- Chapter Fourteen -

Moloh

The day has passed by so quickly that Harry almost didn't notice. It was only light for a few hours, but that too settled over the winter landscape like a depressing, sleepy twilight. During this time, Harry, Ginny and Fleur toured the area around the tower, again under the guidance of Viktor Krum. The wizard showed them around the school grounds, telling them stories from his schooldays. They spent a lot of time at Krum's favourite spot, a steep cliff overlooking a U-shaped valley carved by ice, with the blue fringe of the Arctic Sea visible in the distance.

If the life at Durmstrang, the teachers' and students' attitude to black magic, did not appeal to Harry, he had to admit that the beauty of the countryside was beyond comparison, even in the winter months. He would have liked to have seen the varied world of the Norwegian coast in the summer, and when he told Ginny this, she immediately reminded him that he would have the opportunity to do so at the third task of the Triwizard Tournament.

Harry frowned slightly at this. He remembered why they were here, and the fact that they hadn't accomplished anything of their task: they hadn't found out who Marius was targeting, or what his connection to the inner circle might be. Harry had some ideas in connection with Moloh, but so far he hadn't even seen the director yet.

During the afternoon, which they spent in the Durmstrang tower as darkness descended again, they met Professor McGonagall and Percy outside the dining room, and said a quick hello to Madame Maxime.

The Yule Ball was announced to start at 8pm, and Harry, Ginny and Fleur had already retired to their rooms to change. While Ginny was in the small bathroom off their guestroom, Harry put on his invisibility cloak and stepped out into the corridor. He simply couldn't sit around idle any longer, he felt he had to meet Moloh in person, or at least see his office for himself, wherever it was.

'Where were the offices?' Harry muttered to himself under his cloak, carefully avoiding the running children.

Afraid that one of them might accidentally pull off his cloak if stepped on his heels, he carefully cast a shield charm around himself. If someone bumped into him, he'd still notice there was something odd, but at least he wouldn't be exposed and could escape in time.

After lunch, he tried to draw a sketch map, but the moment the first ink drop fell on the parchment, it ignited and burned up in a flash, right in front of Harry. He knew that the school had a series of protective charms on it, and that they probably made it unmappable, but he would have hated to not even try. So he had to find his way to the teachers' and headmaster's offices by heart, wondering how Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs had managed to make a map of Hogwarts.

The spiral staircase was dangerous because there wasn't enough room to move aside if someone came towards him, but luckily he managed to run up it without colliding with anyone. He went up to the top floor of the tower, where Krum said the teachers' rooms were located. Fortunately, the corridors were much more deserted here, with only one or two older girls waiting outside one of the teachers' rooms, excitedly whispering about something. Harry slipped in behind them, glancing briefly at the gold plaque on the door, Álfeiðr Fnugg - Zauberkünste.

Harry didn't understand a word of it, but the door opened, and an old, stumpy teacher appeared, and the girls, babbling in German, spelled out their problem, whatever it was. Harry moved on – he doubted very much that it was the old man with the unpronounceable name he was looking for. A dozen rooms opened from the corridor, only Ula Ulatov's was open; the deputy director was talking to Professor McGonagall outside the door. Harry stopped and listened.

'And then you know what that Arschloch said?' Ula hissed quietly to McGonagall. 'He said to my face that my education would make even a squib into a criminal!'

Harry could clearly hear McGonagall hissing angrily.

'And what did you tell him?' she asked the professor.

'I couldn't say anything, as you might think,' Ula shook her head, a look of despair on her face. 'Such... such an accusation!'

The old woman wiped a tear from her eye, and McGonagall put her hand on her shoulder in support.

'I'm scared, Minerva,' said Ula, her voice trailing off. 'You couldn't know... Last month he dismissed our fish diviner, Herr Fiskert, because... because the poor man predicted that the... that evil would take control of the school.'

McGonagall just sighed and rolled her eyes; Harry knew she didn't think much of seers and prophets.

'Divination is a rather... frivolous science, Ursula,' she told her consolingly. 'We have a divination teacher at Hogwarts who predicts disasters every week. Needless to say, none have ever happened.'

Harry smiled under the invisibility cloak. It seems McGonagall still tends to forget that it was Sybill Trelawney who made the prophecy that led to Voldemort's downfall. Of course, it could be, he thought, that McGonagall was only trying to comfort Ulatov.

'Fisker is not like that!' the Durmstrang professor shook her head. 'He was never wrong! And I've known him since we were students... And now he's just shipped him off to Nurmen!'

McGonagall covered her mouth with her hand.

'I'm afraid I'll be next,' Ula continued, lowering her voice, because down the corridor some students were coming out of one of the teacher's offices, 'Or old Fnugg, he hates Moloh as well.' Ula laughed bitterly. 'Actually, there's no one here who doesn't hate Mo...'

Ula suddenly fell silent and stared straight at Harry with a terrified expression on her face. Harry, too, froze beneath the cloak of invisibility, but in time he heard footsteps behind him and quickly moved out of the way of an approaching figure.

The man was terrifyingly tall, almost as tall as Hagrid, with a suntanned face and a stubble that framed his chin. His red cloak swung softly behind him as he passed Harry, and the stench of concentrated aftershave filled the air.

