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SIXTEEN WHOLE LOTTA HISTORY
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HOLLY, AFTER SPENDING far too much money in Honeydukes, begins to wonder how sneaky she can be, walking through Hogsmeade with a massive Honeydukes bag and mostly dark clothes — and sure, she probably could've gotten away with both, if it was in wintertime, because the bag could be filled with Christmas presents, and generally people wear darker clothes during that season. But Holly, when she woke up this morning and thought, 'what do I wear to meet someone's godfather who was wrongly convicted of murder?' didn't take into account how most people are beginning to wear light denim and white this time of year, and Holly's decision of a yellow-checked skirt and black turtleneck didn't raise any alarm bells at the time.
She reaches the stile, where Harry, Ron, and Hermione are standing around, and for a minute she feels bad for being a couple minutes later. She hears her dad's voice in her head, it's always better to be fashionably late. A black dog sits patiently next to the stile, couple newspapers in their mouth.
"Sorry I'm late," says Holly, grimacing. "But I saw that the letter said bring food and Honeydukes was on the way, so I thought I may as well get something — I don't know what he likes, so I just bought a bunch of stuff—"
"It's fine," says Harry. He smiles at her, and he glances down towards the dog. "So, Holly, this is Sirius."
Holly frowns. "That is a dog."
"That is Sirius," says Harry. Holly looks down at the dog, who's happily sniffing the Honeydukes bag she's holding onto. She looks back up at Harry, as if to say what the hell? "He's an Animagus."
"OK," says Holly.
Sirius the Dog (this is bizarre) turns and starts to walk towards a makeshift trail up the side of a mountain. The other three begin to follow him, and she follows, a little confused by this whole thing. She walks along the trail, sticks and stones pushing into the soles of her shoes.
The bag in her hand is becoming heavier and heavier, the more she's led down this strange little trail on the side of the mountain. Eventually, they reach a narrow fissure in a rock, and Holly glances at the other three, who all look sweaty and out-of-breath. Holly's fine. She supposes it's the hour of exercise every morning.
Sirius the Dog (what the fuck) seems to have slipped through the fissure in the rock, and so, the three squeeze themselves through. Holly waits to go last, and glances around before slipping into the gap in the rock, pushing herself through. As she steps into the small cave, the dog has turned back into a human, and there stands Sirius Black, the man who's face was plastered around Diagon Alley a year or so ago.
Hermione moves towards a Hippogriff (a fucking Hippogriff) in the corner of the cave. If that's the one that disappeared last year, that means that's the one her step-cousin tried to get executed. Holly, frowning at it, keeps her distance.
"Chicken!" says Sirius, opening up the bag Harry's brought. He discards the two newspapers he was holding onto. "I've been living off rats mostly. Can't steal too much food from Hogsmeade; I'd draw attention to myself."
Sirius grins at Harry. Holly sees the hesitant smile on Harry's face and she glances away, feeling a little awkward. She exchanges a look with Ron, who also seems to not know what to do.
"What're you doing here, Sirius?" asks Harry.
"Fulfilling my duty as godfather," says Sirius, eating the chicken leg. "Don't worry about it, I'm pretending to be a lovable stray..." Holly sees him frown, ever so slightly. "I want to be on the spot. Your last letter... well, let's just say things are getting fishier. I've been stealing the paper every time someone throws one out, and by the looks of things, I'm not the only one who's getting worried."
Ron begins to pick up some of the older copies of the Daily Prophet. Holly glances over his shoulder at them, crossing her arms and trying to keep a hold of this damned bag.
"What if they catch you? What if you're seen?"
"You four and Dumbledore are the only ones around here who know I'm an Animagus," says Sirius. He then turns to Holly, and she politely smiles at him. "You must be Holly, then. Harry's mentioned you."
Holly glances at Harry, who looks panicked. She turns back to Sirius. "Hi," she says. "Um, I couldn't get to the kitchens but I went into Honeydukes on the way over, so, there you go," and she sets the bag on the floor next to him.
Sirius smiles appreciatively, and he picks out one of the Chocolate Frogs, which Holly doesn't think will taste great, straight after a chicken leg, but she stays quiet. "Your mum was Margo Valen, right?" he asks, and Holly's brows knit together as she nods once. "I thought so, you look like her. She was good friends with my younger brother."
