Like an Erumpent in a Graveyard (Challenge) by tyrannicpuppy on ffn. Read that story it’s funny.
Requirements:
- Harry accidentally knocks, spells or otherwise causes the Tri-Wizard Cup Portkey to hit a creature in the Maze during the Third Task
- Creature must result in a team being sent from the Ministry to investigate the Graveyard
- Can be any rating from X - XXXXX
- Must interfere with the ritual
- Show how the Champions return to the front of the maze without the Cup
- Those at the school must learn of the event before the crowd disperses
Recommended:
- Prefer pairing of Harry/Hermione if any
- Tom and Peter do not need to be captured, but it is preferred
- Canonicity of the fic is entirely up to the author as long as Harry is in the maze
Length is entirely up to the entrant. But I do love a long story if you choose to do so.
So, I read the story titled above, and thought I’d do a quick one-shot. I’ll be working on Reclaiming the House of Black. But this one wouldn’t leave me alone. It’s not long, and not all that good, but there it is.
Hphphp
As Harry got closer to the Tri-Wizard cup, he reflected on all that had happened since he stepped foot in this school. He didn’t like what he was thinking. There was never a time he felt safe, not since the first month of his first year had passed. Everyone he had talked to told him that Hogwarts was the safest place in all of the UK. He didn’t believe it; hadn’t since the troll.
Now he was in the worst spot he had been in this year. The dragon was scary, to be sure, but the overwhelming feeling of danger that he was experiencing right now, topped that. He could win if he wanted, which he didn’t, but something told him not to let anyone touch that cup.
He could hear Cedric coming up behind him and he looked over his shoulder. Seeing the Acromantulas was closing in on the other boy, he stopped and yelled, “Cedric, duck right!”
A shocked look came over the other boy’s face as he did just that.
Harry fired a cutting curse at the humongous spider’s legs, which caused said spider to tip in his direction.
“Shite,” the boy wonder said, jumping back as far as he could. This put him right in front of the cup. Still feeling the feeling of impending doom. He banished the cup off the pedestal. He didn’t know what it had hit when it touched the ground, but he could have sworn he hear a cat meow.
“Harry, why did you do that?” the Hufflepuff asked, panting to catch his breath. The spider struggling to stand off to one side. It didn’t seem to be able to, so they let it be.
“It just felt like I had to. Like if you or I touched it, it would be bad all around. It was kinda like déjà vu. Like I knew it was going to happen because I’ve experienced it before. Merlin, I’m starting to sound like Trelawney,” Harry explained as he let out an explosive breath.
“Must be the stress,” Cedric said with a sage nod, not really believing him, but giving him the benefit of the doubt. He clapped the younger teen on the shoulder and led him away from the still struggling spider.
“Yeah, sure, okay, we’ll go with that. So, how do we get out of this maze?” Harry asked, looking around the clearing they were in like there would be an exit door.
“Um, well, I guess we shoot green sparks or something,” the older teen suggested, shrugging his shoulder awkwardly.
“Okay, I will, that way you can become the champion,” Harry said, the put words to motion as he shot off green sparks. It only took a moment, then the hedges fell, like they hadn’t taken months to grow.
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Meanwhile, Wormtail and the baby Riddle were waiting for Harry Potter to appear. They were hidden in the brush so that it would be a surprise for the Boy-Who-Lived. Not a good surprise, but one that would work to their advantage. The sound of a portkey broke the silence of the graveyard, but there was no indication of anyone traveling with it.
“Wormtail, see what’s happening,” the Dark Lord demanded, wiggling in the rat’s arms. “Put me down first. I don’t want you to drop me.”
“Yes, Master,” was all the dumpy man said as he gently laid the construct down. He then peeked out of the brush and saw… nothing. There was nothing there, but the cup. “There’s nothing, Master,” he said, bewildered.
“What?!” the ugly infant bellowed as much as that tiny throat could. “Find Potter, you fool.”
“Yes, Master,” the sniveling man said as he stood from the brush to see where the Potter boy had gotten off to. He came to the cup and noticed a small cat hidden behind it. “Hello, kitty, what are you doing here?” he said, kneeling and petting said cat.
“What do you want, human?” the cat’s face seemed to say.
“Have you seen a young boy around? He’d be around 14 years old, yay high, dark hair, green eyes?” Peter asked, trying to amuse himself.
