Chapter Thirty-One-The Maze
Harry and Tarana take to battle for the first time together as they maneuver through the third task's maze, but before that, Ivory interrogates the last known confidant of Barty Crouch Snr.
Though Hermione was busy with a side project involving digging through dozens of espionage books on top of her usual studying, the other four – even Draco who usually has no time for any extracurriculars given the drive required to at least keep up with Hermione – made time in their study schedules to help Harry practice some of the spells from the list they'd made to get him through the maze.
On Harry's end, his drive was different for this task.
Though Tarana had been busy for the last few weeks since the Ministry had called off the search for Barty Crouch, Harry had driven himself to exhaustion trying to close the experiential gap between himself and his guardian, as this was the first time that he'd be going into actual battle – of a sense – with her and he didn't want to drag her down.
Two days before the task, Fallen – during the rare time that he or one of the others was in the common room at night – was the one to tell Harry to relax.
"Knowledge is all well and good," he told the teen, "But if you're planning to try and keep up with the Shadow Queen, you're going to need every drop of magic in your core and every ounce of energy your body can muster. You're not required to take exams. Take advantage of it. Rest. Try and relax. You'll do her no good too exhausted to stand."
XX
The morning of the task came with whispers hidden behind hands (mostly) and quickly averted glances.
Hermione was the one with answers, though she looked reluctant to give them for once.
Around the time that she'd begun getting hate mail revolving around the article accusing her of brewing love potions, she'd also begun getting the Daily Prophet, irritated with having been getting all their news through the Slytherins.
She handed him the paper before he'd even had a chance to ask for it. "You're not going to like it," she warned him before releasing her grip on it.
The article was geared around the dream he'd had nearly two weeks ago, claiming that it was evidence of a potential disturbed individual and questioned whether he was suited to participate in the Triwizard Tournament.
He snorted. "Wish she was toting that conclusion months ago when I tried telling people I didn't want nor felt confident in, competing."
"Keep going," Ron said grimly.
Harry flicked him a glance and went back to the article which, after a quote from Katelyn that Draco's father was going to love, accused him of practicing dark arts because of his ability to speak Parseltongue and his living situation with a registered werewolf.
He clenched a fist in the paper.
"Fucking bitch," he growled.
"And Remus can't even defend himself," Blaise grunted, as irritated as ever by the RMC mandates.
XX
Oblivious to the article from the Prophet again claiming Harry to be irrational and demented, the Valerians were taking advantage of the fact that the front lawn was currently empty of all students to watch the skyline for any sign of Buckbeak.
'Any word from Yoko yet,' Tarana asked as Fallen flopped beside her.
Despite the appearance of laziness in the three Valerians, each was fairly humming with energy.
'Not since the last update from him,' Fallen told the Crown. 'Nothing from any of the Valerians carrying my Stone.'
Tarana grimaced.
Arcana looked down where several professors were wandering the outside of the quidditch pitch, final preparations for the task well underway.
'Pity,' he said. 'Given the nature of the task, he'd be ideal in keeping an eye on anything happening within the maze.' He glanced at his Kin. 'As it is, there's been a last-minute change in judges. Percy is being questioned on the circumstances surrounding Crouch's absentee running of his department and his subsequent return from his sickbed and assault on a foreign wizard.'
Fallen snorted. 'Pity they didn't take that kind of action when English witches and wizards were being attacked here at Hogwarts.'
Tarana ignored the low blow and turned her gaze on her hicari. 'You've had a great deal of contact with Percy, Arcana.'
Arcana shrugged. 'It's not as though many of my collaborators remain after my time as the Traitor's Thrall. The Weasleys are all that I trust to draw on.'
Ivory's voice, static and far away, filled his head.
Minutes later, a dark shape dropped out of the cloud-covered sky over Hogsmeade.
XX
"My father's going to skin her alive," Draco said, slapping another copy of the Prophet onto the table as he took his seat beside Harry.
"Skeeter or Katelyn?" Blaise asked wryly.
"Oh, Potter's lawyer will ensure that Skeeter can't get a job in Europe. Katelyn will be lucky to still have limbs. She was warned about all," he gestured vaguely with a twist of his wrist, "this nonsense."
Harry, who had taken a cautious bite of his toast, not sure if his stomach was going to tolerate it yet, became the center of attention and he blinked curiously.
"You think your lawyers will go after Skeeter?" Ron asked.
Harry swallowed and smirked. "Do you think Tarana will hold back? Of course she's going to go after her."
"Consider slander," Draco drawled. "There's no proof or witnesses other than us for that thing in the Tower the other night."
"It happened in the Tower?" Hermione asked suddenly.
Blaise nodded. "Bathroom. Does it matter?"
"It eliminates a bunch of my theories on how she's been getting her information. In fact…." She pushed away from the table. "I'll be right back!"
Neville blinked after her, scooting aside to avoid being run down by her. "Harry, Professor McGonagall's looking for you," he gestured over his shoulder.
"Me?" Harry asked, frow furrowing. "The task's not until tonight, right?"
"Probably for the family meeting," Draco said, stretching and reaching for a bowl of eggs. "The third task invites the champion's families to the school, remember?"
"Yeah, but who would be able to make it?" Harry asked, a touch irritated, as he pushed himself to his feet. "The Dursleys would rather eat dung than show up to support me in anything let alone something magical and Remus and Padfoot are…somewhere else."
None of his friends had an answer.
XX
Tarana was waiting for Harry in the Entrance Hall.
'I hope you at least tried to eat something, cub,' she told him.
"Did you?" he asked in return.
Tarana's lip curled in amusement. "Last night," she assured him. "I have resources to burn."
Harry smiled, a tremulous thing.
As excited as he was to be finally trying to be someone that wasn't holding Tarana back, he was nervous for the same reason.
"Literally?" he asked, turning toward the stairs.
"This way," Tarana said, leading him around the stairs and toward the chamber that the champions had been using all year. "And if the need arises, yes, literally."
"I don't think any of my family would have made it, Tarana," Harry pointed out.
"Don't doubt what your family will do for you, Prongslet," Tarana told him, nudging the door open with her shoulder.
Just inside the door, Cedric was bracketed by two people who could only be his parents, neither of whom gave the Gryffindor so much as a second glance, fixated as they were on praising their son.
Harry grimaced and quickly passed them, catching sight of Fleur Delacour on the far side of the room speaking in rapid-fire French to a woman – her mother presumably – with the same pale hair as her two daughters. The little girl, Gabrielle, was clutching her mother's hand as though if she let go she'd be found on the bottom of the lake again but waved and smiled brightly at Harry when she caught him looking.
Harry gave her a wide smile and a flick of his fingers in return, happy to see that the young girl wasn't too traumatized by her trip to the mervillage a few months earlier.
Tarana chuckled at his side. 'Yet another admirer, I see.'
Harry shot her a quick glare but was distracted by Viktor Krum, speaking to his dark-haired parents in fast Bulgarian.
The older teen didn't so much as glance at him, but it was the first time that Harry had seen the other seeker since the attack by the Forest.
There wasn't a mark on him, not that he'd expected there to be one, nor did he seem otherwise distracted or hindered by the attack.
"I'm glad he's alright," Harry told Tarana.
'The Bulgarians are a hardy bunch,' the Queen agreed.
"How long do you plan on making me sit here patiently, Potter?"
