Harry Potter: The Flag Bearer of the Throne

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter world. This is a work of fiction.

Reference: Harry's Account Managers

Sharpclaw – Main Account Manager

Norgruk – Tailbird Island Development In-Charge

Axemage – All other Activities for Harry

Reference: Harry's Family Lines

Lord of – Pendragon, Peverell, Gryffindor & Slytherin

Heir of – Potter

Chapter 9 – The Goblet of Fire Part I

Last Time

Thus, after checking the corridor for any unrequired guests, Barty put on strong privacy wards on his suite and touched the lock of his trunk. But instead of opening the trunk, he was suddenly sucked inside a prison. This had forced him into a panic attack and Barty started fighting prison arrangements. But when all the tries he had made were failed, Barty began to wonder, "Who knows the secret?" Barty Crouch Jr. had no idea that he would get his answer in another few short hours.

-TFB-

Room of Requirement, 1st October 1994, 11 am

After verifying his prison trunk with the help of Natalie, Harry was ready to begin the next step of his plan to rescue the real Mad-eye Moody. After sleeping little longer than strictly needed, Harry woke up late on the Saturday morning. As it was a Hogsmeade weekend, most of the students (third years and above) were already gone to the village.

After finishing up his morning activities; Harry was in Room of Requirement, when he called Dobby to bring him some food. As it was past the time of breakfast, he decided to have an early brunch. Once Dobby delivered the required food, Harry opened his Marauders Map while eating his share. After verifying that Room of Requirement was not listed on the map and thus his position was well secured, Harry started observing the defense classroom on the second floor.

He had been in that particular office on number of occasions previously. When Gilderoy Lockhart was here as a DADA professor, he had offered his office as a temporary safe place after the first basilisk attack on Mrs. Norris. Harry had then spent many nights with Remus Lupin last year in the same classroom/office because of his private tuitions on Patronus Charm with the said professor.

Right now though; Harry was very much interested in the two names appearing in that room – Alastor Moody and Barty Crouch. If he believed Remus, then the map would never lie. So Barty Crouch – Percy's Boss – was somehow involved in this whole mix-up. Harry then remembered a trivial piece of memory – the vacant seat in the top box was reserved for and reserved by an elf of Mr. Crouch. Also the fact that the person sitting in top box was the same as the one impersonating Mad-eye, Harry was sure that Barty Crouch was somehow involved in this mess.

This information indicated that Harry needed to trade trunks with caution here. He had seen how the Ministry could be ruthless. Even though Minister Fudge knew about Sirius not receiving any trial, he was still keeping the order of kiss on sight by dementors on him just to cover up the blunder of the Ministry. If Harry accused Mr. Crouch without significant proof (or even with enough proof but exposing the Fudge administration) then the ministry could and would cause a lot more trouble for him than he wanted at this moment. So he needed to be very careful.

Thus Harry continued to observe the 'Crouch' person doing some small movements inside his office. Once it was clear that Crouch was alone with Moody likely in his own trunk, Harry called Dobby for help.

When Dobby arrived, Harry started the discussion, "Dobby, I called you because, I wanted some help from you."

"Dobby will help great Harry Potter Sir" Dobby said enthusiastically.

"Thanks Dobby. Here is your task." Harry started while indicating at the new trunk, "See this trunk Dobby, you have to replace this trunk with the one present in Prof. Moody's office when I tell you to do so. The trunk in Moody's office, you will bring it back here. Can you do it?"

Dobby closed his eyes and concentrated for few moments. Then he opened and nodded. "Yes, Dobby cans do it sir." The little elf said.

"That is great news, Dobby. Now, go to Prof. Moody's office and you can exchange the trunks. Then wait there in the office till Prof. Moody touches the new trunk. After that do not touch anything else and come back here." Harry stated.

