Weeks later, he knew he'd picked the right house for food but the wrong house to blend in and feel welcome in the town surrounding Smoo Cave. At least he hadn't needed to strip: she took him in as a sort of surrogate son and turned out she knew a lot more about his world than she'd let on, but she didn't read the papers as far north as she was. She thought of herself as something of a hermit pretending to live a normal life among the less-than-magical villagers up here. The fat lady's name was Della - short for O'Della. Sirius made a habit of singing:

Oh Della Oh Della

Who's plumper than most

You warm me, adorn me

And fill me with toast.

She laughed enough. And she gave him more than toast and muffins: he ate better than he'd eaten since school and could also nick food to smuggle back to the beast. The beast had taken to eating crawfish and slithering things that had washed in from that damnable North Sea. It was on such a trip back to the cave one night that he got the next letter, which did, in fact, arrive far more discretely:

Dear Sirius,

You told me to keep you posted on what's happening... Tournament's happening this year and on Saturday night I got picked as a fourth champion. I don't know who put my name in... Hope you're okay...

That did it. He wrote back immediately:

I can't say everything I would like to in a letter, it's too risky... we need to talk face-to-face. Can you be sure you're alone by the fire... at one o'clock in the morning on the 22nd of November?

I know better than anyone that you can look after yourself... I don't think anyone will be able to hurt you. However, someone seems to be having a good try. Entering you in that tournament would have been very risky...

...I still want to hear about anything unusual. Let me know about the 22nd of November as quickly as you can.

He got an independent letter from the headmaster as well, explaining the situation, particularly how dragons were the first test in the tournament. The boy needed to hit it with a Conjunctivitis Curse, right in the eye.

A few days later the response came from the boy:

22nd of November. One in the morning. By the common room fire.

He warned the beast that he wouldn't be coming home that night. Then he went to the little cottage, buttered up O'Della and stayed late and of course she offered for him to stay. So he cozied up on the couch and she stoked the fire and added some logs and then ambled back to her room where he first heard the bedsprings whining and then, after the echos of a large mammal tossing and turning mid-hibernation, he heard the sounds of a low, whistling snore. He laughed, got the chuckles about it, and had to cover his mouth at the comic sound of it.

He stoked the fire to a brilliance and tossed some of the powder in and it flared up. Then he buried his head in the coals.

"Sirius - how're you doing?" the boy asked. His eyes were scanning his features, surprised. Probably because he'd been eating well and didn't have mangy hair.

"Never mind me, how are you?" Sirius asked.

"I'm..."

Sirius waited.

"No one believed me. I couldn't enter the tournament by myself. I don't know how. And there's this journalist. She interviewed me and lied about me in her paper. And now I can't walk down the hall without people sneering at me over what she said. I think. And Ron doesn't believe that I couldn't enter the tournament either. He's jealous that he couldn't get in and jealous of the paper and he won't talk to me. And now Hagrid's just shown me what's coming in the first task, and it's dragons, Sirius, and I'm a goner."

Oh to be young. "Dragons we can deal with, Harry, but we'll get into that in a minute - I haven't got long here... I've broken into a wizarding house to use the fire, but they could be back at any time." That was true, but it made it sound more glamorous than how it had actually played out. Eh, let the kid think he was a renegade a bit longer. Maybe they could get into a little trouble together later like he and James used to do, godfather and son. "There are things I need to warn you about."

"What?"

He told the boy about his cellmate Karkaroff from the prison in the North Sea and how the guy was at the school. That's probably why Old Mad Eye was there in the first place: watching over the old felon.

"Why did they release him?"

"He did a deal with the Ministry of Magic," said Sirius. "He said he'd seen the error of his ways, then he named names... he put a load of people into Azkaban in his place... He's not very popular in there, I can tell you. And since he got out, from what I can tell, he's been teaching the Dark Arts to every student who passes through that school of his. So watch out for the Durmstrang champion as well."

"Okay," Harry said slowly. "But are you saying Karkaroff put my name in the goblet? Because if he did, he's a really good actor. He seemed furious about it. He wanted to stop me from competing."

"We know he's a good actor," said Sirius, "because he convinced the Ministry of Magic to set him free, didn't he? Now I've been keeping an eye on the Daily Prophet, Harry-"

"You and the rest of the world," said Harry.

"-and reading between the lines of that Skeeter woman's article last month, Moody was attacked the night before he started at Hogwarts. I think someone knew their job would be a lot more difficult with him around. And no one's going to look into it too closely, Mad Eye's heard intruders a bit too often. But that doesn't mean he can't still spot the real thing. Moody was the best Auror the Ministry ever had."

"So... what are you saying?" said Harry slowly, "Karakoff's trying to kill me? But - why?"

Sirius hesitated. "I've been hearing some very strange things," he said slowly, "The Death Eaters seem to be a bit more active than usual lately. They showed themselves at the Quidditch World Cup, didn't they? Someone set off the Dark Mark ... and then - did you hear about that Ministry of Magic witch who's gone missing?"

"Bertha Jorkins?" said Harry.

"Exactly ... she disappeared in Albania and that's definitely where Voldemort was rumored to be last ... and she would have know the Triwizard Tournament was coming up, wouldn't she?"

"Yeah, but...it's not very likely she'd have walked straight into Voldemort, is it?" said Harry.

"Listen, I knew Bertha Jorkins," said Sirius grimly. "She was at Hogwarts when I was, a few years above your dad and me. And she was an idiot. Very nosy, but no brains, none at all. It's not a good combination, Harry. I'd say she'd be very easy to lure into a trap."

"So... so Voldemort could have found out about the tournament?" said Harry. "Is that what you mean? You think Karkaroff might be here on his orders?"

"I don't know," Sirius said slowly, "I just don't know... Karkaroff doesn't strike me as the type who'd go back to Voldemort unless he knew Voldemort was powerful enough to protect him. But whoever put your name in that goblet did it for a reason, and I can't help thinking the tournament would be a very good way to attack you and make it look like an accident."

"Looks like a really good plan from where I'm standing," said Harry grinning bleakly. "They'll just have to stand back and let the dragons do their stuff."

"Right - these dragons," said Sirius, speaking very quickly now. "There's a way, Harry. Don't be tempted to try a Stunning Spell - dragons are strong and too powerfully magical to be knocked out by a single stunner, you need about half a dozen wizards at a time to overcome a dragon - "

"Yeah, I know, I just saw," said Harry.

Good old Hagrid. He missed his motorcycle. "But you can do it alone," said Sirius. "There's a way and a simple spell's all you need. Just - "

But Harry held up a hand to silence him.

Sirius heard footsteps coming down the staircase on the other side.

"Go!" Harry hissed. "Go! There's someone coming!"

Sirius backed out of the fireplace and heard Della getting out of bed. "Young man," she said, "to whom were you speaking?"

"A face in the fire," he said.

"Always hated that powder. I miss the days when we still used horses and whispers. I'll turn on the tea," she said, "and you can tell me all about these dragons."

He made up some crock story about wanting to feel like a dragon sometimes at night and burying his face in the coals to fool himself.

"Why would you want to do that?"

"To feel strong."

"Economy does terrible things to my self-esteem too."

"Er... yeah," he said. He worked on his port and passed on the tea.

She said, "What shall I call you?"

"Snuffles," he said.