“—Severus, really?”

“I assure you, Poppy, this is quite necessary.”

“ Necessary —it’s an invasion of his privacy!”

For some reason, his eyes wouldn’t open any more than a crack.

“Yes, necessary. For his own sake as well as ours. Also, I must say that if this is an invasion of privacy, then what would you call eavesdropping and skulking around after curfew, stealing and hiding and generally being a nuisance? This is absolutely necessary! The boy is a menace!”

His hand felt clumsy and awfully heavy, but he tried to use it to pry open his eyes. All he managed to do was poke himself in the nose several times.

“ Nothing seems to stop him—no detention or reprimand, no consequence or gentle talking-to! On multiple occasions, I have tried—Albus has tried, Minerva too—and nothing works.”

He forced his right eye open halfway with sheer strength of will. It was blurry and closed again almost immediately, but it was a start.

“Severus, I must admit that I doubt you have ever tried giving the boy a gentle talking-to !”

Ah, there it was! Both eyes slightly open!

“Oh—well—not I, perhaps. But Albus has! It did nothing, of course. I merely mentioned it to remind you of all that has been tried. Some of us have tried more than others, I must say. I feel that I have spent altogether too much time chasing the boy after curfew. Something had to be done!”

Now, now he could see. Well almost. It all seemed to be just blurry and white. Where was he? More importantly, where were his glasses? He fumbled around a little, trying to find them. But all he could feel were the sheets of the bed he was in.

He groaned a bit and shifted around, hearing the crackle of stiffly starched sheets. But trying to sit up didn’t work either: he lifted his chest up perhaps a few centimetres before it flopped back down on the bed. 

There was a creak, and a loud jingle, and at that the voices stopped.

Oh, the doorbell. Aunt Petunia would get it. Wouldn’t she?

“He’s awake, now, Severus. Come with me or not—but think well about what you have done!”

But wasn’t the doorbell broken? Last year Dudley and Harry had been out in the front garden, Harry weeding the flowerbeds that lined the path while Dudley… did whatever it was he did. Dudley had gotten angry at something Harry had said—fat pig, bullying cousin of a fat pig that couldn’t tie his own shoelaces—and thrown a rock at him. It was fine, he missed—and hit the doorbell. Aunt Petunia hadn’t been happy with Harry for breaking it and how could Dudley have done that you silly boy, he isn’t destructive at all, just happily playing in the garden—it was you, don’t lie about it .

He hadn’t gotten any dinner that night, nor any food the next day. And it had been Shepherd’s pie, which Dudley didn’t like so much (he still ate a lot of it, no mistake, but he didn’t devour it like the world was ending) so there were enough leftovers for a Harry-decent meal. But Aunt Petunia had sniffed and said that she had put in too much salt, really, and the rest wasn’t decent for human consumption, so she put it in the bin. On top of it she spilt some detergent as she was washing up. 

But anyway, it was broken, so how could it ring?

“Harry dear? Are you awake? Can you look at me, please?”

He realised that his eyes were closed once more, and forced them open. It seemed that there was a blurry white-gray thing in front of him, in the vague shape of a person. Next to that and off to the side there was another one, but that was black and somehow managing to be fuzzily menacing.

“Harry?”

The voice was familiar, but he couldn’t place it. T’wasn’t Aunt Petunia, though it was female, and therefore not Dudley or Uncle Vernon. Too nice for Aunt Marge…

“H’llo?” he croaked. “M’ glasses?”

“Oh, of course.” 

There was the sound of someone bustling around, then he felt his glasses being slid onto his nose. The world jerked into focus, thankfully, and he recognised the woman leaning over him anxiously. He must be in the Hospital Wing.

“Mm Pomfy?” 

“Yes, dear.” The woman was smiling a little at that, and he did recognise that he was pretty incoherent at the moment. He nobly ignored the snort that had come from somewhere nearby—it was probably one of her other patients, finding his speech amusing.

“Well, it is good that you are awake now, Harry. Your body seems to be utterly exhausted, so much so that you must be finding it difficult to move, and stay awake. If you manage to keep awake for another minute, I’ll fetch you a potion to help you get rid of some of that tiredness.”

He tried to nod. It didn’t work very well, but she seemed to understand and swiftly moved away. Harry decided just to rest his eyes until she came back.

The next time he awoke he was much more alert. His glasses were still on his face, of all the miracles, so the world of the hospital wing was far clearer too. Harry lay almost contentedly in the bed (he was still feeling rather tired) but finally decided that he really should sit up. Madam Pomfrey had mentioned a potion before, and he really should drink it if he didn’t want to be fussed over. 

Sitting up was hard work, but he managed it. His stomach muscles and those in his arms felt strained, and as he pushed himself up, he heard a jingle.

That was the doorbell again. 

Wait. There was no doorbell. What was that noise then? Some alarm to alert the Mediwitch he was awake?

He let it slip out of his mind and grasped the goblet containing the potion in his hand. Swallowing it—tasting somehow of sour toffee—he heard the noise again. 

How had Harry gotten into the hospital wing, anyway? Last thing he could remember was—

— The trick step. Harry’s leg caught in the trick step. Footsteps coming closer. The golden egg on the floor, out of reach. Someone coming closer, closer—Snape!

But how had he got into the hospital wing? It was all well and good to remember that, but what had come next? Surely something must have happened to get him in here.

Harry put the empty goblet down, and picked up the glass of water that had been beside it. Thankfully swishing the cool water round his mouth, he pondered on his circumstances.

Staircase—hospital wing. 

Even if something had happened to him while he was stuck in that wretched trick step, how had he gotten to the hospital wing? He’d been covered in his invisibility cloak, after all.

He turned over increasingly unlikely possibilities in his brain before deciding to ask the mediwitch later. For now, even though the potion had made his muscles relax and his head more alert, he still felt tired.

“Harry? Wake up, please.”

He blinked muzzily and lifted himself to sit up in the bed, hearing that strange noise once again.

“Hmm?”

“You’ve slept long enough, and you ought to have some lunch.”

Madam Pomfrey bustled over to him, carrying a tray that had both food—which he wouldn’t mind, and a potion, which he would. No thank you.

“Lunch?” Harry asked, wiping his eyes. “It’s lunchtime already?”

She set the tray down on the nearby table and held the potion out to him. “Yes. You’ve been asleep for hours—and yes, you will take this,” she said crossly, noticing that he made no move to take the potion. “Drink it up quickly now, and no arguing.”

The potion tasted awful, all earth and old sweat.

“How did I get in here?” Harry questioned, taking an eager gulp of water from the glass he was handed. “I don’t remember what happened.”

Well, he might remember being out after curfew with his golden egg, but he wasn’t going to admit that to her, was he? Besides, he didn’t actually know how he’d gotten from there to sleeping in the hospital wing until midday.

Madam Pomfrey frowned, and primly gestured towards the lunch. “Eat,” she told him, “and I will explain.”

Harry made sure to begin— he knew she thought he was too light for his age.

“Last night,” the medi-witch started, “it seems that you were wandering around after curfew with your golden egg.” She fixed him with a pointed stare, and Harry squirmed.

“I might remember that part…” he admitted.

“You were on a staircase when Professor Moody patrolled by. He heard a noise, saw a Champion’s egg, and began shooting hexes all around. He’d taken that eye of his out—it has been sticking, recently, so he couldn’t see you under that cloak of yours.”

She muttered something under her breath about trigger-happy teachers.

“Having a leg trapped in a trick step meant you couldn’t move away, so you were struck by quite a few, which hurt you badly and knocked you unconscious.”

Harry winced at the description, then said, slowly, “but how did I get here? If he couldn’t see me…”

He had this awful image of a student walking down to breakfast and tripping over Harry Potter, Hogwarts champion, hexed into the stair. Malfoy would have a red-letter day.

“Professor Moody couldn’t see you,” Madam Pomfrey said briskly, “but Professor Snape knew about your invisibility cloak.”

There was no way this story could get any worse.

“Professor Snape,” Harry said weakly.

“Yes, Professor Snape. He heard Professor Moody casting all manner of spells that have no place in a castle, and went to investigate. After managing to settle our defence teacher, he sent him elsewhere and proceeded to look for you. Then once he’d found you, he brought you here, and I healed your injuries.”

Harry groaned. “He’s going to be so awful.”

“Well, you did break the rules,’ Madam Pomfrey said briskly. Then her face darkened. “Though there is one more thing before you leave...”

“Potter, remain behind.”

Harry, after exchanging rueful looks with his friends, shuffled to the front of the room.

“Professor,” he said warily, standing in front of the man’s desk.

Snape ignored him for a minute or two, gathering the essays together neatly, then stacking them on top of the crate of potions Harry’s class had just brewed.

“Detention,” he said eventually. “For being out after curfew.”

Harry supposed he couldn’t really argue with that, much as he would like to. He looked down at his hands, twisting his fingers together uneasily.

“Err,” he said cautiously, “how did you…” 

He trailed off under the gaze of his teacher.

“Find you?” the man asked.

Harry nodded. He would also have accepted know I was there, or something else. He hadn’t really figured out what he’d been going to say himself.

“If you must know, Potter,” the man sneered, “I went to collect that golden egg of yours and tripped over you. Lying stunned, leg caught in a trick step, under an invisibility cloak.”

Harry could imagine what had happened. Snape, suspicious, going to collect the golden egg, managing to trip on Harry, who he’d half thought might have been stunned under the cloak in the barrage of spells. He’d probably torn the cloak off the boy, then, in a fit of pique—stupid boy getting himself hexed at night by paranoid ex-aurors while invisible—charmed the cat-collar on him.

“I’d already suspected,” the man continued, “and that merely saved me the trouble of searching every inch of the corridor for you. Only you, Potter, could end up in such a situation, because only you would be stupid enough to go out after curfew and have the asininity to end up trapped and hexed by a mad retired auror.”

That was taking things a bit far. It had all been bad luck! Not that Harry was stupid enough to say that to the potions master currently glaring burning holes through his face.

They remained like that for another tension-fraught moment, until Harry bit his lip and Snape picked up a quill.

“Dismissed,” the man said, voice bored. But though it would probably be futile, Harry had to ask.

“Can you take this thing off me, please?” he asked as politely as he could. 

Snape looked up again, seeming to consider it. “No,” he said. “You deserved it. It’ll come off when you’ve proved you can behave.”

