Alduin had reluctantly reported to Kingsley that he'd been wrong about Moody, and the man had been graceful enough that not even a single 'I told you so' left his mouth in response. However, not too long after, he came to Travers Manor for a private conversation, and once they were alone in Alduin's study, he grimaced and said: "You might not have been entirely off base with all your theories."

Alduin was immediately on high alert. "What do you know?"

Winky finally gave us a hint, at least, after our elves have been trying to nurse her to better mental health for half a year. Apparently, Bartemius has 'many secrets' and it's still her sacred duty to guard them."

Alduin frowned. With most people, he wouldn't have read anything into it – everyone had secrets – but Bartemius in particular? The man who'd always prized himself as bing the most upstanding citizen? "What have you discovered so far?" He asked.

"Well, there is his mysterious illness," Kinglsey reiterated.

It was, indeed, still exremely supicious, but Alduin had not managed to come up with a way that would benefit Bartemius in any sinister plans – except, perhaps, to seemingly remove suspicion from him by removing him from Hogwarts. But if Moody wasn't being controlled…

"She didn't say anything else?"

"No, as as I've told you, I won't press her unless I have more evidence."

Alduin waved that aside – he quite agreed, really – and began to pace. "Is there any way you can get an investigator into his house, on any pretence? There has be something to find."

"That's the main reason I came to you," Kingsley admitted. "he's a top ministry official, we can't just do whatever we want there, and he's smart enough to notice anything suspicious. And I'm not on good enough terms with him for a call that won't look suspicious. But you are close tot he Crouches, or closer than me at any rate."

"To Ginvera, maybe," Alduin muttered, as he would hardly call himself close to Jonathan these days, and Eliza – well, she was no longer a Crouch in any case, was she?

But still, he suppose that did give him a better chance. "I will see what I can do," he said, and asked Ginevra for tea the following afternoon.

She had, so far, stayed completely separate from all his war-related plots, the only one of his old friends to do so. Mercurius might have hinted something to her, for all he knew, but he'd never wanted to burden her with those problems in addition to all else she had to shoulder, and her Charms specialization was not so necessary to him that he would be forced to pull her in in spite of his best intentions.

But, it seemed, push had some to shove now.

They got through the obligatory small talk – apparently Elizabeth was doing very well at Hogwarts, where most people had never known her as anything but a girl, and had confessed before Christmas that she'd wanted to stay there over the break, to avoid her father; it broke Ginvera's heart, but she gave her assent to her daughter staying over Easter, promising that she would coem to visit instead.

Alduin privately though that unless Jonathan shaped up very quickly, the scandal of breaking up this marriage would become unavoidable.

After Ginevra asked about Wynn and Edric in turn, there was finally space to open with Alduin's true request, and so he asked: "How much has Mercurius told you about my...cooperation with Daniel?"

Ginevra frowned at him. "Nothing, except to mention that you needed his expertise for something."

Of curse. He should have known Mercurius would e entirely discreet.

"Suffice it to say it has to do with the possibility of another war," he explained.

Ginevra took in a sharp breath.

"Now," Alduin went on, choosing his words carefully, "I'm worried about Bartemius. There's his strange and unexplained illness, his house-elf was involve din the casting of the Mark at the Cup...I've been thinking about it, in light of some other things I've discovered, and I'm worried someone is trying to get him involved in something – or, alternately, to get him blamed. I don't suppose you've heard anything about how he's doing?"

Ginevra gave him a piercing look. "Don't make me feel like an idiot. You know perfectly well that Bartemius would hardly get himself unknowingly involved. If he was, it would be willingly and consciously. He's hardly one to be fooled easily."

That was true enough, but Ginevra's words – willingly and consciously – struck something in his mind, and he remembered the spell they'd tried to detect in Moody. Of course. Why hadn't he even thought of that?

"Listen," he said, "I will give you a way to detect a Dark spell, and I need you to get as close to Bartemius as possible..."

-hp-hp-hp-hp-

Harry had agreed with Hermione and Su that he and Parvati, as well as Ron and Neville, would sit with them and the other Ravenclaws for the Second Task. When he arrived in the Entrance Hall, however, it was to a frustrated and – he thought – rather worried Su and no Hermione.

