Ch. 26 — Third Task
Ch. 26 — Third Task
Everyone except Ron had finished their desserts when Dumbledore stood and looked across the hall, eyes twinkling. “I do believe that it is almost time to begin the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament. First,” he looked at the judges seated beside him. “If the champions would be so good as to accompany Mr. Bagman down to the stadium, the rest of us will follow you to the Quidditch field in five minutes time.”
Harry sighed, and stood. The fillies looked at him worriedly. “Don’t worry too much,” he half-whispered, “Remember, I’m wearing my armour, and I’ll be very careful.” They did not look relieved. As he headed down the table to the Great Hall doors, it was to the congratulations of everyone he passed.
Bagman was his annoying self as he led the four champions to the stadium.
Harry rolled his eyes at the wizard’s inane concern that he only showed to the colt. “I’m fine,” he said. Although, he should really expect it. Harry was under-aged, and under-trained compared to the other champions. Still, it was annoying. Besides, he and his tutors had been working hard to make sure he had a solid plan for the maze, with several backups and alternatives to choose from if things went pear-shaped.
The Quidditch pitch was unrecognizable, according to Cedric, who loudly complained. All they could see was the three-yard-high hedge that appeared to run completely around it. The entrance to the vast maze was in front of them, and looked no more inviting than the entrance to the Everfree Forest. Cedric’s complaints were probably to take his mind off the upcoming Task.
Behind them were the empty stands and judging platform.
Harry spent the next five minutes trying to judge where the centre of the maze might be. The Quidditch pitch, after all, was not a square. And they might have used expansion runes to make it bigger on the inside than the outside, or even to distort the shape so that what looked like the centre from here was far from the actual centre where the Triwizard Cup resided.
Meanwhile, the stands behind them had begun to fill. He glanced back to see hundreds of students, and other spectators, file into their seats. The sky was darkening and the first stars had begun to appear. Harry noticed Hagrid, Professor Moody, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Flitwick enter the stadium. They all had large, red, luminous stars on their hats, except Hagrid. He had his on the back of his moleskin vest.
They stopped in front of the champions, where Professor McGonagall told them that the four adults would be patrolling outside the maze. They were to send red sparks into the air if they ran into difficulty. That would, of course, mean losing.
Now it was simply a matter of waiting for the audience and judges.
Once the stands were full, the judges took their seats and the champions had the opportunity to get even more nervous about the event. Mr. Bagman stood and cast a sonorous charm on himself. “Welcome to the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament!” he proclaimed happily. “Let me remind you how the points currently stand! In first place is Mr. Harry Potter Sparkle, of Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, with one hundred and seven points.” There was a scattered applause from the audience, mostly from his friends and the Gryffindors. His herdmates were not shy in their whistles and stomping of their feet in addition to applause. The rest of the school scowled or even booed, drawing a displeased frown from the normally cheerful announcer.
“Then we have Cedric Diggory,” he continued, “with one hundred points, from Hogwarts School!” He had to pause and wait a moment for the cheers, whistles, and applause to subside, which were loud enough to scare birds into the air from the Forbidden Forest. “In third place, with seventy-six points — Mr. Viktor Krum, of Durmstrang Institute!” There was applause and cheers from that section of the stands. “And in fourth place — Miss Fleur Delacour, of Beauxbatons Academy!” The reaction from those students and spectators was a bit more muted, but enthusiastic, nonetheless.
At Bagman’s whistle starting the task, Harry dropped to all fours and charged into the maze.
The wall of noise from the surrounding crowd vanished the moment he entered the maze. With the approaching sunset, the towering hedges cast black shadows across the path. It was so quiet, Harry felt almost as though he were back in the second task and under water again.
The path before him was straight as an arrow. By the time he reached the end where it branched in two directions, about fifty yards, he had come to a dismaying conclusion. He was already halfway across the pitch. Because the entry point was in the middle of the hedge, facing the stadium stands and not the quidditch goal posts, that meant he should have reached the trophy by now. If it were in the middle of the maze, as Bagman had said. Which meant he had lied and the Cup could be anywhere.
Or, the entire maze had been subjected to an expansion charm, making it that much more difficult to solve, and allowing for the inclusion of far more traps and obstacles. And the height of the hedges prevented him from getting any clues as to the subjective size of the maze, or his position in relation to anything in or out of it.
He sighed. It couldn’t be simple, could it?