Harry scowled and wrenched at the thing around his neck. It gave another jangle but didn’t come off. “Madam Pomfrey—” 

“As I am the only one who can dispel it, it is not up to her. Leave, Potter.”

The boy stomped away, cursing Snape in his head. The cat-collar charm pealed merrily as he moved.

“I don’t know, Harry,” Hermione said, closing her book. “It really does look like he’s the only one who can remove it— it’s so that only the owner can take it off, to prevent people stealing their pets.”

Harry thumped his head on the library table, bell jingling. “This is awful ,” he groaned. 

It certainly was irritating. The other Gryffindors were avoiding him completely, because whenever he moved the bell round his neck rang. They’d tried shooting silencing charms at it, but those simply bounced straight off. His other professors had looked at it disapprovingly— “why did you have to provoke him?” Sinistra had said, exasperatedly— and by the end of each lesson had thrown many irritated glances at it. 

“You’re actually quite lucky, though,” Ron said, doodling on a spare bit of parchment. 

“In what possible way could I be lucky, Ron?” Harry asked, sarcastically. “No— don’t tell me— at least he didn’t conjure up a lead.”

Hermione looked like she was struggling not to laugh.

“No, really, Harry,” Ron insisted. “He could have used the spell for objects. When Ginny was little she tried to borrow Great-Aunt Muriel’s diamond earrings for dressing up, and it was all like—” He screwed up his face, and sang “ I belong to Muriel Prewett! I belong to Muriel Prewett!” in a high-pitched voice. “Imagine! You’d be dead after a few hours, because we’d all have killed you to escape the noise.”

Harry shuddered. He flipped his shirt collar up to see if that would hide the thing, but then decided it would simply make him look like an idiot. It hadn’t worked to cover it, anyway.

Back in the Hospital Wing when Madam Pomfrey had first told him what had happened, Harry had (rather too optimistically, in hindsight) thought he would just be able to detach the slim band of brown leather with its little attached bell himself, perhaps with a pair of scissors. But nothing he’d tried had worked— not even Hermione’s attempt at a neat little severing charm had been able to remove the thing.  

Hermione had pursed her lips and headed straight for the library, of course. Her findings didn’t make Harry feel any better.

“Perhaps a scarf?” she said now, tilting her head. “Here, try this one—” She unwound the Gryffindor one from her own neck, and draped it round Harry, covering the collar. But then—

“How odd,” Hermione breathed, staring. The scarf was slowly unlooping itself, loosening until the band round Harry’s neck was visible, bell gleaming. “How odd.”

Harry leaned forward to put his head in his hands, and the bell dangling from his neck gave an extra-loud peal, as if protesting the attempts to cover it up and thereby muffle it.

“Dunno, Harry, maybe you could ask Dumbledore to get Snape to remove it,” Ron said, pushing his quill away. “But we’d better get down to dinner, else all the food’ll be gone— you need your strength, Harry.”

So they made their way out of the library, Harry noticing that Madam Pince was shooting dark glares at him as he went. It was probably something to do with the jingling as he moved, disturbing the peace of the library...

After dinner, Harry reluctantly headed down to the dungeons for his detention with Snape. If anyone had wanted to locate him, they wouldn’t have had the slightest amount of trouble, because they all would be able to hear Harry coming. That awful Zacharias Smith from Hufflepuff had passed Harry by and made a rude comment about it— and Draco Malfoy had pushed past Harry on his way to the Slytherin common room. 

“Want me to magic up a leash, Potter?” he’d crowed. “Crabbe here can take you down to that half-breed’s hut and tie you outside. About time we finally put you with all the other animals.”

“Shut it, Malfoy,” Harry had snapped. 

Crabbe and Goyle, never far behind Malfoy, had both knocked into Harry at the same time, then. Letting out an oof , Harry had been left with Malfoy’s parting comment ringing in his ears.

“You’ll fit right in with that slobbery coward of a dog!”

“Prat,” Harry muttered under his breath. 

At the door to the potions classroom, Harry raised his hand to knock, but the door was wrenched open before his fist landed on the wood. 

“Inside,” Snape said, his top lip curling. Harry slowly jingled his way inside. “Sit.”

Harry sat at the desk that was obviously for him, having as it did a large tub full of dead toads on it. It looked like he was going to be disemboweling them for his detention. Great. He reached for the scalpel—

“Not yet, Potter,” Snape ordered. “I have a bone to pick with you first. Tell me, do you recognise this?” He placed something on the desk in front of Harry.

“No,” said Harry, confused. “It’s an empty jar. Sir—”

“How convenient a denial,” Snape hissed, leaning across the desk. “But believe me, Potter, the theft of my boomslang skin has not gone unnoticed. I know just who was wandering around after curfew— and when I find that brew of yours you and your little friends will wish they had never been born.”

Harry shifted an inch back in his seat, trying to move himself as far as possible from the man without seeming to do so. “I didn’t steal anything,” he said. “I didn’t— and— and you’re not going to find anything on us, because we haven’t done anything,” he added in a fit of bravado, only realising that this would probably make the man suspect him more after the words had already come out.

When had Snape ever believed him?

The man curled his hands deliberately round the jar again, picking it up. “Get to work, Potter,” he spat. 

The bell on his collar, Harry had decided, was a form of torture. 

“I said I can’t help it, you know,” he yelled, banging at the closed door to the fourth-year boy’s dormitory.

“Go away, Potter,” came the muffled shout. “Go sleep in the common room.”

Trying the handle again, Harry cursed Snape for about the hundredth time since he woke up in the hospital wing. When it didn’t open, he kicked at it. “Let me in!”

“Potter!” came a shocked voice behind him. Harry turned around and saw Percy Weasley there, dressed in striped pyjamas. “What’s all this racket?”

Harry rammed his shoulder into the door. “They won’t let me in.”

“Why not?”

“Because of this bloody bell, that’s why!” Harry shouted, fed up with it all. “It keeps ringing and they say the damn jingling is keeping them awake—”

“That’s enough!” Percy said loudly. “You’re disturbing the whole tower. I’m going to report you to Professor McGonagall in the morning, and if you don’t stop shouting I’ll tell her now. And ten points from Gryffindor.”

Harry resisted the urge to swear at him, but it was a close-run thing.

“I better not hear any more noise tonight,” Percy threatened, puffing himself up. And then he went back up the stairs to his own dormitory.

Wanker. Why hadn’t he made them let Harry in? The whole reason he was shouting was because they’d thrown him out of the dormy. Ron hadn’t even stood up for him— granted, the red-head had been asleep, and it took more than a jangling bell to wake him.

“We’re not going to let you in, so just go to the common room,” someone inside the room said. It sounded like Dean. “Sorry, mate, that curse of Snape’s is nuts, and it’s doing our heads in.”

Harry gave up, and grimly walked down the stairs. They thought they had it hard? Harry was the one with it round his neck!

The fire in the common room was low. Harry dragged a long couch over near the flames, then poked at the coals until it flared up again. With some of the blankets from the cupboard draped over him, Harry lay down and tried to sleep.

The next morning Harry woke up earlier than usual, disturbed by some chattering first-years going out the portrait to breakfast. 

“Why are they so perky?” he grumbled, running a hand through his hair. 

He certainly didn’t feel cheery at all, especially when he entered the dorm to get dressed and had a pillow thrown at him by a sleepy Seamus because of the noise of the bell on his collar.

“I’m going, I’m going,” he said, backing out of the room. 

Walking down to breakfast, Harry resolved that he would ask Snape again to do something. It was untenable to go on like this— he’d probably be lynched by half-past three. If there were other teachers present, they’d probably be on Harry’s side. All the ones who’d had him in class would be, surely. Perhaps they could put some pressure on the man to remove it— after all, the man would never do any favours for Harry, especially not now he suspected him of the potions ingredients theft. 

Entering the Great Hall, Harry was relieved to see Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, Sinistra and Snape sitting up on the high table. He hadn’t had Charms yesterday, but Sinistra and McGonagall had experienced the annoyance of the sound first-hand themselves. He hurried up to them, the sound of jingling accompanying him like he was a bloody reindeer. Removing the thing took precedence over breakfast, by far.

“Good morning, professors,” he began. Flitwick was eyeing his neck curiously, while McGonagall and Sinistra both exchanged pained looks. Snape merely looked suspicious as Harry turned towards him.

“What is it?” he growled. “I told you yesterday—”

“Please, professor,” Harry begged. “I know you said you wouldn’t, but everyone’s about ready to murder me now. If you can’t take it off, could you change it so it doesn’t do it in— in class, or when we’re trying to sleep, or something?” The bell gave out a jingle as he finished, as if to mark his words.

“If you don’t, Severus, then I won’t have him in class,” Sinistra snapped. “It’s a pointless nuisance. I’ll send him down to sit in on yours— or if it's a practical he can go sit outside your door like the lost cat you seem to think him to be.

“It is terribly annoying, Severus,” said McGonagall. “The other students will be ready to riot about it soon.”

Snape sighed, then drew his wand out of his sleeve and flicked it in a complicated pattern. “There,” he said. “I’ve modified it to only make noise when you think you are doing something you shouldn’t be. So stay in line, Potter.” The look on his face made it clear that he still thought Harry was the one who’d taken his potion ingredients.

Harry stared at him, not sure whether to be horrified or grateful. Sinistra looked like she was trying to hold back a laugh. 

“Thanks?” Harry said. Snape eyed him down darkly, and he backed away. “I’ll just go have some breakfast…”

When the other fourth-year Gryffindors came down to breakfast, they left a wide berth around Harry. Ron, visibly steeling himself, sat opposite Harry, while Hermione slid in next to him.

“Try not to move much, mate, will you?” he asked. 

Harry, who was finishing up the last of his cereal, rolled his eyes. “I got Snape to modify it. It won’t be going off all the time, now.”

Ron leaned closer. “Really? Brilliant. I mean, what a git— but that’s better than before.”

Serving herself some porridge, Hermione asked, “How did he modify it?”

Harry flushed. “It rings when…”

“When…” Hermione prompted.

“When I think I’m doing something I shouldn’t,” Harry mumbled. 

Ron choked on his egg, spluttering. “Really?”

Sprinkling some cinnamon on her porridge, Hermione remarked, “That’s pretty impressive magic, really— the conditional exclusion, based on intent— and that seems much better. It’s nice and quiet, isn’t it?”

