Close Or Far From The Law

Chapter 2 : 1. Return to Hogwarts

Dear Harry,

As 'promised' yesterday, here are your potions. I advise you to drink them yourself. If you have the slightest hesitation, think about it for a few seconds: why kill yourself when I won't be there to see it? You can imagine that this has no interest, I like to see the suffering of my enemies. Furthermore, you will notice that you will not be at peace until you carry out my orders. I anticipated your possible rebellions, obviously.

You will soon be on the Hogwarts Express train. The presence of Sirius Black in the wild must worry you a little. But I know he's not after you. He is not one of my supporters, the idea is even laughable. He turned his back on his family in his first year at Hogwarts, although this wasn't really noticeable until later in his life. He was your father's best friend. He can't hurt you, I'll give you more information on this as we go along.

One last thing that I have decided for you: you will take runes classes and not divinations at the start of the school year. I sent a letter to Minerva plagiarizing your writing. I'm giving you the book and I'm counting on you to study well this year.

Have a good trip,

L.V.

Waking up had been difficult, and not just a little. Harry found himself with three vials of potions in front of him accompanied by this famous letter and no desire to consume them. He didn't understand what could push him to take them but surely a spell would make him act. He tried to throw one of the bottles to the ground but it stuck to his hand. He struggled with it for a few seconds but to no avail, the glass seemed anchored to his palm. He said an insult he really meant and after ten minutes of fighting, Harry tried to leave the room to find help. In vain, the handle barely moved and he knew that no one would hear him call for help, not to mention that it could endanger someone. Overwhelmed, he gave up and drank the contents with his heart in his mouth. If he did, he could go out and he could seek the help he needed if it was poison. The taste made him want to wipe his tongue. The other two vials came spinning around him and he swallowed them only to see them disappear into the air. He shivered in fear, how powerful was Voldemort to act from so far away? Since his scar wasn't responding, he couldn't be around...

Like the first letter, Harry hid the second in the bottom of his suitcase which he packed after his shower, hiding the book of runes at the same time. The day before, the day with the Weasleys and Hermione had been complicated. He had never stopped being elsewhere, deeply lost in his thoughts, trying to disentangle the truth from the falsehood. He also noticed that he was still alive, proof that the potions were not poisons until then, although it had only been half an hour since he had ingested them. But he still wasn't reassured. Harry would have liked to speak so much, he felt trapped in his own body because of the constraint. Or constraints. He knew that nothing in his life could be normal. For example, no twelve-year-old child faced a giant snake to save another student. No child faced dark mages to prevent them from taking power. No child was treated like him, period.

Could he even say that he was seen as a child, really?

Harry sighed as he came down from his room, there was cacophony around. As usual, the Weasleys weren't ready and there was a commotion all the way downstairs. He asked for breakfast which he enjoyed with Hermione even though he felt like he was still split in two. One part of his mind was curled up and trembling in fear and the other part didn't seem to care that his worst nightmare was treating him. He still didn't understand why he still gave in and drank the potions. Did he want to believe that people would stop hurting him? It was stupid, even if Lord Voldemort stopped, someone else would take over. There was no reason for his life to become more peaceful. He looked at Hermione who was immersed in her rune book. He didn't even know what we really learned in this subject. Yet Voldemort had chosen it for himself. And it would soon become known... Should he play along or say that he had nothing to do with the change?