Hi,here is the next update. Thanks to all of you who left reviews. Hope you like this chapter as well. Happy reading.

The second Task

Harry stood at the shore of the Black Lake, going over his mental map of the lake. Doing a little secret diving had been easy enough. He had snuck down one morning under the invisibility cloak and put a warming charm on his body before using the bubblehead charm to explore a bit. He knew exactly where the village of the merpeople was.

Now he just had to wait for the signal to start the task to be given. He knew if Mrs Weasley knew that her only daughter was held at the bottom of the lake, she would be really upset. Somehow he doubted that she had been asked for permission. Really, who put innocents in danger like that? The champions were another story, they, except for Harry, had willingly signed up for this. And Harry didn't have a problem with doing the tasks; it was a good test for his capabilities in a somewhat controlled battlefield.

Finally Bagman finished his speech and gave the signal to start. Harry immediately ate the gillyweed he had Neville get him and dove under the water. He didn't wait for the plant to kick in completely. This task was based on speed and the ability to avoid the inhabitants of the lake. Well, he knew his destination, his obstacles, the way to deal with the obstacles if they showed up and his mission. This was a do it quickly and cleanly kind of job. Rescue the girl before anybody else can save his girl or boy. After all he didn't know who had been taken hostage for the other champions.

The full effects of the gillyweed kicked in and Harry began to propel through the water with the speed only froglike hands and flippers could give you. He soon heard the same song that the egg had played. He was near his destination. Two minutes later he had found the place where the hostages were kept. Well, seeing Hermione here was a surprise. Cho not so much, Cedric and she were dating. The little girl resembled Fleur, probably her eight year old sister Gabrielle.

Harry used the pocket knife Sirius gave him at the trip at the Hogwarts Express after first year and cut Ginny's ropes. He then used his flippers to get back to the surface. He would get best marks for this task, he was sure of it.

When Harry had handed Ginny over to Madam Pomfrey, he was just about to take the plant that canceled the effects of gillyweed when he saw Fleur in tears coming from the lake, babbling in fast French about not being able to save her little sister. Harry just couldn't see pretty girls cry and decided he had enough time to return for the little girl. He signed to Ginny he would go back again for Fleur's sister and she nodded.

Harry dove back down to the village. He soon enough reached the last remaining hostage Gabrielle Delacour. The merpeople were really reluctant to hand the hostage over but Harry could be really convincing. He shot streams of hot water at the merpeople who tried to stop him, cut Gabrielle lose and swam back to the surface. When he was ten meters from the surface he felt the effects of the gillyweed ceasing. He held his breath and sped to the surface to break through and take a relieving breath of air.

Gabrielle was awake now and asked him in French where she was. He answered, that her sister had some difficulties under water and hadn't managed to reach her and had been really upset. So he had gone back to get her because he didn't want her to be left there alone. He got a grateful kiss on the cheek from the little blond girl.

This was repeated by her older sister once he brought Gabrielle back and the two talked in rapid French with each other. Fleur kissed him on both cheeks thanking him over and over for going back into the lake to save her little sister when he didn't need to do that. Harry smiled at her and told her he just couldn't leave a little girl in danger if he was able to help. This would get him positive headlines for the next weeks and cause the Minister stomach problems.

Finally it was time to get the scores for the second task. They were telling all the scores at once.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, please give us your attention for a moment. We have got a complete report about the things that happened in the lake from Mer-chieftainess Murcus." Ludo Bagman said with his amplified voice.

"Miss Fleur Delacour, though she demonstrated excellent use of the bubblehead charm was attacked by grindylows and was unable to retrieve her hostage. We are awarding her twenty five points for this. Mr Viktor Krum demonstrated an incomplete but nonetheless effective human transfiguration to get to his hostage and free her from the ground of the lake. He returned third place with his hostage five minutes outside the time limit. We award him forty points."

Fleur and Viktor got encouraging applause and cheers from their schoolmates and some polite applause from the Hogwarts students.

"Mr Cedric Diggory returned second with his hostage one minute outside the time-limit. He successfully used the bubblehead charm. We therefore award him forty-seven points."

