Ron sat tapping his fingers on the dining table of the Hogwarts champions' quarters. He wondered when Draco and Harry would stop yelling at each other; they had been yelling for around half an hour – Ron had been counting the time. He was fed up with their fighting, yelling and insults – half of which were pretty rubbish and childish, a nerdish first year could think of better - couldn't they just get along for this competition's sake? If Ron could get along with Draco, whose family were his family's historical enemy...Ron might have even gone as far as saying that him and Draco were actually friends now, not enemies tearing at each other's throats as they have done in the previous years, but friends, who could laugh and joke together.

Ron couldn't stand it any longer and got up from his wooden chair and left the quarters, hoping to find some peace and quiet in the halls and corridors of Hogwarts. Sadly, some idiot first year student had given Peeves a load of ink bottles, passwords to each House and a key which opened up any door; even though Peeves was a poltergeist and travelling through doors and walls would be simple, Dumbledore (for the tri-wizard tournament) had put spells on every wall and door, stopping Peeves from travelling through; now he could get anywhere. That key and those passwords meant students were running and screaming, and unfortunately Fred and George had heard the noise and had decided to join Peeves to have some fun in the existing chaos, which didn't help anybody at all.

Ron ducked and hid from the flying ink bottle, itching powered and every other prank device known to wizard and muggle alike.

Ron walked out of the castle and into the castle grounds.

Ron was hit with a blast of cool air; it seeped into every pore of his skin, cold wind wrapping its cool gentle fingertips around him, but yet Ron didn't feel cold, he felt strangely at home in this cold wind. He allowed his feet to lead, not thinking about where he was walking; he needed to get away from the shouting, yelling, screaming, pranks and the tournament. At first he had liked the attention but now...he just wanted people to leave him alone, it was the same with the female attention – sure, he liked, loved the females and the attention he was getting from them, but now it had lost its fun, it became boring – he knew naturally how to 'work' those girls, and they just fell for him.

Ron wanted the whole thing over with. He wanted his normal life back with only homework and detentions to worry about. Only two tasks left...only two tasks away from freedom.

Ron sat at the meeting point for the third task, waiting for everyone else to turn up, which would be a long time. Ron had gotten up early and out before the daily row between Draco and Harry would start up; Ron's patience for them was starting to wear thin.

"Hello Ronald," said a voice from behind Ron, a voice which Ron knew but hadn't heard in a while.

"Fred?" said Ron questioningly as he turned around and looked up, to see the twins smiling down on him, in their usual cheeky way.

"Good guess, Ronnie," winked Fred; Ron had always been able to tell them apart, but didn't like to show it, it annoyed his mum to know that some could tell the twins apart when she couldn't.

"What are you two doing here?" said Ron, not knowing whether he should be happy they were here or not.

"Don't sound so panicked little Ronnie,"

"We don't want to do you any harm,"

"Well, not at the moment anyway," smiled George, Ron still didn't trust them – he wondered if he ever would.

"We just want to give you a present,"

"I don't know if I want your "present", said Ron looking both of them suspiciously

"Trust us, you do,"

"Really?" said Ron, still, not convinced.

"Yep," Fred dug into one of his pockets, he dumped things into George's hands; every prank and joke was in those pockets and Fred didn't want to lose any one of them.

"Tad-ahhhh"

"What is it?"

"Merlin, are you blind Ronnie?"

"I think he is Fred, even a one-eyed ogre with a blindfold on could see what this is,"

"It's an old, empty parchment; what the hell am I supposed to do with that?"

"Always has to ask questions," said Fred shaking his head and looking at George.

"It's a map which will help you, if you know what to say and how to use it" smiled George.

"The last time you two said you would "help" me, I ended up nearly performing a unbreakable vow, which would have made me give you all of my Christmas and birthday presents," Fred and George were about to defend their actions, but Ron shh-ed them and carried on, "and I would have had to give you every sweet I got and -,"

"Ok, Ok, we get it,"

"We haven't really helped you as such in the past,"

"But think of how nice your teeth would have been," said Fred waggling his finger at Ron.

"If you hadn't had all those sweets over the years," Ron just rolled his eyes at them – they would never accept the fact that they had to be wrong sometimes.

"Back to the map, what is so special about it that you two actually had to come and see me?"

"It's a special map-,"

"Well, I got that,"

"Don't interrupt," ordered Fred, not happy that he had been stopped, "as I was saying...it's a special map," Fred waited to see if Ron would interrupt him again, but Ron just glared at him, Fred smiled and carried on, "it will allow you to see where you are and where everyone or everything is,"

George took over, "for example, if you were facing something and wanted to know where it was, you could just use it and find out,"

Ron nodded and smiled at the twins, this might actually come in handy, but Ron doubted if they had made this themselves.

