SD: CH173 - UNSEEN THREATS PART 2

What was the real reason behind the tournament’s resurrection?

Excellent question. Really. Five points to Hestia for saying out loud what everyone else has been ignoring in favor of ten thousand galleons, international exposure and of course, Eternal Glory!

And the Goblet? The ancient, definitely-not-overcompensating, blue-flamed, soul-binding relic we’ve just handed the keys to our collective fate?

Yeah. That thing.

The way everyone just sort of nodded and said, “Ah yes, let’s let the talking fire cup with no accountability pick teenagers for magical death trials,” is frankly impressive. I mean, 

The wizarding world has plenty of famous, accomplished Masters of different magical crafts. All capable of speech, logic, and allegedly independent thought. And they still outsourced the job to a medieval salad bowl that probably thinks bloodletting is cutting edge.

Why?

Because people don’t like being blamed?

If the Goblet chooses wrong—if someone dies, if something goes sideways, if an entire school is swallowed by a magical sinkhole—nobody has to resign. They just sigh and say, “Ah, the Goblet has spoken.”

It’s the magical equivalent of saying, “Oops, Mercury’s in retrograde.” But with more fire.

And here’s the part that really annoys me: I think it’s working.

Something about the Goblet… it’s not just judging. It’s pressuring. It’s stirring people up. Making them want it. Students are walking around like it’s the Second Coming of Merlin’s underpants, and if they’re not chosen, they’ll just dissolve into irrelevance.

Which is weird, because just last year, most of these people couldn’t even transfigure a beetle properly. Now they’re all walking around like the Goblet is going to knight them and hand them the deeds to a castle.

Honestly, I’d call it mass hysteria, but that would imply it’s not being orchestrated.

And I don’t trust a thing that burns like that and doesn’t cast a shadow.

So yeah. Big fire cup. Lots of fanfare. Mysteriously timed reappearance. Ritual energy spiking. Ancient magic humming under the floorboards like a migraine waiting to happen.

Nothing suspicious at all.

“The way it appears to me,” said Narcissa, voice slow and dangerously composed, “is that we have two options. One: we follow the Director’s route—send formal requests to the ICW, or trust that Gawain Robards will humor his boss and give her what she wants.”

“Not bloody likely,” Hestia muttered.

“Quite,” Narcissa continued. “Which leaves us with option two—Crouch.”

Hermione blinked. “He’s in the dungeon. And completely addled.”

“Not that Crouch.”

“You want to use Crouch Jr. as leverage against his father?” Hestia asked.

“If the buckled shoe fits…” Narcissa said with a delicate shrug.

“Merlin’s bones,” Emmeline muttered. “You’re actually suggesting we blackmail Barty Crouch Sr. to get information on the Goblet?”

“Don’t be vulgar,” Narcissa replied smoothly. “I’m suggesting we remind Barty Crouch that some secrets are best kept managed… before someone else discovers them. Like, say, the existence of his legally-dead son currently rotting in Ministry custody.”

Hermione looked queasy. Hestia looked intrigued.

“Absolutely not,” Amelia snapped. “Barty Crouch Sr. is the sort of man who causes international incidents over seating charts. You think he’ll roll over and spill? Even if we did manage to squeeze information from him, we’d walk out with a target on our backs and hand Dumbledore the ammunition he needs.” 

She turned to me. “Harry, I forbid this. It’s too dangerous, and far too reckless.”

On one hand, Narcissa’s suggestion was cold-blooded enough to work. On the other, if it blew up, we’d be left trying to scrub our names off Ministry warrants.

“I have another idea,” Hermione said quickly.

“Oh good,” Narcissa drawled. “Let the child fix geopolitics.”

Hermione scowled at her, then turned back to me. “If the Department of Mysteries is being cagey about the Goblet, what about the previous tournaments? Maybe there’s a pattern we can pull from them.”

Narcissa scoffed. “The last Triwizard was in 1792. Even ignoring the differences in social norms, all champions died in the First Task. Good luck finding clarity in a corpse pile.”

“Yes, but the Tournament has existed since the 13th century,” Hermione said, digging in. “Which means there’ve been dozens of them. There must be examples that didn’t end in death.”

