HP: The Arcane Thief

Chapter 104: Back to Hogwarts

Chapter 104

Walking through the crowd, Axel studied the gazes of the people looking at him. They varied greatly from hatred to going as far as worship.

Of course, most were negative. There are several people in your life that you just get an unbearable urge to beat up. And... Axel had become that kind of person in many people's eyes.

Because despite his good qualities, Axel is still that muggelborn kid who grew up in a poor muggle Orphanage, while most here have some type of wizarding background. And more infuriating than that is somehow, with that kind of background, he (apparently) got engaged to Martina, while also having a close relationship with many other girls.

These are the two main reasons. Other than that, he also has cruel, violent and vindictive tendencies, which certainly don't help his case.

But, it is also true that he made history in Quidditch and got the favour of the Valentino Family, and thoroughly shamed the villainous Mikhailov Family and got away with it.

That is why his name is now in the most searched list of this year, and countless debates and discussions concerning him are taking place throughout the wizarding world, some criticizing him while the some in his defence.

It would be safe to say that Axel is currently the most controversial person in the world.

'This... should be enough, right?' He thought, heaving a weary sigh. His goal has always been to make his news reach the Organization without showing off too much of his real capabilities. And this should be enough to achieve that, right? He should be able to take a break and disappear now, right?

"Axel!"

At this moment, a familiar voice called out his name, interrupting his thoughts. Axel turned his head to find Patricia approaching him.

"You nearly gave me a heart attack when I read the news about you!" She said, grabbing hold of his hands. She tried to come closer but Axel kept her at arms length.

"What do you want, Patricia?" He asked in exasperation.

Patricia flicked her raven hair back, looking at him with a faux hurt expression. "What I want, is an explanation. I proposed to you first, didn't I? But you rejected me so cruelly. And now you're engaged to Martina! You broke my heart!"

Axel was quite annoyed with her fake acting. The one who truly had her heart broken was someone else. "Yeah, so leave me the hell alone now, will you?" he said, stepping past her.

Patricia stopped him, not letting go. "Actually, not at all. You're not getting rid of me now." she said, shaking her head.

"Why the hell not?" He asked in bafflement. Patricia Afonso was a politician bitch who would only hang out with those with the highest status. He had thought that at least Patricia would stop bothering him now that she knew that he was just a Muggleborn with no family background.

Patricia laughed. "You think I'm so shallow?"

"Are you not?"

"I thought I was too..."Patricia seemed to think about it, and Axel had some hopes that she would finally stop haunting him. Though, the Slytherin Captain shook her head as she looked at him.

"But you have dug deep into me, you know."

"What the—"

Patricia fixed him with an intense gaze. "With no background whatsoever, you have achieved so quickly what anyone can only dream of achieving. You won the favor of the "Valentino" family and took on the previously all-powerful "Mikhailov" family head on. This only makes me more interested, Axel Hunt," she said, her cheeks flushing red as her legs clamped together.

'This crazy bitch…'

Axel had a bad feeling about this. Glancing back, sure enough, Daphne was looking at him with a scathing expression.

'Fuck…'

"Stay the hell away from me Patricia, or we're losing all of our next matches," he said, forcefully breaking away from the crazy girl.

"Hey, wait! I had to discuss some things about our match against Hufflepuff," she called, but Axel had already disappeared. "Do you even know it's this weekend?" She murmured to the empty air.

...

"Cheater, bastard, Scum of the earth…" muttered Daphne, looking at Axel disappearing into the crowd. She had read several articles about him having relations with several girls "including" herself, and those rumors seem to have some credibility.

'Did I not know better than to be involved with such a guy?' she thought, trying to recall, but once again, an intense pain struck her, causing her to stagger.

Her Magi-mirror rang at this moment as she picked it up.

"Yeah?"

"Daphi, where are you?! You said you're going to the bathroom but you're not in here! I checked!"

"Tory, I—" Daphne suppressed the groan that was going to escape her mouth due to pain, as she began rushing back. "I went to buy some good snacks. The trolley lady only sells a trolley full of unhealthiness," she said, patting her well-defined abs. This was true. She did actually go out for this purpose, but then she was drawn here by all the crowd and commotion.

"Alright, then say so next time. You had us worried. We're waiting at the original spot," said Astoria, hanging up.

