He would miss Della out here too. He couldn't get away from the memory of her - even the nickname "Snuffles" had brought her back to mind. And here wasn't as safe as there, in a way. Hogsmeade was a wizarding town - the only one in England. They would all recognize him. He did his best when he could to persuade small children to feed him scraps, to lap up a butterbeer that had spilled or even to lick up fallen crumbs of sweets. It wasn't enough, so he went back to rats until the two screech owls carried the food. After that, it was regular packages from the boy accompanied with notes about nominal changes - nothing out of the ordinary.

Some time later, Harry sent him a note about how Viktor Krum had taken him out into the woods to talk in private. How they'd come across Crouch, who had lost his mind and attacked Karakov.

Sirius was irate and began scribbling furiously:

Harry - what do you think you are playing at, walking off into the forest with Viktor Krum? I want you to swear, by return owl, that you are not going to go walking with anyone else at night. There is somebody highly dangerous at Hogwarts. It is clear to me that they wanted to stop Crouch from seeing Dumbledore and you were probably feet away from them in the dark. You could have been killed. Your name didn't get into the Goblet of Fire by accident. If someone's trying to attack you, they're on their last chance. Stay close to Ron and Hermione, do not leave Gryffindor Tower after hours, and arm yourself for the third task. Practice Stunning and Disarming. A few hexes wouldn't go amiss either. There's nothing you can do about Crouch. Keep your head down and look after yourself. I'm waiting for your letter giving me your word you won't stray out-of-bounds again

The return letter came immediately, swearing on his mother's grave. He winced at that and ran out of the cave to get his mind off of things. He was roaming downtown when someone called animal control. He'd had one of those retractable nooses around his neck, so he flipped the guy over behind a trashcan in the back alley where he'd been caught, turned into a man, removed the noose by hand, erased the man's memory, and then turned back into a dog. He returned to the fissure empty-handed.

The next day, a note came from Harry. He'd been nosing around in Dumbledore's pensieve and had come across the headmaster's memory of Barty Crouch Jr.'s trial when the kid had cried father, father. Harry's come across Dumbledore's memory of Bertha Jorkins and another of Snape worried about something. Dumbledore was concerned about some muggle named Frank Bryce who'd been murdered. Still reading the papers after all these years. And something else about a dream featuring wormtail. Wormtail and a whole lot of pain in his scar. With that voice...

He wrote quickly.

If Voldemort is really getting stronger again, my priority is to ensure your safety. He cannot hope to lay hands on you while you are under Dumbledore's protection, but all the same, take no risks: Concentrate on getting through that maze safely, and then we can turn our attention to other matters.

That owl took off and a few days later, he wished he still had the backside of that other piece of paper handy. He wasn't quite home, whatever that was, but the letters back and forth with Harry helped him feel more-than-tolerated. He felt needed for once, and it felt good. And to keep it up, he wanted to send the boy a card. A good-luck card. He needed a nice, new, clean piece of parchment for the card.

On into Hogsmeade he went, hoping the lady at the parchment and ink store would be gracious to an old shaggy Grim. She cooed when he came and he got a little greedy and snagged a piece of paper too early. She began to chase him out, trying to get the expensive piece of parchment from out of his mouth, but he ran off and splashed through mud on the way. When he got to the cave, he saw the splashes on the card and so he did the only reasonable thing he could think of: he dropped the parchment on the floor of stone, pressed his muddy paw into it, and folded it for the next owl. That would do.

Then he waited. The waiting stretched on longer than anything. He considered contacting Dumbledore's brother, but thought better of it. He considered... no that would be foolish as well. There was nothing for it. He couldn't very well make it back into the maze. Days passed. And then as he was eating the last of the most recent shipment of food, a great burst of fire exploded in front of him as Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix, appeared.

The phoenix carried a note in its beak:

The Goblet of Fire was a portkey. Harry was taken, but has returned to us. A boy named Cedric Diggory is dead. Come.

