The Third Task
Draco had successfully calmed him down but the two couldn't deny that they were both skittish. When the morning of the third task dawned Harry couldn't stomach anything. His stomach coiled and flipped so many times he ended up sitting on the ground clutching his stomach for fear of throwing up.
The other champions didn't look any better. Cedric was particularly green, staring into his porridge blankly. Fleur was speaking so fast in French that her words were unintelligible and Krum was, well, being his usual stoic, silent self. A turbulent grey cloud hovered over them all surrounding them in a mist of gloom.
Hermione tsked and slapped Ron on the arm. "Ron, you're making fog!" Ron started and put his wand in his pocket sheepishly. "Sorry." Harry didn't have the energy to roll his eyes, his cloud still there metaphorically. Draco stared at him worriedly, gnawing at his thumbnail absent-mindedly.
When the bell rang, Harry stayed seated while everyone else stood up to go to classes. The champions didn't have classes for the day; instead they were going to spend the day with their families. Harry gloomily thought about his lonely walk around the lake he had planned.
With a sigh he lifted his head from the table only to nearly fall off. "Dray?" He asked incredulously. "What are you still doing here? You'll miss class." Draco sniffed imperiously with his arms crossed pompously. "My father is the head of the Board. Practically." He added with a tilt of his head. "I can miss one day of classes."
Harry stared at him in shock then frowned and shuffled forward on the bench. He flattened his Palm against Draco's forehead, his tan hand a jarring contrast to the blond's pale complexion. Draco blinked at him before attempting to stare at Harry's hand.
"What are you doing?" He demanded, still trying to look at Harry's hand, his nose scrunched up adorably, delicate eyebrows furrowed together. "Checking for a fever." Harry deadpanned, dead serious. Draco scowled and swatted his hand away irritably. He got up and began to saunter over to the door that Fleur, Krum and Cedric had disappeared through moments before; that he had disappeared through on the first night when his name had come out of the Goblet.
"What are you doing?" He echoed in confusion. Draco looked back at him, one eyebrow raised. "To see my family. Aren't you coming?" Harry stared at him in shock. "Your family?" He whispered disbelievingly. Draco grinned softly. "They came to support you of course."
Harry felt a soaring happiness swoop through him. Someone came for him. He snuffled and scuffed at his face with the palm his hands. "Okay, I'm coming." He croaked. Draco laughed and held out a hand, kindly refraining from mentioning Harry's husky voice.
They walked into the large room filled with portraits and trinkets to see the strangest sight. Molly and Bill Weasley and Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy standing side by side in awkward silence surrounded by chatting families mingling amongst each other.
Draco and Harry shared a shocked look before Harry detached himself from his catatonic boyfriend and made his way to the two families. He beamed broadly at both clans. He turned to Molly first. "Thank you for coming." He said with a warm smile. He thought of her as his second mother and it meant a lot for her to show up.
She smiled gently at him, taking his hand in hers. "Of course we were going to come love. We had to support you and of course, meet your new boyfriend." She smiled over his shoulder at Draco who had finally moved to stand stiffly beside his father. The dinner may have gone well but there was still some work to be done there. "But I was just saying to Bill here how it would be wonderful to see all my old haunts again."
She glanced back at Bill who seemed to be rather distracted by Fleur, who eyed him in intrigue, especially his fang earring. "You wouldn't mind if we took a walk around, would you dear?" She asked brightly. Harry saw the branch she was holding out to him and smiled gratefully. "Not at all. We can have some time together later?"
She nodded briskly and slipped her arm through Bill's. The dazed man didn't understand what was happening until his mother had successfully tugged him out of the room. Harry laughed at the pair, shaking his head fondly.
Then, finally, he turned to face the Malfoy's. Narcissa was smiling at him primly with her hand lying on Draco's shoulder affectionately. Lucius stood more stiffly but nodded amicably at Harry. "Thank you for coming to support me." He said sincerely. While Molly was his family, he loved that he'd made such a good impression on Draco's family. Rumoured Death Eaters, supporting the reason for the Dark Lord's downfall, openly, was unbelievable.
"Well we weren't going to merely sit around in the Manor while you're off defying death." Narcissa admonished slightly. Her dark hair was twisted back into a rope down her back and her regal posture cast an intimidating figure but the out-of-place smile she sported for her son's boyfriend turned her usually harsh features soft.
