Chapter Forty-Four

Task Three

Alex woke with a pounding headache mere minutes later, judging by the position of the setting sun. Viktor had gotten Dumbledore down here quick enough, she supposed.

Except Crouch was gone, and their attacker with him.

Harry was filling in the blanks for Dumbledore and Viktor as Alex struggled to sit up. Whoever had assaulted them had been scarily competent, to take both her and Harry unawares with a Stunner strong enough to leave her head heavy and clogged.

Death Eater. It had to have been a Death Eater.

To her infinite embarrassment, Alex whimpered. Someone like that was on the school grounds? How long had they been here?

Alex sat back, her fingers gripping the grass for dear life as a wave of nausea threatened to drown her. She barely refrained from throwing up as it was.

Harry himself was looking a little queasy by the time he finished speaking.

"You've had a long day," noted Dumbledore, his expression unreadable. "All three of you. I'll escort you to the infirmary."

"But what about Crouch?" rasped Alex. Fuck, it felt like someone had stuffed her mouth with cotton. "Their trail is growing colder by the second."

"Leave that to me," he assured her. "The professors and I will do our best to find him and your attacker."

Alex frowned, dissatisfied. Still, it wasn't like she could protest; she had no intention of making the walk back up without a capable adult with them.

Since Viktor was unharmed, he had no need to return to the castle. "Take care," he told them right before they parted ways.

"Don't tell anyone," ordered Alex, holding his gaze.

Viktor hesitated for a second before nodding.

"Professor," she began once they were almost inside the castle, "is Voldemort immortal?"

"No," replied Dumbledore after a long moment. "While viciously tenacious, even he is not infallible."

For all the good it would do, Alex had to ask. "Do you promise?"

Dumbledore's ancient blue eyes peered into her dark ones. "I promise."

Alex nodded in acceptance of his surety. She trusted him as far as she could throw him, but his unwavering response filled her with some modicum of relief. If anyone had a chance of killing Voldemort, it'd be Dumbledore. Or one-year-old Harry. Whatever.

As soon as they were safe in Madam Pomfrey's care, Dumbledore closed the doors and headed out to address the issue at hand. If she were him, she'd be gathering the strongest and most trustworthy members of his staff: McGonagall, Snape, Flitwick and Moody of course.

"This is bad," Harry said needlessly after Pomfrey dismissed them. "This is really bad."

"Let's get Hermione and Ron, and then tell Sirius."

This was basically becoming routine by now. Alex longed for the peace and quiet of last year.

They rushed to Gryffindor tower, ignoring the odd looks being sent their way. Their frequency and intensity increased when Alex stopped outside the entrance to the common room as she waited for Harry to convince his best mates to come out. Violet, the portrait guarding the entrance, was delighted to see her again, and eagerly began chatting to her despite Alex's visible disinterest.

A ghost sidled up to her. "Would you like the password?" Sir Nicholas asked amicably.

Alex had to smile at that. "Thanks, but I'm good. Just waiting on a friend." A thought occurred to her. "Have you noticed any suspicious characters lurking about?"

"Students? No more than usual, even with the visiting schools. Professors, on the other hand…" Sir Nicholas grimaced. "That Karkaroff fellow is rather unsettling. Mad-Eye, too, even if he is exceptionally skilled at handling Peeves."

Alex wondered if Sir Nicholas's judgement of character wasn't unclouded by his perception of one's appearance. He still made a useful ally, though. In the time it took for Harry to come down, she hastily recapped what had happened by the edge of the forest. Sir Nicholas was hooked on her every word, and easily agreed to keep an eye out for things. He would even venture through the forest itself and look for clues.

"I'm sure the other House ghosts will be happy to help." He paused. "Well, most of them. Half, at least."

"Thank you," she said sincerely.

Alex waved goodbye to Sir Nicholas when the portrait swung open. She bid farewell to Violet and led the trio to an abandoned classroom two floors down.

Once their privacy was ensured, Harry whipped out his mirror.

Sirius answered immediately. "What's wrong?"

Faced with his godfather's obvious concern, Harry floundered. "The champions were asked to go down to the quidditch pitch after dinner for the first task, then Viktor Krum wanted to have a chat with me by the forest—so we wouldn't be overheard—"

His rambling was interrupted by both Sirius and Hermione, who spoke over each other with equal amounts of shock.

