Part 58

"Hello, Fawkes," Harry said and hurried up to the bird. Fawkes, Professor Dumbledore's phoenix, was standing on his golden perch beside the door. The size of a swan, with magnificent scarlet-and-gold plumage, he swished his long tail and blinked benignly at Harry.

"What's that", Dorian asked and transformed back.

"This is Fawkes", Harry said. "Dumbledore's phoenix."

"That's not a phoenix", Dorian scoffed and Fawkes glared at him.

"What?" Harry asked.

"Phoenixes are not that small… that's just a… a tiny little ember."

Fawkes squawked indignantly and left his perch to fly at Dorian and swat at him. Dorian yelped and transformed. Harry laughed as Fawkes chased him around before leaving the room. Dorian who had dove underneath the desk for cover came out and dusted off himself.

"Stupid bird", he muttered.

"Does every creature out there attack you because they hate you or do you just have that air about you?" Harry teased and Dorian stuck his tongue out at him. Harry looked up at the walls behind the desk. The patched and ragged Sorting Hat was standing on a shelf. A glass case next to it held a magnificent silver sword with large rubies set into the hilt, which Harry recognized as the one he himself had pulled out of the Sorting Hat in his second year. The sword had once belonged to Godric Gryffindor, founder of Harry's House. He was gazing at it, remembering how it had come to his aid when he had thought all hope was lost, when he noticed a patch of silvery light, dancing and shimmering on the glass case. He looked around for the source of the light and saw a sliver of silver-white shining brightly from within a black cabinet behind him, whose door had not been closed properly. Harry hesitated then got up, walked across the office, and pulled open the cabinet door.

"Wha's that?" Dorian asked as he was fixing his cufflinks. Harry ignored him and looked inside the cabinet. A shallow stone basin lay there, with odd carvings around the edge: runes and symbols that Harry did not recognize. The silvery light was coming from the basin's contents, Harry knew exactly what it was.

"A pensive", he said.

"A what?"

"A pensive", Harry replied. "You use them to look at memories. You kind of submerge into them. Moony used one to show me stories and memories of my parents when we were living together."

"So that icky liquidy thingy is a memory?" Dorian asked.

"Yeah", Harry said. "You use your wand to take them out of your head and put in there and… wait!" Dorian had reached his fingers in to touch it. Harry tried to stop him, but too late. Both of them felt how Dumbledore's office gave an almighty lurch. The two of them were thrown forward and pitched headfirst into the substance inside the basin. The two of them felt as if they were sinking into something icy-cold and black; it was like being sucked into a dark whirlpool. Then they found themselves sitting on a bench at the end of a room. The room was dimly lit; Harry thought it might even be underground, for there were no windows, merely torches in brackets such as the ones that illuminated the walls of Hogwarts. Lowering his face so that his nose was a mere inch away from the glassy substance, Harry saw that rows and rows of witches and wizards were seated around every wall on what seemed to be benches rising in levels. An empty chair stood in the very centre of the room. There was something about the chair that gave Harry an ominous feeling. Chains encircled the arms of it, as though its occupants were usually tied to it. Harry realized where this must be. It was a court room at the Ministry.

"Jemima damn it", Dorian said, he had landed in a heap on the floor beside the bench. He had one arm and one leg resting on it and the rest of him was on the floor. His hat had dropped down over his eyes. Dorian pushed it up with a huff.

"I should have learned by now to never trust magic stuff!" he said and righted himself so that he got up onto the bench. He started dusting off his clothes. Then he looked around. "Hey where are we?"

"We're at the Ministry", Harry said. "I think… or at least someone's memory of the Ministry."

"How do we get out of here?"

"Uh… um not sure. Moony was always the one to bring us in and out and-"

"Great", Dorian sighed and looked around again. "Who are all these guys and why are they not noticing us?"

Harry looked around him. Not one of the witches and wizards in the room (and there were at least two hundred of them) was looking at him or Dorian. Not one of them seemed to have noticed that a fourteen-year-old boy had just dropped from the ceiling into their midst along with a strangely clad muggle in tow. Harry turned to the wizard next to him on the bench and uttered a loud cry of surprise that reverberated around the silent room. He was sitting right next to Albus Dumbledore.