He'd been summoned like this once before. It was the most welcome he ever felt: useful in the company of others. He simply grabbed hold of the firebird's talons and felt a warming sensation in his bossom and then a cooling as he appeared in Dumbledore's office. Fawkes rested back on his perch.

The oak door pushed open. And Sirius watched as Dumbledore came in with Harry in tow. In one swift moment, he had crossed the room. "Harry, are you all right? I knew it - I knew something like this - what happened?" His hands shook as he helped Harry into a chair in front of the desk. "What happened?" he asked more urgently.

"Barty Crouch Jr.-"

"Is alive?"

"Yes. And pretending to be Alastair all year. He was behind Harry's name being drawn, behind the attack on his own father, who has been hiding him. He forced Winky to do his will. And he turned the Goblet into a portkey-"

Sirius looked at Harry as Dumbledore continued with the tale. The boy looked as tired as he'd felt crossing the North Sea. There was a soft rush of wings. Fawkes the phoenix had left his perch, flown across the office, and landed on Harry's knee. "'Lo, Fawkes," said Harry quietly. He stroked the phoenix's beautiful scarlet-and-gold plumage. Fawkes blinked peacefully up at him.

Dumbledore stopped talking. He sat down opposite Harry, behind his desk. He was looking at Harry, who avoided his eyes. Dumbledore was going to question him. He was going to make Harry relive everything. Sirius couldn't take that. The boy needed a break for once. "I need to know what happened after you touched the Portkey in the maze, Harry," said Dumbledore.

"We can leave that till morning, can't we, Dumbledore?" said Sirius harshly. He had put a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Let him have a sleep. Let him rest." He wanted to snatch the boy away somewhere. Perhaps back to O'Della's house. But no, that house was not his, was not even hers anymore, and wizards would be watching. He had no place to take his godson.

Dumbledore took no notice of Sirius's words. He leaned forward toward Harry.

Harry slowly raised his head and looked at the headmaster with those green eyes of his.

"If I thought I could help you," Dumbledore said gently, "by putting you into an enchanted sleep and allowing you to postpone the moment when you would have to think about what has happened tonight, I would do it. But I know better. Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it. You have shown bravery beyond anything I could have expected of you. I ask you to demonstrate your courage one more time. I ask you to tell us what happened."

The phoenix let out one soft, quavering note. It shivered in the air, and Sirius felt as though a drop of hot liquid had slipped down his throat into his stomach, warming him, and strengthening him. Wouldn't that have been nice in Azkaban?

Harry took a deep breath and began to tell them. He told of the sparkling surface of the potion that had revived Voldemort; of the Death Eaters Apparating between the graves around them; of Cedric's body, lying on the ground beside the cup.

Once or twice, Sirius made a noise as though about to say something, his hand still tight on Harry's shoulder, but Dumbledore raised his hand to stop him. Sirius hated that, but he supposed he had his reasons.

When Harry told of Wormtail piercing his arm with the dagger, however, Sirius let out a vehement exclamation and Dumbledore stood up so quickly that Harry started. Dumbledore walked around the desk and told Harry to stretch out his arm.

Sirius and Dumbledore watched as Harry showed them where his robes were torn and the cut beneath them. "He said my blood would make him stronger than if he'd used someone else's," Harry told Dumbledore. "He said the protection my - my mother left in me - he'd have it too. And he was right - he could touch me without hurting himself, he touched my face."

Was that triumph in Dumbledore's eyes? What had he been right about?

But when Dumbledore had returned to his seat behind the desk, he looked as old and weary as Sirius had ever seen him. "Very well," he said, sitting down again. "Voldemort has overcome that particular barrier. Harry, continue, please."

Harry went on; telling them both how Voldemort had emerged from the cauldron, and all he could remember of Voldemort's speech to the Death Eaters. Then he told how Voldemort had untied him (where had his knot-untying knife been?), returned his wand to him, and prepared to duel, and how the wands connected. Then the boy stopped abruptly. His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, as if trying to keep talking, but some memory held him in shock.

