Harry frowned and tilted his head, his expression a combination of puzzlement and curiosity. He spoke quietly. "Voldemort has taken steps to insure immortality, creating a item of dark magic called a Horcrux that he stored a part of his soul in. As long as those items exist he can't die. We're working on destroying them."
Draco frowned, he had not heard the term but he understood the process that Harry outlined. "How many of these items did he make?"
Harry frowned. "We.. I mean myself and my friends thought he made seven on our world. But it's possible he made more or he had other ways he was insuring his immortality. We have already discovered two, though one was a fake that Regulus placed after he took the real one. I checked the location of another that was on our world and it was not there. So we're searching for them. There was one stored in Hogwarts on our world. I'm going to find out tonight or tomorrow depending on time."
Draco frowned and nodded slowly. "And that bit about Moody?"
Harry nodded, glad Draco kept up with his explanation. "I figured you knew about that one. In our world Moody was impersonated by Barty Crouch Junior during this year. He was the one that put my name in the goblet of fire. He was the one that helped resurrect Voldemort." Harry couldn't help as anger bled into his voice at the thought of Crouch.
"I knew you were too bloody innocent to put your name in. You looked scared to death when your name was chosen... And how do you know it's the same on this world?" Draco asked curiously, crossing his arms and looking at Harry curiously. Harry frowned a little bit, not liking the mention of that year, because it brought to mind all the disasters that followed. "Watch him. He drinks from his flask about once an hour, and every so often he has a tic. One where he flicks his tongue. That's not Alastor Moody. That's Barty Crouch Jr. He's probably here to put Iris into the tournament under his master's orders." Harry explained.
"If you know that, why haven't you stopped him? I thought that you were trying to stop Voldemort from coming back." Draco frowned.
Harry nodded a bit, he had debated that very same thing with himself this evening. "I thought about it and that's what I'm going to do. However I can't just stand up and point at him and accuse him of being a death eater. And I certainly can't just go accusing Moody of being someone that everyone believes is dead. That would get me locked in St. Mungo's for sure. Or make Dumbledore wonder how I knew, and no lie on earth would be able to cover that up."
"So what are you planning to do?" Draco asked curiously. Trying to come to grips with the idea that their teacher is a polyjuiced death eater.
Harry shrugged a little bit. "I'm hoping to provoke him into attacking me during our first Defense lesson. If I do that, then I can expose him publically. I know it's not the most solid of plans but it's the best I've come up with it. "
Draco paused for a moment and then nodded his head with an amused grin "Actually… that's pretty brilliant. You're playing to your strengths." Harry frowned curiously. "What do you mean?"
Draco chuckled softly in amusement. "If anyone could piss off a death eater enough to lose his cool and break cover and have them start throwing curses, it's you. You've got more experience than anyone at pissing off death eaters and Voldemort."
Harry's lips quirked in slight amusement at the statement and then sighed a little bit and looked guilty. "I thought about not exposing him. Because when I do expose him, then I have no idea what Voldemort might do next to try and come back. And I already checked the Riddle house, where Voldemort holed up in our world. He isn't there. So I'm trying to work with what information I can."
Draco frowned but reluctantly nodded. "Then why are you going to be exposing him if it's going to cost you that advantage?"
Harry's eyes narrowed a bit and fixed Draco with a glare. "I'm not going to turn into Dumbledore and treat people as pieces on a board. Putting aside the risk of having him around students, If I don't expose him, Iris ends up in this fucking tournament that could get her killed. I will not have that on my conscience."
Draco frowned. "You survived it, what makes you think she couldn't?" He could tell by Harry's expression that he was on thin ice, but Draco was honestly curious.
Harry shook his head. "I survived on luck. It was a miserable year. And all it would have taken was that dragon being a split second faster. And let's not forget that Cedric Diggory died in the process." Draco was forced to nod in agreement to that.
Harry murmured, lost in thought. "I still never understood how Dumbledore claimed to never know. He was a good friend of Moody and was a master legilimens…" He trailed off and stopped mid stride, as he spun to face Draco. They had been making slow progress away from the lake toward the castle. He fixed Draco with a stare "Do you know occlumency?"
Draco frowned at the sudden change in topic. "Of course. All pureblood families start teaching their kids, all of us have at least the most rudimentary of shields."
Harry's eyes were fixed on Draco, "How good are yours?"
Draco furrowed his brow further, "They're good." At Harry's skeptical look Draco continued, "Probably not good enough to keep out a determined assault from the Dark Lord, but short of that I should be okay… Lucius never would accept anything less than excellence."
Harry frowned and stared at Draco intently for several long moments. He had spent far too much time around Draco when the other boy had spent all his time bragging. Harry wasn't going to just take Draco's word for it. He hesitated, once more considering the merits of simply obliviating Draco and dealing with the consequences later, before finally asking, "Do you mind if I test them?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Do you enjoy reading? Visit my site on Tiendup! There you will find the advanced chapter in PDF format, ready for your convenience.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
https://fictiontopia.tiendup.com/