The Hogwats Gaijin

The third-floor corridor felt like an endless tunnel closing in around them. The air was stuffy and heavy, thick with the smell of dust and anxiety.

‘Miss Granger, Miss Weasley, I insist!’ Professor McGonagall’s voice trembled with tension, her lips pressed into a thin white line. ‘Go to the Gryffindor Tower at once. The prefects have been instructed — it is safe there. This is no place for students!’

Hermione stopped in front of the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom door, arms folded across her chest. Her knees were shaking, but she forced herself to stand straight, meeting the Head of House’s gaze with stubbornness bordering on defiance.

‘No, Professor,’ she said quietly but firmly. ‘We’re not going anywhere.’

‘Miss Granger!’ McGonagall exclaimed, adjusting her pointed hat. ‘That is an order!’

‘Ron and Kieran have disappeared,’ Ginny cut in. She stood shoulder to shoulder with Hermione, pale, with red blotches on her cheeks, but her eyes burned with that same Weasley fire her mother showed when defending her children. ‘They were taken by a Portkey. We don’t know where. We don’t know if they’re even alive. Do you really think we can just sit in the common room drinking tea?’

‘Minerva,’ Dumbledore’s calm, deep voice interrupted the budding argument. The Headmaster stood by the door, and all his usual gentleness had vanished. This was the great wizard — focused and cold. ‘Let them stay. They know more than we do. Their help may be needed.’

McGonagall pursed her lips but did not argue with the Headmaster. She gave a curt nod and opened the door. Hermione silently squeezed Ginny’s cold hand.

Moody’s office was crowded. Snape, Flitwick, McGonagall, Dumbledore, Hermione and Ginny — the room felt cramped. The Sneakoscopes on the tables had gone into a frenzied whistling, reacting to the concentration of magic and fear, but Dumbledore waved his wand negligently and the instruments fell silent at once.

‘Show us, Miss Granger,’ he said, wasting no time on preambles.

Hermione, trying not to look at the sinister Foe-Glass where the shadows had grown even thicker, stepped towards the wall.

‘Here, sir,’ she pointed to the hidden niche. ‘I used Revelio. Inside are stores of Polyjuice Potion. I… I took a sample when I came in under the Cloak.’

Dumbledore approached the hiding place. He did not even touch the vials; he simply passed his hand over the shelves as if reading information from the air itself. His face remained frighteningly impassive.

This calm infuriated Hermione. She wanted to scream, shake him by the shoulders, demand action. Why are we just standing here?! Ron and Kieran are somewhere out there! With that… fake Moody! We need to search for them, we need to call the Aurors!

‘It is indeed Polyjuice,’ Snape confirmed, standing by the window. His black silhouette looked as if it had been cut from paper against the sunset sky. ‘And it has been brewing here for a long time.’

‘So the Alastor Moody we have known all year was an impostor,’ Flitwick said quietly, and his voice echoed off the walls.

‘But where is Harry?’ Ginny suddenly asked. Her voice cracked. ‘He’s… he’s safe, isn’t he? Moody fled the grounds. That means he didn’t reach Harry in the maze?’

Hermione turned to the Headmaster, expecting confirmation. This thought had been her only anchor: yes, Ron and Kieran were in trouble, but at least Harry, surrounded by the Tournament’s protective charms, should be all right.

Dumbledore slowly turned to them. There was no spark in his blue eyes — only icy blue.

‘I’m afraid not,’ he said, and the ground dropped from under Hermione’s feet. ‘Harry Potter is no longer on Hogwarts grounds. He disappeared more than an hour ago.’

‘What?’ Hermione breathed, grabbing the edge of the desk to keep from falling. ‘But… but the Cup…’

‘We do not yet know the details,’ Dumbledore cut in sharply. ‘But one thing is clear: Mr Potter’s disappearance and the incident with the Portkey near the stadium are connected.’

Something inside Hermione snapped. Harry was gone too. They had all vanished. All three of them.

Panic, cold and clammy, began to rise in her throat, threatening to turn into hysteria. She wanted to slide down the wall and cover her ears with her hands. But her gaze fell on Ginny — the girl had frozen, biting her fist, tears standing in her eyes. Hermione realised she had no right to break. Not now.

Dumbledore had already turned away from them. His attention was entirely on the large trunk standing beneath the window. The very one with seven locks that Hermione had considered too complex to open.

‘Severus, Minerva, stand back,’ he commanded.

Hermione and Ginny instinctively pressed themselves against the wall.

Dumbledore raised his strange, knobbly wand. He did not speak any incantations. He simply pointed it at the trunk, and the air in the room thickened to the limit.

