You will have to excuse my brevity. I am sure you will find out, either from Harry or from the Daily Prophet. Harry has been chosen as an additional champion for Hogwarts. I do not know how or why, yet I aim to find out. Harry should have never been chosen, and should not have to compete, but he must. My hands are tied. I will ensure he is safe and protected.
Albus Dumbledore
Sirius,
Harry has been chosen as a second Hogwarts Champion at the Triwizard Tournament. I've just written to Dumbledore about it. Good thing Mad-Eye's there as well. I am very curious to know what has happened myself. I know you may want to and the temptation is high, but don't write to Harry. Dumbledore is handling it on his end.
Your friend,
Remus
"It's Friday." Sirius said, flashing them all a grin. He turned to Harry and nodded his head, before thanking Ron and Hermione for coming.
"Which means, even if everything goes wrong, no one will realise a single thing is amiss until Monday, at least." he continued, pacing around the three teenagers with purpose. He looked healthier and brighter, certainly, but something about his demeanour reminded Hermione of the last time he saw Sirius at the Shrieking Shack. Harry had already explained the plan Sirius had concocted, and they all came to hear the final details and prepare the same story.
"We can reach the village before evening. I've already travelled back and forth once, and made all the arrangements."
He had indeed. He'd travelled to the German village, as instructed, and asked for Ida Kerkeff. The road had been most unwelcome to travel - armed with a map that proved unreliable at best, marked wrongly on purpose at worst, Sirius felt at times that he would have done just as well without it. Between frenzied bouts of panic after getting lost in interminable forests populated by creatures he barely remembered how to defend himself against, countless spells to warm himself up as his legs were more often than not freezing after crossing countless rivers, and desperation at how no one had heard of the small village, he was more than once close to abandoning his mission. But each time he looked at his reflection, the man that looked back reminded him why he could not stop.
Once he finally reached the village, reduced by now to the equivalent of two households, Sirius Black found that Ida Kerkeff had been dead for about twenty years, alongside many other female members of her family, according to her great-nephew Timofey Kerkeff, a young broad-shouldered lad about Harry's age. A beastly attack in the dead of the night, unexpected and still grieved every year on its anniversary, took away almost the entire village in a matter of hours. However, the young lad introduced him to a clan of distant relatives in a nearby village, who specialised in the same branch of ritualistic soul alchemy that Hedda Ablai wrote extensively about, and that Tom Riddle allegedly went to study many years ago.
The residents of the village had no idea who this Tom Riddle was, and even less of an idea of who Lord Voldemort was, however, by mentioning a connection with Hedda Ablai, and taking on the identity of her own great-nephew - helped by the fact that he knew now that she was a hermit and not many knew much about her life - he managed to convince them to re-enact a ritual that would help him find more answers.
The ritual, however, could not be completed without Harry. Due to his survival and relation to Voldemort, being the one who led to his downfall, Harry had to be involved in its enactment. To Sirius's own surprise, when they first met a few days before, his godson agreed to it immediately.
And thus, he concocted his plan to take Harry for three days - more, if needed - and together with him, participate in the ritual. And to ensure that all was well on British soil, he enlisted the help of his friends.
"But won't people miss Harry?" Hermione asked.
"I'll be training for the First Task."
"I've advised a friend to let on to the Durmstrang Headmaster that Harry Potter has taken to flying great distances in building his stamina for the first task, and be able to outfly a dragon until it would collapse. She'll convince Karkaroff that Viktor Krum has to do the same, and that way, it'll build Harry an excuse. And if you don't come in time…" Sirius said, turning towards Harry. "I've asked my good friend to use any means possible to make the attention shift so much onto Karkaroff that people will forget for a moment who you even are, let alone that you're not even in the country."
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, and Sirius furrowed his brows. For a moment he opened his mouth to explain, but decided not to worry her with details about someone she'd hopefully never meet - and if all went according to plan, he would never have to anyway, because it would not happen.
"It's only in a worst case scenario, Hermione, I wouldn't bother too much with the details." he shrugged.
What they had to do was cover for Harry - knowing that they dabbled in it beforehand from Harry, he even gave Ron and Hermione the remains of his Polyjuice Potion, and Harry gave them a few strands of his hair. Sirius warned them, in case any of it would be discovered, to blame it all on him and send them an owl as soon as possible. He had an escape planned. Madam Rona may have looked like a heartless crone, but she had connections with many wizarding families across Europe, if needed. That day when he met her, when he'd returned from Transylvania with Lena, right before he had left her pub, she had pulled on his sleeve, and said so herself in his ear.
