The whistle of the Hogwarts Express announced its arrival as it pulled into Kings' Cross station. The students who had arrived early in order to secure 'good seats' eagerly began to clamber aboard the train after telling their parents goodbye.

Harry stood off to the side of these interactions, noting the wary expressions that were directed at the back of the man who now stood before him. Proven innocent or not, Sirius Black was still wildly distrusted by the general wizarding population. Despite all of these looks Sirius could not have been happier, grinning widely at Harry. "I'd say don't do anything that your Dad or I wouldn't do but that list isn't too long." He ruffled Harry's hair and his smile grew wistful as he beheld his godson. "If you need anything, anything at all, just send me an owl."

"Where are you staying now?" Harry asked, already looking forward to actually being able to go 'home' for the Christmas holiday. "With Lupin?"

"Yes, but I can't tell you where," Sirius shrugged. "Don't worry, if you want to visit, I'll have it arranged so that you can. And once you turn eighteen you can stay there permanently. Unless you'd like to stay with your Aunt and Uncle of course."

"Not a chance!" Harry said immediately, the thought causing him almost physical illness.

Sirius, who had already been brought up to speed on the Dursleys' mistreatment of his godson, smiled even wider. "Then I'll take care of it." Sirius glanced meaningfully around to those people who had been watching him and they all suddenly found something else interesting elsewhere. He continued speaking to Harry in a lowered voice. "Be careful, if the Death Eaters at the World Cup were any indication things are about to get wild. It wouldn't surprise me if they were all trying to figure out ways to bring You-Know-Who back into power."

"It's not like I go looking for trouble," Harry muttered.

"No, you are different from your Dad in that regard," Sirius said, nodding. "He actively went looking for trouble. Thought it was fun."

The Weasleys finished loading up their luggage and Harry saw Molly looking over to him expectantly. "I think Mrs. Weasley is waiting for me," he said, upset at the thought of leaving for Hogwarts for the first time ever.

Sirius gave his godson one last hug and let him go say goodbye to the Weasleys. "He'll be alright," Lupin, who had escorted Harry to the train station along with Sirius, told him. "Dean swore he would keep an eye on him for us."

"I know Moony," Sirius muttered. "Call it instinct or whatever, but I can't help but feel like something bad is coming."

"I have the same feeling," he agreed. "But we can't do much about it until it happens."

"I hate waiting." Padfoot muttered, sighing. "I'd be a whole lot happier if Dean could tell us what exactly we can expect out of these Triwizard Tournament challenges."

"Harry is far too young to compete," Lupin said firmly. "He isn't James, you know. The two of you might have tried to find a way into the competition, but Harry isn't quite like that. Now, Fred and George on the other hand…"

"The next generation of Marauders," Sirius grinned, nodding.

Dean Winchester was, at that very moment, dealing with one part of the first challenge of the Triwizard Tournament at that moment. Several large cages, from which gouts of poison, fire, wind, and electricity were spewing forth. The attendants around the cages were running around like mad, ensuring that they would hold their charges. "Careful, careful!" Charlie Weasley shouted as one of the handlers was blown several feet backwards and off his feet by a strong gust of wind. "Remember Kushala Daora can control the wind! She'll settle down once she gets her eggs back under her we just need to make sure that she doesn't crush them as we move her!"

Dean, more than content to let the one with more experience handle things, stood several feet back as he shadowed Charlie. "So, why did you pick these dragons?" Dean asked, looking from cage to cage. "These ones all seem sort of… angry."

"They said they wanted dragons that would challenge the Champions," explained Charlie. "But they didn't want any that would actively try to kill them."

Dean sent Charlie an incredulous look. "Really?"

Charlie shrugged. "Trust me, these are the best options. These ones, at least, have eggs we can use to sort of keep a handle on them. There are others that we have to hide their eggs from or they eat them."

"How did you even manage to trap them?" Dean wondered, noting the poisonous fog that was now seeping out of one cage. "I mean especially that one."

Charlie saw where his gaze was directed and snorted in derision. "You mean the Chameleos? That one was actually the easiest. It's so confident in its camouflage it walked right into the cage we had set once we set its eggs in there as bait."

"Really?" Dean asked, impressed. "What about those two?" he indicated the last two cages.

