Chapter 7

April drifted quietly into May and Harry liked to think that, despite the threat of the third task hanging over his head, he was settling into his new routine quite nicely.

He would wake up early with Neville and go down to meet Hermione in the common room. The three of them would spend one day researching in the library until breakfast and another in an empty classroom practicing the spells they had chosen. Not only was he becoming more confident that he could face anything the tournament threw at him, he was breezing ahead in most of his classes. The only class he could claim to be failing miserably was Divination and that was largely due to the fact that he spent most of the double period catching up on his sleep.

That peace, however, was broken in the last Divination lesson of the month when Harry went from dozing peacefully in his chair to writhing in agony on the ground as his scar, which had been burning away at a slow and easy to ignore pace since the holidays, burst into excruciating pain.

When he was shaken awake by Professor Trelawney, it took him a moment to get his bearings and her overpowering perfume left him wishing he could return to the vision of Voldemort torturing Wormtail.

He batted Trelawney away and excused himself to the Hospital Wing, hoping that Madam Pomfrey would be able to find him something to stop the world from spinning. He took the long way down, trying to stop his hands from shaking, and almost tripped over a pedestal as he glanced out of the windows into the early summer sunshine.

Righting himself, he turned to swear at the gargoyle he had tripped over and found that his absent-minded wandering had carried him to the Headmasters door. After Remus' thorough ear bashing, Dumbledore had barely been seen in the castle and it was a poorly contained secret that the staff were less than happy with his disappearance.

If he strained his ears, he could almost make out raised voices drifting down the stairs. Dumbledore might have been behind the manipulations that saw Harry dumped unceremoniously with his Aunt and Uncle but he was still the foremost expert on Voldemort in the world.

Frankly, he was the only expert on Voldemort in the world and he was the only person Harry could think of that might have a chance of understanding what was happening to him.

It took him less than five minutes to guess the password and he narrowed his eyes disbelievingly at the gargoyle when it jumped aside at the mention of "Mars Bars" before climbing up the narrow stair case.

He was hard pressed to catch more than the occasional word from through the thick wooden door but he was able to make out the voices of Dumbledore and Fudge shouting the odds at each other over something. Harry thought back to the rumours that had been circulating at breakfast of a body being found on the grounds and was just about to raise his hand to knock when another voice cut through the shouting.

"Headmaster! It would seem Mr Potter would like a word with you, shall I show the Minister here down to the forest?"

Dumbledore must have agreed because a few moments later, Professor Moody had pulled open the door and was showing Fudge out.

"Harry, my boy! What can I do to help? I wasn't aware that there were any free periods for fourth years today."

Harry shuffled into the room, avoiding the pointed look being directed at him over the headmaster's glasses.

"There aren't...I was in Divination and...I was going to go to Madame Pomfrey but I thought you might know a little more...I collapsed, you see...and I thinkI had a vision about Voldemort."

When Dumbledore flinched at the name, Harry looked up and was surprised to find him looking distinctly ill.

"...it wasn't just a dream, was it? That's why my scar hurts whenever he's around...there's a connection between us, isn't there?"

Dumbledore nodded gravely, busying himself with packing away a sturdy-looking stone bowl into a cupboard.

"I had feared as much..."

Harry dropped his bag on the floor and collapsed into one of the chairs opposite the desk.

"So not only did you leave me with the worst humans you could have found, you missed out the vital piece of information where I have a direct line to the man who's trying to kill me!"

"Harry I..."

"No way. I'm not finished. I would have been safer if you'd left me with the Malfoys! Then you shut down my parents will, leaving me with no idea who I was! I could have had a proper family this whole time!"

Harry was just about working up a good head of steam when there was a light knock on the door, throwing him off.

"Hermione was right, you're hiding something...I'm sorry I bothered you sir."

He barely registered that he was pushing past the Minister when he left.

If Dumbledore was at one end of the scale where helpfulness was concerned, McGonagall was his polar opposite. It had taken her much longer than she had anticipated thanks to Lucius Malfoy blocking all of her attempts to contact the DMLE but she had finally managed to arrange for Amelia Bones to stop by the school under the pretence of collecting information about the so-called disappearance of Barty Crouch Snr.

She sat patiently in Professor McGonagall"s office, watching from the window as a small, haphazard-looking group made its way towards the Quidditch pitch.

Harry had to break out into a steady jog to keep pace with Bagman and the other champions as they made their way across the grounds. They were heading out towards the stadium where Harry could just about make out people running around the pitch, looking busy.

As they got closer, he was able to pick out low, long hedges criss-crossing over the once immaculate grass. Just imagining the fit that Oliver Wood would be having come time for the Third Task brought a smile to Harry's face. Viktor and Cedric seemed to be thinking along the same lines as they exchanged a pained look over the state of the pitch.

"Oh this isn't going to be good..."

Note: Barty Crouch Snr is dead by this point, as in canon. The reason that Harry had only heard rumours is down to the fact that Krum had no reason to ask for a private word with him as they are really becoming good friends by this point. Running by the calendar on the HP Lexicon (which I like to use to keep myself on a sensible track), I've pushed back the explanation of the third task by about a week.

My main reasons for this are that my Harry is a lot more aware of the world around him and, had he and Krum encountered Crouch in the forest, he would have been more determined to bring him to Dumbledore personally, thus revealing Voldemort's plot far too early.

Another thing I think is worth noting is that Harry is pretty clearly not willing to listen to Dumbledore's reasoning at this point in time kind of like oh, I don't know, every single 14 year old I know. Dumbledore has fucked up, yes, but Harry's not some flawless golden boy with knowledge beyond his age either and let's face it – it's a pretty stressful year for him. I'm hoping to be done and dusted with 4th year by Chapter 10 anyway so I can move onto some more interesting things.