It was time to put into practice the strategy his friends and tutors had come up with and refined last week. First, to prevent anyone from noticing him, he cast both his mum’s and the wizard’s versions of a don’t-notice-me spell, followed by a disillusionment spell. Next he cast the featherweight charm, and reduced his weight to mere ounces. Barely enough to make a branch in the hedge sway. He had to be careful not to sneeze, doing so would send him flying across the path.
Then he started climbing the hedge. It took only a few moments reach the top. Then he pushed his way into the hedge. Which was much more difficult than he had imagined. Here, his featherweight charm worked against him! A brief moment of concentration, and he was a Breezie. His armour and robe fell to the pathway below him.
The no-flying rule had been imposed by the officials, not the goblet, they had reasoned. Just as the age-rule limit was created by the officials, and not the goblet. If it can ignore one rule made by the officials, why wouldn’t it ignore another? Besides, if the officials complained about his “cheating” he would bring up the issue of cheating by the other champions in the first task.
Once he was inside the hedge, he resumed climbing until he was standing on the hedge. He had to grin. They had said he couldn’t fly out of the maze, but no one had said anything about climbing. The hedges’ branches had probably been made to collapse with any weight a few ounces beyond themselves. That would have made climbing impossible for a normal person, but not a Breezie the size of a small bird!
The next manoeuvre required exquisite timing and speed. He flew up several yards over the maze, then cancelled the Breezie transformation. Then he cancelled the featherweight spell — he didn’t want an errant breeze to blow him over the lake! While he fell as he lost the breezie form and turned back into a pony, he cast the wings spell and frantically began flapping them to stay above the maze.
Once he was safely hovering over the hedge, he took a moment to look around.
He had been right, the maze was under an expansion spell. A brief moment of concentration and he floated his armour and robe up beside him. It was another set of tricky gymnastics getting his armour on while flying, but he did it — although it did feel like he had turned himself inside-out at one point. He hadn’t, of course, but the twisting and turning sure felt like it. He wondered if anyone had noticed the strange gyrations of his armour and fluttering robe over the hedges before he could recast the don’t-notice-me and disillusionment spells on them.
The robe and his back-armour he just held onto. He could put that back on when he landed.
He flew higher, searching for the clearing that was sure to mark the location of the Triwizard Cup.
And there it had to be. In the geographical centre. He angled down and glided to his destination. He made a quick circle to look for traps, then landed. He cancelled the wings spell, threw on his armour and robe, and settled both comfortably into place. He didn’t want to advertise he had been flying, after all. After taking one last look, and seeing the giant spider near one of the exits from the rest of the maze, he quickly grabbed the cup.
Instantly, Harry felt a jerk somewhere behind his navel. His hooves left the ground. He couldn’t let go of the Triwizard Cup. It pulled him onward in a howl of wind and swirling colour, just as he had been pulled for his trips to and from the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary. Only this time the trip was much, much shorter. It had barely started before it was over.
۸-_-۸
Rarity came sprinting into the library, where Twilight was doing her weekly Thursday afternoon reorganization of the library. She skidded to a stop beside the surprised alicorn, panting. Rarity never galloped anywhere, if she could help it — it ruined her perfect grooming with — shudder — sweat.
Twilight looked at her and blinked. «Did I forget a luncheon appointment, again? I’m sure I remembered to add it to my weekly list for tomorrow.»
«No! No! No!» the unicorn said quickly. «I was dusting Sweetie Belle’s room when I checked the closet for spiders.» She stopped and gulped another deep breath. «And I saw her Nightmare costume!» She stopped and stared at Twilight, trembling, eyes wide with excitement.
«There weren’t any? Spiders, I mean?»
«No! No! No!» she repeated. «The Nightmare costume!” she shouted. In a calmer tone, she continued. «Harry was wearing his when he disappeared, right?»
Twilight nodded, starting to get excited. «Yes?»
«We’ve got it backwards! We don’t need to search for a world-match using Harry’s things left here . . . .»
Twilight’s eyes shot wide-open, «We just have to search for a trace of Equestria in the multiverse!» she whispered. «It’s simply following the trail to the right world!» She grabbed the smaller unicorn in a tight hug. «Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!»
She let go of her and galloped out of the library. A few minutes later, she galloped back in, this time with Starlight in tow behind her. She unceremoniously dumped the startled unicorn, sandwich in hoof, on the couch. «You tell her,» she said urgently to Rarity, «I have to pack!» She teleported out of the library.
Rarity sighed as Starlight stared at her. Starlight finished chewing her current mouthful. «Tell me what?» she said drily.
