ShadowAI: Hi gang, here is me again, bringing you this rather mean little plot bunny that lodged itself during a browsing session here on . I had stumbled upon a rather interesting fic, which sounded really good but I never read past the second chapter. Still, I thought it was a fun idea and I decided to write my own take it. This fic is broadly classified as a "For Want of a Nail" story, where a change in the story's past creates a ripple effect on the plot. In this case the change starts with Sirius breaking out much earlier than in the books. The wide reaching consequences of this will be revealed as the story progresses, but I assure you dear reader they are not meant to be ass pulls but products of a carefully crafted chain of causality. My 'buddy' Zaion over there with the stick, is ready to thwack me if I ever screw up just in case.

ZN: Well, this little piece of insanity is just getting started. The other day Shadow dropped me a line about an idea he'd had (I think he mentioned reading a fic that originated it but just didn't do a good job of implementing the idea) that just wouldn't go away. Couple hours of discussion led to this beauty, a piece de resistance that is going to be packed full of pranks, dark lords, half insane guardians, and most likely a fair quantity of jam. It is oh so useful as a pranking tool after all. Jam to jam up doors, make stairs slippery, fill balloons handed off to Peeves and, oh yeah, to fill the water pipes of Krum's cabin. It is a barrel of laughs, a barrel of monkeys, and probably quite a few barrels of Firewhiskey all rolled into one.

Disclaimer: All governments and nations presented in this fic are purely magical and any similarities to their non-magical counterparts are purely coincidental.

Chapter One: In which an International Incident is Nearly Avoided

"Harry Potter."

Utter silence draped the room as the fires of the Goblet crackled slowly. Dmitry had to remind himself to close his mouth. As his mother always chided him, a fly would fly into it if he left it open like that. Once he got over the shock of hearing the name, he started looking around the room to see everyone else's reaction. His fellow schoolmates all showed restrained surprise. The name Harry Potter would not mean much to them outside of a few stories here and there. They were more likely surprised about the announcement of a fourth champion judging by the fact that most of them were now staring at Krum. The current Durmstrang champion did nothing to hide the outrage on his face, a fact that made Dmitry happy even if he didn't outwardly show it. The Bulgarian had spent the entire trip smugly discussing how he was going to win the cup, and Dmitry took some satisfaction from seeing the current champion knocked down a peg. Not that he minded not being picked. His presence here was mostly at the insistence of his father, and Dmitry had a suspicion that it was mostly to observe the students and faculty of the other two of the "Big Three" schools of Magic in Europe.

On the subject of the other schools, the Beauxbatons students across the hall shared his classmates' looks of surprise at the announcement of a fourth champion in the tournament. Dmitry looked over to the French champion, Fleur Delacour, who at that moment had the most adorable little pout on her fa- damn it! That would be that stupid veela charm of hers. Dmitry looked away slowly and cleared his thoughts. He was not unfamiliar with the effects of the veela charm; his father had cautioned him against it during the World Cup that took place this summer. Luckily she wasn't a full veela, if she was she wouldn't be allowed a wand nor would Dmitry be able to so easily shake off her charm. Still veela or no, the blonde was very beautiful and she looked amazing in her uniform which brought out the azure blue of her eye- damn it!

The Hogwarts champion, Dmitry forgot his name, looked rather lost as if the news didn't particularly register with him quite yet. The rest of the Hogwarts population, on the other hand, looked like an ant hill that had been kicked over. Everyone was looking around at each other and whispering rather loudly. He caught a few snippets but ignored them, anyone who knew anything useful would have kept their mouth shut. While the champions stood in limbo on stage, waiting to see if they were going to be sent to the side room, Dmitry finally turned his attention to the Hogwarts faculty and the headmasters of the three schools. The Beauxbatons Headmaster he knew little about, although he suspected she either had giant blood or had recreated Wonderland's growing cakes. She too looked surprised and rather unhappy about the turn of events, nothing interesting.

Albus Dumbledore, Dmitry's father had warned Dmitry about him. Behind the long white beard and half-moon spectacles, the man had one of the best neutral faces Dmitry had seen, maybe even better than his father's. The man was a master politician with almost a century of experience under his belt. Every one of those years showed as his eyes swept across the room before he announced again: "Harry Potter." He was trying to get a reaction out of someone. Dmitry wasn't sure if his own face gave anything away but he carefully averted his gaze from Dumbledore when the old wizard turned his attention to the Durmstrang table.

