A/N1: Standard disclaimer. See chapter 1 for details.
Harry rubbed one sleeve across his forehead. Damn those tournament organisers. Why did the hardest of the tasks have to take place at night? If Miss Claire and Hermione hadn't taught him how to charm a glowing ball to precede him by several steps, he wouldn't have been able to see much of anything. Of course, that light let whatever monsters were in the maze know that he was coming, but at least his wand wasn't busy with the Lumos spell.
He hadn't seen any of the others, although there was a suspiciously smoking blast-ended skrewt lying on its back. He reasoned that the carapace of the flaming flatulent crustacean was not proof against Veela fireballs. Charred foliage also indicated Fleur's path; he shuddered when he recognized smouldering Devil's Snare.
He had run into a boggart earlier. Well, at first he had thought it was a dementor and threw his patronus at it. All that practice seemed to have sharpened Prongs's antlers because the creature had been speared straight through. Its screams had a volume just short of an adolescent mandrake, and he was still banging the side of his head when he ran into a golden mist and suddenly found himself upside down. Quickly realising that this was an enchantment of some sorts, he fumbled in the bag at his waist and began chewing Moly flowers. Soon enough he was right-side up and mentally thanking Neville once more.
About to turn a corner, he heard running footsteps and leapt to the side, making sure there was no Devil's Snare or, worse, Venomous Tentacula. Cedric flew right past him before backtracking to grab and drag him along. "Acromantula," he gasped, "a big one!"
"Isn't that a given?" Harry quipped as they skidded to a stop at a dead end while the skittering sounds grew closer.
Cedric held out his hand. "Well, it's been nice knowing you."
"Don't give up." Harry moved a few yards away. "Shoot Diffendo at the legs and let's try not to hit each other."
When the giant spider lumbered into sight, it paused and clicked its pincers, almost as if it were a cartoon villain twirling his moustache. "Okay," Cedric nodded, "on three!"
The Hufflepuff's aim was true, and all of the legs on one side were soon severed. When the creature toppled over, Harry sent an overpowered Bombarda to its soft underbelly. The boys were wiping arachnid guts off their faces when the hedges abruptly began to shrink.
"'Arry!" Hagrid's loud bellow made both of them flinch. "What'd ya do to poor Aragog's grandson? I used ter feed 'im by 'and, I did. Oh, 'ow can I break the news to 'im?"
Dismissing the wailing half-giant, Harry asked Cedric, "Viktor or Fleur, do you think?" The answer was clear when the much-scratched blonde espied them several aisles away and made her way over, hurdling the ever smaller shrubs.
"So eet was not a victory of either 'Ogwarts or Beauxbatons," she stated.
"Or École de Magie," Harry reminded her before pulling some leaves from his bag. "Here's some Dittany. My friend Nev said you could eat it raw to heal small wounds."
"Merci." She wrinkled her nose at the wad of triangular greenery before putting it in her mouth. After she swallowed she pointed at the now seedling sized plants. "Zose imbéciles planted briars among ze bushes. What sadists!"
"Well, I don't think you were supposed to crawl through them," Cedric commented as he took her arm and led the trio towards the empty stage. "Hey, where's Viktor?"
Viktor, having escaped the amorous sphinx by slugging then stunning her, wiped his mouth with a shirt sleeve and took hold of the goblet. He was initially puzzled that a portkey meant to transport a person less than a hundred metres was lasting this long. His defensive instincts flared when he was dropped in a place obviously not Hogwarts's mutilated Quidditch field.
Taking in the mausoleum and numerous vandalised tombstones in the dim light of a Muggle streetlight, he growled, "Kakvo po dyavolite e tova laĭno?!" After a cursory scan revealed the place to be deserted, he picked up the obviously defective portkey made from the Tri-Wizard Cup by the hem of his cloak. Touching the tip of his wand to his neck, he murmured the activation code which would place him within ten metres of his headmaster.
Harry was in no mood to calm down. "You know, it's not that I wanted to win the bloody competition–"
"Language."
"–but it's Karkaroff's damn hypocrisy."
"Yes, indeed," Tekamthe murmured. "Now that the eyes of the press are on Krum, let's see if we can get to the castle unnoticed."
The fourth champion continued, unabated. "I mean, really! He marked me down in the second task for my portkey‒which I made myself, by the way‒but every one of his students had one."
"And subcutaneous, at that." Hermione's mind was whirling at the possibilities. With a remote trigger, this would be a way to retrieve kidnapped children… She was pretty sure she had found her project for NEWT Enchanting.
The complaints had died down to sporadic mumbles by the time the three of them reached the École de Magie suite. As the students fetched their trunks, Tekamthe surveyed the accommodations. "All clear, it appears," he spoke to them, but just then the guardian portrait reported that someone was waiting outside. The man sighed; it had been going too well.
To everyone's surprise, the visitor was none other than Neville, huffing a bit from rushing up the stairs. "Glad I made it before you left," he panted.
Hermione narrowed her eyes. "You knew we weren't sticking around afterwards."
The boy gave a half-grin. "Well, why would you? Hogwarts isn't your school any more. But," his expression turned serious, "I wanted to make sure to see you off. I understand your reasoning, even if the rest of Gryffindor won't. Heck, if I had been entered into that competition, Gran would have unenrolled me quicker than Cuddling Cabbage seeds sprout."
