20 chapters! This is brilliant - I have never stayed focused on one book for so long :) Anyways... would you guys like the light, happier ending or the darker, sadder ending? The darker ending is just slightly more angsty and contains more USUK fluff...

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It comes down to this," said Harry, rubbing his forehead. "Either Professor Moody attacked Viktor, or somebody else attacked both of them when Viktor wasn't looking. It must've been Moody. That's why he was gone when Dumbledore and I got there. He'd done a runner."

"Potter…" Professor McGonagall shook her head. "Professor Moody is a respected member of society. He has put away countless death eaters. Don't you think that he would be on our side?"

"I don't think so," said Harry, shaking his head also. "He's really creepy and he is always- wait, maybe this isn't the real Moody! Maybe he is an imposter…"

"Impossible, Harry." Professor Kirkland said gently. "I can't say that I like the man but I have tested his hair - it is his own hair. He must be the real Moody."

"Potter?" Asked Professor McGonagall, with uncharacteristic concern in her voice. "Are you feeling alright?"

"M'fine." Harry sank back into his chair.

It was daybreak. All three of them were puffy-eyed and pale because they had been talking late into the night about 'Moody'. Harry sat opposite the two professors, feeling like he was being interrogated.

"Just go through it again, Harry," said Arthur. "What did Mad-eye actually say?"

"I've told you, he wasn't making much sense," said Harry. "He said he wanted to warn Dumbledore about something. He definitely mentioned England, and he seemed to think 'he' was going to die."

"Well, that is nonsense - ravings," said McGonagall testily.

"He was out of his mind," said Harry.

"And . . . remind me what he said about You-Know-Who?" said Arthur tentatively.

"I've told you," Harry repeated dully. "He said he's getting stronger."

There was a pause. Then Arthur said in a falsely confident voice, "But he was out of his mind, like you said, so half of it was probably just raving. ..."

"He was sanest when he was trying to talk about Voldemort," said Harry, and Arthur winced at the sound of the name. "He was having real trouble stringing two words together, but that was when he seemed to know where he was, and know what he wanted to do. He just kept saying he had to see Dumbledore. That England was going to die."

Arthur Kirkland's eyes were wide. He motioned for Harry to continue but McGonagall cut him off.

"Okay, that's enough, Potter. Go along to your first lesson now, go on!"

History of Magic had rarely gone so slowly. Harry kept checking Ron's watch, having finally discarded his own, but Ron's was moving so slowly he could have sworn it had stopped working too. All three of them were so tired they could happily have put their heads down on the desks and slept; even Hermione wasn't taking her usual notes, but was sitting with her head on her hand, gazing at Professor Binns with her eyes out of focus.

When the bell finally rang, they hurried out into the corridors toward the Dark Arts classroom and found Professor Moody leaving it. He looked as awake as they felt tired. The eyelid of his normal eye was fully open, showing the white eyeball and giving his face an even more lopsided appearance than usual.

"Professor Moody?" Harry called as they made their way toward him through the crowd.

"Hello, Potter," Giggled Moody. His magical eye followed a couple of passing first years, who sped up, looking nervous; it rolled into the back of Moody's head and watched them around the corner before he spoke again. "Come in here."

He stood back to let them into his empty classroom, skipped in after them, and closed the door.

"What were you doing in the forest?" Harry asked without preamble. "Do you deny you were there?"

"Yes," said Moody. He moved over to his desk, sat down, stretched out his wooden leg with a slight groan, and pulled out his hip flask.

"What's in that flask?" Asked Hermione.

Moody's magical eye quivered as it rested on Hermione. "You're another one who might think about a career as an Auror," he told her. "Mind works the right way. Granger. But don't worry…" He took a clear glass out of his desk and poured a few drops of an amber liquid into it. "It's scotch."

Hermione flushed pink with pleasure.

Moody yawned widely, so that his scars stretched, and his lopsided mouth revealed a number of brilliant white teeth. Then he said, "Potter, you just need to keep your mind on the third task."

"What?" said Harry. "Oh yeah . . ."

He hadn't given the maze a single thought since he'd left it with Krum the previous night.

"Should be right up your street, this one," said Moody, looking up at Harry and scratching his scarred and stubbly chin. "From what Dumbledore's said, you've managed to get through stuff like this plenty of times. Broke your way through a series of obstacles guarding the Philosopher's Stone in your first year, didn't you?"

"We helped," Ron said quickly. "Me and Hermione helped."

Moody grinned.

"Well, help him practice for this one, and I'll be very surprised if he doesn't win, along with our beloved assistant teacher…" He said. "In the meantime .. . constant vigilance, Potter. Constant vigilance." He took another long draw from his hip flask, and his magical eye swivelled onto the window.