"You followed Viktor Krum to the forest? In the dark?" Sirius asked incredulously.

"Why did he want to talk to you in private?" Hermione asked, bewildered.

Ron felt obligated to add his two sickles. "Told you we couldn't trust him," he muttered.

Harry fidgeted with his glasses. "He, uh, wanted to ask if there was anything between me and Hermione."

The topic was so trivial Alex couldn't help but laugh. "That's what he was getting worked up over?"

Ron fumed.

"I told him no, of course," he hastily assured Hermione.

"Back to the matter at hand," Sirius reminded them sternly. "What were you thinking? Someone's out to get you, remember? You can't go around traipsing the grounds at night when the person who put your name in the goblet is still at large!"

Harry jutted his chin stubbornly. "Really, Sirius? You're lecturing me about going out-of-bounds?"

Alex could feel Sirius's deadpan gaze even from behind the mirror. "You know very well our circumstances are completely different."

Before they could really get into it, Alex cut the tension by asking, "Do you guys remember Crouch?"

Scowling, Hermione nodded. "Winky's ex-master."

Oh, right. She'd totally forgotten about his old house-elf. After this conversation, she was going to go down to the kitchens and see if Winky could tell her anything important. But she'd probably just end up bursting into tears...

"He stumbled outside the forest when we went down to check out the third task. He looked like shit; he behaved like he lost his mind. Said some weird stuff, too."

"Like what?" asked Ron, terrified.

"He said Voldemort was getting stronger," answered Harry, his jaw locked. "That he had to warn Dumbledore."

"And that Bertha Jorkins' death was his fault," recalled Alex. "Before he could explain, though, we got Stunned. Dunno know who by, but we can guess."

"The professors are combing through the forest now."

"Harry," Hermione began haltingly. "You need to drop out of the competition."

"You know he can't," Ron said wearily. "They won't allow it."

"So he should just die instead?" snapped Hermione.

"People die in this tournament all the time," recited Harry in a distant voice.

"You won't," interrupted Alex. "I promise."

"You guys should get Moody to whip you into shape," advised Sirius. "He should be willing to teach you how to defend yourselves. As for the Crouch matter – leave it. There's nothing you can do for him now."

That didn't stop Alex from ruminating on poor Crouch and the depressing conclusion his life had come to. It was all she could think about day and night. If she'd been stronger, if her magic sense had been sharper, she could've noticed their attacker before he made his move, could've saved Crouch and discovered for certain who was threatening Harry's life.

Suffice to say, Alex wasn't getting much sleep these days. That was okay, though. Her nightmares just gave her more time to practise her self-defence capabilities.

Every night after dinner, she camped out in the library until curfew. Instead of heading down to the dungeons after Madam Pince kicked her out, Alex went to the Room of Requirement. It had been months since she'd had any need for the magical room, but it was still as useful as ever. Alex would throw every spell in her growing arsenal at the dummies conjured by the room until she was exhausted and drenched in sweat. Rather than go all the way to the prefects' bathroom, she merely stood outside the Room again and asked for a bathroom. By the time she was done and back in bed, the sun would soon be rising.

Alex took Sirius' advice to heart and sought out Moody after class in hopes for private tutoring sessions. To her immense disappointment, he said no. In between prepping for lessons and searching for leads, he was far too busy to make time for her.

"Keep doing what you're doing now," he told her in between sips of his flask. "Constant vigilance, Fortescue, constant vigilance."

It wasn't much, but during classes, Moody always made her partner up with him for the practical components of the lesson. She learned much more dealing with his attacks than she would with any of her peers.

Harry gave her a run for her money, surprisingly. No matter how tenacious her will, he Disarmed her with ease every time he cast an expelliarmus. It pissed her off so badly that when she retaliated with a Stunner, the blowback from the charm threw him across the empty classroom and into the brick wall. Madam Pomfrey was supremely unimpressed with her explanation of the sore lump on the back of Harry's head when they dropped by the hospital wing several minutes later.

"Do you even need to know any other spell?" Harry groaned as he pressed an ice pack against his head. "All you need to do is fling a Stunner in someone's general vicinity and everyone around will topple over like dominoes."

Alex grinned. "That's not a bad idea."