"Yes, and of course we wanted to support Draco as he undoubtedly will be in the throes of a panic attack in the stands." Lucius stated dryly. His voice may have been emotionless but both Harry and Draco picked up on the slight undercurrent of emotion in his overall being.
Narcissa clapped her hands suddenly, making Harry jump. Draco snickered at the embarrassed ravenette. He was used to his mum's surprising clapping. "Let's take a walk shall we?"
[Lucius tries to escape halfway around the lake but Narcissa makes him stay. Harry and Draco suspect the Imperius Curse but don't pry, crumbling in the face of Narcissa's determined smile]
Dinner arrived faster than Harry and the other Triwizard champions would have liked. The atmosphere was electric, charged with the excitement and eagerness of the other students in the hall. Harry ate dinner with the Weasley's at the Gryffindor table while Draco hovered at the Slytherin table with his parents.
Halfway through the meal, he gave in and stalked over to Harry's side, glued to his side for the rest of the meal. When Dumbledore stood up and cheerfully asked all students to make their way to the Quidditch pitch, Harry's chest tightened painfully. He turned to Draco, eyes wide with fright and shining painfully. "I can't do this." He insisted in a hoarse whisper. "I-I'm not ready, I can't do this."
Draco grasped his trembling hands firmly. "Okay, come on, breathe." He exaggerated his own breathing until Harry's returned to normal instead of being on the border of hysterical. Draco's pale silver eyes flitted around Harry's face. "You can do this okay? You've prepared for this moment as much as you could and you are the only person I know that is so compatible to this type of task. You are ready."
Harry stared at him frantically and nodded slowly, his eyes sliding closed. Draco helped him up from the bench, the Great Hall emptying around them. Harry clutched Draco's arm. "Dray, if-if I don't make it I need you to know that I love you." Draco shook his head quickly. "No. You are going to get through this."
Harry cradled his face carefully in his broad hands as if holding precious porcelain. "People have died before. And I can't let that happen to me without having told you once more that I love you." Draco breathed jerkily. "Draco!" He whipped around to see his mother waiting for him by the door. "I love you too. I'll see you afterwards." He promised.
Pressing a chaste kiss to his lips, too chaste for either of their liking, he darted off, keeping his head down and trying to hold back traitorous tears. Ron walked up to him and enveloped him in a sudden hug. "I'll see you later. We'll have Butterbeer. George and Fred have already planned a party." He smiled weakly before turning away and letting Hermione have her turn.
She tackled him into a bone crushing hug, he bushy hair tickling his face. She pulled away to smile through tears. "You better come back." She ordered with a sniffle. "Or I'll learn Necromancy and kill you for leaving us." Harry couldn't stop the laugh from bubbling up. "Okay." He acquiesced. He watched as his two best friends walked slowly to the doors, looking over their shoulders one last time before disappearing.
Harry took a deep breath and stalked after the other Champions. His eyes flashed dangerously, his grip tightening on his wand. No way he was going down without a fight. As he followed the others down to the pitch, the small tinny sound of the school band filtered down through the increasingly deafening sound of students cheering.
His heart pounded in his chest, his palms were slick with sweat that threatened to send his wand tumbling to the ground and a frenzy of terror had a hold of him. His breathing sped up as they walked out into the middle of the arena. Lights blinded him, reflecting off his glasses making his gaze impossible to see and giving him time to school his features.
He drew upon his inner Snape to make his face somewhat impassive. He scanned the stands desperately as he went to stand in front of his entrance to the maze beside Cedric, having listened to nothing Bagman had just said. His searching eyes locked onto Draco's piercing ones. He held the charged stare until he could no longer, the towering hedges obscuring his view as the entrance closed.
Vines snaked across each other, locking with the reaching tendrils from the other side effectively trapping him in the maze. All noises stopped. Suffocating silence surrounded him. He and Cedric shared a loaded glance before separating at an intersection with a short nod. Determination burned in Harry's emerald eyes making them as hard as the gem they looked like. He gripped his wand tightly and turned right. Let's go.
It was eerie in the maze. The only light that came through was the moonlight from above. It cast all it touched in grey darkness and occasional snatches of silvery light, making the shadows roil with movement. The cold harshness of it all was a long way away from the bright comforting glow of the arena that he had just left.
