A Story of Mortality

Chapter 7

Harry was in his drawing room with Lin. It was the same room, actually, that he had first drink with Voldemort in, and maybe that was not exactly helping his feeling of uneasiness. He was on his third glass of wine – Lin did not like Harry drinking hard alcohol with him, as he had said it made him too talkative – and the two had been sat in silence for the whole time so far. Harry's mind had been... elsewhere. He was frantically thinking about the suddenly oncoming war, how he had failed to see it coming, and so he had failed his followers, too, in a sense. The alcohol was not really helping his clarity of mind, however, and so the later the evening became the more he felt completely lost. At first, he had thought it would be fine. He had a strong following, plenty of man power, and he had defeated Grindelwald before. But this felt different. More chaotic. Instead of fighting alongside Dumbledore against a muggle hater he was fighting alongside a muggle hater against Dumbledore. It refused to quite fit in Harry's mind, especially with the issues of magical unity, but he knew that he had to protect his own first and foremost, and Dumbledore was threatening them.

"What is troubling you, my friend?" Lin finally asked, swirling the wine around his glass.

Harry knew that his mentor was looking pensively at him, but he was content to stare at his glass instead.

"I would have thought it was obvious what's troubling me," Harry mumbled and took another gulp of his wine.

Lin did not seem too concerned about the potential war, and perhaps that should have calmed Harry's nerves about it all, but it had not. It mostly made him feel annoyed; he had every right to be stressed, and he most certainly did not need asking why he was stressed.

"You are mistaken if you think that you are stressed because of Dumbledore and the war, Harry," Lin said smoothly, but Harry did not find his voice calming now. "Look inside yourself. It is not war that is causing you turmoil."

Harry scowled and finally looking up from his now empty glass.

"Of course it's Dumbledore, of course it's the war! What else could it be? This war is a threat to our peace, it's a threat to everything; we had been making progress, but if we lose this, we'll likely be imprisoned merely for our magical affinity! More than that, this is threatening my own values of magical unity! Why would it be anything else?"

Lin just shook his head sadly. "You are really trying to convince me that you are pouring yourself a fourth drink over a mere political threat?" Harry froze over the wine bottle. "Please, Harry, do not patronise me in this way. You never have more than one drink over political problems because it clouds your judgement. This is different, and you know that as well as I do."

Harry frowned as he poured his drink, deciding that he did not care what Lin thought about it. He did not respond to his ex-tutor, opting instead to work on blocking his thoughts, which was quite easy once he was drinking his wine again. There was not anything other than the war too trouble him, Lin was being stupid. Lin is stupid Harry thought petulantly.

"I'm not stupid, Harry" Lin warned, almost as if he had read Harry's thoughts. "I can see what's going on here."

Ungracefully flopping himself back on his seat, Harry scowled this time. "There's nothing to see, Lin. I don't know what you're talking about." And really, by this point, he meant it. He just knew that he was annoyed and that Lin was making it worse.

"Could we maybe start by taking the drink away from you, Harry?" Lin asked tentatively, suddenly now seeming very friendly.

"What for?" Harry asked as he finished his glass.

"Alcohol dependency is no joke. I shouldn't have let you drink for this long, but I confess I was in my own world for a lot of it. But please, Harry. This is not how we deal with your problems. Now hand me your glass."