Harry didn't share her good humour. His expression darkened in prelude to whatever he was about to tell her. "I had another dream about Voldemort," he said quietly.

"Was that when you had that fainting spell in Divination?" She'd heard about the incident less than an hour after it happened. Word travelled fast at Hogwarts, especially when it concerned Harry.

"Yeah. He was talking to someone named Nagini about Crouch failing him. Guess Mr Crouch really was under his influence."

Alex inhaled sharply. "Did you tell Dumbledore? And Sirius."

"Of course. I ran to Dumbledore's office almost immediately. He was in the middle of a meeting with Fudge, who—as Sirius says—lives in a constant state of denial."

"Ugh. Typical," she muttered in disgust. Alex had always known of Fudge's incompetence, but she had no clue how pathetic he truly was.

"So yeah, we won't be getting that team of aurors for the third task like you hoped," sighed Harry. He dropped the ice pack beside him and used his now-free hand to play with the sheets of the sickbed they were sitting on.

"Dumbledore…" Harry took a great, shuddering breath. "Dumbledore says when Voldemort first rose to power, it began with unaccounted disappearances. Like Bertha. And Mr Crouch. And a muggle man that lived in the same village Voldemort grew up in."

Alex shook her head, bemused. "Weird to think Voldemort used to be human like us. Imagine growing up with him, attending school with him…"

"No weirder than being taught by an ex-Death Eater," countered Harry with a scowl. "Snape was one, by the way. I, um, fell into Dumbledore's penseive when I waited for him in his office, and saw this trial from the past. For some reason, Dumbledore has complete faith in the greasy git."

"Now you can see why every Slytherin thinks the old man's a nutter."

"Still, I trust him," Harry declared. "He'll keep us safe."

The jet of red light Alex saw every night in her mind's eye told her otherwise.

Thanks to the sleeping potions Duncan and Grant started brewing for her, Alex was able to sleep a full eight hours the night before the third and final task. She had even had a semi-decent breakfast thanks to her friends, who had recently taken to forcibly reminding her to eat after the weight she'd loss due to stress. When lunchtime came around, though, the pressure began to get to her.

"Don't be nervous," Katherine told her as she neatly sliced her chicken into bite-sized pieces. "You're easily the most competent champion of the four."

Alex's lips twitched upwards into a smirk. "Trust you to uplift me by putting down everyone else."

"Is it working?"

"Yes."

Smiling, Katherine wiped her mouth. "Good."

Alex had just polished off her tea when Professor McGonagall approached her with the instructions to enter the chamber off the hall after lunch. Since she couldn't stomach another bite, Alex left immediately.

"Maybe there'll be another dragon in there," Jacob mused as she walked past.

"Very funny," she drawled.

Curious and more than a little wary, Alex gently nudged the door open. To her immense delight, she was greeted not by a dragon but the two people in this world she loved more than life itself.

"Mum!" she gasped, running over to them. "Dad!"

Her parents enveloped her in a warm hug that smelt of sugar and soot, weirdly enough. Maybe they floo'd over?

She leaned into their embrace longer than was appropriate, considering her age. But it'd been an awfully long year, and she hadn't seen them during Christmas like she normally did.

"Oh, honeycomb," her dad murmured after a good look at her. "You look unwell."

"Late nights?" asked her mum. She lightly ran her thumb over the eyebags that had been decorating Alex's face for weeks.

"Something like that," she muttered. "You too?"

Her mum sighed; she looked wearier than ever. That last time Alex could recall her seeming this haggard was…well, in the few months between her birth and Voldemort's fall, really.

Alex's eyes darted to Harry, who had just entered the chamber and was enthusiastically hugging Sirius. If one didn't know any better, they would've assumed that Sirius was Harry's biological father. But of course, Harry had no living parents, because they'd been killed by a genocidal monster obsessed with world domination.

Sometimes Alex forgot she wasn't meant to exist in this universe, not as she currently did. Or maybe she was. Maybe everyone and their souls went through the reincarnation process, and the system had failed to wipe out all her memories. More and more recently she had begun to loathe herself and her patchy memory. If she could remember more, Crouch would still be alive. Harry wouldn't have to participate in this glorified death match. There would be less strife in this world.

