Chapter 99 - Golden Boy Comes Looking For Answers

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The link is also in the synopsis.

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

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People came into the room with their problems. They sat in the chairs, talked about what troubled them, opened up, and poured their worries onto the man behind the table. When they were done, the young man behind the table would give a solution, and the people would leave happier than when they entered.

Not all problems were memorable, and the man behind the table encountered the same types of problems every day. So when people came with unique questions, the man became happy because it made his job fun and interesting.

And it turned out that today was the day that he was going to get to talk to a person with quite the memorable issue.

...

Quinn was standing in front of a potion cauldron watching the Fanta orange liquid simmering slowly over medium heat.

There was a sheet of paper floating with a clip on it. A pen was levitating above the paper, which was controlled by Quinn. Its purpose was to write notes about the potion.

Walking over to a nearby wall side table, Quinn looked down at a long brown worm with red veins all over its body.

"Braid Wigglers. My god, these things are gross," said Quinn, disgust clear in his voice.

Nonetheless, despite the heavy disgust in his voice, Quinn put on himself a thin white cloth glove. And without hesitation, he picked a very thin scalpel and started to cut the body of the worm.

Blood spilled onto the wooden board. But because of charms on the wood beneath, the blood beaded up on the surface of the wooden board. Quinn had charmed the surface of the wood to be hydrophobic. Any liquid that made contact with the wood wouldn't get absorbed but would end up beading on the top.

The beaded up blood slid to the side of the board and drained out the board through a small outlet pipe built into the wood board into a container for later experimentation.

'Uwaa, gross, so gross,' thought Quinn, even though he was enthusiastically cutting the worm and poking the magical worm's internal organs.

'Yuck, to think that something this gross worm would grow inside a person and at maturity would try to escape through the rectum,' gagged Quinn and recalled what he learned about the Braid Wigglers. 'Holy crap, look at these claws; these would surely rupture the inner lining of the colon as it wriggles out of the anus. Haha, so gross~.'

The Braid Wigglers was just one of the many parasitic creatures that used a magical human's body as the host. Quinn had been reading about all kinds of these creatures as a part of his Healing magic education.

The Fanta orange-colored liquid brewing inside the cauldron was a potion that killed the Braid Wiggler and dissolved its remains into something more suitable for passing out of the body naturally.

"I would like even more to operate on a person who has a fully matured Braid Wiggler inside their body, though. Those need to be taken out through surgery," muttered Quinn as he beckoned the clipboard and operated the pen through magic to take notes on the dissected Braid Wiggler.

As Quinn continued to take biological observations on the dissected Briad Wiggler and kept an eye on the cauldron brewing potion, he heard the door chime ring.

"Now?" groaned Quinn as he looked at the glass wall as if trying to look through it before looking at the bloody Braid Wiggler. "I'll be back; you wait here." A tender green pyramid-shaped ward manifested around the bloody carcass of the centipede-like creature for temporary preservation purposes.

He walked towards the workshop door and gave a cursory glance to the potion, checking the progress.

'Hmm... another half hour of simmering before I need to touch it. That would be enough,' noted Quinn as he walked past the cauldron.

Quinn was about to put a hand on the door's handle when he noticed that he was still wearing the bloody gloves.

"Oops," blinked Quinn. He removed the gloves and tossed them into the cleaning hamper with other dirty gloves. 'That would've been bad. If I went out wearing those.'

Just before opening the door, in a second, Quinn fixed his clothes with magic. He opened the door and entered his office with what he called a 'TV host's' smile on his face.

"Pardon the wait," Quinn said, greeting the person that was in the room as he closed the door to the workshop. When he looked up at the client, he trailed off, "Thank you for your patience..."

In his office stood Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived, The Chosen One, The-One-With-The-Scar, and other titles that people use to refer to the boy who had been credited with vanquishing the latest Dark Lord.

"Mr. Potter, welcome to A.I.D.," said Quinn as he sat down on his barstool, turning into 'the man behind the table'. "How may I help you today? Please take a seat, make yourself comfortable."

Harry silently sat down on the chair while keeping his gaze on Quinn.

Ever since he could remember, Harry recalled the way people looked at him. Anyone who wasn't a friend or family would immediately look at his forehead to glance at the infamous scar. And, because of that, Harry had been conscious of how people looked at him.