"The wands connected?" Sirius asked, looking from Harry to Dumbledore. "Why?"

Dumbledore looked arrested. "Priori Incantatem," he muttered. His eyes gazed into Harry's and it was almost as though an invisible beam of understanding shot between them.

Sirius was missing something. "The Reverse Spell effect?" said Sirius sharply.

"Exactly," said Dumbledore. "Harry's wand and Voldemort's wand share cores. Each of them contains a feather from the tail of the same phoenix. This phoenix, in fact," he added, and he pointed at the scarlet-and-gold bird, perching peacefully on Harry's knee.

Well that was news.

"My wand's feather came from Fawkes?" Harry said, amazed.

"Yes," said Dumbledore. "Mr. Ollivander wrote to tell me you had bought the second wand, the moment you left his shop four years ago."

"So what happens when a wand meets its brother?" said Sirius.

"They will not work properly against each other," said Dumbledore. "If, however, the owners of the wands force the wands to do battle . . . a very rare effect will take place. One of the wands will force the other to regurgitate spells it has performed - in reverse. The most recent first . . . and then those which preceded it. . . ." He looked interrogatively at the boy, and Harry nodded. "Which means," said Dumbledore slowly, his eyes upon the boy's face, "that some form of Cedric must have reappeared."

Harry nodded again.

"Diggory came back to life?" said Sirius sharply. Would it work on James?

"No spell can reawaken the dead," said Dumbledore heavily. "All that would have happened is a kind of reverse echo. A shadow the living Cedric would have emerged from the wand . . . am I correct, Harry?"

"He spoke to me," Harry said. He was shaking again, under Sirius' grip.

"The . . . the ghost Cedric, or whatever he was, spoke."

"An echo," said Dumbledore, "which retained Cedric's appearance and character. I am guessing other such forms appeared . . . less recent victims of Voldemort's wand. . . ."

"An old man," Harry said, his throat still constricted. "Bertha Jorkins. And . . ."

"Your parents?" said Dumbledore quietly.

"Yes," said Harry.

Sirius gripped Harry's shoulder so tightly, so tightly, hoping to never let go of him, the last of his friends, the last of the Potters. He clung to him as he'd clung to driftwood at the end of his trip in the North Sea.

"The last murders the wand performed," said Dumbledore, nodding. "In reverse order. More would have appeared, of course, had you maintained the connection. Very well, Harry, these echoes, these shadows . . . what did they do?"

Harry told them both how the figures that had emerged from the wand had prowled the edges of the golden web, how Voldemort had seemed to fear them, how the shadow of James had told him what to do, how Cedric's had made its final request.

Sirius buried his face in his hands. You and your gambles. What he wouldn't give to join James inside that web of gold.

"I will say it again," said Dumbledore. "You have shown bravery beyond anything I could have expected of you tonight, Harry. You have shown bravery equal to those who died fighting Voldemort at the height of his powers. You have shouldered a grown wizard's burden and found yourself equal to it - and you have now given us all that we have a right to expect. You will come with me to the hospital wing. I do not want you returning to the dormitory tonight. A Sleeping Potion, and some peace . . . Sirius, would you like to stay with him?"

Sirius wiped his eyes, nodded and stood up. He transformed back into the great black dog and walked with Harry and Dumbledore out of the office, accompanying them down a flight of stairs to the hospital wing. He had almost seen his friend one last time. If only he had gone into the maze: he was a monster, of sorts. He might have fit in there for a time.

When Dumbledore pushed open the door, Sirius saw Mrs. Weasley, Bill, Ron, and Hermione grouped around a harassed-looking Madam Pomfrey. They appeared to be demanding to know where Harry was and what had happened to him. All of them whipped around as Harry, Dumbledore, and Sirius as a black dog entered, and Mrs. Weasley let out a kind of muffled scream. "Harry! Oh Harry!" She started to hurry toward him, but Dumbledore moved between them.

