Harry Potter and the Eternal Cup

CHAPTER ONE

SHADOWS OF THE DAWN

The Riddle House of Little Hangleton had become busy with activity again. Not that any of the residents of Little Hangleton knew that. As far as they knew, the house had been torn down after being taken over by the government. This, however, was far from the truth.

This was all just an illusion built by the Dark Lord. He had turned the house of his Muggle grandparents into the headquarters of the Death Eaters. It had worked very successfully. Who would have suspected that Voldemort would have moved to a small town in the south of England?

The surroundings had been wearing him down, though. He needed to get out; his history on the Muggle side had actually been getting to him.

He then spoke to his servant, Wormtail.

“Wormtail, we have been failing miserably. Simply murdering nomads in the Middle East will not lead us to our goal.”

“We have been given some information, my Lord.”

“This will not be able to get me the Eternal Cup. Fool, Wormtail, don’t you understand? All our other efforts have failed. Protection from his mother saved Potter and near destroyed me, Potter blocked my attempt to get the Sorcerer’s Stone five years ago, 4 years ago he destroyed Tom Riddle’s diary. Priori Incantatem saved Potter two years ago, and then last year, out of sheer blundering I am told, he thwarts me again by destroying the prophecy. We then went on to anger him even more and put him even harder toiling against me by killing Black. Without the cup, I will not have the requirements to build the Sorcerer’s Stone and defeat Harry Potter. Without his defeat, I will have NOTHING!”

“But my Lord—“

“Wormtail, I will not have any more of your “buts.” Again it is time that you experience some pain to teach you to not blunder when serving the Dark Lord. Crucio!”

Two hundred miles away, the boy called Harry Potter woke up, screaming.

He was quite glad that in his first letter to the Order, he had had Lupin pop into his room, without the Dursleys even knowing, to put a Silencing Charm on his room that was active only when Harry told it to be. This had helped him a lot, since this summer Harry was more miserable than he had been all the previous summers combined. On most nights, he would uneasily fall asleep, then an hour later wake up screaming. Every night since he had returned to Number Four, Privet Drive, Harry had had dreams. Horrible dreams. Dreams of first his parents dying, then Cedric dying, and finally Sirius dying.

Sirius…

Just the thought of the only “family” he had ever had in his life brought tears to his eyes. Sirius Black had been the best friend of his parents, and his godfather. For twelve years imprisoned in the wizard’s prison, Azkaban, for a crime he did not commit, Black, at the first news he got that Harry might be in danger, had escaped from the prison and come to Hogwarts to protect Harry. Wormtail, the real perpetrator of the crime, had been uncovered to a few, but before Sirius’s name could be cleared, Wormtail had escaped. To flee from capture, Sirius had left, aboard a hippogriff named Buckbeak. He had returned, while Harry was having problems with his scar hurting, and had been one of the first wizards back in the fold of the fight against Voldemort.

Harry was unusual even considering that he was a wizard preparing for his sixth year at Hogwarts School. He had grown to at least six feet, not that he had an accurate measurement. On his face usually resided a pair of black-rimmed glasses. Behind them were startling emerald green eyes, and above his eyes on his forehead was a lightning bolt scar.

This scar was what made Harry most unusual. It was the surviving memento of his first defeat of the darkest wizard in a thousand years, Lord Voldemort (whose name many people still feared to speak). On Halloween when Harry was one year old, Voldemort had shown up at the Potters’ house. Harry knew how it happened. He knew how, tipped off by a prophecy to kill Harry, Voldemort had come after him when he was an infant; knew how his father, James, had tried to head off Voldemort and give his mother and Harry time to escape; knew how his mother, Lily, had plead with Voldemort to kill her instead. Voldemort had killed her, too, before finally turning his wand on Harry…

And there he had met the downfall of his first reign of terror. Harry had survived, Voldemort had transferred some of his powers to Harry, and the curse had rebounded on Voldemort, leaving nothing but a scar on Harry. Powers gone, horribly weakened, bodiless, Voldemort had fled…

But two years ago he had returned. Through an ancient potion, Lord Voldemort had risen again, then tried to kill Harry once more, but was thwarted by the core of his wand, a phoenix feather given by the same phoenix that gave the feather in Harry’s wand.

The Dursleys were what had made his summers the past few years miserable. The Dursleys were the only blood relatives he had left. Aunt Petunia was his mother’s sister, but she treated him like dirt, even if he was family. The Dursleys were what were called Muggles by the wizarding world. They had not a drop of wizarding blood in their bodies, and were very normal. For the first ten years of Harry’s life there, since he had been left on their doorstep fifteen years ago, they had kept him as downtrodden as possible, hoping to squash the magic out of him. Alas, they had failed, and Harry had taken up at Hogwarts. The Dursleys had gone on to explain that he spent his school time at St. Brutus’s Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys.

