Well, here it is, the penultimate instalment! Thanks to everyone who reviewed last week – all I can say is: "Ahahaha! The power!" ;)
0o0
Moody had her pinned – it was clear to the entire class that Amelia had nowhere to go. Her wand arm was drooping and there was blood soaking her right sleeve.
Hermione pressed her fingernails into the windowsill, willing her to fight or run – anything except stand there, right in the middle of his field of fire, but she didn't seem to want to move.
Amelia, breathing hard, managed a small smile.
"It's really not me you need to be worried about," she said, the sound carrying to the silent classroom. Moody's magical eye flicked madly around in its socket.
"Step away from my wife."
Everyone jumped. It was as if someone had passed an electric shock through the entire class.
Professor Lupin had appeared, seemingly from nowhere. He stepped forward, wreathed in smoke. There was nothing of the weariness they had seen in him at dinner the previous evening and the cane he sometimes used was nowhere in sight.
Hermione recognised the expression on his face from the night he had been prepared to kill his former best friend.
A sudden pain in her arm made her turn to find Justin Finch-Fletchley, of all people, clinging to it. Harry and Ron had rejoined the group and were peering over Hermione's shoulders. You could have heard a pin drop. It was if the entire class had become one, entirely freaked out person. Hermione thought she could feel every heart beating in unison.
Moody licked his lips.
"There's been a misunderstanding," he said, and then sent a jet of black light at Lupin's chest.
Lupin flicked it away, deftly, sending an answering volley of curses back – several people cheered, but the cheers turned to screams as magic burst like mortar shells outside the window.
Those people that hadn't ducked watched Moody make a grab for Amelia, but she had already moved out of his range, drawing his fire away from the classroom full of students and his attention away from her husband.
Amelia must have been more hurt than she was willing to admit, because she focused on defensive spells – shields and blocks – as Moody and Lupin circled one another. The air crackled with magic, sparking off the stone walls of the small courtyard. The yew tree was engulfed in a fierce black flame, burning quickly and ferociously, forcing the students to step back from the windows.
Amelia put it out as she circled past, out of step with the two duelling wizards, like she was Lupin's own, personal moon. She flicked a heavy duty shield charm against the windows and the class surged back. The sounds of battle were muffled now, but the distant shouts echoing from the corridors beyond the classroom suggested that they had not gone unnoticed by the general population.
The Fat Friar burst through the opposite wall of the courtyard, took one look at the general chaos and shot back through it again, presumably to fetch reinforcements.
"Come on, come on,"Hermione hissed, under her breath. Most of her friends were shouting now, calling out encouragement that their teachers probably couldn't hear.
"DUCK!" several people roared as a particularly nasty curse grazed Lupin's shoulder. It knocked him to the ground and Moody cackled with a glee that was wholly disturbing on a face Hermione had hitherto trusted.
Amelia took the opportunity to hex him and he was forced to leap out of the way while Lupin got to his feet, sending volley after volley at their colleague, forcing him back against the wall.
Lupin was concentrating so hard on his task that he didn't seem to notice when Moody suddenly grinned, raising both his hands to the heavens. The sky appeared to darken, storm clouds gathering above him.
Everyone was screaming at the Lupins to get down, now. Some of the better read students recognised a lightening charm when they saw one and the others could guess that whatever was about to happen wouldn't be good.
Hermione yelled along with the rest, her voice lost in the clamour.
For a moment it looked as though their teachers were about to be deep fried, but then the Lupins glanced at one another –a pre-arranged signal, Hermione thought later – and advanced.
Everything seemed to happen at once: Moody was reaching up to complete his charm, his magical eye focussed on Lupin – Lupin was striding forward, pausing long enough in the volley of curses he was sending at his opponent to thoroughly wrong foot him, let him think he was winning.
Then one of Lupin's curses caught Moody dead in the chest, flinging him back against the wall of the courtyard. At almost exactly the same time, Amelia brought the stone bench she had been levitating above Moody's head crashing down.
The students almost exploded with relief.
Outside, their professors were warily approaching Moody's prone body, wands still up just in case.
"What the bloody hell was that about?" Ron shouted, as they began to recover from the shock.
Professors McGonagall, Sprout and Dockrill leapt through one of the entrances to the courtyard, quickly followed at the opposite side by Professors Flitwick and Snape, Madame Pince close behind them.
It looked like Amelia and Lupin were doing some very swift explaining.
