Cassia's POV

I caught Cedric after dinner the following evening, right as he was leaving the Great Hall. "Cedric, come with me. Harry and I have to tell you something. In private."

He followed me up to Gryffindor Tower with no hesitation. I thanked my lucky stars that he didn't have prefect patrol tonight. He joined Hermione and Ron on the sofa, while Harry and I stood in front of the fire, facing them, as we explained how we had seen Crouch's lifeless body as we were walking with Hagrid. My hands trembled the entire time we were talking about it.

"They'll cover this up, you watch. Fudge'll sell his soul before this gets out in the Daily Prophet," Ron growled.

"But why?" Harry asked, a little puzzled.

Ron sighed. "Look, nobody liked Crouch. I know this from my father. Loads of people wanted him dead. But he was a Ministry official. It's not even like he turned up stiff in Knockturn Alley. He was murdered at Hogwarts. This is a big deal."

"Who d'you reckon could've done this?" Cedric asked.

I shrugged. "I don't know, Ceddy, but there's definitely something fishy going on here. I mean, first the nightmares, then our scars are frequently hurting, then the Dark Mark, then Harry's name is mysteriously chosen for the Triwizard Tournament, and now this?"

Cedric massaged his temples. "It just doesn't add up. And there's no way this is all just a coincidence."

"You're right," Hermione concurred, "It isn't a coincidence." She fixed her gaze on both my brother and myself. "Surviving the tournament isn't the answer anymore. It's bigger than this. And I really think you guys should see Dumbledore."

"I think I'd agree," I replied. This was definitely bigger than the tournament. And probably a hell of a lot worse.

<><><><><>

The start of the summer term normally meant rigorous training for the final Quidditch match of the year, but this time, it meant prepping Harry and Cedric for the last task of the tournament. Tonight, we had been informed what the task was going to be; navigating a gigantic maze with hedges at least twenty feet high, to find the Triwizard Cup at the heart of the maze. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. There was going to be danger at every turn, though no one mentioned what exactly we would be facing within the maze.

"I'll see you later, alright?" Cedric kissed me on the cheek before returning to the Hufflepuff common room. I blew him a kiss in return as I watched him leave.

Harry and I journeyed up to the Headmaster's office so we could talk to Dumbledore, but once the gargoyle had granted us entry, we saw that the door was locked. Pressing an ear against the door, I heard a grim conversation going on.

"A man has died here, Cornelius, and he won't be the last. You must take action," Dumbledore beseeched.

I motioned for Harry to come closer to the door and listen as well.

"I will not!" a stubborn voice snapped. Fudge. "In times like these, the wizarding world looks to its leaders for strength, Dumbledore."

"Then, for once, show them some," Dumbledore insisted.

"The Triwizard Tournament will not be cancelled! I will not be seen as a coward!" Fudge refused, quite adamant in his denial.

"But, surely, that is what's right, no matter what others think," Dumbledore insisted.

Fudge's stubbornness was replaced with anger. "What did you say?" he questioned. "What did you say to me?!"

"Excuse me, gentleman, it may interest you to know that this conversation is no longer private," Moody intervened. Oh, shoot! He knew we were eavesdropping!

The door unlocked and opened all on its own. Curiously enough, none of the three men appeared to be the least bit irritated at us.

"Harry, Cassia! Good to see you again," Fudge greeted us, his previous anger replaced with joy.

"I'm sorry. We didn't mean to interrupt," I apologized.

"We can come back later, Professor," Harry added.

Dumbledore put a hand up, dismissing our words. "Oh, not necessary. The Minister and I are done. I'll be back in a moment." He gestured toward the door. "Minister, after you." Once Moody and Fudge had left the room, he turned back to look at us and added, "Do feel free to indulge in a licorice snack in my absence, but I have to warn you, they're a wee bit sharp." He nodded to a bowl on his desk, and then closed the door behind him as he left.

Harry crossed over to the bowl, which was full of what looked like miniature, black clams. He picked up a handful, but they just, out of nowhere, started snipping at him, trying to bite his fingers.

"So that's what he meant by 'sharp'," I grumbled, swatting the licorice snacks away, before they all scurried out of the room, through the bottom of the door.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a nearby cabinet door open, a shining, silvery light shining brightly as it did. Maybe Dumbledore forgot to lock it.

Curiosity got the best of both of us as we advanced to the cabinet. A shallow stone basin lay there, with odd carvings around the edge, and symbols that we didn't recognize. The silvery light was coming from the basin's contents, which were like nothing we had ever seen before. I couldn't tell whether the substance was liquid or gas. It was a bright, whitish silver, and it was moving ceaselessly; the surface of it became ruffled like water beneath wind, and then, like clouds, separated and swirled smoothly. It looked like light made liquid -- or like wind made solid -- I kept going back and forth between the two.