"Oh," says Holly, and she holds back her desperation, her wish to begin asking question after question to see what her mother was like. Was she nice? What were her favourite sweets? Has she ever read a muggle book, and which one? Did she know about Shakespeare? What's her favourite band? Subject at school? Colour? "I never knew her."
Holly goes quiet, and she begins to step backwards, but she spots a newspaper on the floor, one with an article on the front page, where most of the headline's been cut off by the way it's folded, but the name Atticus Malfoy sits proudly.
She picks it up.
ATTICUS MALFOY — DETAILS EMERGE FOLLOWING DEATH
Well. That's why her friends were quiet this morning.
Atticus Malfoy, along with his wife Margo Valen were arrested on the twenty-fifth of September 1980, halfway during their wedding reception, for their part in assisting He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named as Death Eaters. Since 1980, both Malfoy and Valen have been in cells in Azkaban, far away from the rest of the wizarding world — including Malfoy's step-daughter and Valen's daughter, Holliday Lippincott, one of the champions in the Triwizard Tournament. [Turn to page 2 for an update on the tasks.]
However last night details emerged that Malfoy had died in his cell the previous week, and since then his body has been given to his family in order to be buried. It is believed that Malfoy used a medieval potion that killed him, and investigations have begun into how he managed to acquire a potion that has not been created since the 1500s.
But, whilst investigations are conducted and the Malfoy family mourn the loss of a step-father, a brother, and an uncle, we ask the question — who was Atticus Malfoy?
Above: Atticus Malfoy, 1978.
Atticus Malfoy, the youngest son of Abraxas and Valette Malfoy, was believed to have become a Death Eater shortly after finishing school. It is also believed that whilst at school, he was close friends with Margo Valen, who had joined the Death Eaters at aged sixteen, sources state, which for years has raised the question of whether or not it was his future wife's doing, his association with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
Unlike the rest of the Malfoy family, Atticus Malfoy has black hair, the result of a prank-gone-wrong during the start of his schooling at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, in which he was sorted into Slytherin. His old peers describe him as "quiet" and that "he was joined at the hip with Valen."
Above: Margo Valen, 1978: By this time, the young and innocent-looking Valen had already joined the Death Eaters.
It is unknown what occurred following their departure from school, however, it is believed that both Malfoy and Valen went into hiding whilst Valen was pregnant with her daughter, Holliday Lippincott, whose father Augustus Lippincott is an American wizard. "[Valen and Lippincott] had a fling, and they went separate ways afterwards, but since it was safer for my father to raise me, that's what they decided," Holliday Lippincott stated in an earlier interview about the Triwizard Tournament, where she is one of the unexpected champions, alongside Harry Potter, the boy hated by all past Death Eaters.
Charming, Holly thinks.
Time will only tell how a prisoner was able to get a potion like he had, as well as further details about his life, and his downfall.
"My brother's Crouch's personal assistant," says Ron, looking towards Sirius. "He says Crouch is suffering from overwork."
Holly looks up from the newspaper, and her head swiftly turns to look at Ron. Her brows are still knitted together from reading the newspaper article, from staring at the picture of her mother and her step-father and watching the same scene loop over and over.
"Mind you, he did look ill, last time I saw him up close," says Harry, looking at a stack of newspapers. He glances over at Holly, as if she remembers, which she does not. When did he last see Crouch? How would she know? "The night my name came out of the goblet..."
For a second she wonders, did he? She doesn't remember how healthy the judges looked when she was forced into the tournament, her main concern was, you know, the fact that she was in the Triwizard Tournament because apparently, saying "oh it would be cool to have a Slytherin Champion" was enough for the universe to intervene. And then it hits her — how on earth did Harry Potter, notably one of the most oblivious boys to ever exist, notice this, when she did not? Is she losing her edge, or something?
"Getting his comeuppance for sacking Winky, isn't he?" says Hermione. She smirks to herself, as she continues to stroke the Hippogriff. "I bet he wishes he hadn't done it now — bet he feels the difference now she's not there to look after him."
"Hermione's obsessed with house-elves," says Ron.
Holly sees the look he gives Hermione, and frowns. "People thought John Lennon was out of his mind, too," she says. Hermione smiles softly at her.
Sirius looks intrigued. "Crouch sacked his house-elf?"
"Yeah, at the Quidditch World Cup," says Harry. He begins to explain what happened, and Holly briefly remembers what the papers said about it. Apparently Death Eaters appeared in the campsite next to the stadium, and someone casted the Dark Mark into the sky, using Harry's stolen wand, and they believed it to be a house-elf, who, according to Harry, was Winky, from the kitchens at school. Wild.
