Chapter 30

After Harry and Marco's "liberation" of the brothel, the rest of the Christmas holidays seemed to pass rapidly in a flurry of blood and snow. Mostly blood, though. All the snow had been created by a spell around the Aurelius manor to make it more atmospheric, and Harry really enjoyed fighting.

By the time the Christmas holidays came to an end, Harry had decided that going back to Hogwarts was, quite frankly, a waste of time. And so he would remain in Italy, simply Portkeying to England should he be needed. Hopefully, he would not be, and he wouldn't have to step back upon English soil until the Third Task.

And since he wasn't returning to school, he decided it would be appropriate to mock Maria for doing so.

He wandered into her room as she packed her bag. There had once been wards, but they hadn't been very difficult to bypass.

Maria didn't hear him enter, and continued waving her wand around, sending clothes levitating around the room and floating into her suitcase.

"Couldn't you just get the house elves to do that?"

At Harry's voice, Maria started. She spun, wand raised.

Harry simply rolled his eyes and continued walking, not even bothering to draw his wand. He moved over to her bed and collapsed on it.

"Well," he said, "I suppose you need to practise packing bags. With a year of Hogwarts education, it's the most impressive job you'll ever have."

Maria glared at him. She seemed to do that quite often nowadays; Harry quite enjoyed it.

"In case you've forgotten," she said, "I'm rich."

"Yes, yes. I know." Harry yawned. "I haven't slept in four days, though, and you're not worth the effort of creating witty insults for."

Maria went to speak, and then closed her mouth and frowned. "Why haven't you slept in four days?"

"My imaginary friend kept telling me to sleep more to accelerate my growth into becoming a full-on magical alien, but I am going through my stage of teenage rebellion."

"Um…okay?"

"Anyway," Harry said, "I thought I'd come in here to mock you about your return to Hogwarts, but you seem to be in quite the mood about it already, so I'll just lay here and let you imagine me mocking you." He hummed. "I'd probably also make some lewd sexual comments about being in your bed as well, so think of a few of those."

'You can think of some too, imaginary friend,' he said to Loki.

'How about "would you like to sleep with me?" It's just as creative as your normal drivel, and you'll be able to make sarcastic comments afterwards lamenting the fact that it didn't work."

'Ouch,' Harry said. 'Someone's grouchy.'

Loki snorted. 'Maybe I wouldn't be if you just obeyed my orders.'

'Hey, I'm just catching up on old orders of yours. Creating magical explosives is a great way to spend Christmas.'

'I would agree if they worked—they don't.'

'Trial and error, my friend.' Harry tried to be as condescending as he possibly could.

While Harry and Loki conversed, Maria ignored them—well, ignored Harry, seeing as she couldn't see Loki—and continued to pack. In turn, Harry ignored her. He continued his thinking upon how to create a magical grenade, and how it would be in anyway useful, seeing as blasting spells existed. Perhaps he could tether some spells from the diary of "Lord Potter" to it…

That was a good idea: the spells were immensely, devastatingly powerful and also nigh-on impossible to do when Harry was using just his wand—and even then they still took ages to cast.

Harry glanced up and saw that Maria had continued packing. What a bore she was.

'You're like a child,' Loki muttered. 'Are you incapable of entertaining yourself?'

'I am a child. And if I'm meant to entertain myself, what're you for?'

'I am not for entertainment—'

'And that's why I have to get my entertainment from others. If you were funnier, I would never have to talk to anyone—ever,' Harry said. 'You could probably also make some entire illusionary world for me if you wanted—like the Matrix. Why can't you do that, huh?'

Loki sighed. 'I—'

'Too weak, I assume,' Harry said. 'I thought you were meant to be a god. Gods can create entire real worlds, yet you can't do a fake one.' Harry tutted. 'You don't even appear as an illusion anymore—too weak for even that?'

Loki shimmered into existence, standing a few feet from the bed, next to where Maria was. Judging by her lack of reaction, she couldn't see him.

"No," Loki said, "not too weak. I just felt that you were no longer a child and, thus, no longer needed me to appear to you."

"And it also takes too much effort?"

"Yes."

Harry smiled. "I'm starting to believe that you're not actually anything like the old Loki and that I've rubbed off on you as much as you have on me."

"Really? I'm not that stupid."

Harry picked up a pillow from the bed and hurled it at Loki. It went straight through the illusion and hit Maria in the head.

"Sorry," Harry said, unapologetic as could be.

Maria glared back at him and picked up the pillow. She hurled threw it back. With a flick of his hand, he grasped it with his magic and sent it flying back at her once more. This time, it caught her in the stomach and sent her flying backwards into the wall in an explosion of feathers.

She bounced onto the floor, groaning.

Harry eyed her. She would be okay. She let out a louder groan. Well, she would hopefully be okay.

"See you in a few months," he said, and walked from the room.

For once in his life, Harry was telling the truth: the next time he saw Maria was months later, as he arrived at Hogwarts in preparation for the third task, which was three days away. His first line of business, of course, was talking to Daphne Greengrass.

Since he had left at Christmas, he had sent her a single letter, detailing how he was going on a quest oddly reminiscent of an Indiana Jones film he had been watching while writing the letter and, thus, would not be able to speak to her. He hoped she had fallen for it. She probably would: she seemed to think he was as smitten with her as she was with him—and he hadn't even used a love potion on her! It was obviously just his incredible personality that attracted her. Not his immense handsomeness, money, or fame. He was the only one who could be that shallow.

