8

There were some opportunities that just had to be taken, no questions asked. Times that might never come again, possibilities that would be forever regretted if not taken and made the most of. Sirius was a firm believer in seizing the day, whatever it threw at him.

Then there were moments such as this, where he knew he would regret it if he did what was asked of him. The exact opposite of fortunate chance opportunities, these were unexpected, unwanted responsibilities. The worst kind. "Do you enjoy my suffering?" he asked Taylor.

Taylor stared at him, as innocent as any woman with a madly-spinning eye clutched in one hand could be. The man snoring at her feet added to the utter failure of innocence, turning it into an amusing mockery. "He's paranoid. You told me so yourself. He'll have holdout weapons."

"I am not strip searching Moody." This was not an opportunity he was going to seize. This was nightmare fodder just waiting to corrupt his fragile Dementor-free mind. "Healer's orders. I am not to freshly traumatize myself. You do it."

Moody drooled on the carpet. The carpet flinched away. He needed to get that looked at. The carpet moving, that was, not the drool. The drool was perfectly normal.

"You do it," she replied. "I dragged him all the way here."

"Bully for you. You do it. You got us into this situation in the first place." He felt that was reasonable.

"You know him, you do it," she insisted.

"You beat him up, you do it," he replied. "Just use your bugs. They can do that, right?"

"Not really," she said, offering no further explanation. "You do it."

He knew a pointless circular argument when he saw one. "I'm not touching him," he said. "I'll use magic. Levicorpus!" he levitated Moody up to stomach height.

"That spell levitates people directly?" Taylor asked curiously. "I just used Wingardium Leviosa on his clothes."

"Levicorpus works better," Sirius said absently. "Only on people though. Wingardium Leviosa is more versatile. Unless you're fighting a nudist." He levitated Moody's flask and wand off to the side. "Accio Portkeys!" he barked, putting all of his will into it.

Moody's entire body shot toward him, a gnarled shoulder hitting him in the stomach. "Oof," he exhaled, shoving the floating man away again. "Should have figured it wouldn't be that easy."

Under Taylor's mildly amused gaze, he carefully worked his way through the old man's clothing. The robes were enchanted, for spell deflection among other things, and there were five extended pockets on the inside, holding a whole bag of marble portkeys, instant darkness powder, and four spare wands. Moody's trousers, under the robes, also had portkeys, another holdout wand, and four small vials of unknown potions, which he passed to Taylor. "Figure out what these are, but be careful because they might explode on contact with air," he suggested.

While she was doing that, he steeled himself and stripped Moody the rest of the way, noting that even his skivvies were heavily enchanted. That done, he hastily threw a sheet over him, turning Moody into a lumpy, levitating table. His body was a testament to why Sirius had refused to join the Aurors; this was what fighting dark magic on the regular could do to a bloke. He never wanted to have to question whether he had more scar tissue than unblemished skin, and those missing pieces… Yes, he was going to have nightmares.

A few diagnostic charms Sirius vaguely remembered from the war said there was definitely still more magic on Moody, and he remembered to remove the innocent, seemingly non-magical peg leg, which accounted for most of that magic, but not all of it. "Pass me your blood charm, will you?" he asked. He remembered that Taylor had one for magical sight. It might be useful, now that most of the magic on Moody was gone.

Taylor handed it over. "Give me the flask," she said in reply. "I think I know what these potions are, but I want to check it too."

"What are they?" he asked, as he tossed the flask over. "Visio," he said to the charm, clutching it in one hand and closing his eyes.

The magical flare all but blinded him even through his eyelids. There was a reason few people bothered with magical sight; it was only really useful in mostly-Muggle areas. Here, in Grimmauld Place, he would be lucky if he could make out anything against the backdrop of absolutely everything being enchanted, warded, cursed, or seeped in magic.

"One Pepper-Up that's probably overpowered to make up for the tiny dose, a similarly small but potent Blood Replenisher, one vial of acid, and a contact poison," Taylor reported. "I'm keeping them if he's evil."

"How did you figure those last two out?" he asked, waiting for the brightness of the magical sight to die down. He would have a few seconds right as the charm gave out where it would be tolerable, and he could look at Moody then.

"Opened them in the kitchen, dipped a bug in each," she answered. "I didn't think he was foolish enough to carry volatile explosives tucked against his waist."

"You may have a point there," Sirius admitted. He also wouldn't have cared that much if Taylor blew up the kitchen proving herself wrong, since she did it at a safe remove, so he wholly approved of her investigative methods. "Explosive potions exist, though. Nasty stuff."

"This smells like alcohol," Taylor reported a moment later. "I don't know what kind."

'Save it. I'll tell you everything up to the vintage," Sirius claimed. The blood charm's overly bright glare was beginning to wear off, so he squinted at Moody. There was a bit of magic in the old man's mouth, and more down by the misshapen toes of his remaining foot. The foot had a charmed-invisible toe ring portkey, and the mouth…

"Ugh." He reached in, not trusting his summoning work in such a small, fragile space, and removed a false tooth. "The lengths he went to… At least we've got it all now."

"It's still not enough," Taylor said. "He can cast wandlessly and silently. Are there limitations to that?"

"Besides having to learn each individual spell you want to do in that way, and it being much harder to master?" Sirius thought about it. "I could lock him in the attic, it's magically insulated, but he would still be able to attack us at any time if he was conscious. Alternatively, one of us could turn him into a snake." They did know that specific curse for a reason, and if Moody knew anything about it he would know better than to try and escape. Moody wasn't bloody weird like Taylor, so he would be without any form of magic.

"Isn't that illegal?" Taylor asked.

"Well, duh?" Sirius replied. "It wouldn't have to be that curse, I suppose, I could just do a temporary human transfiguration, but what's the point? It's also illegal to assault a school teacher, smuggle him out of school, and strip-search him, and I assume we want to interrogate him… Plus he's probably got some defense against obliviation, so we're going to have to keep him prisoner after that even if this is the real Moody." Cursing him into an animal for purposes of security was small potatoes on top of all of that.

Taylor frowned. "I would rather not do those things, depending on what he was trying to do with Harry."

"I'm not a miracle worker," Sirius objected. "And Moody is a paranoid bastard who's on good terms with Dumbledore. We're not going to be able to force him to stay quiet, and I have no idea why he would possibly agree to keeping his mouth shut. We won't even be able to make him tell the truth about his motivations." He was looking for a supplier of Veritaserum, and had been for weeks, but one did not just walk up to a guy in a shady cloak and ask to see his illegal wares. He knew from his foolish youth that led to being swindled, busted in a sting, or waking up next to a Hag, depending on exactly how badly he misjudged the situation.

"He's clean of magic?" Taylor asked.

"I'm mostly sure," Sirius said. Never would he bet on Moody being completely defenseless, no matter how certain he was. That was a sucker's bet.

"What's in this?" Taylor asked, passing him the flask back.

"He was drinking from this?" Sirius asked.

"Yes." She looked down at the sheet-draped, levitating, comatose former Auror floating between them. "Consistently. I've seen that flask before."

Sirius took a swig from the flask. "Dulled Firewhiskey, but he's added potions to it," he said. "No idea what… powdered bezoar, maybe? Nutrient potion? Check me, am I turning green, into another person, or glowing with the light of a thousand suns?"

"You are as scruffy and unimpressive as ever, no more and no less," Taylor deadpanned.

Sirius grinned. "Probably nutrient potion, then." He took a deep gulp of the tainted whiskey. It was watered-down enough that he didn't even feel the trademark flame belch coming up. Disappointing.

They waited for a few moments, but nothing happened. Sirius set the flask aside. "Okay. Now what the hell do we do next?"

Taylor frowned at him, then looked down at Moody. "I think… We need a lie. A very good, comprehensive lie. One that explains what I've been doing pretending to be Harry's familiar and gives him a reason to let me go about my life without interfering or telling Dumbledore."

