34 The Third Task

Harry felt his heart beating in his chest as he stared at the giant hedgerow before him. He felt Hermione over their link, pouring as much love and support into it as she could, while hiding her worry. He smiled for a second as he realized she was trying to hide it, and just how unsuccessful she was. His smile faded, however, as the events that caused them to be separated returned to the forefront of his mind.

As they had approached the stands, Dumbledore had offered each a choice of family member to wait with them at the start. Fluer and Cedric had their fathers, and Victor his Mother. When Harry had tried to take Hermione, The Headmaster had tried to force Molly on him.

"I'm sorry, Harry, but it must be a family member," he had informed him with false sympathy.

"Headmaster," Harry replied, "of my options, Hermione has been the closest thing to family I have. Sorry, Mrs. Weasley, but staying at your house for a couple weeks before second year and being friends with two of your sons doesn't compare to Hermione who has stood by me and has been my best friend since the beginning of our first year."

"I understand, Harry," Dumbledore tried to sound consoling, "but it must be a family relation, not simply a friend."

"There is nothing simple about our friendship, Headmaster." Harry's tone was laced with anger at the casual dismissal of their friendship, "but if it must be a family relation, then Mrs. Weasley does not qualify either. In fact, why is she even here? Why is my family not here?"

"She is like your family, Harry," Dumbledore tried placatingly.

"No, she isn't, the Grangers are more my family than the Weasleys," Harry retorted hotly, "so if you won't let Hermione come with me, then no one qualifies and I must wait alone."

Dumbledore had not been happy with that but had been forced to accept that Harry would wait alone. The kiss Hermione had given him as they separated seemed to shock him, and Harry wondered just how oblivious the old man really was.

Harry shook his head to clear it, returning his thought to the here and now. Before the four champions stood four gates, each leading into the maze. Bagman, who was still droning on about the tournament so far and the exciting events they'd seen, had explained that each would enter a gate, which would then lock behind them. Apparently the first quarter of the maze was separated from the others, after which they'd have the possibility to encounter the others. It seemed like the judges had decided cooperation was not what they wanted, despite the tournament being about 'international magical cooperation'.

"Now, to begin," Bagman finally announced, his voice magically amplified, "Mr. Krum, who leads with 85 points, will enter at the cannon blast." He paused for the cheers to die back down. "Very nice, now, Mr. Krum leads the Beauxbaton and Hogwarts Champions by 5 points, and shall receive a 30 second head start per point. This means that Miss Delacour and Mr. Diggory will enter two minutes and thirty seconds later. Mr. Potter, our last champion, trails by a further 14 points, and shall enter seven minutes after them.

"As a safety measure, each of the Champions wears a specially made portkey." Bagman continued, "Should they encounter a task too difficult, or be incapacitated, the portkey will be able to take them to safety. The use of this portkey will, however, disqualify them. Once the TriWizard cup is claimed, all the champions will be returned here."

The cheering was raucous, while the looks of relief on the faces of the families was evident as well. Bagman then introduced the guests around him.

"I would like to thank our special guests, first, the Minister for Magic from Bulgaria, Mr. Gustuvson. Next, we have the French Minister for Magic, Mr. LeMarie. And finally we have our own Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, and the head of our Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Amelia Bones."

The applause was muted, but respectful, as each VIP rose and waved as they were announced. Then Bagman continued, "Now, let us begin!" And as he shouted 'begin', a loud cannon blast sounded, and cheers became riotous. They were short lived however, as Victor calmly stepped forward, and conjured a chair beside his gate, and sat down. Confusion ran through the audience at this most unexpected turn of events.

"Mr. Krum, you may enter the maze…" Bagman told him again, as if speaking to a child.

"I'm aware of that Mr. Bagman," Victor's amplified voice answered, "however, as you are aware, this tournament has been plagued by blatant favoritism and abuse. Since the judges seem unable to fix it, we are correcting it ourselves."

"What? What do you mean?"

BOOM! A second cannon blast rang out, and everyone looked at Fleur and Cedric as they followed Victor's example, conjuring chairs and sitting.

"In the first task," Cedric called, joining Victor's explanation, "Harry Potter did far and away better than all three of us, leaving the arena with no injuries and no collateral damage."

"Yet he was scored the lowest as a very blatantly biased judge scored him a zero," Victor continued, "while awarding myself a perfect score, despite damaging two eggs and getting burned."

"In the second task," Fleur continued into the silence, "the four of us worked together, entering the water, collecting our hostages, and if not for the complication of an unaccounted for illegal hybrid, we would have surfaced together."