Sirius, with an arm around Harry's shoulders, walked over and introduced himself to her parents. Dad was visibly happy to receive him, and whatever doubts Mum had regarding the ex-con was expertly masked behind a veil of politeness. Harry smiled as he watched the three adults reflect on whatever he and Alex had gotten up to when they were younger.

I did that, she thought. The realisation struck her like lightning. I brought Sirius back into Harry's life. Alex couldn't recall much, but she was certain that Sirius's life would be all the more tragic without her intervention.

Noticing she was staring, Harry silently questioned her by arching an eyebrow. She responded with a cross-eyed look. He laughed.

Alex felt something inside her shift. No matter what, she was going to protect that smile. She swore on her own life.

Since the champions' parents were invited to stay and watch the third task, Alex got to spend the whole day with hers. She took them on a quick tour through the grounds; her mum was extremely fascinated with the castle, having been schooled back in her home country. Hopefully Hogwarts impressed her enough that she wouldn't make good on her threat to pull Alex out and ship her off to Japan to finish her schooling there instead.

"You're rather popular," Mum noted with some surprise as another group of students waved at her.

"Not really," she replied.

"So humble," chuckled Dad. "You get that from me."

She rolled her eyes and smiled.

It was funny, watching people react to her parents' presence. Some were surprised, having not been made aware of why they were here. Others were envious of her position. Most people recognised her dad immediately thanks to his reputation as the generous ice-cream man of Diagon Alley. Almost no one had any idea who her mum was, since her job advised discrepancy; they could tell by her body language that she wasn't someone they'd want to mess with.

At least one person knew her well, though.

"Julia," greeted Moody in as warm a tone as he was capable. It sounded like sandpaper, which Alex supposed was an improvement from his usual rusty-nail voice. "Good to see you again."

Mum shook his hand with a wide smile. "Alastor. How have you been? I haven't seen you since that Cult of Merlin case."

"I'm as well as I can be," he grunted, "considering my current state."

"My daughter hasn't been giving you any trouble, has she?" quipped Mum.

Alex stifled an exasperated groan, well aware she was only joking. Why were both her parents so bent on embarrassing her?

"She's certainly given me a run for my money in class," remarked Moody. "She has the makings of an auror in her."

Mum beamed with pride.

Moody's magical eye swivelled over to her before his non-magical one. "Have you updated them on what's been going on in this castle?"

Alex shook her head as her parents turned to stare at her. "Not yet."

He grunted. "Do that."

His job done, Moody hobbled away. Alex watched him go. The sound of his peg-leg clacking against the floor filled the silence of the corridor.

Alex eventually met her parents' expectant looks with a heavy sigh. "You might wanna sit down for this."

Their instinctive reaction was vehement disbelief. And why wouldn't it be? Who would want to believe their only child when she told them there was a high chance she was going to die tonight due to foul play? When Alex refused to remain anything but grim-faced, though, they had no choice but to bite.

"Withdraw," said Dad, the lines of his face more pronounced than ever. "No competition is worth your life."

Alex shook her head impatiently. "I'm not even the target – Harry is. If I can't protect him while in the maze, who will?"

"Dumbledore. McGonagall. Your mother. Literally any adult!"

"From the outside, maybe. But not from within."

Mum frowned at the floor. "We've known Bartemius has been missing for months now, but none of us knew this was happening. The Minister himself assured us all was right, and now you're saying he's known all along?"

Dad shook his head in incredulous amazement. "That man would do anything to maintain the peace, even if it meant keeping everyone in the dark."

Peace? What peace? Even those with no recollection of the war flinched in fear every time someone so much as mouthed Voldemort's name.

Alex kept that thought to herself, not wanting to stress her parents out more than she had to.

Mum slipped her right hand into the sleeve of her left arm. "Take this," she said, withdrawing a dagger the length of her forearm, "in case you lose hold of your wand."

"Mum!" Alex gasped, scandalised and just a little bit impressed. "Do you always have that on you?"

"Of course."

"She really does," Dad sighed.

"There's more where that came from," Mum assured her.

Since she didn't have a knife holster like her mum apparently did, Alex placed the knife and its plain sheathe into the left pocket of her robe. The other held her shrunken case of potions, sans the veritaserum Dumbledore stole from her over a year ago. She doubted she'd ever forgive him for that.