Harry was very glad that it was. “Yes,” he agreed fervently. “Wish he’d taken it off, but yes.” He supposed he would just have to make sure he never thought he was doing something he oughtn’t to.

Easier thought than done.

Now that Snape had modified the charm and it was no longer ringing whenever Harry shifted his position, Harry, Ron and Hermione focused their research on a way to help Harry breathe underwater in the second task. Harry counted himself lucky that he’d already worked out the clue in the egg, because if he’d been trying to sneak into the Prefect’s Bathroom now he would absolutely have been caught.

In History of Magic, which had been Harry’s first class of the day, the bell had lain quiet. Harry and Ron had spent the entire period playing tic-tac-toe. When, at recess, Hermione had wondered why the bell hadn’t been ringing, because he hadn’t been listening, Harry had mumbled something about how no-one but her actually thought that History was anything other than a glorified hour to sleep in. How could Harry have thought he was doing anything wrong?

She had rolled her eyes at him disgustedly and turned away with a sniff. 

If they had also been considering the possibility that Snape had made a mistake with the charming somehow, this was soon debunked. Asked a question by McGonagall in Transfiguration, Harry had snuck a look at Hermione’s notes– and the bell had made a merry little peal. Both the professor and Hermione had whipped their heads round to look at him, both knowing what that meant, and Harry slunk himself further down in his seat. Ashamed, he said, “I don’t know,” and weathered Hermione’s frosty stare.

“I knew you really knew you ought to do your own work,” she said smugly when they were filing out of the classroom.

He’d been making an effort for the rest of that day, and by some miracle managed to get through to dinnertime without any more ringing. But then Dean asked him about the collar.

“Managed to get it to shut up, did you?”

“It’s stuck on,” Harry said. Then he made a mistake. “It’s still ringing sometimes, but it's kind of rando–”

Ting-a-ling went the bell.

“Oh, shut up,” he hissed at it. It had clearly picked up that he was telling a lie. “I hate this,” he said miserably; Ron, beside him, was laughing at his predicament. 

But that evening, and the ones that followed, they did manage to research their way through a good chunk of the library's books. Harry knew, for sure, that if he’d still been jingling every time he moved, Madam Pince would never have allowed him into the library in the first place. He supposed he ought to be grateful that Snape had changed the enchantment, but could never really manage it.

And so Harry found that his days all blurred into one, aside from the moments of mortification when the bell caught him daydreaming– or nearly falling asleep– in class. Perhaps if he’d been less busy frantically reading through piles and piles of books trying to hunt down a way to breathe underwater, the bell would have been more of an issue… As each day passed by, Harry grew more and more worried that there wasn’t a way for him to breathe underwater. 

By the day before the second task he was heartily sick of reading, and wished he’d never seen a golden egg.

“It’s impossible,” he said to Hermione as he pushed yet another book across the table to join those that had already been skimmed and found to be lacking any relevant information. “I don’t think there is a way to breathe underwater.”

Hermione’s eyes had been whizzing across the page so fast that they blurred together, but at this she lifted them from her book. “There is,” she insisted. “There has to be. They wouldn’t have set the task if it was impossible… if the only way was to become a– a fish animagus or–”

“Wouldn’t put it past them,” grumbled Ron, who had been flicking pages of a book with a scowl. “That’s just the sort of thing that the ministry might do.”

“We’ll just have to keep looking,” Hermione said. 

But Harry never made his intended retort, which would have said something about how even if they found something he’d never be able to master it before the next day. A head of blond hair had popped up beside their table. 

“Scuse me,” the kid said. “Scuse me, but Professor McGonagall wants to see you.”

“Really?” groaned Harry. “Now?”

The student, who looked to be either a first year or very small second-year, said, “Err, no. I mean, yes, she wants to see you in her office now. But not you.” The blond head whipped around, hair flying, and then Harry was staring at the back of it, noticing that the trim on the back of the robes was fraying. “The professor wants to see Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. So,” twisting back to Harry, “not you.”

As the kid darted away, nearly tripping on the edge of their robes, Hermione sighed, starting to pack up the ramshackle tower of books beside her. “I wonder what that’s about,” she said. “We’ll meet you back in the common room as soon as we can to help– take as many books as you can.”

Harry watched them walk away (Ron going with perhaps more speed that he usually would use when going to see a teacher) and then forced his attention back to the book in his hands.

At eight, he was thrown out of the library by Madam Pince, who watched beadily as he carted away as many books as he could carry (and perhaps a few more). In the Gryffindor common room the other students gave him a wide berth, some of them muttering vague encouraging phrases at him but all making sure to keep away from his rapid page-turning.

With Ron and Hermione gone, Harry found that his fatigue was catching up with him. Occasionally he would read a word, then read it again, and again, his brain unable to process any further information— but he would jerk himself out of it, telling himself just this next page then and this one…

On the last book, he only realised that he’d fallen asleep for a few minutes when he came awake with a massive jerk, absolutely terrified. He made it through the rest of the book by pinching himself harshly on the arm each time his eyes drifted shut.

Nothing.

He knew, in a rush of the awakeness that comes when you are so tired that you’ve gone past exhausted and into a half-hallucinatory state, where he must go.

And so, at eight minutes past twelve, Harry walked up the stairs to his dormitory. He could hear Seamus, Dean, and Neville sleeping, the soft whuffling and deep breathing reverberating strangely in his head, louder and slightly warped— but he could hear none of Ron’s creaky snores.

Dean rolled over as Harry pulled out his invisibility cloak; Harry froze then relaxed, knowing that even if they were to wake up, probably none of them would try to stop him. They would be more likely to just roll over and mumble out something that would sound unintelligible but might mean just hurry up and get on with it so we can get back to sleep already.

Harry swung his cloak over his shoulders then set off.

Back down the dormitory stairs, avoiding the creaky one by stepping two at a time; through the common room, leaving all the useless books piled haphazardly on the table; out the portrait hole. The fat lady yawned a sleepy “whozzat?” as he moved off, unable to see Harry under the cloak.

The common room had been dimly lit by the banked fire, but without that it was very dark. A whispered “lumos,” lit Harry’s way through the corridors, and he strained his tired senses as he crept to the library. Any sound he heard might be a teacher on patrol— or Filch with Mrs Norris— and he had no desire to encounter them.

Pushing the library door open just enough to slip through, Harry froze at the creak it made. Waiting, he listened, but there was no indication that anyone had heard, so he closed it again carefully behind him.

Harry made his way over to the restricted section. Somehow, the gloom of the library seemed darker behind the iron bars that housed the forbidden books. 

He reached a hand out and pulled the barred gate open. It didn’t make a sound, but suddenly butterflies filled his stomach. 

Careful, careful, he thought. Remember that screaming book in first year… and if someone catches you, you’ll be in it deep, you really shouldn’t be here–

It was only then that the bell on his collar pealed out. It was a high, clear noise.

“No,” Harry muttered. “No, no no!”

He’d forgotten about the enchanted collar, probably because it had lain dormant for a while as he researched. Of course it was now that his conscience decided to remind him that he really was breaking the rules…

“Okay,” he said to himself. “You can do this. In, then out. Quickly, quietly, then back to the tower.” And even though the bell was chiming now, growing louder and more urgent as he grew more worried it would attract teachers, he stepped inside the restricted section.

His wand-light didn’t reach as far in there, almost as if the darkness were somehow denser. Harry peered at the spines, looking for titles that might have even a vague connection to his desired subject. He didn’t have long— the bell was getting louder, and faster, as his sense of urgency compounded itself.

Nothing, nothing– Mermaid! Okay, and… yes, that one… and that…

He gathered books into his arms quickly, awkwardly balancing them and trying to keep his wand up to see. Four books, then five— were there any more here?

The bell was jangling faster as he stepped across to look at the next shelf— if anyone was anywhere near the library, they would be able to hear it—

There didn’t seem to be any on that shelf. Damn the bell— he knew that if anyone came in, he wouldn’t be able to hear them, it was so loud now—

And then the lights snapped on.

Harry, blinking wildly, tried to shield his eyes with his arm. Someone had magicked the all the lanterns on, and though the library was usually dimly lit, it was still more than Harry had been expecting— and someone was here, now— and his bell was still ringing…

Harry ducked down, and tried to keep his books secure against his chest while he fumbled in his pocket for the invisibility cloak.

“Come here, Potter.”

He froze, cloak half on. The loud voice had cut through the ringing— no, the ringing had stopped! It had stopped!

“I know you’re here, Potter,” said the voice. It was Snape, of course it was Snape. “I have locked the door. Come here at once. You would not wish to tarry.”

But if Harry pulled the cloak over him, now that the bell had stopped…

“Now, Potter,” Snape said, voice chillingly cold. “Or I will come and get you. Do not forget it was I who placed that charm on you— I have halted it, for now, but it can be used to hunt you out if you persist in playing hide-and-seek. Here, now.”

Harry peeked through a gap in the shelves. Sure enough, it was Snape, and the outer library door was closed. There was no other way out, and if Snape was telling the truth about the charm— and he would be…

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath. Then he stuffed the invisibility cloak back into his pocket as fast as he could, and stepped out from the shelter of the shelves.

It was a very miserable Harry Potter that shuffled over to meet Snape. The man was standing straight and tall before the library door, the very picture of expectancy.

“Out for a midnight stroll,” Snape said lightly, “Again?” He held out his hands; Harry reluctantly placed the books he’d frantically found in them.

“And in the restricted section, too,” Snape added, rather dangerously. Harry toed at the carpet, unable to look at his teacher. Why was it that the man could make him feel this way? Harry shouldn’t feel guilty, he needed those books…

“Alright, Potter,” Snape barked out sharply, suddenly. He pointed to a chair at the nearby table. Harry, confused, sat down, wishing he’d never heard of the tournament in the first place. “Let’s see what you have got.”

The first book was Mermaid Hunting for Pleasure and Profit.

“Useless,” Snape decreed, pushing it to the side. “Slaughtering mermaids is both illegal and inhumane. The myth about the usefulness of tail fluke was debunked in 1894. Reading this book would only make you sick— and if it did not I would be worried about having a sociopath on my hands.”

Harry was indeed feeling rather sick— and the thought of killing mermaids was not helping that.

“The Kraken Sleepeth,” Snape read from the cover of the next book. He drew out his wand and performed several quick motions, his face hardening at the results. “Tell me, Potter, are you really so interested in killing yourself and everyone around you, or are you just stupid? Each line you read of this poem feeds power to a spell which would conjure one! A kraken, Potter— do you know how destructive they are?”