Dobby nodded again and disappeared with a crack, taking new the prison trunk with him. Harry anxiously awaited to see the results of his planned ambush. Dobby could do so many tasks for him only because; he was not really bound to Hogwarts. From his last visit to Moody's office Harry knew that the office was very much warded for privacy. This was nothing odd as Mad-eye was known for his 'Constant Vigilance' attitude. Harry was hoping that like all other wizards, the fake Moody will also overlook the security flaw in his plan – the Hogwarts elves.

As if on cue, a new trunk arrived beside Harry followed by a crack of apparition – signaling that Dobby had returned. The little elf looked disheveled and he took few large gulps of air before giving his report to Harry.

"Yours work is done sir. Moody Professor warded the trunk and Dobby did not exchange it immediately. But then he lifted the protection and Dobby changed the trunks as you instructed. He touched the trunk and then disappeared. Dobby is back now."

"Thank you Dobby." Harry stated. "You have done a great job and I am grateful for that. That is all for now. You can go ahead and do your usual work. Also please do not tell anybody else about what you have done."

After Dobby disappeared, Harry looked at the map once more. Now the only person he could see in Moody's office was Barty Crouch. That meant Alastor Moody was here in the trunk. But it represented another problem, how to open the trunk.

From his time with Mad-eye in the time chamber, Harry knew that it was a highly protected trunk and only Mad-eye could open it if one does not have the key. This was another problem Harry was facing. He did not have the required key. Harry decided to take his chance and went to DADA office under the invisibility cloak. After dispelling the security protection placed by fake Moody, Harry entered the office. His Magic sensor was fully functional and his wand was very much ready to do the business.

But Harry need not have worried. The key was dropped near the new trunk. Harry assumed that when Barty Crouch touched the new trunk he dropped the key in haste as he was pulled inside the trunk. So using the standard summoning charm 'accio' Harry collected the key and went back to the Room of Requirement.

Once Harry was back in the Room of Requirement, he opened the trunk carefully and proceeded to the prison compartment. There he found Mad-eye Moody he was looking for. After confirming that the Aura of person held in prison was same as that of real Mad-eye, Harry approached the prison carefully. When Mad-eye saw him, he barked, "What took you so long Potter? What was the last thing I told you and where did I said that? Answer the second question first."

Harry had to smile at that and wondered how Mad-eye could still threaten him. Considering that the old Auror was still in prison – at Harry's mercy – his antics were amusing Harry. Harry shook his head to get rid of all these thoughts and started answering, "Umm, last time we met in the time chamber of goblins and you told me to concentrate on finding the Horcruxes."

Mad-eye nodded at that and then said, "Now tell me, why I was rotting in my own prison for more than a month?"

"Umm, I knew that the person out there was not you. But I had to confirm that. Once I was sure that there was an imposter, I spent next few days preparing for the ambush. Finally today I executed the plan." Harry told his mentor.

"Hmmm, that is good to hear. You can have some hope still. Not all Gryffindorish now, are we? Now, be very careful here. That bastard has put on some nasty jinxes on the prison itself. You must remove them first before you can complete your rescue. And after that we can have the chat." Mad-eye instructed.

For next half an hour, Harry disabled each and every trap that imposter had set with help from Mad-eye. Once that was done, Mad-eye came out of his prison and both of them came back to the Room of Requirement. Once he was settled, Harry started treating the minor injuries of Mad-eye while Dobby delivered the food. Mad-eye, who was unsure about the food, was assured by Harry that food was genuine and tested by elves.

"So, tell me Potter. What has happened in the last one month of Hogwarts while I was in the prison?" Mad-eye started the discussion.

"There is lot that happened during your absence Mad-eye. Where should I start?" Harry queried back, little distractedly.

"Usually the beginning is the right place to start, Harry. From your looks, I think all is not well. So let us begin at the start. Tell me everything that happened since we departed the time chamber." Mad-eye said.

Thus the rest of the afternoon was passed in discussion of various activities happened in Harry's life since he came back to Hogwarts.

