A month passed, and soon, the third task was approaching. No one had any idea about what it was, yet, but it was happening soon.

But before the third task came the letting loose. The acting like normal kids and not ones that fought dragons and merpeople.

So that's why Cassia, Poppy, Hermione, Ron and Harry were on a walk in the forest with Hagrid right now.

"Now I remember- I remember when I first met you lot!" Hagrid said reminiscently, Cassia chuckling. "Biggest bunch of misfits I ever set my eyes on! And you, Harry and Cassia, you used to hate each other!"

"Still do," Cassia grinned. "Isn't that right, Potter?"

Harry nodded, but he wasn't really there. He kept walking away from the group and sort of splitting off from them.

But Hagrid didn't seem to notice this. "And here we all are, four years later!"

"We're still a bunch of misfits," Ron smirked.

"Well, maybe, but we've all got each other," Poppy said.

"And Harry, of course," Hagrid grinned. "Soon to be, the youngest Triwizard champion there is!"

Cassia knew that she wanted Cedric or Harry to win. Obviously, she was supporting her boyfriend, but she was also supporting Potter. She wasn't joking when she said she intended to put a CD on one cheek and a HP on the other to watch the third task.

So when she saw Harry, wandering off in the opposite direction, she decided to check it out.

But now, as she approached him, he seemed to be frozen, looking at something on the ground.

"Hey, Potter!" She said, running up to him. "Potter, what's wrong?"

"Look at that," Harry said, pointing to something on the ground.

Cassia didn't see what he was referring to, at first. She had no idea what he was talking about.

But then she saw it, lying on the floor, top up.

A bowler hat.

And Cassia remembered seeing one of those on someone, she just couldn't-

Well, now she could.

Because just behind the tree in front of them, the tree that they started to walk round, was a body. Cassia stopped walking when she saw it, fear seeping through her body.

Mr Crouch was lying on his back, eyes glazed and open.

Dead.

❦︎❦︎❦︎

If you asked Cassia what happened in the hour following the death, she couldn't've told you. She had a brief memory of screaming, running to get help with Hermione, and coming back to bury him. But she couldn't tell you anything else.

Next thing she knew, she was walking up to Dumbledore's office with Potter. She had wanted answers, and so had he. So they had agreed to go and ask them.

However, when they got up to Dumbledore's office, they heard angry shouts coming from it, and faltered, standing outside the door.

"A man has died here, Fudge! And he won't be the last! You must take action!" That was Dumbledore.

"I will not!" Fudge yelled back. "In times like these, the wizarding world looks to its leaders for strength, Dumbledore!"

"Then for once show them some!"

"The Triwizard Tournament will not be cancelled, I will not be seen as a coward!"

"A true leader does what is right, no matter what others think," Dumbledore said wisely.

"What did you say to me-?"

"Excuse me, gentlemen," Moody growled. "But it might interest you to know that this conversation is no longer private."

With a flick of his wand he opened the door, revealing Harry and Cassia.

Fudge, who was leaning over Dumbledore's desk, stood up. "Oh Harry! Harry how good to see you again, and your friend, er-?"

"Cassia," the girl said. "Cassia Malfoy."

"Oh goodness gracious I remember you from when you were younger!" Fudge commented. "You've grown up a lot since then, of course."

"Um, yeah," Cassia nodded. "Er- we can come back later, Professor-"

"Oh, not necessary, Harry, Cassia, the minister and I are done, I'll be back in a moment," Dumbledore said, standing up too. "Minster, after you."

As he and Fudge left the office, Moody did too, leaving Harry and Cassia alone in there.

Cassia sighed, sitting down on the step up to Dumbledore's desk. "Well, this is weird."

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "Especially with what's just happened in the past hour."

"True," Cassia shrugged. "But I guess you never catch a break, Potter, do you?"

Harry chuckled, repeating her words. "True."

Cassia looked round for a second, before saying. "There's so much stuff in this office, like I get Fawkes," she grinned at the phoenix. "Who you wouldn't be here without, well, actually, we would all still be stuck in the Chamber of Secrets if it wasn't for him, but there's so much other stuff."