Harry tripped over air he spun so quickly.
Sprawled before the fireplace was the familiar white leopard.
"Ivory," he breathed, a grin spreading across his face.
Leaning against the edge of the stone mantle was the thin form of Remus, golden eyes glowing in the firelight as he watched Harry with a soft smile, and at his shoulder was another unfamiliar face, green eyes tracking every move made in his direction and his broad shoulders hunched as though used to being hunted.
His shoulders drew back, however, and he smiled widely at Harry when he met his gaze.
Harry quick-stepped toward the group. "I didn't know you were back!"
"We wouldn't miss this for the world, pup," Remus assured him with a smile. "This is Derek," he said, gesturing over his shoulder. "I stayed with him and his family for a month or so while in America. We've kept in touch."
"Nice to meet you," 'Derek' said with a wicked smile. "Remus is fairly fond of you."
"You as well," Harry said, taking the information in stride and shaking the offered hand. "Is this where you went after I came back to school?"
"For a little while," Remus said.
Harry glanced toward the leopard at their feet, then the groups gathered around the room. It was wide enough to grant them all some level of privacy, but Harry's wasn't naïve enough to believe that it was wide enough that they couldn't be overheard. "I…I wasn't sure anyone would be here…."
"Well, that just wouldn't do at all!"
Harry jumped and looked to the right of the fireplace, having not even noticed the Weasley matriarch standing there with Bill Weasley.
"Even if Remus couldn't make it, we would most certainly have done so," Molly assured him with a warm smile.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Weasley, I didn't mean to be rude!" Harry said, ducking his head. "I wasn't expecting…."
"Oh, not to worry, dear," Molly told him, reaching for a hug and ignoring the teen's tension - as she always had – until he sank into it. "Professor Dumbledore wasn't sure if Remus was going to make it and sent us an owl. We wouldn't have missed it for anything."
Ivory yawned and Harry could have sworn he'd seen a muscle in the leopard's flank pulse, like his thigh sometimes did after long quidditch practices and he overworked it.
"How fast did you guys have to travel?" he asked. "I thought you guys were further north."
"Not far," Ivory hedged. "We've been showing Derek the sights of Europe."
"We figured it was only fair, given how kind he was to us when we arrived in America," Remus added.
The broader man shrugged. "You were in a bad place when we first met," he told him. "It was the least I could do."
Remus flicked the man a glance, before returning his smile to Harry, he paused when his gaze flicked past the teen and his eyes narrowed.
Harry turned his head to follow his gaze, but nothing appeared amiss.
"It's so great being back here," Bill asked suddenly, head tilted just so and watching the same point over Harry's shoulder before looking down at the teen. "At least five years. There was a mad knight when I was here, the barmiest portrait I've ever seen."
"Sir Cadogan?" Harry asked. "Oh, he's still here."
"Surprised Tarana didn't burn the thing last year," Ivory said with a sharp smile.
"He had his uses then," Tarana said vaguely.
"And I suppose the Fat Lady is still guarding the Tower?" Molly asked.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Still a stickler for the rules?" she asked, a faraway look in her eyes. "I remember she gave me such a telling off one night after I got back to the dormitory at four in the morning…."
Bill stared down at his mother in shocked amazement. "You were out of the dorms at four in the morning? What were you doing?"
Molly's eyes twinkled and she grinned up at her son. "Your father and I had been for a nighttime stroll. Your father got caught by Apollyon Pringle, he was the caretaker in those days. Arthur's still got the marks. I don't suppose it's anything quite like what you lot got into while you were here, Remus."
Remus' expression was all innocence. "Haven't the foggiest what you're referring to, Mrs. Weasley. I was rarely caught after hours when I wasn't allowed there."
"Mm-hm," Molly smiled, clearly not believing a word of it.
"Did my dad get caught?" Harry asked.
"Nearly as often as his partner in crime did," Ivory smirked.
"Really?" Harry said, surprised. "I would have thought, with Ebony…."
"As far as my brother was concerned," Tarana snickered, "if they got caught, they deserved everything Filch gave them and then some."
"I'm sure Sirius still has some of the marks from Filch," Remus grinned.
"Oh, I believe it," Molly laughed.
"Stories about the Marauders were still being told when I started school here," Bill laughed.
"My twin boys revere the lot of you. I tell you that I was a little wary when I heard one of the infamous Marauders was teaching at Hogwarts."
"Having taught them both, I think you deserve a medal, Mrs. Weasley," Remus assured her. "They're quite the ingenious pair."
"Sounds like someone I should be introduced to," 'Derek' said, tilting his head with a grin.
Remus snorted. "Not likely."
"You ever been to Hogwarts, Derek," Bill asked.
"Nope," the man answered. "First trip over."
"Well, best not to waste the opportunity," the cursebreaker laughed. "How about a tour, Harry?"
"I'll bow out," Ivory said, pushing himself to his paws. "I think I'll go harass the elves in the kitchen."
"Bring Harry back a sandwich," Tarana drawled. "He neatly sidestepped my question earlier and I doubt he's eaten this morning."
Ivory snorted.
Harry, having started to follow his guests out of the room, turned to look at Tarana, who hadn't moved to follow either them or Ivory. "Coming?"
Tarana smiled. "I think this time I'll stay behind and leave you some time with your family, Harry. They have, after all, come a long way to see you."
Harry turned back to drop to a knee and wrap his arms around her. "Thank you."
'I had no hand in this,' Tarana assured him, wrapping a paw around him in turn. 'Buckbeak burned himself out to get them back here for this.'
Among other things, she reminded herself grimly.
XX
With Sirius and Remus distracted by their godson, Ivory slipped into the kitchen alone.
All eyes turned to the leopard and several of the house elves shrank away from him and his aura.
This was not the light-hearted Lightbringer that had come to them so many times the year before following the full moon to ensure his charge was well fed, or the prankster from so many years ago that often urged the house elves to change the cutlery around so not a single plate had a full set and – when they had predictably refused – proceeded to do so himself.
This was the Interrogator of the Crown.
Purposeful and cold.
"Where is the house elf Winky?" he asked.
More than one shaky and eager hand pointed to the swaying form that carefully picked its way through the kitchen.
An elf in an odd mix of muggle clothing stepped forward, wringing his hands nervously.
Ivory idly cataloged the fact that he could see every bone on the thing's body and it creaked as it moved.
"And what would you be wanting with Winky, Lord?" the house elf asked, looking up at the Valerian with determination.
"I have questions and she will answer them," Ivory told him, padding forward.
"You won't be hurting her?"
"And what would a disgrace (the elf flinched) like yourself do if I wanted to? You have barely enough magic left to sustain yourself. You can't spare a drop of it to protect anyone here." Ivory snorted.
The house elf stopped following him, but didn't stop wringing his fingers together, and whined softly as Ivory's tail swept Winky's unsteady legs out from beneath her.
No one moved forward when the dishes she was carrying shattered.
"Carry on," Ivory told them pleasantly, looking down at the bleary-eyed disgrace. "Don't you all have a feast or something to be preparing for?"
The clatter of pots and pans returned, the sizzle of meats and bubbling of sauces a pleasant background as the leopard sat before the house elf and waited for her to use thin hands to push herself to a sitting position.
"You have answers I require, she-elf," Ivory told her bluntly. "Answers my King wishes to hear."