Daphne hung up the call, her hand still on her abs.

"I don't know why I even bother..." she muttered. She didn't know how or why, but she had begun exercising and training these unknown exercises, and paying a lot of attention to her diet.

She still sometimes has trouble recognising her body when she stands naked in front of the mirror. She now has the kind of body those other pureblood heiresses would kill to have.

"Just what the hell happened?" She muttered, but she controlled her mind to not think about it to avoid pain using her occlumency. Yeah, that's another thing she has no idea how she has. This amazing Occlumency knowledge. It's so detailed and advanced!

The Occlumency knowledge of her family is nowhere near this perfect, nor is the Occlumency knowledge of other families for that matter. If she keeps practising this, she can even surpass her dad soon.

Large chunks of her memories of the last two years of her life were gone. But somehow, in these last two years, her life has changed completely. Astoria had healed, her asshole dad was forever 6 feet underground, she had become a badass bitch rocking a killer body, and she had a ton of invaluable knowledge.

It was as if, her life had become perfect. She has everything she had dreamt of having two years ago.

"Then... why the hell...?" She murmured, putting a hand on her heart.

Why the hell does she feel more miserable and hollow than she used to feel two years ago?

...

Walking through the corridor between the compartments under Stealth, Axel opened a particular door in which his so-called "fianceé" was sitting.

"Axel?" Upon seeing him, Martina stood up immediately. "Are you really alright?"

In the past few days, Martina had contacted him numerous times to ask about his emergency exit, but Axel didn't really want to explain so he had just told her he was fine to stop her from worrying.

Axel sighed as he sat down. "Didn't I already say, it's fine," he repeated yet again.

But Martina wasn't convinced. "You don't look fine at all. You look like you haven't rested in days. Axel, can you tell me what happened? Is there anything I can do to help?"

Axel shook his head. "It's nothing. How is the progress with the wand?"

At his casual dismissal, Martina looked at him with a hint of helplessness. "It's going well. Since the materials are far above the normal level, it's taking longer, but mom said it will be done in a week. Its going to be really great, you know," she said, making Axel sigh in relief.

But Martina was not relieved. "The Head of Mikhailov family is rumored to have collapsed a few days ago," she mentioned, observing his reaction as she cast a noise cancellation spell around them for privacy.

"Is that so?" Asked Axel casually, peering through the window.

"Yes, it is also said that all the higher ups in the malicious faction were also killed and Sergio Mikhailov, Andrei's brother who is much kinder, took over."

"Oh," Axel nodded, still looking out of the window. "Good for you, I guess."

Martina gripped both of Axel's shoulders, shaking him to get his attention.

"Axel, I am serious. Did you have anything to do with this?"

Axel looked into Martina's eyes. His eyes were soul-less, devoid of any fluctuations.

"You already know," he said simply, but Martina knew that something was wrong with him.

Just as she was about to inquire further, the compartment door was opened, making them both turn their heads in unison, to see a stunned Hermione Granger and clueless Luna Lovegood.

"Oh! I'm so sorry! I didn't know you two were— I didn't mean to interrupt—"

"No! It's not like that!" said Martina, her face going red as she saw some other students also peeking in. Someone did a wolf whistle, and someone said something like "the Engaged couple" causing Martina to die out of embarrassment.

Removing her hands from shoulders and distancing herself from him, she quickly dragged the two girls in as she shut the door and drew the blinds.

"I'm really sorry to interrupt. You told me to bring Luna, and I didn't know the blinds were drawn because you two were—"

"We weren't doing anything!" Martina felt like her face would burst into flames any moment.

Hermione nodded her head quickly. "Of course you weren't. I saw nothing," she said reassuringly, making Martina sigh at her "understanding" look. "Anyways… congratulations for your engagement. I'm happy for you guys…" she said, trying to change the subject.

"You got engaged?" Asked Luna, looking between Axel and Martina. "Does that mean Martina's stomach will get very big soon, and you will have a baby?" She asked with a smile with her usual dreamy expression, making all three people in the compartment sweat.

Martina had had enough of the embarrassment. "We're not engaged!" she declared. "It was a false announcement."

"What?!" Asked Hermione, her eyes wide, causing Martina to launch into an explanation.

"It's all my parents fault..." said as she began her explaination.

