Harry heard the silence more than he saw it; a dead, suffocating quiet pressed against his back where the roar of celebration should've been. The last echo he carried with him was Daphne's scream and the image of Alden, limp on the stretcher, his silver hair gone red and black.
"Easy, Potter," Moody rasped beside him, one scarred arm hooked under Harry's to keep him upright. The wooden leg thudded hollowly with every other step. "You're all right. You're safe now."
Safe. The word felt wrong in his ears.
The world narrowed to stone and shadow as they crossed the threshold of the stadium. The torches in the entrance hall burned low, throwing long, distorted shapes across the walls. Their footsteps rang against the flagstones: clunk, drag, clunk. Harry stared numbly at the floor, swinging toward him and away again.
"What happened, Harry?" Moody asked, voice low and urgent. "Step by step. The Cup—?"
"Portkey," Harry muttered. His throat felt shredded. "Cup was a Portkey."
"Figured," Moody growled. "Took you where?"
"A graveyard." Harry's hand clenched involuntarily, fingers ghosting against the phantom weight of Alden's arm. "Voldemort's. They were waiting."
They mounted the marble staircase. The castle seemed to be holding its breath, listening.
"And the Dreyse boy?" Moody said. Casual, almost. "Or did he bolt?"
Harry flinched. His ribs ached. "He didn't run."
"No?" There was an odd twist of amusement in the question. "Hnh. Go on."
"They killed," Harry swallowed, "they killed people. Wormtail. A cauldron. Bone, blood. His—his body back. The Death Eaters came. They—"
"Voldemort's back, then," Moody said. Not surprised. Hungry. "Properly."
"Yes." Harry's voice cracked. "He—he's back. I saw him. We—" His breath snagged; the stairs blurred for a second. "Alden fought him."
They turned down the first corridor. The portraits along the walls pretended to sleep, though some faces were turned toward them, pale and watchful in the dark.
Moody's grip tightened. "What was that?"
"Alden," Harry said, fiercer this time. "He fought him. He tried to—he wouldn't leave me. I told him to go when I ran, and he wouldn't. He stayed. He—"
Moody gave a low whistle that did not sound admiring. "Well. That's one way to empty a bloodline."
Harry's head snapped up, dizzy disbelief spiking through the fog. "What?"
Moody's normal eye flicked to Harry's face. The magical one spun lazily, taking in doors, corners, nothing at all.
"Dreyse," he said. "Spent a year playing with pretty theory. No difference between dark and light. No real line. All is just intent. Arrogant brat. Telling Aurors what power means." His mouth twisted, almost like a sneer. "Fancies himself untouchable, struts around blocking curses in my class. Always the clever ones think they'll be the last to burn."
Harry's stomach turned. "He—he's not a Death Eater."
"Never said he was." Moody's tone was too mild. "Just said I'm not crying if the graveyard took a bite out of him. Dark wizards, dark sympathizers, dark philosophers—" he spat the word "—all cowards in the end. Hide behind intent. Good that he got a look at the real thing."
Harry jerked his arm, trying to pull free. The movement nearly toppled him; Moody hauled him upright. "He saved me," Harry said, raw. "He stood in front of me. He fought him. You didn't see—"
"Easy." Moody's fingers dug into his shoulder. "You're in shock. You saw your friend get torn up. Not uncommon."
They'd reached the next landing. The castle stretched ahead of them in shadow and stone, empty corridors lit by guttering torches. Far away, Harry thought he could still hear the murmur from the pitch, a low thrum of fear.
"He's fifteen," Harry muttered. "He didn't deserve that."
Moody snorted. "Nobody deserves it. But some beg for it louder. Nebulous talk about 'no dark or light magic'? I remember it. Again and again. In my classroom." His good eye gleamed. "Good lesson for you, Potter. So you don't end up like him."
Harry rounded on him, anger flaring through the exhaustion for the first time. "Like him?"
"Bleeding in the dirt for the sake of an idea," Moody said. "Power doesn't care what speeches you make. You're alive, or you're not. He chose the losing side of that equation."
"He chose to stay," Harry shot back. His voice shook, but the words cut clean. "You weren't there."