In two weeks' time since he had last laid on Magdalena's floor, on a brisk Saturday morning, Sirius Black was in Germany, now alongside Harry. Once he'd gotten off the floor, Sirius had read Hedda Ablai's little journal cover to cover. And again. And again. And again. He'd devoured the book after finding a spell to translate German to English - ancient languages could be indecipherable, but modern ones had ways to be translated.
How does a wizard not die after the Killing Curse backfires on him? He had not gotten to asking Hedda that during the ritual, but as he read through her notes on soul alchemy, he was starting to figure it out, and the eldest of the wizarding German villagers, upon him telling them his story, had their own guesses.
And there he was now. After his trip with Remus, in which he was relentlessly questioned, after his trip with Magdalena, in which he discovered and rediscovered a variety of aspects about his own life, he had been looking forward to a trip with Harry by his side, who eagerly told him everything about his past weeks in Hogwarts, about his classes with Mad-Eye, about Karkaroff, and Durmstrang, and Viktor Krum, and the Goblet.
"If it was Karkaroff, we'll figure it out soon. Either through this ritual. or through my source."
He did not care for what Remus had told him, about wartime being over. No, it was far from over. It may have been on pause for the last eleven years, but it had resumed the moment Harry had been endangered in his first year. And wartime called for wartime tactics, of which Magdalena agreed to, as her keeping an eye on Karkaroff was Dumbledore's plan anyway.
'Not much of a bother to stir a conversation in the right direction.' she said. 'For this, you will owe me, however.' He agreed to the terms, figuring that after all she'd done for him, he was morally indebted already.
He led Harry to the enormous field he had prepared with the villagers. Together with twenty of them, Sirius had spent hours grinding Thestral and dragon bones, mixing them with salt and ashes from a phoenix bird, before drawing a circle spanning the perimeter of a Quidditch field. As per the instructions - not that the eldest villagers needed them, as some of them knew the ritual already - Sirius and Harry attached bells to their shoes before entering the circle. In the middle of it, a seven-foot high pyramidal bonfire had already been erected while he had been away, and next to it, he showed Harry the hole they had dug, which could comfortably fit two adults standing up.
He had prepared Harry for it, before asking him if he wished to participate, and as he watched Harry's reaction, Sirius grinned. There was resolve in his godon's gaze, and he had the same look in his eyes James had when they first planned to become Animagi.
"I'll have my wand with me." Sirius assured him, putting his hand on Harry's shoulder.
They would be lowered in the hole, and the pyre would soon be moved above them and burn. Around them, a summoning ritual would happen, which would grant them one thing. A request, or a question they deeply needed the answer to, anything. And as long as it was only one, and clear, and they had something to bargain, and as long as they minded their words, which Sirius had already prepared in advance - everything, up to the bargain, thanks to Hedda Ablai's extremely clear notes. She must have been a good teacher indeed.
He would bargain for his own freedom, the rest of it, for the remainder of his life, all for the ability to find and kill Voldemort, once and for all. Damn Pettigrew, and damn his freedom, damn it all - for Harry's sake. He'd already talked at length with the elder of the village about his plans the night before he left to meet with Harry back in Britain. Matthias, a grey, curly-haired wizard with a wrinkled face and kind eyes, looked at him interested as he explained what his plans were, before nodding sagely.
"And you're ready to lose the only thing man has, your freedom, for this? Would you be willing to live in fear of being caught, and even die, if you were to be?"
What had he done in his life anyway? Got his friends killed, failed to capture the one who betrayed them, spent twelve years in Azkaban, and now, one on the run, and one hidden in his house like a trapped mouse. Thirty-five years, and nothing to show.
He relayed to Matthias those dark, miserable, nights he'd spent, both in prison and after it, when he would be alone, save for a bottle, or two, or many, and how he pondered the futility of his life many times - but Harry, Harry had a bright future ahead, and with this sacrifice, it could be an even brighter one.
He told the old wizard how he had spent a third of his life in Azkaban, expecting the Dementors to one day suck out the last bit left of his soul. How he felt as if he had lived more imprisoned than free. Was what he was doing now even called living?
"I would die at a moment's notice, forgotten forever, if it meant I tried to save those I cherish. At least I would not die in vain, as I often dreamt of back in my time. I would die with a purpose. What do I care of marks and traces I've left - I've left nothing good in almost forty years, and I sure don't plan to have children.
