McGonagall led the pair of them to Dumbledore's office and informed them that Dumbledore would be with them as soon as he could, although Merlin alone knew why he needed to see a couple of dogs or when "as soon as possible" would be. Regulus and Sirius stared at her politely like well-behaved animals until she left them in the office.
Sirius transformed just after the door shut. "If he called for us, something definitely happened," he announced, and immediately began to pace.
Regulus transformed himself but didn't reply, only took one of the seats by Dumbledore's desk and watched his brother's progress back and forth across the room. There wasn't anything he could say— there wasn't anything either of them could say— it was just a matter of waiting for Dumbledore now.
Occasionally Sirius muttered "What happened?" but it was neither a question Regulus could answer nor one he thought Sirius intended to be answered, so he kept quiet, toying with the sleeve of his jacket and trying not to think about what was under it until he absolutely had to.
Finally, however, the oak door creaked open on ancient hinges and Harry and Dumbledore stood in the doorway. Seemingly without moving, Sirius was across the room. "Harry, are you all right? I knew something like this— what happened?"
Regulus removed himself from the chair so that Sirius could lead Harry to it. Both of them were trembling.
"What happened?" Sirius asked again.
Dumbledore supplied an answer this time. "As I'm sure Regulus has already informed you, Voldemort has returned. He did so by planting a follower at this school, one that until tonight I did not recognize— Barty Crouch, Jr."
Regulus looked over sharply. "Crouch's kid? Little blonde tagalong of the likes of Rabastan and Snape?"
Dumbledore nodded. "His father smuggled him out of Azkaban as a last favor to his mother and kept him under the Imperius Curse. Bertha Jorkins found out, and Voldemort did so through her when she disappeared on vacation. He invaded Crouch's home and put Barty under the Imperius Curse rather than his son, who has been impersonating Alastor Moody all year."
"So he was a Death Eater," Sirius murmured. "Not that it excuses the way Crouch ran the trial. . . ."
Dumbledore nodded. "The imposter Moody put Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire and created a portkey out of the Triwizard Cup. Through this, Harry was transported to the place where Voldemort returned to power."
Sirius nodded vaguely. Regulus whistled under his breath. If there was anything he admired about the Dark Lord, it was his ability to plan and to fool anyone short of Dumbledore in the carrying out. It seemed this time, he had almost succeeded in fooling Dumbledore as well.
Meanwhile, Fawks, Dumbledore's phoenix had come to perch on Harry's knee. The boy was stroking it absently, his eyes half-closed as if he were almost asleep.
Dumbledore sat down at his desk and leaned over it, looking intently at Harry. "Harry," he said. "I need you to tell me what happened after the portkey transported you out of the maze."
Sirius looked up in surprise. "He doesn't have to do it tonight, does he, Dumbledore?" he asked, putting a hand protectively on Harry's shoulder. "Let him rest. He's earned it."
Harry and Regulus both turned to the headmaster to see if he would agree. Dumbledore, however, simply shook his head. "If I thought I could ease the pain by giving you a potion for an enchanted, dreamless sleep and letting you delay the moment in which you had to relive the experience, I would. But I know better. Numbing the pain will only make it sharper when you must feel it. You have already shown more courage than I would normally ask of anyone tonight, Harry, but I must ask you to demonstrate it one more time. I ask you to tell us what happened."
Sirius looked as if he would continue to protest, but Fawks let out a quavering, melodious note. Harry took a deep breath and started, slowly, to tell the tale.
"I . . . I told Cedric to take the cup with me, so it transported us both to a graveyard. Wormtail was there and . . . Voldemort . . . he told him to kill the spare. . . ."
Sirius's grip tightened on Harry's shoulder and opened his mouth. Regulus half-expected Sirius to claim there was no point in making him tell the tale tonight again, but Dumbledore gave him a pointed look and he remained silent.
Harry told them haltingly of a creature of sorts thrown into a cauldron, followed by the bones of Tom Riddle— apparently Voldemort's father— and Peter Pettigrew's own hand. The last detail made Regulus twitch a little and rub the Mark on his own arm. It never ceased to amaze him what Voldemort could convince his followers to do.
