All too soon, the exams had arrived again.
There were still theory exams, and there were still practical exams. But the theory exams were made to be a lot more like the OWLs would be, which was sort of tricky, and the practical exams were the first time they'd been told specifically that being able to demonstrate things that weren't part of the normal curriculum would count for extra marks.
While that was nice to know, for things like the Charms written exam Harry couldn't really think of a way to include something that wasn't part of the normal curriculum without it feeling really forced. The questions were all about specific things, like the historical development and use of the Memory Charm or examples of how to apply spell modifiers, and while of course Harry could have written something like 'and, by the way, there's a spell that lets you breathe underwater and this is what it's called' it felt like that would be sort of clumsy and wouldn't get him any marks.
He thought he did quite well overall, though.
Then there was the Practical, which was different again. Professor Flitwick gave Harry four different spells to cast, one of which was fairly simple but which Harry had never heard of, and he read the instructions as carefully as possible before getting started. That meant he had to Banish an egg neatly into an egg cup, then use an animation spell to write three words in chalk on a chalkboard – without spelling mistakes, which required careful concentration – immobilize a specific paper aeroplane in a flight of a dozen (the blue one, which took Harry two tries to hit correctly) and finally conjure a flock of a specific type of bird with the incantation Aves pica and an unusual two-swipe wand movement.
Harry was able to do that after a few tries, then on a whim he cast his Patronus as well. Professor Flitwick applauded as the spectral white form of Ruth went darting after conjured birds.
"Very well done, Harry!" he said. "I'll have to mention this to the examiners next year – how marvellous!"
That gave Harry the distinct feeling he'd done quite well on that particular exam.
It was nice to know the Patronus counted for Charms as well as for Defence.
Arithmancy was almost entirely different to last year, now that Harry had two years of it instead of one. There were still the tricky maths questions, some of them about statistics and some of them about things like surds and equations, but there was a practical exam as well.
Harry went into the Arithmancy practical wondering how exactly that would work, because it seemed like it would be the same sort of thing as a practical exam in Maths or English (or History, for that matter) but what actually turned out to be going on was that everyone doing Arithmancy was doing the practical at once.
They each had a complicated set of calculations to do, working out different applications to the Wand-Lighting Charm (like extra words or syllables, or changing the wand movements a little bit). A lot of it was in the extra information they got given, so for example Harry just needed to use the quadratic formula twice and then look up the wand movement to tell how to change the pattern instead of having to spend hours doing logarithms (which, really, was probably what made the exam actually doable in the amount of time they had).
Then there was the bit which was particularly clever, Harry thought. Once they'd done all the working-out, they had to go up and cast the Wand-Lighting Charm with specific modifications to it – but each of them had a different set of modifications they had to do to it, so nobody could wait until near the end and copy what everyone else was doing.
Harry's one was a sort of smoky orange light that flashed on and off, a bit like the indicator bulb on a car. Hermione, meanwhile, had one which varied between green and red smoothly instead of flashing from one to another and which would probably look quite Christmassy if it hadn't been in the middle of June.
Runes was different again, and again was split into a theory and a practical. The theory was just all about rune interactions, with a three word sentence to deal with (one which included half a dozen runic reversals, which made everything much more complicated) but for the practical Harry found himself presented with a small runic object and asked to decipher what it did.
Having the object itself (in his case it was an oak mug) made it a lot easier to imagine what the runes could mean, and Harry was able to work out that it was made to keep a hot drink hot in only about forty minutes of scribbling down notes and trying to remember the secondary meanings of various runes.
As far as he could tell, that was quite fast, as deciphering Runes went.
"We've done a lot of tests, so far," Ron noted, the next evening. "But I think this is the first time I've had to do a test written by one of my brothers."
"It's going to be odd," Ginny agreed.
"You're not doing the same test," Ron pointed out. "Knowing Perce, he'll have done five different ones for five different years."
"No, I mean I've already done my one," Ginny explained. "Both the theory and the practical."
"Really?" Ron asked. "Oh, yeah, they have to do the exams on different schedules so Percy isn't trying to supervise – what – two hundred practicals at once?"
"That is sort of the point of the schedule," Dean nodded. "So, what's it like?"
"If I told you, it wouldn't help," Ginny shrugged. "Remember? Ron just reminded us that I didn't do the same test."
"Yeah, but it would give us an idea," Ron said.
