When Harry descended to breakfast the next morning, he found Alexandra and Alduin with grave expressions of their faces, and the boys absent. Wynn had been so quite often recently, his tantrums usually resulting in being taken away by Litty, but both of them being gone, and his cousins' faces...

"What's wrong?" Harry asked immediately. "Did something unexpected happen last night at the Cup?"

Instead of answering, Alduin sighed and handed him the Prophet.

There was a large picture of a skull with a snake coming out of its mouth shining in the night sky, next to four people floating in the air. There were also shining green letters stating that "the Dark Lord is coming!" It took up most of the front page.

Harry skimmed the article. Apparently, the skull was a mark of Riddle. The people floating in the air, on the other hand, were Mr. Roberts and his family...and they had been taken by force and terrified and humiliated as they were carried through the air in their nightclothes, rotated and paraded, for several minutes before Aurors swept in to save them.

Harry felt sick to his stomach. "This," he said, "is disgusting."

"Yes," Alduin agreed. "It is."

"Did you know this would happen?" Harry asked accusingly.

"No. I expected the Dark Mark, or something of the sort, but I certainly didn't expect the Muggle torture." Alduin closed his eyes for a moment. "I'd like to say I don't think even Lucius expected it," he said when he opened them, bitterly, "but what do I know? And even if he didn't, he'd have hardly tried too hard to stop it."

There was grim silence as they ate sparingly of their breakfast. Neville and Sophie came down to eat as well, and when she appeared in the room, a painful grimace crossed Alduin's face and he made a move as if to hide the papers, before he sighed again and left it on the table.

Sophie looked at their faces and snatched the paper. Reading, Harry could see her eyes widening as she took in what actually happened.

"This..." she hesitated. "I had no idea it would be like this."

"Neither did I, I swear," Alduin said heavily. "I'd have stayed and tried to help, too, if I knew something like this was possible."

"No one could have got me away," Sophie declared fiercely. "I just...of course I had people comment on me, but...something like this? I didn't know...I thought this only happened under You-Know-Who."

"I'd like to tell you these people were all Death Eaters loyal to him, but while the core might have been that, there were many, many others." He sighed. "And to think, just yesterday, I was telling you how anti-Muggle prejudice is more understandable than the Smith rhetorics. If something was designed to make me eat my words, it'd be this."

"You never quite explained what the difference was, anyway," Harry said.

Alduin rubbed his eyes, and then said, his voice exhausted: "To be frank, it's simply that anti-Muggle prejudice is what I'm used to. I grew up surrounded by some level of anti-Muggle prejudice. While I disagree with it, it doesn't usually shock me, when it isn't like this. What the Smiths imply, on the other hand...it always feels exactly this shocking."

"Considering some things I heard Dean has to deal with," Sophie said, "you'd really hate it in the Muggle world."

Alduin turned to her with a sad smile. "I'm sure you understand," he said, "that this knowledge doesn't exactly help in ridding myself of the remaining latent prejudice against Muggles I have. It costs me some effort to remind myself that our own chauvinism is no better than the Muggle one."

Harry and his friends mused about this. "Do you think you're prejudiced?" Sophie asked then, much more hesitantly than she normally voiced any of her questions.

"Oh, all of us are," Alduin replied, striving for a light tone but clearly revealing the bitterness underneath. "All of us purebloods raised in the wizarding world, that is. We take it in with breast milk. It's only a question of how much, and how much we try to rid ourselves of it."

Sophie frowned a little. "But you never seemed to...I mean, you always treated my parents fine."

Alduin sighed. "Prejudice isn't just what happened yesterday, or spewing curse words on passer-bys. It shows in such small things sometimes..." He shook his head. "Forgive me, I don't think I want to go into details. But it is, I feel, the reality of what you'll have to face in this world."

"Shouldn't we know, then?" She pressed.

"Perhaps. Perhaps it would just make you frustrated in advance."

Sophie hesitated. "Yesterday, when you told me not to embarrass you in front of your friends...was that prejudice?" She asked then, looking at him out of the corner of her eyes.

Alduin shrugged, looking more resigned and defeated than Harry had ever seen him before. "I'd like to say it wasn't. I believe it wasn't. But what do I know? We – all of us that aren't as far gone as those people," he gestured towards the papers, "always try to tell ourselves that nothing we do is ever the wrong thing, and we are very good at reassuring each other that because we are not like those people, we are fine." Alduin exchanged a short look with Alexandra, then shrugged again. "In truth, it's you who has to decide. You're the only one who can truly know, because it's you I'd hurt with it."

Sophie, at this weight suddenly put on her shoulders, looked entirely overwhelmed.

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Alduin had been planning to go and speak to Lucius in any case, but before he could, the man appeared in Travers Manor and requested a private audience. Thankfully, Alduin had had a chance to pull himself together a little since then, and so he was able to meet him with at least a pretence of civility and equanimity.

