Chapter 3: The Goblet

"Uprising" by Muse.

"Bloody Hell, we're in trouble now," Ron said, dropping his head into his hands. While Harry and Hermione heated up breakfast, he had gone to the village newsstand under the invisibility cloak and picked up copies of The Quibbler, The Daily Prophet, and Witch Weekly. The Quibbler reported nothing of value besides reprints of previous interviews with Harry. Both the Prophet and Witch Weekly, however, were plastered with the same cover story.

The Golden Gryffindor Trio Goes it Alone?

Days ago, the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Bill and Fleur Weasley ended in shock and tears. The band hired for the event, the Bludger Brothers, was witness to it all.

"The ceremony was all good and well, but those three kids dropped a bomb on dinner," Riley Bronson, the Bludgers' lead singer told our reporters. "They gave Prof. McGonagall a note to read to everyone—the Order of the Phoenix and some kids and teachers from Hogwarts. Told them in the letter that the three of them were running off to do something about You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters, only they used You-Know-Who's name! Said it was something Dumbledore told them to do before he died! Everyone was screaming and crying, but too late. Potter and his friends were gone!"

No one seems to know what the late Albus Dumbledore may have asked of his three favorite students, but it seems Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger are determined to carry out his wishes…

The article continued on across multiple pages in both periodicals, reviewing all the details known to the public of Harry, Ron, and Hermione's previous 'adventures' since their first year at Hogwarts which, unfortunately, thanks to other students interviewed, was a lot.

Hermione was muttering a little incoherently. Ron's face had sunken deeper into his hands. Harry's urge to blow something up was about to get the better of him when an owl flew through the open window and landed with a less-than-graceful thud in front of Ron, holding its burdened leg out to him rather insistently. Ron detached the letter and read it aloud to his friends.

"We're so sorry! We didn't make those Bludgers give us anything more than their promise of discrepancy when we hired them, in case they heard anything of consequence mentioned. Needless to say, we weren't expecting your note. Apparently, reporters were offering them everything but their first-born children for a story. As you've undoubtedly noticed, they took the offers. Bronson probably would've spilled even more had Tonks not morphed to look like one of the reporters and wiped his memory of the night.

"You said you wanted to catch a little enemy attention to disperse their forces, but this can't be what you had in mind. We'll try to stomp out what we can. I won't try to convince you to come back, but just be careful. Love, Remus. Former resident of the Shrieking Shack."

"Now what do we do?" Hermione asked exasperatedly.

"We press on as planned," Harry answered quickly and firmly. "There's no turning back now." Hermione and Ron nodded.

Voldemort threw the Prophet down on the table, furious. The Death Eaters seated around the table were on pins and needles. "What was Dumbledore up to with them?!" Voldemort raged. "How did we not know about this?!"

"I told you all I could, my Lord," Snape spoke softly. "Dumbledore told no one what was discussed between him and Potter during their meetings at school. I and a few Order members were told he was helping Potter with Occlumency."

"And Potter told no one?" Voldemort seethed, causing the group around him to shiver as one. Snape remained calm.

"Only those two," he answered, gesturing to the picture of Harry, Ron, and Hermione that embellished the Prophet's front page, his words dripping with abhorrence. Voldemort glared from Snape to the picture of the three laughing Gryffindors. He picked up a nearby letter opener and stabbed the picture with it, making the three teens in it scatter outside the frame.

"Where would they go?" He asked the group. "Where would they be hiding?" Bellatrix coughed.

"My Lord, our fellows in Azkaban would likely know more about them," she whispered. She hesitated before adding, "Particularly Lucius, now my sister's dead." Draco squirmed in the chair beside his aunt. Voldemort glared at them both.

"Hufflepuff's goblet," Harry said, "should be the next Horcrux."

"So, where do we look?" Ron asked. "Godric's Hollow?"

"For starters," Harry said. "Then, we'll see."

Harry, Ron, and Hermione waited for the night shift guards to leave for Azkaban before setting out from their hideout. Hermione waved down the Knight Bus and they jumped on quickly. When the bus came to its typical, jolting stop, on a curb in the village of Godric's Hollow, they gripped the wands in their pockets and stepped out cautiously. After twenty minutes of wandering the Hollow, Hermione was about to ask Harry if he actually knew where they were going, then she collided with him. He'd abruptly stopped and he was staring at the house in front of them with a strange expression on his face. Hermione gasped.

The house from so many of Harry's nightmares was boarded up. The gate was broken, and it seemed the air around the house was distinctively colder than it was in the rest of the Hollow. Without saying a word, Harry walked through the gate and toward the door. Hermione and Ron followed close behind. When they reached the door, Harry glanced back at the street behind them before aiming is wand at the door.

"Reducto," he said softly, though the sound of the door blasting inward was plenty loud on its own.

"Harry!" Hermione squealed, looking around frantically. Harry had already stepped over the rubble, and he was looking around the inside of the house. Hermione and Ron bolted inside. They watched nervously as Harry proceeded directly up the stairs inside, as though in a trance. They followed him cautiously until he stopped in the doorway of a large bedroom.

