The Darkening of Your Soul

Chapter 46

Barty seemed to ponder on that for a few seconds before he also nodded. “I suppose. At any rate, even if Aurors storm the castle, you’ll no longer have to worry about Alastor Moody.”

“Why not?” Harry asked, confused. He hadn’t heard anything about Moody since the man had tried to kidnap him right at the start of the holidays.

“Because he got fired from the Auror department,” Tom said, again looking like he’d already been installed as the new Minister for Magic. “Amelia Bones was well and truly fed up with the man for once again doing what Dumbledore told him to do without any regards for actual laws.”

“Why was he fired now and not two weeks ago?” Harry wondered out loud.

Barty actually laughed at that. “Because Fudge and most other ministry officials had the holidays off, naturally. So Moody got a brief respite but today Bones, Scrimgeour and Fudge had a little meeting and decided to just get rid of Moody altogether.”

“That is amazing news,” Harry said, his chest warming at the idea that Moody got punished for being Dumbledore’s attack dog.

“I told you I had need of Wormtail at the Ministry,” Tom said with a sly smile as he gave Harry a quick wink. “Without him we’d not be able to keep up with all the latest ministry news.”

“Yeah, fine,” Harry muttered, not really caring one way or the other. He’d decided some months ago that as long as he didn’t have to personally deal with Pettigrew he was happy to pretend the traitor didn’t exist.

“We should get back to work,” Barty said, eyes shining with eagerness. “See if we can’t get that stone to turn some metal into gold.”

“Yes, we’ll let you know as soon as we know for sure what the stone is,” Tom said with almost as eager a look as Barty had. “Keep the mirror close.”

“Will do. Have fun!” Harry waved at the two men before closing the mirror. He felt a very real pang of regret that he couldn’t be there to join Tom and Barty in their experiments. Then again, Harry knew nothing about alchemy, so he doubted he would understand anything of what those two would be doing, so perhaps it was for the best he was stuck at Hogwarts instead.

Harry placed the mirror beside his pillow and turned on his side. Sleep came quickly because Harry was tired from the long day he’d had.

A bright glow woke him up at the crack of dawn and while still drowsy with sleep, Harry barely sat up and flipped the mirror open.

“It’s real,” Tom said, holding up a lump of gold the size of a walnut. His smile was tired and there were dark spots under his eyes, but he also looked about as happy as Harry had ever seen him. Barty was jumping around in the background, cackling like a madman. “You actually stole the real Philosopher’s Stone, my dear.”

Harry fell down against his bed, overcome with laughter while Tom joined him, his head thrown back. “We stole the actual Philosopher’s Stone and all I had to do was stand in front of a mirror,” Harry was barely able to say as he couldn’t stop snickering. “And here Dumbledore created this whole obstacle course and all it took was a look in that fucking mirror.”

“We never have to worry about money ever again,” Tom said with a peculiar look in his eyes, that Harry recognized after a moment. It was the sheer relief a person who grew up poor feels once they realize they never have to fear poverty again.