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Were Tossed in Anger

"I really do need you to come to my office, Harry. It's important."

"All right. What is it about?"

"Nonsense."

Harry starts and looks over his shoulder. He didn't think that anyone was observing his meeting with Dumbledore in the middle of this staircase that leads down from the Ravenclaw Tower—most of the other students are already in the Great Hall for lunch—but Professor McGonagall is climbing towards them. She has a thin mouth and a glare for Dumbledore as she halts next to Harry's shoulder.

"You know very well it's not nonsense, Minerva."

Dumbledore sounds injured, but Professor McGonagall only shakes her head at him. "Not the entire concept, Albus, but the way that you want to go about dragging young Harry into the war? It is."

Harry nods. If this is about a human war, then he is too young by human standards to fight in it. Not by goblin standards, but, well, they won't even face him in duels or let him use his favored weapons on a regular basis. Harry thinks that means that humans probably won't let him participate in their wars, either.

"He is—" Dumbledore's eyes dart in circles as if Blackeye is going to come around the corner and pounce on him for not eating enough. That reminds Harry, and he squints hard. It looks like Dumbledore's nose is cleaner. He smiles. "You know what he is, Minerva."

"I know what you want him to be," Professor McGonagall corrects firmly. "We need to let Mr. Potter make the ultimate choice." She turns to Harry. "Mr. Potter, the Headmaster wants to know if you've had any visions from You-Know-Who."

"Minerva."

"No." Harry frowns. "How would he get them to me? Through a vial of memories in the post? I'm not telepathic, so he can't send them to me that way."

Professor McGonagall's lips are twitching for some reason. "Are there goblins who are telepathic?"

"Oh, yes, some of the deep-singers." Harry shrugs a little. "And a few of the ones who have to deal with humans regularly. They usually only spend part of a day in Gringotts each, though. No offense, but the twisty way humans think gives them a headache."

"No one ever told me there were telepathic goblins."

Dumbledore sounds appalled. Harry blinks at him. "Did you ask?"

Dumbledore makes a little shriek and stomps off. Harry turns to Professor McGonagall to ask if she knows anything about why people do that and if it's only the ones with Mermish heritage, but she's regarding Harry seriously.

"The Headmaster thinks that you might be getting visions from You-Know-Who because he believes that you share a connection with—that monster through your scar." She tilts her head to bend down and look a little at Harry's.

"Oh, is this about the piece of soul I was carrying around in my scar for a while? Don't worry, Blackeye took care of that years ago. And I did tell the Headmaster about that my first year at the school," Harry adds, wondering if Dumbledore has forgotten. He's an old man for a human, he might have done. "But no, I don't remember having a vision or nightmare of any kind since then."

Professor McGonagall's eyes are very wide. "I see," she says faintly. "I—yes, you did tell us about the piece of soul that the goblins removed from behind your scar."

Harry smiles. At least she bothered to remember. "So I don't really think a connection exists between me and Voldemort anymore. At least, not that way. I owe him for his minion betraying my parents and my godfather having to spend twelve years in prison, but that's a different kind of thing."

Professor McGonagall appears to be bracing herself. "There is something else, too, Mr. Potter. Something you should know."

"What?"

Professor McGonagall sighs and stares at him, but also lowers her voice, as if she's worried about someone looking out from the portraits. "You are the subject of a prophecy that says you are the only one who can defeat You-Know-Who. I don't know the exact wording of the prophecy. Albus hasn't shared that with me. But I know that he does believe it, and so must You-Know-Who, if he went after you and attacked your parents."

Harry nods thoughtfully. He supposes that makes sense. It would explain Voldemort's obsession with him, and Dumbledore's desperation that Harry won't listen to him and be a human. Dumbledore might think that he's like a general whose best soldier won't follow his commands.

There's only one problem.

"Goblins aren't subject to prophecies," he tells Professor McGonagall. "I can't remember any story that talks about us acting in accordance with them."

Professor McGonagall opens her mouth and then stands there with it stuck like that. Harry looks around in case someone is coming up the staircases who they don't want to listen in, but there's no one.

"You are—" Professor McGonagall says, and then stops and stares at him again.