"Molly," he said, holding up a hand, "please listen to me for a moment. Harry has been through a terrible ordeal tonight. He has just had to relive it for me. What he needs now is sleep, and peace, and quiet. If he would like you all to stay with him," he added, looking around at Ron, Hermione, and Bill too, "you may do so. But I do not want you questioning him until he is ready to answer, and certainly not this evening."

Mrs. Weasley nodded. She was very white. She rounded on Ron, Hermione, and Bill as though they were being noisy, and hissed, "Did you hear? He needs quiet!"

"Headmaster," said Madam Pomfrey, staring at the great black dog that was Sirius, "may I ask what - ?"

Oh great. Here it came again.

"This dog will be remaining with Harry for a while," said Dumbledore simply. "I assure you, he is extremely well trained. Harry - I will wait while you get into bed."

Sirius felt an inexpressible sense of gratitude to Dumbledore for defending him and asking him to stay at Harry's side in the school. The thought of getting chased out of another home all over again, the idea of reliving the journey one more time, was more than he could stand.

"I will be back to see you as soon as I have met with Fudge, Harry," said Dumbledore. "I would like you to remain here tomorrow until I have spoken to the school." He left.

As Madam Pomfrey led Harry to a nearby bed, Sirius caught a whiff of the real Moody lying motionless in a bed at the far end of the room. His wooden leg and magical eye were lying on the bedside table.

"Is he okay?" Harry asked.

"He'll be fine," said Madam Pomfrey, giving Harry some pajamas and pulling screens around him.

Ron, Hermione, Bill, Mrs. Weasley, and Sirius the black dog came around the screen and settled themselves in chairs on either side of him. Well, the humans did anyways. Sirius laid on the floor.

"I'm all right," Harry told them. "Just tired."

Sirius sniffed for the stink of death and couldn't find it on him. At least there was that.

Mrs. Weasley smoothed his bedcovers unnecessarily.

Madam Pomfrey, who had bustled off to her office, returned holding a small bottle of some purple potion and a goblet. "You'll need to drink all of this, Harry," she said. "It's a potion for dreamless sleep."

Harry took the goblet and drank a few mouthfuls. His exhaustion had carried him off to sleep. Sirius stood guard and ate some scraps that Madam Pomfrey brought him and behaved better than any dog he knew she'd ever seen. Of course, he was half-tempted to mark his territory on every bed post in the place just to rile her up.

Hours later, people were shouting and running toward the hospital wing.

Harry woke up. The room was still dimly lit.

Sirius heard whispering around him.

Bill said, "They'll wake him if they don't shut up!"

"What are they shouting about?" Mrs. Weasley asked. "Nothing else can have happened, can it?" Mrs. Weasley was on her feet. "That's Fudge's voice," she whispered. "And that's Minerva McGonagall's, isn't it? But what are they arguing about?"

"Regrettable, but all the same, Minerva -" Cornelius Fudge was saying loudly.

"You should never have brought it inside the castle!" yelled Professor McGonagall. "When Dumbledore finds out -"

The hospital doors burst open. Bill pulled back the screens, the others stared at the door. Sirius did and smelled a shift in the air near him as Harry sat up and put his glasses back on.

Fudge came striding up the ward. Professors McGonagall and Snape were at his heels. "Where's Dumbledore?" Fudge demanded of Mrs. Weasley.

"He's not here," said Mrs. Weasley angrily. "This is a hospital wing, Minister, don't you think you'd do better to -"

But the door opened, and Dumbledore came sweeping up the ward. "What has happened?" said Dumbledore sharply, looking from Fudge to Professor McGonagall. "Why are you disturbing these people? Minerva, I'm surprised at you - I asked you to stand guard over Barty Crouch -"

"There is no need to stand guard over him anymore, Dumbledore!" she shrieked. "The Minister has seen to that!" There were angry blotches of color in her cheeks, and her hands were balled into fists; she was trembling with fury. She looked like the last time Sirius had seen her in a duel. Sirius has crossed many women in his life - his mother and cousins particularly - but Minerva was one he made a point to never cross.

