I hope you are all okay with the COVID-19 virus running rampant, and that you are all keeping indoors even if isolating yourselves is stressful. I wanted to update some of my work for the new month, and in this chapter, there is a cliffhanger waiting. Although it might not be what you were expecting.

As usual, I own nothing.

Please feel free to review.


The Hell of Fourth Year.

The rat was enormous and it loomed through the wide circular opening, and it began squealing hungrily when it saw the Champions in the den. Charlotte's wand snapped upwards and the rat shrieked as its body flashed from positive to negative, and then back to positive but the rat was unharmed, but it moved backwards under the force of the blast.

Charlotte gasped.

The rat was immune to her version of the Killing Curse. The spell was designed to hit the victim with a massive blast of magic, searing through the nerves before dialling down the power until it literally burnt the nerves away. Why hadn't it killed the rat? Was it because the rat was so big it had somehow resisted the spell?

Unfortunately, while the blast had mildly injured the rat, it hadn't killed it. Charlotte watched as the rat's giant paws padded aimlessly around the entrance to the nest, certain that if it was human, the creature would be shaking its head or something like that. Squealing savagely in rage, the rat darted forwards, forcing the Champions back.

"Damn," Charlotte cursed, but she fired off another spell. This one was much more effective as it was a fire-vortex spell. It was noticeably much weaker than the spells she had used earlier, but it was still more than enough to push the rat back. The fire terrified the rat, and it squealed in terror.

Charlotte grinned, and she mentally cancelled the spell before she fired it again at the rat in a stream like a magical flamethrower. As much as she hated to admit it, this spell was more effective than her own custom made spell.

The rat squealed louder in surprise and terror while Charlotte stepped closer, the stream of flame spewing from her wand tip and pushing it further and further back. Charlotte stepped forwards, keeping up the work although she wished one of the other Champions - preferably all of them - helped her by using some of the most destructive spells they knew, she didn't care wish. She just didn't want to be the one who did all of the work. Oh well, she would make sure they contributed later.

Assuming they managed to get out of here.

The rat let out a savage scream of pain when a spell flashed over her shoulder and hit the rat right in the side. The spell slashed the rat's thigh, and some blood splashed out of it, making the rat shriek with pain and rage, but otherwise, the spell hadn't done any actual harm.

Roused by the use of the spell, the other Champions fired their own curses against the rat. Charlotte kept up her magical flamethrower to keep pushing the rat back, out into the sewer, and hopefully even further back so then they could escape. The rat squealed under the barrages of spells - Charlotte was impressed despite being pissed they had waited for so long before they even fired off their own curses, but she was pleased they had - but it was otherwise unharmed by the spellfire, but they could all hear the sounds of the rat's screams of pain and anger. The screams, being so close, made all four of the Champions unnerved; it was so piercingly loud it went straight through them.

But the barrage and the flames were certainly effective in pushing the rat back. Just a little bit more….Right There!

"Come on, you guys! Get out of there!" Charlotte yelled.

The Champions didn't need telling twice, and they rushed out in the brief opening while Charlotte kept the rat frightened and back. Once the last Champion had rushed out of the rat's nest, Charlotte didn't waste time, and she just took off after the Champions. The sound of the rat's angry squeals which echoed unnervingly through the darkened sewers until it felt like they were shredding her skin off of her bones, and grinding her skeleton into dust.

She looked over her shoulder, and she could see the rat rushing towards her in the dim wand light as she ran. She turned forwards and kept running after the others, drawing on her magic and her animagus form to push herself on after the others before she caught up with them.

"Have you got any ideas?" Cedric asked when he noticed her over the rat's squealing before they came to a turning, but he was also speaking to Fleur since Krum had run on ahead of them all.

Charlotte, who'd been going through her mind for the spells of her own creation and what she had picked up from the Founders and some of the illegal books she'd collected from Knockturn Alley, stopped when she saw one of the Champions about to turn left. "Don't go down there!" she shouted. "There may be other rats out there!"

Krum didn't pay her any heed, making Charlotte inwardly wonder if all Durmstrang students or wizards, in general, were immensely stupid thanks to something in the gene pool.

Realising Cedric was waiting for her to answer his question, Charlotte glanced at him and wondered what he could tell him. She had several plans in her head, but after seeing how her first plan had failed so dismally, she was worried to try them out. Still, she knew she needed to

"One of two," she admitted. "I'm going to try something."

Charlotte stopped and she lifted her wands, and she saw out of the corner of her eye the other Champions had also stopped to see what she had in mind while they listened as the rat's squeals drew closer and closer to them all. Charlotte waited until the rat had come in closer while making sure she had plenty of time to move, and she lifted her wands, taking in the slimy wet fur of the thing in front of her, the shine of its eyes as the wand light from the other Champions - she did not know why they were there - and the large yellow fangs before she aimed her wands at it.

Two spells of fiery orange light were shot out of Charlotte's wands. The rat squealed when it was hit by the double spells, but they didn't seem to have made any effect against the rat. It let out another of its trumpeting shrieks, but then it began shrieking in pain as if something was hurting it.

"What's going on?" Cedric asked, squinting in the darkness.

Charlotte exhaled. "I'm hoping that spell works," she said.

"What did you use?" Fleur asked, looking curiously down at the shorter girl with a little hint of apprehension in case this spell was not going to work.

"What in Merlin's name!" Cedric interrupted, looking at the rat and drew Fleur's attention back to the giant creature.

Smoke was starting to pour out of the rat's mouth, choking the creature in between its shrieks of pain and anger, but the pained squeals were rising in pitch, just as fire began erupting in different places on the rat's body. The rat screeched in primal terror as the flames grew more and more uncontrollable before it collapsed weakly on the ground, writhing in pain.

