"Feeling all right, Harry?" Bagman asked as they went down the stone steps onto the grounds. "Confident?"
"I'm okay," said Harry. It was sort of true; he was nervous, but he kept running over all the hexes and spells he had been practicing in his mind as they walked, and the knowledge that he could remember them all made him feel better.
They walked onto the Quidditch field, which was now completely unrecognizable. A twenty-foot-high hedge ran all the way around the edge of it. There was a gap right in front of them: the entrance to the vast maze. The passage beyond it looked dark and creepy.
Five minutes later, the stands had begun to fill; the air was full of excited voices and the rumbling of feet as the hundreds of students filed into their seats. The sky was a deep, clear blue now, and the first stars were starting to appear. Hagrid, Snape, Sirius, Remus, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Flitwick came walking into the stadium and approached Bagman and the champions.
They were wearing large, red, luminous stars on their hats, all except Hagrid, who had his on the back of his moleskin vest.
Severus, Sirius, and Remus instantly flanked to Harry's side, each offering him support and encouragement.
Hagrid offered a smile and Harry reached out to squeeze his arm.
"We are going to be patrolling the outside of the maze," said Professor McGonagall to the champions. "If you get into difficulty, and wish to be rescued, send red sparks into the air, and one of us will come and get you, do you understand?"
The champions nodded.
"Off you go, then!" said Bagman brightly to the patrollers.
"Good luck, Harry," Hagrid whispered, and they walked away in different directions, to station themselves around the maze.
Bagman now pointed his wand at his throat, muttered, "Sonorus," and his magically magnified voice echoed into the stands.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament is about to begin! Let me remind you how the points currently stand! Tied in first place, with eighty-five points each — Mr. Cedric Diggory and Mr. Harry Potter, both of Hogwarts School!"
The cheers and applause sent birds from the Forbidden Forest fluttering into the darkening sky.
"In second place, with eighty points — Mr. Viktor Krum, of Durmstrang Institute!" More applause. "And in third place — Miss Fleur Delacour, of Beauxbatons Academy!"
Harry could just make out Draco, Mrs. Weasley, Bill, Ron, and Hermione applauding Fleur politely, halfway up the stands. He waved up at them, and they waved back, beaming at him.
"So . . . on my whistle, Harry and Cedric!" said Bagman. "Three — two — one —"
He gave a short blast on his whistle, and Harry and Cedric hurried forward into the maze.
The towering hedges cast black shadows across the path, and, whether because they were so tall and thick or because they had been enchanted, the sound of the surrounding crowd was silenced the moment they entered the maze. Harry felt almost as though he were underwater again.
He pulled out his wand, muttered, "Lumos," and heard Cedric do the same just behind him.
After about fifty yards, they reached a fork. They looked at each other.
"See you," Harry said, and he took the left one, while Cedric took the right.
Harry heard Bagman's whistle for the second time. Krum had entered the maze.
Harry sped up.
His chosen path seemed completely deserted. He turned right, and hurried on, holding his wand high over his head, trying to see as far ahead as possible. Still, there was nothing in sight.
Bagman's whistle blew in the distance for the third time.
All of the champions were now inside.
Harry kept looking behind him. The old feeling that he was being watched was upon him. The maze was growing darker with every passing minute as the sky overhead deepened to navy.
He reached a second fork.
"Point Me," he whispered to his wand, holding it flat in his palm.
The wand spun around once and pointed toward his right, into solid hedge. That way was north, and he knew that he needed to go northwest for the center of the maze.
The best he could do was to take the left fork and go right again as soon as possible.
The path ahead was empty too, and when Harry reached a right turn and took it, he again found his way unblocked.
Harry didn't know why, but the lack of obstacles was unnerving him. Surely he should have met something by now? It felt as though the maze were luring him into a false sense of security.
Then he heard movement right behind him. He held out his wand, ready to attack, but its beam fell only upon Cedric, who had just hurried out of a path on the right-hand side.
Cedric looked severely shaken. The sleeve of his robe was smoking.
"Hagrid's Blast-Ended Skrewts!" he hissed. "They're enormous — I only just got away!"
He shook his head and dived out of sight, along another path. Keen to put plenty of distance between himself and the skrewts, Harry hurried off again. Then, as he turned a corner, he saw . . . a dementor gliding toward him. Twelve feet tall, its face hidden by its hood, its rotting, scabbed hands outstretched, it advanced, sensing its way blindly toward him.
Harry could hear its rattling breath; he felt clammy coldness stealing over him, but knew what he had to do. . . .
He summoned the happiest thought he could, concentrated with all his might on the thought of getting out of the maze and celebrating with his family, raised his wand, and cried, "Expecto Patronum!"