'Professor McGonagall!' the man said in his deep, growling voice. His nostrils flared as he spoke, as if he were panting or snorting. 'The ball is starting soon, and you're not in your dress robe yet?'

Harry was stunned; the headmistress looked up at him with a firm expression as if she were about to spit on Moloh. Ula, on the other hand, quickly turned and retreated back to her room, slamming the door behind her. The situation was unmistakable; a fool could have clearly seen that Ulatov and McGonagall were talking about the director. Moloh did not look like a fool at all, his whole appearance radiated determination and strength, but it had no effect on McGonagall.

'I was just on my way back,' said the headmistress coolly, and turned away.

'As you should be!' Moloh raised his voice, and McGonagall stopped and turned back to him.

'Excuse me, what did you say?' she looked at him as if she were talking to a naughty schoolboy.

Moloh grinned, obviously pleased that McGonagall stood up to him – unlike the teachers, Harry thought.

'Don't misunderstand me, Minerva,' he said in a low voice. 'I just want our Yule Ball to be perfect and we can celebrate the winter solstice without any, erm... 'hick-ups'.'

McGonagall also flashed a half-smile, but the contemptuous grin did not disappear from her face.

'You'd do better to worry about your own students, Maude,' she said, emphasising Moloh's first name, as he did earlier; interestingly, however, it made the conversation sound even colder.

'Durmstrang falls on hard times currently,' Moloh said with a suddenly serious expression, 'I told the International Confederation of Wizards that it would be foolish to hold the Triwizard Tournament here.'

'Any other school would welcome such an opportunity,' McGonagall raised an eyebrow, 'A well-organised Tournament is a great boost to a headmaster's image. I understand you're in dire need of one...'

Harry almost laughed under the cloak. That was what he liked about McGonagall: she never lost her head, and was never short of a snappy repartee.

'Of course, you don't have to worry about such things any more, do you, Minerva?' Moloh snorted with a frown and took a step towards her. 'With supporters behind your back such as Mr. Potter, Miss Granger and Mr Weasler...'

McGonagall nodded confidently.

'That's right, Maude,' she said, her head up, her voice ringing with pride, 'I've earned the right to call them my friends. You should make sure as well that you have that honour!'

Harry's mouth dropped open.

Moloh did not seem to expect this response after the snappy remark, and taking advantage of the momentary pause, McGonagall gave him a curt nod and strode off towards the stairs. Harry stayed in his shadow to find out which office Moloh was going back to, but the headmaster just headed for the common staff room, slamming the door wildly behind him.

Harry glanced at his watch and hurried back to his room, thinking about what he had heard, the arrest of the Divination teacher, the tyrannical rule of Moloh – the Durmstrang giant was perhaps even more in control than Umbridge.

When he entered guestroom nine, Ginny had just come out of the bathroom in her royal blue evening gown.

'Where have you been?' she asked.

'Just snooping around,' Harry replied with a shrug, after he had managed to tear his gaze away from her cleavage, 'Why don't you wear that black dress?'

'Because I threw it out,' Ginny said tersely, raising her eyebrows. 'Why? You don't like me without it?'

Harry kissed her and pinched her bottom in response, and Ginny squealed and slapped him playfully across the face. It was only five minutes to eight before Harry finally put on his dress robe and flattened his hair, which stuck up at hundred different spots – five minutes of the quarter of an hour was spent dressing, ten combing, and when they finally stepped out into the corridor Harry was convinced he looked the same as he had before the gruelling procedure. But Ginny didn't complain, only the smile at the corner of her mouth gave away her opinion.

As Krum explained, the ball was not held in the tower, as there was not enough space, so an old, so-called ceremonial hall was decorated for the occasion, located between the school and the forest.

As they made their way along the torch-lit, cleared path with the swirling crowd, Harry realised why he hadn't noticed the hall until now. The conical roof of the half-sunk, pile-supported structure had been covered with earth, now completely covered with snow, so it blended almost perfectly into the dimbe-hilly landscape. The guests entered through a large arched doorway, with Ginny at Harry's side and Krum leading Fleur in front. The beautiful, tall girl looked out of place next to the slightly stooped, half a head shorter Durmstrang wizard, but Fleur was not complaining at all, and seemed to have forgotten her earlier fright as she flashed her dazzling smile at everyone. Some of the younger boys simply left their ball partners in the lurch, drooling as they followed the veela, ignoring the jealous shouts of the girls behind them.

Ginny giggled softly, and when too many children were following, she tapped Fleur on the shoulder and leaned over to her ear.

'You could take it down a little,' she whispered, and Fleur raised a brow, looked around, spotted the boys (who had been joined by Gronhold, the Viking gamekeeper), and wondered.

Harry only noticed that the silvery light that had surrounded Fleur was fading, as if she had blown out a candle burning inside her. The boys were slowly falling behind as the spell of the veela let them go.

'I'm sorry, I didn't notice,' Fleur excused herself, as they entered the foyer of the ceremonial hall and handed their thick coats to the witch in the cloakroom.

The worry returned to her face. Harry thought she might want to keep a low profile, but it was hard to do: even now that she had kept her inherited charm in check, she still attracted a lot of attention.