-TFB-

Room of Requirement, 1st October 1994, 4 PM

Once Mad-eye heard the complete tale from Harry, he was furious, shocked and sad in equal measure. He was furious with the way jealous students had treated Harry in the past month. He was also furious with Harry for not making correct decisions in regards to his peers. He was shocked to know the use of Imperious Curse on students by his imposter. And finally he was sad to know that the burden of grownups was shouldered by the young man sitting in front of him.

From his time in the Time Chamber and subsequent discussion with Ragnok, Mad-eye knew that Harry was an abused child. When Harry had shared his tales of Hogwarts adventures with Mad-eye in the spare time inside of the chamber, Harry had stressed the importance of his friendship. Mad-eye knew that Harry was hurt more by Hermione's betrayal last year than anything else. Harry valued his friendship much more than his friends knew about.

Thus when Harry told Mad-eye about betrayal from Ron and Hermione this year, Mad-eye knew the origins of some of the questionable decisions Harry had made since then. With his long-time friends abandoning him on slightest hint of changes in his life – and even though there were other friends Harry had made this year, they were not close enough to him – Harry was put under immense pressure. The other unexpected circumstances such as imposter Moody and his marriage bonds with three other girls had only added to the pressure.

Mad-eye could understand the reasoning behind Harry's decision about those three witches. Harry was very selfless person. So when Harry knew that he was the only one who could save the girls from their undesirable fate of slaves, he would have done it without any hesitation. But the strong and unexpectedly hostile response from three witches had confused Harry. Moody knew that even after harsh training Harry was very much untested when it came to human relations. The behavior from the said witches had confused Mad-eye greatly. He had expected at least Susan – Amelia's niece – to be more composed. But it was another thing to look at later date.

With McGonagall confronting him in the common room and his subsequent discussion with Dumbledore not yielding any results, things got complicated for Harry very quickly. Even his good deeds – distributing the wealth generated by Basilisk certainly counted as one in Mad-eye's opinion – were now treated as a part of ammunition against him. Mad-eye added the chat with Minerva in his growing list of to-do things.

After taking the stock of situation, Mad-eye decided to help the young man. He knew that the path they both must take would be difficult. He also knew that they would have to use media very cleverly. Mad-eye also knew that they would require complete support from Dumbledore. But all those were things to do afterwards. Currently he had to calm the young lord.

"Harry, I know why you have done certain things. But I must tell you that your choice of refusing the explanation – even to your new friends – was wrong. You have allowed the doubts to fester in their minds. Without any concreate information they cannot back you. We need to rectify this." Mad-eye started the discussion.

When Harry tried to open his mouth to protest the charge against him, Mad-eye put his hand up and continued, "I can understand your reasoning Harry. All I am saying here is despite those reasons, what you did was wrong. Understand this that correctly placed information – whether it is true or false – helps in long way for successful outcome to your side. But don't worry, we can still correct this mistake and we will do it."

"But for now, let us concentrate on the task at hand. Now that you have the imposter in the new prison, it is time to find out the plot." Mad-eye continued.

When Harry nodded his assent, Mad-eye asked Harry to open the prison trunk from sideways while taking the ready position himself. Once Harry opened the trunk, they were greeted by the sight of mad-man sneering at them and giving dirty looks all the time.

"My, my, what do we have here? Barty Crouch Jr.? I quite clearly remember that you were carted to Azkaban with that manic Bellatrix, Barty. Your own father did that. And he was the one who told me that you had died soon after. So how come you are here?" Mad-eye recognized the death eater immediately. He also bounded the wizard at first opportunity to minimize the risk.

"Uncle" Barty sneered at the man before continuing "The only reason you were able to capture me was because I was distracted. My lord had disappeared and I was desperate to search for him. As I showed you last month, I can easily best you."

"That does not make any difference Barty. You may have fooled everybody else in this castle but there are people who know me very very well. Casting Imperious on students was not a good move Barty. But I suppose you just could not resist the temptation of casting it, have you? So how did you find the weak mind of so called next level of Death Eaters?" Moody replied back, while summoning his original eye ball and leg from the prison.

