"Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to the final task of the Triwizard Tournament!" Ludo Badman's magically magnified voice boomed out into the warm evening air over the excited murmuring of the crowd. Harry looked over at his three competitors, noting that each had a look of steely determination. In the leadup to the task, he felt rather queasy but was doing his best to put on a brave face.
"The four champions will be seeking the Triwizard Cup that rests in the center of the maze you see before you. Each of the four will start based on their results from the first two tasks. That means that we will begin with Mr. Harry Potter of Hogwarts!" A roar of a cheer erupted from the stands as Harry gave a hesitant wave. "Two minutes later, we will release Mr. Cedric Diggory of Hogwarts into the maze" Another loud cheer echoed into the approaching darkness. Cedric smiled broadly and pointed to a section filled with Hufflepuff students, including a second-year dressed in a badger costume.
"Two minutes after that, Miss Fleur Delacour of Beauxbatons will enter!" The yells for Fleur were not quite as overwhelming as they had been for the two champions playing on their own home turf, but it was still quite loud. The slightly higher pitch of the screams in her corner made Harry think that some of the girls might be rooting for Fleur as a young woman up against three boys. She waved to the crowd and blew a kiss toward her sister, who was seated in the front row of one of the boxes. Harry rolled his eyes as a few students in the vicinity swooned.
"Finally, two minutes later, they will be joined by Mr. Viktor Krum of Durmstrang!" Viktor placed a fist over his heart and nodded toward his mother, sisters, and Hermione, who were cheering as loud as anyone. Radka and Nadejda each had a small flag they were waving with pictures of Viktor drawn on them.
"The task will begin at precisely seven, which is only two minutes away! Let's hear it for your four champions as they wait for the maze to open!" Bagman gave a shout of encouragement as the rest of the crowd followed suit. The deafening noise seemed to be shaking the ground Harry was standing upon and his insides felt tied up in knots.
Green eyes stared at the outer hedge of the maze where an entryway was soon to appear. He thought through the various spells that he'd been going over with his friends and professors, mentally checking off which would be most helpful in which situations. Without warning, Harry felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Good luck, 'Arry," said Fleur with a smile. Cedric walked forward to clap Harry's other shoulder and Viktor completed the circle. "And to you all. We will be competitors for only anuzzer 'our, but I hope we can all be friends beyond that."
"Hear, hear!" replied Cedric warmly. "Whoever comes out on top has to buy the first round of butterbeers, yeah?"
Viktor nodded and gave an affirmative grunt. Though his expression was serious, Harry saw warmth in his dark eyes. "Glad to get to call you friends, too. See you all afterward!"
Harry took a deep breath as the noise of the crowd built to a crescendo. Suddenly, the hedge opened in front of them as Bagman's magnified voice shouted, "And we're off!" He sprinted into the maze, looking back just in time to see the other three champions staring in at him as the hedge began to close.
~RLM~
Another dead end.
Harry skidded to a stop as his path was once again blocked. He rested one hand on his knee as he bent over, gasping for breath, while he glanced at the watch on his wand hand. It read 7:40. He'd been frantically traversing the maze for nearly three-fourths of an hour already and he was beginning to tire from running.
He had been surprised by how few obstacles he had encountered thus far. He'd had a run-in with a gigantic Blast-Ended Skrewt, but had been able to use a few well-placed impedimentas to immobilize the behemoth for long enough to make a sprint for a safer path.
A darkly-cloaked figure had scared Harry half to death a few minutes later, but he had thought on his feet enough to realize the wraith couldn't actually be a dementor. With a cry of "Ridikulus!" Harry turned the Boggart version of a dementor into a black balloon. It deflated noisily as it rocketed back and forth between the hedges before vanishing into smoke as Harry laughed at it.
Soon afterward, he'd barreled around a corner and into Viktor's back as he stared at two diverging paths. The older boy had wheeled around with wand in hand as Harry tumbled to the ground, but his expression calmed once he realized the collision had been accidental. Viktor pulled Harry up off the ground before they each took a different path.
The most dire moment had come when some sort of charm flipped his world upside down with his head dangling precariously over an inky black expanse of sky. Harry had debated internally whether to send up red sparks, but he'd forced himself to step forward, which broke whatever spell had been placed on the ground he'd walked over.
Harry shook his head as he muttered, "Point Me!" As best he could ascertain, the center of the maze should be further down the dead-end path. He aimed his wand at the hedge blocking his way and shouted, "Incendio!" The leaves burst into flames as thick plumes of smoke wafted into the air.