"Not a goblin? Is that what you were going to say?" Harry sighs. "Professor McGonagall, I really am a goblin in all the ways that matter. If I wasn't, then surely I would find it easier to understand the lot of you and fit in with you, right?"

"The lot of us?"

"Humans. Instead, humans confuse me all the time, and I know I confuse them."

Professor McGonagall clucks her tongue in faint protest, but Harry knows that she can't really argue, not when she's seen the results for herself. "That doesn't mean that someone who was born as a human and then raised as a goblin isn't subject to a prophecy."

Harry smiles. "That's a good point. I'll talk to my people and see what they think about it. It means that we might have to take it into account when we carry the war to Voldemort."

"Aren't you—Mr. Potter, you're not upset about being the subject of this prophecy?"

"Well, like I said, I don't know if I actually am. But even if I am, then I'm not going to be fighting alone. I have all my people behind me. And Luna and Ginny. And Sirius," Harry adds, after thinking about it a bit. He's not sure if Sirius should be allowed into the front lines of the fight or not. He's an interesting duelist—Harry got to see him fighting some of the warriors this past summer—but he's undisciplined, and he did rush after Pettigrew like an idiot. They'll have to make sure that Sirius can take orders and listen to other people before they ask him to fight with them.

Professor McGonagall's face softens. "And you also have me."

"That's nice of you to say." Harry smiles at her. "So let me ask you a question."

"Yes?"

"Why do Dumbledore and Karkaroff make those little screams and stomp off so much? Is it because of Mermish heritage?"

"You do bring us interesting questions, young amaraczh."

Harry smiles and bows. This is the most notice he's ever had from one of the lore-singers, the goblins who both keep history and investigate history for the answers to common problems. The goblin sitting in front of him, a hefty woman named Diamond with the jewels of her namesake hanging in her ears, slowly opens the gigantic tome lying in front of her on the coiled stone desk and begins to page through it.

Harry lets his eyes dart around the lore-singers' cavern without rising from his bow. It's painfully interesting. The coiled desks are everywhere, and the huge tomes, and the writhing blue lines on the walls that are the collaborations between the lore-singers and the stone-worms that live in these deeps and who can take years to answer one question. Harry longs to know what the blue lines say and how you can talk to a stone-worm.

But on the other hand, he's also perfectly happy with his chosen careers of warrior and smith, and wouldn't want to give them up to be a lore-singer. His voice probably isn't right anyway.

"You may straighten up."

Harry does, watching the lore-singer hopefully. Diamond is tracing the edges of more lines on a page made of flexible stone stretched thin, until light can shine through it, and sung to stay that way. She nods.

"There was one goblin who was subject to a prophecy," she says. "He had a human wife, and she would otherwise have been destined to marry a Dark Lord to bring about peace. He stepped into the prophecy in her place, and dueled for her honor."

"Did he win?"

"He did, although he was grievously wounded." Diamond lays her neatly trimmed nails across the page and studies him. "You can ask for someone to take your place in the prophecy, speaker. Do you wish to?"

Harry shakes his head. "And miss the kind of honor that this could bring? If nothing else, this prophecy does confirm that I made the right choice to undertake warrior training."

Toothsplitter might be disappointed to hear it, since she's always wanted him to concentrate on being a smith. But there's no reason that Harry can't pursue the warrior training while he needs to, until the wars are over for the moment and Voldemort defeated, and then return to studying as a Master Smith after that.

Diamond nods a little. Although she's not a warrior and so doesn't think of fighting as the ultimate expression of honor, her eyes shine a little. "You must be what you must be. I am so glad that you have learned the lesson. Even some humans who marry into our clans do not do so."

"It probably helps that I grew up with you from the time I was six years old," Harry says, and sees Diamond reach for a small chisel to make a notation on the stone page.

"You have given us a new question to consider, that of age," Diamond murmurs as she presses the chisel home, pauses for a moment, and then begins to scribe the runes that will hold the question as a matter for future research. "Go in peace, amaraczh."

Harry smiles at her and turns, leaving the cavern for the tunnels that will take him back to Hogwarts. His mind is whirling busily.

He may have to step up some of the training that he's giving Ginny, and add lessons in tactics and strategy to those he's already receiving. And he may have to speak with Dumbledore after all, although he'll do his best not to let the man's silliness get to him.

Dumbledore could have valuable information about Voldemort, though. There is always that.