The cat stuck its nose in the air and started to wander deeper into the clearing. There it spotted a large snake. It was hungry, so it opened its mouth, and large purple tentacles came shooting out, exposing rows upon rows of sharp teeth. In a matter of seconds, the snake was gone.
Then the cat burped, and a high-pitched scream came pouring from its tiny mouth. The pitch and volume of the scream was enough cause Wormtail’s and Riddle’s ears to bleed. It also set off the Magic in a muggle neighborhood alarm. The ones that Tommy-boy had warded against.
The cat simply sat back and licked its delicate paws. He wasn’t hunger anymore and didn’t what to even try to eat the babylike thing that was screaming its head off. Or the dumpy man that was rolling on the ground trying to stop the pain in his ears, by holding them and groaning.
Goose, which is the not-cat’s name, decided to see what was brewing in the large cauldron. It might be something he could drink until someone came and took him back to his giant.
He liked the giant, well, half-giant. The large man had come across him while hunting in the forest that Goose had found himself wandering. It had been awhile since he claimed a human and he had thought to go to the magical town near by to see if any of them were interesting. They weren’t, but the giant, who had watched him swallow a large spider, took an immediate liking to the Flerken. Not that Hagrid knew what that was.
Still, it had only taken him scratching the big man once, to which he had to suffer out, because the Healer didn’t know how to counter it, and Hagrid let him do his thing.
Back to the cauldron, it didn’t smell inviting, so Goose coughed up a furball and spat it in the bubbling liquid. The whole thing exploded, causing the Flerken to blink. Maybe I shouldn’t have used that much of the tesseract. Oh well.
It was about that time that the wizards showed up. The first thing they did was stun the groaning man, and squalling baby.
“Is that Pettigrew?” the tall dark one asked, holding his wand at the stunned man’s face.
“I think it is,” agreed the pink-haired girl. “The photo, in the Order of Merlin Hall, looks like that. Only not quite as… rodently?” she hedged, tapping the unconscious man with her boot.
“We’d better call this in,” the man said, waving his wand around and drawing anything magical to him. The cauldron, which was a large melted slag, the ugly toddler, and the golden cup came to him and landed in a pile at his feet.
“What about the cat?” the girl asked, peering at it warily.
“What about it? It’s not magical,” the man said, conjuring a box to put the slag in.
“We can’t leave it here,” she protested, even if she got weird vibes from it.
“Go pick it up then,” the man sighed.
“Hey,” she said upon her return, “Isn’t that the Tri-Wizard Cup?” she asked, bending down to pick it up.
“WA—”
And she was gone.
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“Harry,” the Headmaster said, looking down on the boy like he had been caught stealing biscuits, “what happened in the maze?”
“I don’t know what I can tell you that I haven’t said a hundred times before. I got a bad feeling, banished the cup, shot up green sparks and you guys lowered the maze. What more do you want me to say?” the frustrated boy all but yelled at the old man. He had been saying the same thing for a half an hour now. It was like the old man thought he was hiding something. He didn’t’ know what and was getting angry about being asked, over and over again and again.
“Harry,” chastised Hermione, though she too was getting feed up with this line of questioning.
“What?” Harry snapped at her, “My story isn’t going to change, no matter how many times he asks. What do you want from me, Dumbledore?” he snarled at the old man.
“Was it your sc…”
“NO! for the love of Merlin, it was not my scar. I just had a bad feeling,” the angry boy said, throwing his hands in the air, and then sharply turned and walked away.
“Come back here, young man,” the Minister said, loudly. “We need to know who won the tournament.”
“I’ve told you, dammit all, Cedric won,” Harry said, still walking away.
‘Hem, Hem,” started the pink monstrosity.
“Can it, toad,” Harry said, not turning back even once. He should have turned around, because at the moment said toad hit him in the back with a Crucio. Harry fell screaming his head off, while Hermione hit the woman square in her jaw, dropping her like a stone.
“Arrest her,” Fudge yelled, pointing at Hermione.
“I think not, Fudge,” said a stern woman with a monocle. “Anyone touching her will answer to me. Just what do you think you are doing, Minster? I just saw your Undersecretary cast an Unforgivable to the back of the Boy-Who-Lived, and you want the girl arrested? On what grounds?” she said, getting into the pudgy man’s face, who was sputtering and sweating.
