Disclaimer:

I solemnly swear that the literature and works of the Harry Potter Verse belong to JK Rowling, Bloomberg and Warner Bros. The only thing I own are the one-shot ideas that popped into my head and whatever OCs I would create for them. This is a work of pure fiction made solely for fun, constructive reviews will be welcomed, flames will be ignored. Any references to characters in real-life or fiction are purely coincidental. If I could make money out of my ideas, it would be nice...

Mischief Managed Damn It!

Title: Responsible Professors / Chapter 2 (Working Title)

Posted Date: 8 May 2023

Tags: Proper Professors, Mentor Sinistra, Canon Snape, Manipulative Dumbledore, Worthless Main Heads of House

Possible Challenges: Stupid Man-Child Sirius Black, Stupid Lupin, Bad Hermione Granger, Good(?) Weasley adults, Cult of Dumbledore

Tropes not to be used: Harry going back to Dursleys, Political Harry, Multi-Lordship Potter (maybe allow two?)

Aurora Sinistra knew that she ought to get some sleep for the watch duty, but her mind kept throwing up different scenarios with the supervision of the Goblet of Fire going wrong and what-ifs regarding Harry Potter that she only got a couple of hours of rest before she decided to call it quits and got off the bed. She was just lucky that her lessons were cut short for the night since everyone was too wired up about the selection and drawing of names for the next day. After putting on her robes, Sinistra left her living quarters and made her way to the staircase that would lead her to the floor level of the Great Hall.

"Trouble sleeping?" Sinistra turned to find Babbling also dressed and making her way to her with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, I can't stop thinking about this tournament." Sinistra continued talking as they moved side by side down the stairs. "I keep getting a bad feeling about this."

"Well then, let us go down and soothe your feelings." Babbling padded her bag that Sinistra only realised she was carrying. "I too have trouble sleeping, so I went to prepare some extra protection runes to add on to the goblet when I get down there. These will make people think twice about going to the goblet, and if they have bad intentions? Well, let's just say that my babies will give very nasty surprises to anyone thinking otherwise."

"That is nice." Sinistra hummed in approval. "I only got a few spells from my time here, not sure they would be helpful for this."

"Are those the same spells that gave you the name 'Ball-Buster Sinistra'?" Babbling had a shit-eating grin as Sinistra groaned at that.

"They are still calling me that after so many years." The woman placed a hand to her face to hide her blushing.

"Hey, what you did to some of those guys has become a legend, there are girls in my class that had stated that they would pull a 'Sinistra Buster' on any boy trying to get fresh with them." Babbling let out a guffaw at the last part. Sinistra in turn muttered out some choice vocabulary as they made their way to the Great Hall, only to stop a few steps after they walked through the entrance. "What the?"

"Ah, you are early." Burbage nodded at them calmly like it was a normal day in class with a pile of children all tied up in a corner and under a sleeping spell.

"How many tried to bypass the Age Line?" The two younger women moved closer to see them properly, noting the majority were from Gryffindor and Slytherin, with a couple from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.

"Twenty-six." Burbage answered easily. "They forget that I was a student once, and it is common practice to do something questionable in the middle of the night." that got the other two to look at each other with wide eyes.

"I got the same reaction." Vector came from behind as she came out of the side room. "So it looks like we are all here. At least we have help to move these rascals out of the way."

"Can't sleep, might as well just do some guarding for the first couple of hours. If need be, I would take a Pepper Up potion for tomorrow." Sinistra just shrugged.

"Well, enough talking, let us set up the traps." Babbling went forward to put up her wards. Vector and Sinistra went to add their own spells about the area and the doors before grabbing the students and moving them to the adjacent room to be dealt with in the morning, preferably with the heads of houses around so that they could actually punish them. They were securing the last of the students when the two women heard the tell-tale sounds of Alastor Moody coming around the corner and to the Great Hall. The two decided to keep going with their tasks, partially so they don't deal with the madman and his insistence for constant vigilance. Privately Sinistra did not want to be near the man and that swirling eye that could bypass magical enchantments, she would swear that the eye was focusing on her and the other females in the school a lot and the manner he kept licking his mouth was honestly off putting.

"Burbage, why are you and Babbling here?" Sinistra and Vector could hear Alastor's rough voice calling out in the silence of the Great Hall.

"We are just here to guard the goblet. There are a few students who decided to try their luck tonight." Burbage answered him, and Sinistra would swear that she felt that eye of his focusing on her.

"Ah! So you four lasses managed to stop those troublemakers. Very good. Constant Vigilance!" Even with the door closed, Sinistra and Vector jumped from the suddenness. Wish he would stop doing that.

"For now, but the night is still young." Burbage answered just as the door opened to have Babbling come into the room. Vector was going to call out to her when Babbling shook her head subtly with a tensed face. She held up her wand that had a strand of light coming out to form words hidden by her back to the door.

'Moody is not Moody!'

Well, shit.

