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Hogwarts
–Damian Hawthorne–
His eyes snapped open, revealing the inky darkness of the room and the magical presence of his roommate, likely sleeping soundly. It was his idea to blackout the windows during sleep, and Terry, being who he was, agreed immediately.
Getting up, he saw the time was 1 AM, did a full sweep of his room, and his body as well, before remembering something. Sighing, he got up, changed, and began heading to the exit of Hogwarts. It had been an entire week since his destruction of Azkaban, and while he had been annoyed at first that his name had not come out, making the whole endeavour pretty pointless, an anonymous tip to the Daily Prophet had straightened that out quite well.
Now, the entire world knew that the Giant Killer was responsible for the Azkaban debacle, with heated discussions about his overall power levels and his past actions being discussed both in Hogwarts and in the newspapers. It established his goal of moving the Wakandans away from Hogwarts, and just last night, Tommy confirmed it for him.
The "guests" had left Hoggy, and that meant he was finally free to go out, for slightly longer this time, instead of just spending 10 minutes outside Hogwarts, and that was with the travel time to the Sewer Tunnel and the opening that led to the outside world. He was glad that he did not have to go out to persuade them to include it, just in case the government had a gag order, but as it turns out, either the government did not care that much about gagging the newspaper, or the Daily Prophet just didn't care enough.
Within minutes of exiting his Dorm, he was back in the Sewers, humming along comfortably as he was now in a bubble of stored air, having compressed fresh air from his dorm into a tiny force field, and using that as his primary air source right now. No need to subject his senses to the filthy senses here.
Once he was out of the tunnel, he, as usual, flew low to the ground and began heading out of Hogwarts' ground, which was mostly forest all around, heading to his Lair.
Technically, he could remain inside Hogwarts for a few more weeks with ease, as he had improved the Prison Dungeon Floor after the whole thrall fiasco, to become a long term solution to hold prisoners in stasis, with better monitoring as well as contingencies to wake the prisoner up just in case the protocols failed to act properly, confining the prisoner to an area that had enough supplies in it to last weeks, even without the slow metabolism that came with being in what was basically suspended animation.
Not true stasis, but close enough. Once he got his hands on Kamar Taj's library, he was sure he could whip up something far better, with ease.
No, there was a reason he was kind of risking stuff and heading to the Lair. The only prisoner there was Sirius, with all the others killed off during his destruction of Azkaban, depriving Voldemort of his lieutenants just in case he broke out, and also because he did not want the hassle of keeping all of them alive. All the Death Eaters and even two people who had been convicted of participating in the activities of The Alliance, Grindelwald's version of the Death Eaters, were summarily wiped off the surface of the planet instantly.
A painless death. That was all he could give them, with the sole exception being Sirius Black.
The reasons for that were manifold, chief among them being his innocence in the whole matter. Oh, sure, he could be charged with some other crimes due to the whole War situation at the time, but he did not deserve to go to Azkaban of all places, not when someone like Malfoy and Lestrange were still out, living their lives in luxury and comfort.
The second was a more pragmatic reason. Sirius Black was the sole living true member of the House of Black, not in the sense of him being pureblood or anything, but because of the name. There was no one aside from Sirius who was alive and was officially recognised as a Black.
Andromeda was a Tonks, and so was her daughter. Draco was a Malfoy, so was Narcissa. Arcturus Black was dead. That left only a single person who would de facto become once he was out in the open. Draco would need some Ministry Manoeuvres and to become an adult to have a shot at the Black Fortune, something that Malfoy was no doubt eyeing.
The political power of the house of Black could not be underestimated, even if it was wholly useless to him.
Also, it was just a good thing to do. An even better thing to do would be to make sure that the meet between Sirius and Harry happened soon. After all, there were only three days before Halloween, and he supposed that meeting Sirius would be far better than stewing on his parents' death while the world around him celebrated it with gusto.
As he went out of the Portal room and teleported to the Prison Floor, he was greeted to the semi transparent force field around Sirius, who looked far better than he did when he first came here. He supposed that not being in the presence of those vile creatures would be an automatic improvement. He had his Animmagus form, but even that could only go so far when the entire prison seemed to be designed as a torture chamber instead of an actual prison.
Dumbledore's order to make no new additions to Azkaban was a step in the right direction, but destroying it felt far better than it should, especially since it also deprived the vile Dementors of targets. Frustratingly, he was unable to actually destroy them, even with the knife, and he did not have the time or freedom to test some of his more damaging attacks to see if they could be destroyed or not.
He had a pretty strong hunch that a strong enough concentration of energy could vaporise the Dementors, even if they were not strictly physical creatures. No matter what the Magical World believed, an Infinity Stone to the face was not something any being in the entire Wizarding world could survive, especially if it was of the Purple Variety.
After making sure that Sirius' body was fine, he went up to his workshop to don his casual costume before going back down. He mentally patted himself on the back to create multiple quarters for people who did not have to be suspended, but could not be let out in the wider base.
Sirius was not a threat whatsoever even with a wand and at his prime, let alone now but it was the principle of not letting anyone near his stuff at all, that led him to take Sirius forcefield, after unlatching it from the wider Prison Dungeon ward system, something he had integrated with the Ward Matrix instead of the isolated system it was when he first put it together hastily, and deposit him on a rather comfortable bed in a very large bedroom that looked like a decent 3 star hotel room.
He had no plans to build more luxurious ones, as this was only supposed to be a temporary solution.
Watching Sirius' breath hitch, before it evened out, he went back to his workshop, to work on something that was at the top of his priority list for now.
The investigation into his behavior when confronting creatures of magical importance. He could not shake the feeling he was compromised, not when the evidence spoke for itself, despite his spells not detecting anything whatsoever.
Going through his notes to find anything he might have missed seemed like a nice way to pass the time until Sirius woke up. If he didn't wake up in a few hours, a nice little jolt to the body should do the trick. He did not have all day, after all.
"Let's see," He muttered to himself, writing down everything he remembered from that incident, with the first being one of that Baby Unicorn, then the Vampires, then the House Elf Tommy.
The Unicorn was a Baby, a lone Baby, which was supposed to be impossible as Unicorns did not let that happen, ever.
The Vampire was a pureblood Vampire, a rarity amongst Vampires, as he was born naturally from vampires, something that was so rare it might as well be impossible.
The third was a House Elf whose chains had been loosened so much, that he was practically a different breed compared to the other House Elves that had been documented for centuries.
The Baby Unicorn reminded him of his time back in the Siberian Taiga, and more importantly, of the demon he had sealed near his cave. He wondered how that Demon came to be sealed there. Was it a coincidence or was that also a decision made based on some vision from the Time Stone?
The Alliance?
After what felt like hours but was only one, of scratching his head about the whole phenomenon, he decided to go out and get some fresh air, air that was not of Hogwarts or its surrounding areas.
Time to go back to the Siberian Taiga.
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