A/N: hi, everyone, the evil author is back – well, not totally – I'm writing this from Azkaban, where many of you sent me :))

You said that I was really cruel doing this to poor Harry, always making him and the other characters suffer, but if I didn't, then nothing would happen in the story. Torturing the characters if necessary.

Okay, you asked how Tatyana could get Harry's powers by sleeping with him. Don't worry, you'll get to see that particular paragraph of Beautiful Bill's Biography, in which Beautiful Bill writes about this cruel charm. You also asked why Tatyana did it. You'll get to know it very soon. Things that you don't understand right now will be explained in chapter 28 (that will be a bit like chapter 31 in TGSoHH – I mean that will be the 'explaining-it-all-chapter').

The Face of Evil: you're wrong, Dennis comes from a Muggle family – remember, his brother Colin was petrified by the basilisk in the second book, because he was a mud-blood. Dennis is also a mud-blood, so he can know Yoda. He's a real Star Wars fanatic, just like me :) So, you aren't coming to Hungary because of having to work that much? Well… okay, just promise me that you won't overwork and will still keep writing! I'm dying to get to know more about the evil Ron! :)

Whit2005: what do you do on a mission trip? And where are you going? One of my father's acquaintances was on a mission trip to Kosovo, but up till now I haven't been explained what she did there. Does a mission trip include visiting hospitals and talking to the patients, reading the Bible for them or something like that? I'm really curious to know. I was just curious whether you were from the States or Great Britain, that's why I asked. Just to avoid misunderstandings… I know an ffnet author with whom I've been changing mails for weeks and I always thought she was from the US, and now she turned out to be British. Well… of course I should have known it, if I had paid more attention to her writing (I mean an American writes color, a British writes colour… I didn't pay attention to that… stupid, stupid me! You must be American, because you wrote color.) Sign language must be very interesting. So, you are learning German? Great, I also speak German! My favourite colours are blue and green (sky-blue, lagoon-blue, grass-green, emerald green). I like Celine Dion, but I'm not really a fan, I just think she's a great singer. I started learning English at the age of ten, but I stopped last year, because the teachers in the college couldn't teach my anything new :) Aha, so your birthday is 1st December? My birthday is 19th February. How old are you? (sorry if I have already asked this).

spangle*star: there's no cure to make someone magic :( No, Tatyana is no former death-eater, she never knew Voldie in person, just heard of him like all witches and wizards.

!Cedric!Diggory!Fan!: yes, I'm in college, a college is called a 'fõiskola' in Hungary. This term I have eight exams. Good luck with your exams! And happy birthday! I liked the HP movie, but it wasn't perfect, of course. I was shocked as Hermione uttered Voldie's name, for example. There were lost of mistakes, still it was cute. My faves were Ron, Hagrid and Snape.

Almah, blaubaerin and BAYBEE: yes, it IS the greatest shame.

star queen: I'm not going to make any other woman fall in love Ron – though your dream was cool :)

Waldomier: yes, Videus Camericus is the charm I made up in TGSoHH for Pomfrey to secretly watch Ginny.

Super saya-Jin Gotan: yes, I'm going to get them at least 50 feet deep in trouble before making them climb their way up again – you do know me :)

ladyyuy: you'll see Gred/Forge soon. Fred right in this chappie.

WolfEyes: What does the abbreviation w/b mean?

Arif: don't worry, the kids in story 3 won't be preppy. Well, one of them will be, but only one. Life won't be exactly perfect for them… you know me, I love making the characters have difficulties.

Kara: I'm sorry but in the future it really will be painful to read! :)))

Aimee: marital arts? Wow, what kind of? I think I wouldn't be able to do anything like that… I'm too fragile :(( Yes, Hermione just remembered that part of the book by accident. Just like me coming out from the college after an exam, suddenly slapping my head: "damn, I forgot something out of the test!" Such things happen to everyone – unfortunately. Eleanor isn't really representing me, but I put my love for Star Wars both into her and into Dennis :) You wrote: "if Tatyana only needs Harry's power to get what she wants, will he get it back when she's done?" Hm… if only everything was so easy! But it isn't. No, it wasn't Tatyana who caused the camera to malfunction, it was really just an accident (an accident I made deliberately to show that Harry's powers are gone.) My mum says hi to you!