"Professor!" Harry said in a kind of strangled whisper. "I'm sorry - I didn't mean to - I was just looking at the pensive and Dorian was - I - where are we?"

But Dumbledore didn't move or speak. He ignored Harry completely. Like every other wizard on the benches, he was staring into the far corner of the room, where there was a door.

"Oh", Harry said. "Not the real one."

"This is spooky", Dorian said and looked at the memory of Dumbledore, stroking his chin as he did so. "Poke, poke." He poked Dumbledore in the forehead and his finger went straight through. "Ha! Always knew there was nothing but air up there!"

"Knock it off", Harry said tiredly. Dorian grinned and sat beside him. "Now what?"

"We wait for our rescue", Dorian replied. "Remy knows we went here and will come find us. Say isn't that your dad and Sirius?" He pointed and Harry followed his finger. It was his dad and godfather or rather the memory of them. They were sitting not far from them and beside James sat Lily. She was hugging a blanket closely to her chest and looked close to tears. This must have been when they thought he, Harry, was dead. Sirius and James looked murderous. Yes, defiantly back then. Harry looked around more carefully. The room was almost certainly underground. There was a bleak and forbidding air about the place; there were no pictures on the walls, no decorations at all; just these serried rows of benches, rising in levels all around the room, all positioned so that they had a clear view of that chair with the chains on its arms. Then the door in the corner of the dungeon opened and three people entered - or at least one man, flanked by two dementors. Harry's insides went cold. The dementors were gliding slowly toward the chair in the centre of the room, each grasping one of the man's arms with their dead and rotten-looking hands. The man between them looked as though he was about to faint, and Harry couldn't blame him. . . he knew the dementors could not touch him inside a memory, but he remembered their power only too well.

"Oh great it is those government funded black wind socks again", Dorian groaned. "Seriously why do your government trust those things? First thing they'll do if Mole'n Warts comes back is stab them in the back. Then I'll laugh and say: I warned you! Nothing is as dangerous as a nasty sock!" Harry couldn't help but chuckle a little. The watching crowd recoiled slightly as the dementors placed the man in the chained chair and glided back out of the room. The door swung shut behind them. Harry looked down at the man now sitting in the chair and saw that it was Karkaroff.

"Huh", Dorian said. "Must be a memory cause I don't remember Karkaroach looking like that."

Karkaroff looked much younger; his hair and goatee were black. He was not dressed in sleek furs, but in thin and ragged robes. He was shaking. Even as Harry watched, the chains on the arms of the chair glowed suddenly gold and snaked their way up Karkaroff's arms, binding him there.

"Igor Karkaroff," said a curt voice to Harry's left. Harry looked around and saw Mr. Crouch standing up in the middle of the bench beside him. Crouch's hair was dark, his face was much less lined, he looked fit and alert. "You have been brought from Azkaban to present evidence to the Ministry of Magic. You have given us to understand that you have important information for us."

Karkaroff straightened himself as best he could, tightly bound to the chair.

"I have, sir," he said, and although his voice was very scared, Harry could still hear the familiar unctuous note in it. "I wish to be of use to the Ministry. I wish to help. I-I know that the Ministry is trying to… to round up the last of the Dark Lords supporters. I am eager to assist in any way I can…"

There was a murmur around the benches. Some of the wizards and witches were surveying Karkaroff with interest, others with pronounced mistrust. Then Harry heard, quite distinctly, from Dumbledore's other side, a familiar, growling voice saying:

"Filth."

Harry leaned forward so that he could see past Dumbledore. Mad-Eye Moody was sitting there - except that there was a very noticeable difference in his appearance. He did not have his magical eye, but two normal ones. Both were looking down upon Karkaroff, and both were narrowed in intense dislike.

"Crouch is going to let him out," Moody breathed quietly to Dumbledore. "He's done a deal with him. Took me six months to track him down, and Crouch is going to let him go if he's got enough new names. Let's hear his information, I say, and throw him straight back to the dementors." Dumbledore made a small noise of dissent through his long, crooked nose.

"Ah, I was forgetting… you don't like the dementors, do you, Albus?" said Moody with a sardonic smile.

