Everything about this left Sirius Black full of questions. He kept stopping himself from speaking, with far too many things he wanted to ask Harry.
In the end, when they reached Hogwarts Castle, he finally could not hold it in anymore.
"Harry, why was the Whomping Willow asleep? Was it already like that when you came?"
Harry knew exactly what Sirius meant, and he smiled.
"Godfather, of course not. I used a Stunning Spell on it. That's why it fell asleep."
Sirius stared at him in shock.
"You actually managed to put the Whomping Willow to sleep? Only spells cast by top-tier wizards can make that tree go still!"
The fact that Sirius could even ask that told Harry everything he needed to know. Sirius clearly had not spent much time talking with Lupin, otherwise he would have understood Harry's real strength by now.
Harry did not bother explaining further. He only gave his elder a faint smile and said, "Godfather, I'm very strong."
Outside Hagrid's hut, the lawn looked like a giant had casually rolled out a green carpet. Layers of deep and bright emerald shades overlapped one another, dotted here and there with dandelions and bluebells.
Dew clung to the blades of grass and glittered in the morning sun, scattering tiny points of light. Whenever the wind swept past, the grass rippled like a tide, whispering softly in the breeze.
Several figures were gathered there now: Hagrid, Hermione, Ron, and Ron's pet rat, Scabbers.
Hagrid was crouched on the grass, his thick fingers absentmindedly tugging at a patch of foxtail grass and braiding it into a crooked little ring.
His beard twitched slightly as he asked in confusion, "Why'd Harry tell us to wait for him here? What's he gone off to do now? He's been actin' mysterious for days!"
Hermione was reading even at a time like this. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them lay open across her knees, its pages already bent at the corners.
Every so often she lifted her head to glance toward the end of the path, just as puzzled as Hagrid.
"Exactly. Things have been really tense lately between Harry, Dumbledore, the Ministry, and the pure-blood families. He's been gone for so long, could something have happened to him?"
Ron was sprawled on the grass, letting Scabbers scamper around by his feet as he muttered, "There's no way Harry ran into danger. Minister Fudge is scared out of his mind of Harry now. But why isn't he here yet? I'm starving."
What none of the three noticed was that Scabbers was far more restless than usual today.
His sharp claws scratched thin marks into the ground as he darted back and forth. His tiny eyes spun anxiously in every direction, and every so often he cast a wary glance toward the Forbidden Forest. His tail had puffed up like a bottle brush, and the gray fur all over his body trembled faintly as his instincts picked up a powerful sense of danger.
He had a terrible feeling that tonight was not going to be normal.
Especially after Harry had specifically told Ron to bring him along.
Wait.
Had Harry Potter discovered his true identity?
Peter Pettigrew's thoughts spun wildly, and he was already preparing to flee Hogwarts for a while.
But just as he started to move, before he had gotten very far, two figures came swiftly down the distant path.
One of them was Harry, the person everyone had been waiting for.
And the other...
The instant Peter Pettigrew saw the second man, his pupils shrank violently, and he bolted without a second's hesitation.
But the moment he moved, he suddenly felt himself lifted into the air. In the next instant, he was floating helplessly in front of Ron.
Then he heard a boy's voice filled with pure killing intent.
"Scabbers, where do you think you're going?"
Peter Pettigrew shuddered and looked forward. What he saw was the unbelievably powerful savior, Harry Potter, and beside him, a haggard, much older-looking Sirius Black, staring at him with twisted hatred burning in his eyes.
Oh no.
This rat was finished.
Peter Pettigrew was terrified. His mind went completely blank. He truly could not think of a single person left in the world who could save him now.
The moment Ron saw Harry and that unfamiliar man both looking at Scabbers with murderous intent, he sprang up from the grass. Instinctively, he threw his arms around Scabbers and backed himself against the rough wooden wall of Hagrid's hut.
"Wait, Harry, what's wrong with you? What are you trying to do to Scabbers?"
His voice shot upward, cracking with the shrill edge of adolescence, while the veins in his neck jumped with each harsh breath.
The cold killing intent in Harry's eyes, together with the violent aura coming off the stranger, made Ron's spine go cold. But the trembling of the little rat in his arms only made his blood surge hotter.