Coolio: serves him right? Oh no… Harry didn't know what he was doing! He was bewitched! He's innocent!

Nefertiri: I've seen your website, it's great! That owl is so cute and the starry sky behind is sooooo beautiful! (you know I love astronomy!) I loved the apple-green background of Gringotts and the little Snitch in the text 'Wizard City' was very sweet.

rebkos: I've seen your website, and I was surprised to see His dark materials there (I didn't even know what that book's original title was I just recognised it from the alethiometer. Really, isn't the real title Northern Lights?). I'm right now reading that book – the first one, because only the first has come out in Hungary yet. Really, how many books are there in that series? Btw, my daemon is a raven (no wonder, I guess I'd be put into Ravenclaw:)

thebiggesthpfan: amazing butter in Hungary? Hm… amazing cheese? I'd rather say we are famous for our wines and goulash soup (remember, in book 4 during the Yule ball feast Harry also ate goulash. He has a good taste, goulash is wonderful :))

Romina: you wrote: "you better have something good in the next chapter so that you can redeem yourself." Hm… I cannot promise anything like that right now. Be patient :)

green smurf: you asked what my name meant. Well, my real given name is Agnes, and Agi is the Hungarian nickname for it. Vega is a star (I love astronomy). I'm going to check out your fic ASAP, okay?

Notebook Girl: I have read lots of SW books… all the five that tell the films' story and lots of sequels as well. If you want to read good sequels, read the five books of Timothy Zahn. How could Tatyana be a squib if she had used several charms before? (like hypnotising Harry in his sleep, killing the pogrebins with Avada Kedavra, etc). You'll get to know soon why she needed his powers.

Wood's secret lover: yes, I have names for all future characters. I guess Jessica is about 8-9 years old, right?

Lavendar Brown: I'm running away from the people with pitchforks :)

aurora riddle: yes, I named Lily deliberately after her grandma. No special reason for that, I just wanted her to have the same name, because she'll look a lot like Lily Evans. IMHO means In My Humble Opinion. I made up the charm (did you mean Exsugo vium magicae? Yes, that of course was made up by me. Rowling would never think of something THIS EVIL:) I have already written SW fics, but they were short and too sappy. I took them off ffnet.

Princesa (or Whit again): I love your Hungarian! :))

J-Kid: you asked something interesting… that I cannot answer right now. You'll get to know it later. All wizards and witches can use each other's wands – remember Ron used Charlie's wand for two years and Lockhart used Ron's wand once. Of course a wizard can do magic the best way if he uses his own wand.

Hayley Mills: I mainly read fantasy books, but my fave book (besides the HP books) is The count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. It's not fantasy, but still very cool.

BlueIce: I'll gladly edit your novel during the summer holiday :) Btw, how old are you? I wrote my first novel at the age of 17, but now that I look back it was really stupid :) I'm sure yours will be better.

Rab: what? Hayden Christensen resembles your cousin? Oh, you lucky one!

the coffee fiend: I guess English isn't that difficult. German is more difficult. And Hungarian is said to be one of the most difficult languages because of our terribly tricky inflections and conjugations. Foreigners are simply unable to learn them properly :) I guess Padme was really stupid to fall for Anakin's lines, LOL:) I really didn't like the romance part in EPII. It sucked. But the movie in general was cool.

Mage: where are you going?

X_Tow_Naga: did you do well on your test? The HP video and DVD came out in Hungary about two weeks BEFORE in the USA. I was quite surprised by it :) I think Jacen is irritating. And Jaina is stuck-up. I would rather have killed Jacen, not Annie. I think Hermione was still trying to persuade herself that she had read the book wrong, and she was trying to figure out something how to make sure that Tatyana wouldn't do it for the third time – and when she realised that she couldn't make up anything, she decided that all she could do was to tell Harry the truth. The ring DID tell Ginny, just wait it out. How can someone win if they are doing it together? Well – one or two of them might not be good at teamwork and that would mean loss of points. About the netherworld and the ghosts: I believe that Rowling said in an interview, that she'll clear this up in book 5 or 6 – she'll tell us why certain people turn into ghosts, why others don't. So wait for her explanation.