“She struck a pureblood,” the man sputtered out.
“Who?” Amelia Bones asked, lifting an eyebrow.
“Dolores,” the bewildered man answered.
“Umbridge is not a pureblood,” Bones said sweetly.
“She not?!” cried the Minister.
“No, I don’t know what she told you, but her father married a muggle. He was an employee at the Ministry, until he disappeared a few years back,” she informed him, her wicked smile never faltered.
“No,” Fudge said in denial, “it can’t be true.”
“Look it up. It’s in her file,” Bones said then muttered, ‘idiot’ under her breathe. “Dawlish, take the Undersecretary and put her in a cell. If she is not there when I return, you will be taking her place. Am I understood,” Amelia said, giving the man a pointed glare.
He first looked at the Minister, who was no help, then nodded and hit Dolores with a stunning spell. He then reached into his pocket, grabbed the emergency portkey, and grabbed the stunned woman, and left.
Right then two things happened, Tonks ‘the pink-haired Auror’, the cat ‘that wasn’t a cat’, and the Tri-Wizarding Cup appeared, right on top of Mad-Eyed Moody. Making the man faceplant into the ground.
“Shite,” Tonks said, quickly getting off the man. Then she noticed his flask on the ground. She picked it up and was putting the top back on when she noticed the smell.
Moody, for he only had one good leg, was getting slowly off the ground. When he saw she had his flask, he grabbed for it. The cat, that wasn’t a cat, scratched the man, making him yell in great pain and dance backwards. To which he fell flat on his arse. Not that he cared, his hand was bleeding profusely.
“Polyjuice,” Tonks said, looking at her boss as she whipped out her wand and pointed it at the imposter.
“Shite,” Bones said, stunning the man for good measure. She tried to stop the bleeding on his hand, but it wasn’t working. The skin around it was getting black, so she knew it was infected with either poison or venom. She glanced at the innocent looking cat and thought. It’s not magical. So why is this cut not closing?
Right then, Madam Pomfrey came bustling up and did what she could to stop the bleeding. It was slowly working, and whatever was poisoning the man was slowly being drained out with a healing spell. She glared at the cat, remembering when it had done the same to their groundskeeper. She sniffed and wrapped the man’s hand and moved to get Harry Potter away from his friend. She saw that curse and that boy wasn’t going anywhere but her domain.
“Goose,” came the deep call from behind the Head of the DMLE. “Where did you run off you, laddie?” the gentle giant asked, holding out his huge hand to take the cat.
“Is this your cat?” Amelia asked, still giving the tiny thing speculative looks. She nodded to Tonks, who then handed it over to the giant.
“Can’t rightly say he’s mine, but he’s been hangin’ round a bit,” Hagrid said, shuffling his feet and watching the woman who was giving the cat the hairy eyeball.
“How did you come across this cat?” she inquired, reaching out to pet the thing, hoping it didn’t scratch her.
It didn’t.
“Found him wandering in the forest,” Hagrid admitted, not seeing anything wrong with that bit of information.
“Okay,” Bones said slowly, still petting the cat.
“Amelia,” said a shaky voice from behind her. She stopped petting the cat and turned.
“Yes, Amos?” she said, giving him a queer look for how scared he sounded.
“Cou.. could you come here a moment?” he asked, his eyes not leaving the cat.
“Okay, Tonks, keep an eye on ‘Moody’. If he twitches, stun him again,” she ordered. She then went to join the man who was shaking like a leaf. “What is wrong with you, Amos. I thought you’d be happy your boy won the tournament,” she said, placing her hand on his arm to try and calm him down.
“Do you know what that is?” he said, grabbing her arm and pulling her further away.
“What, what is? The cat?” she said, yanking her arm out of his grip, but following him anyway.
“It’s a Flerken. An alien,” he said, his voice still low. “It’s an XXXXXX class creature,” he hissed, stealing one more look at the Flerken.
“Six X’s?” she asked, raising her eyebrow. As far as she knew there were only five.
“Yes, it deserves it,” the man replied forcefully.
“So, do we capture it?” she said, grabbing her wand. She wasn’t sure about the alien part, but if Amos was spooked, then she was going to listen.
