The First Glimpse of the Maze
He had managed to have an uneventful last couple of months, getting to go to all his classes, hanging out with his friends and spending time with Severus and Remus and Sirius even came over for a couple of times on the weekend. It had been amazing not having to worry about anything but of course with his life the freedom hadn’t lasted long and once again he was being reminded of the fact he was not normal.
He had been minding his own business in charms when there was a knock on the door and a first year Slytherin entered the room.
“Sorry to bother you professor Flitwick, but I was asked to come and tell Harry Potter that he is to go to the entrance hall immediately to meet up with the other champions.” The girl, Emma, he was pretty sure, spoke nervously.
“Thank you for passing the message along, Potter on you go, come see me if you need help with anything else we go over today.”
He said goodbye to his friends before taking his stuff and leaving the classroom, thanking Emma before heading down towards the entrance hall.
The rest of the champions were already there with weirdly enough Moody and Ludo Bagman who smiled and waved him over.
“Good, good, now that we are all here I can tell you what this meeting is about. You will be shown what the third task will consist of and I will give you the date of the task. You may ask questions, wether I am allowed to answer them or not is a different matter. So if everyone is ready let’s head out to the site of the third and final task.” Ludo spoke giddily despite all of their uneasy expressions.
They all headed outside, the weather starting to get a bit warmer now they were half way through April, and headed in the direction they would normally go in for the Quidditch pitch. It made more sense once they made it a bit closer, the pitch was no longer the pristinely trimmed and well kept stadium it once was. No, the end bleachers had been moved to the side in order to clear a path for hedges to have been erected from the middle of the pitch and out for who knows how long. He and Cedric shared similar pained looks at seeing their beloved Quidditch pitch destroyed for such a horrific purpose but they trudged along with the rest of them until they were right in front of the monstrosity.
“As you can see the Quidditch pitch is in the process of being transformed. These hedges have been growing for the last two days but they will get much larger and much thicker over the next weeks until the task starts. Once completed, the hedges will create a maze with the triwizard cup placed in the centre of it. You guys will enter in order of points, so Cedric and Harry first then Viktor then Fleur, and you will have to make your way through the maze until one of you reach the cup to end the tournament once and for all. It won’t be as simple as it sounds however, there will be creatures, tricks and traps places throughout the entire maze and in the hedges itself, you will have to proceed through with great caution so as not to be caught in one of the mazes dangerous areas. Don’t worry, if something does go wrong or you end up too hurt to continue, just shoot up red sparks with your wand and one of the professors patrolling the edge of the maze will come and collect you but that will mean the tournament is over for you so only use this if you are certain you want to leave.” Bagman explained making his heart drop into his stomach with nerves.
“You forgot the part where it is possible for wizards to lose their minds in the twists and turns of the maze, making them not even recognise the difference between a threat and each other so if you run into each other in there be on guard, it may not be the same person you once knew.” Moody added gruffly.
“Ah yes thank you for that addition. Now does anyone have any questions?”
“When is this challenge taking place, you said earlier you would tell us the date.” Krum asked.
“The task will take place on June 3rd in roughly 6 weeks so I would start preparing now as you have no idea what you will run into in there. Any more questions?”
“What are we allowed to take into the task, is it just our wands like the previous tasks?” Cedric asked.
“Of course, what else would you be taking in there with you? A bloody feather.” Moody replied sarcastically.
“I was thinking more a knife.”
“No, you will not be allowed anything apart from your wands and you will be given clothes to wear in there so you can’t tamper with anything beforehand.”
“Thanks that’s all I wanted to know.”
“Alright, if no one has anything else to ask you may return to whatever lesson we took you from.” Ludo smiled cheerily despite having just gave them the instructions of what sounded to be a death trap.
“Potter wait behind.” Moody called just as he had started to walk off with the others, he huffed and turned round to look at the man. “Ludo could you leave us, I have something to discuss with Potter about defence class.”
“Of course, good luck Potter, my bets are on you winning this thing. The original underdog who seems to be hitting this thing out if the park.” Ludo waved farewell then walked towards the gates of the castle. He turned back round to look at Moody expectantly, not wanting to spend any longer than normal in the man’s presence.
“I think you should return to my class and we can target the lessons towards helping you with this last task. No one would suspect anything about it, and you get a bit of extra help.”
“I was pulled out of your class for a reason so I am not just going to return because you asked. Also, you aren’t allowed to help me, why would you want me to cheat?”
“Well you already have the disadvantage here with you being years younger and for not having great defence teachers in the past, it would only be fair of me to teach you a bit.”
“I have a perfectly good defence teacher thank you, I would prefer not to cheat having already made it this far in the competition. Thanks for the offer but I am going to stick with doing defence on my own.”
He turned and walked away, heading straight for his quarters knowing break would be starting soon so Severus would be there and he could tell the man about the weird encounter with Moody.
“Harry, shouldn’t you just be getting out of class right now?” Severus questioned as soon as the man entered the quarters.