A silver stag erupted from the end of Harry's wand and galloped toward the dementor, which fell back and tripped over the hem of its robes. . . . Harry had never seen a dementor stumble.
"Hang on!" he shouted, advancing in the wake of his silver Patronus. "You're a boggart! Riddikulus!"
There was a loud crack, and the shape-shifter exploded in a wisp of smoke.
The silver stag faded from sight. Harry wished it could have stayed, he could have used some company . . . but he moved on, quickly and quietly as possible, listening hard, his wand held high once more.
Left . . . right . . . left again . . . Twice he found himself facing dead ends. He did the Four-Point Spell again and found that he was going too far east.
He turned back, took a right turn, and saw an odd golden mist floating ahead of him.
Harry approached it cautiously, pointing the wand's beam at it. This looked like some kind of enchantment.
He wondered whether he might be able to blast it out of the way.
"Reducto!" he said.
The spell shot straight through the mist, leaving it intact. He supposed he should have known better; the Reductor Curse was for solid objects. What would happen if he walked through the mist? Was it worth chancing it, or should he double back?
He was still hesitating when a scream shattered the silence.
"Fleur?" Harry yelled.
There was silence. He stared all around him. What had happened to her? Her scream seemed to have come from somewhere ahead. He took a deep breath and ran through the enchanted mist. The world turned upside down.
Harry was hanging from the ground, with his hair on end, his glasses dangling off his nose, threatening to fall into the bottomless sky.
He clutched them to the end of his nose and hung there, terrified. It felt as though his feet were glued to the grass, which had now become the ceiling. Below him the dark, star-spangled heavens stretched endlessly. He felt as though if he tried to move one of his feet, he would fall away from the earth completely.
Think, he told himself, as all the blood rushed to his head, think . . .
But not one of the spells he had practiced had been designed to
combat a sudden reversal of ground and sky. Did he dare move his foot?
He could hear the blood pounding in his ears. He had two choices — try and move, or send up red sparks, and get rescued and disqualified from the task.
He shut his eyes, so he wouldn't be able to see the view of endless space below him, and pulled his right foot as hard as he could away from the grassy ceiling.
Immediately, the world righted itself. Harry fell forward onto his knees onto the wonderfully solid ground. He felt temporarily limp with shock.
He took a deep, steadying breath, then got up again and hurried forward, looking back over his shoulder as he ran away from the golden mist, which twinkled innocently at him in the moonlight.
He paused at a junction of two paths and looked around for some sign of Fleur.
He was sure it had been she who had screamed. What had she met? Was she all right? There was no sign of red sparks — did that mean she had got herself out of trouble, or was she in such trouble that she couldn't reach her wand? Harry took the right fork with a feeling of increasing unease . . . but at the same time, he couldn't help thinking, One champion down . . .
>•<
Whoever thought a maze would be a good idea for the third task was stupid, Draco decided as he sat with the rest of the school, staring at bushes.
His opinion however, was drastically changed when red sparks exploded in the air.
He wished all he was looking at was bushes at that moment.
"Oh. Please don't be Harry." Hermione was chanting to herself, her grip white on the bleacher railing.
Draco, in a panic, grabbed her hand and squeezed it tightly.
"He'll be okay."
He didn't know if he was trying to convince her or himself.
>•<
He had to be close now, he had to be. . . . His wand was telling him he was bang on course; as long as he didn't meet anything too horrible, he might have a chance. . . .
Harry broke into a run. He had a choice of paths up ahead.
"Point Me!" he whispered again to his wand, and it spun around and pointed him to the right-hand one. He dashed up this one and saw light ahead.
The Triwizard Cup was gleaming on a plinth a hundred yards away.
Suddenly a dark figure hurtled out onto the path in front of him.
Cedric was going to get there first.
Cedric was sprinting as fast as he could toward the cup, and Harry knew he would never catch up, Cedric was much taller, had much longer legs —
Then Harry saw something immense over a hedge to his left, moving quickly along a path that intersected with his own; it was moving so fast Cedric was about to run into it, and Cedric, his eyes on the cup, had not seen it —
"Cedric!" Harry bellowed. "On your left!"
Cedric looked around just in time to hurl himself past the thing and avoid colliding with it, but in his haste, he tripped. Harry saw Cedric's wand fly out of his hand as a gigantic spider stepped into the path and began to bear down upon Cedric.
"Stupefy!" Harry yelled; the spell hit the spider's gigantic, hairy black body, but for all the good it did, he might as well have thrown a stone at it; the spider jerked, scuttled around, and ran at Harry instead.
"Stupefy! Impedimenta! Stupefy!"
