Chapter 4
CROVUS LESTRANGE
As the doubt seethed in his heart, he began to grow more and more sure about his suspicion. He sat on the other side of the Great Hall, as they had their dinner. The attacks had really shaken the whole school, and the whole school was whispering about the so-called heir of Slytherin.
His eyes moved the Gryffindor table towards the prime suspect.
Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, sat there rather alone with his two companions. The infamous Golden trio sat there, and his eyes narrowed as he felt their eyes meet. The three of them seemed to have been staring at him.
Both of them were quite similar in some aspects. Both of them were famous for things they had no control over and were greeted with turned heads and small whispers wherever they went. However, their reasons for infamy were quite different. For while Harry was greeted with warmth and appreciation, Crovus was mostly greeted with a guarded glance and evading eyes.
They quickly evaded their gaze.
Why were they looking at him?
"Hey, cousin!" suddenly, the all too familiar voice of Draco pushed him out of his trance and he looked to the side, and found his cousin and childhood friend taking the seat next to him.
"Have you heard, the governors are thinking of sacking Dumbledore?" said Draco with a smile, pointing towards the teachers' table as Crabb and Goyle sat down by his side.
"But why?" came the question from Astoria, who had sat to his other side with her sister, who also seemed interested in this whole debate.
"It's the attacks," he answered just as he had expected, "Father petitioned that he is too old for the job, and that they need someone new," said Draco, and he saw Astoria frown at those words.
"But that's stupid. He is the best wizard of magical Britain. Who else would be able to solve this mystery," he saw Draco seethe at the rebuttal, but he knew that his mother would have words with him if he misbehaved with Astoria. He had learned that lesson pretty quickly when he had tried to prank her when they had been younger, and so simply shrugged sulkily.
"But at least whomever they bring in would be better than him," Draco remarked as he began to dig into his dinner.
Astoria seemed rather put out by the news and remarked sadly.
"I hope the attacks, stop soon. I kinda like him," she said and Crovus's eyes narrowed onto the red-head sitting across from him once more. And he found out the girl had been looking at him for some reason.
Red. He blinked suddenly as he felt a red hue appear in her eyes momentarily, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared as the girl quickly evaded his gaze and looked away.
Was he imagining this? No.
But why would she attack muggle-borns? She had no apparent connection to Slytherin and her family was quite fond of muggle-borns. Was he wrong about this?
But a part of him continued to whisper that she was somehow connected to all this, despite no apparent evidence.
"Are you fine, Crovus? Have you taken your potion for today?" came the worried voice of Astoria from the side, and he looked towards her and nodded with a smile.
"Yeah, I am fine. Just got lost in thought," he replied and began to eat again, his mind focused on the red hue he had seen in her gaze and how it had seemed so familiar to him.
0000
HERMIONE GRANGER
"How the hell did she know about all that?" Harry nearly shouted as he paced in Ministry Hall, as the hearing came to an end for the day. They had been harassed by the reporters after the hearing, and the Aurors had stepped in and forced all of them out of the building.
And all of the questions had been about the statement Daphne had made in court. A statement pertaining to knowledge that she had no way of knowing.
Knowledge that was known to only a handful of people in the entire world.
"She even knew about RAB! The only people who know about that are you, me, and Sirius." Harry said with a shaky voice, as he became still and began to look around as he passed a hand through his hair.
The truth was that the same questions had been plaguing her mind. And the words from Daphne's opening statements rang in her head, filling her head with creeping doubt. And as she stood there leaning against the Wall in the ministry those same words ran on repeat in her head.
And as the implication behind those words, began to dawn on her, she felt her stomach twist in anger and pain. And suddenly she recalled something. Something very important.
"Harry," she called him out and his head snapped towards her, she felt her throat dry as she slowly spoke.
"Harry, there is one more person who knew about this all," she said and saw Harry frown as he shook his head.
"No, the only people who know about both Severus and Regulus's betrayal were you, me, and Sirius..." and he suddenly stopped as he reached the same conclusion as her. His face paled, and his eyes widened as they both whispered the name of the person they were thinking about.
"Dumbledore"
"Dumbledore"
And the implication behind those words was heartbreaking. Had he really done it, forced a student to become a double agent for him? Pushed a child into Voldemort's clutches.
"It cannot be....." Harry said in a dazed tone, yet Hermione had always found it rather suspicious that Crovus had somehow managed to kill the man two full-fledged Dark Lords had failed to kill.
"We have to talk to him," he said as he turned to face her, and she nodded.
"I will write to McGonagall, tell her that we are coming to the school to see his portrait," she said and Harry nodded, his eyes still a bit dazed.
"Could he have done it? Could all she said really be true, that he was indeed a double agent?" Harry suddenly asked her, and she couldn't say no with certainty.
She couldn't.
0000
CROVUS LESTRANGE
Crovus found himself sitting in the courtroom once more, as the proceedings resumed on the second day. The courtroom was filled again, and the reporters were littered across the room, his eyes skimmed the crowd and he didn't miss the absence of the two recent heroes of Great Britain. Though his eyes caught onto a shade of very familiar red hair, the person's face though was hidden behind a mask, their eyes invisible as they wore a hat, making it difficult to even see who they were.
