The Cursed Chronicles: Year 6

Chapter 49

Albus was not a stranger to difficult situations. His entire childhood was a "difficult situation". Every single year at Hogwarts was a completely different "difficult situation". 

But he had to admit this was one was a tough one. 

He tried to stop the shaking in his hands as he struggled to comb back his hair, all in vain. 

"I don't know why you bother." Her fingers ran through his hair playfully. His face started turning red, and he was grateful she was behind him. 

He dropped the comb on the bathroom counter and braced himself, the shaking getting worse. He dared not look at his reflection in the mirror. 

"Hey, look at me. Al, look at me." His eyes met hers and she smiled. Her fingers entwined in his. "Just keep looking at me. Don't look at them. Look at me. Everything is going to be okay."

Albus dropped to the floor, pressing himself against the counter and raking his hands recklessly through his hair, holding his head between his knees. 

"Al, I can't breathe." She shook and curled up on the floor. Her hair fanned out on the old carpet of the library. The rest of the library was deadly silent: empty. He sat next to her, brushed some strands away from her face, and took her hand.

"Hey, I'm here. Just look at me. I'm here." She lay her head on his knee.

"What am I going to do when you're not here?"

"I'll always be here."

Albus pulled himself back together. He had been struggling with these memories for weeks now. Before, it had been a struggle of reconciling the way they made him feel with his anger. Now it was reconciling them with his guilt that was tearing him apart. But if these memories incapacitated him, he couldn't help Katrina. So he'd use them to fuel him instead. Every time a memory came back, before he allowed himself to dwell on it, he used it as motivation to take another step. Because he had to believe that every step brought him closer to her. He just had to. 

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The stands were already filling with students when Albus stepped onto the pitch. He noticed Scorpius and the girls very close to the field and Scorpius sent him a discreet thumbs up. It fairly clear as he made his way over the soggy grass, what the task for today would entail. 

The entire pitch was covered with a giant magical maze, just like the final task when Albus' father had done the tournament. But throughout the maze he could see bursts of fire, and the maze trailed distinctly out of the pitch, and towards the black lake.

If he had to guess, as the fourth task, they had prepared an anniversary event: a wonderful Hodge podge of all the tasks his father had to go through, all stuffed in one. And since Albus knew some part of the task would inevitably lead to Delphi, the ominous feeling in his stomach was growing the longer he gazed over the pitch.

He met Sabrina and Professor McGonagall and the other judges on the green. His mother, who looked a little sick, pulled him in for a hug. 

"I heard about Katrina," she said. "The ministry will get her back, I promise." Albus nodded, but he knew his mother was only saying that to make him feel better. If he wanted Kat back, he would have to get her back himself. 

Nicole and Emiliya arrived together, and the four champions waited in front of the judges for a tense few minutes. Professor McGonagall seemed less eager to start this task than she would to swallow a frog. With a final terse glance at all the judges, she sent a flare into the air, bursting from the tip of her wand. It exploded in a bright white light far about their heads, and the students and teachers in the stands fell silent. She pointed her wand at herself like a microphone.