Disclaimer: I own none of the things you already know of.
Harry Potter and the Smallest Change.
Chapter 33. Third Task. 1995.
Harry kissed Fleur while her parents and Gabrielle stood nearby.
'Good luck.' He whispered, and she smiled.
'You too.' She murmured as she pressed her brow against his.
Fleur pulled away and gave her family a smile, then turned and walked into the Champions tent.
Dominique placed a hand on Harry's shoulder.
'Walk with us for a moment?' he asked, and Harry nodded.
Harry walked the Delacour's to the stadium entrance, where they would make their way up into the stands.
Once they stopped in front of the entrance, Harry knelt beside Gabrielle and pulled her into a hug before he pulled away.
'Gabrielle, can you watch your sister and tell me all about it later? I have to help my father with something.' Harry said.
His eyes darted up to see worried expressions on both Dominique's and Apolline's faces.
'Oui 'Arry. I will remember everyzing for you. I will tell both you and Fleur later.' Gabrielle beamed at him.
He smiled and kissed her brow, then stood.
Apolline pulled Harry into a tight embrace.
'Be careful Harry. You're like a son to me. Please come back to us.' She whispered, and Harry squeezed her tight.
'I will, I promise.' He said and she let him go.
Dominique gave a solemn nod, and Harry smiled.
Harry turned away from the family and walked away.
He moved through the crowd in search of anything suspicious. He ducked behind a stall that sold hot dogs and pulled out the Marauder's Map and searched it for names.
Harry could see his father and Nym, along with Symons and Winters, the other two Aurors in their team. The map was filled with names, and he skimmed over them, hoping to see the ones he recognised as Bartemius Crouch, Bertha Jorkins, or Elizabeth Creevey.
But there were already so many people in the stands around the maze that they all blurred together on the map.
Ludo Bagman's voice echoed out over the sound of the crowd.
'Welcome to the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament.' The man called, and the crowd screamed in response.
'This third and final task pits the Champions against a maze, where they must find a way through dangerous obstacles to reach the Triwizard Cup in the centre of the maze. This can truly be anyone's game.' He called and Harry tried to focus on the map in his hands.
'After much deliberation, the judges have decided to not score any of the Champions for the Second Task and so Fleur Delacour will enter the maze first, as the current leader from her exceptional performance from the First Task.' Bagman announced.
Harry noted an unfamiliar name on the Judge's panel, a Percival Weasley. He blinked, then remembered the stuffy elder brother of Ronald and the Twins. He shrugged.
'After Miss Delacour, Viktor Krum, and Cedric Diggory will be next to enter the maze, followed finally by Neville Longbottom.' Bagman called, and the crowd cheered.
Harry's eyes roamed over the map. The names of Fleur and the other Champions were on one side of the Quidditch Pitch, near the entrance of the north changing room.
Harry shook his head and sighed; he'd find nothing by looking in the mass of names. Harry changed tack. His eyes moved out to the rest of the map, away from the Quidditch Pitch, and saw groups comprising four names that combed the grounds.
He assumed these were Aurors.
Then he found a lone name on the opposite side of the stadium and the breath caught in his chest.
Fleur Potter.
Harry stared at the name, his mind frozen in place as proof of Fleur's and his theories lay before his eyes. Not only were their theories correct, but they'd be married in the future. But why would she need to come back in time?
He knew only one way to find answers to his questions.
Harry disillusioned and silenced himself, then moved around the stadium. He was careful to move on slow feet, knowing the limitations of the disillusionment charm. He'd given the invisibility cloak back to his father for the day.
A few minutes later, after keeping an eye on Fleur's future self on the map, Harry approached her from behind.
He stopped only a few metres behind her.
'Why did you come back from the future?' he asked, dropping his charms.
She spun and stared at him for a moment with an air of misery around her. She met his emerald eyes and sighed.
'How did you know?' the older Fleur asked and pulled her tattered cloak closer around her shoulders.
Harry handed her the map in his hand and her eyes widened as she stared at the names on it. She gave a rueful shake of her head.
'I'd forgotten about the maps. How foolish.' She sighed.
'What made you come back to the past? What happened?' Harry asked and the future Fleur, or Crocus as she'd said to call her during the Second Task, lowered her hood and her ice-blue eyes met his.
They held longing in them, and so much pain. She looked just like Apolline, though her eyes held Harry in thrall. They were so similar to his Fleur's eyes, but dulled with misery and an unfathomable pain.
As she stared at him, tears flowed down her face.
