Sirius Black (who I was told to trust) sent their owl back the very next morning. It fluttered down beside Harry at the same moment that a tawny owl landed in front of Hermione, clutching a copy of the Daily Prophet in its beak. She took the newspaper, scanned the first few pages, said, "Ha! She hasn't got wind of Crouch!" then joined Ron and Harry in reading what Black had to say on the mysterious events of the night before last.
Harry - what do you think you are playing at, walking off into the forest with Viktor Krum then putting Melissa at risk by telling her to follow? I want you to swear, by return owl, that you are not going to go walking with anyone else at night. There is somebody highly dangerous at Hogwarts. It is clear to me that they wanted to stop Crouch from seeing Dumbledore and you were probably feet away from them in the dark. You could have been killed.
Your name didn't get into the Goblet of Fire by accident. If someone's trying to attack you, they're on their last chance. Stay close to Ron and Hermione, do not leave Gryffindor Tower after hours, and arm yourself for the third task. Practice Stunning and Disarming. A few hexes wouldn't go amiss either. There's nothing you can do about Crouch. Keep your head down and look after yourself. I'm waiting for your letter giving me your word you won't stray out-of-bounds again.
Sirius
"Who's he, to lecture me about being out-of-bounds?" said Harry in mild indignation as he folded up Sirius's letter and put it inside his robes. "After all the stuff he did at school!"
"He's worried about you!" said Hermione sharply. "Just like Moody and Hagrid! So listen to them!"
"No one's tried to attack me all year," said Harry. "No one's done anything to me at all-"
"Except put our names in the Goblet of Fire," I said.
"And they must've done that for a reason. Harry. Snuffles is right. Maybe they've been biding their time. Maybe this is the task they're going to get you." Hermione said.
"Look," said Harry impatiently, "let's say Sirius is right, and someone Stunned Krum and Minnie to kidnap Crouch. Well, they would've been in the trees near us, wouldn't they? But they waited till I was out of the way until they acted, didn't they? So it doesn't look like I'm their target, does it? And! And! Minnie was Stunned and on the floor, they could of taken her then! But they didn't!"
"They couldn't have made it look like an accident if they'd murdered you in the forest!" said Hermione. "But if you die during a task-"
"They didn't care about attacking Krum or Minnie, did they?" said Harry. "Why didn't they just polish us off at the same time? They could've made it look like Krum and I had a duel or something and Minnie was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Harry, I don't understand it either," said Hermione desperately. "I just know there are a lot of odd things going on, and I don't like it... Moody's right - Sirius is right -you've got to get in training for the third task, straight away. And you make sure you write back to Sirius and promise him you're not going to go sneaking off alone again."
For the next few days we spent all of our free time either in the library with Hermione and Ron, looking up hexes, in empty classrooms, which we sneaked into to practice, or with Pansy and Blaise practicing loads of hexes.
We were concentrating on the Stunning Spell, which we had never used before. The trouble was that practicing it involved certain sacrifices on Ron's and Hermione's part.
"Can't we kidnap Mrs. Norris?" Ron suggested on Monday lunchtime as he lay flat on his back in the middle of their Charms classroom, having just been Stunned and reawoken by me for the fifth time in a row. "Let's Stun her for a bit. Or you could use Dobby, Harry, I bet he'd do anything to help you. I'm not complaining or anything" - he got gingerly to his feet, rubbing his backside - "but I'm aching all over..."
"Well, you keep missing the cushions, don't you!" said Hermione impatiently, rearranging the pile of cushions we had used for the Banishing Spell, which Flitwick had left in a cabinet. "Just try and fall backward!"
"Once you're Stunned, you can't aim too well, Hermione!" said Ron angrily. "Why don't you take a turn?"
"Well, I think they've got it now, anyway," said Hermione hastily. "And we don't have to worry about Disarming, because he's been able to do that for ages and Melissa's pretty good already... I think we ought to start on some of these hexes this evening."
"I've been doing them with Pansy and Blaise." I say with a smile.
She looked down the list they had made in the library.
"I like the look of this one," she said, "this Impediment Curse. Should slow down anything that's trying to attack you. Guys. We'll start with that one."
"I haven't done that one! Only one that will send people into maximum pain." I mutter.