The topmost sail of the Durmstrang ship was visible through it.

"You two," counseled Moody, his normal eye on Ron and Hermione, "you stick close to Potter, all right? I'm keeping an eye on things, but all the same . . . you can never have too many eyes out. We want him and Arthur to get through the maze without a hiccup. Then we can relax. Only then…"

The Hogwarts grounds never looked more inviting than when Harry had to stay indoors. For the next few days he spent all of his free time either in the library with Arthur looking up hexes, or else in empty classrooms, which they sneaked into to practice.

Harry was concentrating on the Stunning Spell, which he had never used before. The trouble was that practicing it involved certain sacrifices on Arthur's part.

"Can't we kidnap Mrs. Norris?" The blonde suggested on Monday lunchtime as he lay flat on his back in the middle of their Charms classroom, having just been Stunned and reawoken by Harry for the fifth time in a row. "Let's Stun her for a bit. Or you could use that house elf, Harry, I bet he'd do anything to help you. I'm not complaining or anything" - he got gingerly to his feet, rubbing his backside - "but I'm aching all over. ..."

"Well, you keep missing the cushions, don't you!" said Harry impatiently, rearranging the pile of cushions they had used for the Banishing Spell, which Flitwick had left in a cabinet. "Just try and fall backward!"

"Once you're Stunned, you can't aim too well, Harry!" said Arthur irritably. "Why don't you take a turn?"

"Well, I think I've got it now, anyway," said Harry hastily. "And we don't have to worry about Disarming, because we've both been able to do that for ages. ... I think we ought to start on some of these hexes this evening."

He looked down the list they had made in the library.

"I like the look of this one," Arthur said, "this Impediment Curse. Should slow down anything that's trying to attack you. Harry. We'll start with that one."

The bell rang. They hastily shoved the cushions back into Flitwick's cupboard and slipped out of the classroom.

"See you at dinner!" said Arthur, and he set off to go and mark some homework with the American teen he spent so long with, whilst Harry headed toward North Tower, and Divination. Broad strips of dazzling gold sunlight tell across the corridor from the high windows. The sky outside was so brightly blue it looked as though it had been enameled.

"It's going to be boiling in Trelawney's room, she never puts out that fire," said Ron, joining him as they started up the staircase toward the silver ladder and the trapdoor.

He was quite right. The dimly lit room was swelteringly hot. The fumes from the perfumed fire were heavier than ever. Harrys head swam as he made his way over to one of the curtained windows. While Professor Trelawney was looking the other way, disentangling her shawl from a lamp, he opened it an inch or so and settled back in his chintz armchair, so that a soft breeze played across his face. It was extremely comfortable.

"My dears," said Professor Trelawney, sitting down in her winged armchair in front of the class and peering around at them all with her strangely enlarged eyes, "we have almost finished our work on planetary divination. Today, however, will be an excellent opportunity to examine the effects of Mars, for he is placed most interestingly at the present time. If you will all look this way, I will dim the lights. . . ."

She waved her wand and the lamps went out. The fire was the only source of light now.

Professor Trelawney bent down and lifted, from under her chair, a miniature model of the solar system, contained within a glass dome. It was a beautiful thing; each of the moons glimmered in place around the nine planets and the fiery sun, all of them hanging in thin air beneath the glass. Harry watched lazily as Professor Trelawney began to point out the fascinating angle Mars was making to Neptune. The heavily perfumed fumes washed over him, and the breeze from the window played across his face. He could hear an insect humming gently somewhere behind the curtain. His eyelids began to droop. . . .

He was riding on the back of an eagle owl, soaring through the clear blue sky toward an old, ivy-covered house set high on a hillside. Lower and lower they flew, the wind blowing pleasantly in Harry's face, until they reached a dark and broken window in the upper story of the house and entered. Now they were flying along a gloomy passageway, to a room at the very end . . . through the door they went, into a dark room whose windows were boarded up...

Harry had left the owl's back... he was watching, now, as it fluttered across the room, into a chair with its back to him. . . . There were two dark shapes on the floor beside the chair . . . both of them were stirring. . . .

One was a huge snake . . . the other was a man ... a short, balding man, a man with watery eyes and a pointed nose ... he was wheezing and sobbing on the hearth rug. . . .

"You are in luck, Wormtail," said a cold, high-pitched voice from the depths of the chair in which the owl had landed. "You are very fortunate indeed. Your blunder has not ruined everything. He is dead."

"My Lord!" gasped the man on the floor. "My Lord, I am ... I am so pleased . . . and so sorry. ..."

