Chapter 28

The news I was waiting for finally arrived a few days later at breakfast. Sirius Black was found innocent and thus released from Azkaban, and he was reinstated as Harry's magical guardian. The Daily Prophet sensationalised the news as they were prone to do and it was bashing Fudge while praising the Ministry. Of course, Barty Crouch and Dumbledore also came under fire with the former losing his job and facing demotion while the latter, of course, didn't face much serious repercussions.

Well, this was the first step I had taken to change the canonical plot and boy was it a massive change. The aftereffects of this will most probably allow me to concentrate only on my studies in my third year, with no dementors or demented serial killers going around the school.

I could finally feel just how powerful the magic of the Boy-Who-Lived is, after all, how couldn't I, with the way he was leaking out his magic? Since he was so happy (I think because he might be able to get away from the Dursleys) the wave of magic he had spread out seemed to be acting as cheering charms for the rest of the Great Hall. It didn't affect me, of course, but still it was impressive that he looked like normal even after spreading out magic all around the hall.

Damn, I guess if he was trained properly he could have been a great wizard, still inferior to me, of course, but still a powerful wizard wasn't allowed to grow because of the paranoia of the Leader of the Light and the interruptions of the Dark Lord, or at least that's what I think. The truth might be vastly different but that doesn't change the fact that there was something more to Potter than just the scar.

Well, enough useless fangirling. Now, it would be time to befriend Potter and silently support him on his eternal quest to get away from the Dursleys. And when he introduces me as his good friend to his dogfath- I mean, godfather, Sirius Black, I will hint at who was responsible for getting him out and reuniting him with the son of his best friends. And then, it will be easy to contact Madam Marchbanks. Huh, I almost forgot why I did all this in the first place.

Black and Potter would make great allies and I could access the Potter and Black library through them. The interference of Dumbledore and Amelia Bones would be troublesome so I'll have to manage somehow.

My first part of my 'befriending Potter' plan commenced when I shot a spell at Ronald Weasley that I called reverse Occlumency. It was a nasty little spell that did the opposite of suppressing emotions, it enhanced them. There were some vicious, cruel curses in the RoR and this one would be one of the ones I feared the most. It reminded me too much of my pact-addled self and thus usually I would avoid using it. But well, all is fair in love and war..and friendship. The best part about this spell is that it is almost undetectable because the evil wizard who created it was even more paranoid than me and Moody combined, which was saying something considering just how absurdly paranoid we both were. And once again, it got me wondering on just what exactly did the founders did to get all these books. A question for another day, perhaps.

The next few days were a tremendous strain on my patience. First I had to control my strength so that I don't accidentally break bones or doors or desks or walls and it was kind of irritating just how annoying that was. I was tempted to stop holding back but that wouldn't be good for anyone so I endured. The classes were so easy that my boredom had reached sky-high heights and combined with my annoyance I had almost started planning on becoming a dark lord. For the first and last time in my life, I was thankful to Ronald Weasley because he provided some entertainment in my otherwise dull life, what with all the random moments of 'truthfulness' he was having.

The relationship of the golden trio was hanging by a strand so thin it was a miracle that there actually existed a strand in the first place. I, of course, started to spend my time with Neville and Harry and Hermione, and subtly used Legilimency every once in a while to either read their thoughts or influence them. It took just a nudge for the trio to cut off their relationship with Ronald who by now had shown off his jealousy, pettiness and his desire to befriend Harry only because he was the Boy-Who-Lived and Weasley wanted some of that fame for himself. Of course, since he still was a 11 year old the degree of his desires hadn't reached the apex of what he was capable of but the presence of that possibility of him becoming an insufferable character was more than enough for their 'friendship' to end. Now, I personally didn't have much against Ron but well, like someone says, it's all for the 'greater good'.

Another subtle Legilimency nudge ensured Neville and I had become their 'best' friends. I almost felt bad for the red-headed Weasley, almost being the keyword because I liked Neville way more than him and he seemed to be a better choice than the guy who abandoned his 'friends' at the emergence of a piece of paper from a glorified cup.

By the time my plan of 'befriending Potter' had finished, it was Christmas and thus almost time for the vacations. The main characters hadn't yet gotten to 'discovering' Fluffy the Cereberus and that was fine with me, because I was kind of hoping to use the Integrator on Cereberus to see if I could get an ability that would let me emulate my second Mind, which by the way hadn't stopped working for so long, and boy, my abilities were really broken because there's no way I should be able to understand those spells and concepts and be able to actually cast them. Well, I wasn't complaining, it just felt a bit weird because I could learn what the oldies of the Wizarding World learnt in their lifetimes in hours. It made me a bit suspicions of what exactly the being who had sent me in this world wanted from me, because there's no way I was getting all this for free.

My dampened mood recovered while walking with the trio (Neville replaced Ron, while I acted like a tagalong) when I discovered that Sirius Black was coming to Hogwarts to meet his godson but I almost halted in my footsteps when it was clear that Amelia Bones was coming along as well.

Hmm, since I was going to stop acting like a mastermind from the shadows and reveal myself, because no matter how cool that was it just wasn't for me, I suppose now would be a good time to plan how do I get unscathed out of the wrath of an aunt...