"As it was," Cedric called, "he sacrificed himself to try and save us and the hostages. Even then, the scores again showed blatant bias, and we were denied even knowing individual scores in an obvious attempt to shield the one showing bias."

"So, we are deciding our own order," Victor finished. "Harry should have won the first task, then at least tied the second, so we shall wait for him to be allowed to enter, then proceed with our places without the biased judge. Which is in a dead heat, about 2 minutes after him."

"No," Harry finally found his voice, "We enter together. No special circumstances, no advantages, just us versus the maze."

The single clap sounded from the audience. Then another. Soon the stands as a whole were on their feet; the foreign Ministers and Director Bones joining them.

"Well, this is most unusual, but since we cannot force you to enter, very well, all of the champions may enter." Bagman sounded defeated, as if the champions had stolen his spotlight.

Harry stepped forward to join his fellow champions, grinning at them as they made their way to the gate before Harry. As Harry stepped through though, a loud thump sounded behind him, and he whirled to find a heavy iron gate separating him from the others.

"Only one may enter each gateway I'm afraid," Dumbledore called from the judges stand, "We can't have someone merely following another champion and letting them do all the work now can we?"

"You hypocrite!" Fleur shouted. "You preach cooperation yet when we show it you move to separate us."

"We merely wish to evaluate each champion's ability separately," Dumbledore's placating tone fooled none of the champions.

"It's ok guys," Harry growled, "We figured they'd interfere somehow. I'll see you at the cup."

The remaining champions slowly entered the other gates, the iron bars slamming shut behind them as well. The cheering of the crowd slowly subsided, and murmurs grew as they started to wonder what to do now, as there was no way to see what was happening in the maze now that the champions had entered.

Harry started through the maze, taking it slow as he weaved his way deeper. At the first intersection, a four way, he paused, considering. Pulling out his wand and holding it flat across his palm, he concentrated on a mental image of a clearing with the triwizard cup in it and whispered "Point me". His wand wriggled, then rose a few inches above his hand and the tip rotated to point to the left.

"It worked," Harry gasped incredulously, before grabbing his wand from the air and proceeding to the left.

A straight at a 'T' intersection and a right found Harry facing his first obstacle. Before him floated a golden mist, almost like a doorway. It stretched across the entire path, from the turf beneath his feet to the tops of the hedges. He tried a couple of detection spells, but the information he got was garbled. Finally, he realized he was thinking too much like Hermione, which though not a bad thing, caused him to miss the obvious. Pulling out his wand, he cast a simple drying charm, then pushed more power into it. The result was a blast of hot air that pushed the mist up and out of the maze.

"That was easy enough," Harry mumbled, watching the mist disappear into the night sky.

The hairs on the back of his neck rose, and he returned his gaze to the path the mist had obscured just in time to see a Skrewt blast its way towards him. Throwing himself to the side, the beast missed his body, but caught his foot as it passed, spinning him in a flat arc into the hedge wall. Harry quickly rolled to his feet, tossing a reductor curse at the armored beast. He cringed as he saw it deflected off the slimy armor. The Skrewt bellowed in challenge, turning to attack again. A gurgle sounded as the skrewt once again blasted forward, this time striking at Harry's dodging form with its stinger.

"Damn it's fast," Harry muttered, watching the skrewt skid to a stop at the end of the long alley they were in. Then it hit him, it was using the entire length. Quickly, before the skrewt could attack again, Harry raised his wand and shouted "Glacius!"

A stream of icy blue burst forth, covering the ground in a film of ice the length of the way. The gurgle sounded again, and the skrewt blasted towards Harry again. Instead of dodging though, Harry used the trick Professor McGonagall had taught him and Hermione, summoning a wall of dirt before him, then transfiguring it to stone. It was a little more power intensive, but quicker than trying to conjure the stone wall.

Harry succeeded just in time. His ears perked as he heard a sickening crack from the other side as the wall cracked and crumbled. Moving cautiously around the edge of the wall, his ears flattened in disgust at the oozing mess of gooey innards and pieces of shell piled against the wall. The front half of the Skrewt had nearly liquefied with the impact, killing the beast.

Moving on, Harry kept a cautious ear out for any more, the skrewts really gave him the creeps if he was being honest. He and Hermione had figured out they had to be some kind of Fire Crab crossbreed, but they still made them uneasy. Three more intersections, and Harry started getting suspicious. He wasn't hitting enough obstacles. He'd seen signs of them, scuffed earth and hair or feathers in the hedges, but not any creatures.