Over time, he had come to judge people depending on where their eyes went while talking to him. Harry was fine with people glancing at the scar once and had become used to it; to Harry, it was the norm. If they glanced at the scar from time to time during their talk, Harry's view of that person would drop considerably. But if they spend their entire time looking at the scar, Harry would deem them as someone who wasn't worth talking to.

In the very few meetings Harry had with Quinn West, he had noticed that Quinn hadn't looked at his scar even once. Not a single time had Harry seen Quinn look at his scar. He didn't show any interest whatsoever.

Even now, Quinn hadn't looked at his forehead scar once. And that only happened with family members or the people whom he had spent a lot of time with. When he entered the room. Quinn gave him a look over him before maintaining firm eye contact.

So even before talking to Quinn West, Harry's impression of him had improved considerably.

"I'm here to get answers to some questions," started Harry after making himself comfortable in his chair.

"Of course, if you've questions, we at A.I.D will do everything possible to answer them," nodded Quinn, internally interested in what Harry Potter had in his mind.

"What can you tell me about Peter Pettigrew?" asked Harry bluntly while watching Quinn's reaction trying to see if he could glean something out of his expression.

But Quinn had been subtly using his occlumency to control his expression. The summer vacation had taught him lots of things, and one of those was to fake facial expressions when he had to detach from real emotions using emotional occlumency.

There were three levels of emotional detachment provided by emotional occlumency: One, detaching emotions from your face. Two, detaching emotions so that they would become a buzz in the back of the head, reducing the bluntness of said emotions in the judgment-making process. The third and last level was to completely cut off emotions from magic.

One had to activate the previous levels to activate the next level. And currently, Quinn was only using level one of emotional detachment. Which he usually did when he was cautious.

Before the sin curse, Quinn wouldn't use level two much. He didn't use level three at all. But, after the sin curse, Quinn had developed a dislike for levels two and three because detaching his emotions didn't feel good. He only proceeded to level two when he was at a heavy disadvantage.

Using emotional occlumency to control facial expressions drained every emotion from the user. And that was just parading the fact that someone was using occlumency to hide their emotions. But that could be bypassed by simply faking the facial expression, which was what Quinn was doing.

It surprised Quinn that Harry asked him about Peter Pettigrew, but he didn't show that surprise on his face.

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"You would've to be more precise with your questions, Mr. Potter."

The first rule that Quinn abided by when giving out information was to not answer vague or broad questions. Quinn wanted the requester to ask precise questions so that they only got the information that they asked for. It was just something Quinn did to make them think they were getting more information because they would ask multiple questions.

There were exceptions to this rule, but currently, those exceptions didn't apply because the inquiry from Harry raised some questions in Quinn's mind.

Harry took a moment in silence to think of a more well-defined question.

He knew that Peter Pettigrew was a Death Eater. The problem was that before returning to Hogwarts this year, he had heard a talk between his father, James Potter, and his godfather, Sirius Black, and from what he was able to eavesdrop, they were having a pretty heated discussion.

At that time, Harry had thought little of that conversation and believed that the two Aurors were talking about a Death Eater's escape.

Then, he would occasionally hear conversations about Peter Pettigrew from multiple individuals across the year: his mother; Lily Potter, uncle/professor Remus Lupin, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Flitwick all had talked about him sometimes.

After hearing so much about that person, Harry got interested in Peter Pettigrew. He asked multiple people about the Death Eater, but no matter who he asked, the people would invariably change the subject without telling him anything.

The only thing he knew about Peter Pettigrew was that the man was a Death Eater. And that had been in Azkaban for twelve years before breaking out this year.

"What did Peter Pettigrew do to end up in Azkaban?" asked Harry.

Quinn, who had been sitting on his barstool, nodded at the question.

The second the words Peter Pettigrew came out of Harry Potter's mouth, Quinn made an executive decision to use Legilimency to infiltrate Harry's mind.

'His shield is weaker than his sister's,' thought Quinn as he broke in without the bespectacled Potter's knowledge.

And as Harry was thinking about what to ask, Quinn snooped around and found the entire backstory about why Harry came asking about the question.

'He doesn't know the details about the night he got the scar. His parents and family haven't told him about Peter Pettigrew's involvement.'