Harry shook his head weakly and watched as Snape placed it atop the book on mermaid hunting.

“Next one— hmm, Fish, Fins, and Fun.” Snape flicked through it, then actually slid it across the table to Harry. “Harmless. This has been put back in completely the wrong spot. I don’t suppose you actually want to read an outdated children’s story about a dolphin animagus? Published 1923? Go on, have a read.”

 As Snape watched him, Harry picked it up and opened it. “What ripping fun,” Harry read out loud, sliding himself down into his chair and wishing he could disappear. “Splash! Dorothy loved swimming. It was the best— and she had lots of fun with all her sea-creature friends too.”

“Sounds like it’s right at your level,” Snape said, mercilessly. Harry closed the book and shoved it across the table, trying to get it as far away from him as possible.

The next book was entitled A Witch’s Travels in the South Seas. Harry eyed it, wondering if this one might actually have been useful if not for its confiscation. But Snape soon put paid to any thoughts of that.

“This, Potter” he said, lip curling, “You are entirely too young for. Any fumbling adolescent… stirrings… you may have do not need encouragement from inappropriate content.”

The very buxom witch on the back cover waved cheekily at Harry then made a suggestive movement. Harry flushed bright red and sank further into his chair. He could not look at Snape, he couldn’t—

His potions professor was picking up the last book, one that simply read Fishbourne on the spine.

“Hmm,” he said. Then, opening it to the first page, he read, “‘A treatise on socio-political tensions within the colonies of America, by R. P. Fishbourne’. I presume this was not what you intended to be reading, Potter.”

It sounded like something Hermione might find interesting, but Harry had picked it up because he’d seen the word fish— though evidently that had been part of the author’s name rather than a title.

“No,” Harry said, feeling small, when it was clear that the professor was waiting for a response. “Not, not really.”

“I hope not,” Snape said crisply, closing the book with a snap. “Fishbourne was a famous advocate for enslaving all muggles and instituting wizarding dominion.”

“Oh,” Harry said softly. He could feel pressure welling up behind his eyes— this had been his last chance, his last opportunity to find something so that he didn’t look like an utter fool in front of everyone. But now the other three champions would dive neatly into the lake, and Harry would have to just stand there, shivering, and admit that he hadn’t figured out a way to complete the task… he was so tired…

A flick of Snape’s wand sent the books flying over to Madam Pomfrey’s office, to be reshelved in the morning.

“Honestly, Potter,” Snape said, rather scathingly. “Do you truly believe that you would manage to find— and master— something to assist you in the middle of the night, only hours before the second task?

“No,” said Harry  quietly, his voice cracking. “No, I didn’t.” 

Snape didn’t understand— how could he? He probably thought that Harry hadn’t realised he’d need some way to breathe underwater until the day before the task!

Harry wished he could be angry at that, but all he just felt utterly small at the scolding— and he was so, so tired… tired… it was all awful, really, so stupid, and he was so tired…

“Just like you, Potter, always slapdash in your preparation. I could never be called an optimist towards the quality of your work ethic, but it seems I was mistaken in the belief that an international event might prompt something more—”

Harry’s head was aching now— had it been before?— and he reached up a hand to wipe grit from his eyes, bumping his glasses. The fingers came away wet, but he wasn’t crying, was he? No, everything was a bit spinny, and was he really there, or was he standing near the lake admitting he’d failed… that wasn’t right, he was asleep, wasn’t he? But Snape was talking, so he must be in potions class— The library, the library, he’d been caught—

“—The curfew is in place for a reason, Potter. Roaming a magical castle in the dead of night… Are you listening to me? Potter!” 

Harry blinked himself back to shrink at the look of utter disgust on Snape’s face.

“You’re swaying, Potter.”

“I’m not,” he heard himself say from far away.

“Yes, you are,” Snape retorted. “Stand up. I’ll see you to bed if I have to put you there myself.”

Then there was a tight grip, high on Harry’s arm, and he was stumbling through the corridors, wrenching his eyes open when he noticed they were closed. And then, somehow, Harry was in bed, the smooth weave of the sheets over him comforting in their heaviness….

Harry slept.

His breath heaving itself out of his chest, Harry stood next to Cedric and tried to pretend that he hadn’t been asleep five minutes ago.

“You’re late,” Cedric muttered, while Bagman was announcing “the arrival of our fourth champion!”

“Slept in,” Harry gasped out. “Accident. Only fell asleep after midnight.”

Even though he’d fallen asleep after Snape’s glowering escort to Gryffindor tower, Harry had jerked awake some time later, from a dream where he was suffocating, drowning in cold dark water… He’d tossed and turned in his bed, the terror lingering, his mind unable to think but also unable to rest. He hoped he didn’t have any imprints on his face from the awkward position he’d finally fallen asleep again in.

The gillyweed that Dobby had given him was a slimy reminder in his hand of just how unprepared he felt for this. Once the task had been explained to them and they took up their positions on the edge of the lake, Harry waited for the signal to begin.

Bagman’s “ GO, ” was amplified by his sonorous charm. It echoed in Harry’s ears as he lifted the gillyweed to his mouth, throwing a frantic gaze round the observers to see if there was a chance, any chance, that Dobby had been wrong and his friends weren’t trapped in the lake under tons and tons of cold grey water…

He couldn’t see them. But when his eyes flicked past a group of professors, Snape and Vector and Sprout, something clicked in his head.

And then the bell started ringing. It was loud, even with the noise of the crowd cheering and whooping and singing. Harry’s head was swimming with the realisation and with the noise; Snape stood up in an abrupt motion, his face twisted in anger…

Harry shoved the gillyweed into his mouth and chewed frantically. The effects were instantaneous—  he couldn’t breathe, not in air—  he needed water— 

Red-faced, Harry threw himself sideways into the lake, landing with an ungainly splash. 

Why , he wondered dolefully, swimming downward with a far greater ease than he’d ever had in his heavily chlorinated primary school swimming lessons, why, why, why did Dobby have to steal that gillyweed from Snape?

When the points were being awarded Harry happened to glance over at Snape, who was standing among the other teachers. His fingers were curling round his wand. Harry quickly ducked his head and turned away. Snape was going to confront him about the gillyweed, wasn’t he? It had been clear that the man knew it was missing. 

“Congratulations on your score, Harry!” Ludo Bagman said. Then Harry was surrounded— people were talking to him, congratulating him, Fleur was thanking him again for saving her sister—

And then there was a sudden hush, and people were sidling away. Harry turned, and sure enough, it was Snape, standing behind him with an expression like a thundercloud.

“A word alone with our youngest champion,” the man hissed out. But mostly everyone had already left— good sense, Harry thought. Snape was clearly not in the best mood.

“Professor Snape,” Harry said carefully.

“Potter,” Snape said. “Tell me, does it amuse you to behave this way? To sneak around the castle at all hours? To steal repeatedly from my storeroom?”

His tone indicated that this better not be the case.

“No,” said Harry. “It wasn’t—”

“Stop lying ,” barked Snape. “You are only compounding your many misdeeds— and believe me, I know that—”

“Please, professor,” Harry nearly shouted. “Listen to me, for a moment. It was for me this time, but I didn’t ask them to, but I probably should have told him to put it back—”

“What nonsense are you saying—”

“So I am sorry,” Harry said, trying to keep calm but only barely succeeding. “You know what? I don’t care. You can punish me for it, don’t punish Dobby. He did it for me.” 

He stared up at the man defiantly. If Snape was determined to lay blame on Harry, then the boy wouldn’t be able to stop him. But he did want to tell the truth, even if Snape would ignore it.

“Well then,” Snape said finally. “My office. Now .”

Snape’s office was as gloomy as ever.

“You expect me to believe,” Snape was saying dangerously, “that a house elf knew that you hadn’t found an answer to the challenge, and took it upon itself to learn of one and give it to you?”

“Yes,” said Harry stiffly. His temper was once again threatening to come loose— he terribly wanted to be shouting at Snape. “It was Dobby. He’s a good friend. He’d do anything he thought would help keep me safe. And so he gave me the gillyweed. Overheard Moody and McGonagall talking about it.”

His lip curling under, Snape corrected, “Professor Moody and Professor McGonagall.”

“Sir,” Harry said insolently. He met the potions professor’s gaze and held it, though he had to scrunch his toes together to stop himself from backing down.

“A wonderful story,” Snape said sarcastically. “A Hogwarts house-elf that is just so devoted to the boy-who-lived that it betrays the interests of the professors.”

“Why don’t,” Harry said, teeth gritted, “You ask him. Seeing as you don’t believe me.”

Snape gave him an odd look— Harry thought he was probably confused because he thought it was all a story to push guilt off himself— then said loudly, “ Dobby. ”

And then Dobby was there, accompanied by a loud crack .

“What can Dobby do for Profess—” the house-elf began. Then his eyes went big and round, even bigger and rounder than they usually were. It was clear that he had seen Harry, and was quickly coming to a conclusion.

Dobby’s lips wobbled, and then he was talking. Snape, whose mouth had opened in readiness to question him, did not speak. His dark eyes were fixed on the elf.

“Dobby knows he shouldn’t have taken it, but Harry Potter needed the gillyweed! And Professor Moody assured Dobby it was fine— he knew Professor Snape sir wouldn’t want Harry Potter to drown—”

At this point Harry had a half-hysterical thought that the last point really didn’t seem true… but then— 

“Why,” Professor Snape asked slowly, “Did Moody tell you that?”

“Dobby heard him say to Professor McGonagall that he wondered if Harry Potter would think to use gillyweed, and Dobby knew Harry Potter had not thought of anything, so Dobby went to Professor Snape sir’s storeroom last night and Professor Moody was there for his ingredients—”

It was clear from the expression on his face that Snape had not allowed Professor Moody to borrow his ingredients.

“What,” Snape said slowly, dangerously, “Was that man taking? For I assure you he had no right to take anything from my stores.”

Dobby wrung the end of his multi-coloured scarf between his thin and knobbly fingers. “Boomslang,” he said, looking up at Snape. “If Professor Moody hadn’t said it would be fine, then Dobby would not have taken the gillyweed.” 

Moody had been in Snape’s storeroom, taking boomslang—  and he’d been out in the corridors on the night Snape thought Harry had stolen from him—he was always drinking from that hip flask of his, too— 

Harry looked from Dobby, earnest and protective, to Snape… Snape’s face was undergoing rapid shifts in expression, then it smoothed over into blankness.