"Is that all?" Sirius asked. "It's not specific enough, add more ridiculous qualifiers. I don't do easy projects." He was joking, of course; that would be hard. He wasn't the liar of the Marauders, that was Peter. He was the actor, the roguish misdirection, the distraction…

He looked at Taylor. She was, if anything, the Remus equivalent. Serious, capable of lying with a straight face, inherently dangerous.

Moony hadn't bothered contacting him, not even since he was proven an innocent man. Sirius would have broken the silence between them by now if he knew where his old friend was, but owls didn't know where to go. It was possible Remus just didn't want to reconnect.

That didn't matter right now, though. Right now, he needed a good lie. A cover story. An alternative explanation for everything Moody might know or might easily find out. And he needed it fast.

"I think," he said after some serious thought, "I have an idea." If it didn't work, they could always go back to the original plan and keep Moody locked up in the basement.

Snake-Moody was small, barely six inches long, a mottled green garden snake. He had no fangs at all. Sirius must have focused almost exclusively on Moody being harmless, for the transfiguration to turn out like that. Having to feed Moody the counter to Draught of Living Death and then quickly transfiguring him before he could wake up and attack might have panicked Sirius–

For good reason, because Moody adapted to his completely unexpected circumstances by choosing violence and never looking back.

"Stop," Taylor hissed, smacking the tiny grass snake down with her tail, "trying," she thumped him again, "to fight! It's not working!"

"Bugger off!" Moody hissed back, throwing his body at her face. "Bugger this! I'm not going down without a damn good fight! Why am I a snake, fight me face to face!"

"You're a snake," she paused to close her eyes, because he was trying to headbutt her eyes. "So my boss can interrogate you without risking you hitting him with wandless magic! Stop fighting!"

"He'd bloody well better be scared!" Moody hissed. He backed off, and Taylor opened her eyes to see him waving his six-inch-long body around, trying to see who else might be in the room. "Who is it, eh? Lucius Malfoy? Barty Crouch Junior? Another bloody Death Eater escaped from Azkaban? The noseless wonder, back from the dead? Fudge? Answer me!"

Taylor stared down at the tiny snake. "None of those," she said. "I work for Sirius Black. He has questions for you."

"That idiot couldn't organize the insides of a paper bag, bugger off," Moody hissed.

In response, Taylor slapped her long tail on the floor three times.

"That my cue?" Sirius slipped into the room, swiftly closing the door behind him. "Moody, I assume you can still understand me. I can't understand you, so don't bother insulting me."

"You look even more gormless from down here," Moody muttered. "I could slither up those robes of yours and–"

"Do nothing, because I can stop you." It was a novel experience, being the big, bulky side of a fight for once. She rather liked it.

"You," Sirius said, his voice level, "are on thin ice, Moody. You attacked my godson. Convince my associate there that you had a good reason, or I'll make that transfiguration permanent."

Moody tensed, his snake body holding a roughly S-shaped curve on the ground.

"Dumbledore will not work as a reference," Taylor told him. "The truth, Moody."

"I could lie rings around you, you've not given me any veritaserum," Moody said mulishly. "I take it back, this operation has all the hallmarks of a Black plan. What's he paying you, to deal with his shite?"

"More than enough," Taylor told him.

"Chance I could offer you double to bite him, change me back, and call the Aurors?" Moody asked. "Seeing as how he can't understand us down here, we've got all the time in the world to negotiate."

"We might be able to come to an arrangement," Taylor replied, hiding her amusement. She had not expected Moody to leap directly to buying her off. If she were really a mercenary, it might even have worked. "But I need the truth, first. As a show of good faith I'll signal him now." She slapped her tail once, the agreed-upon sign for 'He answered the question to my satisfaction, he's not a Dumbledore plant and wasn't actually trying to kidnap Harry."

"Good, that would have made things difficult," Sirius said.

Moody slithered around her, eyeing her warily. "That's mighty nice of you," he said suspiciously.

"The truth," she told him. "I make a point of knowing who I'm working for, after the fiasco with Pettigrew."

"Truth is exactly what I told you in Hogwarts," Moody hissed. "I'd been hearing Harry Potter was a nice, ordinary Hufflepuff and maybe not Potter at all. Hogwash, a good attempt at defense in obscurity for a kid, but he was complacent and acting like that was the only defense he needed. Wandering around on his own like that, foolishness! Dumbledore gave his blessing for me to scare him a bit, teach him to be wary. I was gonna revive him, put on a little show, then set him loose and teach him to watch his damn back."

"You did not know he had someone watching it for him?" Taylor asked.

"Bloody hell, no!" Moody exclaimed. "I'd not have thought he needed a lesson in safety if I knew he had a live-in bodyguard."

"I hope this is good talking I'm hearing," Sirius remarked. They both ignored him.

"I am not his bodyguard, not all the time." She would claim as such if she thought it was a believable lie, but she was only in Hogwarts on the weekends. That would make no sense if she was intended to protect Harry. "My presence in the castle is mainly for something else. Testing the defenses."

"Now we get to it…" Moody looked up at Black. "What's his plan, and how much do I gotta pay to have you sabotage it?"

"I doubt you'll want it sabotaged," Taylor hissed. "When we captured Pettigrew, we had to break into the castle to do it. We discovered many gaps in the defenses, Animagi being one of the most blatant. I am categorizing the weaknesses, testing the defenses, and seeing how far an animagus with a flimsy cover story can push things before I am discovered. I have been in and out of the castle for more than six months and nobody has ever realized a thing."

"Merlin's sweaty ballsack," Moody blurted out, "that's ridiculous! What damn use are the wards if you can do that?"

"Exactly!" Taylor hissed. "This is what Black hired me for. I am going to ferret out every last vulnerability, so that they can all be fixed. If it was not for you attacking his godson, who he also pays me to defend with my life if I have the chance, nobody would know even now. How long can I maintain my cover? How far into the castle can I go? I have already been into the restricted section of the library, the common rooms of all four houses, and Dumbledore's office. I have sat in on staff meetings, I have been in the Great Hall, the kitchens… Nobody has noticed."

Moody shook his head, a gesture that ended up shaking his entire body. "Penetration testing, that's your job? The board of governors approve this?"

"I am a private contractor. The first they, or Dumbledore, can know of this is when someone finally realizes I am an Animagi, or once I have found every possible weakness in the castle's security. Black intends to present my findings to the board as the first they hear about it, so that they will be shocked into taking action." It was a good lie, with a little tweaking, and Sirius had come up with the base of it in only a few minutes. She had been impressed then, and was still impressed now.

"It makes more sense than you being there by chance," Moody admitted. "You've been with the boy since when?"

"It's coming up on a year soon," she told him.

"Say I believe you," he said. "What's Black plan on doing with me?"

"He cares a lot about this," Taylor told Moody. "I have told him, and I now believe, that you meant his godson no real harm." There was still a chance Moody was lying, but for now she would act as if she had no doubts. Harry would not be so trusting of him in the future, whatever the truth was. "It remains to be seen whether you will ruin the investigation by insisting on going to Dumbledore."

"I found you out," Moody objected. "Ain't that the end of your test?"

"You found me out because I defended a student from you, something no real infiltrator would bother doing," Taylor retorted. "The test has not yet naturally run its course. We cannot do this again, once everyone knows it has been done once. It will probably be made illegal, if it is not already."

"Fear not." Moody looked her in the eye, his tiny snake ones on her much larger orb. "This is more common sense than I've heard since taking the job as Defense Professor. I'll not spoil your investigation. Assuming this is all true…"

"My behavior over the last year is readily verifiable, and makes absolutely no sense unless what I have told you is the truth." Her time with Harry could be considered time spent maintaining her cover, and she did roam the castle. She had been to all of the places she claimed. The best lies were ones indistinguishable from the truth. "I am assuming you speak the truth about your intentions with Harry."

"What've you had Harry do?" Moody asked. "After you got the better of me."

"I woke him up, told him what happened, and told him to pretend he never encountered you," she explained. "He's awaiting further instructions, depending on what Black and I found here."