Entering the ballroom from the lobby, they could admire the Christmas decorations, which Harry thought were a little less than Hogwarts, but were attractive and free from excess. At the far end of the hall from them stood a large Christmas tree, with a spearhead ornament on its top instead of a star, which was a little odd to Harry. Around the edge of the room were long tables lined with punch bowls, champagne bottles, sandwich platters. The selection was also poorer than at Hogwarts; there were only cold dishes, salads, fish and prawn cocktails, caviar and tuna sandwiches, and in one bowl there were tiny, round live fish swimming. At first Harry thought they were just put out for decoration, until the big Durmstrang boy who had pushed him earlier in the morning stepped up to the bowl: he took a twitching fish out of it and swallowed it whole. Harry heard Ginny gag.

Fleur's nose couldn't stand the smell of fish either, so she and Krum moved as far away from the tables as possible, under the Christmas tree where the dry cakes were displayed. Harry was in an experimental mood, however, and tasted everything except the bowl of live fish, much to Ginny's dismay.

'I hope you don't like it,' she grimaced.

'To tell you the truth, it's quite tasty,' Harry said, munching on his tuna sandwich. He'd never had the chance to eat it before, because fish was very rarely on the menu at Hogwarts, even then only fried fish, and Aunt Petunia had an aversion to all creatures from the sea.

'Uh...,' Ginny shook her head, 'Then it's a good thing I didn't take Ron's advice in the third grade.'

Harry picked up another sandwich – this time a caviar one – and sniffed it.

'What was it?' he looked questioningly at her. Ginny folded her arms.

'In great wisdom he said that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach,' she smiled at Harry as he devoured his caviar sandwich. 'He was trying to get me to bake you a Christmas cake, and then you'd ask me to the ball...'

Harry looked up and almost swallowed his bite up.

'More likely, I would have thought you were trying to poison me,' he joked.

'Yeah, that's what I told him...'

Meanwhile, the room was full of guests, mostly Durmstrang students, but Harry spotted a good number of Beauxbatons, almost exclusively around Fleur, and finally got to see this year's Hogwarts graduates standing together, who had not been selected by the Goblet of Fire. He spotted Romilda Vane and her chatting friends immediately, as have they spotted Ginny standing next to Harry. In response to their jealous glances, Ginny wrapped her arms around Harry's neck and kissed him on the ear, and Harry shivered pleasantly.

'I see, this year won't be short of scandals either,' McGonagall said from beside them.

The headmistress seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, her embroidered emerald green robes sweeping the ground, her patched pheasant feathered hat replaced by a more distinguished one bought for her by Hermione when she was first appointed headmistress.

'You can't have a Triwizard Tournament without a scandal, professor,' Ginny smiled at her, and the corner of McGonagall's mouth twitched suspiciously.

'I've experienced that,' said McGonagall, and then, seeing Harry's questioning look, she continued. 'You should have seen the fuss Miss Vane made after we finished the champion selection and the Goblet threw out Mr Creevey's name. The newspapers didn't report it, of course, but Romilda Vane went into hysterics and overturned her chair, shouting fraud in front of everyone', McGonagall took a sip from her champagne glass and tut-tutted while she shook her head. 'In forty-four years of my teaching career, I have never issued as many punishments as I am doing now. I would suggest that you don't have any of the punch – Miss Vane was forced to make it...'

Harry and Ginny both grinned.

'Did you send her down to work with the house elves?'

'Maude Moloh wasn't very pleased with me,' McGonagall nodded towards the entrance.

Harry and Ginny turned; just then the headmaster came through the door, with a woman in her fifties, who must have been his wife, at his side, and behind him Madame Ula toddling along, a little startled, with her two elderly fellow teachers. Harry could almost see Moloh's tyrannical shadow looming over them.

'Will you excuse me?' McGonagall said, then grabbed another champagne glass and hurried through the crowd to Professor Ulatov.

'Is that Moloh?' whispered Ginny, amazed at the wizard's hulking stature.

Harry told her what he had heard when he went exploring under the invisibility cloak, and Ginny shared his view that this was the only man who could be Marius' target. Now it was just a question of what dark object or objects Moloh was hiding that the blue-skinned man might want to take as his own.

'The whole school is practically empty now,' Ginny said.

'Yes, but we can't just disappear,' said Harry. 'We're invited guests, I'm sure we'll be introduced to lots of people. Later, when they're not paying so much attention. Until then, let's just act natural.'

They stuck to it for the rest of the evening. When the three champions, led by their dance partners, walked through the door, they too stood in line and were greeted with applause. Harry was assailed by memories: he could almost see himself from the outside, being dragged into the middle of the room with Parvati Patil at his side, Seamus Finnigan's grinning face and Ron's ears red with jealousy, Hermione looking more beautiful than ever, and Cho, who in his memory was not nearly as pretty as she used to be.

Now the Durmstrang champion was at the front with his Durmstrang partner, the French girl behind him, and at the back Dennis Creevey, who Harry still saw as Colin's annoying little brother, despite the years. Dennis has grown up since then, but he was still a long way behind the other champions – the Creevey boys have always been small.