One-Winged Butterfly: LOL, I loved The greatest _____of_____:)) When will you see the Dursleys again? In chapter 38. A whole chappie on the Dursleys! I'm glad you started to like them, LOL!

Hazel Harman for Pandie: I'll try and read Hazel's fic as soon as I'm ready with my exams, okay? You're 24, Pandie? Oh, I'm always so happy when I get to know that I have a couple of 'mature' readers as well :))

Faunix: my Latin dictionary doesn't have a brand, it's just a simple dictionary with only the title "Hungarian-Latin" and the author of it. Should it have a brand? I don't think so.

LilGinny: no, Ron doesn't know about Herm's pregnancy – yet.

Also thanks to: apple-pie, Any last requests, Bienfoy, Qahira Galatea, SpoiledGurl2687, Heart2Heart, Blondie in Disguise, nutty buddy, Black Ice, Katie Bell, Ari Potter, AmadaPanda, Saphron, Laurenna, K.C. Hunter, Harrysgirl, PepsiAngel, Cassandra Anthemyst, Ksiezniczka, Bucky, Lady Schezar, princesswitch, Myrtle, teacherchez, phoenix6545, Maddy, Mabel Weasley, zzxm, MidniteSunrise, goldenstar555, Lady Lupin, CaittyLin, Derkaun Zarion, nutmeg, Hazel Harman, jennaration, JennyKT, PadmeSkywalker, jeanine23Dr, cara, Rose

Chapter 25

One ring to tell her all

She snatched the torch out of its bracket, muttered an incantation, and a hidden door opened in the wall.

She entered.

A magically propelled elevator set into motion and took her down into a secret corridor where only one stone door could be seen.

"Admitto!" she demanded and the huge stone slid aside to reveal a chamber with a bier in it.

There were seven candles lit around the bier: three-three on either side and one at the farther end.

A man with long black beard was lying on the bier with a pale complexion. He wasn't dead, though – the rising and falling of his chest indicated that he was alive.

She stepped to him with a smile on her face. "It has happened at last, Anor. I have the power I needed to wake you up… after a thousand years of vain waiting you can come back from your eternal sleep, my love… and you and I can rule over the wizarding world." she bent down so that their faces were only inches apart. "Revenio ex sempiternus somnus!" she breathed, kissing him on the lips gently.

As they mouths touched, a blinding but diffuse white light engulfed both of them, then it organised itself into a beam that disappeared into the man's body.

She retreated, watching as a tremor ran down his body and his eyes fluttered open.

"Natasha!" he whispered.

* * * * *

"You can't go on acting like this, Fred!" Ginny said.

"Why not?" he growled.

"Because you keep threatening people away! No one's interested in the Wheezes anymore!"

"Great, so you care for my business but not for me!"

"You know it's not like that!" she retorted. "You're my brother and I love you, but George's also my brother and I love him, too!"

"Then go and be with him!" he slapped the counter in Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.

"You're so… impossible!"

"Impossible?" he laughed harshly. "Now tell me, little sister, what would you do to Hermione if she seduced your hubby, huh?"

"I'd kill her, I guess."

"That's what I wanted to do to George." Fred replied. "And he's my brother, not just a friend."

"Then at least think of Angelina and her baby! What is going to happen to them?"

"Who cares?" Fred shrugged.

"Don't tell me that you don't care!" she snapped. "I know you do! You love her even if she slept with George!"

"Look who's talking!" Fred spat. "As I heard you were completely miserable when you thought that Harry had cheated on you."

"That has nothing to do with our discussion, Fred! And besides, now I know that he'd never ever sleep with anyone else!"

"But what if he did? Just in theory? What would you do if you got to know that he slept with someone else?" he asked.

