Chapter 22: Got Another One

Thanks for all the reviews. I had a great vacation, thanks for the well wishes.

I tried to dictate on my tablet, but then I thought, 'nah, I'm on vacation'.

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"What do we do?" said Harry, fear evident in his tone. Once more there was a bad man in Hogwarts, and he knew about it.

"Right now, you don't do anything" said Sirius, rubbing his chin in thought. "I have an appointment with Madam Bones tomorrow and we'll take care of it. I was going to go over with her about Bartemius Crouch Junior being alive anyway. I don't know if that's Junior or Senior in that classroom with Mad-eye, but we'll find out. Until then, stay away from that man," he stated, getting up and pacing in front of the mirror.

"How am I supposed to stay away from him? He's my teacher, and I have class with him tomorrow," the teen asked, wondering just how he was supposed to skip class and not get into trouble.

"Pretend to be sick," suggested his godfather. It's what he would have done after all.

"Well, the twins have candy that makes you sick. I suppose I can borrow some of that. Or buy it," Harry said, thinking of all the things the twins had invented since they've been here. They had a pretty good stock of joke candy, though some of it was still very experimental.

"There you go," Sirius said, throwing his hands up in the air as if that was a really good idea.

"But it's experimental right now and I don't know if I want to try it. I might really get sick," Harry said, thinking that over really hard. Then again, if he really was sick, then he'd have a really good excuse. He'd be in Madam Pomfrey's tender care for a while. So far, he's done that at least once a year. Well, except second year.

"There is that. Why don't you just pretend to be sick right now," his godfather said, not wanting him to really be ill.

'I think I will." Though he was still internally debating it.

"I'm going to talk to Millie. You go ahead and try and get some sleep," Sirius said, looking at him closely, as if judging whether he'd get any sleep that night or not. He didn't think the teen would.

"Alright, Sirius," said Harry. "I'll do that." Though he doubted he'd sleep a wink, knowing that there might be something nefarious going on in the castle once again. Just one year, he'd like nothing to happen. Was that too much to ask?

And the two disconnected the mirrors. Sirius picked up the mirror and called Millie right away. He was still pacing up and down his living room. He had been full of nervous energy ever since he had left Azkaban. It was as if he could not sit still. Having been caged up in a ten-by-ten cage for twelve years, he couldn't be confined anymore. He needed his freedom. So, every time he was in a room, it was like he had to get out. But he knew he couldn't just wander all the time. So when he was in a room, he paced. And when he got nervous, he paced more.

Millie answered and said, "What's up? Yeah." She was in her bathrobe, looking like she had just gotten out of the shower. Her hair was up in a towel.

"Millie, we have a problem," Sirius stated, holding still for just a moment so that he could see her face when he delivered the news.

"Oh no, not already. Harry already told me about the Triwizard Tournament. What else could be going on?" she asked, almost devastated that there was another bit of bad news coming from Hogwarts. The Triwizard Tournament was bad enough, and she already had the stress from that. She was already organizing people to see if she could get rid of the tournament, but this news better not be worse.

"There is a Barty Crouch in the DADA classroom with Mad-eye Moody. And that shouldn't be possible this time of night," Sirius stated. He had resumed his pacing and was marching back and forth in front of the mirror, so Millie only saw him every time he passed.

"That can't be good. Do you know if it's Junior or Senior?" she asked, wondering what any of the Crouches would be doing in the DADA classroom.

"No, but I have an appointment with Bones in the morning and I'm going to tell her about it, and we'll see what's going on. It's going to be tricky though, so I don't know how we're going to handle it. But I thought I'd let you know, and I told Harry to pretend to be sick until it's handled," he explained all in one breath. He wanted to make sure that she knew that he had it all under control and she didn't have to do anything at this time.

"That's a really good suggestion of yours. Um, I'm going to call him and see if he's okay. Because I doubt, he's getting any sleep, yeah," Millie said, taking the towel off her head and rubbing her hair dry. She wanted to let him know that she'd take care of the emotional part.

"Alright, Millie, I'm gonna let you go and write down everything I need to ask Bones tomorrow," Sirius said, going to the desk and grabbing a quill to do just that.

"Alright, Sirius. I'll talk to you in the morning," she said with a little chuckle in her voice.

And the two disconnected the mirrors. Millie turned around and called Harry. Harry answered and Millie said. "Are you okay?"

"Oh, Millie, I'm so happy you called me, I'm so scared," Harry said, sitting up, looking like he had tried to get some sleep but was having a hard time of it. His hair was in complete disarray and his eyes were circled. He reached over and picked up his glasses and donned them.