"That's easy enough to work with," Moody offered. "He can go to Dumbledore, demand to know what happened, claim I pulled off the whole lesson without a hitch but he's still suspicious I intended to do something more but decided against it. Dumbledore will confirm we talked about exactly what I was going to do. Your cover is safe, my explanation proven true."

Taylor had a moment of deja vu. Wasn't this exactly how she and Sirius had come around to trusting each other? Using Harry to verify the story? It wasn't foolproof then and it wasn't now, a truly clever plan would involve Moody having set up his alibi with Dumbledore ahead of time, but it was something to weed out all but the most intricate lies. Hopefully this would work out as well as it had with Sirius.

"This is taking a lot longer than I expected," Sirius remarked.

"For future reference, how much do I need to pay to get you to betray Black?" Moody asked.

"You are lucky it turns out we are working for the same things," Taylor told him. "I don't betray my employers. It got you talking instead of fighting, though."

"Well played," Moody hissed. "Well fought, too. What did you get me with?"

"Snape's rejected Draught of Living Death," she explained.

"Damn. Should have gone for my flask." He looked up at Sirius. "Get your boss to turn me back, would you? I'm not going to hurt him… much."

"We stripped you of everything magical," she informed him.

"You think you did," he said slyly.

"Including your tooth, enchanted underwear, and toe ring," she continued.

"Damn." He winked his inner eyelid at her. "Think you got it all, do you?"

"I wouldn't bet on it. So long as you don't hurt him, we can consider what comes next an educational experience." She was thankful this newest lie had succeeded in getting Moody back on their side.

The lies were piling up, though. Things were getting complicated. Hopefully she and Sirius could maintain everything until it was no longer necessary. Whenever that might be.

They were no closer to resolving the ultimate problem. Dumbledore. It all stemmed from Dumbledore.

It was the peak of bad luck. Twice now, his mum had gotten into a fight, a real knock-down fight with an experienced wizard. Twice now, she won, and twice he had missed the entire thing!

Harry waited anxiously for word from his mum and Sirius, after his mum revived him and told him to pretend nothing had happened until further notice. His book was less interesting, knowing his mum had Moody and she and Sirius were currently interrogating him. They returned in the evening, his mum and Moody, and had him talk to Dumbledore about Moody's 'lesson'. He played his part, but the thing he really wanted to know about, the fight, had been missed.

"I jumped him, we tried to stun each other, hand to hand fighting mostly, then I smacked him in the back of the neck with a contact sleep potion," was all his mum would say about it. "It was really nothing impressive."

Nothing impressive. Like beating up a Death Eater and his elf at the World Cup was 'just a small scuffle', according to Sirius.

Harry resolved to not be apparated away or stunned immediately the next time – and there probably would be a next time – someone ambushed him or his mum. He might even have asked Moody for lessons in dueling, but he didn't quite trust Moody to point a wand at him anymore, an attitude Moody reinforced with glee during Defense lessons with all of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Everyone was jumpy after those classes, and Harry settled for learning what he could from Moody in a group setting.

Moody was actually the number one topic of discussion in the Hufflepuff common room for a few weeks. There were rumors of him teaching the Unforgivables, or perhaps just teaching about the Unforgivables, in his Newt classes. There were rumors about his many scars, and where the new bruise around his magical eye came from, or why he demanded Snape provide him with all of his most useful 'failed' potions. He fed those mysteries, popping up in random places to startle students, seeing things he shouldn't with his eye, and generally acting mysterious whenever the chance presented itself.

Then, of course, there was the looming elephant in the castle, the big event that was soon scheduled to begin. The students of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons were the sparks that lit the flames of a school-wide frenzy. Though they had known about the Triwizard Tournament for weeks beforehand, it was all anyone could talk about once the other schools had arrived and the Cup was put out to take nominations. In the classrooms, in the halls, in the dorms… Everyone had something to say.

Harry and his circle of friends were no different. He personally thought the Tournament might be a great chance to see what the best of the best of their schools were actually capable of, and where he measured up to that. He wouldn't want to compete, as that was a good way to get killed, but watching more qualified wizards and witches compete promised to be a great time.

Hermione agreed with him on not wanting to compete. Neville said it was never in question, though he looked at the cup wistfully when he thought nobody was looking, something most of Gryffindor seemed to be doing, even those well under the age limit. Luna said she didn't really care about the Tournament except that they might import interesting magical creatures. Ginny spent a day seething about the age limit, then forcefully ignored any and all mention of the tournament in her presence, instead choosing to focus on her own form of competition: Whipping their little casual Quidditch team into shape.

Their first organized pick-up game was on the Sunday before the choosing of the Triwizard Champions, and there was no doubt in anyone's mind which event Ginny considered to be important, and which a mere footnote of history. She had them out on the field every day of the preceding week for at least half an hour, flying around and practicing their respective roles. Harry and Neville threw the Quaffle back and forth while flying every which way, and Neville practiced not falling off his broom at the same time, something he was much better at than he had been in first year.

"Hooch gives remedial flying lessons if you ask her," he had explained. "My gran made me ask after the incident in first year." While he was still wobbly at times, and didn't dare do some of the things Harry found came quite naturally to him, he was good at knowing where he needed to be to catch the Quaffle, even when Ginny ran interference.

Meanwhile, Luna and Hermione practiced catching and batting, respectively. Luna was a much better Keeper than Hermione was a Beater, with an uncanny knack for seeing where the Quaffle they were using for practice was aimed. Hermione had trouble even hitting the Bludger at first, and even more trouble flinching away from it, until Ginny set her straight.

"You swing like this," Ginny had coached her, reaching around to hold the bat from behind Hermione. They were, thankfully, on the ground for that; Harry didn't think Hermione would have taken well to being hugged and pulled around while balancing on a broom dozens of meters off the ground. Her face was already quite red by the time she managed to correct her bat and swing properly.

Once she could be sure she could hit the Bludger every time instead of missing and having it hit her, Hermione turned into a relatively competent Beater, always circling around to smack the Bludger at their brooms and extraneous limbs. She had a dislike for aiming for torsos or heads, but Ginny assured her that was common courtesy for pick-up games without a dedicated healer, so that was fine. Her flying was… still not amazing, but she didn't need to do fancy flying when her only job was dealing with the Bludger.

Harry would not have said Ginny's little team was good, with the exception of Ginny herself who barely needed to practice at all to be the best of their three Chasers, but he thought they were much better than they had been when she proposed the idea.

Their first match was against three third-year Slytherins and two fourth-year Ravenclaws, and the twins showed up with a small crowd to spectate. There were several foreign students in the crowd, including Viktor Krum, who was presumably starved for anything to do with his chosen profession. The twins sent up a big hourglass made of smoke and bubbles, the two teams took to the air, and the game began with a bang of elaborate fireworks.

Harry flew, dodging the Bludger, the opponent Chasers, and on occasion his own teammates. He took the Quaffle whenever he could, shot up to block passes from the other team, and did his best to give Ginny and Neville as many opportunities to score as possible, while only taking the ones he thought he could actually make for himself. Luna, he saw on occasion, managed to intercept most of the shots that came close to her, though her counterpart on the other team was just as effective. Hermione and the other Beater he saw the least of, and sometimes from the way the Bludger disappeared for minutes at a time he assumed she was battling it out with the other Ravenclaw.

He couldn't keep track of the score, not with the rapid back and forth nature of things, and when a rocket exploded in the sky above to signal the end of the match, it felt to him like they had just started. He finally understood why real Quidditch could go for hours without the players complaining about being exhausted; he could have gone all night!

It was a close-run thing, but in the end his team lost by twenty points. Harry didn't really mind. He was in this for Ginny's sake, and Ginny was beaming at everyone and anyone despite losing.

Taylor had never been to any Earth's version of Bulgaria. After today's trip, she still couldn't in good faith claim to have been to Bulgaria, outside of one magical hotel where they stayed for twenty minutes before she met her contact on the street outside and he handed her a special portkey to travel the rest of the way.

