Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's.

The next chapter that contains some filler, sorry guys, I promise the third task is really really soon ;)

So here we go...

Chapter 34

Someone had ruined the quidditch pitch. Katie, of course, had been livid when they had discovered the knee-high hedges on one of their walks.

Harry had been intrigued. Most, if not all, of the strange things that had happened this year had been connected to the Triwizard Tournament, and he had been prepared to wager much of what he had that the maze were connected to the final task.

Now he was willing to wager everything.

He had, not wanting to pass up the chance of an advantage, tried mapping the hedges, but the moment he had put quill to parchment they had shifted and moved. Someone had clearly anticipated a champion trying to plan a route through before the task began.

Katie had been rather more furious about what they'd done to the pitches, and where the quidditch goals had gone, but, once she'd vented her rage trying to set fire to them with a series of violent incendios, they'd concluded it was another first to the finish event.

Interestingly the hedges had not been so much as scorched by Katie's curses, which had immediately implied Harry's plan of simply burning his way to the finish and avoiding following the paths was unlikely to work. He wasn't surprised, but he wasn't overeager to have to follow the pre-defined routes that would certainly be full of obstacles.

Most of his plans had been to do with picking a more unconventional route through, or above, or under the maze, rather than trying to force his way down the paths.

He'd even dragged Neville down to take a look at the hedges.

Harry had rather regretted that. Neville had been reluctant right up until he'd been close enough to see the distinctive shape of the needles. The normally shy, even if Harry had managed to build up some self-belief in him over spring, had lost all signs of nervousness and rambled incessantly about extremely rare magical plants for well over five minutes.

Eventually he'd managed to extract the name of the plant and its properties from Neville. The maze was grown from Lying Leylandii, a particularly rare type of Cypress that was supposed to be all but extinct in Britain.

Harry was more concerned by the fact that it was lying Leylandii and though having needles shaped like tiny tongues was quite cool, the fact that it rearranged itself to deceive anyone close to it and was magically resistant to all but the strongest cast spells made it a very annoying plant. Once they were far enough within the maze nobody would be able to observe them because of the nature of the hedges. It was the only thing Harry liked about the plant.

Neville, on the other hand, seemed to be in love with it, and Harry was fairly sure he'd seen him taking cuttings to cultivate in the greenhouses, and Gryffindor Tower, and his home, and really anywhere he thought he could safely keep it to grow.

Neville is going to be furious when he learns how I plan to get through.

Harry had very little hope of being able to avoid following the incredibly dangerous, set paths to the cup that lay at the centre without use of his sole remaining plan. He had only a single spell, one he had coaxed from Salazar with great difficulty, that he was sure would manage to damage the green walls in front of him. Unfortunately his control over fiendfyre was still quite abysmal, though he had, through great practice, mastered extinguishing it in small amounts.

It was an intent driven spell and on a par with some of the most dangerous spells Salazar knew. The portrait, of course, agreed with Harry when he had said that the spell was not dark, because there were no spells that were. It did, however, require no small amount of desire to destroy something completely, and that was rarely justifiable.

He might make an exception for the maze, though. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like being in it very much.

'All our champions are here,' Bagman boomed. 'That means it's almost time to begin.'

Harry eyed his rivals. Cedric was looking determined, Fleur, well it was best not to think about how she was looking, especially after the debacle in the Room of Requirement. He shuddered to think what would have happened if he hadn't managed to escape before retaking control of the room from her.

Krum patted him firmly on the shoulder with a wand-enclosing fist. 'I have not forgotten the fish,' he whispered, grinning.

Harry smiled innocently. 'I was afraid that if you had I might have to conjure them again,' he replied quietly. Krum laughed, thumped him on the shoulder once more, and withdrew his hand.

'Not more than a few minutes ago my assistant and I, accompanied by Alastor Moody, placed the Triwizard Trophy at the centre of the maze. The first one to retrieve it wins,' the former-beater stated simply. 'If you wish to withdraw you need only send up red sparks from your wand.'