“Perhaps,” he said. “It was never you brewing that polyjuice potion after all, Potter.”

Harry knew better than to say I told you so , but he definitely thought it.

After that, things moved surprisingly quickly.

A flick of Snape’s wand lit up the fireplace, and Harry was told to travel through to Dumbledore’s office. Before he stepped into the flames, he twisted around to see that Snape was flicking his wand and muttering something— there was a familiar white silvery substance flowing out of it and solidifying into a shape—

But before Harry could see the form of Snape’s patronus, Snape glanced over and noticed his loitering, then gave a sharp flick of his wand in Harry’s direction. Then he was tripping into the fireplace and whirling into the flames. 

Sprawled on the floor of Dumbledore’s office, Harry patted the floor around him for his glasses, which had fallen off when he’d tumbled in. The flagstones were cool under his hands—where were they—

His fingers had just closed around the arm of his glasses when he heard the whooshing of the floo that meant Snape had arrived. Seconds later, Harry found himself being pulled up by a grip on his arm.

“Honestly, Potter,” Snape said. Harry slid his glasses back on and glanced up at him: the man had that habitual expression of slight disgust that he found so useful when interacting with a Potter. “Just sit over there and don’t touch anything.”

Harry couldn’t help it if the floo disliked him, and it was really Snape’s fault anyway, but he obediently went and sat on the divan anyway. He ran his hands over the intricate embroidery and wondered at how long it would have taken to make. 

They waited for Dumbledore in silence. Harry sat as still as he could; Snape paced back and forth. His deliberate strides lead him from one side of the office to the other, and  his sharp turns were made dramatic by the flare of  his black coat’s skirt behind him.

Perhaps ten minutes later Dumbledore arrived, to sit behind his desk and listen seriously while the situation was explained to him.

“What I don’t get, though,” Harry said once they had finished a brief outline, “is why anyone would want to drink polyjuice for most of a year, and act all the time like— like that, and for what?”

Snape scoffed and made to say something, but Dumbledore’s raised hand stopped him. 

“Now, Harry,” the headmaster said. “What can you tell us about the imposter’s actions, that might provide a clue to that?”

Harry looked uneasily between the teachers, feeling that he was at the brunt of a ‘teachable moment’. “Well,” he said, “He’s been acting mad— though Ron said Moody was like that before— and, I don’t know— oh, he’s been helping me with the tournament, hasn’t he? He gave me that hint about the broom— and he told Dobby it would be alright to get the gillyweed! Maybe he even meant Dobby to overhear him… And I think that Cedric said something about him.”

Neither Snape’s nor Dumbledore’s faces betrayed anything of what they were thinking. 

Hesitantly, Harry said, “I think he wants me to win?” As soon as the words were out of his mouth he knew it wasn’t right, it didn’t quite fit…

“Though I don’t know why,” he added after a bit, looking down at his hands. It didn’t make sense— if the imposter was some kind of creepy fan of the boy-who-lived, then wouldn’t they think that Harry would be able to win by himself? “If they want me to win, it’s not much of a victory if they have to help me to it, is it?”

Harry twisted his fingers together and thought a bit harder about the seemingly-not Professor Moody..

“I suppose he did turn Malfoy into a ferret. Professor McGonagall made him turn him back.” Harry paused, then said, looking up at the teachers through his glasses, “There was that lesson on the unforgivables curses. And the imperius— but he made me practise it until I could throw it off. Why would he do that if he wanted to hurt me?”

Dumbledore looked very weary at this. “Am I to understand,” he said, “that your defence teacher has cast an unforgivable curse on you? More than once?”

Harry nodded. “But it wasn’t so bad, sort of floaty, really, and it’s good that I can throw it off. Isn’t it?”

Dumbledore was looking rather sad. “Oh, Harry,” he said softly. 

“ No , Potter,” Snape said abruptly, jerking Harry’s attention over to him. “No, it is not good that a teacher has been casting unforgivable curses on the student body.”

“Harry,” Dumbledore said earnestly. “The penalty for casting an unforgivable curse on another human being is to go to Azkaban. Someone under the imperius curse can be made to do anything . If the imposter cast that curse on you and told you to kill your classmates, you would murder them in cold blood.”

A sick feeling started winding its way through Harry’s stomach. “But he didn’t,” he protested. His voice echoed oddly in his ears, too loudly for the quiet room. “He just made us hop around the room, or sing, or— and I can throw it off now!”

He looked back and forth quickly between Dumbledore and Snape, who seemed to be somehow communicating together wordlessly through their gazes. Harry could feel his heart thumping in his chest, louder and faster than usual— could they just say something—

“Potter,” Snape said eventually. “Do you truly believe that a person with benign intentions would imprison Alastor Moody for most of a year, keep him close at hand as required for the polyjuice potion, and drink it on the hour every hour all that time?” 

He leaned closer to Harry, who was transfixed by the dark gleam of his eyes. “You are but a child, and would not understand, but— sometimes cats play with their food. Pretend to let it go, give it the illusion of a chance, an escape. But in truth there is none. Someone who uses the unforgivables freely would not rely solely on a single curse, not when there are thousands more.”

“Oh,” Harry said blankly. “O–oh.” 

He gripped the fabric of the divan tightly as his heartbeat pounded in his ears. When Dumbledore shot a sharp look at Snape, he did not notice.

“What I believe you do not understand,” Dumbledore said kindly, “Is the current political climate taking hold in Magical Britain. You could not be expected to, really, as it is the culmination of many factors coming together—some people have been seething in feelings of anger and wrongdoing for years; there is a conservative backlash forming against progressive policies… Some believe, wrongly of course, that any advancement in the rights of a disadvantaged group will come at the expense of their own.”

He adjusted his half-moon glasses with a hand, and continued. “There have been certain signs, certain similarities—” here Harry noticed Snape’s right hand move towards his left arm, then still itself— “to what was happening not that many years ago… You remember, of course, the Quidditch World Cup? These events do not happen randomly— they are the outburst of sentiments that have long been simmering under the surface of Wizarding society.”

For a moment all Harry could hear was his own breathing, then Snape was talking.

“Do you know what it would mean,” he said, softly enough that Harry had to lean forward a bit to hear him, “Do you know what it would mean, Potter? If, in front the crowds of the tournament— all the people eager for a spectacle, ready to watch the coming generations best and brightest strive to succeed in gaining the cup— if, in front of them all, the boy who lived—”

Dumbledore shifted in his seat, and opened his mouth, but Snape did not even look at him, merely held a hand up to stall what the headmaster was going to say. His eyes fixed on Harry, Snape went on. 

“What would it do, Potter, if instead of a big happy victory, they were presented with something else? The slaughter of their child saviour, helpless in the face of real danger? The broken, bloody body of the miraculous survivor—”

“Severus—”

“The murder of the boy-who-lived, while they all watch on, unable to stop it—”

“Severus— ”

“Don’t you know, Potter,” Snape said to Harry, his eyes like deep black pools drawing the boy in. “Don’t you know just how many people wish you dead?”

Harry could not breathe.

“ Severus!” Dumbledore was hissing. Harry watched, feeling quite absent, as the headmaster turned towards the potions master, eyes flashing furiously.  “That is quite enough out of you. Harry is just a boy—”

“Yes, a boy, and a reckless fool of one—” Snape whipped around to look at Dumbledore, breaking the gaze that Harry had found himself trapped by. “Too nosy, too prying, too foolhardy by half—”

“Severus, be quiet —”

“--- a boy that needs to be scared enough not to do anything stupid!”

And then the two men were glaring at each other, both breathing heavily. Snape’s nostrils were flaring; Dumbledore’s fingers were gripped in a rictus round his wand. Harry, forgotten, ground his nails into the palm of his hand and managed a shallow, shaky breath.

“Enough,” Dumbledore said finally. “No more, Severus. If you wish you may shout all you want at me in my office later, once Harry is gone and the imposter dealt with, though I shall think the lesser of you for it.”

Another unspoken message passed between them, and then they were both looking at Harry, Snape’s face utterly blank once more as he moved away, creating distance between himself and the headmaster.

“Harry,” Dumbledore said. “A deep breath, please.”

He stuttered one out, then in— and then he found he didn’t need the grounding pain of his nails anymore. Dumbledore beckoned him over, and Harry half-stumbled to the side of the desk, where the headmaster took his hands in his.

“Harry,” he said, “I wish that could be unsaid. Breathe, Harry. That’s it, good. Good boy.”

Dumbledore’s hands were warm on his, and Harry was breathing now. He met Dumbledore’s eyes.

“He’s right, though,” Harry said, his voice small and tight. “He’s right, isn’t he?”

The old man inclined his head, eyes full of a weary sadness. 

“Harry,” he whispered, “you are, and always have been, so, so brave.”

Harry wasn’t sure why Dumbledore had allowed him to stay in the room while they planned how to proceed, but he was glad they had. He’d never been able to cope with not knowing what was going on, and hearing what would happen tilted the world upright just that little bit more. The blanket the headmaster had tucked around him helped, too— it smelled very slightly of cedar, and the feel of the fibres under his fingertips was grounding— but it was hearing the professors plan out their actions that did the most.

The goal, it seemed, was to capture and question the imposter as soon as possible, while remaining utterly cautious towards the safety of all the students and staff of Hogwarts. Harry, the most obvious target, was not part of the plan. Instead, Dumbledore explained, to keep him safe he would be taken to the hospital wing. He would remain in one of Madam Pomfrey’s warded quarantine rooms, which only allow people who had been keyed to the wards in or out, until the imposter was confined.

After that had been established (with no room for argument on Harry’s part), the boy leant against the back of the chaise and listened to the unfolding plans. Unfortunately, despite his interest, his lack of sleep the previous night as well as the day’s events had taken their toll on him. Harry was finding it ridiculously difficult to concentrate on the professors’ words. Snape and Dumbledore’s voices faded in and out as Harry blinked slowly, his eyelids lowering closer and closer together…

But before he could fall irrevocably asleep his woolly brain stumbled across a thought which jerked him awake.

The map!

If they looked at the map, they’d be able to tell if Moody was actually an imposter. The map was never wrong– it had even had Peter Pettigrew on it while he’d been hiding as an animagus. Surely it wouldn’t be fooled by Polyjuice Potion!

