Harry returned to Gryffindor Tower worried, but also relieved that the matter with the Tournament had been cleared up so easily, and immensely grateful to Alduin. The mood in his House, however, was quite different.
When he entered through the portrait, most of his Housemates seemed to be waiting for him, and started to shout questions at him. It took him a moment to realize they were all outraged he wasn't about to compete. "If not me, then it could have been you at least!" Angelina was saying.
"You really let your cousin order you around too much, you have to stand up to him," Sophie was admonishing.
"Such a missed opportunity, mate," Dean complained.
Harry was looking around the sea of faces and, as he had once or twice before, felt like he didn't understand any of these people.
He pushed his way through the crowd, not responding, to Neville and Ron, who were waiting for him, and gestured with his head towards the dormitories. His friends nodded, and taking the stairs by two, they were soon gone from the madness downstairs.
"Did you really find a way to put your name in?" Ron asked as soon as they were alone.
Harry stared at him. "What? Of course not. Alduin thinks someone used a piece of paper I signed or something. He really only explained it very briefly, I'll ask."
"But how come there were four names?"
Harry shrugged. "I have no clue. No one said anything. What was announced to the school?"
"That it was probably some prank, that there would be an investigation, and that your guardian pulled you from the competition."
Harry nodded. "Well, that's basically what happened...only Alduin and Snape both seem to think it has something to do with Riddle possibly coming back soon."
Both his friends looked alarmed. "But how?" Ron asked.
Harry shrugged. "They don't really know. They had some theories, but it was mostly speculation. I was told to be on my guard, so, you know. Look out if you see something that looks like Percy's old rat, or anything suspicious or...Death Eater like, I guess?"
"I don't think the person responsible for this is gonna be going round in a dark cape, you know," Ron muttered.
Harry sighed. "I know. Just...anything you see."
He then exchanged a look with Neville, and by long habit they met up in the bathroom after Ron fell asleep.
"There's not much more," Harry muttered. "I just wanted to tell you that apparently Karkaroff was a Death Eater. Snape and Alduin both seemed to think it unlikely he was behind this, but still, good to know I guess."
Neville nodded. "Are you all right?" He asked then.
Harry shrugged. "I guess. A little rattled, but I've had worse. I'm just really glad I won't have to compete."
Harry went to bed drained, and to make matters worse, that night he had another dream featuring Riddle, this time cursing someone for some unspecified failure. He supposed that if he wanted a confirmation that Riddle had been behind his name in the cup – which he really, really hadn't – this was a pretty good one.
It woke him in the middle of the night, and he considered calling Alduin for a moment, but this wasn't exactly urgent, and he wasn't a baby, so he waited until morning.
Only, of course, for Alduin to be dismayed that he waited too long for any possible details to be gleaned from a Pensive memory of the dream to be gone. "Next time, Harry," he said firmly, "call me whatever the time of day or night."
Harry have a solemn promise, but it meant he was already starting the day in a bad mood, which was not at all improved once he arrived in the Great Hall and saw the papers.
Naturally, they had a field day with the story of the four champions the following day. The Prophet seemed to believe Harry did some trick to compete – they even called him a naughty boy in the article, which was rather disturbing – and his cousin prevented him.
Harry would have simply ignored it, but as many as twenty people asked him about it in just one day, and by the end of it, he was fed up and considered calling Alduin again, but at this point he'd probably expect another emergency, so he visited Hedwig and wrote instead, asking if that reporter he'd spoken to during the summer would be willing to write the actual story, or as much of it as could be made publicly available.
Alduin, of course, called him back. "We need to do this quickly, before the Prophet has a chance to convince everyone it was the way they say it was," he said in explanation. "As for Mrs. Fenwick, I'm sure that she'd be delighted with another interview. Are you willing to do it through the mirror? Arranging for an undisturbed Floo would be difficult."
Harry shrugged. "Sure, I don't care," he agreed, and so Alduin promised to take care of the matter.
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Alduin longed for a proper drink.
It'd been a while since he wanted one this much, in fact, but then it's been a while since he was forced to face the Horcrux in Harry so head on. But the last dream, apart from confirming that Riddle was working inside of Hogwarts – and Alduin had already had a very frustrating chat with Dumbledore about that – also reminded him of the connection. And the thing was, all the other Horcruxes were destroyed. The diary, the cup, the ring, the diadem, the locket. With Harry and Voldemort, that made seven pieces of Riddle's soul, and that meant the next step was Harry.
And as Riddle was clearly about to come back, it wasn't like Alduin could tell himself that they had time, that they could do as much research as they needed.
And sure, they had the ritual for disentangling the Horcrux now. It might need some adjustments to work on a person without killing them, but Alduin was confident it could be done. That part would be easy.
It was the other part that was the problem. It wasn't like he could stick Harry inside the Veil. Or rather, he could, but he might just as well chuck that Avada at him like Mrs. Gerard wanted.
It was time to bring Daniel Goldstein in on the final secret, but that would mean facing it all again in its full horribleness...and so Alduin itched for a drink.
He shook his head and headed to the nursery, as he always did when he was feeling like this, meaning, lately, every time he had a spare moment.
