Chapter 510: Mr. Crouch is mad (Edited)

Harry sat at Hagrid's for a while, before he got kicked out.

Because it's already past nine and almost ten, and Hogwarts was about to start its curfew, so if Harry was late, the other professors would have seen him and deducted points....

Few people in Gryffindor cared about such things now, though.

After leaving Hagrid's hut, Harry habitually pulled out the Marauder's Map, intending to see if that pesky Rita Skeeter was lurking beside him again.

"I solemnly swear I'll do no good."

Harry tapped the parchment in his hand with his wand and whispered the incantation. Numerous lines and dots of ink emerged, forming a map on the parchment.

Harry quickly found the location of Hagrid's hut on the map, there were two small black dots inside the house, Hagrid and Fang, and three dots to the side of the house, one of which had Harry's name underneath, the other two almost overlapping with no name at all: the two remaining Exploding Tailed Scytherlings Hagrid had left.

Then he checked the black dots nearby, the large group of them not far away, the students in the Beauxbatons carriage and the twelve Abraxans next to them in smaller numbers.

Then Harry unconsciously looked towards the Forbidden Forest, which only showed a small part of the map due to its limitations, but Harry himself just wanted to see if Rita Skeeter was around.

In the Forbidden Forest, the further one went into it, the more black dots there were, some of which had names-magical creatures like the Shadow and Buckbeak-but more were unnamed-mostly common animals, but also some magical ones.

Harry couldn't quite figure out the mechanics of the Marauder's Map, the dots with names were not just humans or magical creatures, pets like Fang, Hedwig and Mrs. Norris could also show their names, while magical creatures like Bowtruckles and the Fairies were mostly nameless.

At first Harry thought they had no names, but when Fish introduced him to his friends, he discovered that even the Bowtruckles had names...though most were very strange.

The twins and Hermione speculated that whether or not the names appeared had to do with the perceptions of the students at the school, such as the fact that most of the students couldn't see them, but knew they existed from Fish's mouth, so naturally they appeared on the map.

So, if there came a day when everyone thought "Draco Malfoy" is "Big Brain", would the name on the map be "Big Brain"?

This was the first possibility that came to Harry's mind after hearing this speculation, and he couldn't help but think of it every time he used the Marauder's Map....

Shaking his head to push these thoughts away, Harry ignored the dark patches in the depths of the Forbidden Forest and searched the edge of the Forbidden Forest near him....

There were only a few scattered black spots nearby, which Harry guessed were probably rats and rabbits or, of course, Bowtruckles out to guard them, and strangely, a little further away, there were suddenly more.

The reason for this is because Hagrid bred the Explosive Tailed Squirrels, those violent guys made all the small animals that lived nearby run away.

But Harry still found one of the scattered black dots with a name on it...

Is it really Skeeter?

Excitedly, Harry approached the dot, only to find it written in tiny letters, "Barty Crouch."

"Mr. Crouch?"

Harry was startled, and after confirming again and again that he wasn't wrong, he hesitated for a moment, but still grabbed the map and his wand and ran in that direction.

In the middle of the Forbidden Forest, Harry met Mr. Barty Crouch, only he didn't look very good, his robes were torn at the knees, stained with blood, his face was full of scars, his beard disheveled and his face gray and haggard....

He looked as if he had been there for many days.

Also, Mr. Crouch was not in a very good mood, and seemed to mistake a tree in front of him for Percy, and was gesturing to say something.

"... Weatherby, when you're done with this, send an owl to Dumbledore to confirm the number of students at Durmstrang for the tournament, Karkaroff sent a message saying there are twelve individuals..."

"Mr. Crouch?" Harry leaned in cautiously.

And as if he hadn't heard him, Crouch continued talking to the trees, until Harry reached him, when he suddenly grabbed him, breathing heavily, "Dumbledore! I want... to see... Dumbledore ..."

But even though he said that, he still had his hand on Harry and wouldn't let go, and Harry couldn't go see Dumbledore as he wanted to.

But soon, Crouch let go of Harry and started talking to the trees again, Harry froze and ran out of the forest in search of Dumbledore, but before he could get two steps away, Crouch caught up with him again and started spouting some fragmented nonsense that seemed to implicate the Dark Lord, but Harry couldn't seem to tie it together.

After repeating himself several times, Harry finally escaped Barty Crouch's side and exited the Forbidden Forest.

When he looked back, he saw that he wasn't being chased, so he didn't hesitate and started running towards the castle.

By the time Harry reached the castle, he was panting and suddenly hit his head in frustration...he should have called Hagrid first, at least he would have had someone to keep an eye on Mr. Crouch.

But it was a waste of time to turn back, and he had to keep running towards the Headmaster's office.

When Harry reached the gargoyle on the Headmaster's office staircase, he realized that he didn't seem to know the password.

"Lemon sherbet?"

Harry remembered the password that Dumbledore had used when he had appeared in the Headmaster's office...but it was several years old and had probably been changed.

Just as he had expected, the gargoyle remained motionless.

"Get out of the way!" Harry shouted back, "Come on! I need to see Professor Dumbledore about something important."

Apparently, if that had been enough to make the Hogwarts gargoyle move out of the way, Sirius wouldn't have had to go through all the trouble of trying to infiltrate the Gryffindor dorms last year.

Harry kept trying to remember the few times he'd been in the Headmaster's office....

Well, it seemed that most of the time, Fish had brought him here.

So...

"Nya?"

Harry meowed unconsciously.

How could the secret door to the Headmaster's office be opened by a cat's meow?

Just as he smiled and tried to ask Fish or Professor McGonagall for help, the gargoyle in front of him suddenly moved before Harry's stunned gaze.

It jumped aside, revealing the wall behind it, and then the empty wall split in half and opened left and right, revealing the foot behind the wall....

Professor Snape.