He quietly walked over to his desk, pulled out a quill and parchment, and began to write.

Dear Moony,

Thanks for ducking in for that Silencing Charm. It’s helped me a lot with the Dursleys.

The reason I’m writing is another dream I had, like the visions I have been having. I was watching through Voldemort’s eyes. Apparently we were in the same house as the one I had the vision of two years ago. Dumbledore will know where that is. He was talking to Wormtail, discussing plans he had involving the Eternal Cup. Apparently his plans have not worked well, and he put the Cruciatus Curse on Wormtail to vent his anger.

Do you have any idea what it means? If so, tell me.

Harry

Harry looked over the letter, thought it covered all bases appropriately, and walked over to Hedwig’s cage. His snowy owl was wide awake.

“Up to flying to London?”

Hedwig clicked her beak. He took that to mean ‘yes.’

He tied the letter to her leg.

“Off you go, then. Send it to Moony.”

She nodded, nipped his finger affectionately, spread her wings, and launched herself into the moonlight.

In a suburb of London, another witch was wide awake at the moment. Hermione Granger had had trouble sleeping ever since she had gotten home from Hogwarts. She was fraught with worry: some about the situation the wizarding world was in with the new threat of Voldemort, but mostly about her best friend, Harry Potter.

She was extremely worried about Harry. He had ever so much pressure on him since he started at Hogwarts, being the boy who lived. She, as Harry would readily admit, was one of the only people to see Harry as Harry instead of the boy who lived.

Funny, there was a flutter around her chest every time she thought about Harry, meaning her chest flutter almost all the time. She decided to check with her mother to see what that might mean in the morning.

But for now, she laid down, as did the black-haired boy on Privet Drive, both falling into an uneasy sleep.

CHAPTER TWO

OWLS AND ESCAPE

Harry woke suddenly the next morning, then he heard why. Three owls were tapping at his window simultaneously. One was Hedwig, bearing two letters. The second was Pig, his other best friend, Ron Weasley’s, owl. The third was apparently a Hogwarts school owl. Knowing what this was, and filled with dread, he looked at the letter from Hogwarts first.

Dear Mr. Potter,

The following are the scores from your O.W.L.s (Some classes are abbreviated).

Charms-Exceeds Expectations

Transfiguration-Outstanding

Herbology-Exceeds Expectations

DADA-Outstanding-Special Recommendation

Potions-Outstanding

Care of Magical Creatures-Outstanding

Divination-Dreadful

Astronomy-Poor

History of Magic-Poor

Congratulations on your six owls. You have enough OWLs to continue on your chosen career path of being an Auror.

Minerva McGonagall

Harry stared, dumbstruck, at the letter. Six OWLs! And he made it into NEWT Potions. He briefly wondered how Snape would feel about that, then turned back to the two remaining owls.

Next he opened the letter from Ron.

Dear Harry

Happy birthday!

Have you gotten your OWLs yet? Just got mine. I got 3: Outstanding in DADA, Exceeds Expectations in Care of Magical Creatures, and Exceeds Expectations in (you won’t believe this, I still don’t) DIVINATION! How did that happen?

I’d give you your present from the entire Order, plus my family and Hermione, right here, but it’s too big for Pig to carry. Just expect it sometime today.

Ron

After reading the letter, Harry stared at it, dumbstruck. Ron got an OWL in Divination? How’d that happen? After all, what he had supposedly seen in his crystal ball was actually the reflection of his examiner. Maybe that had somehow counted for something, as if the examiner would take seeing anything in a crystal ball to be the mark of a Seer. It was Divination, after all.

He then started to read the letter from Hermione.

Dear Harry,

First of all, Happy Birthday! Sweet sixteen already! And it seems like just yesterday that we met on the train.

Second of all, I wanted to tell you that it isn’t your fault what happened to Sirius, and that we’re all here for you.

Thirdly, how did you do on your OWLs? I got O’s on all except Astronomy, where I got an E. Ten OWLs out of ten!

Finally, I assume that you have already gotten your letter from Ron. To further elaborate, expect your present around two.

Love from

Hermione

Harry, after reading Hermione’s letter, was not surprised. He had expected she would excel. He finally turned to the fourth and final letter, this one from Lupin.

Dear Harry,

I have told Dumbledore of your vision, but I’m not sure that he quite believes you. No offense, Harry, but after the last vision you had, I’m sure you’re taking your visions with a grain of salt too.