"We'd better get out of here!" Charlotte called to her fellow competitors, and she ran off with her wand lit after Krum. Fleur and Cedric glanced at each other, and they rushed off after her.

"What was that?" Fleur demanded while she panted with the effort while she kept running after Charlotte, who was much faster than she was herself.

Charlotte, much to Fleur's annoyance, didn't even seem out of breath. "My own answer to a blasting hex. A disintegration spell; it actually pushes the magic into the very body that wants to be destroyed, be it a wall, a block of ice, whatever barrier you find yourself trapped by. The spell then disintegrates it by unleashing and concentrating a huge amount of heat. The spell increases the heat, on and on until there is an internal fire. I tested it on a brick wall and a very large but dead tree. It worked a treat, although I never would have imagined it would be used on a giant rat."

"Just what exactly possessed you to create the spell anyway?"

"I needed a hobby," Charlotte shrugged, or tried to at least while she was running through the sewers, "Spell creation seemed like the logical step, and in any case, haven't you wanted to smash something until it was pulverised into dust?"

"Yeah, but why did you invent it in the first place?"

"What's the problem, it got that fucking rat off our backs didn't it?"

"It's not what I would have expected from a supposed hero of the Light! And you didn't answer my question."

"I don't have to answer to you, but I'll tell you anyway," Charlotte asked, "You saw my memory of how I took down that basilisk two years ago are you really that surprised I've had to come up with creative and unknown means of defending myself?"

As he ran with the two witches, Cedric wondered to himself if there was a lot more to it than Charlotte was saying, especially once you took into account what people like Dumbledore were doing to her life. He wasn't going to interfere with this argument or debate, or whatever in the name of Merlin it happened to be. He valued his neck a lot more, and in any case, he wasn't truly surprised by the revelation Charlotte had developed some impressive if dangerous-looking spells since he had a good picture of how bleak and horrible her life had been.

"You don't need to develop something so vile!"

"In case you didn't realise, that giant rat was going to catch us, and it was going to gnaw us to death, you stupid cow!" Charlotte sneered at the French Champion. "I didn't see any bright ideas from you, and you're meant to be the best in your year at Beauxbatons, right?"

Sensing an upcoming fight which they currently did not need right now, Cedric stepped in, "We've got to get to Viktor."

Charlotte and Fleur turned to glare at him for his interruption, but Charlotte nodded. "You're right, Cedric," she said, "but where the fuck has he gone-!"

She stopped when she heard the sound of yelling in a foreign language, and familiar sounds of high-pitched squealing.

Charlotte slowed to a stop. Fleur and Cedric did likewise. "More rats!" Cedric snapped, horrified since they had only just managed to escape one.

"Moron must have run into them," Charlotte commented, although she wasn't entirely surprised by this latest turn of events; while one rat would be more than enough if you looked at it from a certain point of view, you realised it would be more frightening, not to mention more challenging or in the case of the fucking audience, entertaining, to have more than one.

At that moment, a mirror glided down in front of them. The image showed a picture of Albus Dumbledore, but as she took in the image of her former Headmaster, Charlotte realised this was a recording since this version of Dumbledore was dressed in different robes to the one presiding over the Task today.

When the image started to speak, Charlotte knew she wasn't going to like what she was going to hear. Dumbledore's cryptic pseudo-wisdom was grating on the nerves at the best of times, but in this instance, she knew the man was going to say something irritating.

"You have reached the next level of the Tri-wizard Tournament. Congratulations. However, you will need to be careful of the rats. We, the organisers of the Tournament, have taken a small number of them and have grown them to enormous size in order to challenge you."

"No shit, Holmes," Charlotte snapped, making her competitors look at her in confusion. Then again, magical culture had no mention of Sherlock Holmes.

"This part of the task is to test your ingenuity and your drive. You will need both in order to find and recover the Portkey inside the sewer network you are currently in. Good luck!"

With that, the mirror message vanished and the mirror went blank, replaced with the faces of the Champions.

"The bastards!" Charlotte snapped before she shook her head and turned to the others. "Come on. I hope you won't be adverse if I use more of my vile spells, right?" she asked over her shoulder to Fleur, before she ran off in the direction of the screaming and cursing, holding her wand out and mentally commanding her wand to help track it down. While she ran through the sewers, ignoring the barely concealed mirrors which were broadcasting the entire footage of the whole fucking task, Charlotte wished she hadn't revealed too much about the spells she used. While it could be argued she hadn't had any alternative but to use spells like the Disintegration spell, her own version of the Killing Curse, her Tissue Compression Elimination curse, Charlotte honestly wished she had kept things like that all under wraps.

She didn't give a fuck one way or another how the Wizarding World at this point, but since she had wanted to keep her true self under wraps from the likes of Dumbledore, it was frustrating for her and she honestly hoped the people behind the Tournament did not interfere, or try to put her in Azkaban, although her stay would likely be short-lived, unless of course Fudge, in an act of incredible wisdom, placed magical suppression bracelets on her wrists to stop her escaping although she could imagine ways she could escape from Azkaban if she had given it some degree of thought.

She only hoped the Tournament's by-laws which allowed so much leeway still held up, but since she planned to leave the magical world at the end of the year, she hoped she never found out. Yeah, some might call her a coward for her attitude, but she did not care. Was it cowardice not to want to go to prison, or anything like that? Charlotte neither knew nor cared, but she hoped that Fudge didn't poke his nose into her life in the long term.

As she ran through the sewers, skidding to a halt when one of the rats appeared in front of her, although she fired her Tissue Compression Elimination curse at it, hoping that it did work. The rat only had enough time to squeal before it was shrunken down and crushed to the size of a doll.

