A.N.: So I was pinning a little too much Bucky Barnes when I was thinking about this story; and the result was that, in my mind, Sirius Black looks very like the Winter Soldier when he starts to shed the brainwashing. Tortured, long-haired, struggling with memory-loss and confusion, crippling grief and self-blame, but still good-looking…
I'm also loving the theory that Draco Malfoy is actually a werewolf, bitten by Greyback before his sixth year. I won't be pursuing that arc, but he will come to school with a mark of Voldemort's affection, just not a Dark Mark. I'm a big believer in Dramione - and in Hermione having a sibling.
Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far, thank you for your continued leaps of faith - this must be the tenth time I've mentally revised Pleiades and the third time (I think) I've rewritten it! I hope everyone enjoys a wonderful New Year, and an exciting 2019.
Eldest of the Pleiades
Veritaserum
It was chaos. Petrified children and grief-stricken adults swarmed onto the unrecognisable Quidditch pitch. Dumbledore's silver hair and beard glimmering in the moonlight, eerie in the light of sparks fired by Professor McGonagall, with a loud BANG to startle people into silence.
He saw, briefly, a great bear-like black dog, no more than a shadow, tearing across the black lawn toward the castle.
"Ellaria - !" He caught her attention, and they both glanced around.
"Where's Mad-Eye?" Ellaria asked, her mismatched eyes narrowed shrewdly on Dumbledore. Remus glanced around, at the Diggorys, at the crying, frightened students, and started running toward the school barely paces behind Ellaria, realising - Harry was missing.
"- now - I - conquer - you!"
BOOM.
A bear barrelled into the room, a great black shadow in the darkened room. Mad-Eye was too distracted, too slow; he buckled under the weight of the great black dog Harry knew as his godfather. A wand clattered to the ground; in an instant, Sirius the man stood, and had Stunned the grizzled, maddened Auror in a flash of blinding light, kicking the other wand out of reach. Sirius was panting, his body heaving with aggression and intent, and bigger and more menacing than Harry remembered him.
Harry, still staring at the place where Mad-Eye's face had been seconds before, saw familiar faces swimming clear as daylight in the Foe-Glass, glaring venomously down at the Stunned man.
"Harry," Sirius growled, reaching to grip his arm tightly. "I knew something like this was going to - What happened?"
"It's him," Harry whispered, still in shock, staring unseeingly into his godfather's face, barely recognising the man in front of him. He couldn't feel any pain, though he was bleeding all over and bruised from his haphazard landing, from his time in the Maze, from being tortured and abused. He was aware his hands were shaking, only because he could see them doing so. "Sirius, Moody is Voldemort's - Voldemort's most loyal -"
"This isn't Moody, Harry," Sirius said gruffly. Sirius went still, glancing over his shoulder, and in an instant, the great black dog was back, hackles raised, fur on end, growling threateningly, and caging Harry's body behind him, waiting to attack whoever was thundering down the corridor.
The instant Lupin, Ellaria and Ziggy Wodehouse appeared, wands all drawn and looking murderous, with Professors Dumbledore, Snape and McGonagall a second behind, Sirius stopped growling, lost all aggression, and sat draped over Harry, whose shaking hands went to his thick glossy fur, clutching tight, relief sweeping through him that there was no hooking sensation at his navel this time. Harry could feel Sirius' chest rising and falling, felt the warmth of his body, and the thunderous beating of his heart, and sat where he was, too shaken and confused to move.
"Harry!" Lupin gasped, relieved, and stalked to him, looping an arm around him in a fierce, brief hug. Harry noticed he was shaking, too, the lines in his face more pronounced.
"He's back," Harry whispered to him. "He's back, and Pettigrew did it. I should've let you k-kill him. Voldemort's back. It's my fault… Cedric's dead. Mad-Eye's a Death Eater."
The adults all had their wands drawn, and for the first time, Harry understood why Professor Dumbledore was the only one Voldemort had ever feared. There was no benign smile on his face, no twinkle in his intense blue eyes behind those winking half-moon spectacles. The look on his face as he glared down at Moody was more terrible than Harry could ever have imagined. Cold fury was written in every line on the ancient face. Power radiated from Dumbledore as if giving off burning heat.
