Though he'd had the message parchment he'd created for him and Crouch for several weeks now, this was the first time Peter had received anything through it. He'd had it at hand for almost every minute of every day of each of those weeks; the Dark Lord had made it clear when Peter first created them that Peter was to be available to Crouch at all times, and, while it was rather annoying, the potential consequences for not being so were simply not worth imaging.
And so, when the parchment had warmed and given a little twitch, Peter had snatched it up at once.
We have a problem and I need you to deal with it, it said. Bagman will be on the school grounds tonight - nine o'clock. He saw me; very time-sensitive, and I must be seen dealing with him, just in case he's managed to talk to anyone. NO collateral.
Peter had read it, re-read it, and then passed it over to the Dark Lord to examine as he scrambled for their potions cabinet.
"Wormtail," the Dark Lord said, as he checked the labels on their phials, and then the locks of hair they kept. "Killing Bagman is the priority, but if you can, ensure the boy sees."
"Bonjour," Fleur said, coming to stand beside Harry.
"Hi," he said, glancing over at her. He'd seen her around, of course - Fleur was hard not to notice - but not spoken with her all that much since the Third task. He'd been too busy worrying about losing his mind, and she'd been presumably preparing for the Fourth Task, conspiring with Hermione here and there about Skeeter - terrifying, the pair of them - and, honestly, probably not too unhappy about having some time away from him after their 'breakup'.
"You are looking better," Fleur said. Harry looked at her again, and smiled a little; Quirrell hadn't been able to find the 'door' he'd talked about, the one that potentially linked Harry's mind and Voldemort's, but he had kept his word and set up a defence around Harry that let him sleep. And he had, for nearly sixteen hours, until an exhausted Quirrell and worried Padfoot had woken him. He'd had the dreams each night since, but a night of rest had done him wonders. "'Ave you been ill?"
"Something like that," Harry said. Her eyes flicked over him, then she shrugged.
"Evening," Cedric said, stepping out of the door down to the dungeons. "Are you both as curious as I am?"
Fleur tipped one shoulder in a non-committal sort of way, but Harry was sure she was desperately curious and simply not letting on. As for Harry himself…
"I s'pose," he said without much enthusiasm.
"You don't already know again, do you?" Cedric asked, sounding equal parts resigned, disbelieving, and - despite himself - amused.
"Not really," Harry said. "I know they're doing something on the Quidditch pitch, but I don't know what."
"Is very inconvenient," Krum said, coming down the main stairs. Given Hermione had disappeared to the library an hour or so ago, Harry thought there was a good chance that was where he'd been. "I vent for a fly vith Morozov earlier in the veek and it made landing annoying."
"Why ze Quidditch pitch?" Fleur asked, and she, Cedric, and Krum all looked to Harry as if he'd know.
"They've planted something," he offered. "But I-"
"There they are!" Bagman appeared behind Krum on the main stairs, Sprottle and Pemberley in tow. Bagman didn't quite look like himself; he always looked a little flustered, but he smelled of sweat and there was a very forced edge to his joviality. "How are we this evening, Champions? Eager to hear a bit more about your final task?" He clapped his hands together, smile not quite right. "It's a good one, if I say so myself."
"It is a good one," Sprottle said, glancing at him, "though you'll have to wait a few minutes longer - it will be easier to show you than tell you." She waved for them to fall into line around her. Harry caught Pemberley's eye and smiled but Pemberley's returning smile was weak and a bit distracted.
Harry fell into step alongside him anyway, a little uncertain, while Krum walked ahead with Cedric, and Fleur started up a tentative conversation with Sprottle. Bagman, uncharacteristically, kept his distance from all of them, and walked alone, silent, and unusually serious looking.
"How are you, Harry?" Pemberley asked after a moment, drawing Harry's attention away from Bagman. "Did you have a nice Easter?"
"I s'pose," Harry said. "You?"
"Fine," Pemberley said. "Working, mostly - there's a lot to do to make sure everything's ready for the final task."
They made their way across the grounds - unsurprisingly - toward the Quidditch pitch. It was a cold enough night that their breath misted in the air, and there was a light layer of frost over the grass that crunched beneath their shoes as they went.