She grinned in relief that one of her favourite spells worked on the rat, sighing in relief before she went back on her run. But as she ran past the crushed remains of the rat, her animagus-enhanced ears easily picking out the sounds of Fleur and Cedric, two more giant rats appeared at the far end of the sewer. As soon as they spotted her, they shrieked and began moving towards her, but it only made Charlotte's job easier.

She lifted her wands and shot out her custom incineration curse at the two rats, startling them both when they hit them and dissipated as the magic of the two separate spells sank into their bodies. The two rats charged towards her, unaware their bodies were burning from the inside out but when they did realise they were on fire and there was nothing they could do about it they both began thrashing around in a panic, rolling onto their backs and scratching the air or even each other as their bodies were incinerated.

Wrinkling her nose at the stench, especially since the smell affected her inner cat although Charlotte truly did not want to know if her cat form was hungry for barbecued rat or repulsed. She just kept moving, knowing without needing to turn her head the others were right behind her.

She turned another corner slowly, only to come face to face with another giant rat. Charlotte backed up in surprise a little, and the rat itself looked startled, but it quickly recovered. Charlotte lifted her wand and shot a Tissue Compression Elimination curse at the giant monster in the tunnel with her. The rat squealed as it was bathed in red light and was shrunken down to the side of a doll.

Charlotte ran on, idly wondering why it was only two of her custom curses were working. She wondered curiously to herself if the rat was just too big for her killing curse to have an effect, but she wouldn't know for sure unless she tried it again. She ran down the tunnel, wands ready while she kept her ears sharp for any sign of more rats - she wondered how many rats the idiots behind this fucked up Tournament had grown to such enormous proportions - when she turned a corner and found herself looking in horror at what she saw in front of her.

She had come across a massive cavernous chamber with numerous routes leading in different directions, with light coming from a number of unknown sources, but cast shadows everywhere so it was virtually impossible for anyone to really see what was lurking in them, although Charlotte could see into them, thanks to her enchanted sunglasses.

But she didn't need to. In front of her was what looked like an army of giant rats of various sizes, but enormous nonetheless. There were dozens of them, all of them shrieking and squealing savagely, pawing the ground in anticipation. But as she watched them, she noticed that a number of them were dead or wounded.

"Potter!"

Charlotte turned, seeing Krum pressed against the wall with his wand up. She quickly ran over to join him.

"What took you so long?!" Krum snapped at her, shooting off a killing curse at a rat that had taken advantage of his clear distraction of her presence. The thing dropped to the ground without a sound.

"There were others out there," she replied without preamble, shooting off a number of her incineration curses towards the rats before she turned her attention over to Viktor. "Have you found the Portkey?"

"Look in the middle of the rats."

Charlotte turned and looked, but it was virtually impossible to see where the Portkey was since there were so many rats crowding around in the space, swamping one another it was impossible to make out. And then she saw a hint of something in the centre of the chamber, or what she thought was the centre since there were just so many large moving rats, that were now just as cautious since the incineration of two of their fellows, but she thought she could see something in there.

"I got in here and I found them all over it, but nothing I did worked. There are just too many."

Charlotte said nothing for a moment while she looked around the chamber for any ideas. She discounted firing a curse at the ceiling to bring down the tonnes and tonnes of bricks, mortar, concrete, and fuck knew what else since it would likely kill her and the others as well. She had two wands, but while she was tempted to just use another firestorm spell, she remembered how drained she had been earlier.

She didn't want to do that either.

She had no idea just how many levels to this Task were left, but the more magic she used up, the more vulnerable she was; while she was smart and could think on her feet, she didn't want to put herself at risk.

And then it occurred to her.

"I've got an idea," she turned to Viktor briefly so he gave her his undivided attention before she turned back to face their bigger problems, "the only drawback is we need the others to help."

Krum grunted with annoyance. "Where are they?"

"I don't know, but I know I heard them behind me. It's likely they've run into another rat, but hopefully, they're smart enough to find a way around it."

At that moment Cedric and Fleur came in, backing up in horror when they caught sight of the rats in the chamber. Their arrival only made the enormous beasts shriek louder which echoed all around them in a terrible din while the dim lighting of the chamber only served to make the place more sinister.

"The Portkey is in the centre of the Chamber," Charlotte told them bluntly without any preamble, although she took note of the shaken look in Fleur's expression and the bloodstains on Cedric's clothes. She'd guessed they'd encountered more rats since they had been held back from getting here, and she guessed it had been one hell of a nasty fight. "Trouble is…well, I don't think I need to say."

Fleur glared at her for a moment, thinking she had detected some cheekiness in her explanation. "Have you tried summoning it-?" she asked.

"First thing I tried when I had the chance," Krum interrupted sharply while Charlotte inwardly kicked herself for forgetting something so simple, although she guessed she could excuse it since the rats had distracted her. "But it must be spell-proof; I can't summon it here. It's no use, we have to get rid of the rats."

"I have an idea," Charlotte interjected, making the older competitors look at her. "It's risky and it may not work, but it might just help us. But you'll need to trust me."

The older Champions looked at each other for a moment, and they all seemed to get the idea there was nothing else they could do, so they decided to go for it.

"Okay, Charlotte, what did you have in mind?" Cedric asked.

"Do you remember when we first came across a rat, and I tried to kill it?" The Champions nodded. "I'm positive the reason why the spell hadn't worked before was that the rat itself was far too big for the curse to make an impact, whereas the acromantulas were easier to kill. One option is we share our power, and use the same spell, and kill all the rat to get to the portkey. We place the tips of our wands together while I think of the spell and move our wands around, while you supply the raw magical power."

Instantly the others argued with her.

"Sharing magical power is dangerous," Krum informed her.