"I don't know where she is," Su said, sounding angry. "She got a note from Flitwick last night that he wanted to see her, and she went and never came back, and I went to see Flickwick and he just told me not to worry about it, but-"

"I'm sure she's fine," Mandy Brocklehurst said soothingly. "I mean, if Flitwick says not to worry-"

"I know, but why won't he just tell me?"

"If we want to catch the task, we need to go," Padma's friend – Harry thought she was called Morag, but he wasn't entirely sure – pointed out.

"It's not like you can go looking through the castle for her," Megan pointed out reasonably.

"I know, just- I know she wouldn't have wanted to miss this," Su muttered. "She wanted to go watch Krum. But all right, let's go."

They did.

The stands were erected by the side of the lake this time, and they all got settled in, giving it curious looks. What was going to happen?

Harry was sitting next to Parvati, holding her hand as she was talking to her sister. He listened to Neville, on his other side, trying to calm Su as she kept muttering that really, what reason could there be for Hermione to be absent the whole night and then still in the morning.

"Her bed hasn't been slept in," she said. "That's just strange, isn't it?"

"Maybe they needed her help for something with the task?" Neville suggested. "I mean, she is the best in our year, so maybe..."

Su frowned. "Hermione can do a lot, but still, it's not things our teachers couldn't do, you know? I can't see why they'd need her, specifically..."

It was then that Bagman interrupted them with his magically amplified voice, explaining that something valuable – or someone, perhaps, he suggested in what he probably thought was a teasing tone – was taken from each of the champions and put inside the lake and that they had an hour to reclaim it.

Harry, Neville and Su exchanged a horrified look. So they took Hermione and, what, imprisoned her at the bottom of the lake because Krum liked her? How did anyone think that was a good idea?

Ron, on the other hand, had different worries. "You mean to tell me," he said, "that we'll sit here for an hour watching the surface of the lake while everything interesting happens down there? Seriously?"

"Right?" Said Zainab, who was sitting next to him with her Hufflepuff friends. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

Ron turned to her as they began to discuss how it could have been improved to become at least somewhat exciting for the people who were watching. Harry focused on the Champions for the moment: they were getting ready, and Harry watched in fascination as Krum half-transformed himself into a shark. Fleur and Cedric both just created a bubble around their heads and dived in.

And that was that.

"Idiotic," Ron muttered again, and Harry had to agree with him.

"I wonder what I'd have done, if Alduin didn't help me out of this," he said. "I mean, it doesn't look so bad as the first task, does it? You just need to have a way to breathe underwater, and that charm looks pretty simple."

"You'd have an even better time with gillyweed," Neville suggested. "It lets you breathe underwater too – lets you grow gills, actually – but you also get webbed fingers and your feet change, so swimming is easier."

"There's a plant that can do all that?" Harry asked incredulously.

Neville nodded. "We covered it last year in Herbology Club," he said. "It's really fascinating."

"I'd say," Harry muttered. He'd never cared too much about Herbology, but this sounded incredibly cool, if also a little bit disturbing.

Su, at least, was distracted from her worries about Hermione by the idea of gillyweed, and they spent a good long time discussing what they'd do with it.

"I think I still prefer a bubble-head charm," Parvati said with finality. "Much less disturbing."

Fleur was the first of the Champions to return, but she was without her hostage. Apparently, there were some grindylows that attacked her, and she had to retreat, and now she paced the edge of the lake, frantic with worry for whoever she had down there. Harry wondered if ti was Roger. Somehow, he didn't think so – he hadn't seen them together since the Ball.

The next back was Cedric, pulling Cho with him. Seeing that, Harry smiled. It was a good thing they were together now, he supposed, because he was pretty sure Cho hadn't been what he cared for the most, or whatever Bagman said this was, even when they had still been together.

In fact, when Harry gave it a bit of a thought as Hermione was pulled from the lake by Krum to Su's audible sigh of relief, and considered who would be it for him, he realized it would absolutely be Wynn or Edric. At the mere idea of the boys being there, his stomach turned, and he had to give fervent mental thanks to Alduin for saving him from competing once again. Apart from how absolutely terrified he'd have been, he rather worried he'd have tried murdering every single grindylow and merperson in that lake if he thought they were keeping the boys there.

He tried to tell himself that surely they wouldn't have done it, they wouldn't have taken children, but that hope died rather abruptly when the end of the task was announced and Fleur's hostage was brought back from the lake, escorted by the merpeople.

