Chapter 46 The Third Task Part 2

The towering hedges cast black shadows across the path, and, whether because they were so tall and thick or because they had been enchanted, the sound of the surrounding crowd was silenced the moment they entered the maze. Harry felt almost as though he were underwater again.

Harry pulled out his wand, muttered, "Lumos" and heard Cassius do the same behind him.

After about fifty yard, they reached a fork. They turned to look at each other.

"See you," Harry said, and took the left path while Cassius took the right path.

Harry heard Bagman's whistle for the second time. Krum had entered the maze. So he sped up. His chosen path seemed completely deserted.

He turned right, and hurried on, holding his wand high over his head, trying to see as far as possible. Still, there was nothing in sight.

Bagman's whistle blew a third time. All of the champions were inside the maze now.

Harry kept looking behind him. The old feeling that he was being watched was upon him. The maze was growing darker with every passing minute as the sky overhead deepened to navy. He reached a second fork.

"Point Me" he whispered to his wand, holding it flat in his palm.

The wand spun around once and pointed toward his right, into solid hedge. That way was north, and he knew that he needed to go northwest for the center of the maze. The best he could was take the left fork and go right again as soon as possible.

The path ahead was empty too, and when Harry reached a right turn and took it, he again found his way unblocked. Harry didn't know why, but the lack of obstacles was unnerving him. Surely he should have met something by now? It felt as though the maze were luring him into a false sense of security. Then he head movement right behind him.

He held out his wand, ready to attack, but its beam fell only upon Cassius, who had just hurried out of a path on the right-hand side. Cassius looking a little shaken, the sleeve of his robe smoking.

"Hagrid's Blast-Ended Skrewts!" He hissed. "They're enormous - I only just got away!"

He shook his head and dived out of sight, along another path.

Keen to put plenty of distance between himself and the skrewts, Harry hurried off again. Then, as he turned a corner, he saw… a dementor gliding toward him.

Twelve feet tall, its face hidden by its hood, its rotting, scabbed hands outstretched, it advanced, sensing its way blindly towards him. Harry could hear its rattling breath; he felt clammy coldness stealing over him, but he knew what he had to do…

He summoned the happiest thought he could, concentrated with all his might on the though of getting out of the maze and celebrating with Ron, Hermione, and Cassie, raised his wand, and cried, "Expecto Patronum!"

A silver stag erupted from the end of Harry's wand and galloped toward the dementor, which fell back and tripped over the hem of its robes… Harry had never seen a dementor stumble.

"Hang on!" Harry shouted, advancing in the wake of his silver patronus. "You're a boggart! Riddikulus!"

There was a loud crack, and the shape shifter exploded in a wisp of smoke. The silver stag faded from sight. Harry wished it could have stayed, he could have used some company… but he moved on, quickly, and quietly as possible, listening hard, his wand held high once more.

Left… right… left again… Twice he found himself facing dead ends.

Harry did the Four-Point Spell again and found that he was going too far east. He turned back, took a right turn, and saw an odd golden mist floating ahead of him.

He approached it cautiously, pointing the wand's beam at it. This looked like some kind of enchantment. He wondered whether he might be able to blast it out of the way.

"Reducto!" he said.

The spell shot straight through the mist, leaving it intact. He supposed he should have known better; the Reductor Curse was for solid objects. What would happen if he walked through the mist? Was it worth chancing it, or should he double back?

He was still hesitating when a scream shattered the silence.

"Fleur?" Harry yelled.

There was silence. He stared all around him. What had happened to her? Her scream seemed to have come from somewhere ahead. He took a deep breath and ran through the enchanted mist.

The world turned upside down. Harry was hanging from the ground, with his hair on end, his glasses dangling off his nose, threatening to fall into the bottomless sky. He clutched them to the end of his nose and hung there, terrified. It felt as though his feet were glued to the grass, which had now become the ceiling. Below him the dark, star-spangled heavens stretched endlessly. He felt as though if he tried to move one of his feet, he would fall away from the earth completely.

'Think' he told himself, as all the blood rushed to his head, 'think…'

'Take a step.' Cassie's voice said in his mind.

'But I'll fall.' Harry thought back.

'Would I let you fall?' Cassie asked.

Harry took a shaky breath, and lifted up his right foot.

The world righted itself. Harry fell forward onto his knees onto wonderfully solid ground. He felt temporarily limp with shock.

He took a deep, steadying breath, then got up again and hurried forward, looking back over his shoulder as he ran away from the golden mist, which twinkled innocently at him in the moonlight.

