When he stopped in front of the Headmaster's gargoyle, Daphne assumed he knew the password, she certainly didn't. Instead, Harry quickly cycled through as many sweets as he could. To her amazement, the gargoyle finally jumped aside when he sarcastically announced "Cockroach Cluster."
When the staircase locked into place, Daphne was startled by how much magic rushed around her as shield charms visibly disengaged.
"Come in Harry!" Dumbledore's voice called, corresponding with the door swinging open.
Eager to see the inside of her headmaster's office, she eagerly strolled forward only to realise they'd inadvertently interrupted an important meeting. She was instantly able to recognise her minister for magic, staring angrily at Professor Dumbledore.
Beside them was Professor Moody, looking quite bored, and a man in gold-trimmed, black velvet robes who she didn't know at all. This unknown man was glaring at the Minister thunderously, sparing only a brief glance towards them.
"Harry, we should come back later." Daphne muttered, finding it extremely awkward to be amongst such powerful people.
"Nonsense, it's important." Harry returned confidently, striding forward so that he wasn't hidden within the doorway.
"Ah, Mr. Potter. I might've guessed Dumbledore would've brought you into the fold. It was you who found Bartemius, was it not? You were there, when he was 'mysteriously cursed'?" The Minister greeted coldly, shifting his gaze to Harry. Just like the headmaster, he acted completely unfazed from their Minister's stare, despite the power the man wielded.
"I was. I even provided a pensieve memory moments after the event. I assure you, it is no 'mystery' how he was cursed, he was struck in the back through my shield charm."
"The Minister has decided he can't trust pensieve memories, finding them 'too easy to trick'. I have never found that to be the case myself, but then in my 100 years I've yet to see everything." The headmaster added.
"It's well known your little protégé is a master of the mind arts. Tell me, Potter, what would you say to hearing my advisors are of the mind that you cursed Bartemius and tried to blame it on an invisible man?"
"I would say it sounds like they are doing their job; It is the advisors that offer the farfetched ideas first, so that the logical ones can be discussed, right?"
Spluttering, the Minister turned and collected his iconic lime green hat before ramming it onto his head in anger.
"It is clear that Mr. Potter was only ever acting in defence of your employee, Minister Fudge. Viktor confirmed as much, with both Headmasters Dumbledore and Karkaroff believing them." The unknown man stated, irritation clear in his voice.
"The Bulgarian Ministry will not stand alongside the British in this matter. In fact, if you keep this push, I am willing to offer Mr. Potter sanctuary, to protect him from your biased opinions."
"Thank you Minister Oblansk. Fudge, a man, one of your men, almost died here. He won't be the last, you must see sense." The headmaster pressed, drawing himself to his full height and looking down at the petulant British Minister.
"I will not. In times like these the wizarding world looks to its leaders for strength, Dumbledore. The Triwizard tournament will not be cancelled. I will not be seen as a coward!" With his piece said, the Minister stormed over to the fireplace and threw floo powder into the flames.
"Now is the time to do what is right, Minister!" Dumbledore shouted back, right as the Minister vanished into the green flames. Sighing, and collapsing back into his chair wearily.
"I apologise for that, everyone. It seems our Minister would be popular, even if it costs his citizens lives. Minister Oblansk, would you still like to conduct an examination of the grounds?"
"If it would be no bother. I know Viktor well, even before I became Minister, I trust his word, but people back home will need more than that."
"Of course, Harry, Ms. Greengrass, I trust you can wait here for me to return? I assure you it will not take long… Do feel free to indulge in a liquorice snack in my absence, but I have to warn you they're a little bit sharp."
With that, the trio trooped out of the office, shield charms grinding back into place moments later.
"It's a good thing we didn't need him immediately." She announced, once she knew she was safe from being overheard.
"Dumbledore knew I could wait, I would've said something otherwise. If you don't want to wait I won't mind. He could be gone for almost an hour knowing him."
Looking back at Harry, she found him carrying a beautiful scarlet and gold phoenix, Dumbledore's legendary familiar.