'What about the points?' Cedric demanded, eagerly. He was last and had the most to gain if the points now turned out to be useless. Harry suspected that they would not be.

'Mr Krum will enter first, as he has the most points, and for every point the next champion is behind him ten seconds will be lost.' Cedric frowned. He was more than a minute behind the Bulgarian.

'Is there anything we should know about the maze?' Fleur asked seriously. She was eyeing the hedges with a certain level of suspicion.

'I can't tell you anything that might help you,' Bagman shrugged. He seemed rather glad that he couldn't answer Fleur's question and Harry narrowed his eyes at the man. Ludo Bagman was normally quite susceptible to her allure, even her passive charm.

Harry smelt a rat.

At least it is not Pettigrew.

That had been a potential headache. Someone had discovered Pettigrew's body in the Forbidden Forest. Harry's attempt to get rid of it had not sent it as far as he hoped. From what he had heard Pettigrew had been well beyond recognisable, which was unfortunate for Sirius, but good for him, and the Ministry had taken it to try and identify. Harry had spent some time researching the processes they might use, and he was quite confident that none of them would reveal his part in the Pettigrew's well deserved end, even Wormtail's identity eventually came to light. There wasn't a time-turner made that had the power to go back far enough to catch him in the act, and very cases were ever passed on to the Unspeakables.

I have a maze to deal with, he reminded himself, and focused on the third task again.

There were too many unknowns for Harry to decide whether the time difference would make any impact on things. He had no choice but go as quickly and directly as possible towards the trophy.

Three hedges should be far enough, he decided.

Neville had told him that a single hedge of this size would be more than enough to keep them out of sight, but Harry wasn't going to be casting any random spell. It would be best to have a conservative estimate before attempting something as supposedly dark as fiendfyre was.

All four of the champions edged a little closer to the entrance of the task as they came to the same conclusions. When the gap was in seconds every meter would count. Krum was chuckling under his breath next to Harry as he leant forwards ever so slightly. The Bulgarian clearly would not be giving up any of his advantage if he could avoid it.

'Well I suppose that's really all there is to it,' Bagman grinned. 'Mr Krum…'

Viktor Krum leant forward a little further.

A shrill whistle blew and Krum flew forwards and into the darkness of the maze.

He's fast.

Harry was fairly fast, but Krum was something else. If he hadn't been magical Harry suspected he could have a good life as a track athlete.

Fleur was counting down from forty behind him. When she got to twenty it would be Harry's turn.

He leant forwards. It rather reminded him of athletics back before Hogwarts. He'd been a damn sight better than Dudley, especially at anything involving running.

On your marks, get set…

Fleur reach eighteen and Harry's muscles coiled.

Go!

He was in the maze before Bagman had managed to blow the whistle.

It was dark. The hedges looked a whole lot taller from within, twenty feet seemed a lot more like twenty metres, as the definitely-no-longer-knee-high walls towered over either side of him as he ran.

Krum's footprints went left at the first fork; Harry went right. He'd rather not catch the Bulgarian in the process of creating his shortcut. Harry quite liked Krum.

The path followed a gentle curve along what was likely to be the edge of the maze. Harry frowned and resolved to take the next left in towards the centre, he needed to get at least three hedges between himself and the edge as quickly as he could.

He ran full tilt into something very hard and bounced off into the hedge.

The walls of the maze shivered and Harry was sure he could hear the leaves whispering, but that all faded out of his mind when the original obstacle turned to face him, clicking its pincers menacingly.

Who let Hagrid help?

Harry swore viciously and raised his wand, watching it rise up in each of the eight, almost life-size reflections of himself.

'Lacero,' he hissed. The curse put out one of the reflections, and the monstrously over-sized spider clicked furiously, thick, sticky green liquid dripping from its mandibles.

The curse Harry had used was designed to cut through flesh and muscle, but it seemed to do little more than gouge lines into the acromantula's carapace whenever Harry aimed at something a bit more vital than its spare eyes.