On the other side of the hedge, Harry tried to get his bearings. He thought that if he could keep going southward, he should be nearing the cup's resting place. He set out in that direction only to have Fleur burst through a hedge just a few feet in front of him. Her blonde hair was full of leaves and twigs, her clothes were torn, and she had a wild and terrified look in her eyes as she landed hard on the grass, pointing her wand at the hole in the hedge she'd jumped through. Her chest heaved as she stared from whence she came.
"Fleur! Are you alright?" Harry took a few steps toward the girl before she wheeled around to turn her wand at him. He stopped in his tracks.
"Was zat you?!" she snarled as she aimed her wand at his chest. A vein in her forehead was pulsing and her voice dripped with venom.
Harry had no idea what to do. The woman before him was nothing less than chilling.
"I'm not sure what you mean, Fleur... Did I do what?"
"Expelliarmus!" she shrieked, and Harry felt his wand slip from his fingers before he could react. She thrust herself back onto her feet, caught Harry's wand from midair, and leveled her wand at him again. "What were you casting just now?"
"I used an incendio on the hedge back there to make it through! Before that, I used a spell to figure out what direction to go next! What the hell is going on?!"
The French girl stared at him for a long moment with her piercing glare before her shoulders sunk. With a flick of her wrist, she sent Harry's wand back to him.
"I apologize, 'Arry," said Fleur, her voice thick with emotion. "You remember zat I am part-Veela, no? Well, Veela have been attacked by lustful wizards throughout 'eestory. Most girls with Veela blood are taught from a young age to resist ze imperius curse because it 'as been used against our kind so often."
Harry had never heard any of this before and was confused about where Fleur was going with this explanation.
"A few moments ago, I felt the signs that someone was trying to put me under an imperius," she shuddered as she hugged her arms around herself. "I have not felt zat since I was Gabrielle's age. A wizard tried to use it on me when I strayed away from my parents." The full implications of her story began to sink in for Harry, as a look of sadness descended on her.
"Fleur, I'm so sorry," was the best Harry could get out. He looked to the opening in the hedge where she had come through. "Are you okay? Do you think it's safe to go on?"
She let out a small sniffle and wiped a stray tear from her eye. "I sink I am alright. There is a chance that I mistook some uzzer spell for an imperius, since I cannot believe ze judges would allow such a curse as part of ze task, no?"
"I can't imagine that being part of it. It's an Unforgiveable Curse, there's no way."
"I have been working on my legilimency and occlumency in preparation for my work at Gringotts, so perhaps something less sinister tripped my alarms," she replied. "Even so, I was able to see zat you were telling ze truth. Sorry for attacking you like zat..."
Harry laughed ruefully, though his interest was piqued by her ability to know he was telling the truth. "Well, no harm done. If you're okay and I'm okay, think we should try to finish finding the cup?"
Fleur nodded once and then looked at her surroundings. A path split off the long corridor they were standing in. "You choose which direction you will go, and I will go a different way."
"Before you came crashing in, I was just going to keep heading straight on this way," Harry indicated his plan.
"Magnifique! I prefer this uzzer path, anyway. Au revoir!" She waved to him as they hurried their own ways.
~RLM~
According to his watch, Harry had been stuck sorting out the Sphinx's riddle for nearly eight minutes. Still, all things considered, he felt like he was nearing the center of the maze and that he'd made decent time by solving the puzzle instead of backtracking around for a different way in.
As Harry rushed forward with renewed vigor, he caught sight of a body lying still in the grass where several paths converged ahead of him.
"Cedric?!"
The body's limbs were splayed out in all directions, and there was a small pool of blood seeping out from a nasty gash on the torso. Cedric made no move as Harry sprinted with all the speed he could muster to the Hufflepuff's side.
"Cedric? Can you hear me?"
Harry swore as he grabbed the boy's shoulder and turned him onto his back. Cedric's face was ghostly pale and his eyes gazed without seeing into the darkness above them. As Harry crouched, he could see a huge rip in Cedric's robes, which were covered by the blood that had been oozing from a deep chest wound and something else that smelled foul. Hermione had insisted that Harry learn a healing spell during the last month, just in case, but he knew this was far beyond anything he could mend.
A crashing sound emanated from a different path than the one Harry had used. He tore his eyes away from Cedric just in time to see a massive spider scuttling down the side of one of the hedges, its beady eyes focused on the two humans in the path.
"Stupefy!" cried Harry as he aimed at the fast-approaching spider. Before it was struck, the great beast leaped from one hedge wall to the other, losing no speed as it scurried their way. "Stupefy! Stupefy!" The spider dodged the first spell while the second deflected harmlessly off its tough exoskeleton as it zeroed in on them. The panic that arose in Harry would be enough to ensure he never mocked Ron for a fear of spiders.
"Impedimenta!"