The Hogwarts students especially the Hufflepuffs cheered and applauded for him.

"Mr Harry Potter used gillyweed to great effect. He returned with his hostage first well in the allowed time-limit without any problems against the creatures of the lake. When he saw that Miss Delacour had failed to retrieve her hostage he bravely dived back into the lake and went back to the village. He freed Miss Delacour's hostage and took her to safety. For his perfect fulfillment of the task he is awarded fifty points and also an extra five points for showing moral fiber."

The Hogwarts students cheered loudly, no house louder than Gryffindor. Harry now was leading by a margin of seventeen points to Cedric and twenty two points to Viktor. This was looking good for the last task.

Harry had told his friends that he would meet them later in the Three Broomsticks but that he had agreed to meet someone for the morning.

"Oh, anything we should know about Harrykins?" George began teasing.

"Yes, is there something we should know about a potential girlfriend?" Fred continued.

Harry played innocent. He wanted them to think he was having a secret date. It was such a good cover for his meeting with Sirius.

"I don't know what you mean." He lied unconvincingly.

"Sure Harrykins. Well, we wish you well." George said, pulling Ron who seemed to want to say something with him before he could make one of his insensible comments.

Hermione looked at him questioning but then smiled and followed the others.

Harry had left the village and went into the hills. Sinistra had told him about the meeting place in one of the caves where the MI6 had positioned monitoring equipment. They kept a constant watch at Hogsmeade with it being the only purely magical village in Great Britain. Soon Harry reached the cave, tipped the code at the concealed panel and opened the door. As soon as he had passed through the door closed and the lights at the ceiling turned on. Harry went to the main room of this hidden base.

"Hey, Sirius." He greeted his godfather, who observed some monitors.

"Hey, Harry. I have heard of your stellar performance at the second task. Good work. And the articles the Prophet, Witch Weekly and Teen Witch Weekly have printed were fantastic. I think our dear Minister is truly afraid of your influence now. He knows should you speak against him, he will lose the election. And with your performance at the Tournament he can't find a single bad thing to say about you. With Rita out of the way, they don't have one reporter who wants to anger you with denunciations they can't prove. So no public smear campaign for you. And that is nothing compared to the positive press you got in France for selflessly saving the youngest daughter of the head of their Department of International Magical Cooperation. Which in France is a lot more important than in England." Sirius added.

"He won't win whatever he tries." Harry scoffed. "He has done too much damage to the wizarding world. We are stagnating and the pureblood bigots are doing what they want. To reform this system we need fresh people in positions of power. People who don't fear to go against tradition. We all know that Voldemort is planning his return soon. That is why he wants me. He thinks using me in whatever ritual he has planned will strengthen him."

"Yes, that is part of what I wanted to discuss with you. We have secured Barty Crouch senior. He confessed under veritaserum that he got his son out of Azkaban out of love for his wife. She didn't want to have her son die there. She had a fatal illness, just like Aurora had guessed, and exchanged places with her son drinking polyjuice potion until she died. He kept his son under the imperius with a house elf called Winky to care for him. At the World Cup the curse ceased to work and his son stole a wand from a girl. He was the one to shoot the mark into the sky.

"The house elf managed to disapparate with his son back home where he renewed the curse until Voldemort and Malfoy came along and freed his son. From then on Voldemort placed him under the curse and had him go about his days as usual. After some time Crouch began fighting the imperius and they deemed him too dangerous to be let out of the house. Thus he had to write letters to Percy Weasley, the one least probable to figure out that something was amiss. After all, he never figured out his rat was Wormtail, even if the bastard had a strangely long lifespan for a common rat.

"Malfoy was also the one guarding Crouch at his home. We overwhelmed him with a blitz attack. From him we found out the kind of ritual they intend to use. It's a potion which uses bone of the father unknowingly given, flesh of the servant willingly given and blood of the enemy forcefully taken, that's your part. Somehow Malfoy heard of rumours about Voldemort being in Albania in hiding and traveled there. He came across Bertha Jorkins and brought her to Voldemort after he found a strong memory charm.