"Are you mad? Suppose your spell isn't compatible with our wands?"

"I know-."

"Do you? Suppose it doesn't work?"

"Do you have any better suggestions?" Charlotte snapped, tired of the irritating lack of faith. Yes, she could understand their annoyance, but why was it every time she suggested a course of action to other people in the magical world, they turned on her? It never ended.

In any case, she looked at them, challenging them to show if they had any brighter ideas. It wasn't as if their lives weren't at stake, right?

No, they didn't. And she could see they didn't have any better ideas, but she understood their reasons for not wanting to do as she'd just suggested. The Champions looked at each other while they kept an eye on the rats, who were still wary of them for the time being. But they all knew the rats would soon snap out of it, and when they did the Champions would need all of their wits to stay alive.

"Look, we can try the one spell I've got in mind first," Charlotte said evenly, "and if it doesn't work, then we can try something else. But, guys, we need to work together, and we definitely need to destroy the rats, so we can get to that portkey and get out of here."

The four Champions were indecisive, but it was when the rats, sensing their prey/quarry was distracted, and seemingly no longer a threat, surged forward.

That made up their minds.

"Alright, Potter!" Krum shouted, shooting off another killing curse while Fleur and Cedric, both bulking at the sight and the use of such an illegal curse, looked more hesitant but they acted when they themselves were attacked by other rats, and while their spells were tamer by the standards of magical law, they were still lethal. "What did you have in mind?"

Charlotte grinned, and she stood up, holding up the wand in her right hand. She slipped her other wand into the same hand so the pair were joined together. She held out her hands. "Place the tips of your wands against mine," she ordered. "I will think of the spell, casting it silently, but when I move the wands in my hands against yours, move with them, okay?"

The other three Champions looked at themselves, but they did as they were told. The rats, no longer frightened by the deaths of their fellows, shrieked as they came together.

When Fleur joined in, placing her wand against the others as the rats charged towards them, squealing and shrieking savagely, Charlotte added, "Close your eyes if you need to concentrate your magic on it. Right, be ready…!"

All of the Champions felt a strange surge of power, that was admittedly similar in some ways to what they usually felt whenever they cast a spell, but this time was different.

They watched as the spell they had seen Charlotte use against the acromantulas suddenly take the savage, giant rats by storm. The spell roared in their ears while they watched its effects against the rats for the first time. The light around the rats darkened, as did their fur, in a flash of blinding, light

against their skeletons, making them shriek in agony before they crashed to the ground, thrashing in their death throes.

Charlotte moved her wands, making the others do the same, killing more and more rats, making them shriek terrible cries of pain as the magic burnt through their bodies. The Champions clenched their jaws at the horrible screams, but they didn't stop as the spell ended the rats, driving many of the surviving rats away.

Charlotte dropped her hand, opening her eye and seeing through her sunglasses the rats, frightened of what had happened to their fellows, had run off, leaving behind a number of giant corpses. But the path to the portkey was open to them. She was about to walk to the portkey when she realised the rats could return in the meantime and overwhelm them before they knew what was happening. She pointed her wands at the portkey.

"Accio, Portkey!" she intoned, hoping there weren't any spells on the portkey to prevent it from coming to them. Fortunately, the spell worked, and the portkey was summoned to them.

Charlotte grinned and she held it out to the others, but her smile faded when she caught sight of the unhappy expressions on Fleur and Cedric's faces. "What's the matter?" she asked. "Something I said?"

"Was that really necessary?"

"What do you mean?" Charlotte asked, but she knew what Fleur was saying.

Fleur gestured all around the chamber to the corpses of the rats. "Was it necessary to kill them like that?"

"I'm not happy about how we went about this, but I do think you should have found another way?" Cedric added.

Charlotte wanted to murder them. That was the one thought in her head while she had to use all of her occlumency training to stop herself from lashing out at them. She wanted to kill them in the most painful, most vicious way she knew of, and she wanted to grind what little remained of them into dust. She would hate to do such a thing to Cedric considering her feelings for him, but she was so sick and tired of the holier-than-thou attitudes so many people possessed.

She wondered why wizards and witches refused to live in the real world. Couldn't Fleur or Cedric see if they hadn't killed the rats, they would have all died and they would never have been able to get to the portkey so they could reach the hostages, and end this fucking task?

It was ludicrous, and once more she wondered if Albus Dumbledore's stupid ideology had penetrated every single corner of the world like the disease it was.

She needed to take a deep breath and use her occlumency barriers to clamp down on the homicidal thoughts running through her head.

"Those things," she paused while she gestured around her, around the corpses of the rats, "would have killed us all without a qualm. We were food to them. That's not a crime in itself. Hunger is not a crime. They were hungry animals trying to survive, but if we hadn't killed them, we would have died. There are people counting on us, or have you forgotten about them? You have a sister, right, a sister whom you think is a hostage?" she said to Fleur, instantly feeling bad for the manipulation which once more made her think she was becoming more like Dumbledore every second, although in this instance she wasn't sitting on the sidelines watching if her pawns could sink or swim. "Do you really think she'd appreciate it if her rescuer, her own sister, couldn't save her, because she cared more for her conscience?"

Fleur's entire posture changed. Feathers began sprouting from her body, and her whole face was changing into that of a bird. Charlotte stood her ground, although she mentally went through her spell repertoire for a calming spell, and she hit Fleur with the most powerful spell she knew, inwardly horrified by what she had just said.

"I'm sorry," Charlotte whispered apologetically when she saw the last feather retract into Fleur's body, the skin turning as smooth and creamy as before. "I shouldn't have said that but you three have grown up happily, you have never had to see the reality that only the strong survives or they perish. It's a harsh rule, but it's true. How about I swear I won't harm anyone or anything unless the situation calls for it, okay?"

