The third task was well on its way and the entire school was up in arms about it. This would be the defining task that would give us a Tri-Wizard champion. The tensions were high and school loyalties were fiercer than ever. Even Gemma and her friend-boy (she refused to call him her boyfriend) were having a rough time because of respective loyalties to schools. Nikolay had to support his own school, obviously, and Gemma wasn't about to not hope that Hogwarts would be the first winner of the Tri-Wizard Cup since the disbanding of the competition.
And the Beauxbatons girls were bitches as normal, so that wasn't new.
The third task had to be the biggest of them all. It was the defining task, the end all, be all. It also didn't help that exams would finish the day of the third task. It was an extra bit of pressure that was unneeded, but they couldn't necessarily do anything about it, could they? At least they'd be finished by then. Until the task, however, it was evenings full of studying.
It was one of those evenings, Des hunched over her History of Magic textbook with her Ancient Runes textbook not too far away. She wasn't too worried about these exams but with NEWTs on the way, she figured it would be as good a time as any to begin studying. She flipped a page in her text before feeling a body behind her, not even having to turn to know that it was Thomas.
"You're studying quite hard," Thomas said sitting down next to her, "care to take a break to eat, maybe?"
"Can't eat. Must study."
"Des…" he said, his voice had a tone that warned her not to joke with him.
"What's with you today?"
"Sorry… just stressed, I guess… about the exams and everything."
"Does it have anything to do with the third task?"
"… possibly."
Des looked around before leaning closer, her voice dropping even lower than a whisper.
"Anything to do with the fact that your father may be present?"
"… maybe, Des, I don't know… all I know is that this whole thing has got me on edge and I can't pinpoint why."
Des moved to link her arm through his, leaning her head on his shoulder and hoping that she seemed the least bit comforting.
"Let's just get through this, okay?"
"The exams or the task?"
"The exams first. Then we'll figure out what to do after that, okay?"
"Okay."
Des could see that the pressure of what was to come with the task was getting to Thomas. She tried not to bring it up, but she couldn't stop the feeling of excitement that she was feeling herself. It was difficult to hold in, seeing as she couldn't share these things with Gemma or Anya seeing that neither of them wanted anything to do with a second wizarding war. The only person she had to talk about this with was Thomas and even he was seeming apprehensive about it and Des was worried that he was getting cold feet. That he would back out and leave her because of her dedication to the cause.
As soon as exams had finished, Des cornered Thomas before he entered the Great Hall for the feast that evening. The third task was to follow the feast and if Thomas wanted out of whatever they had agreed on, she needed to know now.
"Now that exams are over," she said, "I want to know what's going on with you."
"What do you mean?"
"You've been irritable, and you won't joke with me as much. Whenever I bring up what's to happen at the third task, you get moody. You say it's because you want to focus on exams, but I have a hard time believing that."
"Des, I—"
"Are you having second thoughts?"
"No, Des, I would never," Thomas said, "I'm just… feeling a little anxious about it… about if things go awry or if people found out that we're to be involved with this in the coming year. What if it doesn't work and we're to look stupid for picking the wrong side again, just as our parents did?"
Des wanted to stop him, to shut him up and tell him that she didn't care what people thought about her alliance and that he shouldn't either, but she remembered feeling this way before, right before she decided that this was what she wanted to do.
"It's all going to be fine. We're just going to watch the task like everyone else," Des tried to be gentle and tried not to let her own feelings in the way.
"You're right," Thomas said, "let's go eat before we're starving at the task, yeah?"
He slung his arm around her shoulder and led her into the Great Hall. Suddenly, he was back to himself again and that eased her mind knowing that he no longer felt anxious about this. The two of them took advantage of the feast being bigger than usual for the last task and filled up, the two of them having a feeling that the last task would take longer than the others. After the feast was over and the champions had been led to the Quidditch pitch before everyone else, the rest of the schools followed.
As they crossed the grounds, Des started to get slightly confused as the place they were walking toward looked nothing like the Quidditch pitch.
"Whoa," Thomas said, "good thing they canceled Quidditch this year, eh?"
"Yeah, can you imagine having to play over that?" Des asked, pointing at the large maze that now took over the Quidditch pitch. As they approached it, Des could see just how high the hedges were and wondered just how they expected the champions to get through something like this in the dark at night. The couple followed the rest of Slytherin house and sat in the stands, looking down at the entrance to the maze.
Ludo Bagman, the chair of the tournament, put his wand to his throat and amplified his voice announcing that the third task was about to begin. Diggory and Potter had tied for first after the last task, sending all of Hogwarts to erupt in applause. Krum was second and Fleur Delacour from Beauxbatons was third. Because Diggory and Potter were first, they got a head start into the maze before Fleur and Krum. Bagman blew his whistle and they raced into the maze, Hogwarts students in the stands erupting into applause as they did. The same with Krum and Fleur when it was their turns to enter the maze.
After that, they waited. There were brief sounds of commotion coming from the maze every once in a while, the cry of some sort of animal or of one of the champions even, Des swearing that she had heard Fleur scream despite the fact that there were no red sparks that flew up.
After a while, the first sparks flew into the air. Des saw McGonagall enter the maze through the side, the hedge opening up a path for her to get to the champion who had sent up the signal of defeat. The exited the maze with Viktor Krum, the absolute last person Des thought would be the first to leave the maze.
After a while, Fleur was out as well, leaving only the two Hogwarts champions. The stands were full of murmuring now, some of the Hogwarts feeling a bit too victorious. Des heard some cheers already from other stands with Hogwarts students. Des wasn't sure about what was going to happen or how it was going to happen. Dmitri had said that it would be during the third task and Des was unsure about what that meant. Nobody had known what the third task was going to be… at least as far as her brother knew. Were the Death Eaters going to show up tonight? Were they going to be at Hogwarts?
"What do you think is happening? They've been in there for an awful long time," Thomas whispered.
"I have no clue," Des said, "All Dmitri said was that it would be during the third task. He never said how."
It had been over two hours now and the professors as well as the students in the stands were getting restless as neither Hogwarts champion had sent up sparks or emerged with the Tri-Wizard Cup. The stands were tense, full of noise and murmuring, and the professors and headmasters had their eyes glued to the entrance of the maze for some sort of movement.
Finally, there was a whoosh in the air and Harry landed hard on the ground, one hand on the Tri-Wizard cup and the other around Cedric Diggory. There was a slight commotion before a cry in the night.
"He's dead!"
"He's dead!"
"Cedric Diggory! Dead!"
Cedric Diggory had been killed… and the Dark Lord had returned. Des was sure of it.
a/n: thank you all who are enjoying this so far. please review, feedback helps me in so many ways! thanks for reading!