"The Gone Tribe," Orsini replied, his voice tired and echoing – calling – something that made Harry shiver with fear and anxiety. "Well, sometimes they're called the Fading Tribe, but really… they're already gone. They've already faded into nothing."
"But," Harry said, "how do you know of them?"
Orsini narrowed his eyes suspiciously and looked at Harry with a sneer on his face. "Isn't that what I should be asking you , young man? It is not often that people ask me of the Tribe. You seem far too unsurprised to have never heard of them."
"I have heard of them," Harry said, mind scrambling for a believable excuse. "In a story. I read a lot of those."
"Quite the story it must have been, then," Orsini said dryly. "Now, did you come here for this painting or for something else?"
Harry fell silent for a moment, and thought of his options. He had already deduced that there was no way that Sirius's words regarding them not being under surveillance were true - the entertainment of the event was based on people watching them, and claiming otherwise would be a blatant lie. So whatever he would respond with, whatever he would do , would have to be... something that impressed the audience. Mette had told him that people wanted a show, and if giving them a show was the only way he could get one over Delacour, then...
And... what was that strange shuffling sound coming from somewhere nearby? Did his target have any guests here?
"I'd like to buy this painting," Harry said. Orsini rolled his eyes and took a step back from him, in clear indication that his earlier question about Harry's interest in buying the painting had been nothing but mockery.
"I doubt you've got enough liras on you," the man said. "And I don't take dollars. Or pounds, if that's what you've got."
"What about labor, then," Harry offered lightly, wondering if he should use a spell to convince the man. "The place is quite messy, and I doubt it's fun to organize it all on your own. I could help."
"You could work here your entire life, and you still wouldn't be able to afford the painting," Orsini said. "It's not for curious little boys. Leave."
'What the hell do I do,' Harry thought, doing his best to not show any signs of his rising panic. What would Bellatrix do? "I'm afraid I cannot do that," Harry said finally. Orsini gave him a sharp look, and tensed. Once again Harry could hear a strange, shuffling sound, except this time it sounded even closer.
"I will throw you out myself ," Orsini threatened. "You have no right to anything that is mine."
"You could reconsider selling me the painting," Harry said, keeping his tone friendly, "and perhaps there will be no need for violence." Because, really, violence was the last thing Harry wanted. If he could somehow figure out a way to win the tournament without violence, he would. All he could hope now was for Orsini to buy his bluff and miraculously feel intimidated.
Miracles, however, weren't forthcoming.
In response the man levelled him with a look so evil, it made something inside Harry flinch and reach for his wand. He felt bad for being so rude to Orsini, but he really needed an excuse to stay long enough to somehow get a hair off the man without hurting him. He didn't want to end up having to fight his target. Not to mention that he really did want the painting, if only to remind himself that the Gone Tribe was real, and they were out there, somewhere. Aware of him. He had seen one.
"You can sit on that couch there all you want," Orsini said, gesturing towards a couch that had its back to a staircase leading up. "I'm not changing my mind. Let's see for how long you can wait, eh?"
'Should I attack him?' Harry thought, and watched as Orsini turned away from him and walked upstairs. The man's feigned lack of care was neither convincing nor relieving, and Harry found himself even more stressed and anxious than before. What was he up to? Should Harry just stun him and go?
It was well into the first day already - had Delacour finished her task yet? Had she been as efficient as before? Would she have kicked down the front door, hit Orsini with a cutting curse to the throat and been done with the task in fifteen minutes?
'I'm not her,' Harry thought . 'And I can't become her no matter how much Tom probably wants me to.' He then turned back to the painting, and could swear that there was someone nearby breathing. The sound didn't come from the painting itself, did it? No - it was clearly a muggle painting, no matter how well-made it was. Harry threw a glance at the staircase, and when he didn't see Orsini there, he pressed his fingertip against the painting's surface. Nothing happened.