All the hedges seem to be the same and Harry didn't know which way he was going. The Point-Me Spell had its uses but he didn't even know if the centre of the maze was north. I should have come here while the hedges were growing. I could've gotten a map, he thought idly.
He continued wandering almost aimlessly, unnerved by its apparent emptiness. He checked his watch automatically, forgetting momentarily that it had stopped working after his little dip in the lake, and cast a quick tempus. Twenty five minutes in and nothing had tried to kill him. He wasn't sure if that was good or bad.
After a false alarm that turned out to be Cedric running away from a Blast-Ended Skrewt and several dead ends after that, he finally ran into a creature. A Dementor glided towards him silently. The world turned monochrome around him and a deathly cold clutched onto him but with surprising clarity of mind, Harry shot a Patronus at the horrible monster.
It stumbled as the glowing stag galloped through it. Harry paused. *Dementors don't stumble*. One riddikulus later the Boggart was defeated and he was returned to the strange emptiness that he was in before. The absence of magical creatures was more unsettling than the actual creatures themselves. So when he came across a strange golden mist that seemed to do nothing but turn him upside down, he was strangely reassured.
After turning himself the right way up again he continued walking deeper into the maze, the unremarkable hedges looking exactly like the last fifty passages he had gone through. Harry had no sense of direction anymore; everything was the same. Somewhere in the night, a piercing scream ripped itself from the never-ending maze. "Fleur!" He immediately cried impulsively. He frowned, frustrated that he couldn't get to her and help.
Just when he was deciding whether to say 'fuck it' and try find her, he saw a flurry of red sparks shoot up and linger in the sky, marking her position. Breathing a sigh of relief he rounded the corner with more cheer than before and quickly threw himself against a hedge to avoid a stray spark from a Blast-Ended Skrewt.
Oh Merlin that's big. He stared at the Skrewt in horror. It was almost as big as the hedges and five times as ugly as a regular sized Skrewt. The thing inched forward and Harry saw his opportunity. He dived through a small opening between the Skrewt and the hedge, yelling when it's tail sparked and a rogue stray hit the bottom of his red and gold Tournament trousers.
He scrambled around the hedge, frantically trying to stamp out the flames with the palm of his hand. When they were out, he breathed a sigh of relief but as with the Skrewt it was short-lived. Directly behind the hedge he was lying against the blood curdling sounds of a jarring scream shattered the silence.
Acting quickly, Harry burned a hole in the hedge, growling when another scream sounded out and the hole was still too small. "Fuck it." He hissed as the broken branches scratched his bare skin leaving behind small oozing red scrapes. When he emerged from the hedge to find Krum pointing his wand on a writhing Cedric, Harry didn't think.
He cast a Stupefy, knocking Krum sprawling to the ground, darting forward to Cedric's limp body. The blonde groaned when Harry checked him for broken bones. "What happened?" He demanded urgently. "Krum….Cruciatus Curse. Think he was imperiused." The Hufflepuff groaned out, raising one slender hand to his pounding head.
Harry dropped him unceremoniously to flit over to Krum, not hearing Cedric's annoyed pained grunt. He checked to make sure that Krum was definitely out before sending up red sparks and helping up a groaning Cedric. He bound the Bulgarian's hands as an afterthought as he helped the older boy out of the narrow passage.
"He's gone crazy!" Cedric panted. "No, he's just been imperiused. His eyes were glazed." Harry retorted brusquely, wanting nothing more than to dump the guy and continue onwards, and finally get out of this maze. He gritted his teeth and propped him up against the hedge beside him. "Can you walk?" He demanded.
Cedric nodded dubiously, effectively erasing any guilt Harry might have felt upon leaving him. "Great. Good." A moment later, the two parted ways and while Harry might have been irritated at having to suspend his quest to the middle of the maze, he appreciated it greatly later.
After a ridiculous riddle from a carnivorous Sphinx, he finally caught a glimpse of a burning blue light winking cheerfully at him from the end of a long alleyway of hedges. His heart leapt into his throat restricting his breathing. He was almost there. He could get out and see Draco again. And he hadn't even been hurt that badly!
