Chapter 17

The way back to Gryffindor Tower was mostly quiet, Harry following under the Invisibility Cloak at Albus' request. No doubt the boy was still confused, and fear must be growing inside him too.

"No reason to be afraid yet, Harry," Albus said in what he hoped was a reassuring tone. "There is very little chance that you will get picked. Several more eligible names are already inside the Goblet, and there will be more tomorrow night."

His words were met with silence.

"How could have someone Confunded me without me noticing?" asked a bodiless voice after a while.

"Well, that's part of the charm," explained Albus. "The victim doesn't remember being Confunded."

The memories might still be there, though, reflected Albus. If he accessed Harry's mind and reviewed everything that he had experienced in the last twenty four hours or so, he might be able to see who had Confunded him. Or he might not. Whoever had done this must know that Albus would consider to check, and probably had taken precautions against discovery. Simply being invisible when hitting the boy with the spell would suffice. Or obliviation. He sighed. No, he would not risk breaking into such a young mind in a wild-goose chase.

"Why would anyone do this, Professor? And who? It can't be just a prank, right?"

"We can only speculate, Harry. But no, I don't think it's a prank."

"Could it be Voldemort?"

Albus hesitated.

"Voldemort is always a suspect, naturally," he said carefully. "But I'm certain that he isn't at Hogwarts at the moment, so you can put that fear out of your mind for now."

He felt tempted to ask Harry about his scar, but he refrained. It would not help put the boy's mind at ease if he brought it up, and it might lead to questions that Albus would rather avoid. Sirius would let him know if Harry reported some other episode of scar pain, anyway.

"Well, Harry," he said when they had reached the Fat Lady, still surrounded by a silencing ward, "off to bed, now. Try not to worry too much about this, it is possible that it will come to nothing. I ask you not to tell anyone about the Confundment, however, at least not while the Goblet is still receptive. We would not want to give dangerous ideas to other students, after all."

It was highly unlikely that any student would be able to cast such a powerful and effective Confundus Charm, but just in case Albus would rather the Weasley twins not to hear about it. Scary enough would be Molly Weasley if Harry was chosen and she learned that it was Albus' fault for drawing a fallible Age Line.

When Albus returned to the Entrance Hall, he found Severus and Alastor with their wands trained on each other. Fortunately neither of them seemed to have attacked yet, but the tension could be cut with a severing charm.

"Stop that, you two," he said sternly. He didn't want to find out who would win that particular fight. "How many times do I have to remind you that you are both on the same side?"

"I am not the one making trouble," said Severus, sounding a bit childish and refusing to lower his wand.

"I am merely doing my job, Dumbledore," growled Alastor. "You hired me to keep an eye on your blind spots, did you not? And this is the bigger one."

Albus sighed and cast a silencing ward around the Hall.

"Lower your wands, both of you. Now." After a brief hesitation, both men finally obeyed. "I have already told you to leave Severus alone, Alastor."

"I have kept my eye on Karkaroff the entire time since he put a foot in Hogwarts," said Alastor stubbornly. "He didn't have a chance to cast anything on Potter. That leaves your dear Snape as the next main suspect, unless you have any more Death Eaters in the payroll that you neglected to mention."

"I'm sick of this lunatic," spat Severus furiously.

"Alastor..."

"Don't be a fool, Dumbledore. Snape is a suspect, the only one that makes sense at the moment. And he's had plenty access to the boy during his classes and detentions. Detentions, Dumbledore! Meaning Snape and Potter alone for hours!"

"I have never harmed the boy!" exclaimed Severus indignantly. "I won't stand any more accusations, Dumbledore, keep this crazy moron away from me or I won't be responsible for what I do to him!"

"Enough!" said Albus in a loud, authoritative voice. "I will talk to you later, Alastor, please stay here guarding the Goblet. Severus, come with me to my office."

It took five minutes of Severus pacing and snarling around the office before he managed to let go of his Alastor-related fury and focus again on Harry.

"You have to expel Potter!" the man finally exclaimed.

"I don't think that would help, Severus. His name is already inside the Goblet..."

"If the thing is so smart as you make it sound, it will realize that Potter is no longer a student and therefore it can't be chosen to represent Hogwarts."

