At the end of Transfiguration class on the twenty-seventh of May, Professor McGonagall held Harry back to let him know that the champions were expected on the Quidditch pitch that evening at nine.
So at a quarter till, Harry and Hermione left the Gryffindor common room, hoping Filch or Snape wouldn't try to give them detention when they walked back up to their common room inevitably after nine o'clock curfew on their way back from this meeting of champions and Harry, and made their way down to the pitch. Where they discovered that the normally smooth grass was covered in hedges crisscrossing in every direction. They made their way to the very center, hopping over hedges, to where the other champions and Ludo Bagman stood — not for the first time, Harry wondered if the others were always given times fifteen or thirty minutes before the time he was told to be there, or if they were all just really, really early arrivers for everything. As he and Hermione climbed over the last hedge and joined the group, Fleur hurried over to meet them and gave him a quick, tight hug, still beyond thankful for Harry having saved her sister in the previous task. Letting Harry go, she gave Hermione a quick hug as well, before all three of them walked back over to where Bagman and the others were standing.
As Bagman looked up at the sound of their arrival, he said in surprise, "Oh. Hi, Hermione — didn't expect to see you here." But before Harry or Hermione could say anything or defend her presence, he continued on, clearly unperturbed by her presence.
"Now, I imagine you can guess what we're making here?" he asked, looking around at the three champions and Harry (and Hermione) assembled around him.
When the champions merely stared at each other and the hedges for several long seconds, clueless, Hermione finally burst out, "It's a maze, you idiots!"
"Oh, yeah, so it is," mumbled the four competitors embarrassedly, looking around at what was now very obviously a maze.
Continuing on brightly as if the competitors had immediately recognized what was so very obviously to the most casual observer a maze, Bagman said, "That's right! A maze! By the time of the third task, four weeks from today exactly, these hedges will be twenty feet tall. So the third task is really very straightforward — the TriWizard Cup will be placed in the very center of the maze, and the first champion to touch it will win."
"We seemply 'ave to get through ze maze?" asked Fleur suspiciously. After the first two tasks, that seemed far too simple.
"There will be obstacles," answered Bagman mischievously, bouncing on the balls of his feet with a glint in his eyes, like a predator playing with its prey. "Hagrid is providing a number of creatures...then there will be spells that must be broken...all that sort of thing, you know."
"Oh…" the five students let out in a collective sigh of understanding.
The three Hogwartians knew firsthand the types of creatures Hagrid could provide, and even the two guests had heard enough stories over their seven months in the castle to know these would be no ordinary, fluffy house pets they would have to be getting past. And after seven and four years of magical education, they all knew the plethora of highly dangerous spells and enchantments that could be cast to hinder their progress through the labyrinth. And simply knowing magic itself, the maze was unlikely to be the simple, straightforward kind of mazes muggles thought of when they heard the word 'maze' — all one had to do was look at the staircases and secret passageways of Hogwarts Castle itself to know nothing would be as it seemed.
"Now, the champions who are leading on points will get a head start into the maze," continued Bagman, grinning at Harry and Cedric. "Then Mr. Krum will enter...then Miss Delacour. But you'll all be in with a fighting chance, depending how well you get past the obstacles. Should be fun, eh?"
The three champions and Harry all politely nodded, each secretly doubting 'fun' was going to be the word they would use to describe the task when they finally finished. The three boys were also giving the hedges malicious looks, affronted by the unruly state of the Quidditch pitch.
Seeing their looks, Bagman quickly added, "Don't worry boys, your Quidditch pitch will be back to perfection as soon as the tournament is over," causing both girls to roll their eyes at the boys for not knowing that a former Quidditch star himself would never allow a Quidditch pitch to remain in such a disrespectful state of disarray.
"Very well…" said Bagman after several more seconds. "If none of you have any questions, we'll go back up to the castle, shall we — it's getting a bit chilly..."
