In the few short minutes after arriving inside the cave, Eleanor could only watch the somewhat awkward, but rather heartwarming reunion of Sirius, Nixie, and Harry. While it was evident that Sirius had been in contact with their godson, Nixie took to gushing over Harry as if he were a little boy for the first few minutes. She mentioned that she hadn't seen him since he had been in nappies, making Eleanor wonder if Nixie had been imprisoned in Azkaban as well along with Sirius? But that didn't make sense as the Ministry of Magic had not reported any other prisoner escaping.

So where had Nixie been during Sirius' imprisonment?

Realising that Harry was not their only guest, Nixie's eyes came to settle on Ron and Hermione next, her opening greeting to them was no better as she made sure to mention that Hermione was a girl and Ron had red hair. Clearly, starting conversations was not a strong skill of hers, but as she looked over at Eleanor, her smile softened.

"You must be Eleanor," she said, "your father was right, you really do look like your grandmother, but you look like him too. I'm afraid we weren't able to meet earlier under the circumstances, last I spoke with him in person, he was on his way to meet with you at your mother's house. I take it that it all went well?"

Eleanor nodded her head. "Yes, it did," she said, " you must be the person he was talking about when he said that Sirius wasn't going to be alone. Have you known my father for a while?"

"Since we were eleven years old," Nixie replied, " he was the first friend I ever made. I find it funny that after all these years, he still only gives limited information about me. Some things never change."

They were all welcomed to sit down, Sirius telling them to choose any rock of their liking, which seemed to lighten the mood over the idea that the couple was actually living in the cave with Buckbeak the Hippogriff. Eleanor was glad to see the hippogriff that had escaped a death sentence just the year before, he seemed to be thriving in the company of Sirius and Nixie.

And while Sirius and Nixie ate the food that was brought to them, it was obvious that their presence in the cave wasn't for the sake of just having lunch, but rather their worry over Harry's involvement in the tournament. They shared the same suspicion that Eleanor had suspected from the beginning, knowing Harry hadn't placed his name in the Goblet of Fire, however, they believed there were people with more than sinister intentions behind the matter.

The discussion started as Harry glanced over the newspapers that littered the cave discussing Crouch's mystery illness that had kept him absent not only from attending the Tournament, but also missing in the eyes of the Ministry. It led to the discussion of Crouch's house-elf Winky being let go, and a bunch of theories that went from the Malfoys to Ludo Bagman being a suspect.

"I don't know anything about Bagman,"Sirius said, " except that he used to be Beater for the Wimbourne Wasps. What's he like?"

"He's okay," Harry said, "He keeps offering to help me with the Triwizard Tournament."

"Does he, now? I wonder why he'd do that?'

"Says he's taken a liking to me."

"The man is a scamming gambler," Eleanor interjected hotly at one point, bringing all eyes to rest on her. "He's probably trying to butter you up so he could steal some of your winnings if you happen to win this tournament, Harry. Don't let him fool you, the man is a complete snake."

"We saw him in the forest just before the Dark Mark appeared," Hermione added on, "Remember?"

"Yeah, but he didn't stay in the forest, did he?"Ron countered. "The moment we told him about the riot, he went off to the campsite."

"How d'you know?" Hermione shot back. "How d'you know where he Disapparated to?"

Ron rolled his eyes. "Come off it, are you saying you reckon Ludo Bagman conjured the Dark Mark?'

"It's more likely he did it than Winky."

"Told you,"Ron said with an exasperated sigh as he looked at Sirius and Nixie, "told you she's obsessed with house–"

But Sirius held up a hand to silence Ron. "When the Dark Mark had been conjured, and the elf had been discovered holding Harry's wand, what did Crouch do?"

"Went to look in the bushes," Harry answered, "but there wasn't anyone else there."

"Of course," Sirius muttered, as he started to pace in the cave, "of course, he'd want to pin it on anyone but his own elf ... and then he sacked her?"

"Yes," Hermione cried out, "he sacked her, just because she hadn't stayed in her tent and let herself get trampled –'

"Hermione, will you give it a rest with the elf!" Ron snapped.