The Champions looked at each other and then they looked back at Charlotte, and they nodded in acquiescence as she held out the portkey. They all realised she had a good point, but while they didn't like what was happening they could see her argument and her unspoken point.

They all touched the portkey and they were sent off into the magical vortex….

XXX

…and they were deposited into what seemed to be an enormous room made out of pure stone, with high fluted gothic columns. Three of the Champions had been experienced with portkey travel since they were old enough to walk and they knew the best way was to close their eyes and not look into the vortex, which was like the whirlwinds of a hurricane, but the force of this particular portkey was several times more powerful.

Charlotte groaned as she fell to the ground, closing her one remaining eye while she tried to hold down her breakfast - she'd had a fairly light one, with some fruit and water in anticipation for today, but she hadn't expected this - which threatened to spill out everywhere.

She was locked in her misery, but she still heard the others. They sounded just as sick as she did, and she felt sympathetic towards them. "I will not puke," she whispered, taking in deep breaths as she spoke, "I am not going to puke!"

With that, she rose up, keeping her eye closed as she rose slowly up and she pulled herself into a cross-legged position while she rubbed her face tiredly before she opened her eye up slowly and looked around. She quickly scanned their landing place, completely unsurprised for some reason that there was no sign of any hostage. But what worried Charlotte the most was the ornamental floor that seemed to stretch forever to the far end. She frowned when she spotted the statue of a golden wizard holding what appeared to be a large diamond.

Calmly Charlotte used her legilimency connection to her sunglasses enchantments to magnify in on the wizard's hands. The diamond was easily the size of a basketball. Charlotte thought back on what she and Dobby had learnt when they'd interrogated Bagman under truth potion. Frustratingly the foolish man had been vague about the obstacles in this particular Task, but she had heard there would be some kind of treasure hunt although Bagman had little idea of what it entailed.

Charlotte sighed and she stood up slowly, feeling nauseous. She turned and saw the others were getting up as well, all of them looking as physically sick as she did. She walked over and held out her hands to help Fleur and Cedric. Cedric took her hand without too much hesitation, but the moment of mulling made her wonder just how much of their relationship had been spoilt by her actions.

It was Fleur who was the most hesitant and reluctant to accept her help, but the French witch could feel nauseous, and she knew it would take a miracle to get her to stand on her own two feet without help right now.

"So, any idea where we might be?" Cedric asked, looking around, squinting uncertainly at the wizard statue.

"No. But I think that statue with the diamond in its hands is an essential part of this stage of the Second Task," Charlotte said.

"Why do you say that?"

"The answers are in front of you. There is nothing else here, nothing but the floor and the statue," Charlotte answered.

"Mm, she's got a point," Krum grunted before he walked forwards. "Come, there's nothing to fear here-!"

He couldn't say anymore when he felt an extraordinarily strong hand grab his shirt and throw him back. Krum instantly looked up, staring into the face of Charlotte Potter. "That is what scares me," Charlotte said.

With that, she turned around and walked to the nearest column. She held out her wand and blasted a small chunk of masonry from it, and she smashed it into little bits. Charlotte held them in her hand and she walked over to the edge of the ornamental floor. She bent down and examined the flooring….This whole place screamed a giant chessboard like the one she, Weasley, and Granger had encountered during that insane quest in their first year, but somehow this place just felt different, although it was similar. Some of the squares were white, the others were a dark red in colour.

And knowing Dumbledore as she did, well Charlotte wouldn't be surprised if this latest obstacle of the Second Task was yet another example of a man who never truly bothered to sit down and think through his plans with an objective eye.

She pushed those thoughts aside, and she dropped one of the bits of masonry on the floor, choosing one of the white squares. Nothing happened. Charlotte tried to ignore the sinking feeling she felt when she dropped another piece, watched by the three older Champions who had realised what she was doing, and why, onto one of the dark red squares.

The square flashed with red light, and it wasn't the only one.

All the other red squares began flashing, and Charlotte jumped back worriedly, wondering what it was she had just tripped up. The Champions watched quietly as figures began to appear on the red squares. They were tall figures, resembling armoured knights made from polished black stone, all of them were armed with massive axes, maces, broadswords that were larger than Krum and Cedric combined, and a few were carrying spears.

As soon as they were fully formed, they stood motionless as the voice of Albus Dumbledore echoed around them.

"I trust you are now aware of the obstacle in front of you," the sage, albeit aged voice of the old manipulative bastard which had been honed for years before any of the Champions were born said, "they are going to move as soon as my instructions are finished, so beware. At the far end of this hall, there is a statue of a wizard with a diamond clasped in the hands. That diamond is your portkey. It will take all of you to the next stage of the Task. Good luck."

The moment the message was ended, the warrior figures stood to attention, moving into combat stances. The Champions, startled, got into stances themselves, readying themselves for the fight ahead.

"Have you got any ideas?" Fleur asked Charlotte nervously. She already had a few ideas in her head, but considering how they were meant to be working together, and Charlotte had put in a huge amount of the work already, it seemed like a good idea to find out for sure.

"A few, what about yourself?" Charlotte said, not saying that her ideas were ill-thought out since there was only so much they didn't really know.

"One or two," Fleur replied while Cedric and Viktor got ready.

"Are you two done?" Krum interrupted them, looking at the two witches with something that made them both uncomfortable (Charlotte had to close down the thought in her mind which shouted Krum was one of those people who looked down on girls; this wasn't the time for a stupid case of philosophy).

"Do you have something in mind?" Fleur asked her Durmstrang competitor curiously, her own tone sharp which told Charlotte she had also detected the same thing.