"Cassia, you probably shouldn't be touching stuff," Harry warned.

"Chill, Potter," Cassia shrugged, walking backwards whilst facing him. "I don't wanna wreck anything, I just w-"

And she hadn't wrecked anything, but she had revealed something.

She went speechless as she turned round, because she realised that the wall she had just backed into wasn't a wall, at all. It was a cabinet. A cabinet that had just opened up.

And inside that cabinet, was a very curious stone basin, with a brightly glowing substance inside it.

"What the hell...?" Cassia muttered, as Harry took a few steps towards this strange basin. "Potter- you don't know what that is!"

"Don't you wanna find out?" Harry turned his head to look at her. "Come on!"

Cassia sighed, the two of them walking up to the basin and looking into it.

Inside was strange. It was like there was water in it, but also these weird oily strands floating around as well. But they weren't oily, they were glowing.

And then one of them started to expand, covering the whole surface of the water, and before Harry or Cassia knew it they were falling into the basin, head first-

"Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrggggghhhhhh!"

And Cassia was falling but also yelling and she had a hold of Potter's arm but she was just so confused about why this was happening-

"Urgh!" She grunted as she and Harry were thrown onto a bench in a- where was she? A courtroom?

"Nice going, Potter," she hissed. "Where the hell are we?"

"I don't know, I-" Harry stopped as he turned round. "Professor?"

"Wha-?" But Cassia saw him too, as she turned. Dumbledore was sitting beside them, eyes pointed to the front. But this was a different Dumbledore. His hair was grey, not white, and he had less wrinkles-

"Professor!"

"Hello."

And then, as if this could get any weirder, a man then shook Dumbledore's hand through Harry. But that helped Cassia, because she realised-

"No one can see or hear us," she said to Harry, with wide eyes and a small gasp. "I think we're in a memory."

Harry's eyes widened. "What?"

Cassia sighed, looking round. They were in a courtroom, there was no doubt about that, with the seating all around the room and up the sides. In the centre, however, surrounded by stacks and stacks of paper, was a cage, with spikes on the inside.

And rising up into that cage right now was someone Cassia immediately recognised, yet was shocked to see.

Karkaroff.

"Igor Karkaroff? Used to be a death eater, and no one, no one, stops being a death eater."

"Igor Karkaroff, you have been brought from Azkaban upon your own request, to present evidence to this council,," the judge, who Cassia recognised as Barty Crouch, called round the room. "Should your testimony prove consequential, council may be prepared to order your immediate release. Until such time, you remain in the eyes of the ministry, a convicted death eater. Do you accept these terms?"

"I do, sir," Karkaroff's voice was low and hoarse, like Sirius' had been a year ago.

"And what do you wish to present?"

"I have names, sir," Karkaroff said. "There was a- Rosier, Evan Rosier!"

After a quick look through papers, Crouch shouted. "Rosier is dead!"

"He took a piece of me with him, though," said another familiar voice to Dumbledore. Cassia looked up to see a young Mad-Eye Moody, pointing to his eye. She looked to Harry, both now knowing how he lost it.

Crouch rolled his eyes. "If that is all the witness has-"

"No! No, no!" Karkaroff looked slightly crazed. "There was- Rockwood! He was a spy!"

"Augustus Rockwood?" Crouch frowned. "Of the Department of Mysteries?"

"Yes, the very same!" Karkaroff's voice got higher and louder. "He passed information to You-Know-Who from inside the ministry itself!"

Crouch just stared at him. "Very well. Council will deliberate. In the meantime, you will be returned to Azkaban-"

"NO! Wait, please! Please, I have more!" Karkaroff screamed. "What about Malfoy? Lucius Malfoy!"

Cassia's entire body stiffened. And she felt Potter's eyes on her but she couldn't look at him. Because she knew how this would go, and she knew that what Karkaroff was saying was true, as well.