Faintly, from elsewhere in the castle, they heard, «Spike! I need to send a letter to Princess Celestia! Immediately!»
Rarity cleared her throat. «Instead of looking for a world that has humans and a match to Harry’s magical signature, we can follow the trail of Harry’s Equestrian Nightmare costume that he was wearing when he disappeared.»
Starlight’s eyes widened. «Oh.» She gave an exasperated sigh. «I knew we were missing something obvious.» She heaved herself off the couch. «I’d better warn Trixie and the others.» She trotted to the door. «If we hurry, we can still catch the afternoon train to Canterlot.»
Rarity sighed again. Well, it really was about the right time to check on her Canterlot store. And she should probably fetch the Nightmare costume to provide a more accurate match than just “anything” Equestrian.
۸-_-۸
Harry felt his hooves slam into the ground. He fell forward onto his chest. The Cup went tumbling across the ground. He raised his head and looked around, flustered and confused
He had left the Hogwarts grounds completely. He had obviously travelled miles — hundreds of miles. He was in a flatland. No mountains were even faintly visible against the sky, in any direction. There was a small hill that rose above him to his left. A fine old house sat on the hillside, barely visible in the darkening night. Beyond a large yew tree to his right was the dusky outline of a small church.
And from the dozen or so stone slabs stuck into the ground and the angel statues mounted above the bigger ones, he realized he was in an overgrown graveyard.
Yes, he was well and truly away from Hogwarts. He reinforced his protective spells, looked around for the Cup, and spotted it not too far away.
The graveyard was completely silent and slightly eerie. “Is this supposed to be part of the task?” he quietly mused. He decided not. Ludo simply had said the goal was to reach the Triwizard Cup, not that there would be additional traps and obstacles to get out of the maze once one of them had it.
He had the feeling he was being watched. He heard footsteps. He crouched beside the closest gravestone. He cast a darkness-piercing spell on his eyes. The graveyard was now as clear to him as if it were a bright day. He could now see someone as they walked steadily toward him between the graves. It wasn’t anyone he had ever met, and from the way it was walking and holding its arms, he could tell that it was carrying something. Whoever it was, was short, and wearing a cloak. What was it carrying? A bundle of robes?
It, no, he, the thing walking towards him was a wizard, stopped beside a towering marble headstone, only two yards from him. For a second, Harry and the short figure simply looked at one another.
And then, without warning or even moving his hands, he launched a spell from the wand hidden in the bundle he carried. The runes in Harry’s robe blocked most of it — Harry could smell the thread that made the runes burning up as they resisted the spell. His armour stopped whatever had managed to leak through. The robe would provide no more magical protection.
Harry burst into motion. He dodged sideways, towards a gravestone.
The wizard was phenomenally fast, and a second spell hit him just as he reached safety. He stumbled and fell. But regained his hooves. He felt the runes in his armour starting to burn. He angled his wand and started sending his own spells back at the wizard.
The wizard barely seemed to move as he shielded himself, while almost simultaneously casting spells of his own.
Harry was fast, but he was still a colt. He had neither the skill, experience, nor power to go up against a fully-trained wizard with years, or decades, of experience in duels. Even when he began casting spells through both his wand and horn, he was nowhere near as fast as the strange wizard, who seemed to switch between casting and shielding faster than thought.
If there was any time, now was the time to teleport . . . but where? He couldn’t see far enough to reach anywhere that was out of the wizard’s sight. And trying for anywhere around Hogwarts was an exercise in futility, he knew he couldn’t teleport that far.
Harry tried to run to another gravestone, one farther away, but again a spell hit his armour. He yelped as he felt runes burn their way through the cardboard.
The shield runes absorbed the spell, but heated up dramatically — cardboard was a terrible conductor of heat. The impervious runes heated up, in turn, protecting the cardboard.
Harry knew that with just one more direct hit, the runes either would burn each other out or a cascade failure would set in as the weakest of the group catastrophically failed.
It was just his luck that as he skidded behind the gravestone, two spells hit him. There was an explosion and Harry felt himself flying through the air, stopping only when he hit another gravestone. Pieces of his armour fluttered through the air behind him, burning to ashes. He had no idea where his robe had disappeared to, and found it difficult to concentrate for several moments.
Harry dazedly felt the wizard pull his wand from his hoof’s bindings. Then the man dragged him back to the gravestone where the fight had begun. Harry kept his eyes closed and let his legs and head loll limply. His breathing was as steady as he could manage in an attempt to fool the cloaked man into thinking him totally unconscious instead of merely halfway there.