The giant spider surged forwards and Harry hastily dived underneath it, disillusioning himself and lying very still. The creature clicked slowly, stalking up and down over the top of him, but proved unable to find him.

Instead it began to spin a web across the path, blocking Harry's way further into the maze. He'd forgotten how intelligent they were. Aragog had been able to speak, this was one was clearly capable of some strategy. Very fine fibres of their silk were sometimes used to make expensive clothing, but the webbing between Harry and his goal was as thick as his bicep and every bit as strong as steel.

He didn't have time or magic to waste carving his way through that; he couldn't surreptitiously use fiendfyre so close to the outside of the maze.

Then inspiration struck. A carapace wasn't too different to bone. It was called an exo-skeleton for a reason and he doubted the magic would see the difference between the two.

'Osassula,' he whispered, flicking his wand in an inverted c shape.

His bone-splintering curse missed its original target off the spider's carapace, but it struck one of the legs instead, shattering it, and the acromantula stumbled, screeching in pain.

He fired off three more, crippling two more legs on the same side before the spider collapsed and his final curse flew harmlessly into the hedge.

Harry gazed down at the writhing spider curled up on the floor in front of him. Its legs were curled in on itself no differently from the garden spiders Dudley delighted in tormenting, and it was making a high-pitched, keening noise. He'd put it in such pain, it might have been kinder just to simply kill it.

His wand flared green and Harry frowned. He would never use that curse again, not if he could help it.

The spider screamed when he stepped towards it, and jerked forwards towards the sound of his footsteps, pincers clicking.

Injured animals are dangerous, he decided sadly. And it's in the way.

From the dirt beneath him he conjured a long, thin, steel spike and, with a high powered Banishing Charm, sent it deep into the acromantula's skull. Hagrid would be upset, but Harry would be alive.

He stepped over the spider's still legs, dropped his invisibility, and ducked through the gap in the webbing.

The maze began to curve in towards the centre more dramatically, and Harry had to fight the rising temptation to burn his way through to the centre the further in he felt he had come.

It was only a few moments before he heard heavy footfalls up ahead.

Harry immediately disillusioned himself.

Some horrific cross between a scorpion and a lobster was prowling along the path before him. It was a slimy nightmare of a creature. Harry was sure that Hagrid must love it dearly, whatever the hell it was.

A shower of sparks shot from forth from its end and it propelled forwards into the hedge, flailing its stinger wildly.

He made a split second decision that avoiding it was better than trying to fight something he knew nothing about and cast a noise suppression charm upon himself.

The creature was still thrashing about in the wall of the maze, stinging the hedge furiously and expelling gouts of spars as it drove itself deeper into the wall.

Harry sprinted past it silently and invisibly, trusting his charms to conceal him from the monster and hoping it's disgusting, fishy stench was a sign it had a very bad sense of smell and would not notice him.

There was another fork directly ahead of him, one that had no footprints on either path. Harry looked up into the slit of sky that was still visible to him, searching for any sign of the sun behind the clouds or hedges. There wasn't so much as a glimpse of it.

Idiot, he scolded himself, placing his wand flat on his palm.

'Point me,' he murmured very quietly so as not to agitate the thing that was still wrestling with the maze wall only a few metres behind him.

His ebony wand swirled to point down the left fork. North would take him close enough to use fiendfyre and get to the cup before anyone else.

He made it fourteen steps before he came across his next obstacle. A boggart.

It turned to face him immediately, despite the fact he was both invisible and moving silently.

'Expecto Patronum,' Harry said, focusing on his happiest memory and not even waiting for the creature to change shape. His disillusionment charm and muffling spell both failed as his concentration was diverted.

A half-hearted, sluggish, silver mist poured from his wand tip onto the floor and swirled helplessly around his feet.

That's not meant to happen.

He had been expecting Prongs. His stag patronus would have made short work of the boggart turned Dementor, but his happy memory somehow seemed inadequate now, like he no longer really believed it had felt so good. Something feathered rose out of the mist at his feet, a wing tip, then it burst into nothing and Harry was left standing before the Boggart.