"Sure," Krum lifted his wand in answer and fired off a blasting hex at the nearest figure. The curse smashed into the figure, pulverising the stonework and the figure collapsed to the ground.

Krum grinned smugly at the two witches who both noticed the molecule thin layer of contempt as he regarded them. "See, nothing to it?"

Charlotte raised a brow under her sunglasses. "Don't be so sure," she warned.

Krum scoffed. "You're such an alarmist-!" he began, but then his eyes widened in shock as the figure reformed so completely that the seams and the cracks formed by the Durmstrang Champion's curse vanished without a trace.

"I hate to say I told you so, but well, I told you so," Charlotte stepped back, ignoring the Dumstrang Champion completely while her eye scanned the cathedral-sized room, trying to think of a way of getting over to the diamond, and bringing it back without them being hacked to bits. She discounted trying to get over to the diamond from the ground; the figures were in the way, and there were too many of them, and they could reform themselves (Charlotte had to fight the part in her mind which said again and again that the figures could reform because Dumbledore wanted to remind her this was an echo of the Philosopher's Stone quest; this was different, but there were just so many similarities between that mess and this one to be a coincidence) to fight again.

But then she looked at the columns, and she looked over from the column nearest to her to the ones closest to the statue of the wizard before she looked further up, hoping to see something of use, but there wasn't a ledge, no way she could climb up and just run across. But the columns had given her an idea…

And it came just in time as the figures charged at them.

The Champions raised their wands, and they started blasting them to bits; Cedric managed to bring down three of them by shattering them at the knees and the legs, while Fleur favoured demolishing them all at once. Charlotte crushed two of them with her Tissue Compression spell before she turned to the others, and she crept back without them noticing.

It did occur to Charlotte she could have them cover her, but she decided against it but after a moment of mulling it over in her mind she realised they were covering her; they just didn't know it yet. She went over to the nearest column, placing the wand in her left hand back into her holster before she used her other wand and pressed the tip into the palm of her left hand.

It took a moment, but she felt her hand start to get hot but she wasn't worried, and she waited for the spell to take effect. Once the spell was in place, she cast the spell on her other hand, and then she cast it on her feet before she slid the wand into the breast pocket of her jacket. She turned to face the column, and she blew out a deep breath, centring herself, mentally preparing herself before she placed her hands on the stone column, aware even if she was doing her best to avoid looking at the mirror which had followed her up, waiting before she felt what could be described as a pull on her hands. Charlotte grinned before she moved her other hand up, and she began to crawl up the side of the column-like a giant spider while she used her occlumency to push aside all of her stray thoughts as she concentrated on the job in order to keep the magic of the spell strong.

But before she began climbing, she knew this was going to take a while.

Charlotte had used this spell before. She had used it quite frequently in the summer before her third year after she'd discovered it by chance, she found it was the perfect spell for getting into luxury flats in London.

It had been fun being 'Spider-Man,' or rather 'Spider-Woman' as one of her comic-loving friends claimed there had been a few feminine versions of the Marvel comic superhero, although she didn't care about heroism.

It took Charlotte five minutes to climb up to the ceiling, and when she reached it she needed to clamp down on her stomach in preparation for what she was going to do next while she placed her hands on the ceiling and began crawling over it upside down. She could hear the sounds of the fight, but she didn't dare look down; this was dangerous enough as it was, and if she lost her concentration then it would affect the spell.

Charlotte normally didn't bother using her occlumency for this type of work; most of the buildings she broke into from the ground up were only a few storeys high, but in this case, under exceptional and strange circumstances, she didn't want to place all of her faith in the spells placed in her hands by her wands only.

She didn't fancy falling to her death in this mess of a Tournament just to give people kicks.

Strangely enough, Charlotte found herself enjoying the experience of crawling along the ceiling upside down especially since she wasn't experiencing any blood rushing to her brain as she crawled, and as she approached the far end she reinforced her occlumency again so she could look down and get a bearing.

She was almost there, she only had a few feet to go before the statue was right underneath and she could climb down the columns and then she would have access to the statue. But she spotted a problem. Right in front of the statue on guard were four of the soldier figures, but luckily for her, they were facing ahead.

Charlotte grinned, and she kept moving when she felt the heat in her hands starting to cool. She quickly reinforced her barriers and pushed more of her magic into the spell in her hands. Once she felt the spell warming her hands again, Charlotte breathed out a sigh of relief, and she kept moving on.

When she reached the column after she made sure it was one that was right behind the statue, Charlotte thought back to the training she had taken upon herself to use in order to adapt herself to the brain-rushing sensations of crawling upside down on a high ceiling or down at wall headfirst. It was only a matter of practice of course but Charlotte would never forget the times she had been sick; while she wasn't afraid of heights, there was a limit to what her stomach could take.

At the same time, she remembered how she had used the grappling hook in the First Task when she had the means of using this, but at the time she had still wanted to stop Dumbledore from having any knowledge of what she could do, but then she had realised that it made little difference as the weeks had passed since she had planned on escaping anyway, so what did she have to lose if she showed some of the other spells in her repertoire?

Her plan had been reformed, so what did it matter if Dumbledore knew a little more of what she was capable of instead of being under the impression she was an average student?

Charlotte pushed those thoughts aside as she slowly scaled the column and went down head first, keeping her remaining eye on the figures she could see as she went down to see if they had any inkling she was there. They didn't move once as she went further down, though if they were human Charlotte would have guessed they were interested in the battle with the other Champions. Charlotte idly wondered if the others had worked out by now what she was doing, but truthfully she didn't care. She was on her own, working on her own and living by her wits, why should we worry about relying on a group of people? Yeah, she liked Cedric, but she would rather work by herself.