"Voldemort cannot be defeated."

"But I thought you believed he could. That's what Professor McGonagall implied, since she said you believed in the prophecy."

Dumbledore abruptly holds his hand up. Harry falls silent and waits as the professor stalks over to peer into the shadow behind a bookshelf.

"Are you all right?" Harry asks after a moment of that. Has Voldemort already sent spies into the Headmaster's office or something?

"No goblin Healers," Dumbledore says in a satisfied way, and then comes and sits down behind his desk again.

Harry is kind and doesn't tell him that Blackeye doesn't need shadows and hidden doors to enter his office. Now that she's treated Dumbledore once, she has a connection with him, and Hogwarts is made of stone, anyway. That connection can function through stones, especially ones as friendly as the stones of Hogwarts are to goblins.

"Now." Dumbledore clasps his hands together. They're shaking a little. "I do believe in the prophecy insofar as it offers us a chance. What I mean is that he can't be defeated yet. He has the Horcruxes—the pieces of soul lying about, I believe that you called them—tying him to life. There was the one in your scar, and there was the diary you destroyed. But there are others."

"Well, I don't see why I can't destroy his wraith and then destroy the Horcruxes. My basilisk-fang dagger is pretty good at that."

"How would you destroy his wraith?"

"Capture it in a box of pure diamond and lock it in a vault with goblets of pure crystal around it?"

Harry doesn't mean to ask it as a question, but he's a little startled that Dumbledore doesn't seem to know. The goblins have dealt with more than one wizard who died and then attempted to enter the bank by possessing a descendant of theirs, and the like. There's an established procedure to get rid of wraiths.

"Why would that work?"

"The diamond gives them dazzling facets that confuse them and break their connection to the outside world. Then the crystal goblets reinforce the reflection, and the goblet shape is the least congenial for any spirit to attempt to fasten onto. It keeps them from escaping the vault even if someone picks up the box. Gradually, the light from the goblets and the box wears down on them and breaks apart the darkness that carried them beyond death. You do have to keep a light shining in the vault at all times, but that's a small price to pay."

Dumbledore shakes his head a little. "I think Voldemort is too powerful for this."

"I don't think so. Blackeye got rid of the soul piece behind my scar with no problem."

"But that is only a piece of him, not the largest piece of soul."

Harry shrugs a little. "With all due respect, the spirit I saw possessing Quirrell during my first year wasn't powerful or impressive. He was more than a little mad. Even if we couldn't destroy him, at least we can keep him trapped."

"We must destroy his Horcruxes first."

Harry smiles politely. He recognizes the obsession on Dumbledore's face. It's the same kind of obsession that Fudge wore when he attempted to make the goblins bend to his will. Well, Harry will listen and help if he can, take Dumbledore's help if it's needed, and then act on his own, as usual.

"I don't suppose that you know what they are?"

"He was obsessed with the history of Hogwarts. It makes sense that he would try to take and use Founders' artifacts. Several of them have been missing for centuries."

"You mean like the diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw?" Harry perks up. "The statue in our common room is still sad about that loss, even though she isn't the actual human. It would be nice if we could get it back."

"There is no guarantee that the diadem is one of them." Dumbledore's nostrils are flaring, and he looks at Harry over his glasses. "And I forbid you to try and take the diadem on your own."

"Take it…? I don't think we know where it is, do we?"

"It is too dangerous for you."

"I wasn't going to take it, though. Not until know where it is. Or are you talking about destroying the Horcrux? I did pretty well with the diary."

Dumbledore's right eye is starting to twitch. "I forbid you, Harry. The Horcruxes are not to be trifled with, and I don't need a goblin getting in the way and costing us this war."

Harry is so pleased to be acknowledged as a goblin that he lets the multiple insults in Dumbledore's words slip past. "I promise I won't look for it on my own. I just thought that the diadem might be one of them."

"This war needs to proceed exactly as I have planned it. We stand to lose it, and the world we love, otherwise—did you hear that?"

Harry listens. There's the contented murmur of the desk in front of Dumbledore, and the crackle of the fire on the hearth, and the measured footfalls of Blackeye coming up the moving staircase. "Which?"