When Barty continued to scowl, Moody continued, "I suppose I can sympathize with you Barty. You were so devoted to your lord; you would be disgusted to know the weak mind of those death nibblers. But let us not waste the time. I am here to interrogate you. I am very much interested to know why you wanted to come to Hogwarts this year."

"Like I will tell you anything Moody, you must be very delusional to even think that I would betray my master. I will never do that. So you cannot have your answers." Barty said.

"Oh, but you will talk Crouch. You will talk. You see, I did my job by asking you politely. Now that you have refused, I am free to do what I wanted to do for long time. I will use Veritaserum on you, Barty." Moody smiled chillingly, forcing Barty to enter the state of panic.

Moody recognizing the panicked death eater, stunned the death eater and asked Harry – who till then was on sides of Trunk – to come forward. Once there Moody showed Barty Crouch Jr. to Harry. He then went on to explain –albeit briefly – the role of this death eater had played in the last war to Harry.

Once that was done, Mad-eye asked Harry to give him Veritaserum. "I want the Veritaserum you keep with yourself Harry. I want to investigate this piece of scum. Last time when he was in my hand, I was bound by Ministry laws. Now, I don't have any fear. As far as the Ministry was concerned, this is a dead man. So we must use it to our advantage."

Harry hesitated before handing out the potion. He started, "It is against the law to administer the Veritaserum to criminal Professor. We should take him to Headmaster and allow him to contact DMLE. Madam Bones could then administrate the Veritaserum to him with proper procedure."

"In theory you are correct Harry. But you must understand that exposing Barty Jr. will cause a huge scandal for the Ministry. Barty Crouch Sr. would be in big trouble and so will be the rest of the ministry. Fudge and his advisors won't like that. They would try to silence the witness. It would be far more beneficial for us to interrogate him before contacting anyone else. I know, sometimes you have to do things which you won't do in normal circumstances. But understand that we are in War. And we have to make some hard decisions to win the war. I am not going to force you to do anything against your own conscious. But remember that this was the same person who casted Imperious on students for fun." Moody stated.

Harry again looked away from his mentor. He knew that Moody was right. They had a very good source through whom they could find substantial amount of information. But to get that information, he had to break a small law. He was confused and scared. At that moment Harry clearly understood that hence forth his life would be all about making correct choices. What was required here? Abide the law only to let someone else break it and don't get any information which could save lives of others or force the known and proven death eater to spill his beans. Finally making his mind, Harry opened his trunk and collected the vial of Veritaserum. He then silently handed the liquid to Mad-eye.

Mad-eye smiled at him and said, "It is a brave choice Harry. I know how difficult it is to make such choices. But when we lead others, we have to think about overall picture. Now let us not waste more time."

With that said Mad-eye administrated the tree drops of Veritaserum to stunned death eater and indicated Harry to hide himself. Once Harry had disillusioned himself, Mad-eye enervated the death eater and started his interrogation.

-TFB-

The interrogation of Barty Crouch Jr. had some interesting results, Harry mused while he was trying to sleep in his bed. They had learned that Voldemort was once more active and was back in Briton. Peter Pettigrew was currently taking care of him. Unfortunately Voldemort had hidden himself under the Fidelius Charm. This had prevented them from knowing their exact location.

They also learned that Voldemort had planned for a very complex ritual in the next summer to regain his body. And he wanted Harry or some part of Harry as one of the major ingredients. Again Voldemort had been cautious. He had not told Barty exactly what that ritual was. Barty had a simple task to accomplish while he was in Hogwarts – force Harry Potter into the Triwizard tournament and through it deliver the said boy to a specified location at a specified time.

Both Harry and Mad-eye were frustrated to know that Barty Jr. had no idea about the approximate time slot or place. All he could have told them was that it was sometime in summer and Voldemort would send a letter to him about other details when time would come.

