Chapter 118: Invitation, Interrogation, and Twin's talk

[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

Quinn walked back to the hospital wing. He was stretching his limbs while thinking about his conversation with Dumbledore.

'It went well. I was pulled out at an appropriate time. I need to thank grandfather for that.'

Quinn looked at his bandaged hands. They were almost healed, which was the reason he had been able to do a sleight-of-hand card swap in front of Dumbledore.

'I'll write him a letter after Madam Pomfrey gives me her consent.'

The matron had asked Quinn to return after his talk with the Headmaster. Quinn knew that if he didn't return Poppy would come to his dorms and drag him to the hospital wing.

'I'll probably have the reply waiting for me at the workshop,' thought Quinn as he entered the hospital wing.

"Madam Pomfrey, I'm back!" called out Quinn as he began to remove the bandages so as to make it easier for Poppy to cast the spells and get his hands healed.

Quinn's attention was on the bandages wrapped around his hands. As such, he wasn't looking to his front but, then, he sensed something in his front. He stopped.

He looked up and saw Lily Potter standing in front of him. Suddenly, she walked to Quinn and hugged him.

Quinn's arm immediately went up in the air as Lily Potter embraced him.

'What? What's this? What's she doing?' thought Quinn while being hugged tighter.

He could look over her shoulder and saw Ivy Potter standing at a distance. After spotting her, Quinn mouthed out some words.

'What's happening?'

Ivy didn't say anything and simply gestured to Quinn to allow Lily to do whatever she was doing.

"Thank you. Thank you for saving Harry. Thank you so much." Lily finally spoke as she continued to hug Quinn.

Quinn gingerly patted the lady with one arm on the back to soothe her. "It's alright, Professor Potter. I simply did what seemed right at that moment."

Lily finally let go of Quinn. She thanked him for the last time before stepping away from him.

But it seemed this wasn't over as James Potter stepped forward after his wife. He heavily padded Quinn on both his shoulders.

"You did well out there, son," praised James with an approving smile on his face. "Damn good quick thinking. You saved the day."

"Thank you for the compliment. It means a lot when it comes from the mouth of an Auror of your calibre," replied Quinn humbly.

James, too, was done thanking him and stepped back.

This time Quinn was sure it was over and was about to go find Poppy, but he was wrong once again.

He couldn't move as Ivy Potter walked near and stood in front of him.

The two students stared at each other as Quinn waited for Ivy to say something.

"...k y..." said Ivy, not looking at Quinn. She seemed very interested in the floor between her and Quinn's feet.

"Pardon, I didn't catch that," said Quinn, not able to hear Ivy's words.

Ivy bit her lower lip before looking up at Quinn and spoke again, this time loud enough for Quinn to hear.

"Thank you."

Quinn was surprised for a moment. Not because of her words, but because of the expression the redhead had and the look in her eyes.

Except for their first meeting, Ivy had always looked at Quinn with a guarded and cautious look. The way she looked at him worsened after Quinn slammed her into a wall as he threatened and blackmailed her.

Right now, however, there was a true and honest thankfulness in her eyes. There wasn't any caution. There were no worries. It could be seen that her face truly reflected how she felt.

"... You're welcome," replied Quinn. He had to recover from the surprise of seeing someone he was used to seeing explicitly angry with him in another way.

Ivy wordlessly nodded and stepped away. She walked towards Harry's bed and disappeared behind the curtains that framed the beds.

With his eyes following Ivy, Quinn didn't notice Lily step forward once again.

"Quinn, I would like to invite you for dinner at our house during the summer break," invited Lily.

Quinn, who was watching Ivy, abruptly turned to Lily when her words landed on his ears.

"That won't be -"

He politely tried to decline the invitation, but the mother of the twins cut him off before he could even finish his sentence.

"I insist, Quinn," pressed Lily. "You saved my son today. Please give me the chance to thank you for it."

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Quinn opened his mouth to once again refuse, but Lily's expression stopped him. He nodded.

"I would be delighted, Professor Potter."

A beautiful smile bloomed on Lily's face when Quinn accepted her offer.

"I'll send an invitation to your house for your parents," smiled Lily.

"That would be helpful, Professor," nodded Quinn in reply. He then looked up and spoke. "Please excuse me, Professor. I need to meet Madam Pomfrey so that she can complete the healing."

Saying that, Quinn raised his unbandaged hands.

"Oh my, yes. Sorry for making you wait. These must hurt," said Lily hurriedly.

