Harry considered the Headmaster's story. It was consistent with what he'd learnt on his own. Many of the accounts of that night missed the fact there was a full day between the attack on his parents and his arrival at the Dursleys. McGonagall's day of observation was news to him though. Moony had mentioned he'd been blocked from visiting Harry at the Dursleys but he'd never gone into the specifics of how he'd been prevented from visiting.
Since first learning of the magical world Harry had little cause to trust authority figures in this world. Learning the truth of his parents' death, the myths that surrounded him and the prejudice against werewolves prevented Harry from trusting adult witches and wizards too far. Wolves by nature are cagey creatures and wary of strangers. It was a lesson Harry learned long before the Beast at the hands of his uncle.
Sirius and Remus were the first adults Harry trusted. (Sirius was more of a child anyway.) Kalina was moving into that circle also. Harry wasn't sure what to make of Dumbledore. While the Wizarding world place the old man on a pedestal and he had done well with the Potter finances there is just something in the beast that held Harry back from trusting the man. His instincts told Harry he was being hunted. That same instinct told Harry the headmaster knew something about it. Until the wizard was honest with Harry, or Harry simply had no choice, Harry resolved to keep his secrets his own.
Unaware of Harry's thoughts, Sirius broke the silence. "When I asked Hagrid where he was taking you, he said you wanted Harry out of sight for his own protection. That's why I gave him my bike to get Harry further away quickly. With Harry safe, I went looking for the traitor."
"I always did wonder about that," Dumbledore admitted. "If you were in fact the traitor, then why assist Hagrid in your protection? My suspicion at the time was you either were truly fond of young Mr Potter and did not see the point in attacking him once Tom was apparently dead, or you did not realize Mr Potter here was Tom's real target that night."
The three wizards sat in silence for several minutes as each thought about the errors, false assumptions, and flat out bad luck that had led them to this point. The silence was growing awkward when Dumbledore finally spoke.
"May I hope that this discussion has gone some way to clear the air between us?"
Sirius glanced at Harry before nodding. "Yes, prof… Albus, I believe it has."
"Excellent! Then I wish to present yourselves and Remus with a bit of a challenge."
"What kind of a challenge?" Sirius asked somewhat suspiciously. Harry also looked curious.
Dumbledore glanced down over his glasses with an amused expression. "During our last event, I believe our host made some rather vocal observations of how boring things were for those of us not in the Tournament ourselves."
"They were underwater the whole time," Harry asserted. "Fred and George wanted to start selling fishing poles just for something to do."
Dumbledore smiled. "Quite an imagination those two boys have. Possibly even better than the Marauders." Sirius looked indignant at the assertion. Harry simply smiled as he watched Padfoot's reaction.
"For the next event we'd planned on having a maze created on the Quidditch pitch. The Champions would have to get to the centre of the maze while avoiding magical traps and several creatures provided by Hagrid. However, with nine champions," the Headmaster paused a moment to glance at Harry, "we simply have too many participants to fit into the space. So I propose a challenge to the Marauders and their successors. Provide a challenge course to test our champions that is difficult without being deadly. The challenge will occur on the 21st of June as OWL and NEWT testing will be done.
Sirius and Harry exchanged incredulous looks. Was the Headmaster serious about this?
"It also rather does the students the favour of distracting you and the Weasley twins from your prank war so they can get some studies done." Harry laughed at the professor's awareness of the battle between Harry and his friends against the Twin Terrors.
"So gentlemen, do you accept?"
...
The Princess Marauder
1 April 1995
In the months since the second challenge Hogwarts had been in a state of building suspense. Word had quickly leaked to the student population of Dumbledore's challenge to the Marauders and the Weasley twins. The staff thought the headmaster daft for proposing such a challenge. Yes the prank war between the twins and Harry and his friends had come to an abrupt halt but it was like knowing that a massive dragon was bearing down on them and they couldn't do anything about it. Amongst the students speculation ran rampant on what the pranksters would come up with for the challenge. Although there have been repeated attempts to get Harry or the twins to give some information on the Third task, no one had succeeded. That simply added to the fervour.
The champions had only one way of describing their feelings on the challenge: scared witless. Cedric and Draco had seen what the Weasley twins were capable of over the last several years. Fleur, Al, Viktor, and the other foreign champions had seen the prank war since their arrival. The thought that they would have to deal with the combined efforts of the Weasley twins and the Marauders had them all very nervous- especially Draco.
Not without cause Draco was rather sure the pranksters would target him. He tried complaining to his father to remove the pranksters' challenge as a school governor. The elder Malfoy even want so far as to complain to Minister Fudge but had no luck. Sirius's position as the head of the Ancient and Noble family of Black was enough to counter Malfoy's lobbying. It was only after Lucius failed that Draco realized his very attempt would probably focus more of the pranksters' attention on himself. Draco was not having a good spring.
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