The Quidditch pitch had changed significantly, even in the week since Harry was last there. The plants were no longer singular, but were beginning to grow out and into each other. They were hedges, Harry realised. They were almost knee high, too, and there were lots of them, twisting this way and that-
"It's a maze," Cedric said, just as Harry reached the same realisation.
"That's right," Bagman said, sounding cheery in a stressed sort of way. "You'll be navigating a maze. This task's different to the others - you're not being timed, nor is there a time limit on the task. It could take you ten minutes - but it won't - or it could take you all day. It's also not scored by the judges; in this task, your score will be based on what you bring out with you…"
"The Triwizard Cup will be placed at the centre of the maze," Madam Sprottle said. "It will be worth fifty points to the Champion who claims it. There will also be four other items throughout the maze - school crests, one for each of the competing schools. These will be worth ten points each, and unlike the Cup, the points will not be given to whoever is first to claim them, but rather, whoever is holding them when they leave the maze."
"So eet is like ze ozzer tasks," Fleur said. "We go in, we find what we are looking for, zen we get out."
"Quite right," Bagman said, with a shrill little laugh, "Though you make it sound much easier than it will be in practice; these hedges will be twenty feet tall by June, and they're not normal hedges. They'll shift around, trip you over… they might even try to snare you." Harry glanced at the hedges as he said it, and noticed they were swaying ever so slightly, though it was a very still night. "And, it won't just be you inside the maze. Hogwarts' gamekeeper will be supplying us with a number of creatures, and the Ministry will supply several others." Harry, who knew Hagrid's taste in creatures, winced at that. He wasn't even comforted by the Ministry's involvement; they, after all, had sourced the dragons for the first task. "There will also be spells, traps, runes… and, of course, the other Champions. The task will end for you when you leave the maze. Once you have, you cannot re-enter, and any crests you have will be counted. The entire task will end either when all four Champions have left the maze, or when a Champion has left the maze with enough points to win, regardless of what the other Champions may have collected."
"It's anyone's to win," Pemberley said. "Potter's in the lead, on one hundred and forty two points, Diggory and Krum are tied on one hundred and thirty one, and Delacour's in third on one hundred and nineteen. If Potter gets the Cup, he'll have won it. But if any of the other Champions claim the Cup first, it's the crests that will…" Pemberley glanced down at his clipboard and then shook himself. "... decide the winner."
Harry decided then and there that he wouldn't be touching any of them, or the Cup. Unless that was what Voldemort wanted… but he didn't think so. Voldemort wanted Harry to win, wanted to prove and claim the strength of his Champion, and then… well, and then Harry wasn't sure, but he doubted he'd like it.
"Questions?" Sprottle asked.
"Can whoever 'as ze Cup also claim ze crests?" Fleur asked.
"They can," Sprottle said. "In theory, a Champion could leave the maze with ninety points."
"Unlikely, though," Bagman said. Cedric and Krum eyed each other off, then Harry. Fleur was looking out over the short hedges with a determined look on her face.
After a few moments of silence, Sprottle waved a hand at the entrance to the Quidditch stadium.
"If there's nothing else, let's head back to the castle before we all freeze… William-" Pemberley, who'd been writing something down on his ever-present clipboard, looked up, blinking. "-did you ever hear back from…?"
"Harry," Bagman said, catching his sleeve as Harry made for Cedric, Fleur, and Krum. "Walk with me, would you?"
"Er…" Harry half-hoped one of the others would call him over, but they weren't paying him any attention. Even Pemberley only glanced back at him before turning back to Sprottle. "Sure." Since Harry wasn't sure what Bagman wanted to talk about, he said nothing else, and just waited. Bagman kept his eyes on the others but kept his own walk at a snail's crawl - leaving Harry little choice but to match him - until the others were well out of earshot. Even Harry, with his excellent hearing, could only make out the murmur of their voices, rather than the words they were saying.
Bagman had a strange look on his face, and was still sweaty despite the cool night; Harry curled his fingers around his wand and slid it from his pocket, just in case.
"Information," Bagman said, and he sounded shrewd, rather than his usual, excitable self. "It's valuable, isn't it?"
"Sorry?" Harry asked, blinking.
"Information-"
"What information?" Harry asked.
Bagman ignored that: "In the past, the Ministry's let people exchange information for a reduced sentence..."