Sinistra and Vector were able to keep their expressions from appearing on their faces, but it was a close one, and they were trying to think of ways to handle this. The message changed to something else.

'Wards are powered up and ready to attack. Whoever this one is, the intent is bad enough to set them all off.'

Just as that was read, a loud bang was heard from outside the room, prompting the younger women to leave the room in a hurry to aid their senior professor. They found said professor kneeling on the ground with her wand held shakily and a hand on her chest as she controlled her breathing, while the Alastor imposter was currently suspended in the air with ropes tied around him and in some prism barrier that made the features look distorted. The wand, flask and other items were dropped to the floor haphazardly along with a parchment that floated to the floor.

"Are you okay?" Sinistra moved forward to check on her senior, slowly bringing her to her feet.

"Yes, thank you my dear." Burbage took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Babbling, I am never more thankful for your wards than I am right now. Immediately after you entered the room, Alastor had drawn his wand at me and tried something before he got thrown back by your wards and stunned him."

"And then some." Babbling was looking at the imposter with narrow eyes. "I had the feeling it was someone bad given how my alert system was going crazy with him, so I set the attack levels higher. Good thing too since this is an imposter."

"So who is this and what was he planning?" Vector looked down at the stuff on the floor before using her wand to summon the parchment to her, opening it to see the contents. "Oh dear."

"What?" Sinistra and Burbage came forward to check on them.

"Let's just say that your paranoia was on the ball." Vector moved her hand for them to see the words 'Harry Potter' written on the parchment that had a few printed letters by the torn edges. "Looks like this person tore up an assignment done by Mister Potter to get his name and magic signature. How he would attempt to get the name selected, I have no idea." The others did not comment on that statement, too busy getting over the ramifications that one of the students was this close to getting forcefully drafted into the tournament. Sinistra for one had chills going down her spine as she recollected all that had happened over the years. This was getting out of hand, someone was actively trying to hurt the young boy!

"So what now? Do we call the headmaster?" Vector asked while her hand crumpled the parchment angrily.

"Not Dumbledore, he won't do much." Burbage turned to Babbling. "Can you go and hail Madam Bones for this? I would rather have the DMLE handling this since this is very serious, and her being on hand would help to deter any Aurors that might see fit to play messenger." Left unsaid was them knowing that some Aurors would likely alert Dumbledore as soon as the call was made and the old man would try something to sweep this under the rug.

"On it." Babbling moved to the room she knew had a Floo Fireplace ready for messages at least.

"In the meantime, let us secure this place further." Burbage's statement had no dissenters and they proceeded to reset their original traps before laying out more security traps around the goblet and the Great Hall. They continued for a few minutes until they heard footsteps coming towards them. They turned to find Madam Bones coming through the door with a few of her Aurors, and much to Sinistra's mild dissatisfaction, Dumbledore followed behind them.

"May I ask why is Alastor tied up as such?" The witches slightly bristled at the tone the man used towards them. It sounded rather condescending despite the supposed grandfatherly tone he used to ask. "And also, why is Amelia here?" The Director of the DMLE looked at Dumbledore with a huff before turning to the other women.

"I understand you have a situation." She stated it as a fact.

"We are on guard duty for the goblet as we were concerned regarding the security, or rather the lack of security, around the Goblet." Sinistra took point since this was her idea. "Professor Burbage had managed to stop a number of students from trying to enter their names or others. Professor Vector is the guard after her, while Professor Babbling came to set up some of her protections first. I came down early to do some spellwork since I could not sleep and figured I can do something productive." Amelia nodded while a dictation quill was writing the statement down. Sinistra continued to explain with the others adding in from the time they entered the Great Hall to the point Amelia came.

"I am sure Alastor was not going to enter Young Harry's name. Clearly he found the parchment lying on the floor and picked it up." Albus waved the matter away.

"That would not have tripped any of my security, Headmaster." Babbling reminded the older man with a slightly sharp tone.

"Clearly my dear, you fail to consider Alastor's paranoia that has been known to trip a lot of intent-based wards. He keeps setting off the alarms in the Ministry that they had to give him a special card to walk through." Albus told her in a 'matter-of-fact- tone.

"Madam!" All turned to find one of the younger Aurors pointing her wand at Alastor who seemed to go into seizure before the skin started to bubble up. The peg leg fell off as a new leg grew in his place, then with a sickening squish, the fake eye popped out of the eyepatch and rolled on the floor with a new one growing in place. The scars disappeared and the hair colour changed until Alastor Moody disappeared and in his place, a younger man in his late 30s with sandy hair and some age wrinkles. Someone that could pass as a younger version of a certain judge for the tournament despite the distortion of the barrier.

"That is Barty Crouch Junior!" One of the senior Aurors looked a little green at that. Amelia summoned the flask to her, opened the cap and took a sniff of the contents, her expression darkening at the confirmation.