Quinn saw some memories that showed some major decisions from James Potter and Lily Potter or Marauders in general. Quinn was able to make a quick glance of a photo wall in the Potter cottage.

'They erased Pettigrew from all the photos. They erased every evidence that Pettigrew ever existed as their friend while in Hogwarts.'

That didn't surprise Quinn. Given what they lost that day, it's no wonder that they didn't want to have any memories of Peter Pettigrew.

'This Harry Potter is insightful,' thought Quinn when he heard Harry's surface thoughts. 'He knows how most of the Death Eaters escaped imprisonment because of the Imperius curse defense. Not surprising given that his father is an Auror.'

Harry realized that the only Death Eaters who went to Azkaban were outspoken and fanatic supporters of Voldemort.

Twelve Death Eaters had gone to Azkaban after the war; Bellatrix Lestrange, Rabastan Lestrange, Rodolphus Lestrange, Barty Crouch Jr., Augustus Rookwood, Antonin Dolohov, Thorfinn Rowle, Gibbon, Jugson, Mulciber, Travers, and, finally, Peter Pettigrew.

'Except Peter Pettigrew, all of those were avid supporters of Voldemort and didn't or couldn't use the Imperius curse defense,' thought Quinn as he stared at Harry. 'He knows that and realizes that Peter Pettigrew must have done something outrageous to end up in Azkaban.'

"Mr. Potter, I know about Peter Pettigrew. But are you sure that you want to know?" asked Quinn. "You might not like what I'll tell you."

Harry frowned at the question. He didn't give it a second thought before nodding.

"It's related to you and your family. There is a reason why your parents haven't told you about Peter Pettigrew," once again asked Quinn, making sure that Harry really wanted to know.

Harry's frown deepened. It surprised him a little that it was related to his family. However, most of the Death Eater-related activities could be connected to his family.

"Yes, I want to know. No need to continue asking" he said while nodding firmly, wanting to get the point.

"Alright, you asked for it," said Quinn before dropping the truth bomb on Harry Potter's head.

"During the First Wizarding War, Peter Pettigrew was a member of the Order of the Phoenix but became a spy when he was coerced into joining the Dark Lord. He was made the Secret-Keeper for the Potters when they went into hiding with the use of the Fidelius Charm. He ended up betraying the Potter family."

Quinn stared straight into Harry's as he revealed the hidden facts.

"He personally led the Dark Lord to the Potter residence that was the Secret-Keeper to, and that day the Potters lost Fleamont and Euphemia Potter. That was the day when you got the scar, and the Dark Lord was defeated. He also killed twelve non-magicals in an attempt to escape the Aurors."

Quinn went silent after he finished speaking and closed his eyes. He gave Harry time to absorb the information.

Harry Potter was close to his father, James Potter, and his godfather, Sirius Black. And to them, Fleamont and Euphemia Potter had been an extremely influential part of their lives.

For James Potter, they had been his parents, the ones who had given birth to him and raised him to be the man he was today. He had had an excellent relationship with his parents, who loved him very much, and he loved them back with all his heart. Before he got married and started his own family, his parents had been his only family.

For Sirius Black, they were the parental figure he never had. The nature of Sirius' relationship with his family during his early childhood was unknown, but at the age of eleven, Sirius earned severe disappointment and disapproval from his family by being sorted into the Gryffindor house. Sirius, in turn, became increasingly rebellious, flaunting his house affiliation and disdain for his family's pure-blood values. When Sirius ran away from home at age sixteen, the Potters took him in and treated him as their own family.

Harry Potter had grown up listening to stories about his paternal grandparents from both his father and godfather. When they talked about their death, he had been told that they had died in the war against Voldemort. But not that they had been killed by Voldemort himself, or that they were there on the day he got his scar.

"... What is the Fidelius Charm, and what do you mean by 'Secret-Keeper'," asked Harry after a long pause and with pain evident in his eyes.

"It's an immensely complex spell which involves the magical concealment of a secret inside a single living soul. The information is hidden inside the chosen person, or Secret-Keeper, and is henceforth impossible to know; unless, of course, the Secret-Keeper chooses to divulge the secret," explained Quinn. "If a dwelling is protected by this spell, it will then become invisible, intangible, unpalatable, and soundproof. An extremely old spell, one of the most ancient there are."

