Hogwarts: Homecoming

Chapter 4: Before the Grave

Days of continuous snow had buried all the impurities of the old city of London, but the sky remained grim and sunless, hinting that a more ferocious blizzard was still brewing. On the old streets, Muggle sanitation workers struggled with all their might against the accumulated snow, fighting to clear a passable path.

Amos Blaine, dressed in a worn, dark green overcoat, stood in the barren yard, his gaze fixed on the unfinished building before him. Within his pale violet eyes, an unusual magic seemed to swirl.

Unlike the surrounding architecture, which was steeped in the vicissitudes of time and ancient charm of history, this was a stark, six-story block of a building, devoid of any style. It looked like a student dormitory, with more than a dozen rooms on each floor. It was easy to imagine that once completed, it would provide a home for a great many people.

"Amos!"

A call from the main street beyond the iron gate snapped Amos out of his reverie. He turned to see a middle-aged woman hurrying towards him, and a warm, genuine smile spread across his young face.

"Good morning, Mrs. Regan."

"Oh, you should have sent a message ahead, Amos," Mrs. Regan said in a scolding tone after a brief, hurried hug.

"Heh, my apologies. I hadn't planned on being in such a rush, but something's come up. I might be tied up for the next few months, so I came back on the spur of the moment to check on the progress," Amos said with a shrug, his tone light and casual.

"Yes, yes, you're always in such a hurry." Mrs. Regan looked at the handsome young man with pride. He was the most successful child to have come out of the orphanage in recent years, and her face was filled with gratification. "You don't need to worry, Amos. Mr. Parker from the construction crew said they'll be back to work as soon as the Christmas holiday is over. In just two months, the children will be able to move into their new home!"

"Yes. I imagine that's exactly what they're hoping for," Amos said with a smile. He opened the briefcase he was carrying, took out two thick wads of pounds, and pressed them into Mrs. Regan's hands.

Gringotts did offer a service for exchanging Muggle currency, but the exchange rates and limits were strictly controlled. Amos preferred to have his Galleons melted into gold bars, then find a less-than-official gold shop in London to exchange them for pounds. It resulted in some minor losses, but compared to doing business with the greedy goblins, the cost was acceptable.

"This is the final payment for the project. Please see that Mr. Parker gets it."

Mrs. Regan's lips trembled. Words of thanks had been said too many times before to be necessary now. She carefully tucked the money into the pocket of her oil-stained apron, her voice filled with gratitude and hope. "Are you going to see the children, Amos? They'd love to see you. Especially little Hammer, he's been complaining for days that you broke your promise to spend Christmas with them."

"Please tell him I'm sorry, Mrs. Regan. I'll bring him a gift when I come back in the summer."

"Alright." A clear note of disappointment was in her voice, but she didn't press him. She knew that if Amos had the time, he would never refuse to see the children. It seemed he truly did have urgent business to attend to.

The farewells didn't take long. Mrs. Regan had to hurry back to care for the hungry mouths waiting for her. After she left, Amos lingered for only a short while before walking out of the desolate yard.

He walked with a steady pace, heading east along the newly cleared street. The old buildings that lined the road, steeped in countless childhood memories, did not slow his steps.

He paused only once, while crossing a dilapidated stone bridge over a ten-foot-wide river. He stared for a moment at the frozen surface of the water, lost in thought, before continuing on towards a patch of wasteland dotted with sparse birch trees.

In the center of the wasteland sat a cemetery, enclosed by a crooked, rickety fence.

"Scourgify."

Amos's hand remained in his pocket; only his lips moved. Several small whirlwinds materialized out of thin air in the desolate cemetery. After whisking the snow from the rows of tombstones and the dark gray pebble paths, they dissipated as silently as they had appeared.

"I'm sorry, Filena. I forgot to bring flowers."

Amos walked over to a pristine white tombstone. He bent down to brush the last of the icy water from the engraved marble, then stood up straight, gazing at the kindly smiling face of the old woman in the black-and-white photograph.

Buried beneath the stone was the woman who had painstakingly cared for him at the orphanage, the only person he had ever considered family since he had been reborn into this world as a baby.

