The Last Stand of Barty Crouch

Chapter 54: The Last Stand of Barty Crouch

The sound was shrill and high, ragged with the horrible harmonies of grief. Draco fumbled for Hermione — for her arm, her shoulder, any evidence that she was still there, and hadn’t vanished with the light — and she was, fumbling back at him, her hand knotted in the front of his shirt like she could haul him out of hell by that grip alone — but it wasn’t her scream.

The sound was Ron, who staggered out of the burning bush, smoke still trailing from his singed cloak, and reached for the plinth like it had taken one of his lungs.

“He’s dead!”

Hermione’s breath hitched, and her grasp on Draco’s shirt tightened. “No,” she said. “It isn’t — maybe he might not — Viktor’s with him, he could—”

“He’s dead!” Ron was wild. He raked his hands through his hair, dislodging clouds of ash. “That’s what he said, remember? They’re taking him to kill him. And they got him, and he’s gone, and oh God, oh my God, he’s dead. Harry’s dead.”

“Stop saying that,” Draco snapped. His throat stung from the smoke. He pushed himself upright, found that Hermione refused to let go, and nearly toppled over again. Fumbling, he hauled her up, too, by the elbows, and set her on unsteady feet. “We don’t know anything. Do you see a body? No. Me neither.”

Ron ignored him. “We failed, and he’s dead,” he said hoarsely. “The last thing I ever said to him — it was ‘Good luck.’ That’s all. I never told him… he was… he was my brother. I never said…”

“He knew that,” said Draco, full of a deep, painful alchemy of fury and pity. “Merlin. Is that what you’re worried about? Dead or alive, if there was one thing he knew, it was that. Don’t be absurd.”

A deep groan emitted from the ground, like the earth was rolling in its sleep. The walls trembled, and then they began to fall: row upon row of hedges keeling over, as if the process of growing had been cut in reverse. Their gnarled limbs shriveled into stumps and shrank into the grass. The Anti-Enchantment spell overhead cracked and peeled back, shards petering into nothingness like a great split egg, and the quidditch stands emerged from behind the toppling walls.

The maze fell, and they found themselves standing in the wide open arena of the quidditch pitch, under the cruel bath of the floodlights.

The stands had been evacuated, but the Ministry remained, in a huddle with several professors and mediwizards, all of them hunched together under the dull glaze of wandlight. When the maze fell, shouting erupted, and there was a massive surge towards the three of them — Draco raised his wand, instinctively, afraid on some level that the next thing he would see was a Stunning Spell — but then one shoved in front of the pack, crossing the pitch at professional speeds.

Minerva McGonagall executing a dead sprint was one of the most terrifying things he’d ever seen in his life.

“Malfoy! Weasley! Granger! Are you alright?”

“Professor! No — no, it’s Harry—”

“Are you hurt? Weasley? Weasley! Come here! You’re burned! And you, Granger, you’re cut—”

McGonagall gave Draco a hard rattle, and her hands found his cheeks, his temples, his hair. He was disgruntled and stunned still by the way that she handled him, with a rough, ruthless kindness that his mother wouldn’t have dreamed of — but it wasn’t unlike his mother’s gestures, either, the way that she silently asserted an almost proprietary discretion in interrogating his immediate bodily safety, as if his body were something that she had loaned him for safekeeping and she was furious with him for endangering it.

Satisfied, she gave him a hard, absentminded shake, and swept immediately on to Hermione, healing her cuts with a single brisk flick of her wand. “What on earth are you doing here? How could you be so reckless? Foolish girl! Students were ordered to evacuate!”

“Harry,” Ron said numbly. He was still staring at the place where Harry had disappeared. “We were going to… we were s’posed to… get Harry.”

“What? And where is Potter?”

“The Cup was a Portkey,” said Hermione. She took a step forward, swayed perilously, and lurched sideways. Draco caught her and held her up, letting her use his arm as a brace. “Harry touched it. With Viktor. And they disappeared.”

“What?” McGonagall froze. “What do you mean, Potter disappeared? Where did he go?”

A roar of noise swallowed them. The others had finally caught up, and they were thronged with people, mediwizards first, and then the Ministry men, bellowing for order, and the professors: Dumbledore, first, his face more grave and drawn than Draco had ever seen, and Fleur, Maxime, Karkaroff, Madame Pomfrey, and a dozen others he didn’t even get a glimpse of before the crowd surged, and they were packed in, being dragged in a dozen different directions, being interrogated by at least a dozen voices, his thoughts drowned out by the shriek of a panicking body of people.

“WHERE IS HE?” Karkaroff was roaring. “WHERE IS VIKTOR?”

And he wasn’t even the loudest: the Ministry workers were trying to wriggle in between the mediwizards, snarling at them for answers, and Dumbledore and McGonagall had converged on Ron, who had sunk to his knees and started to scream again, both of them hunched down in the universal kind postures of caretakers tending to a frightened animal.

Someone shoved them sideways, and Hermione was thrown into his chest. She snarled, kicking at them, and he dragged her out of the way.

She pressed close to him and shouted in his ear: “—to — find o— Harry is!”

“How?”

“Theodore Nott!” she shouted. “—plan — knows — taking him!”

“We don’t know where he is, either!”

“—check the castle! Students were evacuated! He knew what was happening — he wouldn’t stay around—”

Right. Well, then.

He dug in his heels and grabbed her hand, and shoved through the crowd with all his strength. The bodies parted, not willingly, but he muscled through and wriggled through the tight channel of deadlocked bodies, ignoring the horrible smell of sweat and must and smoke, breaking at last onto the open field and breaking into a run.

There were shouts; they ignored them. They raced over the pitch and broke the stands, rocketing up sawdusted hallways and around old corners littered with cigarette butts, breaking at last into the starry windless night and onto the long clear hill up to the castle. A distance of how far he didn’t know, but he knew the fastest path up the pebbled hills, the little foxholes that hid to snare your legs, and he knew where to put his feet so he could very nearly fly, running like he and the ground where in agreement on the need for haste, and it was ushering him along.

A dark figure stepped onto the path in front of them, and in his frayed state, he very nearly mistook the white pallid face for a mask. His wand was out and spitting red before he could tell the difference.

Barty Crouch roared in surprise, recoiling, and knocked his jinx aside. Draco flew to a halt, and Hermione nearly tripped into the dirt.

“Boy! What the devil are you doing?”

“Mr. Crouch,” Hermione gasped. “We’re so sorry—”

“Don’t apologize to him, he’s the one who jumped out of bloody nowhere, serves him right—”

“—what are you doing here? I thought you were fired!”

“That’s correct,” gritted Crouch, and he lowered his wand. “I am here in an unofficial capacity.”

