓 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 - Viktor Krum

43

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

"BUT WE BOTH KNOW WHAT YOU intend," The words were raw on my tongue, unfeeling and numb as I talked to the formerly captive—Harry potter's infamous godfather—Sirius Black.

I hadn't known anything of that man until Oliver Wood had filled me in with brief details before this unorthodox meeting. Why should I be concerned with the life of a solitary man who had been imprisoned in Azkaban—regardless of whatever the misunderstandings of his convictions were? Though whatever Black's convictions were, wizards and witches got thrown in infamous prisons like Azkaban and MACUSA in heaps, once the authorities found so much as a mere silk thread to even connect them to a vicinity where a crime had happened—or to others involved. And other times, those authorities would go blind to a whole rolled ball of that same silk thread even if it was thrown at their faces.

The French wizarding authorities were no better. Except, they were major fans of disposing immediate punishments instead of crowding their cells with captives.

The wizarding authorities in general were nobody's friends. They were all wound together in inexplicable ways, separated by language barriers yet they were still a single unit, distances be damned. Deaf, blind and they folded when faced with slightest of threats—ever confident afterwards in the fleeting front of authority that they maintained in front of the commons.

"We both know what you intend," I spoke to the man's face dominating the flicker of the flames in the fire Gabriel Chevrolet had built outside our camp.

Sirius Black had come of his own accord, manipulating the blameless flames with his presence, despite my instructions to Oliver Wood. The Hogwarts boy had been at a loss to explain, and I had already deciphered that Black was no one's messenger wizard. He was his own, with his short curly hair molding the fire and the yellows and oranges defining what his face looked like—a typical face of a wizard in his late thirties who had undoubtedly been the victim of many knees and elbows in the past twelve years—the man was an Azkaban escapee. He was nobody's messenger man. He had found us of his own accord, possibly by locating Wood in some way that I could not put my finger on at present.

"I say I want to save the wizarding world and you and your order hold me by my throat and force me to do it your way."

Sirius Black blinked in surprise, taken aback, his face in the raging fire unchanging.

"I say I will save the wizarding world, and you and order are right there behind me, weaponizing me."

I glanced at some of the others huddled around the fire on thick logs, intense and somewhat detached looks marring their faces. Viktor Krum's eyes were pinned on me, his facial expression trained to detect any discourse on my face, ready to interrupt whenever the interruption was needed.

"That is what you intended to do with Harry, is it not?" I asked, my eyes breaking away from Krum's gaze to fall on Harry Potter's.

The chosen boy was sitting on a log opposite to me, conscious and alert again, just as I had convinced my brain he always had been. He had opened his eyes quickly, and had shown no signs of discomfort, leading me to believe that I had been successful in taking away the pain and hurt of the Cruciatus curse away from his body. But the curse was still in his memory, and perhaps the pain of that was stronger, for the boy had barely eaten and barely spoken since he had come to.