"It's probably going to be mostly about the magic we've been learning this year," Harry said – logically, he thought. "I know the OWLs are supposed to be testing everything we've learned for the last few years, but these aren't the OWLs."
"That is a good point," Neville frowned. "So not much about magical creatures, but a lot about trying to make sure if someone surprises you you react in the right way?"
"Knowing what Professor Moody was like, you'll have nothing to worry about, Nev," Ron thought. "Just whack them in the eyes with an iron bar, you'll be fine."
He paused. "Well, they won't be fine, but you will."
"I think probably a Stunning spell is a better idea," Harry suggested. "The good thing about a Stunning spell is that you can undo it if you decide it was the wrong thing to do."
"Same if you Transfigure someone into an ocelot," Neville pointed out. "I think that would have been on our Transfiguration exams, though."
Percy's Defence Against the Dark Arts Theory exam was… almost a surreal experience, not because it was so strange but because it was so very normal.
Harry had half expected it to be full of strange things like how to work out if a clock secretly contained a Dementor, or how to set up one's personal effects to explode when disturbed, both of which seemed like the sort of thing Professor Moody would have them do, or alternatively that it would be the sort of test that Percy considered normal simply because he was so very good at most aspects of magical theory and not half bad at the practical sides of things.
He hadn't got twelve OWLs for nothing (thirteen if you counted Hermes) and so it could have been a very hard test indeed.
Instead, the theory exam was… practical. There were questions about how to identify spells, questions which asked for examples of a good curse or hex or jinx to use in different situations, and then some essay sections which asked the exam-taker for an explanation on when it was good to use magic to defend yourself, and what other things you could do about it.
Then there were all the more usual questions about which spells did what things, and what the incantation or wand-movement was for spells like the freezing spell (Impedimenta, of course) or the blasting curse (Reducto).
Then there was the practical test.
Everyone went into a disused classroom one at a time, and when Harry went in he found himself in a room full of desks with sheets of paper floating in the air – two in each of half a dozen different colours, from red and orange down to blue and purple.
"When I tell you, you need to start casting spells," Percy explained. "Red sheets have to be Stunned, orange sheets should be immobilized with a spell that does not Stun the target, yellow sheets should be disarmed, green sheets are not to be spelled in any way, blue sheets may be cursed in a more dangerous fashion and violet sheets represent immunity to most magic."
He adjusted a pair of gold Omnioculars in the corner of the room, then twitched his wand and the paper all went to hide behind the desks.
"You can start now," he added, and two sheets flicked up at once. One of them was green and the other yellow-
"Expelliarmus!" Harry called, flourishing his wand, and the yellow paper burst inwards as the spell hit it. The green paper dropped back out of sight again, and Harry transferred his wand to his tail so he could move around more quickly.
A blue sheet appeared next, and Harry set it on fire with an Incendio. It went up with a whoosh, which was quite gratifying, and then a red and an orange sheet appeared right next to each other.
Harry had to cast both a Stunning Spell and a Petrificus Totalus one right after another, which led to one piece of paper with a hole in it and another that got folded into a paper bird, and pranced from paw to paw a little as he looked around for his next target.
A few minutes later, Harry was nearly done with the paper.
The green ones had popped up several times, because he wasn't destroying them when they appeared, and when the purple ones had shown up he'd remembered to deal with them without using magic. It had taken a moment to think of something to do, but he'd Banished an inkwell at one and that had worked quite nicely.
The other one had just been set on fire with his breath, which might count as magic or might not.
Now there was just one red one left hiding, and Harry prowled around one of the desks looking for it. He kept looking around, ears perked in case there was a rustle of paper and eyes peeled so he could spot the colour as soon as possible… then, quite suddenly and almost silently, a cloaked shape rose up from behind a desk and pointed a wand at him.
Harry hesitated for a fraction of a second, then reacted automatically. "Depulso!"
The spell came from Harry's breath, not his wand, and surged outwards in a wave of pressure which Banished just about everything in the room. The figure was hit both by the spell and by the desk it had appeared from behind, which seemed to be a lot more than it had been expecting to happen, and it promptly exploded in a flash of heatless sparks.
All that was left was a ripped piece of red paper, which slowly fluttered down to land on the wooden classroom floor.
"Good," Percy told him, dusting his suit down. "Reacting to the unexpected like that is, of course, graded along with the rest of the test."
"Is this because of Professor Moody's Constant Vigilance?" Harry asked.
