Aftermath
Harry woke up in the infirmary, surrounded by his friends. Susan Bones and Terry Boot were cuddled together in a chair right next to his bed. Leon Schwarz had chosen to crawl right onto the foot of his bed and was currently sitting there reading a book. On the next bed over, Neville Longbottom, Dean Thomas, and Seamus Finnigan were sitting around a muggle deck of cards. In front of their bed, the Lovegood and Weasley twins were sitting with Ginny Weasley, talking quietly amongst themselves while Solana was fiddling with a muggle pen. Hermione was sitting leaning against a wall on the other side of the room, keeping an eye on the rest of Harry´s friends. Three of the four Triwizard Champions were eying the group sceptically while Cassius Warrington was standing at the open door like a vigil, scowling at whoever was outside.
“Ouch”, Harry said unintelligently, making his friends scramble to get over to him as they noticed he had woken up.
“You´re awake!”, a suddenly wide-awake Susan stated. “We were so worried when you disappeared!”
“Harry!”, Hermione exclaimed as she hurried over. “Never do that again! I almost had a heart attack when I heard you were kidnapped.”
“What?”, Harry asked. “Never get kidnapped again? Not sure I can do much about that, Hermione, but I´ll be sure to take it into consideration.”
Hermione flushed a bit, while Leon smirked, still sitting at the foot of Harry´s bed. Terry was mumbling unintelligently, not having woken up by Susan extricating herself from their cuddling.
“So”, Harry started. “What happened after I passed out? The last thing I remember was Warrington shoving the portkey into my hand.”
“And thank Merlin for that!”, Ginny chimed in.
Leon turned a page, then continued reading: “Cassius brought you up here directly, little Gryff, ignoring all the sputtering and confusion his arrival with you had caused. Oh, and he said something about Him being back. I´m thinking that means our most unfavourite All-You-Can-Eat boss?”
The Weasley twins started cackling at Leons nickname for Voldemort.
“We have to remember that one, Gred.”, Fred decided.
“Right you are, Forge”, George agreed.
---
Twenty minutes later, most of Harry´s friends had been shooed out by Madam Pomfrey, leaving only Hermione and Leon sitting close to the Gryffindor. Cassius Warrington, too, had refused to move over to one of the beds himself, telling the Matron that if she doesn´t want students and reporters constantly invading her infirmary, she better let him stay right where he was. At that, Madam Pomfrey had just shook her head in exasperation and let the Triwizard Champion be.
By now, all of the curious students had been made to leave by Warrington with the help of Professor McGonagall, who had initially wanted to come to check up on her Gryffindor, but had then been roped into getting some order into the mayhem that was currently the Hogwarts student body. When the last of the noisy teens finally left, Harry breathed a sigh of relief, mumbling a “Thank you” towards Warrington, who acknowledged him with a small smirk before going right back to scowling out of the open doorway.
“No”, a familiar deep voice stated somewhere outside of the door.
Harry sat up, listening intently, curiosity overriding his exhaustion. The footsteps of two people were coming closer. He would have likely not even heard their conversation, if the door wasn´t open, the Gryffindor thought. Warrington threw Harry a glance, then winked and wandered over to sit on the bed next to him where Harry´s dormmates had been playing cards earlier. He crossed his legs and leaned on the head of the bed, listening just as intently as the Gryffindor next to him, though much more subtly.
“My boy, I´m sure you see the necessity –”, the headmaster´s familiar voice drifted into the room, still a ways away in the corridor, the steps halting momentarily.
“Don´t “my boy” me, Albus! I will not be going back and that´s final!”, Professor Snape´s voice stated in a cool tone.
The steps coming up the corridor started up again, halting again as the headmaster started back up in an equally cold tone to his Potions Professor: “You have sworn –”
An audible scoff drifted through the door, likely from right in front of it, cutting off whatever Dumbledore was about to say: “To jump at your every word? I have done no such thing, Albus. Now, I´m sure we have more pressing matters to attend, like your Gryffindor golden boy.”
Dark robes were the first they saw coming through the doorway, making the Gryffindor scramble to look like he had just woken up from a nap as he lay down on his bed again. Professor Snape stalked into the room, a perpetual scowl upon his face. Headmaster Dumbledore followed closely behind, seeming just as disgruntled as the Potions Master.