"You will stay indoors," a small metal thing told her and Sirius immediately upon their arrival to a dark, wooden-paneled sitting room with no windows. It was a house elf-sized and shaped arrangement of ironwork gears, levers, and bones, all inscribed with pitch-black runes. "You will not cast any magic except in self-defense. You will wait for your appointment. All rooms with doors are barred to you. Do not open windows. Do not leave with any blood beyond that which runs in your own body. Failure to adhere to these terms will result in you donating blood to the proprietor. Please sign here." A dark wooden pen with dull golden runes all around its exterior popped out of the golem's torso, along with a strip of parchment.

There were bugs aplenty in the building, which to Taylor's senses was a sprawling magical workshop complex. Lots of blood, too, in vials and vats and dried in complicated patterns and runes all over certain surfaces, workbenches especially. A very small number of individuals occupied the workshops, most hard at work with brushes or wands. This did seem to be a blood-based magical enchanting workshop, which fit with what she was looking for. They were well known in Bulgaria, and reputed to be very reasonable, so she hadn't expected a trap, but it was nice to be proven right on occasion.

"That's a blood quill," Sirius whispered.

"Is the signature required for my appointment?" Taylor asked. "I'm already scheduled for this evening."

The Golem let out a small hiss of foul-smelling steam. "Yes. Signature required. Pavlova and Stoynova Sanguine Enchanting is an exclusive establishment. All potential customers must adhere to rules of conduct. Contract is only magically binding to monitor compliance. No compulsions or magical penalties are involved."

Also in line with what she had been told, mostly through owl correspondence. Moody's words on their first meeting about prosthetics had sparked her imagination, and the fight at the World Cup solidified her need to take every reasonable avenue of self-improvement. Moody said blood-magic prosthetics weren't good for fighting, but she wanted to hear it from an expert on the subject.

Thus, her looking into sources of said prosthetics, which led to this place and this ugly metal golem. She was spending a precious Saturday on this; she didn't come all this way to turn back because of a formality.

"If you lie, I will take it out of your makers," she threatened, taking the blood quill and signing her name. Her hand tingled, and she felt a minor ache on the back of her wrist.

"Welcome," the Golem said. "Taylor No-Last-Name. Your appointment is confirmed. Pavlova will be with you shortly." It took the quill back along with the parchment. "Your signature serves for you and your manservant."

"Oy, hold on!" Sirius objected. "I'm financing this operation!"

"My apologies." The Golem bowed stiffly, metal scraping on metal around its midsection. "Your mistress will be well-served."

Sirius sputtered indignantly. "That's not right either!" he complained.

"Pavlova will be with you shortly," the Golem said, straightening up. The life seemed to leave its mechanical body, though Taylor couldn't have said what changed. It had never at any point looked alive.

"How certain are you that this is legitimate?" Sirius asked her, looking skeptically at the hard wooden chairs lining the austere waiting room. "We didn't just portkey into a vampire coven to be their next meal, did we?"

"You pick a good time to ask these questions, after we're already here," she laughed. "They're a legitimate business, keep your wits about you and follow my lead."

"I don't understand how you're so at ease here," Sirius muttered. "We're not in Britain. These people are vampires. This is dangerous."

"Everything is dangerous." She had experience negotiating with criminals, and here in Bulgaria none of what was going on was illegal. Vampires were no more or less dangerous than the witches, wizards, parahumans, and parahuman-created monsters she had faced in the past. At worst, this would turn into some sort of hostage situation, ruining these people's reputation for no obvious gain. If that happened, they would find she had come prepared. She was already an adept shot with wooden stakes, for instance.

That wouldn't be necessary, though. So long as Sirius didn't do anything stupid like provoking them. "Let me handle the negotiation," she said. "I know what I want. You're my expert on magic and magical culture, if I need help with that speak up, but otherwise I'll do the talking."

A whisper-quiet creak behind Sirius punctuated her statement.

"I'll watch your back," Sirius offered, brightening considerably. "They make one false move–"

"It would have to be more than one, with your lackluster observational skills." The person who had come in behind Sirius swept away even as he spun around, one long fingernail trailing on his shoulder. "Perhaps four or five. Your friend, now, she knew I was coming before I even opened the door."

"Pavlova?" Taylor guessed. The figure wore a heavy woolen hood in addition to the usual robes, and their voice was ambiguously low and smooth. She saw flashes of overly long teeth when they spoke, but little else of their face.

"Please, follow me," the vampire requested. "You are our only consultation today. We would like to be done with this in good time."

The vampire took them to a small office, one littered with paintbrushes, empty jars. Tightly tightly-sealed cabinets lined three of the four walls. Yellow lights akin to a Lumos charm hung in glass balls from the ceiling, like bare lightbulbs but with none of the expected harsh glare. Aside from the overpowering smell of dried blood, it looked like the rarely-used office of a painter forced to occasionally break from their passion for paperwork and meetings.

There were no seats and no desks; the vampire gestured for Sirius to stand back, and spread their arms. "Disrobe," they commanded. "Bare the shoulders. The chest too."

"I'll just… turn this way, shall I?" Sirius said awkwardly. "Hey, Pavlova, no ogling, alright? Pure professionalism?"

"I would rather ogle you than her," the vampire told him. "Maybe later."

"Uh… I'm flattered?" Sirius squinted at their hooded head. "I can't tell if you're my type, but I'm leaving Bulgaria tonight, so probably not."

Taylor shrugged out of her robe and pulled off the tank top she wore under it, but she left her bra on.

"Good enough," Pavlova said. They reached for one of the cabinets, did something that made Taylor's eyes itch and her headache spike, and the drawer opened. Out came a small inkpot and a thin-haired brush, along with a narrow blade. "This is blood magic. You Englishmen and Americans, you know little of it. Enough to know I must have blood to work? Thirteen drops will suffice for this assessment."

"No more," Taylor warned.

"You know little of vampires, as well," Pavlova said, sounding not at all offended. "Or perhaps just enough. I do not feed on customers. That would defeat the point." They pricked Taylor's good shoulder with the blade, barely enough to cut the skin, and dipped the brush in the blood. Then they moved to her stump, drawing the brush across it in irregular patterns. It tickled, a little.

Taylor was tense; one false move and she would react. But Pavlova just kept painting, occasionally muttering in that eerily unremarkable voice. The air was cool against the lines of wetness, and Taylor breathed shallowly to avoid feeling nauseous. Between the smell of blood, the light, and the headache pummeling the inside of her skull, she wasn't feeling good. Not poisoned or anything that might indicate foul play, just… unsettled.

Sirius tapped his shoe on the ground, looking around the small office as he waited. His hand brushed over some of the empty inkpots, and he even lifted one up to look inside.

"Please stand still," Pavlova told him. "Your movement is distracting."

Sirius put the inkpot down and his hands behind his back. His lips quirked, like he was going to start whistling, but thankfully he thought better of it.

"Now, to see…" Pavlova said, stepping back. "Svrzvam," they incanted.

The runes covering her stump, from her shoulder all the way down, all glowed red, then orange, then flickered to gold, before returning to orange and holding steady.

"Good." Pavlova poked at her stump with the brush, leaving individual dots of blood. "Not normal, but good. Your blood. Was it always yours?"

"What kind of question is that?" Sirius asked.

"Blood transfusion… I have reason to believe not," Taylor said. "But I don't know whose it was to start with." If Sirius asked, she would explain Muggle blood donations and the like, but she vaguely remembered Contessa doing something involving her blood, way back when she was setting her new life up. It had never come up, so she assumed it was done for medical reasons. As an all-inclusive inoculation against this world's diseases, maybe, as she didn't remember being jabbed with a dozen different vaccines at any point. But now…

Did Contessa plan for all of this? Or was magic not in the plan at all? Knowing the extent of Contessa's power, back then she would have assumed that it was all planned, down to the smallest detail. Knowing as she did now that this entire dimension apparently was walled off, and how much her own power struggled with magic, she would say… No, probably not. Or not entirely.

"It is yours now," Pavlova told her. "There are lingering traces of other blood magic, but nothing that would interfere with a prosthetic. You yourself are compatible."