Sirius starts pacing up and down the cave. Holly stands to the side, to give him room, and she keeps her arms crossed, frowning. "Let me get this straight," says Sirius. "You first saw the elf in the Top Box. She was saving Crouch a seat, right?"
"Right," says the three.
"But Crouch didn't turn up for the match?"
"No," says Harry. "I think he said he'd been too busy."
The four of them are quiet. Sirius asks, "Harry, did you check your pockets for your wand after you'd left the Top Box?"
"Erm... no," says Harry, his brows furrowing. "I didn't need to use it before we got in the forest. And then I put my hand in my pockets, and all that was in there were my Omnioculars... Are you saying whoever conjured the Mark stole my wand in the Top Box?"
Sirius nods. "It's possible."
Hermione exclaims, "Winky didn't steal that wand!"
"The elf wasn't the only one in that box," says Sirius, frowning still. Holly sees that Hermione's still stroking the Hippogriff, and the creature moves, and Holly steps a little further away. "Who else was sitting behind you?"
"Loads of people," says Harry. That's helpful, Holly thinks. "Some Bulgarian ministers... Cornelius Fudge... the Malfoys..."
"The Malfoys!" says Ron, looking like he's about to jump and shriek, eureka! The Hippogriff moves again, and so does Holly, further away from it. "I bet it was Lucius Malfoy!"
Holly frowns. "Obviously it wasn't," she says, and she sees the mild worry on Ron's face, having realised that she's related to them. "Do you honestly think that Lucius Malfoy, a man that was almost sent to Azkaban, would do something like that, when it has no big repercussions? What you said about the diary, Harry — that makes sense, that's important. But, no offense, everything that happened at the World Cup had no real effect, did it? He's not going to risk being investigated again just because of that."
"She has a point," says Sirius, which surprises Holly. "Anyone else?"
"No one," says Harry.
Hermione frowns. "Yes, there was," she says. "There was Ludo Bagman."
"Oh, yeah..." says Harry.
To the side, Holly makes a face of complete disgust. She doesn't like Bagman, not at all. He creeps her out. "I don't know anything about Bagman except that he used to be Beater for the Wimbourne Wasps," says Sirius. "What's he like?"
"An insect you buy the repellent for," says Holly. "He's revolting."
Harry frowns. "He's okay," he says, and Holly looks unconvinced. "He keeps offering to help both me and Holly with the Triwizard Tournament."
"Does he, now?" says Sirius, looking a little more concerned. Which makes complete sense to Holly, because Bagman's a filthy rat. "I wonder why he'd do that?"
"Says he's taken a liking to us," says Harry.
Sirius nods. "Hmm."
"He almost went to Azkaban, a little after the war ended," says Holly, and immediately, four heads turn to look at her. "He wasn't a Death Eater, I don't think, but he was giving Ministry information to a Death Eater during the war, which would obviously benefit them... Draco said that his father would always see him making bets, too."
"Is that why there were those goblins, a while ago, in The Three Broomsticks?" says Hermione.
Holly shrugs. "Maybe."
"We saw him in the forest just before the Dark Mark appeared," says Hermione, glancing at Sirius. "Remember?"
The two boys nod. "Yeah, but he didn't stay in the forest, did he?" says Ron. "The moment we told him about the riot, he went off to the campsite."
"How d'you know?" Hermione snaps, looking annoyed. "How d'you know where he Disapparated to?"
"Come off it," says Ron, shaking his head in disagreement. "Are you saying you reckon Ludo Bagman conjured the Dark Mark?"
"It's more likely he did it than Winky—"
"Told you," says Ron, looking at Sirius, as if he would nod along and agree to whatever he's going to mention. "Told you she's obsessed with house—"
Sirius puts his hand up to stop Ron's ranting. "When the Dark Mark had been conjured, and the elf had been discovered holding Harry's wand, what did Crouch do?"
"Went to look in the bushes," says Harry. Holly looks at him in disbelief, because who would react like that? And surely, if you conjured a Dark Mark, framed it on someone else, you'd have enough tact to get out of there before you were discovered? "But there wasn't anyone else there."
"Of course," says Sirius, and Holly isn't sure how this is an of course situation. Is no one else thinking what she is? They're all such Gryffindors! "Of course, he'd want to pin it on anyone but his own elf... and then he sacked her?"