“…What does that mean?”

“It means that many men here tonight have abdicated their duty,” he said grimly. “I will not be one of them. Come. I will take you to the castle, Professor Moody must speak with you.”

“Professor Moody?”

“The hell does he have to do with anything—”

“—can’t spare the time, sir, I’m very sorry—”

“—think he is, sending you to fetch us—”

“—we have to get to Gryffindor Tower, there’s something there I really need—”

“—if you had any idea what we’ve been through tonight—”

“If you want to see your friend again, you will come with me, and quickly,” said Crouch coldly. “I have no time to dwell in this field of sorrow. Haste is key.”

“…You mean Harry?” Hermione was stunned. “What do you know about him? How do you know—”

“It is my misfortune that I was not swift enough to save young Potter. But there may still be time. Come; you must trust me.” He turned, but when they did not follow, he exhaled sharply, in irritation. “Children! Come! I demand it.”

“Who you are to demand anything,” Draco said icily, “is of interest to me, being that you’ve neither title nor authority, and we’ve little reason to trust strange men insisting that they’re acting in our best interest. It’s nothing personal; it’s only been an issue, previously, and I’m not keen on it happening again.”

“I am not Corban Yaxley.”

Hermione twitched; Draco kept his wand-hand steady.

Crouch repeated, low with frustration, “I am not Sibelius Nott. I am here to save a child’s life. That is all.”

“You’ve done a fine job, then, haven’t you?”

“Now is not the time to litigate my failures.” Crouch didn’t even flinch. His expression was simply flat, like a bit of slate. “My name is Bartemius Crouch, and I mean you no harm. I swear it.” His eyes, like cold pieces of flint, slid to Draco. “I swear it,” he repeated, stiffly, “on the land and the blood and the name of my father, which is now mine, and ever will be.”

Draco set his jaw.

“It bears mentioning,” he said, stabbing his wand into its sheath, “that I don’t know your father, or whether you give a damn about him, so that could still mean nothing, as far as I’m concerned.” Still, he flicked his hand irritably at Crouch, indicating him to lead the way.

Satisfied, the man turned and began marching up the hill. They followed.

“What? What was that?” Hermione’s voice was low. “What did he say? Was that a special kind of promise?”

“It’s a very serious vow.”

“A magical vow?”

“No. But if he’s lying, it’s a curse on his house.”

“What? A real one?”

“As real as it can be, without magic.”

“So — not real,” she said doubtfully, but he shook his head.

“It’s not a promise you make lightly. It’s not a ‘cross my heart’ kind of thing. It’s a ‘death and ruin on my descendants if I lie to you’ type of thing.”

“But it isn’t properly magical,” she insisted, though they were now climbing into the shadow of the castle, which suggested her objection was more pedantic than pragmatic. Crouch swept back the door with a motion of his wand, and they hurried into the dimly lit Great Hall, where small beads of torchlight peppered the gloom. Through the eerie, dusted hallways, they ascended, following the whisper of Crouch’s cloak up the stairs to the third floor. “So you could say it and not mean it.”

“No. You could, but culturally, it’d be repulsive to — put it this way. I wouldn’t say it without meaning it, and you know my position as regards lying.”

“‘Safely, well, and very often’?”

“‘Acceptable when necessary,’ thank you, and either Crouch is the same, or he doesn’t think he’ll live long enough for it to matter. Either way, I don’t think he’d let us totter off to Gryffindor Tower if we said no. Do you?”

Hermione pursed her lips, and her silence agreed.

Moody’s office door was ajar when they reached the third floor, but Crouch surprised them by breezing past it, soaring up a set of stairs, and ducking past the open wing of a griffin statue. They were going to Dumbledore’s office.

“Why are we going to the headmaster’s office, sir?” Hermione called curiously.

“The headmaster’s office has an operational floo grate. It is the only route of magical ingress inside the castle.”

“Are we expecting someone, then?”

“You will see.”

He swept up to the door and burst it open without knocking. Inside that old dark wood study, the silver instruments twinkled slightly in the breeze of the flying door, and there, cast in golden light by the guttering fireplace, were Mad-Eye Moody and Theodore. His face had been healed, and the bloodstains on his collar had no twins on his face. Only faint crusts of brown on his neck marked the places where he’d been hurt, earlier; he was twisting and wringing his hands.

“Draco,” he gasped, and hurried to the door. “Thank Merlin.”

The jinx caught him in the face, with a wet POP! , and capillaries bloomed over his eye.

“OW! WHAT THE HELL—”

Draco snarled and lunged.

He landed three more jinxes, laying bright beautiful welts over Theo’s wailing face, before Mad-Eye got between them and hauled him off with a grunt, shoving him against the wall. A flick of Mad-Eye’s wand threw Theo into a chair and lashed him to it, where he wrestled and snapped, blood weeping faintly from one of his welts.

“How does it feel?” said Draco. His blood was fire. He could feel every nerve in his body, and they were all glowing with magic, fatigue gone, eager to serve. His wand wanted to move, it wanted to curse, it liked to do it. “How does it feel to have killed someone? Tell me.”

“I didn’t! It wasn’t me! It wasn’t my fault, you arse, I tried to tell you!”

“I asked you how it felt—”

“Enough,” snarled Mad-Eye, “enough of that, now, enough!”

“—to be a killer, Nott.”

Theo roared. It wasn’t a pleasant sound, and it didn’t seem directed at Draco, either, but at the world in general: an issuance of complaint, the expelling of something inside him, dark and built-up and long-suffering, that now came out in a rattling roar that scraped his windpipe raw.

“I didn’t choose this! They’d have killed me if I didn’t, Draco, you shit, don’t you understand, I never chose— ”

“Then you should’ve—”

Hermione made some sort of sound, but he could hardly hear her over the roar in his ears.

“Should’ve done what?”

The expression on Theo’s face was indescribable. He repeated, “Should’ve done what?”

“Enough.”

Mad-Eye shoved Draco against the wall again, and he fell silent. “You’re no Auror, boy. Stop playing inquisitor. There’s whole dimensions of this you don’t know.”

“I know he helped the Death Eaters.” He made eye contact with Theo over Mad-Eye’s shoulder, caught the glitter of panic there. “Did you know that? He let them into Hogsmeade last year. He conspired with them to plant the Portkey. I wouldn’t be surprised if he put Potter’s name in the Goblet—”

“No,” interrupted Crouch. He shut the door and stood in front of it, his arms folded behind his back, like he was presenting a report. “He didn’t.”

“Then who did?” said Hermione.

Crouch jerked his chin at Mad-Eye. Mad-Eye grunted and released Draco, who dropped to his feet and straightened his shirt. His blood still boiled. He eyed Theo, but didn’t jinx him, and after a probing glare, Mad-Eye stepped back.