The surface of the silvery stuff inside the basin began to swirl very fast.

We bent closer, our noses almost making contact with the basin's contents. The silvery substance had become transparent, it looked like glass. Instead of the bottom of the basin, Harry and I were looking down at an enormous room below the surface of the mysterious substance, a room into which we seemed to be looking through a circular window in the ceiling.

I felt Dumbledore's office give an almighty lurch, and my stomach dropped as we were thrown forward and pitched headfirst into the substance. We both screamed as we fell for what felt like miles, before landing -- surprisingly -- on our feet, in the room.

I looked up at the high stone ceiling, expecting to see the circular window through which we had just been staring, but there was nothing there but dark, solid stone.

"Where are we?" Harry asked.

"I have no idea," I confessed.

There was no way this place could've been Hogwarts; we had never seen a room like this in the school. I had a feeling it must be underground, since there were no windows. No portraits hung on the wall. Combined with the dim light coming from torches on the walls, it gave the room a dark and foreboding vibe. An empty cage with spikes pointing menacingly inside stood in the center of the room. Rows and rows of witches and wizards were seated around every wall on benches, rising in levels, all positioned so they had a clear view of the cage.

Breathing hard and fast, Harry and I looked around us. Not one of the witches and wizards in the room (and there were at least two hundred of them) was looking at us. Not one of them seemed to have noticed that a pair of fourteen-year-old twins had just dropped from the ceiling into their midst.

We turned to the wizard next to us, only to find that it was Professor Dumbledore.

"Professor?" Harry asked.

But Dumbledore didn't move or speak. He ignored us completely.

A man came up to him from behind us. "Professor," he greeted, putting out a hand to shake, which went right through Harry's torso.

"Whoa..." I whispered with wide eyes. That was an image I doubted would leave my brain for a while.

Then I had a flashback to when Harry and I had been sucked into Tom Riddle's diary two years ago. We had been shown a memory of Tom Riddle framing Hagrid for the attacks on Muggleborn students, including Moaning Myrtle.

I nudged Harry. "This is a memory. That's why no one can see or hear us. It's just like with Riddle's diary."

Harry's expression shifted from shock to realization. "No wonder that guy's hand went right through me!" he whispered.

The sound of turning gears coming from the cage caught everyone's attention. A man appeared, rising up from underneath the floor, into the cage. Looks like the cage floor functions as an elevator. His hands were chained together. I recognized him right away; it was Durmstrang's Headmaster, Igor Karkaroff.

Unlike Dumbledore, Karkaroff looked much younger; his hair and goatee were all black. He was not dressed in sleek furs, but in thin and ragged robes. He was shaking.

Mad-Eye Moody was also in the room, sitting right behind Dumbledore, except there was an enormous difference in his physical appearance. He did not have his magical eye, but two normal ones. Both were looking down upon Karkaroff, and both were narrowed in intense dislike.

"Igor Karkaroff,"  a curt vice to our left addressed.  We looked around and saw Mr. Crouch sitting in the middle of one of the higher benches.  "You have been brought from Azkaban at your own request to resent evidence to this council. Should your testimony prove consequential, the council may be prepared to order your immediate release," he declared. "Until such time, you remain, in the eyes of the Ministry, a convicted Death Eater. Do you accept these terms?"

"I do, sir," Karkaroff agreed, and although his voice was very scared, I could still hear the familiar unctuous note in it.

"What do you wish to present?" Mr. Crouch asked.

"I have names, sir," Karkaroff replied, breathless. "And these were important supporters, mark you. People I saw with my own eyes doing his bidding. I give this information as a sign that I fully and totally renounce him, and am filled with a remorse so deep I can barely-"

"These names are?" Mr. Crouch inquired coldly.

"What does he mean, names?" Harry whispered to me.

"If you're convicted Death Eater, and you reveal names of other supporters of Voldemort, the Ministry will shorten your sentence in Azkaban, or they may even release you, but only if the people named are legitimately on the dark side," I explained.

Karkaroff drew a deep breath. "There was Antonin Dolohov," he said. "I-I saw him torture countless Muggles and -- and non-supporters of the Dark Lord."

"And helped him do it," Moody murmured.

"We have already apprehended Dolohov," Mr. Crouch said. "He was caught shortly after yourself."