But Harry’s initial rush of enthusiasm was soon tempered. He ought to mention it, really he ought, though he had a squirming reluctance to do so which he recognised as childishness.

Neither Snape nor Dumbledore knew about the map. Or, well… last year the potions professor had caught Harry with it. He’d been suspicious of the “spare bit of parchment” and its penchant for insults, but Professor Lupin had backed Harry up. There was no way the man would be happy to have it revealed for what it was now. Snape would be angry at Harry for lying to him— and probably far, far angrier at Remus Lupin, who he detested. But Remus Lupin wasn’t present to be angry at, and Snape wasn’t unknown for taking his anger out on other people— especially Harry.

Dumbledore might appreciate the map for the clever piece of spellwork that it was, and would be very glad of it in their situation. Harry couldn’t help but have a creeping doubt that the headmaster would also express his disappointment that Harry had previously kept the map to himself even when Sirius Black was entering the castle last year.

He struggled with himself for several minutes, but in the end, rather angry at himself for being cowardly enough to consider obscuring the existence of such a useful tool simply because he might get in trouble, Harry said, “Professor?”

They both turned to look at him. “Yes, Harry?” Dumbledore asked. His tone was lightly curious.

The boy swallowed, but ploughed ahead. “I know a way to tell who it is.” 

The two men listened to him as he talked, slightly stuttering his explanation. 

“...and I know I should have handed it in last year,” Harry said. Even though Snape’s face was forbiddingly impassive, and Dumbledore’s wasn’t betraying anything more than a slight frown, he felt rather miserable. He hoped that they wouldn’t ask about how he had gotten it in the first place— he didn’t want to incriminate Fred and George.

“Indeed you should have,” Dumbledore said, finally. “It was deeply foolhardy not to— but I shall leave off scolding you this time in recognition that to mention this now indicates an increase in your maturity since then.”

Harry carefully didn’t look at Snape. He hadn’t the least bit of interest in what the potions teacher thought of his supposed increase in maturity . 

And really, he himself wasn’t entirely sure. Maybe he would have handed it in last year if he’d thought about it properly. Well, he had thought about it a bit, but really it had seemed more a way to avoid teachers than look for a mass-murderer. And then Professor Lupin had confiscated it, and so he hadn’t had it any more. 

Snape had seen it then, Harry remembered. In the rush of that awful night, he’d almost forgotten that that was how Snape had known to come out to the shrieking shack. But Snape thought it was Lupin’s map, and didn’t realise that Harry had had it first… and for all Harry knew Snape didn’t remember that night very clearly. What with the way three hexes had hit him all at once… and Harry had a vague memory of Sirius bumping the man’s head a few times when he levitated him through the passageway…

He shook his head to clear it. All that was over, now. 

“—think it is worth a try,” Professor Dumbledore was saying. “Severus, will you escort Harry? I don’t think he ought to go alone, in case something unexpected happens.”

Snape gave a short nod. He had still not said a word since Harry had mentioned the map. 

“Bring him down to the quarantine rooms afterward,” Dumbledore concluded. “No point coming back here. I shall meet you there.”

As the staircase revolved them slowly downwards, Snape turned to Harry.

“Try to look repentant, Potter— even if I suspect it’s beyond you. If you can’t manage that, your usual temper and whining will have to do.”

Harry glared, confused. “I do not whine—”

“Exactly so,” Snape said. His voice dripped with sarcasm. “You know, Potter, I did not realise that you had a talent for acting.”

What on earth did the man mean? Harry had thought he might be berated about the map, but this was just plain confusing…

The gargoyle grated open; Harry let out an embarrassingly high-pitched yelp. There was a sudden pain in his left ear, because for an unfathomable reason of his own Snape had pinched it between his fingers and it didn’t seem as though he was feeling inclined to let it go anytime soon. In fact, he seemed annoyingly satisfied with the outraged expression on Harry’s face.

“Precisely, Potter,” Snape said. “Now, to Gryffindor tower.”

“What are you doing? ” Harry gritted out. “Let me g—”

“Silence!” hissed Snape. “Not. Another. Word. If I hear one more peep out of you, Potter…” 

And his voice was so suddenly, awfully cold and his face so utterly furious that Harry found himself hardly able to breathe, let alone speak. His throat felt tight and his head ached, and the day had gone on for far too long, all he wanted was to go to sleep and everything be over and there to be some kind of mix-up so that everyone was who they said they were, and dream of a beautiful nothing. 

But Harry wasn’t given any time to blink away the pressure behind his eyes, because he was pulled off balance and nearly fell over. Snape had started walking.

Snape’s stride was long; Harry, held by the ear and feeling awkwardly short-legged, stumbled after him, needing at least two steps for every one taken by Snape. It was a most uncomfortable process, and as they turned the corner into a main corridor Harry realised it could only get worse. 

A group of third-year Hufflepuffs were passing through— they gaped at Harry. One by one smug grins overtook their faces. It was clear that they resented him for being a Hogwarts champion alongside their own Cedric Diggory and were happy to see him in trouble. Turning to each other, they began whispering.

There was nothing quite so efficient as the Hogwarts rumour mill, and Harry, to his awful and growing certainty, knew just what the next big rumour would be. 

Snape strode past the Hufflepuffs, Harry utterly miserable in his tow. He could hear them laughing in their wake. Another corner— two Ravenclaw girls gaping incredulously at Harry— a flight of stairs. Snape had to slow there for a moment, tapping his foot impatiently as Harry stumbled on one of them in his haste. 

Worse than all that, however, was Professor McGonagall, who was just leaving her classroom with a large armful of books. She leaned down awkwardly to lock the door behind her, dropping her wand into her pocket. Then she turned, only to exclaim loudly and fumble all her books upon seeing Snape and Harry, the professor’s hand still clenched tight upon Harry’s poor ear.

“Severus!” she said, sounding startled and angry. Leaving her books on the floor, she stepped closer. “What are you doing? ” 

“Escorting Potter to his dormitory,” Snape said lightly, sounding as if he’d admitted to taking a turn around the grounds. “Stop that, Potter.”

Harry, who was trying to lean over and pick up the dropped books, found himself jerked painfully upright once more. He opened his mouth to say something angrily, Snape and his Silence be damned, when he heard something that made his mouth lose all moisture and his brain frantically whirr.

Step— clunk. Step— clunk.

Mad-Eye Moody was walking round the corner.

“But—” Professor McGonagall was saying, “What— let go of his ear! Gods, Severus, what—”

The problem was, Harry realised, that he no longer felt angry or frustrated or mistreated by Snape. In fact all he felt was incredibly limp. Moody was coming closer, his eyes fixed on Snape, and Harry thought he knew what Snape had been trying to do, but Harry was utterly failing at projecting repentance or guilt or even the temper that Snape thought he was good at. 

What if the imposter could tell— if he was an imposter? What if he saw through Harry’s shoddy acting and realised they were onto him?

“Finally snapped and revealed your true colours, Snape?” came Moody’s voice from along the corridor, his step— clunk getting closer. “Frothing at the bit to get your revenge on the boy who stopped your happy times torturing and killing innocent people?” The man stopped, not too far from the two heads of house. Harry, peeking through his fringe at them, tried not to make eye contact.

“What, Minerva,” Snape said, utterly ignoring Mad-Eye Moody, “ is that Potter in all his wretched glory, has managed to surpass himself. Out long past curfew in restricted sections of the castle. Stealing from my stores. Cheating in an international tournament— and showing utter disrespect when confronted with his actions.”

It was with a queasy mingling of guilt and relief that Snape’s voice brought Harry back to himself. That, and the awful twist that Snape gave Harry’s ear. As Harry’s face screwed up in pain he managed to get control of himself and allow just enough anger and guilt to filter through his expression. He was scowling, now, even though underneath he thrummed with nervous tension.

“Is this true?” Professor McGonagall asked Harry softly. Harry, looking at her, felt horribly guilty even though he hadn’t really done those things— or not all of them, at least.

“Yes,” he muttered, looking away. “Yes, Professor.”

The look she levied on him was scathing in its disappointment. “I see,” she said grimly. 

“Thus,” Snape said with overtones of sarcasm, “I am escorting him to seclusion until a proper punishment can be decided. A suspension will do him a world of good— and I’m sure all your lovely Gryffindors will be so pleased to be away from his disruptive influence …”

McGonagall sighed, then nodded in acknowledgement. “Let go of his ear, Severus.”

The man released it and Harry’s hands flew up to shelter it, but only his right arm was successful, because Snape had grabbed Harry’s left forearm instead. It was a tight grip, but not wrenching. 

“The meeting with the headmaster will take place tomorrow morning,” Snape informed her. “I think of it with anticipation .”

And then he tugged Harry along. 

They were moving quickly past McGonagall, then Moody… stumbling past them both, Harry was utterly relieved when he and Snape left them behind as they turned the corner. He felt as if he’d like to sit down and just breathe for a few minutes, but Snape’s march onwards was inexorable.

Gryffindor Tower was just up another flight of stairs, now, then round a corner… the portraits were all tittering at them, and Harry knew his face was bright red even if he had no idea how he was actually feeling. 

And then Snape halted in front of the Fat Lady, who had a bit of a smirk on her lips as she looked at Harry and his teacher. Harry had a feeling that she’d been told that they were coming, probably by another painted gossipper.

“Password,” she said. 

Harry blanked. For the life of him, he had no idea. It seemed an age since he had last been in the tower, a whole lifetime… he hadn’t the faintest idea.

“I’m a head of house, I don’t need a password,” Snape growled darkly, resting his free hand on his wand. “ Open. ”

The Fat Lady blinked, a fluttering of eyelash that seemed rather superfluous. “Oh, but you’re not head of Gryffindor house, are you? Ever since last year,” she gave a dramatic shudder, “I’ve been careful. And letting you in without a password— oh, it just is not right.”

Snape stared at her forbiddingly for a long moment. Then, he said, “Fine. So be it.” 

The professor drew his wand with a dramatic swish, but before he could begin to encant, Harry said hurriedly, “Pallypest— no, palimpsest !”

He had just remembered the password. And Harry thought that it was quite fortunate for the Fat Lady, too, because from the look on Snape’s face the man might have been about to hex her.

The portrait gave a disdainful sniff, and swung open reluctantly; Snape slid his wand back into his sleeve. 