Barty Jr. had planned to use a Confundus Charm on the Goblet to force the entry of underage Harry (in the eyes of public). Mad-eye had vowed then and there that he would monitor the Goblet so as to make sure that something like this does not happen.

The next bit of information they had gained was about the attack on Mad-eye at the end of August. Apparently it was Pettigrew who had bested the old Auror using his Animagus skills. Mad-eye was enraged to hear that and had silently promised to kill the Rat Animagus. They also found out that it was Barty Crouch Jr. and Rodolphus Lestrange who had attacked Moody's house back in the first war. Apparently Barty had fancied Mad-eye's daughter – Grace – and wanted her. Through him Mad-eye understood the tale of his daughter. While Voldemort had allowed his death eaters to attack, he had put his foot down and abducted Mad-eye's daughter personally. Since then nobody knew anything about her.

Mad-eye was devastated to find out the fate of his daughter. However Harry was slightly more relieved. He knew that Grace Moody was in same state as that of his parents. Voldemort had not killed her outright. For some obscure ritual, Voldemort was collecting powerful, sane and virgin witches. Grace had fitted the bill perfectly and thus was kept in prison. Fortunately when Voldemort died, he was short of 3 witches. Harry desperately hoped that the status quo would remain as it is till they could save the prisoners from Voldemort.

The final important piece of information they had gained was about the knowledge of what happened to the senior Longbottoms. They were under the very rare and obscure family spell related to mind magic. This was a creation of Lestrange family and only direct blood members of family could cast this spell. That was the actual reason why two Lestrange brothers were targeting the senior Longbottoms while Bellatrix and Barty provided cover to them. This time it was Harry's turn to make silent promise to save Neville's parents. He knew that the only way this could be achieved was to gain more information about it from the remaining male Lestrange brothers. But it was a path Harry was prepared to take to help his godmother and her husband.

After learning all his secrets, Mad-eye had once more bound Barty crouch Jr. before stunning him. He then recovered all the dangerous items from his prisoner and turned back his attention to Harry. Once they were settled, Mad-eye explained his tentative plan to Harry. It was risky and dangerous but Mad-eye was convinced that it was the best way to go forward. He had suggested and had persuaded Harry in the end to retain the custody of Barty Crouch Jr. Mad-eye had argued that based on the information they had, it was clear that Voldemort had some huge plans this year. It was also clear that there were more than one death eater back in his service.

So Mad-eye wanted to retain the readymade source of information with him as long as possible. When Harry had pointed out that come Halloween their cover would be busted, Mad-eye told him they would gain some more information about the plot by then and thus can actively work on spoiling it. He also pointed out that if they busted Barty now then Voldemort would know about it and he had enough time in his hands to manufacture some other way to get his hands on Harry.

When this was pointed out to him, Harry very reluctantly agreed to the plan and Mad-eye promised him to keep updated about its progress. After that Mad-eye had taken control of the security settings on the prison trunk. That was the time when Harry and Mad-eye had parted and Harry promised to meet with his mentor the next day for discussing other pressing matters.

-TFB-

2nd October 1994, Headmaster's Office

Albus Dumbledore was in a difficult situation. For the past three weeks, he had reviewed the performance of his teachers at least once with every one of their classes. In some cases he had even attended the specific classes under heavy concealment magic. The findings were good on most of the part. However the concerns raised by Harry were valid in some cases. And this was his current problem.

Treatment afforded by Severus to everybody non-Slytherin was very harsh. Mad-eye was using Imperious Curse on minors without any consideration. Trelawney's teaching was as pathetic as Albus had remembered. Students were freely sleeping in Binns' class. Muggle studies were teaching something way behind the actual progress made by muggles. Hagrid was unable to reach the younger students in Care of Magical Creatures. All in all, Albus was tempted to agree with observations of Harry Potter that teaching standards of Hogwarts had fallen very behind.

