The Hogwats Gaijin

The journey back to the castle passed in strange tension. Outwardly everything seemed peaceful — they were simply walking along the road with Ron, Hermione, and Kieran, who had joined them at the Three Broomsticks, munching on sweets from Honeydukes — but Harry couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched.

He kept glancing towards the edge of the Forbidden Forest. There, in the shadow of the trees, a large black silhouette kept appearing. Sirius, as promised, stayed at a distance, but his shaggy tail kept flashing through the bushes. Padfoot was clearly enjoying the walk, but Harry noticed how Kieran had tensed. Morgan walked on the outside, his hand appearing relaxed, but his fingers kept twitching near his belt where — as Harry remembered — he kept his wand holster.

‘I hope Sirius doesn’t decide to bark for a laugh,’ Harry thought as he climbed the marble staircase.

The Gryffindor common room was noisy and crowded. The moment Harry squeezed through the portrait hole, Dennis Creevey dashed up to him, nearly dropping a stack of books.

‘Harry! This is for you!’ he squeaked, thrusting a rolled-up piece of parchment into his hand before vanishing into the crowd.

Harry unrolled the note. It was written in Dumbledore’s beautiful, flowing handwriting:

‘Harry, please come and see me. Password: “Cockroach Clusters”.’

‘The Headmaster wants to see you?’ Ron asked, peering over his shoulder.

‘Yeah,’ Harry nodded, tucking the parchment away. ‘Probably about the third task. Or… about what we discussed in the cave.’

Leaving his friends arguing whether they should tell Kieran about the Marauder’s Map (Hermione was in favour, Ron categorically against), Harry headed towards the stone gargoyle.

The castle corridors were emptying as evening fell, and Harry’s footsteps echoed loudly off the walls. After giving the password, he climbed the spiral staircase and knocked on the oak door.

Silence.

Harry waited a moment and pushed the door. It opened soundlessly.

The Headmaster’s office was empty, save for the hundreds of ticking, whirring, and puffing instruments on the tables and shelves. The evening sun flooded the room with crimson light, reflecting in the glass doors of the cabinets.

‘Professor?’ Harry called.

No one answered. Only Fawkes on his perch sleepily opened one eye, gave a soft trill of greeting, and tucked his head back under his wing.

Harry walked to the centre of the room. Dumbledore must have stepped out for a moment. Perhaps for tea? Harry decided to look around.

His attention was caught by a strange light coming from a slightly open black cabinet against the wall — not the warm glow of candles or the cold light of Lumos, but something like liquid moonlight that pulsed gently.

Curiosity won out, and he moved closer.

Inside the cabinet stood a shallow stone basin, ancient, carved with runes and strange symbols around the rim — the likes of which Harry had never seen, even in Hermione’s textbooks. But the most interesting thing was its contents.

Inside, something shimmered — neither liquid nor gas. A bright, silvery-white substance moved continuously: swirling into spirals, becoming smooth as glass, then rippling like clouds in the wind.

‘What is that?’ Harry whispered.

He drew his wand and, feeling like a proper delinquent, cautiously poked the tip into the silvery surface.

The effect was instantaneous. The substance in the basin spun faster, turned transparent, and suddenly an image appeared within it, as clear as a window.

Harry gasped and leaned closer.

Right inside the basin, like a tiny television screen, a scene appeared — sharp, vivid, three-dimensional. A large room resembling a courtroom. Rows of benches rose upwards, filled with people in sombre robes, all staring towards the centre where an empty chair with chains stood.

‘A recording?’ Harry muttered, thinking of Muggle video cassettes. ‘But how…’

The image played without sound. Harry saw a wizard in the centre of the room moving his lips, shouting something furiously, while the crowd leaned forward.

He wanted to hear it. To understand what was happening. It felt important, vital.

Forgetting caution, Harry leaned so far over the basin that the tip of his nose almost touched the silvery surface.

The world turned upside down.

The floor vanished beneath his feet. Dumbledore’s office, Fawkes, the whirring instruments — everything shot upwards and dissolved into darkness. Harry felt his stomach perform a somersault, as on the sharpest turns in Quidditch. He was falling — not into emptiness, but straight into icy, silvery light, plunging into someone else’s memory.