When Harry mentioned the Pettigrew had dug his knife into Harry's arm as well, Sirius swore and tightened his grip again. Regulus reached over and yanked his brother backwards, forcing him to loosen his grip, all the while feeling like swearing himself. He recognized the spell now from an ancient tomb on Dark Magic somewhere in their parents' library, and the whole thing made a little bit of sense now. "Mala ars dicorum," he mumbled.
"What?" Sirius asked.
"The words of evil art," Dumbledore translated. He was on his feet and had walked back around his desk, an odd and urgent look on his face. "The phrase has been used to describe similar rituals, and it is apt for this one." He shook his head. "Harry, may I see your arm?"
Harry extended it, revealing the jagged cut in his robes and equally uneven cut on his arm— Pettigrew's hand must have been trembling. "He said my blood would make him stronger than if he used someone else's. he said the protection my— my mother left in me— he'd have it too. And he was right— he could touch my without hurting himself, he touched my face."
Dumbledore's face took on a tremendously puzzling cast for a moment, as if he was looking into an answer he alone could see, but a moment afterwards that was all gone. He retreated behind his desk once again and sat back down. "Very well. Voldemort has overcome that particular barrier. Harry, continue, please."
Harry nodded hesitantly and did so. He described how Voldemort had risen alive from the cauldron and called his followers through the Mark on Pettigrew's arm— Regulus had rubbed his arm compulsively again at this detail before he realized what he was doing and shoved his hands hastily into his jacket pockets— and how the Death Eaters had gathered in a circle around him.
"Voldemort said he was disappointed in them," Harry continued, "since most of them had just gone back to their normal lives after he'd fallen, and that it would take thirteen years of service before he would forgive them for it. He told them that his truly loyal servant— Crouch, I guess— was at Hogwarts. He mentioned a few that were in Azkaban and a few that hadn't come back at all . . . who he planned to kill. . . ."
Sirius finally tore his eyes away from Harry for a moment to glance back at his brother, as worried about Regulus as he was about his godson.
Regulus shrugged— there was no reassurance he could give, since Pettigrew would undoubtably have told Voldemort he was still alive. Still, it was a little comforting, somehow, to know that his brother could tell how much danger he was in, and cared enough to want some reassurance or plan of action.
Harry continued, describing the duel Voldemort had had him fight— the mock duel, really, since the Dark Lord could not have thought a fourteen-year-old boy was any threat. Regulus's fists curled in his pockets as he listened, wondering how he'd put up with the man's behavior for even the comparatively short time he had. Even Bella would rather just kill him than taunt him endlessly like a cat playing with a mouse.
"And I cast Explliarmus and he cast Avada Kedavra at the same time and the wands connected, and. . . ." Harry swallowed, but it didn't seem as if he could bring himself to continue.
A heavy silence fell on the four in the office, until Sirius finally broke it. "The wands connected?" he asked, turning to Dumbledore. "Why?"
Dumbledore looked a little surprised himself, but after a moment he muttered, "Priori Incantatem." He looked over at Harry, and the two stared at each other for a moment.
Sirius broke the resumed silence once again. "The reverse spell effect?"
"Exactly. Harry and Voldemort's wand share a tail-feather core from the same phoenix. This phoenix, in fact," Dumbledore responded, nodding to Fawks.
"My wand's core came from Fawks?" Harry asked.
"Indeed. Mr. Ollivander wrote to tell me that you had bought the other wand with Fawks's feather when you left his shop four years ago."
"So what happens when two such wands duel?" Sirius continued doggedly, clearly determined to get an answer.
"They will not work properly against each other," Dumbledore replied. "If, however, the owners of the wands force them to do battle, a very rare effect will occur. One of the wands will force the other to regurgitate the spells it has preformed— in the reverse. The most recent first, and so on."
He glanced over at Harry, who nodded.
"Which means," Dumbledore continued, "that some form of Cedric must have reappeared."
