Harry walked into his room, thankful that every Ilvermorny student had their own room - Isolt Sayre and her husband had never liked the idea of the dorm rooms which were a staple of Hogwarts social life; they had enough experience with kids to know kids liked their own privacy and space and they couldn't work if they lived on top of others in a dormitory.
Ilvermorny while essentially the MACUSA version of Hogwarts was not like the British school in many ways, and every single student had their own separate rooms, and the school could form their own bedrooms if there was an influx of students. Every single student owned a room charmed to be bigger on the inside than on the outside. It came with a spacious bed, a desk, and a lounge although the common room was encouraged as the place for a student to relax in although it was known the students might just want to be alone, and there was a bathroom complete with shower and a bath, and there was a wardrobe and a small library for the storage of books.
As befitting a student of Horned Serpent, Harry's room was full of books on varied subjects from charms, potions, transfiguration and DADA and many other subjects, but there were pictures of Harry and his family on holidays, and most of the pictures had Holly dominating them. There were gifts and presents from the younger girl all over the place, from simple bracelets and rings to books and so on.
Closing and double-locking the door with the locking rune, Harry went to his desk and sat down, thinking about what had happened in Fontaine's office and rubbed his forehead.
The Triwizard Tournament. He was a contestant in the Triwizard Tournament, and he had been reunited with his stupid parents again after so long with his family in the MACUSA. Everything had just shot on so fast that he didn't have a clue what to think. Why was it every single time Albus Dumbledore poked his nose into things, every single pie he touched, everything went mad? Why was it Dumbledore was allowed so many jobs, and yet was even allowed to be the Headmaster of a school? Any responsible Headmaster would have made sure there was a lot of security around something like the Goblet of Fire; all Dumbledore had done was use a ward line that was pathetically easy to cross, and Harry was convinced Dumbledore had made sure there were few security wards around the Goblet for something like this to happen. He wanted Charlus Potter to be involved in the Tournament, and somehow Harry's name had got mixed into it.
What worried Harry the most was whoever had done it had been determined to make sure neither of the Potter twins could wriggle out of it; there were hundreds of ways someone could get out of this kind of tournament, not short of committing suicide. Such an attempt would result in the magic being torn out of the contestant.
And…where did they get the blood from? Had someone somehow found out about the Dursleys, and found an old blood splatter? It was possible, the cupboard had been full of the stuff encrusting on the walls, thanks to the beatings. But Harry didn't think so, he didn't even know if a wizard was capable of even looking that deeply into someone's past, especially if they'd lived in the muggle world for the first years of their life.
Wizards were simply not capable of coping in the muggle world; they were just too unalike. Even now Harry had problems with some aspects of life as a wizard.
No. However they'd gotten the blood, it was a much more elaborate and elegant than that. Simpler. Someone might have somehow gotten into St Mungo's, the magical hospital where Harry and his twin had been born. There was a policy where magical children had a small amount of their blood extracted just before the birth with a special spell. Harry had seen the procedure happen a few years ago when one of his older cousins had given birth to a baby girl, and he'd asked questions about it.
Blood was extremely important in the magical world. And there was no better way of knowing how powerful a magical child was, than by taking a small sample of the blood, and keeping a record of it. The power of a witch or wizard grew as they grew older. It was a historical fact, but sometimes their talents and power level were easy to detect beforehand, and it was also a great way of determining if they were sick with some kind of illness.
Had someone stolen a phial of his blood from the hospital? Harry would have to ask his uncles, he wasn't sure if the samples were kept for long.
It was something to check.
'So much for a quiet year,' Harry muttered.
When the news had broken out about the Triwizard Tournament, he had just ignored it although like everyone else he would have likely been cursing the fact Ilvermorny had not even been invited or considered since the school was full of seventh years who were more than capable of taking part, while he was mentally counting down the days before Holly's arrival at the school. One more year, and Holly would be a first-year student. Both of them were looking forward to it.
