While Connie Rosier was out scouring the countryside for any whisper of the mysterious Dark Wizard, hoping to get one step closer to her idol, Ethan…
Riddle Manor.
Barty Crouch Jr. woke face-down on the freezing stone floor, every bone screaming as if a herd of rampaging Erumpents had used him for Quidditch practice.
Last night… what in the name of Merlin happened?
He groaned, rolling onto his back. His skull throbbed like someone had taken a Beater's bat to it. Every muscle felt pulped.
Barty pressed a trembling hand to his temple and forced the memories to surface.
Right—he'd been sent to capture Mad-Eye Moody. Give that interfering old fool "Mr. Lamp" a night he'd never forget.
Then… that thing.
That woman.
The Rat King.
Ice-cold sweat soaked his robes in an instant.
That creature had no right to exist. None. He'd been locked away in this house for years, and the moment he stepped outside, the wizarding world had spawned a nightmare straight out of Knockturn Alley's worst fever dream.
The Dark Lord hadn't even returned yet!
A scrap of parchment fluttered down from his chest and landed on his nose.
[The rest is up to you] —Mr. Lamp
Barty's stomach lurched. Moody! What happened to Moody?
The plan—replace the old Auror with Polyjuice, slip into Hogwarts, kill Ethan Vincent and Harry Potter before the term even started—had been perfect.
Then Mr. Lamp crashed the party, and everything galloped off a cliff like a Thestral on Firewhisky.
BANG!
An owl the size of a small hippogriff smashed through the window, glass exploding inward. The impact rattled the last loose pane clean out of its frame.
Icy wind slapped Barty across the face. He sat bolt upright, mouth hanging open like a startled codfish. (◎﹏◎)
That delivery style… that casual disregard for structural integrity…
A snow-white owl with wings that could snap a man's femur strutted across the carpet, dropped a rolled-up newspaper on Barty's lap, and sauntered out the way it came—straight through the second window.
Barty stared at the two freshly ruined holes in his wall.
He made a mental note to replace the phrase "feeling ominous" with "waiting for a Scottish round-faced battering ram to redecorate."
He unrolled the paper.
His blood froze.
Front page, screaming red ink:
FORMER AUROR'S HOME OBLITERATED—COMMANDER CONNIE ROSIER UNCOVERS SHOCKING CLUES!
Below the headline: a moving photograph of Moody's ruined cottage, roof caved in, walls blackened, and—right in the center—Alastor Moody himself, wooden leg raised mid-kick, looking ready to murder the camera.
Barty's vision tunneled.
He crushed the paper in white-knuckled fists and bellowed loud enough to rattle the wards:
"IS THIS YOUR IDEA OF INFILTRATION?!"
The whole bloody country knew now!
Impersonating Mad-Eye Moody had just gone from "difficult" to "about as subtle as a dragon in a china shop."
And because fate clearly hated him, the misfortunes kept coming.
Barty looked up.
On the moth-eaten sofa sat Lord Voldemort—pale, skeletal, half-transparent, and radiating the aura of a man who'd been ignored all night and was two seconds away from setting the curtains on fire with his mind.
Barty's heart stopped.
"Master—!" he squeaked, scrambling forward on his knees, tears already streaming. He snatched the nearest vial of Nagini's venom and practically shoved it down the Dark Lord's throat.
A long, rasping silence.
Then, in a voice like a rusted hinge:
"Useless."
Meanwhile, in a far more pleasant part of Britain…
The Lovegood residence.
Xenophilius Lovegood hummed a jaunty tune while dropping ice cubes into his Gurdyroot infusion. The clink-clink echoed cheerfully around the turret room.
Ethan had been vanishing for days—off doing something heroic, no doubt. The boy practically radiated righteousness. Last term's exploits still had witches and wizards whispering his name in the streets.
Thanks to Ethan, The Quibbler's circulation had exploded. They'd upgraded from the nosebleed seats at the Quidditch World Cup to a proper spacious tent with an Undetectable Extension Charm.