Regulus, who had spent more of his teenage years buried in a book on magical theory than he liked to admit rather than out in the world gaining the experience with people that would have enabled him to get out of the situation Bella had dragged him into at seventeen, whistled under his breath and reached up to adjust his glasses. "Of course," he muttered. "But still. . . ."
Sirius, however, had not had Regulus's exposure to magical theory. "Diggory came back to life?" he demanded, clearly confused.
Dumbledore shook his head heavily. "No spell can reawaken the dead. All that would have happened was a sort of reverse echo. A shadow of the living Cedric would have emerged from the wand. . . . Am I correct, Harry?"
Harry nodded. "He spoke to me . . . the ghost Cedric, whatever he was, spoke to me. . . ."
"An echo," Dumbledore repeated, "that would have retained Cedric's form and personality. And I would assume other such echoes appeared?"
Harry nodded. "An old man . . . Bertha Jorkins . . . and . . . and. . . ."
"Your parents?" Dumbledore asked.
As Harry nodded again, Regulus watched the muscles flex on Sirius's right hand as his grip tightened on the kid's shoulder again.
"The last murders the wand performed, in reverse order. Very well, Harry, these echoes, these shadows . . . what did they do?"
Harry explained how his father had explained what to do and how Cedric has asked him to return his body to his parents before fading off, clearly unable to continue. Sirius's breathing had gotten heavier as Harry tried to finish, and he took his— undoubtably painful— grip off of Harry's shoulder to bury his head in his hands. As Harry faded off, Regulus lay an awkward hand on his brother's shoulder.
Fawks drifted to the floor and began to cry, patching up the wound on Harry's leg. Had it not been for Sirius's heavy breathing, Regulus might have sworn that he could hear the sound of the phoenix's teardrops.
"I will say this once again, Harry," Dumbledore said as Fawks flew onto his perch again, "you have shown courage beyond anything I could have expected of you tonight, equal to adult wizards who fought Voldemort at the height of his powers. You have shouldered the burden of an adult wizard and found yourself equal to it— and you have now given us more than we had a right to expect. And now you will accompany me to the hospital wing. I don't want you returning to your dormitory tonight. . . . I assume you two would like to stay with him?"
Sirius lifted his face from his hands, a little surprised, and nodded. Both he and Regulus transformed into canines and followed the two down the flight of steps and up another to the hospital wing. Several members of the Weasley family, Hermione Granger, and Madame Pomfrey were waiting for them.
"Oh, Harry!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed, striding forward.
Dumbledore held up a hand to stop her. "Molly, Harry has been through a terrible ordeal tonight, and he has just had to relive it for me. If he would like you all to stay with him, you may do so. But I do not want you questioning him, and certainly not this evening."
Mrs. Weasley, who was already pale, looked even a little more frightened and nodded, rounding on the other. "Do you hear? He needs quiet!"
Madame Pomfrey, on the other hand, was looking distastefully at Sirius and Regulus. "Headmaster, may I ask what. . . ?"
"The dogs will be remaining with Harry for awhile," Dumbledore explained. "I assure you they are very well trained. Harry— I will wait until you get into bed."
There was near silence until Harry had gotten into a bed and been given a potion to help him sleep, after which Dumbledore left to speak with Fudge. It was only after a slightly more comfortable silence had settled in that it occurred to Regulus that Harry had only drank half the purple liquid in the bottle.
Author's Note: There are definitely two more chapters to 1994, just so you all know how much longer it's going to last --- there's no way I can wrap this all up in one. Anyway, onto the reviews. Jackline: I assure you I have thought about most of 1995 in detail, and I'm itching to get started on it, but I won't let myself until I actually finish this one (I'm depending on winter break, here). Mizz Moony Luver: ((hugs)) I missed you. StarGirl5000: I appreciate that I haven't gone as deep into this as I will, but Reggie is one of those people who keeps his head pretty much at all times. He's a little on the passive side and he grew up with Bella, so equates panic with getting even deeper into trouble, which are two pretty good reasons he didn't do anything--- he didn't have all the information. Still, thanks very much for giving me a review that made me pause and think, and thank you very much to everyone else who dropped me a line! Cheers! --- Loki