"Nagini," said the cold voice, "you are out of luck. I will not be feeding Wormtail to you, after all... but never mind, never mind . . . there is still Arthur Kirkland ..."

The snake hissed. Harry could see its tongue fluttering.

"Now, Wormtail," said the cold voice, "perhaps one more little reminder why I will not tolerate another blunder from you. ..."

"My Lord ... no ... I beg you . . ."

The tip of a wand emerged from around the back of the chair. It was pointing at Wormtail.

"Crucio!" said the cold voice.

Wormtail screamed, screamed as though every nerve in his body were on fire, the screaming filled Harry's ears as the scar on his forehead seared with pain; he was yelling too...Voldemort would hear him, would know he was there. . . .

"Harry! Harry!"

Harry opened his eyes. He was lying on the floor of Professor Trelawney's room with his hands over his face. His scar was still burning so badly that his eyes were watering.

The pain had been real. The whole class was standing around him, and Ron was kneeling next to him, looking terrified.

"You all right?" he said.

"Of course he isn't!" said Professor Trelawney, looking thoroughly excited. Her great eyes loomed over Harry, gazing at him. "What was it. Potter? A premonition? An apparition? What did you see?"

"Nothing," Harry lied. He sat up. He could feel himself shaking. He couldn't stop himself from looking around, into the shadows behind him; Voldemorts voice had sounded so close. . . .

"You were clutching your scar!" said Professor Trelawney. "You were rolling on the floor, clutching your scar! Come now. Potter, I have experience in these matters!"

Harry looked up at her.

"I need to go to the hospital wing, I think," he said. "Bad headache."

"My dear, you were undoubtedly stimulated by the extraordinary clairvoyant vibrations of my room!" said Professor Trelawney. "If you leave now, you may lose the opportunity to see further than you have ever -"

"I don't want to see anything except a headache cure," said Harry.

He stood up. The class backed away. They all looked unnerved.

"See you later," Harry muttered to Ron, and he picked up his bag and headed for the trapdoor, ignoring Professor Trelawney, who was wearing an expression of great frustration, as though she had just been denied a real treat.

When Harry reached the bottom of her stepladder, however, he did not set off for the hospital wing. He had no intention whatsoever of going there. He was going straight to Dumbledore's office. He marched down the corridors; thinking about what he had seen in the dream . . . it had been as vivid as the one that had awoken him on Privet Drive. . . . He ran over the details in his mind, trying to make sure he could remember them. . . . He had heard Voldemort accusing Wormtail of making a blunder . . . but the owl had brought good news, the blunder had been repaired, somebody was dead ... so Wormtail was not going to be fed to the snake . . . he, Arthur, was going to be fed to it instead. . . .

Harry had walked right past the stone gargoyle guarding the entrance to Dumbledore's office without noticing. He blinked, looked around, realized what he had done, and retraced his steps, stopping in front of it. Then he remembered that he didn't know the password.

"Sherbet lemon?" he tried tentatively.

The gargoyle did not move.

"Okay," said Harry, staring at it, "Pear Drop. Er - Licorice Wand. Fizzing Whizbee. Drooble's Best Blowing Gum. Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans ... oh no, he doesn't like them, does he?... oh just open, can't you?" he said angrily. "I really need to see him, its urgent!"

The gargoyle remained immovable.

Harry kicked it, achieving nothing but an excruciating pain in his big toe.

"Chocolate Frog!" he yelled angrily, standing on one leg. "Sugar Quill! Cockroach Cluster!"

The gargoyle sprang to life and jumped aside. Harry blinked.

"Cockroach Cluster?" he said, amazed. "I was only joking. ..."

He hurried through the gap in the walls and stepped onto the foot of a spiral stone staircase, which moved slowly upward as the doors closed behind him, taking him up to a polished oak door with a brass door knocker.

He could hear voices from inside the office. He stepped off the moving staircase and hesitated, listening.

"Dumbledore, Arthur Kirkland is our top priority!" It was the voice of the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge. "We need him at the ministry now more than ever before. Young Alfred is simply not up to such a strenuous job and his brothers…"

"And what do you thinks happened to make Arthur leave?" said Moody's light voice.

"I see two possibilities, Alastor," said Fudge. "Either Arthur has finally cracked -more than likely, I'm sure you'll agree, given his personal history - lost his mind, and tried to leave his position behind -"

"He decided extremely quickly, if that is the case, Cornelius," said Dumbledore calmly.

"Can we wrap up this discussion?" Hissed Moody.

"Yes, yes, let's go down to the grounds, then," said Fudge impatiently.

"No, it's not that," said Moody, "it's just that Potter wants a word with you, Dumbledore. He's just outside the door."