"Quite," Percy replied, with a faint smile. "If you could wait a moment while I fix everything… Reparo."
"So, how did you deal with the papers you weren't allowed to cast spells on?" Neville asked.
"I bet I can guess how you did it," Dean said. "Unless I'm wrong, it involves either a big metal pipe or a sword I haven't noticed yet."
"Or a panther," Harry pointed out, because it felt like he should. "I set one on fire and the other one was a Banishing spell."
"Oh, I should have tried a Banishing spell," Ron admitted. "I didn't think of it, I just conjured birds at them."
"Well, conjured things are sort of magic, but I think they can touch something that's immune to magic," Harry said. "Or I'd fall through a conjured chair."
"That's because of the Fixivity Formula," Hermione said. "It states that a conjured object is stable until it isn't."
"Actually, what did you do, Hermione?" Dean asked.
"I turned into a dinosaur and hit one with my tail," Hermione answered, sounding a bit embarrassed about it. "Then the other one I kicked very hard. I did the same thing to the surprise, too."
"Oh, the surprise," Ron groaned. "I panicked and turned into Nutkin to hide, thought for a moment, then used a blasting curse."
"That's pretty good," Neville agreed. "And… yeah, I did just hit the no-magic ones with a pipe."
"When the surprise turned up, I cast a stunning spell at it," Dean said. "That was good enough, apparently."
"Maybe it's just about making sure you do something," Harry suggested. "So you're not surprised, I mean."
That sounded reasonable enough, and everyone nodded.
"I turned into Perry," Ginny volunteered. "Then I went straight for the face."
"...have I ever told you I think you're my scariest sibling?" Ron asked. "That includes the ones who invent new potions and test them on themselves."
The very last exam was for History of Magic, which took all morning and left Harry feeling like he'd certainly forgotten something but had no idea quite what it was.
He was quite sure he'd got the questions about the classifications of Beasts and Beings correct – mostly – though Harry was less sure if all the stuff he'd written about manticores, griffins and sphinxes would be considered correct.
Really you shouldn't classify all members of those species as unable to vote based on some of them being violent sometimes, and Harry had been quite firm in saying that. He knew it might mean he lost some marks on the exam, but it was one of those slightly awkward situations where he'd rather be right than… well, right in the exam-marks sense.
Thinking about it to himself as he had lunch, Harry decided it was like if you'd ended up back in the fifteen hundreds and someone asked you a science question, and you wrote down the stuff about gravity even though it hadn't been discovered yet. Or possibly invented.
That just gave Harry the giggles as he imagined Isaac Newton writing something down on a chalkboard and suddenly everything floating around him thumping to the floor, even though he knew that gravity must have existed before Newton.
Otherwise an apple wouldn't have fallen on his head.
The afternoon was mercifully free, which Harry took advantage of by going for a long fly in the sun – Ginny and Hedwig both showed up as well, which was nice – and got a bit of a look at the Quidditch Pitch and how it looked now.
The maze was terribly complicated, and while Harry was fairly sure he'd be able to find the route from the entrance to the middle if he happened to be flying overhead he was equally sure that if it was him actually taking part in the Task (which he wasn't) he'd be quite lost.
And with how much various witches and wizards were bustling around inside the maze, adding things or moving them around, it seemed like being lost would be a recipe to encountering all sorts of peril.
Harry was still thinking about that when Ollie took off from the grounds, climbing with steady wing-beats to intercept him. The young dragon still wasn't quite used to how you had to be going in the same direction as someone to fly alongside them, and Harry made it a bit easier on him by pulling up and going into a hover.
"Hello!" the Opaleye said. "I'm hot."
"It is sunny today," Harry agreed. "It means it's easier to fly, though."
"Fly?" Ollie asked, head tilting a bit, then looked down. "Oh! Flying!"
Harry chuckled.
Ollie noticed something on the ground, and flipped over to dive down after it. Harry followed his trajectory for a moment, seeing that his target appeared to be Gary – who was currently in flight himself, aiming for the lake – and shook his head with a smile.
It was nice they were enjoying themselves. Even if Hagrid had had to be extra careful to make sure they knew not to dive-bomb anyone else.
After a feast – a feast which included some French cuisine and some Eastern European food, probably because of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang – everyone went down to the Quidditch Pitch for the third and final task.
Professor Dumbledore had been the one to tell them to head down there, but by the time Harry reached his seat Dumbledore was already there waiting.