I leaned back in my chair, watching Hermione and Narcissa with a kind of morbid admiration. Hermione was vibrating with theory. Narcissa looked like she was mentally calculating how many people she’d have to kill to win the argument.

“Even if that’s true,” said Amelia, “it’s a lot of material to dig up. The Ministry has trouble retrieving anything before the fifteenth century, even from our own archives.”

“Why?” I asked.

“As Miss Black so kindly put it—social norms. Obsolete laws get rewritten, repealed, or tossed out depending on interest and political availability. You’d be surprised how many things vanish when you wait for quorum.”

“But surely the ICW would keep something,” Hermione insisted. “It’s supposed to bring eternal glory, isn’t it? Now, I’m not a Mistress of Dark Arts like Miss Black, but if this thing is a ritual—rituals have rules. Systems. And if you study a hundred of them, is it really so hard to divine a basic blueprint of the hundred and first?”

Narcissa's eyes narrowed. “You’re proposing ritual triangulation.”

Hermione didn’t blink. “I’m proposing historical extrapolation. Magic leaves echoes. Especially when blood’s involved.”

“Which it always is,” Narcissa nodded, almost approvingly.

I sipped my tea like I wasn’t mentally drafting a list of things I’d like to set on fire—starting with the Goblet, all the while marveling at how Narcissa and Hermione — two extremes of the spectrum, were getting along famously. 

“You just might be on something there, little girl.” 

“Use the words ‘little’ and ‘girl’ to address me again and I can't guarantee your safety.”

…For some definitions of getting along, I suppose.

“Think about it,” Hermione said. “A structure that demands emotional exposure, magical strain, danger. It’s not a test—it’s a distillation.”

“Or a harvest,” Narcissa murmured. “You distill, you collect, you offer. The question is—to whom?”

That shut the room up like a guillotine.

Because that was it, wasn’t it? The one thing no one wanted to say aloud:

What if the Goblet wasn’t judging? What if it was feeding?

“Does it matter?” Amelia asked, after a beat. “It’s back. It’s working exactly as it used to. And no one wants to admit that’s a problem.”

She turned to Hermione. “I’ll authorize Miss Jones for access to the Ministerial Archives. If we have tournament records, she’ll find them. Outline patterns, connections. Anything.”

Hermione looked like Christmas had arrived two months early.

“I agree with the Director,” said Emmeline. “But we’re ignoring something more immediate.” She raised a brow. “Crouch Jr. He was part of Voldemort’s inner circle. If I legilimize him, maybe we pull names, vaults, secret holdings—something.”

“You’re talking about Voldemort… or Crouch Sr.?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I barked a laugh. “I suppose you can tackle that angle then.”

“I’ll join her,” said Narcissa. “Who knows what juicy secrets the little poppet might be hiding in that head of his.”

“You have fun with that.”

“Harry, you are being awfully silent about your own plans about the goblet.”

“That was before we knew about all this… madness, Hermione.”

“Yes, and? Are you telling me that your plans have changed?”

I just scowled.

“Oh, this sounds exciting,” drawled Narcissa. “What madness is he brewing?” 

“Harry was — is working on a runes project,” said Hermione. “The Perthro–Algiz Interference Matrix, to be precise. He’s working on an application of Vane’s Second Principle—exploring what happens when a Fate variable is inserted into a ritual to decrease randomness.”

Narcissa blinked. “To those of us lesser beings that don’t have a NEWT in Ancient Runes, perhaps you can explain?”

“Unless I miss my guess,” said Amelia, giving me a strange look. “He is trying to employ the power of Fate to increase or decrease the chances of an, or perhaps, a certain type of outcome. It’s a rather niche line of runework that went out of favor after the discovery of Felix Felicis. I wonder who pointed it at him.”

“Professor Babbling helped me with it.”

Technically, it was knowledge from the scar horcrux. Babbling just pointed me in the right direction to go about with the process. Doubly so after Cho Chang blurted out to her exactly what I was up to and wanted a piece of the cake.