"I don't know… but I have learnt from the last case… I have learnt not to jump to conclusions without knowing what really happened… So I think I'd give him a chance to explain… maybe he was bewitched or deceived… didn't know what he was doing… just like Angelina. So give her a chance, Fred. Believe in her innocence and continue loving her. Please…"

"I wish everything was so simple for me and Angelina as it is for you and Harry." Fred sighed. "You're so lucky, sis."

"I know." she smiled. "I love him so much…" her eyes wandered down to her right hand with the wedding ring on it.

For a second Fred thought that she had gone crazy, because she held the ring close to her eyes that were showing the haunted look of lunatics.

"No… no, please…" she whispered.

"What happened, sis?" Fred asked, worried.

"Harry… Harry's… something terrible has happened to him…" she showed him the ring. "The gem isn't glowing."

"What exactly does it mean?"

"I don't even dare imagine what it means..." she whispered with a stony face. "I don't even dare imagine…

"What… what if he just took it off?" Fred suggested.

"No, he has sworn that he'd never take it off!" she shouted, desperate. "No… I'm sure he hasn't taken it off… it has to mean something else…" she was practically hyperventilating. "About two weeks ago I almost got a heart-attack when the gem started to flicker in a mad way… I had almost teleported myself to Durmstrang, but then it stopped flickering and continued to glow in the normal way… I don't know what happened to Harry then, but I thought that he couldn't be in danger if the flickering stopped. Maybe he was just beaten up by someone again, but wasn't in real danger… I don't know." she sighed. "I wanted to make sure whether he was all right, but since the gem wasn't showing danger anymore, I couldn't get to Durmstrang… Maybe this time I could… I could get to him… I'm not sure it's going to work now that the gem isn't glowing, but I've got to try…" she closed her eyes and concentrated, picturing Harry, wanting to get to him… to no avail.

She opened her eyes and let out a resigned sigh. "Impossible. There's no connection between the rings… I fear that Harry… might be…"

"No." Fred gripped her hands. "He is alive, sis. Believe me, he is."

"I want to believe you, Fred." she said, tears brimming her eyes. "But what am I going to do now? What…? I've got to get to Durmstrang, but… oh!" she slapped her forehead. "I know! Tell mum to take care of the kids for me!"

"Gin!" Fred shouted but she had already disapparated.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, the three champions were walking down the twisting cave, barely uttering a word. They were in no mood for talking at all.

Magical torches illuminated the cave's insides. This kind of magical illumination didn't provide too much of light, but it was enough for the champions to see what they were doing and for the spectators to see the actions taking place in the cave.

As the champions arrived to a small, frozen creek, three boggarts emerged from behind a couple of ice stalagmites.

Dennis' boggart turned into Malcolm Baddock, yelling that 'You couldn't win the tournament, Creevey! You are pathetic little bungler who does not deserve to be a Gryffindor! You should have been put into Hufflepuff!"

Dennis flipped his wand saying Ridikkulus! and forced Malcolm into a pink, frilly dress with pink, rose-patterned umbrella and a pair of pink, fluffy slippers.

"Creevey! What have you done to me??? To a Slytherin???" he bellowed and vanished as Guillaume burst into laughter. He couldn't laugh long, though, because another boggart started gaining on him, turning into… Gilderoy Lockhart.

"Noooooooo!" Guillaume shrieked.

"Yeeeeeeees!" Gilderoy replied, sneering. "I am your worst nightmare, boy, because you know that I'm prettier than you are!"

"But not for long!" the blonde champion raised his wand, shouting Ridikkulus! With a pop the Lockhart-boggart sprouted pimples and too long front teeth that looked worse than Hermione's had been.

As Dennis and Guillaume's laughter filled the cave, making its ceiling shudder a bit, the boggart vanished, but the third one swooped down on Mileta and turned into… Harry Potter.

"You silly, silly girl!" the boggart-Harry said with a furious expression. "Did you think, did you really think I'd ever like you?"

Mileta straightened herself, holding her head in the air, trying to look nonchalant, but Dennis saw that she was on the verge of tears. She raised her wand with a trembling hand, but couldn't divert her eyes from Harry's face that she found – even with its furious expression – overwhelmingly sweet. Her knees buckled and she dropped her wand, starting to sob. The boggart glided closer to her until it was close enough for her to touch, but she didn't – couldn't – do anything.