The wizard conjured tight cords around Harry, tied him from neck to hooves to the headstone, and then stuffed a wad of cloth in his mouth. He still cradled the bundle of what looked like robes in one arm.
Harry could hear shallow, fast breathing from the depths of the hood.
How pathetic. He had been beaten by a one-armed wizard who had been toting a package the entire time. That just showed the difference between knowing how to fight, and having years of experience in fighting.
As a last measure, the man dropped a ring over Harry’s horn. Harry almost cried out as he felt the magic in his horn snuff out as if it had never been. His horn, for the first time in his life, felt like a lump of dead tissue. He could feel its presence only by its weight. Even when he had been transfigured into a human, a spot on his forehead had given him the impression of a “squashed” horn. He could feel his heart racing at the implications.
The wizard gently placed his bundle on the ground and hurried away, out of sight. Harry couldn’t make a sound, and the ropes were so tight he couldn’t even move. He could see only what was right in front of him.
Harry tried to keep his breathing steady, and panic at leg’s length. He couldn’t cast magic, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do magic. After all, pegasi and earth ponies healed themselves at the same rate as unicorns when they were hurt — and they didn’t have horns. Plus, his mum had told him that the magic in ponies naturally speeded up their healing when compared to non-magical animals like bunnies and deer.
And using a wand had taught him how to channel magic spells directly to his hooves.
Well, if he couldn’t go horn-to-wand with the wizard, he would just have to outwit him. Which shouldn’t be that hard. Stupid wizards. Although, he had to wonder: why had the wizard brought him here?
Fortunately, he had a spare wand he had “rescued” from the Room of Requirement. It didn’t work that well, but it was better than nothing. It was currently disillusioned, tied and stuck to his left-rear leg.
He vanished the cloth in his mouth. He did the same to the cords, leaving only an illusion of them in place. He didn’t know if he was being watched, so simply running again would be foolhardy.
He heard a noise at his rear hooves. Almost at his hooves was a gigantic snake slithering through the grass. It circled the headstone where he was tied. Normally, that would have worried him. But there was no way a snake, no matter how big, could really harm him when he was trussed up against a very big marble gravestone. And it didn’t look to be a venomous snake; at least it wasn’t threatening him as one of them would have. On the other hoof, if it did threaten him, he could still cast a shield.
Harry could hear fast, wheezy breathing as the wizard returned. When he came into view, Harry could see him pushing a stone cauldron, which he manoeuvred to the foot of the grave. Harry could hear water slopping around inside the cauldron. It was the largest cauldron Harry had ever seen, easily large enough for a full-grown man to sit in. Harry could barely see over the lip to the surface of the liquid inside as it swirled in the moonlight.
Harry would have shaken his head, if he dared. Any movement on his part might give-away that he wasn’t bound, anymore.
If the wizard had planned for the Cup to bring the Triwizard winner here, why hadn’t he prepared anything beforehand? Doing everything at the last minute seemed stupid.
The wrapped bundle on the ground began to stir. Harry watched, eyes wide, there was something alive in the bundle! And it was trying to free itself?
The sudden crackle of flames beneath the cauldron startled Harry. He barely noticed as the large snake slithered away into the darkness.
Harry was shaking in fright so hard it was difficult to focus on the spell matrix he wanted to use, and force magic to the wand tied to his rear hoof. Only all the practice from the previous eight months made it possible. And, like everything else, what he had been unable to do before, he managed to do when under the pressure of being in acute danger.
The cauldron quickly became hot, far quicker than it should have with a normal fire. The liquid inside began to bubble and send out fiery sparks, as though it were on fire. The steam from the cauldron blurred the outline of the wizard behind it. The bundle on the ground became more agitated.
Harry heard a high, cold voice, order, “Hurry!” His breath caught in his throat and he couldn’t suppress a shiver.
Not only was the thing in the bundle alive, it was intelligent!
The cauldron’s water surface was entirely covered with sparks, now.
“It is ready, Master,” the wizard wheezed, still recovering from moving the heavy stone cauldron.
“Now . . . ,” ordered the voice from the mysterious bundle.
The wizard unwrapped the coverings gently. Harry almost yelped in surprise at what was revealed. He had seen many terrible things in the Everfree forest, but nothing could have prepared him for the thing inside the bundle. It was hairless and scaly-looking, a dark, raw, reddish-black. It had a flat, snakelike face and gleaming red eyes, with thin and feeble arms and legs. It was like a horrifying parody of a human child. Not even the timberwolves looked as terrifying.