It was not a Dementor.

Harry stared, terrified, but fascinated, at himself. There was no difference between the two of them. Emerald eyes, messy, ebony hair and jagged scar all behind wide-framed glasses. It had captured him perfectly, even the slight emptiness he always feared he saw in his eyes. Harry might as well have been looking into a mirror. Then the other version of himself opened his mouth.

'You're nothing,' it told him calmly, without a hint of emotional inflection, as if it knew this was fact. 'You're too weak to protect the people who make you somebody, they'll die.'

'No they won't,' Harry denied, it was just trying to scare him.

The boggart smiled coldly.

'They will,' it stated in such a Hermione-ish, correct manner, that Harry couldn't bring himself to argue again. 'You need to be stronger,' it took a step forwards, 'you need to be more like me.' Its eyes suddenly glowed red, the soft, hypnotic red of glowing coals and the precise hue of Voldemort's eyes.

'No,' Harry hissed in furious parseltongue. His wand came up, hungry, angry flames billowed from its tip, rippling over the boggart and down the path in front of him.

The creature never made a noise, the fiendfyre consumed it immediately. The heat from the flames was such that Harry had to step back and shield his face. The tip of his wand was glowing an eerie crimson.

I'm done with this maze.

He was angry now, with the boggart, with himself for listening to it, and with the maze for proving him weaker than he hoped. The ice was spreading across his chest, cracking and creaking in fury.

The flames twisted, writhing and rising in the form of a vast serpent. The tips of the flames were still red, but the core of what Harry somehow knew was a basilisk burnt white hot, too bright to look at directly.

It lunged forwards slithering and searing through the hedges as if they were so much mist. A distant part of Harry's mind remembered that Neville would be very angry with what he was doing to the hedges, but right now he really just wanted the maze to understand that he was strong than it and that he would win.

Harry walked confidently forwards in the wake of his fiendfyre serpent, breathing in the blistering hot air and the ashes with a contented smile upon his face. There was nothing that would stop him from reaching that cup first now.

And somewhere ahead of him a girl screamed.

The serpent twisted aside from its path without instruction, the flames flaring blue as it lunged towards Fleur Delacour.

No.

Harry's wand cut the connection to the fire instantly and the snake collapsed in on itself as he had never managed before. He began to run through the floating ashes of the hedges, the ice melting from his chest in fear of what he might have done.

Fleur was sprawled out across the path, her silver hair draped over her face. Her wand was beside her hand, warm from the strength of the magic she had just been casting. Her chest was still moving slightly as she breathed, but it was lost in the faint trembling Harry knew came from being put under the Cruciatus Curse.

She is still alive.

A sickly yellow curse hissed past his face, carving into the ground him, but he paid the damage no mind. If Krum had done this then no number of dark spells were going to save him from Harry. Fleur should not be hurt, she would not, not while Harry was here.

He swirled, rising to his feet, the bone-splintering curses hissing from his wand as swiftly as he could spit the incantation and flick his wrist. Krum threw himself to one side, rolling across the path and back to his feet.

'Not me,' he yelled, desperately, 'not me.'

'Then who?' Harry demanded coldly.

'Diggory,' he gasped, and Harry's body lit up with pain.

It hurt more than Harry could imagine, more than the fiendfyre when he had lost control for the first time in the chamber, more than the basilisk venom in his second year and more than when Voldemort had touched him with Quirrell's hands.

It hurts more than anything.

Then Harry remembered the feeling of tearing his own soul, and the pain suddenly just seemed less. He could think again.

'Lacero,' he whispered.

The curse sliced a deep, crimson line along Cedric's cheekbone and the Hufflepuff faltered, shaking his head for the briefest of moments. Harry paused, recalling the madness of Barty Crouch Junior, unable to believe it was a coincidence they were acting so similarly.

'Avada Kedavra!' Diggory screamed. Harry flinched aside instinctively from the flash of green light, but, from behind him, came a quiet, yet distinct, thud. He didn't need to look back to know that Krum was dead.

