A/N: It's been a while, I know, but this is a slightly longer chapter than the usual. Also, with regard to the reviews mentioning that I should be careful not to drag this out too long - thanks, because you're absolutely right. I've adjusted my timeline a little bit to accelerate the plot slightly, so I hope you guys approve. Interesting things are coming up in the next chapter or two, I promise. Enjoy!

Over the next few weeks Harry forgot almost entirely about the third task of the tournament. There was no point in making any preparations until he knew what he would be up against, and so he devoted his time instead to other pursuits. He put his Firebolt through its paces on several occasions, to make sure neither it nor him grew rusty, although never on the Quidditch pitch, which had been off-limits from the start of the year.

He had no end-of-term exams either, thanks to his status as a Triwizard Champion, and so he had the satisfaction of watching idly as his classmates grew more and more anxious as their date of reckoning approached. Without exams looming over him he found it harder and harder to concentrate in classes, and when Professor Moody asked to speak with him after a particularly daydream-filled afternoon of Defense Against the Dark Arts Harry feared the worst.

Harry had seen Moody's office once before, and so he knew his professor had a large collection of Dark detectors, but there seemed to be even more this time.

The army of Foe-Glasses and Secrecy Sensors was gleaming brightly in the dim light seeping through the torn curtains. Harry found his glance drifting to one of the former, and as he watched, he saw flashes of various faces, but switching in such rapid succession that he couldn't discern any of them. Hard lines blended into soft contours, hair growing and shortening, blurring from blond to black and back again. The only thing in common was the eyes, dark, sunken eyes that grew larger and larger as Harry watched, until he was almost afraid that they would burst, fully-formed, from-

Moody reached out from behind Harry and moved the mirror so that it faced the desktop.

"Professor, I-"

"Don' let them get to you, Potter. They're like me; old, and not as reliable as they used to be."

He gestured with his left hand for Harry to sit, which he did, on a deceptively soft-looking couch.

"Why do you keep them around, sir? If they're no longer reliable?"

"I didn't say they never worked, did I? They might not show things with certainty, but they show possibilities. Shadows. And each is more unlikely than the next, but chasing shadows is my job, in'it?"

Harry nodded. There was probably no point in asking - the whole thing reminded him too much of long, painful hours spent staring into one of Trelawney's inscrutable crystal balls - but his curiousity got the better of him.

"Have you seen anything, sir? Anything that seems more likely than the rest?"

"I've seen many things, Potter. But if you're asking if I know who put your name in the Goblet, then no. Whoever it was, they're biding their time. Trying to lull you into a false sense of security, no doubt."

Moody paused to take a swig from his hip-flask, wiping his mouth with the back of his gnarled hand.

"But enough small talk. Dumbledore asked me to speak with you to inform you that the third task of the tournament will be revealed to the champions at 8 o'clock tonight, at the quidditch pitch. The rest of the school will be there at 8:30, for the ceremonial unveiling, so to speak, but the lucky four of you get a half an hour's head start on them."

A surge of adrenaline ran up Harry's spine. He'd been anxious the last few weeks, bored almost, but that was about to change.

"You look far too happy about that, Potter. You shouldn't be. I told you back at the start of this tournament, and I'll tell you again now, because it doesn't seem to be sticking in that head of yours: whoever put your name in the Goblet is no friend. They didn't decide to do you a favour by giving you a way around the rules. They did it because the tournament is an excellent way to kill somebody, and the fact that they haven't made a move yet makes it all the more likely that they will now. So keep a good eye on your enemies, Potter, because so long as you're watching them they can't act against you."

Harry knew that Moody was right, but it still didn't make sense. Who were his enemies? He honestly couldn't think of anybody who would genuinely want to kill him. There was Voldemort, of course, but he couldn't touch Harry. He had been incredibly weak three years ago when he had possessed Quirrell, and Harry's touch had caused his host to crumble into ash, leaving Voldemort even weaker than before.

"I can't think of anybody who would want to kill me, Professor. Besides Voldemort, that is, and I don't see how he could be strong enough to pose a threat."

Moody slammed his hip-flask down on the side-table with such force that Harry was surprised the wood didn't crack.