They discussed the creatures Alex was likely to encounter in the maze, as well as the possible tactics she could employ to deal with them. When she joked about the possibility of there being a dementor, both her parents grimaced.

Alex swallowed nervously. "You really think there'll be one?"

"We can't rule it out," Mum replied grimly. "Do you know the Patronus Charm?"

"Vaguely. It's in the seventh-year curriculum." She'd read ahead, sure, but she hadn't seriously attempted it before. It was a notoriously difficult spell to master.

That was enough to deter her parents, though. They made her practise until she could consistently conjure a thick plume of smoke from the tip of her wand. It was far from a corporeal patronus, but they hoped it would be enough to scare the dementor away.

After they were done, they returned to the Great Hall for dinner. Considering how awkward it would be for all parties if they sat at her House table, Alex veered to the other side of the room and dined with Harry, Sirius and the other Gryffindors. They were all familiar with her dad and were openly curious about her mum even if they made little effort to engage her in conversation. Mum probably wasn't keen on chit-chatting with a bunch of pre-teens anyway. Fortunately, she had Sirius to talk to.

Even after Sirius had been acquitted, Mum remained wary of the ex-convict. Just because Sirius had been falsely accused didn't mean he was a good person, or a safe one. Over a decade in one of the worst prisons in their world could destroy just about anyone. Alex understood her mum's concerns, even if she didn't agree with them; she was only looking out for her.

Still, they were cordial enough, even more so now that they had a mutual objective: find out who had attacked their kids and deal with them before they could strike again. Alex sliced into her roast, keenly aware of the heavy weight of the dagger pressed against her side.

"Oh, right," murmured Mum after overhearing a mournful moan from the Ravenclaw table. "How were your exams?"

"Easy as ice cream," Alex replied dutifully.

"So, not easy whatsoever," noted Dad.

"At least you didn't make up any of your answers," Hermione said as she shot a glare at both Ron and Harry.

Sirius snorted. "Which subject?"

"History," Harry admitted bashfully.

Ron shared none of his shame. "Couldn't remember all the goblin rebels' names, so I invented a few. It's all right," he said, shrugging beneath Mum's sceptical look. "They're all called stuff like Bodrod the Bearded and Urg the Unclean; it wasn't hard."

"You're still learning about the goblin wars?" asked Sirius. "I guess having a ghost as a professor means your curriculum remains undead too."

"It's tragic," agreed Alex. "We should be learning about important sh— stuff. Like the witch hunts."

"I'm sure many of your Housemates will be quick to agree with you."

"Good. Maybe then they can stop perpetuating the misconception that only magicians died at the hands of the witch-hunters." A good number of muggles died, too, mostly women, children and the elderly. That wouldn't absolve muggles in the eyes of the more zealous blood-purists, though; in fact, it would make them despise muggles even more.

Having effectively decimated the mood, Alex changed tracks by pulling out some parchment in her pocket. Written on it was a list of creatures that could be found in the maze, the newest addition being dementors thanks to her parents' suspicions.

She passed the list around.

"Acromantula?" squeaked Ron. "Why does Hagrid even have those?"

"Well, of course he does," said George.

"Yeah," added Fred. "They live in the Forbidden Forest, after all."

"Really?" asked Sirius, a glint in his eyes. "I've never run into them in the forest before."

The twins perked up, eager to swap stories with a kindred spirit. They'd have to save it for later, though; the magical sky projected onto the ceiling of the Great Hall dimmed as Dumbledore rose to his feet and instructed the champions to proceed to the pitch.

Alex got to her feet, followed by Harry. The Gryffindor table was the loudest as everyone applauded and cheered for them. Alex pressed down on her anxieties and spared a smile for her friends seated at the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables. Before she could change her mind, she glanced at the Hufflepuff table. Cedric was nowhere to be found.

The gravity of Alex's situation suddenly came crashing down on her. Was this the last time she was going to see her friends and family? Was her fight with Cedric never going to be resolved? She should have chased him down and patched things up with him weeks ago.

Regret gnawed on her, and she hadn't even left the castle yet. As the other champions turned the corner, Alex hung back, her chest rising and falling at a disconcertingly rapid pace. Was she hyperventilating?

"Alex?" Harry asked tentatively, having retracted his steps when he realised she wasn't with them. "Are you all right?"

