\ wherein she must defeat the third task (part one) /
MY MIND WAS GOING a thousand miles a minute as I stammered to form a sentence.
"Haven't got anything to say, have you?" Harry said crossly.
"Look, I'm sorry," I said finally. "I get it. You guys would've totally told me if you had nightmares, I should've done the same."
"I do tell you if I have nightmares," Ron muttered grumpily. I smiled weakly, remembering the day before when he had forced me to go to the courtyard with him so he could explain in great detail about his dream where Hermione ruled the world and everyone had to read for eleven hours a day and study for five a day.
"You really do." I said, nodding, "and if there's any more huge secrets in my life, I promise you'll be the first to know."
"So...you promise there's no more secrets?" Harry asked weakly, meeting my gaze. I blinked, biting my lip hesitantly.
"No."
"No? As in you've been hiding another thing from us- me?" he lowered his voice, glancing quickly at Hermione and Ron who instantly pretended to be fascinated by the ceiling. "Pheobe... what the hell? Why- why do you keep hiding stuff from me? ...do you just not trust me or something? I mean, I know we're not together- but I thought we were- y'know- I thought you trusted me! I thought we were really close!" Harry said, his voice breaking slightly. I firmly held his gaze.
"Look, Harry, we're just- we're different people. You're caring, you tell people everything, I'm the opposite. I keep to myself because that's all I've ever known and that's all I'll probably ever do."
"So?"
"So, whatever there is going on with my life, I'm just used to...well, dealing with it myself."
"You don't have to do that anymore!"
"I-"
"Honestly," Harry sighed, losing his furious temper quickly, shaking his head and pulling me into a hug. "Don't worry, we'll help you knock that shit out." I smiled into his shoulder.
"Whatever you say," I said with a muffled voice, grinning as I felt two more pairs of arms wrapped around us.
"Dunno why we're hugging, but I like hugs!" chimed in Ron's voice.
"So," Ron said after the three of them had released me, Harry still holding my hand and sitting beside me. "What was the other secret in your life?"
"Oh, that," I said, glancing at Hermione. "I figured out who my half-sister and real mum are."
"Who are they?" Ron asked, before raising his eyebrows. "Imagine if it's, like, someone we know! Who's a girl we know..." he thought hard before snapping triumphantly, "what if it's Hermione! Imagine! Like, can't you just see it, Harry? Wait. Wait..." Ron parted his lips, staring from me to Hermione with furrowed eyebrows. "Can't you see it? They- look at 'em! They- their hair's the same bushy-ness, the same color- 'cept Pheobe's is longer- and- and they're the same height- and they have the same nose! Look at their noses! Look at their noses, Harry!"
"Wow, Ron, I didn't expect you to be the one to figure it out," said Hermione, looking at Ron with wide eyes as I grinned and nudged Hermione.
"Oh, c'mon, Ron's smart!" I grinned.
"Yeah, yeah," Hermione scoffed. "Sometimes."
"Well, hey, that's great, then!" exclaimed Harry. "When 'Mione gets with Ron we'll all be related!"
"...I'm sorry, what?"
"You know...Ron and you are basically brother and sister, and Hermione and you are literally sisters, and then Ron's like my brother, and...is that incest?" Harry frowned suddenly.
"When you say it like that? Probably."
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"Well," Hermione began.
Harry and Ron had punched each other so that Pomfrey would have no other choice but to let them stay the night in the Hospital wing, and both of them were fast asleep in cots on either side of me, Hermione and I sharing my bed.
"Well?" I whispered, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, did you not hear what Harry said while he was exploding at you this morning?!"
"Huh?" I said mockingly.
As if I couldn't have heard it.
The words he uttered had been doing nothing but spinning around my head for the last few hours.
'I fucking love you!'
It was like an echo, bouncing off of the walls of my head.
"You're joking. You didn't hear him?!"
"Of course I heard him," I said, taking a pillow and squeezing it tightly. "How could I not?"