"Come on!" cried Hermione, turning and unlocking the door with a flick of her wand.
"Hermione –"
"Do you want to know what this is about, or not?" she shouted, over her shoulder. "Besides, we're witnesses."
She ignored the sounds of the class scrambling after her and ran towards the courtyard entrance, skidding to a halt just before crashing into the back of Snape. This, she felt, would not have ended well.
"- would have just attacked you like that!" Professor Sprout was saying.
"He just went mental!" Neville said, right beside Hermione. Murmurs of assent ran through the class. Their teachers turned and tried to usher them away, but Hermione stood her ground.
"No," she said, firmly, and several members of staff stared at her. "We saw the whole thing – Amel – Professor Brown was talking to him in the courtyard and then –"
"He pulled his wand on her!" Ron interjected.
"It was really brutal," said Harry.
"He just kept hexing her –" that was Dean, Hermione thought.
"And then he got her –"
"But she got right back up – Professor Brown, I mean –"
"And he threatened her –"
"I thought he was going to kill her –"
"But then Professor Lupin appeared –"
Hermione turned, astonished to hear Malfoy's voice among the throng. He noticed her watching him and turned a little pink.
"Like, out of nowhere!"
"It was pretty cool, actually –"
"Thank you, Padma," said Professor Lupin.
Hermione shot both him and her cousin a look. They were still guarding their prone adversary, looking like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Snape had joined them, glancing at their expressions and covering Moody with his wand, too. She wondered just how much of the confrontation had been planned in advance as her classmates filled in the details.
"And he just went for Lupin –"
"But he didn't get anywhere –"
"It was like something from the movies!"
"And Professor Brown put up a shield charm against the classroom –"
"Which was a good job, really, it was getting pretty scary –"
"The tree caught fire!"
"Then he hit him, right in the chest –"
"That was pretty brutal, too –"
"And then Professor Brown dropped a bench on his head –"
"It made a horrible noise!"
"And then you appeared," said Hermione. She glared at Amelia, who was smiling cheerfully at the fourth-years, as if they had all got top marks on a test.
"Alright, alright," Professor Flitwick, raising his hands. "We get the picture."
"But Moody wouldn't attack anyone," Sprout repeated, slowly, staring at the man whose legs were sticking out from under the bench.
"Exactly," said Lupin, sounding calm despite the fact that parts of his robes were still smoking and there was blood on his face. He looked for all the world like he was taking a class on Bowtruckles. "The Mad-Eye Moody we know wouldn't do that – but he's not Alastor Moody."
Of all the things anyone could have said, that was probably the one that caused the most commotion. The students were ushered back into their classroom with Madame Pince as their minder, but she was just as interested as they were and let them all stand on tables by the window to watch as the man they had all thought was Mad-Eye Moody was stretchered away by Madame Pomfrey and Professor Snape.
He seemed particularly intent on staying with whoever it was.
Professor Dumbledore arrived and spoke with his colleagues before allowing the Lupins to limp off in the direction of the Hospital Wing. Eventually, Filch came out with Mrs Norris and started grumbling at the mess.
The students began to drift back to their desks.
Seamus flopped into the seat behind Hermione's, cheerful in the knowledge that they probably wouldn't be expected to get any work done for the rest of the day. He grinned at his friends.
"We never do get a quiet day at Hogwarts, do we?"
0o0o0o0
"Will you stop glaring at me now?" Amelia asked, perching on a bed in the Hospital Wing. She shivered, wishing someone would close the window beside her – it was just outside her reach and Poppy had forbidden her from touching it. Apparently fresh air was good for people.
Hermione was sitting in a chair between her and Remus's beds, glowering at her cousin.
"I'll stop glaring at you when I'm good and ready," Hermione huffed.
Remus shared a look with Madame Pomfrey, who was cleaning the minor wound on his head, and both of them laughed. Amelia rolled her eyes.
"Don't encourage her."
"You two are more alike than you realise," said Poppy, finishing up. "Now, Miss Granger, I expect I can count on you to make them stay here for the next half-hour?"
"Yes, Madame Pomfrey."
It was said with such venom that Remus had to stifle his laughter. He tried to put on an obedient expression when Hermione turned her glare on him, but it didn't entirely work. Of course, that made Amelia smirk, and pretty soon both of them were laughing, partly out of sheer relief.
