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(Enchanting Melodies) Chapter 390: The Hungry Wolf
🕑 Added 2024-12-12 14:00:09 +0000 UTCChapter 390: The Hungry Wolf
3 May 1995, London
The Lycan leader glared at Harry, and the young wizard was about to stab him again, only to hear a familiar voice yell out behind him, “Harry! That’s enough.”
The last Potter turned, “Hello, Remus. It’s been a while. I believe there’s a lot we need to talk about.”
Harry watched as Remus Lupin gave him a stern nod, before walking towards the man that Harry had been in the midst of interrogating. He knelt down and spoke up, “Are you alright, Gideon?”
“Fine,” the Lycan gasped.
“He’s not fine,” Harry retorted, “He inhaled powdered silver. It will slowly corrode him from the inside, first, his lungs will be the first to go, and he’ll be unable to breathe while feeling like he’s being burned from the inside out. But he can still be saved unless the powder makes its way into his bloodstream, which should be in around five minutes. Can you imagine the silver slowly spreading all over his body bringing with it complete and intense pain, in every organ? His liver, his heart, even his brain. Five minutes until the damage is irreversible, where even the best healer in the world would not be able to save him from an excruciating death.”
“Harry, that’s enough, I’ll answer your damn question, just let the man go.”
The last Potter tilted his head, “But I’m not doing anything. You’re perfectly welcome to just take him, but apparating him will only cause him to die faster and moving him won’t work. I don’t think you have a portkey on your person. The only way to really stop it would be to have someone stop the silver from moving, someone with a connection, even as faint as it could be, to the silver. I wonder who that could be.”
“Harry please,” the man begged.
“Then answer the question. Did you order the Lycans to attack Arcturus Black?”
“No,” the first Lycan answered immediately, “I didn’t. Things have been shaky ever since…”
Harry finished for him, “Ever since Lily died. I expected as much.”
“Did you do it,” the older man asked, “Did you really kill Lily?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“How can I believe you?”
Harry couldn’t help but burst into laughter, “Do you seriously think I give a damn what you think about me? Do you think I care enough about you to lie? Believe me, if I had killed her myself, I’d have prepared myself to face your kind and wouldn’t have been taken off-guard by the attack on Arcturus. I’d have killed you all off, without even a shred of hesitation. You’d be a threat, then. In a way, you still are.”
The young wizard saw the Lycan gulp audibly. Well, that intimidated him enough for this, but for some reason, Lupin only cared about something, “So, she’s really dead, huh?”
Harry’s breath caught in his throat at the sheer pain in Lupin’s voice, “Yes, she is. I saw it happen on Olympus. She saved my life.”
Lupin’s gaze sharpened, “And yet you’re attacking us, her servants, her children.”
“Her children? Damn, I knew that whatever false loyalty Lily implanted into you was strong, but do you seriously call yourselves her children.”
One of the Lycans at the other side of the room growled, but Lupin silenced him with a look, “We are her children in every way that matters. She gave us life, she gave us hope, and that’s more than enough for all of us.”
“She also brainwashed you,” Harry replied dryly, “And that’s what’s making this so troublesome. I’d have loved to just come here and talk, but every single person wanted to kill me on sight. Someone weaponized your very nature to be used as weapons against me, maybe even against you, Lupin. You obviously aren’t in charge anymore, are you?”
“I’m still in command,” the first Lycan protested.
“Is that what you think?” the young wizard answered mockingly, “Your subordinates, unprompted, decided to attack one of the most politically powerful men in the country, and picked a fight with me, of all people. Seriously, Lupin, do you feel in charge here?”
“They didn’t know any better.”
Harry rolled his eyes, “Not know any better? Are you joking? This isn’t kindergarten, this isn’t Hogwarts, where you could do whatever you want and blame it on the immaturity of your friends. This is the real world, and these are grown people. Actions have consequences. Believe me, if it wasn’t, then I’d have wiped out every single Lycan off this nation before sundown for what they did to Arcturus, and believe me, I really want to do that. But, you see, I’m not an idiot and didn’t come in killing everyone in sight. You’re supposed to be their leader, Lupin. Act like it. Be in charge, stop them from even thinking of doing anything like this again.”