Ellaria Scamander's mismatched eyes were locked on Moody, her face swimming in the Foe-Glass behind her, and Harry had never seen a woman look so like a bird of prey as she swooped down on the Auror, sharp and terrifying and predatory, bodily kicking him to his back. She reclaimed Mad-Eye's wand, and Harry watched, gaping, as she unflinchingly plucked the magical eye from Moody's face, detaching the leg, and checked a delicate pocket-watch on a silver chain before reaching inside Moody's robes, withdrawing a set of keys and handing Mad-Eye's hipflask to Professor Dumbledore.
He didn't hear what was said, but under her breath, Ellaria Scamander said something to Dumbledore as she handed him Moody's wand; Dumbledore answered, and Ellaria Scamander's shoulders knotted with tension, glowering over her shoulder at the Stunned man on the floor. She raised her wand, and Harry gasped softly as no fewer than four Patronuses appeared, filling the entire office with mesmerising blue-white light, a flock of enormous harpy-eagles, extraordinary and elegant. One by one, the Patronuses spread their wings and darted off, the same way Snape's had last summer, leaving the office much grimmer in their absence.
McGonagall went straight to Harry, the thin line of her mouth twitching as if she was about to cry. "Come along, Potter - off with you," she added to Sirius, who merely chuffed under his breath at her, not moving. "Hospital wing…"
"No." It was Dumbledore who spoke, and everyone turned to look at him, even Sirius, as Ellaria Scamander turned to the trunk.
"Dumbledore, he ought to - look at him - he's been through enough tonight -"
"He will stay, Minerva, because he needs to understand," Dumbledore said curtly. "Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery. He needs to know who has put him through the ordeal he has suffered tonight, and why."
"Moody," Harry murmured, still dazed, his fingers spasming around Sirius' fur. "How can it have been Moody?"
"This is not Alastor Moody," Dumbledore said quietly. He exchanged a sharp look with Ziggy Wodehouse, who nodded, and was now taking a notebook, fountain-pen and her Muggle camera out of a tiny handbag, sat at Moody's desk, the desk where the Auror had given Harry advice on how to handle the First Task, to defeat a dragon… "You have never know Alastor Moody, Harry."
"The real Moody would never have let you out of Dumbledore's sight," Ellaria Scamander said coldly, glaring down at the Stunned man. "Not after what you told him."
"Did he hurt you, Harry?" Lupin asked gently, and Harry shook his head, still in a state of shocked disbelief. His presence beside him, Sirius' warmth seeping through his body, were a relief. Ellaria Scamander unbuttoned her long, intricately-detailed black wool military coat, dipping a hand into an inside-pocket, and brought out a small phial, the contents shimmering reddish-copper like glowing embers made liquid.
"Harry, drink this," she said gently, carefully unscrewing the cap. With surprising tenderness, she pressed the phial to his lips and tipped the bottle, at the same time, brushing his hair away from his face in a maternal way. Whatever the potion was, it was delicious, and it went down like chocolate after a brush with Dementors, like his favourite soup on a bitter day, or a hot cup of tea after a strained Transfiguration lesson, bracing and comforting at once, with a hint of warm bread and treacle and his hands stopped shaking, he blinked the fuzziness from the corners of his eyes, and sat up a little straighter. A small chocolate followed, twisted in a silvery wrapper, dark and rich and buoying, and he flushed as Ellaria brushed the backs of her fingers against his cheek tenderly.
Professor Dumbledore turned to McGonagall and Snape. "Severus, please fetch me the strongest Truth Potion you possess, and then go down to the kitchens, and bring up a house-elf named Winky. Minerva, we shall shortly be receiving visitors from Magical Law Enforcement and the Auror Office. Please meet them at the gates, and bring them up to this office. They will no doubt wish to interrogate our imposter." The professors nodded and departed immediately.