"It's not funny!" Hermione said, hotly. "You could have died!"
"Miss Granger does have a point," said Severus, appearing from nowhere.
Hermione looked like she was having a minor heart-attack and sat back down abruptly.
"I wish you wouldn't do that!" she hissed.
Severus ignored her, sitting on the end of Remus's bed.
"You could at least have included me," he said, almost sulkily.
"Sorry old chap," said Remus, apologetically. "He would have been on to us from the start."
"So that was all planned then!" Hermione exclaimed. The intensity of her glare increased as she turned back to her cousin. "Do you have death wish or something?"
"Given how often you end up in here, Hermione, it's hardly surprising your cousin would," said Remus, amiably. Amelia stuck her tongue out at him.
"We had to be sure," said Amelia, with a small smile. "Besides, it was you that put us onto it, with your theory about Crouch Jr masquerading as his father."
She frowned and glanced at Severus, who inclined his head. Hermione followed the movement, puzzled.
"You will doubtless be aware that Bartemius Crouch was escorted to the school last night under – ah – unusual circumstances?" he asked, and Hermione nodded.
Amelia guessed that she and her friends had talked of little else after Harry got to the Great Hall.
"Well, your cousin read him," he nodded at Amelia and she told Hermione about Crouch being held prisoner by his son and Pettigrew. Her eyes were about the size of golf balls when she had finished.
"Oh my God," she said. "We were right!"
Remus nodded.
"Really, we ought to award you lot house points but I don't think we'd get away with it."
Severus grimaced.
"It just goes to show what a poor prison system we have if a bunch of fourteen and fifteen year olds can outsmart it, let alone the Crouchs."
Amelia sighed.
"There's a lot about the Wizarding World that doesn't make a blind bit of sense to me," she said. "But that's not so different from the Muggle World."
"Anyway," said Severus, regaining Hermione's attention. "He was murdered this morning, before we could find out who his son was impersonating."
"What?!" Hermione gasped. She looked around, unnerved. "In here?"
"Yes," said Amelia, nodding towards the screens that had hidden his body until Fudge's bodyguards had removed it.
Hermione stared at it, appalled.
"How did he –"
But Severus cut across her:
"Needless to say," he said, with a pointed look. "This goes no further than us four – at least until his death is formally announced and he can be taken to trial."
Hermione nodded, frowning.
"I'll have to tell Harry and Ron something," she said, "or they'll drive themselves mental trying to work it out. I'll think of something."
She looked up at Amelia.
"What made you think of Moody?" she asked.
"Well, his general lack of tact, for one," Amelia said, and Remus shook his head.
"That's a characteristic of the real Alastor Moody, I'm afraid," he said. "He didn't smell right," he told Hermione. "I've only just picked up on it – he's been hiding it all year with bloody peppermints."
Amelia snorted and even Severus had to fight a smile.
"But…" Hermione was struggling with the implications.
"But he's acted the same all year – and half the staff have known him for years!"
She glanced at Severus and Amelia almost heard her think 'And the other half know him well enough to avoid him'.
"Crouch Jr must have replaced him before term started in September," said Severus.
"The dustbins," said Amelia, suddenly. It occurred to them that they had all been being rather stupid about the incident, despite everyone's insistence on tighter security.
Remus nodded, having just come to the same conclusion.
"So if the man you fought is Crouch Jr, under the effects of the Polyjuice Potion," said Hermione, slowly, "where's the real Mad-Eye Moody?" She paused, looking appalled. "Not – dead?"
"I don't think so," said Remus. "He'd need him alive for information."
"And the hair for the Polyjuice Potion," Severus added. "It gets a little unpredictable when the hair goes stale."
"Filiu and Pomona are searching his rooms, now," Amelia told her.
"I wouldn't like to be Crouch Jr when he recovers enough to hex him," said Remus, snorting.
"Where is he?" Hermione asked, looking around. "I'd have thought he'd have ended up in here after you two had finished with him!"
"Guest rooms," said Severus. "Extra secure – I put up the charms myself."
"Dumbledore and Minerva are interrogating him," said Amelia grimly. "I wish I was in there with them."
Hermione, however, didn't appear to be listening. She had got slowly to her feet, slipping something glinting out of her schoolbag. The three teachers watched, nonplussed as she stalked to the window and slammed the glittering thing against the glass.
"Hah!" she cried, triumphant. "Can one of you hand me a piece of parchment or something?"