"There appears to be—"

Dumbledore leaps to his feet as the door of his office opens. Blackeye steps in, nods to Harry with the air of someone who isn't surprised, and focuses on Dumbledore. "Did I or did I not tell you no stressful conversations today?"

"I was discussing the war with your apprentice!"

"Harry's not an apprentice Healer." Blackeye looks between the two of them with a frown. "Have you been overemphasizing your interest in my art, Harry?"

"No," Harry says, as puzzled as she is.

"Then why does he think that? You were born human, you must know."

"He's your patient."

Harry quivers a little inside as he pushes back against Blackeye, who is one of the most terrifying goblins he knows, but she smiles a second later. "Well, that is true. And I believe that h should spend the rest of the day on bed rest." She frowns at Dumbledore. "You aren't as young as you used to be, of course."

Ignoring her for the moment, Dumbledore blurts at Harry, "If you aren't her apprentice, why did you turn her loose on me?"

"I only informed her of my concerns about you. You should take better care of your health. And your hygiene," Harry adds, seeing the ink splotches on the Headmaster's robes now that he's standing up. Blackeye will have something to say about that. "I'm not her apprentice just because of that."

"If you care about my health, start acting like a human!"

"I do care about it," Harry assures him. "But not enough to sacrifice my whole life and culture for it. Just enough to make sure that you have the care you need and deserve."

Blackeye comes up to stand beside Harry, and Dumbledore backs away from her, making some delicate silver and crystal devices crash to the floor as he waves his wand around threateningly. "I am not afraid to curse you!" Dumbledore yells.

Blackeye watches him critically for a moment, then says, "Yes, you are. Well, at least you have some sense. Now, bed rest." She nods to Harry, and he slips out of the office, more than relieved to be out of a place that is probably going to turn into an infirmary soon.

As he goes down the stairs, he hears someone knocking on the gargoyle that guards the bottom. He comes out and finds Professor Moody there.

"I think Dumbledore is a bit busy right now, sir," Harry says. "But you can probably talk to him after his Healer lets him up from the bed rest."

Moody mouths the words "bed rest," looking perturbed, and then shakes his head. "You're actually the one I wanted to talk to, Potter."

"Oh?" Harry looks Moody over. He doesn't have anything against the man. For a human, he's a competent Defense professor, and even a decorated war veteran. It's not his fault that he didn't get to see a competent Healer for the leg and the eye.

"Yes." Moody lowers his voice. "It's about the Third Task."

Harry pats Moody's arm. "Don't worry, sir. I'm going to be disrupting it, so it won't happen."

Moody sucks in a breath and holds it for a second. Then he releases it and says, "But wouldn't it help you to know what it is?"

"Maybe? I don't know for sure. I managed to disrupt the Second Task even though I didn't know much about it beforehand."

"You knew it would be held by the lake."

"No, I was only asking around about the lake because Professor Karkaroff was worried there was going to be a war between the merfolk and the goblins. I wanted to make sure there wouldn't be so I could relieve his anxieties."

This time, Moody mouths the words "relieve his anxieties" to himself. Harry wonders if that's part of his culture, too. Does he have non-human heritage, like Karkaroff? Harry doesn't know why someone would hide it, but he's coming to accept that humans usually do, unless they're like Professor Flitwick or Professor Hagrid and can't because of the way their body looks.

"Can you come to my office and we can talk about it?" Professor Moody finally asks, sounding a little desperate.

"Of course, professor. You only had to ask." Harry smiles at him and trails after him. Moody stumps along ahead the whole way, so if he mouths some more words to himself, Harry can't see what they are.

Maybe he can ask Blackeye what culture would lead humans to mouth words to themselves or utter a short scream and stomp off all the time. Professor McGonagall didn't know.

Moody gives Harry a cup of tea that Harry sniffs and doesn't drink. He doesn't want to be impolite, but it smells terrible. Maybe Moody put some of the liquid that he's always sipping from his hip flask into it.

Moody settles himself in a chair near the fireplace and stares at Harry from under lowered brows. Harry blinks at him and asks, "What did you want to see me about, Professor?"

"I said. The Third Task."

"Yes, but humans are always lying and not saying what they really mean. So I thought it might be something else." Harry sighs as he sees the scowl cross Moody's face. "I've been rude again, haven't I? Sorry, professor. But if you're concerned about me, you don't need to be, even though it's nice of you. I'm going to destroy the Third Task the same way I destroyed the others."