"No," said Dumbledore calmly, "I'm afraid I don't. I have long felt the Ministry is wrong to ally itself with such creatures."

"Wisest thing he's ever said", Dorian said over Moody's reply.

"You say you have names for us, Karkaroff," said Mr. Crouch. "Let us hear them, please."

"You must understand," said Karkaroff hurriedly, "that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named operated always in the greatest secrecy… He preferred that we - I mean to say, his supporters - and I regret now, very deeply, that I ever counted myself among them-"

"Get on with it," sneered Moody.

"-we never knew the names of every one of our fellows. He alone knew exactly who we all were-"

"Which was a wise move, wasn't it, as it prevented someone like you, Karkaroff, from turning all of them in," muttered Moody.

"Yet you say you have some names for us?" said Mr. Crouch.

"I - I do," said Karkaroff breathlessly. "And these were important supporters, mind you. People I saw with my own eyes doing his bidding. I give this information as a sign that I fully and totally renounce him, and am filled with a remorse so deep I can barely-"

"These names are?" said Mr. Crouch sharply.

Karkaroff drew a deep breath.

"There was Antonin Dolohov," he said. "I-I saw him torture countless Muggles a-and non-supporters of the Dark Lord."

"And helped him do it," murmured Moody.

"We have already apprehended Dolohov," said Crouch. "He was caught shortly after yourself. Aurors Potter and Black brought him in."

"Indeed?" said Karkaroff, his eyes widening. "I-I am delighted to hear it!"

But he didn't look it. Harry could tell that this news had come as a real blow to him. One of his names was worthless.

"Any others?" said Crouch coldly.

"Why, yes… there was Rosier," said Karkaroff hurriedly. "Evan Rosier. "

"Rosier is dead," said Crouch. "He was caught shortly after you were too. He preferred to fight rather than come quietly and was killed in the struggle. "

"Took a bit of me with him, though," whispered Moody to Harry's right. Harry looked around at him once more and saw him indicating the large chunk out of his nose to Dumbledore.

"No… no more than Rosier deserved!" said Karkaroff, a real note of panic in his voice now. Harry could see that he was starting to worry that none of his information would be of any use to the Ministry. Karkaroff's eyes darted toward the door in the corner, behind which the dementors undoubtedly still stood, waiting.

"Any more?" said Crouch.

"Yes!" said Karkaroff. "There was Travers - he helped murder the McKinnons! Mulciber - he specialized in the Imperius Curse, forced countless people to do horrific things! Rookwood, who was a spy, and passed He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named useful information from inside the Ministry itself!"

Harry could tell that, this time, Karkaroff had struck gold. The watching crowd was all murmuring together.

"Rookwood?" said Mr. Crouch, nodding to a witch sitting in front of him, who began scribbling upon her piece of parchment. "Augustus Rookwood of the Department of Mysteries?"

"The very same," said Karkaroff eagerly. "I believe he used a network of well-placed wizards, both inside the Ministry and out, to collect information -"

"But Travers and Mulciber we have," said Mr. Crouch. "Very well, Karkaroff, if that is all, you will be returned to Azkaban while we decide -"

"Not yet!" cried Karkaroff, looking quite desperate. "Wait, I have more!"

Harry could see him sweating in the torchlight, his white skin contrasting strongly with the black of his hair and beard.

"Snape!" he shouted. "Severus Snape!"

"Snape has been cleared by this council," said Crouch disdainfully. "He has been vouched for by Albus Dumbledore. "

"No!" shouted Karkaroff, straining at the chains that bound him to the chair. "I assure you! Severus Snape is a Death Eater!"

Dumbledore had gotten to his feet.

"I have given evidence already on this matter," he said calmly. "Severus Snape was indeed a Death Eater. However, he re-joined our side before Lord Voldemort's downfall and turned spy for us, at great personal risk. He is now no more a Death Eater than I am. "

Harry turned to look at Mad-Eye Moody. He was wearing a look of deep scepticism behind Dumbledore's back.

"I agree with Moody", Dorian told Harry who nodded as well.