Quinn politely nodded and walked past both the Potter parents towards the matron's office, who saw Quinn and noticed that his hands weren't bandaged.

"Quinn! Didn't I tell you not to remove the bandages! Why did you remove them?" scolded the Matron. "This is why children are foolish. They don't know what's good for them."

Quinn blinked his eyes and opened and closed his mouth a few times before saying.

"... I didn't!"

"Liar! I can see from your hands that the bandages weren't removed right now."

"But, but, but..."

"Don't make excuses. Now sit down and let me heal them!"

Quinn, who had been stopped because of the Potter family, sat down as Poppy focused on healing his hands while she lectured him about the importance of following the proper recuperation practices.

- (Scene Break) -

Sirius Black and his direct senior, Captain Auror Gawain Robards, sat inside an interrogation room. In front of them sat Rivers Lock.

The two Aurors had the leader of the Novellus Accionites, but neither of them knew this crucial piece of information. With no one actually knowing Rivers' true identity, they had no idea that they were sitting in front of the kingpin.

"Talk, Rivers," asked Gawain as he stared at the prisoner in front of him. "You were caught trying to kidnap the Boy-Who-Lived. Something that the court won't look lightly at."

"You're screwed, Lock," cackled Sirius at Gawain's side. "A long stay awaits you in Azkaban."

Rivers didn't say a single word. Not a peep could be heard from him ever since he came here. His face still wasn't fully healed. The Aurors had healed him enough to not feel pain, but if Rivers moved his face and expression too much, he'd feel the burning sting of his injuries.

To Rivers, the pain was a reminder that he had failed.

"As Black here says, you'll be in Azkaban for a long time, Rivers. You tried to kidnap Harry Potter and, to boot directly from Hogwarts. That isn't something the heads will look lightly at," said Gawain and then leaned forward. "But if you help us out. Provide us with some information, and we will help you out. We'll ask the Chief Warlock to reduce your sentence based on your cooperation."

"Forget it, Captain," scoffed Sirius. "This shrimp doesn't look like he knows something. We should just chuck him in Azkaban, and the world would be better for it."

Gawain and Sirius had interrogated many Accionite members in the past few months. The aggressive raids had brought in many people through their doors. As such, they had tried to get information about them.

Nonetheless, even if they had tried to get information about the internal structure of Novellus Accionite. The problem was that when they tried to build a clear view of the structure, there were blanks and misses one after another.

After interrogating hundreds, they couldn't tell who was in the inner circle of the Novellus Accionites. There were some who led muggle and muggleborn hunts, so many people pointed at them when asked about the inner circle.

But when the Aurors interrogated those people, they found that the people who had multiple leads under their belts knew absolutely nothing.

Those people simply received detailed instructions about the hunts and were asked to complete them for people who had a higher position in the Novellus Accionites. Successful people would be granted titles and positions that would let them show superiority over others, but other than that, they had no control over the actual organization.

It stunned the Aurors that such a big operation was built solely via communication through letters. Letters from an unknown source.

The Auror department hadn't been able to find who was sending the letters. They wanted to get their hands on the people who planned everything because those were the true inner circle and not the people with bogus titles.

Unfortunately, despite their rigorous attempts, they failed to locate the person or people who sent these letters.

When Gawain heard about the attempted kidnapping while enjoying an early dinner with his wife, he immediately had to come to the Auror office because he thought something of this level would reveal something about the inner circle of the Novellus Accionites.

"Rivers, if you tell us about the people who write the mission plans. We won't not only try to reduce your sentence, but we will also make sure that you aren't in the area of Azkaban frequented by Dementors."

But Rivers didn't even look at them. He kept staring at the table between the two parties. It looked like he wasn't going to cooperate.

The thing was that even if Rivers wanted to cooperate, he couldn't. He was the person in the inner circle they were looking for. No other person drafted the mission plans. Rivers curated and created everything himself, so there was no one that Rivers could point at.

And giving himself away was the last thing he would do. If they found that he was the person behind Novellus Accionites, the Aurors wouldn't bat an eye before chucking him into the deepest hells of Azkaban.

This was the biggest failure of Rivers' life. In an attempt to become the sole controlling force hidden in the shadows, he had isolated himself from any friends or scapegoats. In his arrogance, Rivers had dug a hole to himself, and now there was no way to climb out of it.

After seeing there wasn't any response from Rivers, Gawain and Rivers looked at each other and nodded to move onto the next stage.

