# Two sides of the same coin. Part 1. Chapter 2

Аноним Alteya

Harry talks to McNair and realizes that he has not seen the sun for a long time. Going to get a polyjuice potion and a walk in the garden in exchange for a conversation.

Chapter 2

In theory, it all looked simple, but practice did not match it. Harry was sitting across from a man dressed in a striped robe, and he couldn't seem to ask him the question he'd called him in for. They had been talking for about a quarter of an hour, and there was no sign of a transition to the right topic.

With every passing second, this idea seemed more and more stupid to Harry, and he was already beginning to be inclined to simply send the prisoner back - after all, you never know why, why, and for what the head of the auror office might want to talk to one of the prisoners sentenced to life. But letting him go just like that would be even more stupid than inviting him here....

Harry was starting to get angry, which also didn't help resolve the situation in the right way. Finally, all possible formalities were completed, all the questions were asked, and silence fell in the office. Harry now just sat and stared at the man across from him, wondering why chance had chosen him to be his companion.

All this was the embodiment of the idea of "changing the decider" that had dawned on Harry the day before: at first he thought of choosing someone from the interested parties on his own, but then he decided to leave it to chance, wrote the names on pieces of paper, conjured a hat, put them in it, shuffled and pulled out the first one he saw. It was this man who was sitting across from him now, staring indifferently out the window.

Walden McNair.

64 years old, former executioner of the Ministry, former Death Eater, participated in the Battle for Hogwarts...

The prisoner suddenly got up and went to the window, through which the sun was shining into the room. He put his palms against the glass and froze, a faint smile appeared on his lips. He didn't seem to be paying any attention to where he was, or to Harry Potter, who was sitting a few steps away from him.

"Why did you come to him?" Harry asked softly, remembering something that had puzzled him about the McNair case. "After all, your family is ancient, but not pure-blooded, as far as I know."

"That's right," the smile widened a little, but nothing else changed in him. Harry waited a bit for her to continue, and when she didn't, he insisted: "So why?"

"That's how it happened," McNair replied reluctantly, and there was something like annoyance in his voice, as if the conversation was distracting him from something important... or pleasant. The sun, Harry realized. "They never see him there..." The cells in Azkaban had windows positioned so that neither rain nor sunlight ever entered them: being under the ceiling, they were slanted at a slight angle down to the water, so they let in light, but at least they could see the sky. It was impossible. It must be hard not to see the sun for twenty years....

"I'll let you out for a walk," Harry said quickly, and hesitated, realizing how insulting these words might seem to his interlocutor. However, this did not happen: McNair, before Potter could finish, abruptly turned around, without taking his hands off the glass, and, looking at Harry with either amazement or confusion, asked hoarsely:

"Go for a walk?"

"There's a garden here," Harry stood up too and smiled as warmly as he could, "We can go out there for a while.... I'll put some spells on you, of course, but..."

"I don't care," McNair shook his head, and suddenly he smiled, so much so that his face seemed twenty years younger, and suddenly the color of his eyes became noticeable - dark gray, and not just abstractly "dark", as it seemed before and as it was written in the file. "I'll tell you anything you want." He took a deep breath, still smiling. "After. You can give me veritaserum, or whatever you want... give me an hour and I'll answer any questions you have." He caught Potter's eye, and they stared at each other for a few seconds. Then Harry nodded and found himself smiling too.

"I think you'll have to drink a polyjuice potion- it's just enough for an hour." He suddenly felt amused himself. This fun was very similar to the one he felt, for example, back in school, when in the second year he and Ron - also under polyjuice potion, by the way - sneaked into the Slytherin common room disguised as Crabbe and Goyle. "Otherwise, I will drown in paperwork, and it will take a year to get a permit...."

This was not entirely true: strictly speaking, the head of the auror office did not need any such permission; on the other hand, no one, including him, had any right to take prisoners outside. But the decision came by itself, and it seemed very simple and understandable - all you had to do was figure out who to turn McNair into... you needed someone who...

"I don't care," McNair repeated, "even for the best... when?"

"Wait for me here," Harry clearly decided to set a record for the most idiotic phrases today, because, well, what kind of "wait"? Who! Whom? Where?!! But it didn't matter. "I'll lock the office... and don't try to open the windows, they're enchanted... I'll be back soon!" For some reason, he didn't even think about putting shackles on McNair's feet - they, like the hand ones, had been removed from him on Harry's orders when they brought him to the office. True, aurors were waiting outside the door, but it was still unacceptable and stupid.

It wasn't difficult to get polyjuice potion from Aurora-it was more difficult to find a person into whom McNair could be turned without unnecessary risk. But then Harry was incredibly lucky: in one of the corridors, he literally bumped into the minister, who was clearly in a hurry, but stopped for a minute to exchange a few phrases with him. It wasn't difficult to remove a hair from his clothes....