It became difficult to breathe. Hermione felt her already unruly hair stand on end from static electricity. Dumbledore’s magic did not resemble the bright flashes of Harry’s spells or Hermione’s intricate weavings. This was pure, concentrated power. Heavy as the weight of the ocean.

‘Alohomora Maxima,’ he said softly, but the word sounded like a hammer blow.

The air sparkled. Blue lightning ran across the iron bands of the trunk.

The first lock clicked and flew off. The second exploded in a shower of sparks. The third simply melted, dripping hot metal onto the floor.

The screeching was unbearable. It seemed as though the trunk itself was resisting, squealing with its hinges and wood. But the Headmaster’s magic broke through the defences layer by layer, roughly and inexorably.

Fourth. Fifth. Sixth.

The seventh lock — the largest, shaped like a skull — burst with a deafening crack like a gunshot.

The lid of the trunk jerked and, with a long creak, swung open.

Silence fell over the room, broken only by heavy breathing.

Dumbledore lowered his wand but did not approach. He nodded to Snape and McGonagall.

The professors cautiously moved closer to the trunk and peered inside. Their faces lengthened. McGonagall pressed a hand to her mouth, letting out a stifled gasp.

From the dark depths of the trunk, as if from a well, came a weak, hoarse voice. It sounded as though the man had not spoken for several months.

‘Albus…?’ it whispered from the pit. ‘Is that you…?’

Hermione, forgetting her fear, craned her neck.

‘At last,’ the voice grew a little firmer, but it was filled with boundless weariness. ‘Help me out…’

Snape waved his wand, and a body slowly floated out of the trunk. An old man. Skeletal, dressed in rags, with clumps of grey hair that looked as if they had been torn out in handfuls. He had no wooden leg, and instead of a magical eye there was an empty, inflamed socket.

But it was him. The real Alastor Moody.

Trembling all over, the formidable Auror tried to rise from the floor. He looked pitiful: in rags that clung to his emaciated frame, he resembled a broken doll.

Professor McGonagall, whose face had gone whiter than chalk, waved her wand. A broken chair leg lying in the corner transfigured into a rough, gnarled walking stick.

‘Alastor, lean on me,’ her voice trembled as she helped her old friend steady himself.

Moody drew in a rasping breath, his one good eye darting feverishly across the faces of those present.

‘In my own home…’ he croaked, and there was so much humiliation in that sound that Hermione felt sick. ‘Right before the start of term. They did it cleanly — my security charms didn’t even react.’

‘Who was it, Alastor?’ Dumbledore asked quietly, supporting him by the elbow.

‘Wormtail was backing him up,’ Moody spat, grimacing. ‘Pathetic rat, only good for tying ropes. But the other… Barty Crouch Junior.’

At the mention of that name Moody leaned heavily on his stick, his knuckles turning white.

‘I remember him as a boy,’ he rasped, and something strange sounded in his voice: a mixture of hatred and grim, professional admiration. ‘He was talented, yes. Excelled in his O.W.L.s. But what he showed in my house… That was no longer mere talent, Albus. That was madness multiplied by genius. He became faster. Harder. He broke my defences in three minutes. And then he broke me.’

Those words hit Hermione harder than any curse.

She looked at Ginny — the girl had her hand clamped over her mouth, staring at the old Auror in horror. If this Crouch had managed to defeat Mad-Eye Moody himself, the legend of the Auror Office, a fortress of a man… then what chance did Ron and Kieran have against him?

It was a slaughter. It could be nothing else.

‘They’re dead,’ a cold, poisonous thought seeped into her mind. ‘Harry, Ron, Kieran. They’re gone. We were too late.’

‘He needs the hospital wing,’ Dumbledore’s voice sounded as if through water. ‘Severus, help Minerva. Filius, contact the Ministry. We will need Aurors. The situation has spiralled out of control.’

The Heads of House nodded curtly. A heavy, oppressive atmosphere of defeat settled over the office.

And then the air was sliced by a flash of pure silver light.

Through the wall, like a ghost, a small glowing dove flew into the office. A Patronus. It circled beneath the ceiling, dispelling the gloom, and settled before Dumbledore.

Hermione froze. Her heart skipped a beat.

The dove opened its beak, and in Madam Pomfrey’s voice — alarmed, professionally crisp, but with notes of panic — it spoke:

‘Albus. Come to the hospital wing at once. Potter, Weasley and Morgan have just appeared.’

Silence fell over the office so complete that the buzzing of a fly in the corner could be heard.

‘They…’ the Patronus’s voice trembled. ‘They are rather badly battered, Albus. Blood, bruises… but no fatal injuries. All three are alive. And all three are asking for you. Immediately.’

The dove dissolved into silvery mist.