After another pause, Harry asked, "Peter Pettigrew was the Secret-Keeper, and our house was the secret? And he gave the secret away to Voldemort?"

"Yes," said Quinn shortly.

"... Why?" asked Harry, licking his dry lips. "Why was Peter Pettigrew made the Secret-Keeper? Why did my parents trust him so much?" He wanted to know. Harry desperately wanted to know.

"... Mr. Potter, do you know about the Marauder's Map?" asked Quinn, as that was the only thing he could think of to answer that question.

Harry, who was looking down, raised his head to look at Quinn and asked in surprise. "How do you know about that?"

The map was a secret known to him, Ivy, Hermione, Ron, and the Weasley Twins. The Marauders and his mum knew, but he wasn't counting them.

"It is my job to know, Mr. Potter," replied Quinn before giving a short reason. "And I have communications with the Weasley twins."

He omitted the part about Ivy Potter because Harry didn't know about it. And Quinn was okay with it staying that way.

"Mr. Potter, there are four Marauders. You know three of them, and we are talking about the fourth."

Harry's eyes widened to the size of saucers. He didn't know the identity of the fourth because he was told that the fourth Marauder was no longer with them. Harry just assumed that he was dead, and the other three didn't want to talk about it.

"Pettigrew had been trusted, and he broke that trust."

Another long pause ensued as Harry stared in the distance, thinking about what he had just heard. He hadn't even noticed that Quinn had gotten up from his seat, had gone to the workshop, and quickly continued to work on the potion, and came back to take his stool.

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"... How do you all know of this?" asked Harry, his eyes focused on Quinn.

"I keep track of general happenings, Mr. Potter," replied Quinn as he took out a sheet of paper and started writing with a fountain pen. "Do you read the newspaper, Mr. Potter?"

"Newspaper? No, why do you ask?" replied Harry and then immediately asked. "Was it printed in the newspaper? Then Ivy or Hermione would've known. Both of them read the newspaper."

Hearing that Harry didn't read the newspaper wasn't surprising. There weren't many preteens, even teens, that thought of picking up a newspaper.

"No, detailed information about Peter Pettigrew isn't published in the Daily Prophet," answered Quinn, continuing to write on the paper from his memory. "The only thing present in the Daily Prophet is that Peter Pettigrew escaped from Azkaban and that he was a heinous Death Eater who killed twelve non-magicals."

"Huh? Are you implying that the Prophet didn't write the entire story?"

"Yes, but not really," said Quinn as he turned the paper he was writing on upside down and capped his pen. He was done writing. "They did write about Peter Pettigrew's entire story, but not this year."

"What do you mean?" asked Harry in confusion.

"When they caught Pettigrew, the newspaper covered his story, but not to the sufficient extent," Quinn pointed at Harry as he continued, "Their main story at the time was about how you, the Boy-Who-Lived, vanquished the Dark Lord. No one was actually paying attention to Peter Pettigrew."

"Wizarding Britain was in an after-war celebration, and no one really cared about Peter Pettigrew. Unlike the inner circle Death Eaters, he wasn't from an influential background or famous in any way. Those days, the Daily Prophet, which was the mainstream media, had been suffering from the oppression of the Dark Lord's regime. They found themselves free and wrote about the most famous of the Death Eaters. The unknown Peter Pettigrew slipped away from the public eye. Of course, many people knew about him killing 12 muggles. The papers had covered that when they wrote about his trial, but that wasn't nearly enough to trump what the others were being charged."

"Peter Pettigrew's contributions and deeds went unnoticed at that time because the media focused on the inner circle of Death Eaters. Of course, that doesn't mean that what he did wasn't published, just, it wasn't visible enough to anyone who wasn't particularly looking for it."

Quinn stopped talking for a second before continuing,

"It has been over a decade since the end of the war. A decade is a long time. It isn't weird that people have forgotten about Peter Pettigrew. Even though he played an important part in the course of events, it was never brought to light."

"But why didn't they write about it now?!" asked Harry, baffled. Pettigrew might not have been well known back then, but he was now. "Pettigrew is the first to ever successfully break out of Azkaban, a momentous event. That is a huge deal! Why didn't they write about him now?"