"Winky can't be hic helping, Lord. Winky be sorry."
"I think you can be a great help to me, Winky. I think you know a lot about what I need to know."
Winky shook her head, but quickly stopped and put it in her hands with a groan.
"Winky can't be hic telling her master's hic secrets. Winky is a hicWinky is a good elf."
"I know that your master was holding someone in a locked room in the house," Ivory told her. "Who was it?"
Winky stuck her fingers in her mouth and bit down hard.
"We know it wasn't someone he wanted anyone to know was alive," Ivory continued. "Someone he kept secret. Was it family?"
Winky moaned around her fingers and Ivory's nose twitched with the scent of fresh blood.
"Crouch was a person of image," Ivory mused, narrowing sharp eyes on the house elf. "It couldn't have been anyone but family. His family was dead, though, so…."
Winky bit down harder on her fingers and winced.
In the end, Ivory was almost disappointed with how quickly the house elf gave up the man's secret.
XX
The tour went well.
Harry spent the morning showing the Weasleys and 'Derek' the school grounds, particularly the Whomping Willow (which Molly was fascinated by, as it had been planted after her attendance), the massive ship that was docked by the shore of the Lake, and the nearly as large blue carriage that housed the Beauxbatons students and headmistress.
Bill spent an enjoyable few minutes talking to Remus and 'Derek' about the spells that must have gone into making it habitable for all those people, given the size of Madam Maxime alone.
Molly had several pleasant things to say about Ogg, the man that served as groundskeeper before Hagrid had taken the position, but complimented Hagrid's garden as being much better tended to than the one Ogg had kept.
On their way back into the castle, however, they nearly ran into Cedric and his parents.
His father, Amos, looked Harry up and down. "Bet you're not feeling quite as full of yourself now Cedric's caught you up on points, are you?"
Harry tipped his head with a polite smile. "I'm not sure I follow, Mr. Diggory."
"Ignore him," Cedric sighed. "He's been angry ever since Rita Skeeter's first article about the Triwizard Tournament came out. The one where she made you out to be the only Hogwarts' champion."
Harry's smile became a bit cooler. "I'm fairly certain, Mr. Diggory, that it was made perfectly clear that I wanted very little to do with this tournament."
"Seem to be doing fairly well for something you didn't want anything to do with," Diggory sneered.
"If he did anything less, Mr. Diggory," Remus said in a firm tone, "that Harry wouldn't have made it thus far, as even though there was an agreement made for Her Highness' assistance, there has been little opportunity for her to do so."
Diggory's lips pressed into a thin, white line and Harry was abruptly reminded that Amos Diggory worked for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, the department of the Ministry responsible for the registration of werewolves, and he wasn't sure what the man's stance on werewolves was.
Harry looked to the disguised form of his godfather for help, but there was little to be had.
Derek's face was smooth, a result of the glamour cast on the convict, but his green eyes were as sharp and angry as the grey they hid.
"Didn't even bother to correct them," Diggory growled, still staring unhappily at Harry.
"Rita Skeeter goes out of her way to cause trouble, Amos," Molly said sharply, drawing herself up and adjusting her handbag on her forearm with sharp, jerking movements. "One would think you'd know that, working at the Ministry."
Derek clenched a fist and, just as it appeared as though there was going to be blood any moment as the adults drew around Harry protectively, defending him against the man's verbal abuse, Cedric's mother laid a hand on her husband's arm.
"That's enough of that," she said firmly, squeezing. "You're embarrassing Cedric, dear."
Cedric shifted as his father turned his attention to him.
Diggory hmphed, but turned away from the group, following Cedric out onto the grounds.
The Hufflepuff offered Harry an apologetic smile as he passed.
"How's Percy?" Harry asked once they were back inside and heading up the marble staircase. "I heard the MLE wanted to talk to him."
Bill shook his head. "Not good," he admitted. "He's been called in a few times."
"Do they really think he had something to do with Crouch disappearing?" Harry asked.
He honestly wouldn't put it past Percy to have deliberately not informed the Ministry about Crouch being in dire straits so he could continue to all but run the IMC.
"I'm sure they'll figure everything out," Molly said, a strained smile on her face. "But they're not going to let him fill in for Mr. Crouch. Cornelius Fudge will hold the fifth seat instead."
Harry wasn't sure if that was any better than Percy being in the chair, to be honest.
'Derek' scoffed and mumbled something under his breath.
Molly turned to smile politely at him. "I'm sorry, did you say something, dear?"
Remus gripped his companion's forearm tightly. "Derek's aware of the way the Ministry treats our kind here in Britain, Mrs. Weasley. There's little love for them in the town I stayed in."
"For all that we're the younger nation, seems we're more mature about matters like…that," Derek said gruffly.
"Oh, I absolutely agree," Molly said, frowning severely.
Remus flicked a glance at Harry before subtly beginning to usher the older woman away, a polite smile on his face as she ranted about the Ministry's treatment of werewolves and those like them.
Harry looked up as his godfather, hidden as he was beneath the glamour, and opened his mouth to speak, before jumping guiltily when 'Derek' instead turned to Bill Weasley, who Harry had quite honestly forgotten all about.
"You should take a picture," the man said. "I hear they last longer."
Bill didn't appear to hear him, trailing his eyes over 'Derek's face. "That's pretty good. Clear image and very little seam." He extended a hand. "Bill Weasley," he reintroduced, a smile twisting his lips.
'Derek' smiled wryly, taking the offered hand and regreeting for what it was. "Admittedly not some of Remus' best work," he said, admitting without saying so, that the image wasn't his own. "But it allows me a few hours with my family, so I certainly won't complain about it."
Bill put his hands in his pockets and, rocking on his heels, looked between the glamoured convict and the worried-looking teen at his side.
"I guess I'll go see if I can rescue Mr. Lupin then."
XX
Harry and his disguised godfather mysteriously got lost on their way down to the Great Hall.
"Are you confident going in?" Sirius asked, nudging his godson's shoulder.
"Nervous," Harry admitted, glancing over his shoulder, "but not really about the task itself. It's…it's the first time I'll be actually with Tarana. Usually…."
"Usually she's protecting you."
"Yeah," Harry grimaced.
"Don't sweat it, Prongslet," Sirius told him, smiling. "That's the way it is for all of us, well," he raised his eyes and thought about the multiple times Ebony had left him alone to figure things out for himself. "Most of the time. They don't expect a warrior straight from the womb and most of them teach their charges their core values and skill sets in other ways."
"Like Draco and Fallen's war games."
"Exactly," Sirius grinned. "Ebony has kicked my ass at chess every day since I met him. He fears for my future as a strategist because of it, but there are other things he's taught me over the years."
"So, what does Tarana usually teach?"
Sirius tapped his chin thoughtfully. "I didn't meet your dad until we were eleven, mind, but your dad was a scrapper. I can hold my own without a wand, but your dad could close the distance and wipe the floor with people. I'm pretty sure Tarana taught him how to do it. I learned a bit, but your dad was something else. And that man could pick apart a perp faster than near anyone else in the MLE. Impressed more than one supervisor considering we were just out of Hogwarts and all."
Sirius eyed Harry. "But as much as I want to wax poetry about your dad, we can't get off-topic. You and this task."
"The others helped me come up with a lot of spells we're sure will be useful and I can cast most of them without a problem, though I'm not great at some of them."