"Before the beginning of the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament," the headmaster said, as everyone settled into their places, "I would like to remind everyone of the rules. They are quite simple; the Triwizard Cup is in the middle of the maze, and our three Champions will be entering one by one depending on their points accrued."
He paused. "Now that I think about it, I do believe that nobody has actually explained that before, except to the Champions. Dear me, everybody must have been terribly confused about what they were earning all those points for… perhaps it would be more easily understandable if we were simply to say that the Triwizard Cup was to be worth one hundred and fifty points, and that taking it ends the Task? That seems quite appropriate for a Task to be conducted on a Quidditch pitch."
"Someone remind Dumbledore what he's supposed to be doing," Lee Jordan suggested quietly.
"I think some of this is my department, Dumbledore!" Ludo Bagman said, with a jovial chuckle – his voice enhanced by the Sonorus spell just like Dumbledore's. "Now, let me remind you how the points currently stand! In first place, with eighty-six points – Mr. Viktor Krum, of Durmstrang Institute! In second place, with eighty-four points – Mr. Cedric Diggory, of Hogwarts School! And in third place, with sixty-two points – Miss Fleur Delacour of Beauxbatons Academy!"
Each of the names led to a tumult of applause, Cedric getting the most from the home crowd and Fleur getting the least (Harry made sure to applaud her anyway), but Hermione leaned over towards Harry.
"I think that's wrong," she said.
"Excuse me, Ludo," Dumbledore said. "I must confess that I have never taught Arithmancy, only Alchemy, but it seems to me that since Mr. Diggory got thirty-eight points in the first Task and forty-five in the second, he cannot have an even number of points now."
He spread his hands. "Additionally, since Mr. Krum got forty points in the second Task and forty-five in the first, his number of points must end with a five. And as Miss Delacour got forty-three points in the first Task and twenty-three in the second, she must have sixty-six. I am aware of course that this does not really change things, except in that Miss Delacour may enter a few minutes earlier than if this were not to be corrected, but I feel it would be terribly impolite to allow the incorrect results to stand."
"Wow," Fred said, blinking. "Ludo Bagman can't do maths."
"It would explain a lot," George pointed out. "Wasn't there that bet someone made on the World Cup that came really close to cleaning him out?"
It took a few more minutes to get everything sorted out, largely with making sure that the big goal hoops had equally big mirrors placed into them and that all six mirrors had been properly connected with mirrors being worn by each of the three Champions – the second time that idea had been used in the Tournament – and then a somewhat chastened Ludo Bagman told Viktor Krum to enter the maze.
Once he was inside it was immediately impossible to see what was going on directly – the maze walls were way too high, and Harry could have flown overhead but that obviously wasn't an option for everyone – but the mirrors meant that by looking towards either goal end Harry could see what Krum was seeing by the light of an illuminated wand.
The hedges looked quite intimidating (though also a bit flammable) and when Krum turned a corner it all looked much the same as it had before. It would be easy to get lost in the maze… which was sort of the point of a maze, now Harry thought about it… and then the signal went for Cedric to go into the maze as well, and there were two moving viewpoints instead of just one.
It was sort of helpful that they'd put a big sign on top of each goal hoop to say whose mirror was which, or it might have been kind of confusing. At least it was better than just watching the outside of a maze.
After he'd been in the maze for about five minutes, Krum crouched down and muttered a spell. Nobody in the crowd heard what he said – the mirrors still only carried sound at the original volume, and there was enough talking going on that any incantation was drowned out – but a thread of silver light emerged from his wand and formed a trail on the floor that showed several left and right turns.
"Is that a spell for knowing the way to the middle of a maze?" Ron asked. "Bit of a cheat, isn't it?"
"If you know the spell, why not use it?" Dean said. "It's that or be lost for hours."
"Yeah, good point," Ron admitted. "Okay, fair enough."
"I don't think that's the way to the middle," Harry frowned, thinking about what they'd already seen. "I think it's the way he's come so far."
Apparently having reached a conclusion, Krum waved away the trail with his wand and set off again. He turned right (which proved Harry's guess correct, because the silver trail had said the first turn was a left turn) and three steps into the new route found that the ground was abruptly missing and fell into a pit.
The mirror view went a bit confusing for a moment, tumbling around in all directions, and Harry realized that Krum must have tucked into a roll to absorb the impact of his landing.
