"Yep" said old Tom back in the present. "Those first two Triwizard tasks were fun."
"And potentially life threatening for us" said Jerry.
"For you, you mean" Tom corrected him. "I was lucky enough not to go up against that dragon, and niether of us went into the lake."
Jerry nodded. "Of course" he added, "the Third Task that was...I don't even like to think about it."
"What do you mean? We didn't even go into the maze"
"I mean what happened after it" said Jerry.
"Oh right, yeah. That was just horrible" said Tom as his mind went racing back to that night.
The night was warm and sultry. Everyone from Hogwarts, Beuxbatons and Durmstrang was sitting at the entrance to a huge maze which had been planted on the quidditch pitch. Three hours ago, all four champions had entered it in the search for the Triwizard Cup. Whoever got to it first won the tournament. So far, Fleur Delacour had pulled out and was now sitting with her fellow Beuxbatons. There was no sign of the other champions though and Tom and Jerry were getting very nervous. They had no idea what was happening to Harry, and they had no way of entering the maze and finding out.
"Jeez, it's been three hours" said Jerry, pacing up and down his short stretch of bench. "How much longer?"
Suddenly there was a loud whoosing noise and Harry and Cedric were lying in front of the crowd. Harry was clutching the Triwizard Cup in his hand.
"About half a second" said Tom. He placed Jerry on his shoulder and rushed down to meet their master. He looked badly scratched and bruised, and was lying on top of a motionless Cedric.
"What happened to you?" asked Jerry as he leapt down from Tom's shoulders. "Was one of Hagrid's skrewts in there? Did a dementor attack you? What?" He gently tugged at Harry's sleeve. This was met with violent thrashing by Harry.
"Get off!" he cried without looking at Jerry. "I won't let you touch him!"
"Harry, if you don't get up then Cedric won't be able to..." At this point, Jerry caught a glimpse of Cedric's face. It was as white as a sheet, his eyes were totally unblinking and staring blankly at his surroundings. Not one of his facial features was moving. And then with a gasp of shock and horror, Jerry realised the terrible truth.
"Cedric, he's...dead" he gasped, barely able to comprehend what he was seeing.
"Oh no!" gasped Tom, placing his hands to his mouth in the same wide eyed shock that Jerry was exhibiting. "That's terrible! He was such a great guy as well"
At this point, the everyone else around them seemed to notice that Cedric wasn't moving. A Ravenclaw girl pointed and screamed. Dumbledore and Cornelius Fudge came bustling down from the stands.
"For God's sake, Dumbledore. What's happened?" babbled Fudge.
"He's back. Voldemort's back" said Harry, in a voice choked with terrified sobs. Wherever the poor boy had been he was clearly traumatised by the things he had seen. And Voldemort back? That shook Tom and Jerry to the core. They knew that Harry did not lie about something like that, and there and then they knew that his attempted murderer was back. How he was back they did not know, all they knew now was that their up till now placid job was about to get a lot more serious.
While Fudge tried unsucessfully to hide Cedric's body from the horrified onlookers, Tom and Jerry saw Mad-Eye Moody, the new defence against the dark arts teacher, gently pulling Harry away and leading him up to the castle. This did not seem unusual as the two had grown reasonably close since Moody had helped Harry to get past the dragons at the First Task. But suddenly, Dumbledore grabbed Tom by the arm and looked at him with a look of the slightest fear on his face.
"Thomas, you and Jerry get after Moody and Harry. Watch Moody carefully, don't let him out of your sight."
"What for?" asked Tom.
"Do as I say" said Dumbledore in a voice full of authority, and Tom knew that that was not a request, but an order that should be followed without question. He scooped up Jerry with one hand, took out his wand with the other and dashed off after Moody and Harry.
For someone with a wooden leg, Moody moved with surprising speed. What should probably have taken him about half an hour at the very least to get up to the castle actually took him about five minutes. All the while, Tom and Jerry scrambled up the steep hill, trying desperately not to lose sight of him. However, by the time he had entered the castle, they were still only halfway up the hill. As they entered the Great Hall, they could see him walking up the stairs to his office. By the time they had reached his office, the door was shut. Tom tugged on the handle.
"It's locked!" he exclaimed.
"Well, it's nothing a little alohamora charm can't fix" said Jerry, pulling out his wand.
"Wait" said Tom. "Maybe we should just listen at the door, find out what Moody's doing in there before we burst in like that."
"But Dumbledore said-
"Dumbledore might be wrong" said Tom. "Moody's been ok up till now, why should anything change?"
Jerry was silent for a moment, then with considerably reluctance, he put his wand away. Tom scooped him up on to his shoulder and they both listened through the keyhole to Moody and Harry's conversation.
"Voldemort's back, Harry. Are you sure?"
"Yes"
"How?"
"He took a bone from his father's grave, Wormtail's hand and...my blood"
"Ugh!" exclaimed Jerry. "Sounds more like some kind of blood fest. This Voldy's a sick pervert!"