Moody went quiet for a beat. Then: "No. I wasn't."
The magical eye ticked, one, two, three revolutions.
They reached Moody's office. Keys scraped. The door swung inward. The room smelled of dust, parchment, and the peppery tang of something simmering.
"In you get," Moody said, steering Harry to a chair with a rough kind of kindness. "Drink this." A goblet pressed into Harry's hand. "Lots to untangle. I need every detail. Every. Single. One."
Harry hesitated. The cup wobbled; Moody's scarred hand came up to steady it, tipping the liquid toward his mouth. "Come on, Potter. You're no good to anyone if your head's full of fog."
Harry swallowed. The potion burned its way down, hot and sharp. The world snapped into clearer lines around the edges. The screaming from the pitch felt further now, like it belonged to another life.
"Now," Moody said softly, looming closer. "Start again. The graveyard. The ritual. The Death Eaters. The Dreyse boy. Voldemort. Tell me everything."
Harry looked up at him—and for the first time, something in his gut twisted wrong. The way Moody said Alden's name. The glint behind the question. The faint curl of satisfaction when he mentioned graveyards and blood.
"He's back," Harry said. "He took bone, flesh, blood. He called his Death Eaters. He—he tortured them. He—he wanted me. And he—"
He swallowed. Saw Alden again, standing between fire and shadow, refusing to move.
"And he wanted Alden, too," Harry finished quietly.
Moody's smile was thin, humorless, the expression not reaching either eye. "Of course he did," he murmured. "Two birds. One grave."
Harry's fingers tightened around the goblet.
Something was wrong.
He just didn't know what yet.
The room was too dark. Even with torches hissing on the walls, their light seemed to shrink from the corners. The portraits were empty—every frame bare, as though even the painted eyes refused to watch what was about to unfold.
Harry sat stiffly in the chair before Moody's desk, his hands trembling despite the mug of potion pressed between them. The liquid burned in his throat and made his head swim, but his thoughts were clearer than before—too clear. Every breath scraped his ribs. His clothes still smelled faintly of smoke and blood.
Across the desk, Moody leaned forward, both hands flat on the scarred wood. The mismatched eyes were fixed on Harry—one steady and cold, the other spinning, spinning, ticking from wall to wall like it was searching for something that wasn't there.
"Voldemort's back," he said, voice low and eager. "Say it again."
Harry blinked. "He's back."
"And the Death Eaters?" Moody pressed. "All of them?"
"Some," Harry said hoarsely. "Lucius Malfoy. Avery. Nott—" He stopped, throat tightening. "Theodore's father."
Something flickered in Moody's expression. A brief, sharp grin. "Ah. That'll sting the boy, won't it?"
Harry frowned. "What?"
"Little Nott," Moody muttered, pacing now. "Quiet, polite. Always has the look of a child who knows exactly what kind of filth he came from." His laugh was bitter, humorless. "And your friend Dreyse—he never saw it, did he? He was too busy playing savior to half of Slytherin to notice the snake in his den."
Harry's hands clenched around the mug. "Don't talk about him like that."
Moody turned, his limp carrying him in uneven arcs. "Oh, I'll talk about him however I please," he growled. "Do you have any idea how many times that arrogant little bastard told me there was no difference between dark and light? Was that the only thing that mattered, intent? Intent, Potter! He made it sound like murder could be rewritten into mercy if you did it politely enough!"
"He's not like that," Harry snapped. His voice cracked from exhaustion and anger, but he didn't care. "He never was."
Moody's face twisted into something between contempt and delight. "He fooled you, too, then. He fooled half the school. Pretty speeches, calm eyes, never raising his voice—just like him."
Harry blinked. "Like who?"
"The Dark Lord," Moody hissed. "All charm and civility until the knife goes in. You saw it tonight—saw what happens when a boy toys with things older than himself. He got what was coming. A fitting end for a snake in scholar's robes."
The words hit Harry like a physical blow. His breath caught, his body lurching forward. "You think he deserved it?"
"I think," Moody said, voice cold as iron, "that the world's cleaner for it."