And then he tugged Harry through the portrait hole, into the noisy common room. Well, it had been noisy. Once Snape and Harry had been noticed, it instantly fell silent. The “Well Done Harry Potter!” banner that Colin and Dennis Creevy and were waving fell limp, and everyone stared at Harry, who couldn’t look at any of them.

Of course almost the whole house had to be there. Harry wished he could sink through the floor. Snape, however, ignored them all and strode over to the staircase, pulling Harry along, up to his dormitory. When they turned the corner Harry heard furious whispers break out behind them. 

Inside the 4th year boys dormitory Snape let go of Harry’s arm to close the door with a sharp click . He turned to lean against it, crossing his arms. 

“Well?” he said. “Get on with it. And pack a bag for overnight while you’re at it. We don’t know how long this will take.”

Harry felt very conscious of the room’s disarray as he shoved toothbrush, toothpaste, pyjamas and a change of clothes inside his satchel. Having to crawl half-under his bed to fetch his pyjama bottoms was terrible; he was too aware of Snape’s presence. Lastly, he rooted through his trunk and pulled out the map from the very bottom. 

“Here it is,” he said quietly, and made to put it into his satchel with everything else. But Snape held out his hand, not saying a word. Harry reluctantly gave it to him, and watched as the man tucked it into one of his many pockets. 

Back down the stairs… the students in the common room weren’t whispering any more— they were arguing, loudly. But once again a ripple of silence spread through the room when they noticed Harry and Snape, the man once again holding Harry by the arm like a toddler. 

The crowd slowly parted before them, but suddenly Neville was there in front of them. The other boy was shaking a bit with nerves but he spoke in a surprisingly composed voice. 

“Harry,” he said. “Harry, what’s going on?” 

Harry opened his mouth then closed it again, not knowing what to say. He fiddled with the strap of his satchel and wished vehemently that the triwizard tournament had never existed, that there wasn’t a possible imposter in the school, that Neville would stop looking at him like that…

Neville flicked his eyes around the room when Harry didn’t respond. Harry saw him worry his lip, then take a deep breath—

“Professor,” Neville said shakily. “What are you doing here with Harry?”

For a second Professor Snape looked a bit taken aback by this unexpected boldness in Neville, but his face soon smoothed over into a patently false look of regret.

“I don’t believe that Potter would wish you to know,” he said, in a tone of faux concern. But Harry didn’t bother getting his hopes up, because it was clear from how Snape had said it that there would be no point. 

“But then,” Snape continued silkily, “who am I to deny the fans of the famous boy-who-lived? And Mister Potter—” his voice sharpened, “has exhibited such a need for publicity…”

Harry wished Snape would just get on with it. Even though he wished to disappear through the floor, he somehow couldn’t tear his eyes away from Neville, who remained shockingly composed. Well. The other boy was shaking a bit, but he wasn’t backing down.

“Potter,” Snape said eventually, after what felt like centuries of revelling in his pregnant pause to Harry, “Potter has been found cheating in a Triwizard task. He has also been trespassing, stealing, lying, and behaving utterly reprehensibly. He will be staying in isolation until a decision about how to appropriately punish him can be made.”

The common room was absolutely silent. Neville looked taken aback, though it seemed like he was working up the courage to say something else when Snape tugged Harry along to the portrait exit. But the man couldn’t resist one last word…

“Don’t mind us, however, pray continue your celebrations.”

And then they stepped out of the common room, the portrait swinging shut behind them. 

After all that, Harry felt dirty and sweaty and about two inches high. He couldn’t help but be relieved, though, at the pace which they were heading away from Gryffindor Tower, towards the Hospital Wing. If he had any luck, Harry would never see Snape in the Gryffindor Common Room ever again.

“I don’t understand,” said Harry. 

The two professors and Harry were in the quarantine room of the hospital wing, which was sparsely furnished with three beds and a small area with a low table and a few armchairs, presumably for the use of patients that had mostly recovered but were still infectious. While Harry dumped his satchel next to a bed, Dumbledore lengthened the legs of the table so that they could stand around it, since somehow the situation didn’t seem to call for sitting in a squishy armchair. 

The three of them looked again at the map, which Snape had spread out on the table. Inside the Defense Against the Dark Arts Office, a dot labelled Alastor Moody remained, unmoving. And, pacing back and forth, was another dot— a Bartemius Crouch.  

“Hmm,” Dumbledore said. He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “How very interesting.”

Interesting? Obviously, their theory had been all wrong. Moody was right there in his office. Harry, with a sinking feeling, wondered if all that awfulness with Snape in the corridors and the common room, had been for nothing…

But— 

“Why would Crouch be in there?” Harry asked. “I thought he was really sick.”

“Young Mister Weasley has been covering for him since the Yule Ball,” Dumbledore said thoughtfully. “I have not seen Mr Crouch since before then. He has no reason to be in the castle if he is indeed very ill— and in any case he has no reason to consult with Alastor Moody. ”

They looked at the map for another long moment as the dot labelled Bartemius Crouch finally stilled, as if its owner had just sat down.

“Long-term polyjuice potion use does need a constant supply of donor material,” Snape said slowly. “And he has no alibi. Unlikely as it seems, Bartemius Crouch could have been impersonating Moody since— when did he purport to fall ill? December?”

“But,” Harry said confusedly. “Isn’t he the head of the Department of International… something? He’s not a death eater. Why would he do that?”

“The Department of International Magical Cooperation,” Dumbledore corrected. “And he used to be the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, where he demonstrated a most profound loathing of Death Eaters and dark wizards.”

Snape’s face twisted into a scowl. “That man also demonstrated a loathing for justice and humane treatment of prisoners.”

“That does not remove the fact that almost anyone else would be more likely to take part in a Death Eater plot than Bartemius,” Dumbledore said.

“Maybe it is someone else stealing the things for polyjuice,” Harry said doubtfully. It had made so much sense… but perhaps Moody really was just the kind of person who used the imperius curse on students to help them gain a resistance against it. “Or— are they friends?”

“Friends?” Snape said incredulously. 

“They would have worked together,” Harry said. “They could just be visiting.”

The potions master scoffed at this, which Harry gathered was to indicate his doubt at either Moody or Crouch having friends. 

They all kept looking intently at the map for a few minutes more, but it seemed that neither Crouch nor Moody were going to be moving anytime soon. 

“There is a better way than this speculation,” Snape said eventually. “One of us finds the apparent Moody, takes him somewhere else, while the map is being watched. If there is polyjuice involved it will become apparent. Or we could simply enter his office and see if Bartemius is indeed present.”

That seemed to make sense.

“A sensible plan,” Dumbledore agreed. “And I’m sure Alastor, if it really is he, would forgive us some slight paranoia in these apparent circumstances,” he added, a twinkle in his blue eyes. 

Constant Vigilance! thought Harry.

Snape didn’t say anything but it was clear he thought Moody would grudge Snape for it.

Soon it was settled that Dumbledore would go to the DADA office, armed with the marauder’s map so that he could check that the same dots were still there just before he entered. If there was no Crouch in sight but the map said that he was present, then he would ask the supposed Moody to accompany him to his own office, where they could “discuss the events of the second task”. Snape would be waiting there and they would subdue the imposter and wait until the polyjuice had worn off. 

And Harry would remain all the while in the quarantine room of the hospital wing. After all, the Headmaster reminded Harry, the possible-imposter already knew about his supposed suspension. It would tip him off if he saw Harry. 

Not to mention that neither the Headmaster nor Snape would have countenanced any notion of involving Harry anyway. They had made that quite clear in Dumbledore’s office earlier.

Ten minutes later the Professors were ready to act. Dumbledore sent Snape on his way to the Headmaster’s office first, so that he could have time to alert Professor McGonagall on the way, then raised his wand. 

Harry watched the gold-lace wards crackle into being, rather awed. They were embedded in the stone walls of the room, and danced round the window-glass in flecks and shimmers. Even the floor and ceiling had traces of it. 

“No-one shall be able to enter, now, except for me.” Dumbledore said. “Nor will you be able to exit. The quarantine wards are specifically designed so that the only allowed entrance or exit is that of the caster, and only the Hogwarts Mediwitch and the Headmaster are able to raise them.”

Harry nodded his understanding as the golden ward-magic slowly settled into the walls, fading until no longer clearly visible.

“I shall be on my way, now,” the Headmaster said. “I shall return anon.” 

And then he was gone.

Waiting was difficult.

Part of Harry was fine with it— happy to not have to do anything about a danger in Hogwarts, for once. A resentful part of him prodded at that feeling and murmured that the teachers should probably have noticed an imposter in their midst well before now… 

But although Harry felt he should feel reassured that it would all be taken care of, deep down he was not reassured at all. 

He sat on a neatly-made bed and stared blankly out the window, legs jittering; then stood up abruptly and paced over to one of the armchairs before flinging himself on it dramatically.

After all, though Dumbledore was powerful and Snape was nastily clever, in the past it always had come down to Harry in the end— and Harry was lucky and quick and doing well in the tournament alongside the best and brightest students of Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. Harry had killed the basilisk and defeated a horde of dementors with his patronus…

If Snape was here, Harry thought as he drummed his fingers on his legs, then he would be calling Harry a conceited little brat— and he might be right, a little. But if Harry was conceited then it was because he had earned his conceitedness from acting while teachers did nothing. If it wasn’t for him, Ginny would still be down in the Chamber of Secrets, decomposing and rotting…

Stop it! he thought fiercely. Stop it!

 Unsettled at the turn his thoughts had taken— was he really that selfish and disgusting?— Harry pinched the soft underside of his arm cruelly. When the pain from that had faded away he vowed not to think about that any more. Instead, he tried to see where the web of golden magic had faded into the walls, and blurred his vision in and out trying to trace the delicate lines of it.

In the end, Harry had fallen asleep on the armchair, exhausted after his late night and the emotional rollercoaster of the second task. The chiming sound of the wards disengaging stirred him, and he woke up just as Professor Dumbledore stepped into the room, followed by Snape.

“Did you catch him?” Harry asked eagerly, suddenly very awake. Almost immediately he flushed at the question.

“Yes,” Dumbledore said. 

Harry shifted into a better position to listen, wincing at the ache in his neck from sleeping upright. 

“And?” he asked. He heard a slight scoff from Snape then, presumably at his lack of manners.

“He is secured in the dungeons under the supervision of Professor Flitwick,” the headmaster said. “And  he will be going back to Azkaban once the DMLE have finished arrangements,” he concluded.