Then a dozen or so large furry blurs darted towards Krum, who began casting spells to fend them off. One of them shouted "Oi, beaky!" loud enough that Harry could hear it, another opted to declare "Knickers!" and that was all it took for Harry to realize that Krum was fighting Jarvey.
"Blimey, wish we'd thought of that one," George said, shaking his head. "Pit full of Jarvey."
"I wonder where they found all of them," Hermione frowned, as Krum Banished a Jarvey into the wall of the pit to the accompaniment of a yelped "Tosser!"
"Hagrid, probably," Ginny said. "Jarveys are only three X, right? You could probably get them as pets, you know, if you liked being insulted constantly."
On the mirror, Krum had finished dealing with the last of the Jarveys – it was now tied up in conjured ropes – and got out of the other side of the pit by Transfiguring a set of steps like the ladder you used to get out of a swimming pool. That done, he kept going, and Harry noticed that now Cedric had run into something.
It was a sort of glittering golden mist, and Cedric cast a few spells before pulling a small rock out of his pocket. Another spell, and the rock turned into a Labrador and ran forwards straight through the mist.
Apparently satisfied, Cedric walked forwards and into the mist. Harry didn't see anything strange, but Cedric stopped for a long moment and looked up at the sky before taking another few steps.
That seemed to solve the problem, and he kept going.
"...I think we might not have got the full effect of that one," Ron suggested.
Both Cedric and Krum were jogging, now, and as for Fleur looked a lot like she was pacing back and forth and checking her watch every minute or so.
Harry could imagine why she'd want to, because she could see how the other two were doing on the mirrors and it looked like they were moving confidently. They still probably didn't know where the middle of the maze was, but they had to be getting closer and Fleur was still stuck waiting to start moving.
Then a blur came jumping out of a side path at Krum, and he fired a spell at it. The red jet of light missed, then it reached him, and for the next three or four minutes Viktor Krum was in a tense back and forth struggle with an indistinct shape that kept throwing him around and pushing him against one of the hedges.
Or, at least, that was what Harry thought was going on. Mr. Bagman sounded very excited, but all Harry could really see was the mirror looking left and right a lot and occasionally getting a very close up view of a hedge. There were some grunting noises as well, but that didn't tell him anything useful, and really it could have been just about anything.
Finally, Krum broke free and ran past, not so much as looking back to see what it was, and there was an audible groan from the crowd.
"Ah!" Dumbledore said, his voice still amplified by his earlier Sonorus spell. "This mirror business must have been an excellent idea, because like every excellent idea the concept has far outperformed such silly things as reality."
Cedric hadn't managed to get very far while Krum was in his fight with whatever it was they hadn't seen, and spent the next two minutes not getting anywhere at all. There was a door in front of him with a metal plate at about head height, and none of the dozen or so spells he'd thrown at the door had done anything.
Bashing on the door with his fist had just made the door plaque change, the words Who's There? appearing in cursive writing before slowly fading away.
"Do you think he should go back and try another route?" Hermione suggested.
Neville frowned. "Maybe, but the last turning was quite a way back, wasn't it?"
"So it's sort of… one of those things where you can choose to give up a lot of progress, or stay stuck on a tricky problem," Ron summarized.
Lee Jordan sniggered. "I've had exams like that."
While they talked, Cedric knocked again, and Who's There? wrote itself on the door just the same as last time. This time, however, after a moment the words were wiped away to be replaced by Nobel Who?
Then the door opened, and Cedric ran through – clearly trying to make up for lost time.
"How did that work?" Dean asked, then looked round as Fred started laughing. "What's up?"
"Who's there?" Fred repeated. "Nobel. Nobel who? Nobel, that's why I knocked."
Harry wasn't the only one who just sort of stared, after that.
"I'd ask who put the maze together, but it was Dumbledore, so that sort of explains itself," Neville sighed.
Fleur was by now visibly contemplating her wand, and sort of radiating infuriation. Harry supposed it was fair enough, she'd been waiting for something like twenty minutes now, but then again at least neither Krum nor Cedric had managed to find the cup yet.
In fact, Krum had just gone around a corner and run into another magical beast, this one a sphinx, and Ginny leaned forwards a bit.
"Huh," she said. "I think that's Mrs. Sanura."
"What, Tanisis' mum?" Ron asked. "I think I met her once."
"I met her a lot more than once," Ginny explained. "She goes around Luna's house a few times each summer.
They watched as Krum got closer, and Mrs. Sanura stood up before pacing back and forth. She said something, which the mirror didn't broadcast loudly enough to hear, and Hermione huffed.