“NO… I mean, no. That creature has a ‘flee on sight’ order. You are in no way to hinder it’s movements,” he warned her, grabbing her arm to stop her from making a fatal mistake. “As long as you let it alone, you’ll be fine, we’ll be fine,” he said, releasing her arm and holding his hands up in supplication.
“So, we’re to just let a dangerous creature go? How does that make sense?” she demanded to know.
“We will all die if you try to stop or capture it,” Diggory explained. “I’m not kidding, all of us, dead.”
“Fine,” she gritted out, and then casually went back to the giant. “You can go,” she said, trying to smile nonthreateningly. Then she turned back to the fiasco that was the end of this Merlin be damned tournament.
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Harry woke up from the Dreamless Sleep that Poppy had given him, after that bitch had cursed him. Hermione was sitting by his bed, knitting a scarf. She had given up on freeing the school’s house elves, but she had found a love for knitting.
“What happened after Pomfrey knocked me out?” he asked, sitting up and grabbing for his glasses.
“Well,” she started, putting her yarn work down, “they carted that woman off to jail. She’ll get life for cursing you. I almost got arrested, but Madam Bones stopped it. She did give me warning about going around and punching people, but well…” she shrugged with a smirk.
“You punched her?” the astounded boy asked, then got a wicked grin remembering the last person Hermione laid out. “Thanks, Hermione,” he said, with a goofy grin.
“I’m sure,” she said, sniffly. Then she smiled and gave him a hug. “I’m glad you’re alright. You would not believe everything that happened. First off the man who has been teaching us all year, wasn’t even the real Mad-Eye Moody. That’s him over there,” she said, pointing to the man at the far end of the room.
Harry squinted, he really needed new specks, and saw a lump under some blankets. That didn’t’ tell him anything, so he looked back to his friend.
“They found him stuffed in his trunk,” she explained. “The other man has been taking Polyjuice all year. They caught him right after you were taken away.”
“Oh, okay. Anything else?” Harry asked, scooching back on the bed a bit.
“Well, there was that and they found Wormtail. Snuffles will be getting pardoned. They can’t try him, because of some bureaucratic error. He was never to go to Azkaban. He wasn’t even supposed to leave the holding cells. Not until he got his trial. Because they messed up, he’s free. No matter what Wormtail says,” she said, rambling a mile a minute, know how important this information was to Harry.
“Really, that’s great. No more Dursleys,” Harry said whooping with pleasure, making Moody grunt in displeasure.
“That’s not all though,” Hermione said, making him settle down.
“What?”
“They found… Riddle,” she said in a whisper, leaning forward so shorten the distance. “He was in a baby-like body. I heard the Aurors speaking to Madam Bones. They weren’t really paying attention to who was still hanging around, which was most of the school, so we got to hear everything,” she said, still talking softly.
“Why would they do that?” Harry wondered out loud.
“They’re wizards,” was the answer, as if that explained everything. It did.
“Anyway…” he said leadingly.
“Right. Fudge and Dumbledore got into a huge fight over whether it was the ‘Dark Lord’ or something else. Then Bones said it didn’t matter if it was You-Know-Who or some other dark idiot. It needed to be destroyed. Which is when Dumbledore said that only you could. Then she said, no, anyone can, and it was foolish to rely on a child. They argued over it for a good ten minutes. Then Bones left in huff, dragging all the Ministry workers with her.”
“And?”
“There’s something weird about Hagrid’s cat,” she said with a shrug.
“What do you mean?” he asked perplexed. It was a cat.
“Well, for one, Crookshanks won’t go near it. And I heard Cedric’s dad say it was a ‘flee on sight’ animal,” she said, once again leaning over and whimpering.
Harry stopped for a moment and wondered when Hermione became such a gossip, then shrugged and decided not to worry about it. “Just another pet of Hagrid’s then. No worries,” he said, laying back down and shutting his eyes.
“Only you, Harry,” she said fondly, then picked up her knitting.
They found out later that the Department of Mysteries had taken care of whatever it was that they found in the graveyard. Years later, after Harry and Hermione got married, they found out that Harry’s scar was a horcrux, but since the wraith was gone, it had died years before.
Dumbledore died disappointed that all he thought he knew was not what he thought it was.
Goose stayed at the castle until all the giant spiders were gone. He then took off to parts unknown, until he found another human. This one was a paranoid man, and if he didn’t stop cuddling with him, Goose was going to take his eye out.