The Treasure Hunter.
Months passed when the Third and final Task of the Triwizard Tournament came at last. As he stood with the other Champions waiting for Bagman to open the Task, earning a warm smile from Fleur and a look of respect from Krum and a nod from Diggory, Harry had time to reflect, staring at the tall hedges of the maze that had been growing in the Quidditch stadium for the last few months. When they had returned to the school, both Parvati and Padma had been even more relieved neither of them was chosen for the insane Second Task. Their father was also just as glad if the letter Harry had received was any indication while the Delacours made sure Dumbledore and Maxime were forced to answer for placing Gabrielle at the bottom of the lake with a minimal amount of protection.
If Dumbledore had thought he'd been having trouble before with the accusations of placing the Boy-Who-Lived with a muggle family who hated magic so much that they would try to kill an innocent and powerless child and his employment of Snape to bring down potion standards and hundreds of other things during his time at the school, he hadn't seen anything yet. The Delacours were a very old family in France, and if there was one thing magical families became as they got older, they became more connected. Harry had….suggested to Fleur and Gabrielle when the older witch had brought the girl to him to say thanks for saving her life, that she told her family to get even with Dumbledore. The bloodthirsty smirk on Fleur's face was terrifying, she had had time to think about the whole thing and now she wasn't terrified for Gabrielle's life, she wanted answers to why she was placed at the bottom of the lake. She had told her father, only to discover Jean-Luc Delacour, who'd been in the audience of the Second Task and who had violently asked Dumbledore and Maxime for answers but received excuses from the old wizard.
Maxime, to Harry's surprise, was a different case….
Anyway, Dumbledore was more predictable with his excuses. It was all "she was perfectly safe" "there was no danger," but at the end that wasn't good enough. Harry was just glad Fleur's father and a host of other parents, especially Arthur and Molly Weasley were demanding why they hadn't been told about the Task and they would have a child placed at the bottom of the lake with no real way of monitoring them. The more the Second Task and its handling were investigated, the more outrageous it was becoming.
First, Dumbledore and the other Judges had selected the hostages and put them into an enchanted sleep without bothering to really place any kind of monitoring spell on them to see if they were safe.
Secondly, they didn't bother to contact the families of the hostages and tell them or even ask permission. That was bad enough, but the fact Dumbledore and the others were so sure they were safe when the spells could wear off…
Harry had received a bit of flak over the last few months, especially from McGonagall, but Harry ignored the older woman's antics. Harry didn't care what the woman thought, but he had been surprised when he learnt McGonagall hadn't been happy with the way Dumbledore had gone about organising the Tasks. It seemed McGonagall had been worried about what could go wrong, but in the end, she was powerless since Dumbledore had done what he had set out to do in the first place. Many of the other teachers were torn between supporting Dumbledore and being angry with him, but as far as he was concerned they were all complicit. Didn't it occur to them that if they stood up as one then Dumbledore wouldn't have a leg to stand on?
The Delacours were already going through the legal proceedings of suing Dumbledore for what he had done, that and the way his hubris and carelessness had become an important part of the investigation against him. Harry had stayed away from that, keeping his head down except to defend himself whenever someone stupid tried anything.
At the same time, he had become friendlier with Fleur as a result, to say nothing of the grateful Patil sisters. The Indian witches were surprised one night when he invited them and Fleur by accident one night, but they'd had an enjoyable night, especially since the twins had to work with a Veela.
But in between those orgies, Harry got to know Fleur a lot better. As he had expected, she was one of the top students of Beauxbatons and Maxime's personal favourite student because she wanted to look good. However, it had become apparent Maxime had actually opposed Dumbledore's stupid plan to put Gabrielle at the bottom of the lake. She had told him of her Veela heritage, but Dumbledore, so lost in his plans and believing the little girl would be alright, put her there.
But he hadn't taken into account that the merpeople would take offence to the presence of a Veela. The two races had a long-standing enmity which went back hundreds if not thousands of years, and it had been going on for so long that even Fleur didn't know what had caused it, but Harry had learnt very early on during their relationship never to be stupid enough to mention merpeople to her.
The reaction was…violent, to say the least. And it turned out merpeople were not the only magical races Veela had a grudge against. But it was only because of their territories the peace was, more or less, maintained. Gabrielle had been placed down there in an enchanted sleep, and she was defenceless. Harry hadn't even realised what kind of political and diplomatic ramifications Dumbledore's placement of Gabrielle at the bottom of the lake was, but it was bound to be heavy.
That was bad enough, but then Fudge had to get involved. The Minister had tried to pin the blame solely on Dumbledore, anything to prevent his precious Ministry and his administration, who were already in trouble with thousands of different counts of corruption, so he was dragged into the whole mess.