"I need to contact the office," Ziggy said quietly, glancing at Dumbledore. "This needs to go to press, as soon as possible - you agree?"
"I do," Dumbledore said grimly. "You may borrow an owl."
"Hedwig can take your letter," Harry spoke up. "My snowy owl. She's very good."
"Thank you, Harry," Ziggy said, with a small smile, and nodded to him before leaving the office. Dumbledore turned next to Lupin. "Remus, please could you go and find Molly Weasley, I am sure she close to hysterical with worry about Harry. Please bring her and Bill Weasley back here." Lupin nodded, gave Harry a solemn look, and left the office. Harry watched Ellaria Scamander at Moody's trunk, unlocking each of the compartments in turn.
As she opened the seventh lock, Harry let out a cry of amazement. In a kind of pit, an underground room, seemingly fast asleep, thin and starved in appearance, his grizzled hair unevenly cut, lay the real Mad-Eye Moody. His wooden leg was gone, his eye-socket sunken and empty. Harry stared, thunder-struck, between the sleeping Moody in the trunk, and the one Sirius had Stunned moments ago.
Ellaria Scamander let out a long sigh, gazing down at Mad-Eye. "Oh, Alastor…" She exchanged a look with Dumbledore, before climbing into the trunk and dropping down to land neatly beside the scarred, starved old man. Harry watched her check something on her wrist, as she held her hand to Moody's throat, checking for a pulse. One of her bracelets glowed softly in the gloom.
"Subdued by the Imperius Curse, Professor… Only Stunned, otherwise." She twisted her wand, and a thick and cosy knitted blanket appeared, draping itself over the sleeping Moody: The blanket even tucked itself in.
"Of course, he needed Alastor alive, Harry," Dumbledore said, turning to Harry, who watched the headmaster unscrew Mad-Eye's hipflask and upturn the contents onto the floor, thick and glutinous. "You see the simplicity of it, and the brilliance. For Moody never does drink except from his hip-flask, he's well known for it. The imposter needed to keep Alastor close, of course, to continue making Polyjuice Potion. See how his hair is uneven…" Ellaria Scamander climbed nimbly out of the trunk, looking cold and angry, her features seemingly carved from stone, extraordinary cheekbones popping. "The imposter has been cutting Alastor's hair off all year… But I think, in tonight's excitement, our fake Moody may have forgotten to take the Polyjuice Potion as often as he should. On the hour, every hour… We shall see…"
And they waited.
Remus was the first to reappear, escorting Bill, who looked more serious and alert than Harry ever dreamed the laidback wizard could be, and Mrs Weasley, who was white as a sheet and looked somewhat deflated.
"Headmaster, the students have been escorted back to their Houses; the Prefects have been tasked with keeping everyone calm; and I've asked the house-elves to send tea and hot-chocolate to the common-rooms with toast and crumpets, I think they'll do the world of good," he told Dumbledore, who looked, Harry thought, very proud, his eyes glinting, before he nodded, and thanked Lupin very earnestly.
"Harry! Oh, Harry! Look at the state of you - but what's this - ?" Mrs Weasley blurted, stunned, staring at the man on the floor.
"Mad-Eye?" Bill gaped, disbelieving.
"I know your relationship with Harry, Molly; you look upon him much as you do your own children," Dumbledore said, and Mrs Weasley inflated somewhat, nodding tearfully, her chin rising proudly. "It is for that reason I have asked you here. Soon we shall hear the testimony of the wizard responsible for the terror Harry has endured so bravely this past year. I think I can rely on you to help Harry, as you have so often in the past."
"Of course," Mrs Weasley gushed, claiming his other side as Remus squeezed his shoulder. "But he needs Madam Pomfrey, Professor - look at him!"
"In due course, Molly…but for now, we must wait," Dumbledore said, his eyes on the Stunned wizard on the floor. And that was that; Mrs Weasley, whom Harry had witnessed rant and shout for hours on end at The Burrow, simply nodded, and started fussing over Harry with a handkerchief. Harry let her; honestly, he felt reassured by her presence. He couldn't remember ever being fussed over like this before.