"Indeed?" Karkaroff's eyes widened. "I -- I am delighted to hear it!" But he didn't look it. Harry and I could tell that his news had come as a real blow to him. One of his names was worthless.

"Any others?" Mr. Crouch asked coldly.

"There was a Rosier," Karkaroff said hurriedly. "Evan Rosier."

"Rosier is dead," Crouch told him.

Karkaroff blinked. "Dead?"

"He was caught shortly after you were, too. He preferred to fight rather than come quietly and was killed in the struggle," Crouch informed him.

"Yeah, took a piece of me with him, though, did he?" Moody muttered. I looked around at him once more, and saw him indicating the large chunk out of his nose to Dumbledore.

"I didn't know," Karkaroff said, his voice lowered significantly. He couldn't believe it. Two names had proven to be worthless.

"If that is all the witness has to offer-" Crouch started to say.

Karkaroff frantically shook his head. "No! No! There was Rookwood, he was a spy!"

"Rookwood?" Mr. Crouch echoed, nodding to a witch sitting in front of him, who began scribbling on her piece of parchment. "Augustus Rookwood, of the Department of Mysteries?"

I saw a younger version of Rita Skeeter standing across the way. Her hair was not curly as it normally was, but in a wavy style, almost like Marilyn Monroe. I noticed she was using a pen to write things down, instead of using a Quick-Quotes Quill.

"Ya, ya, the same," Karkaroff confirmed, nodding eagerly. "He passed information to You-Know-Who from inside the Ministry itself!"

We could tell that, this time, Karkaroff had struck gold. The watching crowd was all murmuring together.

"Very well. Council will deliberate," Mr. Crouch declared. "In the meantime, you will be returned to Azkaban."

"No! Wait! Wait! Please, please! I have more" Karkaroff cried, looking quite desperate. I could see him sweating in the torchlight, his white skin contrasting strongly with the black of his hair and beard. "Snape!" he shouted, "Severus Snape!"

Dumbledore rose to his feet. "The council is very much aware you have given evidence on this matter," he said calmly. "Severus Snape was a Death Eater and, prior to Lord Voldemort's downfall, turned spy for us at great personal risk. Today, he's no more a Death Eater than I am."

"It's a lie! Severus Snape remains faithful to the Dark Lord!" Karkaroff shouted.

"Silence!" Crouch barked, banging his gavel repeatedly. "Unless the witness possesses any name of genuine consequence, this session is now concluded!"

Karkaroff shook his head profusely. "Oh, no. No, no, no, no. I heard about one more..."

Mr. Crouch raised an eyebrow. "What's that?"

"The name..." Karkaroff trailed off.

"Yes?" Mr. Crouch pressed.

"I know for a fact that this person took part in the capture and, by means of the Cruciatus Curse, torture of the Auror Frank Longbottom and his wife!" Karkaroff said, raising his voice again.

"The name! Give me the wretched name!" Mr. Crouch demanded. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a younger man -- who strongly resembled Mr. Crouch -- calmly rise to his feet and leave the bench he had been sitting on.

"Barry Crouch!-" Karkaroff yelled.

Rita gasped aloud as Mr. Crouch's expression morphed into one of utter astonishment.

"...Junior," Karkaroff finished.

Gasps and whispers broke out among the witches and wizards watching the trial. Crouch Jr. made a mad dash for the doors, but Moody pulled his wand out, zapping him with a nonverbal spell that knocked him to the ground. Several guards seized him.

"Get your hands off me, you pathetic little men!" he protested, trying to fight against the vice grip they had on him. They brought him over to Mr. Crouch, and he gave a sinister grin, licking his lip. "Hello, father," he greeted.

Mr. Crouch's face remained shocked.  "You are no son of mine," he breathed.

Crouch Jr. licked his lip again and let out a yell as he fought against the guards, who began to drag him out of the room.

I felt the same almighty lurch from before as we were pulled out of the memory. The force was so great that it knocked us backwards onto the floor. We were back in Dumbledore's office now.

"Curiosity is not a sin, but you should exercise caution," Dumbledore spoke. Harry and I looked up to see that he was now standing in front of the basin.

"What is that, Professor?" Harry asked as we scrambled to our feet.

"It's a Pensieve. Useful if, like me, you find your mind a wee bit stretched. It allows me to see what small things I've already seen," Dumbledore explained. "You see, I've searched and searched for something, some small detail. Something I might have overlooked, something that would explain why these terrible things have happened. Every time I get close to an answer, it...slips away. It's maddening."

"Sir, Mr. Crouch's son...what happened to him?" Harry asked.