The fall did not end with an impact. Harry landed on his feet but felt no floor — he stood as if on a dense, springy cloud. The swirling silvery mist began to dissipate, taking on shape, colour, and sound.

Harry blinked, looking around. He was not in the Headmaster’s office, and certainly not at Hogwarts. This was a high-walled chamber of dark stone, lit only by torches smoking under the ceiling, oppressive in its gloom. Rows of benches rose upwards, filled with faceless shadows — wizards and witches whispering with an anxious hum like the sound of surf.

‘It’s like a 3D hologram,’ Harry thought, cautiously touching the wooden barrier in front of him, but his hand passed through the wood like smoke. ‘A recording. Only I’m inside it.’

In the centre of the hall, in a patch of dim light, stood a single chair. Tall, with black leather straps and heavy chains hanging from the armrests.

Heavy doors at the bottom burst open with a crash that made Harry jump. Two Dementors floated into the hall, dragging a young man between them. But this was no fearsome masked Death Eater in a hood.

They threw the young man into the chair. He was no more than nineteen. Pale, with straw-coloured hair and freckles, he was shaking so violently that the chains which instantly bound his arms and legs clinked piteously.

‘Father!’ he screamed, his voice breaking into a shriek. ‘Father, I didn’t do it! Please!’

Harry shifted his gaze to the raised dais where the judges sat. Their faces were stern and impassive. Among them he recognised Dumbledore — his hair and beard more chestnut than grey, his face not yet so deeply lined, but the gaze behind the half-moon spectacles remained as piercing and sorrowful.

But the dominant figure was not him. In the centre of the tribunal sat Barty Crouch. He looked as if carved from granite: straight back, lips pressed into a thin line, gaze fixed straight ahead, over the young man’s head.

Next to Crouch sat another man who caught Harry’s attention.

A stocky man with a short crew cut, completely grey-haired, but with the powerful neck of a bull. He had a cruel, weather-beaten face and a high forehead. His eyes — cold, dark, deep-set — slid over the struggling young man in chains with absolute indifference.

‘Morgan?’ Harry whispered, feeling an unpleasant chill in his stomach.

There was something vaguely familiar about this man. Not the facial features — Kieran was slimmer, more refined — but the aura of danger itself. But this old man looked far harsher. Grandfather? Possibly.

Meanwhile, the prosecutor finished reading the list of crimes. Participation in the torture of the Longbottoms. Use of the Unforgivable Curses.

‘Father!’ young Crouch screamed again, struggling against the chains. Tears streamed down his face. ‘I’m innocent! I wasn’t with them! I didn’t know!’

Old Crouch didn’t even blink. His face had gone grey with exhaustion, but there was no pity in his eyes.

The grey-haired man beside him — the one Harry had mentally labelled Morgan — suddenly leaned towards Crouch. His broad hand with short fingers rested heavily on the judge’s shoulder. He leaned closer and whispered something quietly, almost inaudibly, into his ear.

Crouch’s reaction was instantaneous and sharp. He jerked his shoulder, shrugging off his colleague’s hand, and barked so loudly that his voice drowned out the young man’s cries:

‘Stay focused on the case, Morgan! Don’t pity me!’

Harry saw Morgan’s lips twist into an unpleasant, barely noticeable smirk. He slowly withdrew his hand and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. His posture held a strange satisfaction — as though he had tested the strength of steel and been pleased with the result.

‘Vote!’ old Crouch announced in an icy tone. ‘Those in favour of a guilty verdict?’

Hands shot up. Unanimous. Even Dumbledore raised his hand, though his face showed deep sorrow. Morgan raised his hand lazily, not looking at the condemned man.

‘No! No! Mother!’ the young man thrashed in the chains as the Dementors floated towards him again. ‘I don’t want to go to Azkaban! Stop them! I didn’t do anything wrong!’

They dragged him towards the exit. He dug in his heels, his screams echoing off the stone vaults, chilling to the bone.

Harry watched with growing unease. The young man in the chair didn’t look like a murderer or fanatic. He looked like a terrified teenager caught in the gears of the machine.

‘What if it was a mistake?’ the thought flashed through his mind.