The New Prophecy

/SCENES OF TERROR AT THE QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP!/

/Ministry Blunders... destruction of property... dark wizards running amok... Barty Crouch Jr, a known Death Eater thought to have died in Azkaban years ago, was found decapitated and torn limb from limb… tortured muggles.../

Harry sighed. The article went on and on in a diatribe of accusations and calls for sackings. Rita Skeeter really seemed to have it out for the ministry. Her normal targets were celebrity scandals and cheap gossip. At least his own secret was still safe… for now.

In his distracted state, the conversation had moved further along than he had realized. [Gran didn't want to go," Neville said miserably. "Wouldn't buy tickets. It sounded amazing though."] He sighed and looked out of the window of their train compartment.

"It was," said Ron. "We even got to see Viktor Krum snub Malfoy!" *guffaw*

Hermione looked up from her book, and snickered. "Viktor was more interested in meeting Harry, than listening to people act like fangirls."

"Really?" Neville glanced at Harry, who looked up from the newspaper he had been reading.

"Yeah, we've been writing each other ever since." Harry's smile was smitten. He tended to wear this same smile whenever he received a letter that addressed him as /Handsome Boy/.

Hermione's snickering continued. "I can't tell which likes Viktor more... Harry or Ron!" In falsetto, she quoted Ron. "V-v-v-v-viktor K-k-k-krum, looked at me!"

"I was not that bad!" Ron's face suddenly matched his hair.

"Sure Ronald." Hermione sing-songed.

"Whatever!" Ron griped. "Point is, we got to sit in the Top Box - "

The door to their compartment suddenly slid open with a slam. "For the first and last time in your life, Weasley." Draco Malfoy interrupted the moment the door cleared his way.

Harry assessed Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, and found them wanting. "Can't help yourself, can you?" His voice was cold and unimpressed. "Think you're entitled to everyone's attention."

Draco stiffened slightly, but decided to ignore Harry's needling. "Weasley… what is that?" The poncy blonde had zeroed in on the first thing he could use to insult the redhead. His dress robes. But before Draco could snatch the robe, Harry was an inch from his face. He had moved so fast, he may as well have apparated.

Harry's eyes were hard, and his smile was sharp. "Draco." His voice was silky, and laced with veiled threat. When Draco's bookends cracked their knuckles, Harry merely raised an eyebrow.

The blonde's vision was filled with nothing but Harry Potter, and his intimidating presence. Strangely intoxicated, Draco could only stare in stupefaction. The silence stretched to a nearly awkward degree, before Draco realized that he needed to pull things back into his own favor. "You better watch your back, Potter!"

Ron in a surprising demonstration of quick-wit, made a dig at Draco. "Why should he? You gaze at his backside plenty enough!"

Hermione started choking on her own spit.

"As if you're in a position to judge the likes of me!" Draco blustered. "You can't even afford dress robes from this century! I bet your father isn't even important enough to be told about the Tournament!"

Ron leaped to his feet, and began to growl subsonically. Fortunately, his glowing eyes were hidden behind Harry's back, and also blocked from Neville's view, who had been sitting closest to the window.

"||Ronald||" Harry's voice was calm, yet laced with a strangely deep and commanding tone. The redhead immediately looked down and his eyes faded back to their normal brown color.

Harry's hand grasped the blonde's robes firmly, and lifted the boy off his feet. Crabbe and Goyle had sensed the presence of a predator and had instinctively backed away into the corridor. Harry looked Draco dead in the boy's comically wide eyes. His smile was positively vindictive. "It's time for you to go now, Malfoy."

Half a second later, Draco found himself colliding with the outer wall of the train car, and the door in front of him closing with a click.

With Draco expelled from the room, Hermione returned to her book. In all honestly, she hadn't read a single paragraph of the book. Just mindlessly turning the pages through her distracted thoughts.

Harry had killed. It may have turned out to be a known Death Eater. A Death Eater that had killed and tortured countless others. Barty Crouch Jr was a truly evil man. Her father had once sat her down and asked her an important question. /"If a murderer could escape from prison to kill again, was it better to recapture him, or end the threat forever?"/

Try as she might, Hermione couldn't convince herself to disagree with Harry's actions. And sitting so close to him - She felt so... safe.

- DTFA -

The noise was… overwhelming. That was the first thing Harry noticed when he had entered the Great Hall. The next was the smell. 'Merlin's balls, did they always smell that horrid?'

Harry took a moment to breath through his mouth, and focus on dialing back his senses. The chaotic mix of chemo-signals, unwashed bodies, and teenage pheromones in the room was… brain melting.

While the new students were called to the front for sorting, his eyes wandered across the hall. His fellow students had reacted rather strangely to him. Shy. Intimidated. Unable to look him in the eye for more than few seconds. It was as if they instinctively recognized him as an Alpha. Before this summer, he would have cringed at the mere thought. Felt guilty and uncomfortable at the reflexive fear of him. But now, he felt… content. It felt, right.