"You don't think that the Dark Lord could pose a threat. You don't think that the most powerful wizard who has ever lived could pose a threat to you? Don't look so surprised to hear me say that, Potter. I'm as great a supporter of Albus Dumbledore as any, but the Dark Lord has done things that Dumbledore wouldn't dare to even dream of. I was an Auror for over forty years. I've seen a lot of magic, Dark and otherwise, weak and strong, and both times that I was in the Dark Lord's presence, times that I consider myself incredibly lucky to have survived, I saw him perform magic that I didn't think was possible. Nobody hates the Dark more than me, Potter, nobody - but even I was in awe of him. You might have nearly destroyed him thirteen years ago, but he isn't dead. He's out there somewhere, licking his wounds, biding his time, and one day he will return. Dumbledore is right to prepare for that day, because it will come, and his wrath will be like that of a god upon infidels, so we had better be ready for it."

Moody's voice had grown louder and louder as he talked, and as Harry listened to him he could see, for just a moment, why he was called Mad-Eye. The eye part was obvious, but Harry realized that his passion against the Dark, his fervent opposition and hatred of it, almost bordered on madness. There was something dangerous, unhinged, even, that flickered in his natural eye as he talked of Voldemort and the Dark, and Harry found himself very glad when Moody reached the end of his sermon.

Moody took another drink from his flask, and when he put it back down the madness was gone.

"I don't mean to scare you too much, Potter. A little fear is healthy, that's all."

Harry nodded, still too shocked by Moody's rant to talk.

"In all likelihood it isn't the Dark Lord. There are other people in the castle whom you should be just as concerned about. Karkaroff and Snape were both Death Eaters - put the former in Azkaban myself - and once Dark, always Dark. And Karkaroff's been teaching the Dark Arts at Durmstrang his whole career, which makes Krum dangerous too. Then the Malfoys of course - I never trusted Lucius, not for a moment - and the son's nothing if not like his father."

Harry's mind was spinning now with potential enemies, each word that Moody spoke adding another potential attacker, another direction from which he would have to defend himself. Harry just hoped that the former's paranoia wouldn't start to rub off on him.

Harry was starting to feel more and more uncomfortable in the office, which seemed unseasonably cold and dark. All of the anxiety and nervousness which he had been able to ignore for the past few weeks had come crashing back down upon him again, and it was going to overwhelm him if he stayed here much longer.

"So what do you suggest I do then, Professor?"

"Constant vigilance, that's what!" Moody barked, startling Harry, who felt his heart skip a beat and then hesitate before the next. "Keep an eye on everyone, Potter. Practice your spells, defensive and otherwise. Be ready to think on your feet, because the third task will demand that. I've seen it, and it makes the dragon and the lake look tame by comparison. And the way it's designed, it'll be nearly impossible for any of us to intervene once you've started it, so you'll be on your own. Be ready for that."

Harry nodded. "I will be, Professor."

He looked over at the door, and Moody caught the cue.

"I've kept you from your dinner for too long, Potter. Go enjoy it. But remember what I said, eh? People have died in this tournament, so let's try to keep you off of that list."

Harry emerged from Moody's office feeling faint, almost light-headed. He walked slowly towards the Great Hall, not trusting his body to propel him any faster.

In the matter of twenty minutes Moody had revived every single fear that Harry had suppressed, every single troubling possibility that he had forced himself to ignore. It wasn't that Harry didn't want to deal with the facts, it was just that if somebody really wanted to kill him, all it would take was a carefully aimed wand and two well-chosen words. He had survived the Killing Curse once, but he didn't like his chances of a repeat, given that there was no known defense against it. So Moody could talk all he wanted about counter-curses and jinxes, and Harry would heed his advice to practice, but when it came down to it, if Harry was facing down any one of the enemies Moody had mentioned, whether it was Krum or Snape or Karkaroff or even Voldemort himself, Harry really wouldn't stand a chance.

That was why he had suppressed those thoughts, because he knew that there was nothing he could possibly do to guard against those possibilities. Why think about the risk of impending death when it couldn't be averted?

But Moody had dragged those thoughts out of the dark room in his subconscious that Harry had condemned them to, and so it was with a freshly disillusioned mind that Harry walked into the Great Hall, his knees weak and his stomach churning so quickly that he doubted he could keep food down.

To his surprise, he saw Moody already at the teacher's table, sitting next to Ludo Bagman. Moody could move unexpectedly quickly when he wanted to, Harry supposed, but he was still surprised that Moody had arrived before him.