Ziggy returned to the office next, quietly confirming to Dumbledore that an owl had been sent to stop printing; furthermore, the editor of The Phoenix was on her way.
Mrs Weasley gasped, and they all turned to watched, appalled, as before their very eyes, the face of the man on the floor started to change, the scars disappearing, the skin smooth; the mangled nose became whole, and started to shrink. The grizzled mane of grey hair withdrew to his scalp, turning thick and straw-coloured. Pale-skinned, slightly freckled, with a mop of fair hair, Harry suddenly recognised him as the young-man who had been put in trial in Dumbledore's Pensieve. Mr Crouch's son. Harry's stomach disappeared; he had watched the younger Crouch screaming to his father that he was innocent…
Sirius was growling low in his throat, hackles raised again, pale eyes locked on the Death Eater.
Hurried footsteps echoed in the corridor outside, and Snape reappeared, Winky at his heels, Professor McGonagall leading a large group of unfamiliar witches and wizards.
"Crouch!" Snape stopped dead in the doorway. "Barty Crouch!"
"Good heavens," McGonagall gasped, staring. Lupin's hand on Harry's shoulder twitched, Ellaria Scamander stood rigidly, and Harry felt Sirius tense, as the other witches and wizards entered the room. He didn't recognise any of them: A freckled woman with a cameo-like profile and ink-stained fingers noticed Ziggy and approached her, giving her a questioning glance. There was a tall, bald black man with a golden earring; a young pretty-eyed witch with a heart-shaped face and chin-length peacock-blue hair; a square-jawed witch wearing a monocle; an eerily beautiful, very tall, slender woman with short white-blonde hair, dressed in loose, androgynous charcoal-grey robes; a blue-eyed wizard with a grim set to his lips, wearing a suit and tie under a rumpled trench-coat; and a limping older wizard who immediately brought to Harry's mind a battle-scarred old lion he had once breathlessly watched fight a younger contender for dominance of the pride in a David Attenborough programme the Dursleys had charitably allowed him to watch with them.
"Master Barty!" Winky suddenly squeaked, letting out a pitiful shriek. "Master Barty! What is you doing here?" Filthy and dishevelled, Winky flung herself at Crouch's chest. "You is killed him! You is killed Master Barty!"
"He is simply Stunned, Winky," Dumbledore said gently. Dumbledore looked calmly over the top of his half-moon spectacles. "Madam Bones. Mr Scrimgeour. I commend your timing."
"Ellaria mentioned Moody's been impersonated," said the tall black man, in a deep and reassuring voice. Harry sat very still, aware that Sirius Black was curled up over him, and that all eyes seemed to be darting to him, still bleeding all over the place.
"What's happened, Dumbledore?"
"We shall find out together," Dumbledore said, eyeing Barty Crouch Jr with distaste. "Before we revive Mr Crouch - introductions should be made. Beneath the blood and sweat you will all recognise Mr Potter, I am sure. Harry, may I introduce Shelley Franklin, owner and editor of the excellent newspaper The Phoenix. It is also my honour to introduce Amelia Bones. You may know of her niece, Susan Bones, who is in your year, in Hufflepuff House. Beside her is Rufus Scrimgeour, who is Head of the Auror Office. We have Rivkah Holmes -" The androgynous woman inclined her head with all the elegance of an empress, and her thin lips twitched into a smile that was almost shockingly gentle considering her sharp, minimalist appearance - "Alexandros Stark" - the man in the trench-coat stared at Harry, making him feel uncomfortable. The deep-voiced black wizard nodded his head when Dumbledore introduced him as "Kingsley Shacklebolt. And this charming young-lady with the hair is none other than Nymphadora Tonks, who recently completed gruelling Auror training."
"Wotcher," the young witch beamed at Harry. "And please don't call me Nymphadora, Professor. It's Tonks!" Dumbledore's eyes twinkled for a moment, and he allowed a chuckle.
"All but Madam Bones and Mrs Franklin are Aurors, Harry," Dumbledore told him sombrely. "Madam Bones is Head of the Department of Law Enforcement and sits on the Wizengamot."
