After the champions were chosen. And before Lily leaves.
After Bartemius Crouch Senior was done giving his instructions for the first task of the Tournament, people quickly scattered. Both Karkaroff and Madame Maxime took their champion away with them, back to their respective ship and carriage. Lily, on her side, brought Harry away with her, leaving behind Dumbledore and the other professors, Bagman, Crouch and the young Diggory. She found an empty classroom, and almost threw her son in.
She was agitated. Angry. Frustrated. How could such a thing happen? There were many things she thought could happen in Hogwarts, but this? How did Harry's name end up in the Goblet of Fire, and why was it released?
"Mom, I swear…" her son began, but she interrupted him right away and abruptly.
"I know. I know it's not you, Harry. Even if you used your father's Invisibility Cloak, you couldn't have gotten through the Age Line. And I don't think I raised you to be stupid enough to actually try to participate to that tournament."
She looked at Harry. He was afraid. It was plain to see. And his next words only emphasized it.
"Do you think Moody is right? That someone is trying to get me killed?"
She didn't dare to answer for a while. Finally, she didn't answer directly. "Whoever it is who put your name in the Goblet of Fire, I don't believe he did it to make you pleased."
Harry nodded in the negative. Lily sighed. Thoughts were running wild through her mind, all kinds of possibilities mingling.
"Harry… Do you have any idea of who might have done this? A student or anyone else? Did you hear anything? Even someone who would have joked about putting your name in the Goblet?"
"No… Well, Ron's brothers, Fred and George, did ask me if I wanted to compete, but there was nothing serious there. And anyway, they tried to place their names in the cup with an Ageing Potion, and they failed. I don't how they could have gotten my name inside."
No, indeed. Lily doubted this was the work of a student. It wasn't logical that four names came out of the Goblet. Moody had to be right. Whoever did this had to be powerful enough to confuse the Goblet of Fire. A student couldn't have done this.
"What am I supposed to do?" he asked her. That was another difficult question to answer.
"For now…" Lily began, hesitating, "I'll talk with people at the Ministry. Maybe I can get them to do something about this. There must be a way to get you out of this Tournament."
"You think?" In his voice, Lily heard her own doubts, but she couldn't show him that she thought he might be forced to compete.
"There must be. If Moody is right and someone managed to manipulate the Goblet of Fire… There has to be someone who can reverse it. I'll find a way."
They remained silent for a while after that, until Lily spoke up again.
"Harry… You must be very careful… Okay?" He nodded. "And, if somehow, you're forced to participate to these three tasks, don't try to win. Just make sure that you survive. These tasks were not designed for people under the age of seventeen."
"Yes, Mom," he replied. "Are you still leaving?"
That was another hard subject to broach. "I'm afraid I still have to. It's something… I have no choice. Look, if you have any problem, you write to your godfather, or even to Remus. I don't care about the rules of that tournament. Ask for their help whenever you need it. And again, be careful. Don't try anything dangerous."
The conversation didn't last long afterwards. Lily hugged her son, and she let him go to the Gryffindor common room. She wouldn't see him before long, and he was just thrown into something that endangered his life yet again. She would have to write to Sirius and Remus this very night. But before that, there were several people she had to talk to. She would have liked to talk to Dumbledore, but she had to escort Crouch back to the Ministry first. So she went to find him in the Entrance Hall.
"Where is Mr Bagman?" she roughly asked.
"He's staying here for tonight," Crouch said on a disapproving tone. "Anyway, he wouldn't have done much to prevent your son from participating to the Tournament."
Oddly enough, Lily agreed with him, but this didn't make her appreciate the man standing in front of her any further. It was him who declared that Harry had no choice but to compete in the tournament.
"It would be in your interest to find a way to break this magical contract."
Crouch sustained her gaze. "Do you really believe we haven't tried before? We considered it, long before the ministries came to an agreement, before the negotiations even started. And we couldn't find a way to remove the binding contract. "
"Then find one, this time," she retorted harshly. "Now, come. I have more important things to do tonight than escorting someone who sets assassins free."
Crouch kept his severe expression, but he followed her nonetheless. They pushed the heavy doors giving on the park and went towards the portal, near Hagrid's house.
"I understand your anger, Evans," Crouch said. "But you won't get anything by blaming all of this on me. I'll try to remove your son from this competition. No one with any common sense has any interest in seeing him compete. But don't assume we can just call a binding magical contract off and be done with it. We're talking about a very ancient and powerful magic. A magic that is almost lost today. Even Dumbledore couldn't manipulate the Goblet if he wanted."