"What did Moody want?" Hermione asked as he sat down between her and Fred.

"Not much," Harry replied, his eyes on the food at the centre of the table as he debated whether any of it would agree with him. "Just wanted to remind me of the very real possibility that someone'll try to off me during the third task."

"Don't tell me Mad-Eye saw something in one of his Dark detectors," George chimed in, leaning past his twin so that Harry could see him. "Odds are he hallucinated it, if so."

"Nothing like that," Harry said, declining to mention that he had been the one who had seen faces in the Foe-Glass. "He reminded me that I have enemies, that's all."

"Like who?" Ron asked between mouthfuls of chicken, his glance flickering in the direction of the Slytherin table. "He wasn't referring just to the ferret, I assume."

"He mentioned him and a few others. Snape. Karkaroff."

Harry almost added Krum's name to the list before thinking better of it.

"Moody doesn't trust Snape?" Hermione asked, surprised.

"Course he doesn't," Ron replied. "Moody barely trusts his own shadow, and Snape doesn't make it easy to trust him, does he."

"He trusts Dumbledore though, and Dumbledore trusts Snape," Hermione countered. "That's why all of us trust him, isn't it?"

"Depends on if you think Dumbledore's perfect or not, I suppose," Harry said, having finally settled on a plate of dry potatoes.

"Don't tell me you don't trust Snape either," Hermione said, turning her shocked glare on Harry. "He saved your life in first year, in case you'd forgotten. Without him saying a counter-curse Quirrell would have had your broom throw you off."

"Remind me, Hermione," Ron said, "but which one of us set Snape's robes on fire as he was casting that counter-curse?"

"That's irrelevant," she said, flushing slightly.

Suddenly the hall grew much darker, the lanterns around its perimeter extinguishing themselves. The only illumination was from the enchanted ceiling, and it was so faint that Harry could barely see Ron, who was directly across the table from him.

"What's going on?" a voice asked from somewhere to Harry's right.

"No clue," another answered. "Those torches always stay lit."

"It's like a power outage," Seamus chimed in, his Irish accent the only reason Harry could identify him. "Except magic isn't meant to go out."

Conversations of that nature were happening all throughout the hall, creating a confused din that grew louder and progressively more frantic the longer the darkness stayed.

A burst of flame flew over Harry's left shoulder, leaving a trail of smoke behind it. It was followed by dozens of others, all coming from the head of the room. Each flame was headed for a different section of the hall's edge, presumably to re-ignite the extinguished lanterns.

Sure enough, the light returned to the hall a moment later. Dumbledore stood behind his lectern, wand still raised as the chatter died down.

"My apologies for that unplanned interruption of your meal," he said, his voice cutting through the last few snippets of conversation. "Fortunately, it did provide me with a superb method of acquiring your attention."

"He does have a flair for the dramatic, doesn't he?" George whispered, not taking his eyes from Dumbledore.

"He didn't plan that." Hermione said, her voice quiet. "Something went wrong. Very wrong. Do you know when the last time those torches were extinguished was?"

She directed this last question to Harry, who shook his head.

"Over a thousand years ago. It was Salazar Slytherin who did it, as an act of spite as he marched from the Great Hall for the final time before he left the school for good."

"So not a good omen, then," Harry muttered. He was feeling a little bit better now that he had eaten - the light-headedness had gone away entirely - but he still had a distinctly uneasy feeling in his stomach.

"At this time," Dumbledore continued, "I would invite our four champions to accompany the Triwizard organizers to the Quidditch pitch, where the final task of the tournament will be revealed."

"Go get 'em, Harry!" Colin yelled, his voice just one among many, snapping a pair of photos as Harry slowly stood up.

"Good luck, mate," Ron said.

"Remember everything they tell you," Hermione said, speaking very quickly, as Harry was the only champion not yet at the front of the hall. Her eyes were locked on Harry's, her voice seeming to carry despite the background noise. "Even the slightest detail could be important."

"You'll get a full report," he promised.

Harry made his way up to the end of the hall, determined to keep his nerves under control. Hagrid met his gaze from the teacher's table, giving him a nod and a wink as he passed by.

Harry followed the other champions out a side door, hurrying to catch up.