"Guess there would be traces," Sirius muttered. He was probably thinking of the blood curse she claimed to have. She didn't have one, so that did raise the question of what, exactly, other blood magic involved her. But that wasn't a question she could ask with Sirius around.

"Nothing directly harmful?" she asked.

"Nothing to contest dominance," Pavlova replied. "I do not do medical diagnosis. Any prosthetic we design for you will function as it should. What is your price range?"

"Sirius Black, present and accounted for," Sirius volunteered.

"That means nothing to me," Pavlova told him.

"What's your most expensive model?" he asked.

"A thoroughly enchanted, reinforced bone and flesh-substitute arm," Pavlova said neutrally. "Fully manipulable, a single low-effort activation charm that will last it forty-eight hours before requiring reapplication, downtime of one night per month." They went to a drawer on the other side of the room, performed the same disconcerting unlocking charm, and took out an arm-shaped bundle of gray flesh, complete with a wrinkled hand. "Based on skin color, size, and height, it will look like… this."

The arm shifted under the vampire's fingers, turning into a mirrored copy of her remaining arm, flawless in every respect except for being absolutely covered from fingertip to termination point in black runes, to the point where she would estimate only about two thirds of the skin was actually showing.

The vampire held it up to her stump. "Look, Black, and tell her if it matches," they said.

"Uh, trying not to look," Sirius replied. "Robes first?"

"I'm not naked over here," Taylor told him. "Check it." She couldn't see for herself.

"If you insist." Sirius turned around. His eyes widened. "Huh, that looks… really cool," he declared. "Nice runes, could maybe be passed off as tattoos around Muggles. Can they be hidden? Painted over?"

"No," Pavlova said flatly. "They cannot. They must be exposed to air or the arm will break down over time."

"What happens if someone cuts it…" Sirius came over and traced a line on the arm, right above the wrist. "Here? This is a rune for control, right?"

Pavlova took the arm away from her shoulder. "Yes," they said, sounding annoyed. "This is the great flaw of all blood-based magical prosthetics. They are stronger, more resilient, fully controllable like a real arm, provide sensory feedback, and do not require a constant input of magic to function… but they can be sabotaged and the runes cannot be hidden. There are six points," they touched two places on the wrist, front and back, one on the inside of the palm, one on the elbow, and one on the tip of the pinky finger, "where a single purposefully-applied drop of blood will shift control of the arm to the one whose blood is placed there. Other runes, if defaced, will disable the arm entirely. These are unavoidable weak points."

That would be the reason Moody said blood-based prosthetics were bad for combat. Anyone with an understanding of runes could subvert them with a single well-placed drop of blood, and the runes that allowed this had to be visible for the arm to work. Blood-based prosthetics came with their own Achilles heel built in, and a big waving flag advertising them to anyone who saw her arm. It was a big problem.

It was not, however, a big enough downside to stop her from wanting one. Not on its own. "Aside from this, are there any drawbacks I need to know about? Physical, magical, mental… Will this arm adversely affect me?"

"No." Pavlova put the arm back in the drawer. "Which is why this is the most expensive prosthetic we offer. Others have limitations to safe use per month, or even per day, or require sacrifices. If you want a clean, ethical," and there they hissed a low laugh, "and safe arm, an arm that connects to your will but does not have any chance of side effects… Four hundred galleons."

"We'll take three," Sirius said. "Three arms at four hundred apiece, I mean, not one arm for three hundred."

Taylor and Pavlova both stared at him. Oh, she couldn't see Pavlova's eyes, but she knew they were staring. That darkened cowl had whipped around to face Sirius.

"Three," Sirius repeated, pre-empting the obvious question. "Do you have to make them specifically for the left or right side, or do they adapt the first time you put them on?"

"These prosthetics will be attuned to her blood," Pavlova hissed. "You will need to provide me with consultations to the other two individuals. They must also be made specifically for one side or the other."

"Four, then," Sirius amended. "Two for her left, two for her right. They can be stored indefinitely, right?"

"Yes, but why?" Pavlova demanded.

"So if she loses one we don't have to come back and do this all over again for another," Sirius said glibly. "And you know… Best to cover all the bases."

"You are willing to spend sixteen hundred galleons on covering the bases?" Pavlova demanded.

"Sirius Black, baby." Sirius struck what Taylor was certain he thought was a suave, heroic pose. "I've got money to burn."

"It will be six months," Pavlova quickly retorted. They took a parchment and quill out of their cowl, making Taylor think both had been tucked behind an ear. "She will need to return in three months to provide two pints of blood… per arm. You will want to supply your own Blood-Replenishing potions for that visit. Sign here to confirm you are willing to commission four arms, two left and two right, all for the individual consulted today. Pay up front, to be automatically refunded if we renege on our side of the agreement."

Taylor had the distinct feeling she had just been shoved aside in this negotiating process. "Sirius–"

"Let me handle what you asked me to handle," Sirius interrupted. "This a blood quill too? Yes, of course it is."

Pavlova chuckled, a low and ominous sound. Sirius yelped as he signed his name. "Four arms, details as specified, sixteen hundred galleons," Sirius said. "Gringotts withdrawals good here in Bulgaria?"

"Yes, but for such a sum you will need to…" Pavlova nodded as Sirius scribbled out something else on the parchment. "Yes. If this is in order, your commission will begin immediately. We will be in touch."

"Great! Mind if we portkey out from here?" Sirius asked.

"If you must," Pavlova said. "You could stay, though. I would like–"

"Right, good, Britannia Forever," Sirius said, grabbing her arm.

"Sirius!" she objected, in the split second before the passphrase triggered both of their portkeys back to Britain. The sensation of portkey travel rolled her already upset stomach, and after a few long seconds, when they fell back into the right plane of reality, she stumbled and landed hard on her butt on the tiled floor of the Ministry checkpoint for international Portkey travel they had left that morning, still with her robe down around her waist, bloody runes drawn all over her stump, and nothing but a bra between her and the goggle-eyed Ministry clerk and attending security guards.

"Word of advice, lads," Sirius told the guards as he pulled her to her feet. "Do not stare. It's bad for your health."

Taylor quickly pulled her robe up, angry and surprisingly embarrassed. She had no idea what had gotten into Sirius, but she was going to–

"Rule number one of dealing with vampires," he said to her as he passed his portkey item back to the clerk, "never negotiate. Either pay their price or refuse. Be generous, even. Like buying way more than you actually need."

She handed her own portkey back once she had her robe situated, mulling that over.

"Also, from what I could gather their offer of safety and hospitality only lasts as long as we're customers," he added. "I think only one of us counted as a customer there, and I'm not sure which of us it was. Once I'd paid, either you or I were in serious danger if we stayed. Probably me, because they still need your blood and to give you their side of the deal."

"You bought something from vampires?" a guard asked.

"Yeah, they've got great marital aids," Sirius quipped. "Also paintings. They do paintings."

For some reason, possibly context Taylor was missing, the guard acted like that was a reasonable explanation. "Oh, good choice," he said. "They must be really good at paintings, I never thought about that."

"We good here?" Sirius asked. The clerk nodded. "Okay, thanks for the help, boys!" He reached out for Taylor–

"We're not in danger anymore, stop rushing," she admonished, moving her hand out of reach. "Also, you're an ass. You could have told me those things."

"I didn't figure the second one out until that vampire talked about what we'd be doing after the consultation," Sirius said. "Sorry. Better safe than comfortable?"

"Yes…" She could agree with that. "Next time, warn me."

"If I can," he promised. She held her arm out, and he took it to apparate them back to Grimmauld Place.

"I hope you don't expect me to pay you back for your splurging," she said as she went to the kitchen to sponge the dried blood off her stump.

"I've got money to burn," he said again, following her into the kitchen to rummage through a cupboard. "Honestly. Way too much. You want to quit your job, live off my fortune, go ahead. Those arms were barely a scratch on the finances."

"I don't want charity." She wanted to support herself. If Sirius was going to give her one-off practical gifts she couldn't afford herself, she would accept them and sigh at his impulsiveness, but she didn't want to be tied to him. He had given her no reason to distrust him, but if she couldn't make her own way she would find reasons. Support freely offered could be freely taken away if something changed.