But Sirius shook his head before speaking. "She's got the measure of Crouch better than you have, Ron. If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals."

Nixie, who had been rather silent up until that moment, finally cleared her throat to speak.

"We can sit around this cave all day attempting to point fingers at whoever we want to carry the blame, the issue is, without any sort of evidence, we have no lead. The Ministry has already shown that they don't have much interest in saving Harry from competing, after all, two of the three tasks have already taken place and no one has done anything to try and prevent it. The competition itself should have been voided when Harry's name was called because he wasn't of age to compete, which was a requirement to enter to begin with. Obviously, there was tampering involved, and one would think the Ministry would have enough logic to get involved in such a matter or at least have the decency to cancel it."

"There's the magically binding contract, Nini," Sirius attempted to remind her, but she shot him a look.

"It's a rubbish excuse," she argued, " we're not talking about the Unbreakable Vow, this is meant to be a competition, one they claimed they made safer for the competitors to compete in. At any sign of tampering the Ministry should have acted, but instead, the lot of them are sitting on their hands looking at one another with the stupidest expressions."

She suddenly let out a laugh before shaking her head, looking all too annoyed with every passing second.

"You mean to tell me, that the fine witches and wizards that are in charge of running our government with effiancy and monitoring our safety, couldn't figure out a way to pull Harry from a competition he was forced into? He didn't put his name into the Goblet of Fire, and the Goblet of Fire is not some mighty enforcer. It was created, which means it can be destroyed and another one can be created with updated and proper safety measures to keep this from happening again!"

While Sirius tried to get her to calm down, it seemed easier said than done as Nixie pushed herself up and went to get a breath of fresh air outside of the cave. And while Sirius travelled back to the topic of Crouch with the other three, Eleanor pushed herself up and followed where Nixie had ventured off to.

Of course, she didn't have to travel far as Nixie only managed to make her way to the edge of the cliff, sitting quietly to herself until she heard Eleanor approaching from behind.

"Sorry about that," she said, "my communication skills are rather lacking these days. Most of my conversations are shared with either a dog or a hippogriff."

Eleanor grinned before sitting beside her. "I actually couldn't help but agree with everything you said in there. Especially with how incompetent the Ministry has been with handling this."

"The Ministry has been incompetent for a while," Nixie muttered bitterly, "although I suppose I'm a bit more biased against them, especially someone like Crouch, since he was the one who gave the order for Sirius to be sent to Azkaban without a trial. The Ministry has always been about saving face and wanting to look good without putting the needed effort. They go for the quick solution, not worrying about who will be hurt in the process."

"I agree," Eleanor reiterated with a nod. "It's always about the quick fix, rather than solving the underlying problem. I speak from my own experiences, but if don't mind me asking, did you always know that Sirius was innocent?"

There was a passing silence before Nixie nodded her head. "Yes, my mother knew about the switch of the Secret-Keeper before I did, but it wasn't like anyone was willing to listen to us at the time. The evidence they had collected was stacked against Sirius, especially with Peter's supposed murder, only finding his thumb. There wasn't anything I could say or do because someone had to take the fall for it and they had already chosen Sirius."

Eleanor didn't know Nixie very well or very much at all, but curiosity got the best of her, especially knowing that their time was limited in Hogsmeade and she wasn't sure when she would see the two of them again, especially with Sirius still on the run.

"What happened to you after Sirius went to Azkaban? If you're Harry's godmother, why didn't he live with you after everything happened?"

As soon as she asked the question, Eleanor regretted it, especially after witnessing the rather sorrowful expression that washed over Nixie's face.

"I wasn't strong enough," Nixie whispered, " after everything that happened. I wasn't strong enough. All I could see were the people I lost that were nearest and dearest to me, and thinking that I would never see Sirius again, I wanted nothing more than to be dead myself. During the time he was gone, I guess I was pretty dead on the inside, you know, just going with the motion of the ocean. Having my mother and the open sea, I think that was the only thing that allowed me to keep my sanity."

"You were on a boat?"