And now this.
Harry sighed and pulled the mirror over to him, checking the time as he did. "Holly Potter," he said.
Holly's face appeared on the mirror. "Harry!" She cheered up. She was a little bit tired, but she had a bright smile on her face, the same smile reserved for her favourite brother.
Only brother.
"Hi, Holly," Harry said, but before he could even find the mental strength to say what he wanted and needed to, Holly interrupted him, her expression grave.
"Harry, is it true you're in the Triwizard Tournament?" Holly asked, her tone scared.
Harry sighed. "Who told you?"
"Aunt Miranda. She told me as soon as I saw her. She saw me and broke down," Holly replied. "Please, tell me it's not true!" Holly begged.
Annoyed and cursing his aunt for taking this out of his hands, Harry sighed. There was nothing he could do. He would have to just tell his sister the truth. And there was also the way she was looking at him now, with her wide puppy dog eyes staring at him fearfully, Holly had likely been given a quick rundown on what the Tournament was, its bad reputation and the history that came with it.
"I'm afraid it is," Harry sighed.
"No," Holly shook her head, tears rolling down her face.
"I'm afraid it's true, Holly. Someone put my name and Charlus's into the Goblet of Fire, and they used our blood to forge a contract," Harry sighed.
Holly had been in the magical world long enough to know what that meant. "You can't break it! There's nothing you can do!"
"Oh there is, Holly," Holly went quiet when she heard the deadly tone of danger in Harry's voice. She looked into his face and saw his jaw twisting in that feral way that showed his teeth. She knew what that expression meant. It meant there was going to hell when Harry got to Hogwarts, and truthfully she didn't care what the outcome was, as long as Harry survived without a hair out of place.
"I am not letting someone play with my life. I don't care if it's Fudge, Dumbledore, or our bastard parents. I am going to find out who put my name in the Goblet of Fire, and I am going to make them pay," Harry's voice was dark with anger.
Holly's expression darkened as well, and her jaw twisted much like her older brother's. "When you do, think of me when you do it too, yeah?"
Harry nodded. The siblings had a very long, close relationship. An attempt on one of them was an attempt on both of them. "Count on it, sis."
Holly's smile returned, but it was dimmed slightly, "Harry, did you really see them?"
"You mean…our biological parents?"
Holly nodded.
"Yes, I did. They didn't say much."
"Why not?" Tears appeared in her eyes. Holly might have come to love their current parents, but she had always wanted to know their biological parents.
"I don't know," Harry whispered. "I don't care either," Harry went on, "All I know is, I'm going to Hogwarts."
-8-
Headmaster Fontaine looked at the array of faces in the staff room, and he sighed. "How are the preparations? I know, they're last minute, and I've already asked for help from the President herself, but how are they going?"
Professor Villa, the Deputy Headmaster, sighed himself, "We've managed to get the basics done. But it's going to take two days at least before we can get to Hogwarts."
"Wouldn't it have been easier to just simply send Harry on the dates when a task would have been on?" Professor Cally, the first-year Charms teacher asked.
"We thought about that. The Triwizard Tournament has always had the participating schools send a small group of students and teachers. This is no different. Like it or not, we're are involved in it now," Fontaine replied gravely.
"And we still don't know how it happened? Where did they get that blood from in the first place?" Professor Stannis who taught second-year potions asked.
"That's the part that worries me," Healer Chappell commented. "Blood samples removed from babies is standard procedure in magical hospitals as it gives the Healers a chance to see if the baby will develop a nasty susceptibility to different forms of allergies or illnesses. But the samples are always destroyed afterwards."
"Could someone have stalked Harry and his family?" Professor Mellanby asked. "Got the blood that way?"
"If they did then they were cunning. The Potters are one of the oldest families in America, and they're a founding family, too. They have homes that are highly warded and you would need to think of a creative way of getting some blood," Professor Servalan, who had been an Auror with the MACUSA's DMLE, remarked.