"You wouldn't have to work at a Muggle library all week, every week," he said. He brought a bowl down from the cupboard, and summoned a bag of crisps to his free hand. "How does that keep you occupied, anyway? Seems way too boring for you."

"I don't have to work there anymore whether or not you're involved," she informed him. "I can start selling spider-silk anytime. That's its own industry, or it would be if anyone could make it reliably. I won't, because who knows whether quitting my job would be the thing that finally tips Dumbledore off, but I could. In the meantime, being a librarian is low-stakes. It doesn't have to be big or important."

"But what do you do?" Sirius asked as he leaned against the kitchen table and started eating out of the bag, completely ignoring the bowl he had acquired.

"I maintain our sorting system and computers," she explained, "and I help negotiate new arrangements for bulk buying from book publishers, as well as the usual things like checking books for damage and helping people who can't find what they're looking for." The technical side of things was by now her main responsibility, given she was better with it than anyone else working at her branch. One of the advantages of coming from an alternate future: as technology advanced here, she was getting more comfortable with it, not less.

"Can't imagine you doing any of that," Sirius admitted.

"I'm thinking of moving on once we have the Dumbledore problem resolved, but it's a good job and I don't regret doing it while raising Harry," she said as she rolled her robe sleeve back. She could just go home and take a shower, but she didn't want to drive back with the flakey sensation of dry blood all over one shoulder.

"I don't regret buying you four arms," Sirius said. "Think we could get them to attach them all at once?"

"You want to be spider-Sirius, go ahead, but you'll have to cut an arm off and go back for your own consultation," she told him. Her stump mostly clean, she pulled her sleeve down and went to the fireplace. Harry would be curious to know how the consultation had gone, and she had the rest of a weekend to spend with him.

Things were going well. She would savor that while it lasted, because inevitably something was going to go wrong. Likely not the things she was half-expecting to explode in her face, either. That was just how the world worked.

The Hogwarts Champion was Cedric Diggory. As such, Harry did not get any sleep at all the night after the Champions were selected. Hufflepuff collectively partied through to the morning, their only concession to the realities of schooling being to have procured a whole crate of Pepper-Up Potion for the morning. There was Butterbeer aplenty, fireworks, school spirit songs Harry had never heard before, and even some Firewhisky going around.

"They won't tell us what the first task is," Cedric had said, swaying back and forth as he spoke, "and the Professors aren't allowed to help, but who cares! I'm the greatest!"

He may have been more than a little drunk by that point.

It was all good fun, and even the other houses were supporting Cedric. Draco Malfoy handed out buttons that said 'Support Cedric Diggory', and once Ginny showed him how to remove the charm that had the buttons flash 'Ronald Weasley is a Blood Traitor' whenever Ron was around, Harry wore his. He also got to see Ronald Weasley decking Malfoy in the Great Hall, which was funny. Those two showed no signs of tempering their mutual hatred anytime soon, and according to Ginny, Ron actually liked being known as 'the guy Malfoy hates' around school. Everyone else liked that Malfoy spent almost all his time fixated on Ron, instead of being a ponce to other people.

Meanwhile in Hufflepuff, a plot was hatched. The first Harry heard of it was when Susan Bones caught him just as he was leaving for Runes. "Harry, you're in, right?"

"In what?" He asked.

"Cedric isn't allowed to get help or training from the professors, but nobody ever said anything about us," Susan explained. "Ernie came up with the idea. We're all going to research the tournament, come up with strategies, tactics, must-know spells, and give all that information to Cedric. It's not cheating to have all of Hufflepuff helping so long as we don't actually do the tasks with him or help him break the other rules."

"All of Hufflepuff?" Harry asked, impressed.

"We have a few seventh years, everyone in sixth year, the half of fifth year that isn't worried about OWLS, and you're the only fourth year I haven't talked to yet," Susan said breathlessly. "You in?"

"Do we do this on our own time and compare results, or do we meet somewhere?" He had a busy schedule, after all.

"We're all doing independent research and we're going to meet a week before the first task." She pulled out a long list of parchment. "Do you want to work on magical creatures or runic puzzles? There are already three of us on the puzzles and none on creatures, but Runes are really complicated…"

Runes were complicated, and Harry didn't think he was competent enough at them to be of any help there. "I'll do magical creatures, I suppose." And he knew exactly who would probably want to help him.

"I would love to help you," Luna said when he asked her later that day. She plied him with books, several from her own personal collection, and at his request sketched a few of the creatures she couldn't find references for.

Some of Luna's creatures didn't seem very… plausible… but Harry had thought dragons were impossible too only a few years ago, so he kept an open mind and added them all to the list. Who knew what an international tournament could source for a big event? Cedric needed to be prepared for everything.

Or so Harry assumed. The big Hufflepuff planning meeting a week before the first task got off to a bad start when Cedric walked in and said he didn't want to know what they had learned.

"I didn't know about this when it started, I would have put a stop to it then," he announced, flashing the room a big, genuine smile. "Not that I don't appreciate it! I do. But it's not fair. The other schools don't have whole research teams working for their champions, and I didn't enter to have all of Hufflepuff propping me up. I want to do it on my own. So thank you, but no thanks."

'Fair' was as much a house motto as loyalty was, but Cedric left the mood among their big group a little like a grape that had been sat on: sad, flat, and with all the enthusiasm squished right out.

Hufflepuff would still root for him in the first task, but perhaps not as enthusiastically as they might have.

"I took the hat in to be examined," Sirius recounted as they tromped up the stands to find seats near the top, just another couple of guests arriving to watch the first task. "That charmsmaster in Diagon Alley you recommended took all day examining it, and he told me it wasn't possessed, but that was all he could say. It insulted him something fierce, too, he told me I ought to burn it solely because of how much lip it gives everyone."

"No sense in keeping it out if you don't know what it is." Taylor would have trashed it and been done with it by now, but maybe if she had somehow accidentally made it herself, she would be more invested in figuring out how.

"This is a battle of wills now," Sirius said. "I'll get it to tell me how it was made. Mouthy bugger is too self-assured to not know."

The students were in the stands opposite the non-school crowd, across the empty arena. Her son was right in the middle of the riot of yellow robes and banners that made up the Hufflepuff contingent, waving his own flag every so often. The other houses were no more subdued, but they cheered on Cedric the Hogwarts Champion, not Cedric the Hufflepuff. Fleur and Viktor, the other two champions, only had small dedicated cheering sections. Not even all of their schoolmates were enthusiastic.

"The other schools should have brought people who would not resent being skipped over for the Tournament," she observed. "They're not showing much school spirit."

"The French girl is a Veela, she automatically has her own cheering section anywhere she goes," Sirius said. "Krum is a Quidditch star, so he does too."

Veela… Taylor was interested, now. Not sexually; she had no interest in women, and the Veela at the world cup might as well have been normal human women for how little she felt their influence, beyond her power giving her the usual headache of new magic being examined. But races of nonhumans were a horror story back on Earth Bet, always invasive species stemming from the likes of Nilbog. Here, they were more like second-class minorities, even though Veela were apparently so close to human that they could successfully interbreed. She would like to speak to one, if she ever got the chance.

"Do any Veela live in Britain?" she thought to ask.

"No, but if you want to change that, you can be my wingwoman sometime," Sirius offered. "I for one would love to bring home an exotic French bird. Not this one, she's still a child, but those Quidditch cheerleaders…"

He trailed off, presumably thinking dirty thoughts. When he didn't snap out of it quickly enough for her liking, she took a wasp from the collar of her robes and lifted it to his neck.

"Ugh!" He lurched to the side and almost fell off the stands, hands slapping futilely at his neck as little limbs poked and twitched across bare skin. "Taylor! No! Bad!"

"I'm not the dog here," she snorted. "Control yourself." Her wasp buzzed back to her.

"Bloke can't even think about cute birds without getting scarred for life," Sirius complained as he sat down, though he was still smiling. "Jealous?"