The silence that followed was suffocating. The torches flickered once, and in the lull, Harry heard something—faint, distant. Screams. The echo of them. The Quidditch stands. The sound of Daphne's voice breaking.
"You're wrong," Harry whispered. "He stayed. He didn't have to, but he stayed."
Moody stopped pacing. His magical eye froze mid-spin, locking on Harry. "Stayed?"
"He could've left," Harry said, the words spilling out now, desperate, hoarse. "He could've saved himself, but he didn't. He fought him—he fought Voldemort. For me. You weren't there—you didn't see what he did."
For a heartbeat, Moody was silent. Then, slowly, his lips curled. "And what did it change?"
Harry's pulse quickened.
Moody stepped closer, lowering his face until Harry could smell the potion-burn on his breath. "He bled in the dirt just the same, didn't he? No amount of noble speeches could stop that. No philosophy in the world saves you when real power comes calling."
"Stop it," Harry said through his teeth.
But Moody didn't stop. His voice deepened, darkened. "You saw the truth, Potter. The Dreyse boy was a coward dressed as a philosopher. A child who thought he could stand in the way of the gods. And now he's a warning—one you'd better learn from if you don't want to end up another name on a headstone."
Harry stood so suddenly that his chair toppled over. "He saved my life!" he shouted. "You don't get to talk about him!"
Moody didn't even flinch. His mouth stretched into a smile that wasn't a smile at all—too sharp, too knowing. "And yet you're the one sitting here, aren't you? Not him."
Harry's blood turned cold. For the first time, he truly looked at Moody—the feverish gleam in his eye, the twitching hand never straying far from his wand, the way he spoke about Alden's death with something that wasn't disgust but pleasure.
He wasn't grieving a student. He was enjoying the story.
A chill ran through Harry's spine. "You—you sound like them," he said slowly. "Like the Death Eaters."
That made Moody laugh—a harsh, barking sound that didn't belong to the man Harry knew. "Oh, no, Potter. I'm nothing like them. They're cowards who bowed and begged when the Dark Lord fell. I stayed faithful. I waited. I—"
He stopped himself, but too late.
Harry's heart stuttered. "What did you say?"
Moody straightened, breath ragged, the spinning eye whirling wildly now. "You know who I mean," he said, too calmly. "The others turned their backs. Not me. Not me. I waited for him. I served him better than any of them."
Harry's throat went dry. "You're not—"
"I am," Moody said softly, almost reverently. "I was. And I'll be again."
The wand came up fast, too fast for a man with a wooden leg. Harry froze, his mind sluggish from exhaustion and disbelief.
"I guided you through every task," Moody hissed. "You and the Dreyse boy both. Moved the pieces into place. Ensured the Cup would take you there—take you both. I wanted to see what you'd become, what he'd prove. But in the end, only one of you crawled out alive."
His voice cracked into a grin. "The Dark Lord will reward me for that."
Harry stumbled backward, heart pounding. His hand fumbled toward his pocket for his wand—
The lock on the door exploded.
"Stupefy!"
A flash of red split the darkness. Moody's body flew backward, crashing into the wall. The light from the blast lit the room like a furnace for a single, burning second—long enough for Harry to see Dumbledore framed in the doorway, eyes blazing.
Behind him came McGonagall, pale and shaking, and Snape—his sleeves soaked dark red, the front of his robes spattered with blood not his own.
Harry didn't need to ask whose.
Dumbledore's wand was still raised, but it was the look on his face that silenced everything—the pure, cold fury that filled the room like a storm.
Snape stepped forward, gaze flicking to Harry only once before dropping to the crumpled figure on the floor. He saw the false Moody, saw the flask, and his expression twisted—not with confusion, but with recognition.
"Dumbledore," Snape said, voice low and taut. "He's alive. Crouch."
Dumbledore's eyes narrowed to shards of blue ice. "I suspected."
Snape's fists clenched. His cuffs were still tacky with Alden's blood. "Then he's the one," he said, barely containing himself. "He's the one who sent them there."
Harry watched the exchange without fully understanding—but he saw the murder in Snape's eyes, saw the grief buried beneath it, and for the first time, realized the blood staining the man's hands hadn't been his own.