"Yes," says Hermione, irritably. "He sacked her, just because she hadn't stayed in her tent and let herself get trampled—!"
"Hermione, will you give it a rest with the elf—!"
"She's got the measure of Crouch better than you have, Ron," says Sirius. Hermione looks a little triumphant. If Holly wasn't frowning like there's no tomorrow, she would've smiled softly at her. "If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals."
Holly thinks about her mother.
"All these absences of Barty Crouch's... he goes to the trouble of making sure his house-elf saves him a seat at the Quidditch World Cup, but doesn't bother to turn up and watch. He works very hard to reinstate the Triwizard Tournament, and then stops coming to that too... It's not like Crouch. If he's ever taken a day off work because of illness before this, I'll eat Buckbeak."
Sirius nods towards the Hippogriff, and Holly makes a mental note. The Hippogriff is called Buckbeak. OK, cool.
"D'you know Crouch, then?" asks Harry.
Sirius stops pacing. "Oh I know Crouch all right. He was the one who gave the order for me to be sent to Azkaban — without a trial."
"What?" says Ron and Hermione.
"You're kidding!" says Harry.
Makes sense, Holly thinks. She's grown up with her dad complaining about the presidents and politicians over in his home-country, with him buttering his toast in the morning and consequently throwing the remains at the television in the kitchen, because the news was talking about the most recent idiot in office.
"No, I'm not," says Sirius, and he eats some more of the chicken legs that the three brought him. "Crouch used to be Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, didn't you know? He was tipped for the next Minister of Magic... He's a great wizard, Barty Crouch, powerfully magical — and power-hungry. Oh never a Voldemort supporter. No, Barty Crouch was always very outspoken against the Dark Side. But then a lot of people who were against the Dark Side... well, you wouldn't understand... you're too young..."
Holly lets out a very short, very high-pitched laugh. Week two into her first year at Durmstrang and they were already being taught about the Imperius Curse.
"That's what my dad said at the World Cup," says Ron, annoyed. Holly chooses to not mention what she was thinking about — nor the fact that she helped out at detentions, and was the top of her class... "Try us, why don't you?"
"All right, I'll try you," says Sirius, and for a split second, he grins. "Imagine that Voldemort's powerful now. You don't know who his supporters are, you don't know who's working for him and who isn't; you know he can control people so that they do terrible things without being able to stop themselves. You're scared for yourself, and your family, and your friends. Every week, news comes of more deaths, more disappearances, more torturing... the Ministry of Magic's in disarray, they don't know what to do, they're trying to keep everything hidden from the Muggles, but meanwhile, Muggles are dying too. Terror everywhere... panic... confusion... that's how it used to be.
"Well, times like that bring out the best in some people and the worst in others. Crouch's principles might've been good in the beginning — I wouldn't know. He rose quickly through the Ministry, and he started ordering very harsh measures against Voldemort's supporters. The Aurors were given new powers — powers to kill rather than capture, for instance. And I wasn't the only one who was handed straight to the dementors without trial. Crouch fought violence with violence, and authorised the use of the Unforgivable Curses against suspects. I would say he became as ruthless and cruel as many on the Dark Side. He had his supporters, mind you — plenty of people thought he was going about things the right way, and there were a lot of witches and wizards clamouring for him to take over as Minister of Magic. When Voldemort disappeared, it looked like only a matter of time until Crouch got the top job. But then something rather unfortunate happened... Crouch's own son was caught with a group of Death Eaters who'd managed to talk their way out of Azkaban. Apparently they were trying to find Voldemort and return him to power."
"Crouch's son was caught?" says Hermione.
"Yep," says Sirius. He sits back down after throwing the chicken bone to Buckbeak (she's learnt a name!) and he reaches for the loaf of bread. "Nasty little shock for old Barty, I'd imagine. Should have spent a bit more time at home with his family, shouldn't he? Ought to have left the office early once in a while... gotten to know his son."
Harry frowns. "Was his son a Death Eater?"
"No idea," says Sirius, as he shoves a chunk of bread into his mouth. "I was in Azkaban myself when he was brought in. This is mostly stuff I've found out since I got out. The boy was definitely caught in the company of people I'd bet my life were Death Eaters — but he might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, just like the house-elf."
Crouch. She'll ask Draco later.
"Did Crouch try and get his son out?"