"We must keep Ethan's image shining," Xenophilius muttered, eyes gleaming. "No letting that harpy Rita Skeeter smear him with her poisoned quill!"
He tapped the latest edition on his desk. Front page teaser: "Former Auror Attacked—Vanished Into Thin Air? Where Did the Culprit Go?"
"Curious," he murmured, stroking his chin. "Very curious indeed…"
He took a happy sip of tea.
The floor lurched.
Xenophilius stumbled, tea sloshing dangerously close to his moon-frost mustache. He looked down.
A trapdoor. In the middle of the living-room rug. Drawn in waxy crimson crayon, complete with a stick-figure knob.
"…Since when did we have a trapdoor?"
"Oh, Dad, didn't you notice?"
Luna's dreamy voice drifted from the sofa. She lowered her upside-down copy of The Quibbler, radish earrings swaying.
She pushed her mismatched blue-and-red spectacles up her nose and smiled like moonlight on frost.
"Ethan and his friend are down there."
Sunlight spilled through the crooked window, gilding Luna's silver-blonde hair and the soft new curves that third year had quietly gifted her. For a moment, Xenophilius felt the odd sensation parents get when they realize their child has become someone else while they weren't looking.
"Down there?" he echoed faintly.
Luna swung her bare feet, already absorbed in the magazine again.
Xenophilius swallowed.
Merlin's saggy left—
Below the trapdoor, in a pocket of space that definitely hadn't existed yesterday…
"Achoo!"
Ethan sneezed, then grinned up at the square of light far above.
"Someone's praising my heroic exploits again~" he sang, wiping his nose on a silk handkerchief monogrammed E.V. "Alas, fame is such a burden."
Directly across from him sat Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, trussed to a chair with ropes that gleamed like liquid starlight. His magical eye lay on the floor like a discarded marble; the real one glared with enough venom to curdle milk.
"Get it over with," Moody snarled. "Kill me, carve me up, feed me to your Acromantulas—whatever sick game you're playing, I've had worse."
Ethan tilted his head, pure white mask catching the torchlight like fresh bone.
"Violent? Me?" He pressed a hand to his chest in mock offense. "Moody, you wound me."
He flicked his wrist. A roll of parchment and a self-inking quill appeared with a soft pop.
"Since you won't be teaching this year, I thought we'd collaborate on the syllabus. Purely professional courtesy."
Moody's good eye narrowed. "What kind of crackpot organization calls a kidnapping 'professional courtesy'?"
Ethan's shoulders drooped theatrically. "Aw, you're no fun."
He raised one gloved hand.
The air behind him split open like wet silk. A pale, filthy arm slid out, then another, then six more—each tipped with nails sharp enough to gut a Graphorn.
The Rat King unfolded from the darkness, hair hanging in greasy curtains, blood-red eyes fixed on Moody.
She purred, low and hungry. [Meow…]
Her arms coiled around Ethan's torso like a lover made of knives.
Moody's throat worked. A bead of sweat traced the scar across his nose.
Ethan smiled behind the mask—slow, sweet, and utterly terrifying.
"So," he said pleasantly, "about that curriculum…"
Ten seconds later:
"—AND IF THEY CAN'T COMPLETE THE THREE-HUNDRED-AND-Sixty MILE OBSTACLE COURSE BLINDFOLDED THEY DON'T DESERVE WANDS—" Moody bellowed, spittle flying.
Ethan scribbled furiously, nodding like a proud secretary.
"Excellent, excellent—'constant vigilance through interpretive dance,' I love it—"
Upstairs, Xenophilius clutched his teacup and prayed to every deity he'd ever invented that whatever was happening beneath his floorboards was, in fact, heroic.
Somewhere in the distance, Dumbledore's phoenix trilled a worried note.
And with the new term only weeks away, Hogwarts quietly braced itself for the storm disguised as a Defense professor.
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