A/N-Chapter 28 Review responses are available in my forums. Also, thanks to Tenchifew for the revised Russian translations. This story was revised 9/3/2011 to show the revised portion.


Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Third Task

The morning of the final task dawned clear, but the air held the promise of the harsh weather to come.

Harry woke and stretched in bed before dawn, which this late in spring was quite early already. He sat up in his four-poster and looked around the room. Ron was snoring away as normal, while Neville, Seamus and Dean remained huddled bumps in their beds.

Harry swung his legs over the bed and stretched again. He felt energized, for some reason that went beyond the tournament. He dreamed the most remarkable dream the previous night; it started as a searing nightmare but then turned into a stunning vision. First Voldemort was there, faceless and menacing from the shadows as he reached out to grasp Harry with a giant, inescapable hand. But then his guardians arrived—Luna surrounded by a blue flame, and Ginny surrounded by red fire—and the light the two girls cast forced Voldemort away.

They turned and as he watched their fires burned their clothes away, leaving them naked and scalding hot. They came to him, and where the fire of their hands touched his own clothes burned away until he was as naked as they were. They began kissing him, one after the other, while their fiery hands roamed wildly over his body. He tried touching them too, but their heat was too great. They could touch him, but he could not reciprocate.

He did not need to. Luna pushed him to the ground as Ginny climbed on top of him, grinding against him until the grinding turned into more, and he felt a small, brilliant part of himself slip inside her body. The fire burned, but the burning felt so good he could not believe it. Ginny's lips covered his, and parted only for her to say, "I love you."

Then it felt as if he was wetting his bed, but it was such an incredible feeling he didn't care. And now, waking up the next morning, the bed was dry and showed no sign of his bladder loosing itself. His boxers were oddly stiff, but….

Harry looked back at his roommates, then down at his boxers and realized what had happened. Then he smiled despite himself. "Gross or not, the dream was brilliant," he whispered.

He showered and afterward stared into the mirror. He remembered Adonis telling him that his magical maturity had begun. He knew it wasn't an overnight process—that it would actually take anywhere from one to three years and paralleled puberty. That was why he leaned forward to examine the downy stubble on his chin and high on his cheeks. It wasn't a beard by any stretch, but they were definitely whiskers.

A muttered word and a pass of his wand and the whiskers were gone. They looked ridiculous anyway. Neville was already shaving every day as he got taller and taller, but this was Harry's first time using the charm. Likely he wouldn't need it again for a month.

He got dressed in a pair of loose-fitting jeans Sirius purchased for him, and a T-shirt. As he finished, he saw that Neville was awake and watching him. "Nervous?" the taller boy asked.

"Yeah, guess so."

"Day feels strange already, doesn't it?"

It wasn't until Neville said it that Harry realized he was right. The day did feel strange. Perhaps it was the promise of bad weather in the future, high air pressure or something, or maybe just the coming tournament. But it felt as if the day were on the edge of something momentous. He couldn't tell if it was a good momentous or a bad.

When he went down for breakfast, the common room was mostly empty—classes were actually over and the only people still studying were the fifth and seventh years finishing up the last of their O.W.L. or N.E.W.T. examinations. And this late in term, only a few tests remained. The only thing keeping the students in school was the third task of the tournament.

He wasn't surprised when Ginny came down just moments after him. Their schedules were so ingrained from nearly three years of training now he doubted she could have slept late if she tried. She smiled at him—a free, happy expression—and gave him a hug. "I had the most delicious dream about you," she whispered into his ear.

"I did too," he admitted.

"Fourteen, Ginny!"

The two turned, astounded, to see Ron slumping down the stairs in dirty, wrinkled robes. His hair was a mess, but he appeared to be dressed.

"What?" Ginny asked.

"You were giving each other googly-eyes," Ron said. "Like you were about to kiss. No dating until fourteen."

Ginny answered by grabbing Harry's head, pulling him down, and kissing him. A lot. Ron's eyes bulged and he started sputtering incoherently as he turned so red his freckles looked black. When at last Ginny finished, she turned to Ron and said, "So there." She then turned and walked out of the room to breakfast.

"Harry!" Ron whined. "That's my thirteen-year-old sister!"

"What? It wasn't my fault!" Then he turned and ran after Ginny.