Moody sits with his hands working over each other. Harry finds himself studying the scars om Moody's hands and arms. It's hard to know what to think of them. A goblin warrior so scarred would accent them with magic to draw out the proof of his bravery, but a human might just be unlucky.

"I'm going to ask you to let the Third Task proceed as planned," Moody says at last.

Harry blinks. "Why?"

"It's very important to me."

"Why?"

Moody's scowl surfaces again. "Can't you just accept what you're told?"

"Oh, come on, even you should know better than that, and you've only had me in class a couple times of week for a few months." Harry shakes his head. "It's a matter of a blood feud, you see. Since Crouch imprisoned my godfather illegally—"

"Of course. I know the story. But I've never heard that goblins are devoid of compassion."

"We're not," Harry says, more puzzled by the second. "But to have the amount of compassion necessary to cancel a blood feud, after I've already told my godfather that I'm fighting for his honor and all, I would have to know why. More than just a random human asking me. Although I'm sure that you're a perfectly nice random human," he adds, which he hopes makes him sound more polite.

Moody reaches down and rubs his wooden leg as if he wants to make a point. But whatever non-human culture is making him do that, Harry doesn't know, so he waits, and Moody finally sighs explosively.

"We have reports of Death Eater activity around the Tournament," he admits.

"Oh. Where? What kind?"

Moody made a huffing noise. "You think I'm going to tell a young—student that?"

"Well, you told me this so far. And if you want me to let the Third Task go ahead, it would have to be a pretty big reason why."

"The first example," Moody mutters, his voice sounding a little strangled, "is that your name came out of the Goblet of Fire."

"But I put it there. I thought everyone knew that?" Harry tries to think back, and he's pretty sure that Moody was in the Great Hall that day. Just about everyone was. And it's not like Harry ever tried to keep it a secret. When Dumbledore announced that Harry would be the Champion for the Realm of Song, anyone who did think that Harry was somehow a second Champion for Hogwarts would have known better.

"Someone could have Confounded you and made you think that."

"No, I don't think so."

Moody is starting to look constipated. Harry watches him thoughtfully, and wonders if there's a non-human culture that does that. Or maybe it's just part of the general forgetfulness that seems to come along with being old. Dumbledore has that, too.

Or maybe the wound that must have taken out Moody's original eye scrambled his brains.

"There's also the fact that Karkaroff used to be a Death Eater, and some of his actions concerning the Tournament are—suspicious."

"Huh," Harry says. "I didn't know Voldemort was that broad-minded."

Moody flinches a little, although not like other people do at the name Voldemort, but apparently just out of surprise. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I thought he was a pureblood bigot and a human bigot. I didn't know that he took humans with Mermish heritage into his service."

Moody looks more than a bit lost. "Karkaroff doesn't have Mermish heritage."

"Then why was he asking me about a war between the merpeople and the goblins?" Harry says triumphantly.

Moody has no answer to that one, which Harry was pretty sure would be the case. He rubs a hand across his real eye, while his magical one whizzes around and around his head. Harry admires it. It seems pretty useful. He wouldn't want to give up a regular eye to have one, though. A warrior needs as many advantage as he can get, and the magical eye wouldn't provide enough of one.

"There's also," Moody says, his voice a little strained, "the Death Eater attack at the World Cup this past summer."

Harry nods. He did hear about that. The World Cup was so small, with the goblins pulling their funding for it as part of the war, that it only lasted one day, but apparently some Death Eaters still dressed up in their silly robes and floated some people from Weasley's family into the air, along with a few Muggles who happened to be around.

"But you aren't concerned about that?" Moody's voice cracks in what sounds like incredulity.

"Why should I be? That was the Quidditch World Cup, not the Tournament."

Moody closes his regular eye and takes a long, deep breath that sounds like it's meant to calm himself. Then he said, "I would consider it a personal favor if you would let the Third Task go ahead. It might be our only chance of catching those Death Eaters."

Harry thinks about that. Then he says, "No."

"Why not?"