'It's painted on fabric,' Harry thought, running his hand gently over it. 'Surprisingly thin fabric.' A bit odd, wasn't it? The painting had such sturdy frames, yet nothing to support it from the back.
Shooting another nervous look towards the staircase, Harry grabbed a hold of the frame, and lifted the painting off its hook. Behind it he saw nothing but a wall, and a small hole. Nothing special. The hole didn't pierce through the wall, but rather... into it. It seemed to be nothing but a result of someone accidentally punching the thin wall too hard, breaking the first layer and then not bothering to fix it. Harry peeked closer, and saw nothing but empty darkness inside. He wondered how deep the space between the walls was.
'I have to put this back before Orsini comes down,' he decided, and glanced down for a moment to readjust his grip. When he looked up again, what he saw punched the breath right out of him: staring at him through the hole in the wall was a pair of eyes.
A pair of bulging, bloodshot human eyes.
The first thing Fleur did was cast a warming charm on herself and silently curse the location she had been sent to.
She was standing in a relatively empty square, in front of a large, white church. There was a thick layer of snow on the ground, and cold gusts of wind made it hard to breathe at times, despite the warming charm. The people she could see were dressed in a fashion unfamiliar to her, and the statue that she could see was still, without so much as a twitch. It became clear very fast that she was in a muggle neighbourhood. Did that mean that her target was a muggle as well?
'Merlin, what a bore,' Fleur thought. So far the previous task seemed to be tougher than this one, but perhaps that was for the best. A task being boring but easy was by far better than a tough task that would increase the risk of failure. Tricky but entertaining duels could wait for another day to happen . 'Now, to locate my target.'
Her target's name was Juho Tilli, and Fleur had no idea if that was a man or woman's name. Not that it mattered, really - while the point-me spell wouldn't work on finding the person, it wasn't entirely useless. Predictably, whoever had cast anti-locator charms on the target hadn't bothered to cover the target's home as well. Fleur knew that even if they weren't there right now, she could wait for them - she had time, after all.
It was clear that the game-designers had decided to err on the side of caution when it came to deciding the timing for the game.
The witch followed the directions of her wand, and after several minutes of walking in increasingly inconvenient weather, she had finally arrived to what looked like a small harbour, of all things. There were people about to board a ferry standing there, and following the tug of her wand, Fleur quietly joined them. A disillusionment charm kept her from being detected by anyone, and a part of her was relieved that the audience at Hogwarts wouldn't be watching her - this was far too boring for anyone to be entertained by.
Soon enough Fleur arrived on an island, and from there it took her nearly half an hour of brisk walking to reach a house.
It wasn't an impressive house, really. An ugly, yellow brick house in the middle of what looked like the ruins of an old brick building. No neighbours, and even the road was a fair distance away. Really, there was nothing worth mentioning; only that ugly house, with ruins to its sides, and the Baltic Sea behind it.
'Who on earth would live here,' the witch thought, before promptly unlocking the front door and stepping into the house.
In a vast contrast to its outward appearance, the house on the inside was... clearly designed with money not being an issue. The dark wooden floor was polished to perfection. The teal wallpaper with golden leaves mixing with white-painted wall panels reminded Fleur of one of her mother's old houses in Lourmarin. In the front hall there was a spiraling staircase leading to the upper floor, and several beautifully decorated doors. Something, however, wasn't quite right. There was a strange atmosphere in the house, and—
Fleur snapped her head up, looking at the top of the staircase, just in time to see a small face duck behind a wall. A strange, fast, uneven sound of thumping followed.
"Oh no, you don't," Fleur hissed, pulling out her wand and racing up the stairs. "I saw you!" She reached the top of the stairs, and looked both directions down the long, dark hallway. No one was there, but whoever the child had been, they could have easily slipped into any of the rooms on the second floor. Fleur wasn't about to go there without knowing the location of the one she was looking for.