“Theodore Nott is a protected witness,” Crouch said quietly. “His safety is vouchsafed by the Ministry of Magic.”

“He’s what?”

“More importantly, it’s vouchsafed by me,” grunted Mad-Eye, hobbling over to Dumbledore’s desk. He leaned against it, resting his wooden leg. “So quit jinxing him, boy. It’s not unimpressive, but he’s not your enemy.”

Draco ground his teeth, and by a hair-thin margin of self-control, he obeyed.

“Granger asked a question.”

“Ludo Bagman,” Crouch said briskly, crossing to the desk. He began rifling through papers.

Her jaw dropped.

“Ludo Bagman? The gambler?”

“The same.”

“How did he—and for what purpose?”

“Ministry administrators have permissions to cross the age line,” said Crouch, examining one document before tossing it away, “and Bagman had the particular responsibility of tailoring the Goblet’s enchantments before the Tournament. It is my suspicion that he entered Mr. Potter’s name under a fictional fourth school, and during the reaping, it selected Mr. Potter as the only candidate. However, since he has fled the country, we shall never know.”

“Fled the country? He was here just earlier today!”

“Indeed. Once the Third Task collapsed, he was seen fleeing to Hogsmeade, where Apparation traces suggest that he made several short-term jumps to dispel tracking enchantments, before finally leaving the country. I do not believe that there will be much effort to find him, however; he was not the true culprit.”

“Not the true culp— why on earth would he do that to Harry?” She voiced both of their confusion. “Is Bagman a Death Eater?”

“No,” said Theo, hoarsely. “But he owes my father two million galleons.”

Hermione mouthed wordlessly at him. “Million,” she repeated. “Million? As in…”

“Million as in million, yes,” he drawled. “Million as in debtor’s prison, if certain creditors get restless. So he’s very keen on cost-efficient deals, such as, ‘You put this bit of paper in that big cup thing, and I won’t liquidate your organs for cash.’”

“We thought he was gambling on Harry,” said Hermione, staring. “We thought—”

“Oh, I’m sure he was. No reason to let an opportunity go to waste, is there? I suspect he grew guilty about it, especially once the Tasks started, though; he kept whinging about his conscience.” Theo snorted. “His conscience! Bloody hypocrite. He was downright nasty to me, too, at the end there, blaming me for getting him involved, saying I’d put blood on his hands, with Potter… which might be fair enough, honestly. My father only had to get him involved in the first place because I’d failed with the Goblet. Banged up my hand something ferocious, too, since apparently Aging Potion isn’t worth the piss it tastes like.” He smiled bitterly at the floor.

“But you didn’t really want Harry to win,” said Hermione, like she was trying to convince herself of something. “You were helping Cassius. Because you knew… you didn’t want Harry to…?”

“What, Cassy? He was an extracurricular project. He’s practically the Minister’s nephew, he couldn’t very well lose. And he was leaning on me pretty hard, near the end there— couldn’t sneeze in the dungeons without a ‘What ho, Nott, what’s this Third Task about, then?’ Utter idiot. But he’d be suspicious if I didn’t help him, and my father was under orders to ensure the Tournament went a certain way.”

“To fix it, you mean.”

“The Ministry didn’t spend all this money to haul in some foreigners and ship the trophy off with them. This was Runcorn’s baby. It would be good for morale, he said. It would inspire faith in Hogwarts, after the past three years’ failures. The alternative being a complete administrative overhaul, a few sackings, and far more money than anyone wanted to spend on installing closer Ministry supervision at the school. Which is going to happen anyway, now, I expect. So that’s my silver lining.” He laughed hollowly.

“It was a morale exercise?” Hermione was furious. “A bit of, what, advertising? Dragons? Drowning? All that for some stupid—”

“—piece of political philosophy? That was my reaction, too,” said Theo calmly. “I voted for a quidditch tournament. But anyway, I’ve made a hash of it, so don’t you worry. They’ll not be advertising bugger-all about this. No ideas were communicated in the making of this disaster.”

The silver instruments above twinkled discordantly, like windchimes. One of them had started to spin and let off a thin, panicky whistle.

“But Sibelius Nott had his own agenda,” interrupted Mad-Eye. He clamped a gnarled claw on the back of Theo’s chair, like a roosting vulture. “Tell ’em what you did, boy.”

“Lord, must I? Fine. Draco, you know about the dragon tip-off, and it appears you made the best of it. Cheers to you. I had some books for you, too, if you’d ever sodding bother to ask—”

“You stole the library books?”

“It’s not stealing, I got a permission slip,” he said mildly. “I happen to attend this school. I would’ve tried harder with the Second Task, too, but Draco was unusually obstinate — I think I’ve you to thank for that, Granger, and tell the Bleeding-Heart Bureau to give you a commendation, you’ve got hooks in him I don’t think even he knows about.”

“What are you talking about?” she snapped. “You never so much as offered—”

But he had.

“Quilliam Coalhend,” said Draco. She broke off. “You invited me to his talk at the League meeting in January. ‘Revolutionized the use of aquatic plants in Potioneering.’ He was going to talk about gillyweed, wasn’t he?”

Theo shrugged. “Might’ve done.”

“And the gillyweed stolen from Snape’s stores. That was you, as well.”

“I had to make sure Cass didn’t get it,” said Theo, annoyed. “After all, he came to Coalhend’s meeting, and you didn’t. First thing he did afterward was pop off to Snape and ask for it. Not my fault you’re thick and slow.”

“Did you flood the bathroom, too?” Hermione interrupted.

“What?”

“The third floor bathroom flooded. That’s how we solved the egg, Professor Moody gave us the password to the prefects’ bath. Did you engineer that?”

“I didn’t do anything to the bathroom,” said Theo curiously, craning his neck about Mad-Eye.

Mad-Eye grunted. The glint in his eye was crafty and only slightly sheepish. “Caught the Warrington boy skulking around somewhere he oughtn’t have been,” he admitted. “Reckoned Snape was helping him out. Thought it might be fair to even the odds, score-wise. With Potter.”

Crouch pivoted, his hands on his hips, and shot him a look.

“Really, Alastor.”

“The boy was cheating!”

“That isn’t some sort of license—”

“It was more than hard enough for Potter on his own—”

“—interference in a Ministry event, if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times—”

“—no use pretending this was a fair fight—”

“—should’ve contacted the authorities if you suspected wrongdoing—”

“—jinxed the brat’s legs into a pretzel and it still wouldn’t have been even—”

“—against the rules, which exist for a reason, need I remind you.”