"Voldemort was able to destroy the charm, destroying her mind in the progress but something like that never interested him. He found out about Barty Crouch junior still being alive but imprisoned by his father. This was the missing piece in his plan as he needed a loyal follower to place at Hogwarts who wouldn't be missed otherwise. A presumed dead man was perfect. They attacked Moody at the beginning of the school year, overpowered him and kept him prisoner in his own trunk. The trunk is warded, which is the reason you couldn't find him on the map.

"We know where the ritual is intended to take place. It's a small village called Little Hangleton. It's the last known family seat of the Gaunts, the last known descendants of Slytherin. There were rumours about the son of the wealthy Riddle family somehow eloping with the daughter of the village tramp. Then after some time he went back, telling everyone he had been hoodwinked. Obviously a muggle not being willed to admit about magic being involved. The more important part is that Tom Riddle was found murdered there some decades ago together with his parents.

"So his grave is there. The only place where Voldemort could get the bones of his father. We have had teams investigating the area at once and found an interesting place. The old Gaunt shack was pretty well secured. We got some master curse-breakers there and they found a ring hidden in the shack. A ring with the Peverell coat of arms on it, which coincidentally is another horcrux. It has already been taken care of." Sirius ended his lenghty explanation.

"Wow, you really were busy. How are we going to crash Voldemort's rebirth party?" Harry asked.

"Well, M, the other higher ups and the 00 agents are still debating which way would be best to go. The threat of Voldemort returning is a class red situation. Voldemort can't be allowed to kill British citizens again. You don't know how critical the situation really is as you didn't experience the last war. MI6 has orders from her Majesty to deal with the threat with all necessary force. It's her Majesty's opinion that the lives of terrorists like the Death Eaters have been forfeit the moment they willingly took Voldemort's mark. She was our sovereign during the last war and knows what she is doing.

"You have to understand that Voldemort's goals aren't doing any good for the wizarding society of Great Britain, he is driving us to the edge of extinction. He is killing off magical blood, blood which is needed to repopulate our numbers. The last war saw thousands killed, most of them young. He actively went after young muggleborns, which means they didn't have a chance to have children. The pureblood houses are tending to be infertile, some just stopping to try for more than one or two children. And a lot of them are losing magical strength with each generation due to inbreeding.

"The Lestrange line is dead, Rastaban and Rodolphus are sterile. The Crabbe and Goyle lines are just beyond squibs. They would need powerful fresh blood to have a chance of getting back to strength, which can't be found in European pureblood lines. Same with the Bulstrode and Parkinson lines. They are just a bit better off. It's a pattern which will destroy us in a few generations if it isn't stopped now. The only hope our world has are families like the Weasleys who somehow kept strong magical blood and have a lot of children.

"Look at what Arthur's sons are doing for chosen professions. Bill is a curse-breaker, a job which requires a powerful wizard, Charlie works with dragons, Percy while being a bit too rule loving is powerful and ambitious. If he could be forced to open his eyes at the bigotry at the Ministry, he would be perfectly placed to help bringing the change we need. The boy was a model student." Sirius listed.

"Leave Percy to me, I have an idea what to do. I can use his ambition to get him to see the truth." Harry said grinning.

Sirius nodded. They had thought of recruiting Percy Weasley as a spy. Nobody would suspect the overly correct redhead, but they didn't have any leverage. And at the moment he was still too blended by the myth of the great overly correct Barty Crouch. But the potential was there. If only the boy would start thinking for himself and cease his love for authority.

"One thing is we sent Lucius back under a potion that has the same effects as the imperius but is harder to neutralize as it doesn't really depend on the power of one's will. You need something to counter the potion itself and Q is sure it will take a potions master a sample of said potion and at least six months to find it. This potion isn't prepared the normal magical way but the muggle way. Q just loves playing with magical ideas and converting them." Sirius and Harry both grinned at that thought. "Malfoy will pretend nothing has changed and guard Crouch at his home. Well, a golem of Crouch. Voldemort just can't find out that we have got him out already. He has to think his little plan is still working. Now, they intend to get you to the cemetery by portkey, which will be the charmed Triwizard Cup. Malfoy is the one to do the ritual. We'll prepare the site that Voldemort's resurrection is stopped. This means we have to exchange one of the key ingredients.