'Why is a child alone in this house, anyway,' the witch thought. 'Is it a child? What if this child is Juho Tilli?'
"All right then," Fleur said, knowing exactly what she would have to do. She turned her back to the corridor and returned downstairs. After a moment of making sure that the child wasn't following her, she stepped out of the house and closed the door behind her.
Unluckily for her target, Fleur didn't like children. Fleur especially didn't like muggle children. And unluckily for Potter and Weasley, they were competing against a witch who genuinely enjoyed learning strong, complicated magic, and just so happened to know that polyjuice didn't need fresh ingredients. Bones picked off the remains of a dead body would be enough.
'I know what people are saying,' Fleur thought, walking around the house and drawing concealment and containment runes every few steps . 'I'm not a witch in the eyes of many. Just a veela. Well, let me show them what a veela can do. Let me show them what a veela witch can do against two pureblood wizards.'
As she drew the last two runes, invisible walls rose to surround the house. With a flick of her wand, she set the roof on fire, and stood back to watch the flames slowly eating away at the house.
It took less than half an hour for Fleur to hear the panicked scream from inside. Someone was clearly trying to escape, and the voice was indeed that of a child. It was crying, and not even the sound of those frightened, pained sobs could bring Fleur to move from where she was standing. It wasn't until she heard a loud crash - most likely someone falling down the stairs, by the sound of it - that she cast a shield to surround herself and stepped back into the house.
The child was now lying on the floor, crying and crawling towards the doorway. It had burn marks all over its body, and most remarkably - it had no legs. It was simply pulling itself forward with its arms, compensating for the emptiness that came after its knees.
Fleur thought of her younger sister, and cast a cutting curse.
Horrified, Harry stumbled away from the wall and couldn't hold back a frightened shriek. When he heard Orsini run down the stairs, Harry instinctively dropped the painting, pulled out his wand again, and ducked behind a couch - he didn't know what the man's reaction would be.
Not a positive one, it turned out, when the first thing Orsini did was reach for a chair and throw it towards Harry in a fit of rage. It flew over the back of the couch that Harry was cowering behind, and hit the floor with a loud thud.
"What have you done ?" the man all but howled. "I told you not to touch anything!"
"What is that?" Harry yelled, as he tried to crawl towards the door, doing his best to avoid the man who was getting angrier and angrier. "In the wall! An eye!" Orsini didn't seem to be in a mood for answers, and lunged at Harry with a wild look in his eyes, clawing at air as he tried to reach the boy. His heart hammering hard in his chest, Harry's only desire was to get Orsini as far away from him as possible, and hopefully get some sort of an answer about the creature that was, even now, staring at them from behind the wall.
Staring, with a hungry look in its eyes, its long fingers pushing in and tugging at the jagged edges of the hole.
" Who is that?" Harry tried again, dodging a pair of scissors that Orsini had thrown at him. "Just tell me - what the hell is going on? Merlin, this is— protego !"
"I shouldn't have let you get in," Orsini raged. "I learned from that, boy. Oh yes, I did. I won't be letting you out, you can be sure of that . I'll stick you right in with him, I'll—"
"Stick me ri— You trapped a person in the wall?" Harry said disbelievingly. " Why ?" What a horrible, horrible thing to do to someone! Was it really a human? Why had— What in Merlin's name was going on? He really should've just stunned the man and gone back to Hogwarts when he still had the chance.
"We can still part ways with no harm coming upon you," Harry said loudly. "Just give me the painting - or sell it to me. Or just tell me what you know of the... thing drawn on it? Anything- Listen - No! Don't throw that!" While speaking, Harry had tried to find a way to shift closer to the door. Unfortunately, in order to achieve that without getting too close to Orsini, the only way was to pass by the wall and the... eye. Orsini, in his rage, didn't think twice before hurling what looked like a heavy statue made of stone at Harry, hitting the wall behind him.