He paused at a junction of two paths and looked around for some sign of Fleur. He was sure it had been she who had screamed.

What had she met?

Was she all right?

There was no sign of red sparks - did that mean she got herself out of trouble, or was she in such trouble she couldn't reach her wand? Harry took the right fork with a feeling of increasing unease… but at the same time, he couldn't help thinking, 'One champion down…'

The cup was somewhere close by, and it sounded as though Fleur was no longer in the running. He'd got this far, hadn't he? What if he actually managed to win? Fleetingly, and for the first time since he'd found himself champion, he saw again that image of himself, raising the Triwizard Cup in front of the rest of the school…

He met nothing for 10 minutes, but kept running into dead ends. Twice he took the same wrong turning. Finally, he found a new route and started to jog along it, his wandlight waving, making his shadow flicker and distort on the hedge walls. Then he rounded another corner and found himself facing a Blast-Ended Skrewt.

Cassius was right - it was enormous. Ten feet long, it looked more like a giant scorpion than anything. Its long sting was curled over it's back. Its thick armor glinted in the light from Harry's wand, which he pointed at it.

"Stupefy!"

The spell hit the skrewt's armor and rebounded; Harry ducked just in time, but could smell burning hair; it had singed the top of his head. The Skrewt issued a blast of fire from its end and flew forward toward him.

"Impedimenta!" Harry yelled.

The spell hit the skrewt's armor again and ricocheted off; Harry staggered back a few places and fell over.

"IMPEDIMENTA!"

The skrewt was inches from him when it froze - he had managed to hit it on its fleshy, shell-less underside. Panting, Harry pushed himself away from it and ran, hard in the opposite direction - the Impediment Curse was not permanent; the skrewt would be regaining the use of its legs at any moment.

He took a left path and hit a dead end, a right, and hit another, forcing himself to stop, heart hammering, he performed the Four Point Spell again, backtracked, and chose a path that would take him northwest.

He had been hurrying along the new path for a few minutes, when he heard something in the path running parallel to his own that made him stop dead.

"What are you doing?" yelled Cassius's voice. "What the hell d'you think you're doing?"

And then Harry heard Krum's voice.

"Crucio!"

The air was suddenly full of Cassius's yells. Horrified, Harry began sprinting up his path, trying to find a way into Cassius's. When none appeared, he tried the Reductor Curse again. It wasn't very effective, but it burned a small hole in the hedge through which Harry forced his leg, kicking at the thick brambles and branches until they broke and made an opening; he struggled through it, tearing his robes, and looking to his right, saw Cassius jerking and twitching on the ground, Krum standing over him.

Harry pulled himself up and pointed his wand at Krum just as Krum looked up. Krum turned and began to flee.

"Stupefy!" Harry shouted.

The spell hit Krum in the back; he stopped dead in his tracks, fell forward, and lay motionless, facedown in the grass. Harry dashed over to Cassius, who had stopped twitching and was lying there panting, his hands over his face.

"Are you alright?" Harry asked, roughly grabbing Cassius's arm.

"Yeah," Cassius panted. "Yeah… I don't believe it… he crept up behind me… I heard him, I turned around, and he had his wand on me…"

Cassius got up. He was still shaking. He and Harry looked down at Krum.

"I can't believe this… I thought he was all right." Harry said, staring down at Krum.

"So did I," Cassius agreed.

"Did you hear Fleur scream earlier?" Harry asked.

"Yeah," Cassius nodded, "you don't think Krum got her too?"

"I don't know." Harry answered slowly.

"Should we leave him here?" Cassius muttered.

"No," Harry shook his head. "I reckon we should send up red sparks. Someone'll come and collect him… otherwise he'll probably be eaten by a skrewt."

"He'd deserve it," Cassius muttered, but all the same, he raised his wand and shot a shower of red sparks into the air, which hovered high above Krum, marking the spot where he lay.

Harry and Cassius stood there in the darkness for a moment, looking around them. Then Cedric said, "Well… I s'pose we'd better go on…"

"What?" Harry asked. "Oh… yeah… right."

It was an odd moment. He and Cassius had been briefly united against Krum - now the fact that they were opponents came back to Harry. The two of them proceeded up the dark path without speaking, then Harry turned left, and Cassius right. Cassius's footsteps soon died away.

Harry moved on, continuing to use the Four-Point Spell, making sure he was moving in the right direction. It was between him and Cassius now. His desire to reach the cup first was now burning stronger than ever, but he could hardly believe what he'd just seen Krum do.

The use of an Unforgivable Curse on a fellow human being meant a life term in Azkaban, that was what Moody had told them. Krum surely couldn't have wanted the Triwizard Cup that badly…

Harry sped up.