"Very well, Karkaroff," Crouch said coldly, "you have been of assistance. I shall review your case. You will return to Azkaban in the meantime…"

Mr. Crouch's voice faded. Harry looked around; the dungeon was dissolving as though it were made of smoke; everything was fading; he could see only his own body - all else was swirling darkness.

"Oh great now what?" Dorian asked.

And then, the dungeon returned. Harry was sitting in a different seat, still on the highest bench, but now to the left side of Mr. Crouch. The atmosphere seemed quite different: relaxed, even cheerful. The witches and wizards all around the walls were talking to one another, almost as though they were at some sort of sporting event. Harry noticed a witch halfway up the rows of benches opposite. She had short blonde hair, was wearing magenta robes, and was sucking the end of an acid-green quill. It was, unmistakably, a younger Rita Skeeter. Harry looked around; Dumbledore was sitting beside him again, wearing different robes. Mr. Crouch looked more tired and somehow fiercer, gaunter… Harry understood. It was a different memory, a different day… a different trial. The door in the corner opened, and Ludo Bagman walked into the room. This was not, however, a Ludo Bagman gone to seed, but a Ludo Bagman who was clearly at the height of his Quidditch-playing fitness. His nose wasn't broken now; he was tall and lean and muscular. Bagman looked nervous as he sat down in the chained chair, but it did not bind him there as it had bound Karkaroff, and Bagman, perhaps taking heart from this, glanced around at the watching crowd, waved at a couple of them, and managed a small smile.

"Ludo Bagman, you have been brought here in front of the Council of Magical Law to answer charges relating to the activities of the Death Eaters," said Mr. Crouch. "We have heard the evidence against you, and are about to reach our verdict. Do you have anything to add to your testimony before we pronounce judgment?"

Harry couldn't believe his ears. Ludo Bagman, a Death Eater?

"Only," said Bagman, smiling awkwardly, "well - I know I've been a bit of an idiot-"

One or two wizards and witches in the surrounding seats smiled indulgently. Mr. Crouch did not appear to share their feelings. He was staring down at Ludo Bagman with an expression of the utmost severity and dislike.

"You never spoke a truer word, boy," someone muttered dryly to Dumbledore behind Harry. He looked around and saw Moody sitting there again, flanked by Sirius and James. "If I didn't know he'd always been dim, I'd have said some of those Bludgers had permanently affected his brain…"

"Never a truer word spoken Moody", James growled.

"Ludovic Bagman, you were caught passing information to Lord Voldemort's supporters," said Mr. Crouch. "For this, I suggest a term of imprisonment in Azkaban lasting no less than-"

But there was an angry outcry from the surrounding benches. Several of the witches and wizards around the walls stood up, shaking their heads, and even their fists, at Mr. Crouch.

"But I've told you, I had no idea!" Bagman called earnestly over the crowd's babble, his round blue eyes widening. "None at all! Old Rookwood was a friend of my dad's! Never crossed my mind he was in with You-Know-Who! I thought I was collecting information for our side! And Rookwood kept talking about getting me a job in the Ministry later on… once my Quidditch days are over, you know. I mean, I can't keep getting hit by Bludgers for the rest of my life, can I?"

There were titters from the crowd.

"It will be put to the vote," said Mr. Crouch coldly. He turned to the right-hand side of the dungeon. "The jury will please raise their hands… those in favour of imprisonment."

Harry looked toward the right-hand side of the dungeon. Not one person raised their hand. Many of the witches and wizards around the walls began to clap. One of the witches on the jury stood up.

"Yes?" barked Crouch.

"We'd just like to congratulate Mr. Bagman on his splendid performance for England in the Quidditch match against Turkey last Saturday," the witch said breathlessly.

Mr. Crouch looked furious. The dungeon was ringing with applause now. Bagman got to his feet and bowed, beaming.

"Despicable," Mr. Crouch spat at Dumbledore, sitting down as Bagman walked out of the dungeon. "Rookwood get him a job indeed. The day Ludo Bagman joins us will be a sad day indeed for the Ministry."


And the dungeon dissolved again. When it had returned, Harry looked around. He, Dorian and Dumbledore were still sitting beside Mr. Crouch and Harry could see his parents and Sirius not too far from them, but the atmosphere could not have been more different. There was total silence, broken only by the dry sobs of a frail, wispy-looking witch in the seat next to Mr. Crouch. She was clutching a handkerchief to her mouth with trembling hands. Harry looked up at Crouch and saw that he looked gaunter and greyer than ever before. A nerve was twitching in his temple.