This can't be Cedric.

It simply wasn't possible. Pretty-boy Diggory wasn't capable of any of this. Everyone knew he was the perfect Hufflepuff, incapable of treachery or hurting a fly. He couldn't have cast the Killing Curse if his life depended on it.

Harry came to simple decision.

Throwing himself flat, he let the triplet of stunning spells fly harmlessly overhead.

'Obliviate,' he commanded. Salazar had told him he needed to know exactly what he wanted to remove, but Lockhart, who had been so proud of skill with charm, could not have known every detail of the years he stole from the mind of others. Harry focused on the moment Bagman had first blown the whistle.

Diggory staggered, his mouth opened and close several times, but nothing came out.

'Harry?' he questioned, staring about him in utter confusion.

'Stupefy,' Harry replied, and Cedric dropped heavily to the ground leaving him standing over the other champions.

I've won, he realised, surveying the scene. It didn't feel like he had won. There was a hidden hand at work here, someone had done this, guided all the champions together except him. That meant either they were the targets, or he was. Harry knew well enough how this worked to know which was likely to be true.

Riddle.

The goal of Voldemort's scheme was a mystery to him, but he knew he couldn't leave things like this. As things stood, two Unforgivables had been used, Cedric would have no memory of casting them, and Harry had benefitted most from their effects. An accusation would not stand up to scrutiny, his memories, Fleur's and their wands would provide evidence to exonerate him.

It will condemn Cedric.

Harry was certain the Hufflepuff was no more than the tool used to achieve Voldemort's ends in the tournament, so he couldn't leave him to be sent to Azkaban like Sirius was.

He bent down and picked up Cedric's wand, twirling it in his fingers as he thought.

Someone was waiting for their pawn to accomplish their ends. Cedric was meant to be blamed and needed to be alive to confess and seamlessly take the blame. Fleur was expendable to Voldemort, or his servant, whoever it was this time, and he didn't have the strength to take both Cedric and Fleur with him.

I can't leave her behind.

Harry knew without a doubt that even if he had just come across her on the floor he would have not been able to leave her, not even after shooting up red sparks for her rescue, just in case something did happen in the moment after he left and they came.

He raised Diggory's wand high in the air and shot a bright burst of red sparks up into the air. Someone would come and deal with Cedric and Viktor, he hoped it was Dumbledore, or someone good.

Dipping his head in final farewell to Viktor Krum, the Bulgarian had earned his respect, he twirled Cedric's wand one final time then snapped it and dropped the pieces beside the Hogwarts champion. He would have no memory of what he did, and there would be no evidence to pin him to it without his wand's evidence. The Hufflepuff did not need to live with the knowledge of what he had been forced to do.

Harry bent down, slipped the rosewood wand back into her belt, and gently scooped Fleur into his arms, cradling her against his chest with his left arm and keeping his right free to use his wand.

There was no time for following the paths of this maze. Fleur needed the task to end quickly, she would need medical attention and he was very sick of this tournament and the game someone was playing in the shadow of it.

A rippling wave of fiendfyre consumed the hedges in front him for a hundred metres then died away to nothing. Harry fell to one knee from the strain of controlling and dispelling it.

It will end soon, he told himself.

There hardly seemed much more that could go wrong, but Harry dare not think that aloud, not with Voldemort looming over events.

A single ring of hedge remained on the far side of the field of ashes and embers that Harry had created. The only gap in it was guarded by a sphinx. It was watching him with some amusement and curiosity.

'I'd like to go through,' Harry told it as he approached, the hot ashes swirling about his feet. The hedges had not burnt in his flames which meant they were very well warded indeed, there were few things capable of surviving fiendfyre, even the relatively weak version of Harry's second casting.

'I can see that,' it laughed, in a beautiful, female voice. 'You still have to answer the riddle, or you can try to force your way through.'

Harry suspected trying to fight a sphinx would be a very bad idea when he was fresh and not holding an unconscious Fleur Delacour, let alone now.