Everyone nodded their hurried agreement, it still being rather cold for late May, and quickly turned to exit the maze, each heading back towards their respective domiciles. Walking hand in hand as they jumped over the hedges, Harry and Hermione discussed everything Bagman had told them, and what spells he would need to learn and practice to best be prepared for this third and final challenge.
As Krum headed off towards the Black Lake and the Durmstrang ship, and Fleur walked towards the Beauxbatons Carriage, Bagman hurried up alongside Harry and Hermione.
"How you feeling Harry?" he asked quietly as he caught up with them. "I can't tell you any of the creature or spells you'll have to face — I don't know most of them myself — but I'd be glad to give you some spells that might be helpful to learn if you'd like. Spells most seventh years would have already learned that maybe as a fourth year you haven't ran across yet," he added on quickly at the end to make it seem less like he was trying to help Harry cheat, and more like he was just trying to even the playing field for him.
"Hermione's practically a walking library, well advanced beyond our grade when it comes to the spells she knows, and the most powerful witch I've ever met — if anyone can get me well prepared for this task, it's my girlfriend," answered Harry politely as they continued up towards the castle, wondering yet again why Bagman was so keen on trying to get him to win.
"Oh —" said Bagman, taken aback by Harry's directness and confidence. "Well, um…I guess you're all ready, then, aren't you?"
"I sure am," replied Harry, before squeezing Hermione's hand slightly in his and quickening their pace, leaving Bagman behind still staring at them in surprise.
Monday afternoon, Harry was dozing off in another sweltering, mind-numbing Divination class, when he suddenly woke up screaming on the floor.
He'd just had a most vivid dream, and his scar was hurting like his skull was about to split in half. After shaking off Trelawney's attempts to make him stay to see further, insisting that he needed to go to the hospital wing, he immediately headed straight towards Dumbledore's office, just like Hermione had told him to at the end of the previous summer when he'd finally told her about the morning over the summer that he'd woken up with his scar hurting again.
Arriving outside the stone gargoyle, he remembered that he didn't know the password. But knowing that it had always been sweets in the past, he began trying every wizarding candy he could think of, until finally as a joke he said, "cockroach cluster", and the gargoyle sprung to the side for him. Knocking on the oak door at the top of the spiraling staircase, he heard Dumbledore bid him enter.
"What can I do for you, Harry?" the Headmaster asked once Harry had entered and closed the door behind him.
Dumbledore was sitting behind his desk, and Fawkes was perched like normal on his stand, the large office otherwise empty.
"Well, I just had a really vivid dream, Sir, that made me wake up with my scar hurting, and Hermione told me that if my scar ever hurt again, I should come to you," answered Harry.
"Please — tell me everything from the very beginning," said Dumbledore gravely, motioning for Harry to take the seat across from him.
"I was in Divination just now, and — er — I fell asleep," began Harry, pausing for a moment as he wondered if a reprimand was coming his way for falling asleep in class.
But Dumbledore merely nodded and said, "Quite understandable. Continue," making Harry smile very slightly.
"Well, I dreamt that Lord Voldemort was torturing Wormtail. Voldemort got a letter from an owl. He said something like, Wormtail's blunder had been repaired. He said someone was dead. Then he said, Wormtail wouldn't be fed to the snake — there was a snake beside his chair. He said — he said he'd be feeding me to it, instead. Then he did the Cruciatus Curse on Wormtail — and my scar hurt. It woke me up, it hurt so badly."
As Dumbledore said nothing for several seconds after he had finished speaking, Harry finally said, "And that's all. I immediately came here."
"I see," said Dumbledore thoughtfully. "I see. Now, has your scar hurt at any other time this year, excepting the time it woke you up over the summer?"
"No, I — How did you know it woke me up over the summer?" asked Harry in confusion — the only people he had told about his scar hurting was Hermione, Ron, and Sirius.
"You are not Sirius's only correspondent," replied Dumbledore. "I have also been in contact with him ever since he left Hogwarts last year. It was I who suggested the mountainside cave as the safest place for him to stay."
