Disclaimer – I do not own Harry Potter.


Albus is sitting in his office, wondering when exactly things got so out of hand. Two people are missing, Harry's in this tournament and has been attacked, and Lupin has taken a leave of absence. When he and Minerva had come to him and explained everything they had neglected to inform him of before, he was understandably irate, though he cannot deny they had a point. He is feeling rather overworked these days.

So when the door to his office opens and closes without a person in sight, he wonders if it might be time to consider a leave of absence for himself. Then the youngest Weasley boy takes off Harry's cloak.

"R-" Albus is cut off by Ron putting a hand up and mimicking shushing without making any actual noise. He gestures for Albus to join him under the cloak. Undeniably intrigued, Albus goes.

Ron leads him out of the castle, careful to ensure they are neither seen nor heard or in any other way caught. It's not until they enter the tunnel under the Whomping Willow that he takes off the cloak.

"There's a few things you are not aware of Headmaster," Ron begins, still walking down the tunnel with Albus following along.

"That seems to be a consistent theme of late," Albus replies, Ron snorts slightly, though it sounds anything but amused.

"Yes, well. We need your help."

"We could not have done this back in my office?" Ron shakes his head.

"It's not safe, anyone could overhear and in that castle right now, that could mean the end of it." Albus frowns in concern as they enter the shack and begin to climb the stairs.

"End of what, exactly? And who is 'we'?"

"That would be us, Professor." Albus looks up to find Harry, Hermione, Lupin, and Tonks standing before him, Lupin appearing just as confused as he.

"Perhaps you ought to tell us what this is about, Mr Potter," Albus suggests, gesturing to himself and Lupin.

"To be honest, Sir, I've a fair few gaps in my knowledge and memory of the situation. Best let Ron and Hermione take care of that," Harry tells him. Albus leans against the now closed door and nods for Ron to do so.

"Back in August, when you and Moody came by the Burrow, Harry got a funny feeling off of Moody. Just before the world cup he had a dream about a man he didn't know, Peter Pettigrew, and you-know-who," Ron begins, Albus has to admit that he's surprised whatever is happening has been going on so long.

"Why have I not been informed of any of this?" Albus asks, Tonks winces.

"If you're going to stop us and ask that every time something comes up, this is going to take a very long time, Sir," She tells him.

"You're in on this?" Remus asks her, "Whatever this is?"

"So are you, though you didn't know it," Tonks tells him, he looks at her incredulously.

"Perhaps we had better let them explain," Albus suggests, they all turn back to Ron and Hermione.

"Padfoot and Professor Moony told Harry and I that Wormtail had escaped after Harry told them about the dream. Then the world cup happened, so we were fairly certain that Harry's dream held some amount of truth. After Harry's name came out of the cup, Dean theorised that perhaps it is Peter's attempt to kill Harry. We were concerned then that Padfoot would take off after him," Hermione continues.

"Which he did," Remus comments.

"No, he didn't," Tonks says, Albus and Remus look at her in surprise, "We think he's been captured. See, the ministry is trying to make things up to him, so if anyone were going to be able to get Harry out of the tournament, it would have been him. They needed to get rid of him, but if he'd turned up dead, everything would have been thrown off. They made him disappear and correctly assumed everyone would think he went after Pettigrew."

"Right, but Harry still suspected Moody enough that he wouldn't let it go, so we promised to look into it and he promised to focus on the tournament," Ron explains, "We were planning on watching the map to keep an eye on him but ended up asking Ginny to do it. At some point in the night she borrowed Harry's invisibility cloak and went to check on something. That was the night she disappeared."

"The next morning we wondered if we should tell you, Professor," Hermione says, looking at Remus, "But the twins had seen what happened to your classroom and put together what was going on. They asked Ron about it, he swore them to secrecy about everything and then brought it to Harry. More importantly, however. We realised it was a pretty big coincidence that Padfoot disappears, you have your focus shifted somewhere else, and Harry is entered into the tournament. All we knew at that point is that it somehow involved Moody. Whoever was behind it was clearly keeping an eye on Professor Moony, if we went to you about it, they would have known we were onto them."

"Now we knew that Moody isn't who he says he is, we tried to work out how he's disguising himself. Back when Moody first turned up at Hogwarts, Harry wondered what was in that flask of his which made Hermione think he was using it for Polyjuice potion. So, now we had a working theory, but another problem. If one person in the school has been replaced, who else might have been?" Ron tells them.

"Hence all the secrecy," Albus says, Ron nods.

"That's when we went to Tonks."

"Right, they told me all they knew up to that point," Tonks begins explaining, "I told them to search Moody's office, quarters, and classroom while I kept him out of the school. I took him to your house, had Kreacher tell him some bogus story about a rat and Sirius being captured," She says.