It was almost helpless, but Harry could see a wand lying beside it. He had been fighting two wizards, not one? That made him feel a little better about his performance in the duel.
It raised its thin arms and put them around the wizard’s neck. The man’s hood fell back as he lifted the thing, and Harry could see a look of revulsion on his pale face. He carried it to the cauldron. For one moment, Harry saw its smiling evil, flat face illuminated in the sparks dancing on the surface of the potion. Then the man lowered the creature into the cauldron with a slight hiss. It vanished silently into the liquid. There was a soft thud as its body hit the bottom.
Harry vainly hoped it would drown, but with his mum’s stories about the villains she had fought, and the tales from Equestria’s distant past, he knew that wasn’t bloody likely. Despite his terror, he watched with wide-open eyes, unable to fake his unconsciousness any more. Celestia, he thought, Let. It. Drown!
“Bone of the father,” the wizard intoned shakily, “unknowingly given, you will renew your son!” He held his wand in hand with his eyes closed. He seemed frightened, no, terrified. If anything, he was more scared than Harry, which seemed almost impossible given how hard Harry was shivering.
Harry jerked his attention from the wizard to the grave in front of him as it rumbled and cracked. He watched, horrified, at the fine trickle of dust that emerged from the ground, drifted lazily through the air, and fell into the cauldron. The spark-covered water broke and hissed; sparks fountained in all directions. The liquid turned a vivid, poisonous-looking blue.
The whimpering wizard removed a long, thin, shining silver dagger from inside his cloak. “Flesh . . . of the servant,” his terrified sobs broke up his words “. . . w-willingly given . . . you will . . . revive . . . your master.”
He placed his right hand on the edge of the cauldron, gasping at the hiss of burning flesh. His hand was missing a finger. He gripped the dagger very tightly in his left hand, grimaced, and turned his head away. He swung the dagger down.
Horrified at everything he was seeing, only at the last second did Harry realize what was about to happen. He closed his eyes as tightly as he could, but it did nothing to block the soul-rending scream that pierced the night. It cut through Harry as though it were his hoof that had been cut off. He heard a sickening splash and the wizard’s anguished panting. When Harry finally steeled himself to look, the potion had turned a burning red.
How anypony could do something like that was simply beyond his understanding.
The wizard was gasping and moaning with agony as he stumbled towards Harry. He must have cast some kind of spell to slow or stop his bleeding, as it wasn’t bleeding as severely as it should, Harry realized through his horror.
This was it, Harry quickly recognized, now or never. His heart thudded in his chest and his eyes were wide in terror. He had only one shot at this. He shivered and shook as the wizard dropped to his knees beside the colt. Still gasping and panting between words, he said, “B-blood of the enemy . . . forcibly taken . . . you will . . . resurrect your foe.” He raised the dagger over Harry’s left foreleg.
Harry slammed all four hooves into the man’s chest, shouting, “Stupefy!” as a bright red light burst from the wand on his leg.
The man staggered back, stunned at Harry’s reaction. Whether it was the weak spell from his emergency wand, getting hit with Harry’s hooves, or the colt’s sudden lack of restraints, Harry didn’t know. And he didn’t wait to find out. He charged forward, spun around, and gave the wizard a buck that would have made Applejack proud to see it. He spun around to check, dodging to the side, in time to hear a loud CRACK as the wizard’s head rebounded off the cauldron. The man stood up, swayed a moment, his eyes rolled up, and he slumped sideways to the ground.
Harry stood there, trembling and panting in shock, barely able to keep to his hooves.
He pulled the wand from his rear leg, and walked over to the wizard. He placed the wand against the man’s head and repeated the stupefy spell. The wand felt weak and sluggish. “Accio wands,” Harry commanded sternly. There were five that flew into his hooves. He stuck the extra four to his legs, and then repeated the stupefy with his own wand, which seemed eager to respond.
The wizard would not wake up for a while.
He cast episkey on the man’s stump. The blood flow slowed to a stop. He didn’t want the man to bleed out before turning him over to the Aurors.
Harry stared, shaking, at the cauldron. He couldn’t leave it alone, who knew what the ritual was supposed to accomplish in the end? However, from his potion classes and books, he knew any foreign substances added to a potion during preparation inevitably altered the potion, almost always to the detriment of the potion’s designed purpose. He used his wand to summon a clump of grass, with dirt and bugs embedded in it, into the cauldron. The nasty shade of burning-red liquid turned towards purple.