"Did it really have to turn out so...barbaric?" He asked Lucius when they were seated in the office, letting only his disgust show in his tone, with none of the other, related emotions that had shaken him that morning.

Lucius waved that aside just as easily as Alduin had feared he would. "I didn't plan that part, it was quite spontaneous, but we have bigger things to worry about." he paused, then said with emphasis: "The Mark...it didn't come from our little group."

Alduin understood the problem immediately, and despite himself, let it drag his attention away from what had been done to the Muggles, because Lucius was right: this was truly a problem. "Pettigrew wouldn't have done that," he observed immediately. "He wouldn't have dared to come to the Cup at all."

"No," Lucius agreed. "But at the same time, you need to bear the Mark to cast it. And I asked everyone to that little gathering, everyone I didn't believe truly repentant. That means it must have been someone I didn't know about, most likely an important spy."

"Or someone who managed to fool even you by their faked repentance. In either case, they'd be dangerous." Alduin paused. "What exactly was your plan, if neither the mark nor the Muggle torture were part of it?"

"Well, you know...a riot and some decisive statement about the approaching return of the Dark Lord. When the mark appeared, though, I just added a short message and called it a day. It seemed enough."

"With a bit of work, it will be. But Lucius-"

"Spare me your lecture," the man interrupted. "As I said, I didn't plan that. If nothing else, you must know that I am not a fool."

He swept out of the room, and Alduin knew that was all he was going to get on the topic.

Sadly, it was far from enough to appease his own conscience,

At what point in making deals with the devil, he wondered, did you become the devil yourself?

He desperately wished he could talk to his mother, who'd always been his unshakeable moral compass. He even fleetingly thought of the Resurrection Stone, but he knew he was nowhere near enough the mental place where its use would be safe for him, so he went to see Abdullah and Ginevra instead.

He didn't get much in the way of concrete advice, but he did get support, at least, and the rest of the time, he distracted himself with work. There was plenty of it to go around, and Alduin was busy most of the week, both with Wizengamot business and in the Institute. Still, he took care to save some time for Harry, to continue both his fighting and dancing lessons.

"Aren't there more important things than dancing now?" Harry asked.

"Wars are won as much in ballrooms and at formal dinners as at battlefields," Alduin replied simply.

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Just as the year before, Harry was leaving for Hogwarts under a cloud of apprehension. He had pressed his little cousins to himself particularly closely before he left the manor, muttering how much he'd miss them into their ears. At the platform, Alduin's warnings were even graver than the year before. And as soon as the train left the platform, he shut the door to the Gryffindor compartment, soundproofed it, and turned to the other fourth years.

"Riddle is coming back," he said.

The Gryffindor fourth years stared at him.

"How do you know?" Ron asked after a moment. "Are you just figuring it from what happened at the Cup?"

Harry shook his head. "It's kinda complicated. But it was pretty likely since Pettigrew escaped, that he went to Riddle. Now they found out that Riddle left his old haunts, and there are some indications that he's back in Britain, plus what the Death Eaters said at the Cup...it's pretty much certain. I mean, it might take him a while, but it's definitely coming."

"So...will there be another war?" Seamus asked uncertainly.

Harry shrugged. "I suppose...unless the Ministry can find and stop him first. Kingsley – the Head Auror – is great, and my cousin says the head of Magical Law Enforcement is pretty awesome too – she's Susan's aunt – but the rest of the Ministry seems not too keen, from what I can gather. And the Minister...well. I saw him at the Cup for the first time, and even doing that little bit of public appearance looked like it was too much for him. I really don't see him managing this successfully."

"But does he have to?" Parvati asked. "I mean, with a competent MLE head and head Auror, he wouldn't really need to be very involved, would he?"

Harry shrugged again. "I really don't know," he said. "I'm just saying, it'd be great if they prevented it, but I don't trust them overmuch. All the stuff in the past, like with Sirius and with Quirell, I had to sort out with Alduin."

"Is he planning something?" Sophie asked curiously.

Harry grinned at the question. "I'm sure he is, he was hardly at home the last week he was so busy, but I don't really know what. I guess Riddle himself is a bigger issue than anything we've dealt with before..."

"You've been training me for a while," Neville said. "Given that we know Riddle is coming now...do you think you'd maybe open it up to other people too?"

Harry sighed. "I'd like to, but...I really don't feel up to it. Training so many more people would be much harder, and took more time, too. Let's see what Defence teacher we have, okay?"

"He's not going to train us in duelling," Ron pointed out. "If Riddle really comes back, I think we could all use it. I know I refused you last time, but if there's going to be another war, then I'm all for it now, and I think some of the others would, too."

Sophie and Dean were both nodding, and Harry gave another sigh. Teaching his best friend bits and pieces was one thing, but he didn't really feel ready for this. "Just...we'll see."

