A/N: Hello! This chapter has been beta'd by Nessi. Thanks, Nessi.

Chapter 46: Crockett and McGonagall

On Tuesday morning, the second day of the dueling tournament, the second years, third years, and fifth years had their primaries. By lunch, all of the primaries had been completed and the semi-final brackets were filled.

After lunch, the semi-finals started. For the first round, there were two pairs of first years and two pairs of fourth years dueling on the field. Harry chaperoned a first year duel between Hooch and Gideon, which Gideon won relatively quickly.

When all of the first and fourth year semi-final duels were done, the faculty rearranged the stadium so that there were only two dueling arenas rather than four for the N.E.W.T. semi-finals. Algie Longbottom was dueling Bartie Crouch, and Rufus Scrimgeour wad dueling Alphard Black.

Meanwhile, Harry'd gotten a break from chaperoning and decided to walk back and forth between the two duels. Most of the students were down on the field crammed around the two arenas cheering, so Harry soon got tired of elbowing his way around and retired to the empty stands to watch.

He'd only been sitting a few minutes before Albus slid into his row and took a seat on the bench next to Harry. Harry smiled in greeting. They hadn't had a chance to talk in a while.

"Are you enjoying the tournament so far?" asked Harry.

"I must say I am," said Albus. "It is a pleasant alternative to the usual pre-holiday slump, though it has been a lot of work for you."

"Well, I think all of us have been working."

"Well, I suppose," smiled Albus. "I did notice that the schedule for Thursday looks relatively empty. Would you care to join me for tea in the afternoon?"

"Yeah, thanks! That would be great. You aren't going to try to sabotage me before we duel, are you?"

"You assume you'll win against Minerva."

Harry laughed. "You assume you'll win against Flitwick!"

"Minerva's been practicing," said Albus. Harry shivered slightly. He didn't know if it was worry about the duel or just Albus's tone.

"Should I be worried?"

Albus shrugged and extracted a small bag from his robes. Harry recognized it. "Would you like a Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean?" asked Albus.

"You still eat those?" asked Harry.

"One is never too old for candy, Harry. In fact, I find myself more partial to sweets every day."

"Yes, but…" Harry sighed. "Never mind. I'd love one, thanks." Albus poured Harry and himself each a small hand full. They sat for a while watching and commenting on the duels, occasionally mentioning a flavor of bean they'd eaten until Albus made a gagging noise.

"Are you alright?" Harry turned to see Albus was still breathing but had scrunched up his face. He swallowed laboriously.

Harry immediately knew what was wrong and conjured a lemon drop. "Here, suck on this." Albus quickly took the lemon drop and nodded his thanks, his eyes watering slightly.

"Let me guess…Vomit flavored?" Harry asked sympathetically.

Albus cleared his throat. "How did you know?"

"I am very clever," said Harry.

"Do you want the rest of these?" Albus asked, offering Harry the bag. "I think I've lost my taste for them."

Harry smiled. "Yeah, thanks," he said, thinking he'd give them out in class or something.

They sat quietly for a moment. "Did you conjure this lemon drop? It's divine."

"Yeah," said Harry.

"You broke Gamp's Law and made it better than the ones from the box," said Albus, impressed.

"Well, the secret ingredient is lo—" Harry blushed, coughed and stopped talking.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"Nothing. Er…I was just saying maybe it has to do with packaging…"

Albus looked at Harry with his piercing blue eyes for a moment and then let him go. "Yes, perhaps."

They sat quietly for a while. Scrimgeour won his duel against Black, so the whole school was gathered around Crouch and Longbottom. Crouch was obviously getting impatient and frustrated, while Longbottom remained cool. Most of the students were cheering for Longbottom.

"I saw what you did yesterday," said Albus after a while.

Harry turned red. "Ah…I have no idea what you are talking about."

Albus smiled. "With Pomona."

"Ah-hah-hah, yes," said Harry nervously. "…Am I disqualified, sir?"

"I think setting Minerva on you will be suitable punishment. Goodness knows it worked on dear Horace."

"Yeah…"

They were quiet for a moment and Harry thought Albus had let the subject drop. He hadn't.

"What I meant was thank you."

"Oh!" said Harry, surprised and relieved. "For—I—what?"

"I think she needed that."

Harry didn't have anything to say so he just smiled gratefully back at Albus.