Wynn's tantrums haven't gotten discernibly better, nor did Edric have all of his teeth yet, but Alduin supposed practice really did help with everything, because he's learned to mostly ignore Wynn's screaming on the ground – after consulting with experienced parents who assured Alexandra it wouldn't do any harm as long as it was done properly, they'd taken to actually putting a silencing spell on him. There was a science to it: the first time they did it, the boy'd been terrified, and as per their elders' advice, they took the spell off again the very next second. But gradually, they – or rather Alexandra, because Alduin, as always, had been rather too busy to participate properly – had gotten the boy used to the idea that when he starts screaming violently for no good reason, he will soon stop making any sounds at all, and that was rather effective in making him stop. And it was certainly easier, when one was at the same time playing with Edric, than walking away every time.
As for Edric, they'd both simply become very daft hands at the just the right way of applying the cooling charm to his gums.
At any rate, there was no tantrum or particular toothache at the moment, thankfully, and in fact, Wynn ran to Alduin in excitement when he saw him, wanting to show him his latest drawing. It was a relief: with November bringing cold and rain, Wynn was coped up inside and tended to get even more impatient than usual.
As Alduin praised the drawing – Wynn had been getting much better at it lately, or much more coordinated at least, putting actual vague shapes on paper now – he watched Edric struggle to stand up out of the corner of his eye. There wasn't actually anything that could happen to him if he fell over, Alduin supposed, but still, he'd rather be safe than sorry.
He turned back to Wynn, about to ask about his day, when heavy rain began to pelt the window of the nursery. Wynn frowned. "Wain," he complained.
"Yes, sweetheart, it's raining," Alduin agreed. "It's a shame. It would be nice to see sun again, wouldn't it?"
"No sun," Wynn stated decisively, looking glumly out of the window.
"You're right about that, buddy," Alduin agreed heavily. "There's no sun at all."
It was at that moment that Edric fell on his bum and started to sniffle.
"Wick fall," Wynn noticed immediately, turning to Alduin like he should go do something about it.
"Why don't you go comfort him, then?" Alduin suggested, and Wynn promptly went and squeezed bis brother, who began to giggle.
To his horror, Alduin realized his eyes were filling with tears. He blinked them rapidly away. It was going to be fine. Everything was going to be fine.
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"Thanks a lot, mate," Dean said out of the blue when he popped on the ground next to him at the rug where most of Gryffindor Fourth years were doing homework in their common room.
It took Harry a moment to realize it was addressed to him, but once he did, he blinked in confusion. "For what?"
"Zainab broke up with me because of you," Dan said bitterly.
Now Harry was even more confused. "What?" He'd never said more than 'hello' and 'goodbye' to Zainab, as far as he knew, so why should he be the reason for the breakup?
"Explain," Seamus said, apparently confused as well.
"We argued about who should be the Hogwarts Champion," Dean said in a frustrated tone.
Harry stared at him. "You mean to tell me that you argued it should have been me?" To a Hufflepuff to boot, but Harry was really stuck on that first point.
"And you broke up because of that?" Sophie asked incredulously. Now that he thought bout it, Harry found it a strange reason to break up as well, but what did he know?
"She told me that she couldn't be with someone who supported cheating to get what you want, because who knew when she'd become the victim of that?" Dean was frowning. "I tried to explain it wasn't like that at all – I wouldn't cheat on her, obviously – but somehow I got all tangled in it and then she just said it was over."
"Tough luck, mate," Seamus said, patting him on the back. "I know how you feel."
"Though arguing with a Hufflepuff about that was idiotic," Sophie mercilessly said aloud what Harry had been thinking.
"Well, I know that now," Dean said irritably.
Harry agreed with Sophie enough to have no intention to apologize to Dean for this mess that seemed entirely of his making, but under the circumstances he judged it best to change the topic, and so he thought back to something he'd been considering since that conversation with Alduin and Snape.
"So you know how we talked about training at the start of the year," he said slowly. "What do you think now that we've had Moody for a while?"
Most of them gave him surprised looks. "Moody is probably the best teacher we could have got in this situation," Sophie pointed out. Harry wasn't surprised she, of all people, would think that. "Honestly I was pretty dubious about any teacher replacing training," she went on, "but with Moody...I mean, what more could we ask except for a bloke who used to train Aurors?"
There were general nods – except for Ron, who knew about Harry's mistrust towards Moody and who was giving him a considering look.
"All right," Harry said easily. "I just thought I should check in with you." On one hand it was a relief, but on the other he thought about if he should warn them about Moody more. But how, when he didn't have anything beyond the vaguest suspicions? He didn!t want them to think he was insane.
Once the group dispersed, however, Harry was unsurprised when Ron turned towards him and said: "Actually, I'd take that training, if you're still offering."
"I am," Harry assured him. "We're meeting once a week with Neville, if that works for you?"
"Sure," Ron said, though he grimaced a little at the idea of the time it would cost him. "But, I mean...won't Neville me too much ahead of me? You've been training with him for a while..."
Harry shook his head. "With just the two of you, it shouldn't be too much of a problem to set one of you some basic exercises and focus more on the other when it comes to the stuff I've already covered with Neville. And honestly, last year it was mostly DADA exam practice anyway, so...it's really only about the last two months, that's like eight sessions. I don't think there's gonna be that much of a difference."
Ron slowly nodded. "All right then," he agreed. "Let's do this." Then he gave a grim smile. "If Moody decides to test Crucio in class on us next, I wanna be prepared."
Harry shuddered, and fervently hoped it would not come to that.