Every so often he hit more dead ends, but the increasing darkness made him feel sure he was getting near the heart of the maze. Then as he strode a long, straight path, he saw movement once again, and his beam of wandlight hit an extraordinary creature, one he had only seen in picture form, in his Monster Book of Monsters.

It was a sphinx.

It had the body of an over-large lion, great clawed paws and a long yellowish tail ending in a brown tuft. Its head, however, was that of a woman. She turned her long, almond-shaped eyes upon Harry as he approached. He raised his wand, hesitating. She was not crouching as if to spring, but pacing from side to side of the path, blocking his progress.

Then she spoke, in a deep, hoarse voice, "You are very near your goal. The quickest way is past me."

"So… so will you move, please?" Harry asked, knowing what the answer was going to be.

"No," she continued to pace. "Not unless you can answer my riddle. Answer on your first guess - I let you pass. Answer wrongly - I attack. Remain silent - I will let you walk away from me unscathed."

Harry's stomach slipped several notches. It was Hermione who was good at this sort of thing, not him. He weighed his chances. If the riddle was too hard, he could keep silent, get away from the sphinx unharmed, and try and find an alternative route to the center.

"Okay," Harry nodded. "Can I hear the riddle?

The sphinx sat down on her hind legs, in the very middle of the path and recited:

'First think of the person who lives in disguise;

Who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies.

Now tell me what's always the last thing to mend,

The middle of middle and end of the end?

During the search for a hard-to-find word,

Now string them together, and answer me this,

Which creature would you be unwilling to kiss?'

Harry gaped at her.

"Could I have it again… more slowly?" He asked tentatively.

She blinked at him, smiled, and repeated the poem.

"All the clues add up to a creature I wouldn't want to kiss?" He asked.

She merely smiled her mysterious smile. Harry took that for a 'yes.' Harry cast his mind around.

There were plenty of animals he wouldn't want to kiss; his immediate thought was a Blast-Ended Skrewt, but something told him that wasn't the answer. He'd have to try and work out the clues…

"A person in disguise," Harry muttered, staring at her, "who lies… er… that'd be a - an imposter. No, that's not my guess! A - a spy? I'll come back to that… could you give me the next clue again, please?"

She repeated the next lines of the poem.

"The last thing to med," Harry repeated. "Er… no idea… 'middle of middle'... could I have the last bit again?"

She gave him the last four lines.

" 'The sound often heard during the search for a hard-to-find word,' " Harry said. "Er… that'd be… er… hang on - 'er'! Er's a sound!"

The Sphinx smiled at him.

"Spy… er… spy… er…" Harry started to pace up and down. "A creature I wouldn't want to kiss… a spider!"

The sphinx smiled more broadly. She got up, stretched her front legs, and then moved aside for him to pass.

"Thanks!" Harry said, and amazed at his own brilliance, he dashed forward.

He had to be close now, he had to be… His wand was telling him he was bang on course; as long as he didn't meet anything too horrible, he might have a chance.

Harry broke into a run. He had a choice of paths up ahead.

"Point Me!" he whispered again to his wand, and it spun around and pointed him to the right-hand one. He dashed up this one and saw light ahead.

The Triwizard Cup was gleaming on a plinth a hundred yards away. Suddenly a dark figure hurtled out onto the path in front of him.

Cassius was going to get there first. Cassius was sprinting as fast as he could toward the cup, and Harry knew he would never catch up, Cassius was much taller, and had much longer legs -

Then Harry saw something immense over a hedge to his left, moving quickly along a path that intersected with his own; it was moving so fast, Cassius was about to run into it, and Cassius, his eyes on the cup, had not seen it -

"Cassius!" Harry bellowed. "On your left!"

Cassius looked around just in time to hurl himself past the thing and avoid colliding with it, but in his haste, he tripped. Harry saw Cassius's wand fly out of his hand as a gigantic spider stepped into the path and began to bear down on Cassius.

"Stupefy!" Harry yelled; the spell hit the spider's gigantic, hairy black body, but for all the good it did, he might as well have thrown a stone at it; the spider jerked, scuttled around, and ran at Harry instead.

"Stupefy! Impediment! Stupefy!"

But it was no use - the spider was either so large, or so magical, that the spells were doing no more than aggravating it. Harry had one horrifying glimpse of eight shining black eyes and razor-sharp pincers before it was upon him.

