Takedown and Truths
“What do you mean, he’s an imposter?” Harry whispered back to Maps.
“I can see people’s names above their head when I activate Maps-vision. The name over him is not the right one, so he isn’t a right person.” Maps explained. “His name reads ‘Barthemius Crouch II’.”
“Crouch II…relations to the other Mr. Crouch?” Harry asked.
“Bary Crouch Jr. Is his son, he was condemned to Azkaban after being found in the company of Voldemort’s Death Eaters. Dad was part of the Wizengamot during that trial and it was a big event.” Daphne explained.
“How is he alive? He supposedly died in Azkaban?” Tracey wondered.
“It is not impossible to escape from there, my godfather did it.” Harry explained
“Now we know whom put your name into the Goblet.” Hermione noted.
“I’ll rip him apart and eat his face.” Hedwig said, her feathers fluffing up and making her look intimidating.”
“We need him alive.” Harry said. “He needs to be captured and made to sing like a canary.”
“He wouldn’t need his balls for that, right?” Hedwig asked.
“Or necessarily all his limbs unbroken?” Bolt added.
“He won’t die. We’ll just make sure he wished he was.” Maps said.
“So we have a plan?” Hannah asks. “We can’t just run up to the front and attack him.”
“It would be incredibly satisfying. I am faster then a Speeding Charm, I can take him.” Bolt aid eagerly.
“We still can’t risk it, he is able to impersonate one of the most dangerous Aurors ever, so his own skills would be nothing to sneeze at. Not to mention the eye gives him three-sixty degree vision.”
“We need to be sneaky about it.” Hermione noted.
“Me and the boys can do ‘sneaky’.” Maps said with a grin.
“He still has two eyes and we divide his attention. All we need is a patsy to distract him with.” Harry noted.
“Hey Potter, Pansy just brought me up to speed. You are scared and running away from Potions?” Malfoy mocked all the way from the Slytherin table.
“Hello, Patsy!” Harry said with a smirk. “Time to put Daphne, Tracy, Neville, Susan and Hannah’s lessons to good use.”
“Wait, what lessons?” Neville wondered. “How is that supposed to help with Malfoy?”
Harry ignored him as he whispered a few things at the others, whom all nodded as they understood what they had to do. Harry got up, and made his way to the Slytherin table. People would feel like a confrontation was at hand. He took a regal pose, like he was nobility. “Draco of the House Malfoy…” the tension was to cut with a knife.
“I apologize for a sleight on your character nearly three years ago when you first introduced yourself on the Hogwarts Express. While I do not agree with your viewpoints, refusing to take your hand was a sleight I was initially unaware off at the time due to me not being properly educated in etiquette when it came between meetings of Wizarding families.” Now Malfoy looked at Harry, looking as dumb and gormless as Crabbe and Goyle. Everyone else was surprised to see what happened and didn’t know how to react. Luna took out popcorn.
“While our viewpoints don’t match, I will agree to disagree and make up for my sleight, and hope that as a result our families can be on better terms.” Harry said as he held out his hand.
Malfoy looked pained as he tried to not say something incredibly rude or insulting. Due to his heritage, the etiquette was beaten into him since childhood and hence he was forced to go with it. He didn’t know how Potter learned, but his father would kill him for not following the proper etiquette even if Potter was involved. “I…accept your apology, Harry of the House Potter. A truce…Is accepted.” Malfoy said. He looked like he was about to throw up.
The scene had caught everyone’s eyes. Maps loved this part. Sending an inkblot quietly across the floor as everyone’s attention was on the two old enemies. While she enjoyed Harry performing a sort of ‘killing him with kindness’ on Malfoy, the real show must begin. The ink blot crawled upon Malfoy’s robe, into his pocket, grabbed his wand and slithered across his sleeve. Now the inkblot with the wand traveled to Malfoy’s hand. Malfoy felt the wet blot across his hand. “What the…”
“Oh no you won’t! Not again!” fake Moody stood up and aimed his wand at Malfoy, turning him into the bouncing ferret yet again. “You little slimeball! He offered you a polite truce and you try to double-cross him! Did your father not teach you any manners! Little hooligan!” he said as he moved closer from the table, to approach the bouncing ferret.