"Where did you get it?"

"Ronnie, do you really think we would go so low as to steal?" Ron just looked at them, giving them his answer.

Yes.

"He must learn to trust us, Fred," said George, shaking his head.

"You are so right, George," said Fred tutting.

George turned back to Ron, "To make it work, you have to point your wand at it and say 'I solemnly swear I am up to no good',"

Suddenly the map began to form on the blank parchment Ron watched it wide eyed as the map completed itself and began to show where everybody is.

They still hadn't answered Ron's question of where they had got it from, but Ron knew they would never tell him, so just went along with their change of subject.

"And to make the map go away," said Fred, "tap it again and say 'Mischief Managed',"

And with that the map suddenly was its old blank parchment itself.

"Erm...thanks," said Ron, taking the map off of Fred, who was loading his pockets again.

"Don't put my stuff on the floor again," said Fred to George as the two walked away.

"Well, I wasn't gonna stand there and hold your stuff," replied George, Ron guessed he had rolled his eyes as he said it.

After a while, the stands filled and everyone arrived; teachers, students and judges and competitors.

"Hello everyone," said Dumbledore as the time came for the task, "this is the Hogwarts task. Each competitor will work alone, no help from any team members this time. Each competitor will touch their port key," said Dumbledore, as he pointed to flags which stood in front of the nervous competitors, "and they will be sent to a place in Hogwarts, there will be a total of seven levels to complete, each with a different task. At anytime, the competitors will be allowed to leave, by activating an emergency port key which will follow them, once they enter. But leaving will result in no points. They are looking for an object, of which I cannot give the description; each competitor has a different object," Dumbledore nodded to the nervous teenagers, they took hold of their flag, they all nodded to Dumbledore and with a flick of his wrist, every teenager flew off with their port key, not knowing what to expect.

Ron

Ron's stomach lurched as he "landed" in a heap somewhere in Hogwarts. Ron jumped up, not wanting to be caught with his guard down, and looked around him – nothing. No dragons or angry mer-people or Durmstrang boys with shark heads for heads.

A wicked giggle came from somewhere.

"Peeves!" said Ron, the prankster poltergeist came out from nowhere and threw ink at Ron, giggling hysterically.

Ron smiled to himself, he couldn't wait until the other competitors met Peeves, especially Harry; Harry had always been mean to Peeves and the poltergeist had never really had the chance to get his revenge, but now he would.

"Oi, Peeves, it's me Ron," he yelled, Peeves was about to throw another bottle of ink when he froze, a smile came across his face.

"Brother of the twins?" Ron beamed and nodded, Peeves dropped the ink; it landed with a smash.

"Well, I shouldn't help you but since when did Peevseey listen to Dumbleedoree," Ron laughed and follow Peeves to a door.

"Next level," said Peeves smiling wickedly.

"Thanks," Ron opened the door and saw a spiralling stone staircase, "Oh and by the way, Harry Potter might be along soon," Peeves' transparent eyes got wide and lit up. The poltergeist floated away with a wide wicked grin on his face and Ron shut the door and carried on upwards.

The stone stairs seemed to go on forever, but there was a little black door which said 'Level Two'.

"My stop," said Ron smiling sadly, he opened the door slowly and walked in to the unknown.

The room was small, with no windows and when Ron had crossed the doorway, the door slammed shut all by itself and simply disappeared; where it had been, there was now just grey cold bricks.

Ron looked around and saw nothing but a brown battered locked chest, and Ron guessed pirate treasure wasn't going to be in there. He knew he had to open it.

Ron cast a simple alohomora and flipped it open and backed away, his wand pointing at the chest.

Nothing seemed to happen but Ron knew better than to think all was safe and go towards it; he had seen the scary muggle movies where they stupidity thought it was safe and ending up getting killed because of their silliness.

A black mist rose out of the chest and because he had listened in Professor Lupin's lessons, he knew what creature this was. A boggart.

Ron swallowed and held his wand out, knowing what it would turn into.

A huge giant spider appeared; Ron's breathing quickened and he whispered

"Riddikulus," Nothing happened, except the boggart-spider advanced, a red empty bottle appeared by Ron's side – he knew what that object meant, safety, away from the giant spider but it also meant failure, and Ron wasn't going to give up just yet.

"RIDDIKULUS," Ron yelled and the spider was suddenly wearing a bright pink tutu, pink flowery ballerina pumps and a silver tiara. Ron chuckled and with a flash the ballerina boggart was gone, Ron sighed happily and walked back to the black door which had just reappeared.