But he had promised himself that he would ensure the teaching standards were back to the best. So he had decided on a plan. With additional funds made available due to Harry's generous donations, Albus could afford to do a few more things than strictly necessary as per the board of governors. Thus he had decided to meet his teachers one by one. First teacher on his agenda was Mad-eye Moody.

At 10.00 AM sharp, the stone gargoyle informed the musing headmaster about the arrival of his old friend.

"Alastor, I hope I have not disturbed you too much this morning." Albus started the discussion.

"No, it is all right Albus. But I hope that we can finish this discussion quite early. Minerva is expecting me to take rounds in Hogsmeade today." Moody replied.

"So, tell me Alastor, how did you feel while using the Imperious on Students?" Albus asked after scrutinizing Moody for minute.

"Bugger. He did that, didn't he?" Moody stated.

"Yes. Your imposter did use the Imperious Curse on students. Now tell me Alastor, how did you escape the prison?" Albus continued the discussion.

"Did you know I was being impersonated? And you did nothing?!" Moody was outraged at the thought.

"No. I will accept that I was not sure about the impersonation. I had my suspicion, but had no proof for the same. The closest I came was when your imposter used Imperious on the students. I knew you would never ever do such thing. But then you were famous for putting Auror cadets under strong compulsion charm to test their mental resolve. And since I had no clear proof, I was unable to make any clear action. There were far too many unknowns for my liking." Dumbledore stated.

"Hmm. You are right of course. You may not believe it but I was rescued by Harry Potter. He had clear proof of the fact that the person teaching DADA was not me and thus went on to catch the culprit on his own. He is disappointed in you of course – the reason why he so foolishly executed the plan." Moody stated.

"Oh, I would like to hear the story Alastor." Dumbledore stated while taking a lemon drop candy, his eyes twinkling merrily.

"I will tell you that Albus, but I will need something from you as well. We both know that the Dark Lord is moving again. Potter is going to play a major role here. I want you to be honest with the lad. Unless he has the information, we cannot hope to survive. Do you agree to this Albus?" Moody asked.

'Alastor must know something about Harry that I have no idea about. This has to be related to the changes seen in Harry this year.' Albus thought.

"Very well, Alastor. The knowledge you seek is very dangerous and can cause mayhem in the outside world. But I will need allies. So I accept your conditions. You tell me your story and I will tell you mine. If after hearing the story you still insist on taking Harry in the loop, we will do so. Is that ok?" Dumbledore spoke after few moments.

Moody nodded to this. He knew this was the best case scenario he could have hoped for. Albus Dumbledore was known for keeping the secrets with him. But Albus was correct in one thing. They needed allies to fight this war. Harry's indecision to not clear his name in the past month would come back to haunt them, he was sure.

So thus started the long discussion between Moody and Dumbledore where Moody explained the training Harry has received, how he learned about the foul magic of Horcruxes that was keeping Voldemort alive in this plane, how Barty Crouch Jr. caught him with little help of Pettigrew, how Harry managed to save him from his prison and finally how he has the AOWL death eater as a prisoner right now.

Dumbledore for his part listened to the tale with complete concentration and joined the missing dots such as Arabella reporting Harry's absence in privet drive. He also got the confirmation about his theory of Horcruxes. The other revelations Moody had made were disturbing but were merely confirming his belief that Tom was launching his most dedicated bid to regain his body.

After this, Dumbledore told Moody about the existence of a Prophesy involving Harry and Voldemort, how Voldemort was aware of the partial contents and Dumbledore's reasoning about why Tom chooses Harry as the potential Prophesy candidate.

After this both the elders talked about various aspects of Harry's current life and Albus agreed that last month could have been handled bit better. They further discussed the war efforts needed at the time. Albus was sure that as a peace time Minister, Cornelius Fudge would oppose the idea of resurrection of Voldemort. With Malfoy's hold on Minister, Albus was sure that it would pose a significant problem for all of them. But because they had a clear link to the information about the next steps Voldemort was taking in his bid for resurrection, both heroes were positive that they could avoid the catastrophe of first war.