The bell rang. We hastily shoved the cushions back into Flitwicks cupboard and slipped out of the classroom.
"See you at dinner!" said Hermione, and she set off for Arithmancy, while we headed toward North Tower, and Divination. Broad strips of dazzling gold sunlight tell across the corridor from the high windows. The sky outside was so brightly blue it looked as though it had been enameled.
"It's going to be boiling in Trelawney's room, she never puts out that fire," said Ron as we started up the staircase toward the silver ladder and the trapdoor.
He was quite right. The dimly lit room was swelteringly hot. The fumes from the perfumed fire were heavier than ever. My head swam as I made my way over to one of the curtained windows next to Pansy. While Professor Trelawney was looking the other way, disentangling her shawl from a lamp, I opened it an inch or so and settled back in my chintz armchair, so that a soft breeze played across my face. It was extremely comfortable. I could see Harry did the same thing so I gave him a smile.
"My dears," said Professor Trelawney, sitting down in her winged armchair in front of the class and peering around at us all with her strangely enlarged eyes, "we have almost finished our work on planetary divination. Today, however, will be an excellent opportunity to examine the effects of Mars, for he is placed most interestingly at the present time. If you will all look this way, I will dim the lights..."
She waved her wand and the lamps went out. The fire was the only source of light now.
Professor Trelawney bent down and lifted, from under her chair, a miniature model of the solar system, contained within a glass dome. It was a beautiful thing; each of the moons glimmered in place around the nine planets and the fiery sun, all of them hanging in thin air beneath the glass. I watched as Professor Trelawney began to point out the fascinating angle Mars was making to Neptune. The heavily perfumed fumes washed over me, and the breeze from the window played across my face. I could hear an insect humming gently somewhere behind the curtain. My eyelids began to droop...
I was riding on the back of an crystal white dove, soaring through the clear blue sky toward an old, ivy-covered house set high on a hillside. Lower and lower they flew, the wind blowing pleasantly in my face, until they reached a dark and broken window in the upper story of the house and entered. Now they were flying along a gloomy passageway, to a room at the very end... through the door they went, into a dark room whose windows were boarded up...
I had left the doves back... I was watching, now, as it fluttered across the room, into a chair with its back to him.... There were two dark shapes on the floor beside the chair... both of them were stirring...
One was a huge snake... the other was a man... a short, balding man, a man with watery eyes and a pointed nose... he was wheezing and sobbing on the hearth rug...
"You are in luck, Wormtail," said a cold, high-pitched voice from the depths of the chair in which the owl had landed. "You are very fortunate indeed. Your blunder has not ruined everything. He is dead."
"My Lord!" gasped the man on the floor. "My Lord, I am... I am so pleased... and so sorry..."
"Nagini," said the cold voice, "you are out of luck. I will not be feeding Wormtail to you, after all... but never mind, never mind... there is still Harry and Melissa Potter..."
The snake hissed. I could see its tongue fluttering. I was starting to get scared, again with the Potter!
"The Potters only had Harry my Lord." The man on the floor whimpered.
"This is a truth and a false nobody can be sure of Wormtail. Just bring them to me." The cold voice almost hissed. "Now, Wormtail," said the cold voice, "perhaps one more little reminder why I will not tolerate another blunder from you..."
"My Lord... no... I beg you..."
The tip of a wand emerged from around the back of the chair. It was pointing at Wormtail.
"Crucio!" said the cold voice.
The man on the floor screamed, screamed as though every nerve in his body were on fire, the screaming filled my ears as my heart started to scream in heat and pain; I was hearing screams of someone I knew. My eyes opened and saw it was Harry screaming.
"Harry! Harry!" He was lying on the floor of Professor Trelawney's room with his hands over his face. The pain had been real. The whole class was standing around him, and Ron was kneeling next to him, looking terrified. Nobody knew I was going through the same pain.
"You all right?" he said to Harry as I sat up.
"Of course he isn't!" said Professor Trelawney, looking thoroughly excited. Her great eyes loomed over Harry, gazing at him. "What was it. Potter? A premonition? An apparition? What did you see?"
"Nothing," Harry lied. He saw the same as me.