"Remember though, all the skill in the world won't help you if you don't know when to apply it. Let Tarana's actions guide you. I'm sure she's done keeping you kids sidelined now."
"Is that how you and Ebony work? You let him guide you?"
"Nah," Sirius said, folding his arms behind his head as they walked and watching the ceiling. "Ebony's smarter, without a doubt. I'm the more ruthless of the two of us, being honest. We balance each other out that way. Calculated ruthlessness."
He dropped his arms and put his hands on Harry's shoulders at the top of the marble staircase, looking the teen in the eyes, all traces of his usual good cheer gone.
"Be careful, kid," he said. "Keep your wits about you."
Harry knocked Sirius' hands from his shoulders and wrapped his own arms around him. "I promise."
XX
One wouldn't know that Harry and 'Derek' hadn't met before, the way they were laughing when they walked into the Great Hall.
It died a slow death when they approached a tense gathering of Weasleys and Gryffindors.
Hermione looked strangely close to crying.
"-surely a woman of your reputation didn't believe something a woman as loose as Rita Skeeter spoke of, Mrs. Weasley," Draco was saying as Harry dropped down beside him, his godfather dragging a plate of something stuffed and green toward him as he sat down beside an amused Remus.
Molly was flustered, for the briefest of moments, before she dropped her gaze. "Of course not," she said, hiding her flushed cheeks with her hair as she dug into her plate.
"I assure you, Mrs. Weasley," Harry said with a smile, "I'm not interested in anyone right now. Mr. Stover is making it increasingly difficult for Rita Skeeter to put stories about me in print."
"If anyone was at fault, Harry, it wasn't you," Blaise pointed out. "I was the one who urged her on in Hogsmeade."
"And I blame neither of you," Hermione sniffed. "I'm pretty sure I've figured out Rita Skeeter's game." She looked toward the queen as she walked down the path between Gryffindor and Slytherin. "And I aim to play for keeps."
Tarana's grin was sharp. "Wonderful to hear."
"Wait," 'Derek' said, leaning his forearms on the table and squinting at Harry. "Are you saying there's no one you want to impress with the tournament?" he asked, a teasing smile on his lips.
Harry stared at the convict blankly for several seconds before he smiled. "Of course there is," he said, tipping his head toward Tarana and wrapping an arm near blindly over her neck when she came up behind him. "I'm always looking for ways to impress Tarana."
Tarana snorted. "You have your good days, and you have your bad days, cub," she told him drily.
Harry's friends, 'Derek', and Bill snickered, while Molly and Remus shook their heads with fond exasperation and shared an understanding and sympathetic look with the panther.
XX
Harry, his guardians, and the Weasleys were out by the lake for nearly the entirety of the afternoon, interspaced with visits from Fallen and Arcana as well as any of his friends that weren't currently taking exams.
An hour or two before dinner, with nearly all his friends lounging by the lake – or the tree in Draco's case, his pale skin ever in danger of burning if he spent more than half an hour in the sun – Harry was settled against the largest tree by the shore, which had been there for centuries, his sketchbook balanced on his knees and a shading pencil balanced on his fingers.
"Ready, Potter?" Draco asked quietly.
Harry hummed, focused on the image coming to life before him.
"You seem…more open with them."
Harry flicked a glance up at Remus and Sirius, hidden beneath someone else's face but still there.
Still trying.
"Severus would move heaven and earth to be with you when you needed him, wouldn't he?" Harry asked.
"Hasn't he already?" Draco asked, pushing himself up onto his elbows and looking at his friend with narrowed eyes.
Harry smiled, soft and fond. "Do you think one of the reasons they hated each other so hard in school is because they're so alike?"
Draco looked at him like he was touched, before glancing at his cousin.
Severus was an introvert, he liked to be by himself or with those closest to him – usually the Malfoys – and was always happiest that way.
Draco had spent next to no time with his cousin, but his mother – Sirius' first cousin and Draco's blood link to him – had never had a nice thing to say about the Black Heir.
For that reason alone, Draco had liked him before he'd ever met him.
Watching him tug Remus' wand from the werewolf's robe pocket and flick it between himself and the twins, leaning close to keep whatever he was showing the younger pranksters a secret between them, Draco was certain that Sirius' problems in Azkaban weren't entirely that he was succumbing to Ebony's darkness, or that he'd lost his brother-in-all-but-blood, but that he was alone.
Sirius seemed so much more alive here, surrounded by people, than he had in the Shrieking Shack the year before.
Of course, Draco didn't know him.
"I don't see it," the blond admitted.
Harry shrugged. "If I survive this task, you'll have to come visit when he's around," he glanced at Draco. "If, you know, I've earned your good graces back."
Draco sniffed and dropped back to his back, folding his arms beneath his head. "Better by the day," he drawled.
"Any chance I can stop bribing you yet?" Harry teased, looking back down at his sketch, pencil tip hovering over the page. "Importing French chocolate is expensive."
Draco's lips curved, but he didn't verbally answer.
Harry rolled his eyes and went back to sketching the scene by the shore.
He left the area where Sirius sat blank.
A stranger's face didn't belong in his copied memory.
XX
Dinner was a lively affair.
Sirius was confident enough in Remus' skill with glamours to walk into a room that was, in comparison to the places he normally hung out, crawling with Ministry officials.
"I suppose if I admire nothing else about the man," Draco told Fallen as they all settled back at the Gryffindor table, "Sirius has a serious set of balls on him."
Fallen smirked, licking a fang, and glanced at the newest occupant of the table.
Bagman was in his usual place, smile stretched a bit wide, but at least appearing as cheerful as ever, but Barty Crouch's seat was occupied by Cornelius Fudge, who was wearing a stern expression and he didn't appear to have much to say to Madame Maxime beside him, a total one-eighty from the chatterbox he'd been with the Bulgarian Minister in August.
In the man's defense, it probably wasn't all the problems that the Ministry was having, with the loss of Crouch and the attack on Krum (and the consequences of both). The woman didn't appear to be in much mind to talk herself.
The group had watched, while they had gathered their things and tried to work up the desire to end the day and head inside, as she had headed toward Hagrid's cabin and had all but fled it half an hour later when they could no longer ignore their rumbling stomachs.
Now, her makeup was as flawless as ever, but even with the distance between them and the Head Table, those with sharp eyes could make out a hint of red in her eyes and Hagrid was unsubtly glancing at her from his place at the end of the table.
As the enchanted sky above them darkened, however, Harry's minuscule appetite disappeared and he played with his food more than he ate it, despite urging from Molly.
'Derek' and Remus had given him sympathetic looks, and Harry was thankful that, if no one else, Remus understood.
He never wanted to eat before the full moon but was always starving afterward. He told Harry - when Harry had finally worked up the nerve to ask - that it was a new thing for him. He'd spent nearly ten years being worried that, one day, Moony wouldn't let him go and, like the rest of his friends, he would cease to exist.
Finally, the food vanished, and Dumbledore got to his feet.
The Great Hall fell silent, and all eyes turned to the man.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said folding his hands before him. "In five minutes' time, I will be asking you to make your way down to the quidditch pitch for the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament. At this time, as is tradition, if the champions could please follow Mr. Bagman to the stadium now."
Harry flicked a glance toward Arcana, who was watching with sharp eyes.