It had been Alden's.
And the man who'd caused it lay stunned on the floor, smiling faintly in his sleep.
The air in Moody's office was thick with the scent of burnt dust and potion smoke. The torches guttered, coughing embers across the stone. Dumbledore didn't move for a long moment. He stood over the fallen imposter, wand still raised, eyes cold as winter iron. The silence was so complete that Harry could hear his own pulse. Then, quietly, Dumbledore said, "Severus. Veritaserum."
Snape was already moving, his gait clipped and purposeful. The dark sleeves of his robe were stiff with dried blood, crimson shadows against the black. He didn't even glance at Harry as he handed Dumbledore the vial. When he did look down at the unconscious figure on the floor, his jaw tightened. The faint tic under his eye betrayed the violence he was swallowing.
"Rennervate," Dumbledore murmured.
The false Moody gasped awake, body jerking upright like a puppet pulled by invisible strings. The scars melted, shifting, the skin whitening, smoothing; the false eye rolled away with a soft thud. And where Moody had been, there now knelt a younger man, pale and hollow-eyed, his hair the color of straw, his face twitching in the shadow of what it once was.
"Barty Crouch," McGonagall breathed, hand to her mouth.
The name slashed the air open. Harry's stomach lurched. Snape's expression didn't change—but the fingers around his wand whitened until the knuckles showed bone.
Dumbledore crouched in front of Crouch Jr., his voice quiet, terrible in its calm. "You are going to tell us everything."
He touched the tip of his wand to the man's throat. The Veritaserum shimmered in his veins, silver veins glowing briefly beneath the skin. Crouch's eyes, glazed and half-aware, lifted. "Everything?" he repeated, his voice strange—soft, but threaded with madness.
"Yes," Dumbledore said.
Crouch laughed—a thin, cracked sound that died against the walls. "It wasn't supposed to be him, you know. Either of them. Not at first."
Snape's voice cut through, sharp as a whip. "Explain."
Crouch's eyes flicked toward him, pupils unfocused. "You'd know, wouldn't you? Always hovering behind the headmaster's pet prodigy. Your little apprentice—your shadow. The boy with a mouth too clever for his own life span." His grin twitched wide. "Dreyse."
The name seemed to scorch the air.
Crouch leaned his head back, mumbling half to himself, half to the room. "Every bloody week, he had to speak. Mocked everything we stood for. The Ministry, the Order, the world that kept him safe."
His voice began to climb, trembling on the edge of laughter."Unforgivable Curses—he called them coward's work. Said any fool could hide behind pain. He said real strength was understanding it. Can you imagine? A fifteen-year-old boy telling me what power is?"
Harry froze where he sat. He could still hear Alden's voice from months ago: calm, quiet, cutting. Magic is only a tool. Light and dark are just names for the same force.
"He called the Minister a puppet," Crouch went on, the words spilling faster now, fever breaking. "Told my class—my class—that laws are written by frightened men who couldn't control what they feared. The arrogance."
Snape's lip curled, but there was something else beneath the anger—something hollow, dark, proud.
Crouch jerked forward suddenly, eyes wide. "And then the Age Line. I saw it myself. You did too, didn't you, Headmaster? Your spell—a weave no boy should've cracked—and he broke it like glass. Smiled while he did it. Told you even Gellert Grindelwald had better discipline."
The silence that followed that name was suffocating. Harry felt the blood drain from his face. Dumbledore's expression did not change, but the light in the room seemed to flicker.
Crouch kept going, manic now. "Oh, the whispers in the halls. The next Dark Lord. The serpent prince. Grindelwald's echo. All of them whispered it, all of them waited to see if the stories were true. And I—" He jabbed a finger toward himself, his nails bitten to the bone. "I had to listen to it. Day after day. That some schoolboy was the new terror of our time."
He laughed again, sharp and ugly. "Do you know how it feels? To serve the Dark Lord himself, to watch the world tremble under his shadow—and then to hear children whisper the name of a pale Slytherin brat as if he were an heir?"
Snape's wand twitched upward, and McGonagall caught his arm. "Severus," she hissed.