Harry's prophecy came true: after the opening dance, he, Fleur and Krum were introduced to a number of important and respected wizards and witches, including the teachers of Durmstrang, the members of the Wizard Chancellorship in attendance, the German and Norwegian Ministers of Magic, the International Confederation of Wizards' local representative, and at last to Moloh, who seemed to avoid meeting Harry as long as possible.

'Mr Potter, may I introduce Maude Moloh, the Director of Durmstrang Academy,' said Professor Ulatov, and now her face showed none of the fear that had been evident during her conversation with McGonagall. 'Maude, Mr Harry Potter is...'

'Thank you, Professor Ulatov, I'm well aware of who Mr Potter is,' the headmaster cut her off in his deep voice, pulling himself up to his full height. Harry suspected that the wizard was trying to be intimidating, but the expected effect was missed, as he was unaware that his half-giant-like stature was not completely new to Harry. Ginny, on the other hand, opened her mouth spectacularly when she was introduced to the headmaster. Harry just smiled up at the wizard, with his most polite face , and this clearly hurt Moloh's self-esteem.

'I recently expressed my disappointment in an interview, Mr Potter,' the director finally said, 'that you did not attend the first task despite the invitation.'

'Yes, I'm sorry, but I had too many pending cases,' Harry replied, having prepared himself for such comments.

'Mr Potter is a first-year trainee at the British Auror Office,' Madame Ulatov interjected, smiling sweetly at him.

Harry noticed that the professor avoided the headmaster's gaze the whole time.

'And with all your pending cases, Mr Potter, you couldn't even write a short declination letter?'

Despite Moloh's apparent attempts, Harry refused to be upset.

'You know how these black sorcerers are like, Mr Moloh,' shrugged Harry. 'They never leave you in peace for long.'

'So black sorcerers have reappeared in Britain?' Moloh frowned, shaking his champagne glass loosely.

'Just one,' Harry replied.

Ginny glanced at him furtively, but he didn't bother himself. He thought it best to lay his cards on the table, see if he could lure the niffler out of the bush.

'But he's causing us a lot of headaches,' he continued. 'His name is Marius Prince, a rather... striking phenomenon, if you know what I mean. And he's very interested in some of the wizarding schools, which are presumably run by black sorcerers.'

Moloh just nodded, and to Harry's disappointment, showed no particular interest in the subject.

'Yes, I heard,' he said, after taking a sip from his champagne glass, 'Your ministry sent around a warning last month that this 'blue-skinned man' might turn up. But there's no need to worry, I'm sure we can handle any security situation.'

Harry saw Ula's hidden grimace.

'Yes, I'm sure,' he said, and then he drank the rest of his champagne, took Ginny by the hand and left Ula and Moloh in the lurch.

On the stage by the Christmas tree was a band of vampires, whom Harry and Ginny had known from the Strangled Cat, but now they were singing in Norwegian, a rather interesting-sounding language to Harry's ears, and always reminding him of the whispering, hissing dementor. They danced through three songs with Ginny, but all the while he was thinking that either Moloh really didn't know that his life was in danger, or he was the most talented Occlumens Harry had met since Snape.

Or maybe he's not Marius' target, a little voice in his head whispered.

However, Harry thought this unlikely. Moloh was exactly the kind of wizard who was far from disdainful of black magic, and his thirst for power the only thing he cares about, and to achieve this, he does not shy away from imprisoning innocent people or even from cursed objects.

'Do you think Moloh is the one we are looking for?' Ginny whispered in his ear during a slow song.

'Looks like it, doesn't it?' Harry looked over his shoulder at the teachers.

They were all either chatting or dancing, and the director sat at one table with his equally grumpy wife and the Confederation representative. No one was paying attention, everyone was having fun or pretending to have fun. Harry saw his moment had come.

'Ginny, we should go now!'

The girl gave a small nod and slowly, unobtrusively moved away from Harry, and they walked off the dance floor holding hands. Harry nodded to Dennis, while at the same time trying to avoid Romilda Vane at all costs. They passed the pair of Hagrid and Madame Maxime, who were dancing to a slow song, entwined in each other's arms; Harry gave a thumbs-up and grinned at his friend, who winked back.

'I swear, every time I see Madame Maxime, she gets bigger and bigger...' Ginny remarked.

In the lobby, they asked the cloakroom attendant for their coats and went out into the freezing night. Harry thought they would attract less attention if they pretended to go out for some air and only put on their invisibility cloaks outside.

They were already on the paved walkway towards the tower when a voice came from behind them.

'We can all use some fresh air, right?'

Harry and Ginny screamed out, and spun round on their axles; Professor Ulatov was smoking her pipe, barely visible from her bearskin fur.

'Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you,' the old woman apologised, and Harry and Ginny moved closer to her.

'No harm done,' Ginny said quickly.

It would have been madness to try to disappear when someone had already discovered them.

'How do you like the ball?' asked the professor. 'Are you having fun?'

Harry could clearly see that she was only asking out of politeness, because she wasn't even looking at them, squinting over her pipe at the white snowcaps on the stakes. So Harry and Ginny assured her that they were having a great time at the Yule Ball, and to cheer up the clearly ill-tempered professor, one after the other they made up their lies that the Hogwarts Ball was no match for the Durmstrang event. This finally brought a smile to Ula's face.