“Ah, my boy, finally woken up, I see”, Dumbledore greeted Harry, plastering a false smile on his face. “Tell us, my boy, what happened today?”
“Uh…”, Harry started, thinking about what to tell the headmaster. “What do you know already? I don´t know when exactly Warrington arrived at the graveyard…”
Dumbledore smiled more warmly, the twinkling having come back to his eyes: “Best start at the beginning, I always say. How did you get out of school grounds?”
“Uhm, well…”, the Gryffindor said, fiddling with the edge of his blanket. “I was on the way to the stands to watch the third task. I was late, you see, because I had forgotten my notebook and then I had to go to the bathroom, so I got even later. So, I was walking through the corridor – Don´t remember which one anymore, to be honest. – and Moody came up to me.”
“Professor Moody”, Dumbledore interrupted Harry.
“No, I´m pretty sure it wasn´t even the real Moody, but I didn’t know that at the time. Anyway, he stopped me and asked me to come with him, I think? So, I knelt down to put away my notebook and I´m pretty sure he stunned me. It was a red light and then I´m missing who knows how much time until I was woken up in the graveyard by Wormtail, bound to an angel statue and missing my wand.”
“Are you sure it was Professor Moody, who did this?”, the headmaster asked intently. “I can´t imagine Alastor doing such a thing.”
“He already told you, he thinks it was an imposter. Weren´t you listening, Albus?”, Snape cut in snidely from where he was leaning against a wall next to the head of the bed Cassius Warrington was sitting on. “If you could go on to more important matters, not all of us have time to waste.”
“Of course, of course”, Dumbledore relented. “Tell us, what happened after you woke up bound to the statue?”
“Uhm…”, Harry said unsurely. “Shouldn´t I be telling this to law enforcement? How are they going to hear about what happened?”
“Never fear, my boy.”, the headmaster said. “I will be relating the happenings of today to the official channels.”
“I´d really rather tell them myself”, the Gryffindor stated bravely.
Dumbledore sighed gravely: “I had hoped to spare you the presence of an Auror, but if you wish, we will call them immediately. Come, Severus, we have much to discuss on the way.”
Snape inclined his head to the headmaster, giving his assent before taking the lead out of the room with his usual stalking gait, his robes swishing theatrically behind him. Dumbledore gave Harry one last smile before following the Potions Master out of the room.
---
“When you woke back up again, what was the first thing you sensed?”, Auror Bulstrode asked an hour later. “Focus on what you smelled and heard first, that can tell us more than you might think.”
As promised, Dumbledore and Snape had summoned the Aurors to take Harry´s statement about tonight´s happenstances. Minister Cornelius Fudge had involved himself into the investigation as well, though Auror Mercury, Auror Bulstrode´s partner, had started to distract him early on and was keeping him aside even as his partner was interviewing the young Gryffindor. Professor McGonagall had been called as well to stand aside Harry as his Head of House and both Headmaster Dumbledore and Professor Snape had come back to listen to the Gryffindor´s statement as well.
“It was cold. It smelled… wet?”, Harry asked. “Does that make sense? And besides Wormtail there might have been someone else to my right as well? There were sounds there anyway and that weird wizard came from that direction later on.”
Auror Bulstrode wrote down what Harry told her carefully: “Yes, that makes sense, Harry. Can I call you Harry? Now, close your eyes, dear, that might help you remember more clearly.”
“Uhm… ok.”, the Gryffindor told her. “You can call me Harry. So… It was wet, and grass? Like what you can smell in fields and forests in spring? There was someone to my right, I think and Wormtail, of course, but other than that I didn´t hear anyone… Wait there was something a little ways away, too. Could have been an animal though.”
“Alright, Harry. So, you opened your eyes to Wormtail, waking you up, you said. Could you explain who Wormtail is and how you know him?”, Auror Bulstrode asked next.
“Oh, uh… Pettigrew. Peter Pettigrew, I think? Mouse-brown hair, blue eyes, missing a finger – Well and a hand, now. – He looks a lot like a rat, probably because he spent 12 years in his Animagus form.”
The Auror´s eyebrows wandered up to her hairline, but otherwise she didn´t show much of a reaction: “Would you mind confirming that with a photograph at a later time?”