When Potter returned, he found McNair no longer standing, but sitting on the windowsill - leaning sideways against the glass, he met him with a strange look, happy and as if assessing at the same time.

"I should have mentioned that it should be a human being." He said as soon as the door closed behind Harry.

"It goes without saying... It would be fun to turn you into some kind of spider, though," Harry laughed, handing him the vial. "This is for you."

"It's hard to catch spiders," McNair grinned, taking the potion and looking at it thoughtfully. "I'm not sure I wouldn't prefer to spend the rest of my days like this-I've been told that they feel very differently." He raised the phial to his lips and drank it down in one gulp without even flinching. And then he didn't make a sound, just winced painfully and bent slightly when the transformation began.

The sight of the Minister of Magic, dressed in a prison uniform, completely amused Harry - he even regretted that he had not thought to take a camera somewhere, it would have been very funny to take a picture. The sight of the Minister of Magic, dressed in a prison uniform, completely amused Harry - he even regretted that he had not thought to take a camera somewhere, it would have been very funny to take a picture.

"So who am I?" McNair asked, his voice still the same, and it sounded strange.

"It doesn't matter" Harry believed that he had already done enough strange things for today, and he did not plan to inform the prisoner about who he would be seen by others within an hour. "The main thing is, don't talk to anyone. Stretch out your arms."

It took a couple of minutes to change his clothes accordingly and cast binding spells that, on the one hand, would allow McNair to move freely, and on the other, would not allow him to escape. When everything was ready, Harry took him by the hand and apparated into the garden.

"You have an hour," Harry said, sitting down on a bench. "Try to behave somehow... like a human being," he asked. "No one usually comes here at this time, but still..."

Yes," McNair replied dully. For now, he was just standing there, his face and palms turned up to the sun, and there was such a blissful expression on his face that Harry felt awkward - as if he had accidentally witnessed something purely intimate. After some time, McNair slowly moved along the path, approached a bush and gently touched the leaves with his palms, stood there for a while, and buried his face in them, pressed them with his hands and froze for a while. Harry, becoming more and more embarrassed, turned away and stared intently at the only entrance that led to the garden, convincing himself that this was the right thing to do in such a situation - but it was impossible to leave McNair out of sight, and after a few minutes he still turned around and jumped up, no one was there. having seen it. However, he immediately sank back down, feeling himself blushing, cursing himself for putting himself in such an awkward situation, and praying to all the gods, chance, fortune, and whatever else there was-that no one would come here now.

Because it was difficult to explain to anyone why the Minister of Magic was lying face down on the grass, taking off his robe, shirt and shoes-fortunately, at least leaving his pants.

...The grass, warm from the sun, slightly pricked someone else's body, imprinted on someone else's skin, and left its green and bitter juice on it... He plucked one of the blades of grass and chewed it - the bitterness filled someone else's mouth, and the greenery stained someone else's teeth. He laughed softly, as he had been asked not to draw attention to himself. The part of his mind that always remained on guard noted that his current behavior could hardly be considered "not attracting attention," but the other part, which he no longer even remembered - the one that wanted to live and feel-brushed it aside and sucked in, absorbed all these smells, sounds, tastes and feelings.

Time was gone-he remembered that it wasn't enough, and he tried to use every second, but there weren't any seconds either, and how could he keep track of what wasn't there? He got up, wandered through the grass and the ground, looked at other people's feet, stained with grass juice and gravel, lay down on the grass and on the ground, touched bushes and trees, inhaled their smell and felt their bark, smooth and uneven, and scratched someone else's skin with it...

... and suddenly it was over. A voice-familiar and, it seemed, unpleasant, although nothing in the world could be unpleasant to him now-called him:

"I'm sorry, Mr. McNair... we have to go. Time..."

... and he managed to see his hands change, but they still had juice, scratches, and bark particles on them, when they grabbed him by the elbow and yanked him out - for a moment the world crumbled and disappeared, and when it reassembled, there was just a room in which there was nothing left of the real world. only the sun.

"I'm sorry," Harry repeated, hurriedly transfiguring the prisoner's clothes back on and removing the spells from him. He tried not to look at his face-it was still too happy and... he couldn't tell if it was open.

There are things and states that outsiders shouldn't see, and Harry knew that this was it. Even if it's a prisoner... especially a prisoner. When he was done, he sat down at his desk, half facing McNair, and began to watch him. He saw how the expression of delight and happiness faded at first, and then disappeared from McNair's face, as it regained its familiar features and age, but the eyes did not go out, and the lips continued to smile slightly.

Finally, McNair came to the table, sat down on the other side, looked at his dirty hands -there were also traces of grass, gravel and bark on his face-and said:

"Ask away."