“I was taken out of charms to be shown the third task and was given the date of it, which is June 3rd by the way, and then had a really weird conversation with professor Moody so I decided to come down here and tell you first instead of going back to my lesson for the last 5 minutes.” He rambled a bit.
“Ok, how about you tell me what the task is going to be then explain what happened with Moody.”
“The task is a massive maze with dangerous creatures, hedges and a bunch of tricks and traps pretty much and it also as the ability to make a wizard crazy so I’m really looking forward to that. Moody then kept me back behind everyone to offer to give me help if I rejoined his defence classes again. I told him I had a perfectly good teacher that I was happy with and then walked away.” He gave a brief summary, not wanting to go into too much detail about the task knowing it would just end up panicking him more than he already was and that Severus couldn’t give him any advice on how to go about the task.
“It’s strange, I would of thought it would be very out of character for Moody to try and cheat. I mean he used to be one of the best aurors there ever was, although he has been really rather messed up from the trauma of his career so that might be the reason for the unexpected personality the man has showcased this year.” Severus seemed to be thinking aloud rather than talking to him before coming over and slumping onto the couch next to him. “Also this maze seems really rather unpleasant to put it mildly. I will get Remus to look through the black library for books on dark creatures and charmed hedges to see if anything can be found that will be able to help you. Do you have any other sort of plan?”
“My plan was to ask you to ask Remus, then practice with Hermione and Draco and the other three champions until the day.”
“Don’t give too much away with your defence against the other champions if there is a possibility people can go mad, it means they know your strengths and can play against your weaknesses but definitely do go over creature stuff with them. I would also recommend duelling with Remus and Sirius to get more practice with people that are highly advanced so you can be prepared for anything.”
“I just can’t wait for this all to be over.” He sighed curling into his guardian.
“Me too, 6 weeks of training then it’s done. Just 6 weeks left.”
***
“Come on Harry, I know you can get this eventually, just one more shot at it, one more try and then you can stop for today.” Remus encouraged him as he lowered his hand defeated having been trying to get the spell right for the past two and a half hours and the most he had produced was a spark. Remus had been attempting to get him to cast a wand less shield charm despite wandless magic not even being taught in school because it was so advanced. The man’s reasoning was that if he ever dropped or lost his wand he still had to defend himself, which was fair enough but it seemed impossible.
“I don’t think I can do it though, I have been trying for ages and it isn’t working.”
“Please just try it once more then you can get some chocolate and we can go and play some chess and relax for the rest of the day.” Remus pleaded.
“Fine, I will try one more time.” He raised his hand up and tried to concentrate all his magic into his hand try to will it into his fingertips as if he was really holding his wand. Once he had focused his magic he took a deep breath and cast the spell. A faint blue shimmer surrounded him, wavering slightly but it was there. He held it for a few more seconds then dropped to his knees exhausted.
“I told you you would be able to get it.” Remus said gleefully sitting next to him and handing him a bar of chocolate which he gratefully bit into.
“It wouldn’t hold up against anything though.” He sighed. “It’s just there for decoration to be honest.”
“It will get stronger the more you practice, you still have over 4 weeks until the final task so you still have time. We will meet every weekend with Sirius joining occasionally and I know you, Hermione and Draco spend a night or two a week doing stuff and that you are going to have a training session with the other champions once a week. You still have time to learn stuff so don’t panic just yet ok, not until I tell you it’s time to panic.”
“Ok, but you better be honest about when that time is.” He huffed, standing up now the chocolate had boosted his energy a bit.
“Of course I will, now let’s go and relax for the rest of today.”
***
“Expelliarmus.” He shouted watching Hermione’s wand arc towards him straight into his outstretched hand.
He had been alternating duelling between Draco and Hermione as soon as classes had finished and it was now 8 o’clock at night, the only time they had taken a break was for dinner which the elf’s had delivered to them.
“Well done Harry, you were a lot faster with your defences in that duel than you have been earlier.” Hermione smiled at him although she looked as tired as him.
“Draco you up for one more round.” He may be really tired but he didn’t have the time to stop now, no the tournament was now less than 3 weeks away and he was getting more and more anxious about making sure he was trained enough.
“Harry, you are pretty much dead on your feet now, you have been working yourself into exhaustion. Why don’t we finish up for tonight and we can go have an early night so you can be more refreshed to train tomorrow.” Draco tried to reason with him.
“I’m not that tired, just one more round then I promise we will be done.”
“Nope, I’m putting my foot down on this one. We are going to bed and you are going to sleep all night long.”
“If you aren’t going to duel me then I will just stay here and go over stuff myself, I can’t go to bed yet I need to train.”
“You need to sleep, so either you come down stairs with us or I will take you down myself.”
“What are you going to do, carry me?” He laughed but his win was short lived as Draco actually went through with the threat and lifted him easily off the ground.
“That’s exactly what I am going to do, Hermione would you mind getting the school bags, you can sleep in the girls dorm tonight to save you going up and down.”