"Do you love him back, then?" Hermione asked. I hesitated.
"I don't know."
"This is new," Hermione said, sitting up. "What happened to the girl who had a crush on him for five years?!"
"Yeah, but...I'll screw up the timeline!"
"You know what I think?" said Hermione finally. "I think...I think you're scared."
"Scared? Of what?"
"I think you're scared because...because maybe you haven't felt love for a long time, and you're scared of it."
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"Hi," said Harry at breakfast the next morning. Pomfrey had been extremely reluctant to let me leave the Hospital Wing, but I had insisted that I was fine and just needed a bit of fresh air.
"Er...hi?" I said awkwardly, looking at him and suddenly realizing that Ron must have talked to Harry before I came just as Hermione had spoken to me last night.
"Can we- er- can we talk?"
"Sure," I said hesitantly, grabbing a slice of buttered toast and following Harry out to the courtyard. "What's up?" I asked as he shoved his hands in his pockets and looked out at the Black Lake.
"I- erm- I realized that yesterday- I mean- last night- today morning?"
"Ron spoke to you," I grinned. Harry chuckled hollowly, turning to me.
"I'm guessing Hermione spoke to you?" I nodded. "So...I, uh, I'm sorry- it just, kind of came out really fast- I was, like, lost in the heat of the moment, and...oh, y'know what? This is a stupid piece of shit," I frowned and followed his gaze to the parchment he was apparently reading off of, and tried not to laugh.
"Aw, you wrote it on a letter? That's...sweet."
"Ron did it," Harry grumbled, tearing it up and shoving it into his pocket, meeting my gaze. "Fuck it, look, Pheobe, I do love you, and I don't give a shit that we're probably too young to know what it is, and we've barely known each other a year, but- I just do, and I can't control it, and I'm not sorry." he blurted out finally. I paused, my lips parted.
"Harry, I don't know anything right know, and Hermione says I'm scared because I haven't felt love in a really long time and, well, fuck, that's probably true, my dad ditched me to pretend he was sick when I was ten and nobody cared too much about me and then- well, and then I was transported here, and I found people I loved, and then for you there's a different kind of love, which I still don't understand, and-" I rambled, my mouth going faster than my mind. "Point is, I don't know what to tell you right now. I love you, but I told you before that I don't know as what, and I need you to wait a bit for me to figure it out." I said finally.
"That's alright," Harry said finally. I stared at him.
"...it is?"
"Yeah." I studied his features to see if he was hiding that he was disappointed, but he shot me a small smile.
"All I needed was for you to know that and not run away screaming- which happened. Besides, now that I know it, I'm definitely not giving up on, well, us." I breathed out in relief.
"I'd expect nothing less."
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"I'm going to be sick."
"That makes two of us." said Harry with a groan, poking at some bacon hesitantly. "A maze. I mean, it can't be that much different from those maze things on the newspapers, right?"
"Eat," said Ron as he pushed two loaded plates towards the both of us. "You'll feel loads better." I grimaced, shaking my head.
"I'd throw it up. Thanks anyways, Ron."
"Pheobe," Hermione began, "no offense, but...you, um, you look like you're...dreading something."
"Yeah. The bloody task, Hermione-" Ron scoffed.
"No, no, it's...I don't- Pheobe, is something bad going to happen today?"
"No," I said as nonchalantly as possible, glancing over at the Hufflepuff table to see Cedric laughing and talking loudly with his friends.
yeah, I didn't really know him, but he doesn't deserve to die.
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"Holy shit," I whispered to myself, staring up at the daunting maze.
"It's fine," said Harry, taking a deep breath in a desperate attempt to calm himself. "It's okay. It's not like anyone's going to die, you know. It's fine. We'll be okay."
"mm, yeah," I said, swallowing anxiously. "Nobody can actually die.."
"Good luck," he said, reaching over and squeezing my hand quickly.
"BEGIN!" bellowed a voice. I took a deep breath before walking into the maze, the hedges blocking my exit. I heard footsteps a few minutes into me wandering the never-ending maze, and aimed my wand nervously, unsure of what I would see.