"Where would you have gone?" Harry asked in curiosity.
"I would've given her a good argument for tutors so I could oversee my greenhouses year round." He gave a rueful smile. "It'd take a shock like that to make her actually listen to me about how many of the professors here are substandard."
Hermione's face showed pity. "That's too bad, Neville."
"Well," he shrugged, "she's sort of biased, being on the Board of Governors, you know."
"No, we didn't," she acknowledged. "Perhaps our leaving will make her look harder at what is really going on here."
"I won't hold my breath. Merlin, I'll miss you two."
'Oh!" Hermione hugged Neville. "We'll miss you also."
"Yeah," Harry shook his hand, "thanks for all the botany tips you gave me. They saved my arse a couple times."
"Language!"
"I hate to break this up," Tekamthe interrupted, "but I don't think the press will be able to hold Dumbledore back for long, and I want to register your magical signatures with EM as soon as we get back." He turned to Hermione. "I'll deliver you two to your parents' house once that's official. The problem, of course, is getting out from under Hogwarts' apparition wards without interference from the barmy old goat."
"Why don't you use one of the hidden passages?" Neville suggested.
"Yeah," Harry snickered, "we'd really fly under his radar that way."
"Muggle thing; I'll explain it to you in a letter. Keep an eye out for Hedwig." Hermione once more hugged a clueless Neville before the trio hustled to the statue of the one-eyed witch.
A few minutes later, Tekamthe, ducking because of the low ceiling, muttered, "Fontenot told me about this, but I didn't believe her. The most slipshod security of any school I've ever seen!"
The burbling fountain in the tiny courtyard did little to ameliorate the heat of New Orleans in August. Harry carried his new favourite beverage, café au lait, to the table where Hermione was already ensconced.
"Hey," he seated himself after ruffling her now short cap of curls; the ever-present humidity made her hair's volume appear undiminished, "what are you reading that crap for?"
She lowered the Daily Prophet long enough to roll her eyes at him. "Excrement it may be, but we should make the attempt to remain abreast of events in Britain. At the very least so we will know what our friends are talking about when they write to us."
He leaned back in the chair. "So far that's been a total of two: Neville and Cedric."
Neither of them counted Dumbledore, who had spent a small fortune on owls, sending letter after letter urging Harry to return to Hogwarts 'now that you've had your little joke'. After the first three, they were binned unopened, and for some reason the volume had slacked off in the past couple weeks. They were soon to discover why.
"Mmm," Hermione hummed as she turned the pages to continue the article. "Dumbledore is under investigation for the faulty portkey now."
"The one that took Krum who-knows-where?"
"Yes," she took a sip of her own beverage, "he had delegated that task to the presumed Alastor Moody and, after he was discovered to be an imposter, did not review his work. Especially when good ol' Rita's successor reported him asking Krum all sorts of questions, as if he knew the location he was sent."
"A graveyard." Harry chuckled. "I think that is our final clue that the Baron succeeded."
"Perhaps. So why are you here? Sirius and Remus not yet back from Kisatchie?" Harry was technically living with the Grangers, but, as it was still summer break, he often visited his godfather's place in the Magical French Quarter.
"Yeah. They decided to stay a little longer; a black bear chased them half the night and they want to locate the den to avoid him in the future. Look," he ran a hand through his recently trimmed hair, "why do you send Remus feminine products at the full moon? It's Sirius that stuck his hind paw in his mouth."
She gave a slow, slightly evil smile. "Because Remus will punish him more than I can get away with. For a wizard, he's pretty modern-thinking about gender equality. And I'm sure with Mlle Claire duelling the mutt into the ground more than half the time, he'll get the message eventually."
Harry snorted. "Well, he nearly lost out on that. She was ready to leave and halfway packed until he managed to convince her that just because Remus would be living with him didn't mean it was going to be some kinky triad."
Hermione's laughter was cut short when her cell phone vibrated in the pocket of her shorts. She pulled it out and held a brief conversation before glaring at him. "And where is your mobile?"
"Huh?" He had been reading an interview with the sphinx who had complained about the medical treatment received at the conclusion of the third task. Apparently, Madam Pomfrey was quoted as having said, 'I'm a healer, not a creature handler!' "Could've fooled me," he muttered, remembering Hermione's feline dilemma in second year. "Oh, I forgot to charge it again last night," he answered her question, "so I plugged it into yours just now."
"That was Mlle Claire. Apparently Grand Zombi's eggs are about to hatch and Mme Laveaux wants you at the school to greet your new familiar as soon as it's shucked its shell. Now," she tugged him upright and gave him a quick kiss, "get a move on."
"Yeah, yeah," he complained with a grin. "I hope it's a male. Between you and your mother and Hedwig and Miss Claire, I have enough bossy women in my life."
With her accusation of 'smart arse' still ringing in his ears, he headed for the Granger's floo. Life sure had improved for him, he mused, and just because he wanted to change schools. Well, and also because he had Hermione in his corner. Hmm, maybe he'd drop by Café du Monde on his way back; for being the daughter of dentists, she sure did enjoy beignets.
A/N2: One instalment left.