"No, I'm waiting with you… Am I allowed to stroke him?"
"Who, Fawkes? Yeah, he adores attention." Harry replied easily, holding out the phoenix as if it weighed nothing.
Being careful of its very sharp beak and talons, she tentatively ran her hand down Fawkes' back, finding it unimaginably soft.
Trilling happily, Fawkes closed his eyes and seemed content to sit there and weather the strokes, before Harry grew bored and wandered off. Giving an unimpressed squawk, the bird flapped its wings and flamed away, paying no heed to how close he was.
Laughing at Harry's now slightly singed hair, Daphne began to properly explore the office. Moving over to the headmaster's desk, she took a liquorice out of the bowl. As she raised it, she noticed a bright silver bust of the Headmaster's head, right next to a framed photo.
She was startled from her inspection when the liquorice in her hand started wiggling and took a bite of her hand.
"What was that!" She demanded, shaking her hand angrily.
"Liquorice snack. Dumbledore gets them from a friend, he hates the stuff, but thinks it's funny to offer them to guests. Take the sherbet lemon instead, it tastes better and he's fond of them." Harry advised, pointing out the foreign looking gold sweet.
"No thanks, I don't think I'll trust any sweets again now. First the Weasley twins, now this… What are you looking for?"
"His pensieve, he keeps moving everything around."
"It's in the sink, Albus thinks he's funny by hiding it in there." A portrait called out, only to be shushed by neighbouring paintings.
Suddenly realising the portraits have been paying attention the entire time, Daphne can't help her blush as she goes over to hide by Harry. Following the portrait's help, he'd stamped his foot on a random tile.
In reply, two doors disguised as shelves opened outwards, revealing a gold coated, floating stone basin. Upon its reveal, the entire alcove rolled forward, while an unknown light source illuminated the area.
"Why does the Headmaster's office have a sink? At least, why a sink and nothing else?"
"Officially, it's so that the Headmaster can easily check the water quality. Salazar's plumbing was revolutionary, but mostly untested. Obviously the Romans had been using indoor plumbing for centuries before Hogwarts was built, but Salazar's was the first to run off magic." An elderly Headmaster called from his portrait, conveniently located directly above the alcove.
"There was fear that the spells might break overtime, so this sink was made so that the Headmaster would be the first to know. When activated, it's fed by every tap in the school, so if it tastes salty, somethings gone wrong."
"As you found out, eh, Creaseworthy!" One Headmaster called to another, who flushed in embarrassment.
"That was one time! And it was good for the school." The accused Headmistress defended.
"What about unofficially?" Daphne asked curiously.
"Headmaster Jethro Morgan didn't want to go down to the kitchens for a glass of water at night." A new portrait cackled. "Good thing Albus wasn't around back then, the school would run on hot chocolate!"
"Ignore them. Want to view the memory with me? I want to know what it looked like without being scared out of my mind." Harry offered, removing the pensieve and throwing it over to the desk.
"Do you know how to use that thing? I'm not going to be responsible for breaking it."
"Relax, it won't be that easy to break one. As for control… how hard can it be?" With that said, Harry stuck his face straight into the pensieve, causing his body to go limp. Sighing at his antics, she stuck her finger into the memory and got pulled into it herself.
Plummeting down into the scene, she landed at the edge of the forest, appearing from thick black smoke. Looking around curiously was her Harry, then an angrier Harry, Krum and Barty Crouch, all emerging from a similar smoke. As angry Harry went over to Mr. Crouch, her Harry wandered into the forest.
"What are you looking for?" She whispered, eying the others behind them.
"Our attacker came from this direction. I was hoping I'd be able to see it, but it seems like there's some sort of barrier stopping us getting too far away from my past self. It does make me wonder when people appear within this though, is it when I first noticed them, or when they actually appeared?" Harry replied, not bothering to lower his voice.
"Well, since this is your memory, surely we'd only see something you'd noticed?"