~~Unspeakable~~

~~Unspeakable~~

Harry made sure to eat a larger than normal breakfast, and planned to do the same for lunch. Ron joined them, still sputtering, followed moments later by Hermione and eventually Neville.

Luna joined them toward the end of breakfast without a word, and began eating off Ron's plate.

"What're you doing that for?" Ron said.

"You have too much food," she said with infuriating calm. "Harry, I found a room for us to get ready."

"Get ready for what?" Ron asked, eyes bulging as his brain went in a completely different direction.

"To work out before the task, Ron," Harry said quickly, cheeks flaring. "Just to keep warm."

As he spoke, Ludo Bagman began making his way from table to table, chatting up each of the champions. He finally made his way to Gryffindor and handed Harry a scrap of parchment. "This afternoon, Harry, at three. Be completely ready."

"I will, thank you, Mr. Bagman."

Ludo smiled; the expression looking slightly foolish on the overweight former Quidditch player, and left. "Are you ready?" Hermione asked.

Harry shrugged. "I'm as ready as I can be." He looked around at his friends, and said softly, "I…thank you. All of you. This could have turned out so much different without you all there. I saw how angry people were at first when my name got put in. If not for you, I don't think…well, it would have been a miserable year."

Ron started stammering, trying to find something profound to say, until Hermione patted his hand and smiled at Harry. "You're very welcome. You can thank us later with Butterbeers this summer with the money from your winnings."

"Brilliant," Ron finally managed to say.

~~Unspeakable~~

~~Unspeakable~~

Harry spent the day doing a series of light calisthenics or low-key practice duels with Ginny and Luna. Nothing to exhaust him, only to keep him warmed up and ready. Every time he looked at the two of them, his imagination caught them on fire and he had to adjust his trousers.

"So," Luna finally said as she looked from one to the other, "tell me about these dreams you two had."

~~Unspeakable~~

~~Unspeakable~~

When at last it came time for the task to start, Harry walked back to his room and opened the new trunk Sirius bought him for their travels the previous summer. In the center of the chest was a gift that arrived the previous day during his picnic from the girls, from Zeus. It was a dragon-hide vest, likely worth more than most Auror's made in a year. The hide was a dark grey with a line of turquoise running along the tips of the scales. The vest was not solid and unyielding like a plate of armor—rather it felt supple like snake skin.

Harry removed his trousers and pulled on the cuisses to protect his thighs and the greaves to guard his shins. The armor clung tightly to his legs with special sticking charms and straps, and was barely visible as he pulled his trousers back on.

Next he pulled on the main vest of armor and felt again the charms applied to the inside of the skin as it adhered over his T-shirt. He knew the vest, like the other pieces, would expand as he grew. This was the type of armor that would be handed down to his children and grandchildren, it was that well made.

He pulled on the shoulder pieces, which were similar in shape and function to old-fashioned spaulders. They protected his shoulders and extended down to his elbow and clicked right into the vest with an actual hook so a simple finite would not affect it. Next he pulled on the vambraces that protected his forearms. It was in his left vambrace that he slipped his spare wand. Over this, he pulled on his Quidditch robes. The dragon-skin armor was so supple that it did not show under Harry's robes at all, nor did it hamper his movement.

Finally, he pulled on the gauntlets, which were disguised by a thin layer of Gryffindor-red fabric to look like a pair of seeker's gloves. "This is better than James Bond," Harry said with a grin. He finished by stuffing his invisibility cloak into a deep pocket of his robes.

He walked down the stairs and was surprised to find every Gryffindor there waiting for him. He paused mid-step and stared. "They wanted to wish you luck," Hermione said with a happy smile. Beside her, Ginny was beaming.

"Thank you," he said told them all.

"Three cheers for Harry!" Fred Weasley suddenly shouted.

Harry felt his face burning as his housemates began cheering. Before he knew it, the twins had him on their shoulder and were parading him through the common room and out into the hall. Finally they put him down near the stairs.

They walked as a group out of the castle and to the stands that lined the entrance of the maze. The Beauxbatons contingent was already there, as were the Hufflepuffs. The Gryffindor's arrived moments before Krum and the Durmstrang crowd.

