Harry reached his hand toward the cup and his three newest companions hissed, the magic in the air shifting and squirming. Something was wrong with the cup.
"Well yeah something's wrong with it," he said to his Hallows. "It spat my name out twice, stupid thing." His hand lingered in the air. It felt weird, but not like touching it would burn his fingers off. "Huh, it feels like it's cursed?" With a carefree shrug, Harry grasped one of the handles anyway. His gut twisted, and he disappeared.
...
He landed on his side, on cold, wet earth. Harry groaned and shoved himself upright. Magical means of travel always made him queasy, and the surprise portkey was not appreciated. It was quiet, was the next thing he noticed. Entirely silent, with only crickets and the rustle of wind. Where was his thunderous applause? Where would the portkey have taken him if not back to the stands?
Ugh. It looked like this was the part where Voldemort tried his hand. He stood, bouncing up to his feet and wand snapping out of his holster in a flash.
It was a graveyard, an old one, bursting with long-deceased bones snuggled in decrepit tombs; headstones chipped and muddied by time and dirt, unloved and forgotten. A lone figure stood some way down the path beside an empty, rusted fountain. Clad in heavy black robes and with a bundle of fabric clutched to their chest. A baby? Directly behind the pair, Harry could make out a tall cauldron simmering on a fire. There was the tangy iron stench of blood in the air and the familiar dark feel of ancient, forbidden magic.
There was another loud snap, a flash of light, and Professor Moody calmly landed on his feet beside Harry.
Well, that's good. An adult had come to sort this mess out.
Harry flickered his gaze between the obvious blood ritual in progress and the professor, but nobody looked concerned.
That's when Moody began to giggle! Madly. Loudly. Then he started to wheeze and choke and his face morphed and twisted and stretched and his fake eye popped out into the grass. Harry was, of course, too stunned to do much but stand there and watch his professor's body defy all the laws of magical physics.
Finally, his face changed beyond recognition and a much younger, less disfigured man stood before him, giggling all the while and trying to lick his own eyeball.
"Harry!" The man giggled.
"Yes, that's me. Are you okay? No, actually, no need to answer that. Obviously not. You're insane." Harry remarked as the man continued to lick his lips weirdly. Harry wondered if the stranger was going to transform again and reveal himself to be a large sentient housefly. He'd seen odder things lately, it wouldn't even shock him.
"Erm, have you been Professor Moody for long?" Harry asked after an excruciatingly awkward pause. "I presume you set up this whole scheme? Did you put my name in the Goblet of Fire?"
"Hehe. It was a good plan, eh boy?"
"Did you mean to enter my name twice, or was that just a result of you being…" Harry waved his hand at the man, who looked offended at Harry's presumptions of his mental faculties.
"For the love of - Barty! Get your ass over here! Bring the boy!" The other person down the hill shouted, a male voice, angry and tight.
Faux-Moody grabbed his arm in a sure grip and Harry's holly wand flew out of his hand with a flash of spellfire too quick to dodge. Crossing down the slippery dew-covered path of cracked cobblestone, Harry was shoved closer toward the ritual sight.
"Eh. Coincidence. Poor Fudgey and his sycophants got awful feking scared when we blew his pretty stadium - " Barty mimed an explosion with a dramatic whoosh sound. "The tournament is a mighty fine way to score up some PR - " he mimicked Fudge's voice to an uncanny resemblance. "Yer their poster boy, boy! Yer supposed to win. And I let'cha. I was nice. But now it's our turn. You think yer strong against a dragon, hm? Let's see the might of the bloody 'Chosen One' against the Dark Lord!"
The other wizard, features hidden behind a mask, gestured to a headstone within the large salt circle. A pointy eihwaz rune was drawn in blood over the grave. Harry dug in his feet. Yew, gateways, life, and death - a powerful rune he would not like to stand on, thank you!
Harry was immensely curious of course, but curiosity had not gone very well for him yesterday in the cave with the Headmaster. The Elder Wand, tucked away in his pocket and extremely happy his other, inferior wand had been taken, huffed at the implied insult against them. Harry whispered an apology to the wand.
"Get, boy!" Barty growled, no longer giggling. The comforting magic of his Hallows and the curl of the shadows on his ankle soothed him. He literally could not die, they reminded him. That was a good point, he thought back. Death thought it would be funny to humor Voldemort, so Harry relaxed and let himself be tied to the headstone.
The two wizards moved out of his field of vision, leaving Harry to study the ritual site. The cauldron was littered with its own circles of runes and symbols, etched into the sides in gold. He could not see inside the cauldron from his angle, but it sounded thick and boiling, loud pops disrupting the quiet scene.
"Oooh!" Harry said, not noticing that his voice had taken on a distinct Hermione-esque quality. "You're using a Pair Dadeni cauldron! I've never seen one before! It's a bit archaic, but I suppose if you don't have the raw talent to cast the full ritual it would be helpful. That must mean you've added the Elixir of the Holy Grail? It's supposed to be watery though, isn't it?" Harry tried to scoot onto his tippy-toes to peek inside the massive cauldron.
The two men ignored him, but that wouldn't stop Harry from finishing his critique.