At the head table, a man with a spinning glass eye sat in the DADA Professor's seat. 'Mad-Eye Moody' his mind supplied. His ears tuned into a conversation further along the table.

" - Wizard Catcher. Half the cells in Azkaban were filled because of him. Mad as a hatter, that one."

"Who's the one with the pencil stache?"

"Bartemius Crouch, Head of International Magic Cooperation if I remember correctly."

"Didn't he get sacked from the DMLE?"

He also noted that Severus Snape occasionally glared at the side of Moody's face. Clear hatred, right there. However, Harry apparently stared for too long, as Snape seemed to feel it and locked eyes with him. Narrow black eyes analyzed him. 'Ask Creevey for a photo, it lasts longer.' The man jerked back, as if he could hear the thought.

Snorting, Harry lost interest, and noticed that Hermione was ranting about slave labor. He decided to nip this in the bud before she got it into her head to start a PETA for House-Elves. "Mione, they're genetically predisposed to this sort of thing. They'll take your refusal to eat as an insult."

"What?" Hermione's head swiveled in his direction. "They can't possibly! They must be brainwashed!"

Harry shook his head. "I had a long talk with Dobby about it last year. Turns out, he isn't technically 'Free'. Sure, he could leave the castle whenever he wants. But if he did, he wouldn't be able to receive the stabilizing force that Hogwarts provides for the elves."

"Stabilizing force?"

"Mm-Hm! Truly free elves, don't live very long. Their own magic actually starts to attack them. Sort of like how a muggle's immune system can attack their nervous system and cause ALS. Without being bound to the Castle, or a Wizard family… it slowly kills them." Harry gave her a sympathetic look when her face turned horrified. "Trust me, I was just as disturbed at first, too. You know how I grew up."

Neville had a blank look on his face. "What's ALS?"

Harry turned to him. "It's a progressive paralysis disease. There's no cure."

Several students within earshot cringed.

Hermione stared at her plate of food with wide eyes. "This… this would really insult them?"

Ron perked up. "Yeah! I saw an Elf cry once, when someone said the chicken was slightly dry." He didn't mention that it was absolutely hilarious.

The evening continued much more smoothly, and Hermione had ended her hunger strike before it even began. The Headmaster was now announcing the details of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, and when the fact that Durmstrang was would be in attendance, Harry finally realized what Viktor had meant in his last letter. /I'll be seeing you soon, Handsome Boy. Do not let anyone kidnap you!/ 'Viktor was coming to Hogwarts!'

Harry snapped out of his day dreaming of Viktor, when Mr. Crouch had made his speech about an age restriction due to the dangers of the tasks. Only a legal adult was allowed to enter their name.

"That's not fair!"

"I'll be seventeen in APRIL!"

Crouch looked increasingly shifty and weird. Almost like he wanted to bolt from the room. Like a paranoid prey animal. His shaking hand reached into a coat pocket, to retrieve a flask that he took a sip from. There had been rumors of his growing drinking problem. But to partake right in front of the students?

*booing*

Harry leaned towards Ron. "I'm glad we can't enter. I don't know about you, but i've had enough danger in my life, thank you very much!" The redhead frowned in response. The mention of the death toll had put him off any thoughts of seeking fame and money. He nodded in agreement. "I'll drink to that!"

Turning to Harry, Hermione smiled mischievously. "I bet someone is looking forward to Durmstrang's arrival."

"Yes, I am." intoned Harry. His smile was smitten. Harry was whisked away into a memory of the older boy running a thumb over his lips.

Hermione giggled.

- DTFA -

Albus Dumbledore waved his hand to beckon his pensieve to the center of his office. It dutifully floated along with nary a ripple of its liquid surface. In his hand was a small glowing glass vial.

"Albus, what - " Minerva McGonagall started with a look of bafflement.

"Sybil has given another prophecy." He cut her off. "And it is already in play."

Standing beside Minerva was Severus Snape and Mad-Eye Moody. Moody's voice was gruff. "How many bloody prophecies has that old fraud made?!"

"This is her third." Albus uncorked his vial and poured the contents into the pensieve. With a twirl of his wand, the inky liquid swirled and coalesced into an image. A wand flick later, and a ghostly representation of Sybil Trelawney's head came into existence.

/"Three children of the moon shall die,

the one who lives shall become Death,

and the Dark Lord shall flee before the might of Death,

The Destroyer of Worlds!"/

Snape's face was pale. "When?"

"One hour before Harry disappeared from the train." Albus intoned, knowing what he meant. "Exactly one hour."

"Are you certain?" Minerva voice was weak.

"Yes." Albus turned to look his companions directly. "Remus Lupin was one of three werewolves to die in that warehouse."

"Who?"

"Fenrir Greyback, and Robert Horton."

Moody snorted. "Good riddance!"

What Albus was not telling the others, was that he had acquired an eyewitness's pensieve memory of the event. Upon viewing it, he observed a frantic Shigeo Yukimura driving away shortly after the explosion with a young man in his backseat. A young man, with glowing red eyes. A young man that he had come to care for, from afar.

Harry Potter.