There was a bit of ruckus as Amelia Bones, the minister walked in, and the whole chamber stood up and then sat down with her.
"Alright, let the proceedings begin," she said and Daphne stood up and walked to the center of the room and gave him a reassuring nod before she slowly began. Though the prosecution usually went first in cases, she had already submitted a motion accepting their allegations, giving Percy Weasley no chance to present his evidence in the usual manner.
"The British Isles were embroiled in a war for four years. We struggled as a madman tried to destroy our very way of life," she began and the whole crowd hung at her words.
"He was not alone, there were several among us who supported him in his rise, and followed him willingly as he ripped our very society apart. Though the truth is that the war never truly began in 1995. No, it began years earlier," she said and turned to face him and suddenly asked him a question.
"When was the first time you talked with the Dark Lord?" she questioned, and he felt the eyes of the whole court focus onto him, waiting for his answer. He sighed looked straight into her eyes, and opened his mouth to reply.
"The first time I talked to him was in year 1992, during my first year," he answered and saw the crowd gasp at his words.
0000
CROVUS LESTRANGE
Due to his suspicion, Crovus had begun following the first-year Weasley around the castle, trying to prove himself right. Ginny's behavior had been becoming more and more erratic, and sometimes he felt as if she was aware that he was following him around. He would often find her scribbling away in her black diary, and she would hardly veer be found without it.
During mealtimes, he would often catch her staring at him with a complicated expression. Her moods would shift quickly, and she was growing paler and paler with every passing day until one day he found her anxiously rushing towards the girl's toilet on the Second Floor, shouting and crying anxiously, the black diary in her hand.
And then he heard the sounds of her crying in the bathroom, followed by the sound of the flush running as she rushed out of the washroom while sobbing, the black diary not in her hands.
He rushed into the stall after her, and walked towards the toilet that had the sounds of a flush running. He walked slowly and opened the Stall, and found the diary there, she had tried to flush it away. He took out his handkerchief and reached for the diary, yet to his surprise, the diary was completely dry despite being submerged in water.
Was it an enchantment? He thought as he carefully wrapped it in his handkerchief and rushed out of the washrooms, and ran back to the dormitories. He reached his room, and closed the door, bolting it as and reached his desk and opened the diary.
And his eyes widened as he skimmed through the diary, and found it empty. He checked for ripped pages and found no evidence that any pages had been ripped away.
"This cannot be right. I definitely saw her writing into this," he whispered to himself as he skimmed through the diary once more. Yet it was empty still, much to his surprise. He took out his wand, and pointed it at the diary, and waved it in a semi-circle as he whispered.
"REVELIO." The diary glew as he used the clairvoyance charm, yet at first the charm showed no reaction. And just as he thought that he had been wrong, the diary opened up, and a text began to appear on it in cursive.
~Hello~
And his eyes couldn't believe him as the text vanished, only to be replaced by a new line.
~'I am Tom, who are you?~
Crovus was hesitant at first, a bit shaken by the apparently alive diary. Yet for some reason he felt compelled to answer. So, he picked up his quill and began to slowly scribble, not knowing that this little action would change his life forever.
'Hi, I am Crovus. And who or what are you?' he wrote quickly, not realizing the shift in his magic, as the ink vanished and an answer appeared.
~Hi Crovus, I am Tom. I was a student of this school years ago~
~I thought of leaving behind a legacy, kind of like how the four creators are said to have left behind theirs. So, I enchanted this diary of mine with my~
And without even knowing Crovus Lestrange found himself conversing with the most dangerous wizard of Great Britain.
0000
"Objection!" cut into the voice of Percy Weasley, making him stop as the man rose to his feet.
"There is no record of this diary anywhere. And I find it highly unlikely that a simply enchanted diary is relevant to this case," argued Percy Weasley, and Amelia Bones turned towards Daphne.
"The diary was real, and had my opposing Council not interrupted me so quickly he would have found out the connection between this enchanted diary and Voldemort," she answered though Percy wasn't having it.
"You still haven't answered the first question. How do we even know, that this diary ever existed and isn't just a tale that your client is weaving to distract the court? He said that someone else had the diary before him, why don't you call this mysterious person to the stand, to first confirm the...."
"He is telling the truth!" suddenly, someone shouted from the crowd, and his head snapped towards the source of the voice and found a red-haired person standing up, as they slowly moved to remove their mask.
He saw Percy Weasley pale as he recognized the person who had just spoken up. It was none other than his own sister.
Ginny Weasley had spoken up.
And then Daphne turned towards Amelia Bones and spoke in a small voice.
"The Defense would like to call, Miss Ginny Weasley to the stand!"
And then pandemonium broke out.
0000
A day before the trial, Daphne Greengrass found herself sitting across a young redhead as she slowly spoke.
"Just do this. Please, you owe him." And as the redhead tried to argue, Daphne slowly answered while standing up.
"Please, I know you hate him. But you don't have any idea why he did what he did and if you did you will regret not coming to court tomorrow for the rest of your life."
0000
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