“You needn’t,” said Mad-Eye, and Crouch made an irritated sound, rolling his eyes.

“Anyway,” said Theo, faintly, after a moment. “Potter got second seeding in the maze, for being the runner-up. Father said there’d be men along to keep Cass out of the way until Potter could get there; it was only a matter of making sure nobody got to it first. Of course, Cassius had to be the winner by default, so once Potter was… taken care of… they would announce… anyway, it was a — delicate thing. I can’t tell you how many sleepless nights—”

“How strenuous for you,” Hermione said coldly. Theo winced.

“You were talking about Ludo Bagman,” Draco said to Crouch. “You and Snape and Dumbledore. You weren’t talking about Moody, you were talking about Bagman. Going after him.”

Crouch quirked a thick grey eyebrow at him. “How you know that,” he said, “I would be intrigued to hear.”

“Walls have ears in this castle,” Mad-Eye grunted. “Don’t be surprised. No, it wasn’t me, boy. Snape thought Bagman came rifling through his gillyweed stash, sent Barty after him. Had him arraigned for questioning and everything, recitation of charges, the great sodding idiot, might as well have sounded the bells. So this one—” He kicked Theo’s chair, and Theo yelped— “ran to Papa, and told on him, and they put paid to that. Had his office clean by five o’clock. I don’t suppose I need to tell any of you what would’ve happened after that, now, if Junior here hadn’t ratted out to me. I assume none of you have heard lately from Bertha Jorkins.”

This last was rather pointed, and aimed in Crouch’s direction. Crouch’s mouth flattened. “It was the right thing to do,” he said. “There were protocols.”

“It’s the reason Ludo Bagman’s somewhere buried in the Caribbean instead of hog-tied at my feet, Barty.”

“Which makes them no less compulsory,” he said, “for an employee of the Ministry, much less one who is no longer an Auror.”

“You should’ve come to me, then.”

Crouch said nothing, but the look that passed between them was tremulous and old, like an ancient bridge worn thin by traffic, and held now only by the surface tension of its crumbling pillars.

“Doesn’t matter, though,” said Mad-Eye gruffly, turning away. “Doesn’t matter. Worked out alright, just the same.”

Draco wasn’t paying all too much attention to the geriatric melodrama happening to his left; he was focused on the boy at his right.

“You ratted?”

“My father said he was going to kill somebody,” Theo snapped. “Of course I ratted. I told you, I didn’t want this.”

“Why Moody? Why not Snape?”

“You trust Snape?” Theo gave a shrill laugh. “With Dumbledore’s leash on him? You’re even more foolish than I thought.”

“But you knew,” said Hermione, whirling on Mad-Eye. “If Theo told you everything, then you knew the Third Task was compromised! And you didn’t do anything about it?”

“Hold your hippogriffs, girlie. Young Nott told me Barty was in danger because of who he’d gone after, not what his father was doing, or why he’d got Bagman in a headlock. I didn’t have all the information until an hour ago.”

“And besides,” said Crouch calmly, “we had no ability to influence the Tournament’s operation. Lord Nott controls that machinery. Attempting to use young Mr. Nott’s testimony to halt the proceedings, absent stronger evidence of wrongdoing, would have placed his life in great danger for no profit.”

“As opposed to now, when we’re doing what, exactly?”

Crouch hiked up his sleeve to check his wristwatch. “Waiting,” he said.

“Waiting for what?” she demanded.

“For Sibelius Nott to receive word that I have his son in custody,” said Crouch calmly, “and have administered to him four ounces of veritaserum, as of nine twenty-two P.M., Greenwich Mean Time. And that I expect him in the study of Albus Dumbledore, Hogwarts Headmaster, at no later than ten o’clock P.M., to report for arrest.”

“What!” Hermione was shocked. “I — but that’s highly — did you?”

Theo snorted. “I’d bite his fucking finger off if he tried.”

“It strikes me as unnecessary to inform Lord Nott that Theodore testified willingly,” said Crouch. He drew back his sleeve and folded his hands behind his back crisply. “I am not in the business of endangering star witnesses.”

“But he’s his father,” said Hermione.

Theo guffawed. She stared at him.

“No, really. He wouldn’t… would he?”

“It’s a great joke, Granger, that you’d dare to suppose what my father would and wouldn’t do,” said Theo. “Did you know he’s been in contact with Peter Pettigrew since August? Pettigrew, who happens to be involved in things so deep my father won’t even tell me about them? And for perspective, here’s what my father thinks is an age-appropriate assignment for me — how about I help put a Herald in the air over a symbol of international magical unity, eh? How’s that for a character testimonial?”

She looked like she’d been struck.

“You’re Mimsy’s family,” she said. “The house-elf they have in custody. She’s yours, isn’t she?”

“Property of the state, now, technically.”

Hermione’s knuckles were white on her wand-grip. “I thought your father didn’t have his wand at the Cup.”

“He didn’t have his wand,” said Theodore comfortably, kicking his feet up on the ottoman. “That was missing all day. Which he complained about. Loudly. To several prominent people.”

“You fetched him a spare, didn’t you?” said Draco. He found that the few reserves of pity he’d withheld for Theo, at the mention of his betrayal to Mad-Eye, had vanished rapidly at the reminder of the Dark Mark. He recalled the nights he’d woken in cold sweat from dreams of floating bodies in the sky, and Hermione’s scream dwindling on the air, and he found very little fucking forgiveness in himself at all. “That was why you were Apparating around. Trying to be in multiple places at once. Was it your wand he used?”

“No,” said Crouch, relieving an increasingly uncomfortable Theo of the need to speak. “The boy’s wand was tested in the initial investigation. Hawthorn, seven and a half inches, brittle. Guilty of several minor incidents of underage spellcasting, attributed at the time to accidental magic—”

“Apparation,” grunted Mad-Eye.

“—but not Morsmordre. It was checked.”

“The wand that cast the Mark belonged to Bertha Jorkins,” said Theo. To this he was answered with a fourfold silence.

He added, “While living, anyway.”

Hermione made no sound, but if her knuckles got any whiter on her wand they’d be transparent. He wondered what spell she was holding on her tongue.

It was the first thought he’d had in a while. The rest of his brain was reeling to haul all of the filing cabinets back into place from where they’d been knocked over. Put the papers back in order, try like hell to alphabetize. Get the facts in the row, then figure out what to do about them. If there was anything to do about them. Which there might not be.

When the fireplace burst green, only the children jumped. The two adults turned with expressions like men watching the bottom fall out of a gallows, and did not evince slightest surprise when Sibelius Nott strode out of the grate.

“Good evening,” he said, and took a long, cold look around the room. After the initial beat of silence, he nodded to Crouch. “I received your note.”