“Back to Azkaban?” Harry said curiously. 

Dumbledore nodded, his beard bobbing up and down. “It seems that the real Alastor Moody has been living at the bottom of his own trunk for months, whilst one Bartemius Crouch Junior (formerly imprisoned for torture of an innocent family but rescued from Azkaban by the questionable actions of his father) has been impersonating him in a convoluted plot to resurrect Lord Voldemort. The man engineered your entry into the Triwizard Tournament and has been trying to ensure that you are the winner so that when you touch the cup in the final task you are whisked away to the Dark Lord by a hijacked portkey so he can use you in a horrific resurrection ritual.”

“Oookay,” Harry said. That did seem very convoluted. “That sounds like the plot of a weird novel.”

Dumbledore nodded, eyes twinkling. “I’m sure it would have felt less weird and more horrifying if it had succeeded.”

Harry thought that this was quite probably true. 

“Well, I should get back to work,” Professor Dumbledore said. “Though, there is one more thing, Harry—”

The boy looked up at him curiously. 

“If I’m not mistaken, your godfather’s case will soon be reexamined. Because the imposter claimed to be colluding with one Peter Pettigrew, assumed to be deceased, doubts have been raised about that whole matter, especially since there was never a trial in the first place… so, there is reason to believe Sirius Black may be exonerated in due course.”

“Really?” Harry said, bubbling with excitement. “Really? Oh, professor, that’s wonderful! I—”

He broke off, suddenly awash in unfulfilled daydreams. Sirius would be free, and he’d stop eating rats and live in a house with Harry, they’d eat three full meals a day and Sirius would let Harry eat pizza, he was sure, and they’d buy new clothes together… Sirius would ruffle his hair and hug him tightly… he might even tuck Harry in at night, and even if Harry was probably too old for that he didn’t really care… he’d buy him birthday presents and they’d play pick-up quidditch together and go bowling and swimming in the ocean, Sirius would teach him—

“Don’t get too excited, Potter,” Snape growled. “Nothing’s happened yet and your mutt is still a flea-infested fugitive. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if nothing came of it. It’s not as if the ministry is known for integrity and fairness, though of course if it were they ought to lock Black up again…”

Harry was happy enough that he wasn’t bothered in the least by Snape’s pronouncement. “A bit of excitement isn’t a bad thing,” he said exuberantly. “I’d rather be optimistic than never happy at all li—”

He caught Snape’s eye and decided that the sentence was better unfinished. Flushing, he turned away to look at the headmaster. “Thank you,” he said fervently. And then, deciding that he really ought to, he looked back at Snape. “And thank you, professor.”

Professor Snape blinked at Harry, looking at him as if he were an utterly perplexing species of potions ingredient. Ha! Harry thought. It was rather fun confusing Snape in this way. 

“Thank you, Harry,” Dumbledore said gently. “I’m proud of what you’ve done today.”

Harry squirmed a bit. He hadn’t actually done anything— had he? Just talked about what he thought, and sat there for hours while the teachers had done everything, trying to trust that it would work out all right—

The headmaster inclined his head. “Precisely,” he said. “Well done.” And then he left— but not before extracting the marauder’s map from his pocket and giving it back to Harry, who put it in his pocket before Snape might get it into his head to confiscate it or something.

Snape and Harry were left together in the isolation room, but it only took about a quarter of a second before Snape whirled round and followed in Dumbledore’s footsteps. Harry, still caught up in thinking about what Dumbledore had meant, noticed his potions professor was leaving only when the door closed behind the man.

“Wait—” he muttered to himself. 

He leapt up and scrambled out of the room, into the main ward of the hospital wing. Somehow, breath heaving, he managed to get in front of Snape in such a way that the man stopped abruptly, cut off in his path.

“Professor,” Harry said, boldly. “Now that the imposter’s been captured, you can take this off me.”

He gestured at the collar round his neck, and the wretched bell dangling there.

Snape twisted his head to stare at Harry, in a long moment of silence. Harry stood his ground, and made sure not to say anything further, because he knew he’d probably tie himself in knots with Snape looking at him in that way.

Eventually Snape lifted his wand, and prodded it at the collar round Harry’s throat. The boy barely kept himself from making an undignified yelp at the contact, his hand flying up to his neck. But then the collar was falling away, split in half.

Holding the leather strap in his hands, Harry wanted to grin and grin and grin. He hadn’t actually expected Snape to take it off, somehow…

“Thank you,” he burst out. “Thank you, thank you—”

Snape took the collar from Harry and placed it in the pocket of his robes.

“Detention,” he said crisply.

Harry’s jubilant mood burst like a soap-bubble.

“What?” he said. “But—”

“You didn’t think I’d forgotten, did you Potter?” Snape said smoothly. “Out after curfew, snooping through the restricted section of the library, collecting yourself inappropriate reading matter… but as I am feeling— lenient—” his lip curled as he spoke the word, “you are only receiving detention.”

Harry opened his mouth, but found he had nothing to say. Snape was right— for him, this was being lenient. 

“Actually,” Snape was saying, tapping a finger on his chin in a parody of contemplation, “Perhaps you are right, Potter. I am being too soft. Better make it two detentions, and thirty points from Gryffindor.”

Badly wanting to roll his eyes, Harry said, evenly, “Fine.”

“Fine, sir.”

“Of course, sir,” Harry said. He stepped aside and watched as Snape let himself out of the room, black robes furling with a dramatic flick. Rolling his eyes, he opened the door again and left himself.

Harry was halfway to Gryffindor tower when he had the sudden, horrific thought that all of that—theatricality—was Snape being playful.

Urgh.

But Harry pushed it out of his mind as he skidded round the corner, nearly tripping on the flagstones in his haste to speak with Hermione and Ron. Snape and his detentions could wait; Harry needed to tell his friends what had happened.

Everyone had sat down to dinner that night as usual, even if a good part of the school had been peering curiously at Harry. But before the food could appear, Dumbledore tapped his wine glass with a delicate ting and stood up. 

“Dear students,” he began. “Before we begin our suppers, there is an announcement that needs to be made.” 

When everyone had shifted to look at him, the headmaster continued. “It is my regret to inform you that our Defence Against the Dark Arts professor has been arrested.”

There was silence for a moment, then the hall broke out into talking. Dumbledore allowed this for about thirty seconds, then clapped his hands for silence. 

“And this professor,” he said, “was not Alastor Moody, but instead someone using polyjuice potion to impersonate him as part of a nefarious plot. In fact, he was a marked death eater who confessed under veritaserum to a plan to resurrect Lord Voldemort.”

Many of the students flinched at hearing the name, as did a few of the professors.

“And so, alas, I will once again be searching for another DADA teacher,” Dumbledore said. “On a happier note, a round of applause for Harry Potter and Professor Snape! It was they who discovered that our Defence teacher was using polyjuice potion, and it was their acting skills that meant that our imposter was able to be safely captured.”

And he led a round of confused applause from the staff and students, who all looked rather bewildered by this turn of events but nonetheless followed the headmaster’s lead. At the professor’s table, Snape didn’t appear to be too happy to be associated with Harry in such a way, but as this wasn’t too different to his usual dour expression no-one took much notice.

Dinner that night was much appreciated by Harry, who was now realising that he hadn’t eaten since last night— well, unless you counted the gillyweed, which Harry did not. Everything tasted especially good in his hunger. Wedged between Hermione and Ron, he felt quite content. Enough so that when Cormac McLaggen asked him, rather aggressively, “So was all that pretending, then?”, all he did was say an unconcerned yes and ignore him. 

On the whole, thankfully, the news that their teacher had not actually been Moody turned out to be rather more interesting than Snape threatening awful punishments to Harry, even if the man had turned out to be pretending.

After a second helping of treacle tart, Harry, Ron and Hermione went up to the common room to talk further about everything that had happened, which somehow turned into a debate about what the actual Alastor Moody might have been like as a teacher… then Harry was watching Ron build a card house with exploding snap cards… and then he must have fallen asleep in his armchair, because Hermione was gently shaking him awake.

He staggered up to bed and after a half-hearted toothbrushing slumped on his bed and fell asleep again, barely managing the energy to pull his covers over him. 

It had been too long since he’d slept properly. Tonight, there was no bell to disturb his dorm-mates, no anxiety about the second task, no wondering where Ron and Hermione were... 

Tonight, there was only sleep: soft, dark, and overwhelming.

The End.

Hogwarts vs Durmstrang Battle (But French Witch Takes The Cup!)

In a surprise ending to the Triwizard Tournament, Flore Delacour of Beauxbatons has been awarded the thousand-galleon prize.

“Both Diggory and Krum approached the centre of the maze at the same moment,” Flore Delacour said in her silvery tones, flicking her hair from her face with a flourish. “But while they were duelling each other a giant spider appeared. I saw my opportunity and took the cup while they were busy with it.”

The boy-who-lived-to-be-Hogwarts-Champion, Harry Potter, came onto the scene minutes later. 

“I heard a racket round the corner, and saw Cedric and Viktor Krum battling the Acromantula,” he said bravely, the tragic courage of his late parents filling his eyes. “I wouldn’t have noticed anything else except that a really flashy spell rebounded— except it didn’t look like anyone was there. But when I looked closer I could see a sort of shimmer, moving towards the cup.”

Is this rather underhanded tactic a sign that a different champion ought to have won?

Viktor Krum, quidditch sensation, stated that “the intensity of focus upon my task left me unaware of Delacour’s presence.”

“I think Fleur was very clever,” Diggoly said, wiping honest, hard-earned sweat from his brow. “It was a jolly good disillusionment charm— and Krum and I were evenly matched. Probably if she’d come a few minutes later she would have just been able to walk past our exhausted bodies!”

A Hufflepuffian sense of fairness, maybe? In any case, the Beauxbatons champion celebrated her winnings by kissing her family members on the cheek and commending the teachers of her school.

Article by Rita Skeeter

Photo: The four champions stand together, Fleur in the centre holding the cup. She has a streak of dirt on her nose and is grinning triumphantly. Behind her Viktor stands with his left arm in a sling, blank-faced until Cedric says something to him and they both begin laughing. Harry is beside Cedric and looks as if he is favouring his right leg; he wobbles a little and then all the other champions try to steady him, resulting in a tangle as they begin to fall. However, the photo loops back to the beginning before any of them sprawl on the ground.