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0792 The Situation
🕑 Added 2025-07-30 12:01:31 +0000 UTCAfter an intense bout of dizziness, the world before Harry's eyes suddenly plunged into absolute darkness. The disorienting sensation of magical transportation lingered in his bones, and Harry hadn't yet managed to figure out where the Portkey had deposited them when—
Gurgle!
The tremendous, crushing water pressure and ice-cold lake water rushing with violent force into his nostrils and mouth made his eyes roll back in their sockets, his body convulsing instinctively as his lungs screamed for air.
His limbs thrashed desperately in the murky water as his oxygen-starved brain began to shut down. Just before he could suffocate completely and lose consciousness, a gentle, familiar voice reached his ears:
"Remember, Harry—don't tell anyone about my appearance here tonight. As far as anyone knows, you returned safely with the help of your competition uniforms and nothing more. This is crucial."
Harry was still desperately trying to process the meaning of these words, but the overwhelming exhaustion from everything he had experienced in the graveyard combined with the harsh external environment of the lake's depths, forced his battered consciousness to surrender completely and forced him to faint.
After Harry lost consciousness, Bryan sighed softly. This day had finally arrived. From this moment forward, for some considerable time to come, there would be no peaceful days.
After allowing himself a brief moment of what appeared to be sorrow, Bryan raised his wand. Countless tiny bubbles suddenly began emerging from the dark, seemingly bottomless ditch where their unconscious group was currently located. These small, silvery bubbles seem to be drawn together around Bryan's transformed figure.
Within moments, the bubbles had merged into a single, massive air pocket the size of a room and it easily enveloped everyone present.
The surrounding lake water was pushed away and Bryan landed on a protruding stone platform on the rock wall of the bottomless dark ditch. He immediately crouched down and began carefully examining Ron and Hermione's condition.
After confirming with relief that both were completely unharmed by their ordeal, Bryan stood up and stared directly at the shimmering barrier of lake water above. With another wand movement, he fired two projectiles of pure silver light from his wand tip—silvery, fish-like shapes that moved through the water.
Before long, the splashing sounds of rapid movement came from behind the rippling curtain of lake water above, and a dark, humanoid figure quickly penetrated the magical barrier of their air bubble, approaching them.
At first glance, it appeared to be a kappa. But the moment the creature passed through the shimmering wall of Bryan's magical bubble, its form underwent a dramatic transformation.
Its face shifted and realigned like clay being remolded by invisible hands, and within seconds, Sirius appeared in front of Bryan, who was still maintaining Gabrielle Delacour's appearance.
In Sirius's arms, he carried another figure—the real Gabrielle, still unconscious and wearing her athletic competition uniform.
"They..." Sirius began, his voice catching in his throat as his eyes took in the scene before him.
Seeing Harry, Ron, and Hermione lying motionless on the stone platform, Sirius's naturally pale complexion turned absolutely ashen. His gaze lingered particularly on Harry's body. The sight became even more horrifying when his eyes fell upon the dead Barty Crouch Sr., whose corpse had a gruesome hole in his neck.
"Don't worry, Sirius—they're all alive and completely unharmed," Bryan said with quiet reassurance.
Bryan carefully took Gabrielle's body from Sirius's trembling arms, and he placed her on the stone platform beside the others. Then, with a fluid movement of his wand, wisps of silvery mist began flowing from the tip. The ethereal substance entered Gabrielle's unconscious mind through her temples.
Meanwhile, Sirius placed his palm directly over Harry's heart, his hand trembling slightly as he waited to feel the rhythm that would confirm life.
Only after he had confirmed that the heart beating within his godson's chest was still pumping with strong regularity did his complexion begin to return to its normal, healthier color.
He then moved to check Ron and Hermione with the same careful attention, but their condition—the unnatural stillness, the too-perfect positioning of their bodies—made his face turn pale once again with new worry.
"It's perfectly fine, Sirius. That artificial appearance is simply an unavoidable side effect of my protective magic," Bryan explained calmly before Sirius could say his concerns. "Once we return them to the surface, they'll wake up quickly."
"What exactly are you doing to her?" Sirius asked, his voice hoarse with lingering anxiety.
Sirius opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, clearly overwhelmed by the complexity of the situation. He had accumulated too many urgent questions during the chaos of the evening and genuinely didn't know where to begin his inquiries, so he could only focus on the immediate, observable action taking place in front of his eyes.