Everyone started to gather around and laugh at Malfoy’s predicament. The teachers weren’t happy…Ok, they nearly all thought it was hilarious but they had to butt in. “Professor Moody!” Minerva McGonagall said. “I told you before we don’t use Transfiguration for punishment.”
“The little shit deserves it!” fake Moody said as he lived out his fantasy of torturing the cowardly traitor Lucius through his son. A crowd has gathered around the scene and everyone was amused. With enough people around, both of fake Moody’s eyes were occupied.
Bolt moved in quickly first, kicking the fake leg from under the imposter. He wobbled on one leg as Maps shot another inky blot at his mouth and over his magical eye to sush and blind him. His wand flew out of his hand with a ‘yoink’ as Cloak used her invisibility to snatch it without him expecting it. Hedwig flew in, dug the claws of her feet into his shoulders and flew him upwards, high enough before letting go.
Then Harry’s group fired spells at the airborne target (they did this so no bystanders would have been hit) and after getting a stunner, petrified and hit by several nasty curses a worse for the wear looking Moody impersonator fell down.
“POTTER! What are you and your group thinking! You’ll all be expelled for attacking a teacher!” Snape shouted.
“I wonder myself what is going on with the whole lot of you? Care to explain why you just attacked Professor Moody?” a calmer but still irate Professor McGonagall asked.
“That man is not Professor Moody! He is an imposter. Maps can identify anyone even if they are magically disguised.” Harry explained.
“Can confirm. My vision never lies. Do any kind of scan you want, and you’ll see!” Maps added.
Dumbledore approached the unconscious imposter and took his flask and handed it to Snape. Snape studied its contents. “Polyjuice.”
“I think we found out whom put Mr. Potter’s name into the Goblet of Fire.” Dumbledore replied. He sighed as he felt ashamed he didn’t catch on this wasn’t his old friend Alastor and he felt pretty stupid now.
“Should I call my aunt?” Susan asked.
“That would be best. Professor Sprout, please take Miss Bones to the Floo Network. Severus, grab some Veritaserum. We’ll need a lot of questions answered.”
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Amelia Bones, hardass Auror, head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, prematurely grey from having to deal with idiots at the ministry, guardian and loving aunt of Susan Bones. She arrived with a handful of Aurors by her side, stepping into the Great Hall, where all the students eyed them.
“Can anyone explain what is going on?” she asked.
Colin Creevy, the most energetic boy you will ever find, started to speak, rapidly: “Harry and his friends took down Moody but it turned out it was not Moody because Harry’s sister Maps whom used to be a Map but is now a parchment girl saw through his disguise, and then they played a trick on Malfoy where Harry was apologizing but then Malfoy was a ferret due to fake Moody and then they all attacked him, there was Harry’s other sister whom was a cloak girl and another sister whom is a broom kicking him and Harry’s new mom whom is an owl taking him into the sky and they zapped him into next week and now he’s down there!” He took a deep breath and fainted.
“Er…” Amelia said. “Never mind, details later. So an imposter?”
“Indeed. It has already been confirmed it was Polyjuice, and it should wear off any second now.” Dumbledore said.
They had already removed the eye and fake leg off him. They looked how he jolted awake in pain as his body forcefully changed back to normal as his skin bubbled like hot wax. He panted heavily as he moaned in pain as the transformation stopped.
“Dude, he looks like David Tennant!” a Muggleborn from Huffelpuff said.
“Who the f*** is David Tennant?” his Pureblood friend asked.
“Barty Crouch Junior? He is supposed to be dead.” Amelia Bones said.
“Severus was kind to provide us with Veritaserum, so if you want to question him. Now is the best time. His Occlumency is down due to the heroic actions of your niece and his friends and we have already confirmed he has no Veritaserum antidote in his system.” Dumbledore noted.