Just then, the students below erupted in cheers as the bell signaled the end of a duel. Longbottom had successfully pinned Crouch under a conjured object he'd been transfiguring periodically to suit his needs; it now resembled a giant metal spork. As the bell rang, Longbottom vanished the pinning device and offered Crouch a hand up which Crouch ignored.

"Well, that's all for the afternoon," said Harry. "Do you want to—"

"Albus! Are you ready to go? Oh! Er… hello, Crockett."

"Yes, Minerva. I'm coming. Sorry, Harry. I'm afraid I promised Minerva some time this afternoon to—"

"Go over lesson plans!" interrupted Minerva.

"Lesson plans for what? Break's in three days and there are no classes," said Harry.

"Er…ah…I'm preparing early so that I can relax over the holidays," invented Minerva wildly. Harry rolled his eyes.

"Good afternoon, Harry," said Albus as he headed off to join Minerva. Harry soon found himself alone in an emptying stadium, left to trudge through the snow back to the castle by himself.

Harry had a hard time getting to sleep that night, and when he woke up early on Wednesday morning his tower was freezing. Outside was a flat, glaring cloud-cover that made his head pound. It was with his shoulders slouched up to his ears that he headed down to breakfast in the Great Hall. He bent over his hot oatmeal, allowing it to relax his un-rested muscles only to twitch at the sight of Minerva walking into the hall with a smirk on her face and Albus trailing behind her.

"What have you been showing her?" Harry hissed when Albus sat down next to him.

"Oh, a little of this and a little of that," he replied. "Essentials, you know."

"I bet," said Harry tersely before returning to his oatmeal (which he had to re-warm with a gesture) and contemplating his day to come. The second years and fifth years were having their semi-finals, and then the third years had their semi-finals and then Harry and Minerva were dueling. There he stopped and took off his glasses to massage his temples. He was almost positive that he would beat Minerva, but his stomach was knotting forebodingly.

He shook his head and made himself continue going through his schedule. After his duel with Minerva was lunch, and then Albus and Flitwick would duel. Harry had been looking forward to watching Albus and Flitwick duel. Harry knew Flitwick had not shown all of his formidable power during the duel with Binns. Flitwick was so powerful that he might even pose a challenge to Albus.

Last were the class finals for the first, second, third, and fourth years. Harry was especially curious to see what would happen when Fabian and Gideon dueled. He had no idea who would win.

He was jolted out of his brooding when Albus stood up and dismissed the students to go to the stadium. Harry sighed and stood up.

"Are you alright?" asked Albus.

"Just didn't sleep," muttered Harry.

The stadium was again divided into four arenas so that two fifth year pairs and two second year pairs could duel at once. Harry was glad of his chaperoning responsibilities; supervising took his mind off his foul mood and the upcoming duel with Minerva. Unfortunately, he was not required to chaperone the third years in the next round. He sat high up in the stadium and watched, his stomach inexplicably uncomfortably.

"Did you see my duel at all, sir?"

Harry turned to see Alastor Moody coming down his row.

"I'm afraid I didn't," said Harry. "I was chaperoning Mr. Bones and Ms. Eliot."

"Who won?"

"Mr. Bones managed a freezing charm. I was quite impressed."

Moody nodded.

"So how did your duel go?" asked Harry.

Moody wrinkled his nose. "It was with Mundungus Fletcher. He was defaulted into the semi-finals because the fifth year bracket had an odd number. He cheated but Binns didn't notice and Flitwick was too far away. I won anyway."

Harry laughed. "What did he do to cheat?"

"Tried dumping some kind of potion on me. I vanished it before it touched me, though. It's like you said, sir, constant vigilance."

"Well, I can't prove anything about the potion," said Harry, "but I'll keep an eye on Mr. Fletcher. Thanks for telling me. Congratulations on your victory."

"Thank you, sir, but that's not what I wanted to talk about."

"Oh," said Harry surprised. "What was it then?"

"I just wondered how you did it, sir."

"Sorry?"

"With Pomona, I mean."

"Ah…and what exactly do you think that I did?" asked Harry.

"Well, clearly you did the magic for her," said Moody.

"Does anybody else think so?"

"No, sir, but I know."

"Did you talk to anyone about it?"

"No, sir."

"Good. Please don't."

"So you did do it, sir?"

Harry sighed and nodded. "I suppose you know why I did it?"