But it was no use — the spider was either so large, or so magical, that the spells were doing no more than aggravating it. Harry had one horrifying glimpse of eight shining black eyes and razor-sharp pincers before it was upon him.
He was lifted into the air in its front legs; struggling madly, he tried to kick it; his leg connected with the pincers and next moment he was in excruciating pain.
He could hear Cedric yelling "Stupefy!" too, but his spell had no more effect than Harry's — Harry raised his wand as the spider opened its pincers once more and shouted "Expelliarmus!"
It worked — the Disarming Spell made the spider drop him, but that meant that Harry fell twelve feet onto his already injured leg, which crumpled beneath him.
Without pausing to think, he aimed high at the spider's underbelly, as he had done with the skrewt, and shouted "Stupefy!" just as Cedric yelled the same thing.
The two spells combined did what one alone had not: The spider keeled over sideways, flattening a nearby hedge, and strewing the path with a tangle of hairy legs.
"Harry!" he heard Cedric shouting. "You all right? Did it fall on you?"
"No," Harry called back, panting. He looked down at his leg. It was bleeding freely. He could see some sort of thick, gluey secretion from the spider's pincers on his torn robes.
He tried to get up, but his leg was shaking badly and did not want to support his weight. He leaned against the hedge, gasping for breath, and looked around.
Cedric was standing feet from the Triwizard Cup, which was gleaming behind him.
"Take it, then," Harry panted to Cedric. "Go on, take it. You're there."
But Cedric didn't move. He merely stood there, looking at Harry. Then he turned to stare at the cup.
Harry saw the longing expression on his face in its golden light. Cedric looked around at Harry again, who was now holding onto the hedge to support himself. Cedric took a deep breath. "You take it. You should win. That's twice you've saved my neck in here."
"That's not how it's supposed to work," Harry said. He felt angry; his leg was very painful, he was aching all over from trying to throw off the spider, and after all his efforts, Cedric had beaten him to it, just as he'd beaten Harry to ask Cho to the ball.
He was kind of relieved about the whole Cho thing...but that didn't matter at the moment.
"The one who reaches the cup first gets the points. That's you. I'm telling you, I'm not going to win any races on this leg."
Cedric took a few paces nearer to the Stunned spider, away from the cup, shaking his head.
"No," he said.
"Stop being noble," said Harry irritably. "Just take it, then we can get out of here."
Cedric watched Harry steadying himself, holding tight to the hedge.
"You told me about the dragons," Cedric said. "I would've gone down in the first task if you hadn't told me what was coming."
"I had help on that too," Harry snapped, trying to mop up his bloody leg with his robes. "You helped me with the egg — we're square."
"I had help on the egg in the first place," said Cedric.
"We're still square," said Harry, testing his leg gingerly; it shook violently as he put weight on it; he had sprained his ankle when the spider had dropped him.
"You should've got more points on the second task," said Cedric mulishly. "You stayed behind to get all the hostages. I should've done that."
"I was the only one who was thick enough to take that song seriously!" said Harry bitterly. "Just take the cup!"
"No," said Cedric.
He stepped over the spider's tangled legs to join Harry, who stared at him.
Cedric was serious. He was walking away from the sort of glory Hufflepuff House hadn't had in centuries.
"Go on," Cedric said. He looked as though this was costing him every ounce of resolution he had, but his face was set, his arms were folded, he seemed decided.
Harry looked from Cedric to the cup.
For one shining moment, he saw himself emerging from the maze, holding it. He saw himself holding the Triwizard Cup aloft, heard the roar of the crowd, saw Cho's face shining with admiration, more clearly than he had ever seen it before . . . and then the picture faded, and he found himself staring at Cedric's shadowy, stubborn face.
"Both of us," Harry said.
"What?"
"We'll take it at the same time. It's still a Hogwarts victory. We'll tie for it."
Cedric stared at Harry. He unfolded his arms.
"You — you sure?"
"Yeah," said Harry. "Yeah . . . we've helped each other out, haven't we? We both got here. Let's just take it together."
For a moment, Cedric looked as though he couldn't believe his
ears; then his face split in a grin.
"You're on," he said. "Come here."
He grabbed Harry's arm below the shoulder and helped Harry limp toward the plinth where the cup stood. When they had reached it, they both held a hand out over one of the cup's gleaming handles.
"On three, right?" said Harry. "One — two — three —"
He and Cedric both grasped a handle.
Instantly, Harry felt a jerk somewhere behind his navel.
His feet had left the ground. He could not unclench the hand holding the Triwizard Cup; it was pulling him onward in a howl of wind and swirling color, Cedric at his side.