Nixie let out an abrupt laugh, clearing the air of the previous depressing state. "That's right, I'm sure your father neglected to tell you that I have a rather unique lineage. I'm half mermaid. It allows me to...well...I think it would be easier to show you."

Eleanor was still trying to wrap her head around the idea of a half-mermaid and how that had come to be, only to see an orange tail sprout instantly from under the long skirt Nixie had been wearing. In seconds, Eleanor was up on her feet, noticing the tail itself was scaled in a light orange colour that looked awfully familiar. But before she could say anything, the tail was suddenly replaced by Nixie's legs.

"That was you," Eleanor said under her breath, " that day at the lake where I swore I heard a voice and I saw your tail!"

"Shh!" Nixie placed her hand up to quiet her down. "Don't say that too loud, you'll make Sirius all paranoid, you weren't supposed to see me. I didn't think anyone was around at the time because it was so quiet out on the grounds. I needed to figure out what the second task was, so I was discussing it with an old friend in the lake."

"But...but...but how could you be half-"

"We'll talk about it another time," Nixie chuckled, "I think it's about time the lot of you head back to the castle. Don't want to raise too much suspicion."

There was little chance to argue as Nixie led the way back inside the cave, and it seemed Sirius shared the same idea of sending the teenagers back to the castle as Harry, Ron, and Hermione were up on their feet. They made sure to remind all of them that if anything else suspicious rose to let them know as soon as possible so they could help in any way possible. With enough food left in the bags to last them a while, it seemed none of them wanted to actually leave Sirius and Nixie, but they reassured all of them that they would be just fine.

Sirius attempted to return the scarf he had taken from Eleanor the prior year, claiming it had kept him warm but she told him to keep it. Promising that she would bring them more knitwear in the future.

Nixie brought each of them into a hug before bringing Eleanor into a hug last.

"Say hello to your father for me, would you, Ellie? Let him know things are alright on our end. We'll get in contact with him soon enough."

The entire way back to the Hogsmeade Village, Harry filled in Eleanor on everything she had missed regarding the conversation they had shared with Sirius while she was outside with Nixie. The discussion of Crouch had continued but there was also mentions of his son, Barty Crouch Jr.

"I didn't know he had a son," Eleanor replied as she walked along, collecting a couple of stray flowers that were on the path. "Does he work for the Ministry as well?"

"Far from it," Ron replied, " suspected he might be a Death Eater or something. Crouch had him locked up in Azkaban where he died."

Immediately, Eleanor's thoughts travelled back to Moody and his discussions of Crouch's methods during the war. He always made it seem like Crouch had taken rather desperate measures when it came to fighting and hearing that he didn't even hesitate to lock his son away in Azkaban seemed to only reiterate what Moody had been saying all along. Maybe Crouch had been too extreme for Moody's liking as an Auror.

"Crouch seems to be a man of little mercy," Eleanor said, " he's also the one that put Sirius away without a trial. I mean, I don't blame him for putting his son away in Azkaban if he was indeed a Death Eater, but to not be torn up about it in the slightest of way, just seems too cold to me."

It grew quiet among the group as they grew closer to the village, as everyone seemed to be trying to process all the information that had been given to them. Eventually, they made their way towards the castle and the closer they came to the Entrance Hall, they could smell the dinner that awaited them.

As they entered the Great Hall, Eleanor walked over to the Gryffindor Table with them, approaching where Fred was sitting, only to hold out the small bouquet of flowers she had collected on the way back from Hogsmeade.

Fred immediately turned red, not from embarrassment but rather surprised, no one had ever gifted him with flowers before. He took the stems of the flowers from her hand and looked up to where Eleanor was smiling at him.

"What's the occasion, love?"

"No occasion, I was just thinking of you today and I thought the flowers were pretty."

She said nothing else as she slipped him a quick kiss on the cheek before making her way towards the Hufflepuff table. But as Fred turned around on the bench with the flowers in hand, he could see everyone around him grinning in his direction.

"What are you all looking at? Get your own flowers!"

A/N: Thank you to cendriia of the wonderful drawing of Nixie and Sirius!