'You're so young.' She whispered before she averted her gaze.
She leaned back against the wall of the stadium and let out a heavy sigh, her gaze locked on her shaking hands.
'I came back to warn you about what was going to happen to the world.' She whispered and held up a hand to stall his questions.
Crocus took a deep breath.
'I don't know if there are any rules about going back in time this far. I don't know if anyone actually achieved it. But I will not allow the future I came from to happen again.' She murmured, almost as if speaking to herself.
Harry stood, silent, as he watched the broken woman in front of him. She was a far cry from the Fleur he'd kissed goodbye minutes before.
'But my plan, what little of it there was, was interrupted. As the time turner activated in my time, an agent of the Dark Lord of my era entered my hideout. The agent was pulled back with me and once they figured out when we were, they disappeared.' Crocus continued in little more than a whisper.
'I have been hunting her ever since, but she always escapes.' She finished, bitterness in her voice.
She sighed and ran a scarred hand through her silver hair.
Harry stared at the scar, and she gave him a knowing, bitter smile, while she kept her gaze averted from him.
'Yes, the scar was made with dark magic, powerful enough to stop my Veela magic from healing or hiding it.' She muttered.
Harry nodded and knelt on one knee in front of her.
'Who is this, Elizabeth Creevey? Why is she working for a future Dark Lord? What happened to Voldemort?' Harry asked.
She smiled and shook her head.
But her smile was anything but happy. It was filled with bitterness and pain.
'Voldemort returned and was defeated a few years from now. But the world continued. In about twenty years, the next Dark Lord rises, but he doesn't fight for pureblood rights.' She paused, taking a ragged breath.
'No, he fights for the muggleborns and half-bloods who had enough of the prejudice of the Wizarding World. He outed our world to the muggles and used their science to create a weapon that wiped out all magicals.' She said and Harry blinked.
Crocus' hands shook as she wrapped them around her knees.
'The Goblins were wiped out in their underground cities. The dragons hunted to extinction by the muggles and every witch and wizard, bar a small handful, were killed by a virus. It targeted a magical person's genes, the ones that allow them to use magic. The virus spread around the world like a plague and killed everybody.' She whispered, and her eyes were haunted by images only she could see as she spoke.
Harry hesitated, then took a deep breath.
'How are you alive, if everyone else died?' he asked.
She turned tear-stained eyes to look at him.
'I hid with our children, but even hiding from the virus didn't work.' She murmured, and Harry stared at her in horror.
She turned away from him and squeezed her eyes shut.
'I'm sorry, it's just so hard to see your face.' She sobbed and his eyes widened.
'What happened to me?' he asked, and she froze.
A tear dripped off her nose to fall to the ground.
She took a ragged breath and wiped her eyes.
'Can I see the map?' she asked, putting her hood back up.
Harry offered her the map, the bizarreness of the situation robbing him of speech.
Crocus flattened the map out on the grass and ran her fingers across the map, whispering words under her breath.
'What are you doing?' he asked, but she made no reply.
Her fingers stopped, pointing at a single name.
Elizabeth Creevey.
Crocus looked up and met Harry's gaze.
They both nodded.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, back inside her hood, and turned her shadowed face toward him.
'Be careful, you need to survive.' She said as she pulled a vial filled with a milky white substance from her robes.
She held out the vial to him.
'Memories?' he asked as he took the vial.
She nodded.
'We need to go.' She said as he tucked the vial into his robes.
Bagman's voice echoed around the grounds of the school.
'Fleur Delacour, the current leader in the Tournament so far has just entered the maze. Viktor Krum will follow her in a minute, and Cedric Diggory a minute after that. Neville Longbottom, the Boy-Who-Lived, will be thirty seconds after Diggory.' Ludo Bagman called and the crowd in the stadium roared their approval.
Harry grabbed the map from the grass and gave it a last glance as he was about to put it away, only to find two names in the middle of the maze that shouldn't be there.
Bartemius Crouch and Bertha Jorkins.
He rolled up the map and tucked it in his robes as he raced after Crocus toward the castle where they'd seen Elizabeth Creevey on the map.
Harry pulled out his Potter mirror as he ran.
'James Potter.' He said and a moment later his father's face appeared, he figured his father was under the invisibility cloak.
'Dad, Crouch, and Jorkins are in the middle of the maze. I have my own target in my sights, good luck.' Harry said and cut the connection.
'Wait, Harry-' James said before the mirror went dark.
