Chapter Text
“Beauxbatons and Durmstrang!”
Harry had to admit that the ship which appeared in the middle of the lake and the Abraxan-drawn carriage were interesting ways to approach Hogwarts, although he would still rather have spent his evening experimenting with potions. He applauded politely as he watched the Durmstrang delegation enter the school.
“Do you think they’ll sit with us?” Draco breathed as he and Theo slipped up behind Harry on the way back to the Great Hall.
“Why would they?”
“Because we’re probably closest to their own philosophy,” Draco said, with only a twitch of one eye to tell Harry that he was irritated by Harry’s casual tone. “They teach the Dark Arts openly at Durmstrang, and it was the place Grindelwald went to school. Not to mention their Headmaster is a former Death Eater.”
Harry raised his eyebrows and covertly studied Igor Karkaroff as they walked into the Great Hall and the Durmstrang students did indeed cluster towards the Slytherin table. Personally, Harry didn’t see what there was to be impressed about. Karkaroff had a long black beard and a laugh that might seem jovial to someone who didn’t notice its sharp edge. His eyes kept darting around the Hall even when he was settled at the professors’ table.
“Told you,” Draco said.
Harry just nodded—pandering to Draco’s egotism was a great way to get more of it—and turned to study the students who had settled at the table with them. All of them seemed to be boys in heavy coats of dark fur. They murmured among themselves in a language that sounded like Russian and only turned to speak to the Slytherins about halfway through the feast.
“Who among you is intending to compete?” asked Viktor Krum, someone Harry at least had to admire, in a thick accent.
“None of us,” Harry said, with a faint smile. “We’re only fourteen.”
“And the older ones?” The boy on the other side of Krum was tall and quick and had introduced himself only as Ivan.
“I assume that at least the members of the Quidditch team are, but I really don’t know for sure.”
“You do not play Quidditch?”
“I do. I’m their Seeker. But my teammates are too much older than I am to spend a lot of time with me.”
Krum blinked at him, as if he thought the age gap wasn’t that big, and turned to murmur to Ivan. Ivan laughed a little. Harry refused to feel like it was directed at him, and returned to his potatoes.
“And do the others of you play Quidditch?” Krum asked the other fourth-years.
Draco was happy to brag about his position on the team as Chaser, so Harry left him to it. He ate slowly, thinking about the modifications he could make to the potion the Dark Lord had let him brew for James Potter. He didn’t know if he would get another chance specifically to poison Potter, but he might be able to use it better on someone else.
“Harry!”
Harry blinked and tried to return to the conversation, although in truth, it was hard to care what the students of Durmstrang said. But he was getting odd looks, so he supposed he had to pay attention. “Yes?”
“Explain to Krum how talented a Seeker you are.”
Harry shot Draco an exasperated look. Draco ought to know that Harry didn’t brag about that, and in any case, Krum was better than Harry, having attained a position on a professional Quidditch team already. But Draco radiated a kind of stubborn innocence at him, so Harry shook his head and turned to Krum.
“I’m quite good,” he said.
“Not better than Viktor!” declared a slender boy sitting on Krum’s other side whose name Harry couldn’t remember.
“No.”
“No? You would give up the fight for Hogwarts’s honor before you have won it?”
Harry didn’t often regret his decision to let Draco court him, but this was one of those times. “He is better by the only measure that matters, playing for a professional team. I don’t want to play for a professional team.”
“What do you want to do?”
Destroy my enemies. Serve the Dark Lord. “Work with Potions.”
“Is that your Potions professor up there in the bright green robes?”
Harry was immensely relieved when the discussion drifted into who was wearing what and how Slughorn’s robes compared to Karkaroff’s. Draco leaned over to Harry during the heat of the discussion and said in a slightly whiny voice, “I was trying to make sure that you had a chance to show off.”
“I don’t want to show off when it comes to Quidditch. And besides, did you want me to show my talents or did you want to show off the boy you’re courting?”
“Um.”
Harry hid his smile behind his glass of pumpkin juice.
*
Lily felt as though a headache were located right between her eyes. She would have given a great deal to be by James’s bedside right now, or with Patrick, or maybe even facing Harry’s quiet scorn, rather than this situation.
“What were you thinking, Arianna?”
“I was thinking he’s taken enough of our family’s time and he could use something else to occupy his.”
Arianna’s voice was slightly muffled, given the long white beard extending down her chin. She’d been trying to sneak over the Age Line and put Harry’s name in the Goblet of Fire when the spell had thrown her back. Given that Lily was at the school, Minerva had simply brought Arianna to Lily’s office instead of trying to remove the beard.
“It was stupid and dangerous, Arianna. You know that a fourth-year can’t compete with seventh-years.”