The hole grew bigger, the eye disappeared for a moment, and a strange yowl came from its dark depths. Distracted by that, Harry didn't notice Orsini heading towards him until he was far too close for Harry's comfort. A silent thank you to Durmstrang's curriculum running through his mind, Harry shifted his whole body to roll under a table and stand up with his wand in hand, leaving Orsini between him and the growing hole in the wall.
"I'm so sorry ," Harry said, and his fast expelliarmus hit Orsini right in the chest, flinging him several feet back and right into the wall, breaking it even more. The hole now was big enough for the creature to crawl out, and Harry, not knowing how fast or aggressive it would be, quietly moved further and further away. He couldn't leave yet, not without acquiring the missing ingredient for his polyjuice potion.
'Merlin, that is a person,' Harry thought, horrified, as he watched the creature that pulled itself into the house through the hole. Its saggy skin was grey, greasy and sparse hair falling down in clumps onto his shoulders. Its eyes were strangely, frighteningly alert as it stood still and observed the room silently. Harry didn't dare breathe, and neither did Orsini, it seemed. There was no telling what would be the thing's - that person's - next move.
It turned its head and stared at Harry for moment, before slowly crouching over Orsini's now whimpering form. The silence lasted for a few more seconds, and there was nothing Harry could do but hold his wand tightly, ready to attack. It was strange, really, how he had been so hesitant about violence earlier, but now... now when the danger was so real , Harry knew that he wouldn't hesitate to defend himself, no matter how he'd have to do it.
It was then that he heard a strange, wet sound, right before Orsini let out an agonized scream. Harry took a deep breath and watched in horror as the puddle of blood on the floor grew and grew, just as the sound of loud chewing filled the room. There was nothing to guess about what the... person, creature , was doing. The painting that had made Harry go through all this hassle was now soaked in Orsini's blood.
'Why,' Harry thought. The Tournament didn't even cross his mind at that point - not the tournament, not the audience, not even the Gone Tribe. All he could think of was watching the creature - the person? Which one was it? - eating Orsini alive, while the man tried in vain to flee from its hold. Before realizing it, Harry had raised his wand and aimed it at the...thing. There was only one spell he could think of and still somehow come out on top - not only survive this mess, but perhaps impress Tom as well. It would be fast and painless, and if Harry had to do this, he'd rather do it painlessly.
The green spell hit the creature on the back of its head, and silently - mid-movement - it slumped down. Harry could hear Orsini gasping for air and sobbing, somehow still alive, as he walked closer to his target. A moment later, another jet of green hit Orsini, silencing him forever.
And Harry... Harry was done .
Sirius didn't know what to think, or how to feel.
A part of him - a small, guilty part - was relieved that neither James nor Lily were there to watch this happen. Somehow he couldn't imagine them being fine with what had just occurred.
He was glad, however, that he wasn't a judge - he hadn't been able to focus on Weasley and Delacour at all since the moment Harry stepped into his target's house. The boy's earlier behaviour - it was as if he was hiding from something - had made Sirius curious, but that was forgotten soon in light of the events that followed.
It had seemed at first as if Harry would be both lucky and unlucky: lucky in finding his target so fast - the audience was still present and attentive - and finishing his mission quickly, and unlucky in the lack of entertainment that would create. Things took a turn to unknown roads when instead of simply taking what he wanted from Orsini, Harry's attention had been caught by a painting. The boy hadn't been feigning interest in the painting - Sirius knew Harry well enough to know that he had been sincere, there was something that had caught Harry's attention about it. But what was it? What had he spoken about, with the man? While the audience could watch the events unfolding, listening to what was being said was impossible this time around.
But oh, how Sirius wanted to know. Whatever it was, it had been enough to bring an expression to Harry's face that Sirius didn't even recognize: some strange mix of desperation, fear, and hope.
There was plenty that hadn't made sense - Harry had clearly been focused on something that was personal to him, and not as Durmstrang's champion. It only made things more interesting for the curious audience, of course, and the reporters who would speculate for weeks to come.