“Sure”, Harry agrees easily, glad the Auror is still willing to listen, even though all of this must sound absolutely wild. “Uhm, I woke up to him holding his wand in my face. I think he probably rennervated me and then he started taunting me that now it´s me being scared, not him. He went into the house for a bit, ten minutes at most, and dragged out this giant cauldron. No idea why he didn´t do it before he woke me, intimidation tactic maybe? Then that other wizard arrived, carrying a bundle – It almost looked like a baby.”
“What did that wizard look like, Harry?”, Auror Bulstrode interrupted in a kind tone.
“Blond, like dirty blond”, Harry answered. “Slender, no worse – underfed? A lot like that Tournament official – Crouch? – but he was wearing Moody´s clothes. I think he might be the one who impersonated Professor Moody and stunned me in the corridor.”
“Hmm…”, the Auror said while writing down Harry´s answer. “Have there been any suspicious behaviours by Professor Moody throughout the term?”
The Gryffindor was startled for a second: “Well, he´s creepy and all, but we just thought that´s his thing. Otherwise – No, actually – I mean yes! In his first lesson, he showed us the Unforgivables. Performed them and all. And in his second lesson, he used the Imperious on us to show us how to resist it. I´m not sure if he was supposed to do that, but he claimed to have permission, I think.”
“No one questioned it?”, Auror Bulstrode asked curiously, putting a strand of her dark brown hair behind her ear.
“Hermione did”, Harry answered immediately. “She and a few of the other students protested, when he said he´d use the Imperius on us and walked out of the lesson.”
“Smart girl”, the Auror stated. “A friend of yours?”
Harry smiled: “Yes. We used to be closer, but that was when Ron was still part of my friend group and that ended pretty much immediately after my name came out of the Goblet of Fire in the Champion selection. We all had a huge row afterwards, since Ron didn´t want to believe me that I hadn´t put my name into the Goblet and Hermione didn´t know who to side with.”
The Auror leaned closer, intrigued: “Your name truly came out of the Goblet of Fire.”
“You didn´t know?”, Harry blinked. “I mean it was in the Daily Prophet and all.”
“Yes”, the Auror smiled at the Gryffindor. “However, not all information in the Prophet is reliable. Certainly not reliable enough to use in a case. Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, you described the other wizard holding a bundle. What happened after that?”
“Uh, Wormtail cut off his own hand”, Harry said. “Flesh of the servant he said. Then the other wizard dropped in something white – Bone of the father they said – and then… then… the blond wizard… he came over to me with this knife and… he took my arm and just… he cut it and he took my blood. Uhm, I have a wound there, I can prove he did!”
“Harry! Harry, please, calm down!”, the Auror interrupted the young Gryffindor. “Calm down Harry, take a deep breath! Yes, good, now hold it … and release! Harry, we´re not here to doubt you. Yes, I would like you to show me your wound, if that´s possible, but that is only to make sure we have as tight a case as possible. Come, let´s take a break. You can tell me the rest later when you´ve calmed down a bit. Maybe a cup of hot chocolate? What do you think?”
---
Harry was sitting on his hospital bed, a mug of hot chocolate in his hands. Auror Bulstrode, who had now introduced herself as Thabita, had handed him a bag of cookies that she had pilfered from the house-elves while getting the hot chocolate. Initially, she had offered some to Cassius Warrington as well, but he had gotten asked to step aside with Auror Mercury to give his statement. Professor Snape, naturally, had followed his student as his Head of House and Minister Fudge had been more interested in Warrington´s statement than watching Harry drink hot chocolate and munch on biscuits. Professor McGonagall, however, was still sitting with them, talking politely with Auror Bulstrode about their mothers´ gingersnip biscuits recipes.
“Are you sure the wizard wasn´t Lord Voldemort?”, Albus Dumbledore asked sternly, a hand on the arm of Cassius Warrington.
The Slytherin shook it off, a glare on his face and a snarl on his lips: “I. Don´t. Know! All I know is he had those people convinced he was, but they were wearing dark cloaks and white masks. All of it could have been a scene set by some psycho, but I. can´t. prove. it. was. Him.”
“Now, calm down, gentlemen!”, Minister Fudge interrupted. “It´s obvious that the boy is right and this was a new terrorist masquerading as an old threat. I´ll be sending the Aurors out post-haste to investigate the incident and another set of Auror here to talk with Alastor Moody and the student who found the poor boy´s bag. If you´ll excuse me, Mr. Warrington, here is your bag of winnings and congratulations on winning the Triwizard Tournament.”