"It's gonna be alright, Harry. I and Sirius are gonna take care of this," she said, looking at him like she wanted to grab him and just run away with him and hide him in the Himalayas or something.

"Yeah, but it's one more time that my life seems to be in danger at school again. Do I really have to stay here?" he asked, almost whinging. He ran his hands through his hair, messing it up even more. He was glad that he had a silencing spell on his curtains so that his roommates didn't hear him whinge.

"You know you're under contract to stay there until at least your OWLs," she gently reminded him. She hated it as much as he did, but there it was. He was obligated to stay there until the end of his fifth year. If she had it her way, he was going to stay there until the end of his NEWTs. That way he had a full education. Then again, he had enough money that he could homeschool. But if she knew him at all, he wouldn't leave his friends behind.

"I know. And that's so unfair. There's should be a loophole that says if your life is in danger, you could homeschool," Harry said. He was really tired of putting his life on the line just for education.

"But at least you have people looking out for you, yeah," she said, giving him a bright grin.

"There is that," he agreed, giving her a smile back. "I just wish you or Phil were here. I like Amy, but she seems to be looking out for Hermione more than me." It wasn't that he wanted to deny Hermione a mentor, he just missed having one of his own.

"I know. I'm sure she has your best interest at heart, yeah," she said, knowingly. She didn't know Amy as well as she had known Phil, but she was sure the girl would be there if Harry needed her.

"Yeah."

"Try and get some sleep, okay, sweetie," Millie said quietly.

"Sure, Millie, I'll try," Harry said, though there was a great deal of doubt in his tone. He didn't think he'd get any sleep tonight, but he'd give it a go.

And with that they disconnected the mirrors and Harry tried to get some sleep. Sleep came, but it took a long time to get there. He dreamed of the two Crouches and what they might be up to, which was no good, to be sure. He tossed and turned all night long.

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The next morning found him, dodging Hermione and talking to the twins.

"These are very experimental, and they might really make you sick. I'm not sure I want to sell these to you," said Fred, holding out a very sickly-looking candy. It was green and yellow and twisted and looked like something that you wouldn't put in your mouth if you wanted to.

"Well, if they really make me sick, then it'll still work, won't they?" said Harry, holding out his hand to take the putrid looking candy.

"How about we sell you one and we'll see how that works?" said George, though he looked just as doubtful as his brother. They really didn't want to make anybody sick with their candies. They just wanted them to be joke like.

"We don't have the antidote side invented yet," Fred said, really not wanting to do this, but Harry seemed desperate to get out of class.

"Well, we do, but it hasn't really been tested," said George. He was more than willing to take the risk. They were within reach of the school nurse.

"How about half of one?" asked Harry. If he really was going to poison himself, he only wanted to do it halfway. Even if that logic didn't play out.

"Sure, we'll sell you half one for half a price, but we'll keep an eye on you," said Fred, breaking the candy in half and handing half of it to Harry and pocketing the other half.

So, they sold Harry half a Puking Pastilles and kept an eye on him, and he actually got really sick, and the antidote didn't work. They rushed him to the hospital wing. They each made notes on what and wherefores, but they did take care of Harry.

"What happened here?" inquired Madame Pomfrey as she rushed from her office as soon as they came into the hospital wing.

"We were giving him one of our experimental joke pasties and he actually got sick," said Fred, holding up Harry by one arm while his brother held the other arm while Harry held on to his stomach.

"What have I told you about experimenting on the students?" demanded Madame Pomfrey, rounding on them like an avenging Angel. She wasn't overly concerned; the twins were very good at what they did. It was more than likely just a miscalculation on their part.

"He knew what he was getting into, woman," said George, forgetting where he was for a moment, like he was speaking to his mother instead of the matron of the hospital wing.

"Don't you talk to me like that," said Madame Pomfrey, brandishing a finger at him.

"It's alright, Madam Pomfrey." said Harry, still clutching to his stomach like it was going to pop out of his body any second. "I knew what I was doing. But I really don't feel good. Could we take care of me now?" He really couldn't understand why she was sitting there arguing with the twins when she had a patient on her hands.

"Yes, yes. Get up on the bed and we'll see what we can do. You'll probably get a flushing solution, which means you'll be here all day," the nurse said as she guided him to one of the beds.