Charlie stared at the last two cages and shook his head. "I'm not even going to think about how much of a pain in the ass those two were to trap. Remember when you had to catch the Sphinx?"

"If it weren't for the Healers we had on the team I would still have the scars to remember her by," Dean said darkly.

The sphinx had been a unique problem to both track down and capture. To begin with, they were incredibly rare and their territory was by no means set. It had taken Dean almost a full month of dead ends, buying information, and tracking to finally pinpoint one. But that had been the easy part. Predictably, the sphinx was less than willing to be captured. Moreover, it gave Dean increasingly difficult riddles each time he tried to reason with the beast.

At the end, when he had been beyond fed up with the word puzzles, he had told the sphinx to "Eat a dick, bitch!" and booked it as fast as he could for the trap they had laid. Thankfully, the sphinx had fallen for the trap and they had managed to scratch one of the many creatures they had been looking for off of their list.

Sam Winchester was the first of the dimensionally shifted professors to arrive at Hogwarts. He encountered none of the other professors, or ghosts for that matter, on his way to his room. When he finally arrived he sat down heavily on his bed, pleasantly surprised by the lack of dust that puffed up from his fall. The House elves must have been maintaining their rooms throughout the summer.

After a summer full of Dark Wizard hunting Sam had begun to understand why Mad-Eye Moody had been so paranoid about everything. Sam had made several enemies in his time across the pond, and that had only been one summer. Luckily many of those enemies were either dead or in prison. He had thought about stopping by to see Charlie, to check up on her, but he dismissed the idea as soon as it presented itself. Putting her in danger was out of the question. On his desk he saw a copy of the Daily Prophet, fresh from this morning's press. As he reached for the newspaper he wondered if the House Elves had been putting a copy there every day in anticipation of his return.

The front page of the newspaper bore the headline: "Triwizard Tournament's Triumphant Return!" A few paragraphs briefly outlined the article followed by a slightly smaller headline reading: "Fallout From the World Cup: What the Ministry Knows So Far"

Sam had remembered that the events of the World Cup took place. It had been no small part of the books after all. He had tried his hardest to go to the Cup, to help fight the Death Eaters, but the American Ministry had been adamant in his need to hunt down Dark Wizards. Sam hadn't been able to go without arousing suspicion, and that was not the sort of attention he needed brought to him.

He had just began to read the article when the sound of wood striking stone came from down the hallway. Already knowing precisely who it was, or who it really was, Sam set the newspaper down and reached for his wand. He kept it concealed against his forearm as, predictably, Mad-Eye Moody knocked on his office and entered without being invited.

"Afternoon," he said gruffly, reaching for his flask and taking a swig as his magical eye whizzed around the room. "Expecting a fight are you? Put that wand away boy, I'm no Dark Wizard."

"Constant vigilance," Sam responded, almost mockingly. He stopped concealing his wand, but kept it at his side as he rose to meet Mad-Eye. He was on edge, for a large variety of reasons. His encounter with a drastically different Pettigrew had left him wondering what else was amiss in the world. Was it really Moody standing before him, or was it really Barty Crouch Jr. in his Polyjuice Potion disguise?

"Aye, it will save your life," Moody growled. His blue eye continued to whir rapidly around his skull. "I'm told that I will be taking the first through the third years and we are going to split the fourth years."

"Yeah, that's right." Sam nodded. "I'll be teaching them combat spells. With what happened at the World Cup they should be able to defend themselves if… something were to happen."

Moody grunted his approval. "I'll be doing the same then," he nodded. "I'll take the Unforgivable Curses. I've had enough bloody experience with them to be able to teach them."

He didn't say goodbye as he turned to leave, simply grunting again and leaving the room. Sam watched him go and, with a flick of his wand, shut and locked his door behind him. He was loathe to give into his paranoia, but with a potential enemy that close it was better to be safe than sorry.

Hello my readers,

Hallowed here. I haven't asked your thoughts on the story in some time, so I thought I would take some time to do just that. To begin with, for the reader who recognized the Witcher, very well done. Beyond that, what else would you like to see in this story? Moreover, who would you like to see more of? Neville? Charlie? The Golden Trio? Bobby? Please, leave me your ideas.

Cheers, Hallowed