"Date whoever you please, but for your sake make sure they don't mind knowing I keep hundreds of spiders in your bedroom walls," Taylor told him.

"You don't," Sirius denied.

Taylor sat quietly and smiled down at the arena.

"You don't, do you?" Sirius asked.

"I used to fill my basement with Black Widows," she reminisced. "It's easier to spread them out, though. They take territory and eat each other if you keep them too close together. I can only control them when I'm nearby… Walls are good. Less chance of someone walking into them when I'm not around, easier to keep them evenly spread around."

The blood slowly drained from Sirius' face. "If I snag a hot date I'm letting them take me home," he said.

"That might be wise." And not only because of her bugs; Grimmauld Place was still a rather dark household, and there was still at least one potential deathtrap in each room. Things like his mother's portrait, but more dangerous while being difficult to remove.

Intentionally terrifying Sirius aside, though… "Have you been trying to date?" she asked, genuinely curious. "You're no longer a fugitive." It might be important to know whether there was a chance she could end up walking in on something the next time she showed up at Grimmauld Place unannounced.

"No." Sirius shrugged and sat back, leaning on his hands. "It… "

Three wizards shuffled down the row behind him, and one of them bumped their leg into the back of his head, forcing him to lean forward again.

"I'm not exactly back to normal, if you catch my meaning," he said vaguely. "The healers say it could be a while yet. Dementors can kill the mood long after you're shot of them."

"Oh." She probably shouldn't have asked… But she was glad to know, if only to avoid bringing the topic up. Sirius talked a very good game; she hadn't even guessed that he might still be dealing with physical aftereffects of Azkaban, more than a year after getting out.

"Witches and Wizards!" a man bellowed, his voice magically enhanced. It was time for the tournament to begin. "Welcome to the first event of the Triwizard Tournament!"

Taylor looked around, quickly identifying the announcer as the corpulent wizard in the judges' box alongside the three Headmasters.

He launched into a loud explanation of the points system – arbitrarily assigned by three partial judges, as if that made any sense – and the setup of the tournament as a whole, which boiled down to three tasks spread out over a whole school year with absolutely nothing in between. The third task was going to be in April, almost half a year from now, and from how he talked she got the impression it was originally scheduled to be even later in the spring term.

"Is this a money laundering scheme?" she asked Sirius. "They're barely putting in an effort."

"I heard it's already breaking the Ministry's budget as it is, three tasks might be all they can afford," Sirius explained. "Also, the tournament has been out of practice for hundreds of years, they don't want to mess it up the first year back. Simple is better."

"The first task is a mystery, to the audience and to the champions," the announcer said grandly. "It was a mystery, that is. Our champions are getting their explanation in the tent right about now, and…" He paused.

The pause went on several moments too long to be planned, and his lips were still moving. After a moment Dumbledore waved his wand and the announcing charm came back. "Our first dragon is the Swedish Short-Snout!" the announcer continued, oblivious to the interruption.

The crowd erupted as a dragon, a real live dragon, was led into the arena by a whole team of handlers. Ministry incompetence forgotten, Taylor leaned forward in her seat to get a better look.

She had never seen a dragon before. Lung didn't count, and neither did Dragon's mechanical suits. This was the real magical deal, and it looked as if it had been ripped right out of a fantasy novel. They were bringing in eggs, too, dragon eggs scattered about in a makeshift nest the dragon was chained in front of. One egg was gold. The announcer explained the task, but Taylor stopped listening once she confirmed that it was as she had guessed. Egg-robbing a nesting dragon.

Maybe the Ministry didn't need to be competent with the tournament, if the tasks were all going to be like this. Pure spectacle would carry the tournament to success. She did wonder what safety precautions were being taken, if any.

The first champion out was Cedric Diggory, Hogwarts' own champion and a member of Hufflepuff house. The yellow section of the stands exploded with cheers.

"He doesn't look confident," Sirius observed.

He didn't, though the cheering from his house bolstered him. He lifted his wand, paused to wipe something off his neck, and strode forward, into the arena.

He waved his wand and jabbed it forward, firing off a blue curse. It sped across the arena and struck the dragon, to no visible effect.

"Dragons are magically resistant, scales especially," Sirius explained.

The dragon might have been resistant, but that didn't mean it was happy to be cursed. It roared, a blood-curdling sound that promised retribution, and crouched over its nest, wings flared.

"Oh, off to a bad start," the announcer remarked. "Let's see if Diggory can pull it back…"

Cedric continued to fire spells from what was arguably a safe distance. The chain holding the dragon didn't look all that thick to Taylor, and she was sure if the beast decided offense was the best defense it could make a good attempt at breaking it.

Finally, Cedric happened across a spell that did something; Aguamenti. He cast the charm with enough power that it resembled a strong water hose, spraying out in a jet to douse the dragon's head. Not being magic cast directly on the dragon, it was just as effective as it would have been on anything else.

Unfortunately for Cedric, the effect of being doused in cold water was that the dragon finally decided to try and rid itself of his irritating presence. It did so with fire.

Sirius swore and Taylor flinched backwards as a torrent of billowing red and orange flames leapt from the dragon's maw with next to no warning. It was not mundane fire, blasting across the distance between the dragon and Cedric in a heartbeat without dissipating at all, a powerful torrent of burning force.

Cedric screamed and dragged a solid man-sized chunk of rock out of the ground in the intervening heartbeat between the dragon flaming and his incoming immolation, using a spell Taylor had never seen or heard about before. The flames slammed into his barrier and wrapped around it, the force of the attack blunted but the backlash of the fire itself still burning hot.

Cedric's robes caught on fire, and he hurriedly doused himself. The dragon stopped flaming and settled back down over its eggs, momentarily satisfied.

"Damn, that's going to leave a mark," Sirius remarked as Cedric flopped down behind his cover, continually casting water charms on himself. A puddle of water was steadily growing around him, but his skin remained scorched red and in some cases already blistering. "What's he supposed to do now?"

"Not make himself a target," Taylor offered. She would feel bad for the teenager down in the arena, but as it stood he had entered into this contest of his own free will. If he wanted to participate in bloodsport, he should have gone in with a better plan than 'harass the dragon'.

He was evidently thinking along the same lines, but not thinking too hard about it at the same time, because his next move was at once an improvement and yet still fundamentally of the same foolish line of thought. He transfigured a living dog – one of the flashier pieces of magic low on Taylor's own priority list – and sent it out to bother the dragon.

Unfortunately for him, the dragon was fed up with his nonsense and barbecued the dog after two seconds of annoying barking.

Cedric sent out more dogs, one after another. Finally, he brought out a pack of five and held them back, before tapping himself with his wand and fading from sight.

"Points for knowing how to disillusion himself," Sirius whispered. The audience had fallen silent, seeing that Cedric meant to try something stealthy. Taylor hoped the arena was soundproofed, but knowing the competence of government officials she doubted it.

"He loses those points for not doing it to start with," she whispered back.

"And he loses more for sacrificing dogs… Cats would be much better." Sirius crossed his arms. "Look for moving patches of shadow and light, the disillusionment charm is imperfect."

Taylor had actually already spotted Cedric, having never looked away when he disillusioned himself. As far as invisibility went, it was far less effective than an invisibility cloak. Those, she could only notice through physical touch with her bugs. Cedric, disillusioned though he was, could be seen from high up in the stands so long as he was moving.

Cedric walked quickly along the edge of the arena while his dog pack barked and ran and was swiftly incinerated. The dragon snarled irritably as it blasted the dogs out of existence.

Cedric crept in behind the dragon. The golden egg levitated over to him just as he reached the edge of the nest.

A terrible, creeping suspicion made itself known to Taylor. "Sirius," she asked, "is there a levitation charm that gets stronger the closer you are to the thing you're moving?"

"No?" Sirius said absently. "I'm not sure."

Cedric had the egg. The golden object marked his disillusioned form quite clearly as he hurriedly snuck away from the dragon.

"So… What was stopping him from levitating it to him from the start?" she asked.