Early into his school career, Harry had learnt Fudge and his administration enjoyed poking their noses into things without a clue what the deal was going to be down the line, but in a way, this would be a good thing because it would investigate Fudge's personal involvement with the Tournament. With luck, this would be the last Triwizard Tournament in the world, and if the countries around the planet wanted a dick-measuring contest, they could do it with something safer and less 'exciting,' as that moron Ludo Bagman liked to call it. There was nothing exciting about facing a nesting mother dragon, nor was there anything remotely great about diving in a cold lake where your sibling could be found dead.
When Harry had found out about the Triwizard Tournament, he had tried to work out why it had been abandoned in the first place even before he discovered the deaths, but now he knew it was a political nightmare that would have repercussions for Britain to worry about for decades to come. And Harry did not envy them, but he wasn't going to help them either.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" The magnified voice of Ludo Bagman boomed out over the grounds clearly, but Harry winced and glared at the oblivious showman. "THE THIRD, AND FINAL TASK OF THE TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT IS ABOUT TO BEGIN!"
Harry flinched even harder when he heard the cheers all around him. He was focused on the maze in front of him, grown on the formerly pristine pitch of the Quidditch stadium, his mind going over his plans and the strategy he was taking while he thought through his spell repertoire.
He knew what was in the maze; Harry disliked Hagrid for his part in dumping him on a doorstep as a child, but he knew that Hagrid's inability to see how dangerous his pet monstrosities were would be a great addition to the Tournament. Harry hadn't taken Care of Magical Creatures. He didn't care enough about them to do something like that, much to Hermione and Ron's shock, but he had opted to take Ancient Runes instead. That was a more useful subject, but he had helped the two with Buckbeak last year, not for Hagrid's benefit but because nothing deserved to die because Draco Malfoy was a bastard.
Instead of wasting valuable time with court cases and evidence, Harry had simply told Hagrid to leave it all to him. And the trusting oaf did, but Harry had simply let Buckbeak the Hippogriff go.
But the idiot's love of monsters was still well known, and Harry wondered what was going to be in there…
Well, he was going to win this Task and if Bagman and Dumbledore didn't like how he did it, tough.
Harry hadn't really paid attention to the order of the Champions based on their score because he just avoided it. He didn't care what he got. The only thing he wanted to do was to get through it, so he'd essentially tuned his brain out. He used the technique to bypass the boredom sometimes, but as long as he mentally thought about what he wanted as a trigger then he would appear to be attentive.
In this case, the trigger words were "Harry Potter" "youngest Champion," etc.
"… OUR YOUNGEST CHAMPION WILL OPEN THE FINAL TASK, WHO HAS THE TOP SCORE! I PRESENT HARRY POTTER!"
Harry mentally sneered at the posturing imbecile and the cheers from the crowd, still at least this would be over soon. Harry sent a glance at the other Champions as they followed on, but they went into the maze.
"HOHO…WHAT'S THIS? IT…. IT APPEARS OUR YOUNGEST CHAMPION HAS MANAGED TO GET TO THE TOP OF THE MAZE!" Bagman called, but Harry paid very little attention to the former Quidditch player's commentary as he dropped the levitation charm to his feet to get him to rise to the top of the hedges so he could run along the top of them. When he got there, he cast more spells on his feet so they would essentially be lighter than air so he didn't sink in. He'd have to reapply the charms to his feet of course, but he'd be prepared for that. He grinned as he raced along the top of the maze, cheekily waving at the enchanted mirrors watching his progress. He frequently used his wand to help him leap over the distances between the hedges to help him shorten the distance.
Not once did he bother to look down.
Harry reapplied the spells to his feet halfway along, and he heard a cry, somebody calling from down below somewhere in the maze but he wasn't sure who it was. He partly thought it might have been Fleur, it was hard to be sure. Finally, Harry got to the centre of the maze, where the Triwizard Cup was standing on a pedestal.
Harry jumped down into the centre of the maze and he walked over to it, seeing the enchanted mirrors watching his every move. He ignored them.
"All this for a cup, and so-called eternal glory," Harry shook his head. "Oh well."
With that, Harry moved to pick up the Cup….
"NOOOOO! YOU WON'T WIN THIS!" Harry swung around, his wand snapping into place when he took in the person who'd shouted at him.
It was Cedric Diggory.
Harry stepped away from the Cup, taking Diggory in. "What's this?"
"Save it. I'm taking the Cup. You don't even care about the Tournament!" Cedric replied as he stepped forward, his wand pointing right at Harry's heart.
"No, I don't," Harry agreed.