“But it would have kept him busy!”
Lily had to close her eyes and feel in the desk for a Headache Draught. She and James really had spent too much time harping on Harry and how he’d refused to accept their family’s help, she decided. This was their fault, ultimately, even if Arianna should have understood that it was unacceptable to try and put Harry’s name in the Goblet.
On the other hand, she really did believe Arianna hadn’t intended to kill Harry. She had only wanted him too busy to, as she saw it, take more of her mother’s attention.
“You’ll have detention for every week in November,” Lily said tiredly. “And twenty points from Gryffindor.”
“Mum! You can’t do that!”
“I can and I will. And now, it has nothing to do with the fact that it was Grayson’s name you tried to put in the Goblet. It would have been wrong to do with anyone’s name. Do you understand?”
“I understand you don’t care about me!”
Arianna stood up and acted as if she’d like to stomp out of the room, but she collided with the door, which Lily had locked. She spun around with her eyes glistening with something angrier than tears.
Lily sighed, waved her wand to get rid of the beard, and then waved her wand again to unlock the door. Arianna left with her head held high.
Lily shook her head. Maybe bringing them all here was the wrong decision. Patrick still wants to go back home and Arianna is so angry all the time. Only James seems to be doing better.
But that last thought reminded Lily of what it had been like trying to divide her life between Hogwarts and James and her children last term. She would keep this up, and just ensure that she was paying more attention to Arianna and Patrick.
And watch out for a chance, if any ever appeared, to bring Harry back to them.
*
“Were any of the Goblet’s choices a surprise to you?”
Harry blinked up at Theo. Theo had left Harry alone for most of the evening, since he seemed to be wrestling with the Astronomy essay, but now he’d sat down beside his courted and asked the question. Harry seemed to be ignoring the Tournament a lot more than Theo had thought was possible.
“No.”
“Not even Diggory?”
“He’s popular and apparently good with a wand. And he fits in the age limit. Why would he be a surprise?”
“Well, some people might say that a Hufflepuff doesn’t have the courage or the magical prowess to face up to the challenges that will come his way in this Tournament. That a Ravenclaw or a Slytherin would be the better choice.”
“Does our House have the reputation of courage, either? Or magical strength in anything except the Dark Arts?”
Theo hesitated. This wasn’t the way he had thought the conversation would go when he’d sat down. He’d just wanted to know more about the way Harry’s mind worked, honestly. “Well, no. But it would still make more sense to have a Slytherin Champion than a Hufflepuff Champion.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you have House pride?”
“That sounds like a way to avoid answering the question, to me.” Harry cast a Drying Charm on his essay and turned to look at Theo. “What about you? Why would you think a Slytherin is more likely than a Hufflepuff?”
“All right. If you really want to know…”
“I do.”
“I don’t think the Hufflepuffs are all duffers, but I do think that they aren’t going to know where to look for the kind of information they need to survive the Tournament. Diggory isn’t a great researcher, and he doesn’t have a Headmaster committed to helping him the way the others do. I think he’s going to die.”
“And a Slytherin would look around, gather the information, spy on the others, and be ready to survive.”
“Yes.”
Harry nodded thoughtfully. “Well, I can tell you that it doesn’t really matter to me because I think anyone who participates in the Tournament is stupid. Krum might be more skilled with magic, but he’s still willing to risk his life for glory. And why? He has his professional Quidditch career, it seems like he’d have all the glory he could stand.
“Delacour? She’s beautiful, and people will leap to give her what she wants. Diggory I could understand a little better, since his House does have the reputation it does, but he’s personally popular and I don’t seem him wearing ratty clothes. Why would he risk it?”
“The glory and the money would just be theirs, separate from their looks or their family or their other skills.”
“Do you think that’s the reason Diggory or the others are doing it?”
“I don’t know,” Theo said, and decided to take a chance. “It’s the reason I would do it.”
Harry’s eyes opened wide for a second. Then he shook his head with a small grin that had a twisted edge to it and said, “I hope you would never do something that stupid as long as you’re courting me.”
“You’d think it was stupid even if I was doing it.”
“Yes. It’s a stupid action, even if you’re not a stupid person. And of course you aren’t. I’m less sure about Diggory, but Delacour and Krum don’t strike me that way.” Harry shrugged. “So I suppose I have to attribute it to us being very different people, and hoping that you would never have the motivation to do something like that while you’re courting me.”
Theo half-smiled and changed the subject to Astronomy. Harry was finding it boring this year, apparently, because he was so much more interested in Potions that nothing else compared. Theo thought, but didn’t say, that Harry’s lower interest in Defense might also show that he felt more relaxed and comfortable around the other Slytherins, and not inclined to think he’d need to protect himself at a moment’s notice.