"What happened, Dumbledore? Fudge was blustering about the Triwizard Tournament 'always having casualties'," the leonine wizard said, his voice accented and rumbling, narrowing his eyes at Dumbledore. "Seemed to think we were overstepping by appearing at your invitation."
"Has a boy really been killed, Professor?" said Madam Bones. She had a rather commanding voice, but with a kindness to it: Harry was reminded of Mrs Weasley, who had pressed her folded-up handkerchief over the cut on his arm.
"Yes. He was murdered during the plot to revive Lord Voldemort to a body," Dumbledore said unflinchingly; the reactions were not unexpected, and if the situation had been any other, Harry might have found it funny. Mrs Weasley jumped and gasped sharply; Bill twitched, and went pale. The black wizard jolted as if someone had hexed him; the androgynous witch paled even more, looking almost albino; the grim-looking man in the trench-coat looked suddenly innocent and lost, childlike; and the vibrant young witch managed to trip over her boot-laces, her hair turning white with shock. Harry stared at her, wondering how she had done it.
Only the rangy older man did not react, staring at Dumbledore. "This evening Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory were transported outside of the Hogwarts grounds by an unauthorised Portkey. You will find the Triwizard Cup available for examination later. Firstly I should like to hear the testimony of young Master Crouch. Severus, do you have the Veritaserum?"
"Yes, Headmaster," Snape said, and produced the tiny bottle he had once threatened Harry with during class. Dumbledore took the vial, but before he could administer the potion to Crouch, Ziggy Wodehouse cleared her throat gently.
"Professor - before we start… Everything should be recorded," she said quietly, catching Ellaria's eye across the room. They held each other's gaze for a long moment, before Ellaria Scamander nodded, and as Ziggy started taking photographs of everything - the Stunned Crouch; the Polyjuice Potion on the floor; the real Mad-Eye in his own trunk; Harry, bleeding, still confused - Ellaria reached into the inside-pocket of her coat, withdrawing an innocuous palm-sized wooden box.
She set the box down on the desk, opened the delicate clasp, and delicately tapped her wand with her fingertip as if flicking a bead of moisture from the end. Everyone watched as what looked like a set of gobstones in varying sizes floated out of the box, glinting in the lamplight, almost mirroring the solar system as each tiny glass sphere drifted to a point in the room and started orbiting, and Harry jumped, startled, as beams of light emanated from them, similar to the way Harry had seen lasers in Dudley's favourite superhero films scan rooms to collate information. The lights were shimmering, iridescent, like the Aurora Borealis, colours beyond imagining, flickering, light undulating gold and red-hot and pure white and dangerous opalescent black. Ellaria produced a jar from her pocket, and set it onto the desk beside the wooden box, borrowing Ziggy's fountain-pen and a slip of notebook paper to start writing.
"These will take impressions of the room," Ellaria explained, glancing not just at Harry but at the Aurors, who were gazing at the marbles and the light as if they were unnerved, had never seen anything like them. "Like memories in a Pensieve, they will record everything in perfect detail, every sensation, audible, tactile, olfactible, as if they were real and witnessing things as we are, so we may go back and investigate even the tiniest detail. They will pick up magical signatures and spells used in the vicinity, and allow for us to revisit what occurred. More importantly, unlike memory, the information, once collated, cannot be tampered with, and nor is it biased for it has a truly neutral perspective."
"Where did you get these?" Rufus Scrimgeour asked sharply, his tone deeply suspicious, as one of the marbles slowly orbited his head, light flickering off everything around him. "M.A.C.U.S.A.?"
Harry frowned, wondering who Macusa was. Ellaria didn't answer immediately, except to scoff gently under her breath, and Harry wondered if she was pointedly ignoring him; she continued to write, but she did tilt her head to look at Scrimgeour with both eerie eyes from behind her dreads. Harry got the impression Ellaria did not like Rufus Scrimgeour. Finally she stood, her back ramrod straight, idly capping her pen, and said proudly, "No… My daughter created them."