"Crouch let his son off? I thought you had the measure of him, Hermione!" says Sirius, and he barks with laughter. "Anything that threatened to tarnish his reputation had to go; he had dedicated his whole life to becoming Minister of Magic. You saw him dismiss a devoted house-elf because she associated him with the Dark Mark again — doesn't that tell you what he's like? Crouch's fatherly affection stretched just far enough to give his son a trial, and by all accounts, it wasn't much more than an excuse for Crouch to show how much he hated the boy . . . then he sent him straight to Azkaban."
"He gave his own son to the dementors?" asks Harry.
"That's right," says Sirius. "I saw the dementors bringing him in, watched them through the bars in my cell door. He can't have been more than nineteen. They took him into a cell near mine. He was screaming for his mother by nightfall. He went quiet after a few days, though... they all went quiet in the end... except when they shrieked in their sleep..."
Holly thinks about her mother. Is she sitting in there, dead-silent, having given up screaming for someone's help? Does she hear the shrieks of others during the night, does she shriek from her nightmares?
"So he's still in Azkaban?" says Harry.
"No," says Sirius. "No, he's not in there anymore. He died about a year after they brought him in."
"He died?"
"He wasn't the only one," says Sirius, and he glances at Holly, because obviously he's read the newspaper she took, obviously she's aware of her step-father.
"Yeah, my step-father died in there last week," says Holly, as to inform the others. She raises the newspaper she's still holding, to show the picture of him, back when he was a teenager. "Really quick, Sirius — can I keep this? I don't have any pictures of her."
"Go for it," says Sirius. Holly smiles appreciatively. "Most go mad in there, and plenty stop eating in the end. They lose the will to live. You could always tell when a death was coming, because the dementors could sense it, they got excited. That boy looked pretty sickly when he arrived. Crouch being an important Ministry member, he and his wife were allowed a deathbed visit. That was the last time I saw Barty Crouch, half carrying his wife past my cell. She died herself, apparently, shortly afterward. Grief. Wasted away just like the boy. Crouch never came for his son's body. The dementors buried him outside the fortress; I watched them do it."
That's odd. Why was Barty Crouch Jr. buried at Azkaban, when Atticus was allowed to be taken home, to be buried alongside other deceased relatives? Perhaps Crouch and his wife wanted the burial to be swift and quick, to not think of it — but it's still strange, isn't it?
"So old Crouch lost it all, just when he thought he had it made. One moment, a hero, poised to become Minister of Magic..." Sirius says. "Next, his son dead, his wife dead, the family name dishonoured, and, so I've heard since I escaped, a big drop in popularity. Once the boy had died, people started feeling a bit more sympathetic toward the son and started asking how a nice young lad from a good family had gone so badly astray. The conclusion was that his father never cared much for him. So Cornelius Fudge got the top job, and Crouch was shunted sideways into the Department of International Magical Cooperation."
"Moody says Crouch is obsessed with catching Dark wizards," says Harry, and Holly wants to add on and Moody is a strange man that likes to mention how she can resist the Imperius Curse.
"Yeah, I've heard it's become a bit of a mania with him," says Sirius. "If you ask me, he still thinks he can bring back the old popularity by catching one more Death Eater."
"And he sneaked up here to search Snape's office!" says Ron.
Holly frowns. What?
Sirius frowns. "Yes, and that doesn't make sense at all."
"Yeah, it does!" says Ron.
Holly looks at him incredulously. "On what, Mars?"
"Listen, if Crouch wants to investigate Snape, why hasn't he been coming to judge the tournament? It would be an ideal excuse for him to make regular visits to Hogwarts and keep an eye on him."
"So you think Snape could be up to something, then?" asks Harry.
Holly turns to look at him, moving so quickly that her hair flies behind her shoulders. "How did you jump to that?"
Gryffindors!
"Look I don't care what you say, Dumbledore trusts Snape—"
"Oh, give it a rest, Hermione!" says Ron. "I know Dumbledore's brilliant and everything, but that doesn't mean a really clever Dark wizard couldn't fool him—!"
"What d'you think, Sirius?" says Harry.
"I think they've both got a point... Ever since I found out Snape was teaching here, I've wondered why Dumbledore hired him. Snape's always been fascinated by the Dark Arts, he was famous for it at school. Slimy, oily, greasy-haired kid, he was," says Sirius, and Ron and Harry grin. Holly frowns. "Snape knew more curses when he arrived at school than half the kids in seventh year, and he was part of a gang of Slytherins who nearly all turned out to be Death Eaters."