'Good luck,' the King's voice rumbled, not only through his mind, but the minds of every champion – Delacour and Krum shuddering at the unfamiliar sensation of the voice echoing in their heads.
XX
Despite the reassurance that they would be getting the pitch back in its original condition, Harry and Cedric couldn't help flinching when they stepped through the entrance to the stadium and saw the twenty-foot-high hedge walls, now high enough that even in the stands, it was unlikely that anyone observing the task would be able to actually see anything happening within it.
"Is it always like this?" Harry asked Tarana. "I feel like the only task anyone could actually watch was the dragons."
'Honestly, this may even be one of the safeguards,' Tarana shrugged. 'If the audience can't see what's happening, they're less likely to be flattened by an irate guest.' She said drily.
Harry snorted, fingering his wand and looking up at the hedge as they followed it to a large gap in the outer 'wall'.
'Nervous?' she asked him.
"Yes," Harry admitted. "I'd forgotten how much you and the others protected us. Even when we were in danger, I guess it never really felt…nothing like this?"
'Stay close,' Tarana told him. 'As long as we're together, we'll be prepared for anything.'
"Would Dark have managed to get through Fallen's wall?" Harry asked.
To prevent any nosy parties from getting lost in the maze or entering it on behalf of one of the champions, multiple protections had been placed at the stadium entrances preventing any entry that wasn't authorized to aid in growing the maze itself (Hagrid) or putting one of the creatures within that would inhabit the maze while the champions trekked it (also Hagrid).
What was likely not as openly acknowledged, was Fallen's additional ward, a sigil that would alert the direwolf when someone passed over it.
Drawing it in the dark of night, without the use of his Element, activating it, and then hiding it again, had cost the General several days of magic and nearly a week's worth of sleepless nights.
Tarana had called it a magical doorbell.
'No,' Tarana assured him. 'It is one of Yoko's trademarks. It's not a true ward and is, therefore, harder to detect by magic. Anything that was put into this maze is meant to be there.'
"Remember," Bagman said, twirling his wand between his fingers and the twinkle back in his eye. "First to the center of the maze and to touch the Cup there, will earn full marks, essentially winning the tournament."
The stadium above them began to fill with the chattering of excited students.
Like the first task, they seemed far away to Harry, as opposed to merely being separated by a wooden barrier in Hufflepuff colors.
Flitwick, Moody, Hagrid, and McGonagall came through the same entrance they had and approached.
Each of them was wearing huge, shining red stars on their hats that seemed brighter than they should be.
Arcana and Fallen came out of the shadows from the opposite direction, the tiger's white coat seeming to glow like Ivory's sometimes did – with an inner, unexplainable light.
"Due to the increased danger of this task," McGonagall said.
"And the fact that we won't be able to see what's happening within it," Arcana added.
"We will be patrolling the outside of the maze," McGonagall finished. "If you find yourself in a situation you can't handle, a danger you can't face, backtrack if you can, and send red sparks into the air. Someone," she glanced at Arcana and Fallen with fierce eyes, "will be sent in to retrieve you. Do you understand?"
Somehow, the revelation that the Valerians would be prepared to storm the maze if something went wrong made not just Harry, who knew that each would kill to protect them, but the other three champions who didn't know that, relax.
Reputation was, indeed, everything.
Once assured that the champions understood, the four professors slipped away.
"And now, Your Highness, if you don't mind, that last order of business." Bagman said, bowing slightly and stepping away so Tarana and Arcana could face one another, then pointed his wand at his throat. "Sonorus."
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE THIRD AND FINAL TASK OF THE TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT IS ABOUT TO BEGIN! LET ME REMIND YOU HOW THE POINTS CURRENTLY STAND. TIED IN FIRST PLACE, WITH EIGHTY-FIVE POINTS EACH-MR. CEDRIC DIGGORY AND LORD HARRY POTTER, BOTH OF HOGWARTS SCHOOL!"
The sudden cheers sent birds fluttering from the Forbidden Forest with its volume.
"IN SECOND PLACE, WITH EIGHTY POINTS – MR. VIKTOR KRUM, OF DURMSTRANG INSTITUTE!"
The applause came again, centered more around the stands bearing the Slytherin green decorations.
"AND IN THIRD PLACE – MISS FLEUR DELACOUR, OF BEAUXBATONS ACADEMY!"
Again, the applause sounded, and Harry glanced nervously down at Tarana, who was still staring, fixated into Arcana's eyes, though neither appeared to be having a conversation.
Fallen sat behind and to the right of the King, eyes half-lidded in boredom and ears pinned back to his head for their protection from the sheer volume of Bagman's magically enhanced voice.
"THE CHAMPIONS ARE TO NAVIGATE THE MAZE, AND ITS DANGERS, TO REACH THE CENTER, WHERE THE TRIWIZARD CUP AWAITS THE WINNER.
"AS HARRY POTTER IS COMPETING WITH HIS BONDED, QUEEN TARANA, AND THEREFORE IS REQUIRED TO BE QUESTIONED BY THE KING. FOR THIS QUESTIONING, AND IN DEFERENCE TO HIM COMPETING ALONE, CEDRIC DIGGORY IS ALLOWED A SLIGHT HEADSTART AND WILL ENTER AHEAD OF HIS FELLOW HOGWARTS CHAMPION. ON MY WHISTLE."
Cedric glanced down at the panther beside Harry but didn't hesitate to step toward the dark entrance of the maze.
The short, sharp blast of his whistle saw the teen disappearing into the hedges.
"LADY TARANA," Arcana said, voice echoing as magically as Bagman's own had. "HAVE YOU ENTERED THE MAZE PRIOR TO THIS MOMENT?"
"NO," Tarana replied evenly.
"HAVE YOU SENT ANYONE INTO THE MAZE BEFORE THE TASK?" Bagman asked.
"NO."
"HAVE YOU QUESTIONED ANYONE ABOUT WHAT HAS BEEN PUT INTO THE MAZE'S DEFENSES?"
"NO."
Bagman nodded, though not everyone could see it. "ON MY WHISTLE, HARRY."
Arcana and Fallen stepped to either side, allowing Tarana full access to the entrance to the maze, and Harry stepped up beside her, resting his palm between her shoulder blades.
Her calm centered him.
There was nothing in this maze they couldn't handle.
The whistle blew and the two stepped into the darkness.
XX
'Keep yourself behind me, Harry,' Tarana told him almost as soon as they were beyond the entrance.
Harry frowned and she must have felt his irritation.
'I can't lose my night vision and you can't see. Light your wand, but keep behind me, where the light doesn't blind me.'
Harry ducked his head and hesitated just long enough for Tarana's easy stride to take her past him.
With a thought, the tip of his wand began to glow a pale blue.
Tarana's lip curled. 'Well done.' She complimented.
"It's an easy spell," Harry admitted. "I can't do most of the others we practiced without saying them."
'I'd rather know your spell is going to work in this death trap if you don't mind,' Tarana smirked.
They came upon a fork in the road and Tarana barely hesitated, ears twitching, before leading him to the right.
The third whistle blast sounded behind him, signifying Krum's entrance into the maze.
'Where is the center of the maze?' Tarana asked, breaking into an easy trot that Harry had no problem keeping up with as he fell into a steady jog.
Harry frowned at her, wondering if it was some sort of test.
"Northwest," he said, hesitating a bit.