'Perhaps it would have been even better if Herr Kreuzfeld, the organiser of the ball, hadn't just stormed out of the door, covering the pavement with his lunch, only to land headfirst in it,' she said wryly. 'Or if everyone whose heart and soul was in this tournament could be here...'

Professor Ulatov sighed heavily, then took another drag on her pipe. Harry moved closer to her, his hands in his pockets (trying to slip the invisibility cloak back into his pockets unnoticed).

'Sometimes I'd also like to just get out of sight,' Ula said suddenly, nodding towards Harry's coat pocket, seeing their puzzled looks. 'Demiguise fur can be quite useful when you want a bit of privacy.'

'We were just... um...' Ginny tried to think of some kind of explanation.

'Not necessary to go on, I was young once too,' Ula interjected, brushing the smoke away from her conversation partners.

Ginny and Harry looked at each other, then laughed in embarrassment. The professor had obviously misunderstood them, but she had spared them another lie.

'Be honest, kids,' said Ula again, with a serious expression. 'What do you think of Durmstrang? What is the big difference between it and Hogwarts?'

They glanced at each other again, and Harry saw the same thing in Ginny's eyes that he had been thinking: how honest should they be?

'Just openly!', Ula raised her index finger, then extinguished her pipe with her wand. Ginny dared to say it first:

'This school has only one problem, and that is Moloh. Even a blind man can see that the teachers are afraid of him.'

Ula didn't answer her, just pulled her fur tighter. Harry suspected she didn't dare answer, but that didn't mean they couldn't ask her.

'I heard that a teacher was arrested recently,' he tried, 'for saying something about evil spreading in the school or whatever...'

'Herr Fisker, the professor for fish divination, and the whole accusation is a vile fabrication!' replied Professor Ulatov with unusual fury.

'I'm sorry, Madame Ula, I didn't mean to be tactless,' Harry retreated, seeing how upset the Deputy Headmaster became.

Ulatov, however, quickly calmed down and just gave a small smile.

'It's nothing, really, nothing...' she muttered quietly, 'It's just, you know... locking someone into Nurmen...'

She blew her nose into her handkerchief, and Harry wondered what to say. Ginny, however, beat him to it:

'Nurmengard...' she said cautiously. 'Is it really as terrible as they say?'

Ula looked up, teary-eyed, and stuffed her handkerchief back into her robe pocket; Harry felt she was trying to stall for time before answering.

'Life is hard there,' she replied after a long while, persistently tinkering with her champagne glass. 'It's not as cruel as the old wizard dungeons, like your Azkaban a few years ago, full of dementors... But it's still pretty awful to be there.'

Harry was only sympathetically silent, but Ginny continued to ask questions, taking advantage of the fact that Professor Ulatov seemed to prefer to talk to her.

'Where is this Nurmengard?'

Ula took a deep breath and gestured with her head towards the shore.

'Further north, hidden by enchantments on another continent.'

'On another continent?' Harry gasped. The professor nodded.

'Grindelwald magically lifted it out of the sea,' she said gloomily, 'and then built the city of Nurmengard on it, setting up his headquarters there.'

Harry listened with a furrowed brow.

'I heard it was built as a prison.' But Ula shook her head.

'No, it was originally intended as the seat of his empire. It had a prison, but it was really a whole city. If it weren't a prison today, it would be the largest settlement of wizards in the world. Grindelwald was very proud of it when it was built. He called it: Nurmengard, the Top of the World.'

Inside, the vampire band started a new, booming song, and the professor visibly grimaced.

'Have you seen Nurmengard, Madame Ula?' Ginny asked.

'Only on pictures,' the old woman answered. 'And in summer, when the sky is clear, you can see its shores far away on the horizon.' Ula sighed again and shook her head slowly. 'I have to admit, it is a truly fascinating city – for all its horrors. One of the few things Grindelwald built, not destroyed.'

For a while, neither of them spoke, because Professor Ulatov seemed to want to say no more about Nurmengard. Harry was sure that the northern prison town had the same effect on the people here as the mention of Azkaban had on them. Everyone pronounced the name with a shudder.

Fleur came out of the big door with Krum, and when they saw them, they joined.

'Madame Ula, you organized a very entertaining party!' Fleur smiled sweetly, and Ulatov smiled back a little forcedly. As she was about to leave after putting out her pipe, she said goodbye to them and went back into the hall.

Fleur and Krum had an initial conversation about the beauty of the countryside, which – in contrast to the food and the local sorcerers – had won over the French girl's favour, and she told the Durmstrang wizard that she and her husband would definitely come here when the baby was older. Krum was curious about the baby, and Fleur was feverishly telling him all about it, and even fished a photograph out of her bag.

Harry and Ginny didn't say a word to each other, searching for a way to get away from them undetected so they could get into the castle. Harry was trying to survey the area unobtrusively, looking for a suitable place to put on the invisibility cloak, when a strange glint caught his attention from the snowy pine trees of the forest. When he looked, he was shocked.

He had to blink a few times to make sure he was seeing properly.

The hooded man from his dreams stood in front of the trees, the mark of the Deathly Hallows gleaming clearly around his neck.

'Ginny! Ginny!' he shook her shoulder. 'Look over there!'