Amelia exhaled and gave me an irritated glare. “Harry, please tell me you’re not actively trying to get selected in a competition that was intentionally rigged as a plot against you in the first place?”

“Rigged by Voldemort,” I corrected her. “Who, by the way, is sealed away. And the guy responsible for the rigging? He’s currently my prisoner. I thought that if the Ministry wants me in the competition so badly, I might as well make an effort.”

The glare intensified. “If the Goblet thinks you are the best option, it will choose you. Why even bother with all of this? It isn’t like you need the gold.”

“Not gold. I’m doing it for the glory.”

“Harry —”

“The Triwizard is being reinstated after centuries, Amelia. And like it or not, recent events have made me the hot favorite. Maybe the Goblet would choose me, or maybe, it wouldn’t. Can you really tell me what it sees in a contestant? Power, knowledge, skill? Bloodline? And if so, how? All it gets thrown in is a piece of paper, and the emotions of the contestants. Forget winning or losing, if I am not selected as Champion, it will put a dampener on all our plans. Look at my face and tell me I don’t know what I am talking about.”

“But if Voldemort —”

“Voldemort is sealed away,” I repeated. “And with luck, he will stay as is. If Eternal Glory can help Voldemort gain a new corporeal form, then I have all sorts of plans to use it for my own benefit.”

Like Ascending to Necrolord Primus, for one. And if not, at least find a way to control and subjugate the scar horcrux.

“And you’re forgetting,” I said. “The Goblet of Fire is at Hogwarts. Sitting in the Great Hall. I have all the opportunities to study it.  Understand it. Maybe even find out how it truly works. Last time I checked, studying the artefact does not break any laws. So long as it isn’t removed or tampered with.”

Everyone blinked.

“I suppose, that could be a viable way,” said Emmeline slowly. “In that case, we’d probably be better off by studying the nature of its enchantment as much as possible. Assuming Miss Black’s hypothesis holds true, the Triwizard is akin to a great ritual with boons for the taking for the winner. So, the ideal scenario would be to circumvent the process and gain the end product for ourselves.”

“And… Potter’s project could give us that?” asked a skeptical Narcissa.

“If we have all the variables, then theoretically yes,” said Emmeline. “But for that, Harry has to be selected first. And we will need a complete blueprint for the Goblet of Fire. Something… I doubt even the ICW has in its hands, and they own the damn thing.”

I nursed my temples for the impending headache around the corner.

“Then what’s the point in dealing with Crouch?”

“Well, less information is better than no information,” said Emmeline. “Ideally, we’d need someone that can analyze relics, especially ones as potent and ancient as the Goblet.”

“Babbling?” I offered.

Emmeline shrugged. “No clue. The Order never needed a dossier on Babbling. But we have someone that fits the bill close enough.”

“Who?”

“Septima Vector.”

“The Arithmancy professor?”

“Yes.”

“NO.”

Surprising pretty much everyone, it was Anastasia of all people that objected the loudest, standing up with a genuinely alarmed expression on her face. “Galloping Gargoyles, I’d rather have us do nothing about the Goblet than have a Morganach mucking things up.”

“A what?” I asked.

“A Morganach?” asked Narcissa, tilting her head slightly, an almost hungry expression on her face. “Are you certain?”

“You forget my ancestry, Cissy,” said the woman, with an aggression that looked wildly out of place for someone that was normally so demure and easily compliant. “I’m a Selwyn by birth, and you know the history between the Selwyns and the Morganachs. If you — If you even think of bringing that woman into this matter, then I refuse to have anything to do with it.”

“Anything you’d like to share?” asked Amelia, curiously.

“NO,” snapped Anastasia, and walked out of the room.

The rest of us gave each other blank looks.

“I… I should go and check with her,” said Narcissa, and excused herself. 

“Might as well," I agreed. “Well then, let’s get going on our tasks. Tempus Fugit.”

....

....

An eerie coldness was slowly creeping up Hestia’s spine, and it was a coldness made of three parts.

The first part was made from the dimming of the warming charms in the dungeon complex. Not because the charms had gone dry, which was impossible in the first place. Excelsior’s enchantments were set up to run perpetually, so long as someone periodically replaced the wardstones with newer ones, before they slowly disintegrated from drawing power from the ley line beneath.