The Bad Auror and Good Auror tactic wasn't working, so they had to try something more aggressive to see it achieved something.

Sirius slid a file to Gawain, who opened it and started reading it out loud.

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"Rivers Lock. A clerk who works for the ministry memo department," spoke Gawain as he read from the file in front of him. "You've been working in the same position ever since graduating from Hogwarts. You've rented the same house from the time you started working. No partner. No friends. Nothing to look at, and absolutely nothing to work with."

Gawain looked up at Rives and asked, "Tell me, Rivers Lock. Why were you made the leader on the kidnapping of the Boy-Who-Lived? Why would someone as mediocre, ordinary, and average as you, who hasn't done anything relevant in his life, be chosen to front something as important as this?"

The two Aurors finally saw a reaction, as they saw Rivers clench the fist of the hand he had on the table. They had finally been able to elicit a reaction out of Rivers. It was the first reaction he had given ever since being brought to the holding cell.

Inside Rivers, the words 'mediocre', 'ordinary', and 'average' rung loudly. He had been used to hearing these and was able to control the rage he felt when someone said words like these to him. But right now, after the biggest failure and amid the crisis of his life. Some of that rage leaked out.

Gawain glanced at Sirius, and Auror Black pulled on a sneering face.

"Haha, these Novellus Accionites must be complete idiots!" he scoffed derisively. "To think they would handle something so important to someone like you. If it was me, I think any musclehead would have been a better choice than... you."

Sirius' voice dripped with mocking and belittlement. He drew those words directly from his family members from when he had been sorted into Gryffindor. He even was channeling the same tone he had gotten used to hearing whenever he was at home.

And for once in his life, these words brought him joy, as he saw Rivers look up at him with a look full of hatred.

'It's working,' thought the Auror inside Sirius.

He knew this was his job and he had work to do.

"Why are you looking at me like that? Huh?!" Sirius leaned back into his chair and smirked.

"Look at the difference between us. I'm the head of the Black House, while you're just an important son of a small pureblood family. I am an elite Auror while you are a f**cking useless clerk. I'm sitting here deciding your fate while you are sitting there with a broken face."

Sirius laughed loudly and then continued to mock Rives.

"Can you believe that this shit got beaten in by a fourteen-year-old? A fourteen-year-old! That's hilarious! Getting his face broken by a damn kid!"

Rivers started to shake as he looked at Sirius. Sirius's words were becoming super effective and were doing critical damage.

Rivers knew that his entire plan had failed because a kid had beaten him. The kid that he had thought nothing of, had disarmed him. Then kicked him twice and punched him till he lost consciousness.

Everything had failed because of one kid.

And that thought haunted him from the moment he had regained his consciousness.

Rivers considered it the darkest stain of his life.

He wanted to tell the two in front of him that he wasn't ordinary. He wanted to reveal that he was anything but ordinary. That he was the one they were looking for.

But...

Rivers Lock knew that if he spoke, he was dead. So he bit his tongue strong enough to draw blood and used the pain to regain logic.

*Spit*

He spat saliva mixed with blood on the table. Rivers put on an ugly smirk and said.

"F**k you."

Sirius and Gawain looked at blood mixed spit on the table, and something told them that Rivers wasn't going to talk.

But Rivers wanted to get in one blow in, so he looked at Sirius Black and cackled.

"Oi, Black."

Sirius looked up from the table at Rivers, and when he did, Sirius saw superiority on Rivers' face as he spoke.

"Peter Pettigrew says hello."

Sirius and Gawain's eyes widened after they heard Rivers and immediately pressed to get answers, but Rives only laughed at them as the two Aurors coaxed him unsuccessfully in order to get him to talk.

- (Scene Break) -

Ivy Potter sat beside her brother under the cover of the Potter Family's Invisibility Cloak.

Harry was still sleeping and, although the Potter family had wanted to remain in the hospital wing, Poppy chased them out as it was late.

James left Hogwarts to the Auror's office as he got a call from his seniors. Lily was kicked out because she had wanted to stay the entire night.

Ivy was also kicked out of the hospital wing, but the girl twin returned under the Invisibility Cloak and sat down beside her twin just in case he woke up in the middle of the night.

Her decision had been wise. Harry did wake up in the middle of the night.

Ivy watched as Harry shifted in his bed. He then silently sat straight on his bed.

He didn't seem to panic, so Ivy simply watched her brother while still under the cloak.