Mad-Eye, Tonks, and I will be by at two with your present.

Moony

Harry read the letter, and was slightly disappointed with it. He had felt that Dumbledore would have trusted him more,

‘Oh well,’ the boy thought, and he settled down with Quidditch Through the Ages to wait.

Hermione walked down to breakfast at her customary Eight AM. Fortunately, only her mother was downstairs so far.

“Mum?”

“Yes, Hermione?”

“Theoretically speaking, what would it mean if whenever you hypothetically thought of one of your best friends, who also is hypothetically a guy, you had a hypothetical flutter around your heart?”

Mrs. Granger smiled. She knew what Hermione was really asking.

“Well, Hermione, hypothetically it would mean that you hypothetically had a crush on this hypothetical best friend.”

“Oh. Thanks, Mum.”

“Anytime, dear.”

Hermione walked back up the stairs, thinking. Did this mean that she had a crush on Harry?”

She walked into her room and lay down on the bed. Crookshanks pounced up and lay down next to her.

“What do you think Crookshanks? I mean, I’ve known Harry since first year, and he’s always stood by me when I needed someone to. Even in third year, when Ron thought that you ate Scabbers, he was my friend. He based his opinion on the evidence, and I blew up at him for it, but he tried to keep at peace with me, and be a mediator between Ron and I. And I do know that I love him as a friend already. Does that add up to love?”

Crookshanks pounced onto her desk, opened an ink bottle, dipped a claw in it, and scratched out an answer on a scrap of parchment.

Yes.

Once Hermione got over the shock of seeing her cat communicate with her, she took his advice to heart. After all, a cat smart enough to be able to write must have some general smarts.

“Oh nooooo,” the teen moaned as she lay back down in the bed. “What about Ron?”

Harry was daydreaming behind his book. He had read it enough times since first year to recite half of it from memory.

He was thinking of Hermione.

Bushy light brown hair, twenty books almost always slung across her back, the best friend a guy could ever want, and a face…the face of an angel…

Why was he thinking of his friend like this? She was his best friend!

But he couldn’t help but melt in the memory of her brown eyes…

His alarm clock went off. His present should be here in roughly five minutes.

He quickly pushed all thoughts of Hermione from his mind, made himself look presentable, and turned on the Silencing Charm.

POP!

Harry quickly turned around to where the noise came from and felt his jaw drop.

Standing there were Lupin, Tonks, Mad-eye, Ron and Hermione, five of his choicest friends.

Remus Lupin had been his father’s and Sirius’s best friend in school and beyond, as well as Harry’s favorite of the past five Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers. “Good to see you, Harry.”

Nymphadora Tonks, who preferred her surname, was a junior Auror. He had only known her since last summer, but she was a good friend anyway. “Wotcher, Harry.”

“Keeping your eye out for everything, Potter?” Mad-Eye Moody, the greatest Auror of all time, was a good friend. Face appearing to have been chiseled from wood and one magical eye that could see through anything, he gave off the appearance of a creepy person, and he was.

Ron had grown. Always having been tall, he now stood at 6 foot 6, but still had most of his freckles and flaming red hair. “How’re you doing, mate? Good to see you.” And he came over to shake hands with his best friend.

And Hermione…Harry felt his jaw drop even lower.

“HARRY!” she shouted, running over and giving Harry a hug to rival the legendary ones of Molly Weasley.

Hermione had filled out, too, but looked pretty much the same as ever, except that she didn’t have her usual book bag slung across her back.

But to Harry, she now was beautiful…

He mentally pinched himself, slapped himself across the cheek, threw water over his face, and returned to reality.

“So, what’s the present?”

“This,” said Lupin, grinning, as he pulled out a moldy boot.

“It’s a Portkey—” began Lupin.

“—to Grimmauld Place,” continued Tonks.

“We all put our heads together to come up with—” said Moody.

“—a present for you, and we all thought—” continued Ron.

“—that the best present you could have was to be broken out of here,” finished Hermione.

Harry was overwhelmed. “That’s really—I mean, you didn’t—well, thanks guys,” he managed to stammer out.

“It activates on our count,” said Lupin, “so all of you touch it.”

Once they had all touched the boot, Lupin began the countdown. “Six, five, four, three, two—”

In the space between ‘two’ and ‘one’, Harry sensed someone looking at him, and turned to look at Hermione (they were standing next to each other.) He gave her a smile that she returned, and he felt his stomach flop for the first time since he had given up on Cho…

“—one.”

And they were all swept away, with only the note from Lupin left to show for the whirlwind visit to Privet Drive.