He was halfway down the next hedge when he tripped. Crashing to the ground he felt whatever had tripped him coil around his foot. Looking down, a thick Vine had wrapped his leg three or four times around, and was starting to pull him under the hedge. Rolling quickly, he sent a quick curse at the second vine heading towards him and rolled further away from the third. Devil's Snare, the back of his mind shouted. Seeing the length of hedge that appeared to contain the dangerous plant, he began casting fire spells at the base, trying to burn the plant like Hermione had done first year. It worked. He staggered back to his feet as the tentacle like vines retreated.

A rustle above him was all the warning he got before a weight hit him in the back. Rolling over once he hit the ground, he was faced with eight shiny black eyes as an Acromantula the size of a large dog tried to bite him. He dodged his head right, then left to avoid the pincers, then aimed his wand at the creature's soft underbelly before casting a Reducto.

The resulting scream as the giant spider effectively exploded had to be heard for miles. The spike of apprehension Harry felt from Hermione certainly supported that fact. He poured reassurance to her over the link as he slowly got his bruised and battered body back to his feet.

It took another 10 minutes before a sense of dread began to fill him. Since the acromantula, he'd faced one more trap, a magically illusioned pitfall that his magic sense had felt before he encountered it. The jump had been difficult, but not impossible, but he'd face no other challenges since then. He could hear the others occasionally, often enough for him to feel like they were facing far more than he was.

"Where is everything?" he muttered to himself as he rounded a corner.

"They fear you my Lord," purred the creature halfway down the path. With a cat's body and a human head, the giant sphinx before him had to be at least four foot at the shoulder, and 500 Kilos of pure predator. Harry froze, careful not to make any threatening moves as it rose and stretched. "Fear not, friend. I shall not attack you unless you attack me."

"Thank you for that kindness." Harry bowed slightly, never taking his eyes off the figure before him.

"Of course, Great one, though my nature requires you answer my riddle, failure shall merely see you turned away, not killed."

"I thank you, but why? Why am I so special?" Harry asked, reminded of the comments the Hungarian Horntail had made.

"You do not know?" She purred, head cocked in curiosity. "Then it is not my place to tell. But never fear, I shall not harm you."

"Very well, may I hear your riddle?"

"Of course." The giant cat prowled forward, and stopped only a few feet from him. "I walk on four legs as a baby, In the middle of my life I walk on two, but before I die, I shall walk on three. What am I?"

Harry thought hard, trying to figure out the answer. He rolled through all the creatures he and Hermione had studied to prepare for this. Nothing matched, so he started through all the muggle animals he could think of, again, nothing. What could it be… Wait, this is a riddle, so what if it's not literally a leg? What if it's arms too? Or a cane.

"A human," Harry answered confidently.

"That is…" She paused, "correct. Follow me, guardian." With that, she turned and flowed down the path, leading him deeper into the maze. A left turn, a right, then they rounded a corner and entered a broad clearing.

The clearing was about 15 meters on aside, the tall hedges imposing along its perimeter. At the center, upon a stone dais and on a small plinth, sat the TriWizard cup, glowing an eerie blue, pulsing slowly. The rest of the area was clear, the walls pristine, rather than the shaggy look of the rest of the maze. Harry did note that there were no other entrances though.

"So you're the last guardian?" He asked the sphinx, "Shouldn't you get back to question the others?"

"What others," The sphinx was clearly confused by this, "There is only one path that reaches the center, the one you started on."

"What?" Harry spun, ignoring the blue light flashing slowly faster, "You mean that the other three entrances don't reach the center?"

"No, the others merely lead to each other, did you not know this?"

"No, we were told they merged partway through," Harry felt coiled on a hair trigger now, something was very wrong. "How is it a competition if only one can win?"

"What competition?" The sphinx asked, alarmed. "This is a test of courage and wit, is it not?"

"Yes, but for four champions, not just me. Something is very wrong here," Harry explained, then turned as the blue flashing intensified. "Why is the cup flashing?"

Harry realized what was wrong half a heartbeat too late. The cup flashed bright blue, momentarily blinding him, and he was just a hair too slow dodging as it leapt at him. It hit him in the shoulder, he felt a tug behind his navel, and the clearing was empty.

"HARRY!"

Hermione's shout of despair and loss from the bleachers welcomed the other three champions back to the entrance, everyone looked to the winner's dais, expecting Harry Potter to be standing there with the Cup.

It was empty.