Lupin gulped and nodded, and Harry continued, “But we’ve gone off-topic. Someone set your boys after Arcturus to hurt me. Who is it?”
The older man looked hesitant and Harry glared at him, “I swear to God, Lupin, if you don’t tell me the name, I will find out my own way, and you’ll definitely won’t like how I do it.”
“Fine, it was Dumbledore.”
Just like that, the anger evaporated from Harry’s mind and instead was complete and utter shock. Albus Dumbledore, one of the men Harry despised the most, who had turned Britain into a shade of its former self, who had been playing a game, setting up a ritual on a scale that the world had probably never seen before.
This was too early. The former headmaster should have been too busy trying to set up his ritual properly, especially with the mess Harry caused in the first one. Attacking Harry now wouldn’t really make any sense. He should have been trying to make Britain look safer and a sudden death of a student was an easy way to discourage people. He also should have known that Harry would be able to fend off the Lycans easily enough.
Was he trying to get Arcturus off the board, and remove the support of one of Harry’s greatest allies?
He needed to think, and he couldn’t do that with over a dozen Lycans staring at him, “Everyone out!”
The walls let the Lycans go, and one of them fell from the ceiling. Remus turned to them and nodded, getting them to leave, “What about Gideon?”
Harry rolled his eyes, “I enchanted the silver to turn to Copper before reaching the bloodstream. He’ll need a detoxification potion and he’ll be alright in a couple of minutes. I’m not a monster, Remus.”
Slowly, but surely, the entire house was emptied out, leaving only Remus and Harry. The latter gave the man an intense look and uttered, “What happened with Dumbledore? Don’t leave anything out.”
The Lycan took a deep breath and sat down in the middle of the ruined living room, “There was a meeting between me and the leaders of each group of incoming werewolves. You have to understand that my people come from all over Europe, and they’re already in tight-knit communities. I couldn’t exactly break them up, instead, I put them into packs, each with a different leader. It’s why I’ve been having a hard time controlling them. Most leaders understand the wisdom of not being overly violent, but there are a few outliers, mostly young people who want to rage against the world. I’ve been trying to reign them in, and Lily did help with that. At least she did before she got distracted with some project like she always did and sort of disappeared without any contact. With what happened in Greece, people were worried, myself included. She never really cut communications with me for so long, and Snape told me that she was planning on going there. I wanted to calm them down while we investigated what happened, but that was when he came.”
“Dumbledore,” Harry muttered.
“Yes. He came out of nowhere and told everyone that Lily was dead and that you killed her. Everyone just went ballistic. I did my best to tell them not to take Dumbledore’s words at face value and that I would be investigating the matter personally. But it looks like a few of them didn’t listen, and attacked your guardian to try to find you, or it was just to hurt you. I genuinely don’t know.”
“And you can’t know which of the leaders will try anything again because it’s not a conspiracy. They’re not following any orders. They’re the ones making the decisions and it’s not coordinated. What a fucking mess.”
Lupin snorted, “You can say that again and it wouldn’t do any good to have us fight one another, especially since we obviously have a common enemy here. You certainly can’t afford more enemies with Dumbledore scheming against you once more.”
Harry nodded, “You’re right to say that I don’t need more enemies, especially after Lily… However, I can’t exactly keep forgiving people trying to kill me. And things are bound to be very tense with the way Arcturus dealt with his attackers. You need to calm them down, because believe me, I won’t be as kind as I was today if I’m the one being attacked.”
“I’ll handle it, but I’m going to need something more than ‘Lily died in Olympus’. We need something more than that. We need to push the blame off you. So, who did it? Who killed Lily?”
“Gellert Grindelwald,” he simply responded.
The room seemed to grow colder at the mention of his name and Lupin shivered, “That’s impossible. He’s a prisoner in Nurmengard. If he escaped, everyone would know about it.”
“He’s working with Dumbledore,” Harry simply stated.
“Well, I can’t tell them something this ridiculous, even if it might be true.”