“Susan, I don’t know whether to be proud or ground you.” Amelia said to Susan.
“That’s fair.” Susan noted.
Barty Junior was lifted onto a chair, the conjured ropes replaced by more durable chains and they forced the incredibly potent truth serum down his throat. “Let’s begin the questioning!” she said as one of the Aurors pulled out a notepad and a feather, which was enchanted to take notes.
“This is Amelia Bones, interrogating the suspect, Hogwarts, 2nd of November in the Great Hall. Now, are you Bartemius Crouch Jr.?”
“Yes.” The imposter said with a monotone in his voice and a glazed look in his eyes.
“Are you a Death Eater?”
“Yes.”
“Are you loyal to the Dark Lord?”
“Yes, I am!”
“How did you escape Azkaban?”
“My mother begged my father to save me as a final request. He loved her like he never loved me. We took Polyjuice to swap places, and she died and was buried in my place. My father kept me prisoner under the Imperius curse for ages.”
“Do you know what happened during the Quidditch World Cup?”
“Yes…I have been able to shake the Imperius Curse then, I stole a wand and summoned the Dark Mark, to scare those traitors whom disowned my Lord and avoided Azkaban by lying.”
“How about the Tournament?”
“My master came to save me. Him and another servant. They had a plan to restore my Master, but it involved Potter being in the Triwizard Tournament, and me guiding him through it until he reached the end, and be whisked off to my Master’s location, to be used in a ritual to restore him to power.”
“So you tampered with the Goblet of Fire and put Mr. Potter’s name in?”
“Yes.”
“Where is Alastor Moody?”
“Trapped in his own trunk. I needed him alive to keep making Polyjuice.”
“Where is the Dark Lord?” Amelia asked.
“I can’t tell you the address. Fidelius Charm. I am not the Secret Keeper. You’ll never find it.” Despite sounding monotone, the bastard found a way to sound smug.
“Who is the other servant whom helped You-Know-Who free you and capture Moody?”
“Peter Pettigrew.”
There was a loud gasp at that. Harry was angry, and so were his friends, but several felt excited as this may exonerate Sirius.
“Peter Pettigrew lives? He’s a death Eater? Sirius Black didn’t kill him?”
“Sirius tried to kill Peter for betraying the Potters. Sirius Black is a blood traitor, he is no Death Eater.”
Amelia Bones gritted her teeth. Sirius…she was one of her best Aurors. She mentored him. She never thought he could betray the Potters but she never saw him or could question him about it and after being blocked for so long she had reluctantly accepted his guilt. She shouldn’t have given up. Now she was furious and determined and decided to ask a question she wanted to ask a Death Eater long ago.
“Can you take the Dark Mark when under the Imperius Curse?” she asked.
“No, you have to want to take it.” Barty replied.
Several Slytherins looked uncomfortable, notably those with Death Eater parentage, and there were many collective gasps. Karkaroff and Snape tried to not be seen by her. Amelia looked like she was to explode like a volcano. “We are going to have lots to do, but first to book him.” She turned to Karkaroff and Snape. “And a few cases to re-open.”
“Madame Bones. He has admitted my godfather Sirius Black is innocent of what he was accused. If I can get him to contact you, can he finally get the trial he never had?” Harry asked.
“He never got a trial?” Amelia asked softly. “Wait, you are in contact with him?”
“Last year, I saw Pettigrew in the flesh, but he escaped. I know Sirius is innocent but Minister Fudge wouldn’t listen.” Hermione noted.
“And a certain Potions Professor was no help as he told everyone we were Confunded.” Harry said. Snape looked like he wanted to strangle Harry, but at the same time looked like he was crapping bricks.
“I see…” Amelia Bones said. “Tell him to contact me directly, and I’ll take care of it. I have a lot to apologize for.”