Charlotte's expression did not change as she reached the floor and she took one of her hands off of the column before she placed it on the floor and pulled herself off before using her other hand to help pull the rest of her body off of the column.

Mentally she dispelled the spell in her hands and she slowly rose to her feet and looked around the statue. She could see the flashes of spellfire, and the thrashing of the figures' weapons as they charged the Champions but she couldn't see them completely. Charlotte backed away and she used a wand to conjure up a backpack which she placed on her back, and she edged around the statue as silently as she could, watching the figures before she turned to the statue.

The statue was tall, but it would be so easy to climb up the base which was the height of a fence you'd find in a back garden. Charlotte pulled herself up the statue slowly, easily reaching the base of the wizard within easy reach of the arms but she knew she would need to go higher if she wanted to get the diamond. Fortunately, the arms of the statue were low enough to grab hold of and haul herself up, and as she worked she looked around to see if the figures nearby had noticed her yet. They hadn't, and Charlotte guessed they were spelled in such a way they would only attack from the front without thinking of looking behind.

As she hauled herself up on the arms of the statue, Charlotte swung her legs over and came into a sitting position on the arms before she looked down at the diamond.

It was easily the biggest jewel she had ever seen, even larger than the crown jewel collection she had stolen from the Tower of London earlier this year. If she had found this jewel in the muggle world, Charlotte knew the diamond would set her up for life, although she knew she would need to use her contacts to break it down so then she could sell it without the coppers being aware she had it.

She shifted a little bit, but she managed to keep herself stable enough to lean forward to grip the diamond, realising the arms were so thin despite outward appearances. She ignored that after a moment, realising there was little she could do about it now, and she would need to get closer to the diamond.

Charlotte gasped when she leaned too far forward, and she nearly lost her balance. She only just managed to keep herself stable, and she clenched her teeth in irritation. She moved forward slowly, closer to the diamond.

Once she was closer, she picked up the diamond, wincing a little bit; it was so heavy, and Charlotte sighed inwardly, wondering how she was going to get down with her balance so bad on these spindly arms without alerting the soldier-figures while she had to deal with the diamond which weighed a ton.

As she mulled over the problem, Charlotte suddenly smirked as she heard a voice in her brain which sounded like Rowena Ravenclaw say "levitate it to the ground," along with a voice which sounded like Slytherin, "stop thinking like a muggle; think like a witch for a change."

"Oh, I intend to," she said to herself, keeping in mind one of the mirrors had followed her and had broadcasted what she had just said around the world which would leave everyone mystified.

She took off her backpack and placed it gently on the arm while leaning it against the statue itself, and she pulled herself back slightly before she took out her wand and silently levitated the pack off of the statue, lowering it slowly to the ground before it clunked gently on one of the white coloured squares. With a smirk of triumph, Charlotte effortlessly jumped to the ground, her mind instantly shifting into her gymnastic training before she grabbed the bag, and after casting a weightless spell on it (she kicked herself for not doing that earlier, so she wouldn't have wasted so much time) before putting the backpack on her back before she raced for the column after making sure the diamond was secure as were the straps on her back.

When she got there, she looked over her shoulder to see if the figures nearest to the statue had noticed her, but when she was reassured they hadn't noticed her, their full attention focused entirely on the fight up ahead. She turned back to the column, pressing the tip of her wand in her palm and then casting the same climbing spell into her hand before changing her wand to the other hand and then doing the same thing before she climbed up the column.

Charlotte had a much faster journey this time around because she remembered the route before she climbed down the column before she stood up and after cancelling the climbing spell, she saw that the Champions were having a hard time smashing the warrior figures to bits, only for them to either reform or new ones to appear, so for every two warrior figures that were destroyed six more would take the place of the first ones.

I have to hand it to Dumbledore, or whoever dreamt this challenge up; they certainly know how to prolong things, but they haven't thought it through, I have to admit; at this rate, it would be around midnight, or midday tomorrow before we're through, if I hadn't done what I had, Charlotte thought to herself, before she stepped forwards, taking off her backpack and then pulling the diamond out.

She placed the tip of one of her wands to her throat, silently casting the sonorous charm to her throat. "GUYS!" she called, startling the Champions, who turned, only to gape in surprise when they saw what she was holding. "SHALL WE GET OUT OF HERE, OR WHAT?"

The Champions didn't need telling twice. They rushed over to the portkey but as they approached her Charlotte inwardly sighed when she caught their expressions. They weren't happy with her for going behind their backs and getting the diamond without them knowing what she was doing.

This was the trouble with the magical world; they were more than happy to do things in groups without thinking about thinking outside of the box. Charlotte snorted under her breathe; she didn't care if Dumbledore and the judges claimed they should work together or not, but her methods brought results and if these so-called Champions didn't like it, then fuck 'em. She didn't give a damn. She kept her face expressionless as they placed their hands on it before they were sucked into the magical vortex of portkey travel leaving behind the stone warrior figures who instantly stopped when they vanished into the vortex.

XXX

After everything else they had gone through in the Second Task so far; dealing with acromantulas in a dark forest, coming face to face with an infestation of giant rats in a sewer network, and lastly facing an army of stone warriors on a larger and more flexible version of the chessboard she'd dealt within her first year, Charlotte had expected almost anything when the portkey landed them somewhere new.

But what appeared to be a library with shelves of dark wood and covered with neatly packed books with doorways branching off while the lighting was dim which cast extremely deep, dark shadows everywhere was a surprise, but Charlotte clenched her wands tightly in anticipation.

"Charlotte," she heard Cedric say, and she sighed when she heard the Hufflepuff's displeased tone.

Charlotte turned, seeing all three of the older Champions staring at her darkly. "What?"