There we go. That's what she was expecting. Slytherins are evil.
"Rosier and Wilkes — they were both killed by Aurors the year before Voldemort fell. The Lestranges — they're a married couple — they're in Azkaban. Avery — from what I've heard he wormed his way out of trouble by saying he'd been acting under the Imperius Curse — he's still at large. But as far as I know, Snape was never even accused of being a Death Eater — not that that means much. Plenty of them were never caught. And Snape's certainly clever and cunning enough to keep himself out of trouble."
"Snape knows Karkaroff pretty well," says Ron. "But he wants to keep that quiet."
"Yeah, you should've seen Snape's face when Karkaroff turned up in Potions yesterday!" says Harry. "Karkaroff wanted to talk to Snape, he says Snape's been avoiding him. Karkaroff looked really worried. He showed Snape something on his arm, but I couldn't see what it was."
Holly freezes. How can they talk about him so openly? She steps closer to the side of the room, feeling her stomach twist into knots. She remembers in her second-year, near Christmas, when she heard two boys in the year above make fun of Karkaroff, and out of nowhere, he appeared, and they were punished on the spot.
"He showed Snape something on his arm?" says Sirius. It clicks in Holly's mind. Dark Mark. The same thing at Christmas — something's getting clearer. The Dark Mark...? "Well, I've no idea what that's about... but if Karkaroff's genuinely worried, and he's going to Snape for answers..."
Holly wants this to end, wants the conversation to switch to something unrelated to Durmstrang, to him. She sees Harry look at her, and he says, "Holly used to go to—"
"You said," says Sirius.
Holly feels sick to her stomach. "Can we change the subject, please?" she says finally, once she sees the four pairs of eyes looking at her, as if waiting for her to start telling the tale of oh, well, at Durmstrang, everything is so terrible that you lie to your dad about it and when you finally tell him he gets angry and says that if he ever sees the head-teacher he'll strangle him, 'right on the spot.'
"There's still the fact that Dumbledore trusts Snape," says Sirius. The other three look away from Holly, who looks like she might be panicked, or, she might commit murder the next time she hears the name Karkaroff. "And I know Dumbledore trusts where a lot of other people wouldn't, but I just can't see him letting Snape teach at Hogwarts if he'd ever worked for Voldemort."
"Why are Moody and Crouch so keen to get into Snape's office then?"
"Well," said Sirius slowly, "I wouldn't put it past Mad-Eye to have searched every single teacher's office when he got to Hogwarts. He takes his Defence Against the Dark Arts seriously, Moody. I'm not sure he trusts anyone at all, and after the things he's seen, it's not surprising. I'll say this for Moody, though, he never killed if he could help it. Always brought people in alive where possible. He was tough, but he never descended to the level of the Death Eaters.
"Crouch, though... he's a different matter... is he really ill? If he is, why did he make the effort to drag himself up to Snape's office? And if he's not... what's he up to? What was he doing at the World Cup that was so important he didn't turn up in the Top Box? What's he been doing while he should have been judging the tournament?"
Holly keeps on noticing Harry, Ron, and Hermione trying to glance at her, every couple minutes. She wants to hide in the shadows, or something. Or go back to the castle and be hugged by Pansy and Daphne and Millicent and Tracey.
"You say your brother's Crouch's personal assistant?" says Sirius, looking towards Ron. "Any chance you could ask him if he's seen Crouch lately?"
"I can try," says Ron, looking as if he's unsure he'll be able to do so. "Better not make it sound like I reckon Crouch is up to anything dodgy, though. Percy loves Crouch."
Holly looks down at the newspaper, where the picture of her mother is. She feels her insides churn. If she was alone, she would have cut the picture out already, safely placed it on her bedside table, or the front of a book... If she was alone, she would already began studying it, looking for their similarities, wishing she didn't have to analyse a newspaper picture for any information.
"What's the time?" says Sirius.
"It's half-past three," says Hermione.
"You'd better get back to school," says Sirius, standing up again. Holly agrees wholeheartedly with this suggestion. She wants to go back to school, make a scrapbook out of the one (one) picture she has of her mum, and wish she had more pictures and that she had met her and — "Now listen... I don't want you lot sneaking out of school to see me, all right? Just send notes to me here. I still want to hear about anything odd. But you're not to go leaving Hogwarts without permission; it would be an ideal opportunity for someone to attack you."