"Well, to be honest, sir, I've heard about you. Your nickname," Harry adds, when Moody gives him the blankest look yet. "You're a bit paranoid. I can understand why, but it also means that you're probably seeing things that aren't there. Either the Death Eater activity isn't taking place, since the examples you've given me aren't real or aren't connected to the Tournament, or it's not going to be avoided by letting the Third Task go ahead."

"I promise you that there is a Death Eater close at hand even as we speak. I will swear a vow to you."

"If you know who it is, why haven't you captured them?"

"There are reasons." Moody is apparently speaking entirely through his clenched teeth now. "Sometimes even paranoid people like me can wait and watch so as not to endanger the success of a case."

Harry nods. "Well, I wish you good luck with your case, sir. But I'm not going to end my feud with Mr. Crouch or stop trying to ruin the Tournament."

"You little brat."

"Do you want to duel me?" Harry asks hopefully. He'd like that. Moody seems, from his reputation, like he would be a challenging opponent and not a coward.

"No. Get out."

Moody's face actually seems like it's twisting beyond the normal confines, and he snatches his hip flask and guzzles from it. Harry sighs as he stands and walks out of the room. It's very sad that Moody is an addict and probably delusional, but he can't see telling Blackeye about him. She already has her hands full with Dumbledore.

Alerting St. Mungo's wouldn't be out of the question, though. Humans should take care of humans, and maybe they have more advanced spells now that could give Moody his leg back.

Heard Them Wailing

It turns out that the Third Task is an enormous hedge maze. Harry just waits until it's almost done, the night before the Third Task, and then he goes out and talks to the plants that make up the maze.

They turn and quiver at him, and Harry smiles and strokes their leaves. They nestle under his touch. Harry wishes he'd brought Luna with him, but she announced that she had to go to sleep early tonight, to dream of the Heliopaths, Harry can understand the seriousness of that. Heliopaths depend on dreams to grow tall and strong.

"I was wondering," Harry asks the hedges, "if you would be willing to sink back into the earth and destroy the maze for me? It's a matter of honor."

But the plants hiss and sway at him. They don't care much about honor. One plant will strangle another if it can, or take up its sunlight, or grow in place of its seeds. Once they exist, they want to go on existing.

Harry shakes his head. "All right. But would you be willing to grow in a different shape?"

The leaves wrap around his fingers with interest.

"Mr. Potter."

Dumbledore is towering over him in wrath. Harry wants to say that Blackeye probably forbade him to do that, but he doesn't get the chance. Dumbledore keeps spluttering, and the other Tournament judges are standing behind him on the pitch, where they brought Harry early this morning when someone saw the hedge maze.

At least they know now that it's likely to be him. That's progress. Harry is only sorry that he really did have to destroy the whole Tournament, instead of Crouch acting honorable and dueling him before this.

"Yes?" he asks, stretching his arms out. He notices Moody standing behind the Tournament judges and watching him intently, but he doesn't care.

Dumbledore points a trembling finger at the hedge maze. Or what was the hedge maze. Harry follows his pointing finger, and smiles. Of course he knew what he would see, considering that he asked the plants to grow in that shape, but he hasn't had the chance to look at it by daylight.

The plants have formed an enormous bow, the kind that would go on top of a present. Harry admires the sheen of the leaves and the complications of the loops. He didn't tell them to do that. But that's what happens when you ask, something that escapes most wizards most of the time.

"We cannot hold the Third Task," Dumbledore states.

"Yes, I know. I didn't want you to."

Dumbledore turns red, then purple. At least he doesn't utter the short shriek and stomp off this time. Harry waits patiently to see what's going to happen.

What happens is a large golden cup Levitating towards him. Harry turns to meet it. He's ready to speak to it and ask what's happening, but he hears its voice before he can, so clear that it sounds like Gobbledegook words.

Danger! Danger! Don't touch!

Harry can't respect that, though. The cup is weeping, frantic with pain. Someone's cast spells on it to make it go against its purpose, and he can't leave it there to suffer. It was heart-rending enough that he couldn't save the Goblet of Fire earlier in the year.

He reaches out and brushes his fingers down the side.

As a terrible pulling sensation grabs at him and heaves him through space and nothingness, Harry clutches the cup tight with one hand, and the hilt of his basilisk-fang dagger with the other. He's ready, no matter what happens.

And whoever did this is going to find out what it means to capture a goblin warrior-in-training.