With slaps on his back and a chaste kiss on his cheek from Ginny, Harry made his way to the front where the other champions waited. Fleur wore Quidditch-style robes in the powder blue color of her school. Cedric was in his familiar yellow and black Quidditch robes, while Krum arrived decked out in crimson and black. He did not even bother to hide his glare at Harry.

Ludo Bagman and Rufus Scrimgeour walked up to them—Bagman was smiling as always while Scrimgeour looked like he was already tired of the whole thing and ready to go home. "Okay, Champions!" Bagman said excitedly. "The time has finally come. Each champion will enter based on their scores. So, Mr. Potter you will go first; Ms. Delacour, you second; Mr. Diggory will be third; and Mr. Krum, you will be last. You will each be allowed a ten second start for every point you have over the next champion."

As Bagman spoke, Harry did not notice Krum silently cast a spell not at Harry, but the ground under his feet. The patch glowed violet for less than a second, but the light was lost in the flashing of wizarding cameras.

"Any questions?" Bagman asked.

The champions shook their heads, and with his wand in the air Bagman gave the explosive signal.

Harry did not hesitate—he ran into the maze at a full sprint and did not slow down until after he'd turned several corners. He wanted to get well ahead of Krum if no one else. He heard another bang and knew Fleur was coming. The next two bangs came much quicker since the other three were closer in their scores.

The maze was not a joke, this much Harry learned quickly. Hagrid's Blast-Ended Skrewts had grown to an obnoxious size and resisted most spell fire. Harry resorted to levitating the ground under them and flipping the monstrosities over. The sphinx made him stop and think in his best Luna/Hermione mode before he got past. There were all sorts of magical barriers, from dragon vine to an adolescent manticore.

After an hour, he turned a corner and saw Cedric Diggory duelling desperately with an acromantula. Harry didn't hesitate to send a blasting curse to help the other champion out. He was about to go on his way when he noticed a second blasting curse from the other direction.

He stared in shock as the curse hit Cedric right in the back just as Harry's hit the spider. The acromantula screamed in rage at the same time Cedric flew into its face. The acromantula bit reflexively.

Cedric did not even have time to scream.

Harry felt his breath stop as he watched this pinnacle of Hogwarts, fall unmoving to the ground. The spider started to turn when a bright cone of light turned into a ten-foot javelin that stuck between the creature's mandible and buried itself to its end. The spider twitched before falling to the ground near Cedric.

Krum walked around the corner, his face set in a grimace of rage. "I know vat you did to me, Potter!" Krum shouted.

"You abducted a British witch and I saved her," Harry said.

"You interfered. You should not have done that, boy. She vould have come back to you intact. But you interfered. Ignis!"

A lance of fire shot toward Harry. He spun away and used a silent Protego to slam the conjured flame into the ground while at the same time casting a string of stunners followed not by an expelliarmus, but rather a bone-crushing hex.

Krum rolled under the stunners and then used his own shield to send the bone-crushing hex sky-ward. He followed with a barrage of spells easily as lethal as the killing curse. He felt three impact his dragon-hide armor against his chest; Krum saw and adjusted his aim for Harry's head. Harry transfigured the ground into a stone wall and then quickly pulled and ducked under his invisibility cloak.

The wall shattered under a powerful blasting charm and Krum vaulted over it in a fluid motion. He was spinning mid-air and cast behind him. Harry ducked his head and let the stunner pass over him without reacting. Krum landed and quickly scanned the area.

Then he smiled and looked right at Harry. "You think your cloak vill hide you, boy?"

"Guess not," Harry muttered. He rolled away as Krum's blood-freezing curse struck the ground that once housed him. He freed himself from the seemingly useless cloak and responded not with an offensive spell, but with an out-ward thrust of the aegis shield.

Krum raised his own shield, thinking it was a curse, and when the two shields touched, both wizards were blasted apart. Harry, however, was ready for it. He landed on his back but did a back roll, came to his feet, and charged forward even while he stuffed his cloak back in his pocket.

Krum landed with a loud huff, kicked his legs up, and jumped back to his feet just in time to meet Harry's foot.

He raised an arm to block Harry's kick, and then howled as Harry's magically enhanced blow snapped his forearm. The Bulgarian champion spun around, squatted, and lashed out with a leg. Harry hopped one-legged over it, spun about and brought his heel down. Krum rolled out from under the blow and snapped out both legs.