"Who's there?" I called out.
"Who iz there?"
"Fleur?"
"Pheobe?"
"Hello?" said a much deeper voice.
"Who's talking?" I demanded, tentatively taking a few steps forward.
"Who isn't talking?" I frowned.
"lumos," I muttered. The tip of my wand glowed brightly and I spun, trying to figure out where the owner of the deep voice was, until the light stopped at someone's face- VIktor Krum.
but his eyes were different. they were white, and soul-less..
empty.
I heard Fleur scream and run away, and I held my breath and ducked behind one of the dozens of hedges. I heard a branch snap from somewhere else and Viktor decided not to follow me, running off in a different direction. I silently prayed for whoever had snapped the branch and continued walking, my wand out just in case I had any more incidents with the other champions.
When I approached one of the turns in the maze, however, the hedge promptly blocked it off, and my gaze found a creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of a falcon.
"You must answer a riddle in order to pass, but make a mistake and there will be consequences," said the sphinx. "Are you prepared to take the risk?"
"Sure?"
"Firsts think of the person who lives in disguise, who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies. Next, tell me what's always the last thing to mend, the middle of middle and end of the end? And finally give me the sound often heard, during the search for a hard-to-find word. Now string them together and answer me this, which creature would you be unwilling to kiss?"
"...what the fuck," I muttered under my breath. "okay, the person who...can you say the first line again?"
"First, think of the person who lives in disguise, who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies."
"Lies...like a robber...what? Do I get hints?"
"No."
"Okay, um...oh, a spy! Right?"
No response.
"What was the second line again?"
"Next, tell me what's always the last thing to mend, the middle of middle and end of the end?"
"Oh, I know this! It's d, right?" I said, remembering one of the similar riddles Sophia had asked me once.
"And the last lines are: Finally, give me the sound often heard, during the search for a hard-to-find word. Now string them together and answer me this, which creature would you be unwilling to kiss?"
"A lot of them," I murmured, thinking. "During the search for a hard to find word...er.." I paused. "Er! That's it! And then, what?, string them together...spy-d-er- oh! A spider!" The sphinx merely nodded and opened the hedge to let me through as I sighed in relief.
My relief didn't last long, however, as I quickly heard someone screaming for help. I broke into a sprint, running in the direction of the voice until I found Fleur laying on the ground, the vines of the hedge attempting to pull her into the unknown.
"Grab my hand!" I whisper-exclaimed, Viktor Krum turning the corner.
"I am trying!" she said desperately, reaching up-
but the vines wrapped themselves around her and she disappeared into the hedges.
"Holy fuck," a voice whispered frmo behind me. I spun around, my wand aimed, but it was just Harry, staring between me and the place Fleur had been seconds ago.
"Don't worry, she's safe, she's out of the maze now." I hesitated, looking at my wand and wondering if I could just shoot up the red sparks and get myself a safe way out instantly.
third place didn't sound too bad compared to facing Voldemort.
Just as I managed to convince myself it would be fine if I forfeited, Harry frowned as he watched me raise my wand to the sky.
"You're giving up?!"
"Don't say it like that!" I exclaimed, "I'm simply avoiding something negative that will happen in the near future!"
"What would Sirius say?" he pointed out.
"I don't know, because he was never that much of a father to me!"
"What would Fred and George say?"
"They won't say bullshit if I come out of here alive," I snapped. Harry paused.
"Why wouldn't you get out alive?" he said cautiously.
"It's a figure of speech!"
"Who's there?" demanded a voice I recognized instantly.
"Your worst nightmare," I said sarcastically.
"You? My worst nightmare?"
"Thanks for that self-confidence boost." I scoffed.
"What are you-" Cedric's gaze traveled to my wand which was still raised up in the air. "You're giving up?"
"You know what? Fuck you both," I muttered under my breath, walking away from them and trying to figure out how to navigate this place.