Chapter 12
Chapter Eleven
At the end of the school year, the final task of the Triwizard Tournament took place; Sirius, Andromeda, Ted, and Nymphadora had come to watch it, as the champions’ families were invited to do so (but Remus was still not allowed near Harry, though he would have loved to come). Hagrid had apparently kept the Blast-Ended Skrewts (though Harry did not know if Minerva knew this or not) as one of them had been placed in the maze that the champions had to get through, as an obstacle. Harry’s competitor Cedric Diggory was put under the Cruciatus Curse by Viktor Krum, who Harry thought would never do anything like that—particularly as Harry had learned from his new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor Alastor Moody that the use of any of the Unforgivable Curses would result in a life sentence in Azkaban.
After Harry and Cedric had gotten past all the obstacles in the maze, they agreed that they would both touch the Triwizard Cup—and therefore tie in the Triwizard Tournament, but still have it be a Hogwarts victory. But they were unexpectedly transported to a graveyard, where Voldemort’s servant Wormtail used the Killing Curse to kill Cedric after being told by a still-regenerating Voldemort to “kill the spare”. Harry himself had then fought Lord Voldemort, who tried to kill him after Voldemort had fully regained his body (using Harry’s blood, Voldemort’s father’s bone, and Wormtail’s hand that Wormtail himself had cut off; Voldemort had then made Wormtail a new silver hand).
When Harry’s and Voldemort’s wands connected, Harry’s wand forced Voldemort’s wand to release echoes of the last people that Voldemort had murdered with it—including Harry’s own birth parents. The echo of Harry’s mother told Harry to use the Triwizard Cup as a Portkey to get back to Hogwarts, and the echo of Cedric told Harry to bring Cedric’s body back to his parents. Harry did both of these things while the echoes were distracting Voldemort, but Minerva became suspicious when Professor Moody took Harry out of her sight after Harry told him and Minerva that Voldemort returned. Moody had been in the Order of the Phoenix (which Minerva now realized needed to be reformed—and renamed the Order of the Tabby Cat now that she would be leading it—now that Voldemort had returned to power), and she had known Moody through this as he had been a friend of Dumbledore. So Minerva knew that Moody wouldn’t normally remove Harry from her sight after what had just happened; she followed Moody and Harry, and caught Moody right as he was about to kill Harry. This made Minerva even more suspicious, and rightly so, as “Moody” transformed into his true self, Barty Crouch Jnr. Crouch had forgotten to take his Polyjuice Potion every hour, as he would have needed to do in order to maintain his disguise; he had done this without anyone noticing for the entire school year, as Moody was well known for drinking only from a private hip flask (believing that anyone else who prepared food or drink for him could poison it). Barty Crouch Jnr told his true story, the story of how he was rescued from Azkaban by his father on his mother’s orders, with his mother disguising herself as him using Polyjuice Potion, and vice versa. (Ironically, his father, who was once the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, had sent him to Azkaban to begin with.) It also turned out that Crouch Jnr had put his father under the Im,perius Curse, and that ordinarily his father would have prioritized the over-17 rule (which was added in the interest of participant safety) over the one that said that anyone whose name came out of the goblet had to compete.
When Harry and Sirius went home a few days later for the summer holidays, Sirius took the opportunity to write to Remus about Voldemort’s return; Remus replied that Minerva had already let him know of it; right at that moment, Sirius received another owl from Minerva asking him whether she could use 12 Grimmauld Place as the headquarters of the Order, and he told her she could. “My parents wouldn’t approve, given their former support of Voldemort until they saw what he was willing to do to get power,” Sirius said, “but I will do whatever I can to help the Order.”
“Does that include going on dangerous missions?” asked Harry. “Yes,” said Sirius. “At least I can, now that the Ministry knows I’m innocent. Now that Voldemort has returned, I’m every bit as loyal to the Order of the Phoenix as I was when James was alive and he was in it with me.” Harry got up, threw some Floo powder into the fireplace, and said, “Severus Snape’s office!” He told Snape to talk some sense into Sirius, who now had someone else to consider–Harry himself–that he hadn’t had when James was alive. “You are all that Harry has left, with Remus not allowed near him,” Snape reminded Sirius. “You cannot afford to risk your life—what will Harry do if he loses you?” Sirius agreed that Snape was right.
Meanwhile, at 12 Grimmauld Place, Remus was sorely regretting that he was no longer allowed to see Harry; he thought that he would prefer death over the situation he was in, just like many other newly-turned werewolves who begged for death rather than becoming werewolves—if not for the fact that he and Sirius could still live together while Harry was away at school, so he wasn’t completely separated from his partner.
Later in the summer, Harry went for a walk in the graveyard near his and Sirius’ cottage and encountered a Dementor.
Sirius saw the Dementor as well and used the Patronus Charm to repel it, the only way he could have done so. Much to Sirius’ shock, however, his Patronus now took the form of a wolf; until now his Patronus had taken the form of a dog. Harry interpreted Sirius' new Patronus form (Sirius said his previous one had matched his Animagus form) as a projection of his anger at being unfairly separated from Remus. “It might also have to do,” explained Sirius, “with the fact that the happy memory I think of every time I cast a Patronus, is the day when Remus and I found out that we could adopt you.”
A few days later, Harry’s booklist came from Hogwarts. He had been assigned the textbook Defensive Magical Theory, presumably for his Defence Against the Dark Arts class. “Okay, let’s go to Diagon Alley,” said Sirius; he and Harry went outside, and Sirius took Harry via Side-Along-Apparition into the Leaky Cauldron, where Andromeda and Nymphadora were meeting them—to Harry’s surprise.
Just as the group started to drink their Butterbeers, Mrs Weasley came inside. She said, “Hi, Sirius! Hi, Harry! Hi, Tonks! I have some good news—Ron’s been made a prefect! So has Hermione.” “I rather thought Minerva would make Harry a prefect,” said Sirius, “but if he’s anything like me, of course she wouldn’t. I’m proud of Ron and Hermione—Hermione reminds me so much of my partner Remus, I always predicted that Minerva would make her a prefect.” “You must be Tonks’ mother,” Mrs Weasley said to Andromeda. “Yes, I’m Andromeda Tonks. I’m Sirius’ cousin.” “Well, I’m going to Quality Quidditch Supplies to buy a broom for Ron—he requested one when I offered him a reward,” Mrs Weasley explained.
When Harry and Sirius got home that night, Sirius looked through the table of contents in Harry’s copy of Defensive Magical Theory, and said derisively, “What use will this be? My husband used to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts himself, and I’m just as disappointed as he undoubtedly would be at the lack of a practical component in this book.”
The next day, Nymphadora took Harry to King’s Cross via Side-Along-Apparition. She explained, “I’m sorry, Harry, but Headmistress McGonagall wants Sirius to stay at home. The Death Eaters probably know about his dog disguise, Wormtail probably told them. He cannot be in any danger, because if you get the slightest hint that he is, you will undoubtedly put your life in danger to rescue him—and we can’t afford that. Voldemort will undoubtedly try to make you do that on purpose, Headmistress McGonagall says.”
At King's Cross, Mad-Eye Moody—another Order member—reminded Harry, “Be careful what you put in a letter. If in doubt, don’t put it in a letter at all.”