Ron carried on up the staircase and reached a huge wooden red door, the handle was high up; Ron jumped but couldn't reach. He sat down in front of the large door just staring up at it, when something caught his eye.

A smaller red door.

In the corner of the huge left door there was a smaller door, which Ron could go through – if he crawled.

Ron opened the small door and crawled through, once through he dusted himself off and looked up, suddenly wishing he hadn't.

Ron felt a sense of déjà-vu while looking at the nightmare he was seeing. It was a huge dog with three heads and three pairs of eyes where looking at him. It was Fluffy, Hagrid's "pet" dog. Ron had experience how to deal with it as he was able to make it sleep back in his first year at Hogwarts. All he needed was a musical instrument when played the creature would sleep and he can move forward.

The dog was drooling while its sharp teeth were ready to strike. It hadn't still adjusted to someone's presence in the room yet. Ron didn't panic once while he took off his jumper and transfigured it into a wooden flute.

Ron began to play the flute and as the sound began the dog's eyes began to close. It looked as if the was fighting an inner battle; whether to strike the human boy in front of him or succumb to the sound and sleep.

The dog chose the latter to Ron's utter relief and within seconds it was sleeping peacefully. Ron continued to play the flute while he began to scan the area looking for the door for the next level. He remembered his first year and looked at the dog's feet. As expected there was a trap door beneath the dog's huge feet.

Ron jumped down the trapdoor and landed on his feet, he heard the door shut over his head and Fluffy resume his place on it. He noticed a door way, which led to a downwards stone staircase.

Ron plodded down the staircase as he wiped Fluffy's drool off himself; Fluffy looked scary with his three heads and six eyes, but was actually a real softie, especially for music.

Suddenly the staircase stopped and led to a dark green door, decorated with paintings of death and other nasty things. Ron sighed, prepared for the worst and opened the door.

It slammed shut behind him.

The room was like the boggart room except this room was colder and damper, it smelled death and Ron shivered – but not from the cold.

Ron knew what was in here; it was the same feeling he got when he was in the train back in his third year, he gripped his wand tightly and held it out in front of him. Only one spell would stop these creatures and Ron doubted if Harry or Draco knew it, lucky he had been taught it by Bill when he was little and had always enjoyed the spell's company when he was lonely.

Ron just had to wait for them to show themselves; and slowly they did. Their dark figures sent shivers down Ron's spine; their 'arms' reached out towards him; they wanted his life, his soul, his breath.

Ron took a deep breath and at first stuttered the spell, which had no effect what-so-ever; Ron took another breath, thought of the most happiest thought he had in his mind and said the spell confidently, calmly and boldly.

"Expecto Patronum,"

A beautiful silvery wolf jumped out of Ron's wand and charged towards the dementors; its power was immense, it shone brightly and it didn't take long for the dementors to go back to their dark hiding places, waiting for their next prey.

Ron smiled as the wolf faded away, he turned around and the dark green door opened, allowing him to exit and carry on down the stairs.

Once again the stairs stopped and ended at a turquoise door, Ron opened the door and this time there was no door.

The forbidden forest stretched out in front of him, all he could see was dark trees, their branches covering the sky, no green grass in sight, just darkness.

Ron stepped out of the door and looked back at the door, expecting to see the stone stairs or a tunnel, but all he saw was the doorframe and the turquoise door.

Ron smirked, Dumbledore was a great wizard and his little tricks could always make Ron smile.

'How am I meant to find the next level?'

Suddenly Ron remembered the map that Fred and George had given him earlier; maybe it would contain the forbidden forest too. And just as he suspected it did.

Ron saw a dot with his name next to it – it actually worked, to Ron's surprise. Ron scanned the map for any other signs of life or a label saying 'next level' and he did but sadly it was not the latter of the two; it was another name but unlike his own name, which was in red, the other person's name was in black.

Merlin Blaidd Morgan

'Oh, he's welsh' thought Ron smiling, maybe this person was there to help him; he had met other people in the tasks before who had been there to help him – Löwe the Lammasu and that mermaid, whose name he had never got.

And to Ron's surprise, it seemed that Merlin was walking towards him – he could see this as the map showed a trail of the person's footprints, so you could see what direction they were walking in – but instead of having two footprints, like a human, this Merlin had four and they weren't footprints but paw prints; suddenly Ron didn't think Merlin was here to help him.

