Lucius Malfoy's letter

After a couple of hours, they left the chamber and then parted ways at Myrtle's Bathroom. Neal returned to the dungeons and Harry returned to the Gryffindor tower.

Harry appeared to be very happy at the moment even though there were quite an amount of bruises on his face and several cuts were seen on the shirt.

Despite the fact that the Triwizard tournament has been canceled and except for the Prefects and professors, no one knows who won either, Harry's image in the house improved quite a bit. He was likable by his housemates, at the moment.

So, they were quite worried when they saw Harry in such a state. It's early in the morning. How could one look like he went through a tough battle?

But, to their surprise, Harry just smiled and replied that he is fine to everyone who asked him. Since he intended to be secretive about this too, no one questioned further and do their work.

However, not everyone could ignore him though. One of them is Hermione. She was about to leave for the Great Hall to sit with her new friends from Ravenclaw and eat breakfast with them but when she was climbing downstairs, she encountered Harry.

She immediately dragged him to the hospital wing despite his reluctance. Until he was treated, she stood by him, and probably because of that, he revealed the entire truth a lot sooner than he wanted to.

Hermione fell silent for a while. It took her some time to digest everything like from Alastor Moody being a traitor, the resurrection of Voldemort, Neal fighting against the Dark Lord, both of them ending up at a safe haven built by Avery House, then, Harry started training under Neal who extended the invitation to her too, and mastering two new spells, although getting hurt in the process because of wrong timing while conjuring a defensive shield. He even told her about his plan on training in summer break at the Tagues village.

Taking a deep breath, she then said, "Okay, it's all good. I don't hate him anyway. But, you do understand that you will be isolated in the house if others know about this, right?"

"Better get isolated rather than die," commented Harry in response. He further added, "Voldemo… you know who is out there and he won't rest until he kills me. And this is the best opportunity for me to get stronger. If I had to give up pride, fame, and friends, then, so be it."

Hermione saw that her friend was resolute in his decision and wouldn't likely listen to her. But then again, she was also worried about him going to the dark side. After all, in her view, Neal was already in a bad neighborhood. She doesn't want that darkness to rub off her friend too.

Hence, along with supporting him with whatever he wanted to do, Hermione decided to stick with him. "I'll talk to my parents too… By the way, what about Ron?"

"Do you have to ask?" Harry raised his eyebrows. These days, they were not on good terms. Adding to the fact that Neal hates Ron and vice versa, both of them think that it is better to keep him out of this.

Meanwhile, in Slytherin's common room, Malfoy was waiting for Neal. He attempted to have a talk but the latter brushed him off coldly and went to his room.

Looking at Neal's back in dejection, Malfoy sat on the couch and grabbed his head in frustration. "Just what in the hell did happen between Neal and father? I still haven't gotten any reply. Let's write a letter to mother."

Neal, who returned to his room, locked the door and opened the suitcase while keeping Isle as his guard.

He then went to the habitat where the Boggarts were imprisoned since he was a first year.

Upon entering the place, the fifteen idle Boggarts suddenly transformed into copies of Neal and Isle standing on top of a Basilisk.

Neal's heartbeat spiked up all of a sudden and he immediately exited the room in hurry. After calming down himself, he mumbled, "so, my worst fear hasn't changed. It's still me becoming the next Dark Lord. I thought it would be Voldemort but thankfully, it isn't."

Neal then went to each habitat to visit the magical creatures and spent his time there for a couple of hours before returning to the real world and taking a rest until his door was banged a number of times as if someone is in a hurry.

"hmmmm…" Neal was forced to come out of his nap and opened the door, wondering who it was.

Malfoy appeared in his sight and Neal's expression changed right away while taking a glance at the envelope in the former's hands. "What is it?"

He doesn't hate Malfoy for his father's betrayal. However, associating with an enemy's son will create nothing but weakness. That is why Neal tried to act cold to Draco and keep him away.

Since he had already seen Malfoy changing to Voldemort's side and even urged the dark lord to kill him, Neal never had the intention to listen to whatever Malfoy will tell him.

Malfoy then showed him the letter and said with a look of concern, "My father replied to me through our house elf. But, you have to see this."

Neal took the letter from him and read it. Looking at the contents of the letter, Neal furrowed his brows in displeasure. "What kind of joke is this, Draco?"

The letter was just full of the usual crap that parents write to their children.

Malfoy then cleared the misunderstanding by pointing his tapping the backside of the letter three times and muttered, "Aparecium."

New writings appeared and Neal read the sentence. A look of surprise appeared on his face as he read the contents.

The secret message doesn't contain any apology of any sort. Instead, it revealed that Voldemort and other death eaters were moved to his residence and he is too deep in the waters to come out safely.

He requested Neal to take Draco with him to Tagues village or Greylin town so that the latter will not be involved in this mess.

And after writing the letter, Lucius will also remove the memories of this letter and plant false memories so that the Dark lord will not know of this. According to his new false memories, Neal invited Draco to his home to spend the summer with him and he agreed.

In the end, the names of death eaters who defected to the Dark lord once again were also written. Neal saw several familiar names on the list. A few of them he even met at the start of the year during the Sacred 28 assembly.

Neal fell silent for a while and then looked at his friend, "Did you show it to anyone else?"

"No, you were the only one," replied Draco before asking, "So those baseless rumors are true? Who you know has returned?"

Neal let out a sigh as he commented, "Your father had really made this a lot complicated for me."

As Malfoy stayed silent, not knowing what to answer anymore, Neal then said, "From now onwards until your father finds a way to escape from the Dark Lord's control, you'll have to completely cut off your connection with your family. Only that way I can stay on your side and protect you, Draco. Otherwise, this won't work at all."

"This…" A look of hesitation appeared on Malfoy's face.