They spent a good while speculating together before they broke apart, Dean leaving first, announcing sheepishly that he had a date.

"Ooh! Look at Mr. I'm-never-gonna-date!" Sophie said. "With whom?"

"Zainab...she's a third-year Hufflepuff. I met her at the Cup."

"Dean bravely saved her from the rampaging hooligans," Seamus announced with a snigger.

Dean rolled his eyes. "She was alone in the forest and kinda confused, so I helped her a bit."

"That actually does sound very romantic," Lavender declared decisively.

Harry stayed for a while longer, but then he headed to the Ravenclaw compartment, to talk to Hermione and Su. He wasn't going to make a fool of himself by warning the Slytherins – Daphne might not know, normally, but he had no doubt Theo would tell her – and Susan might well have better information than he did, from her aunt. Hermione and Su, however, were probably clueless, so he brought them to the Gryffindor compartment and repeated the gist of his message.

Hermione was extremely alarmed. "But what do I do if a war starts?"

Harry shrugged. "Honestly? Probably go into hiding...I mean, you're Muggle-Born, so they're going to be after you."

She frowned at him. "I don't think I want to do that, not if the rest of you will be taking part."

"You tell him," Su nodded encouragingly. "Being Muggle-born doesn't mean you can't take care of yourself!"

"I didn't mean to imply that," Harry defended himself. "I mean, she's Hermione. If what Horatio says can be believed, she could take her NEWTs right now and pas most of them. But it's not like you know how to fight, not really, and with being under Horatio's wing and being the best in our year, it's not like they won't know they should go after you."

Hermione raised her chin. "Maybe I should learn how to fight, then."

Harry thought of Neville's proposal, and sighed again.

The train ride itself was uneventful this time at least, for the first time in a few years. Harry supposed the first years would be compensated by having to ride across the lake in the violent storm that was raging. All the students were drained just in the time it took them to get on the carriages and then off, and to make matters worse, Peeves was waiting in the Entrance Hall to pop balloons filled with water over their heads. As a result, they entered the Great Hall in a rather sour mood.

Alduin had taught Harry the drying charm, so Harry now used it on himself and his friends before they sat down. It left the skin sort of tingling, but it was better than being drenched. Harry wanted to distract himself with speculating about the new Defence teacher, but there was no one new sitting at the Head Table. Weird.

The first years came, tiny and all completely wet, with the smallest one of them wrapped in Hagrid's coat. As it later turned out, it was Colin Creevey's brother, and he had fallen into the lake. Harry supposed that, as far as wetness went, it didn't make much of a difference.

There were almost as many new students as the year before, and Harry was getting rather hungry and so less interested in the Sorting as it went on. There was only one person he really knew there, Elizabeth Crouch, and she was Sorted right at the beginning, going – quite predictably – to Ravenclaw, where her best friend and Harriet's brother, Charlus Bulstrode, had preceded her. Harry also caught the name of Mark Abbott, who he supposed was Hannah's brother and who went to Hufflepuff, and two more Weasley cousins. Colin's brother joined him in Gryffindor. They both seemed to be equally enthusiastic. The mere idea made Harry develop a headache.

Fortunately, Dumbledore didn't torture them with a speech before allowing the food to appear, so Harry was able to listen to all he had to say afterwards on a full stomach. And it was quite something. After some preliminaries, the Headmaster announced that the Quidditch Cup would not take place that year. Harry stared, and then began to protest, silenced only by Dumbledore continuing by announcing another event – but before he could say what it was (it could hardly be as interesting as Quidditch, Harry thought), the Great Hall door opened and a very strange man came in.

He had one wooden leg, a bit of his nose was missing, his face was covered with scars and one of his eyes was a large, electric blue orb. And he headed right for the Head Table.

"Is this the new Defence teacher?" Harry asked weakly.

"Surely not!" Parvati muttered.

It was, however, as it turned out when Dumbledore introduced him. Everyone was too shocked to applaud, and so Dumbledore, probably to change the topic, continued his previous announcement: "As I was saying, we are to have the honour of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event that has not been held for over a century. It is my very great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year."

"You're JOKING!" Fred Weasley said a bit down the table, very loudly.

Everyone laughed. "I am not joking, Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore said, "though now that you mention it, I did hear an excellent one over the summer about a troll, a hag, and a leprechaun who all go into a bar."

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat, and Dumbledore returned to his previous topic, and went on to explain what the Tournament was.

Harry didn't need to hear the explanation, he had learned that much from Alexandra in History classes. It was pretty cool. He even had to admit that it just might beat Quidditch.

He was sort of relieved to hear one had to be seventeen to take part, though. Without that, he might have felt tempted, and, well, let's face it: if the tournament didn't kill him, his cousin probably would.