"If this is a riddle, it's another one of those things which we're missing the full effect of," she lamented.
"Yeah, that is a bit of a disadvantage," Harry agreed.
He'd tried including riddles in the Dungeons and Dragons games, because it seemed like the sort of thing you had in Middle Earth, but with Tanisis as part of the party they'd just got past them in seconds. It wasn't really clear if it was an instinctual thing or a cultural thing, but sphinxes were really good at riddles.
Come to think of it, maybe it was both of those things and a Ravenclaw thing as well.
"Hang on, riddles are usually word games," Neville said.
He snorted. "I sort of feel sorry for Krum now."
"He's pretty smart, right?" George asked. "Must be to make it into the tournament, and to be that good at Human Transfiguration."
Neville shrugged. "I don't think he's an idiot, or whatever… but this isn't his first language."
"Yeah, that could be a problem," George agreed.
"Hey, Harry, how would you have done the Triwizard tasks?" Dean asked. "If you'd been doing them, I mean."
"Well, for the dragon one, I'd probably have asked nicely," Harry said. "And if that didn't work… maybe I'd try using my invisibility cloak."
"Oh, yeah, that thing!" Ron remembered, as they watched Mrs. Sanura repeat the riddle for Krum. "Does it still work? Your dad had it, right?"
"Still works," Harry confirmed. "Dumbledore thinks it might just never wear out."
He didn't say anything about why Dumbledore thought it was one that would never wear out, though, because he wasn't sure.
"Blimey, that's valuable," Ron said. "Or, I guess you're never going to sell it, so… blimey, that's neat."
"What about the second one?" Dean asked.
"I don't know if I'd work out the warning that it was meant to be in a lake," Harry answered, thinking. "But it was a puzzle involving Mermish, so maybe Tiobald would have been able to help. If I did, then I'd have learned the Bubble Head Charm… maybe I'd have used the Marauders' Map to check where my hostage was, then done my best to dive straight down."
"Nice," Neville pronounced.
"And for this one… well, I do wonder if you can just burn your way through the maze," Harry admitted. "Or fly over the top. Are either of those allowed?"
"Can you stop talking about that and pay attention?" Hermione asked. "Cedric's fighting a troll!"
Harry didn't exactly think of himself as a fighting-a-troll expert, but he'd done it a couple of times (back in First Year) and he had some more ideas about how to do it now he'd had at least three more years of training in magic and a few actual proper fights.
Admittedly a lot of the kind of thing he was thinking of for how to deal with a troll started with taking off and getting out of the way, but it was still a good first step if you were a dragon. Since Cedric wasn't a dragon, meanwhile, his first step was to run back a bit and take a rock out of his pocket.
The rock got Transfigured into a dog, a big husky one, and a twitch of Cedric's wand sent it running around the troll's ankles. Confused, the troll started lifting its feet to try and squash the dog, which was barking loudly enough that they could hear a bit of it from the mirror when the crowd was being quiet.
Cedric retrieved a second rock, and this one turned into a smaller dog – a corgi – and Harry wondered offhand if Cedric's parents ran a dog shelter or something. He seemed to be very good at Transfiguring dogs… Mr. Diggory worked in the department that handled Magical Creatures, so maybe that had something to do with it?
Then the corgi jumped between the troll's feet as well, and Cedric Transfigured it again. This time it turned into a short, heavy chain, which appeared already wrapped around the troll's legs, and it only noticed when it fell over with a crash and knocked a hole in the hedge.
Just about the whole audience cheered at that one.
A minute or so later, Krum was still pacing back and forth in front of Mrs. Sanura when a whistle blew.
It had been long enough that Harry wondered if the Task had been cancelled or something, but instead there was a cheer from the Beauxbatons students as Fleur Delacour entered the maze.
"She's a long way behind, I wonder how she's going to catch up," Hermione said.
"Good point," Harry agreed, focusing his attention on the mirror with Fleur's point of view.
The French student took five steps into the maze itself, stopped, and turned to face one of the hedge walls.
"...has she given up?" Neville asked. "She's not doing anything."
A moment later, though, she threw a fireball at the hedge. That burned a small hole, and she hit the small hole with a spell that made the flames flare up and blast a much larger hole.
The other side was just another corridor between two hedges, and Fleur did exactly the same thing again – first throwing a fireball with her left hand, then amplifying it with a potent spell from her wand in her right hand and blasting a hole large enough to walk through.