Sighing, and starting to shake as he came down from his adrenalin high, Harry considered what he should do next. He tried to remove the ring from his horn, but it ignored the spell from the wand. And shaking his head failed to dislodge it. Pushing as hard as he could with his hooves had no results, either. Apparently it had a very strong sticking charm of some kind. Finite did not seem to work.
He abruptly jumped over the cauldron. The massive snake from before struck at where he had been standing.
His shouted, “Stupefy!” hit the snake with no effect. It hissed like a steam whistle.
He dodged around another gravestone to avoid another strike.
He cast the wings spell and took to the air.
The strike by the snake narrowly missed him. He hovered at what he hoped was out of the snake’s reach. He tried to think of what he could do next. He couldn’t just hover up here and wait for the snake to lose interest, it might not. And then there was the wizard to worry about. He could wake up at any time. Plus, there was that bug-thing.
The two eyed each other. Harry didn’t dare look away.
Magic was out.
Or was it?
He prepared his stupefy spell, again, and slowly lowered himself.
He was sweating heavily.
At any moment the snake would strike.
He didn’t even see it move.
He felt the top of her snout hit his horn as he fired the stunner from his wand.
The snake’s magic resistant scales were not inside its soft mouth.
The snake collapsed below him as he shot straight up, startled half to death, gasping for breath with his heart racing. He almost dropped his wand.
Fortunately, the stupefy had prevented the snake from closing its mouth and slamming its undoubtedly venomous fangs into his sides.
He hovered for several minutes, heart thumping, and panted as he tried to regain his composure. He could feel his sweat trickling down his face, drenching his legs, and sides.
He arced around and landed beside the cauldron, considering what to do. What would his mum do? He couldn’t kill the snake with any spells he knew.
The water surface had dulled to a muddy yellow colour. He studied it for a moment, then pointed his wand into it and said, “Finite incantatem!” The sparking water stilled and turned a vile greenish-yellow in colour. He cast stupefy inside it, and tipped it over. The bizarre creature inside it rolled stiffly across the ground, the now-harmless potion seeping uselessly into the ground.
He righted the cauldron and dragged it over to the snake after casting a feather-weight spell on it. He cancelled the spell and refilled the cauldron with the aguamenti charm. He stared at it and the snake for a moment, before casting a lead-weight spell on the cauldron. He didn’t want it moving or tipping over.
The snake was remarkably resistant to his levitation charms. He ended up stripping the comatose wizard. He wrapped the wizard’s robe, with the bundle from before, around the snake’s head. He levitated the robes, and the snake’s head, into the cauldron until all were submerged.
Even magical snakes have to breathe. He shoved a couple of gravestone slabs under the snake’s body — neck? — so the head wouldn’t slip out of the cauldron.
Then it was a simple matter of waiting. And getting his breath back. Casting so much magic so quickly, and at such levels, left him at the point where he wanted to do nothing more than sleep. He shivered in the suddenly cold air, and started shaking as his adrenalin began to drop, again.
He walked over and studied the creature that had fallen from the cauldron. It was still hairless and scaly-looking, but it was now a brownish-white colour. Its former snakelike face and gleaming red eyes had been transformed into a vaguely bug-like assembly, with pincers to either side of its mouth. Three additional, asymmetrically-placed eyes dotted its head. The thin and feeble arms and legs from before were now long, thin, and insectile in shape, with three on one side and four on the other.
Harry used a simple cutting curse to lop off the legs close to the body. Whatever it was would not be sneaking away when it awoke, or sneaking up on him if he was distracted. He looked around the graveyard. He quickly located the tournament cup, but his armour was completely gone, only little piles of ash here and there indicated where the various pieces had landed. His robe was nowhere in sight, and he could only conclude it, too, had been destroyed.
His sides were starting to itch. Had the snake scratched him with its fangs? He started to look more closely when a scream of agony come from the cauldron! Terrified at the unexpected sound, he frantically jumped for the safety of a gravestone. When he peeked from behind the stone, he saw a smoke-like face over the cauldron. He watched, wide-eyed and breathing hard as it continued to scream until it dissipated into nothing. His adrenaline was through the clouds, once more.
Shivering, again, he cast a detection spell at the snake. It was dead — well and truly dead. His racing heart began to slow. What should he do now?
He looked around the graveyard, again. He was the only living thing bigger than a spider in the area. Anything larger had had the sense to flee the giant snake — not to mention escaping the explosions and screaming. He needed to get back. Maybe the Tournament Cup would take him back?