'What?' asked Ginny, staring blankly into the blackness where he was pointing.

The mysterious figure turned left and right, looking around as if searching for something, or rather as if he had wandered into a place unknown to him.

'He's standing right there, don't you see?' whispered Harry nervously.

She squinted, her eyes wide, and Harry had a strange suspicion.

'Who should I see?' Ginny turned to him.

The hooded man then stopped spinning and stared straight at them, though you couldn't see it because of the hood over his eyes. But Harry was sure that they were looking at each other at that moment, and his suspicion was confirmed when the hooded man reached for the pocket of his robe. He did not draw his wand, however – on the contrary, he fumbled for it with a nervous scramble, fumbling through his pockets several times, looking in his inside pocket, but evidently finding no trace of it. When he folded his robe aside, Harry was surprised to discover that he was wearing jeans and a sweater with trainers underneath. He was almost more shocked by this discovery than by the fact that he was haunted by this figure now not only in his dreams, but also in his waking hours. What kind of dark wizard wears Muggle clothes?

When his search for the wand failed, the hooded man glared at them once more – Harry took a cautious step towards him – and then took off running through the snow, along the trees of the forest, to the back of the hall.

'Stay here, I'll be right back!' Harry said to Ginny, and he was off after the hooded man.

'Wait, where are you going?' she called out to him in a bitter voice, but Harry ignored her.

'Wait here!' he called back over his shoulder, and he was gone.

Stepping off the pavement, he almost fell on his back on the ice because of his carelessness, but then hurried after the pursued with long strides through the thick snow, which slowed him down considerably. He made his way along the wall of the hall, from which only the slanting pillars supporting the convex roof could be seen, rising out of the snow. As the trees of the forest and the wall of the structure drew closer together, Harry thought he detected footprints and quickened his pace. Farther ahead, at the edge of the forest, he could still see the unknown wizard.

'Don't go!' shouted Harry, with an unexpected idea. 'Come back!'

It was useless; the hooded man hadn't looked back, and when Harry looked again, after crossing a slippery, icy patch, he was gone. Harry didn't know where the end of the circle of anti-disapparation jinx might be; perhaps he'd got out and disappeared. But then he thought that without a wand, it would probably be difficult for him to do so close to a building with such magical protection.

He continued on through the snow, albeit with much less drive and determination than before. He couldn't tell, but he could sense that the figure was gone. As he thought about it, something else occurred to him. The strange feeling that had come over him when he had seen the mysterious figure nervously rummaging in his pocket – for some inexplicable reason, the sight, the movements, the gestures were all so strangely familiar. He knew he knew him... intimately, very well... But he could not recall his name or his face. He was mad with curiosity, he wanted to know more than anything else who he was...

BAMM! Harry slipped on the ice and sprawled in front of the wall of the hall.

'Damn it...'

There was a roar of laughter all around him, and as he hissed painfully and pushed himself up into a sitting position, he noticed a small group of four people leaning against the wall, drinking leisurely. As soon as he managed to forget the pain in his back, which felt like someone had hit him from the inside with a hammer, he recognised the Durmstrang foursome: the same ones who had pushed him in the corridor.

'Was ist los, Potter?' said the big boy, when he managed with great difficulty to stop laughing.

Harry stood up, red-faced, and shook the snow off his robes, then without a word turned his back on them and walked back down the beaten path in shame.

'Wo gehst du hin?' they called after him, and the whining laughter resumed. Harry just took a deep breath and walked on.

'Hey! Potter!' the big Durmstrang student shouted insistently. 'Potter!'

Harry stopped. He felt the boy's tone was different this time, menacing. He turned, and drew his wand. He was not surprised to see his opponent having one also in his hand, but his companions were still laughing, just beginning to get the idea.

'Do you have the guts?' he asked in English this time.

The situation was clear: the Durmstrang boy wanted to prove himself to his peers on Voldemort's famous defeater. They all grinned, excitedly waiting to see what Harry would do, except one of them, the tallest, who had hurried after the spider earlier in the dining room. Harry thought, either he might be some sort of Prefect-ranked student, or he was just trying uselessly to restrain his rambunctious friends from rioting, as Remus Lupin had once done around James and Sirius.

'Don't do it!' snapped the tallest boy, and at the same time Harry and his opponent cried out:

'Furnunculus!'

'Densaugeo!'

The two beams of light met halfway, but Harry's proved so powerful that with an echoing crack the two curses merged, hitting the Durmstrang boy full on, who was thrown backwards from the force, knocking his two friends over – the tall boy had stepped to the side, looking ahead, and now shook his head.

'Harry! Harry!' someone shouted, and he turned back with a grin; Ginny ran towards him with Fleur and Krum.

'I am here!' Harry said back, taking a good look at the bully, whose nose was swollen like a potato and had yellow fangs already down to his chin. He groped them desperately with his hand as two of his friends tried to help him, one of them, a fat boy, who laughed the loudest, now looked at Harry with terror in his eyes like he was seeing a Death Eater. The fourth boy just stood there, apparently unwilling to help.

'What 'appened?' Fleur asked when she arrived, her voice ringing again with fright. Krum pointed his wand at the students, but Harry pulled his arm down.

'It's all good,' he said reassuringly, but his voice was drowned out by another roar.