Crouch ignored them both. "So I made sure. I made sure the world would see the difference. I wanted him there. In the graveyard. I wanted the legend of Dreyse to burn away before the real one returned. The apprentice facing the master."
His laugh broke into a gasp. "And look what happened. The boy who thought intent made him invincible—bleeding in the dirt. His body carried through the pitch like a broken doll. They saw it, didn't they? The crowd saw. The teachers saw. The children saw. The real Dark Lord is back, and that little pet philosopher is rotting in the hospital wing."
Harry was shaking. He hadn't realized he'd stood until he felt McGonagall's hand on his shoulder.
"You did all this—just to prove a point?" he whispered.
Crouch tilted his head. "No. I did it for him," he said, almost dreamily. "For the Dark Lord. For the order he'll restore. But the boy? The boy was an indulgence. A correction. The world doesn't need two Dark Lords."
"Enough."
The word came from Dumbledore. Quiet. But it cracked like thunder. The temperature in the room dropped. The torches bowed low. Even Crouch seemed to shrink under that voice.
"You condemned two children," Dumbledore said softly. "You twisted an entire year of their lives, turned their courage into bait—and for what? Ego? Spite?"
Crouch's grin faltered. "For purity," he whispered. "For faith."
Dumbledore's eyes burned brighter. "Then your faith is poison."
Behind him, Snape was trembling with silent rage, his fists clenched so hard that blood from his own palms marked the floor.
"Tell me," Dumbledore said, standing to his full height, "how you made the Cup."
Crouch blinked, his eyes unfocused again, his voice dull. "Portkey. Simple charm. Set to trigger when both hands touch it. One would have been enough. But I was greedy. I wanted them both."
"And you," Snape said quietly, deadly, "you thought you were proving something by watching a fifteen-year-old nearly die?"
Crouch smiled faintly. "I didn't watch. I imagined."
The silence stretched. Snape moved once, like a whip, wand half-raised—then Dumbledore's hand shot out and caught his wrist.
"Not here," Dumbledore said.
Snape's voice shook. "He used my student—he used my boy—as bait."
"I know," Dumbledore said. And that quiet grief in his tone was somehow worse than rage. "And he will answer for it."
Harry looked at the man on the floor—sallow, trembling, half-mad—and felt something colder than fear settle in his chest. Because this was what Alden had tried to explain. Magic didn't have sides. It was the people who decided what it became.
And this man—this hollow-eyed fanatic—had decided his cruelty was holy.
Crouch was still laughing when McGonagall's wand pressed against his throat. The laugh died with a wet rasp.
"Enough of your filth," she said, voice trembling with fury barely leashed. Her Scottish accent thickened, sharp as a blade. "Not another word."A flick of her wrist—precise, effortless—and iron bands shimmered into existence around his wrists and ankles, transfigured straight from the air. The chains hissed as they coiled tighter, glowing faintly with magic.
Crouch jerked, half-choking. "You—you wouldn't dare—"
McGonagall's eyes were glacial. "Try me."
Dumbledore's tone was soft, but no less final. "Do not engage him further, Minerva. The Dementors are on their way from the Ministry. He will not leave this room alive, nor free."He turned those same blue eyes on the bound man. "Do not mistake that mercy for lenience, Mr. Crouch. You will answer to justice before you answer to death."
Crouch paled. For the first time since waking, the fanatic gleam faltered. "You—"
"Silencio."McGonagall's wand barely twitched. His mouth opened, but nothing came. The silence that followed was almost peaceful.
Dumbledore straightened, his robes whispering against the flagstones. "Minerva, guard him. No one comes near him until the escort arrives."
She inclined her head, but her eyes never left Crouch. "You have my word, Albus."
Dumbledore's gaze lingered one moment longer on her wand—steady, unwavering—and then he gestured for Snape and Harry to follow. The door shut behind them with a low, echoing click.
The corridor outside was long and dim, lit by flickering torches that burned in fits. Shadows bled between the stones. None of them spoke at first. The only sound was the faint crackle of flame and the soft, dragging tread of Snape's boots.