Severus pulled her transfiguration notes out of her bag and passed her a sheet.
"What –"
"Hang on," said Hermione, sticking her tongue between her teeth. "Got you!"
She turned back to them, flushed with excitement.
All three of them stared at the tiny, frightened creature inside the jar. It was trying vainly to climb the inside of the glass.
"It's just a beetle," said Amelia, bewildered.
"No, it isn't," Hermione said, sitting down. She passed the jar to Amelia, who took a closer look.
The beetle peered up her in apparent terror. There was something oddly familiar about the markings around its antennae. She shrugged and passed it to Remus, who frowned at it.
"There's an Unbreakable Charm on the jar," Hermione explained, happily. "I've been carrying it around for weeks. I knew she'd be back!"
"She?" Remus asked, passing the jar to Severus.
"Rita Skeeter!" Hermione told them. They stared at her, then, as one, all three turned to look at the beetle. It sat down in the middle of the jar, trying to look insect-like. "She's an un-registered Animagus!" Hermione continued. "That's how she gets her information – she's been sneaking around all year – I saw her on the window in Defence Against the Dark Arts this morning!"
"Hermione, you little genius," Amelia breathed and then broke out into applause.
Severus laughed, surprising himself.
"Brilliant," he said, handing the jar back to her as Remus clapped her on the back.
"Utterly devious," Remus congratulated her. "We should inform the authorities –"
"No," said Hermione. "I've got a better idea."
"A better, slightly less legal idea?" Amelia asked, pointedly.
"A lot less illegal than being an un-registered Animagus," she said, and looked at Remus. "And it's not like you lot can talk, with what you get up to. Trust me."
Severus met Amelia's eyes, half smiling.
"I feel we ought to intervene at this point," he said, making absolutely no move to do so.
But Hermione shook her head. She peered gleefully into the glass jar.
"Let me deal with this."
0o0o0o0
Amelia watched Mad-Eye Moody out of the corner of her eye.
He had been allocated a seat at the end of the staff table, where he could avoid conversation if he wanted to. From what she had seen of him so far he was surly and gruff, which she rather felt he was entitled to be, having been locked in a trunk for the better part of seven months.
It had been a chaotic four weeks.
After Crouch's murder and the subsequent apprehension of his son, Hogwarts had been swarming with grumpy and bewildered Aurors. The press that had taken up residence in Hogsmeade had had a field day, expertly fed titbits of information by Professor McGonagall. They had printed an oddly united series of articles, carefully avoiding issues of security and threat and instead focussing on the recapture of an escaped prisoner.
Rita Skeeter had, thus far, been strangely silent on the subject.
Amelia had a suspicion that when it came to trial, Fudge would never hear the end the entire Ministry failing to notice that someone had not only escaped from Azkaban, but had also been living in the house of one of his most trusted and prominent ministers for the better part of a decade.
He was already pretty upset about the bungled raid his personal guard had carried out on the Riddle House.
The interrogation of Crouch Jr had been useful, to a point, but when the Aurors had arrived at Voldemort's hiding place it had been empty. Remus had told her he thought Pettigrew would have been spooked by Crouch Jr's lack of contact and moved on.
It was an unsettling thought, and the full details of the plot to resurrect Voldemort had given them all the impression that they had had a very narrow escape. She couldn't help but wonder if they might try another approach, now that abducting Harry was out of the question.
The papers, of course, had picked up on this bungled operation (one of the Aurors had even fallen out of a first floor window and broken her leg) with the kind of glee Amelia associated with serial killers and clowns.
Unless he did something drastic – soon – Fudge would be out by the next election.
The last time she had seen him, the strain of this realisation was really beginning to show.
Still, at least they had the third task of the Triwizard Tournament to look forward to. More so, now they were confident that the champions were facing nothing other than tests of their own invention.
The school was beginning to settle down for exam season, however reluctantly. She had already had a long talk with Lee Jordan and the Weasley twins about how their 'emotional distress' at discovering that their teacher was an impostor didn't exempt them from taking their O.W.L.s.
Remus had taken over Defence Against the Dark Arts again, leaving Hagrid to concentrate on Care of Magical Creatures. Given that Hagrid was now spending less time on security and almost the entire school had heard about Remus's duel with Crouch Jr, nobody minded at all.
He said walking into a classroom full of applause on the first morning had been quite disconcerting. He was much happier now that the general air of disobedience was returning to his students.