'What are you doing?!' Moloh was in a frenzy as he trotted towards them like a bull bellowing, his huge head as red as his robes.

'What are we doing?!' Ginny immediately snapped. 'You'd better ask your precious students what they're doing!'

'Ginny...', Harry tried in vain.

'Principal,' said the tall Durmstrang boy for the first time, his lazy, drawling voice lacking any foreign accent, 'Potter had already picked a fight in the hallway this morning...'

'WHAT?!' Ginny snapped, but Harry grabbed her arm.

'We just came out here to talk, when suddenly he appeared and attacked us. Maybe he wanted to finish what he started.'

Moloh listened intently to his words, then turned to Harry, his nostrils flaring madly with rage. The two Durmstrang students, meanwhile, escorted their unlucky friend back to the tower, leaving only the tall boy, head held high, grinning mockingly at them.

'Harry didn't do anything,' Krum said to the director, who now looked at him.

'Hast du's gesehen?' asked Moloh of the Bulgarian sorcerer in German. Krum shook his head.

'Dann nicht reinreden, Herr Krum!' the Headmaster growled at him, then looked at Harry again. 'It seems the great Harry Potter doesn't know how to behave as an invited guest.'

Harry didn't bat an eyelid, and didn't offer any excuse, because he knew it would be completely pointless. Ginny, however, was always trying to interject, and Harry always tightened his grip; there was no point in getting into an argument with Moloh. It was obvious that he believed his own students rather than them.

'In case you didn't know, Mr Potter, you're not an Auror here...' continued Moloh, hissing, but Harry didn't care a jot about the rant, he was just waiting for him to stop. 'I know what you at the ministry in London think of my school. You're all such heroes, you can't see further than your own noses! You think you always know better and you have the right to tell everyone what to do just because you defeated a dark lord. Now, you listen to me, Mr. Potter. This is not Britain. Things are different here, and we have our own problems, our own dark wizards and witches. We don't need your help – and above all, we don't fall down at your feet!'

When Moloh finally finished, there was silence for a while, neither of them wanting to start the debate again.

'Come on, let's go,' Ginny finally said to Harry in a high voice. 'I've had enough of this so-called ball...'

She gave one last, disgusted look at the twitching Moloh, and, dragging Harry behind him, they went back to the tower on the pavement, with Fleur and Krum following, who were also in no mood to dance any more.

There were a few other couples heading back, walking and clinging to each other, occasionally stopping in the middle of the road to kiss, but Ginny bolted as if with each step she wanted to vent her seething anger on the pavement. They didn't speak to each other on the way back, but Harry kept glancing at her, watching her snort with anger, her cheeks flushed with cold beneath her freckles. They entered the ornately carved gate, crossed the corridor, the heel of Ginny's shoe making loud knocking noises on the stone floor. They wished Fleur a good night outside the rooms, and arranged with Krum to return home in the early morning with the first available portkey, as they didn't want to spend another minute here. Harry felt mildly disappointed in spite of this – they hadn't managed to find out anything more about Marius' intentions, which is why Kingsley would surely send him back for the second and perhaps third task.

When he woke up the next day, it was already light, but it was not this that woke him up, but the freezing cold that gave him goose bumps on his arms and back. Within moments, he realised that it wasn't just cold, he was freezing to death.

His eyes popped open and he sat up as if he were lying on springs.

He was not in the windowless room, on the soft bed beside Ginny, but out in the open, on the icy black earth, where not a single blade of grass grew, giving off only a musty stench, as if the whole grey world were a rotting mouldy cellar. The sky was cloudy, and all was faded, the strange, huge ruins around it, a massive mass of stacked rocks, with only vague, indistinct outlines.

Harry stood up, rubbing his arms, hugging himself to warm his naked torso. He hated this grey world – it filled him with fear, with uncertainty and a sense of helplessness. He was not afraid of death, nor of the unknown that he had faced so many times before with Ron and Hermione and Dumbledore, but this dream world, this dim shadow world, was still cold and terrifying.

'Where are you?' he called, knowing that the hooded man must be nearby.

No one answered, so after a moment's thought, he set off across the hard frozen ground, hoping to wake up in his room soon.

'I saw you at Durmstrang!' he shouted insistently. 'How did you get there?'

No answer. Huge ruins surrounded him, making him feel very small. It was a terribly oppressive place.

He climbed up onto a stone plinth, which must once have held up a large pillar, and from there he vaulted onto the remains of a stone wall. His fingers were turning blue, every step a painful cold sting, and he feared he was about to collapse, and he was not at all sure that would wake him up. Not until he met the hooded stranger again.

And then he finally saw it.

When he climbed to the highest part of the ruin wall and looked out behind it, he saw a burnt black landscape, not a tree, not a greenish patch, everything was a dirty grey. The stranger was standing with his back to him, about a hundred metres away, and now he was not turning, not looking for his wand, just standing still, motionless, as if waiting for something or someone.

When he looked more closely at the figure, Harry realised he wasn't alone. It had been covered by his cloak, but now a faint breeze revealed a small body lying at his feet, looking like a curled-up bear cub, only much thinner, almost scrawny. Its body was covered with a matted brown fur coat, covering its face with its paws as if it was afraid to look up at the hooded man.

