After three exciting prior completions, the fourth round of the First Task began. The crowd held its breath as Harry Potter stepped into the arena. Many despaired of the fourteen-year-old's life, whether or not they thought he had cheated. It was unfair for a life so young to be snuffed o-

Potter made a sudden movement, as though throwing something over himself, and vanished. A few minutes later, so did the golden egg.

He shortly reappeared at the edge of the arena, made an obscene gesture towards the judges (the golden egg safely tucked under his arm), and departed without a word.

As the judges debated whether to give him extra points for the complete obliviousness of the dragon or take points for boringness and impertinence, Albus Dumbledore grimaced and resolved not to approve any other Tasks so easily defeated by a Hallow.

#

As the other three Champions hovered impatiently by the edge of the lake, their expressions somewhere between terror and fury, Harry Potter came up alongside them and spoke a few quiet words.

A few minutes later, they came up to the judges as one group and loudly informed them that, if anything happened to the captives, the organizers would be charged with manslaughter at best and murder at worst.

Under their irate questioning, the judges caved and admitted that the implied death threat had been an empty one. But they had actually taken the captives? Hmm? All right, then - not murder, only kidnapping and reckless endangerment. Oh, the judges didn't see the danger? Well, were the Champions in any danger? They were? So what was to prevent a grindylow from attacking a captive rather than the person carrying them?

And it was kidnapping, because the Champions highly doubted consent had been obtained from all captives that very morning; if nothing else, they hoped their loved ones wouldn't think it was a fine thrill to pretend to be in mortal peril just to terrify the Champions into better performance. And, incidentally, an eight-year-old was generally deemed incapable of giving "eenformed consent", no?

The Task was cut short in exchange for dropping all charges.

#

The false Moody's career was ignominiously cut short when Professor McGonagall came up behind him and performed an obscure spell which reversed the effects of the Polyjuice Potion.

How she had learned of his true identity, she never publicly revealed. But Potter was occasionally heard to bemoan the "necessary" loss of some heirloom, the professor seemingly gained a most uncanny knowledge of when students were wandering the halls when they should not have been, and, possibly as a result, the Weasley twins did not speak to Potter for a full year afterwards.

#

The Tournament concluded with much fanfare and little drama as Cedric Diggory stepped over the mutually-incapcitated Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum and claimed the Triwizard Cup. The two unfortunate Champions consoled themselves by advocating the merits of their respective schools to the fourth, who had lately expressed an unusually ardent interest in transferring.

#coda#

Less than a week afterwards, the Ministry was shocked to receive a severed left forearm bearing the Dark Mark, accompanied by a note confessing that the sender had grievously erred in his choice of employment, was sending along the location of the "insane, infantile idiot" by way of apology, and would shortly be moving to Australia. Amidst the turmoil that followed, one thing remained predictable.

Both the Aurors and the freshly-exonerated Sirius Black monitored all departures for Australia, but they never noticed when a three-legged rat scurried onboard the next cargo ship bound for New York City.