"Yeah…?" Harry said, when Bagman didn't continue.
"If a person hadn't done anything wrong, though, would they still… incentivise the exchange of information?"
"Incentivise how?" Harry asked, frowning. "Money?" Bagman didn't respond, but Harry caught something affirmative in his scent. "And why are you asking me? I'm not an Auror-"
"Black is," Bagman said.
Harry bit back the first reply that came to mind: then ask him. Instead, he folded his arms and looked at Bagman properly. "If you've got information the Aurors would be interested in, you should just tell them-"
"And I'd like to," Bagman said earnestly, "but my... situation is a tricky one."
"Tricky how?" Harry asked.
"Tell you what," Bagman said. "If you're honest with me, I'll be honest with you."
"Sure," Harry said, a little cautiously. "Honest about what?"
"I'm in a spot of debt with the goblins," Bagman said.
"Okay," Harry said. "So that's why you want the Aurors to pay you for information."
"Potentially," Bagman said, shrugging, though there was a warning in his scent. "I've placed a bet on the Tournament's outcome. I think you're going to win, and then I think I'm going to win." Harry started to shake his head, but Bagman put up a hand. "And, obviously, that's the outcome I'd like to see. But, you heard tonight's briefing; there's no scoring from the judges in this one. If you want to win in this one, you'll have to fight for it. And you have in the others - didn't have much choice against the dragon. The second task you had your friends in there with you, and last task, you were fighting for Weasley. This task, you're fighting for glory, and for the thousand galleon prize. For most people that's enough - I'd fight for that!" Bagman laughed a little. "But you've said all along that you don't want to compete, and that you don't want to win. And if that's true, then you won't, and it won't cost you anything. So. Did you mean it?"
"Yes," Harry said emphatically, but frowned; why did Bagman believe him now? All along, he'd seemed to to laugh at the idea that Harry had been unwillingly entered into the Tournament, had been skeptical that Harry wanted to survive but didn't much care where he placed beyond that. So why now? "What's the information?" he asked again, wary.
"Something that, at best, might delay the Tournament, but could also damage your chances," Bagman said.
"And at worst?" Harry asked.
"Stop the Tournament entirely," Bagman said, looking wan.
"Seriously?" Harry asked, incredulous and hopeful. "What is it?"
"I- saw something. Someone," Bagman said carefully. "That I wasn't meant to. It- well, it lends credence to what you've been saying all along, about- well. Yes. So." He wrung his hands. "But if I delay the Tournament, or it's cancelled, I don't get paid, and the goblins-"
"If what you know can stop the Tournament," Harry said, heart pounding, "then Padfoot would pay you, even if the Aurors wouldn't. I'd pay you." He'd empty the vault his parents had left him if he had to. "We'll go straight to Padfoot when we get to the school." Bagman sagged with relief, and then, briefly, he was haloed by sickly green.
Then, Bagman collapsed to the ground. Harry went down with him, wand raised, though no other spells followed.
"Mr Bagman?!" he asked, though he knew that shade of green. Bagman, of course, did not respond, expression still relieved, frozen in it. Harry could see a man at the shadowy edge of the forest, perhaps twenty feet from them:
He had straw-coloured hair, a pale, freckled face, and, while he was older than Harry, he wasn't even as old as Padfoot. Harry'd only seen him once before - in the bathroom entrance to the Chamber of Secrets two years ago - but he'd been seeing photographs of him in the papers since.
"'Arry!" Harry could hear movement behind him - maybe Fleur and the others had seen the flash of green, or maybe they'd just happened to turn around and see them both on the ground - but didn't look back; he stood, wand raised, and took half a step toward Crouch.
Going after him alone was a terrible idea, but letting him go was an even worse one… Before Harry could make a decision either way, Crouch gave him a small wave and disappeared in a pulse of blue.
"I don't think it was Crouch," Sirius said. He had a warm mug of tea and brandy resting on his knee, and the other adults in the room - Dumbledore, Robards, Snape, and Remus - were all nursing a similar cup. Dobby had also shown up with a cup of hot chocolate for Harry, but so far he hadn't touched it. "In fact, him showing up looking like himself, and letting himself be seen makes me almost positive it wasn't."
"He's used others before," Robards agreed, rubbing his chin. "There was Jessop - the Squib he sent after you, Black, after we took his house elf into custody." Sirius laughed, rueful, and took a sip from his cup.