The second part originated from the tension coiling in her gut from watching Emmeline Vance perform Legilimency upon Barty Crouch Jr for the past two hours with little to no development.

The third and final part was because of the impromptu potions lab that Anastasia Greengrass had set up on one side of the dungeon. Apparently she was brewing something ‘endothermic’, which was constantly pulling the ambient heat from the surroundings.

Before her, Emmeline sat perfectly still, one palm lightly pressed against the addled Death Eater’s temples, the other resting on her own thigh, fingers twitching in quiet sigilic rhythm.

As for Barty, the fucker had been unresponsive for hours, his eyes glassy, his mouth slack. They had tried potions to wake him, stimulants, conjured scents of pepper and bile, and Emmeline had even used an awareness-pulse to check if there was anything worth contacting.

Now they were past permission.

Hestia leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, her gaze fixed on Emmeline’s face. She’d seen her work before—once, in Ireland, when they were extracting memories from a dying spy. That had been gruesome, but predictable.

This was different.

Legilimency, as Emmeline had explained to her once, wasn’t about pushing. Not really. It wasn’t brute force or even subtle coercion. 

It was resonance.

“You find the echo,” Emmeline had said. “The echo of the self. And you listen for the lies it tells itself.”

Now, she was doing just that. Only this time, it wasn’t control that dominated her expression, but irritation.

“No threads,” she murmured.

Hestia straightened. “Come again?”

Emmeline blinked once, twice. Her voice, when she spoke again, was crisp and clinical. “Normally, you begin by locating anchor-points. Memory structures tied to emotion. Core memories. Trauma. Joy. Shame. They light up like lanterns in the fog.”

“And here?” Hestia asked.

Emmeline shook her head. “It’s like walking into fog and finding mirrors instead.”

She stood up slowly, pulling her hand away from Barty’s head. The man didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink.

“He’s broken,” Emmeline said flatly. “But that’s not what’s strange.”

Hestia approached, careful to avoid the sigils drawn in chalk around the chair. “Then what is?”

“His mind is too broken,” Emmeline said. “Like a house that’s been burned down so thoroughly there’s no ash left. No furniture. No foundation. Just a blueprint… and a smile.”

She crouched beside Barty again, not to touch, but to look. Her eyes weren’t searching for wounds or secrets now. They were searching for logic.

“Legilimency works by frequency,” she said aloud, albeit slowly, like she was lecturing more to herself than to Hestia. “Every memory has an emotional charge. Think of it like harmonic resonance. Joyful memories have a higher pitch. Grief vibrates lower. Guilt… deeper still. The deeper the note, the heavier the echo. It’s how you pull someone out of their own denial.”

She lifted her gaze. “But Crouch doesn’t have frequency. Not high, not low. Just… absence.”

“Could it be Occlumency?”

“No,” Emmeline said. “Occlumency builds defenses. Walls, traps, false corridors. Realms of thought.  You feel the resistance. Here… I felt nothing. I slid straight through.”

“Through what?”

“Through him.”

That sent a chill down Hestia’s spine.

She turned her eyes on Crouch Jr., trying to match what she saw with what she knew. He didn’t look hollow. He looked—if anything—present. Still. Peaceful. Like someone who had nothing left to fight.

“Is it some kind of spell?” 

“If it is,” Emmeline said, “it’s not one I’ve ever encountered. But something about this screams familiar.”

Hestia swallowed. “So what do we do?”

Emmeline straightened again. Her hands were shaking slightly now—an admission, if not of fear, then of respect.

“I’m going to try something,” she said. “Not deep entry. Not direct probing. Just… attunement.”

Hestia stepped back. “What does that entail?”

“I adjust my psychic frequency to his. I let him pull me in. Not the other way around.”

“That doesn’t sound safe.”

“Exceedingly dangerous, actually.”

She took a breath, centered herself, and placed her hands on her knees. Her wand stayed holstered.

This time, her eyes didn’t close. She stared into Crouch Jr.’s unblinking gaze.

The temperature dropped.