"Bring them in," he said, and his voice echoed through the silent dungeon.

The door in the corner opened yet again. Six dementors entered this time, flanking a group of four people. Harry saw the people in the crowd turn to look up at Mr. Crouch. A few of them whispered to one another. The dementors placed each of the four people in the four chairs with chained arms that now stood on the dungeon floor. There was a thickset man who stared blankly up at Crouch; a thinner and more nervous-looking man, whose eyes were darting around the crowd; a woman with thick, shining dark hair and heavily hooded eyes, who was sitting in the chained chair as though it were a throne; and a boy in his late teens, who looked nothing short of petrified. He was shivering, his straw-coloured hair all over his face, his freckled skin milk-white. The wispy little witch beside Crouch began to rock backward and forward in her seat, whimpering into her handkerchief. Crouch stood up. He looked down upon the four in front of him, and there was pure hatred in his face.

"You have been brought here before the Council of Magical Law," he said clearly, "so that we may pass judgment on you, for a crime so heinous-"

"Father," said the boy with the straw-coloured hair. "Father please!"

"- that we have rarely heard the like of it within this court," said Crouch, speaking more loudly, drowning out his son's voice.

"We have heard the evidence against you. The four of you stand accused of capturing the mother of an Auror - Frank Longbottom - and subjecting her to the Cruciatus Curse, believing her to have knowledge of the present whereabouts of your exiled master, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-"

"Father, I didn't!" shrieked the boy in chains below. "I didn't, I swear it. Father, don't send me back to the dementors-"

"You are further accused," bellowed Mr. Crouch, "of planning to restore He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to power, and to resume the lives of violence you presumably led while he was strong. I now ask the jury-"

"Mother!" screamed the boy below, and the wispy little witch beside Crouch began to sob, rocking backward and forward. "Mother, stop him. Mother, I didn't do it, it wasn't me!"

"I now ask the jury," shouted Mr. Crouch, "to raise their hands if they believe, as I do, that these crimes deserve a life sentence in Azkaban!"

In unison, the witches and wizards along the right-hand side of the dungeon raised their hands. The crowd around the walls began to clap as it had for Bagman, their faces full of savage triumph. The boy began to scream.

"No! Mother, no! I didn't do it, I didn't do it, I didn't know! Don't send me there, don't let him!"

The dementors were gliding back into the room. The boys' three companions rose quietly from their seats; the woman with the heavy-lidded eyes looked up at Crouch and called:

"The Dark Lord will rise again, Crouch! Throw us into Azkaban; we will wait! He will rise again and will come for us, he will reward us beyond any of his other supporters! We alone were faithful! We alone tried to find him!"

But the boy was trying to fight off the dementors, even though Harry could see their cold, draining power starting to affect him. The crowd was jeering, some of them on their feet, as the woman swept out of the dungeon, and the boy continued to struggle.

"I'm your son!" he screamed up at Crouch. "I'm your son!"

"You are no son of mine!" bellowed Mr. Crouch, his eyes bulging suddenly. "I have no son!"

The wispy witch beside him gave a great gasp and slumped in her seat. She had fainted. Crouch appeared not to have noticed.

"Take them away!" Crouch roared at the dementors, spit flying from his mouth. "Take them away, and may they rot there!"

"Father! Father, I wasn't involved! No! No! Father, please!"

"I think. Harry, it is time to return to my office," said a quiet voice in Harry's ear.

Harry started. He looked around. Then he looked on his other side.

There was an Albus Dumbledore sitting on his right, watching Crouch's son being dragged away by the dementors - and there was an Albus Dumbledore on his left, looking right at him.

"Come," said the Dumbledore on his left, and he put his hand under Harry's elbow. Harry felt himself rising into the air; the dungeon dissolved around him; for a moment, all was blackness, and then he felt as though he had done a slow-motion somersault, suddenly landing flat on his feet, in what seemed like the dazzling light of Dumbledore's sunlit office. Dorian landed on his butt next to him.

