Revised 6.26.2010


The first thought that entered Sirius' mind when he heard Bartemius Crouch's voice was a cuss word. Then the Animagus' thoughts turned to Harry.

At least the Mini-Prongs isn't in here right now, Sirius thought with some relief. Things are about to get extremely messy.


Ted Tonks nearly groaned out loud when he heard his boss say, "Ah. Moody. You decided to have an interrogation session without me, did you?" This is not good, Ted thought to himself. At least Dora isn't in here. She has an odd habit of making things worse.

"Tonks, what are you doing here? I thought I told you to get to work on the Death Eater sightings down in York!" Crouch snapped at the Auror.

"Jones decided to handle it, seeing as I brought my daughter to work today," Ted answered. He immediately cursed himself for dragging Dora into the whole thrice-damned situation. Please don't notice that I mentioned Dora-

"Hmm. I was not under the impression that your daughter was invisible, Tonks," Crouch growled while he caught Ted with one of his most piercing stares.

"She's not," Ted said shortly. "She's at the snack vendor with her friend." Well, Tonks thought to himself, at least I'm telling the truth…

How very wrong he was.


Tonks groaned as she heaved Harry onto the next landing.

"Harry, do you know where we are?" she asked the baby desperately.

Harry grinned at her.

"Where are we, then?"

Harry looked around confusedly and shrugged his tiny shoulders.

Tonks groaned again. "Argh! I knew I should have taken the lift! Still," she said thoughtfully, "these stairs do look interesting-as though no one ever uses them!"

Harry peered around again, and, as though he had decided that he was going to be stuck in one place for a while, plopped down on the ground and began to suck his thumb.

"Oh, you're really helpful, Harry," Tonks grumbled at the baby. Harry looked up at her with wide emerald eyes.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Harry," Tonks sighed as she, too, sat down on the dark, dusty landing. "I just hate being so help-OH!"

Tonks had just caught a glimpse of light, as though a door several floors above had opened and shut.

"THE LIGHT!" Tonks screamed dramatically. She hopped to her feet and began to dance around in circles. Harry, who had never encountered a manic eight-year-old girl before that day, stared at Tonks with his brilliant green eyes and then began to laugh. He giggled even harder when Tonks accidentally ran into the wall and fell over.

"Oh, shut up, you," Tonks grumbled good-naturedly as she pulled herself off of the floor. "Let's go!" With that, she scooped Harry up (with some difficulty) and headed up the stairs.


Mad-Eye was not a happy camper, to say the least. He had worked hard to keep this interrogation quiet, but somehow his bloody idjit of a boss had heard about it.

Dammit, why can't he just let me interrogate this Death Eater in peace? Once Crouch gets his hands on Pettigrew, there won't be a trial like there should be! He's ruining the image of all the Magical Law Enforcement Officers!

"Well, this is a perfect picture for a few arrests, don't you think?" Crouch said silkily. "An unauthorized interrogation conducted by two maverick Aurors and a Death Eater sounds like all I need-"

"Oh, is that what I am?" Moody growled. "A maverick? I don't know about your dictionary, Crouch, but the last time I checked, you were the maverick Auror. I didn't know that throwing Death Eaters into Azkaban without a trial was-what's the word? Ah, that's it-legal."

Crouch's eyes bulged slightly. Mad-Eye thought, Let him be angry! He deserves to be-

Mad-Eye's hand jumped to his wand reflexively as Crouch drew his own wand.

What the-

"PROTEGO!"


(All right, that's where this chapter ends. Hopefully I didn't make too many mistakes this chapter. I sincerely hope that I don't offend anyone with my characterization of Crouch(did anyone guess that I, to use an oft-used phrase "hate his guts"?). Anyway, that's the chapter. Please review!

-Icey)

Apparently, when I initially wrote this chapter, I didn't know how to make dividers. For anyone who's curious, the divider button is in the document editor on FFN near the bold, italics, and other goodies.