Dumbledore glanced at the Pensieve as he spoke. "He was sent to Azkaban. Destroyed Barry to do it, but he had no choice. The evidence was overwhelming."

"And Neville's parents? Are they...dead?"

I fought the urge to thump him on the back of the head. "Harry, the Cruciatus Curse is Unforgivable because it causes pain. Professor Moody referred to it as the 'torture curse'," I reminded him.

"Indeed. Neville's father, Frank, was an Auror just like Professor Moody. He and his wife were tortured for information on Voldemort's whereabouts after he lost his powers, as you heard," Dumbledore told us. His voice was full of a bitterness that we had never heard there before. "They are insane. They are both in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. I believe Neville visits them, with his grandmother, during the holidays. They do not recognize him."

"Poor Neville..." Losing your parents at an early age is one thing, but to have them alive but not even recognizing you because they were driven stir-crazy...I didn't know who had it worse, us or Neville.

"The Longbottoms were very popular," Dumbledore went on. "The attacks on them came shortly after Voldemort's fall from power, just when everyone thought they were safe. Those attacks caused a wave of fury such as I have never known. The Ministry was under great pressure to catch those who had done it. Unfortunately, the Longbottoms' evidence was -- given their current condition -- none to reliable." His gaze was on us again. "Why do you ask?"

"It's just that...I had a dream about him," Harry confessed.

"We both did. Right before school started up again," I chimed in.

"In the dream, I was standing in a house, and Voldemort was there, only he wasn't quite human. And Wormtail was there too, and Mr. Crouch' son," Harry recounted our nightmare.

"Have there been other dreams like this?" Dumbledore asked.

"Yes," Harry confirmed.

"Do your dreams differ from your brother's?" Dumbledore asked me.

I shook my head. "Somehow we're both having the same dream. We don't know why. I have a bad feeling about them, though. That's why we came to talk to you."

Dumbledore turned his back to us as he looked down at the Pensieve. "I think it's unwise for either of you to linger over these dreams. I think it's best that you simply..." He raised his wand to his temple and siphoned a silvery wisp of light from his head, letting it float into the Pensieve. "...cast them away."

<><><><><>

I crossed my arms, flustered, as we walked down the hall, away from the Headmaster's office. "Well, that was disappointing..."

Harry sighed. "We'd better get back to the common room before Snape takes off points for us breaking curfew."

"Yeah. He'd probably take off extra because you're a champion," I commented dryly.

We started to head back up to Gryffindor Tower, only to be stopped by Snape, who was just coming out of his office. Speak of the devil. "Potters, what's your hurry?" he asked. "Congratulations. Your performance in the Black Lake was inspiring. Gillyweed, am I correct?"

"Yes, sir," Harry said.

I nodded as well.

"Ingenious. A rather rare herb, Gillyweed," Snape remarked. "Not something found in your everyday garden. Nor is this." He held a dark green vial about two and a half inches high in between his thumb and index finger. Despite the dark color of the bottle, I could see the fluid inside was clear, almost like water. Know what this is?"

"Bubble juice, sir?" Harry guessed, rather snarkily.

I covered my mouth to stifle a laugh.

Snape glared at me, before his focus was on both of us. "Veritaserum. Three drops of this and You-Know-Who himself would spill his darkest secrets. The use of it on a student is, regrettably, forbidden. However, should either one of you steal from my personal stores again, my hand might just slip..." He tilted the sealed bottle downward. "...over your morning pumpkin juice."

"We haven't stolen anything," I argued.

Snape leaned close, his hooked nose in our faces. "Don't. lie. to me. Gillyweed may be innocuous, but Boomslang skin? Lacewing flies? You and your friends are brewing Polyjuice Potion and believe me, I'm going to find out why!" He slammed the door in our faces.

<><><><><>

"What do you suppose is on Karkaroff's arm?" Ron asked as we walked across the bridge. Harry and I had literally just filled him, Cedric, and Hermione in on what had happened last night. The memory of Crouch Jr.'s trial, Snape accusing us...the whole enchilada.

"I dunno," Harry replied.

"But if neither of you went near his stores, who else could've broken in?" Cedric wondered.

I sighed. "Beats me..."

"Boomslang skin and lacewing flies..." Hermione mused. "You're sure those are the two ingredients Snape mentioned?"

"Positive, why?" Harry questioned.

"Well, he thinks we're brewing Polyjuice Potion, doesn't he?" I told him.

"I don't care what Snape thinks. I've got bigger problems than detention," Harry muttered. "Something's coming closer." He touched his scar. "I can feel it."

Another pain went through my head. "I feel it, too," I added.