"And the Death Eaters?" inquired Moody. "They returned?"
"Yes, loads of them" said Harry. For a moment he was silent save for a few ragged gasps. Then suddenly, he cried "There's a death eater at Hogwarts. They put my name in the Goblet of Fire, they made sure I got through to the end. Was it Karkaroff?"
"Please say yes" whispered Tom.
"No" said Moody. "It was me!" Tom and Jerry's jaws dropped simultaneously. Under ordinary circumstances, they would have cast alohamora on the door lock and been into the room in minutes. But something compelled them to keep listening to what Moody had to say.
"No" gasped Harry from the other side of the door. "You didn't! You can't have!"
"I can assure you I did" said Moody. "He forgave them then, the death eaters who escaped Azkaban? Did the Dark Lord forgive them?"
"What?"
"I said did he forgive them?" snarled Moody, viscous now. Tom and Jerry fingered their wands. "Those treacherous scum who did not sit out Azkaban for him. Those cowards who were all too happy to parade around in masks and cloaks at the Quidditch World Cup, but who ran in terror at the Dark Mark when I sent it up into the sky last summer! Well, now I shall claim my reward. For not only have I seen to it that you have survived the tournament, but now I have also given the Dark Lord the very thing he needed to regain his body. You! And now imagine how he will reward me when I tell him that I have done his job for him, that I have killed Harry Potter!"
"Alohomora!" bellowed Tom, pointing his wand at the door handle. The door swung open immediately. Moody turned around to see the cat and mouse come bursting towards him. He raised his wand, but before he could use it, Jerry shot a spell out of his.
"Incarcerous!" Long thick ropes shot out of Jerry's wand and wrapped themselves around Moody. He fell to the floor with a loud clunk and a foul oath.
"Good work you two" came Dumbledore's voice from behind them. Tom and Jerry turned to see the Professor rushing into the office with Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape.
"Sir, Professor Moody" began Harry, Tom and Jerry in unison.
"This is not Alastor Moody" said Dumbledore, pointing his wand at the bound man on the floor. "You have never known the real Alastor Moody, Harry. Nor have you, Thomas and Jerry. The real Alastor Moody would never have let Harry out of my sight after what happened here tonight."
"Well, then who is he?" asked Jerry.
Almost as if in response, Moody began to retch and squirm about on the floor. Snape went up to him and fumbled about in his coat pocket, before withdrawing the hip flask Moody had been drinking from all year. He sniffed it.
"Polyjuice Potion."
Meanwhile, the man on the floor continued to change. Locks of Moody's clolourless hair fell out and was replaced with blond hair instead. The magical eye began to spin in its socket wildly before eventually, with a disgusting sounding pop, it fell out on to the floor. In its place was an ordinary eye. Moody, naturally quite bulky in appearance, began to get thinner. His wooden leg broke away from his body and shot across the room like a rocket as it was replaced with a real one. Eventually it was no longer Mad Eye Moody lying bound on the floor, but a tall, skinny, blond man who Tom and Jerry had never seen before. Dumbledore guided him with his wand into a chair.
"Barty Crouch Jr." he said in a contemptous voice. He snapped his fingers and held out his arm adjacent to his body. "Severus, the truth potion. Minerva, Thomas, Jerry, please leave the room."
Tom and Jerry nodded. Tom took Harry's hand in his paw.
"Come on Harry, let's get you up to the Hospital Wing."
"Harry must stay, Thomas" said Dumbledore as Snape placed a small bottle in his outstretched palm. Professor McGonagall looked at him in shock.
"Dumbledore he ought to come with his familiars and I. I mean look at him, he's-"
"He must stay, Minerva" said Dumbledore. "For he needs to understand. He needs to know why he has been put through what happened to him tonight, and who by."
"Very well" said Professor McGonagall. She scooped up Jerry in her palm, took Tom by the paw and lead them both out of the room, followed shortly afterwards by Snape. The door slammed shut immediately afterwards. As Snape stalked off down the corridor, Tom and Jerry turned to Professor McGonagall.
"Professor, it was Voldemort" said Tom. McGonagall, who had been making to head off down the corridor after Snape, turned to him with a look of shock on her face.
"The Dark Lord?"
"Yes" said Jerry. "We overheard Harry telling Moody, or whoever it is in there, that he's back. Body and all!" Professor McGonagall's face went very white, she placed her hand to her heart. For several long moments, they all stood there in complete silence. Then finally, McGonagall crouched down to Tom and Jerry's level.
"Well then, I think you'd best keep an extra close eye on Mr. Potter in future. Don't you?"
Ok, seriously guys. Why aren't there any reviews? Authors like me put a lot of effort into writing fics like this, and it's just insulting when nobody can be bothered to write feedback for them. So could I please get at least one review for this chapter? Thank you.