Magic hummed like a low wind across the stones, unsettling the chalk lines and making the torches shudder.

Emmeline went still.

Hestia waited.

Five seconds.

Ten.

Fifteen.

Twenty. 

Twenty-five. 

Then Emmeline jerked backward with a choked breath, as if someone had punched her in the stomach.

“What?” Hestia demanded. “What did you see?”

Emmeline looked up, slowly. Her face had gone pale.

“Nothing.”

Hestia blinked. “Nothing?”

“No void. No mindscape. No memories. Just… nothing. And something that wanted me to see nothing.”

She stood. Her legs wobbled.

“That’s not an accident. That’s not trauma. That’s not a curse.”

Hestia stepped closer. “Then what the hell is it?”

Emmeline met her gaze. “It’s a design.”

And in the chair, Barty Crouch Jr. smiled.

The kind of smile that knew something.

“He’s… smiling,” Hestia noted.

Emmeline didn’t reply. Instead, she turned from her chair, and began pacing in tight, exact steps, lips pressed into a line. Hestia let the silence grow. She knew better than to interrupt a mind like Emmeline’s when it was spiraling inward.

Barty Crouch Jr. still sat still as a stone, eyes half-lidded, the smile fixed on his face like it had been carved there.

“This isn’t a fractured psyche,” Emmeline said at last. “This is not someone who’s shattered.”

“You said it was too broken,” Hestia reminded gently.

“It is,” Emmeline said, her voice darkening. “But now I’m thinking—maybe it was broken on purpose. Not by force, but by... curation.”

“Like a sculpture.”

Emmeline gave a single nod. “Exactly. Imagine someone took a living mind and spent years shaving it down until only a silhouette remained. Every thought, every emotional bond, every self-reflection—gone. What’s left is... emptiness.”

“So that’s why he keeps harping the same lines. The Imperius command is all he has for a psyche,” Hestia reasoned.

“Not just that Imperius,” said Emmeline, and Hestia nearly flinched. “There was evidence of other curses on him, compulsions, maybe even the Imperius — demanding him to do certain things. But effectively, yes,” she said, leaning on the far wall, exhaling slowly. “And yet—there's something deeper. I couldn’t reach it, but it was watching me. I know the feeling of being watched from inside a mind. That thing... it blinked when I blinked.”

Hestia glanced again at Crouch Jr. “Then what now? Another attempt?”

“Not yet. Not like this.” Emmeline turned to face her. “Legilimency isn’t about kicking down doors. That’s child’s play. It’s not brute force. It’s listening.”

She motioned for Hestia to sit. “Let me show you.”

Hestia obliged, folding her legs and resting her wand across her lap.

“Legilimency,” Emmeline began, “is an art of harmonic entry. Every mind has a structure—a signature, like a spell formula made of emotions. You don't 'read' a mind. You tune into it. You become sympathetic to the person’s inner rhythm. Think of it like learning to walk through a dream that isn’t yours, without waking the dreamer.”

She tapped her temple. “We start with emotions. Core memories are lighthouses—they emit the most emotional frequency. If you want to find the truth in someone’s heart, you follow the brightest light. But if the mind is distorted or hidden... it’s like those lights have been painted over, replaced by mirrors. Echoes.”

“But you said Crouch had no threads!”

“None. And that’s the strangest part. Even those who’ve had their memories Obliviated still leave resonance. You can sense the gaps. But with him—it’s not that he forgot. It’s that something devoured the architecture.”

“Maybe the dementors —”

“No. Those leave claw marks. This was... precise. Clean. Like the entire mental structure had been swallowed, and a mockery installed in its place.”

Emmeline stepped back to the chair. “I’ll try a second entry. Not attunement this time. I’ll build a tether. A stabilized bridge from my own emotional memories.”

Hestia frowned. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Yes,” Emmeline said. “But if I can trick his mind into recognizing something human, it might drop its veil. Only for a second. But I only need a second.”

She drew her wand, etched a slow curve in the air, and whispered, “Pontem Vitae.”

A faint glow arced between her and Crouch’s forehead—silver-threaded and alive with pulsing light.