“And I don’t care. That’s your problem, not mine. It’s your people who will get themselves killed if they attack me or anyone close to me. Maybe that’s what Dumbledore…”
Harry froze at that last sentence. Something felt off. There was something that he was missing, something very important. He mumbled, “Dumbledore, as much as he hates me, knows that setting the Lycans against me would not kill me. No offence, but you’re not that much of a challenge. You’re the strongest one and I could beat you a year ago. I’ve grown a lot since then. Sure, you could attack my friends and family, but ultimately, I’d win. The only people in a position to fight me with a chance of killing me are either him or Voldemort. Anything else would be barely more than a distraction. If he wanted to kill the Lycans, then he’d do it himself. He could have killed you all in that meeting and then taken his time hunting each group down. No, Dumbledore would never use something as uncertain as this. He knows that I could end up meeting you and that we’d come to a ceasefire.”
Lupin looked completely speechless as Harry was murmuring to himself, but he didn’t contribute, letting Harry continue, “There’s something more. The way the Lycans reacted isn’t normal. Sure, they’re angry, but attacking a Pureblood in the middle of the street, in front of Gringotts, that’s more than anger. That’s pure recklessness. Even if they didn’t die fighting Arcturus, the Goblins would have attacked them too, and that’s a recipe for disaster. That kind of short-sightedness isn’t normal. Lily’s artificial loyalty isn’t supposed to be completely unreasonable. She liked people who were clever. She’d get bored otherwise. This reaction isn’t really normal. It’s too much, too strong. It’s like… oh!”
“What is it, Harry?” Remus asked.
“This was never about me. I wasn’t the target. I was the scapegoat. How couldn’t I have seen it? It’s been staring at me straight in the face.”
“Harry, I swear to Merlin that if you don’t say tell me what’s going on…”
The young wizard interrupted him again, “Dumbledore’s influence in Britain is almost non-existent. Arcturus and I did a very good job wiping it out, and Lily cleaned up whatever we missed. He needs a way to ensure authority, something that wouldn’t raise too many red flags. An army of vampires coming to Britain is bound to get a lot of attention, but Lycans, they’ve been here for a while. He didn’t want to kill your kind; he wanted to take over.”
The moment Harry said that the Lycans that Harry had just defeated ran back to the house, screaming. Remus turned towards them, his tone turning harsh, “What’s happening?”
“We called for reinforcements to deal with Potter, but they’ve gone insane. They killed Gideon.”
“Who are they?”
As if summoned by their mentioning, dozens of Lycans entered the room. However, they were noticeably bigger, and their eyes were glowing with power, “Remus Lupin. What a pleasant surprise,” the leader spoke up.
“Garrick,” Lupin retorted, “What have you done?”
“What I had to do. I did want to believe that he was right, but here you are, working with our queen’s murderer. You’re a traitor to your kind, Lupin, to your very creator.”
Harry raised his hand, “One little thing, I didn’t kill the Red Witch.”
The Lycan called Garrick turned towards him with a menacing smile, “I’m going to enjoy hearing you scream as I break every bone in your body. I will skin you alive and watch you as you beg for death. It will be beautiful, redemptive, as you pay for what you have done to our queen.”
Harry rolled his eyes, “Yeah, whatever. It’s my fault for trying to argue with zealots. I guess that I’m going to kill you all now.”
He prepared to wipe them out, only to hear a very familiar ringing with his Arcane Hearing. It was something that made him instinctively wary and angry, and he raised his wand, ready for any attack.
But no attack came, and instead, a very familiar figure entered the room, speaking in a fake kindly voice, “Now, now, young Harry. Is that a way to talk to your guests?”
“Albus Dumbledore,” the last Potter retorted, “How’s the boyfriend? Lily’s last attack must have done a number on him.”
AN: Sorry for the cliffhanger. Again. I swear most of the time I don’t mean to do it. I usually start writing with an entire arc in mind, and when I reach my word/time limit, I just end the chapter in what I think is the most fitting way. At least the next chapter will be pretty intense, I guess. Anyway, about the Lycans, since you’re all bound to ask, they’re not all corrupted by the Light. That’s all I’m saying to avoid spoiling anything, but I’m sort of expecting this question to come up. As usual, I don’t mind rewriting the chapter depending on your feedback, so, as usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.
Comments
Abe 7
Please let there be an epic showdown and make the lycans turn on Dumbledore
Sad Rain
Thank you for the chapter