Harry's heart thudded unevenly. Every step away from that office felt heavier, like the air itself didn't want to let him go.
Finally, he found his voice. "Professor," he said quietly. "Is it true?"
Dumbledore didn't look at him. "What part, Harry?"
Harry swallowed. His throat was dry, the words rough on his tongue. "About Alden. About him being… related to Grindelwald."
The effect was immediate. Snape stopped walking. Dumbledore did too, so abruptly his robes whispered like thunder. For a heartbeat, no one breathed.
"What did you say?" Snape's voice was low, dangerously soft.
Harry hesitated. "In the graveyard," he said. "Voldemort said it. He—he looked at Alden and said his name. Grindelwald. And Alden said—he said his blood was more noble than all of Britain's."
The silence cracked open between them. Dumbledore's eyes, when he turned, were not angry—but tired. Inhumanly old.
"Lord Voldemort," he said at last, "is a master of Legilimency. It is likely he reached into Alden's mind during their duel. He would have seen what Alden knew—perhaps only fragments of what he had recently learned himself."
"So it's true," Harry pressed, almost pleading. "He is?"
Dumbledore's pause was answer enough.
Snape exhaled through his nose, his face unreadable, though something raw flickered behind the composure. "And you wonder why the world whispers," he muttered.
Dumbledore's tone gentled. "Harry, listen to me very carefully." He placed a hand on the boy's shoulder, steady but firm. "Yes. It is true. Alden Dreyse is of Gellert Grindelwald's bloodline—though not in the way the world would understand it. But this truth must remain between us. Do you understand?"
Harry hesitated. "But people already—"
"Rumors are wind," Dumbledore said quietly. "They die on their own. Truth, however, lives—and if that truth were to spread, it would destroy him before he ever had the chance to decide what kind of man he wishes to be. Please, Harry."
The please undid him. It wasn't the authority in Dumbledore's voice but the weary, almost parental gravity behind it. Harry nodded. "I won't tell anyone."
"Good." Dumbledore gave the faintest of smiles—thin, but genuine. "History has burdened enough boys with sins they did not choose."
They walked again.
The silence that followed was gentler, if heavier. Somewhere in the castle, the clock chimed once, the sound echoing off the stones like a heartbeat.
"How is he?" Harry asked, so quietly that it was almost to himself.
Dumbledore didn't answer immediately. It was Snape who spoke, his voice low, clipped, almost brittle."Alive," he said. "Barely."
Harry looked up.
"They're keeping him in the hospital wing," Snape continued. "Madam Pomfrey and Professor Sprout are the only ones allowed inside. Everyone else is banned. Even us." His gaze flicked downward briefly, as though ashamed of his own helplessness. "He's lost too much blood. The burns—"
He didn't finish.
Dumbledore folded his hands behind his back. "A group of Slytherins has stationed themselves outside the door. Miss Greengrass, Miss Davis, Mr. Nott, Mr. Malfoy, Miss Parkinson, and the Goyle and Crabbe boys. They refuse to leave."
Harry almost smiled through the ache in his chest. "Of course they did."
They reached the turn toward the stairwell that led to the infirmary. Torches burned lower here, the shadows deeper. Dumbledore stopped, resting a hand briefly against the wall as though gathering himself. "Speaking of infirmaries," he said, his voice soft again, "you must go as well, Harry. Madam Pomfrey will want to see you. You've done more than enough for one night."
Harry nodded, but he didn't move. His eyes lingered on the stairway ahead, where the faintest glow of candlelight flickered from the distant hall.
He spoke without looking back. "He's not a dark lord."
Snape turned, a frown forming. "What?"
Harry faced them both. His voice didn't tremble this time. "Alden. People say he's the next Dark Lord, but he isn't. He's different, yeah—but if he really was one, he wouldn't have faced Voldemort when he could've escaped. He'd have left me there."
The words hung in the air like something sacred.
Neither man replied at first. Dumbledore's expression was unreadable—part sorrow, part pride. Snape's jaw tightened, but his eyes flickered down the corridor, to the direction of the hospital wing.
"He wouldn't have," Snape said quietly, almost to himself.
And for once, Dumbledore didn't contradict him.