"The answer is easy, Mr. Potter," replied Quinn with ease and flow. "Censorship is the cause why Peter Pettigrew's deeds haven't been brought to light."

Quinn didn't give Harry a chance to respond with a question, as he continued.

"As you know, there is a new radical group active. The Novellus Accionites, who support the Dark Lord's ideology and work in his name. The ministry has tried to downplay the Novellus Accionites activities because of their ideology. They don't want the public to think of this group as the new Death Eaters. So what do you think will happen when they find that the person betrayed the Potters to lead the Dark Lord to the Boy-Who-Lived escaped Azkaban at the same time a group is flouting the Dark Lord's name?"

"... Everybody would think that Novellus Accionites are the Death Eaters as they would think that Pettigrew started the group? Is this why?" answered Harry after some consideration.

"Correct, Mr. Potter. The ministry is actively trying to suppress anything related to the Dark Lord. Recently they have started arresting the Accionites and putting their members on trial. The ministry really wants this to be over. Hence, they are keeping a tight leash on what is written about Peter Pettigrew. It helps that he hasn't made any appearances and has completely disappeared after his escape."

"How do you know all of this?" asked Harry after Quinn finished speaking. From where he sat, Quinn looked like an expert on this topic. "You said that people don't know much about Pettigrew, so how do you know so much about him?"

Quinn smiled peacefully. He then answered the question.

"I said that people who weren't looking for what happened wouldn't be able to find the truth. However, Mr. Potter, I was looking for the truth. I've actively looked for the story behind Peter Pettigrew. I wanted to know about the first man that broke out of Azkaban, which led me to all kinds of information. Everything is out there; you just need for someone good to go looking," Quinn then pointed around the room as he continued. "And, as you know, it is my job to know about things. I wouldn't be able to solve problems quickly if I didn't know enough."

Quinn had been surprised when Harry asked about Peter Pettigrew, even though Quinn hadn't been surprised that Harry came to him.

A.I.D. had a reputation that had been built upon real results. Quinn had a very high completion rate that spoke for itself. So Quinn didn't think of it as anything other than obvious that if a Hogwarts student wanted to know something, they would come to him for answers. As such, Harry Potter coming to him wouldn't be something difficult to imagine.

"There is an archive of old Daily Prophet and other newspapers in the library. I just went there and spent some time finding information about Pettigrew. No matter how close-knit the Order of Phoenix was, people talked, and at that time, lots of people had been interested in listening to what was said. I found about the Fidelius Charm from a niche monthly magazine that discussed interesting magic, and there was an issue where they talked about nothing else other than that charm because of its involvement with you."

"... I see," spoke Harry, taking a breath before looking at Quinn and saying, "I don't want anyone to know that I was here. Especially my mum. She mustn't know that I know about Pettigrew. I need time to take things in."

"That's fine, Mr. Potter. I don't want anyone to know that I'm the one who told you this. If you reveal what I told you this to anyone, then I'll say that you found it on your own," said Quinn as he slid the paper he was writing on towards Harry. "These are the names of the newspapers and magazines I went looking into with the edition number and date."

Quinn also passed Harry an inkpot and a parchment, "Copy everything down on that paper to this parchment in your handwriting. I will burn that paper after you're done."

Harry and Quinn had the same wish, and that was to not let anybody know about their involvement, they smoothly reached an agreement.

"... What do I need to pay for this and the information," said Harry pointing at the thin roll of parchment.

"Oh, nothing, you don't need to pay me anything. Just, as I helped you out, help me out if I ever ask," replied Quinn, trying to establish a connection with the Golden Boy, a golden opportunity.

"Alright. I'll help you out," said Harry as he stared at the parchment in his hands. His mind was too preoccupied to think about Quinn's words and readily agreed to what sounded to him like a fair deal.

"It was a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Potter," said Quinn as he walked to the door while Harry exited.

Harry briefly looked up from the parchment and nodded. When the door closed, Harry once again looked up at the closed door. When he had entered the room, Harry had two things he wanted to ask, but in the end, the first topic had turned out to be too much for him.

'I'll ask him some other day,' thought Harry as he walked away. 'Maybe she will tell me before that day comes.'

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Quinn West - MC - Had a memorable customer.

Harry Potter - Client - Can't say that he left happier than when he entered.

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