"Nah, they don't work that way at all. This is basically just divination, we're seeing an illusion based on the actual vision of the event, keyed into from my memory of it. So, in theory, my past awareness shouldn't affect anything as we're watching it. Like these trees, I couldn't see them from where I was standing, but they are perfectly detailed."
"However?" Daphne prompted, know how he liked to explain stuff.
"However, divination can be weird like that. It could be, since the invisible guy didn't want to be seen, that intent would carry over into this memory. Maybe we would be able to see them, but they'd be in silhouette, or blurry.
"The problem is, pensieves require a lot of magic, which is why they can only be used in places like Hogwarts or the Ministry, which might explain why we are limited in how far we can go. This might also limit the illusion in what it will show, such as ignoring unnoticed people. I simply don't have the answers yet."
Hearing a shuffling from behind, Daphne turned in time to see past Harry effortlessly lift Mr. Crouch onto his shoulder. As the two boys hurried to the school, Daphne found her surroundings being pulled away.
In theory, she and Harry were being pulled along with past Harry, but she had no sense of movement. Relative to each other, they were completely stationary, even as they left the smoke-like forest behind.
Hearing Krum cry out, they were just able to catch sight of a booted right foot briefly appearing from beneath an invisibility cloak, shrouded in the same black smoke. From there, things got confusing for Daphne. It was clear past Harry had an idea where their attacker was, although she couldn't tell.
Their duel was terrifying, spells varying between almost invisible to illuminating the grounds, but it was clear her Harry wasn't interested. Finally, it was over, with Dumbledore arriving and the memory ending.
Rather than replay the memory, or deposit them back in the office as she'd expected, the smoke sprung up around them again. When it resettled, they were inside a dimly lit room, walled in a dark green stone brick and marble columns. They were looking down on a sole chained chair, situated in the very centre of the room.
With an unpleasant lurch, she realised they were sitting within one of the Ministry's deep Courtrooms. While she'd never been there before, her father had shown her a picture of a death eater trial, the image being one that stuck with her.
"We shouldn't be here, Harry. This is highly confidential material! If someone found us spying on an old Wizengamot session, we'd be in big trouble." Daphne warned, shaking his wrist fearfully.
"Slight problem with that, I have no idea how to leave. There's probably a trick to it, but I tried to leave earlier and nothing happened. That alone should be a good enough defence, especially when we had a reasonable excuse being here." Harry replied calmly, clearly unbothered by any potential trouble.
Trying to calm herself, she looked around for familiar people, eventually spotting her late grandfather, holding the Greengrass seat, sitting behind Lord Arcturus Black. It was bittersweet to see her grandfather, who'd been killed when she was still a baby, just days after you-know-who's defeat.
Equally bittersweet was the Potter seat, which was understandably unoccupied, although she was shocked to see Lord Frank Longbottom sat to its immediate left.
Then you had to figure between them. Everyone knew Professor Dumbledore had an honorary seat, but it hadn't been used for a decade, what with him being elevated to chief warlock.
Soon, the courtroom doors opened, letting a figure enter, flanked between two dementor guards. Even through the memory, she could feel their aura picking at her, even as they focused on their prisoner.
Easily recognising a younger Igor Karkaroff, she realised they were seeing one of the first post war trials. With that in mind, it wasn't surprising when the chains glowed gold and snaked up his arms, binding him in place.
"Igor Karkaroff, you have been brought from Azkaban to give evidence to the Ministry of Magic." A curt voice announced, originating from Mr. Crouch, leading his flock.
Her father had been quite outspoken on his distaste of the 'Council of Magical Law'. In theory, it made sense, freeing up the full Wizengamot and allowing fewer members to go through a greater number of trials. In practice, Mr. Crouch's pet project allowed him near unmatched power over judgement.
"You have given us to understand you have important information for us." He finished, looking down at Karkaroff imperiously.
To his credit, Karkaroff didn't back down, instead straightening as best he could and maintaining eye contact.