Harry tucked the mirror back into his robes and pushed himself into a run to keep up with the future Fleur.
She looked to be middle-aged. So, he figured that whatever horrible thing was going to happen wouldn't happen for a while.
He had time to make it right.
Though she now looked two or three times his age, she was stunning, almost a splitting image of Apolline, but she carried a weight that her mother did not. This Fleur was weighed down with such sorrow that it clung to her, and just like her Allure, it was almost tangible.
It hurt just to witness it.
He pulled out the map again and checked to see if Elizabeth had moved. She hadn't. She stood still in the clock-tower courtyard.
'Fleur, its quicker to run over the wooden bridge, that'll lead right into the courtyard.' He called, and she stopped.
She turned around to smirk at him.
'There are some things you don't know.' She said and tossed two matchbox sized pieces of wood on the ground, then flicked her wand at them.
The two tiny boxes grew into full sized broomstick boxes.
Harry gaped as Crocus kicked open one box to reveal a sleek black broom.
'But… you can't shrink brooms?' Harry gasped.
Crocus smirked again.
'You'll find a way.' She said and mounted her broom and shot into the air.
Harry dropped to his knees and opened the box closest to him. He took out the sleek black broom. Everything was black, the stick, the stirrups, the bristles, everything.
Except tiny gold letters at the very tip of the broom.
'HP.'
Harry froze.
The broom belonged to the future him.
He shook his head to clear it and mounted the sleek broom. Harry sped after Crocus toward the clock-tower courtyard.
The black broom was fast, far faster than anything else he'd ever ridden.
The danger charm attached to his Fleur vibrated. It sent a shock through his chest from the amulet he'd tied it to, the amulet she had given him years ago. His heart thundered in his ears as he followed Crocus. He hoped Fleur would be okay in the maze.
Moments later, Harry gaped as Crocus dive-bombed the waiting Elizabeth and the two erupted into a vicious duel, both tossed spells at the other that he didn't recognise. The speed the two fought at made him freeze in the air. He couldn't help but admire the grace and skill Crocus displayed and the sheer breadth of spells and confidence the other witch showed.
A sapphire blue spell grazed Crocus' hair, disintegrating a sizable chunk of it and the hood that had covered it. Harry snapped out of his stupor and landed in the courtyard.
Watching the two, he knew he couldn't match either of them, but unless he was mistaken, neither seemed nearly as far beyond him as they did the last time he'd witnessed them fight during the Second Task.
Harry moved around the periphery of the fight. He was careful to stay out of Elizabeth's view. Surprise was his only chance of helping the Fleur from the future.
The spell fire grew more intense and stray spells impacted all over the courtyard, which was about twenty square metres with a semi-collapsed stone structure in the middle that at one point in time would have been the clock-tower that gave the courtyard its name.
Crocus tossed balls of fire with her offhand while she fired spells at speed with her wand. Her now loose silver hair blew about her in a wind caused by the raging fires all around the courtyard, started by her Veela fireballs.
Within a minute of the fight starting, the courtyard was filled with craters, flames, and rubble from the brutal duel between the two women.
He watched as Elizabeth transfigured a pile of rubble into a swarm of rats and, with a flick of her wand, sent them toward Crocus.
Harry saw his chance and circled around the two, using the rubble as cover. He fired a stream of Piercing Hexes and Reducto's at the woman's back while he transfigured the rubble around her into dogs, which he imbued with enhanced magical resistance and a need to attack the future Creevey.
A moment later, Harry leapt away from the rubble he'd been hiding behind as it came to life and struck out at him with a vaguely humanoid looking arm.
'Golem.' Harry gasped in surprise and spun to the left, narrowly avoiding its fist that was formed from a boulder sized piece of rubble.
He tossed a final Piercing Hex toward Elizabeth, who slapped it away with little effort, then he turned to his new foe, the Golem she'd created.
The Golem stood at ten feet tall and was vaguely humanoid, with two legs, two arms, a torso, and a head. But it was constructed of rubble that ground together with every movement of the massive construct.
Harry fired a Reducto at the thing's head, which bounced off into the clock-tower and disintegrated a chunk of it.
The Golem crushed one dog he'd created while Elizabeth hacked the others apart amid defending against a flurry of spells from Crocus. It stomped toward him, ignoring the spells he poured into it. He'd never considered fighting a Golem before.
Harry fired an Ardenti Lux at the Golem, the condensed beam of light tore a thin hole a centimetre wide through the rock that formed it, but otherwise had no effect.