The final dog died in a maelstrom of magical fire just as Cedric made it back behind his cover. The dragon, angry as it was, didn't seem to know or care that it had been robbed.

"I assume the Ministry put on some kind of protection against that," Sirius suggested. "Then again, I also assumed I would get a trial…"

Taylor laughed, surprised by the dark humor. She didn't think Sirius had ever joked about his own incarceration before.

The audience let out a collective sigh of relief as Cedric fled the arena with his prize.

"There we go!" the announcer boomed. "Cedric Diggory, everyone! Don't worry, he'll get checked over by the mediwitch on standby, he's probably fine, he was able to walk after that near-roasting."

"There is such a thing as shock," Taylor muttered. She herself had soldiered through horrendous injuries before. Being able to finish the task set out for him might only mean that he was strong enough to do it despite being horribly injured. A high pain tolerance, nothing more. Certainly not that he was uninjured.

"Healers can handle dragon fire burns," Sirius assured her. "He might be feeling crispy right now, but so long as that's all that's wrong they'll just grow him new skin and send him on his way. The embarrassment might hurt worse."

"Next up we have the Common Welsh Green," the announcer bellowed enthusiastically. "Viktor Krum will be stepping into the arena to best the dragon… Or be its next meal!"

"Who is that imbecile?" Taylor asked, irrationally annoyed with the announcer.

"Ludo Bagman, inept gambler and head of the Games department in the Ministry or some such nonsense," Sirius supplied. "Tried to welch out on the Weasley twins at the World Cup. I got him to cough up the money, but the man is shameless."

The dragon handlers came out into the arena to take the Short-Snout away. Taylor watched with interest as they downed it with massed orange spells, sending it to sleep, then hauled it away.

Then a familiar figure stomped out into the arena. Moody poked around the chain for a bit, casting charms and muttering incessantly, then stomped over to Cedric's defensive wall to spell it back into the ground and smooth out the stone.

Taylor was struck by the thought that Moody was acting as the magical version of a zamboni. She suspected nobody around her would get that comparison, so she kept it to herself.

The next dragon was brought out. It differed from the other in the way that dog breeds differed, vastly different while still being recognizably the same base creature. The Common Welsh Green was startlingly green – explaining why it had been named after that particular feature – and looked like it wanted to go find a cave and go to sleep, not sit in an arena brooding over a dozen real eggs and one fake, soon to be attacked by a teenager for the entertainment of the masses.

"Does the wizarding world have any concept of animal cruelty?" Taylor asked.

"Yeah, we know loads of ways to be cruel to animals," Sirius replied, deadpan.

She set a single mosquito to bite the back of his neck, just for that terrible joke.

"And… here we go!" Bagman blathered. "Viktor Krum, everybody! Let's see what Durmstrang teaches their students these days!" He earned himself a sharp look from the brooding Durmstrang headmaster.

Viktor Krum strode out into the arena, his wand already out. He cast, and the dragon screeched at him, stumbling forward while blinking heavily.

"Conjunctivitis curse, that's what I would have used," Sirius exclaimed. "Smart kid. Their scales are resistant–"

"But not their eyes?" Taylor asked. The dragon was mostly blinded, and it swept its wings back and forth as it stalked at the edge of its chain, seeking its attacker. Krum carefully worked his way around its unguided strikes, occasionally recasting the curse to keep it blind. He secured his egg without any major trouble, and even bowed to the audience on his way out.

Compared to Cedric… There was no comparison. Krum barely seemed ruffled by facing a dragon.

"Viktor Krum with a flawless plan and execution, everyone!" Bagman announced, and everyone cheered. The dragon was taken back – lashing out blindly at its handlers, several of whom seemed upset – and Moody was out again to check the chain. He scowled at it and unhooked it from its peg, struck a link off with a single slash of his wand, and reattached it.

"Damn, now I'm glad Moody's on the case." Sirius whistled. "Looks like a link was cracked or breaking. If that chain broke with a dragon on the other end…"

"Surely there are other security measures." She refused to believe a single chain and ornery old man were all that stood between the children of the nation and an enraged dragon slaughtering them all. Nobody was that stupid.

"Yeah, it would never get out of the arena, that's probably warded up the arse, but I would worry more about the champion," Sirius explained. "They're not here to kill a dragon, they're just here to steal from one. Not nearly as hard when you don't have to worry about properly getting away. If it broke free, though, those wards would keep the champion in too. It would be a deathmatch."

"Finally, we have the Hungarian Horntail," Bagman announced. The dragon that was led into the arena was armored, spiky, and visibly seething, smoke coming from its nostrils. "Matched against this fearsome beast is Fleur Delacour, part Veela and all hot– Hey!"

"You are many decades too old to comment on my student," the large woman judge could be heard saying.

"Nobody's too old to state the obvious," Bagman retorted.

Fleur Delacour walked into the arena, oblivious to the announcer's comments. She shrugged off her outer robe, revealed a much looser and less formal one underneath, and took in the seething Horntail across the arena.

She grimaced. To Taylor, it looked like the grimace of one who knew they were going to have to do something distasteful.

Her wand out, she began to dance. She was skilled, and her movements were soft and flowing. She swept from one pose to the next, and each time she paused her wand was out, aimed at the dragon, but no obvious spell leapt from it.

She danced for a full five minutes, and at the end of that time, the dragon's ire had died out. It shuffled around its nest and lay down, curled up around the eggs.

Fleur continued to dance, even as the dragon's eyes closed. It was some kind of magic, and Taylor's spiking headache confirmed that, but it was unlike anything else Taylor had seen.

She finished with a sweeping pirouette, and paused, her arms still out as she watched the dragon. Once she was certain she had succeeded, she walked, slowly and calmly, to the dragon's side.

It was there that her flawless performance met an unexpected stumbling block. The dragon was large enough that, in curling up around the nest, it had created a continuous wall of scaled bulk between Fleur and her prize. She could climb it, but if the dragon woke, she would be in serious trouble.

After a moment's consideration Fleur tucked her wand away and gently seized handholds on the dragon's flank, hauling herself up slowly and with measured caution.

The dragon did not stir as she reached its back and took her wand out, quietly summoning the egg from the nest to her arms.

Taylor was now certain the egg could have been summoned from the start, but she couldn't fault the champions for assuming otherwise. For all she knew, they had even been told summoning charms weren't allowed until they were close, and were just following a rule Bagman had neglected to announce.

Fleur descended from the dragon's flank with a careful jump. She left the arena in total silence, picking up her discarded robe on the way out.

"An enchanting performance by Fleur Delacour!" Bagman thundered, and the spell was broken. The audience roared, and the dragon began to wake, its armored tail lashing about.

Shortly after, with the final dragon taken away, the judges rendered their verdict.

Fleur and Viktor both received tens from Dumbledore and Maxime. Karkaroff gave Viktor a ten and Fleur a seven, to immense booing from both sides of the stands. Cedric received sixes across the board.

The task over, Taylor rose to walk down the stands and away from Hogwarts. She still couldn't spot Harry in the scrum of Hufflepuffs, so she waved to them all and hoped he saw her.

Cedric was in the infirmary for four days. The burns, Harry heard, were not healing correctly. Cedric's father, Amos Diggory, was in and out suggesting things to Madam Pomfrey, to the point where he had been told he would be banned from Hogwarts if he persisted. On the fifth day Cedric was sent to Saint Mungo's, and was gone for another three weeks.

It was a very contrite and tired Cedric Diggory who finally returned to Hogwarts after that, his torso and arms still wrapped in bandages. There were angry red burn scars licking up his neck, and that was the least of his scarring, the parts deemed healed enough to be uncovered.

"Bad reaction," Cedric explained to all of Hufflepuff his first night back. They had gathered in the common room, waiting to hear from him. His voice was hoarse. "I thought the first task might be based around the lake, because of something Bagman said in passing. I put on heat-sealing ointment beforehand, so if we had to go in I wouldn't be cold. I thought I got it all off before facing the dragon, but the healers said the magic remained even once the ointment itself was gone."

Harry cringed as he imagined being burned while also magically holding heat in.