"You were clutching your scar!" said Professor Trelawney. "You were rolling on the floor, clutching your scar! Come now. Potter, I have experience in these matters!"
Harry looked up at her.
"I need to go to the hospital wing, I think," he said. "Bad headache."
"My dear, you were undoubtedly stimulated by the extraordinary clairvoyant vibrations of my room!" said Professor Trelawney. "If you leave now, you may lose the opportunity to see further than you have ever -"
"I don't want to see anything except a headache cure," said Harry.
He stood up. The class backed away. They all looked unnerved.
"See you later," Harry muttered to Ron, and he picked up his bag and headed for the trapdoor, ignoring Professor Trelawney, who was wearing an expression of great frustration, as though she had just been denied a real treat.
I raised my hand. "Miss, my chest stings." I said rubbing it. "May I go with Harry to the hospital wing?" Professor Trelawney walked over and looked at me.
"Yes you may go. It looks very painful." She said dreaming. I picked up my stuff and hurried out the trap door before chasing after Harry.
Harry had walked right past the stone gargoyle guarding the entrance to Dumbledores office without noticing. He blinked, looked around, realised what he had done, and retraced his steps, stopping in front of it.
"Harry!" I called after him. He turned at me. "You saw it too?"
"Yeah, wait, do you have a scar as well?" He asked and I showed the area just under my collar bone.
I always had that mark, well ever since I was running from a group of boys and rolled down a hill, I cut it on a rock. Funny enough it was the shape of a lightening body, Charlie says I was under med's and told the Doctors to make it that shape... I dunno either.
"Yours is glowing dark purple." Harry says before turning to the gargoyle. "Sherbet lemon?" he tried tentatively. The gargoyle did not move. "Okay," said Harry, staring at it, "Pear Drop. Er - Licorice Wand. Fizzing Whizbee Drooble's Best Blowing Gum. Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans... oh no, he doesn't like them, does he?... oh just open, can't you?" he said angrily. "I really need to see him, its urgent!"
The gargoyle remained immovable. Harry kicked it, achieving nothing but an excruciating pain in his big toe.
"Chocolate Frog!" he yelled angrily, standing on one leg. "Sugar Quill!"
"Cockroach Cluster!" I suggested mindlessly. The gargoyle sprang to life and jumped aside. Harry blinked. "Cockroach Cluster?" I said, amazed. "I didn't really mean it..."
We hurried through the gap in the walls and stepped onto the foot of a spiral stone staircase, which moved slowly upward as the doors closed behind us, taking us up to a polished oak door with a brass door knocker.
We could hear voices from inside the office. We stepped off the moving staircase and hesitated, listening.
"Dumbledore, I'm afraid I don't see the connection, don't see it at all!" It was the voice of the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, I recognise it from the Quidditch world cup. "Ludo says Berthas perfectly capable of getting herself lost. I agree we would have expected to have found her by now, but all the same, we've no evidence of foul play, Dumbledore, none at all. As for her disappearance being linked with Barty Crouch's!"
"And what do you thinks happened to Barty Crouch, Minister?" said Moody's growling voice.
"I see two possibilities, Alastor," said Fudge. "Either Crouch has finally cracked -more than likely, I'm sure you'll agree, given his personal history - lost his mind, and gone wandering off somewhere -"
"He wandered extremely quickly, if that is the case, Cornelius," said Dumbledore calmly.
"Or else - well..." Fudge sounded embarrassed. "Well, I'll reserve judgment until after I've seen the place where he was found, but you say it was just past the Beauxbatons carriage? Dumbledore, you know what that woman is?"
"I consider her to be a very able headmistress - and an excellent dancer," said Dumbledore quietly.
"Dumbledore, come!" said Fudge angrily. "Don't you think you might be prejudiced in her favour because of Hagrid? They don't all turn out harmless - if, indeed, you can call Hagrid harmless, with that monster fixation he's got -"
"I no more suspect Madame Maxime than Hagrid," said Dumbledore, just as calmly. "I think it possible that it is you who are prejudiced, Cornelius."
"Can we wrap up this discussion?" growled Moody.
"Yes, yes, let's go down to the grounds, then," said Fudge impatiently.
"No, it's not that," said Moody, "it's just that Potter and Miss David want a word with you, Dumbledore. They're just outside the door."