"I am glad someone is asking these types of questions, and making these types of educated guesses because it looks like nobody else is," Fontaine commented.
"What do you mean?" Servalan asked.
"It looks like Dumbledore, in one of his usual bouts of infinite wisdom, decided to hush everything up and slow down the DMLE investigation. It wasn't until later they found out blood was used as part of the contract," Fontaine said.
"Dumbledore?" Professor Kowalski spat. "I used to respect that man, and he was there when me and my husband got married," she looked down at her hands for a moment, "but then I lost respect for him when he refused to stop Grindelwald's assassins from coming after us after I walked away. Jacob stopped them but I had to see his face as I fled with our babies."
"It's okay, Queenie," Professor Stannis whispered, rubbing the older witch's back. Queenie Kowalski, nee Goldstein, had listened to Grindelwald's promises only to discover they were empty, but at the time they were strong enough to tempt her to follow him. She'd left after seeing the German Dark Lord torture the No-Maj she loved, and soon they were married and had three children. Happiness had been in the air until her husband was murdered along with one of her children. They were killed by Grindelwald's assassins, although to this day Queenie genuinely didn't know for sure if Grindelwald had personally ordered the attack or if someone else had been behind it; she hadn't gotten along with many of the army, and in fact, many saw her as soft, unimportant.
But for months Queenie had been scared of Grindelwald coming after them all. Dumbledore had ignored her warnings and fears, and even when she had begged him to help protect her, he hadn't and she had lost faith when she had buried her husband and son, and she devoted her life to teaching and caring for her remaining family.
"No, it's not," Queenie shook her head. She taught Charms and Harry Potter was one of her students, so she dreaded the thought of a boy she liked a lot being forced into this mess. "Why would Dumbledore delay such an investigation; they could have tracked down the one who put the twins' names into the Goblet?"
"He's got something in mind for the twins, or at least the twin he knows the most," Professor Avon, a tall man with a hawklike face who taught DADA for the fifth years commented. A No-Maj born who had been abandoned by his family, and then raised in care, he had slipped the net until he was about 11 years old before his magic had been discovered by the sensor nets, and was then fostered by a family before he had gone on to become a highly regarded Hit Wizard, he was a born detective who had solved many cases before he had decided to take a long sabbatical and then become a teacher at Ilvermorny.
For a while, he had been silent as he had listened to his colleagues, and he had been forming his own opinions.
"Charlus Potter is widely regarded as the Boy Who Lived, but what if that fool Voldemort cast a curse on both of the twins at the same time? I was always sceptical about the whole 'Boy-Who-Lived' thing," Avon went on, "especially when I found out Harry was his brother. What if Harry was the one struck by the Killing curse? How else could he have been seen as a squib when he was checked out and was then cast out?"
"How do you know that?" Chappell asked suspiciously.
"I was a former investigator and a Hit Wizard, didn't you know that? But the point is, why wouldn't he have used a second wand and cast the killing curse at both twins at the same time?" Avon looked around the room.
"He's got a point," Queenie hissed.
"Yes," Jenna Stannis whispered as she rubbed her eyes and she thought about what they knew. "So, Harry and Charlus were both cursed at the same time, and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was the only one who knew, and now it looks like someone connected to him found a way of getting the blood from both of the twins and wrote their names with it to make sure they couldn't escape the Triwizard Tournament? Think about it, why else would this be happening if they weren't aware Harry was cursed, too."
"It's only speculation," Villa shook his head.
"No, but it's a good theory," Fontaine commented.
"How are we going to get to Hogwarts, Michael?" Professor Ashe asked.
"That's the problem. Like all magical schools that regularly partake in contests internationally, Ilvermorny has a wide range of magical transports, we've arranged for an airship modelled on those used by the No-Maj's from the 1920s to take us to Hogwarts, but it is short notice and it won't be ready until the end of the week," Fontaine replied.