Emmeline’s posture softened, her eyes unfocusing slightly. “This memory,” she whispered, “is of my sister’s funeral. I was seventeen. There was snow. The urn was cracked.”

Hestia watched as the thread pulsed.

Crouch Jr. blinked.

And then he screamed.

It was sudden, guttural, like an animal. His body spasmed against the chair—twisting with inhuman angles. The smile collapsed into something feral.

Emmeline flinched but held the tether.

“Talk to me,” Hestia barked.

“His mind recoiled,” Emmeline said, voice taut. “It rejected the emotion. Not resisted — it couldn’t process it. Like showing color to someone blind since birth.”

Barty's body convulsed once more—then went still.

The silver tether snapped with a quiet whine, leaving the dungeon thick with residual magic.

Emmeline fell back to her knees, panting.

“I’m fine,” she said quickly, seeing Hestia step forward. “But we can’t do this again. Not like that. He’s not just broken. He’s hollowed. And also filled with something else entirely.”

Hestia crouched beside her. “So what’s inside?”

Emmeline’s expression was grim. “A shape that can wear a man. And if I had to guess... it’s not finished wearing him yet.”

“Possession?”

Another shake. “Possession too leaves residue too. Psychic fingerprints. This is.. Clean. A fully developed cognitive structure. I — yes, I know what this is. A hidden mind. No wonder the lattice seemed familiar. I have seen this during Rookwood’s interrogation in the last war.”

“Augustus Rookwood? The Unspeakable?” At her nod, Hestia asked. “Do all Unspeakables have this… hidden minds?”

“Only those that have cleared the Sigma-three clearance, to my knowledge.”

“Then Podmore —”

“Maybe… or maybe not,” said Emmeline with an almost grumpy expression. “Hidden minds are an incredibly risky thing. I cannot even begin to state the dangers of having a secret personality that is privy to everything you know, while keeping all its experiences, knowledge and… behaviour secret. You could have a hidden mind, and not even know it yourself.”

“Puppet in my own body,” murmured Hestia, shivering. “As if things weren’t already bad.”

Something about that itched at the back of her mind. A familiar sensation, or thought, but not one she could recall at the moment.

“If Junior has one, it’s likely that it was crafted by Rookwood under Voldemort’s orders. Having a plant inside the DMLE Director’s own house would fit right up his idiom.”

“...it would,” said Hestia slowly, feeling her limbs growing numb at what she had just learned. Some part of her wondered if Junior was actually innocent, and had only been the puppet for this ‘hidden mind’ that had done all the evil things credited to him. And if so, then an innocent had been forced to become a puppet in his own body, then carted to Azkaban, tortured by dementors until his mind had eroded to the point of insanity. And if that wasn’t enough, his own father had brought him home, held him under an Imperius for who knew how long, and then —

And then she had imperiused him to kill Lucius Malfoy and die in the process. 

This interrogation was supposed to make her feel like she was making progress. That her actions were justified. Instead she just felt shame.

Truly, every time she thought she had seen the worst this world had to offer, something had to triumph that and prove her wrong. 

No wonder Harry was hell-bent on taking it apart!

“What will you do?” She asked. If Emmeline noticed the slight hitch in her voice, she didn’t call her out on it. “Can you control this… hidden mind? Make it reveal whatever it’s hiding?”

“Not without weeks, maybe months of potionwork and psychic scaffolding.”

“We don’t have months. The Goblet of Fire will choose the Champions on Halloween.”

“Then we have to consider alternative approaches. Because I can see only two ways ahead, and I’m not sure which is worse.”

“What are they?”

“The first is to come clean with everyone about Harry’s powers, the nature of the Oneiros Spindle, the Lecherous Shrine, and work on developing this… dream-heist thing, so that we might pull this ‘hidden mind’ into a dreamscape and extract whatever it is hiding. Obviously that will mean asking others to devote their complete time and attention to this project and I’m still not sure if we even have what it needs to accomplish this… heist.”

“And the other?”

“The Imperius curse,” said Emmeline. “One so potent that it should utterly destroy any resistance it might offer. And I’m not sure even Narcissa Black has it in her to cast something like that.”

Hestia twitched.