"Dorian", Remus exclaimed and hurried forward to help him up.

"Why can't you people travel like normal people", Dorian groaned when Remus helped him up. The stone basin was shimmering in the cabinet in front of them, and Albus Dumbledore was standing beside it.

"Professor," Harry gasped, "I know I shouldn't've - I didn't mean - the cabinet door was sort of open and-"

"I quite understand," said Dumbledore. He lifted the basin, carried it over to his desk, placed it upon the polished top, and sat down in the chair behind it. He motioned for Harry to sit down opposite him. Harry did so, staring at the stone basin. The contents had returned to their original, silvery-white state, swirling and rippling beneath his gaze. Dorian and Remus stood behind him.

"That was really your memories and thoughts", Dorian asked.

"Yes", Dumbledore replied.

"How did you get them out?"

"Let me show you. "

Dumbledore drew his wand out of the inside of his robes and placed the tip into his own silvery hair, near his temple. When he took the wand away, hair seemed to be clinging to it - but then Harry saw that it was in fact a glistening strand of the same strange silvery-white substance that filled the Pensive. Dumbledore added this fresh thought to the basin, and Harry saw his own face swimming around the surface of the bowl. Dumbledore placed his long hands on either side of the Pensive and swirled it, rather as a gold prospector would pan for fragments of gold and Harry saw his own face change smoothly into Snape's, who opened his mouth and spoke to the ceiling, his voice echoing slightly.

"It's coming back… Karkaroff's too… stronger and clearer than ever…"

"A connection I could have made without assistance," Dumbledore sighed, "but never mind. " He peered over the top of his half-moon spectacles at Harry, who was glaring at Snape's face, which was continuing to swirl around the bowl. "I was using the Pensive when Mr. Fudge arrived for our meeting and put it away rather hastily. Undoubtedly I did not fasten the cabinet door properly. Naturally, it would have attracted your attention. "

"I'm sorry," Harry mumbled.

Dumbledore shook his head. "Curiosity is not a sin," he said. "But we should exercise caution with our curiosity. Yes, indeed… you truly are James' son."

Frowning slightly, he prodded the thoughts within the basin with the tip of his wand. Instantly, a figure rose out of it, a plump, scowling girl of about sixteen, who began to revolve slowly, with her feet still in the basin. She took no notice whatsoever of Harry or Professor Dumbledore. When she spoke, her voice echoed as Snape's had done, as though it were coming from the depths of the stone basin.

"He put a hex on me, Professor Dumbledore, and I was only teasing him, sir, I only said I'd seen him kissing Florence behind the greenhouses last Thursday…"

"But why. Bertha," said Dumbledore sadly, looking up at the now silently revolving girl, "why did you have to follow him in the first place?"

"Bertha?" Harry whispered, looking up at her. "Is that - was that Bertha Jorkins?"

"Yes," said Dumbledore, prodding the thoughts in the basin again; Bertha sank back into them, and they became silvery and opaque once more. "That was Bertha as I remember her at school. "

The silvery light from the Pensive illuminated Dumbledore's face, and it struck Harry suddenly how very old he was looking. He knew, of course, that Dumbledore was getting on in years, but somehow he never really thought of Dumbledore as an old man.

"So, Harry," said Dumbledore quietly. "Before you got lost in my thoughts, you wanted to tell me something. "

"No I didn't, you told me to go here" said Harry.

"I see, would you like to tell me why you were so upset?"

"No, it was between me and Remus I mean Professor Taylor-Lupin." He felt Remus' hand on his shoulder.

"Ah I see… well then I shall not keep you any longer." He smiled and nodded at the door. "Just know Harry that you can tell me anything." The way he said that made Harry's skin crawl and he hurriedly averted his gaze. He felt Remus pull him to his feet and guide him towards the door while Dorian babbled on about good days and stuff. When the door closed behind the three of them, neither noticed Dumbledore's eyes narrow. The dog had to go.


Harry was now lead to Remus and Dorian's quarters and was told to sit on the couch while they called up James, Sirius and Lily so they could talk. Harry waited for all three to get there and then he started telling them why he had run to Remus.