"Why is it a problem?" Chappell asked.
"It's such short notice, and while the airship will be ready, we will need to send letters out to every family in Harry's year up to seventh year. It will have to be cleaned and a small group of students who'd want to go to Hogwarts to support Harry or at least to make friends internationally will have to let us know what they want to go and then ask for their family's permission," Fontaine said.
"Do you think many will want to go?"
"I don't know, but it will be a great opportunity for the students. At the same time, I will need to ask for volunteers to stay, and run Ilvermorny. I will be going, as Headmaster I have to support and look after Harry, and I'll need a group of teachers to come and help supervise and teach the students coming with me," Fontaine said.
-8-
Fontaine stood up at breakfast, casting a spell to grab the attention of everyone in the Hall. He was tired but thankfully he was keeping himself awake thanks to a potion, and he'd planned already to go to bed early. Before he stood up, he let his gaze drift over to the Horned Serpent table.
If a Hogwarts student was to find themselves at Ilvermorny, they would have thought it was an almost perfect mirror image of what they'd seen at Hogwarts. But there were differences; at Hogwarts, the sorting ceremony involved a Hat, whereas at Ilvermorny, you stood on a Gordian knot and a statue lit up showing which house you went into, but the dining experience was different because there hadn't been individual Founders for Ilvermorny, and so the students mingled at various tables without House segregation getting in the way, so Ilvermorny had escaped that problem Hogwarts had never gotten away from.
Once the students were quiet, Fontaine began speaking while he pressed his wand to his throat, "I'm sorry for interrupting breakfast, everyone, but I have an important announcement to make," he took a deep breath. "As you know by now, the Triwizard Tournament has been brought back and is being held at Hogwarts, and due to a massive botch up in their security, Harry Potter's name was drawn out of the Goblet of Fire."
For a moment the Hall was silent, but before even one student could cheer, especially the Horned Serpents, Fontaine carried on with his speech. "Before any of you get any ideas and call Harry a cheat, or something like that, you should all be aware that he didn't put his name in the Goblet, and whoever did it used some of his blood to seal the magical contract. And Harry was not the only one; as many of you know, Harry's brother is heralded as the Boy Who Lived in Britain. His name was also put into the Goblet of Fire, and he has become a Champion. Both boys are innocent and will need to take part in the Tournament, or they will lose their magic. Letters are being sent to your parents, and any student from fourth year who wishes to go to Hogwarts to cheer Harry on will need to alert us and their parents. The teachers and I have discussed this, and we've decided that only the fourth years will go because that's Harry's year, but also because the upper years have important coursework and exams to go through. I will be going as well and some of the other teachers will be coming with me, to remind you all that you are students of Ilvermorny, and we will be showing them how we do things."
When Fontaine had finished, Harry spoke to Melissa.
"I wasn't expecting Fontaine to be so blunt about the blood or the contract," Melissa commented.
"I'm just glad he did," Harry said before Scott and Clara came over. Clara was a Pukwudgie and Scott was a Wampus.
"Are you okay, Harry?" Clara asked; she and her brother had been told by their cousin what happened the night before, but she wanted to know how her cousin was coping with the news once he'd slept on it.
"Yeah, more or less. I'm just trying to work out how they got my blood," Harry spooned some cereal into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.
"I've been thinking about that as well," Melissa said.
"Hey, Harry," Kerr Monkswood, one of Harry's friends in Horned Serpent, said while the table filled up with some of Harry's other friends; Marcus Goldstein, Jack Kowalski, Ursula Kenyon and Melody Lake, and Riley Song.
"Hi, Kerr."
"Hey, Mel," Ursula grinned. She was a cheerful girl with Hispanic features, a No-Maj born who had been adopted and given the family name. She wasn't entirely sure how she had gotten into the magical world, but since she didn't have any memory of her birth family, she had no choice but to adapt even if she thought the MACUSA should change their tactics even if it had kept their world in peace for years.