"I have, sir. I wish to be of use to the Ministry. I wish to help. I… I know that the Ministry is trying to… to round up the last of the Dark Lord's supporters. I am eager to assist in any way I can…"
It was interesting to see the mixed responses to that. For some, most notably those that would be outed as death eater supporters, they were clearly hoping to kill Karkaroff with their eyes. Others viewed him in interest, notably the Lord Black.
"Filth. Crouch is going to let him out." Professor Moody growled, causing her to leap forward in shock. Unbeknownst to herself, she'd effectively been sitting incorporeal within his lap, too far forward to notice the otherwise motionless man.
He looked slightly better than present day, what with his two eyes. As her future professors argued over the dementors, Daphne turned to Harry.
"Why are we seeing this? Like, I know we can't leave… but this isn't your memory. The headmaster must've placed this after yours, but why?"
Sitting back in his illusionary chair, Harry hummed thoughtfully.
"It seems like Dumbledore is trying to work out the identity of the attacker. First, he'd need to know who'd have a motive, especially one that doesn't involve me or Krum. With this trial, I'd say Karkaroff has enough of a motive. Secondly would be strength, which I wouldn't say he has, but who really knows."
"Augustus Rookwood, who was a spy, and passed He Who Must Not Be Named useful information from inside the Ministry itself!" Karkaroff yelled desperately, interrupting Harry's thoughts.
A few more names were then thrown around, including Professor Snape's, before the courtroom dissolved back into that black smoke. Almost immediately it returned, although with a different atmosphere. After taking a moment to ensure she wasn't sitting within anyone again, she took in this new memory.
Most of the Wizengamot were absent, although Mr. Crouch's Council of Magical Law was present in full force.
Her grandfather was amongst those missing, although she suspected that was due to his soon to be fatal illness. In a stark opposite, a younger Rita Skeeter took up a new seat below Mr. Crouch's bench.
"This must be one of her first cases." Harry muttered, also staring at Rita, even as Ludo Bagman sat down in the accused's chair.
"What do you mean, she just does gossip doesn't she?"
"Now, yeah. But she made a name for herself within the ministry exposing death eaters. Moody put most of them in Azkaban, but it was Rita who helped point him in their direction. She kept it as quiet as possible, probably because she knows for a fact not all of them are locked away.
"Of course, once they were all forgiven or locked up, she'd lost her moment of greatness. It didn't take her long to move onto lower tier criminals, then when that proved less rewarding, just making up stuff about innocent people."
"Right, how do you know all of this? We were 1 years old at this point, there's no way you just know this." Daphne demanded.
"I have my sources… Namely Gilderoy Lockhart, he's very good at fishing out details, and he sees Skeeter as some sort of Rival." Harry explained, chuckling.
"So, that rumour that you and Lockhart are close was true? Us Slytherins just assumed it was more boasting on his part…"
The crowd's angry cry distracted her, something about Bagman's supposed crimes.
"Does that mean you'll be in his latest book?"
"What book?" Harry asked, equally distracted.
"Lockhart. For a while now he's been threatening his new book, saying it's based on our second year at Hogwarts. The release date keeps being pushed backwards."
"Oh… yeah I guess so. He did talk about that at some point, I'll have to ask him."
Almost in time with his statement, the court began to clap as Bagman was cleared on his charges. Dissolving once more, they found themselves in the same room for a third time, although it was clear some time had passed.
They were still sandwiching the Headmaster, leaving no room for whom's memory they had been viewing. There was a total, angry silence permeating the air, a stark contrast to the previous two memories.
With a shock, she spotted her father sitting in the Greengrass seat, the lordship ring sitting proud upon his finger.
"Bring them in." Mr. Crouch said, voice audibly frayed.
This time four prisoners were brought forth, three of which she easily recognised.
"Harry… Harry, this is the Lestrange case. We definitely cannot tell anyone we were here."
"I don't know who they are." He replied quietly, leaning forward to observe the event.
With a shock, she realised the crying straw haired youth was Mr. Crouch's son, someone she'd only vaguely heard about before. Seeing him there, she felt like she might've seen him in the previous trials, as just a random member of his father's council.