If you were to go to Britain, and ask of a Sirius Black, apart from a handful of people, you would find nothing but disdain."
Matthias asked him if he were to die, if he would die with a heavy heart.
He would.
Would he die with regrets?
Of course he would.
Would he have mourners, if he were to die?
He would not, no.
That would not bode him well with the afterlife, would it?
"What do I care?"
To his surprise, Matthias laughed, enigmatically adding "As a man should.", before agreeing that the way he would phrase his request and bargain sounded good enough for the purpose of the ritual.
However, on that damned Saturday, as he looked with Harry at the pyre, Matthias, dressed in white linen and with a wide-brimmed sun hat, was joined by a short witch that brought on grim news, according to him. Sirius looked on at the gathering villagers - the boys and men stood outside of the circle, some of them with enormous drums, a few with trumpets covered in carved inscriptions. The women and girls who came inside held grotesque masks in their arms, or tied to their heads, in a sea of bulging eyes, animal hides and furs, and to Sirius's surprise, what looked to be taxidermied heads - of a bear, of a wolf, and of a fox. The witches gathered around the pyre, looking at the two, before slowly helping each other put on their masks, tying them with belts and ribbons to their hair.
None of them spoke, apart from Matthias and the witch, who looked so similar with their curly grey hair that Sirius wouldn't have been surprised if they were siblings.
"You're going to have to cover this on yourself." the witch said in broken English, not bothering to introduce herself. She handed Harry a small vial, as well as what looked to be a linen bed sheet, reminding Sirius of the funeral rituals they did for Manole. They relied a lot on these linen sheets, wizards on the continent. "Tincture of bear sweat. Protects you from the fire and smoke."
"Just for him?" Sirius furrowed his brows, turning to Matthias as the witch nodded. "That's not what we decided."
"We've examined some things, Frieda and I. Two wizards performing the ritual at the same time-... it's dangerous. We can't take chances with things like these. And Harry is the one who survived. The one with the scar. The one with the connection. It'll be more receptive to him. You have your heart in the right place, but-"
"But what?" Sirius asked with gritted teeth, ready to call everything off before Harry stepped forward, almost placing himself between him and the two German wizards.
"I'll do it."
"Harry-"
"I'll do it. I'm the one with the connection, right? It's my scar that hurts, and I'm the one who gets these dreams… I've defeated Voldemort not once, but twice already, haven't I? It has to be me." Harry stated.
Sirius looked at his godson, seeing James's resolution in his posture, in his eyes, in his assured tone. Yet he also saw James's trust in him, that same trust that led to the death of both of Harry's parents fourteen years ago. In theory, imagining how the ritual would go, reading through Hedda Ablai's notes, it was all clear and simple, yet he could not help but think about not only her warning, but for the first time, he pondered the death of Fabian Bones, at the mercy of his own quest for knowledge. Yet the quest was his own, not Harry's, so if there was anyone to die…
He pulled Harry aside, away from the wizards and witches, and asked him if he was sure. Sirius had already explained what the ritual entailed in detail, however it was with the assuredness of a man that would take his godson on a guided trip, not send him by himself.
"They'll ask for your name at regular intervals, you'll have to ring the bell once to let them know you're well. If something goes wrong-..." Sirius whispered. "Ring it three times and they'll hear and pull you back up. You'll have your wand, and I'll be there as well."
With that, he tightened his grip on Harry's shoulder for a long time, before a loud ring of bells announced the start of the ritual. He followed behind Matthias as the wizard took Harry to a small hut outside of the circle, and let him inside to change and put the ointment on.
As Sirius waited outside, an owl approached, with a letter for himself. Quickly, he opened it and read its contents, furrowing his brows.
I am writing as I cannot wait until we will be able to meet next. Karkaroff is beside himself with anger. He does not know I know Dumbledore, of course, and has let it all out.
He believes it's all Dumbledore's plot. He says the Beauxbatons Headmistress does not know what to believe. He wants to sway her on his side. He told me he has been in touch with several others - unsure who, will look into it.
He feels trapped, feels not in control when outside of Durmstrang's walls. He may try to discredit Harry throughout the tournament. Moody is getting to him as well.
There is something else. Something I do not wish to write about. I will tell you when we next meet. Do not come to my house under any circumstances. I have charmed it anyway, should you try.
Magdalena