Harry had had a bit of a slow start, but when the boy had finally decided to fight - Merlin , Sirius hadn't even known that little Harry could be so quick. The way he had rolled under that table, ready with a curse... that had Crouch's signature all over it. But the way the boy actually cast the curse... it was... it reminded Sirius a little bit of the Dark Lord, of all people. The way Harry held that wand, with an unusual grip that looked deceptively loose as he cast the killing curse...
The killing curse ! There was no way that learning the killing curse was a part of the Durmstrang curriculum for students who couldn't even apparate yet! Where had Harry—? It wasn't the kind of curse that people would just study independently, was it? Especially not people like Harry!
'What on earth have you been up to,' Sirius thought, surprised to find himself... not as happy as he thought he would be. Harry had performed brilliantly - even better than the first time around - but... the killing curse wasn't easy business. It wasn't the kind of spell children knew much about, let alone knew how to cast. There was... there was something wrong, and Sirius, for the first time, regretted having taken on the task of organizing the tournament. It would keep him busy over the holidays, and somehow he couldn't help but feel that right now what he needed to do was spend more time with Harry. To figure things out.
Up in a booth with the other judges, Bellatrix was just about ready to burst with glee. The thought of having to endure a task that lasted for four days hadn't been pleasant at all. Much to her delight, however, the Potter boy didn't disappoint in the least.
He was quick and efficient - and lucky - in locating his target. At first Bella had wondered why the boy didn't simply kill the man on the spot, perhaps off a few stray muggles on the side by accident, but if Potter was the kind of boy who enjoyed toying with his targets a little bit, well... she couldn't exactly frown upon that, now could she? Especially not when his target's end had been so delightful, and the boy had used the killing curse to finish his business.
It was beautiful.
"He could've gotten to the point a little bit faster," Araminta Meliflua said, though she didn't sound disapproving. The old woman looked reluctantly impressed, and Bellatrix knew that while the older witch didn't feel particularly fond of Potter, she liked the poor Weasley and the French veela even less. At least Potter was English and wealthy. "And that killing curse - nicely done, but it's clearly his first time casting it successfully. To be fair to the boy, however, he is quite young."
"How can you tell?" Edmund Parkinson asked. "His work seemed quite decent to me. I doubt it matters if it's the boy's first time casting the killing curse. He obviously did it successfully."
"The translucency of the colour," Araminta replied simply, before turning away from Parkinson. "This is the champion you've been rooting for, Bellatrix? Who do you think would win in a duel, your nephew Anthony or Potter?"
"Po- Harry," Bellatrix said, her eyes still fixed on the scene of Harry finishing the polyjuice potion. Soon he would come back, and in all likelihood he'd be whisked off to rest. Casting the killing curse - twice, no less! - for the first time was exhausting, and Bellatrix herself remembered having slept for two days straight after she had cast hers. When the boy would wake up, she would go and visit him. Or should she allow him to keep his secret a little while longer?
He might try to deny it, but Bella had been a Death Eater for a long, long time. She had fought side by side with the Dark Lord, and knew exactly how her master dueled. What she wanted to know, however, was how Potter had picked up the Dark Lord's stance and grip. It wasn't a style that Crouch could've taught him. In fact, Bellatrix doubted that there was anyone who could teach that style at Durmstrang. Not to mention that the Dark Lord had nominated Potter for the Tournament.
Something was clearly going on.
'Oh, little Potter,' Bella thought, leaning back in her seat. 'You're so entertaining, I might end up wanting you all for myself.'
It took George quite a while to locate his target, and even then... he wasn't sure where he'd find the person he was looking for.