It was, very clearly, her younger sister.

She was not as young as Wynn, let alone Edric, but still, she was pre-Hogwarts age – perhaps eight or so? - and as Harry watched Fleur, who was now sobbing and embracing her little sister, his stomach turned again.

"How," he muttered angrily, "could anyone think this was a good idea?"

He didn't even realize he was speaking out loud, until Su turned to him and said with emphasis: "Right? It was bad enough it being Hermione down there, but if they'd taken A-Wei, I'd have turned them all into fishfood."

Well, at least someone got it, Harry thought, even if Dumbledore and the rest of those tossers clearly didn't.

He'd mirror call Alduin that afternoon, he decided. He needed to see the boys healthy and safe, away from any stupid lakes.

-hp-hp-hp-hp-hp-

There were other things than just Lucius' Vow to consider in the light of Riddle's approaching return. That, thankfully, had been taken care of with Narcissa already, but it led him to realize that many other people also had important knowledge, and while they wouldn't be as exposed to Riddle as Lucius – except for Snape, who had enough defences against that on his own – they were still, by and large, known as his friends, as people who visited his house regularly, and it was not inconceivable that Riddle would try to use them to get to him.

To that end, he called his selected group of transcendentals together again, to warn them as well as offer them Obliviations – by way of Daniel Goldstein, who was, after all, the expert here – to keep the knowledge safe.

He couldn't, he knew, force them, but he could at least offer the option.

"I'll take it," Sarabeth said pretty much immediately. "I am completely shit at Occlumency, and useless in a fight. I think I have a decent chance to stay off his radar, but I don't want to take the risk. And I think I've helped oyu about as much as I could with the Prophecy, anyway."

"I'd take it if I could," was Mrs. Gerard's answer. "But I think you'll need my help, still, with the Horcrux in Harry. I'll probably go into hiding after he comes back, to keep safe."

Alduin gave her a grateful nod, and turned to Muhammad. "Not for me," Muhammad said, "but then you knew that already."

Alduin had. Muhammad's help would be needed, too, and he felt that, throught their close ties through Abdullah, he should stay informed to be able to offer Alduin what support he needed.

Alduin had agreed to that, but insisted on the option to change their minds once Riddle did come back and they knew more about the situation.

Daniel Goldstein was not an option – his help would be needed – and his occlumency was rock solid anyway. The only danger there, Alduin knew, was if he would choose to betray them, and there was nothing that could be done about that.

As Sarabeth bid them all a teary goodbye and retreated with Goldstein to a different room for the procedure, Mrs. Gerard turned to the rest of the room, and said gravely: "There's one more thing that has occurred to me. When Riddle comes back...what if he decides to check on his Horcruxes?"

That, Alduin realized in horror, was an uncomfortably good point.

"Duplicated," Muhammad said immediately, the same horror echoing in his words. "We need duplicates."

That, of course, was easier said than done.

The diary was a lost case, so Alduin just hastily met with Narcissa the following day and told her to invent a good story for what happened to it that would allow Lucius to escape mostly unscathed and focused on the rest. He was working off the assumption that Riddle could not sense them, which was supported by his behaviour while he was possessing Quirrel. If, once in possession of his own body, he could, it was pointless and they were in deep shit. But he held out hope.

The locket had been elsewhere, so that was beside the point, but he had Dumbledore make a copy of the diadem, and Alexandra a copy of the ring. Getting to the cup was a bit more complicated, but in the end he managed to convince the Smiths to copy it with the goal of giving the copy to Hogwarts, so that they, at least, had that much. It was not a bad idea, in actuality, but for now, it served as a very convenient excuse.

The next step was sending them to Theodore to imbue them with as much dark magic as he could, to confuse the effects of detection charms to some degree. When that was done, he would set out to hide them again – the diadem and the cup were simple enough, but the ring would a tough nut to crack. It had been hidden behind spells cast personally by Riddle, and Alduin didn't dare to leave his own personal mark behind. In the end, after consulting with Dumbledore, he agreed that the man would go there himself. After all, he already had one of the Hallows. It wasn't so inconceivable he would be looking for another, and he already had a big enough target on his head.

After all this was done, they would all simply have to desperately pray that it worked and their years of effort would not come to nothing with just one look from Riddle.