'Very good. We'll need to turn right at some point soon to try and get in that direction. I'll try and lead us around some of the worst creatures but doing so will likely force us to backtrack if it turns out to be the only way to pass.'
"We can manage them," Harry said confidently. "Backtracking will cost us time."
He glanced over his shoulder as the final blast of Bagman's whistle came.
Tarana's hesitation wasn't obvious, but Harry was sure he watched her paws stutter. 'Compromise,' she said, sounding like it was the last thing she wanted to do. 'Play it by ear. I will not risk your life to win this tournament.'
Aware that it was likely the best he was going to get, Harry sent her his assurance.
Tarana swerved to the left at the next fork with barely a hesitation and Harry followed her, trusting her sense of direction better than any spell.
Tarana came to an abrupt and half-rearing halt and Harry's light quickly revealed a black-eyed Ebony blocking their path. Despite being so black that they seemed to be sucking the air out of their surroundings, the sharp smile he wore was cold and Harry flashed immediately to a similar smile on Arcana's face.
"Taran-"
Tarana's nostrils flared and she stepped back away from her brother and into Harry's light.
The Shade followed.
Tarana was level with Harry now, eyes closed and still stepping away.
Harry made to step back with her.
'Stay,' the Queen ordered sharply.
Tarana was barely a full step behind her charge when Ebony suddenly gave a full-body shudder, twisted into a ball of shadows, and floated forward as a dementor.
Twelve feet tall and skeletal and scabbed hands extended, Harry took two stumbling steps back as it came at him.
The moment Tarana was ahead of her charge, however, the dementor shifted again into the demonic and enthralled image of Ebony.
Harry's eyes widened.
"Boggart," he breathed.
Firming his grip on his wand, he stepped past Tarana, spinning his wand in dizzying circles before him. "Expecto Patronum!" he yelled.
Just as the creature shifted form again, a massive silver stag charged, impressive rack dropped, and hammered the dementor to the ground then kept going, rearing to circle back in the small space.
Harry drew a wide 'u' in the air before him, the light from his wand giving the wand movement a visual aftereffect that at any other time Harry would have found rather wicked. "Riddikulus."
The dementor shivered and twisted into a white weasel that quickly darted for the hedge wall.
Tarana's paw on its head ensured it would never get there.
Harry's patronus danced in place for a moment, tossing its head before fading away.
'Well done,' Tarana said with a smile, pride fluttering between the two of them. 'I hate these creatures though.'
She wiped her paw through the grass, blood lost to the darkness.
"Is…is Ebony what you fear most?" Harry asked her, brow furrowed, and wand pointed at the ground, throwing the area around them into deeper shadows.
Tarana's shape tilted its head in his direction. 'That's a long, private story, Harry. One that very few have ever earned the right to hear.'
Harry bit his lip and didn't mention it again as the panther started back down their path.
XX
Thankfully the panther seemed to know what direction they were meant to be going, taking them easily through the paths that should lead them toward the center of the maze.
It wasn't without missteps, of course, they'd had to backtrack three times to get past dead ends, but Harry was still confident that they were making good time.
They'd navigated three different spells, including a really weird one that flipped the world upside down, but hadn't needed to face off against any additional creatures yet.
Despite that progress, one of them was getting increasingly uneasy.
Harry wasn't certain which of them had begun the feeling, but he was pretty sure it was him.
He felt watched and not like he usually did when playing quidditch or Exploding Snap in the common room and watching Draco get increasingly more frustrated when he lost game after game but refusing to be beaten.
And something about the ease of the enchantments they'd passed thus far made him feel like something was off.
"Almost like the maze itself is giving us a false sense of security," he said suddenly.
Tarana hummed. 'I can't say whether it's the maze or something outside it,' she agreed. 'If it is an outside influence, they can't do so continuously. Fallen or Arcana will lap them as they circle the maze.'
"Who would interfere with the task?" Harry asked, frowning.
'No one we can worry about,' Tarana said, coming to a stop.
Unlike the panther, who was barely winded, Harry was sweating a bit out of breath, but his wand hand was steady.
"What is it?"
Tarana didn't turn to look at him, ears forward and claws kneading the sod beneath her paws.
Harry scowled, feeling her wry amusement before he heard it in her reply. 'One of your favorite creatures,' she told him, sparks flickering up her body from tail to between her ears.
The air exploded around them, green and black flames slamming into the thick shell of what, if he hadn't helped raise the damned things, Harry could have mistaken for a giant ten-foot scorpion.
"Bloody Hagrid with his bloody skrewts," he hissed hatefully, stepping back to put space between himself and the creature.
Tarana's fire was turned aside and the panther darted backward and to the side, avoiding the skittering legs as it rushed forward angrily.
'Harry!'
Harry ducked and blinked as he was ignored entirely by the skrewt – at least for a second.
He dove into an uncontrolled and unseemly roll to avoid being stepped on and rolled again as the wind whistled above his head, the stinger slamming into the dirt where his head had been seconds earlier.
Tarana was there, paws braced over her charge and a feral roar echoing in the semi-enclosed space.
A wall of fire erupted from hedge-wall to hedge-wall as the stinger came down again, shrieking.
The stinger retreated, not nearly as resistant to the flames as the body had been.
Harry scrambled out from beneath the splayed paws and flipped onto his stomach.
"Harry," Tarana growled, low and furious, as her charge proceeded to crawl back toward the skrewt, hidden beneath her dark flames.
"Diffindo." Harry hissed, the wand movement a little jerky as he encountered the ground.
The spell sliced through the sensitive underbelly he'd noticed when the creature had moved over him, and when his spell went wild because of the collision with the ground, also sliced off one of its legs and it was staggered.
Tarana twisted the fire into a jagged-looking stream with a twist of her head and a snarl, knocking the creature even further off-balance. Her Elemental control was so absolute that it spread along the creature's underbelly like liquid and, finding the hole where the underbelly had met the missing leg and surged up, igniting the fragile insides.
The creature flailed and shrieked as Harry and Tarana backed away from it.
"Should we…put it out of its misery?" Harry asked as his guardian's eyes regained their blue hue and the fire went out entirely.
The skrewt was making a miserable high-pitched noise.
'I wouldn't have a clue where to start,' Tarana said, shaking her head. 'Come. We don't know what that kind of noise may attract.'
As though proving her point, a scream pierced the night.
Both looked up to the dark sky.
"Was that…?"
'Young Delacour,' Tarana said grimly.
They watched for a moment, but the darkness wasn't lit by sparks.
Harry grimaced.
Either Delacour had recovered and was moving on, or she wasn't even in any condition to send up the sparks required to get her pulled from the maze.
'It's likely more dangerous the closer we get to the center,' Tarana said, turning on her tail and darting into the darkness again. 'Come on.'
Harry sprinted to catch up with her.
XX
Tarana had been forced to slow down so Harry wouldn't be entirely useless and they now loped down a path at a fast walk.
Ahead and to their right, Cedric yelled, "What are you doing? What the hell d'you think you're doing?!"
Harry and Tarana paused, listening.
The panther's nostrils flared but they were surrounded by thick, tangled greenery on all sides, limiting the scents she could pull.
Within moments they were given an answer to their unasked question.
"Crucio." Viktor Krum incanted.
Cedric screamed.
Harry wasn't unfamiliar with the effects of the Torture Curse, having witnessed – sort of – its use on Draco in his First Year.