"And yet, someone did."
"Like I said," Crouch said, sighing, "we will do everything we can. I'm going to see the Minister and Madam Bones right away when I arrive. I would have arrived much quicker if you didn't go to have a private discussion with your son first."
Lily ignored his stupid rebuke. They walked through the portal, and Apparated into the atrium of the Ministry of Magic from there.
"You obviously don't know what it is to have a son," she retorted. "Or else you would understand."
She had no pity for that man. He left his wife to die at Azkaban, and helped his son get out of these, allowing him to escape and commit murders. What kind of father was he? As they waited for the lifts, he stared straight into Lily's eyes.
"I know what it is to have a son, Evans. And I understand what you're going through." One of the lifts stopped, and Crouch punched the button to bring them to the Minister's office. "And you're dealing with all this in a much better way than I would have in your place." Lily was taken aback by these words. "I'll do everything I can for your son. He doesn't deserve what's happening to him. In the meantime, make sure that my son doesn't kill anybody else, or worse."
They remained silent for the rest of their journey to Cornelius's office. Once in front of his office, his personal assistant made Mr Crouch enter it right away. Apparently, representatives of several ministries across Europe were already with him, discussing what happened tonight. Lily was not allowed inside. So she left the politicians to discuss between them, and returned to Hogwarts. Fifteen minutes later, she was in Dumbledore's office, as well as Alastor Moody, Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape.
"Do you have any idea about who could have done this?" she asked them, but especially Minerva and Albus. As for Severus, despite his actions from a few months ago, she didn't think much of his opinion when it was about Harry. He made it very clear earlier tonight that he thought very little of her son.
"Your guess is as good as ours, Lily," Dumbledore said. "I apologize. I didn't see it coming. I should have been more careful."
"Don't blame yourself, Albus. You did everything you could," Minerva said. "No one saw this coming. No one could have."
"Although I don't believe Dumbledore made a mistake with the Age Line, we obviously made a mistake somewhere else," Severus declared. "Someone did manage to get Potter's name in the Goblet of Fire, and since a fourth name came out, which never happened in the history of the Triwizard Tournament, someone clearly tampered the selection process."
"And you have no idea who this might be." Lily said it as an affirmation rather than a question.
"No certainty as to who did this," Severus said, looking straight at Lily. "But again, people seldom do things that are not in their interest. And it seems that for now, the only people who get something out this situation are Harry Potter and his friends."
"Severus!" Minerva said the words before Lily could. "He swore in front of us that he didn't put his name in the Goblet."
"It wouldn't be the first time that a student lies."
"I agree with Severus," Dumbledore said, to Lily's initial anger. "Students can lie, but Harry didn't lie. I saw in his eyes, and he was telling the truth. I am sure that Harry had no hand in this. Whoever put his name in the Goblet and got it out did it without his knowledge."
Lily could see that Severus was unhappy with Dumbledore's words. Lily raged internally. When would Severus stop treating her son like a school comrade he hated. She turned to Dumbledore though when she spoke next.
"Do you think… it could be him?"
Dumbledore didn't need to pronounce the word to understand who she was talking about.
"Lord Voldemort proved several times in the past that he could get inside those walls. So this is a possibility. At the same time, not everything happens because of Voldemort."
"But if this is him… Do you think Karkaroff could be behind this?"
"I highly doubt it," Severus replied. "Karkaroff turned his back on the Dark Lord a long time ago. And he was obviously displeased that Potter got into the Tournament."
"Let's not make any rushed supposition," Dumbledore said. "For now, we must keep an open mind to discover who did this. I expect the Ministry will want to investigate the matter, and even if it doesn't, we will. The most important thing remains to ensure Harry's safety."
"About it…" Lily began. "Dumbledore, can you break the magical contract on Harry?"
A silence followed before he replied. "I'm afraid this is outside of my powers, Lily. Even for someone like me, the magic behind the Goblet of Fire is too powerful. Even if I could somehow succeed in breaking this contract, it might bring dire consequences not only on Harry, but also on the other children. I'm afraid this is a risk too heavy to take."
"Then let's just stop Potter from competing," Minerva said. "To hell with that magical contract. We don't even know what the consequences will be if we try to prevent his participation. Let's at least try to stop it."
This was the most sensible thing Lily heard in quite a while.