"Intervention!" Guillaume suggested to Dennis, who nodded, and they both raised their wands to shout Ridikkulus! The boggart-Harry was forced to wear a pince-nez with green lenses and yellow Quidditch robes with the sign of a skunk on it.

"Ewww, I wanted to give him a badger… of Hufflepuff." Dennis apologised after the boggart disappeared. "I don't dare imagine my scores when we get out from here! I s'pose Harry won't give me any after this!"

"You're still luckier than me!" Mileta sniffed. "If people out there saw my boggart, then everyone knows already that I… that I…"

"…love Harry." Dennis sighed.

"Yes." she wiped her tears. "I'm so sorry, Dennis. I know you have… um, certain feelings for me, but I love him, not you."

"It's okay, Mil. Really." Dennis said with a sad smile.

"Would you two stop deescussing your love life and move on?" Guillaume cut in impatiently.

"All right."

They left the stalagmites behind - the two boys in rather good mood, Mileta rather embarrassed – after about five minutes of walk they reached a part of the cave where it widened a bit to reveal a small ice-chamber with a long table carved of ice in it. The table was packed with bottles of all shapes and sizes. At least twenty bottles.

"What is this?" Dennis furrowed his brow. "Some kind of Potions exam?" he mused. He had heard about Snape's task that was solved by Hermione's logic. However, there was no poem or any kind of description on this table… nothing but the flasks and vials.

"I don't know." Mileta shook her head. "What are we supposed to do now?"

"No idea… ouch!" Guillaume shouted, massaging his arm.

"What happened?"

"Something bit me!" the French champion replied, blanching.

"Something… what?" Dennis asked.

"It was… small… hehe… black… furry…" Lochar started to giggle, sitting down on the icy ground. "hahaha…with lacy wings…"

"A doxy." Dennis perceived. "I don't want to discourage you, Guillaume, but doxies have poisonous teeth."

"Do… do they?" the blonde boy turned even paler, but didn't stop laughing. "Am hehe… am I… going to die?"

"Of course no!" Mileta snapped. "The poison of the doxies isn't lethal, just makes you rather silly for a while… not that you aren't silly already…" she sighed. "It makes you laugh so that you cannot stop."

"What can we do now?" Dennis asked in a worried voice. Not that he was really worried about Lochar, still… this task was about co-operation, thus he and Mileta had to save Guillaume now. But how?

"Haven't you paid attention at a single Potions class?" the girl knitted her eyebrows.

"Should I have?"

"Of course!" she snapped. "It is clear why they put these vials here: they knew that one of us would be bitten and they wanted to know whether we knew how to cure it!"

"You mean… we should make an antidote?" Creevey gasped.

"Exactly." she nodded, stepping to the table. "Let's see… give me the bottle with bat-bile, would you?"

"What?" Dennis asked, disgusted.

"That small one with the greenish liquid over there!" she pointed at a flask. "Really, don't you know what bat-bile looks like?"

"I only know what professor Snape looks like and that was enough to make me lose my interest for Potions." Dennis growled, handing her the required bottle. Meanwhile, Guillaume was hysterically laughing, pummeling the ground with his fists, his whole body convulsing with laughter.

Mileta sighed, pouring a bit of bat-bile into a flask half full of powdered ginger roots.

Dennis kept handing her bowls until she decided that the antidote was ready.

"I'm not sure I have made the right potion…" she said insecurely. "We've got to experiment a bit on Guillaume."

"I don't mind experimenting on him." Dennis grinned and held the still madly laughing boy in place until Mileta managed to force a bit of the potion down his throat. "Well… I don't know… he's still laughing." Dennis perceived after two minutes. "And look at those pretty lilac spots he has sprouted!"

"Oh, no! I have added a pint too much asphodel!" she wailed, stepping to the table again, madly searching for something. Finally she chose a little flask with acid-blue liquid and spilt two droplets of it into the remainder of the potion. "If this doesn't work, then I give up." she crouched down to Guillaume – whose face meanwhile had turned totally purple – and made him drink the modified antidote.