He was lifted into the air in its front legs; struggling madly, he tried to kick it; his leg connected with the pincers and next moment he was in excruciating pain. He could hear Cassius yelling "Stupefy!" too, but his spell had no more effect than Harry's -

Harry raised his wand as the spider opened its pincers once more and shouted, "Expelliarmus!"

It worked - the Disarming Spell made the spider drop him, but that meant that Harry fell twelve feet onto his already injured leg, which crumpled beneath him. Without pausing to think, he aimed high at the spider's underbelly, as he had done with the skrewt, and shouted "Stupefy!" just as Cassius yelled the same thing.

The two spells combined did what one alone had not: The spider keeled over sideways, flattening a nearby hedge, and strewing the path with a tangle of hairy legs.

"Harry!" he heard Cassius shouting. "You all right? Did it fall on you?"

"No," Harry called back, panting.

He looked down at his leg. It was bleeding freely. He could see some sort of thick, gluey secretion from the spider's pincers on his torn robes. He tried to get up, but his leg was shaking badly, and did not want to support his weight. He leaned against the hedge, gasping for breath, and looked around.

Cassius was standing feet from the Triwizard Cup, which was gleaming behind him.

"Take it, then," Harry panted to Cassius. "Go on, take it. You're there."

But Cassius didn't move. He merely stood there, looking at Harry. Then he turned to stare at the cup. Harry saw the longing expression on his face in its golden light. Cassius looked around at Harry again, who was now holding onto the hedge to support himself. Cassius took a deep breath.

"You take it. You should win. That's twice you've saved my neck in here."

"That's not how it's supposed to work," Harry said.

He felt angry, his leg was very painful, he was aching all over from trying to throw off the spider, and after all his efforts, Cassius had beaten him to it.

"The one who reaches the cup first gets the points. That's you. I'm telling you. I'm not going to win any races on this leg."

Cassius took a few paces nearer to the Stunned spider, away from the cup, shaking his head.

"No," he said.

"Stop being noble," Harry said irritably. "Just take it, then we can get out of here."

Cassius watched Harry steadying himself, holding tight to the hedge.

"You told me about the dragons," Cassius started. "I would've gone down in the first task if you hadn't told me what was coming."

"I had help on that too," Harry snapped, trying to mop up his bloody leg with his robes. "You helped me with the egg - we're square."

"I had help on the egg in the first place," Cassius said.

"We're still square," Harry said, testing his leg gingerly; it shook violently as he put weight on it; he had sprained his ankle when the spider had dropped him.

"You should've got more points on the second task," said Cassius mulishly. "You stayed behind to get all the hostages. I should've done that."

"I was the only one who was thick enough to take that song seriously!" Harry said bitterly. "Just take the cup!"

"No," Cassius said.

He stepped over the spider's tangled legs to join Harry, who stared at him. Cassius was serious. He was walking away from the sort of glory Slytherin could use.

"Go on," Cassius said.

He looked like this was costing him every ounce of resolution he had, but his face was set, his arms were folded, he seemed decided.

Harry looked from Cassius to the cup. For one shining moment, he saw himself emerging from the maze, holding it. He saw himself holding the Triwizard Cup aloft, heard the roar of the crowd, saw Cho's face shining with admiration, more clearly than he had ever seen it before… and then the picture faded, and he found himself staring at Cassius's shadowy, stubborn face.

"Both of us." Harry said.

"What?"

"We'll take it at the same time. It's still a Hogwarts victory. We'll tie for it."

Cassius stared at Harry. He unfolded his arms.

"You - you sure?"

"Yeah," Harry nodded. "Yeah… we've helped each other out, haven't we? We both got here. Let's just take it together."

For a moment, Cassius looked as though he couldn't believe his ears; then his face split in a grin.

"You're on," he said. "Come here."

He grabbed Harry's arm below the shoulder and helped Harry limp toward the plinth where the cup stood. When they had reached it, they both held a hand out over one of the cup's gleaming handles.

"On three, right?" Harry said. "One - two - three -"

He and Cedric both grasped a handle.

Instantly, Harry felt a jerk from somewhere behind his navel. His feet had left the ground. He could not unclench the hand holding the Triwizard Cup; it was pulling him onward in a howl of wind and swirling color, Cassius at his side.

I want to thank everyone for your patience. I have had a rough couple of weeks with my new job, and getting something else lined up that has benefits for my old ass. (I aged out of my parents insurance policies.)

Shout out to everyone that has followed the stories, added the stories to their alerts and following lists, and for following and favoriting me!

There are so many of you that I won't be able to get to all of you. Thank you so much! I will hopefully be back to our schedule of posting a chapter every Friday until the end of this story.

I am so sorry for how long it took me to get this chapter out!