The stunned silence lasted a second, but it felt like eternity. Snape, frozen with his wand in hand, looked as if he had been hit over the head with a dusty sack. McGonagall pressed a hand to her heart, exhaling.

Hermione felt her legs, which had held her up by sheer willpower, suddenly turn to jelly. Not from fear, but from wild, overwhelming relief.

Alive.

ALIVE!

Tears sprang from her eyes of their own accord. Ginny beside her gave a sob and clutched Hermione’s hand tightly enough to bruise.

Hermione did not wait. She turned towards the door, ready to dash off, run down the stairs, fly across the entire castle, just to see them, make sure they were real, touch them, shout at them for being idiots and hug them again.

‘Miss Granger,’ Dumbledore’s soft but commanding voice stopped her at the very threshold.

She turned, ready to argue, shout, bite if necessary.

‘There is no need to run,’ the Headmaster said. For the first time that evening, the familiar warm spark had returned to his eyes. ‘We can get there faster.’

He clapped his hands.

‘Haggy! Brewy!’

With loud cracks, two house-elves appeared in the office wearing clean pillowcases bearing the Hogwarts crest. They bowed so low their ears touched the floor.

‘The Headmaster called?’

‘Transport all of us to the hospital wing,’ Dumbledore ordered. ‘Immediately.’

The elves asked no questions. Thin, long fingers grasped the wizards’ robes. Hermione felt a small hand close around her wrist.

The world collapsed with a loud Apparition crack, and the nauseating pressure gave way to the smell of antiseptic and starch.

Hermione opened her eyes. Moody’s gloomy office had vanished. Instead, the white walls of the hospital wing swam into focus, bathed in soft magical light.

And there they were.

On neighbouring beds, looking like victims of a failed explosives experiment, sat three boys.

Harry looked the worst. His robe was soaked with blood, one sleeve torn to shreds, revealing a roughly closed wound. His face was grey, covered in soot and sweat, but his eyes burned with a feverish, unnatural light.

Ron sat beside him, hugging himself and rocking slightly. He seemed whole, except that half his robe was singed and his red hair stuck out in every direction like a mad scarecrow.

And Kieran. He was perched on the edge of a bed, fending off Madam Pomfrey, who was trying to press a cloth soaked in essence of dittany to his face. His face was a riot of fresh grazes and bruises, his left eye swollen shut, and his lip split and bleeding. But he was alive. They were all alive.

Hermione felt her legs, which had carried her this far on willpower alone, suddenly turn to water. Anger, fear, the desire to throw a tantrum — everything drained out of her, leaving only a ringing emptiness and relief.

Kieran, noticing her arrival, immediately jerked his head away from the matron’s hand.

‘Mr Morgan!’ Madam Pomfrey protested. ‘I have not finished!’

But he had already slid off the bed. Limping slightly, he walked over to Hermione, ignoring the adults’ protesting looks. His good eye examined her carefully from head to toe, searching for injuries.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked hoarsely. ‘I saw him sending curses at you… before the jump…’

Hermione made a strange, half-laugh, half-sob sound.

‘You’re asking me?’ she breathed, staring at his battered face. ‘What happened to you?’

She didn’t know whether to hit him or cry. In the end she simply stepped forward and gently, carefully, trying not to touch the bruises, hugged him. Kieran exhaled, pressing his nose into the top of her head, and his tense shoulders finally relaxed.

‘I would also like to hear the answer to that question,’ Dumbledore’s calm but demanding voice came from the middle of the ward. The Headmaster stood there, his gaze fixed on Harry. ‘What exactly happened to you?’

Harry lifted his head. A crooked, almost predatory grin played on his lips that looked utterly wrong on a schoolboy’s face.

‘Voldemort seems to have returned, Professor,’ he said casually, as if commenting on the weather.

A thick silence fell over the hospital wing. Even Madam Pomfrey froze with a bottle in her hand.

‘And I lost the Cup,’ Harry added with the same eerie grin. ‘Left it on the graveyard. Bagman will be upset.’

Ron, sitting on the bed, suddenly snorted. The sound was loud and undignified. He clamped a hand over his mouth, his shoulders shaking, his eyes above his fingers completely wild. It seemed he was about to burst out laughing or screaming. Ginny silently sat down beside her brother and quietly put an arm around his shoulders.

‘Who, pray tell, has returned?’ Snape asked in an icy tone, stepping forward. His face twisted in a grimace of scepticism and disgust. ‘Potter, if this is another of your attempts to attract attention…’

Albus Dumbledore raised a hand, silencing the Potions Master. The gesture was short but commanding.

‘Severus, please. Harry, tell us. Everything. In detail.’

Harry began to speak. His account was disjointed, dry, almost emotionless. The Portkey. The graveyard. Peter Pettigrew. The ritual. The arrival of the “special unit”.