Lochar immediately stopped laughing and stood up.

"What took you so long?" he growled at Mileta and marched off.

Dennis and the girl exchanged amused glances – Guillaume's face was still purple, unbeknownst to him. "If they are watching us now, they must be in stitches." Dennis whispered, making Mileta giggle. "Really, Mileta, you must be really good at Potions… or at least that Professor Fiodrovna must be a very good teacher."

"That bitch?" she snapped, then slapped her hands on her mouth, looking around nervously. Had the teachers heard her last comment?

Dennis had no idea what made Mileta describe her professor as a bitch, but he didn't care. They had to move on – there was still a lot left of the cave.

After a couple of other traps – enchantments, mainly - they reached a place where the cave widened into some kind of a huge, underground room. There was a banshee waiting for them, her long, black hair covering almost her whole body.

"Now, any ideas how to vindicate a banshee?" Lochar asked.

"None at all." Mileta replied as the banshee started to shriek, succeeding in making the room's ceiling cave in on them with her scream. Before they got squashed by the ice-ceiling, Dennis shouted 'Banish Banshee!', silencing, then making her disappear.

"Great." he growled, eyeing the huge heap of snow and littered ice-stalactites that had been loosened from the ceiling by the banshee's shrill voice. "The path's totally blocked. Anyone knows a good charm?"

"Reducto, I guess." Mileta said uncertainly.

"Or we could just melt it with Incendio." Dennis added.

"O' course, and let ourselves drown. Breeliant idea, Creevey." Lochar growled.

"Then do it yourself if you're so clever!" Mileta snapped.

"Zat's really easy." Guillaume replied superciliously. "At Christmas we always 'ave ice sculptures all aroun' ze Beauxbatons castle. I've made a few o' zem myself because I'm really talented." he raised his wand, pointed it at the heap of snow, saying: 'Statua glacies!'

In a second the huge pile of ice and snow arranged itself into twenty neatly polished, smiling statues of Guillaume himself.

Dennis rolled his eyes and Mileta shook her head in disbelief.

"You know, Creevey…" Lochar whispered to him so that the judges outside surely couldn't hear it through the Videus Camericus charm, "I'm sure zat ze judges 'ave seen zis and zey are going to award me lots o' points for it."

"Be happy with your points and shut up!" Dennis growled. "Let's move, guys, I want to finish with this cave. We are almost at the end. I want to get outta here as soon as possible it's so damn cold!"

"All right." Mileta said, stepping forward – and slipping. Guillaume's charm seemed not only have packed the littered snow away, but had vanished snow from the ground as well, revealing the polished-mirror-like surface of an underground lake.

"Arrrgh!" she yelped, not being able to stop herself from skidding towards Lochar's ice-statues.

Everything happened in two or three seconds, so the other two champions couldn't even stop it: Mileta collided with the first sculpture that tumbled over, hitting the one next to it, that also fell, turning over the next that hit the next… until all twenty statues fell as a result of the domino-effect, making the cave shudder again – this time much more seriously than in the banshee's case.

"Duck!" Dennis yelled, snatching the hem of Mileta's robes, pulling her into a crevice Guillaume had already climbed into. The three of them watched, horror-stricken, as one of the room's icy walls – the one that had been hit by the last falling statue – caved in.

Snow was pouring from everywhere, hiding the rest of the underground room from their eyes.

The tumbling wall was making a noise that mysteriously sounded like thunder or the roar of the Niagara.

When the noise finally faded away and the shuddering stopped, the three champions moved out from their hiding place, walking up to the remainders of the wall that had caved in.

"Amazing!" Dennis breathed.

"Frozen in ice?" Mileta grimaced.

"Do you think it was part of the task?" Guillame asked.

"No." Mileta said. "Impossible. We would never have found… this, if we hadn't made the wall cave in."

"You mean if you haven't made it cave in." the blonde boy commented.