Harry's head turned to see the figure of Viktor Krum standing behind him, wand drawn. His spell struck the massive arachnid square in its face. Harry thought it must be a powerfully magical creature, because the spell barely knocked it off course, though it was moving less quickly.
"Viktor, Cedric's hurt bad! We gotta keep that thing away from him!"
"We vill! Shoot your strongest stupefy vith me! Ready? Aim!"
Harry pointed his wand at the still advancing spider and bellowed, "STUPEFY!" as Viktor did the same. Harry's spell struck first, causing the spider to rear back and away from the pain. That exposed its underbelly, which made a cracking noise as Viktor's spell collided with the joint between body segments. The spider released an unearthly screech, unlike anything Harry had heard in his life, then fell to the ground. Its legs kept moving and grasping, trying to pull itself toward the hedges.
Harry stared at the twitching mass while Viktor knelt down. "He has a pulse, but it is very veak. He needs help, fast!"
Without hesitating, Harry pointed his wand skyward. A shower of red sparks burst forth. "That should get someone here quick. I'll stay with him if you want to go on ahead."
"No. There may be more dangers nearby. I vill wait until he is safe."
Harry released a long breath. "Good. That thing just about scared the life out of me, and I dunno if I could have held it off on my own. Think it's what might have injured him?"
"Could be. Haff you seen Fleur? She may be at the Cup by now."
"Ran into her about fifteen minutes ago. We ended up going different directions, but I got stopped by a Sphinx right afterward. It said there was a long way around, so I think she might have been going that way."
The Bulgarian looked at his own watch and muttered something in his native language. "It has been almost an hour. There is not much time left. Once Cedric is safe, we must hurry."
"Yeah, sounds good," replied Harry, looking down the paths that diverged to and fro. "Since you swooped in to save the day, why don't you choose your direction and I'll go a different way?"
Viktor looked at Harry appraisingly. "You helped me first in the lake and you offered to stay with Cedric while I went ahead. Now this. You are a good man."
"It's not a big deal," said Harry as he averted his eyes from the piercing stare of the older boy. "You've made Hermione really happy this term and you haven't complained about her taking so much time to help me get ready for the tasks. You're a good bloke and it's just the right thing to do, y'know?"
"Hmm. Before I saw you two and the spider, I was running down this path," he pointed with his wand. "I vill go there once he is safe."
"Great. I was thinking about the one next to yours, so maybe that means we're both on the right track."
A loud swear sounded from their left, and they saw Alastor Moody stump his way to them. "One of you sent up sparks? What're ya doing here instead of finding the Cup?"
"Professor Moody!" exclaimed Harry as relief washed over him. "Cedric's been hurt really bad. Can you get him to Madam Pomfrey?"
The auror's magical eye swiveled from Harry to Viktor, then to Cedric. "He's in a bad way. I'll take him, but you two need to get going."
The champions nodded and both turned to leave before Harry remembered something.
"Wait, Professor!" He turned to find Moody standing beside Cedric's body with his wand drawn. Viktor had taken a few steps toward his chosen path, but stopped at Harry's words. "I saw Fleur earlier and she said she thought she'd felt someone cast an imperius curse on her. She wasn't certain, but I thought it would be worth you telling Professor Dumbledore. Constant vigilance, right?"
"Good lad, you're right to tell me. I'll get Diggory to Madam Pomfrey then go speak to Dumbledore. Off you get!" Harry and Viktor watched as the man levitated Cedric's body and followed it as hedges opened before their retreating figures. With a thumbs up to his counterpart, Harry plunged forward down his own path while Viktor took his.
~RLM~
Less than ten minutes later, Harry was doing his best to ignore the smoldering remains of his left sleeve as he raced forward, not at all sorry that he'd done some serious damage the the damned skrewt that almost got the jump on him. His legs burned with the exertion but he was picking up more and more sounds that were causing extra nervousness. Something that seemed both large and exceedingly powerful was up ahead, and Harry knew he was getting closer to it with each step. The ground shook beneath him as he hurried down another short path until an opening to his left revealed a large clearing. Just a few paces from the center of the clearing stood a huge earthen golem looming over the figure of Fleur Delacour.
With what appeared to be herculean effort, she fired two stunners at the beast, but the light of her spells was extinguished within the dirt and muck of its hide. It did take notice of her attack, and a gutteral cry of anger escaped its gaping maw as it swung to attack with its other hand. Fleur narrowly dodged the blow.
Harry had come to an abrupt stop as he beheld the behemoth, which was nearly as tall as the hedges, but quickly regained his bearings. He ran toward the golem's left to flank it and called out, "Oi, Fleur! You want a hand or should I wait my turn?"