"Malfoy has been cleared!" Crouch announced. "And his wife, for that matter! They were under the influence of the imperius curse and have sworn it countless times! Lucius Malfoy is a respected ministry worker, if only same could be said for you!"

Lies. All of it. It was all lies. Because her father was a death eater, and probably her mother, too.

"O- Snape, Severus Snape! He's a death eater!" Karkaroff was desperate now, scrambling for names.

At this, Dumbledore stood up. "As the council is very much aware, I have already given evidence on this matter. Severus Snape was indeed a death eater, and prior to Voldemort's downfall, switched sides and turned spy for us, at great personal risk-"

"It is a lie!"

"-now, he's no more of a death eater than I am!" Dumbledore finished, sitting back down.

"No, it's a lie! Severus Snape remains faithful to the Dark Lord-"

"Silence!" Crouch banged his gavel on his desk until the whole room was quiet. "Unless the witness possessed any genuine name of consequence, this session is now concluded!"

But instead of backing down, like Cassia expected him to do, Karkaroff smirked.

"Oh," he said, chuckling slightly. "Oh no, no, no, no, no. I've heard about one more."

"What's that?" Crouch demanded.

"The name..."

"Yes?"

"I know for a fact this person took part in the capture and, by means of the cruciatus curse, torture of the Auror Frank Longbottom and his wife!" Karkaroff shouted.

"The name! Give me the wretched name-"

"Barty Crouch!"

What the fuck? Cassia said internally, as the whole crowd gasped.

Then Karkaroff smirked. "Junior."

And behind Cassia, a man had stood up, however as this name was mentioned he lunched into the centre of the court, knocking over all the paper stacks and instantly getting siezed by two guards.

The whole courtroom went into chaos, people shouting, moving about, talking of betrayal.

Barty Crouch, however, remained seated, and completely frozen.

"Get your filthy hands off me, you pathetic little men!" The man yelled as he was dragged before Mr Crouch. Then he smirked. "Hello, father."

And everything slotted into place. This was Barty Crouch Junior, and he had committed those crimes.

Crouch's face hardened, and so did his voice. "You are no son of mine."

The yell that Crouch Junior let out as the guards dragged him away, Cassia thought would stay with her forever, but she didn't have enough time to think about that because a force was pulling her upwards, and Harry too, and-

"Argh!" Cassia grunted as she and Harry were thrown from the basin, stumbling backwards.

As Cassia started to get up, she started at the sight of Dumbledore, stood beside the basin.

"Curiousity is not a sin, Harry, Cassia. But you should exercise caution."

The look Cassia was giving him and the basin made him answer her unasked question.

"It's a pensieve," Dumbledore told her. "Very useful, if, like me, you feel your mind is a wee bit stretched. It allows me to see once more things I've already seen."

He headed away from the basin, over to the step Cassia had been sitting on before, and sitting down on it himself.

"Sir," Harry began, his tone confused. "Mr Crouch's son. What exactly happened to him?"

"He was sent to Azkaban," shrugged Dumbledore. "Destroyed Barty to do it. But he had no choice, the evidence was overwhelming," he turned to Harry. "Why do you ask?"

"It's just that I..." Harry looked warily at Cassia. "I had a dream about him."

He took a deep breath. "In this dream, I was in a house. And- Voldemort was there, even though he wasn't quite human. And Wormtail was there, too, and Mr Crouch's son."

He was the other man in the room, Cassia realised. When Harry was talking to Sirius. He's the man Voldemort's going to use to get to Harry.

Then she thought. Thank god we haven't seen him yet.

"Has there been others like this dream?" Dumbledore asked.

"Yes, always the same one," Harry nodded. "But sir, these dreams... what if they're not dreams? What if, what I see... it's actually happening? What if I'm seeing into Voldemort's mind?"

Dumbledore locked eyes with Harry, saying. "I think it's unwise for you to linger over these dreams, Harry. I think it's best if you simply... cast them away."

Cassia sighed, pursing her lips.

If only she could cast her nightmares away.