To give the man credit, Dmitry's own Highmaster, Igor Karkaroff, did a good job of keeping his face even. Dmitry had seen worse attempts from some of his father's aides. According to father, Karkaroff was afraid of Dumbledore and it seems his father was right on the money. Karkaroff avoided meeting Dumbledore's face and didn't do the best job of keeping the guilt from being noticeable. Dmitry then turned to look at the rest of Hogwart's faculty. Most had expressions of shock and surprise that resembled their charges' although they had the grace not to gossip like them. There were two main exceptions. The first was a rather pale man who wore black robes and had rather unkempt and dirty-looking black hair. His expression reminded Dmitry of when his father refused to support Senator Yuschenko's proposal on an import tax. The lack of support caused the senator to lose his position in the next election and he always made a similar expression when he met with his father. Either that professor really disliked Dumbledore, or he really disliked Harry Potter for some reason. Dmitry made a note of him.

The last person that stood out was a scarred and haggard looking man. The most unsettling thing about him was that one of his eyes was different from the other. The more normal one was staring directly at Highmaster Karkaroff. The other, an unnaturally round electric blue one, was swiveling freely in its metallic socket. More than being unsettling, Dmitry noted that it was shifting its gaze between only two tables, one of which was Dmitry's. The expression on that man's face was also familiar to Dmitry. His father referred to those people as bloodhounds, very good at picking up a scent and following it single-mindedly. The man did nothing to hide his bias against Durmstrang, and Dmitry filed him away as a threat accordingly.

"Well, what'd you do with him Karkaroff?" The haggard man barked, causing the whispers from the Hogwarts students to quiet. Highmaster Karkaroff barely flinched and turned to face his accuser.

"I'm not sure what you mean, Alastor." He replied thinly.

"Well then why do you look like you got caught with your hand in the cookie jar?" The other man growled.

The Highmaster did not respond immediately, rather he stood still for a while, deciding on his answer, "I do not have a Harry Potter in Durmstrang." It was a well formed lie, if the question of Harry Potter attending Durmstrang had come up. Instead, it was a rather blatant mistake. After a few seconds the Highmaster seemed to have caught on to his mistake and he paled. The man called Alastor smiled viciously.

As he was about to call Karkaroff out on his gaffe, Dumbledore cut him off, "Perhaps we should discuss this in my office Igor? Olympe?" Although it was formed as a question, it was anything but. Dumbledore was firm and forceful with that statement, and Karkaroff nodded before following him and the French Headmistress out of the Great Hall.

As soon as the doors shut a fury of whispers broke out between the students, with more than a few glances shot towards the table at which Durmstrang was sitting. Most were not friendly. Whispers turned into murmurs, which turned into open discussion and speculation. Dmitry noted with amusement that the three champions were left unceremoniously standing on the stage in favor of this new development. Krum's indignation was priceless.

Still, Dmitry thought, things were just getting started. Since the Goblet, as he was told, was a binding magical contract, there would be no choice but to bring Harry here. An hour passed and the student populace grew restless. Finally the doors to the Great Hall opened as the various Headmasters returned to the room. What got Dmitry's attention was the squad of black-robed wizards that followed Karkaroff with the seal of Durmstrang sewed onto their uniforms. These were Durmstrang's private aurors. They were not normally seen and were hired to placate the parents of Durmstrang's students, mostly due to the high profile nature of the students. Bringing aurors into a crowded room full of children was foolish, which meant Karkaroff was scared. Which meant Harry was coming, which meant Dmitry's father was coming.

Dmitry suppressed a chuckle. Harry, seemingly not content with last years' shenanigans, decided to start off his fourth year with an international incident. Nice.

Dmitry's friendship with Harry ran way back into Harry's first year at Durmstrang. It was Dmitry's father, Nikolai Andreievich Nizin, who granted Harry and his guardian Sirius Black asylum in Ukraine and provided them with new identities. When Harry had entered Durmstrang, Dmitry's father advised Dmitry to befriend Harry, partly to keep an eye on Harry, partly to have Dmitry make a new acquaintance, as you can never have too many of those.

Despite Harry's outward appearance as a quiet, well mannered, studious, and sometimes silly, boy he was anything but. Harry Potter was a force of entropy, spreading chaos wherever he went. It was this trait that made Dmitry rather fond of Harry as there was never a dull day with him around. Despite his father's cautions about choosing your friends, Dmitry found himself rather attached to Harry and became a big brother of sorts to him and his merry band of misfits.

Dmitry recalled that the first real prank Harry had pulled was done in retaliation. The German upper forms, Durmstrang was mostly split among countries of origin rather than houses, decided to haze the first-years by spiking their drinks, then stripping them of their clothes and writing nicknames and some profanities all over the naked boys' faces with very hard to remove ink. While this kind of hazing was the norm for Durmstrang, Harry had taken it as a declaration of war. The next week the entire German dormitory was flooded with rotting sauerkraut. Oh Harry never admitted to doing anything, however Dmitry had noticed he looked quite smug when the Germans showed up for breakfast that day glaring murderously at the student populace. As a cherry on top, since the German wizards were rather nationalistic and tended to belittle other countries, seeing them fish for sympathy from their former targets so they could find a place to sleep that didn't smell like a troll's bathroom was rather satisfying.