"We have heard the evidence against you. The four of you stand accused of capturing an Auror, Frank Longbottom, and subjecting him to the Cruciatus curse-"
She missed the rest of their sentence, shocked. Mr. Crouch had appeared numerous times during her magical history lessons at home, her father having pressed upon her both the man's importance and tyranny.
The man had fought his way to Head of the DMLE during the war, earning the spot after holding back you-know-who alone for several minutes. The man had almost been heralded as the new Dumbledore, only for his favour to run out at the end of war.
She'd known that part of that decline had been his son's imprisonment, but she hadn't known the severity of his crime.
"Mother, stop him, mother! I didn't do it, it wasn't me!" Junior begged, looking now at the woman beside Mr. Crouch.
As they were taken away, Bellatrix Lestrange took the time to proclaim her support for her lord. Even while in chains, it was clear the Aurors on guard were unwilling to get near her, let alone try to stop her. Only the dementors drew near, forcing the four away from the jury.
"Not the most pleasant memory to happen upon." The headmaster commented, only it wasn't the memory version. Sitting on the other side of Harry, their present day headmaster was looking at them both kindly.
"Why was he with them? He didn't seem guilty like the others." Harry questioned, apparently unsurprised at Dumbledore's entrance.
"You can see, if you'd like. I don't like rewatching it myself, but I feel seeing it will answer better than words." The headmaster said, indicating Junior who'd stumbled at the doorway.
With the three Lestranges out of sight, an auror went up to pull him to his feet, only to have Junior latch onto him. Striking a hand against the Auror's chest, Junior cast some spell into the man, sending him tumbling to the ground.
Even as the first Auror fell, Junior had drawn the man's wand and used it to disintegrate the second Auror. Pandemonium filled the room as people scrambled out of the way, helped along by several of Junior's spells.
It was hard to tell, but at least seven people had been killed already, Junior showing himself extremely dangerous.
"Are you not proud then, father?" Junior spat, no longer a quivering mess. Looking at him now, it was clear his previous state had been an act, one which had won her over completely.
Leaping towards his father, cleaving a man in two to do so, Junior kept up his speech.
"All my life, you've told me I need to prove myself, to live up to the Crouch name. Well, is this not enough! One of your strongest Aurors, and I beat him alone! We needed him, you see, to break into that manor of his. Can't say his wife held up any better, but oh, you should've heard the screams!"
Before he could say anymore, Professor Moody had managed to free himself from the crowds, beginning a terrifying but calculated assault upon Junior. She recognised techniques he'd occasionally used to end a fight against Harry in their lessons, but against Junior they fell flat.
In return, the spells that fell upon Moody were indiscriminate. Any the Auror didn't block fell upon the crowd trapped behind him. It was at this point Dumbledore stepped in, striking Junior from behind and hoisting him into the air with invisible chains, while simultaneously wrenching his wand from him.
A very brave, tawny haired auror jumped forward, pulling Junior's hands behind his back and sealed them in amber. With the threat secured, more aurors started pouring forward, grasping hold of Junior and dragging him away.
Just before he was pulled out of view, with the courtroom dissolving back into fog, Daphne could still hear his yelling. "Get your hands off me, you pathetic little men."
"I'm sorry, Headmaster, please forgive us! We didn't plan on seeing any of those trials, we just wanted to see Harry's memory." Daphne begged as soon as they'd left the pensieve, only to find Harry and her Headmaster sitting down like it was no big deal.
"Fear not, Ms. Greengrass, I know neither of you would intentionally spy in such a way… Especially when you could both ask, as heirs. Regardless, it would not be you who'd be in trouble, I was using the pensieve when the Minister arrived for our meeting, and put it away rather hastily.
"Normally, I would remove any confidential memories after perusing them. Although I would recommend more caution in the future, it is always polite to ask before diving into someone's pensieve."
"Professor, who was that boy at the end, Crouch's son? What happened to him?" Harry asked, just barely acknowledging the warning.