"Hey, Daphne." He walked up to her and pulled her into a hug. She hugged back, satisfyingly: she had nice breasts—for a fifteen-year-old, at least. It also meant that she was still in love with him.

'Ah, yes,' said Loki. 'One of the many perks of pulling girls out of lakes, even if they were in no danger in the first place, and the only reason they're there is mostly because of you. Next time, just put her under the Imperius for a few seconds and then release her; maybe she'll think you saved her again.'

'Now is not the time for your rants about the stupidity of mortals again'

'Why? Do you want to demonstrate to her how much you've improved at kissing since you last met her.' Loki snickered. 'I'm sure that'll brighten her mood.'

Harry pulled back from the awkwardly long hug, removing his hands from Daphne's behind as he did so. "It's been such a long time."

"Yes," said Daphne. "I really missed you."

"You too," lied Harry. "If what I was doing hadn't been so important…"

Daphne fluttered her eyelashes. "I hope you won't have to leave again soon."

'Are you sure we at no point drugged her with some kind of love potion? Because this is kind of ridiculous. Or maybe someone else drugged her as a present for us?'

"Yeah, hopefully they won't lose the Holy Grail again."

Sadly, the Holy Grail didn't exist. Harry had looked for it at some point. Tracking down holy artefacts had seemed like an appropriate thing to do, when he was practising his illusions by entering the meetings of satanic cults and pretending to be Lucifer. Especially since a few of those occasions had resulted in multiple murders, not that they were Harry's fault.

Daphne smiled and nodded. Harry wondered whether it was possible that she had drugged herself so that she fell in love with him. That seemed like a pureblood thing to do.

"Anyway," Harry said with a smile, stepping backwards as Daphne attempted to touch his arm, "I need to go and check what the Third Task looks like."

With that, he walked away as rapidly as he could, lest she ask if she could come with him.

Harry asked another student where they had actually prepared the Third Task, and then headed out to the Quidditch Pitch, which normally held a sport with rules that were either too confusing or too ridiculous for him to understand. Now, the lush, green grass of the field had been marred by a network of hedged passages crossing over it: a maze.

After making sure that no one was looking, he subtly walked over to it and launched a fire spell at the side. The fire half fizzled out, and Harry was forced to dodge the rest as it came back at him. There was no burning his way out of this one, like he had in the Amazon rainforest or that corn maze last week.

He cursed. He would just have to use his other method of cheating when it came to mazes, or as Loki called it: the Thor.

Three days later, the Third Task came. By that time, everyone was already well aware that Harry had returned to Hogwarts—he made sure to enter every meal as dramatically as possible. When Dumbledore—on the only occasion he had spoken to him—asked him to stop, he had simply said that he was practising his illusion magic, and, therefore, required to get better at trumpet fanfares.

As the champions stood next to the maze, the crowds were already cheering. Harry supposed that they had more of a reason to cheer here than they did when the champions were actually in the maze, where they wouldn't even be able to see them, except if they fired up the red sparks that meant they surrendered. Honestly, who designed these tasks?

In the centre of the maze waited the Triwizard Trophy. Whoever reached it first got it. The champion in first, Cedric, would get a five minute head start. Viktor, who was in second, would enter the maze five minutes after him. Harry would enter five minutes after him. Fleur didn't matter whatsoever, because she didn't have a chance.

As with the other tasks, the beginning was marked by a cannon shot created by a spell that Harry had mastered in his attempts to appear dramatic to the students of Hogwarts. Cedric sprinted right in, unaware of the tracking charm that Harry had placed on him a few moments prior when he had given him an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

If Harry's other attempt at cheating did not go well, then Loki would be able to remember Cedric's exact path.

Five minutes after Cedric had entered the maze, Krum was signalled to follow. Harry had also put a tracking charm on him.

Five minutes after Krum's entry, Harry was signalled to go in. He, however, did not go blindly sprinting in. No, he jogged calmly over to the side of the side of the maze where it was directly aligned with the centre. Since the beginning of the task, he had been gathering his focus. Now, he released it into a spell of his own design.

He aimed his wand at the bracelet with a hammer charm hanging off it, and muttered, "Anaccio." Then he adjusted his aim to a point in the sky. "Anaccio Duo."

Immediately, he was yanked upwards at speeds which would have immediately dislocated and probably ripped off the arm of a human. He soared through the air for mere seconds before he felt the spell end. With a flick of his wand, he adjusted his direction and was suddenly soaring downwards.

He managed to cushion his landing a moment before crashing into the floor, so that he instead impacted a bush, and then bounced to the ground. He groaned in pain.

"What the hell?" someone behind him murmured.

Loki quickly referenced the tracking charm. 'It's Cedric.'

Harry didn't bother looking behind him, instead relying on the tracking charm to make his aim accurate as he raised his wand behind him and fired a silent Stupefy.

He was rewarded by the sound of a body thumping to the floor. With another groan, Harry got to his feet and surveyed the scene around him. Cedric was sprawled on the floor, wand a foot from his hand.

And there, gleaming on a podium, was a shining silver trophy.

Harry grinned. "I am so amazing."

He wandered over to it and gripped onto the handle. Something yanked on his navel as the Portkey activated, the world spun, and suddenly he was in a graveyard with what appeared to be a bunch of KKK members who had forgotten which colour's supremacy they were meant to be supporting.

Harry swallowed and let the trophy fall from his grip.

A/N: Sorry about not uploading in almost two months. I...umm forgot? Was busy hunting down the Holy Grail? Na, I just got distracted and stuff. Anyway, tell me what you thought.