Still, the current events seemed to be too much, even for Harry's brand of chaos.

The doors of the Great Hall opened again and Dmitry's mirth was dampened as the British Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, and Head of the department of International Magical Cooperation, Bartemius Crouch entered, flanked by British aurors. The two groups of aurors stared each other down as the British heads of government joined Dumbledore at the front of the room. At least that explained why Karkaroff summoned his aurors. If the British government tried to somehow undermine his authority he would have no choice but to oppose them.

Fifteen minutes later, the doors opened for a third time, silencing what few vestiges of conversation remained. Dmitry almost chortled as, instead of his father, Jean-Pierre Delacour, French Minister of Foreign Affairs entered the room. Now they were being ridiculous. Of course the French would shove their noses into a turf war that had nothing to do with them, Dmitry mused as the somewhat short man walked up to his daughter and exchanged the traditional kiss on the cheek while the squad of French aurors stood a few steps back and sized up their opponents.

Another forty uncomfortably slow minutes passed before the doors opened for the fourth time, startling several people. Dmitry caught his father's eye as he stepped through the door alongside Vladimir Mikhailovich Timoshenko, Magical Ukraine's current Prime Minister. A squad of Ukranian aurors, dressed in traditional blue and yellow robes flanked them as they strode through the room. When the next trio emerged from the doors, Dmitry was pleasantly surprised that it in fact was possible for it to be quieter than it had been, and somewhat disappointed that he lacked a pin or a feather to see if it in fact he could hear it drop.

On the left, wearing regal black robes and carrying himself with an air of aristocratic aloofness was Harry's primary guardian, Sirius Black. On his right, although not as intimidating, stood Harry's other guardian, Remus Lupin. Dmitry had met the two during several school functions and had found them to be quite amiable and friendly. They had also provided an explanation for Harry's ability to spread chaos where ever he went. Sandwiched between the two men stood a young boy with messy unkempt black hair and dazzling green eyes that were looking around the room. Dmitry shifted his eyes on Harry, who looked back at him and blinked, twice.

In Harry's first year in Durmstrang, Harry had devised a system of non-verbal communication which he employed very effectively in his pranks. Any communication was preceded with eye contact and two blinks. The other person could do one of four things in response. Break contact, which meant I can't talk and neither can you. Blink once, I can't talk. Blink twice, I can talk. Or wink once, talk later. Dmitry blinked twice.

Harry moved his right arm slowly across, and rubbed the upper part of his left arm with it. I didn't do anything/I have no idea what I'm in trouble for/I'm innocent.

Dmitry nodded barely a centimeter as a general sign of acknowledgement. Then he ran his fingers through his hair: Don't worry about it/You'll be fine.

Harry blinked twice, ending the conversation, and turned away.

"Sirius Black!" The British minister began accusingly as he turned to Dmitry's father."You have some nerve to bring that felon here. Aurors, arrest Black!" Although hesitant, the British law enforcement officers advanced. As the Ukranian aurors prepared to duel, Prime Minister Timoshenko stepped in.

"It would seem that my esteemed British colleague has forgotten the protocol for diplomatic immunity." The man spat, causing the British aurors to pause as their Ukranian counterparts moved to screen their charges.

"That man is a wanted felon." Crouch almost screamed, "There is no protocol except immediate arrest and sentencing."

"It saddens me," Dmitriy's father began, his soft tone contrasting the Prime Ministers' harsh one, "to see that the country of Britain has reduced its system of justice to the whims of its minister."

"How dare you-"

"No, Minister Fudge," The prime minister cut him off, slipping even further into his accent, "how dare you accuse a man without evidence, without trial, based on hearsay and political backroom deals, and then try to enforce your tyranny onto a legitimate citizen of our nation whom my colleague has personally granted political asylum?" Timoshenko had been a well received prime minister in Ukraine, known for his emphatic patriotic speeches and nationalistic pride. Although Timoshenko and Dmitry's father often disagreed on things, they worked well together, particularly when Dmitry's father's cool and logical tone complimented Timoshenko's scathing remarks.

"The man is clearly a criminal, he was a supporter of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, a mass murderer, and he has broken out of Azkaban and kidnapped poor Harry."

"Well, I suppose I can't argue against his break out from Azkaban since he is right here." Dmitry's father began, earning a light chuckle from a few, "you have no concrete evidence to accuse him of any of the other crimes you have listed."

"There were countless witnesses who saw him raise the wand to kill those people."

"Muggle witnesses." Vladimir cut him off, "Witnesses who cannot tell a blasting curse from a tickling hex." Fudge glared back.

"He was there, he raised his wand, it was him." And now Dmitry thought Fudge sounded like a two year old throwing a tantrum.