“You might regret this day later, my boy”, Dumbledore said, levelling his strongest disappointed glare at Warrington.
“I´m sure you think so, sir”, the Slytherin gave back, grinning.
---
“Are we ready to continue our talk?”, Headmaster Dumbledore said as he conjured himself an armchair next to Harry´s bed and sat down. “I´m sure Harry has recuperated enough to answer the rest of our questions.”
“Albus!”, Professor McGonagall scolded.
“It´s fine, Professor McGonagall, I´m ready”, the Gryffindor calmed her down. “What do you need to know?”
Auror Bulstrode smiled warmly at the young boy: “Last thing you told me, the blond wizard took your blood. What did he do with it?”
“He put it into the cauldron”, Harry answered immediately. “Then he picked up that bundle again and dropped it into the cauldron as well. It wasn´t a baby though. It was something unnatural, all skeletal and white, I think? I only got a short glimpse before it tumbled into the cauldron.”
“Did you hear anything else before that? Smell anything?”, the Auror asked.
Harry closed his eyes and thought for a second. Right, he was bound to the statue, his arm was hurting and still dripping blood. It´s cold, the ropes are chafing against his skin…
“It´s still cold. It smells of… flowers? The cauldron is bubbling. Wormtail is cowering to the side, whimpering and holding his arm. The grass is rustling – A snake? There´s a gravestone in front of me reading Tom Riddle.”
The Gryffindor opened his eyes again: “That´s Voldemort´s real name. Maybe they got the bones from there?”
The Auror twitched at the name: “How do you know that´s his name?”
Harry looked to Dumbledore, drawing the Auror´s gaze with him: “In my second year, the Chamber of Secrets was opened by a cursed diary. He possessed a first year and made her go down to the chamber to set a basilisk free. When I got down there, she was lying on the floor and a boy – maybe sixteen years old – stood over her body. Long story short he introduced himself as Tom Marvolo Riddle and showed that I am Lord Voldemort was an anagram of his name. Luckily, when I stabbed the diary with a basilisk fang the illusion splintered and Ginny woke up again.”
“Ginny?”, Auror Bulstrode asked.
“Ginevra Weasley”, Dumbledore interjected. “I personally investigated the matter and she was indeed possessed at the time she opened the Chamber of Secrets.”
“Do you still have the diary?”, the Auror asked him a bit sharply.
“Unfortunately not, Miss Bulstrode”, the headmaster sad in a friendly tone. “Harry, here thought it best to give it back to it´s previous owner.”
“I see”, the Auror said. “Please call me Auror Bulstrode. Leaving out my title uninvited is highly unprofessional.”
“So, Harry”, she started again. “The blonde wizard just dropped the bundle into the cauldron. What happens now?
“It´s bubbling, but it´s getting less? There´s a lot of steam and a figure steps out. It´s humanoid, but it doesn´t look like a human at all. More like a human-snake hybrid? He calls out to Wormtail for a robe. No, he tells him to “robe him”. Wormtail gives him a wand. It looks a lot like a bone. There was definitely a snake there somewhere.”
“Did he talk much? Say who he was by any chance?”, the Auror asked gently.
“Oh, yeah. He´s a talker. Had whole monologues for me. He claims to be Voldemort and likes to taunt me. A lot. But he also won´t kill me while he´s talking. I just have to watch out for his pauses, those are dangerous.”
Auror Bulstrode laughed a little: “That´s an interesting assessment of our mystery terrorist.”
“My boy”, Dumbledore interrupted. “Are you sure the wizard could be someone else?”
“With all due respect”, Harry said, “Warrington is right when he says that we can´t prove it´s actually Voldemort. For all I know he´s not even a wizard with how snake-like he looks.”
“Please refrain from interrupting, Headmaster”, Auror Mercury said, closing the door behind him as he came in. “You were saying, Mr. Potter?”
“Harry”, the Gryffindor said. “Please, call me Harry, too. Right, the snake-wizard gets a robe and wand from Wormtail. He then takes his wand and makes Wormtail give him his arm and Wormtails all grateful until the snake-wizard tells him he doesn´t want his stump but the other arm. There´s this black mark on there, like the one in the sky after the Quidditch World Cup and he presses his wand to it and makes all these people apparate in.”