-TFB-

30th October 1994, Hogwarts Grounds

While waiting for the arrival of other participating schools of the Triwizard Tournament – Beauxbatons and Durmstrang – with his peers, Harry Potter was in deep thought. Unlike the first month back, the previous month was much better for him. A number of his plans had taken a definite shape this month. The whole thing had started the day after Harry had freed Mad-eye from his prison.

On the 10th of October Dumbledore had made series of announcements. The most important being addition of Horace Slughorn as a Potions Master. While Snape was not removed from school – he had still retained his Head of Slytherin House title – his direct interaction with students was drastically curtailed. According to Dumbledore Snape would now continue his research in Potions and help the budding Potions Master from school while conducting few NEWT and OWL classes.

The other interesting development was of addition of many new teachers for other subjects. Now all subjects were having at least two teachers and thus relieved the more experienced teachers to do their many other functions. In some cases like Hagrid, Dumbledore had put his foot down and kept Hagrid as teacher for NEWT level classes only.

Hogwarts itself was undergoing major transformation. Number of old classrooms were now being decorated. Dumbledore had also ordered many new paintings – and although nobody apart from Dumbledore and McGonagall knew about it, it was a security upgrade. Every hallway and classroom now contained at least one magical portrait of old headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts. These all were directly under control of Dumbledore and could call for some adult help if required at moments notice.

However, on a personal front also Harry was doing much better. After the fiasco with Ron and Hermione, Harry had taken time and explained a few things to Neville and his new friends. He had explained to them that with both Ron and Hermione going against him behind his back, he was very unsure about the situation. This had led him to run away from the whole situation, indirectly creating even more conflict. Harry also apologized to them about not coming clean earlier and thanked them all for supporting him. This meeting had helped him in getting some semblance of control back in his social circle. Now at least there were few friends on whom he could fall back in case of emergency.

The 3rd weekend of October was also a Hogsmeade weekend. Harry had used it very effectively by visiting London – especially Penny. He had crossed the Hogwarts gates normally and then sneaked out of Hogsmeade using his Invisibility Cloak. After that London was just the apparition away. Once under his cloak, Harry changed his features slightly and then went to London.

The first stop in London was Gringotts. He had a meeting with his account managers and they had given him the progress report of various tasks. The development of Tailbird was going nicely and they were on schedule to meet the deadlines. However, Norgruk had also given him new proposal to think about. Verifying the older documents, the goblins found out about a lost port near Cardiff that Potters used to own.

However this was destroyed in the Second World War or more importantly in the war against Grindelwald. Since then Potter accounts had dried up considerably. The subsequent wizarding wars and rebuilding of society had also affected the Potter resources. With the death of Charlus Potter and James Potter spending majority of Potter money in war efforts, the Potter coffers had taken very bad hitting. With the Cardiff port gone from the picture, everybody was forced to use the other port near Liverpool which was owned by the Nott's. This had given the control of economy to Dark sided families.

Norgruk has now proposed to build a new port on Tailbird to counter the current one. Harry was very tempted with the idea but resisted approving it immediately. He wanted to think about it some more before making any decision. After all it may cause the security breach for the island.

Sharpclaw then confirmed that Harry was now the majority owner of Daily Prophet followed by Blacks. He was able to acquire shares from many small level pureblood families which were used as proxy by Malfoy. Since they were quite eager to get away from Malfoy's influence they had readily agreed for the sale of shares at higher prices. Lucius Malfoy had no idea about these transactions as the proxies were not directly reporting to him.

After this meeting Harry had visited Penny in Bond Cruz. There he had been briefed about the progress they have made as far as rune carving and potion making business. Penny has hired the team of 10 in each business unit so far. Most of them were muggleborns who had left the magical world after graduation. The others were squibs.

