PHANTOM FIGURES | harry potter

58. the third task

     After Harry not reappearing for the rest of the evening, Aspen and Jasmine refused to leave the Gryffindor common room as they waited for him to return. It took him many hours to come back from wherever he went. Aspen sat there on the red velvet couch, nervously drumming her fingers against the arm rest, looking toward the portrait hole every few minutes.

     At a quarter till eleven, Harry finally came inside. He looked very confused. "I need to talk with you guys."

     "Yeah, we do need a talk!" said Jasmine, looking at him like he was mad. "We haven't seen you since you ran out of Divination!"

     "Yeah, I know," Harry grimaced and took a seat beside Aspen, seemingly grateful to be able to sit down. "That wasn't a headache."

     "Obviously." Aspen rolled her eyes. "We have brains, you know."

     Harry looked at her, clearly annoyed. "It was a dream. A weird one." He started explaining how he was brought to a mysterious house where Lord Voldemort was torturing Wormtail. Voldemort got a letter with news that someone was dead, so Wormtail wouldn't be fed to the snake next to Voldemort, and, instead, Harry would. Then he did the Cruciatus Curse on Wormtail. "So I woke up with my scar hurting, and I went straight to Dumbledore. But he was talking with Fudge and Moody when I arrived. He had me wait in his office whilst they walked around the grounds."

     He told them how one of Dumbledore's cabinets was slightly open, and was holding a Pensieve, a basin-like object that stores Dumbledore's thoughts, and Harry let curiosity get the best of him, opening it fully. Harry leaned close to the basin that was full of a strange liquid; it did not show a stone bottom, but rather, an enormous room. He got so close that his nose touched it, and then suddenly he fell into the room inside the pensieve.

     In the pensieve he saw a younger Karkaroff brought from Azkaban to present evidence to the Ministry of Magic. His proclaimed evidence was giving out the names of fellow Death Eaters in an attempt to save his own skin, and avoid a sentence in Azkaban.

     Harry also found out Snape was a Death Eater, but Dumbledore vouched for him so he was cleared by the council. Apparently, he rejoined the good side before Lord Voldemort's downfall and turned spy for them. Aspen wasn't shocked to hear Snape was a Death Eater, he seemed like the type of person to do so.

     Harry saw another trial in the stone basin. Ludo Bagman was caught passing on information to Death Eaters. The former Quidditch star claimed that he didn't know the person he was corresponding with was on the side of Voldemort. He thought he was collecting information for the good side.

     The third and final trial was of not one, but four different people. One of them being Barty Crouch Junior. He was pleading for his father to not send him to the Dementors, but Crouch Senior sentenced them all to life in Azkaban. He then said Crouch Junior was not his son, practically disowning him. Harry, however, never told them what the four people were on trial for.

     "Dumbledore reckons You-Know-Who is getting stronger again?" Ron whispered.

     Harry had told them every nitty gritty detail at what he discovered. Even the smallest things that a regular person would probably skim over.

     He stared into the common room fire. Aspen thought she saw Ron shiver slightly, even though the evening was warm.

     "And he trusts Snape?" Ron said. "He really trusts Snape, even though he was a Death Eater?"

     "Yes," nodded Harry.

     "Dumbledore really does place his trust in odd people," Jasmine trailed off quietly. "How could he let someone like that be working with children?"