Fractured Sins

Chapter Three

Hadrian could hear the Potters and Dumbledore following him as he made his way down the corridor, trailing on his heels with uncertainty slowing their steps.

After his little performance he hardly blamed them for keeping their distance. He hadn't quite intended to resort to childish insults, but when his faux parents brought up love and family, well, they were practically begging for his scornful words.

If they so happened to be true – Petunia had been quite the ranter, with a few glasses of wine to loosen her tongue – then who was he to protect mother dear from it?

Lily had just looked so hopeful; it had been a pleasure to tear it to shreds.

The entertainment they were providing had turned out to be much more potent than he'd expected.

Imagine that; little Hadrian Avaric was the twin brother to the famous Boy-Who-Lived!

Such a fanciful tale James had told in that cold tone, with heroes and villains in a mighty battle of Light and Dark, set against each other in a Fate-devised conflict finally settled by a baby, innocent of innocents, icon of the Light and saviour of the wizarding world!

Oh, it was enough to bring a tear to the eye!

He'd known the wand-users were prone to this sort of dramatics, but such a narrow-minded, clear-cut view of events was surely not accepted by the entire community?

Ah, but this was the group that so decisively defined magic as either Light or Dark, so perhaps this was expected of them.

He could only imagine how they would react to his exploits – the trio who'd come to collect him obviously had very minimal knowledge, likely believing the lie that he'd been an unwilling assistant who was brainwashed.

Only Leon had an idea of the true extent of his...depravity.

Did they think they could fix him, like a broken toy destroyed by a petulant child, needing only a smidgen of tender loving care to turn him into a rosy-cheeked rascal?

They must know of his exploits within the institute at least, or rather the few he could be connected to.

Surely that would disillusion even the most hopeful of optimists? He hadn't made any effort to hide his nature during their conversation in the cell, in fact the rather put-upon hostility had only painted him in a worse light, so what drove them to sustain their offer?

As much as he watched and learnt about people, they still managed to confuse him with their absurdities.

But he guessed that's what kept them interesting.

The decision to agree with their whimsical offer was a rather impulsive one in itself.

He wasn't interested in learning their wand-magic, not when his own perfectly suited his purposes, and the backwards wizarding world hardly appealed to him.

He longed for parents no more than he longed for a bath in concentrated sulphuric acid – which he could contest was incredibly unpleasant, judging by the screams – and the Potters presentation of a loving home was a feeble bribe at best, an obnoxious deterrent at worst.

It was the idea of Hogwarts that had managed to catch his interest.

Not the establishment itself, but the brewing mass of conflict that would inevitably poison its grounds.

A war, a war that hadn't ended yet.

Of course he'd noticed the masked look of Dumbledore's face when James proclaimed their ferocious Dark Lord defeated – defeated, not dead – and the faint anticipatory fear on the Potters.