With a deep growl, Harry pulled on his magic and conjured steel chains. He anchored them to the ground and directed them around the oncoming construct, then back to the ground, pinning it in place.
He groaned as the Golem struggled against his chains, which drew harder on his magic the more it struggled.
The sound of grinding rock drew his attention away from the Golem and he glanced at the clock-tower, three metres high and looking unsteady.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a sickly green curse headed toward Crocus, the sound of onrushing death filled his ears and he saw the future Fleur's eyes widen in shock, having just dispatched her own Golem.
Harry wandlessly banished a piece of rubble into the path of the Killing Curse, which exploded, sending tiny shards of rock in every direction, like shrapnel.
Harry grinned before a deep rumbling crunch drew his attention back to his own Golem behind him. It tore free of his chains and one of its massive stone fists crashed into him, sending him flying across the courtyard to skid across the ground.
When he stopped rolling, he saw his wand on the ground beside Crocus and the massive Golem thundering toward her.
Fleur's danger charm pulsed, sending the equivalent of a klaxon call in his mind, wailing at him that she was in danger.
Harry groaned as he threw out a hand, wandlessly summoning his wand back to him.
As he caught his wand, thick vines sprung out of the ground and wrapped around his body. They pulled taught and pinned him to his knees. The vines were covered in thorns which dug into his skin, drawing blood.
He struggled against the vines and the thorns grew longer. They bit deep into his flesh like hooks, sending jolts of agony through him with every slight movement.
Harry watched as Crocus dispatched his Golem with a pinpoint curse to the centre of its chest. The construct exploded and sent stone chips everywhere.
Crocus turned back to Elizabeth and groaned when she saw Harry bound in bloody vines.
Elizabeth smirked at the future Fleur.
'I've won. I can end the Great Harry Potter before he even achieves his greatness. Without him, your past self with fall into despair and will never become you. You've lost, even after going back in time this far. All you achieved was an even more complete victory for my Lord.' Elizabeth crowed.
Harry struggled in the grip of the vines, sending the hooked thorns deeper into his flesh.
'Why did you do this?' he demanded, and she turned narrowed eyes at him.
'I have already gloated too much; I know what happens in all the muggle stories. The villain gloats at the moment of their victory and loses everything. I will not fall for the same trick; I am not the villain here.' Elizabeth snarled.
Harry clenched his jaw against the pain all over his body.
'How are you not the villain? You're trying to kill people.' He growled, and she glared at him.
Elizabeth looked like she was having some sort of internal struggle, probably whether to engage him in conversation, therefore buying him time. He figured he'd make the temptation harder to resist.
'What are you fighting for? What makes you the hero in this story? How are we the villains?' he asked, and he noticed an imperceptible nod from Crocus.
Elizabeth flicked her wand, and the thorns embedded in his skin dug deeper, making him hiss in pain.
'It was all your fault. The Wizarding World is full of corrupt purebloods. Their ancient and noble families somehow gave them the right to treat muggleborns with disgust and bigotry. How is that fair?' Elizabeth snarled.
'My Lord saved us from that fate, from being slaves to the pure-blooded elite. The muggles outnumber the magicals a million to one. How does that make magicals the superior species? This magical world stagnated hundreds of years ago, it needed to be brought into the future.' Elizabeth shouted, waving her wand and sending the thorns even deeper into Harry's flesh.
Harry gritted his teeth against the pain but couldn't stop the tears from welling in his eyes, clouding his vision.
Elizabeth's cold brown eyes blazed with righteous fury.
'Yet you backwards inbred people still call us the villains? My father went to Hogwarts, he is even in the year below you. But even after you defeated Voldemort, you gave him no mind. After Hogwarts, he couldn't get a job in the Wizarding World, nothing changed with the death of Voldemort.' Elizabeth explained, her furious brown eyes bored into Harry's.
Elizabeth's gaze flicked to Crocus, then back to Harry.
'The pure-blooded elite continued to rule, and the muggleborn served.' She said, her jaw clenched tight.
'My father left the magical world and met a muggle woman. They fell in love and had me. Then he got sick with the dragon pox. The muggles couldn't cure it and we didn't have enough money to convert into wizarding currency to get him treated at Saint Mungo's.' Elizabeth continued and Harry felt a pain in his chest that wasn't caused by the thorned vines crushing him with each passing second.
Harry angled his wand at the vines and prepared to sever them the moment Crocus did something.
Elizabeth turned to Crocus.