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Harry stretched his arms and blinked as he looked around with his sleepy eyes. It took him a full five seconds to shake the sleep of his eyes and recall where he was and what he was doing before going to sleep.

"W-What!" stuttered Harry as he looked around cautiously.

Ivy pulled off her cloak to reveal herself when she saw Harry panicking.

"Hey," called out Ivy to gain her brother's attention.

Harry snapped his eyes towards the voice in surprise but calmed down when he saw Ivy.

"Ivy, what am I doing in the hospital wing. I was in the locker room then everything went black. What happened?"

"You were almost kidnapped by the Novellus Accionites," replied Ivy as she poured water from a pitcher into a glass.

"What?! Oh, thank you," spoke Harry as he took the glass, and after taking a short sip, he asked. "What do you mean? I was kidnapped?!"

Ivy then proceeded to explain what had happened. She had listened to everything their father had told their mother while they talked in the hospital, so she had a good grasp of what happened in the Shrieking Shack.

After Ivy finished talking, Harry collapsed back in his bed and stared up at the ceiling.

Harry didn't know how to feel about this. He just went through a serious situation, but he couldn't relate to any of it because he hadn't been conscious.

"... So in short, Quinn West stumbled upon my kidnapping and then saved me by beating the man into a pulp," summarized Harry.

"Yes, something like that," nodded Ivy.

"How do you feel about that?" asked Harry, still lying on his bed and looking at his twin.

"How do I feel? I feel relieved. What kind of question is that?" asked Ivy looking at Harry's head wondering if he was dropped too hard.

"What I mean is how do you feel about Quinn West saving me?"

Ivy stared at Harry in confusion as she asked, "What do you mean?"

"I know that you don't like him, so I was wondering your thoughts about it?" clarified Harry and observed his twin.

"Why would you think that? I don't hate him or anything," asked and replied Ivy suspiciously.

"Oh, come on. You become all jittery when we find Quinn West in the hallways. Don't try to deny it," pressed Harry.

Ivy averted her eyes, but she still could feel Harry's gaze boring into her. She turned back to face Harry and sighed.

"I had something against him, but things are complicated now. I don't know what to think," said Ivy while looking at Harry. "I don't want to talk about it right now."

Harry wanted to press her more but decided against it. He really wanted to know what happened, but seeing that Ivy really didn't want to talk about it, he didn't force her to speak.

"I know I'm not supposed to tell anyone this, but I visited Quinn West alone once," said Harry, and it caught Ivy's attention at once.

"What? When? Why?"

"He's the one who gave me the information on Peter Pettigrew. I wanted to get answers, and you know how everyone says that he has all of them. So I visited him, and he indeed answered all my questions in frightening detail," spoke Harry.

Ivy instantly became worried and asked the first thing that came to her mind.

"Did he allow you to reveal that he was the one who gave you the information?"

Quinn had clearly specified to not let anyone know he was the one providing the information. Ivy and Hermione had been repeatedly warned not to leak the information he had provided them.

She had been worried if he had given the same condition to Harry.

"Hmm? I was the one who asked to keep things between us. West did say that if someone asked him whether he was the one to give me the information, he would straight out deny it," replied Harry. "But he didn't say that I wasn't allowed to tell someone. He would just reply that I'm lying. He even asked me to copy the new article and magazine issues and then burned the paper with his handwriting on it."

Ivy was able to relate to the last sentence. Quinn had burned every sheet of paper with the information he had ever given to her. He even burned the letter he had given to Hermione. He always made sure there weren't any physical traces of their communication.

Harry observed his sister, and he deduced from her question that she had experienced something similar, or else she wouldn't have asked that specific question.

'She must've asked West something,' thought Harry, and his curiosity grew. 'I wonder if Hermoine knows something. Maybe I should ask her... no, l should wait. Perhaps I could go to West and ask him directly… or not. Yeah, I'll wait.'

Quinn West - MC - The healer is bullying me... unfair.

Lily Potter - Professor - Gives strong hugs.

James Potter - Auror - Got a big shock when he reached his office.

Rivers Lock - Leader, prisoner - Has his mind on one person.

Ivy Potter - Girl Twin - It seems the Quinn-encounter rate keeps increasing.

Harry Potter - Boy Twin - Man, I was just kidnapped... huh, well... whatever.

FictionOnlyReader - Author - That ends the quota of an accident from Harry Potter per year.

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