They had discovered that not all runes in any runic array could be carved using the machines. There were some runes which needed to be crafted by hands – mostly runes required to power the runic array. Similar was the case with potion making. Not all ingredients could be prepared using machines. Due to this Penny has created two work batches in each section – one who will work on actual machine and other who will work by hands to finish the work created by first batch. So far they have started with small ward stones which could be used for silencing, shielding etc. as far as potions were concerned Penny had started with simple healing potions such as boil cure or common healing paste. They had tested the potion quality from St. Mungo's and got adequate certificates for the same. However, due to rampant bigotry present, no apothecaries had placed any orders to them yet. Learning this Harry assured Penny that if it comes to that then he will finance the front end shop at Diagon through which they can sell their products.

With the help of the RoR and his up-to-date Gym residing in his trunk, Harry had kept with his exercises as well. The good thing about this was that nobody knew about this yet and Harry had intended to keep it that way.

Soon he was broken from his ponderings by Neville as Beauxbatons delegation had arrived. Harry had no issue in identifying and resisting the Allure of Veelas present in their delegates, however Neville and many other boys were not so lucky. Soon after Durmstrang school arrived with the only notable event being in the presence of Viktor Krum among their ranks. Harry also recognized Igor Karkaroff as an ex-death eater from the memories of Mad-eye and vowed to keep his distance from him as far as possible.

Once welcoming feast was over, Dumbledore officially opened the Tri-Wizard tournament with the lighting of the Goblet of Fire. Mad-Eye gave Harry a nod while others were leaving the great hall and Harry knew that Mad-Eye was going to watch over the Goblet of Fire to make sure that no untoward event occurred. With his mind at peace, Harry called his day early.

-TFB-

To Be Continued.

Author Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing in advance. Also please note that English is not my First Language. So for any mistakes in the chapter, I take total responsibility for it and am very sorry for the same.

This chapter has been reviewed by the 'Drew86' as a beta reader. So many thanks to my wonderful Beta.

I know it has been long time since this story was updated but I had lost the momentum for writing due to personal reasons and then my muse just refused to carry on. Even now this chapter should have at least 2/3 more scene in it according to my plans but I am lost for now. Anyway, Thanks a lot to Drew86 who kept messaging me to post and did a great job of Beta for this chapter. Hopefully I will be able to post next part of this chapter soon, but no promises. This is what I had and I think it is high time I post it for you loyal readers. Thanks.

Also please do not forget to review, as it helps me in ironing out missing cases in plot.

Also some points raised in reviews:

Ah, so many of you have criticized the way Harry has delayed any explanations. I guess you all are correct in that. But there are two main reasons why I did this. All of you pointed that since Harry had spent huge amount of time in Time Chamber, he should be more proactive in his dealings with peers. And I agree with you. But my point here is that, the training in chamber was very much battle oriented. Yes, Arthur and others helped Harry with physical injuries and mental trauma he was suffering with strict potion, food regime and Occlumency trainings. But Harry was not exposed to dealing with his peers.

Also the second point here is that, his two friends have turned against him. After his discussion with headmaster, no major action was taken. He knows very well that the Moody present in castle is impersonated. That means, from Harry's point of view, he does not have a firm, reliable presence to lean on in this situation. While reviewing his memories of past three years, there were number of mistakes from his professors which had put Harry's life in danger. Since Harry did not have any clarity on this situation yet, he was reluctant to go to authority for help.

Also keep in mind that the mental abuse cannot be healed just like that. For all the Occlumency training has helped Harry, you have to understand that in such cases the only true healing happens when you are exposed to affection/love. This particular aspect was not present in his training. Yes he had a great bond with his other teachers, but those were different emotions.

Consider his training as that of making of a warrior. That is a reason, why Harry was so far reluctant to discuss his trainings, plots etc. Now that real Moody is back, it would change. This chapter helps explaining the changes little more. So I do hope that you all will continue to support the story.

The second point was about Harry's reluctance to prosecute Molly Weasley. Again this will happen. Just wait. I have planned it and hence I avoided the temptation to do it here. I hope you will like the story curve there.

This chapter was published on 5th Nov 2016

- GeniusReader