"No one's tried to attack me so far," says Harry, and he looks at Holly with a slight smile on his face. "Except for a dragon and a couple of grindylows."
"I don't care... I'll breathe freely again when this tournament's over, and that's not until June," says Sirius. Holly can't help but think, yeah, me too, only I'll be breathing freely because I won the damned thing. "And don't forget, if you're talking about me among yourselves, call me Snuffles, OK?"
Holly opens the newspaper and takes the first sheet only, in case Sirius hasn't read the whole thing, because Holly knows that won't pay any attention to any of the other articles, all she cares about is what it says about her mother and her step-father.
How has she gone this long, without thinking about her? Since now it's always been something in the back of her mind, but nothing too extreme. It's always been a case of oh, it would be nice to meet her, but anyway, I've got other things to worry about. Until now she hasn't been with people who talk about what happened in the late seventies, early eighties with Voldemort, at Durmstrang they were all too scared to discuss it, unless it was quietly, whisper so quietly there was barely any noise. But now they're not, and they gladly talk about it — loudly in lessons, as they're eating their dinner in the hall, whilst they're reading the Daily Prophet and one topic comes up.
So she removes the two pictures, the one of her step-father and the one of her mother. She doesn't feel upset that he's dead. She's never met him, how can she feel upset about the death of someone she doesn't know? Until today she thought he'd be blonde — and she was completely wrong with that, wasn't she?
Holly, that night, sits in her dorm room and stares at the two pictures. For a little while she considers accepting her step-uncle's offer and asking him to pass a letter on to her mother, but then she snaps herself out of it. The person she wishes to meet isn't real. The person she's getting upset over is a figment of her imagination projected onto her mother. The person she feels her stomach twist and her heart crack because she wants to meet her, so badly is not real.
So she stands up, and she puts the two pictures at the bottom of her trunk.
Hogwarts has a weird ability, she thinks, as she climbs back into bed, her hands out to find her way through the pitch-black dorm room. She's befriended someone her friends hate. She's started to miss her mother. She's openly discussed Durmstrang — and before now, she's been too scared to dare say anything aloud, it was only last summer she broke and told her dad.
But that whole thing was strange, wasn't it, about Crouch sneaking into Snape's office? Surely if he's too ill to go to the school for the tournament, he won't be able to appear, in the middle of the night, without no one noticing the poorly old man walking through the hallways? It makes no sense—
The Marauder's Map, whatever that is — that said that Barty Crouch was in Snape's office. Does the map include Sr. onto the end of a name... Would it include Jr. onto the end of a name?
Holly sits up in her bed. Her brows knit together.
Barty Crouch Jr. Somehow he escaped Azkaban, Sirius did it, and if his father's high up in the Ministry, he must've found a way to get out — maybe his dad helped! Sirius said that Crouch wasn't around much, but his wife died of grief, so obviously she was distraught, so she loved their son, so maybe he did it because she asked! And maybe, despite being an ancient, wrinkly, in-need-of-an-appointment-with-Doctor-Lippincott-at-the-clinic, he loved his wife and he did it for her!
But, OK. How would he be here? The hounds would be after him, if a presumed dead Death Eater was lurking in the halls of Hogwarts. Surely Moody would have sniffed him out, spotted him in that strange magical eye he's got. Surely he would've been spotted, unless he was in a disguise... He must be using Polyjuice Potion, there's no way a simple wig and coloured contacts would keep him safe here.
Again, though. Even with Polyjuice Potion, Moody would be able to figure it out, surely, that someone — maybe a staff member, maybe a student, maybe a judge — was being impersonated by a Death Eater—
Or maybe not.
She remembers how strange it was, Moody asking to take the Marauder's Map. She remembers, when Harry told her, thinking that it just didn't add up. And sure, Moody could be inspecting it for dark magic or whatever, but didn't he take it after Harry said Crouch stole from Snape's office?
And again — maybe he's just keeping an eye on it, keeping an eye on whichever Barty Crouch is lurking in the shadows. But, then, if you think about how weird he acts. Makes us wonder what they're teaching out at Durmstrang, if they're producing better wizards than us... The smile he had, when he was asking what the Unforgiveable Curses were and she answered, the Killing Curse... Lippincott resisted completely! Good work! You and Potter are ones to look out for!
Ones to look out for?
Did he put them in the tournament?
—✧—✧—✧—✧—
shit's going down
also young margo is played by natalie alyn lind and atticus is played by milo ventimiglia