'After the two of you defeated Voldemort, nothing changed. I was accepted at Hogwarts at eleven and sorted into Slytherin. I endured seven years of them mocking my dead muggleborn father and sick muggle mother.' She muttered, bitterness dripped from her every word.
'In my seventh year, one of my only friends introduced me to the Revolution. It was going to change the Wizarding World, bring it kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century.' Elizabeth turned to Harry.
'The Revolution began with the assassination of Lord Harry Potter, Hero of the Wizarding World, by a muggle sniper rifle, fired by a squib trained in the muggle army.' Elizabeth smirked as Harry paled.
'That's how I died?' he whispered, and her eyes glittered in the firelight.
'We did nothing wrong. Why could you not have left us in peace?' Crocus snarled.
The future Fleur circled around the courtyard, drawing Elizabeth's attention.
'How does that make your band of murderers the heroes when they assassinate innocent people?' she cried, and Elizabeth turned to Crocus. Their eyes met.
Harry knew this was his chance.
'The Revolution needed to start with a spectacle. How else better to whip the inbred purebloods into a frenzy than kill their darling hero with muggle weapons?' Elizabeth asked.
Harry gave a minute flick of his wand, he sent a Cutting Hex at the vines to sever them, but cut into his leg at the same time.
He fell out of the crushing vines toward the ground with a muffled grunt of pain as the thorns tore at his skin.
The moment he hit the ground, he rolled to the side and up onto one foot. He fired an overpowered Piercing Hex at Elizabeth, who turned at his earlier pained grunt.
She deflected his Piercing Hex toward Crocus; but failed to catch the Expulso Curse fired from the future Fleur, which hit Elizabeth square in the back.
The Expulso Curse exploded on impact with Elizabeth and a moment later, she crashed into the crumbling clock-tower which collapsed on top of her.
Harry dragged himself to his feet, favouring his right leg as blood poured from the cut he'd made when he escaped the vines.
He saw his Marauders Map on the ground where he'd landed after escaping the vines and saw Elizabeth Creevey's name fading from sight.
His heart almost stopped as he saw the same thing happening to the dot marked Fleur Potter.
Harry looked up and found Crocus slumped on the ground, her tattered and faded black robes stained with darker patches, while a dark fluid seeped out from the ground under her.
He hopped over to her fallen form and noted a hole in her chest from a Piercing Hex.
His overpowered Piercing Hex that Elizabeth had deflected.
'It's going to be okay. I can heal you.' He whispered and waved his wand over her chest.
Her hand reached out and held his, stopping him.
The future Fleur's eyes met his, and he felt her pain. Not from her wound, but from her life.
'Let me go, please. I want to finally be reunited with my Harry and our children.' She whispered.
Harry opened his mouth to speak, but she placed a bloody finger to his lips.
'Watch the memories with my past self, make sure my future doesn't happen.' She coughed and blood tricked down her chin.
Still, her eyes were locked on Harry's.
'Please, Harry. Please make it so our children can grow up in peace, please make it so they live.' She pleaded.
He held her bloody hand and watched as her ice-blue eyes, once so full of life and happiness, faded to stillness. Moments later, her hand went limp in his and unnoticed tears fell from his cheek to her pale face.
Harry blinked away the tears, and looked down at the middle-aged Fleur, who had fought a losing war after losing her family. She came back through time itself to stop it from happening. He held her hand and noticed a glint of silver in her wound, a charm.
He reached out a shaking hand to grasp the silver charm he had given his Fleur two Christmas' ago. The connection to his charm was strong, and Harry understood why his charm had been going crazy for the last few minutes.
It was the future Fleur's charm triggering the danger sense.
His Fleur was in the maze. Right now his amulet gave him a dull throbbing, signalling that she was in a stressful situation, but not danger.
He blinked as he realised that the future Fleur still wore the charm, years after the future him had died.
Harry looked down at the map, it no longer showed the names of either Fleur Potter nor Elizabeth Creevey and his eyes roamed to his Fleur's name as she reached the centre of the maze. Then Harry gasped when, with a stab of horror, her name disappeared.
Harry's amulet flared to life against his chest, like it had been while he and Crocus had been fighting Elizabeth. He pushed himself to his feet and flinched as he put weight on his bleeding right leg.
He frowned and wished he could apparate.
Harry took hold of his amulet and the weak pulses it sent through his hand told him Fleur was almost out of range. He gripped it tight and activated the directional locator, it pointed him southwest.