As he spoke, the professors’ faces lengthened. McGonagall pressed a hand to her chest; Snape grew darker and darker. They looked at the three Gryffindors not as heroes but as lunatics who had escaped from St Mungo’s.

‘Allow me to clarify, Mr Potter,’ McGonagall interrupted when Harry reached the moment of their appearance on the graveyard. Her voice trembled. ‘You are claiming that your fellow students appeared there… riding on Barty Crouch Junior?’

‘Well, technically, yes,’ Ron shrugged. His voice cracked. ‘Kieran saddled him, and I grabbed his robe.’

‘And while Mr Weasley was freeing you, Mr Morgan… er… continued fighting him in a Muggle fashion?’ McGonagall turned her gaze to Kieran as if seeing him for the first time. ‘Why, Mr Morgan? You are a wizard!’

Kieran, who was still standing beside Hermione, answered with complete sincerity, shrugging his shoulders:

‘I was scared, Professor. And I didn’t know if he had a second wand. If I had loosened my grip or started looking for my own wand, he could have struck. I had no chance in a magical duel against an adult Death Eater. So I had to… just hit him.’

‘Just hit him…’ Snape echoed, looking at Morgan’s battered hands with some distaste.

‘And then?’ Dumbledore prompted.

‘Then we tried to stop the ritual,’ Harry continued, staring at the wall. ‘We destroyed the cauldron. But… it didn’t work. Or rather, not completely. Something came out of the sludge.’

Harry shuddered.

‘Something pale. Skinny. With a snake-like face. It was weak, crawling in the grass, but alive. We wanted… we tried to finish it, but Death Eaters started Apparating in. There were lots of them. We summoned the Portkey — that Quidditch trunk Moody arrived in — and it threw us out behind the stands, a bit off to the side.’

He fell silent.

‘Are you certain of what you saw?’ Dumbledore asked quietly.

‘Absolutely,’ all three answered in unison.

Madam Pomfrey, without waiting for an order, thrust a steaming goblet into each of their hands.

‘Drink!’ she commanded in a tone that brooked no argument. ‘Calming Draught. Double dose. Now!’

Harry downed his in one gulp, grimacing at the taste. Ron choked but swallowed. Kieran drank in silence, never taking his eyes off the Headmaster.

The potion worked instantly. The trembling eased, the mad gleam in Ron’s eyes faded into dull exhaustion.

‘Albus,’ McGonagall turned to the Headmaster, her hands fidgeting with her robes. ‘What do we do? If You-Know-Who has returned… If he is here…’

‘We must act,’ Dumbledore said firmly. ‘But first we have to finish the Tournament.’

‘The Tournament?’ Hermione repeated, unable to believe her ears. ‘Professor, there is a monster on that graveyard and you are thinking about the Tournament?’

‘The spectators are still in the stands, Miss Granger,’ Dumbledore explained gently. ‘They do not know what has happened. Panic now would be our worst enemy. We must announce a winner. Harry touched the Cup first. He is the champion. It would not do to frighten everyone with such stories just yet.’

Ron let out a short, sarcastic laugh.

‘And who’s going to believe us?’ he asked, staring at the ceiling. ‘Three schoolboys who fought a dead man and came back with tales of a resurrected Dark Lord. Fudge will have us packed off to St Mungo’s.’

Harry suddenly snorted. Then again. And then he doubled over, and a hoarse, barking laugh burst from his throat. He laughed, covering his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking. It was a terrible laugh — the sound of someone who had looked over the edge and understood the full absurdity of it all. Through the laughter came convulsive sobs, and it was hard to tell whether he was laughing or crying.

‘Harry…’ Hermione began, frightened.

Dumbledore placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder. Heavy. Warm.

‘It’s all right,’ he said calmly, though his eyes remained serious. ‘It is simply a nervous reaction. Not surprising after what you have been through.’

Harry drew a shuddering breath, wiping the tears that had sprung up with the back of his hand and smearing blood and soot across his cheek.

‘Sorry, Professor,’ he managed, trying to steady his breathing. ‘I don’t… I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s just… champion. It’s funny.’

‘I understand, Harry,’ Dumbledore replied kindly. ‘But I ask you to hold on a little longer. A few more hours. You must say nothing about what you saw on the graveyard. Do not sow panic. Give us time to take the necessary measures.’

The Headmaster straightened, and his gaze became steel.

‘Now rest. Poppy will see to your wounds. Minerva, Severus — come with me. We need to prepare a speech for the award ceremony. And contact some old acquaintances.’

He turned and strode swiftly out of the ward, taking the professors with him and leaving the “special unit” in the quiet of the hospital wing, which smelled of potions and exhaustion.