"I'm just making some slight, necessary adjustments to this young girl's memory," Bryan replied. "Nothing harmful or permanent—simply making her believe that she acted together with Harry and the others throughout this entire ordeal. Speaking of which, how did your part go? Did anyone discover your presence?"
Sirius shook his head. "I followed your instructions and secretly hid this girl in one of the abandoned merperson houses that I had disguised to look like a large, moss-covered rock formation. After I finished subduing Viktor Krum, I returned to the hiding place and remained there."
He paused and then added. "Many people went down into the lake after the champions disappeared—they practically turned the entire lake bottom upside down in their search efforts. Teams of Aurors and Ministry officials searched through every single house in the merperson village. But they never found my hiding place."
Bryan detected something unusual in Sirius's tone, and his face creased into a concerned frown. "The Ministry officials have already arrived at Hogwarts?"
Before Sirius could give a proper answer to this question, the splashing sounds of rapid underwater movement came from outside their magical air bubble once again.
Both men immediately turned toward the source of the disturbance, their hands instinctively moving toward their wands, and watched as another figure with Bryan's appearance with a smaller air bubble charm surrounding his head for breathing, rapidly approached their place.
Like Sirius, the moment this newcomer crossed through the shimmering barrier of their bubble, his face began to twist and contort. Finally, after several seconds of transformation, Remus appeared in front of the two men.
Almost exactly mirroring Sirius's earlier reaction, after seeing Harry, Ron, and Hermione lying motionless on the stone platform, Remus's breathing stopped entirely for several seconds.
His eyes went wide with horror as he took in the scene, and his face turned pale. Only after he had personally confirmed that all three young people were indeed still alive, still breathing steadily, could he allow himself to breathe again in great gulping breaths of relief.
"Voldemort has returned, hasn't he?" Remus asked directly to Bryan, his voice steady despite the magnitude of the question. This simple inquiry cut straight to the heart of the matter, and also made Sirius purse his lips tightly, and his cheeks took on a bluish tint.
"What's happened up there, Remus? What's the current situation on the surface?" Bryan asked deflecting Remus's question.
The thick, murky lake water above them was interfering with Bryan's perception abilities. But he could vaguely sense through the magical interference that something was wrong on the shore above—something beyond his expectations had occurred.
Remus took several deep, steadying breaths, as if the events of the past few hours had completely shattered his composure and left him struggling to maintain his usual calm demeanor.
He was panting raggedly, his words coming in short bursts as he struggled to organize his thoughts enough to provide a clear report to Bryan and Sirius:
"After Hermione and the others unexpectedly disappeared from the lake—the merperson community immediately came to the surface and reported this situation to the tournament officials. The judges were thrown into complete panic and immediately ordered that Fleur, who was still searching in the lake, be brought to the surface immediately for her own safety."
Remus paused, his hands shaking slightly as he recalled the chaos.
"Then Madame Maxime and Ludo Bagman demanded an explanation from both Dumbledore and myself. That French girl, Fleur, she completely broke down emotionally—became absolutely hysterical with grief and terror. She was desperately trying to convince anyone who would listen to let her return to the lake to save her little sister.
The entire situation was complete chaos, with people shouting orders and counter-orders, students crying, parents demanding answers that no one could provide."
Remus's eyes met Bryan's borrowed blue ones with intensity. "And then Moody... oh, God help us, he wasn't actually Moody at all, was he? That fake Moody, whoever he really was, suddenly began transforming right in front of everyone. His appearance started shifting and changing, and then he became... she became... Cliodna."
"What?!" Sirius exclaimed, his voice cracking with shock and disbelief.
Bryan's frown deepened considerably.
'What in Merlin's name was happening? Had Cliodna simply forgotten to take her Polyjuice Potion on schedule?'
"You can well imagine the absolute chaos and terror that this woman's sudden appearance caused among the crowd," Remus continued, his voice deep with remembered shock. "The younger students scattered in all directions like startled rabbits—there was absolutely no stopping them, no controlling the panic.
Many were screaming, some were crying, others were trying to run back to the castle. Parents were grabbing their children, and the visiting delegations from other schools were demanding immediate evacuation."
He stared directly into Bryan's eyes as he delivered the next part of his report, "Dumbledore and the entire Hogwarts faculty immediately rushed forward and completely surrounded her."
"Did she attack anyone?" Bryan asked.
"No," Remus shook his head. "Throughout the entire confrontation, despite being surrounded, she never once drew her wand. But Albus still disarmed her as a precautionary measure."