'Damn it, she could be in Wales or even further.' He snarled and wandlessly summoned the sleek black broom that had belonged to the future him.
With a grimace, he swung his injured leg over the broom and mounted it.
Then he froze, the location charm on his amulet changed. It grew stronger and a moment later, pointed at the Quidditch Stadium, where the crowd burst into a deafening cheer.
Over the screaming crowd, he heard the barely audible voice of Ludo Bagman.
'The winner of the 1994 Triwizard Cup is Fleur Delacour.'
Harry watched from the burning courtyard as two figures hurried away from the stadium, followed by a third.
He frowned as Professor Moody lead a beaten and bloody Neville toward the castle, while behind them strode a pale Dumbledore.
The ancient Headmaster looked up to the burning courtyard on the third floor of the courtyard, and somehow unknown to Harry, seemed to recognise him.
Harry blinked as the Headmaster flicked his knobbly wand and a broom shot out from the stadium he'd left, and the Headmaster plucked it out of the air with a grace he didn't think the old man had.
Harry let out a breath as the Headmaster shot through the air on the broom.
Harry released a relieved sigh, the day was finally ending.
He leaned back onto a piece of fallen rubble from the clock-tower as the adrenaline faded from his system. Searing agony burned in his leg as the adrenalin no longer dulled the pain.
Harry hissed and looked up as Dumbledore landed in front of him, looking more sprightly than Harry expected him to.
'Young Mister Potter, what happened here?' the old man asked, his electric blue eyes moving across the ruined courtyard, taking in the destruction.
Harry blinked and looked around too, seeing the ground littered with the corpses of transfigured animals, craters and ruined stonework neither woman's bodies were visible though.
Dumbledore turned a sharp look toward Harry, and he finally understood what the Headmaster looked like when he was serious.
'It's a long story, sir.' Harry said.
Dumbledore tensed and pulled a strange gadget from his robes and his eyes widened.
He turned to Harry.
'I'll need that long story later.' He said, then ran into the castle with a speed that a man of his age shouldn't have.
Harry lay back on the rock and let out a pained groan for a minute before he sat up and looked at his leg.
His thigh bore a deep gash along its length, blood poured from it, and he blinked. He may have hit an artery if it was still bleeding so freely.
Harry waved his wand in an intricate pattern as he performed a dozen different healing spells that Fleur had taught him throughout the year. As he finished, he ran a hand along the skin to check his work.
It was good enough.
Once the pain in his leg faded to a dull ache, Harry pushed himself to his feet and hobbled over to the still body of the future Fleur and a deep sense of loss filled him.
He hadn't known this Fleur, but she was still Fleur.
Harry knew his Fleur was safe and likely was being handed the Triwizard Cup at the moment, but this one, she had died by his own spell.
Even though he'd sent it at another, his own spell killed her.
He fell to his knees in front of her. A grunt of pain escaped him, and he pressed his forehead to hers.
'I'm sorry. I hope you find your way to your Harry now, and that you find your children.' He whispered.
Her last words rung in his mind.
'Please Harry. Please make it so our children can grow up in peace, please make it so they live.'
Harry took a deep, ragged breath.
The stink of smoke and the sickly sweet odour of burnt flesh from the transfigured creatures filled his senses.
He sat back on one knee and leant forward; he closed her staring eyes with a hand.
'I will do everything in my power to stop that future from happening, I promise.' He whispered as a tear slid down his cheek.
He closed his eyes and took a steadying breath before he transfigured her body into a stuffed toy of an angel. Its sweet, smiling visage pulled on his heart as he leaned forward to pick it up.
Harry stood and moved over to the rubble containing the body of Elizabeth Creevey. He levitated the rocks off her and looked at her face.
'I'm sorry that the world you grew up in turned you into this. I will do everything I can so that you and everyone else can live in a better world than the one you came from.' He said as he transfigured her body into a plain doll, like any other seen in a children's toy store.
Harry let out a heavy sigh and put both dolls in his robes and stood alone in the middle of the ruined courtyard, the flames only now dying out, leaving only scorched rubble in their wake.
He pulled out his map, Neville was in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. Moody was in the office attached to it, while Dumbledore, Snape, and Neville's names circled Bartemius Crouch's name.
Harry limped into the castle where Dumbledore had run earlier. He needed to explain what had happened to Dumbledore. He glanced down at the map and saw the name Bertha Jorkins moving at speed through the corridors toward the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom.