But Theo would never say something like that. Harry would revert back, and Theo liked the comfort between them now too much to risk it.
Besides.
There was always the fact that Theo and Draco could defend Harry and each other with ready wands, if it came to it.
*
Lord Voldemort settled heavily in his chair near the fire, his fingers stroking the sleeve of his robe. He wore heavy velvet ones that were comfortable rather than hot, both because of the charms on them and because Lord Voldemort had found he didn’t tolerate cold as well after his years as a wraith.
The robes were a distraction from the fact that he had found nothing when he went to the Ministry to search for the person who had originated the Tournament.
Nothing.
Lord Voldemort let out a low snarl.
He had looked into minds in a way that ought to have made it easy to find the culprit, as everyone’s thoughts were full of the Tournament and they wouldn’t even have felt him skimming those thoughts. But everyone, although they were musing about the publicity and worrying about the cost and debating who would win, had no idea who had suggested the bloody thing. They only knew the orders came from the Minister’s office.
So Lord Voldemort had gone to the Minister’s office, only to find him gone for the day, at Hogwarts to watch the choosing of the Champions by the Goblet of Fire. And his Undersecretary and everyone else working there had had no idea, either.
Lord Voldemort closed his eyes now, leaned back in his chair, and forced himself to go through the memories of the day, one by one, slowly.
He remembered skimming the Undersecretary’s mind, seeing her venal, greedy nature, and the way that she thought of the Minister—
Wait.
Lord Voldemort carefully turned his own memory around in front of his mental “eye” like a shining jewel. It was one of the less appreciated benefits of being a Legilimens, he thought, this ability to examine his own memories of Legilimency in a way no Pensieve could have allowed him to.
There had been a small gap in the Undersecretary’s thoughts, now that he was thinking of it. A tuck, a tweak, like someone sweeping dust under the carpet, barely noticeable. But there.
She had been Memory Charmed.
Lord Voldemort turned the memory over and over again, peering at it from different angles, and holding rage at bay with his perfected Occlumency. No, there was no way that the odd corner in her mind could have come from something else. And there was no way that he could go back and pry it open without disintegrating her mind.
Which would be rather noticeable.
Lord Voldemort opened his eyes. He realized that he had smashed and twisted a golden cup which had been standing on the small table beside his chair into ruined uselessness. He shrugged and leaned back, casting his own mind into calming circles.
He still knew nothing of why the Tournament had been brought to Hogwarts, but at least he had a name for his enemy.
No one could have done such neat work with someone’s mind except himself.
*
“Write what I tell you to write.”
Sirius, screaming inside, sat down at the table in his front room and began to scribble a letter to Lily and James.
Hey Lils, hey Prongs, how are you?
I thought you should know that Remus is back in the country. He’s really regretful about the events that drove us all apart and is really interested in talking to you again. Do you think it’d be possible to meet in Hogsmeade? I know that James can’t easily travel far, but Remus doesn’t feel welcome in Hogwarts.
Yeah, I know you would tell him that’s his imagination and you would be as happy to see him as I was.
The quill wavered in Sirius’s hand at that point, as his disgust and fear and fury boiled up to the surface.
“Imperio.”
Sirius bent over the parchment again, floating and happy, and continued writing.
And we can talk about Harry with him, the way that we can’t with anyone else who doesn’t know. Maybe he can help us come up with some way to reach Harry, after all? We’ve only had our own brains working on it for so long, but Remus is a new addition.
Sirius dried the ink, folded the parchment, and stood. His movements weren’t his own as he handed over the parchment to Remus, but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered at the moment except the happy floating feeling in his head.
Remus smiled at Sirius, baring all his teeth. Sirius had the feeling that he should be upset about that, but he wasn’t, really. He stood there happily and smiled.
“Good,” Remus breathed. “In the meantime, you’ll act exactly as you wish to for the next few days, except when you receive the answer and in the matter of telling anyone else that I was here. The knowledge of the Imperius is also going to vanish out of your mind.”
What Imperius? Sirius wondered, but he nodded obediently.
“Good.” Remus paused, looking at him for a long time, and then shook his head. “I still haven’t come up with something bad enough to punish you for turning into me and tarnishing my identity,” he said. “I’ll have to think about that for a while.”
“Okay.”
“Making you feel the full force of your betrayal might work, but…I can’t risk it.”
“Of course not.”
Remus snapped his jaws, which Sirius thought was strange, and then turned and walked out of the house with the letter.
Sirius went to make lunch, since he was hungry, and wondered about the faint sensation of someone screaming in the back of his mind. He had nothing to worry about, especially since a good friend like Remus was back in the country now. Minds were strange things.