Harry was about to speak to him when the monotone, dull grey sky cracked, a blinding flash of lightning zinged through it, and slammed into the top of a hill with such elemental force that Harry was startled into letting go of the rock wall he had been clinging to and sliding back down the rubble. He scrambled to climb back to the top of the wall, not realising that the thousands of tiny pebbles had not even made a scratch on him.

He peered over the wall again, careful not to be seen.

The man in the robe and the strange, furry bear were joined by a third party, standing further away from them on the top of the hill. He wore Muggle clothes, jeans and a sweater, and held a long wand in his hand. Squinting as hard as he could, Harry could not make out the face, it was too far away from him to see anything but a golden glint at the young wizard's chest.

It didn't take him long to realise that he was the mysterious figure haunting his dreams, this time without his hood, and with the golden symbol of the Deathly Hallows around his neck.

But then who could be the man in the robe, Harry thought, now holding the furry little creature back by its fur?

'Uncle! Uncle!' cried the creature in a human voice, and in that of a desperate little girl.

'Stay here, you mutt!' snapped the man in the robe, and his voice gave away Harry the answer before he had even pulled the hood off his head and with a quick flick of his wand had tied up his furry prisoner.

'Let her go, Marius!' came the voice of the stranger from far away, as he slowly approached them, his wand held steady at his side.

'Uncle!' the little female creature continued to cry.

The blue-skinned man continued to stand with his back to Harry, focusing solely on the approaching wizard, who was still too far away for Harry to get a good look at his face. Marius had removed his cloak, which at first deceived Harry, but on reflection he had to realise that black wizards were naturally attracted to black robes...

'I see you are no coward,' Marius shouted at the wizard in Muggle clothes. 'I expected nothing less. I knew that if for no other reason, you'd come for this little pooch... Stay where you are!'

The wizard came to a halt, still not raising his wand to attack, unlike Marius.

'Éloise, did he hurt you?' he asked, as the creature on the ground raised its head. Harry could clearly see its pointed, flicked back ears.

'No. But I am very scared!' she whimpered in a little girl's voice.

'I know you're scared, but it's going to be okay, I promise...'

'Oh, what a lovely little chat!' Marius interrupted with a rude sneer. 'It almost breaks my heart. Listen to me, you little prick! If you don't give me what you've taken, you'll only get back your little fleabag Éloise in pieces. Or better yet, how about she walks home on her own two feet, without her young soul?'

Harry's fists clenched; Marius could really suck the soul out of a person. The grotesque thought filled him with a bone-deep fear that made him forget for a moment how cold he was.

Meanwhile, the boy who arrived on the back of a thunderbolt walked even closer.

'I don't understand why such a great wizard should be concerned about such a trifling matter,' he said in a raised voice. 'I thought you feared nothing, "Prince of the Dead." Why then do you need the shield?'

Marius laughed darkly.

'Me? I don't need that junk, kid. The important thing is that you don't have it. Or anyone else for that matter.'

'Did you become such a bootlicker?' asked the other mockingly. 'How many times have you let yourself be made a fool of, Marius? But I don't blame you, you were never a great thinker...'

'Insolent worm!' the blue-skinned man shouted, and Éloise screamed out as the wand pointing at the boy cracked and a blue beam of light shot out.

The boy did not flinch, he just defused the spell with a single wave. As when he fumbled in his pocket for his wand, the movement was suspiciously familiar to Harry. He was almost certain that he had seen this unknown figure fight before, or even that he himself had fought with him.

'I've let you live so far, but if you keep up this insolence, you'll be damned!' Marius sputtered, having ignored his prisoner for some time now, which she used to get as far away from the blue-skinned man as possible. She backed against the wall, and was now just below Harry.

'I think there's another reason why you... "let me live", Marius,' the boy shouted back, chuckling. 'I think you're afraid of me.'

The blue-skinned one laughed almost hysterically, and his laughter reminded Harry very much of that of another black sorcerer, in his last moments before his death...

'Afraid?! That I am afraid of you?' he shouted. 'What have I to be afraid of, you snotty brat? With your sixteen years of experience, you hardly know a spell I don't. And you know...' the wizard hissed in his deep voice. '...you are alone. While I am... many.'

He laughed again, confidently, fearlessly. He only stopped laughing when the boy spoke again.

'What makes you think I came here alone?' he asked.

At that moment, a spell was cast, and almost inexplicably, out of nowhere, a dazzling white patronus appeared, with a huge figure like a deformed lion, but with a spiked tail and a human face, but more terrifying than any Harry had ever seen before.

The manticore-patronus moved towards Marius, but he swung his wand at the same time as the boy on the hill; green and red beams of light struck, and where they met an explosion of thunder shook the ground, the ruins, the stone wall where Harry crouched, and the sky went dark...

Harry opened his eyes. Everything was in perfect order in the small room, Ginny's fragrant hair hanging in his face and tickling his nose, her calm breathing the only sound. Outside, the sky was not thundering and the earth was not shaking. Harry sighed deeply, stared up at the ceiling with his hands clasped behind his neck, and thought that Marius had found the one he was looking for after all – the only question was, where had they met, and most importantly, which of them had proved the stronger?