"We're supposed to be a team during this task, right?"

"That's the theory," Charlotte replied mildly, knowing what was coming.

"And yet you went off on your own," Fleur glared spitefully at her while Krum looked on with an increasingly dark expression. "What for, glory?"

"Don't flatter yourself!" Charlotte spat, lacing her words with magic to lash them. Fleur and Cedric gasped and they staggered back under the attack. "You lot were more interested in blasting those figures to bits. What good would it have done? Nothing. They reformed themselves, and new ones were forming all the time. How else were we to get the diamond? It would have taken hours and hours to get through, it would have wasted so much of our energy. I just took a different route, that's all. Why is it a problem?"

"Why didn't you tell us what you were doing?" Cedric asked, his voice more patient than the others, but there was an underlying annoyance, and Charlotte had the impression he was more annoyed she hadn't bothered to tell them what she'd been doing more than anything else. As much as she disdained the Hufflepuff flannel of fair play, she had too much respect for Cedric to antagonise him. Fleur and Krum were easy enough game in her mind. She didn't care what they thought one way or another, and in any case, if they had wanted the diamond so badly, then they should have come up with a much better plan than simply blasting those figures to bits, shouldn't they?

Charlotte sighed. "Alright. I didn't tell you because if I had told you what I was doing, then you might have drawn the figures attention to me. Besides, you lot were working so hard, if I had distracted you then you might have gotten hurt."

"How altruistic of you," Krum sneered.

Charlotte sneered back at the Bulgarian, inwardly laughing at his words. While she liked to see herself as kind-hearted and generous, she knew what she had done had been to speed thing up, and for her to exercise her independence when this task made it clear they were meant to work together. "Not at all, I just didn't want any of you to get a sword in your back. Besides, I had the skills to get to the diamond without wasting time and energy. What's the problem? We've moved on with the Task, so forget it. We now have this place to deal with."

"Well said, Charlotte Potter."

The Champions were startled by the unexpected voice. Charlotte's eye widened under her sunglasses. "No, it can't be," she said.

A tall thin young man who physically looked the same age of the three older Champions step out of the shadows, wearing the robes of a Slytherin prefect.

"Who are you?" Cedric frowned in confusion.

The young man, however, was looking straight at Charlotte. "We meet again, Charlotte Potter," he said, ignoring Cedric's question. "How wonderful to see you again after so long."

"Still the dramatic gob-shite I remember. How are you here, now? I killed you two years ago!" Charlotte hissed in disbelief.

"What?" Cedric looked down at her, stunned. "Charlotte, who is this?"

But Charlotte ignored him while she stared down the strange Slytherin prefect. "What are you doing here?"

The young man laughed a high-pitched laugh that hurt the ears of the Champions. "Why, I couldn't resist being here, to see you again, dear little Charlotte Potter."

"Okay, who are you?" Cedric demanded, walking over to try to push Charlotte behind him, sensing that these two had a history, and it was not a good one.

"Yes, Charlotte," the prefect smirked. "Tell the Hufflepuff who I am."

The Champions stiffened. They were starting to truly dislike this guy.

Charlotte took a deep breath. "He's a former Slytherin prefect, Cedric. You don't know him simply because he attended Hogwarts fifty years ago."

"Fifty? But how do you know him?"

"Oh, I know him well, as the psychotic bastard he is. "

"Oooh, language, Charlotte," the prefect mocked.

"Are you part of the Tournament?" Fleur demanded, her tone cool but sharp as her impatience at this verbal byplay went on.

The mysterious prefect's smirk faded as he stared with open disgust at Fleur. "Quiet, you filthy halfbreed."

"Ah, even now you still feel the need to be in control," Charlotte said, placing a strong but gentle hand on Fleur when she saw the surprise and outrage on her face at the insult. "But like Fleur said, why are you here?"

"Why, to be part of the Task of course. How else could I not be?" the prefect said smoothly.

"Not just a dramatic gob-shite, but a conceited dramatic gob-shite," Charlotte observed. "You never change, do you? You're no different to your older self, are you?"

"Older self?" Krum looked sharply at Charlotte in confusion before he turned his gaze to stare confusedly towards the prefect who was still unnamed. "What do you mean, older self?"

The only reply from the prefect was to laugh softly under his breath as if he were about to tell them the punchline of a joke they were the butt of. "And you would know, wouldn't you, my dear?"

"Yeah. Everyone saw you as a prodigy, and you were. You were a brilliant student from what I discovered after we met a few years ago; know thy enemy, one of the best truths the world has ever had. Too bad your facade of politeness lay a pathetic little child who wanted to lash out at the world, at everyone around him, simply because he wanted more out of life instead of trying to grow into something more."

The prefect's expression became terrifying in its rage. "You know nothing about me, and you are no better-!"

"Oh, but I do. And I not as pretentious as you are; I know my limits, I know what I am capable of. In any case, I know a great deal about you. I don't need a degree in psychology to work you out. I only needed a few conversations with you, to examine bits of your history to get the clues for my conclusion. So much has happened. Cedric, Fleur, Krum, this…thing is an abomination."

"Big words, little girl," the prefect sneered, the expression on his face startling the Champions barring Charlotte with the malevolence. "But tell them what I called myself when I began to hone my talents when I began putting my plans into effect."

Charlotte shook her head. "Oh, that was a sign then of things to come, wasn't it, of your ambition, your arrogance, your need to dominate and destroy everyone who came up against you. Guys, this thing is the very worst of the magical community, only so many know him by a totally different name. He's a poison, a cancer, a spectre who has haunted the wizarding world for decades, right in the shadow of Grindelwald himself. This is Tom Marvolo Riddle, but he calls himself Lord Voldemort."