“It won’t matter in the end.” The Veritaserum wore off and Barty Crouch started to act normal again. “You are all only delaying the inevitable. My Master will return eventually. It is a matter of time. He is the smartest wizard in the world, he’ll think of another plan. So enjoy your last days, Potter! He will kill you and everything you love. While I, will be remembered as his most loyal servant, like a son.” He said with a smug grin.
“You weren’t able to catch me because any of you were competent. I only got caught because of the byproduct of Potter’s magical mishap.” He stared at Maps. “I admittingly am a good Occlumens, which Moody also was. I was a good actor, you may remember my theater days at Hogwarts? Was Dumbledore maybe overworked so he didn’t notice me? Or maybe he is getting old…” Barty said as he turned to Dumbledore. “Truth hurts, doesn’t it, old man?”
Dumbledore really looked his age more then ever. He felt stupid for having missed this. He started to doubt himself. But he vowed that he would do better after this and rethink a lot of his life. But not before that bastard would go back to Azkaban.
“Ah, I see another familiar face. Young Longbottom. Looking like your father. Me and the Lestranges had a lot of fun torturing them into insanity…” Barty said. That was the wrong thing to say.
Neville moved faster then anyone saw before, closing the gap and socking Bary in the face, knocking him over and the sound of a jaw breaking accompanying it. He was out cold. Hannah and Susan liked what they saw, as Hannah fanned herself as she blushed and Susan bit her lower lip. Neville panted and made it back to his friend group, panted and broke down crying, his friends comforting him.
“Tell me you got all that, Shacklebolt!” Amelia asked her second in command.
“Oh, I certainly do.” The dark-skinned Auror said.
The room had fallen silent, aside from the squeaking and chirping of a ferret. “Oh right, forgot about him.” Minerva McGonagall said as she absent-minded turned Malfoy back to normal. He decided to try to stay out of sight. Though he would be called Bouncing Ferret for years to come.
“It’s ok, Neville.” Harry said as he patted his godbrother’s back. “He won’t be able to hurt anyone again, he is going back to prison.”
“My parents…they can never be normal again. What they did…no one has been able to cure them. They say it’s impossible”
“Yet.” Harry said. “I did the impossible not so long ago.” Harry gestured at Maps, Bolt, Cloak and Hedwig. “So one day a cure can be found for them as well.”
“Huh, you’re right. The impossible has happened.” Neville wiped away his tears. “I will not give up then, either. Even if the Healers find no cure…I have decided I will put my studies to Healing. With my Herbology skills and hopefully a better Potions tutor, I’ll save them myself if I have to.”
“That’s the spirit.” Luna said with a smile.
“Oh, so you don’t need any more cheering up? Because we had something in mind.” Maps said.
“Oh?” Neville asked.
Malfoy ran out of the Great Hall clutching his stomach while shouting ‘BATHROOM!’
“I put a quick lax potion in his pumpkin juice.” Maps said.
“And we put in Mackled Malaclaw Venom. It causes bad luck so chances are Malfoy won’t make it in time.” Fred noted.
“And I brew the potion that made sure the Malaclaw Venom and the Quick Lax don’t cancel each other out or do permanent harm.” Daphne said.
“Whoa, to make a potion like that takes some skill.” Hermione said in admiration.
“I told you, I’m a Potions prodigy, and aspire to be a Master.” Daphne said.
“Isn’t she amazing?” Tracey said with a fond look at Daphne. Daphne smiled back softly. “I mean, she is amazing at potions and as a friend. Yeah.”
“I’m still a bit sad, but I feel a lot more cheered up now.” Neville said as they all giggled softly at the prank and in relief.
That didn’t last long as suddenly a chill went down the spines of everyone and the temperature dropped. Happy thoughts were all leaving them as they felt that they would loose the ability to be happy again. They turned around and saw outside the doors of the Great hall, the Minister of Magic coming in. Alongside a toad-like woman in pink…and the shit-for-brains brought Dementors.
“Oh f***!” Harry cursed.