"Considering the risks it may involve, this might not be the wisest path to take," Severus declared. "Headmaster, I know that all these events are worrying. But if we really hope to put an end to all this, maybe the best to find how it happened… is to let events unfold."
Lily looked in horror at Severus. "You want to let my son participate to this tournament?" she asked in disbelief.
"Maybe in the short term this is our best course of action."
"But he's going to risk his life!"
"Let's first see if the Ministry will find a solution," Dumbledore said. "But if they don't, then, the best course of action will probably be to watch over Harry as he goes through the competition and to make sure he is never in danger."
"Is that even possible?" she asked Dumbledore.
"We took precautions for the Tournament, Lily. Tasks were designed in a way to limit risks to a minimum, and we're going to make sure it is even safer now that Harry is there. But for now, the best we can do is help him to come out of this tournament unscathed. We are not going to leave him alone in all this. Alastor?" The former Auror had remained silent and in the shadows during the whole meeting. "Keep an eye on Harry, will you?"
"I can do that," Moody roughly replied.
"Don't let Karkaroff near him," Lily warned him.
"Never in my life," he replied, sounding very serious, and Lily knew he was.
"I know this is not easy, Lily," Dumbledore said, "but I'm afraid Harry will have to compete. Our job will be to make sure he's never in danger."
With those few reassurances, Lily left not long after.
Early in the morning, as the sun barely started to rise in the sky and Harry was probably not woken up yet, Lily was in another office, at the Ministry of Magic, and the woman in front of her had no better words than Dumbledore to offer her.
"I'm really sorry, Evans," Amelia Bones told her. "We will keep looking, but I'm afraid your son will have to compete. We will reinforce safety measures around the tournament to make sure he's not in danger."
"Yes. Many promises this to me lately. And yet… here we are."
Amelia Bones didn't reply. Instead, she changed subject. "Your mission remains important, Evans. What's happening is challenging, of course, but you must still focus on finding Crouch Junior. This will have to be your priority while you're away."
"I know," Lily replied between her teeth, allowing some of her frustration out by the same way.
"I understand. This is not an easy situation. But we don't get to choose the situation we are in. The only thing I can promise you is that, when we find the person who got your son into the Tournament, I will punish him to the full extent of the law. Whoever that person is, he or she endangered the life of an underage wizard with his actions. This is unacceptable. I already established a team to investigate the matter, with the help of the other ministries and the other schools. Everyone wants to discover who did this."
"Do you think someone like Karkaroff could have done it?"
"For now, we will not exclude anyone from the list of suspects. Everyone who was in Hogwarts while the Goblet was set, and even people who had access to the Goblet before it arrived to the school, is considered a suspect. In the meantime, Evans, you must focus on the Crouch case. Catching him is also about the safety of your son."
Lily nodded. She knew that. However, it was hard to focus on this when only a few hours ago, her son's name came out unexpectedly from a wooden cup that said he had to participate to a competition that would threaten her life. And despite the assurances of many people who sincerely said they would do everything to protect him, Lily couldn't be sure, after the events that took place over the last three years.
Her heart had stopped beating when Dumbledore said her son's name last night. When the fourth piece of paper came out of the Goblet of Fire and Harry was called, she couldn't understand what was going on. Then she went to Dumbledore in front of the whole school and asked him what was going on. He simply gave her the piece of paper with her son's name on it. While Dumbledore was sending back the students to their dormitories, she rushed to the room behind the staff table and went to question Harry. She soon realized it wasn't him who put his name. It didn't make any sense. He couldn't have gotten through the Age Line, and he was with her most of the day. She knew he didn't put his name in. But who did? They couldn't be certain.
"You must leave today, Evans. All your papers are ready," Amelia Bones continued. "Only use the secret communication networks we indicated. And be careful."
Lily nodded to indicate she understood. There was nothing else to say. She stood up quietly. She knew she had to leave. Barty Crouch Junior was still free in the nature, most likely looking for Voldemort. Whether Voldemort had anything to see with what happened yesterday or not, catching him or one of his servants could only contribute to protect her son. She had to do it for him.
"Evans, while you're away, don't forget something," Amelia Bones said. "There are other people who also watch over your son. He's not alone in all that. And neither are you."
Lily wasn't sure if she was convinced by this. She would be far away for a long time. Who knew what could happen during this time, and what Harry would face in her absence. Alone.
This is the last time we are going to see Lily for a while as she heads for Europe. Harry is really going to be alone for quite some time.
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Next chapter: Ron