“’Night, Dad,” said Theo, quietly.

Sibelius gave him a considering glance. “They’ve hurt you,” he said, and though it wasn’t exactly affectionate, it wasn’t pleased, either.

“What, are you jealous?” said Theo, and tried for a grin.

Sibelius narrowed his eyes. But the corner of his mouth bent, in a wretched, crooked little snarl, and with a pang of disgust, Draco recognized it as humor.

He’d seen that smirk. He couldn’t remember where.

“Lord Nott, you are under arrest,” said Crouch. He drew his wand, oddly formal, like he was unsheathing a sword. Mad-Eye just yanked it out and stabbed it at Nott as if it were a shiv. “You are charged with conspiracy and treason against the Ministry of Magic. You are charged with child endangerment, child abuse, criminal neglect, and attempted murder in the first degree. You are charged with aiding and abetting terrorism against the British Empire.”

“I always thought we should’ve killed you, Barty,” said Sibelius, quietly, reflectively. “There were opportunities. You always were such a hatefully lifeless creature, no faith, no loyalty to anything that wasn’t part of parliamentary procedure.”

“You are charged with the performance of illegal magics. You are charged with inciting others to perform illegal magics on your behalf. You are charged with the creation of forbidden imagery, including the Dark Mark of Lord Voldemort. You are charged—”

“The only reason I bothered to keep you alive was for your son. He begged the Dark Lord for your life. He went down on his hands and knees, and said that he would keep you drugged, harmless, under Imperius, if only alive. Did you know that? I must thank Alastor for liberating me of that inconvenience.” Sibelius indicated Mad-Eye with his wand. “I imagine that was the last time he was useful to anyone.”

Mad-Eye spat.

Sibelius looked at it, then at him. His lip crooked further.

“He never begged for you, though.”

Hermione’s breath caught. Draco stared into the heart of a fourteen-year grudge and realized that what lay at the heart of it was that, just that, plain and simple: a dead boy and the fathers who failed him, the scent of his corpse still hanging in the air between them, his existence still as fresh a wound as the day they laid him in the dirt.

He rolled his wand into a western underhand, and shifted his feet apart. Magic crackled like static in the air. One of the instruments whistled keenly.

It was the Sneak-O-Scope. He could have laughed.

“Commend your soul to whatever creature will take it,” said Crouch, and lifted his wand. “My son is dead. When you see him, tell him he is not forgiven.”

With a whisper of static, bolts of magic crossed and glanced off each other in the air. Each spell piped and shattered against some instrument or bit of furniture in the overstuffed office, sending chairs rocketing into walls, shattering decorations, fountaining glass into the air. The air was thick with energy and hot with woodsmoke and the dry useless air of summer, sickly sweet, flowers on the glen. Sibelius marched forward like an automaton for a duelist’s class, block, parry, pivot, but Mad-Eye was right, Nott wasn’t a duelist, and even if he had been, he still wasn’t Mad-Eye Moody.

The old auror kicked a table into Sibelius’s face and roared, sent two hands of snarling rope at his ankles, ribboned a current of fire into his face, and followed it with a flying spear of shattered glass, all in the first three heartbeats of the fight — dueling like genius, dueling like a duel was something he’d invented five minutes ago. Draco had thought he himself was fairly good at dueling — he’d been a fool, a bare wretched fool, but in his defense, he hadn’t realized there was this much good to be had. At that moment, someone could have convinced him that Mad-Eye single-handedly ended the first Wizarding War himself, with five minutes and a sock of coins.

“Merlin’s blood,” marveled Theo, sounding like he’d had similar thoughts.

Behind him, his partner followed with a volley of defensive spells. Compared to Mad-Eye, Crouch was less flashy, but there was something in the perfect lockstep of his execution — shot, backstep, counter, forestep, shot, backstep — and his speed, which made it almost hard to tell everything that he was doing perfectly. He snapped aside one of Sibelius’s curses and whirled it around like it was a physical piece of string. This was how dueling was supposed to look, dueling-as-theory, the violent potential of magic made manifest in two men who knew the wide dark universe of what it could do.

Sibelius couldn’t hold them for long. He sprang back and nearly hit the grate, ripped a Shield out of the air and thrust it at them. Mad-Eye and Crouch dropped into a holding pattern, waiting for the Shield to drop, and Sibelius feinted right. This fooled nobody but made unanticipated the leftward flick of his wand, which sent a green bolt leaping across the room, sailing wide of Crouch, in a spell that would have missed dramatically had its target not been instead Hermione, whose arm — the world was moving slowly, now — was rising with apparently exaggerated lethargy, up, up, to summon a Shield Charm.

For the second time that night, he found himself lunging for her. For the first time, he wasn’t fast enough.

Crouch was, though.

He stepped between Hermione and Sibelius, raised his wand, and dispelled the curse with a brisk flick of his hand.

“A second charge of attempted murder,” he said, “against a Hogwarts student.”

“You can’t prove murder, Barty,” said Sibelius. His breath came fast, and he still hunkered behind the shield. Mad-Eye prowled to and fro around it like a caged wolf. “That was always your problem. You could say it, but you couldn’t prove it.”

“I do not require proof,” said Crouch, with the first ghost of real anger on his face. “I am not an auror. I follow no law in this except the oldest. Know that when I do this, I do not act on behalf of the Ministry of Magic.”

Then he snarled and said, “Cru—”

“Expelliarmus.”

Crouch’s wand sprang from his hand and soared high. It pinwheeled into the waiting hand of Theodore, who stood, slack ropes piled in the chair behind him.

Sibelius’s shield flickered out.

“Theo,” said Draco, sharply. He hauled Hermione behind him — she let out an aggrieved shout, trying to shove him away — but he wasn’t making any more mistakes. He just had to convince Theo not to, either. __ “Nott. Theodore. Be intelligent about this.”

Theo turned to him. He had no smile on his face, no laughter, not even his characteristic smirk. In him was only dread, the dull dread, the kind that didn’t even bother to steer away from the cliff face.

“Sorry,” he said. “He’s my dad. You understand.”

“No, I don’t.”

Theo lifted his wand at Crouch, who slowly raised his hands. His face was stern, but not hateful. The anger was gone. Left in its place was only the miserable vestiges of regret. The unfathomable tiredness of a man who, perhaps, knew that he was about to speak in vain.

“Put it down, boy,” he said. “There’s still time—”

“Avada kedavra.”

It wasn’t Theo. It was his father, whose spell whistled through the air left by his dispelled Shield Charm.

Green light.

Thump, ,muffled on the carpets, crumpled on the floor.

Hermione, screaming.