"... been working on it all year," Ludo Bagman was saying, walking backwards at the head of the group so that he could face the champions. "Been a bit more work than we anticipated, I'll admit that, and I can't say it was cheap, but I think you'll all agree it was worth it.

"I certainly hope so, given how far it was over Mr. Crouch's budget," Percy said. He seemed decidedly uninterested in the whole affair, in sharp contrast to Bagman, who was smiling from ear to ear.

The two of them led the champions in single file through a narrow side entrance to the stadium. Harry, who was walking just behind Cedric, heard the older boy gasp as he emerged onto the pitch.

A moment later Harry saw the cause of Cedric's shock - enormous dark green hedges nearly as tall as the goal hoops had burst from the ground of the pitch, in no discernible pattern. Harry couldn't see very far in any direction thanks to the hedges, but from what he could see they numbered in the dozens, seeming to cover the entirety of the pitch.

"I guess this explains why there was no quidditch this year," Cedric muttered to Harry, who nodded in reply, still trying to process the pitch's dramatic transformation.

"So any guesses as to what it is?" Bagman asked, still beaming, no doubt pleased to see how surprised the champions were.

"Eet is a maze, eez it not?" Fleur replied, the calmest of the four.

"Exactly!" Bagman said. "The third task is very simple. The Triwizard Cup will be placed at an undisclosed location near the maze's centre, and the first of you to reach it will become the champion. Any questions?"

"You should tell them about the start," Percy said almost immediately, his arms crossed. "Mr Crouch said it was very important that you-"

"Yes, yes, thank you Percy, I was getting to that," Bagman cut in, holding up his hand to quiet the more junior organizer.

"As I was saying, each of you will be allowed to enter at different times, according to your scores so far in the tournament. Mr Krum will enter first, followed by Mr Potter, Mr Diggory and finally Miss Delacour. There's one other thing that you should know though," Bagman continued as he took a step towards the champions, his tone conspiratorial, "and that's the fact that strictly speaking what we have here is more than one maze. It's four separate mazes, with no link between them save for the cup, which is at the end of each. Each of you will enter from a different location, and in this way there will be no chance of any interactions between champions. Not that we don't trust you to play by the rules, of course, but it was one of the conditions of the tournament's revival."

"Does anyone else know this?" Harry asked, inferring from Bagman's tone.

Bagman shook his head. "Only the other judges. We think the audience will be more engaged if they think that there's the potential for some of you to actually square off head-to-head inside the maze."

"We should hurry," Percy said, examining a large pocket-watch. It must have been new - Harry hadn't seen him with it before. "We're supposed to do the draw before the rest of the students arrive."

"The draw?" Cedric asked.

"To determine which entrance each of you will take into the maze. They're all equally challenging, of course, but it's only fair to do it randomly," Bagman answered, producing a small cloth bag from an inside pocket. "Now then… the rules don't specify how we do this, so shall we say youngest first?"

He didn't wait for an answer, stepping towards Harry and undoing the knot at the top of the bag. Harry lowered his hand into the bag, reaching to mix up the objects which lay at the bottom. One of them seemed distinctly warmer than the others, and seemed to almost stick to his hand as he moved, so he ended up taking that one.

He opened his hand once it was clear of the bag to reveal a metal sphere, just barely bigger than a Gobstone, with the letter 'C' carved on it. On the opposite side of the 'C' was a small picture of a creature that he didn't recognize - it looked rather like a snake, except that it had three heads instead of one, and was an unusually bright orange. The picture moved as Harry watched, the snake slithering back and forth, its tongues flicking in and out of its mouths in what was a vaguely hypnotic fashion.

"C is the north-west entrance, Harry," Bagman said, pointing across the pitch as he moved to Fleur.

The remaining three champions picked in turn, each closely examining their selection.

"Now," Bagman said, returning the now-empty bag to his robes. "As I'm sure you've noticed there is a picture of a creature on each of your tokens. That creature is just one of the many that will be stalking the corridors of your maze, but we chose to give you a little advance notice about these, because they might require some preparation on your part if you wish to safely proceed past them."

Harry glanced again at the picture of the snake-like creature. It didn't seem that dangerous. No doubt it was highly poisonous, and probably aggressive and with a skin resistant to magic, but it shouldn't pose a threat to him. He was a Parselmouth, and so he was pretty confident that he would be able to convince the snake to leave him alone.