Ron held his wand tightly and watched the map to see what direction Merlin was going to come at him from. Ron's breathing was heavy and shaky; he didn't know what to do, unlike the dementors and boggarts there was no spell to get rid of Merlin and he couldn't play the flute to him like he did to Fluffy.

Maybe this Merlin wasn't real but a boggart made to look like this paw-printed creature, but boggarts didn't have names – this one was real.

Ron looked down at the map; Merlin was only a few metres away, a twig snapped.

Ron gulped and looked over towards the snapping sound.

It stepped forward and Ron saw two piercing deep brown eyes; sharp pearly white fangs; a blood-red tongue lolling out of its mouth; a long pointy muzzle; large alert ears and rich brown fur.

A werewolf. A blood thirsty, ready to bite, damned werewolf. What the hell was Dumbledore thinking?

The tall wolf cocked its hair to the side, staring right into Ron's blue eyes, piercing him.

The wolf gave a low growl; this flaming-haired boy was on his patch and he didn't like intruders one little bit.

Ron closed the map and put it back into his champion's robe, his actions slow as so to not provoke the wolf or to make the wolf think he was going to attack him.

The wolf walked forward slowly, he moved so smoothly and made no sound as its muscular legs advanced. Ron could tell that this wolf was a great hunter, which may have been good for the wolf itself but was bad for him and the wolf's prey – Ron just hoped it was a vegetation wolf...which was practically impossible.

Ron started to back away quietly, the wolf's brown eyes still on him.

Bang!

The wolf growled aggressively, Ron didn't know what or who had made the noise but his brain went into panic defenceless mode, where only one thing could ever happen.

He ran.

Ron turned and bolted; the wolf saw a chase and started to follow, he didn't run at his fastest, he wanted to tire the boy first and then attack.

As Ron was running, he realised how stupid he had been to start running; he couldn't get away from a werewolf and when running from a werewolf you can't turn around and ask for a five minute timeout.

Ron managed to get quite a way before his body began to rebel and wanted to stop, however the wolf was running at a slow pace to what it could run. The wolf pounced.

Ron's face hit the floor, but luckily he didn't hear the crack of bone; the wolf wasn't standing on him but its front paws were, while his back legs were either side of Ron – the wolf's weigh on them. But Ron did hear the crack of something...his wand. He was wandless and was pinned down by a werewolf.

Ron wished it was his bones breaking, not his wand; wands cost money – money his family didn't have – but bones would repair. Then Ron remembered earlier in the year, when he had met Ollivander who had promised him a handmade wand for free, and Ollivander had never given him a wand before the first task. That solved the problem of the broken wand, but not of the situation; he didn't have a wand now.

Ron breathed heavily; he didn't know what it was going to do: would he have to leave this task as he had been caught or would he be placed second or would he be able to carry on, but lose points because he had failed this level? Ron just didn't know and he doubted the wolf could tell him.

Suddenly, the wolf's two front paws came off of Ron and he stood back, Ron slowly got up and turned to look at the wolf, which was staring right at him. The wolf wanted a fight now that the chase had been easily ended.

"I-I don't have a wand," stuttered Ron, he shrugged and wondered if Merlin would be able to understand English while he was a wolf. But it seemed he did, he seemed to smirk at Ron.

The wolf growled and bared his sharp fangs.

Ron needed some kind of protection, but didn't have a wand...but he was a wizard, he had the magic not the wand.

Ron put his hands out in front of him, as though he was going to 'high-five' someone with both hands and took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves. In the most confident voice Ron could muster he said,

"Incendio Patronum,"

It was like fire was rushing through his veins towards his hands, as the magic travelled down his arms, they seemed to glow a golden colour, Ron could see the magic flowing through his arms; all of a sudden the fire reached his hands and surged out of his palms.

The magic crashed together in a whirlwind, the magic stopped coming out of his hands, and in front of Ron stood a huge golden wolf. The wolf looked right at Merlin and growled; Ron was its master and it wasn't going to see him get hurt.

Merlin was not a stupid werewolf, so knew that he no chance against this magnificent wolf, even if it was a fire patronus.

Merlin walked towards Ron and the patronus moved aside as it knew that Merlin did not wish to cause Ron harm anymore. Merlin nudged Ron and turned, Ron knew he wanted him to follow.

They had been walking for around a minute when Merlin growled, making Ron stop, suddenly Merlin ran off; Ron had no clue what he was doing, so just stood there, his patronus at his side.

Ron realised what Merlin had been doing as a man stepped out.

Merlin, in his human form, looked more like a rat than a wolf; he had a pointy nose, big brown eyes and big ears, but like his wolf form, he was tall and muscular. And as Ron looked at Merlin he re-thought his idea about Merlin being a 'man', Merlin didn't look much older than Ron, yet Ron hadn't seen him at Hogwarts.