He levitated the spider-bug . . . thing . . . to the wizard and bound the two together with conjured ropes. He propped the wizard up and summoned the Triwizard Cup. He let it fall to the ground beside him. Then he carefully levitated it until it was in the right position. He pressed it firmly to all three of them.
The graveyard disappeared in a swirl of motion and colour.
۸- ̬ -۸
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So Harry would just say that there was just some monster outs wizard he never saw before or recognise and everyone takes it as they will
Don’t think Harry will be slandered now as he didn’t even hint that Voldemort had anything to do with this
I feel cheated that this story has the Sunset Shimmer tag yet so far all we got was a one-scene cameo in 26 chapters.
I feel that Harry should have been more prepared for the trap of the cup. Now I wonder how bringing back Voldermort will affect things and if our little impersonator will be exiting stage left fast as the plan has gone completely south?
Bruh. I can't thumbs up this fic again... That bites.
This is pretty interesting. Now tom might have to try and take over the body of one of those lake creatures, or something, depending on what your dumbles has found.
Jesus Christ, that was actually sort of gruesome. Harry -drowned- Voldy's snake... lady (?) friend... thing. I never watched the movie when she was still human, I just know that she was at some point. Anyway, pretty exciting chapter! But that damn cliffhanger.
*Chapter ends*
[Maniacal Laughter]
He ruined it, he fucked up Voldemort!
So he's flagrantly cheating, to win a contest that he's never shown the slightest interest in respecting. Sure Potter, you do you.
Yup, that'll do it.
And Tzeentch only knows what that'll do.
There is a problem you see, with the Horcrux enchantment. It only does anything if you actually die. Voldemort is not dead, and is far beyond any capacity to affect the world.
Thus, the problem has resolved itself.
And that's the downside of using a living creature for a horcrux. They are far more delicate.
So... Besides Peter Pettigrew's body heat, what's stopping the wet and soon to be cold abomination that is Voldemort at the moment from dying to the cold while they lie unconcious?
Great to see a different take on the graveyard scene. It's unfortunate how rarely writers really change it in any meaningful way.
I thought this day couldn´t get any better, but you just had to such an amazing chapter
huh, didn't see that outcome... coming.
still a delightful read
9936790
Yeah, just like the other champions, Fleur and Victor cheated in the first task. (And it doesn’t matter if he isn’t interested in the tournament, the problem is if the Cup believes he is trying to compete and not just pretending. That is, if he doesn’t earnestly try to win, will the cup decide he didn’t participate in the task?)
Welp, now we can say that Ludo won his bet, good for him XD, and Harry will be prised for defeating voldy and peter XD.
9936830
Oh I'm more griping at him than about him, if that makes any sense. There are a ton of spectators after all, watching with all manner of telescoping instruments. Being invisible doesn't help all that much when several hundred people watch you do it, and it really doesn't help when they see you reappear in the middle of the maze seconds later without traversing the intervening space.
When Twilight and co. turn up the reception is going to be along the lines of "take your brat and get out.", something of an inauspicious start to diplomacy, no?
I can see things coming to a head soon.
9936848
Are they really observing what's going on in the maze, though? Nobody had noticed Harry and Cedric had vanished into an entirely different place than where the cup was supposed to take them in the book. And they were gone for quite a bit.
9936830
Cheating is practically a rule in this tournament. I don't see the problem at all.
Well, that's...something. Got rid of the snake horcrux, captured Pettigrew and Riddle, and indeed got abducted2.
What's left? Harry being captured by fake-Moody? Twilight finding Harry and the girls, then chewing out Dumbledore and the Ministry for forcing an underage foreigner into this potentially-deadly competition? Not having more safeguards around the Goblet, not checking for portkey sabotage, not checking for Polyjuiced impostors?
9936848
And yet . . . they were the ones who forced him to participate! They are in no place to complain. But they will, anyway.
Playing an idiot ball, I see. Why don't he just grab that portkey-cup again?
A filthy, crawling thing. How appropriate.
Well.... that escalated quickly
9936895
Mainly because he had no reason to assume the portkey would work two ways. They usually don't. Not sure why this one did. Maybe a side effect of setting it to trigger on touch rather than at a specific time, who knows?
9936895
Why didn’t Harry do that in canon? The moment he had the wand, he was good to go!
well if Voldemort would return then he would be a bug thing, this was much more entertaining then the original harry potter fight. btw
I guess it was dumb luck that discord brought the fillies to Hogwarts for the spell to track, unless the ash still counts, after all, it still came from Equestria
oh I get it! Blood of the enemy forcibly taken, the grass is forcibly taken by being cut, and the enemy of grass is Insects, dear gods that thing was an abomination before, now it must be some kind of vile Nightmareish monstrosity
Huh....well that's one way to resolved the 'Voldemort Resurrection' issue.