Draco had screamed like that then.
"Tarana!"
'If I blow through the hedge, I risk setting the whole maze alight if I lose control,' Tarana told him. 'Make us a hole.'
Harry grit his teeth and drew a jagged sideways triangle with his wand. "Reducto!"
The spell blew a small hole in the hedge ahead of them, barely big enough for Harry, let alone his guardian.
Tarana didn't care.
The broken branches and thick brambles tore at her coat and drew rough cuts in the skin beneath as she leapt through it.
Harry cast the spell twice more, widening the hole even as Tarana was sinking into a sharp crouch on the other side, then darting to the right, out of Harry's line of sight as he scrambled through after her, thankful for Hermione's advice of denim jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt despite the heat of the evening, as it saved him from some of the same cuts.
He found Tarana darting around a shakily cast spell from Krum, who was trying to cast and run at the same time.
His second spell was steadier, but by that point, it was too late.
Tarana sank her fangs into the wrist, dragging her fangs down his arm as she body-slammed him to the ground.
Both disappeared into the darkness as Harry crouched beside Cedric, wand pointed where he figured Krum might have fallen. He hesitated for only a second.
"Stupefy!"
The deep red light cast an eerie glow over Tarana and Krum, who was still stunned from some two-hundred-plus pounds of panther.
The queen darted to the side and Krum went stiller.
Tarana stared down at the Durmstrang student.
The Torture Curse wasn't cast easily and certainly not so easily on a first try, but Krum had never given her the impression that he was that practiced in the dark arts, even if that spell wasn't necessarily illegal to use in the area that Durmstrang was located.
She tilted her head and gave the nearest hedge wall a calculating look, then dismissed the thought.
By the time one of her Kin got to this size of the maze, any outside influence would have moved on, as aware of Arcana and Fallen as she was.
The Gryffindor looked down at the older student and found Cedric had stopped twitching but was covering his face with both hands.
"Alright?" Harry asked worriedly, free hand hovering uselessly by the Hufflepuff's shoulder.
"Yeah," Cedric said, voice muffled by his palms. "He…he snuck up on me. I turned around but he-"
"Take a moment," Tarana advised him, coming to sit on his other side. "That is not a spell one just shakes off."
The three were silent for a couple of minutes, waiting as Cedric's breathing evened out and he stopped twitching.
With a soft groan, Cedric pushed himself up to his elbows.
"Easy," Tarana advised as Harry helped him to his feet.
Cedric pulled away when he had his feet under him and turned to look at the unconscious foreign champion.
"Should we leave him here?" he asked.
"No," Tarana said shortly. "Whatever that was," Harry looked at her sharply, "I can't say he deserves to be left here to be fed on by whatever creature Hagrid found suitable."
Cedric grimaced. "He'd deserve it," he muttered, even as he raised his wand and a shower of red sparks exploded from the tip, hovering high overhead.
There was a moment of silence before, without another word to one another, they went their separate ways.
XX
"Do you think Krum got Fleur, too?" Harry asked Tarana as they jogged down a path several minutes later. "It would leave just Cedric and I in the maze, right?"
'While the odds favor that outcome,' Tarana told him, 'we don't have enough information to count on it.'
"True," Harry grimaced.
They traveled in silence for a while, using dead ends to allow Harry a second or two to regain his breath, but never stopping for longer than that.
'We're getting closer to the center,' Tarana said suddenly.
"How can you be sure?"
Tarana didn't so much as glance back at him. 'It's getting darker, for one,' she answered. 'And we're circling faster. The turns around the center are getting closer together.'
Harry wasn't sure what the amount of light they had had to do with anything, but he trusted that Tarana knew where they were.
Blaise had armed him with the Four-Point Spell before the second task, but they had known the odds of him being able to cast that wordlessly were rather slim and therefore relied more heavily on Tarana's superior sense of direction and that spell was a back-up in case they were separated.
Tarana suddenly stopped and Harry raised his wand higher to see what had caused her to pause this time.
His wand light only illuminated a massive yellowish paw and he stepped forward a couple of times to bring the creature sitting, dead center in the middle of the path, into full light.
"A sphinx," he breathed.
Made of the body of a large lion and the head of a woman, they were among Blaise's favorite creatures.
Tricksters, of a sort, that offered wisdom and favor for those who could answer their riddles.
"Blaise is going to be so jealous," Harry said, grinning.
"I'm glad you think so," Tarana drawled, smiling slightly. "I see no reason you can't answer this without assistance."
"What?" Harry gaped down at her. "I can't do riddles! That's Blaise's thing! Logic and stuff."
Tarana stepped closer to the sphinx and mirrored the creature, sitting and curling her tail around her paws. "I'm fairly certain our destination is beyond her," she told him. "And it will be far easier if we answer the riddle rather than try and fight her."
"Would you win?" Harry asked, eyeing the two of them.
Even with Tarana's supernatural size, the sphinx seemed her equal.
Almond-shaped eyes stared past the queen as though she wasn't there, watching Harry.
"You are very near your goal," she affirmed in an unexpectedly coarse voice. "And the quickest way is past me."
Harry grimaced.
Logic puzzles were the kind of thing that Blaise and Hermione did in their spare time.
"Answer on your first guess – I let you pass," the sphinx said, her tail weaving behind her before curling neatly around her paws again. "Answer wrongly," she glanced sharply at Tarana. "I attack." The panther seemed unaffected by the threat. "Remain silent and I let you walk away from me, unscathed."
Harry nibbled on his lower lip nervously.
I can always stay silent, he thought, reassuring himself. And if I'm wrong, Tarana can hold her. I know she can beat her.
He exhaled sharply and rolled his shoulders. "Okay," he said. "Let me hear it."
"First think of the person who lives in disguise,
Who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies.
Next, tell me what's always the last thing to mend,
The middle of middle and the end of the end?
And finally, give me the sound often heard
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?"
The sphinx spoke to Harry but was watching Tarana as she recited her riddle.
Harry mouthed the words to himself, frowning.
"Can you repeat it, slower?" he asked, looking at the ground.
The sphinx repeated it again, blinking languidly at Tarana, who didn't move.
Harry didn't make a sound as he worked, mouthing over words and sounds before grimacing.
"Can I have that middle part again?"
Finally, the sphinx looked at Harry with a smile and repeated the third and fourth lines of her poem.
Harry's brow was furrowed and his mouth worked, then he nodded.
"And the last?"
The sphinx was clearly amused by him and his method, but she was ignored, Harry looking at the ground and working out the riddle.
He shook his head, frustrated, when he couldn't figure out the last part.
"I can't…a sound heard during a search for hard-to-find words…." He scratched, irritated, at the back of his head. "Tarana-"
'You've got this,' she assured him. 'A breath. Work through it.'
"I tried," he insisted. "I know the first part is a spy and the next part is a letter, but-" He stopped and looked at the sphinx.
"Spider."
The sphinx's smile was broad.
"Well done, little prince," she told him, getting to her paws.
She bowed low, sweeping one paw to the side, as she faced Tarana. "Hail and well met, Your Highness," she said.
Harry was so excited that he'd figured it out that it didn't immediately register that it seemed as though the two knew one another.
Tarana ducked her head once before getting back to her paws and darting down the path beyond her. 'Hurry, Harry!'
The sphinx watched the two as they disappeared down the path.