Sirius' head jerked up, staring at Ellaria through the Aurora Borealis of light and colour filling the room. Gradually, the light and colours settled down, and Harry noticed that the dark gobstones had started to softly glow from within. Harry glanced at Professor Dumbledore, who was watching the gobstones with a strange kind of innocent childlike wonder on his face.
Finally, Dumbledore strode past, uncapping the Veritaserum bottle, saying kindly, "Winky, may I ask you to step aside. I shall not hurt him." Hiccoughing, Winky tottered out of the way; Harry wasn't sure whether respect for Dumbledore's politeness or the dread of failing to uphold a direct order made her step out of the way, but her streaming eyes followed Dumbledore's every move as he wrenched the younger wizard's jaw open and spilled three drops of Veritaserum into his mouth. Ellaria then helped him pull Crouch into a sitting-position beneath the Foe-Glass that now seemed like a normal mirror.
Finally, he pointed to the man's chest with his wand and murmured, "Rennervate." As Sirius tensed around Harry, the younger wizard's eyelashes fluttered as his blue eyes opened. His face was slack, his gaze unfocused, but when Dumbledore asked, "Can you hear me?" he answered, "Yes."
"I would like you to tell us," Dumbledore said softly, "how you came to be here. How did you escape from Azkaban?"
Crouch took a deep, shuddering breath, and started to speak in a flat, emotionless voice. "My mother saved me…"
They listened, and Harry stared, and the little floating marbles glowed brighter as the whole, terrible truth unfolded. Ziggy and the editor Shelley Franklin were both scribbling short-hand onto notepads, eyes fixed on Crouch, or darting around the room, taking in everyone's reactions. Remus stayed by Harry's side, hand on his shoulder, while Sirius had his pale eyes fixed on Crouch, ears pricked up, listening to every word. Madam Bones and the young Auror Tonks were also taking notes on rolls of parchment, and if the other Aurors wanted to ask questions, they waited out of respect as Dumbledore gently prodded and pried. The Veritaserum was awe-inspiring; Harry wondered why the Ministry had never used it to confirm Sirius was the traitor - if only to use the information to round up other Death Eaters after Voldemort's defeat. It would have proven in an instant that Sirius was no traitor.
Finally, heavily, Dumbledore asked, "And tonight?"
"I offered to carry the Triwizard Cup into the Maze before dinner," Crouch whispered. "Turned it into a Portkey. My master's plan worked. He is returned to power and I will be honoured by him beyond the dreams of wizards…"
An insane smile lit his features, and his head drooped onto his shoulders as Winky sobbed at his side.
For a moment, no-one spoke. Dumbledore stared down at Crouch with undisguised disgust. Then Ellaria Scamander flicked her wand idly, and something silvery like moonlight, slinky and shining sinuously, swam through thin-air like a water-snake; the fine chain made some of the Aurors sigh softly, or click their tongues, staring in wonder, and Harry was glad he didn't seem to be the only one who didn't know what it was; but he was too stunned by Crouch's testimony to ask. The chain bound itself around Crouch's neck, wrists, middle and ankles, and hissed and burned angry red where the charmed metal came into contact with his skin. Winky cried at the sight, but Ellaria stooped to murmur something to Winky, who hiccoughed, gazing at Ellaria as if captivated, and nodded so vigorously her huge ears flapped noisily. Winky took the end of the silver chain, sniffed, and stood resolutely by Crouch's side, her tiny shoulders thrown back defiantly, daring anyone to approach her. Harry wondered what Ellaria had said to Winky, for the tiny elf was gazing respectfully up at her.