"That's fine," said Harry, slowly making his way to the bed and gingerly stepping up and sitting on the edge of it. The one thing the Puking Pastilles didn't do is make him puke. It was like it was all being held into his stomach. And that was something that they were going to have to fix because if he were going to be sick, he wanted to be sick, and not have it all sit in the bottom of the stomach like a lead balloon.

Madam Pomfrey waved her wand all over his body and came back that he had poisoned himself and gave him a flushing potion and he was there all day. It was coming from all ends now. He was in the bathroom for a good half an hour. However, he accomplished his objective and missed his DADA class.

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While Harry was in the hospital wing, Madam Bones came to visit him. He had been flushed and was now under observation. His stomach was better, but he was still sweating out some of the poison.

She was a strict looking woman who wore her greying hair in a bun and had a monocle on her left eye. She was a very no-nonsense looking woman and Harry didn't want to make her mad at all. He knew he was going to be honest with this woman from the get-go and wasn't going to tell her any lies in any way, shape or form.

"I need to see this map of yours," she said, coming up to his bed and looking down upon him in a very kind manner, yet firm. "This is twice you've seen somebody in this school that shouldn't be here, and I really need to see it."

"It's in my dorm room," he said, looking at her nervously. She just gave out that type of aura that made you think you were in trouble, no matter how kind she looked at you. "It's in my trunk if you wanna go get it for me. I can't leave the hospital wing." He gave her a 'what can you do' shrug.

She turned to one of her aurors and told him to go and get it for her. The man turned and all but ran from the room at her orders.

"It's a folded, blank piece of paper," the teen yelled at the man as he left. He really hoped he could find it in the mess that was his trunk. He did try and keep it clean, but Harry was just a slob when it came to throwing things in his trunk.

"Tell me about this map," she said, her hands behind her, trying to look as relaxed as possible. She didn't want to intimidate the boy, but she didn't seem to be getting away with it. Maybe he was just skittish naturally.

"Well, as far as I know, it is something that my father and his friends invented while they were in school so that they could sneak about the castle and pull pranks and not get caught," Harry explained, getting a nostalgic look on his face from all the stories that Sirius had told him over the summer. "You're not going to take it away from me, are you?" he asked, getting nervous all over again. He really didn't want her to take that map. It was something that was extremely important to him.

"No, I see no reason to take it away from you," she said, it was the headmaster's headache, not hers. And anything that caused the headmaster a headache in her book was a good thing.

"Are you going to tell the headmaster about it?" he asked, seeing the look of slight mischief on her face.

"I'm not sure about that," she said, giving him a small wink. "We'll have to see what happens."

"Please don't. If you do, he'll take it away from me and it's the only thing I have of my father's, besides my cloak," he said, even though he saw the wink, he was desperate to keep that map.

"Tell me about this cloak," she said, curiously. From the way he said it, it sounded like it was more than just a regular cloak.

"It's my father's invisibility cloak," Harry said with a great deal of pride. It was one of his most prized possessions, after all.

"And it still works after all these years?" she asked, amazed. Most cloaks seemed to die after fifteen years. If his father had one, it should have diminished before it even passed into Harry's hands.

"Yes," he said, bewildered. He didn't know what the big deal was. It was just an invisibility cloak.

"That's a very rare cloak. I would hide that if I were you. Don't tell anybody else about it," she said, giving him another wink. Hopefully he would take her advice and not tell anybody else about it, though she did wonder what's so special about this cloak.

"Oh," Harry said, confused. He would probably take her advice, because she did seem to think something was extraordinary about his cloak.

Just then, the man came back with a folded blank piece of paper and handed it over to Madame Bones. She took it and handed it to Harry. He took it and said the activation phrase and opened it up. And showed her the DADA classroom. There, teaching, was Bartemius Crouch, also in the classroom was Alastor Moody. He wasn't moving about. He was just sitting there off to the side.

"That's not possible," Madam Bone said, holding on to the map with a white-knuckle grip, as if she was going to rip it in half just by sheer will alone. "Bartemius Crouch is at the Ministry."

"Didn't you talk to Sirius this morning?" asked Harry, a bit confused as to her reaction. He was sure Sirius had told her about Junior this morning. Didn't she remember?

"I did talk to Mr. Black this morning," she said, still gripping onto the map as if she didn't want to believe what she was seeing. Pettigrew had been bad enough; she really did not want Junior to be alive too.

"And didn't he tell you that Crouch's son was still alive?" The dark-haired teen asked gently, as if to remind her of bad news.

"That he did. That he did," she said, mumbling to herself. She took a deep breath, as if to steady herself. She looked around the room to see who she had with her and saw that she only had two aurors. She handed the map to Harry and gave him a smile.

