The Gryffindor Common Room was empty except for Harry who sat on a couch by the fire. Reluctantly I pulled the cloak off of Emily and myself.
"Ron why'd you bring her along?" Harry grumbled at Ron, as he pointed in my direction.
"Harry she's your sister, she should know what's going on. Look I get mad at my brothers all the time, Ginny more than any of them…but if we stopped talking every time we had a fight…family's all you got Harry." I was fairly sure it was the most sentimental thing Ron Weasley had ever said. It was awkward, but sentimental. Harry opened his mouth to argue, but before he was given the chance, Sirius' head popped into the fireplace. It was shocking at first, but I assumed it was so form of ½ flooing. Harry scrambled from his seat to crouched down by the hearth.
"Sirius - how're you doing?"
"Never mind me, how are you?" Sirius asked gravely.
"I'm -" Harry stopped and looked over at me. Reluctantly Harry recounted everything that had happened since left Hogwarts last term. "But Alice is here, now…and…I think we're ok now. Right?" Harry asked finishing with our recent disagreement.
"Absolutely. Hello Sirius!" I told them both waving into the fire. Sirius looked back at us blinking. His eyes were full of concern. Something I had never seen on Sirius' facebefore.
"Dragons we can deal with, Alice, but we'll get to that in a minute. I haven't got long here...I've broken into a wizarding house to use the fire, but they could be back at any time. There are things I need to warn you both about."
"What?" Harry asked leaning into the embers.
"Karkaroff," Sirius said. "Harry, he was a Death Eater. You know what Death Eaters are, don't you?"
"Yes." Harry replied nodding.
"He was caught, he was in Azkaban but he got released. I'd bet everything that's why Dumbledore wanted an Auror at Hogwarts this year to keep an eye on him. Moody caught Karkaroff. Put him into Azkaban in the first place."
"That explains why Moody was acting so weird when Dumbledore told Karkaroff and Maxime I'd have to compete." I said recounting the event to Harry, Sirius, Emily and Ron.
"Karkaroff got released?" Harry asked still not able to grasp the concept. "Why did they release him?"
"He did a deal with the Ministry of Magic," Sirius said bitterly. "He said he'd seen the error of his ways, and then he named names...he put a load of other people into Azkaban in his place...He's not very popular in there, I can tell you. And since he got out, from what I can tell, he's been teaching the Dark Arts to every student who passes through that school of his. So watch out for the Durmstrang champion as well."
"Wonderful." I I muttered. "But...are you saying Karkaroff put my name in the goblet? Because if he did, he's a really good actor. He seemed furious about it. He wanted to stop me from competing."
"We know he's a good actor," Sirius replied. "because he convinced the Ministry of Magic to set him free, didn't he? Now, I've been keeping an eye on the Daily Prophet, Harry -"
"- you and the rest of the world," Harry replied bitterly, exchanging a look with Ron. Apparently there had been a lot of important Prophet articles I had missed over the last few weeks.
"and reading between the lines of that Skeeter woman's article two months ago, Moody was attacked the night before he started at Hogwarts. Yes, I know she says it was another false alarm," Sirius added hastily, seeing Harry about to speak, "but I don't think so, somehow. I think someone tried to stop him from getting to Hogwarts. I think someone knew their job would be a lot more difficult with him around. And no one's going to look into it too closely; Mad-Eye's heard intruders a bit too often. But that doesn't mean he can't still spot the real thing. Moody was the best Auror the Ministry ever had."
"So...what are you saying?" said Harry slowly. "Karkaroff's trying to kill Alice?" When Sirius didn't say anything Harry amended his statement. "Karkaroff is trying to kill Alice and me?"
"I've been nearing some very strange things," Sirius calculated. "The Death Eaters seem to be a bit more active than usual lately. They showed themselves at the Quidditch World Cup, didn't they? Someone set off the Dark Mark...and then - did you hear about that Ministry of Magic witch who's gone missing?"
"Bertha Jorkins?"Emily piped up.
"Exactly...she disappeared in Albania, and that's definitely where Voldemort was rumored to be last...and she would have known the Triwizard Tournament was coming up, wouldn't she?"
"Yeah, but...it's not very likely she'd have walked straight into Voldemort, is it?" Ron questioned.
"Listen, I knew Bertha Jorkins she was at Hogwarts when I was, a few years above James, Remus and me. And she was an idiot. Very nosy, but no brains, none at all. It's not a good combination, Ron. I'd say she'd be very easy to lure into a trap."
"So...so Voldemort could have found out about the tournament?" Emily asked shaken up. "Is that what you mean? You think Karkaroff might be here on his orders?"
"I don't know," said Sirius slowly, "I just don't know...Karkaroff doesn't strike me as the type who'd go back to Voldemort unless he knew Voldemort was powerful enough to protect him. But whoever put Alice's name in that goblet did it for a reason, and I can't help thinking the tournament would be a very good way to attack you and make it look like an accident."
"What does Remus think?" I asked. "I know he's been to visit."
"Difficult to say, you know Remus, always keeps his opinion to himself. But if I had to guess I'd say he's thinking something similar. Which brings me to the dragons. I'm sure Remus wouldn't mind me giving you some advice. Don't be tempted to try a Stunning Spell, dragons are strong and too powerfully magical to be knocked out by a single Stunner, you need about half a dozen wizards at a time to overcome a dragon."
"Yeah, I know, I just saw," I agreed.
"But you can do it alone," said Sirius. "There is away, and a simple spell's all you need. Just -"
But Harry held up a hand to silence him, my heart began to pound heavily as we heard footsteps coming down one of two spiral staircase.
"Go!" he hissed at Sirius. "Go! There's someone coming!" Harry scrambled to his feet, hiding the fire, and I tossed the invisibility cloak over Emily and I. There was a quite pop and Sirius was gone. Slightly panicked Emily and I watched the base of the stairs. Who had decided to go for a stroll at one o'clock in the morning anyway? We heaved a sigh of relief when we saw Hermione's flat faced cat Crookshanks prancing down the stairs. He was closely followed by a bushy haired Hermione.
"I just came down to see how everything was going." She said. "Did I miss Sirius?"
"He just left, we didn't know who was coming down the stairs," Harry explained.
"Oh I'm sorry…" She told him frowning.
"We were almost done anyway." I said pulling the invisibility cloak off of Emily and me once again. Fully visible, Emily and I said goodnight to our favorite Gryffindors. Once we recovered ourselves, we quickly made our way down to our dorm.