"Minister Fudge, your utter incompetence when it comes to this case is astonishing." His father began harshly.

"Now see here, Nick,"

"You will address me as Nikolai Andreievich, Minister. And you will not interrupt me. As I said, at no point did you offer Mr. Black a chance to explain his actions. Much less your so called 'evidence' against him is circumstantial and not enough to prove he had done the deeds you claim he had. Even by the standards of your law. Although it is true Mr. Black had escaped Azkaban, given that he was unjustly placed there to begin with makes the severity of that charge much less. Lastly, why do you assume he kidnapped Harry Potter? Have you not entertained the notion that Harry chose to come with Mr. Black voluntarily?" There was silence in the room as all eyes shifted to Harry.

Dmitry took this pause to reflect. Whether or not Black was guilty, despite appearances, was not an important issue here. Ukraine was guilty of harboring and assisting a fugitive and, judging by the local hatred of Durmstrang, corrupting the Boy-Who-Lived. Justified or not, it would make Ukraine seem untrustworthy globally. The rather aggressive attacks against Minister Fudge were meant to weaken his position at the expense of more stained relations in the future, thus granting Ukraine some form of leverage. Also a political victory here would give Ukraine a certain measure of respect globally, hopefully lessening the fallout that would happen when the news of Ukraine harboring a fugitive would break out.

"Is this true Harry?" Dumbledore asked softly, breaking the silence, "Did you go with Sirius because you wanted to?"

Harry looked up at Dumbledore before replying meekly, "Yes sir." Several gasps followed and a wave of whispers swept across the room.

"Nonsense, he has clearly been brainwashed by Dark Magic." Fudge accused.

"Minister Fudge," Timoshenko said, "why do you insist on embarrassing yourself and your country so much? Your claim is outrageous and is based only in your fantasies. Are you going to accuse Headmaster Dumbledore of training an army of students to rise up against you next?" Fudge's bulging eye balls caused Dmitry to almost laugh. How such a paranoid nutcase got elected into office was beyond him. Dmitry's father had always said he disliked the French and the British ministries. Both solved problems by either throwing money or aurors at until they were deemed fixed. With that kind of attitude it was no wonder Fudge made such an idiot out of himself here.

He had tried to use intimidation to bully Dmitry's father around with the hopes that by having public support and a home field advantage he would get his way. It failed, Dmitry's father and the Ukranian Prime Minister were both rather aggressive in their dealings with other countries and it had often paid off well, particularly now when Fudge had no choice but to concede to save face. It was a risky move though, had they not been as aggressive they would have seemed as if they were in Sirius' pocket thus losing any credibility. Their actions were not unlike a gambler placing all of their assets on the line in hopes of intimidating their opponent to withdraw.

"I theenk zat we have 'ad enough hostilities for tonight?" Jean-Pierre said, reaffirming his presence in the room. "And I do believe ze children should not be 'eld 'ostage while we discuss ze matter." Dmitry was somewhat surprised at Jean-Pierre's skill of feigning amusement at a rather tense situation. Dmitry mentally kicked himself for ignoring the short Frenchman, it seems that his presence here was anything but decorative. Judging by how he was now appraising the two sides in the argument, Dmitry assumed that Jean-Pierre would support whichever side managed to gain the sympathy vote, making the French wizarding government look good with very little risk. "May I propose we move ze discussion to ze side room?" The various parties nodded and began to exit the room. Before leaving, Dumbledore asked the professors to send their students to bed and the remaining Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students to return to their quarters. Dmitry was somewhat disappointed that he would not see the second round of talks. Crouch and especially Dumbledore would prove to be far more difficult opponents than Fudge was. Still, either his father or Harry would recount the story to him later.

As Dmitry got up he noticed that Krum's face had a mixture of confusion and irritation on it. Dmitry had almost forgotten about that in all the excitement. Krum and Harry had established a rather notable rivalry on the Quidditch pitch. Now that both have been chosen as champions, that rivalry seemed like it would come to a head. The fact that Krum tried his hardest to deny that any rivalry between him and Harry existed just made this aspect of the turn of events the cherry on top.

Dmitry couldn't suppress a chuckle as the tension was slowly ebbing out of the room. He felt a few stares from his classmates on his back. His friendship with Harry wasn't exactly a secret. That on top of the fact that his father had just recently dressed down the British Minister of Magic would most likely lead to more than a few questions. Still he couldn't help himself. This evening has proved to be the most fun he had in a while. As he looked around he found that not only Krum, but that gorgeous French beauty Fleur was also looking at him in confusion. Was that the veela charm again? Aww hell, he didn't particularly care too much now, and in spite of himself blew her a kiss. She narrowed her adorable eyebrows and with a huff looked away. Alas, Dmitry thought, she was truly a stunningly beautiful little French bitch.

End