"Unfortunately, we'd lost the map and the cloak," Ron continues, "So when we went to search, we had to be careful. Hermione went to look in his quarters, I took the classroom, and Harry to his office."

"Right, Hermione came running in yelling that she'd found the map," Harry comments, face scrunched in thought as he tries to properly recall the incident, Ron and Hermione nod as Hermione flushes slightly.

"Exactly, that's when we got the cloak back too. Also, you found evidence of the Polyjuice potion. We used the map to find Moody and Ginny-"

"Wait, you found them?!" Tonks asks, Ron nods, "Why didn't you say anything?"

"We couldn't."

"Why?" Remus asks.

"Moody pointed out that until we know where Sirius is being held, tipping them off might get him killed," Hermione explains, "So the two decided to stay where they were. Said they'd be safe so long as Ginny doesn't keep angering Crouch."

"Crouch?" The three adults and Harry ask.

"Barty Crouch Jr, Mr Crouch's son. He's the one imitating Moody. He's believed to have died in Azkaban, but he didn't, we aren't sure how," Hermione tells them.

"And he's the one that nabbed Uncle Padfoot?" Harry asks.

"No, we still think that's Pettigrew's doing." Remus rubs the bridge of his nose.

"So the two are working together? What for?"

"According to Moody, to bring you-know-who back. He said that Harry being in this tournament was part of their plan. Ginny told him not to go anywhere alone," Ron says.

"Which I did and then got attacked?" Harry asks, they nod, "Does that mean it was Moody-Crouch-whatever, that attacked me?"

"He's the one who had been threatening Moony and it was in his office that you were attacked so, we'd say so, yes."

"And that attack lead to you leaving the school," Albus adds, looking at Remus who seems unhappy.

"What's changed, why are you telling us all of this now?" Tonks asks the kids.

"I had another dream," Harry tells them, "Voldemort has Ginny, he's having Pettigrew torture her." Everyone looks shocked and horrified except Ron who had already known.

"Why?" Albus asks, "What does he want with her?" Harry awkwardly looks down.

"We're not entirely sure, Sir," Hermione responds, not noticing Harry continuing to not meet anyone's eyes.

"Harry…?" Remus asks him in what Harry internally refers to as his 'Expectant Uncle' voice that lets Harry know he has a few seconds to start talking before the disappointed look begins marring Remus' face.

"She didn't want anyone to know, and it won't help us find her or stop them," Harry tells them. They all look at him expectantly, "Voldemort possessed her through the diary two years ago. She couldn't fight him off, so she looked into the part of him the diary held."

"She looked into a fragment of Voldemort's soul?" Albus asks disbelievingly, Harry nods.

"I'm not sure it was entirely on purpose but…yes. I can't think of any other reason he'd want anything from her, but I also don't know how he'd have found out. Unless she told him, which, would be pretty stupid."

"So exactly what happened, then?" Ron guesses.

"Probably, yes."

"Do we have any idea where Ginny and Sirius are being held?" Remus asks, the trio shake their heads.

"The real Moody has no further idea?" Albus questions, Ron and Hermione shake their heads.

"We don't know what to do, Sir," Harry admits. Remus steps forward, hugging him. He opens one arm up so that Hermione can join the hug. He often feels as responsible for her as he does for Harry since he and Sirius got to know her so well over the summer and she spent so much time in their care. Plus, she's one of the few people to be able to shout sense into his brain until he understands and stops being stupid.

"At this point, there is not much we can do," Dumbledore finally says.

"He's torturing my sister!" Ron tells him, aghast.

"Yes, and had one of you come to me before now, perhaps some action could have been taken," Albus replies sharply, everyone seems taken aback, "As it is, one wrong move will lead to not only Sirius' death, but Ginny's as well, and quite possibly the resurrection of Voldemort." They all look around awkwardly.

"Has anyone any idea how they plan to bring Voldemort back?" Remus asks, "Or what Harry's participation in the tournament has to do with it?"

"They're trying to kill me?" Harry suggests.

"Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to just for that, Harry."

"Yes, but, on the other hand, it's Voldemort. He unnecessarily overcomplicates things for a living and failed to kill me because of it before." Everyone seems confused, Harry huffs, "Well, seriously, why didn't he just fire the killing curse at my Mother, pick me up, and throw me out of a window or something? Or against a wall? I was a year old, really."

"Tell you what, when we find him, you can ask," Ron tells him, Harry rolls his eyes at the tone Ron uses, suggesting Harry's a bloody idiot.

"How are we going to find him?" Harry asks, Albus sighs wearily.

"I think that given time, Harry, he will find you."