Harry had no choice but to turn and allow the kick to strike the back of his leg—otherwise it would have snapped his knee. Even so, it hurt like hell when he fell back, rolled, and jumped to his feet just in time to see Krum perform an advanced bone-healing charm on himself.

"You are better than I thought, boy," the Russian said. "But not good enough. Avada keda…oufff."

Harry cast a silent stunner in the time Krum took to enunciate the killing curse, and the boy dropped like a rock. He turned to go see if Cedric was still alive when he saw a flash of blue. His arms and legs locked to his side and fell to the ground painfully as Fleur Delacour sauntered up the path. He managed to keep his wand in hand, but could not move to use it.

"Don't bother looking in on Diggory," she said. He thought he heard a note of regret in her voice. "You really are more than you appear, oui? Rest assured, my young friend, that I will not hurt you. France has not had a sport in five centuries. By the time we are done with you, 'Arry, you will be singing Le Marseillaise with the best of us, and I will make you very, very happy as you father a whole army of powerful little wizards with me."

Harry's mind was racing as she levitated him, and not just because a foreign witch had him at wand point. She wanted to make babies with him! Get your mind out of the gutter. He fought hard to not remember the mound of perfect flesh she flashed at him during the Yule Ball and instead concentrated on the current situation.

"This would have been easier with an Imperius curse, but unfortunately we both know that won't work. If the sight of my bare breast, the Imperius curse and my allure was not enough to make you a slave, then little else short of a total obliviation will do. It will be tragic in a way—having your personality destroyed. But think of all the bad memories you will be losing. And all the happy ones I will give you to replace them."

All thought of making babies with Fleur fell away as he realized the French were going to try and make him one of their own. They were going to remove every memory he had, essentially destroying everything that made him who he was. In a way, it was even more cruel and insidious than Krum just trying to kill him.

He did not feel despair, only a deep, cold rage that started growing within him like an icy fist. Meanwhile, Fleur dropped all pretence of being just a talented student, displaying magic on par with most Hogwarts professors as she deftly and easily dismantled all the obstacles placed in her way. It came as a shock to Harry that she appeared to be at least as good, if not better, than Krum.

She was in fact almost as good as Adonis himself, and the thought frightened Harry.

"You know Krum put a tracer on the soles of your shoes, did you not?" she said as she walked. "I saw the flash. He followed the trail of your footsteps. I watched you fight—you have had some training. But the checking for tracking charms is basic regardless of what branch of government you serve. I'm sure we will enjoy pointing that out to your superiors when they realize they have lost you."

He wanted so badly to scream his rage at her, but her petrificus spell held him stiff and silent, even as the cold rage in him continued to build in his chest, burning with magic.

"Very well, we're here," Fleur said. She let him down gently to the ground, and then knelt down beside him. With strange tenderness, she moved a lock of his hair away from his head. "I see anger in your eyes, 'Arry. I feel your magic fighting me. You are powerful, but you are not a sport yet. Just know that I do not do this to hurt you. I am a patriot. From the moment we learned you were a potential sport, I have been training for this day. I even learned English to speak your language. I wanted to simply seduce you to my side, but of course even as a child, a potential sport's magic would make that difficult. I wish I could sway you with love, for you are a very special boy, and I would love you until you did not care about anything else. But what we cannot have through love, we will have through force. To fail would be to lose everything." She leaned down and gently kissed him. "For what it is worth, I am sorry."

She reached into her robes and removed a simple pocket-watch. She reached her wand hand over to activate the portkey in the watch when the ground beside them exploded.

The blast sent a still petrified Harry rolling like a log. He came to a stop on his back once more just in time to see Fleur cartwheel away with all the physical agility of an acrobat. She came to her feet with her wand at the ready.

"Suka!" Krum cursed in Russian. "I knew you vere spy!"

"Oh, bravo.Ty durachok. Ty ne mog by naĭti svoĭ sobstvennyĭ huĭ so spushchennymi shtanami."

Whatever she said must have hit a sensitive mark. Krum started casting a whole barrage of lethal spells. Fleur deflected some, spun and flipped away from the others with inhuman grace. "I am Veela, you fool," she said, dripping contempt. "Do you think you can beat me?"