"HARRY LOOK OUT!" A voice yelled authoritatively. Cursing his bad luck and uncanny knack for attracting trouble, he looked up to see a pointy hairy something descending quickly upon him and jerked himself out of the way before it could impale him.
He saw Cedric rushing towards him from the other end of the hedges. Towards him and the giant spider trying to kill him. Harry rolled out of the way of another stabby leg, narrowly missing the snapping pincers that dived for him. Cedric yelled again and shot a beam of red light at the acromantula.
The Stupefy only worked to enrage the murderous spider. It reared its ugly head, hissing hysterically, pincers snapping as venom dripped from the sharp weapons. Cedric dived under its legs and the lethal fight ensued.
It took one distracted moment for it all to go awry. Harry yelled in terror when Cedric got knocked roughly aside by one of the spider's flailing legs. He tried desperately to crawl to the limp boy. His chest burned and blood oozed from gashes on random parts of his body. But all of that paled in comparison to the pain to come.
He really should have been paying attention to the spider. He reached one hand out to Cedric only to jerk back screaming as a blinding pain penetrated his leg. The spider lifted his leg up, bringing Harry with it only for him to slide off the thin leg with a wet sound that reverberated in the dark maze.
He screamed again as he hit the ground heavily. Dark blood flowed from his open wound, staining his ripped trouser leg with dark red and pooling onto the ground, showing up as merely a darker colour against the already black ground. His hands trembled with the pain and he tried to grip his shaking leg.
"Harry…." Cedric had roused himself from his unconscious state and dragged himself over to the gasping boy. Harry stared at him, terror and tears shining in his fearful eyes. "Cedric- I-I… my leg." He heaved tremulously. His eyes glowed in the darkness and they were frantically flitting in between his heavily bleeding leg and the horrified boy beside him.
The spider blundered about at the end of the row of hedges, crashing into each side. Harry glared at it. Fucking acromantula. That's how I'm going to go?! Cedric ripped his top and tied a length of fabric above the gaping wound in a mock tourniquet. "That should help a little." He muttered hopefully.
A shadow loomed over the pair and they looked up simultaneously to see the spider rearing up, ready to strike. They both acted fast. Two bright red lights hit the underbelly of the spider at the same time, making it shriek horrendously and keel over, it's legs curling up under it. Finally, it lay still.
The two boys caught their breath, both sprawled limply on the ground. "Think if we send up sparks we can get out?" asked Cedric conversationally as he lay on his back panting like a dog in heat. "Maybe. But then we'll probably just get sent back in later." Harry responded, equally out of breath. Cedric groaned.
Harry wanted nothing more than to just lie there and sleep for days, but with his wound he would probably pass out from blood loss if no one came to get him and then actually sleep forever. Cedric staggered to his feet and shuffled slowly over to Harry, bending down and gripping him under his armpits, hauling him up and flinging his red and gold clad arm over his broad shoulder.
Harry grunted when Cedric shifted his leg causing a jolt of pain to support through it. "What are you doing? Just go grab the cup." Cedric gritted his teeth and began limping towards the glowing cup. "No. You saved me, twice. You deserve the cup." Harry stared at him as if he was crazy. "Are you crazy?! I don't want the cup, I never did." He yelled.
"And I'm pretty much useless so just grab the cup already!" Cedric shook his head stubbornly and continued to drag him along. Harry tried to dig his one good heel into the ground but to no avail. They were now close enough to see all the intricate detailing on the silver cup and Harry felt panic rise in him.
He didn't want the cup. He didn't want to win. He didn't even want to enter for Merlin's sake. "Wait!" Cedric paused. "Let's take it together." Harry suggested. The Hufflepuff eyed him curiously. "I don't want to win. You do, you entered of your own accord. So….let's grab it together. We can split the winnings and you can have all the glory, I don't care."
The more he thought it through, the more it seemed like a good plan and the only way to make the stubborn boy stop. "Okay." Cedric agreed brightly. Harry wasn't the only one that the plan appealed to.
They stood in front of the cup, two houses united, both with their hands hovering over the cup.
"Ready?" Harry asked. He felt elated; he would see Draco again, he had lived! Cedric started the countdown. "One, two, three!" Harry immediately knew something was wrong. "Cedric, n-"
Whatever he was about to say got cut off as the two disappeared along with the cup, leaving nothing but the platform on which the cup sat.