As if sensing his sorrow, an owl that had been riding the biting wind did not press him to complete its delivery. It landed on a nearby birch branch, tilting its head as it watched him, occasionally preening its wind-ruffled feathers with its sharp beak.

"For the next few months, I have to go back to that school that teaches 'magic tricks'," he murmured. "The school's in a bit of trouble right now. Someone wants me to find something in the midst of the chaos. To be honest, it's not something I want to do."

"Albus Dumbledore—you know, the old man with the white beard who always pretended to bump into me in the library late at night to remind me that staying up late was bad for my health—he won't like what I'm doing now. And I'm not too keen on sneaking around under his nose... But I have no choice. The Galleons they offered... it's too much. It's more than I could make in half a year of hard work."

"And besides, once the new dormitory is built, I want to help the children with their education—"

The biting wind carried away Amos's melancholic sigh, but it couldn't erase the look of frustration on his handsome face.

"It's a shame. If I could just remember the plot, I could probably get this done quickly, take the money, and leave."

This whispered sentence exposed the deepest secret hidden in the heart of the young man standing in the desolate cemetery.

Yes, Amos Blaine was not a 'native' of this world. His soul came from the earth where no supernatural forces existed.

The story of Harry Potter had been a beloved book series from his youth in that past life. But more than twenty years had passed since he had received his Hogwarts acceptance letter in this life. The memories were all a blur. Even a decade ago, when the owl had delivered that letter to his cold room in the orphanage, he had assumed it was some new, elaborate prank.

It wasn't until a man with greasy hair and a hooked nose appeared before him and turned his bed into a toilet with a flick of a small stick that he finally realized he hadn't been reborn into some modern-day fantasy story.

After that, he had desperately tried to recall the plot of Harry Potter, but all he could grasp were vague, disconnected words: Horcrux, Hallows, love and scars, Voldemort and resurrection. The information he'd managed to gather through his own investigations since entering the wizarding world was far more substantial.

Of course, once his magical skills had become more refined, Amos had tried to use unconventional means to retrieve those memories. But the information was stubbornly lost. No matter how hard he tried, it remained hidden within a swirling gray mist, as if protected by an unimaginably powerful spell. In the end, after many failed attempts that had nearly driven him mad, he had been forced to give up.

"That Potter boy is in his second year. There are still several years until graduation, so I don't think I'll have to face the most dangerous situations yet," he mused. "After all, Dumbledore is there... Ah, no, that's wrong. The danger comes from Dumbledore being there..."

Hooo...

Watching his breath turn to vapor in the cold air, a bitter smile formed on Amos's face. "No matter which world you're in, survival is an incredibly difficult thing, isn't it, Filena?"

Fine snowflakes began to drift down from the sky again. The owl in the treetops let out an impatient hoot, the frequency increasing. Amos held out his hand towards the sky. The small note tied to the owl's leg shot through the gray snow-filled twilight and landed steadily in his palm.

Mr. Blaine,

I have completed my negotiations with the Hogwarts Board of Governors. The Board has approved our proposal. You are required to arrive at Hogwarts before eight o'clock this evening to present your plan for investigating the attacker directly to Dumbledore.

On a side note, Lucius Malfoy firmly rejected the proposal to dispatch an investigator. He believes Albus Dumbledore should simply be dismissed. The Greengrass family was the only one to second his motion.

Yours faithfully,

Cacus Fawley

The hasty scrawl spoke of the writer's urgency. The gray owl, unrewarded for its completed task, gave an indignant cry, beat its wings, and quickly disappeared into the flurry of snow.

Amos closed his hand. The note from Cacus transformed, and a single, flawless white carnation grew from a seed in his palm.

"Do you like this trick, Filena?"

On the tombstone, the old woman smiled her kind, approving smile.

Amos smiled back. He turned and walked into the wind and snow. With a loud CRACK, he was gone. The desolate cemetery was empty once more, with only a low, sworn promise lingering in the sparse woods.

"The train of fate is leaving the station. And it's heading somewhere unknown."