Remus took another breath before continuing, "Minister Fudge arrived with unprecedented speed, bringing with him practically the entire upper echelon of the Ministry of Magic and every available Auror they could muster. They were all clearly terrified.
Then, in front of everyone, this woman told the entire crowd in a voice that carried to every corner of the grounds that Voldemort had returned and that we should all prepare ourselves for the war that was coming."
Remus was panting with distress again. "She told Albus that the real Alastor Moody was imprisoned in a trunk hidden in his office quarters. Albus immediately dispatched Severus to rescue Moody, and when they found him—the healers from St. Mungo's had to take him away immediately for treatment."
Bryan remained silent for a long moment, processing the implications of this unexpected development. Finally, he asked quietly, "Where is Cliodna now?"
"That's where things became even more complicated," Remus replied with obvious frustration. "Albus wanted to temporarily detain her at Hogwarts under secure conditions and interrogate her properly after we had located and rescued the missing champions. But that pink nightmare Umbridge whispered something in Fudge's ear."
Remus's voice carried clear disgust as he continued, "Then Fudge ordered the Aurors to take Cliodna away immediately, he had Dawlish and a full team of Aurors throw Cliodna into Azkaban immediately, completely ignoring Albus's objections and explicitly forbid anyone from making contact with her."
"What? Why was Fudge so desperately eager to take her away?" Sirius's forehead and temples were covered with sweat.
"Think about it logically," Bryan's voice was heavy with understanding. "Last year, the Ministry and I in the Daily Prophet jointly announced with great fanfare that the dangerous criminal Cliodna had been successfully captured and imprisoned in Azkaban.
But now she suddenly appears here at Hogwarts, clearly having been free for months while impersonating a respected Auror. If this information becomes public knowledge, the Ministry will be completely unable to explain how such a massive security failure occurred."
Bryan's borrowed face twisted with disgust, "Moreover, she told everyone present—including members of the international press—that Voldemort has returned to power. This is probably the absolute last piece of news that Fudge wants to hear, much less have spread throughout the wizarding world. His entire political career is built on the premise that the war is over and that he's keeping everyone safe."
Bryan roughly guessed that Cliodna had probably planned for some time to reveal herself and allow herself to be captured after the tournament concluded, perhaps seeking some form of redemption for her crimes or simply trying to avoid facing the more intense magical conflicts that lay ahead.
How naive. She was already so deeply involved in the web of conspiracy and violence surrounding Voldemort's return that even Azkaban couldn't help her stay out of the coming war.
"You and Albus knew all along that she was Moody, didn't you?" Remus said with understanding. "She's the one who manipulated the Goblet of Fire to make Hermione a Triwizard champion, isn't she?"
"Wait," Sirius interrupted, his voice rising with growing panic, "if Voldemort has truly returned to power... was this entire situation planned together by Voldemort and this Cliodna woman? And where exactly did Harry and the others just disappear to? What actually happened to them?"
Sirius was also pressing for answers with the desperate intensity.
Bryan sighed deeply. "You two should secretly leave the Black Lake immediately and re-enter Hogwarts through the main entrance, pretending that you've just arrived after hearing news of the crisis.
When Harry regains consciousness, he'll be able to explain and clarify some of your most pressing doubts and concerns. For now, please go—I need to take these young people to the surface and deal with the political nightmare that's waiting for us up there."
Remus and Sirius exchanged glances, both seeing the terrible urgency reflected in each other's eyes. Since Bryan had made his wishes clear and time was obviously critical, they could only follow his considered instructions.
"Oh, by the way—" Remus said suddenly, stopping just before he prepared to leave.
He reached into the inner pocket of his robes and pulled out a slightly damp letter. "Earlier this evening, during all the chaos on the surface, a Hogsmeade villager came to Hogwarts and sought me out. He gave me this letter, said that someone had approached him on the road and asked him to deliver it personally, paid him well in gold galleons for the service.
The person was wearing a heavy traveling cloak and kept their face hidden, so the villager couldn't provide any description of who had sent it."
Bryan raised his eyebrows with obvious interest, taking the mysterious letter from Remus's hand. He quickly tore open the wax seal—noting that it bore no family crest or identifying marks—and scanned the single line of text written on the parchment within.
After reading the brief message and the family crest, Bryan smiled slightly, folded the letter, and tucked it into his pocket.
"Let's go. There are still many things waiting for me up there." Bryan said.
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