Her first response was one of the most foul French words he knew, but she nodded before moving to its right. "Stunners do not work, nor cutting curses! Ze Cup is inside of eet!" She aimed a spell that he didn't recognize at it's midsection, but Harry couldn't ascertain whether it had any effect. Its dark red eyes followed her as she stayed just beyond the reach of its powerful arms.
"Glacius!" cried Harry, aiming for the leg nearest to him. The spell struck true, and the golem wobbled slightly as its lower extremity was encrusted with ice, but with a great stomp the ice fell away, leaving the golem looking barely worse for wear.
The contours of the golem's right hand began to change as soil and mud flowed from the arm, elongating into some some of weapon. The monster reared back and flung a spear of its own creation at the French witch.
Fleur realized the danger too late. Her dive to her left prevented the projectile from hitting her directly, but Harry winced as her saw her knee buckle backwards as it was struck. She let out a long, loud scream into the night.
The golem took a large step toward the fallen champion, then another. Its right arm and hand were smaller and less formidable now that it had flung so much of itself at an opponent. With another long stride, the beast was nearly to where Fleur lay, her leg clearly broken. With a cry of pain and anger, she pointed her wand up and cast red sparks.
Red light bathed the clearing with an eerie glow as Harry saw Viktor skid to a stop as he entered from a pathway to the right. The earthen giant watched the red sparks fly upward, then took another step toward Fleur as it drew back its other arm like a hammer. Panic flashed across her face as she tried to scramble backward, dragging her injured leg across the ground.
Harry hadn't consciously decided to act, but he found himself running toward the golem at full speed. Without looking to confirm, he called out at the top of his lungs, "Viktor! Impedimenta together! Go!"
"IMPEDIMENTA!"
The mountain of a golem stood frozen in place for a long moment before it began to slowly twitch.
Harry rushed to Fleur, arriving just after Viktor. "We've gotta get you out of here!"
Viktor was nodding "Those spells von't hold long!"
She grabbed Harry by the collar. "Do you know how to cast bombarda?"
Harry's mind raced to a particularly grueling training session alongside Professor Flitwick soon after learning about the third task. He hadn't been able to explode the targets as well as he would have liked when the diminutive professor explained them in class earlier in the term, but after some one-on-one coaching, Flitwick had been impressed enough to warn him not to use it unless absolutely necessary.
"Yeah, I do, but we don't have much time. Someone should be here for you soon, we just need to..."
"'Elp me up! NOW!" Tears were fully flowing down her dirty cheeks, but the look of determination in her eyes brooked no disagreement. Harry and Viktor each grabbed under an arm and hoisted her to her feet. She leaned on Victor as she trained her wand at the golem. "We cast on trois! Un! Deux! TROIS!"
The three champions fired their curses as the previous spell wore off of the golem. Three balls of neon purple collided with its chest before exploding, sending soil, mud, and debris careening in all directions. Most of the remains were blown into smithereens, though a few small bits fell to the ground harmlessly like a muddy rain. The golem's oversized head was the only recognizable part left. With the enchantment dispelled, the dirt and muck lost its shape as it melted back into the quidditch pitch, leaving the gleaming Triwizard Cup somehow pristine on the ground in front of them.
Fleur slumped back to the ground, grabbing Harry's hand to steady herself. She let out a gasp of pain as the movement aggravated her injury.
"Someone should be here soon," reassured Viktor. "Is there anything you need?"
Her face was stuck in a pained grimace, but she managed to shake her head. "Non, merci. One of you should grab ze Cup and end this. I am ready to be done with this damned tournament..."
"You beat us both to the clearing," replied Harry. "And we all took down the golem together. You've got just as much claim to it as either of us."
"I cast my sparks, which means I should have been removed from the task," argued Fleur. "Exploding zat beast was quite satisfying, but I cannot claim to have won today. Please, one of you should just go do it." She grit her teeth as another wave of pain shot through her.
Viktor looked to Harry. "Perhaps she is correct. If we end the task, maybe a healer can help Fleur sooner." His piercing dark eyes seemed to be searching for something in Harry. "You should take it."
"Wait, what?" Harry exclaimed. "No way! You saved me from that spider a few minutes ago, you deserve the win!"
"And you saved me and Her-My-Oh-Nee in the lake. Do not vaste time, just go end this."
Harry didn't want to argue back and forth with Fleur injured, but taking the win for himself seemed wrong. Then, like a bolt of lightning, the answer struck him.
"Together." Harry had made up his mind, his jaw clinched. "We grab it together, agreed?"
Viktor shook his head while rubbing his brow as if he were appeasing an obstinate child, but quickly agreed.
"Accio Cup!"
The cup shot from the ground to where Viktor and Harry knelt over Fleur. Each boy raised a hand to grasp a handle, which glowed blue as it connected with skin.
Harry felt a familiar tug behind his naval as the world around him vanished.