"Hi, Harry," she went on.
"Hi, Ursula. Are you coming to Hogwarts?"
"I will if I can get mum and dad's permission. What about you guys?"
"Definitely," Jack said.
"I'll send mine a letter soon," Riley promised.
"How are you coping, Harry?" Melody asked.
Melissa frowned, she knew Melody and Ursula, despite accepting that she and Harry were dating, both had crushes on him themselves, but there were times she and Harry often considered dating them, along with her. Multi-partner relationships were not uncommon or illegal in the magical world. But she was not sure how they would react.
Harry sighed and put down his spoon. "I don't know," he replied honestly. "I saw my parents last night. They didn't say much, which makes me wonder if they came willingly or if Dumbledore purposefully brought them here."
"Why would he do that?"
"Because of his hard-on for forgiveness," Marcus said with a snort.
"Perhaps. He likely heard the story of how they abandoned me and Holly and wanted us to build bridges. I don't know why he made the effort since they weren't interested any more than I was," Harry replied, trying to hide his hurt at the same time.
"How did Holly take the news?" Scott knew Harry would have told Holly everything. Those two shared a very strong bond.
Harry shook his head. "She's horrified," he replied. "She knew before I mirror called her."
"She has a right to be horrified, considering the reputation of the Tournament," Riley said thoughtfully before she checked her watch. "We'd better finish up. Classes start in half an hour, but I want to call home and tell Mum and dad I want to go to Hogwarts."
"Me too," Marcus said.
"How do you think they'd react?" Melody wondered.
"Who knows?"
-8-
Charlus Potter stared at his parents and Headmaster in horror. He had spent hours, and days waiting for news on what was happening with his bastard brother (harsh, considering his parents were married at the time of their birth) being brought into the Tournament. But Dumbledore had been stalling too long until finally, he had to accept Harry was coming.
His friendship with Ron and some of the other Gryffindors had stalled, and because he'd had such a sheltered life where he was waited on hand and foot by his parents, Charlus was so socially unaware that because he had brought the same arrogance with him into Hogwarts, everyone saw him as an obnoxious bully.
"He's coming here?" He couldn't even say the name.
Dumbledore frowned at Charlus's manner. He had told Lily and James more than once that Charlus needed to have interactions with other children so he could grow up, but alas they hadn't listened to him. "Yes, he is. He has to; because his blood was used in a contract, if he doesn't come or refuses to participate, then he will lose his magic." He didn't add that if Charlus also refused to take part then it would mean a death sentence for them both, as wizards and witches could not live without magic for long.
"Ilvermorny is already making arrangements, but this is a golden opportunity," he added, turning to spear Lily and James with strong looks of disappointment for losing a potential prophecy child; he was still unsure of the events that took place that night when Voldemort lost his body, and because of Lily and James's rash actions the boy had been in the MACUSA for a long time when he could have been attending Hogwarts, which would have given the old wizard a good idea of what to expect from the boy.
At the same time, Dumbledore wished he had opened the Triwizard Tournament up to accept students from other magical schools and build up contacts so that when Voldemort returned, they wouldn't have the same problems as before with international relations. Europe had largely abandoned Magical Britain due to their own mistakes. He did not want that to happen again; Voldemort was a threat to all.
"An opportunity for what?" Lily asked.
"To make things right, to open new doors with your son and daughter."
James went pink with embarrassment or anger. "They left of their own accord, Albus. We didn't want them to."
"But you let it happen, James. In your rush to get Harry away, because you believed he was a squib, you took my meaning to keep the family safe the wrong way. I didn't tell you to abandon your children but to take precautions, and then you faked Miss Holly Potter's death," Dumbledore countered, not happy with what he had learnt in the years since Harry had revealed he was a wizard. "Look, I want the three of you to make the effort to build up a relationship with them. They are family, after all."