"Damn," Dean groaned. "I really should have thought of that one."
Neville gave him an odd look. "Which ones did you think of?"
"Well, for a start the cup's protected against Summoning Charms," Dean told him. "That spell pulls things around obstacles, not through them, if you cast it right – Cedric could have just Summoned the cup to himself."
"Fair enough," Neville nodded.
As Fleur blasted her way steadily through the maze, stopping at one point to scare away a Fire Crab with a jet of water, Cedric was moving at a fast walk through the maze. Around one corner a shadowy shape in black robes appeared, but Cedric flicked his wand and the shape tripped over its own robe.
"Not getting the sound is surprisingly annoying," Ginny said. "Muggle telly has sound, right?"
"Yeah, and the sound works at Hogwarts," Ron told her. "Hey, there's an idea..."
"We are getting the sound, it's just mostly too quiet to hear," Harry corrected.
"Same thing," Ron shrugged. "Oh – look, Krum's through!"
Ron was right. Krum had apparently managed to satisfy Mrs. Sanura, and was now sprinting along an avenue between two hedges. He came to a T-shaped junction and turned right without hesitation, probably having some sort of idea about where he was relative to the middle of the maze, then skidded to a halt as he saw what was in front of him.
"Is that a Tebo?" Hermione asked.
Dean shook his head. "I don't think so," he said. "On account of how it's not invisible."
"Oh, I actually heard about this from Hagrid," Ron realized.
Neville glanced at him, but Harry only noticed that in his peripheral vision – most of his attention was on Krum and the animal in front of him. (If he could judge correctly from the 'oooooh' coming from the stands, the same was true of everyone else.)
"So, what is it?" he asked, eventually.
"Oh, right," Ron remembered. "It's a wild boar."
The wild boar in question charged towards Krum, and Krum fired a spell at it. The boar's charge slowed down, as if it had suddenly gone off fast forward – then Krum reached down, grabbed it by the tusks, and Harry wasn't quite sure what had just happened but it looked like the Durmstrang champion had lifted the boar over his head and slammed it into the ground?
"I have no idea what I'm watching but it's amazing," Dean breathed.
Nobody got a good look at what Krum was doing at first, except that he was fighting the boar and the boar wasn't winning, but then Fleur smashed through one of the hedges nearby and looked around.
That gave everyone a look from Fleur's mirror of what Krum was doing, which was wrestling a boar and winning, and there were several high-pitched shrieks from the crowd at the sight of Krum's damaged robes.
Fleur just stared for a long moment, then visibly shook her head, and went through the hedge on the other side of the path.
"Oh, no..." Ron groaned. "Not those again."
Harry glanced at his friend, then at Cedric's mirror, and realized just what his friend meant. Cedric had come out into a larger open area, and there was a big black acromantula there to stop him.
"Hey, we've beaten a few acromantula, they're not that bad," Neville said.
"Speak for yourself," Dean pointed out. "I was too busy getting a prophecy about them."
Cedric was moving warily, and the acromantula moved warily as well. Then one leg reached behind a nearby bit of hedge, hooked onto something small and shiny, and brandished it menacingly at Cedric.
"...it's got a knife," Ron said faintly.
"It's an acromantula, Ron," Hermione told him.
"Yeah, and now it's got a knife!" Ron countered. "Would you rather be dealing with an acromantula or an acromantula with a knife?"
Things were happening for all three Champions at once now, as they got closer to the finish, and Harry had to keep glancing back and forth.
He was sure he must be missing bits, because Krum had somehow moved on from fighting a boar to being hounded by gytrashes in a pit of quicksand, and Fleur had just become what Harry judged based on nearby twigs to be about six inches tall.
There was quite a smell of smoke in the air, as well, because it seemed like at least one of the fires she'd set was spreading.
Cedric was still fighting the acromantula, who was turning out to be really good with the knife, and there were cheers and gasps from the crowd every time the spider or the Champion was getting the upper hand.
Fleur levitated herself into the air, then cast a spell which saw her suddenly go shooting through the maze at high speed, zipping around bends. Then Krum got hold of the spectral tail of a gytrash, swung it around his head, and threw it through a hedge.
Finally, Cedric tripped the acromantula and rolled past, dodging around a hedge, and the Triwizard cup was right there! He only had about ten feet to run, but Fleur's crazily zooming view turned one last corner and now Harry could see Cedric from behind through Fleur's mirror.