Moody squinted at him shrewdly. "You wanted to make her look good for her students. Some of my classmates bother her because she's only seventeen. That's rubbish, of course. She teaches just fine," he said gruffly. "But how did you do it? I saw you switch wands."

Harry's eyes widened in surprise. "You are very observant, Mr. Moody." Moody didn't smile at the praise. He just stared back at Harry.

"I don't mean to be rude, sir, but is your wand the reason why you're so powerful?"

Harry could have chosen to be offended, but he didn't. He didn't really know how to answer the question, though. Yes, his power source was in the wand, but it wasn't because of the wand itself that Harry was powerful. Instead of answering, he pulled out his wand and handed it to Moody.

"Cast something," Harry said.

Moody flicked the wand and Harry could tell he was trying to wordlessly conjure a knife. Harry didn't conjure it, so nothing happened.

"A knife, Mr. Moody?"

"Will it work if I conjure a bouquet, sir?" asked Moody sarcastically.

"Try," said Harry.

Moody flicked his wand, trying to conjure a bunch of roses. Instead, a knife appeared on the bench in front of them. Moody glared up at Harry and Harry grinned back.

"Oh, sorry. You wanted roses that time," said Harry. Roses started popping out of the wand individually without any prompting from Moody. "Does that answer your question, Mr. Moody?"

"No, but thanks, sir."

Harry smiled.

"Can you teach me to do that, sir?"

"To do what, Mr. Moody?"

"To cast spells with my wand when it's somewhere else," he said.

Harry frowned. Nobody could do magic with a wand out of their hand, really. Harry could because his magic was in the wand. Some people could cast a lumos or something with their wand a few feet away, but the magic was tied to the body so it couldn't be too far. It would be easier to do wandless magic than casting from a distant wand.

"Wandless magic would be easier than casting with your wand from far away," he said. "But wandless magic is very difficult too."

"How come you can do it, sir?"

"That," said Harry, "is a long story."

"So, is wandless magic like the kind of magic kids do when they're scared?"

"Yes, but to be useful it has to be controlled. Controlling it and doing it on command is the most difficult part. That's what wands are for. Wands all have powerful magical cores that allow the wand to control the magic, so a wandless caster has to be very powerful to control magic without a wand."

Moody squinted at Harry again, putting the pieces together.

"What's the grand prize?" he asked suddenly.

"Grand prize?"

"For winning the tournament."

"Oh." Harry had completely forgotten about all of the prizes.

"If I win, will you teach me wandless magic, sir?"

"Er…I can try," said Harry. "If you win."

The bell below rang to signal the end of the last third year's semifinal duel. Harry's stomach lurched.

"Good luck in your duel with Professor McGonagall, sir," said Moody.

"Thanks," said Harry weakly before heading down to the field.

Rearranging the field took too little time for Harry's comfort. Harry knew he would win the duel against Minerva, but he was still inexplicably dreading it.

Harry hadn't spoken to Minerva in days—since her duel with Slughorn, actually. They'd both been very busy, so when they came face to face in the middle of the field Harry felt like he hadn't seen Minerva in weeks rather than two days.

She's been practicing.

The bell rang and they both jumped into action. Harry blocked five spells from Minerva and Minerva blocked a few from Harry. Testing the waters, Harry forced a body bind through her shield, but Minerva broke it within two seconds and was back to shooting spells at Harry.

There was a very large crash and Harry suddenly found himself looking out from inside a giant bird cage. He rolled his eyes and Minerva smirked and walked calmly towards the cage. Harry tried vanishing it, but Minerva had managed to put some heavy protections around it and in it. He grabbed the bars, and his hands got stuck. He stuck his magic into it only to find magic around the magic in a deep web that fascinated him and drew in his attention.

Minerva touched his stuck hand lightly, and that's when Harry felt it…Something clumsy and tentative slip in to mix with his body aura, but his attention was too caught by the protections on the cage to deal with the aura. Getting out of the cage was more important. Getting his hands free was more important than Minerva feeling him up with her aura.

Wrong.

When he found himself shrinking into his bird form was when he realized his mistake. The aura that had mixed with his was forcing him into his animagus shape. He started fighting against the other aura, Minerva's aura, but Minerva was too strong. Harry's body aura was just a bird's aura and couldn't compare with the strength of Minerva's human aura. The clock started counting down.

Shit.

