Chapter 457: Dumbledore's Measure (Edited)

Fish hadn't planned to try the age line tonight, he'd just been out for a walk out of habit, but after Harry and the others told him, the cat felt a little more excited, so he didn't just stroll around like he always did, but headed straight for the hall, where the Goblet of Fire was.

Of course, to take care of Harry and Ron, especially since he didn't want to lose Hermione again, the cat didn't walk particularly fast, and Harry and Ron were able to follow him at a slightly quicker pace.

Just as Fish reached the staircase to the second floor lobby, he suddenly stopped.

"Nya~!"

The cat purred softly as he flapped his ears and wiggled his nose twice.

And the little black cat that Hermione turned into also made a shy look.

"Nya?"

She tapped Fish with her head and asked if he wanted to go first.

"Nya."

Fish wagged his tail and sat straight up on the stairs, looking down. Hermione couldn't help but crouch down beside him.

The twins, who could understand Fish's speech, flapped their wings a bit in fright at first, but soon calmed down again.

"What's wrong, Fish?"

Whispered Ron, who didn't understand cat language, when he saw the Animagus' strange expression.

"Shh, listen."

Said Harry as he tugged at his robes without waiting for Fish's response.

Ron listened for a moment and then his face paled.

There were muffled, strange footsteps coming from the floor below, becoming clearer and clearer.

It was the sound of Professor Moody's artificial leg and cane hitting the floor as he walked, and Ron knew it all too well.

Sure enough, in a few moments, Professor Moody appeared at the foot of the stairs.

"Good evening, Fish, and Miss Granger."

Of course, the Hogwarts staff had known the two cats for a long time, and they often crossed paths, and Moody was no exception.

"Nya~"

(=ΦΦΦ=)

Although he didn't like Professor Moody very much, the cat greeted him politely.

Moody's magic eye flickered for a moment and then they stopped behind Fish.

"Harry? And Mr. Weasley?" He raised an eyebrow, "Are you planning on signing up for-?" The magic eye roamed over both of their shoulders, "Those two birds, I take it, are students too? Let me guess... Are they the Weasley twins?"

Although the twins' Animagus forms had been kept secret, the fact that they were Animagus was known to many, so with a little thought Moody guessed the truth.

"Professor McGonagall's teaching is very good!" exclaimed Moody truthfully.

Animagus was not a simple spell, and before Fish, there were only seven Animagus recorded in the twentieth century, and even with the unregistered, there were definitely no more than a hundred.

"Nya~"

(=`=)

Hearing Moody praise Professor McGonagall made Fish feel better about him.

Unlike the big-hearted Fish, Harry and the others were a bit stunned, they didn't expect to meet Professor Moody here, and what's more, they didn't expect Professor Moody's magic eye to see through Harry's invisibility cloak.

Just as they were at a loss, Professor Moody continued on his own, "Even if I take you back, you won't give up, will you?"

A terrible grin broke out on his disfigured face and he stepped aside to make way.

"Go give it a try, give up early and go back to sleep!"

"Thank you, Professor Moody!" Ron and Harry rushed to thank him.

"Nya!"

Fish meowed, in thanks, before joining Hermione, bounding down the stairs and into the foyer.

Behind them, Professor Moody averted his magical eye to a dark corner and nodded his head slightly, secretly rejoicing....

Fortunately, Dumbledore had just followed Fish, which gave him time to throw Harry Potter's name into the Goblet of Fire first.

The invisible Dumbledore smiled and nodded by way of greeting, then followed Fish with the fake Moody. He had no idea what the fake Moody had done before, nor did he suspect that he was anywhere near the Goblet of Fire....

Because tonight it was Moody's turn to patrol, and even if it hadn't been his turn, as suspicious as Moody was, it would have been perfectly normal for him to stay up in the middle of the night tossing and turning.

It was fair to say that young Barty Crouch's choice of Mad-Eye Moody was too good a disguise for even Dumbledore to see anything wrong.

When Fish and the others entered the foyer, they saw the Goblet of Fire placed in the center of the foyer, on the three-legged stool that had been used to hold the Sorting Hat during the House Selection Ceremony. A thin circle of golden lines, with a radius of three meters, had been drawn on the floor, enclosing the goblet in the center.

"Who will go first?"

The twins returned to their human forms, Harry and Ron lifted their invisibility cloaks and the four of them stared at each other.

The two cats, Fish and Hermione, were crouched down and calmly licking their fur. But something seemed to occur to Fish in the middle of the process, so he reverted back to his human form, pulled out his wand and cast a soundproof spell near him, then transformed back into a cat and continued licking his fur quietly.