"And so the question is: why?" Dumbledore took a sip from his own cup.
"Easy enough," Remus said. "Bagman saw Crouch. And, I think we can assume that Bagman saw Crouch doing something, or in a place that made it obvious who he's disguising himself as." Sirius and Remus shared a look, and then Remus' eyes flicked to Harry, who was still sitting silently in the chair beside Sirius'. It had been Fleur of all people who summoned him through the mirror, having seen Harry do it before; Harry had been sitting beside Bagman, in… well, if Harry wasn't Harry, Sirius would have said he was in shock. But Harry didn't really do shock - he got up and fought back, or took chase, or puzzled through the hows and the whys, and if he couldn't he got restless.
He didn't go quiet.
Except, apparently, for tonight.
"Makes sense," Robards said. "I think we can also assume Bagman can't have seen Crouch more than a few hours ago. Bagman might have been the sort to sit on the information and weigh his options for a few days, but Crouch doesn't strike me as the type to sit and wait and hope Bagman keeps it to himself. He's always been quick to react in the past."
There was a whoosh of the Floo and then Marlene stepped out of the flames, dusting off her robes.
"Sorry, I'm late," she said. "The Ministry's in a bit of a flap, as you can probably imagine." Robards conjured her a chair before Sirius could and she sat, eyes flicking over each of them in turn. When they landed on Harry, her mouth turned down and then she looked at Sirius. "What did you need from me?"
"What do you know so far?" Sirius asked.
"Crouch killed Bagman on the grounds," she said.
"Probably wasn't Crouch," Robards said, and Marlene raised an eyebrow.
"All right," she said. "Who then?"
"Not sure," Sirius said. "Have you seen Bagman recently?"
"I saw him three hours ago," she said. "There was a cross-departmental briefing on the Fourth Task. Sprottle presented it, but Bagman was there."
Sirius exchanged a look with Robards.
"We'll need a list of everyone that attended," Robards said.
"He probably saw Crouch before, during, or immediately after," Sirius said. "That explains why Crouch couldn't deal with him himself, too - too many people around."
"But they must have separated for a bit," Remus said. "Otherwise Crouch wouldn't have needed his face to be seen on the grounds. He was making sure he - his actual disguise, whoever that might be - had an alibi, just in case Bagman had said anything to anyone."
A few more minutes and he would have, Sirius thought, and rubbed a hand over his face.
"The obvious suspects are Sprottle and Pemberley," Robards said. "Because if 'Crouch' was in the forest, he can't be one of them. And they'd have known where Bagman was and when, to coordinate."
"So did everyone at the briefing," Marlene said. Robards frowned and sighed.
"You've been unusually quiet, Harry," Dumbledore said into the silence that followed.
Harry looked up at him, but slowly, as if he'd heard but not processed it right away.
"Anything to add, Potter?" Robards asked.
"The person disguised as Crouch was probably Wormtail," Harry said tonelessly. "The way Bagman died was a lot like Polkov. Do you need me here for this, or can I…?" He gestured vaguely at the office door.
Sirius stared at him, surprised, and wasn't the only one; Remus's eyebrows had disappeared into his hairline, Marlene had cocked her head, Robards was frowning, and Snape looked deeply suspicious.
Only Dumbledore seemed unfazed:
"We can continue the conversation without you if you wish," Dumbledore said.
"And without me, I think, Headmaster," Remus said, setting his tea down and stretching. Sirius shot him a grateful look. "It's past my bedtime, and this is more one for the Aurors now, I think." Harry nodded, muttered a goodnight to them all, and let himself out of the office, Remus a few steps behind.
"Are you all right?" Moony asked, as the staircase shut behind them again.
"Sort of," Harry said. "Not really."
Moony was quiet, but turned toward the stairs up to the seventh floor rather than the ones that would take him back out to the grounds and the Beauxbatons carriage. It was an offer to listen, Harry knew.
"It's just- it's too much like my dreams," Harry said, voice a little thick. "For months I've been seeing- and they're not real, but this- tonight it was. I know it isn't my fault - Bagman would have died if he'd been walking with Fleur, or Cedric, or even if he was alone, because of what he knew - but it just feels like…" Harry cut off and took a deep, shaky breath.
