2 | CONFESSIONS° HARRY POTTER

8 | KARKAROFF

ACT TWO, the returned
CHAPTER EIGHT, karkaroff

As two weeks passed it seemed the only thing that could keep Iris sane was that she would get to talk to Sirius and Calypso soon. Thinking about that kept her from thinking about the fact that the first task for the Triwizard Tournment was drawing closer and that, despite her best efforts,  she couldn't shake the fear that she felt for Harry. If something did end up happening to him during that task, she didn't know what she would do. 

But, of course, Iris couldn't tell Harry that she had been worrying about him. Truth be told, the pair hadn't spoken all that much ever since Rita Skeeter published her piece on the Triwizard Tournament. A majority of the article centered around Harry and even though Iris was smart enough to realize that everything Rita Skeeter reported should be taken with a grain of salt, that didn't stop her from feeling off about a particular passage that Rita had included. It read:

Harry has at last found love at Hogwarts. His close friend, Colin Creevey, says that Harry is rarely seen out of the company of one Hermione Granger, a stunningly pretty Muggle-born who, like Harry, is one of the top students in the school.

Iris had never thought that there was anything going on between Hermione and Harry before then and when she realized that she had began to pay extra close attention to whether or not she had missed something, she decided she needed a break from Harry Potter until she figured out why she cared so much. After all, her and Harry were just friends and that was all she thought they would ever be. 

On the Saturday before the first task, the third year students and above were allowed to visit Hogsmeade. Iris trailed behind all of her Slytherin friends as they walked into the village and went into the different shops, gushing about  this and that. A majority of their conversation revolved around the tournament, but Iris's attention was directed towards the conversation she would get to have with Calypso and Sirius that night. Nobody really noticed that Iris was less quiet than she normally was, except for Theo  who took it upon himself to spend the rest of the Hogsmeade trip practically glued to her hip. 

The Slytherin Dungeon cleared out quickly,  thankfully, leaving Iris to wait by the fire alone. Iris took her eyes off of the flames of the fire for a split second and when she looked back, there he was. Iris' face lit up considerably at the sight of her father's face. 

He looked considerably different than he had the last time she saw him. His hair was shorter and cleaner now, his face fuller, and he looked as young as he did in the picture that Mira had showed Iris of him and Calypso from when she was a baby. The haunted look in his eyes that Sirius had developed in Azkaban was still there, but it seemed to brighten a bit upon seeing his daughter's face. 

However, Iris could tell that something was off by the serious look he  had on his face. She sighed slightly, wishing that she could just spend a second talking to her father about normal things instead of constantly having to worry about what was around the corner.

"What's wrong?" Iris asked. Sirius flashed her an apologetic look.

"I can't stay for as long as I hoped," Sirius admitted to her. "I had to break into a wizarding house to use the fire and they could be back at any moment now."

"Where's Calypso?"

"She's keeping watch in case they come back, but we don't have enough time for you to talk to her right now." Iris nodded understandingly. "Karkaroff  was a Death Eater."

"What?"  Iris asked, surprised.

"He was caught and in Azkaban with me, but he got released.  I'd bet everything that's why Dumbledore wanted an Auror at Hogwarts this year—to keep an eye on him. Moody caught Karkaroff and was the one to put him Azkaban in the first place."

"Why would they release him?"

"He made a deal with the Ministry," There was a hint of bitterness in Sirius' tone that didn't go unnoticed by Iris. "Said that he'd seen an error in his ways and then he named names. He got other people put in Azkaban in his place... He's not very popular in there, I can tell you. And since he got out, from what I can tell, he's been teaching the Dark Arts to every student who passes through that school of his. So watch out for the Durmstrang champion as well.  Now, I've been keeping an eye on the Daily Prophet and I don't think that Moody being attacked the night before he started at Hogwarts was a false alarm like Rita Skeeter says. I think someone tried to stop him from getting  into Hogwarts. I think someone knew their job would be a lot more difficult with him around. And no one's going to look into it too closely."

"Do you think that Karkaroff is acting on Voldemort's orders? The Death Eaters have been more active lately. They attacked the Quidditch World Cup and someone set the Dark Mark off. I think that I heard something from Oliver about a Ministry of Magic witch going missing in Albania. Isn't that where Voldemort last was rumored to be?"

"Yes, but I don't know if Karkaroff is working for him. He's never  struck me as the type to go back to Voldemort unless he knew that Voldemort was powerful enough to protect him. But, I think that whoever put Harry's name in the goblet did it for a reason and that they could use it as  an excuse to attack him."  Iris' stomach sank at that thought. "If you see anything—"

"—I'll let you know." Iris nodded, staring off into the distance as she began to get wrapped up in her own thoughts. Sirius stared at his daughter for a second.

"I'm sorry that things have to be like this." Sirius said. Iris snapped out of her trance and turned to her dad with a curious look on her face. "I know that this probably wasn't what you expected when we came back into your life. You didn't ask to get wrapped up into all of this."

"It's okay, Dad. I'm more than happy to help. Besides, once all of this is over, we'll have all  the time in the world to live a slightly more mundane life." Iris said. A small smile quirked up on Sirius' lips at the thought. He knew better than to dream of a perfect future where everyone gets their happy ending, but he couldn't keep himself from envisioning a future where he and Calypso could enjoy the rest of their lives together happily with their daughter and Harry. But, with the hopeful tone in Iris' voice, he vowed to himself that he would do everything in his power to try to achieve that future for them--for her.