"I can hear them," Harry whispered after a long pause, his voice distant and ominous. "Like when the dementors are around. I can hear my dad fighting Voldemort. I can hear my mum screaming." He walked forward and laid a hand on the bed in the room, very gently, as though afraid it might attack him. "I was lying on this bed… when it happened…" Hermione whimpered and Harry snapped out of his trance. He turned around to face her. She was crying. Ron was holding her hand, but seemed to be frozen by the tense chill in the room.

"Harry, I'm so sorry," Hermione whispered. She stared at him for a moment, with no response, before striding forward and hugging him tightly. Harry hugged her back, lightly at first, but soon he was clinging to her with all his strength. The feelings that rushed through him attacked him at his core, threatening to tear him apart. Hermione was all that was holding him together. He didn't notice she was slowly backing up, pulling him out of the room with her. As soon as they were out in the hallway, Ron pulled the door shut. Harry felt his sane mind slowly taking hold again and he relaxed his hold on Hermione until they were completely separated.

"Harry, are you okay?" Ron asked, looking paler than usual. "You looked possessed in there. Like something was about to turn you inside-out."

"Ron!" Hermione protested his graphic speech. When she looked apologetically at Harry, though, he was staring at the door. Hermione reached for his shoulder.

"I saw Hufflepuff's goblet," he said. Hermione's hand froze, short of contact.

"W-What?" Ron stammered, dumbfounded.

"I saw all the things the dementors make me see, but then I saw the goblet," Harry said.

"Harry," Hermione said imploringly, "the only thing in that room was—"

"The bed," Harry said, his mind reeling. "That's when I saw it. When I touched the bed, I saw a man that looked like Voldemort. I saw the graveyard where the Triwizard cup took me and Cedric. I saw an old house being torn down, and then I saw the cleared lot the house was on, and I saw the goblet."

"Tom Riddle's house was torn down after he was murdered," Hermione offered. Harry's eyes locked on hers sharply. She blinked. "That would explain the man, the graveyard, and the house," she added.

"Wait," Ron said. "You don't think Voldemort buried the goblet where his father's house used to be, do you?" Harry was still staring intensely at Hermione, though he answered Ron.

"That has to be it," he said. "Hermione, do you know where Riddle's old house was?" Hermione nodded.

The trio stepped off the Knight Bus, onto a large stretch of grassy land. It was daylight, and warmer now. The three of them had shortened their trousers and sleeves on the bus. Hermione pointed to a particularly overgrown area a few yards away. Once the bus was out of sight, they drew their wands and treaded carefully towards the spread of land. Once they got there, they stood still, waiting for something to happen. Nothing happened.

Harry looked at his friends bracingly before saying, "Accio goblet." A quaffle sized mound of dirt burst upward, below Ron's feet. Hermione jerked Ron away from the small hole as if it had tried to bite him. "The goblet must be deeper down in that spot," Harry said before something did bite him, or rather, it stung him.

Harry yelped and jumped to the side. A strange creature that looked like a cross between a small dragon and a large scorpion was crawling out of the ground beside him, another one soon following. The land was cursed with an Oppugno Charm.

"Serpions!" Hermione screamed. More of the strange creatures had burrowed up behind her and Ron, stinging her legs. Stripes of blood trickled down her legs, staining her white socks. Ron blasted several of the serpions away with a Stunner, even as one stung him in the side, over his hip. Hermione shot it off him with an Impediment Curse. "Harry, dig!" She screamed, "Get the goblet!"

Harry kicked out hard at the creatures charging at him and showered the small hole with Summoning Charms, more dirt flying up each time, along with more serpions. He could feel the little monsters biting at his legs. He could hear the cries of pain his friends were interchanging with spells to ward off their attackers. He was about to abandon his digging to attack the mass surrounding them when he heard the unbelievable.

"Avada Kedavra!" Harry turned in time to see the jet of green light issue from Hermione's wand and engulf half a dozen serpions that sprawled out, dead across the ground. Ron gaped at Hermione until a wave of serpions rushed at her, peppering her legs, back, and sides with stinger sores. Ron blasted them away from her with an Impediment Curse before redirecting his aim, farther away from her, and shouting the Killing Curse himself. His curse didn't take out as many as hers had, but it killed a few of them.

Harry felt something erupt within him. He faced the hole and screamed out one more, "ACCIO!" Hufflepuff's goblet exploded out of the ground, landing at his feet. He left it on the ground, turning his wand on the remaining fanged lizards. "AVADA KEDAVRA!" He yelled, blasting even more foes away than Hermione had.

It wasn't long before the trio had killed all the hybrid creatures, and they sat among the bodies, conjuring bandages around their wounds. Harry reached towards the pile of loose dirt and picked up Hufflepuff's goblet, examining the Hufflepuff crest on the face of one of its jewels. The goblet, at least, was real.