"It wasn't my fault, really!" she snapped. "You have made the floor so slippery when you conjured those stupid sculptures of yourself!"

"Stop bickering, will you?" Dennis cut in furiously. "Be a bit serious! We have to talk to the teachers. They need to know about… him."

Guillaume turned around, starting to wave madly with his hands.

"What are you doing?" Mileta asked.

"Trying to catch ze teachers' attention!" he replied, jumping.

"Do you reckon they see us?" Dennis shouted.

"'Course zey do!" Guillaume nodded, carrying on waving.

Dennis turned back to the 'vanishing wall'. "This is creepy. He looks so… alive."

"He's just not moving." Mileta commented. "Really scary. Reckon we could melt him out?"

"Yeah, put him into the micro-wave oven!" Dennis rolled his eyes.

"Into the what?" Mileta gaped.

"Never mind. Muggle stuff."

"Why aren't ze teachers coming?" Guillaume started to worry. "Zey must 'ave seen us by now!"

"We should go and tell them." Dennis said. "Maybe they haven't seen us. Maybe there's no magic camera in this room, or even if there was one, it might have got destroyed by the falling chunks of ice."

The other two champions agreed and they continued their way down in the cave that narrowed into a normal path again. A dozen of red-caps lunged at them from behind rocks, but after professor Lupin's DADA classes, they weren't any danger for Dennis, who easily disarmed them.

After another half an hour of walk, Mileta exclaimed: "Look! I see light! Sunlight! We've reached the end!"

"Hurray!" Dennis yelled in glee and all three of them started running in the direction of the light.

In one moment they were still in the dark cave, in the next one they were blinking in the sunshine, taking deep breaths of the cold but clean air that they welcomed after having spent hours in the stale air of the cave.

To their surprise, no one ran up to them to greet them, not a single cheering voice could be heard from the coast of the lake.

The champions looked around in awe. There were the three magic screens still showing the cave's inside, but there was no spectator to look at it. No one at all.

"Where's everyone gone?" Dennis breathed.

"S'pose they got bored and returned to the castle?" Mileta suggested.

"Don't be silly, Krum." Guillaume frowned. "Zey're gone, but… look… zey've left stuff behind… a notebook… a half-eaten sandwich… a broken mirror…" he lifted up the mirror's remainder, then let out a scream of terror: "What 'appened to my face???!!!??"

"Who cares for your face?" Dennis grunted. "I want to know WHERE THEY ARE!!!???"

* * * * *

Draco Malfoy was sitting in the living room of Devilsmoor Manor – and old house that had once belonged to his mother's family. Since he had graduated from Hogwarts, he had been living in this manor, away from his parents. Somehow he felt Lucius and Narcissa a burden.

He was reading a book but couldn't really pay attention to it. His thoughts kept wandering, making him imagine far-away places and picture people he hadn't seen in a while… especially a certain woman.

The doorbell rang.

*Kinky will go and answer it.* he thought, burying himself into his book on undetectable potions again.

After a minute the doorbell rang again.

"Kinky!" Draco shouted. "Go and open it!"

There was no reply.

"Oh, that stupid, sex-maniac elf! She must be somewhere, frolicking with a male elf again!" Draco growled, standing up. "I'll make her punish herself when she gets back! No male elves for a whole year!" he swore and ripped the door open to see who his visitor was.

It happened to be Ginny Potter.

A/N2: Latin explanations: Admitto! = let me in! (some kind of Alohomora, I just wanted to use another word for it.

Revenio ex sempiternus somnus = to awake someone from an eternal sleep (I guess. I still don't speak Latin.)

statua glacies = ice statue

I borrowed the name 'Anor' from the New Jedi Order series, where an evil guy is called Nom Anor. I just thought it sounded really evil.

The description for doxy can be found in Fantastic beasts and where to find them (though I made up the hysterically laughing part). Rowling only wrote that the doxies had poisonous teeth.

I know I should have put more action into the second task, but in this chapter the emphasis was not really on the task, but on other things that happened during it – things that will be revealed later.

Of course I took the chapter's title from Lord of the Rings, just re-wrote it.