“They´re all clothed in dark cloaks and have these weird white masks on. Then he started monologuing about being immortal and all powerful and such. Said he wanted me to duel him, so he cut my ropes and made the blonde wizard give back my wand. The other wizards didn´t do much beside standing around and jeering so I started taunting the snake-wizard in hopes of making him talk more and try to kill me less. He got me with a Cruciatus once, but I managed to roll behind a gravestone quickly.”
Harry takes a breath, calming himself down by reminding himself that he made it out okay.
“Then Warrington was there – Well, actually his voice. I didn´t see him at all, but he whispered to me to not acknowledge him and put my hand back on three so he could push a Portkey into my hand. So I did. The portkey activated as planned and we hit back down on Hogwarts grounds – I think. I was already half unconscious by that time from exhaustion.”
“That´s all you remember?”, Auror Mercury asks as his partner writes down the last of Harry´s statement. “Anything more that you wish to tell us?”
“That´s all”, Harry agrees. “Thank you for listening. I hope it wasn´t a bother.”
“No bother at all”, Auror Bulstrode says, smiling at the Gryffindor. “Have a good day, Mr. Potter.”
---
Harry was nearly asleep when the door next opened and people bustled in. He half recognized Mrs. Weasley and felt a weight settle onto his feet, but was too tired to do much more than half-heartedly open his eyes. Mrs. Weasley was indeed hurrying towards him, followed closely by Professor Snape – Wait Professor Snape? Shouldn´t it be McGonagall? – No, why would she be here, anyway?
“Harry, dear, are you alright?”, Mrs. Weasley said.
The Gryffindor mumbled a short “I´m fine” and tried closing his eyes again, but the weight shifted on his legs and made him look down. Sirius was lying there in dog-form, cuddling into his legs. Harry tiredly moved one of his hands to pat his godfathers head for a bit.
“Speak up, dear. I can´t understand you”, Mrs. Weasley insisted.
“I believe Mr. Potter stated that he is doing just fine, Mrs. Weasley. Please let him rest as Madam Pomfrey ordered not ten minutes ago”, a deep voice said that Harry faintly recognized as Professor Snape´s.
“Oh, alright, dear. Rest up. I´ll see you again later this summer, I´m sure”, Mrs. Weasley stated kindly.
“Ah”, Dumbledore´s voice stated, “Just the people I was looking for. As you might imagine, we´re a bit pressed for time. Molly, please contact the Old Crowd. Severus, you will be –”
“Staying here to ensure Mr. Potter doesn´t get into any more trouble”, Snape interrupted.
The headmaster sighed: “Of course, my boy. Now, Sirius, go find Remus and your cousin – You know which one I´m speaking of – while I will be recruiting new members.”
“I will be right on it”, Mrs. Weasley said, hurrying out of the hospital wing at a quick pace.
Sirius, too, stood up and stretched his limbs, before jumping down from the bed walking out the door unhurriedly next to the headmaster, who was talking quietly with the dog Animagus. An armchair was transfigured from a normal chair and Snape settled down into it quietly.
“It´s just us now. Sleep, Mr. Potter.”
---
The next day, Harry got out of the hospital wing just in time for breakfast. Professor Snape was nowhere to be seen, though his outer robes were still hanging over the back of the armchair that was standing next to Harry´s hospital bed. He´d thought a lot about last night after he had woken up in the morning. Surprisingly, his thoughts circled more around the headmaster sending out his – Sirius and Mrs. Weasley than his talk with the Aurors and the whole abduction thing. Yes, he called it the abduction thing in his head. He wasn´t quite ready to admit to the other things had had happened the day before.
Sirius leaving like that hurt. A lot. He wished his godfather had stayed, if only for a night. Harry could, of course, see why contacting Remus immediately would be a good idea. What he didn´t know was why it needed to be Sirius who contacted his old Professor. Yes, they were friends, but it wasn´t like Remus was the one in hiding. Anyone could have written him an owl or floo-called him or something.
Snape staying, though. That was just plain confusing. The Gryffindor imagined it had something to do with Snape not trusting him not to run off or something. Not that he would have done so, but in his Potions Professor´s mind it would make perfect sense. Still, Harry couldn´t quite understand why he´d stay.