He huffed, he really hated that he was still much smaller than everyone else their age, he was also still too light for his age despite eating properly now, making it much easier for Draco to do this.
***
“Anyone got information on what kind of spells they could have put in the hedges, I have looked up every Herbology book I can think of and I have found nothing.” Cedric complained slamming another book closed, probably about the 9th book in the last hour. “If only we could ask teachers for help, my head of house is the bloody Herbology teacher.”
“No I haven’t found anything, our best bet is just to not touch a hedge, go near a hedge or even look at the hedge wrong.” Fleur said jokingly.
He and the three other champions had been sitting in the library researching for a couple of hours now, Cedric had been on hedges, he was on types of possible creatures and Fleur and Krum were on defensive spells against the creatures he found. The system had been working pretty well, the only issue being the non existent texts for Cedric to find out anything about the hedges.
“What about boggarts, do you think they will place one of them in there?” He wondered out loud.
“It’s possible, I mean this maze is supposed to test us and what better way to do that then place a creature that mimicka your greatest fear.” Krum answered him. “Are you aware of the way to defeat a Boggart Harry? We learned that in fourth year but not sure how it works here.”
“Yeah I learned about them last year, I would rather not go through that experience again though.” He shivered remembering what the creature had turned into last year.
“Was it You-Know-Who?” Cedric asked. “Sorry that’s really personal you don’t need to answer that if you don’t want to.”
“It wasn’t Voldemort, but I would rather not share what it actually was.” He responded quietly, although he saw the shock on Cedric’s face before the older boy managed to cover it. He understood the confusion, most people would believe that his Boggart would be Voldemort, the only people that don’t know that were the people in his 3rd year defence class and thankfully as far as he was aware no one had spread the information around. “I know we have been researching magical creatures, but do you think they would have any muggle ones, like poisonous snakes or something?” He tried to change the topic, not wanting to dwell on the memories his Boggart brings up.
“I don’t think there would be any muggle snakes but there is some magical snakes that can be harmful. Although for them you would just want to cast a shield charm of maybe a hex on it to slow its movements.” Fleur responded.
“As long as there isn’t another basilisk I’m fine.”
“Another basilisk?” Krum asked confused. “When have you been near a basilisk?”
“In 2nd year, sorry forgot news wouldn’t travel that far for the two of you to have heard it. 2 years ago the chamber of secrets was opened in this school and a basilisk had been living inside of it. Voldemort possessed a first year girl and made her set it loose on muggleborns. She was eventually kidnapped and I ended up going down with one of my friends to save her because we had figured out where the chamber was.”
“And no professors were available to help?”
“None that would listen.” He responded to Krum simply.
“Merlin, I knew you went down and saved Ginny but I didn’t realise you fought a bloody basilisk. You were only 12, how did you survive?”
“I did actually get bitten but Fawkes, Dumbledores Phoenix came down to save me.”
“Merlin and to think you saved this school despite everyone treating you like crap that year. I don’t think anyone realises what you have gone through over the years.”
“You only know the half of it.” He smiled ruefully. “But we don’t have time for that, let’s just get back to researching for this bloody task.”
***
“Good movement there Harry, now I want you to get your wandless shield up at some point soon. Sirius don’t go easy remember, whatever he is facing won’t go easy.” Remus called directions from the side of the room as he duelled Sirius.
“I’m not going to hurt him.” Sirius shouted.
“He knows what he is doing.”
“I’m right here guys.” He interjected, dodging another spell thrown at him. He watched Sirius’s movements and saw that a mild cutting curse was about to be thrown at him so he dropped his wand and concentrated bring up his shield just in time for the spell to bounce off it causing Sirius to need to roll to avoid the rebound. The spell flickered and disappeared quickly but it had done its job so he wasn’t too annoyed with himself that he couldn’t hold it for long.
“Well done Harry, that’s the best one you have done yet.” Remus congratulated him coming over to check him for injuries which he had somehow managed to avoid.
“I’m fine, I didn’t get hit by anything, just feel drained.”
“No wonder, I feel drained and I have a lot more years of training than you.” Sirius added coming over to him as well. “You are doing amazing, you are getting really advanced, especially for your age.”
“Well I have to be because this task is in 4 days and nothing in there is going to go easy on me just because I’m younger.”
“If you do what you have been doing with us then you have nothing to worry about.” Remus said.
“Are you guys going to stay now till the task?”
“No we have to go back to Grimmauld for a couple days because I have some work to do but we will be back the day before the task.” Sirius had managed to get a job as a curse breaker for household objects. It was nothing like the oldest Weasleys job in Egypt, but Sirius enjoyed it because it meant he could free other peoples homes from evil like the man had had to do for Grimmauld place.
“Promise me you will be here the day before, I need to do one last bit of duelling practice before the day and the task starts early in the morning.”
“We promise Harry, and when have we ever went back on a promise.”
“Never.”
“That’s right and we aren’t going to start now.” Remus and Sirius wrapped him in a hug which he relaxed into, needing the comfort after working himself ragged over the past weeks.