He had lucked out, actually, which was a pleasant change from the usual course of events. He had been expecting something truly horrible to be waiting for him in his maze - a Chimaera, maybe, or even a Manticore - but if a three-headed snake was the worst that it had to offer then he should be just fine.

Bagman had started to speak again, but Harry didn't hear a word he was saying, his attention elsewhere. There was a black dot at the base of Bagman's neck, standing out against his blond hair. It was hard to tell from the distance Harry was at, but maybe…

Harry slipped his hand into his pocket, slowly sliding out his wand. The attention of the others was on Bagman, and so his movement went unnoticed.

"Accio Rita Skeeter," he whispered, hoping that this would work as he intended.

Sure enough, the black dot zoomed directly towards Harry, who plucked it out of the air with his left hand, forming a fist around it to keep it in place.

"Got you," he whispered, triumphant.

He stowed his wand, returning his attention to Bagman.

" … and that will be two weeks from today. Now, that's all we have to tell you for tonight. The rest of the school will be here shortly, and of course you're more than welcome to stick around if you'd like, but it'll just be a rehash of what you already know, except with much more fanfare."

His smile, which had persisted for so long that Harry had started to wonder if it was painted on, grew even wider at the mention of fanfare.

As it turned out, all four champions took Bagman's invitation to leave. The other three chose to take an indirect path back to the castle, to avoid the mass of students descending from the Great Hall, but Harry did his best to wade through the crowd, his left hand closed firmly at his side, determined to find Ron and Hermione.

"Harry! Harry!"

Hermione's voice came from behind him, and he spun around to see her and Ron standing just off to the side of the crowd, waving at him.

"How was the reveal?" she asked. "What's the task? What do you need to prepare for?"

"It was great," Harry said, his left palm in tremendous pain from the repeated bites of the entrapped beetle. "and I'll tell you all about it later, but do you have the jar with you?"

"You've got her?" Ron asked as Hermione tossed Harry the glass jar.

Harry unscrewed the lid, dumped the beetle inside and quickly closed the jar up again. He held it up for the other two to see.

"Look at those markings," Hermione said, squinting as she pointed at the beetle. "Those - right around her eyes. They're almost like…"

"Her glasses," Harry finished. "Those jeweled monstrosities that she always wears. I guess they're her identifying mark."

As they talked the crowd continued to file into the stadium, until it was just the trio left standing on the side of the hill.

"I don't know about you guys," Harry said after a brief pause, "but I feel like it's high time we put an end to Rita's inventive articles."

"I still don't believe she had the nerve to write those things," Hermione said, her gaze fixed on the castle. "There was barely a word of truth in any of them, was there?"

It was ironic, wasn't it? Rita had gone to such effort to make up some sensationalist story, not caring whether what she wrote was true or not, but there was a surprising amount of truth in her article nevertheless. Harry and Krum had been rivals for more than the Triwizard Cup - first in Krum's estimation and later Harry's, even though the latter had taken his time realizing - and somehow Rita, of all people, had seen that.

"She just wrote what she thought would sell," Harry replied. "What she thought people wanted to hear."

"What people wanted to hear," Hermione repeated slowly, almost sadly. "I guess you're right. It just seems odd; you'd think people would want to hear the truth, not a lie."

Harry hesitated. The way she was talking - she - no, she couldn't be, she couldn't possibly know, but at the same time… he didn't know what to think. He had seen her watching him when she had told Ron about her conversation with Viktor. He knew that she had wanted to see his reaction, and he doubted he had hidden it as well as he had tried to.

Something snapped in his mind, some switch flipping from one state to another. He couldn't go on like this. He was a Gryffindor, wasn't he? He had fought off dragons and mermen and Basilisks and he'd even managed to ask a girl to the Yule Ball. This was nothing compared to that. This was Hermione. Hermione. The worst thing that could happen was a sad shake of her head. He'd live, and at least that way he'd know.

Tonight, he promised himself. Tonight he'd tell her the truth, and with any luck, it would be what she wanted to hear.

Harry's focus returned to his surroundings, and he realized that he'd been staring off at the horizon for the last minute.

"So… to the common-room, then?" Ron asked, breaking the long silence and looking very confused as he stood between his two best friends.

They nodded, and so the three of them began the long walk up to Gryffindor Tower, hostage in hand.