"You cheated to get here. Do you know what I had to fight through? Only to find you got here before me!"
"No, and you're right I don't care. That's the problem with you and so many like you, Cedric. Sometimes to win, you have to break the rules, shred them, wash them down the toilet. Haven't you worked that out yet, Cedric? The Tournament is ABOUT grit. They want us to cheat. Those rules… that rule book is a con. I've come across dozens of references to cheating in previous Tournaments; do you really think any of our predecessors would've cared about what I did to get here? Hell, they would probably have gone 'I would do that, too,'" Harry shook his head pityingly at the older Hufflepuff.
"Grit, Cedric, grit. The Tournament has had cheaters get ahead for decades, there's nothing that could be done about it, and besides what does it matter? Are you going to cure me, or what?"
Diggory stiffened and faltered, but he still had his wand outstretched. Harry watched him for a moment before he groaned.
"Fucking hell, you are dull," he cursed, flicking his wand.
Cedric was knocked backwards in surprise by the curse, but it gave Harry time to engage him in a duel. Cedric Diggory was a well-liked student and he was good at magic, but the lack of self-study when it came to curses and consistently good DADA professors until this year had taken their toll on him, but he had spent months learning dozens of curses. But his lack of proficiency when it came to duelling did hinder him.
As Cedric got caught in the unexpected fight, he realised he had made a mistake directly confronting Potter. He should have knocked him on the back of the head or something, but this was showing just how much of a mistake he had made. But there was nothing he could do about that, except to use his greater knowledge of magic to crush Potter and get his hands on the Cup.
Duelling Potter…was a nightmare. Potter was…Cedric found himself having to revise the opinion he'd made of the younger wizard. He had long since assured Potter was strong, but not too strong, but the display he was seeing was so incomprehensible to Cedric that he had problems defining him given his lack of experience in things like the duelling circuit. But this was nothing like a wizard throwing high powered curses or spells; no, this was planned, meticulous, controlled, and malicious. A mere flick of the wand dissipated the curses that Diggory believed were strong while moving languidly around while Cedric was resorting to high-powered curses. The Hufflepuff tried to wait, hoping that he could get the young Gryffindor to tire.
But it never happened.
Harry used a mixture of household spells and charms to his advantage, forcing Cedric to deal with unexpected diversions. A patch of the hedge was transfigured into a writhing patch of Devil's snare, forcing Cedric to dodge out of the way before one of the vines caught him, but he set it alight. But the fire was suddenly blown towards him. Cedric jumped back, frantically extinguishing the fires with his wand. He yelped in surprise when suddenly three spells nearly hit him, and he looked around to see where they came from, and he found three other patches of the hedges had been transformed into mirrors, forcing him to shield from four directions at once, as Potter was bouncing some of the spells he fired at him to come at him from behind and from the sides.
Cedric gasped when he was almost blinded by a bright, white, blinding light, and he stepped back only to trip. When he grunted as he fell to the ground, Cedric looked around desperately to see what it was he'd tripped on, and he had to focus his dazzled eyes around and he saw he'd tripped on a length of rope or string held in place by two small bright yellow posts. Hufflepuff yellow.
Suddenly everything went dark…
X
Harry walked away from Cedric Diggory's body. The older boy was conscious, just stunned and knocked out. He'd be like that for a good few hours but he'd make a full recovery. Harry headed for the Cup, making sure nobody else had gotten to it, reflecting on what had happened; he was a mite surprised by the Hufflepuff boy's move. He had always believed Diggory to be unimaginative, unassuming… deep down he was like everyone else, out for themselves. In a way he was pleased there was something less of a straight arrow to the guy, even if it annoyed him slightly because it only came out in little hints.
He didn't feel bad about using his regular battle tactics, to say nothing of everything else that he'd done here tonight; Diggory's wand had been aimed at his heart, that was the only justification that he needed. And as for the Tournament, well he had wanted to win it. That was all the justification he needed there, too.
Harry got to the Cup and lifted it with only the smallest amount of hesitation as he remembered Crouch junior's confession that Voldemort had planned on having the Death Eater turn the cup into a portkey, but nothing happened. As the hedges melted away as if time was reversing and months and months of growing time to get the hedges of the maze to their height they'd been at the very start of the Task, shrinking, down and down as they lost their growth. Eventually, the hedges retreated into the ground and suddenly they were gone, leaving the Quidditch pitch as pristine as it had been like the hedges had never been grown.
While the crowd cheered, Harry closed his eyes and mentally thanked his lucky stars. The Tasks were over, the Triwizard Tournament was over and it could stay that way, as far as he was concerned.
Just one more year to go.