"Hi, I'm Merlin," smiled Merlin, as he waved at Ron, "sorry 'bout the "evil" werewolf routine, I have had to do it a few times already; all three of the girls got scared and pushed their red port key," he smirked.

"Hey, I'm Ron and nah, its ok, guessing you have too. What about the MoM, they wouldn't allow a werewolf at Hogwarts?"

Merlin chuckled, "I'm sure they wouldn't like it...if they knew about me. I'm a friend of Remus, you probably know him as Professor Lupin," Ron nodded; it made sense for the MoM to not know about Merlin.

"Follow me, promise I won't bite," Ron smiled and followed.

"You're not at Hogwarts? You left?" asked Ron, wanting to know how old Merlin actually was and if he was younger than 18, why wasn't he at Hogwarts.

"Nah, I just turned 15," Ron nodded as he kicked a stone; he had been right Merlin wasn't older than Ron, but younger; Ron guessed being a werewolf made you look older than you actually were; Lupin looked around 40 but if he had been at school with Harry's dad, he would have been in his 30's.

"I never really fitted into a school life but Lupin has been teaching me since I was 10, when my family abandon me – for being a werewolf, they're pure-bloods," Ron knew what Merlin meant, most pure-bloods were negative towards werewolves, "and Dumbledore has also started teaching me stuff here and there, he lets me live here, I have a tiny little cottage on the end of forbidden forest, covered in charms and spells, making sure no pupils ever stumble across me, whether I'm in my human or wolf form," he smiled.

Ron felt sorry for Merlin; he sounded like a nice person, but he was alone in his cottage all by himself, his family had left him and this place was probably the only place Merlin would ever live.

"Here," smiled Merlin.

Ron looked up from the floor to see a wooden blue door, it just looked like a door and doorframe but Ron guessed it led to the next level.

"Nice meeting you, Ron," smiled Merlin sadly; Ron was right, he did get lonely sometimes...a lot of the time.

"Same...maybe I could come and see you sometimes? You seem like a nice person and I'd like to get to know you,"

Merlin smiled, "Yeah, I'd love that,"

Ron smiled as he opened the door and walked through.

Ron shut the door behind him and instead of facing a stone staircase; he faced a stone room, with a glass table in the middle. And on the table there was a flag, checkered black and white, like a finishing flag.

'This must be the end' thought Ron happily.

Ron was just about to touch the flag when he remembered something that Dumbledore had said when he was introducing this task:

"And they will be sent to a place in Hogwarts, there will be a total of seven levels to complete, each with a different task"

Ron started the count the levels he had done on his fingers,
"Level one was Peeves, level two was the boggart," Ron shivered as he remembered the huge spider, "level three was Fluffy, level four was the dementors," Ron smiled as he remembered his patronus wolf, "level five was Merlin," Ron smiled as he thought of his new friend, "...so this must be level six and Dumbledore said there would be seven," said Ron out loud.

"Well done Ron, you have not been foolish and have not fallen for the trap," said a deep voice, Ron looked around but could not see the owner of this voice, "you may finish proud,"

A golden door appeared on the opposite side of the room, Ron didn't know whether this door would be a second trap, but what else could he do?

Ron opened the door and cautiously walked through.

Ron smiled as he saw a room he recognized: the room of requirements.

The house elves, who all loved Ron very much, had shown it to him in his second year and he had been going to this room ever since; sometimes it would be a place to play, a place to eat or a place to sleep, but whatever Ron wanted, the room always gave. This was Ron's favourite room in all of Hogwarts and it seemed that he and the house elves were the only ones to know its secrets; people would randomly find this room but would never be able to find it again. But somehow Ron could always find it.

The room of requirements had a glass table with a large beautiful golden Hogwarts coat of arms.

'Touch it' whispered a voice; Dumbledore.

Ron trusted Dumbledore, even if it was just his voice, and touched the coat of arms.

It was like Ron had suddenly been pulled forward by the head and was now in a different place; it was like he was there but not there; like he was a ghost or sprit. He could see things happening; death, glory, darkness; but he couldn't stop those things happening, he had to let them; spells shot through his body, they just passed right through him. And Ron knew that this was real, this was the future...the next task.

Ron's eyes shot open, the brightness blinded him for a bit but slowly his eyes adjusted and he stood up. The crowd was cheering, Professors smiling; he had won.

Dumbledore came over and patted him on the back, "well done, Ron. You did not fall at the last hurdle,"

But Ron wished he had.