"Like?" Moony prompted gently, when Harry didn't continue.
"Like- In the dreams, I can't do anything. No matter what I do, or what I try, I'm helpless. Useless." Harry rubbed his eyes impatiently. "And I know that's not actually how it's happened, and that I have made a difference, most of the time, but then today- I was useless. Bagman didn't die because of anything I did, but he might have lived because of it."
"You were surprised," Moony said.
"Constant vigilance," Harry muttered. Moony reached out to rub between his shoulder blades and Harry leaned back against the touch.
"The way you've described it, it was incredibly quick," Moony said. "There wasn't time for you to do anything-"
"I just stood there," Harry said, voice cracking. "If it'd been you, or Padfoot, or anyone else- I would have just stood there. The same thing would have happened. I was- I'm usually good at this. I should have chased him, or tried to Stun him, but I didn't, because it just felt so much like one of my dreams and I just…"
He laughed, genuinely amused. And though it was quiet in the hallway with Moony, and the lamps were silent, he could hear the crackling of a fire, feel its warmth, basked in it. Someone was talking, but it wasn't Moony, but Harry could still feel Moony's arm against his back, but then it wasn't Moony's arm, it was a chair.
Harry stumbled and fell and then the floor was hard under him, but it was also soft, padded, and that was Wormtail standing beside him offering him a phial, but then it was Moony, worried and calling for the boy. He laughed again and then it shrivelled in his throat because Bagman had died and that wasn't funny but the boy's pain was. Nagini slithered over his lap and a silvery wolf flew over his head and Wormtail was saying something and the fire was crackling, but loudest of all was Moony's voice:
"Harry? Harry."
The way he felt was like he had when the Walpurgis uniform arrived but better - worse. There was horror, grief, anger, and delight because he'd caused it, he'd made him not only feel that way, but react that way. Months of conditioning had wrought this, this learned helplessness. It was such a strong feeling that it could have been his own feeling. It was his own feeling.
Padfoot's voice had joined Moony's, and he could see Snape there, and Wormtail, but Nagini closest of all, crooning to him as she tasted his changing moods in the air with her forked tongue.
There was pain, guilt, glee, relief - Bagman was dead, and - all things considered - it had been such a quick and simple thing. He hadn't done anything, hadn't been able to, hadn't needed to; Wormtail and Crouch had handled it. And that meant the Tournament was still going ahead, which was as it should be, but he'd been so hopeful for just a moment that it might be cancelled, that he might not have to compete, and so worried for a moment that this might be the end of years of careful planning and for nothing.
"Can you hear me?" That was a new voice - Quirrell's voice. Quirrell was in his head again - or was he in Quirrell's head, as he had been for so long? He had not given Quirrell any thought for years now, had assumed he was dead, but he'd seen him on the weekend, and yet it seemed he was alive and there and thank Merlin for that.
He was standing in the doorway - the open doorway - the doorway that he knew as well as the doorway to the room he resided in now, the doorway he'd never seen before.
"Potter?" Quirrell asked, but he was not the boy, he was Lord Voldemort, and yet- was he? He was himself and he was Harry and he was both of them and they were the same person until he - Lord Voldemort - found where he ended and the boy began and shoved.
The door between them slammed shut with a sensation like something tearing, and pain exploded in his head - Harry's head - and he gasped and sat up so quickly he almost headbutted Padfoot, who'd been leaning over him.
Quirrell - wearing a dressing gown over pyjamas - was kneeling just beyond him, gasping like a man who'd barely avoided drowning. A thin line of blood trickled from his nose.
"Kiddo?" Padfoot said, putting a hand on Harry's shoulder. He was very pale, and his eyes were both worried and sharp, flicking between Harry and Quirrell. Harry put his hand on Padfoot's but looked past him:
"I saw the door," Harry said.
And despite the grim, worried looks on the faces of the others, and the pained scent emanating from him, Quirrell pushed himself up into a sitting position, dabbed his nose on his dressing gown, and smiled:
"So did I."
Sorry for the slow update on this one, everyone! Life's just been getting in the way of my writing time, but I'm safe and healthy (just busy!).
Thank you for all the messages of concern and support, and thank you for your patience!
Enjoy the update!
MarauderLover7