He said it made him feel much more at home.
"Well, thank Merlin that's done with," said Filius, dropping onto the seat beside her.
"Tough class?" Amelia asked, as Filius pulled a bowl of broccoli towards him.
He shook his head.
"Finally got that bloody Port-Key enchantment off the Triwizard cup," he explained. "He'd used a sticking charm – I almost told Dumbledore to order a new one!"
"Not much time left," Amelia observed.
"Don't I know it," said Filius. "I've been up for about three days straight."
Amelia took in his appearance: his hair was unusually spiky, as if he had recently been electrocuted and his eye were very, very wide.
Amelia wordlessly passed him a goblet of tea. Gratefully, he took a long swig before wiping his mouth.
"At least now we can look forward to the third task," he observed, shovelling roast lamb onto his plate.
0o0o0o0
"I have to say," said Amelia, who had been allowed to keep her knitting this time, "this would be a good deal more exciting if we could actually see into the maze."
"You're not wrong," said Poppy.
She had abandoned all pretence of watching the quivering tops of the hedges about half an hour previously and was now thoroughly engrossed in Remus and Severus's chess match.
"You're all far too relaxed for my liking," said Molly Weasley, who had come along with Sirius to support Harry. Her complaint was only half-hearted – she was crocheting a shawl while they waited for something to happen.
"I never thought I'd say this," said Sirius, who was perched on the railing between two rows of seats and swinging his feet like an overgrown teenager, "but the more boring this task is, the happier I'll be."
There was a general mutter of assent.
A muffled explosion from the depths of the maze made them all pause and peer over their various occupations, just in case.
"Someone's found the Blast-Ended Skrewt," Remus observed, and moved his bishop. "Checkmate."
"I thought there was a whole pack," said Molly, surprised. "Ron's been complaining about them all year.
"They ate each other," Remus explained, over Severus's indignant sputters.
A great deal of rustling from the quidditch pitch (the state of which had given Sirius palpitations the previous evening) indicated that the maze was on the move again. In the maze, someone laughed, which was a little disconcerting.
Amelia patted Severus on the head as he tried to work out how the hell Remus had beaten him.
"Occasional defeat is good for you," she told him.
"Is that why you always lose?"
She swatted her husband with her knitting; he dodged out of the way, grinning, and joined Sirius on the railing. They looked almost how she imagined they would have when they were in school, except that they were a little older and a little lonelier.
Amelia smiled up at them, and took a quick photograph before they could either fall off or stop her.
A few students screamed as an enormous spider emerged at speed from the maze, somewhere near the middle. It was a bit on fire.
"How long has it been, now?" Filius squeaked, as Hagrid hurried to put the spider out.
Minerva picked up Martin's arm – he was snoring softly – and read the time.
"An hour and a half."
Pomona groaned.
"My bum's gone numb." She rolled her eyes at Minerva's expression of disapproval. "What? It has!"
"Hey," said Amelia, catching movement towards the centre of the maze. "Is one of them nearly there?"
"Ooh," said Poppy turning around. Amelia and Molly, almost in unison, packed away their yarn.
"I bloody hope so," Severus grumbled.
"You're not still bitter about losing at chess, are you?" Sirius asked him.
"Oh, shut up, Black."
They laughed; Amelia gave her sour friend a hug and told him never, ever to change.
Somewhere below, a cannon went off and the stands exploded.
In the arena below, four grinning teenagers stumbled and staggered upright again, hefting the cup. All four of them had a hand on it.
Pomona got to her feet.
"What?" she asked the world at large.
Amelia burst out laughing.
"I think they're making a very eloquent point," said Remus, putting his arm around his wife.
Down below them, Harry sought out the face of his Godfather and winked.
"Huh," said Sirius. "Working together then."
"Most definitely," said Poppy. "Oh, how clever!"
"We'll need to," said Severus, softly, "given what's ahead."
Amelia gave him a side-long glance.
He had been closeted with Dumbledore for quite sometime before vanishing entirely for two whole days. Thus far he had refused to be drawn on the subject, but Amelia suspected he had been trying to find Voldemort. The prospect scared the hell out of her.
They weren't out of the woods yet.
As the students of three schools swarmed onto the pitch and lifted the four champions onto their shoulders, she pushed these dark thoughts away and cheered along with her friends, content – at least for now – to live in the moment.
