The moment Harry Potter caught sight of the brain-like creature, he cast Disapparition with the fastest reflexes of his life. The trembling air enveloped Dumbledore and the others, who were left defenseless, in a shimmering barrier. A flash of white light followed, and all five of them—except Harry himself—reappeared on the lawn outside.
Harry, however, stood frozen in place, as if bound by an invisible Petrificus Totalus.
"Why waste your energy struggling?" a voice sneered. "You'll all meet your end in the depths soon enough." Barty Crouch Jr. floated into the air, his form shifting in a grotesque transformation. In an instant, he became a creature so horrific it wouldn't appear even in the darkest, most deranged nightmares. Yet Harry recognized it immediately.
Its head resembled an octopus, with a long, emaciated body covered in smooth, deep purple skin. It wore armor of a chitinous, violet material. No nose or mouth was visible—only a pair of large, protruding eyes without pupils, glowing with an icy, malevolent light. Its limbs were unnaturally long and twisted, more like the tentacles of a mollusk than human hands.
Barty Crouch Jr. had become an Illithid—a Mind Flayer.
The Mind Flayer raised a hand, and a thick, writhing tentacle erupted from the ground beside Harry. With a single, delicate touch from the tentacle, Harry vanished.
At the same moment, on the lawn outside, several tentacles burst through the earth. Dumbledore and the others, who had just escaped the radius of a psychic Mind Blast, disappeared the instant the tentacles grazed their bodies.
When Harry regained consciousness, he found himself trapped once again in an oval-shaped tank. This time, it was worse. The tank seemed to block external magical energy entirely. Locked inside, Harry couldn't draw on ambient magic, let alone cast spells or incantations. His Deathly Hallows were nowhere to be found.
Through the blood-red liquid filling the tank, Harry could dimly make out six empty tanks surrounding him and seven others containing prisoners. It was clear that Hermione and the others hadn't escaped Barty Crouch Jr.—or, more accurately, the Mind Flayer that now possessed Barty's memories.
"Ah, you're finally awake," the Mind Flayer Barty Crouch Jr. said, drifting toward Harry's tank not long after he opened his eyes. "What do you think, Boy Who Lived? Quite the trap my master set for you, isn't it? Oh, and don't bother looking for those three little trinkets of yours. They're likely already in my master's hands."
Harry didn't respond, only fixing the creature with a cold, unyielding stare.
"Though, I must say, your numbers are fewer than my master expected," Barty continued, glancing around the clearing. "No matter. It won't be long before the other Potters and Grangers join you."
Perhaps emboldened by the success of his plan, Barty's mood was unusually talkative. Without any prompting from Harry, he launched into a smug explanation of the entire scheme.
"Ever since the Battle of Hogwarts in this world, when my master acquired the three Deathly Hallows, he began searching for a path to greater power. After conquering the Ministry of Magic, he stumbled upon an archive in the Department of Mysteries. He learned that the Veil leads to death itself. But with the three Deathly Hallows in his possession, my master would not be defeated by death. So, he stepped through the Veil, carrying the Hallows, and emerged in my world. He breached Azkaban, freed Bellatrix and the others, and from that moment, my masters began their conquest of parallel worlds…"
Barty paused, his voice growing feverish with excitement. "In just a few years, my master conquered fifteen worlds. Harry Potters of all ages—17, 21, 37—fell to the Dark Lord. Then, he saved me from my father's clutches. To aid in the resurrection of one of my seven masters, I attacked that fool Lockhart during the summer, used Polyjuice Potion to impersonate him, and infiltrated Hogwarts. Our original plan was to follow the same strategy as in other worlds: enter the Boy Who Lived's name into the Goblet of Fire. But you, Harry Potter, are far stronger than the Harrys of other worlds. Simply entering your name into the Goblet wouldn't have guaranteed our control. So…"
"So you entered Hermione's name into the Goblet instead?" Harry's icy voice cut through the liquid and glass.
"Exactly," Barty said with a snap of his fingers. "But I didn't anticipate that the Mudblood would display such power in the first task, far beyond what we could control. Even with Bellatrix and the others, we couldn't subdue a Granger of that strength. So, I turned to Amortentia. If I could get the Mudblood to consume food laced with the potion, controlling her would be child's play. From there, whether through Legilimency or other means, I was confident I could deliver you to my master and use her to keep you in check. But something went wrong. The Amortentia ended up affecting Weasley instead, and it's clear you don't care about Weasley nearly as much as you do the Mudblood. So, the night Weasley came looking for me, I began preparing my escape."
"No wonder you fled so quickly," Harry said with a cold snort, his eyes scanning the tank. "But if I'm not mistaken, this tank is designed to facilitate transformation, isn't it? Without implanting a Mind Flayer tadpole, locking us in these tanks—filled with nutrients to sustain the body and self-purifying water—do you plan to let us die of old age?"
A faint ripple crossed Barty's squid-like face.
"And another thing, Barty," Harry continued, his tone sharp. "This Mind Flayer colony feels like it was thrown together in a hurry. I've been here a while, and I haven't seen a single Intellect Devourer, let alone a tadpole nursery. Could it be… you're just bait your masters tossed out?"
The Mind Flayer's face twitched with unmistakable emotion.
"Let's be honest, Barty," Harry pressed, his voice low and cutting. "Do you really understand what a Mind Flayer is? Do you know how to operate their machinery? Do you know their culture, their history? Do you truly believe your actions are entirely your own?" As panic flickered in the creature's gaze, Harry shook his head. "A half-abandoned Mind Flayer base and a single Mind Flayer who knows nothing… Tsk, tsk. Tom really went all out to collect the Deathly Hallows, didn't he, Tom's little lackey? Or should I say… Elder Brain?"
Harry tilted his head upward, locking eyes with the Elder Brain that had silently appeared, hovering above them.
"Master, command, execute! Prisoners, kill!" A wave of unbearable psychic energy pulsed from the Elder Brain. Barty Crouch Jr., standing beneath it, raised a hand without expression and drifted toward the tank to his left.
In the next instant, Harry's tank shattered. An eight-foot-tall bronze dragon appeared in a flash, standing between Barty and the tanks.