Muggle-Raised Champion

In Two Minds

Disclaimer – I solemnly swear that JKR owns everything Harry Potter. Whether or not I am up to no good with her characters is for you to decide.

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Muggle-Raised Champion a

Chapter 24 – In Two Minds

2:03am

Sunday, 26 February 1995

Harry's Quarters, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

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With a grumble, Harry willed a small ball of light to appear above his head. Angling his watch, he made out the time and grumbled all the more. Two o'clock and he was still awake. And barely a quarter of an hour since the last time that he'd checked.

Deciding to give in, Harry rolled out of bed and padded across the room. The bare stone floor was exceedingly cold, even with socks on his feet. On his way past his trunk, he swiped the block of wood and carving tools that he'd left on top and carried them with him.

His mere entrance was enough to light the half dozen torches in the lounge room, adding their light to the dull red glow that was all that was left of the fire in his grate. He let himself fall into the lounge chair and slumped back.

He'd stayed up later than usual after his friends and Madam Bones had left, his brain whirling with what he'd learned. And then, when he'd finally hauled himself off to bed, it was only to spend the next few hours tossing and turning.

Harry knew that his mind was far too active to sleep. To be honest, he'd known it before he'd even gone to bed. What he needed was to calm his mind, to settle his thoughts and then, hopefully, he'd finally be able to sleep.

Sitting up a little straighter, he examined the piece of wood in his hand. It was a soft pear wood, a piece that Hagrid had found for him, just like his pipes. Already he'd made a start on it, the shape of the merman beginning to appear, at least within his mind where he could see what the wood would become.

Taking up his small knife, he began slicing tiny slivers of wood away. It seemed that his fingers had decided to carve a collection of magical creatures and beings. He already had a tiny carved dragon, a goblin and a unicorn in the special display case that he'd made to hold his carvings, and now there was going to be a merman to add to the collection.

As his fingers worked on carving out the merman from the pear wood, his mind delved backwards to the last time that he'd seen a merman: the lake during the Second Task. And that's where the origin of his sleeplessness stemmed from.

The Second Task. People had been put into an enchanted sleep and placed at the bottom of the lake, Daphne and Hermione among them. And it was all done by the Headmaster without even a 'by your leave' to their parents. One man had the power to do whatever he wanted to the students in his care. And it was all legal. There was nothing that could be done to prevent him doing something similar to others if he felt it was for their greater educational good. And as long as he could justify it, then someone like Madam Bones, the Head of the Magical Police, couldn't touch him.

Harry had to wonder exactly what else the man had done in the past that would be considered dubious to the non-magical world at the very least, let alone illegal.

Of course, he considered, the fact that his name had ended up in a magical Goblet, meaning that he was stuck in a Tournament that he had no interest in, not to mention the fact that he was woefully unprepared for, seemed to be just one such occurrence. And that really was becoming less of a mystery as time wore on.

Madam Bones had assured him that the experts had said that the Goblet would have only accepted his signature, no one else's. That meant that whoever had put his name into the Goblet had to have known where he was, which, as far as anyone knew, boiled down to three people: Hagrid, Professor McGonagall or Headmaster Dumbledore.