"How dare you!?" Maeve's voice sounded from further to my right, past the new hole in the hedge. Since no killing curse came my way, I assumed that they'd actually shot the spell at her as she jogged into view and she'd dodged.
"Finite incantatem! Are we leaving the Malfoy girl alive?" Dolohov shouted after hexing out her camera.
"No. She's in it with Bella. Kill all three!" Crouch ordered from closer to the pool of fire. I assumed that meant that Dolohov or the other Lestrange had opened up the new hole, and Crouch was trying to figure out how to pin me from my left with the smarter Lestrange.
I definitely considered whether I could just let them all kill each other and save myself a lot of trouble. But even without the camera keeping her honest, I expected Maeve wouldn't last long against multiple wizards happy to cast the killing curse. And as much as I kind of hated the sidhe princess, I liked her better than Death Eaters. Plus, she probably wouldn't be grateful if I helped out, but she'd for sure be furious if I didn't and she survived.
"Maeve? Temporary truce against these guys?" I yelled, rushing toward the hole and keeping an eye on the Lestrange across the fire.
"Acceptable," she agreed, over the sound of shattering ice, probably having raised a wall of it to block a curse. "You three know not the plans with which you interfere in your petty strivings!"
"There are four left," I warned her, diving through the hole and incanting, "Excorio!" at the first cloaked shape I saw. Sadly, they had all gotten the memo that they needed to dodge that, and my cast went wide.
As I moved into the new corridor, I had a moment to realize that Maeve's powers were at their low ebb, as it was fully into summer. While she was still doing an excellent job of dodging spells and firing ice at the Death Eaters, it was much less ferocious than when I'd fought her months earlier. Without me splitting their focus, she might honestly have been little more than a speedbump for the Death Eaters that were still between me and the route to the center.
But even with her powers diminished, with the two of us, things suddenly got a lot more even.
We'd never fought together but we had fought each other, and had a good idea of what the other could do. Like with most of my allies, she quickly picked up on the idea of using me as mobile cover, as I put up an oversized shield and started moving forward. I was gambling a lot on them being too winded to use another killing curse right away, as non-green spells began to wash off. I could hear her dashing back and forth behind me conjuring ice and illusions as we began to push our enemies back.
I still didn't see the other Lestrange joining in, and I warned her, "Fourth one might be coming from our left."
"Confirmed," she agreed, and I heard the crack of ice and a shout of pain from behind me, presumably as she gave him a nasty surprise just as he tried to flank us.
In front, Crouch, Dolohov, and the other Lestrange brother had retreated to the holes in the hedges, giving themselves cover as we were exposed and moving down the corridor. They were backlit by the still-burning pile of skrewt sludge, which might be in danger of burning down the whole maze if it kept going. And I was worried that one of them would get enough of a breather to try another killing curse in a moment. I was getting mystically tapped out just holding a shield against the barrage they were already trying.
After her initial success, it seemed like Maeve was taking some effort to actually put her Lestrange fully down behind me, which was emboldening the people in front of me. Hoping she hadn't run far, I yelled, "Hey, Death Eaters, what has the head of a woman but the body of a beast?"
"Your mother!" the other Lestrange yelled. I had hoped someone would go for the insult rather than the obvious right answer.
"Bad guess," I told him, then grinned like a maniac as, indeed, a blur of tawny fur launched from the shadows in the corridor behind them, tackling Lestrange to the ground and dragging him back into the darkness faster than Crouch and Dolohov could react. "The answer was 'sphinx,' and you were all meant to answer her riddle to proceed."
They cast a couple of spells into the darkness, but failed to rescue their ally. It did give me time enough to drop my shield and try a stunner, which Dolohov barely managed to deflect. He moved back into the cover on my right, as, on the left, Crouch began to insist, "Antonin! Stop playing with them and finish it. They're two children and you're a champion duelist, we need to try to revive–"
His tirade cut off suddenly and Fleur's voice called out, "One down over 'ere."
"Mine's down as well," Maeve confirmed behind me.
"Just Dolohov left," I shouted to Fleur. "Three on one, Tony! Drop your wand and it's just stunners for you."
"I'm not going back to Azkaban!" he insisted, the sound of his voice fading as he retreated down the corridor.
"He must be able to teleport out in the center," I warned the girls.
"Where the tournament prize is," Maeve suggested.
Fleur charged across the opening ahead of us toward Dolohov, and it was suddenly a race.
It wasn't actually a straight shot to the center, but we followed Dolohov through a right-hand turn and spied a golden cup sitting on a plinth a football field length away, making my eyes water at the space expansion. Fleur had begun with several yards of head start, but I had long legs. Maeve had started a little ways behind me, but sidhe were annoyingly fast. We were neck-and-neck by the time Dolohov nearly tripped over the corpse of a giant spider they'd probably killed on the way in, and I was able to clip him with a, "Stupefy!"
As we each wove around the two bodies in the corridor, perhaps twenty yards from the Triwizard Cup, Maeve huffed from my right, "Enemies defeated. Truce over."
But I'd realized that, and was already sweeping my staff at her shins. "Fleur, go," I ordered, as I turned to fight Maeve.
She didn't get kneecapped by my staff, but having to leap out of the way did ruin her momentum, as she dodged back into the hedge. Noticing the last floating camera pass us by to continue following Fleur, she smirked and wandlessly tossed a barrage of ice daggers at me. I turned and let them smash against my coat. It was uncomfortable, but it held, and I was able to keep spinning and turn it into a melee fight, whirling my staff back around and continuing to force her to give ground. I'd been practicing with Moody for a couple of years by then, and a seven-foot length of oak is a hell of a benefit in a close-quarters duel with another fighter used to being at range. She was having to frantically dodge and weave, the hedge behind her keeping her from having a chance to use any more magic.
And as I saw Fleur almost reach the podium, I realized that Maeve was giving me a victorious grin.
"What…" I asked, looking across the clearing at the center of the maze as Fleur slid to a stop, putting the plinth in between her and us.
The center of the maze had a lighting charm on it, so I could see Fleur giving me a sad look, trying to make a decision, hand reached out as if deciding to touch the cup. "Fulfill the bargain, girl!" Maeve shouted, then tumbled in front of me, not trying to reach the cup, but to keep me from being able to hit Fleur with a spell.
"I'm sorry, 'arry," she yelled to me, her eyes watering with tears. "Zis would 'ave been easier 'ad you tried to win. You should 'ave just won! But I 'ave to do zis! For my family."
"Do what?" I demanded, though I was starting to figure it out. With the apparent betrayal, I felt something snap in my brain: a subtle compulsion to fail to put the pieces together about Fleur. "Veela are just exiled sidhe!"
"Trapped on this side since the Veil went up," Maeve confirmed with her usual smug grin. "And most of them want back in. Do it, Fleur!"
"Tell… tell Bill I'm sorry?" she asked me through flowing tears, then stated, "I claim this victory in the name of Titania and the Summer Court!" With that, she grasped the handle of the cup.
The golden artifact began to fire like a portkey, but instead of teleporting her away, it ripped a hole in the Veil, and the walls of reality fell in a wave, sweeping over me and away.
The last I heard, before blacking out in the magical torrent, was, "...and I choose to be a sidhe."