"Ya ub'yu tebya, i vyebu tvoi trup!"

"You could not even fuck your own sister, you little troll," Fleur snapped back. She deflected another barrage of curses before launching into her own. The air came alive with magic, and from his perspective Harry could see Krum's eyes widen as he realized just how good she was. If Harry were not paralyzed, he would have laughed at the expression.

It was all Krum could do to shield and dodge the spell fire. Harry noticed a disproportionate amount of the magic was fire-based. She had a definite affinity for flame. The fight seemed so one-sided that he counted down the time when Krum fell.

But then Krum proved that in war, there was no such thing as cheating.

He pulled out a gun from his robe. It looked like a strange pistol, until Krum pulled the trigger. This time it was Fleur's turn to look comical as the tiny hand gun suddenly began rattling off bullets.

No matter how fast, Fleur's cartwheels and jumps could not move faster than Krum's bullets as he sprayed a seemingly unending shower of shells at her. She had no choice but to raise a magical shield as she ran, but her shield immediately began to crack under the intense spray of gunfire.

He saw her eyes widen in realization of her danger. What happened next mystified Harry. She dropped her shield, pointed her wand at him and screamed "Finite!" just as at least three bullets slammed into her robes. The concussion of the bullets threw her back off her feet. She raised her hand, and a moment later a small golden watch flew right by Harry's head into her waiting fingers.

Krum started running toward her, firing still more, as she disappeared with a pop. Harry, now freed, did not hesitate to take advantage of Krum's distraction.

The Russian spy turned to Harry, and stopped when he found Harry standing with a glowing wand tip an inch from his face. "Confringo."

There was one last second of Krum's eyes widening before his head exploded. The blast was away from Harry and covered the nearby hedge wall in cranial matter. The Russian's headless body fell back, twitching once.

Harry stood still, staring down, as the full impact of his actions hit him. He just knowingly and intentionally killed another human being. He turned away just in time to fall to his knees and vomit everything he had ever eaten onto the ground. When his stomach emptied, he heaved bile, and when that was done he curled up on his side and shivered.

He killed another man. A boy, only a few years older than he was. He did it knowingly, with a curse designed to kill.

Overhead, the sky cracked as the promised foul weather arrived. Cool rain began to fall, first in a few fat droplets, then in a heavy deluge. Harry sat up as the rain began to soak him, and looked at the headless corpse of Krum. He thought of Cedric Diggory, an innocent bystander who never had a chance against two trained, deadly spies.

Three trained deadly spies, he realized.

In the back of his mind, he heard Luna's voice telling him to get up. He did so, and walked back into the main paths that Fleur followed, back-tracking until he finally reached the spider with Cedric. The boy's body was already turning black from the acromantula venom, and emitted a sickening smell.

"I'm sorry, my friend," Harry said. A spot of the water on his face grew warm with tears as he raised his wand and shot red sparks into the air. He then turned and slogged back to the Triwizard cup, which shone brightly regardless of the rain. Harry stared at the hateful cup, then back at Krum.

He pulled his spare wand, placed his first wand on the ground, and said, "Deletrius." First rule—eliminate the obvious clues. He'd be able claim Fleur killed the Russian in self-defense. It would hopefully delay the authorities long enough for him to make his report to Zeus, and with his wand spell-cleansed, the priori incantatem spell would not work. He then pocketed Krum's strange pistol.

He raised his wand and unleashed another tower of red sparks before he grabbed the cup. He had one last glimpse of Krum's body before he felt the navel hook of a portkey. He expected to appear at the front near the stands—that's why they left the cup area unwarded. Instead, he found himself in what could only be a graveyard.

He had a brief look at a familiar face as Narcissa Malfoy said, "Welcome to hell, Mr. Potter."

Before his name even left her lips, a stunner struck Harry from behind and he fell unconscious to the ground.


Translations courtesy Tenchifew via review. Thank you!

Suka—Bitch

Ty durachok. You are a little fool.

Vy ne…. You could not find your own cock with your pants down.

YA ub'yu…I will kill you and then fuck your corpse.


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Author's Note: Special thanks to Teufeul1987 for Beta reading and Brit Picking, and to JR and Miles for additional beta reading! As always all three made very good comments.