"Oh, there you have it," said Harry, as if he had solved the problem for her. He watched the names on the map move about.

"I'm going to need more help," she said, knowing that Junior was a formidable opponent, especially if he was anything like he was during the war. "Madam Pomfrey, I need to use your floo," she called out, already heading towards the fireplace. She didn't think for a second that the matron of the hospital wing would deny her the use of the floo.

"That's fine," said Madam Pomfrey, from her place in her office.

Bones threw the floo powder in and called in five more aurors. Five men and women came through and they marched to outside the classroom, and they waited until the class was over and converged on the man.

Harry watched the map as they all went through the empty classroom with just Bartemius Crouch and Alastor Moody in there.

There must have been a fight. But five of the aurors took Bartemius Crouch away. The three remaining seemed to be searching for Alastor Moody. Because they didn't seem to go anywhere near him for the longest time. But eventually they must have found him because they were bringing him to the hospital wing. As they got closer, Harry closed the map.

When they brought the man in, he was in very bad shape. He was skinny, like he had been starved, and there were hunks missing from his hair. His leg and his eye were missing. They put him on a bed and Madam Pomfrey bustled over and started waving her wand over him. They threw up a silence barrier, so Harry couldn't hear what was going on.

Madame Bones came back over to Harry and said, "Thank you, Harry. You saved this man's life. Bartemius Crouch Junior was apprehended, and he'll be going back to jail. His father will be in trouble too. I don't know what will happen to him, but I'm sure it will be in the press."

"It was no problem, Madam Bones. I'm just doing my duty as a citizen of the United Kingdom." he said bashfully. There's no use telling her how scared he was the whole time.

"Still your country thanks you. I'm sure the Minister will be very happy to hear that one more criminal is out of the public," she said kindly to him. She, for one, was very grateful to him. Alastor Moody was one of her friends. And she was glad that he had saved his life.

"Yes, I'm sure he will," said Harry, kind of sarcastically. He had no love loss over the Minister after the whole dementor fiasco.

With that, Madam Bones just nodded her head and walked away. Harry looked at the man who was supposed to be his DADA professor. He seemed to be sleeping peacefully. He wondered if the man was going to be okay, and still going to be his professor.

Harry was feeling much better, so he decided to ask Madam Pomfrey if he could leave.

"Are you feeling okay now?" she asked, waving her wand over his stomach, and doing a diagnostic charm. It came up fine. He was 100% as healthy as he could be.

"Yes, my stomach feels just fine," he said, looking at her with woeful eyes.

"Have you learned your lesson about taking candy from the twins?" she asked, placing her hands on her hips in the fashion of mothers everywhere.

"Yes, ma'am," he said, trying to look contrite.

"Then you may go," she said, not really having a reason to keep him around. She had Mad-eye Moody to look after anyway. And that man did like his privacy.

"Thank you, ma'am," he said, getting up and all but running from the hospital room.

He went straight to his dorm room. There, he took out his mirror and called Millie.

"Millie," he said. When she answered, he said, "They caught Bartemius Crouch Junior." He then gave her a blow-by-blow description of what he saw on the map.

"They caught him, yeah?" she asked, with a sense of relief in her voice. She wanted to make doubly sure that they had taken him away.

"Yeah, they took him away," he said, nodding his head. "Alastor Moody was in pretty bad shape. He's in the hospital wing right now," he added with sadness in his tone,

"Well, I'm glad they caught him. That probably means that you won't be put in the Triwizard Tournament, yeah," she concluded with excitement in her voice. She was sure that was the reason he was there. And now that he was gone, it was unlikely that Harry would be entered.

"That's a good thing, right?" he said, just as excited as she was.

"Yeah," she said, with a 'duh' in her voice.

"Well, I'm not gonna let my guard down," he said, expressing caution.

"That's probably a good thing where you're concerned," she said, a bit forlorn. She really hated that he thought he'd have to keep his eye out still.

"OK, well it's the middle of the day, so I'm gonna let you go," he said, he still had one more class to get through today and didn't have the excuse of being in the hospital wing to get out of it. He was just glad it wasn't Potions.

"Yeah, I've got a class to teach," she said, looking up at the wall as if to look at a clock. "You take care, Harry, and try and stay out of trouble, yeah?"

"I will, Millie. Bye. Love you," Harry said.

"Love you back, yeah," Millie said.

With that, the two disconnected and went about their day. Each were excited that the trouble was over. Millie did take a moment to call Sirius and let him know the news.