Scabbers had been with his family for more than ten years. He was practically part of the Weasley family. Ron had no idea why Harry and this stranger wanted to hurt him, but his first instinct was still to protect him.
Sirius's eyes looked ready to spit fire. He stepped forward with a low growl rumbling in his throat like a beast.
"Get out of the way, Weasley! What you're holding is a murderous traitor!"
His fingers were so tense that the knuckles had gone white, and the hand pointing at Scabbers trembled as if it might turn into claws and rip him apart on the spot.
"What do you mean?" Ron was frightened by Sirius Black's savage expression, but even more confused by what he was saying.
There was obviously something hidden underneath all this.
"Twelve years ago, it was him!" Sirius suddenly yanked down his collar, exposing the ugly old scar at his neck, pale and ghastly in the fading light.
"Peter Pettigrew sold James and Lily's hiding place to Voldemort! He blew up an entire street to fake his own death, and I rotted in Azkaban for him!
"Look at that rat! He's missing a finger. When I cornered him back then, he cut off his own finger to frame me!"
His voice shook with twelve years of agony and fury. Every word sounded as though it were being forced out through clenched teeth.
Ron still stared in disbelief, shaking his head, so Sirius turned abruptly toward Harry and said almost pleadingly, "Harry, please, tell them!"
Harry gave a faint nod and confirmed Sirius's story.
"That's right. That's what really happened."
The moment Ron learned that Scabbers was Peter Pettigrew, he froze completely. His face filled with pure shock and disbelief.
He stared at Scabbers as if he were seeing him for the first time.
But Ron still had enough basic sense left that, the instant he learned the truth, he flung Scabbers away.
That was no longer his pet rat.
That was a vicious criminal.
Thrown from Ron's hands, Scabbers's body changed rapidly until he became a ragged middle-aged man.
He was short and frail, with the overall look of someone so weak a stiff gust of wind could blow him over.
His thinning hair clung flat to his scalp, dull and lifeless, broken by broad patches of baldness. His face looked eerily like a frightened rat's, with a pointed nose that kept twitching and eyes that darted wildly in their sockets, glinting with cowardice and guilt.
Now that his identity had truly been exposed, and with the powerful Harry Potter and Sirius Black standing right in front of him, Peter Pettigrew's legs began shaking violently. His knees knocked together so hard it sounded like they might give way at any second.
He tried to run, but a powerful force pinned him in place so completely that he could not move at all. Only his lips were still free.
Realizing he could not escape, Peter Pettigrew shouted in panic, "It was Voldemort! He forced me! I had no choice!"
Sirius clearly had no intention of forgiving him.
"You filthy worm! You betrayed your own friends!"
"If Voldemort had done that to you, you'd have betrayed them too!" Pettigrew shouted back desperately.
"No, I wouldn't have, not even if it killed me!" Sirius Black snarled, his face twisted with fury. "Twelve years! Every night in Azkaban I listened to the Dementors and dreamed of tearing you apart with my own hands, you traitorous bastard! And what about you? You curled up in the Weasleys' bedsheets pretending to be pathetic!
"I should have snapped your neck back then instead of giving you the chance to fake your death. But it's not too late now. You're dead today!"
Peter Pettigrew still wanted to say something, but neither Sirius Black nor Harry had any interest in hearing another word.
Sirius had no wand now, and more than that, he wanted to give Harry the chance to take revenge himself.
So he turned to Harry and said, "Harry, do it. Kill this worthless traitor."
Harry did not hesitate.
He did not simply wave a spell away carelessly. Instead, he drew his wand and traced an impossibly intricate rune, then cast it onto Peter Pettigrew's body.
In the next instant, Peter Pettigrew's body turned into black ash and scattered into the cold night wind.
At least, that was what everyone else saw.
From Harry's perspective, Peter Pettigrew had been dragged into his pocket dimension. There, Harry lit a candle with Pettigrew's soul itself and intended to let it burn for hundreds of thousands of years.
This was the first time Harry had used this spell he had learned in Hell, and he felt absolutely no reluctance about using such vicious, venomous magic on a traitor, the man who had indirectly murdered his parents.
