Harry Potter And The Descent Into Darkness

Chapter 27

The day after Harry had been dragged out to the Quidditch field to learn the details of the last task, Sirius had written to him asking him what he'd found out. Harry had replied and relayed all of the details he had learned from Mr. Bagman, while leaving out the far more useful details he had gotten from Barty.

Since then, Sirius had been writing him every other day with advice on spells to try practicing and voicing his concerns about the various dangers and speculating on how the plot to get Harry killed, by getting him entered in the tournament, could be played out before the end of term. Sirius was clearly worried about Harry's safety and wellbeing. Harry knew it was entirely invalid and had no fears at all about the upcoming task, but he was still touched by Sirius's concerns.

Sure – if he hadn't gone to Tom all those months ago and joined the man, the third task would have been the event where the Dark Lord had originally intended to abduct Harry and perform his original resurrection ritual, but that plan was obviously out the window now since it would be blatantly counter-productive to their plans. Instead he had given Harry a hard look and told him in no uncertain terms that he would be disgusted if Harry did not win the tournament by an obscene point margin. Harry had laughed.

The first week Sirius sent a letter every two or tree days, but three weeks prior to the tournament the letters started coming daily. Even if they were nothing more than a few brief words of encouragement, a tip or two, or just a muddy paw-print; it was still clear that Sirius was doing everything he could think of to try and help and encourage Harry. Harry was touched.

Harry had continued to send care packages every week ever since the meeting with Sirius after the second task. He had started out by just having the Hogwart's kitchen house elves prepare as much non-perishable food as they could and then shrink it, package it up and send it off with one of the school owls. In more recent weeks, he'd been getting Mixey to prepare things for him since she could go out and buy things that were specifically intended as camp food to last and be easy to prepare.

Tom knew he was doing it but never really commented. Harry knew that Tom didn't exactly hold any fond feelings for the ex-auror. Sirius had been a real thorn in Voldemort's side during the last war. He was dedicated, talented, and creative. He was also, apparently, a very skilled dueler. He had apprehended quite a fair number of Death Eaters during the couple years he worked as an auror for the Ministry.

There were just under three weeks left till the final task and Harry was sitting in Tom's study while the older wizard scratched away at a parchment and periodically reference one of the large tomes he had stacked around his desk. Harry wasn't entirely sure what he was working on, but it seemed important. He had been working his way through a theoretical book Tom had told him to read on magical energy management and conservation during long drawn out battles. He had insisted that Harry wasted far too much energy during their duels and finally grumbled at him to read the damn book.

But he had started to go cross-eyed from all the reading and he was getting a headache. This probably was mostly due to the fact that the book was hand-written in tiny, cramped little letters.

He set it aside, sighed and started to dig through his bag. He pulled out a folder where he'd been keeping the letters from Sirius and started to slowly flip through them. He'd been feeling more and more troubled about his godfather lately. He really wasn't sure what to do about the whole situation.

He had come to terms with the fact that by joining Tom he had essentially abandoned all of the people who had looked after him and cared for him since he first entered the wizarding world, but he found he didn't have a lot of trouble with ditching most of them. Dumbledore was a manipulative bastard who had not only fucked over Harry, but a great many other people, so Harry had no moral problems with considering the older wizard his enemy now.