Time seemed to trip over itself, as if it had seen Crouch’s body drop, and feared trodding on it. Crouch’s wand rolled free of his hand, which was slack, all its muscles relaxed, with an ease that life had never given them. For once, that hunched, tightly wound body slipped into a pose of utter rest, and was gone.

Hermione shoved him. He stumbled behind the bookcase while the colored lights flared; she was trying to herd him out of the way, and it took his numb brain a moment to pick up on it. He pulled her into the little alcove and wedged them both against the wall. Body over hers. Head over her shoulder, his hand cradling her head.

Heart doing something it shouldn’t. Breath doing something it shouldn’t. Brain doing something it shouldn’t. Well, what else was new.

He’d watched a man die and his head was a clean white series of instructions, which were: not her; not you. Not her, not you.

Press his face into her neck, breathe. Hear her screaming the bloody obvious, inches from his ear. In her hair, the smell of smoke and flowers, like someone had set the glen alight. Fire. That was Hermione, at her core, wasn’t it. The fire, the gleam, the little gold things that sat at the bottom of a hearth.

He didn’t want to die.

Mad-Eye was roaring. Spells sounded and explosions rattled the office, silver instruments plummeting like falling stars of flame like comets, and Sibelius and Mad-Eye were dueling again, while everything in the earth screamed except for him. More green lights, reflected on the small glimpse of wall he could see.

Then there was a horrible, fleshy sound, and a howl, and when he turned Mad-Eye was down, clutching his face, while blood poured from between his fingers.

Sibelius lifted his hand, and through the slick coat of blood in his palm, Draco glimpsed the shine of a blue glass eye.

“Why, you’re asymmetrical,” he said wryly, and closed his fingers over the eye. He pointed his wand at Mad-Eye’s face. “I’ll assist you.”

“Dad,” said Theo raggedly. “Let’s just go. It’s enough. Can’t we just — let’s go?”

Sibelius shrugged him off. “Leave,” he said. “To Hangleton. Go.”

“But—”

“Now, Theodore.”

Theo went. He crossed to the Floo and took a handful of powder, hesitated, and turned back — not for his father, but to Draco.

“Tell her,” he pleaded, and it took a confounding second to realize he wasn’t talking about Hermione. “Tell her what I did. All of it, not just — this.”

Draco lifted his wand for a spell whose name he didn’t yet know and was saved from ever knowing when the door burst open. Theodore hastily stepped into the fireplace, blurting something that Draco couldn’t make out, and disappeared in a blaze of green.

And then there were people coming into the room, many people, enough that he couldn’t see them all, but he knew the one who came first, because the lash of white through her dark hair was the same shade as his own.

“Stand down,” ordered his mother, with the cold tone of a woman not given to issuing ineffectual commands.

Sibelius whisked his wand around at her, but hesitated.

“Narcissa,” he said, in faint dismay.

She took three quick steps across the room — advancing right up the duelist’s line, he noticed — and in all that time, Sibelius didn’t touch her.

“How dare you? How could you?”

“Narcissa—”

“Stand down!”

“There is yet time—”

“Electrosempra.”

It was like a divine invocation. Lightning forked from the tip of her wand — not just spell-energy, not just the electric crackle of spellwork, but true, honest-to-God lightning: white and shuddering and volatile, the trembling knife of God that left whole trees blackened and set forests alight, channeled in a single finger that shattered Sibelius’s lone effort at a Shield like it was glass. Narcissa’s curse caught Sibelius in the chest and hurled him against the wall, convulsing horribly.

She shook out her wand, which scattered sparks, and pointed it at him again.

“That will be quite enough, Narcissa.”

Dumbledore and Snape stood by the doorway, their wands drawn but unused. Dumbledore took in the gruesome scene that laid on the floor of his office, and let out a quiet: “Oh, Barty.”

“Mum?” said Draco, faintly.

She lowered her hand and sent Dumbledore a black look.

“And you. I haven’t forgotten you,” she hissed.

“I understand. And believe me, I do not look forward for whatever accounting you have planned,” said Dumbledore pleasantly. “But please refrain from killing Lord Nott. He is much more useful to us alive.”

“Killing!” she spat. “Don’t talk to me of killing. I’ve forgotten more about killing than you’ve ever known.”

But she sheathed her wand, and stalked away from the motionless Nott.

It took Draco a moment to process what he was seeing. He was so glad to see her that he very nearly didn’t have the heart to be angry, but then his anger regrouped, and found he was quite capable of doing both.

Narcissa didn’t give him a moment to mull it over. She swept down on him and wrenched him to the side, took a deep, searing look at his face, and then she buried her face in his shoulder, her arms a throttle around his neck.

“Oh, my boy, my darling Draco — oh, Draco, Draco, Draco—”

The whiplash could have broken a man’s neck.

“Mother, what the devil—?”

He jerked his head back. He was taller than her, now. Had he been taller than her at the start of the summer? He couldn’t remember.

Snape crossed the room swiftly and pointed his wand at Nott’s head.

“Obliviate.”

Draco’s breath hitched. Dumbledore said sharply, “You are about to render his testimony unusable, Severus.”

“I’m aware.”

“If he cannot remember committing the murder, it may be difficult to demonstrate his guilt.”

“He saw Narcissa,” Snape said flatly, and Dumbledore abruptly dropped the argument, turning away.

“Speaking of which. Lady Malfoy,” he said, and she detached herself from Draco.

“I know,” she spat. “I know. May I have a moment with my son? My son, whom I have not seen for a year, I will remind you, as often and as loudly as I am able?”

Draco couldn’t make heads or tails of that at all; it was her fault they hadn’t seen each other. She’d been the one who went away and made it so he couldn’t come home.

Dumbledore folded his hands behind his back, serene. “I was going to say,” he said, “that I believe Mr. Malfoy may require medical attention, of the sort that I am happy to provide, if he consents.”

He checked himself over. There was some blood on his shirt, and a bit of charring here and there, little nicks where bits of glass from the duel had rebounded at him. Hermione was the same, scratched here and there, a coronet of snapped twigs buried in her hair, and when she twitched up her sleeve he caught sight of a bad burn lacing the length of her forearm, pink and flushing from the recent touch of fire.

Snape had knelt over Mad-Eye and whirled his wand in swift motions over his face, muttering frantically.

“How is he, Severus?” said Dumbledore.

“Alive,” said Snape shortly. “But he’ll need a transfusion. Or four.”

“Easily done. Poppy stocks plenty of Blood-Replenishing Potion.”

“Does she stock eyeballs, too?”

“I’ll inquire,” said Dumbledore. He held out a hand to Narcissa. “Please — if I may?”

Hermione stepped out from behind Draco. She was touching her burned arm, and she lifted it, hesitantly. “Professor,” she said, in a steady voice, “I’d like someone to see about this, at some point, if there’s time.”