"I'm afraid that might be too dangerous, Severus. I don't think there was ever a case of a candidate expelled to try to avoid him being picked by the Goblet, but there were more than a few cases of champions expelled to try to remove them from the competition, and the results were really sad."

Severus huffed in frustration.

"Is there any way of taking the name out?" he proposed instead, not the slightest hope in his tone.

"I'm afraid not," said Albus with a sigh. "Not without taking a serious risk. History indicates that the Goblet of Fire cannot be interfered with. Any attempt would likely result in the instant deaths of at least some of the people whose names have been entered. That's why I wish to keep an eye on it. Alastor will watch it tomorrow the entire day."

"Can't it be deactivated?" asked Severus with even less hope.

"That would definitely count as interference. If it were possible to do it safely, we would have done it during the summer."

Severus slid both his hands through his hair.

"I told you to take the boy away, Dumbledore!" he yelled. "He should not have come back to Hogwarts this year!"

Albus sighed.

"I know. You were right, Severus, and so was Alastor, what else can I say? There's nothing to be done about it, now, however. Yelling will not help either."

"It helps me!" yelled Severus. "You assured me that your Age Line was perfect, and yet a simple Confundus Charm could fool it!"

"I think once you calm down you will realize that it couldn't have been a simple Confundus Charm, Severus," said Albus patiently. He knew that he would be harshly criticized for his Line if Harry was chosen and this came to light, but he hoped at least Severus would understand. "You are an expert in Confundment, and yet I think it would be a challenge for you to Confund someone into believing, really believing to the point of knowing, to be a different age. That's not ordinary magic."

It looked as if Severus wanted to deny each and every word that came out of Albus' mouth just because, but he made a visible effort to calm down before speaking again.

"There had to be a better way," he said stubbornly. "A truly effective Age Line."

"I invite you to research Age Lines yourself, Severus. There are multiple options, but most of them can be fooled either by Aging Potions or Polyjuice, or easily disabled by moderately powerful wizards. You should know that there is no such thing as the perfect magic trick. I selected a method that seemed adequate to fend off the possible threats I had considered. I did briefly consider Confundment as a threat, but I honestly didn't think it was possible to Confund someone so thoroughly. I guess we have learned something today."

Tom had always managed to surpass everyone's expectations. Albus was ready to bet that Harry had been subjected to some original variation of the Confundus Charm. It worried him how someone had gotten to the boy, however. If Karkaroff had been watched at all times since his arrival, he no longer knew who to suspect. He would have to discuss the issue with Alastor tomorrow.

Severus sighed in defeat and finally sat down.

"It's highly unlikely that Harry will get picked, Severus," tried to reassure him Albus, even though he didn't feel very confident himself. "He's too young and unqualified."

"That's precisely the point!" snapped the man, getting instantly angry again. "The Dark Lord has to be behind this somehow, Dumbledore, and he must be planning something else to make sure Potter's name is chosen. Perhaps someone will try to Confund the Goblet too to think that the brat is better than anyone else."

It was an interesting thought, Albus had to admit, but he dismissed it.

"Even if it weren't the case of the Goblet being watched at all times by one of us, like I said the Goblet of Fire can't be interfered with. It has been tried before, by people trying to cheat or save some student, and it always ended in disaster. I'd dare say that all the judges dying is more likely than the Goblet being tricked into choosing Harry."

Severus seemed to be trying to convince himself of some of Albus' arguments, but of course he was failing. His mind was just too mistrustful and cynical. He always thought the worst, and unfortunately he was often right.

"I still think you should expel the brat, just in case," he said standing up. "Or do something. Nothing has ever been solved by just stupidly hoping for the best."

Albus was left to ponder those words in silence, a part of his mind wondering whether Severus would go back to the Entrance Hall and whether he should go after him to make sure he didn't lose his temper with Alastor.

He felt guilty for lying to Severus. The truth was that he didn't have any reason to think that destroying the Goblet of Fire or trying to interfere with it now would result in the deaths of any of the students whose names had been entered. Only the judges would die, he was almost certain. And the Ministers, probably. Albus couldn't afford to die yet, however, and of course he would not resign to let Minerva die in his place.