Dumbledore got up and walked over to the black cabinet on the other side of the room and opened it. From inside, he pulled out a shallow stone basin, and carried it over to his desk.
As Harry stared at the silvery light contained inside the basin that he'd never seen the likes of before, Dumbledore said, "This is a pensieve. I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind."
"Okay…" said Harry slowly, still having no clue what a pensieve was.
"At these times, I use the pensieve. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one's mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one's leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form."
"You mean...that stuff's your thoughts?" replied Harry, finally beginning to get some understanding of what a pensieve was, despite the headmaster's very roundabout and vague way of explaining it.
"Certainly," said Dumbledore, like that was exactly what he'd been saying all along. As he drew his wand out from inside his robes, he continued, "Let me show you."
Placing the tip of his wand into his own silvery hair, near his temple, he slowly pulled it back. For a second it looked to Harry as though some of his hair were clinging to it, until Harry suddenly realized that it was actually a glistening strand of the same strange silvery-white substance that filled the pensieve. When Dumbledore added the strand to the rest of the swirling mass inside the stone basin, Harry saw his own face appear on the surface of substance. But a second later, Dumbledore reached down and swirled the contents of the basin with his wand, and Snape's face smoothly replaced Harry's.
This new face then said in a slightly echoey voice, "It's coming back...Karkaroff's too...stronger and clearer than ever…."
"A connection I could have made without assistance, but never mind," sighed Dumbledore, as Harry wondered if this had anything to do with whatever he and Hermione had seen Karkaroff showing Snape on his inner forearm at the end of Potions class nearly three months earlier.
Dumbledore added several more thoughts to his pensieve, before sitting back down behind his desk and looking across at Harry once more, studying him.
"Professor — do you know why my scar is hurting me?" Harry asked now that Dumbledore's attention was back on him.
"I have a theory, no more than that…" answered Dumbledore slowly. "It is my belief that your scar hurts both when Lord Voldemort is near you, and when he is feeling a particularly strong surge of hatred."
"But...why?"
"Because you and he are connected by the curse that failed," answered Dumbledore. "That is no ordinary scar."
"So you think...that dream...did it really happen?"
"I can only guess, but I would say it's probable," answered Dumbledore, before asking, "Harry — did you see Voldemort?"
"No, just the back of his chair," answered Harry. "But there wouldn't have been anything to see, would there? I mean, he hasn't got a body, has he?" before realizing something and adding slowly as much to himself as Dumbldore, "But...but then how could he have held the wand?"
"How indeed?" muttered Dumbledore, lost in thought. "How indeed…?"
Neither of them spoke again for a long time, the Headmaster occasionally pulling more strands of memory from his mind as they both sat there thinking over everything Harry had seen in his dream, until Harry finally asked, "Professor — do you think he's getting stronger?"
"Voldemort?" said Dumbledore, looking up at Harry and sighing. "Once again, Harry, I can only give you my suspicions. The years of Voldemort's ascent to power were marked with disappearances. Bertha Jorkins has vanished without a trace in the place where Voldemort was certainly known to be last. And there has been a second disappearance, one which the Ministry, I regret to say, do not consider of any importance, for it concerns a Muggle. His name was Frank Bryce, he lived in the village where Voldemort's father grew up, and he has not been seen since last August. You see, I read the Muggle newspapers, unlike most of my Ministry friends. These disappearances seem to me to be linked. The Ministry unfortunately disagrees."
This time when silence fell over them again, Harry felt as though it was time for him to leave. He'd told the Headmaster of his dream, and learned a few things about Voldemort and his possible return in the process, and there was really nothing left for him to ask and Dumbledore didn't seem interested in telling him anything more, and his stomach was beginning to grumble for supper.
So after a few more seconds, he finally said awkwardly, "I, uh — I should probably go."
Dumbledore looked back up at him from where he'd been staring unseeing into the pensieve, and said, "Thank you for bringing your dream and scar hurting to me, Harry."
As they both stood up and Harry headed towards the door, Dumbledore added quietly, "And Harry — good luck with the third task."