“Certainly, Miss Granger, I can—”

“But it can wait,” she interrupted. “Theodore Nott is gone, and someone should be sent after him as soon as you can. I read that you can trace someone through the Floo network, if you do it quickly.”

“Theodore?” Narcissa’s tone was sharp. Hermione hesitated, then nodded.

“He helped his father rig the Tournament.”

“Well, for Merlin’s sake, why didn’t you catch him?” she snapped, and after a jolt, he realized she was talking to Dumbledore, over Hermione’s shoulder.“Whinging all year about having to stay put and run the school, and you can’t even stop one fourteen-year-old boy—?”

“A fourteen-year-old boy with several very capable Dark wizards backing him, and need I remind you, Narcissa, that I was otherwise occupied this year, as well?”

“You shouldn’t have been! Is Minerva McGonagall so very incapable—?”

“Mother,” he said, “could you please hold off on abusing my headmaster — it’s glorious, truly — and bother to call me in on what the hell is happening at all? Thanks ever.”

“Don’t mouth off, darling.”

“Excuse me?”

Snape straightened up. “Nott first. The elder. The boy matters little.”

“Excuse me,” said Hermione hotly. “Theo’s the reason that Crouch is—” She jerked her head, choking on something, but forced out: “—the reason he’s dead.”

“He’s a child,” said Narcissa coldly.

“He’s an accessory to murder. He knows that, that’s why he ran,” she said, and she lifted her chin a little. “Crouch promised him amnesty, but the deal is gone, because he’s dead, and now he’s going to find the Death Eaters, and tell them—”

“Pure speculation. Albus, remove the girl.”

“Miss Granger has a right to answers,” said Dumbledore, with faint warning, “and this is her school. I would warn you, Narcissa, of your tone—”

“Of my tone? I come here to find my son huddling for his life in the floor of your office, a dead man on the floor, and you dare to speak to me of tone?”

“I do,” he said, “because it remains my office, for the time being. Speak as you will to me, but you will address the students of Hogwarts school with respect, or you will not address them at all.”

Hermione raised her voice again. “I don’t care,” she said loudly, “but you really need to send someone after Theodore, because he’s going to warn the Death Eaters that their plans have leaked, and he also might know where Harry is.”

There was a beat.

“Well?” she demanded. “Someone do something!” She drew her wand; Draco moved forward and took her arm, mindful of the burn, but hoping to hold her back from saying anything she might not be able to recant at leisure. She was shaking and her voice was much higher than usual. It was more than likely that she was in shock. They both were.

“Where Harry…” Dumbledore began, frowning. Then his expression cleared. “Ah. You have been here since the Third Task ended.”

“Yes! Obviously!”

“Granger,” he said quietly.

She shrugged him off. “And nobody’s told us what the hell is going on, either! Why did it take you so long to come get us? Why is Draco’s mother here?”

“I might ask the same of you,” said Narcissa.

She whirled on her. “Because I’m Harry’s friend, thank you,” she snapped. “I’m sorry that Draco was in danger, but that’s no need to be nasty. If it helps, I’d rather he wasn’t, either—”

“As you have so clearly demonstrated.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I suppose it was my son’s idea, was it, to run into the labyrinth? To follow Crouch into the castle, to seek out Sibelius Nott? Was he the mind behind these proposals?”

Hermione’s jaw dropped. “But — that’s not fair,” she gasped. “That’s completely unfair. I didn’t make him do anything.”

“I daresay you didn’t need to. You don’t fool me, you know, I was a girl once—”

“That will be enough,” he said, and when he heard his own voice he was surprised that it sounded so very deep and cold.

Narcissa gave a full-body flinch.

Severus tilted his head, one ear pricked.

“Thank you, Mother,” said Draco.

Narcissa’s mouth folded into a miserable pucker, and she turned her head away. The guilt settled in like a polite visitor and lingered in the antechamber of his heart, waiting for an opportune moment, but he was too angry to entertain it now.

He knew that Hermione was staring at him, but he avoided her eyes on purpose. “Professor Snape,” he said stiffly, “there’s a body. Is there a procedure?”

Snape gave a short nod. “I will deal with Crouch,” he said crisply. “First, however, the problem of Nott—”

“I will manage him,” said Dumbledore.

“I have suggestions.”

“Which I will consider.”

“To wit,” said Snape, ignoring the rather obvious gesture at a dismissal, “if you do not make use of Veritaserum, at this of all times, I will make a point of reminding you of your failure in each and every subsequent avoidable disaster.”

“For one, I should never fear but that you will do so anyway, Severus,” said Dumbledore, “and, more importantly, for two: it may surprise you to know that I do not generally discuss my plans for interrogation in front of schoolchildren.”

Severus cut Draco and Hermione a cursory glance, as if he’d just remembered they were in the room. “Send them away, then.”

“In a moment. I must speak with them first.”

“Why—?”

“They will stay because they need to understand,” said Dumbledore curtly. “Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery. They deserve to know for what purpose Barty Crouch was killed.”

For the second time that evening, the door burst open and snapped against the wall. The doorstep splintered.

The Minister of Magic stood in the doorway, haggard, dark circles like caves under his eyes. His eyes swept over the scene and the extended point of his wand jumped around, apparently seeking a target: Dumbledore, Snape, Narcissa, the body on the floor.

It took him a moment to conceptualize what he was seeing, and when he did his wand sank in horror. “Merlin’s wounds,” he murmured. “What a pity.”

Brave as an idiot, Hermione demanded: “And now what are you doing here?”

Snape jerked his head at her. “I would ask the same,” he said quietly. “Who summoned—”

The answer came with the second figure who poked his freckled nose into the room.

Percy Weasley, dressed in purple robes and the most ruffles Draco had ever seen not on a woman, edged around the Minister and stood by the doorway, transfixed by the body of his old employer, his face slack and pale with unbelieving horror.

“Oh, you slimy git,” exclaimed Hermione, after a moment. “You ran to the Ministry?”

“It was hardly a secret, Miss Granger!” he snapped. “The Third Task had collapsed; word was flying to every corner of the Wizarding World—”

“But you had to fetch the Minister!”

“It was an emergency! He deserved to know—!”

Runcorn silenced Percy with a lifted finger and stepped gracefully into the room, where he bent to press his hand against Crouch’s throat.

“He’s dead,” said Dumbledore, calmly. “I assure you, everyone here can identify a Stunning Spell from a Killing Curse.”

“Certainty is worth a moment’s hesitation,” he said, but he rose to his feet. “I understand. Who is responsible?”

Dumbledore folded his hands and looked calmly at the unconscious body of Sibelius Nott.