When the Gryffindor came down to breakfast, after getting checked over by Madam Pomfrey again, he sat down at his house table in between Neville Longbottom and the Weasley twins. The Great Hall was decked out in green and silver, the Slytherin banners hanging from the ceiling. Floating snakes made of light were drifting through the air.
“Looks great, doesn’t it?”, Ginny asked as he sat down. “They´re celebrating Warrington´s win as well as your rescue. There´s even talk of him getting an award for special services to the school. That would be the first one awarded to a Slytherin since Diary Boy.”
“Really?”, Harry asked his friend. “They didn´t get another since Riddle? How many did the other houses get?”
“Three for Ravenclaw. Five for Hufflepuff. Ten for Gryffindor”, Ginny stated.
“That´s…”, Harry spluttered, “They can´t not have done something worthy of an award since then. That´s like, what? Seventy years?”
Ginny shrugged, throwing her hair back from her shoulder in almost the same motion: “I know as much as you do. Though I actually agree. It´s kinda unfair for them.”
---
The last few days were fairly quiet. Harry´s exam results were nothing to scoff at and even Hermione congratulated him on his E in Potions. Cassius Warrington did indeed get an Award for Special Services to the school right next to Harry´s own. In the last two days of school he was mostly seen in the presence of the Weasley twins, who seemed to have become his new best friends. Draco Malfoy, however, turned out to be a great prat. He celebrated the Slytherin Champion´s win like all others for a day, before he started in on Warrington for saving Harry Potter. In retaliation, Warrington set his two raven familiars on his younger housemate, who revelled in the task. By the time the train left Hogsmeade station, Malfoy was very glad to finally be out of school.
“So”, Neville asked as he sat down in train compartment. “What are your plans for the summer?”
Harry shrugged with his shoulders, then sat down his backpack on the compartment floor, seating himself next to Susan Bones. His whole ragtag band of friends, except for the Weasley twins, had decided to spend the ride in the same compartment.
“We´re just going to stack again”, Solana Lovegood had said when Dean Thomas had complained that the compartment wouldn´t fit them all. “We did it before with one of the carriages at a Hogsmeade weekend, so this will be plenty of room.”
“I dunno”, Harry said hesitantly. “Probably be locked up again all summer. I´d rather stay in Hogwarts to be honest, even if I had to take Potion lessons every day.”
“Your relatives are that bad, little Gryff?”, Leon asked. “You´re still welcome to spend August at my place, if you like.”
“I…”, Harry started. “They hate me. They´d probably say no just to spite me.”
“Hmm… You need a rescue mission? We´re always ready to take on some bad guys for a lion in need”, Terry declared, punching his fists through the air theatrically.
“No, honestly, tell us if you need a rescue mission”, Susan told Harry.
Harry grimaced: “I don´t have Hedwig with me. Hermione agreed to take her for the summer, so I already sent her to her house.”
“Well, then we just need to send our own owls to you regularly”, Solana said, a smile on her face.
“Oh, don´t worry so much”, Luna Lovegood chimed in. “It will be alright.”
---
“That´s me”, Leon declared, breaking off from the others to greet Professor Vector. “When´s our Portkey, Aunt Tima?”
Professor Vector ruffled the Slytherin´s hair affectionately: “We have an hour, Leon. Could you call over Mr. Potter, please, Professor Snape would like a word with him.”
Harry, who had listened to that exchange wistfully, blinked at that statement. Why would Snape even be here? Maybe Dumbledore had sent him to bring him back to Privet Drive? Sighing, he said goodbye to his friends and went over towards Leon and the two Professors.
“No need, madam, I´m here. What do you need, sir?”
“With me, Mr. Potter”, Snape said simply, turning around to lead the Gryffindor through an exit into Diagon alley.
“Uh…”, Harry started unsure. “I´m supposed to meet with the Dursleys in the station.”
“No”, Snape snapped out. “You will be going with me to the apparition point from where I will be bringing you home.”
“Alright, sir”, the Gryffindor quickly relented, not willing to have an argument. “Thanks for collecting me.”
Snape stopped abruptly, turning around to stare at Harry for a few awkward moments, before shaking himself and continuing to walk through the alley at a slower pace: “You´re welcome, Mr. Potter.”
---
---