Chapter 769: Everyone Forgets About Voldemort

"Tom, you owe me big time."

Tom had barely walked into the Astra Abyssum Guild with Kamio, and hadn’t even had a chance to flirt with the Catherines he’d made, when Sirius dragged him up to the top-floor office.

Then Sirius just stood there, staring at him with a look of deep resentment. It made Tom shudder. A beautiful woman giving him that look would’ve been fine. A man was a hard no. It wasn’t like he swung that way.

"Sirius, take it up with whoever’s actually responsible. Lupin is the one who screwed you over, not me," Tom said quickly.

"If you hadn’t told me Lupin was having such a thrilling, dangerous time in America, would I have gone?" Sirius shot back, fuming.

Tom waved a hand. "Not my problem. If you’d gone a bit earlier, you might’ve gotten to fight some local dark wizards. Too late, and all you get to do is hang out with Jeanne."

Sirius shivered at the name.

Jeanne d’Arc was just as unruly as he was, and nobody had ever managed to rein her in.

After arriving in Dark City, Sirius realized he’d been tricked by Lupin. Then Jeanne showed up and asked him to help build the city.

With Jeanne’s sweet talk and his best friend Lupin insisting that he lend a hand, Sirius eventually agreed.

But Sirius Black had never been one to put up with that kind of treatment. After working for a while, he’d finally had enough, thrown down his tools, and quit.

That was when Jalter showed up and beat him senseless.

Again and again.

The experience had left Sirius with some serious psychological scars.

As far as he was concerned, Jalter was scarier than Voldemort. At least the Dark Lord wasn’t nearly as violent. He simply opened with Avada Kedavra. Jalter, on the other hand, wielded her flag like a whip, lashing him until he howled.

"Tom, if that violent woman ever sets foot in Britain, you have to warn me. I refuse to live in the same country as her."

Violent? Tom tilted his head and thought about it. Jalter had a shorter fuse than Jeanne, sure, but most of the time all that harshness was just talk. She forgot her own threats the moment she’d made them. She was only truly violent when she liked being on top. Especially when she was wearing white stockings.

That’s right. Tom liked dressing Jeanne in black stockings and Jalter in white ones. Contrast was the whole point.

"All right, forget it. You’re back now. Lupin can handle the rest." Tom quickly changed the subject. "What I told you yesterday is about to get started. In the next few days, I want to move the guild headquarters over to Dalaran."

Once it turned to business, Sirius dropped the complaining and nodded. "Moving is easy. The space is already there. We just haul the archives and the warehouse stock over."

"The hard part is getting everyone used to going to Dalaran for headquarters. It’s still too remote for most wizards, and the facilities aren’t complete yet."

"Small problems," Tom said, unbothered. "I’ll talk to Lady Greengrass when I get home and have her raise the public Floo permissions for Dalaran to the max. Anyone will be able to Floo straight in."

Sirius was speechless. How had he forgotten that the Head of the Department of Magical Transportation was this kid’s future mother-in-law? Having people in high places really did make life easier.

"So when do the inner-city houses go on sale? Oh, and can I buy two? One lot is too small." Sirius had the look of a rich guy itching to throw his money around.

Tom shook his head. "No selling until the outer city develops enough to push land values up. But you’ve done good work holding down Astra Abyssum all these years, so I’ll just give you one. Use an Undetectable Extension Charm to make it as big as you like."

Sirius gave him a strange look. "You really are a shark. You’ve got all that money already. Why squeeze everyone else?"

"It’s not squeezing," Tom said, correcting his choice of words. "It’s maximizing returns. I don’t mind not making money, but I’m never letting anyone take advantage of me. Say you have a pile of Galleons and someone swipes a hundred of them. Wouldn’t that hurt?"

"Nope," Sirius said breezily.

Now it was Tom’s turn to be speechless. He’d forgotten that Sirius just didn’t care about money. The moment he broke out of prison, he gave Harry a fancy "ride." After his death, he left the entire Black family fortune to Harry, and since his death was an accident, the will had to have been drawn up ahead of time. Clearly, there was a difference between him and the protagonist. The protagonist got his goodies hand-delivered. Tom had to go out and grab his.

Thinking about that suddenly soured his mood, and he was ready to leave. He figured he’d take Kamio for a quick stroll around Diagon Alley and then head home.

Seeing him about to leave, Sirius hurriedly stopped him. "Don’t go yet! You’re done with your business, but you haven’t helped me with mine."

"What now?" Tom frowned at him. "I already promised you a house, didn’t I?"

"The house isn’t what matters." Sirius shook his head. "Even if you handed it over right now, all I’d do is start decorating early. Professor Dumbledore said Harry has to live with the Dursleys until he comes of age, and there’s still three whole summers to go."

His expression grew serious. "Something’s off with Harry lately. Ever since he got back to the Dursleys’, he hasn’t been sleeping well. He says he has nightmares, but every morning he forgets what they were about. And his scar keeps aching."

"So I want you to come with me to Privet Drive today and take a look at him."

His tone was nowhere near as light as before. He might seem flaky most of the time, but he cared about Harry deeply.

"The scar’s hurting again?" Tom raised an eyebrow, and it dawned on him that he’d been paying almost no attention to Voldemort lately. He had no idea what the guy had been up to.

Couldn’t be helped. Next to enemies like Gaunt, Herpo, and the Quetzalcoatl, Voldemort was basically not important.

Still, since Sirius was asking, and he was curious about Harry’s condition himself, Tom agreed to go take a look.

Sirius was overjoyed. He threw a big handful of Floo Powder into the office fireplace and took them to his home on Grimmauld Place, then fetched Harry from next door.

Harry showed up with his hair a mess and dark circles under his eyes. He clearly hadn’t been resting well.

"Tom, you’re here." He looked happy to see him. Then he nodded to Kamio. "Hello, Miss Kamio."

Kamio just smiled and said nothing, standing quietly at Tom’s side.

Tom gestured for Harry to sit across from him. Once he did, he said, "Harry, Sirius says you’ve been having nightmares again."

Harry’s face shifted, and a weary kind of helplessness crept in. "Honestly, I’m not sure they even count as nightmares. I haven’t slept properly since I left school. Every night my mind goes foggy, like I’m sinking into endless darkness. It feels like a lot happens, but when I wake up I can’t remember any of it. I just feel completely wiped out."

As he spoke, he touched the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead, still shaken.

"It aches too. Not all the time, just in sudden jolts. Yesterday I was doing homework at Sirius’s place and it hurt so much I couldn’t go on. I collapsed on the bed and slept two hours, and woke up even more tired."

Tom looked at him like he’d seen a ghost. It wasn’t the scar acting up that startled him.

"Are you Harry or Voldemort right now? How could you possibly be doing homework in the first few days of vacation?"

Pfft!

Under Harry’s resentful glare, Kamio laughed out loud, and not very politely.

"Tom... is that really how you see me? Someone who hates studying that much?" Harry said bitterly.

Tom said nothing and just stared at him. A few seconds later, Harry dropped his eyes, embarrassed.

"Okay, fine. There’s another reason. Sirius promised that if I finish all my homework, I can stay at the Burrow for a while."

Understanding dawned on Tom. So that was it. He was trying to go see his buddies.

"I can’t say what’s going on yet," Tom said after a moment’s thought. He walked over to Harry and set his cold fingers on the scar. "Get some sleep first. Maybe by the time you wake up, everything will be sorted out."

Before Harry could voice the doubts crowding his head, something slammed into his brain like a hammer. His vision went black, and he passed out cold.

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