She was moving a lot faster than he was, but just as she was about to go past a ballistic gytrash hit her and knocked her aside.
Cedric dove for the cup, and the crowd went absolutely crazy.
There was a bit of an interruption in proceedings between Cedric taking the Triwizard Cup (which was also a portkey activated by touch, something Harry had up until that point thought was a plot device from a magical detective story) and the announcement of who had won, because the hedge needed to be first extinguished and then evacuated and made safe.
Nobody from Hogwarts really cared. They were too busy cheering Cedric on, and the Hufflepuffs got a chant going – though Dean said it wasn't really up to snuff with a proper football chant – which occupied everyone for a few minutes until Dumbledore cleared his throat.
"Attention, everyone!" he requested. "I would like to inform you all that Minister Fudge has something tremendously important to say."
He raised a hand, palm up. "Perhaps it is not something that is tremendously surprising, but I find a little routine can help lend structure to life."
"Thank you, Dumbledore," Minister Fudge said. "As, ah, Dumbledore as ever."
The mirrors were still on, and Fleur – now back to normal size – happened to be looking in the right direction, so Harry caught the look of pleasure on Dumbledore's face to be referred to as being 'Dumbledore'.
He supposed it was nice to get the recognition.
"It is my great pleasure to announce," Mr. Fudge continued, "that the winner of the one hundred and eighty-ninth Triwizard Tournament is Mr. Cedric Diggory, of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!"
Harry was slightly surprised to discover that the spectators actually could get louder.
There was a bit more official ceremony, mostly about Cedric getting his prize money, but then somehow Luna had managed to get down to the ground with the Champions and started doing interviews.
It seemed that she'd learned the voice-amplifying spell somewhere – perhaps it was required for anyone who was going to be a reporter – and the first thing she did was to ask Cedric how he felt it had gone.
"I was actually sort of surprised to win," Cedric answered. "Fleur and Viktor are both really good at magic, I was challenged the whole way… I know I was glad for every second of head start. Either of them could have won it, I never felt like I had it in the bag."
"A lot of people want to know how the door worked," Luna said. "How did you work it out?"
"I realized when I wondered why there was the plate," Cedric answered. "It had to be there so the door could reply, and then I realized it had to be a knock knock joke."
Luna moved on to Fleur, next, and asked her why she'd set fire to the maze.
"I am not sure I understand," Fleur replied. "Is there a rule against it? I did not see one."
She shrugged – by now Harry could see her on both Cedric's mirror and Krum's one. "And, well, it got me through the maze quickly. I did not quite intend for the whole thing to start burning, but I did not intend to be caught by a Grindylow either and one has sort of cancelled out the other, no?"
"So what about how you finished the Task?" Luna asked.
"Ah, that was a trap," Fleur explained. "It shrank me down, and I remembered that the summoning charm – if you weigh less, you are what is pulled, and I weighed much less than I did before I found the trap. Part of the tournament is about quick thinking, is it not?"
"Quite correct," Dumbledore said pleasantly, his voice still amplified by his own Sonorus. "If you were in one of my Houses I might have to give you points."
Ron hummed, sounding thoughtful. "Can we ask her to join Gryffindor really quickly? We're twenty points behind Ravenclaw."
Then Luna moved on to Mrs. Sanura, and asked her what the riddle had been because everyone had been so curious about it.
The sphinx chuckled, a purring sound that echoed around the stadium from Luna's quick amplification spell. "It's in the church, but not the steeple. In the vicar, but not the people. In the oyster, but never the shell. In the clapper, but never the bell."
"It took me a long time," Krum added. "I did not know how some of those words were spelled in English. It is the letter R."
"Smart boy," Mrs. Sanura told him.
"I think I had all the boaring tasks," Krum added.
Neville nudged Harry's wing. "Was that his accent, or was it a joke?"
Harry could only shrug.
It was interesting to hear what they'd all thought about the bits of the challenges, but eventually Luna ran out of questions (or possibly got quietly moved to the side by Percy) and Professor Dumbledore clapped his hands together.
"It is my great pleasure to pronounce this Triwizard Tournament finished!" he said. "This. Triwizard. Tournament. Finished! Thank you all, and have a wonderful rest-of-the-term."
AN:
That's the Tournament over! It's been interesting to write one which doesn't involve Harry, except in all the ways it involves Harry.
If you're wondering, a gytrash is a kind of dog spirit.