When Peter Pettigrew's body had completely become black ash and vanished into the air, Sirius suddenly dropped to his knees. He stared fixedly at the last drifting traces of ash, his eyes full of tangled emotion.
After a long while, he drew in a deep breath and slowly lifted his head to the faint ray of light breaking through the clouds overhead. His eyes were slightly red, yet there was a peace moving in them that had never been there before.
A twelve-year hatred had finally come to an end today.
With almost all the Dementors destroyed by Harry, and the Ministry no longer sending new Dementors to Hogwarts, Sirius Black was able to leave Hogwarts quite easily and hide for the time being in another country while avoiding the Ministry's pursuit.
Before he left, Harry told him that it would not take long before he could completely clear Sirius's name and get the Ministry to remove the wanted notice against him. Sirius clearly did not believe him and only smiled, completely unaware that Harry had been absolutely serious.
Time passed quickly, and soon the day arrived for the formal negotiations between the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts.
Before that day came, Harry planned to return to the multiverse for a while.
The planetwide time-locking array covering the whole world naturally required an enormous amount of energy, and all of that energy was being drawn from the Time Stone.
Now that energy was nearly depleted, Harry had to return to the multiverse to replenish it.
This time, he came prepared.
He intended to extract enough energy to last for centuries.
As Harry's strength continued to grow, traveling between worlds became easier and easier for him. Now it only took a brief blur before his eyes, and within a few seconds he had arrived in the multiverse.
Once there, Harry took the Time Stone out of his pocket dimension and laid down an intricate runic matrix. He continuously drew the energy from the Time Stone and poured it into a flawless white crystal.
As the mysterious power of time flowed into it, the crystal gradually turned green. At this rate, it would be fully charged in about a month.
Just as Harry was thinking of finding a world to visit for fun while he waited, Tony called.
"Hey, Harry, doing well lately?"
From Tony's tone alone, Harry knew he wanted something. Otherwise, even with Harry, his spoiled rich-boy buddy, Tony would never have started with such a friendly greeting.
So Harry asked directly, "Go on, Tony. What do you need?"
"Can't a guy call his dear old friend just to stay in touch?" Tony sounded aggrieved, very clearly feeling that Harry had seen right through him.
Harry chuckled.
"All right, all right. I do actually need a favor." Tony finally gave up and got to the point. "I want to borrow the Mind Stone. Or if not that, then just give me some of its energy."
The Mind Stone was currently the main power source of the floating city, and the foundation of its combat strength. Under normal circumstances, it could not be moved at all.
But if it was only gone for a short time, it was still manageable. Between the psychic energy stored in the succubus system and the sealed energy Harry had already drawn from the Mind Stone, there were enough backup energy sources to keep things running.
As long as no battle broke out, that reserve would be enough to keep the floating city operational for a month.
So Harry asked, "That's possible. But you need to tell me what you're planning to use the Mind Stone for."
Tony immediately grew excited.
"I'm going to create an artificial intelligence that's generations ahead of modern technology, a true step-change leap. It'll be the most powerful defense system on Earth, able to protect the planet from future alien invasions or any other threats that might show up.
"And when future crises happen, it'll be able to respond instantly, anywhere, anytime, making up for the Avengers' weaknesses."
Harry had already seen what Tony's little project would turn into while traveling through parallel universes and observing timelines with the Time Stone.
But this universe had Harry in it, which meant it was different from the others.
There would be no Ultron here.
Only the artificial intelligence Tony had originally dreamed of.
Of course, one of Harry's own reasons for allowing this AI to be born was that he wanted to use its underlying logic to improve Hedwig's processing power.
So Harry nodded and agreed. In the next instant, he opened a portal and stepped into the top-floor office of Stark Tower.
Fragments of golden spiritual light drifted through the air as Harry stepped out of the portal and appeared in front of Tony.
In his hand, he was holding a pink Infinity Stone filled with immense power.
The Mind Stone.
"Here," Harry said casually, tossing the Mind Stone to Tony. "Just remember not to touch it with your bare body. You can't withstand the power of an Infinity Stone."
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