Harry groaned as his exhausted mind connected the dots. He'd forgotten that Crouch had a son with the same name as him, the same son who escaped from James and his Aurors a month or so earlier.
He flinched as he put weight on his leg and paused, Harry wished he could apparate inside the wards, or in general.
Harry blinked and eyed the sleek black broom he'd abandoned minutes before laying on the ground where he'd left it. He turned to peer into the corridor leading inside the castle and, after a moment's thought, shrugged.
Harry wandlessly summoned the broom and mounted it, then shot into the school toward the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. He had to reach them and warn them about Bertha Jorkins, if he could even beat her there.
After a few minutes of shooting around the castle corridors at speeds he never wanted to travel at again, he entered the corridor that held the classroom. Outside the door lay splinters of the wooden door, and he heard explosions coming from the room.
Harry growled; he was too late.
He shot into the classroom, still on his broom, and saw Dumbledore shielding Neville while Snape lay in a crumpled heap on the shattered desk. A few metres away, Barty and Bertha poured spell fire into Dumbledore's flickering blue-white shield.
By the feet of the two attackers, Professor Moody lay still, his fake eye darting around in its socket.
Harry's entrance drew the attention of the two attackers, and he dodged a sickly green Killing Curse, only for a vibrant red spell to get too close to dodge. He angled the sleek black broom to take the hit, and the broom exploded into tiny splinters, many of which buried deep in his flesh.
Harry screamed in pain as he fell to the hard stone floor with a thump.
'Crucio.' screamed a woman's voice, Bertha Jorkins.
A moment later, agony burned through his body. He crawled into the foetal position as the curse ravaged his nervous system. It felt like he was being torn apart, piece by piece. He felt cold, like he'd been encased in ice, before his flesh burned as if he lay in the fires of hell.
After an eternity, the pain stopped.
Harry opened his eyes and saw Dumbledore. The air around the Headmaster shimmered in an almost visible aura of magical energy. The old man's eyes shone with a white-blue glow.
Harry shivered, unable to control his nervous system, he convulsed as his nervous system fired at random intervals.
In an instant, Dumbledore's aura faded, and he rushed to Harry's side.
'Is everyone all right? I saw Bertha racing here on the map and-' Harry convulsed, he clenched his teeth to stop from biting his tongue.
Harry looked to the floor at both Barty and Bertha stunned and bound, likely petrified for good measure. He coughed and a mouthful of blood splattered across the floor. His stomach contracted, and his muscles protested their treatment.
Harry looked over to a wide-eyed Neville Longbottom as the Boy-Who-Lived stared at the bound attackers, unconscious Snape, and Moody, before finally, their eyes met.
Neville stood silent and immobile, frozen in place.
'Mister Potter, were you hit by anything but the Cruciatus?' Dumbledore asked, his voice little more than a whisper.
Harry shook his head and hissed as the movement caused a jolt of pain to rush through his body.
Dumbledore sighed in relief.
'Then I will attend to Severus and Alastor.' The Headmaster said and moved over to the unconscious form of Alastor Moody.
Harry rolled over onto his front and forced himself to his knees. His forehead and forearms touched the cold stone floor as his hands held his throbbing head. Tremors ran through his body, an unpleasant reminder of the curse he'd rather not feel again.
Footsteps entered the classroom, and he turned his spinning head to see his father and Nym leap into the room with wands out. A moment later, the other two Aurors in their team, Winters, and Symons, followed.
A distant part of Harry's mind wondered what his father saw as he entered the room. It looked like a war zone, littered with shattered desks and random memorabilia that once lined the walls of the classroom. Half of the dragon skeleton was reduced to a pile of dust in the far corner of the room.
Harry lifted his head off the cold floor and met his father's gaze, before he smiled and coughed up a mouthful of blood all over James' shiny black Auror boots.
James gestured to the other Aurors to get to work while he knelt beside Harry and waved his wand over him. James gasped and lay a hand on Harry's shoulder, right where Elizabeth's vine had dug deep in his flesh.
Harry flinched away from the touch with a hiss of pain.
'Harry, what happened to you tonight?' James whispered, careful not to be overheard by the others in the room.
Harry gave his father a half-lidded smile.
'The threat I was after is handled.' He coughed up another mouthful of blood and groaned as he collapsed into James' arms.
'We need to get you to the Hospital Wing, you look horrible.' James said.
James flicked his wand, levitating Harry off the floor. James met Dumbledore's gaze, who nodded back.