How can I be? Alex wanted to grip Harry by his skinny shoulders and scream. They were marching off to their state-sanctioned deaths, and no one could do anything about it.

The clacking of wood against stone pulled Alex out of her mental tailspin. "You go ahead, Potter," croaked Moody. "I'll help Fortescue snap out of it. Go on, before the other two think you're plotting against them."

Harry shot Alex one last uncertain look before heeding Moody's words and hurrying out the castle and down to the pitch. Moody was a revered and respected auror; he had things under control.

"Come to my office for a quick cuppa," instructed Moody in that no-nonsense voice of his. "That'll settle your nerves. Always does for rookie aurors before their first big mission."

Moody sounded so sure of himself that Alex followed him without question. To be honest, she could use some tea, or something stronger, to quell her stomach. Her other option was to heave her dinner back out and into the nearest loo, and she was the last person who wanted that to happen.

Alex had only been in the Defense staffroom once before, back when Lupin was their teacher. Moody's décor was significantly darker and grimmer than Lupin's sparse room had been. The only source of light here was the dim fireplace at the side of the chamber. Alex was tempted to crack out a lumos, but she wasn't really keen on taking a closer look at the sneakoscope or any of the other Dark detectors cluttered on Moody's desk. The large trunk with the seven keyholes was definitely curious, though. Maybe he had a boggart in there.

"Sit down," he told her, taking his seat behind his desk. "The house-elves should be sending some tea up soon."

Alex sat on the edge of her seat, glancing out the window at the dark sky. "Do we have time?"

"Of course. The Great Hall probably hasn't been emptied yet. What's got you so antsy, Fortescue?"

"With all due respect, sir, I'm about to be fucking murdered."

Moody didn't even flinch at her use of the f-bomb, which was supremely disappointing. "And what makes you say that?" he asked calmly.

She stared at him with an audacity that could only be achieved thanks to the immense pressure she was under. "There's a murderer on the loose," she reminded him. "One who has no qualms about attacking children, might I add. It's the same person who's been trying to kill Harry all year by putting his name in that goblet."

Moody shook his head slowly. Alex was surprised it didn't creak with the effort of the action. "They don't want Potter dead, no. There are about a million easier ways to ensure that."

"That's true," she acquiesced, hoping the more she talked the more Moody would confide in her as a professional auror. "But if Harry were to die in the tournament, no fingers could be pointed – well, maybe towards Dumbledore and the Ministry for negligence, but the person who entered him in the first place could get off scot-free."

Moody's magical eye twitched in its socket constantly as it scoped out the room without pause. His normal eye narrowed in on her speculatively for several long, painfully quiet seconds.

"No," he said finally. "There are too many holes in that plan. Dumbledore would of course tighten security and make it impossible for anyone to die in the tasks, especially his boy Potter."

Alex's brow furrowed in confusion. "Then what's the point?"

Both of Moody's eyes were now focused on her. "Crouch mentioned Voldemort, did he not?"

The hairs on the back of Alex's neck stood on end. "How does Harry being in the tournament enable Voldemort to get to him?"

Moody's lined face split in half as he smiled. "Not many people are brave enough to say his name, let alone those your age."

In that instant, Alex noticed three things at once.

The first was that the sneakoscope on Moody's desk was, in fact, broken. Why keep it? Why not buy a new, functioning one? (But that was the point, wasn't it?)

The second was that their tea had yet to arrive, and probably never would.

And the third was that Alex couldn't move a single muscle; she was ensnared in a Full Body-Bind Curse.

Moody rose slowly from his seat, wand already out and pointed straight at her. He must've shot the spell at her from beneath his desk. Alex would've glowered were it not for the fact that every inch of her body had been paralysed from head to toe. She couldn't even blink, let alone scream for help.

So, that was it? Moody was the culprit all along? Had decades of fighting the Dark finally made him susceptible to the very powers he sought to vanquish?

Alex wanted an explanation. No, she needed one. But Moody didn't seem to be in the mood to give one. Either he wasn't the type for a supervillain-esque monologue, or he had no time, because he simply sent a Stunner her way. There was no fanfare, not even a little smirk, and if Alex had any doubts as to who had attacked her and Harry and Crouch, they were gone even before she lost consciousness.