'At least she stopped hounding me,' thought Axel, looking at the completely distracted Martina. But Martina gave him a look that said 'it's not over yet'.

Axel sighed. But, a small smile came to his face, knowing that at least she was still with him.

Axel sighed as he remembered his small adventure.

...

Casually walking through the crowd at the airport, Axel looked around himself.

Why was he here? To take a flight to Russia of course. Cross-country Apparition is not something he's too keen on attempting when he's recently learnt to apparate. The required degree of proficiency increases with the increase in distance. He'd rather spend a few hours in a flight rather than try to apparate over such a long distance and risk getting splinched.

He still hasn't been able to perfect his void travel, and Portkey is also not an option since he doesn't know how to create one and he wants to keep his visit discreet so he can't ask for help.

In the end, Flight was the easiest option.

Standing in the middle of the crowded terminal, he saw Non magical people bustling about, most of their problems being things as basic as aerophobia, missing their flights, and checking their passports and tickets.

Not long ago, the two years younger version of himself would have been using the very watered down version of his Arcane Eyes, trying to pick out wealthy targets, figuring out the best way to keep himself inconspicuous and take away the target's priced possessions.

But now, he no longer bothered. It no longer brought him the thrill, the sense of accomplishment, and the satisfaction that it used to. Walking among the crowd under stealth, Axel didn't steal a single thing.

After all, now he had set his sights on much bigger targets...

The Mikhailov Family.

This family is the biggest contributor to all the crimes and atrocities happening around the world.

Why have they been able to do so? Because they have the resources to back up their wrongdoings. Just take for example how long it took for them to find out Axel's past information. In barely a few hours, they found something the rest of the world had been unable to find until now.

Now this, was what Axel considered a real target. This was someone Axel would now find consider worth stealing from.

Axel suppressed his excitement. How long has it been since he felt this? With all the magic and training and all the problems, he had forgotten his real identity. Someone who steals from those who deserve it.

Walking up to the counter, he read the receptionist's mind, and found all the information he needed.

Well, it was his first time coming at an airport but it really doesn't matter with his high level Legilimency. He can get any information he wants without having to ask.

Under his stealth, he made his way towards the security blocking the next flight to Russia. To his intrigue, he found quite a few measures installed in place to prevent magical intruders. Things like wards, magical security devices and a few wizarding guards.

"Shouldn't be a surprise," he muttered, getting past them with some precaution. How easy it would be for a Death Eater or terrorist to make the flights crash or for wizards to travel without needing an identity. He was sure there was a department in ministry that dealt with all this stuff.

But of course, these measures were for people who try to get through using trivial things like the disillusionment charm or invisibility cloak. Axel was far above these measly measures, having no trouble getting past the security to board the flight.

Within a quarter of the day, Axel was in Moscow, Russia. The place nearest to the main residence of the Mikhailov family which he remembered from Maksmilian's memories.

Apparating right in front of the residence, Axel looked in front of him. Though nothing was visible to the naked eye, his Arcane Eyes could see wards powerful and dangerous enough to make any intruder regret ever trying to breach them, if they managed to stay alive.

Of course, they weren't as good as the ones which surround the Valentino Residence, but they were still quite impressive and difficult to breach.

There was a huge difference between breaking the wards and by-passing them without raising an alarm. But thankfully, Axel had everything he needed. The knife, Maksmilian's blood, and sufficient mastery. It took some time, but Axel was soon in.

"As expected, they're loaded as fuck," he muttered.

As soon as the whole residence became fully visible to him, even though he had remembered it through the memories, he was still a bit dazed.

In front of him was an extremely vast space that was the main headquarters of the Mikhailov Family. Golden sculptures, encrusted with gems adorned the estate, magical plants of all categories were planted throughout the place, and far away, Axel could barely make out the silhouette of a giant palace painted in vibrant colours.

That was the place where the bastards who had leaked his information were located.

"Well, let's just get this over with," he murmured.

He was aware that he had to do something about these new enemies soon, but he would come back for that another day. His plan for now was simple. Go in there, take as much as he can, and come out.

But of course... things rarely go according to plan. There were some things that he just couldn't handle.

…

A.N.: Next chapter: Everyone: YAYYYY!!! Axel: Fuck...

Next next: Sorry Hufflepuff

Next next next: "Axel Hunt... I think he broke Quidditch..."

Next... next: A Reunion

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