Harry felt himself float through the air behind James as his father made his way out of the Defence classroom and toward the Hospital Wing. Behind them strode Dumbledore floating Snape behind him and Neville hurried to keep up with the old man.
Tonks followed behind Dumbledore, while Alastor Moody floated behind her.
Symons and Winters stayed in the classroom.
No one spoke as the procession moved toward the Hospital Wing. The only sound Harry heard was heavy footsteps on the stone floor, which seemed to boom in his ears as aftershocks from the Crucio burned through him at random intervals.
James burst through the doors of the Hospital Wing, earning a shocked shriek from Madame Pomphrey.
'James Potter, what-' she paused mid rant and Harry guessed that she'd just seen the floating people behind him.
'Put them on a bed, it doesn't matter which.' The Matron ordered; the shock already absent in her tone.
James lowered Harry in a bed on right-hand side of the room, the same one he'd been in after the events of the previous year with Pettigrew.
'Please see to young Mister Potter first Poppy. Alastor and Severus will be fine, they have suffered no serious injuries.' Dumbledore requested and a moment later, Madame Pomphrey leant over Harry in his bed.
A scream echoed through the room, and Harry turned toward it to see the source. A deep sense of relief flooded through him at that moment, followed by an overwhelming guilt.
Fleur.
'What happened 'Arry?' she demanded, and Pomphrey narrowed her eyes at the French Champion as she waved her wand over Harry.
'Stand back and remain quiet or I will have someone restrain you, young lady.' The Matron threatened, and Fleur's glare could have turned her to stone.
But Fleur stilled, watching with worried eyes as Pomphrey turned to Dumbledore.
'Albus, he has been exposed to the Cruciatus Curse again, but he also has deep puncture wounds all over his body, along with several lacerations across sixty percent of his skin. He has multiple cracked ribs, and a partially healed wound on his leg.' She paused and glared down at Harry.
'Young man, what did you do to your leg?' she demanded.
Harry coughed up a mouthful of blood in reply.
Pomphrey flicked her wand and Harry was on his side in an instant and he coughed out the blood over the bed, which she vanished a moment later.
The Matron turned back to Dumbledore.
'He also has a punctured lung.' She added.
Pomphrey turned to James, who watched Harry with wide eyes.
'James, make yourself useful and give him the potions I give you.' She ordered, flicking her wand, and levitated a collection of vials over to Harry's bedside table.
'Start with the red one, it doesn't matter which order after that.' She ordered, and James nodded and rushed to Harry's side.
Harry was dimly aware of Fleur watching him in horror as blood dripped from his mouth down to the crisp white sheets. In front of him, he only saw James' chest and hands unstopping vials before he poured them down Harry's throat, followed by him coughing.
His eyes rolled to the back of his head as the pain from his chest paralysed him. Every cough increased the pain, and as his pain grew, breathing came harder. Harry convulsed in James' arms and Pomphrey levitated another dozen vials to James.
Harry swallowed more potions and saw in the corner of his eye that Fleur seemed mid panic attack as she watched him. Dumbledore lay a hand on her shoulder and his heart tightened, knowing he was causing her to worry.
A minute later, with more potions that he could count forced into him, Harry's breathing evened out and his coughing subsided.
He drew in a breath to find he no longer had any trouble doing so.
Sweat beaded on his brow as he caught his breath and Fleur was by his side in an instant to wipe it away. Within moments, the white embroidered cloth was stained with blood and grime.
Fleur kissed his brow before angling his face up to meet her worried gaze.
'What happened 'Arry?' she asked.
Harry looked into her eyes and nodded, before he turned to his father and Dumbledore. As he did, he took in the rest of the Hospital Wing to see Madame Pomphrey bustling around with both Moody and Snape's unconscious bodies.
He met his father's concerned eyes.
'We need to secure the room and put-up privacy wards. What I will tell you cannot leave the four of us.' Harry said.
James' eyes widened at the request while Dumbledore's narrowed, then the Headmaster nodded.
Dumbledore turned around toward Pomphrey.
'Poppy, we are putting up privacy wards and we are not to be disturbed until I take them down, understood?' he asked, and the Matron gave a silent nod before she turned back to her unconscious patients.
Dumbledore turned back to Harry and with a nod toward James, the two men turned to Fleur with raised eyebrows.
'She knows most of what I'm going to tell you, it's just the events of tonight that she doesn't, for obvious reasons.' Harry pre-empted and the two men nodded.
Harry watched as the two worked in silence to create a dome around his bed while Fleur watched with rapt attention and held his hand.