The detector that George had built with Fred in preparation for this task was very precise, but took a long time to work. By the time he had narrowed down his target's location to a moderately sized museum in some corner of the city of Cairo, it was already nightfall. George didn't mind - he'd rather avoid crowds if possible. It was, however, surprising that his target would be at the museum that late. Could it be the janitor, or someone who had work to do overnight? If that was the case, then wasn't that a lucky break?
After waiting for a few hours past the closing time, George couldn't see anyone exiting the building anymore, and the lights seemed to be all switched off. Carefully he made his way towards one of the windows, and unlocked it with a quick flick, pulling himself inside that way. He had no idea if muggles used alarm systems, but George took care to not touch any of the items in glass cases as he walked past them. The statues, however, were fair game.
Not that he wanted to touch any of those . Creepy things, they were, towering over him in the dark rooms and hallways.
He had never really considered museums scary before, but this one was a place George would be glad to leave as soon as possible. Merlin, what was the fascination about collecting all these statues and then coming to stare at them? They didn't even move!
'Although, to be quite honest,' George thought, stepping into a large room lined with even more statues and some ancient human remains . 'I'm kind of glad that they aren't moving.'
The atmosphere of that room was, however, very different from the other rooms that George had been to. Here, strangely enough, he felt as if he was being stared at. Not necessarily in a hostile way, just... It was highly uncomfortable, and this wasn't the first time that he regretted ever entering the tournament. On one hand he wished he could rewind time and never participate, but on the other... there was a lot of money involved here.
'How can my target be here, though,' George thought, trying to see if there was anyone hiding behind the statues. 'I see no one, not even a janitor.'
It was purely by accident that he saw it - a pair of eyes gleaming in the dark, staring at him with a look of desperate hope from the other side of the room. Wary, George pulled out his wand, and slowly walked closer, ready to cast a blasting curse at the first sign of movement from his target.
"Stay still," George said, "if you cooperate, there will be no need for any violence, all right? All I want is—" Whatever he had wanted to say next remained unsaid, when he finally saw the face that the pair of eyes belonged to. Most of the face - and the rest of the body - was wrapped in cloth that looked like it had not only been dug out of dirt, but was old enough to gain a yellow tint to it. From what could be seen of the face, gaunt wasn't accurate enough to describe it. The skin was tightly stretched over a skeletal face, and there were no muscles in the arms or legs. In fact... had it not been for the pair of eyes that undeniably belonged to a living human, George would've assumed that this was the remains of yet another historical figure.
'How?' he thought, feeling no small amount of disgust. 'How had this been done to someone?' Was his target trapped in this body or was something else going on? Didn't Muggles - well, of course they didn't see this. Any kind of magic could easily mask the eyes.
George stood still in front of the... display? Mummy? Person? He tried to figure out what he could use for the polyjuice potion, and kept looking around in hopes of finding someone else - anyone else, who could turn out to be his target instead. No such luck; the device he and Fred had created was very clear and left little room for error. Was the thing capable of moving? What if there was a curse, ready to be flung at him the moment he reached for it?
"Merlin," George huffed, deciding with a grimace to cut a little bit of the visible cheekbone with the tip of his wand, avoiding direct contact with the mummy and the case it was being supported by. As he did, the eyes still staring at him in hope - hope for what? help? - widened in horror and panic. There were no sounds, and George wasn't sure even how it was possible, but the thing's eyes welled up in tears the more he cut off its cheek. Once done, he took a step back and uncorked the vial of polyjuice. As he waited for the ingredient to settle, he stared quietly at the mummy.
It was a person. Someone, for whatever reason, had been trapped into this husk of a body, unable to live or die. And going by the look in their eyes, they had held hope that George would somehow put them out of their misery.
He... he couldn't. Besides, maybe he was wrong. Maybe this was an illusion created to mess with his head. Maybe there was no person at all. Maybe George was imagining it. There was no way a real person had been subjected to an existence of torment, silence, and isolation like this. It had to be a set-up for the tournament, and that knowledge made it easier for George to turn away.
After all, this was just entertainment.