"Bartemius Crouch Jr. He was sent to Azkaban. Destroyed Barty to do it. But he had no choice, the evidence was overwhelming. Then of course, you saw how Junior reacted to being caught. He died, not too long into his sentence. With Barty's wife dying soon after, he was left the last of his line."
"He's not dead, Junior that is. I saw him, in a vision. That's why we came up to see you, during divination I had a vision of Voldemort, Wormtail and a guy in shadow. I'm positive that guy was Junior." Harry stated firmly.
"I… I fail to see how that could be. Junior's death was well documented when it happened, short of necromancy, I would not believe him capable of returning."
Raising his wand to his temple, Harry pulled out a memory, which he passed into the pensieve. "See for yourself."
Diving into this memory, Daphne could instantly notice it was wrong. It seemed like the fog remained unable to form correctly, leaving everything out of focus. She could just barely make out a figure in front of a fire, but that was it.
"What? Why isn't it showing correctly?" Harry asked, spinning around in confusion.
"The limitations of a pensieve, my boy. In essence, you are asking the pensieve to show a vision of a vision. Your memory of the vision is not enough to create a new complete vision." The Headmaster explained, before pulling them out of the memory.
"Fear not, I shall not dismiss your worries. I shall look into this matter, see if there's any way for Junior to have faked his death. I shall trust your account of events, should you wish to share?"
"Of course. So, Voldemort was there, along with Wormtail and Barty Jr. Barty said he'd failed, but used his family spell on his father. Voldemort basically forgave him and sent him away, then tortured Wormtail… That's when I woke up." Harry supplied.
"It was awful. He was screaming towards the end, but we couldn't wake him. He was there for at least five minutes, then he just woke up and came here." Daphne added, seeing that Harry seemed content to ignore what had happened.
Sending Harry a concerned glare, he nodded slowly. "That is concerning, I had assumed you had seen it as part of your lesson… We will need to talk later on this, but for now, was there anything else you wanted to bring to my attention?"
"Just… Why those memories, sir? More specifically, why the last one? Obviously you're still investigating mine, while Ludo and Karkaroff are here at Hogwarts."
"Ah, that is quite simple. You see, Barty's current condition matches the victims of that final case. I had wondered if they'd perhaps taught their technique to another, who'd then gone after yourself and Barty.
"I've searched and searched for something, some small detail. Something I might have overlooked, something that would explain why these terrible things have happened. Every time I get close to an answer it slips away, it's maddening!
"If your vision is correct, which I don't doubt, then you've just solved one of my biggest questions. Now I just need to discover how all these events tie together, how Barty Jr. seems to appear where he shouldn't. I assure you Harry, I am not resting on my laurels.
"I have been keeping my investigation quiet, in the hope that you'd get a peaceful year despite this tournament. Nicholas made it quite clear he considers this a mistake, so I will give you the choice. If you'd like to know what I've been doing, I will be completely transparent with you."
Despite already knowing about their near familial relationship, Daphne was still surprised at such frankness. From his reaction, Harry was in a similar boat.
"I… Thank you, Professor. But I think I need to focus on this maze. I trust you to look after me, even if you don't always succeed." Harry eventually said, after remaining deep in thought. During the wait, she couldn't help shuffling awkwardly, even when Harry silently held her hand.
"I am touched you feel that way, Harry. I shall do my utmost to prove myself worthy. As always, you -both of you- are welcome up here at any point."
Things I think need explaining:
- Crouch Jr's trial: I am sort of breaking my own fanfiction rule here, where every original event in the story should be a butterfly effect. I believe I've talked about it before, but essentially every original event within this story can be linked (in some way) to Harry's differing childhood. Just like how time travel movies will have small events lead to big changes in the future, except with less time travel here.
The exception is when there's no mention in canon to contradict it, i.e. a lot of my world's history (Caribbean, expanded deathly hallows lore etc). Crouch Jr's trial sort of falls under this exception, in that his fight takes place moments after Canon Harry left the memory.
I just couldn't connect the sobbing boy with the adult Crouch Jr in canon. Film Jr works way better, but I wanted to go with the book court scenes. The result was this chapter, which I am quite pleased with.