A few years ago he would have viewed the situation in a very different way. Presented with the choice of risking his life to preserve Harry Potter's, he would not have hesitated to do it. It wasn't as if he had much interest in living, after all. At this point he only dragged on out of a sense of duty. And ever since he had heard the Prophecy fourteen years ago, he had been sure that it would be worth dying to protect the child announced by it.

Things weren't so black and white anymore, though. Very few things in life were, he had learned by hard experience. Now he was convinced that Harry Potter was some sort of accidental Horcrux (the news about his scar hurting only reinforced that theory), and that probably meant that despite being prophesized that he was the one with the power to vanquish Tom, he would have to die before Tom could be truly vanquished. Of course that rendered the Prophecy completely senseless, but Albus' Divination research suggested that it could be like that sometimes.

Albus could no longer prioritize Harry Potter's life over his own when he suspected there might be more Horcruxes lying around, and that someone would have to defeat Tom after Harry's Horcrux was destroyed. How he would do that, he still wasn't sure, but he definitely had a better chance at the task than anyone else, especially if he used the Elder Wand. Harry Potter dying would be a heavy blow, especially when the wizarding society needed to be united against Tom's imminent return, but his death would also be a blow against Tom. And, well... sometimes martyrs were even more useful than living heroes.

He sighed.

He hated to be able to see things in such a cold, detached way. Albus cared about the boy, but... well, he didn't think he had allowed himself to truly care about anyone since Gellert. It hurt too much, when later people died or disappointed him. And it made harder to make the hardest decisions.

Despite what he had said to Harry and Severus, Albus wasn't sure the boy had such a slim chance of being picked. Harry might be young and not very good at magic, but he had more experience facing deadly threats and surviving than any other Hogwarts' candidate. He also had (almost certainly) a piece of Lord Voldemort's soul attached. If the Goblet of Fire took that part of Harry into consideration like the Sorting Hat probably had, it might very well single the boy out as the most powerful student Hogwarts had to offer. And if that happened...

Albus didn't feel ready to let Harry die just yet. And not just because of the boy. Hate him he might, but Severus would be devastated if he failed in keeping Lily's son alive. And Albus was certain that it would be impossible to persuade him of remaining as a spy if Harry Potter died. At the very least it would be extremely dangerous to trust him after that, especially since Albus was partially responsible for this whole mess. Why had he been so arrogant as to ignore Severus' and Alastor's advice from a few months ago? If Harry had not been at Hogwarts at all this year, this would not have happened. He should have transferred him to another school, or at the very least expel him and hide him under a random rock in Africa like Alastor had suggested.

Would it do any good, to expel Harry? He hadn't been exactly honest with Severus about that either. Expelling a champion had never done any harm, it was their running away or their being prevented from attending the tasks that got them killed. There was no precedent suggesting that expelling them in itself did anything at all.

Perhaps he should give it a go.

Nicholas' voice inside his head made him hesitate.

If you ever have the misfortune of judging a Triwizard Tournament, Albus, don't mess with the Goblet. It's not worth it. The damned thing will win every time.

That had been one of his last many advices.

But he wouldn't be messing with the Goblet now, just with Harry. Worst case scenario, being expelled would have some negative effect on the boy, like instant death. Seeing that he would likely die if he was chosen as champion —and in a much more horrid way—, Albus considered that there wasn't much to lose.

So he retrieved a massive book from a massive drawer in his desk and leafed through it until he found the right entrance.

Harry James Potter, b. July 31, 1981, s. Gryffindor, 1991, g.-

Despite this being a desperate attempt to protect the boy, it took Albus several minutes to execute the decision. Unbelievable as it might be, he had never expelled a student in all his career as Headmaster. After seeing how Armando had expelled Hagrid, he had vowed to always find another way.

But he was being silly. Getting expelled was the best that could happen to Harry, under the present circumstances (unless he died being expelled). And Albus could always reincorporate him as soon as the Choosing was over. The boy didn't need to ever know.

So Albus took the Headmaster's Quill and slowly scratched the name using his own blood as ink.

Harry James Potter, b. July 31, 1981, s. Gryffindor, 1991, e. October 31, 1994.