The corners of Dumbledore's eyes contracted as he followed him in, the puss was becoming more and more professional at the job of making trouble.

The fake Moody didn't mind too much, only mildly surprised that Fish had mastered that level of soundproofing, and then continued to watch Fish and his group with his magical eye.

Harry and the others ignored Professor Moody and, after a few moments of discussion, decided to let the twins test the effects of the aging potion.

George and Fred didn't shirk either, they each took out a small bottle and carefully popped a drop into their mouths, they would both be seventeen in a few months, so they didn't need to drink much.

After swallowing the aging potion, the twins stood still for a few moments to make sure it was working before pulling out the slips of paper with their names and schools on them and holding hands as they stood next to the golden line.

They looked at each other, then nodded firmly and counted silently, "Three...two...one!".

George and Fred lifted their feet straight up and crossed the golden line at the same time.

At first, everyone thought they would make it, but before the twins could celebrate, there was a hissing sound near the goblet, and then the twins were thrown out of the circle with one foot in, landing hard on the ground.

If that wasn't enough, a loud pop was heard and they both had long white beards sprouting from their chins in the same style as Dumbledore...only they were a bit sparser compared to the Hogwarts Headmaster's.

"Hahahahahaha..."

The twins picked themselves up off the floor dizzily, looked at their white beards, pointed at each other and laughed.

"Nya?"

(==)

Fish's eyes lit up at how much hair had grown on their faces and he turned to Hermione, the black cat next to him.

"Nya!"

Hermione bared her teeth at Fish, she'd rather drink a Multijuice Potion than grow a beard!

"The Multijuice Potion really didn't work..." George stroked his white beard and sighed in an old-fashioned tone, "But never mind, we have other ways!"

Then they tried the Levitating Charm again... there was no doubt that the spell was stopped directly by Dumbledore's golden thread, and the Goblet of Fire on the stool remained motionless.

Using the Transformation spell, they turned the note into a paper crane and flew directly to.... This time the thread of age did not intercept it, but spat out the note again.

"Looks like the Goblet of Fire won't recognize the note unless I drop it myself." Professor Moody pretended to speculate.

He had just spat out Harry's note when he dropped it into the Goblet of Fire, which forced him to cast a powerful confusion spell on the note as well, and it took two confusion spells for the Goblet to accept the note with Harry's name on it.

Naturally, the twins had thought of a confusion spell, but they cast it on the golden thread outside the Goblet of Fire.

Unfortunately, however, their confusion spell wasn't good enough, and apart from being cast once again, the white stubble on their chins had grown even thicker, not far behind Dumbledore's.

George and Fred were not discouraged, they kept trying, using every trick in the book, and after failing again and again, their chins felt like a roll of heavy woolen curtains, so heavy that the twins involuntarily lowered their heads.

"Damn it, even the Animagus form didn't work!".

Fred sighed as he pulled a pair of scissors out of thin air and strained to twist the thick white beard around his chin.

"Uh... Are we still going to try?"

Ron winced slightly at the sight of the miserable state of his two brothers.

Gritting his teeth, Harry said, "We're here, so why not try? It's just a beard, just snip it off with a pair of scissors!"

He still wanted to be a Champion and be adored by everyone...mainly Cho Chang.

Ron thought about it and followed Harry into the invisibility cloak, before they both entered the age line together.

"Huh?"

Professor Moody, who had been watching, looked in amazement at the two entering the golden circle.

Harry and Ron hadn't been thrown out of the circle, as he had expected, but they had managed to enter it.

"Yes! it worked!"

Ron's voice came from inside the circle, but as soon as he said that, the same hissing sound that had been heard a million times before was heard again, and then Fish saw Ron and Harry's bodies arcing through the air and landing hard on the cold stone floor, ten feet away.

Of course, the white beard wasn't missing either.

"Damn it, why doesn't he take this beard off?"

Just as the two men were feeling so sorry for themselves, there was more bad news from the twins.

Harry and Ron looked out and saw the twins staring in confusion at the large white beard on their hands and the stubble on their chins, which had not diminished at all.

"They should give up now, shouldn't they? I suggest you all go to Madam Pomfrey, or go back to sleep first, and then go to Madam Pomfrey tomorrow."

Moody spoke again, and his magical eyes involuntarily glanced at Fish.

"Nya~"

(=ΦΦ=)

Fish pouted and stretched, lifting his little paws and walked in the direction of the Goblet of Fire.