"Our best options are the first or third ones. As long as Voldemort doesn't suspect us taking away the bones of his father, we can cheat the ritual at that point. As we didn't find all the horcruxes yet it's too early for him to return. We don't want to put the British public in danger by allowing him to return when he still has horcruxes we didn't find. Our research team found out that the most probable number of horcruxes he would have made would be six, with the part that is in his body being the seventh."

Harry snorted. Great plan indeed. It just didn't work like it should have. Sirius nodded agreeing with Harry's obvious sentiment.

"The problem for Voldemort is that he doesn't know he accidentally made you a horcrux. So we can safely assume that by now he would have six. We got three down, the diary, the ring and the locket. We assume he would go after items of the founders of Hogwarts after following his path of ascension. Records from 1940 – 1945, the year he graduated from Hogwarts, show an obsession with all things Slytherin and things that belonged to the founders. Aurora's research into Dumbledore's private store of memories lets us safely assume that he found out about the cup of Hufflepuff the same time as he found the locket of Slytherin. He stole them from an old woman called Hephzibah Smith, a descendant of Helga Hufflepuff.

"We think he used an item of Gryffindor or Ravenclaw but the only item Gryffindor is known for is his sword and that was in contact with basilisk venom and therefore can't be a horcrux. Ravenclaw was famous for her diadem, which was lost when she was still alive. But I wouldn't put it past Voldemort to have found it somehow. We are also searching possible hiding places Voldemort could have used. From what we found out, he used Lucius Malfoy to keep the diary safe. The ring was in the shack where the last of the descendants of Slytherin lived. From Kreacher we know that he hid the locket in a cave. This leaves the others, at least two. We think that all places he used had some significance in them. While the shack isn't impressive, it represents his position as heir of Slytherin.

"Lucius was one of his most trusted servants. If he would have given more of his horcruxes to his servants, without telling them of course what they were keeping safe for him, I'd guess it was Bellatrix. Lucius and she were called the left and right hand of the Dark Lord in the last war. We have searched the Lestrange manor already but there is nothing hidden. We suspect something could be at Gringotts but getting the goblins to give it to us is a problem. If I didn't have the problem of being a wanted criminal I could get it as head of the Black family as I'm still Bellatrix' head of house."

"If you could get into her vault, wouldn't a written permission from you enable me or Andromeda to look into the vault? I mean, the goblins didn't care about you being an escapee when you got me the Firebolt for my fourteenth birthday." Harry suggested.

"Sadly that is one of the few things I have to do in person. The signature could have been forcibly taken from me so the goblins insist that in case a head of house wants to access a vault of one of his family members he has to appear in person and do an identification test based on blood. I had thought of doing that."

"A pity." Harry commented.

"It truly is. The next possible location is Hogwarts. He came back one time to apply for the DADA post. Dumbledore denied him the post but he could have hidden the horcrux that time. Our best bets are the Chamber of Secrets or a place located on the way from the entrance hall to Dumbledore's office."

Harry pondered about this.

"I'll check both the Chamber of Secrets and the Room of Requirement. Voldemort is arrogant enough to think only he found the room. If I ask for the hiding place of the horcrux I should be able to find it if it's there." Harry said.

Sirius nodded.

"So, they plan to use the Cup as a portkey, should I play along or disable the charm to make Voldemort's plan fail?" Harry asked.

"Go along with it. We need an agent on site to influence what happens. And I'd rather have you head into a trap you know about and can prepare for than one you don't expect. As Voldemort wants to use your blood, we'll equip you with a blood bottle. It will be filled with blood that acts as a toxin with other beings than its original host. 002 came across the beast on his last mission. His story was terrible. He just got away and he is on medical leave for four months." Sirius answered.

"Wow that must be some beast if 002 can't handle it. He normally gets all the animal related missions because they seem to like him for some strange reason. Even the odd magical creatures he meets are friendly with him." Harry exclaimed surprised with wide eyes.

