Harry was stunned, hardly believing his ears.
"I—I didn't expect…" he said hesitantly. Hodge had been reading books the whole time lately.
"Reading books is a good way to kill boredom." Hodge propped his head with one hand and lifted his wand with the other. From the tip flew one colorful flash after another, like fireworks, illuminating a small patch of starry sky in front of them.
Harry could tell those were individual spells—some very familiar, others completely unknown. He'd bet anything that among them were the Stunning Spell, the Disarming Charm, and the Impediment Jinx. Some of the spells made his heart race.
"I have a question," Harry said in an unusually serious tone.
Hodge turned his head to look at him closely.
"Go ahead, Harry."
"You… are you like Ginny?"
"In what way?"
"I heard… Mrs. Weasley mentioned it by accident. Ginny went through that magical accident too. You were in the ward next to hers at the time," Harry said slowly.
"Yeah."
Harry stared at the sky. Without Hodge's firework display, it felt darker, and even the twinkling stars seemed dimmer.
"Ginny saw part of the future. What about you?"
"Same here," Hodge said, just as slowly.
Harry hadn't expected Hodge to answer so directly. The questions piled up in his mouth, giving him a strong urge to ask more, just like he had with Ginny. But he changed the question. "You invited me to be your assistant—to reform the Ministry of Magic."
"That's right." Hodge's reply was surprisingly concise.
"Then… will we win?"
"Absolutely!"
"Will… will there be sacrifices?" Harry asked vaguely.
A moment of silence.
Hodge looked up at the stars. Faces flashed through his mind: Cedric Diggory, Sirius Black, Dumbledore, Mad-Eye Moody, Dobby, Fred, Lupin and Tonks, Snape… oh, and Harry's admirer, Colin Creevey. All people who had originally died.
The night was quiet. The two returned to Number 12 Grimmauld Place. In Hodge's own room, he lay alone on the bed. Hodge felt it deeply. This was his gift—sensing others' emotions. He wasn't sure if it was an extension of Occlumency, but either way, his sensitivity in this area surpassed Dumbledore's.
So when Hodge "felt it deeply," it wasn't just a figure of speech—it was almost synesthesia.
Hodge seemed to return to the woods, lying on soft grass. But from Harry's perspective. Hodge experienced every tiniest shift in emotion firsthand.
On the other bed, Harry couldn't sleep either. He tossed and turned, muttering Hodge's answer under his breath.
"Except for the necessary sacrifices…"
Damn it. He chewed on the phrase, thoughts swirling in his mind, until he finally drifted into heavy sleep.
The next morning, Hodge, Harry, and Sirius sat at the table with dark circles under their eyes. None of them had slept well. Hodge was halfway through a bowl of porridge before he started to perk up. Kreacher, on the other hand, moved as if on cotton soles, full of energy and cheer. He brought over the food as if humming a tune—clearly he'd slept well and was bursting with vigor.
At least it didn't stop the house-elf from apparating the three of them near the cave.
More precisely, to a cliff facing the sea. Hodge looked back and could see a small village in the distance. He wasn't sure if it was abandoned, but it looked desolate.
While Hodge gazed at the scenery, Kreacher made another trip and brought Harry over too.
The three stood on the sheer cliff. A damp sea breeze blew in from the calm water in the distance, gently brushing their faces and carrying a faint salty tang.
"I don't see the cave," Harry said, looking around.
"It's definitely below us. How could you see the entrance from the top of the cliff? Right, Kreacher?" Hodge asked the elf. He looked down and saw the tide constantly crashing against the black rocks below, whipping up fierce currents.
"You're right, Master Hodge," Kreacher said respectfully, pointing at their feet. "There are many cracks in the rock face below. One of them extends inward into a tunnel—that's where we're going."
Harry muttered something under his breath, probably grumbling to himself about why Voldemort had chosen such a place.
Hodge knew the truth.
It wasn't far from the orphanage!
When Voldemort was young, he'd come to the seaside on outings with the orphanage kids. But only he likely knew the secret beneath the cliff. Voldemort saw himself as immortal, and he stored the "key" to that immortality—his Horcruxes—in symbolic locations from different meaningful stages of his life.
Thankfully, the orphanage he'd stayed in had closed down. If someone had accidentally found and taken it, it would've been impossible to track. But Voldemort wasn't stupid. The orphanage was full of coming and going, energetic children—not a good place to hide a Horcrux.
"How do we get down?" Hodge asked, eyeing a large black rock jutting out from the sea—a perfect foothold.
Harry looked at Sirius. Sirius shook his head without speaking.
"You two decide. I'll keep watch."
At those words, Harry and Hodge's faces darkened instantly. What did he mean? He didn't want to do any work? Sirius grinned at them. "I realized I've been so busy lately that I haven't had time to spend with my godson. So I specially asked Dumbledore for a few days off."
Hodge stared at Sirius's smiling face and really wanted to hit him with a Petrificus Totalus.
"Isn't the Order busy?" Harry asked, puzzled.
Sirius looked uncomfortable. He glanced around, scratched his head. "Alright," he said dejectedly. "You know the Dark Lord has gone quiet for now, so the Ministry is swamped. Dumbledore had me monitoring the Malfoy Manor, but a while back Arthur and his team turned the place upside down…"
So he had nothing to do. Harry and Hodge nodded in unison.
But that wasn't the only reason. Sirius had thought about it all night—his awful family, Regulus, the battles after graduation, Azkaban, clearing his name… For a moment, he suddenly realized he wasn't young anymore. With less than a month until school started, he decided to use this time to properly train Harry and Hodge.
Well, train Harry more. Sirius had dueled Hodge once, but he'd been in bad shape then and hadn't expected a student to have such high-level dueling skills. Sirius rubbed his chin, planning to find a chance to spar with Hodge.
"…Harry, Hodge. Since you're determined to fight the Dark Lord, one day you'll face him. He won't care if you're in third year or fourth. So this is a rare chance to train." Sirius said seriously.
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