He couldn't do magic, but he wasn't stuck to the bars anymore and was small enough to slip through the space between the bars of the cage without having to vanish it. He flew out, and the clock stopped counting. This surprised Minerva. Harry could still feel Minerva through the connection restraining his re-transformation, but he couldn't use her aura to climb back to humanity.

Apparently she'd been practicing.

With Albus.

Even in Harry's emotionally repressed state as a bird, he felt his guts squirm from having missed out—which Minerva felt through the connection.

Minerva started sending spells at Harry as he flew. Impediment. Body bind. Invisible nets. She missed, but Harry knew it was only a matter of time before one of the spells hit him. He scrabbled at her aura, trying to use it to change back, but she was stronger and unwilling so it didn't work.

Harry's flight pattern became more erratic to avoid Minerva's spells. He flew up and dove low, but there was nowhere really to hide. He could have hidden somewhere in the stands, but that would have been lame. As a spell flew by his left wing, though, he glanced quickly over the stands, weighing the option. There he spotted Albus.

Albus!

He might be able to use Albus's aura to change back, as long as Albus wasn't fighting him off. He doubted Albus would help him, but there was a possibility that Albus wouldn't specifically prevent him from changing.

Harry flew over and landed on Albus's knee, startling the students and teachers sitting around them.

"Hello, Harry," said Albus, hiding any surprise he had. He patted Harry on the shoulder.

That was what Harry was waiting for. He used the direct physical contact of human hand to feathered shoulder to surge a connection between his bird aura and Albus's aura. Harry lost control and his aura became super excited and erratic from the contact with Albus's, but Harry knew Albus wouldn't notice the difference; Harry always lost control around Albus.

He continued to wrap himself into Albus's aura until he started to get flashes of vision out of Albus's eyes and "bird!" from under his finger tips. From what he felt, Albus was too surprised to react to Harry in any particular way—but Minerva was surprised too. Wrapping himself in Albus's aura also meant pulling Minerva with him. Minerva's distraction combined with Harry's grip on Albus's aura allowed Harry to slowly dredge himself out of his animagus form.

Thankfully, Albus realized what was happening and clothed Harry (who had forgotten in his panic) when he was half way through transformation. Harry found himself fully clothed in violent purple and sitting squarely in Albus Dumbledore's lap.

"Hello…" he said, momentarily disoriented.

"Well, hello," said Albus, his face inches from Harry's.

"I think practice was an understatement," breathed Harry. "I think conspiracy would be closer."

Albus smiled and his eyes twinkled up at Harry and Harry's heart beat faster and his breath became short and he noticed how sweaty his hands were and noticed—noticed Minerva and Albus were still embedded in his body aura! He withdrew all of himself faster than a tape measure, sprung off of Albus's lap, and tore off down the stands and back into the arena.

Once back on the grass, Harry snapped his fingers and his wand appeared in his hand. He started stalking across the grass. His eyes locked with Minerva's and neither of them looked away, even when they were standing a foot apart, nose to nose.

"So you want to do this the hard way?" asked Harry.

"You're in love with Albus."

Harry blanched and felt felt his face flush with shock and embarrassment, but he didn't back away.

"So are you," he replied stubbornly.

She glared, and Harry saw a flash of his teacher, Professor McGonagall. "So?"

Harry sniffed and glared.

Minerva's face softened and she looked away, defeated. "He already knows about me," she said quietly. For once, she seemed at a loss for things to say.

In an instant, Minerva was on the ground and Harry was on top of her, pinning her wrists above her head.

"Think so?" said Harry, his own expression softening. He loosened her wand from her grasp and threw it away.

"How long?" she asked, not even bothering to struggle. "How long have you…"

Harry laughed. "I have no idea. How about you?"

She snorted bitterly and rolled her eyes away from Harry's. "Forever."

"Oh." She looked back up to meet Harry's stare. As Harry looked down into Minerva's eyes, he felt closer to her than he had when their auras were connected. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Don't be," she said quickly. "You have better things to do than feel sorry for me."

"What, like feeling sorry for myself? We're in the same boat."

"You shouldn't feel sorry for yourself."

"And why not?"

Minerva bit her lip and opened her mouth to answer, but the bell rang, signaling the end of the duel, and the crowd erupted into applause.

Minerva laughed as Harry helped her up. "They have no idea what they're applauding for."

"I know," smirked Harry. He took a bow.

"So what did happen when you two were invisible with the yellow paint and—"

"That," said Harry, putting a hand on Minerva's back so that she bent into a bow, "is none of your business."