Ellaria then flicked her wand again, and the glowing gobstones drifted sluggishly to the jar on the desk, moving the way Harry and Ron felt sometimes after school Feasts when they'd eaten too much. Once they reached the jar, they descended into it patiently, one after the other, seeming to ooze light and colour into the jar, seeping memory, until the brightness and colour and pure light made Harry scrunch up his eyes in pain. Each marble rose from the light, now darkened, empty again, and sank neatly into its place in the suede lining of the innocuous wooden box. Ellaria clasped the jar shut, and murmured something before tapping her wand against the jar in a complicated sequence. A miniature explosion seemed to be occurring inside the jar; the light built in intensity until everything in the room seemed bleached of colour, and in the next heartbeat, settled down, leaving them blinking. The jar stood, full of something almost like the contents of Dumbledore's Pensieve, a darker silver than Dumbledore's thoughts, a miniature thunderstorm full of violent lightning had been captured inside the jar, swirling idly and crackling with light and colour. Ellaria carefully stuck her handwritten label on the jar and pocketed it.
None of the witches or wizards seemed to know what to say.
Then, sensibly, her voice tight and lethal and the tone Harry usually associated with her berating her mischievous twin sons, Mrs Weasley said, "He should be dragged straight back to Azkaban!"
This seemed to jolt the Aurors into action, and the one named Alexandros Stark was dispatched, to return with Hit Wizards who would escort Crouch to Azkaban, to the cell he had abandoned his dying mother to years ago.
"He's confessed to murder, kidnapping, and the use of the Imperius Curse, collusion, and escape from Azkaban, Dumbledore, but of You-Know-Who returning, how could he have any idea, if he never left the Hogwarts grounds?" Madam Bones asked reasonably.
Dumbledore and Snape exchanged a fleeting look, and Snape peeled the sleeve of his robe back, revealing a hideous scar burned into his left forearm. The Dark Mark, branded there for all to see - and for Lord Voldemort to summon. A bitter taste sprang to Harry's mouth when he saw it, reminded of Wormtail, writhing on the ground, handless, as Lord Voldemort pressed a long, spidery finger to his most cowardly servant's scar. Harry wondered briefly whether Lord Voldemort would punish Snape for not showing his face at the graveyard.
"Whatever the Dark Lord planned this evening worked. It is not as clear as it was, an hour ago, when it burnt black, but every Death Eater had the sign burnt into him by the Dark Lord. It was a means of distinguishing each other, and his means of summoning us to him. When he touched the Mark of any Death Eater, we were to Disapparate, and Apparate, instantly, at his side," Snape said coolly, and Harry noticed Tonks gaping at the Mark on his arm. The older Aurors shifted uncomfortably, and some of them glanced at Dumbledore. "This Mark has been growing clearer all year. Karkaroff's too. He fled this evening, when he felt the Mark burn as it hasn't in thirteen years. We both knew the Dark Lord had returned. You of all people will know how many Karkaroff betrayed to remain outside Azkaban's walls, a free man. Now he has fled; he dreads the Dark Lord's vengeance."
Kingsley Shacklebolt strode forward, inclining his head to Winky, who watched him shrewdly but allowed him to push up the sleeve of Crouch's stolen robes. The Dark Mark burned angrily on his arm.
"You know what this means, don't you?" Shacklebolt said, in his slow, deep voice, glancing over at Madam Bones, at Rufus Scrimgeour. "Sirius Black… All evidence proves it was Peter Pettigrew who betrayed the Potters all those years ago…" He turned to sweep his dark eyes over Harry's face, searching for something there.
"I'd hoped you would come to the same conclusion," Dumbledore said, smiling benignly at Rufus Scrimgeour for some reason, almost as if getting a dig in. "You've been working tirelessly to track down Sirius Black for the better part of two years, Kingsley, I'd hate for you to hear the news second-hand. We shall have to talk later…but for now…yes, I think - it is time… Sirius, would you care to join us? I believe your godson would benefit from your presence…"
A.N.: See, simples! All the magic in the world doesn't mean a thing if you haven't got an ounce of common-sense, and re-reading Goblet of Fire it astounds me how many simple mistakes were made by grown adults which could've affected a completely different outcome!
Also, Tilda Swinton inspired Rivkah Holmes; and Castiel, Alexandros Stark!
Oh, and I WILL NOT KILL TONKS OR REMUS. There's a list of characters precious to me; anyone else, I cannot be held responsible for their fates…well, maybe a little…but I apologise for nothing!