"When we told Mr. Fudge that we had caught the Death Eater responsible for tonight's events," said Snape, in a low voice, "he seemed to feel his personal safety was in question. He insisted on summoning a dementor to accompany him into the castle. He brought it up to the office where Barty Crouch -"

"I told him you would not agree, Dumbledore!" Professor McGonagall fumed. "I told him you would never allow dementors to set foot inside the castle, but -"

"My dear woman!" roared Fudge, who likewise looked angrier than Harry had ever seen him, "as Minister of Magic, it is my decision whether I wish to bring protection with me when interviewing a possibly dangerous -"

But Professor McGonagall's voice drowned Fudge's. "The moment that - that thing entered the room," she screamed, pointing at Fudge, trembling all over, "it swooped down on Crouch and - and -"

And did what Sirius had seen them do over and over again inside the supposedly inescapable prison: suck out his soul through his mouth. He tasted a bit of dog vomit in his mouth and chomped it back down.

"By all accounts, he is no loss!" blustered Fudge. "It seems he has been responsible for several deaths!"

Had he a mouth, Sirius would have laughed. There are many things murderers deserve, but no human of any kind - not even a house elf or a goblin - deserved the tortures of Azkaban.

"But he cannot now give testimony, Cornelius," said Dumbledore. He was staring hard at Fudge, as though seeing him plainly for the first time. "He cannot give evidence about why he killed those people."

Yes. That's the point: testimony given from someone under the care of Dementors is legally inadmissible. Unless, of course, you simply plan to promote witch hunts until the end of time.

"Why he killed them? Well, that's no mystery, is it?" blustered Fudge. "He was a raving lunatic! From what Minerva and Severus have told me, he seems to have thought he was doing it all on YouKnow-Who's instructions!"

"Lord Voldemort was giving him instructions, Cornelius," Dumbledore said. "Those people's deaths were mere by-products of a plan to restore Voldemort to full strength again. The plan succeeded. Voldemort has been restored to his body."

Fudge looked as though someone had just swung a heavy weight into his face. Dazed and blinking, he stared back at Dumbledore as if he couldn't quite believe what he had just heard. He began to sputter, still goggling at Dumbledore. "You-Know-Who . . . returned? Preposterous. Come now, Dumbledore . . ."

"As Minerva and Severus have doubtless told you," said Dumbledore, "we heard Barry Crouch confess. Under the influence of Veritaserum, he told us how he was smuggled out of Azkaban, and how Voldemort - learning of his continued existence from Bertha Jorkins - went to free him from his father and used him to capture Harry. The plan worked, I tell you. Crouch has helped Voldemort to return."

"See here, Dumbledore," said Fudge, and Harry was astonished to see a slight smile dawning on his face, "you - you can't seriously believe that. You-Know-Who - back? Come now, come now . . . certainly, Crouch may have believed himself to be acting upon You-Know-Who's orders - but to take the word of a lunatic like that, Dumbledore . . ."

"When Harry touched the Triwizard Cup tonight, he was transported straight to Voldemort," said Dumbledore steadily. "He witnessed Lord Voldemort's rebirth. I will explain it all to you if you will step up to my office." Dumbledore glanced around at Harry and saw that he was awake, but shook his head and said, "I am afraid I cannot permit you to question Harry tonight."

Fudge's curious smile lingered. He too glanced at Harry, then looked back at Dumbledore, and said, "You are - er - prepared to take Harry's word on this, are you, Dumbledore?"

There was a moment's silence, which was broken by Sirius growling. His hackles were raised, and he was baring his teeth at Fudge. He would eat the man. He could do it cleanly here and now...