Runcorn paused, and a hard, disinterested expression shuttered his face. It was like a light going off.

“You witnessed it, I presume?”

“Not directly. But being that the only wizard in his company at the time of his death was Alastor Moody, I feel comfortable in my assessment.”

“What about the children?”

Runcorn turned, and Draco was electrified by the full force of a rather accusatory stare.

“The children were present,” said Dumbledore, “and may testify as much. However—”

“So you’ve interrogated them? You’ve ascertained that their story is correct?”

Snape let out a brutal bark. It might have been laughter.

“The alternative being,” he said, sounding very near to enjoying himself, “as you suggest, that one of these two fourth years produced a Killing Curse capable of felling a fully grown auror? Albus, let him take it to the Wizengamot, I beg of you.”

Runcorn blinked. It was a strange, lizardlike movement, and then he gave a small, unfelt smile. “I’m only trying to be thorough, Severus,” he said. “You must understand; this man was very close to me, and I should prefer to indict him on nothing but unimpeachable evidence.”

“You will indict him on the evidence before you,” said Dumbledore, “or I will make certain that you do not have to.”

“I beg your pardon. Is that a threat?”

“No, Lord Minister. Only a reminder that Mr. Crouch was a thorough man, and he documented his inquest rigorously.” Dumbledore’s tone was light, but the words were not. “He took extensive precautions. The testimony of Theodore Nott should suffice for whatever prosecutorial purposes you require.”

Runcorn sighed. He set his hand on his hip, tapped his wand on his thigh, and then gestured tiredly at the body.

“Sibelius Nott,” he said, “is hereby charged with the aggravated murder of Bartemius Crouch. I take him into custody on behalf of the Ministry of Magic, where he will await further questioning.”

He flicked his wand, and glowing silver cuffs fashioned themselves around Nott’s wrists and ankles.

“No,” said Hermione. Her voice was hushed.

Runcorn was now saying something to Percy, who was taking notes. As he watched, the Minister ran one hand through his hair, as if the whole ordeal was a vaguely tiresome logistical exercise.

Draco elbowed her. “What is it?”

“No, he can’t… the Ministry’s not going to do anything.”

“Keep your voice down.”

“Dumbledore can’t let them take him,” she said. “Don’t you see? He cast the Dark Mark. He’s the one they were covering for, firing Bones. It’s all corrupted.”

“Runcorn just put him in chains—”

“Runcorn is standing in front of six witnesses, one of them Dumbledore,” she hissed. “Of course he did.”

“Thank you, everyone, for your patience,” Runcorn announced, turning back. Percy hurried out of the room, clutching his notepad to his chest. “The Department of Magical Law Enforcement will soon be notified. In the meantime, I ask that all of you not present at the time of the incident — that would be Professors Dumbledore and Snape, and Lady Malfoy, if you would — would vacate the premises so that the witnesses can be questioned—”

Suddenly, Snape gave a piercing cry, and dropped to his knees.

Draco started forward, alarmed; Narcissa darted to his side and caught him before he crumpled entirely; Dumbledore closed his eyes, and gave a very slight shudder.

“Professor?” Hermione’s voice was shrill. “Are you alright?”

“Severus.” Narcissa was shaking him. “Severus. Be alive. Stand up.”

Snape struggled upright. He was clutching his right forearm, his face a knot of pain.

“What’s this?” said Runcorn sharply.

Snape ignored him, and turned to Dumbledore. “Albus,” he began, expression hoarse, but Dumbledore held up a hand.

“Go.”

Snape fled. In his haste, he shouldered past someone in the hallway outside, who gave out a faint cry of surprise.

“What absurdity is this?” Runcorn demanded. “Does Professor Snape have an alternate engagement? Did we wear on his patience? It seems you know something I don’t.”

“Oh, almost certainly I do,” said Dumbledore calmly. “But first, Minister, be assured that if you have to excuse yourself, you are more than welcome to.”

There was a long beat.

“I have no idea what you mean,” said Runcorn, with palpable frustration. “I sincerely don’t.”

“That may be so,” said Dumbledore, and there was another loaded silence; but then he set it aside, and turned to the doorway. “That being said. We have guests.”

“Wonderful,” said Narcissa tartly, “more people, just perfect,” which was exactly what Draco had been thinking, but then someone coughed and the door creaked open, and Hermione gasped.

Harry edged into the doorframe. It was the worst he had ever been. Were it not for the beautiful, undeniable fact of his living uprightness, Draco would swear for a jury that he was dead.

Pallor and white ash turned the planes of his face to a chalk relief, pitted by the two bright wet pits of his eyes, which were bloodshot from dust and rimmed in red, like wounds. Blood streaked his face and trailed from a bandaged wound on his wrist, and he was holding the hand of Minerva McGonagall as if it were his last tether to the living world.

McGonagall herself, though unhurt and visibly unharmed, had the expression of someone who had just marched through hell to haul him back.

“Harry,” said Hermione, almost silly with happiness, and she hurried forward — but stopped, then, when Harry didn’t answer her, or even seem to really hear. The boy turned his head and fixed her with a gaze that was searing in its emptiness, no happiness, no pleasure, even, at finding her alive and relatively unharmed; he might have been alive, but Harry Potter was not home.

“He’s back,” he said.

Then he turned to the middle of the room, and kept staring.

“What?” said Hermione, after a moment. “Who’s back? What’s back?”

“So we have been asking Mr. Potter since he returned,” said McGonagall, quietly.

“He’s back.” His voice sounded like it hurt to speak. Smoke inhalation and strain; it sounded like he’d been screaming.

“Potter,” said Draco, who was beginning to be unnerved. He could only suffer so much in a day. There was only so much you could take. He’d watched a man die — he’d watched a man die — there couldn’t be more, there couldn’t possibly. Days had to end, at some point.

But what if they’d done something to Harry? Something worse than torture, worse than death maybe, like Longbottom’s parents—?

“He’s back,” repeated Harry. He worked his jaw, and then gritted out: “The portkey — took us to the graveyard — and Viktor tried to Apparate us — and they — he was trying to save me, and they—”

No more; his struggling throat gave up again, and closed off.

Hermione made a noise and sank immediately into the nearest chair, clutching her chest. Draco’s legs sent up a warning about integrity and he lurched hard against the chair.

But then Harry stepped aside, Hermione gave another cry. Floating on a stretcher behind Harry and the Minister was a body under a white shroud.

The body had wide shoulders and more height than the stretcher rightly was meant for. A hand spilled from the side, the dirty cuff of a Durmstrang uniform just visible above the wrist.

It hung unmoving, like the pendulum of a frozen clock: proof that Viktor Krum had kept his word.