"May my aid be of use, O' Queen," she said, before turning on her tail and wandering in search of another potential victim.
XX
'Tarana!'
Tarana had years of heeding the voice of her other half and crouching low, slid the last meter, a twist of her tail sending her into a controlled spin that had her facing back the direction she'd come.
Her lips peeled away from her fangs and she growled.
Between her and her charge, a massive eight-foot-tall spider was trying to decide who was the better meal, pincers clicking menacingly.
Her tail lashed.
"Stupefy!"
She lunged as the acromantula swung toward her charge, spell useless, the massive legs serving as a springboard that brought her higher, to the thick-furred back, and her claws dug deep furrows into the flesh beneath as she lunged for its head.
Enraged the spider spun, trying to get at the panther high out of its reach.
"Impedimenta!" Harry shouted, circling to his right, trying to find a point where the spell would do something to help his guardian.
Milk white flashed in his mind, and he stopped, just as a red stunner not of his own casting came from behind him.
A glance over his shoulder revealed Cedric steadily closing the distance, a second stunner quickly following the first.
"Eyes!" he shouted.
Cedric adjusted on the fly, but the spell he cast wasn't the Stunning Spell.
The eye erupted in gore and goop and the spider reared, shrieking.
"Tarana!" The Hufflepuff yelled, suddenly becoming aware of the black-on-black that was the queen.
The shadow on the massive acromantula slipped sideways, out of sight, but Harry was strangely not worried.
There wasn't a lot of space in the path and the spider was huge. It couldn't move nearly as nimbly as the two students could and definitely not nearly nimble enough to catch Tarana.
Harry raised his wand and shot two successive stunners at the remaining seven eyes.
His first glanced off the pincers snapping and trying to close around the panther as she weaved between the creature's legs.
Cedric's spell ripped a second eye to pieces and Harry's second stunner slammed in its wake.
The spider shrieked, nearly half-blind, and Tarana sank her fangs into a hairy leg, but there wasn't much there to grip, and it flailed, sending the queen skittering across the dirt, narrowly missing the two students who stood braced on either side of the path, wands pointed up and waiting for another shot at the eyes of the creature.
"Too small a target," Tarana said, regaining her paws, fur sparking ominously. "A creature's weakest spot is nearly always the stomach."
"I've got no real interest in being stepped on," Cedric quipped shakily.
"Good," Tarana told him. "I'd hate for such potential to die a pointless death."
Heat seared the backs of their necks, but they didn't get a chance to look over their shoulders and see what the panther was doing behind them, as she was suddenly darting between them, her entire form engulfed in black and green.
Fiery pawprints were left in her wake as she darted over the distance between the three of them and the angry, pained, and retreating spider.
Pity it was still in her way.
The spider may have been half-blind, but it could still smell the sulfur, feel the heat of the fire as it approached.
Tarana bound from the center of the path to the left, then the right, forcing the two sets of forelegs off the ground, one after the other, or risk being singed.
The move opened the soft, furry underbelly to the two teens down the path.
"Stupefy!"
The two stunners rocked the already barely balanced acromantula and the combined power of them together did what Harry's stunners hadn't been able to accomplish alone.
Its momentum, however, was carrying it backward, where Tarana had just disappeared beyond it.
"Tarana!" the boys cried out together, running toward the collapsing spider as though it would somehow prevent it from possibly crushing the queen.
The air flickered, darkened, and the falling spider moved, leaving the panther beyond it standing unscathed as it crushed the hedge to the left instead.
She huffed an exhausted laugh and sagged to her haunches.
She had learned that move from her brothers, but her Element was not a Power and it cost a great deal more when she did it than when they did.
"Are you two alright?" she called.
"Fine," Harry assured her. "You?"
"Tired, but in one piece. Can you get by?" she asked. Her strength would be quick to return to her, but she'd be happier if the two could get over it without her aid and give her another five minutes or so.
"I think so," Cedric called, eyeing the tangle of legs that covered the path. He glanced at Harry. "We could try another path."
Harry shook his head. "The sphinx said this was the fastest way."
"Sphinx?" Cedric asked skeptically, before shaking his head and following the younger teen to the legs, both looking for the best place to start climbing.
XX
Tarana was feeling much better ten minutes later when Cedric and Harry finally stumbled over the last of the massive legs sprawled over the path.
She stood at the intersection of several paths while the two teens stared up at the clearing, surrounded on every other side by an arc of hedges, a little less than a hundred yards ahead of them.
A massive silver cup with handles on either side was glowing in the star and moonlight from above on a pedestal made of what looked like marble, but Tarana didn't want to think about how they would have gotten something of that weight to the center of the maze, with roots twining their way up the four corners.
Victory for Hogwarts was there for the taking.
Pity the two champions were so noble.
"You take it," Cedric was arguing. "I would've gone down in the first task if you hadn't told me what was coming."
"Stop being noble," Harry said sharply, frustration and confusion flickering along his bond to Tarana. "I had help with that and you helped me with the egg, we're square."
"I had help with the egg," Cedric admitted.
"Not from me," Harry countered. "We're still square."
"You should have gotten more points on the second task," Cedric said, changing tactics. "You'd stayed behind to get all the hostages. I should've done that."
Harry rolled his eyes. "I was ready to follow you. I was stupid enough to take that song seriously. Take the stupid cup."
"Gryffindor honor vs Hufflepuff loyalty," Tarana scoffed. "We'll be here 'til dawn. No one expected either of you to make it this far. Hufflepuff's reputation speaks for itself, and Harry is nearly four years younger than anyone else in the tournament. Hufflepuff deserves this win and neither of you would have made it this far without the other. Both of you take the cup so we can get to bed sometime this century."
The two teens stared at one another, then looked down at the panther, then turned their attention to the cup again.
Cedric shrugged and looked back at Harry. "Works for me."
Harry half-smiled and they moved forward together, Tarana trailing behind them with a bemused smile.
"On three?" Cedric asked, glancing between the two Bonded.
Harry nodded.
"One."
The two teens extended a hand each over a handle.
"Two."
Cedric and Harry stared at one another, grins growing on both their faces as they realized what a win this was for Hogwarts.
Tarana's smile grew and she couldn't have been prouder of either teen.
This was the kind of teamwork, of house unity, that Albus had been preaching about for decades.
"Three."
Hands came down together.
And the world disappeared in a howl of color and wind.
XX
Tarana knew immediately that something was wrong.
The Triwizard Cup was a portkey, but it was designed to take the winner to the entrance of the maze as opposed to make the winner try and find their way back out again.
As she stood there, staring at the place the cup and two teens had been moments earlier, that wall she and Alex had raised against the rage in her slowly crumbled.
Crumbled with every mile the Bond stretched between her and her charge.
Blue swam with red-fire, then bled off to demon-black.
Fire spiraled up into the sky.
The world around her echoed the roar of fire and rage.
Someone had taken her charge from her.
Again.
XX
The observers waiting for the outcome of the final task would be waiting a bit longer when, from dead center, a pillar of fire sprouted straight upward then twisted into a strange, sharp-edged spiral.
Fallen was half-shrouded in shadow as he looked at the flickering sigil.
Arcana didn't need to look to the heavens to know that the centuries of peace was now at an end. He darted into the deep shadows.
Ivory was a silver blur as he weaved between greenery and decorated wood.
The Queen was calling them to War.