'The riddle,' he decided.

'The man who built it, doesn't want it. The man who bought it, doesn't need it. The man who needs it, doesn't know it. What is it?' The sphinx's enigmatic smile seemed to darken into something slightly morbid.

'How many guesses do I get?' Harry asked warily.

'A good question to ask,' the sphinx told him, its smile widening. 'Normally, if we met by chance, you would only have three, but since I came here especially to test Salazar's descendant,' Harry felt the sinking feeling return, 'you only get one. I hope you don't disappoint me.'

'So do I,' Harry laughed weakly.

If I die, Fleur is vulnerable.

'If you don't mind,' he warned the sphinx, 'just in case I do disappoint.'

Harry placed the tip of his wand on Fleur's forehead and cast Salazar's favourite protective curse on her skin. He was not so skilled with it as Slytherin had been, it would fade in a few hours, but while it lasted anyone that tried to touch her while intending harm would wither and likely die, including the sphinx. For good measure he disillusioned her too. If someone came searching for Fleur, they would still find her eventually, but Harry suspected that anyone intending harm would be looking for him.

'I'm sorry,' he apologised to the creature's unnatural symmetrical features, 'I seem to have forgotten the riddle while casting that.'

'The man who built it, doesn't want it. The man who bought it, doesn't need it. The man who needs it, doesn't know it. What is it?' The sphinx shifted impatiently and Harry received the impression he was running out of time in which to avoid disappointing it and presumably dying.

What do we make that we don't want?

There were so many things that they made and didn't want. 'I don't suppose you give hints?'

The sphinx smiled more widely and shook its head.

I have no idea, Harry realised. I'm going to die, sent to my coffin by a sphinx. Voldemort will be furious.

Suddenly the answer was there, in his head and he almost gasped with relief.

'A coffin,' he answered confidently.

There was a splitting pain in his temples, and Harry clapped his free hand to his face.

I was wrong?

'No,' the sphinx answered. 'I was just curious.'

'Legilimency,' Harry realised.

'Indeed,' the sphinx responded, leaning to one side to let him pass. 'I will enjoy watching what happens to you, Harry Potter, Heir of Slytherin. For answering my riddle correctly, you may pass, for passing my test I offer this, a second riddle, of sorts, that might help end a third. When is a key, not just a key? And when is a bond, not just a bond?'

Harry blinked, committing the words to memory. He had no idea what they meant, but it seemed unwise to forget anything a creature like a sphinx offered in assistance.

Rebalancing Fleur in his arms he squeezed past the creature's flank into the ring of hedges.

The Triwizard cup gleamed silver not five metres away from him, and nothing lay in between him and it. Now he had won.

Harry walked, very carefully and warily, towards the cup. He was inside whatever wards protected the centre of the maze, but Voldemort or his follower was still out there somewhere and Harry still had to take the cup all the way back to the start of the maze.

Very gently he set Fleur down on the ground next to the plinth. He couldn't carry them both as tired as he was, but he could travel faster with just the cup, end the task, and send help straight to where she was. He was proud that it was genuinely his feelings for her that were responsible, her well-being blotted out all thoughts of victory until she was truly healed again. He didn't need the Room of Requirement to tell him what that meant, or any time to realise that he really needed to talk to her when she woke up. For now, however, he had to make sure the Fleur did wake up, and that she was healed when she did. Behind the wards she would be safe, especially with Harry's curse still guarding her, so he would have to leave her for a short time, even if it felt profoundly wrong to take the cup instead of her.

He tucked his wand back up his sleeve and reached out with his right hand to take the trophy.

AN: Please read and review, thanks to everyone who does. I wanted a slightly more adult riddle, but it isn't mine, I was told it a few years ago by a friend, and I have no idea who originally wrote it.

P.S. I've also cut out a couple of chapters between the last and this, they felt pretty bland and the events within them weren't essential at this point in time. Hopefully it doesn't feel like too much of a jump.