"Well now, that just makes this a mystery since he supposedly died in Azkaban close to a decade ago." Amelia commented drily. "Disarm and secure him. Monroe, send for backup. Four should be enough. We better check the school for anyone else and for Moody since he has to be alive for Polyjuice to work. After that, we will have an emergency Wizengamot meeting in the morning and get our answers, preferably with Crouch Senior in custody as well."

"Amelia, I do not believe you need to let them know about this." Albus butted in on this. "The man's attempts have clearly failed, so we should not have to make such a spectacle." A few of the younger Aurors were uncertain, but the senior who had recovered from the shock merely fired off a patronus in the form of a hare rushing out of the Great Hall. "I said you did not need to do that!" Albus looked at the senior Auror who looked back in defiance.

"I am doing my duty, and she did not say no. And she is my boss, not you." Monroe spoke firmly.

"And I for one do not appreciate you trying to counter my orders." Amelia hissed in a manner that got the Aurors taking a step back in fear, even as six more Aurors appeared from the door, all looking at the confrontation and the man hovering in the air.

"Ladies, be reasonable." The man's choice of words and somewhat condescending tone got Sinistra to explode on him.

"We'll be reasonable when you quit being such a fucking pansy. This man is a known criminal who managed to get out of Azkaban without anyone knowing, and he was trying to get an underaged child into the tournament. A child that is also the last of his family line. You may be the headmaster but you are not a proper authority figure, and this man is certainly not a teacher. Madam Bones knows the laws better, and it is her we will be listening to." said Sinistra angrily.

"And I am here based on that thoughtfulness. Quite frankly, I am putting more trust in your young professor here than you in terms of protecting the students. This is becoming quite a bad habit you have there by trying to claim this as under school matters, Dumbledore." growled Amelia. She didn't appreciate the rude awakening and the attempts to counter orders.

"Now Amelia."

"That is Madam Bones to you, Headmaster Dumbledore." The woman interrupted the man, "You may have other positions, but they do not have any relevance to this. Chief Warlock is merely a judge position and Supreme Mugwump is for ICW only. The only role that applies right now is Headmaster, and that is to alert us of possible security breaches and not play 'hide the evidence'." She turned to the young professor that was earning some brownie points in her opinion. "May we take him in?"

The professors looked at each other quickly before Sinistra answered. "We shall hand him over to you since you do not let people go without some form of investigation, and you are paranoid with security yourself." Amelia hid any signs of surprise or thoughts with her Occlumency, but she did give a glance at Dumbledore before gesturing to her Aurors to take the Death Eater into custody. Clearly there was some type of hostility going on between the headmaster and the younger professors in Hogwarts that she was not aware of, she would have thought that most if not all of the professors would listen to the old wizard without question. Evidently she was wrong and in this case, she was very grateful as it was clear that Professor Sinistra did not follow Dumbledore on his word alone.

"We would need to call you in for some questioning." Sinistra nodded to the older woman.

"We will answer your questions. In the meantime." Burbage had her wand to her temple and pulled it away with a strand of silver attached to the end, plucking it off and inserting into a vial that Babbling had handed to her. The others had theirs ready while Sinistra was handed another empty vial to deposit her memories. "Here are our memories to speed things up."

"My Dears, this is getting out of hand. I am sure that they do not require your memories." All turned to the old wizard with slight disbelief or irritation.

"Personally, they are being very responsible and proactive in protecting the students. Something that you apparently are not doing. I mean, a freaking Age Line? I can think of at least 5 methods to get a person's name in without crossing the line, and those are muggle methods at that." Amelia snapped at the old wizard before turning to her crew. "Greyson, you and Bosan help them to guard the goblet. Tanner, you and two others come with me to find Moody while the others drag this one into a DMLE cell. Since this one has already escaped, we now have the right to use Veritaserum on him." The Aurors had very scary smiles at that statement. Amelia then swung around with a finger pointed at Dumbledore who had his mouth open to say something.

"Don't even think of interfering or saying the words that I know you want to say." Amelia gave her warning in a low tone. "These young ladies have done what you should have done and more. This person has committed crimes during the last war and has somehow become the second person to escape Azkaban, hence the law states he will be punished accordingly and not up to your constant forgiveness that you seem to enjoy giving to criminals like one of your bloody candy. This is a DMLE matter, and with the security clearly lacking, I am making sure that no one else tries to hoodwink the goblet. My niece is studying here, and I will not have her name, or any other younger students for that matter, show up tomorrow on the name drawing. Don't test me."

With a gesture of her hand, the Aurors moved to their assigned positions with Barty Crouch getting lifted by a levitation charm while the aforementioned Greyson and Bosan moved to check the security around the goblet and added on after checking with Burbage and Babbling. Sinistra was watching the Aurors moving past Dumbledore with the prisoner with Amelia moving shortly after them, and perhaps it was the adrenaline slowly bleeding out along with the lack of sleep, but with the low lighting from the goblet and the few candles still lit…

Dumbledore looked very angry that the attempt to get the man off was thwarted at all.