9936809
The fact that Harry took him with. That is what Harry grabbed besides the cup to return. Now they have the evidence of his return in front of them and hopefully once is all said and done I hope that this part of him gets the kiss.
I would have preferred to see him finish the whole maze, which I would think was the more earnest attempt, especially since flying was specifically proscribed If his actions have to meet the Goblet’s unknown standards, flying when it’s against the rules seems reckless and foolhardy.
Since he’s prepared in a different way than canon, I would expect him to finish first, and since he’s not emotionally invested in the competition, not insist on Cedric sharing the victory, ultimately leading to the graveyard scene as we already have seen it.
9936913
I would imagine because he was ambushed in 10 seconds flat, but here he had almost entire minute to prepare for: Okay I am out of here, .... .
Well, bugmort, goodluck getting purebloods to follow you now. Twilight and them should arrive soon. Can't wait to see their reactions to what happened with the CMC. By the way is it bad that I hope Applebloom, and Scootaloo, end up applying to go to Celestia's school, just to continue learning magic.
Also while it looks like Hermione, Ginny, and Luna won't be joining the herd, I hope they still remain friends, and go to Equestria with Harry and the CMC. Looking forward to the next chapter.
9936932
Ah, It seems I misread the last few sentences. I misunderstood and thought Harry left Peter and Voldy for dead. I should have known better. Also, I just realized that Cedric didn't die, I don't know why I'm even surprised... I guess I am too familiar with stories shying away from changing canon too much.
9937008
Will they really arrive soon? It seems Harry's armor, which they would use to track him was destroyed, it might thwart their plans.
I personally kinda glad that Cedric was not tagged along this time. In the canon, he was killed immediately and was nothing more than a death weight to Harry's escape. Good thing there was no other Death Eaters in the graveyard this time, or Harry's chance of escape would be impossible.
My only question was that where did Peter get the magic suppression ring for Equestria's unicorn?
Dear Moldymort,
Omae wa ma shinderu
9936865
Correct! It's not cheating! It's creative rules interpretation via subjective analysis.
The only thing I question is the horn ring that was put on Harry. Till Harry showed up they didn't have talking unicorns let alone unicorns that could work magic
My god that was hilarious, I was waiting for the inevitable blindside but he got away with it! And the simple alterations to the potion had rather fitting results.
9936911
Well, fanon generally goes with the idea that the cup was supposed to send whoever touched it to the judges to make the final winner indisputable, the portkey to Little Hangleton was just layered over it.
9937056
Nani!?
*Moldypants suffers 'baleful polymorph by failed resurrection' into an aborted hybrid between insect and person, with a branch with a simple leaf protruding from his behind*
9936932
Ten to one that Moldypants ends up inside a jar within the Department of Mysteries, next to the spirit of knowledge inhabiting a skull chock-full of carvings.
MMmmmm, the armor is destroyed, that may lead twilight to the graveyard, and with no cup, she will be far away from him, and worse, may think he is dead, due to the armor being like destroyed, though there won't be a body, but a mess to see, ok, lets see where this will go XD, it may not finish soon yet, now contact may be priority, OF COURSE, unless Discord appears and help for once ¬¬.
9936785
hmmm, but Harry still has the soul fragment inside him that 'seems' to be affecting him.
I think, if Dumbledor mentions it, Twilight could Use the Rainbow of DOOM to clear that stuff up.
9937063
It could be a band for wrists meant for prisoners. Just at a smaller size.
that last chapter was awesome.
Wonder if the Moody impersonator is going to have a calf when he sees his legless dark munchkin lord?
9937096
Unfortunately that skull is in America if my memory is correct. Plus I doubt the council would tolerate the MoM after half the crap it has pulled. Plus the Knights of the Cross would never have tolerated Voldemort.
This chapter feels like it's gone off the rajls with out of character knowledge. Laying aside Harry suddenly wanting to win enough to cheat for some reason what was with the horn ring. There's been zero indication to the wizards that would have any effect on him and even if there waz in canon it needs to be a specific spell not a ring given we've seen them wear rings on their horns with no ill effect and being subjected to magic suppression spells instead
9937041
My guess is Rarity bringing Sweeties costume will lead them to the fillies.
Oof. Get rekt, Noseless. A little pony just decimated you.