"Tell me. We still haven't found a name for the beast. Some of our scientists suspect it could be a mutation or an experiment gone wrong. Who knows which villain decided the Amazon was a nice place to plot nefarious deeds? Nobody truly knows the jungle well except the few natives living there and most of them live so secluded you can't get them to help."

"Sounds plausible. So I guess Malfoy will have orders to pick the blood from the blood bottle for the ritual and as it's toxic as well as willingly given that should botch up the ritual quite a bit. If you can also exchange the bones in the grave we should be able to either prevent his return or weaken him so far that he will have to think how to regain his strength before he can terrorize Great Britain again."

"Precisely. How is your training coming along?" Sirius asked having finished the official part of the meeting with his godson.

"It's going really well. I even got Hermione, Ginny, Ron, Neville, Fred and George stronger as they are helping me. They are nowhere near my level but for school kids they are quite strong, especially Neville. I'd never have thought he had that much raw power in him. But using a dare from one of our drinking games, I got him to sneak to Olivander's during the Christmas holidays and get his own wand. His Gran doesn't know he has his own wand though. He still keeps his father's old wand as a keepsake but he doesn't use it anymore."

"Yes, an incompatible wand can truly hinder you. I'm surprised that Augusta didn't get him his own wand when he started at Hogwarts. It must have prevented him from getting good results. I know in poor families like the Weasleys children get wands from their older siblings or other relatives. Sometimes the ones long dead. Wands are normally kept in families if they aren't burried with the witch or wizard they belonged to, but that isn't really common." Sirius told Harry.

"Neville's Gran has a problem to get over the loss of her son. She tries to replace him with Neville, but Neville and his father are different. If I hadn't played this right with the dare, Neville would still hinder himself with his father's wand."

"By the way, how comes Ginny Weasley was your hostage in the lake? I'd have thought the person you would miss most would be Ron or Hermione." Sirius wanted to know.

"Well, Ginny has become a good friend this year and she is easier to get along with than Ron sometimes. We sometimes simply think the same way. As Hermione was Krum's hostage I think that was the deciding factor for them choosing Ginny instead of Ron. Of course now everybody thinks I'm romantically interested in Ginny." Harry shook his head.

"Are you?" Sirius asked.

"Not at the moment. I also don't want to bind myself too early. I know that in the job I have chosen I'll be required to seduce other women. It wouldn't be fair to any other woman to be in a relationship with me if I won't be faithful. If she would be older and still interested, I'd probably flirt a bit, perhaps even sleep with her. But I won't enter a serious relationship. I wouldn't be able to be honest with any girlfriend outside the MI6. And you know that I want to earn 00 status when I'm older and more experienced." Harry replied. "Not to mention that there are so many pretty girls around. I mean Ginny knew that we were going to the ball as friends and that gave me the perfect opportunity to dance with all the pretty girls I wanted as long as I didn't neglect her."

Sirius laughed at the afterthought. He and James had really influenced Harry's behaviour. Many would say not for the best.

"I know. And I believe you can get there. I'm glad you don't have any false impressions of the sacrifices we bring for the job." He then said.

"I have you for a role-model and I always am the one the 00 agents are telling their fantastic stories about older missions that are cleared to be told. I'm somehow the little brother figure that gives them an ounce of normalcy in their lives. None of them refuses to give me some pointers how to further my training or which parts of the job are the hardest. And 007 likes to tell about all his girls, he met on various missions." Harry pointed out.

"Yeah, James is the one with most sexual experience in the department."

"And he still never thinks of Moneypenny like that, much to her disappointment." Harry laughed.

"True. But James is too professional for that. No affairs inside the department." Sirius countered.

"What about you and Aurora? I heard rumours. Anything true about them?" Harry asked.

"We got pretty drunk on a party for New Year and landed in bed together. We both enjoyed it but there is nothing serious going on." Sirius informed his godson.

Harry nodded. That was more or less what he had guessed.

"Alright, ready for a sparring match? We have some time left and I think you have slacked in your staff fighting a bit." Sirius said smirking.

Harry returned the smirk.

"You wish. While I spend a lot of my time getting the others to a higher level, I never slack in my training. And you forget the staff is Aurora's preferred weapon besides a gun."

Alright, that's it for this chapter. Till next time.