"I was in Divination just now", he said. "And - er - I fell asleep. "

He hesitated here, wondering if a reprimand was coming.

"I wonder why", his mother said dryly and Harry gaped at her. "Continue."

"Well, I had a dream," said Harry. "A dream about Lord Voldemort. He was torturing a woman… I don't know who. Voldemort got a letter from an owl. He said something like, her blunder had been repaired. He said someone was dead. Then he said, she wouldn't be fed to the snake - there was a snake beside his chair. He said - he said he'd be feeding me to it, instead. Then he did the Cruciatus Curse on the woman and my scar hurt," Harry said. "It woke me up, it hurt so badly. Why… why does my scar hurt?"

"I have a theory, no more than that", Remus said and rubbed his chin. "It is my belief that your scar hurts both when Lord Voldemort is near you, and when he is feeling a particularly strong surge of hatred."

"But why?"

"Because you and he are connected by the curse that failed. That is no ordinary scar. "

"So you think that dream… did it really happen?"

"It is possible," said Remus sadly. "I would say - probable. Harry, did you see Voldemort?"

"No," said Harry. "Just the back of his chair. But there wouldn't have been anything to see, would there? I mean, he hasn't got a body, has he? But then how could he have held the wand?" Harry said slowly.

"How indeed?" muttered Remus. "How indeed. "

No one spoke for a while.

"Do… do you guys" Harry said at last, "do you think he's getting stronger?"

"Voldemort?" said James. "Sadly Harry, I can only give you our suspicions. The years of Voldemort's ascent to power were marked with disappearances. Bertha Jorkins has vanished without a trace in the place where Voldemort was certainly known to be last. Mr. Crouch too has disappeared… within these very grounds."

"And there was a third disappearance, one which the Ministry, I regret to say, do not consider of any importance, for it concerns a Muggle", Sirius added. "His name was Frank Bryce, he lived in the village where Voldemort's father grew up, and he has not been seen since last August. You see, I read the Muggle newspapers, unlike most people at the Ministry."

"These disappearances seem to me to be linked", Lily added. "The Ministry disagrees."

Harry nodded. Silence fell between them again. Harry felt as though he ought to go, but his curiosity held him in his chair.

"Um guys", he said and they looked at him. "While we were waiting for Dumbledore and Moony… Dorian and I got trapped in a Pensive and we saw a court room. You were there."

"Which courtroom", James asked. "We've been in a lot."

"The one with Crouch's son? Well… were they talking about Neville's grandmother?"

"Yes, they were talking about her," said Sirius darkly. "Frank's mother was tortured for information about Voldemort's whereabouts after he lost his powers, as you heard. They did it to try and force Frank to tell them what he knew. We found them too late."

"But Neville says he visits her sometimes" said Harry quietly.

"She…" Lily said and then sighed. "She became insane. She is in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. I believe Neville visits his grandmother, during the holidays. She doesn't recognize him."

"The Longbottoms were very popular even back then," Sirius explaind. "The attacks on them came after Voldemort's fall from power, just when everyone thought they were safe. Those attacks pissed people off. The Ministry was under great pressure to catch those who had done it. Unfortunately, the evidence was - given her condition - none too reliable."

"Then Mr. Crouch's son might not have been involved?" said Harry slowly.

Sirius shook his head. "As to that, I have no idea. "

"Er," he said, "Bagman…"

"Is an idiot!" James spat. "But has never been accused of any Dark activity since!"

"Right," said Harry. "Snape's name appeared as well."

"As far as we know Severus is on our side", Lily said but the four men in the room gave her a look. "Don't give me that look, you all know it is true."

"What makes you think he'd really stopped supporting Voldemort, mum?" Harry asked.

"I just… know."

"Well Harry I think it is time to return to class", Remus cut in before Harry could continue. "I am sure your friends are waiting for you… and a certain someone as well." Remus blinked at him and Harry blushed and hurriedly fled from the room before he could be questioned by his dad and Sirius. As soon as he was gone the grownups looked at each other.

"We need to act… soon", Lily said.

"Yes", Remus said.

"How are things going with that potion Dorian?" James asked.

"It should be ready by the third task", Dorian replied.

"Good", Sirius said. "It is time to take him down once and for all."


TBC