Chapter 15: Feel Like Dying? Great!

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It was ten minutes before Moody emerged from the maze, dragging a slightly crazed Cedric and an exceedingly grumpy Krum behind him. It really didn't make the mood at the judges' box any better, really, because Cedric was proclaiming that he was never going to make the fundraising target now, Krum was demanding an investigation into the people patrolling the maze, the audience was getting restless, and Karkaroff was threatening to curse someone if they didn't call off the tournament right this minute.

"Merlin's balls, they don't look too good from here," Ron muttered, squinting down at where Cedric was using Krum as an (albeit fairly willing) walking stick.

"No shit," Ginny said flatly. "This whole thing's been a fuck up from start to finish."

"Language!" Hermione exclaimed. "You're right, though."

"They should have called off the whole thing the second Krum started showing signs of losing control," Neville muttered. "Especially with their 'Boy Who Lived' in the mix…"

"Worse things have happened," Fred said shortly. "Let's face it, even if his principles are probably a bit whacked, Percy's got the right idea."

George nodded, frowning slightly, as Ron held his omnioculars harder against his face and squinted more. Lee sighed and sat back. "Not much we can do but wait, boys. And girls." He shifted uncomfortably, then coughed as he received a set of binoculars straight to the diaphragm. "Ron! Man, watch the breathing tubes!"

Ron, however, was busy hauling Luna to her feet. Luna, for her part, was remarkably okay about the whole thing, humming serenely to herself and calmly putting her things away as if she got bodily lifted into the air via one arm and unceremoniously dumped on her feet every other Tuesday.

"Ronald, what is it?" Hermione asked anxiously.

"Don't you think," Ron grumbled, wrenching his wand out of his back pocket, "It's a bit suspicious that our resident cryptid doesn't trust the person who took ten whole minutes to retrieve two badly injured Champions, despite having been patrolling the maze the entire time and freely offering one of the remaining champions advice?"

"You know," George said amiably, "When you put it like that, it almost sounds incriminating."

Ron rolled his eyes. "Yeah, thanks, George, I knew I could count on you. Look at the pieces on the board, okay? So the maze is the centre, where the majority of the combat happens. We started with five pieces on the board – Moody, who acts weird and who Luna hates –"

"It's like standing next to a lion-goose," Luna interjected dreamily.

"—we've got Krum, who knows the most dark spells, we've got Cedric, who's a fucking Hufflepuff, we've got Fleur, I guess she's part Veela, and we've got Harry, who for all intents and purposes doesn't belong there. Around the midsection we have the officials, who are, in some ways, challenging each other, but won't allow a lot of movement off the centre; and we're stuck on the outside."

"…yes?" Hermione frowned. "I don't exactly know what you're – getting at."

Ron shook his head. "Look at – look at how the centre has evolved. There's a clear strategy going on; they Imperiused Krum because he knew the most Dark Spells and therefore would be better at them, right? But look. He didn't attack Harry. At all. He has no reason not to have attacked Harry, he's an easy target with a knack for getting out of weird situations but no real combative ability, at least none that anyone knows of. And look who's left on the field now – Fleur, who has the lowest overall score in the Tournament."

Hermione still looked exceedingly confused, but the others seemed to be twigging onto it. "You mean," Ginny said slowly, "Somebody isn't trying to overtly kill them, but rather is messing with the Tournament."

"And they want Harry at the end," Neville added.

"And Moody's the common denominator," Fred added with a wince.

Luna clapped her hands happily. "I knew you'd all expel the Wrackspurts eventually!"

"But what do we do now?" Lee asked, glancing down at the judges' table. "We can't exactly burst in there, especially since we're liable to be eaten alive."

"What else have we got to work with?" Hermione asked quickly. "Anyone, anything?"

"… Snuffles," George said sharply. "There's no way he hasn't done anything for this task, he's far too… well."

"I'm betting on the Cup being a Portkey," Lee muttered. "That makes organizational sense, right?"

"…so Snuffles would mess with it by sending Harry to the wrong place…" Hermione murmured. "But what if the Cup's been messed with, too?"

"Moody's still on the board," Neville reminded them all. "And we don't actually know what colour he is – and he's definitely a Queen, right, Ron?"

"Definitely," Ron agreed proudly. "So… discovered attack, but we can't block it in time… Ginny, Fred, George, Neville, run down to the stands near the judge's table… everyone else, spread out and try to guess where any key locations might be."

"I hate it when he uses chess analogies," Hermione grumbled, getting to her feet. "Flat chess is bad enough, but with him all of a sudden there are five dimensions, knight-bishops, and invisible pieces."

Fred snorted. "Aw, Hermione. Don't sweat it. Knowing nothing is good for you."

"You know, the Gryffindor Disaster Squad is larger than I remembered," Pansy murmured.

"Oh, is that who you've been spying on for the last six minutes?" Blaise asked. "How many? They've got the Weaselette, haven't they?"

Pansy removed the binoculars and gave him a flat stare. "There's nine of them."

"Nine?" Draco yelped. "Nine bloody – holy Merlin, we're doomed."

"Never mind our impending deaths," Tracey huffed, stuffing a chocolate frog whole into her left cheek, "What are they doing? Spill."

"Four of them are going over to spy on the judges," Pansy reported. "The rest are sort of wandering randomly through the crowd."

"So, they obviously think something is going down with the judges," Nott concluded.

"And the rest are forming a defensive perimeter of sorts," Daphne murmured. "Typical Gryffindor behaviour, if you discount the fact that one is a Ravenclaw."

"What exactly are they planning to do?" Millicent asked, exasperated.

"They not teachers," Goyle muttered.

Millicent threw her hands into the air. "Exactly! Dumbledore could easily take them down if he wanted to!"

"What makes you think it's Dumbledore?" Tracey frowned.

Daphne smacked the side of her friend's head. "Take your meds, Tracey. I told you, honestly. It's always Dumbledore, everybody take their meds."

"Sorry…"

"Whatever they're about to do," Draco grumbled, "It had better be entertaining. Father definitely overromanticized this thing."

"Add 'Find Better Sources of Entertainment' to the takeover plan?" Nott asked.

Blaise snorted. "Way ahead of you, Theodore."

Harry took a deep breath. "Alright," he said. "Alright. Ready, Fleur?"

She nodded, face set. "Ready, 'Arry."

He sighed, and held his hand out, hovering an inch above the Cup's right handle. "Okay. Three. Two. One. Now."

Together, they reached out and grabbed on. There was the odd but familiar feeling of a hook jerking behind the navel, and then they were flying through nothingness…

"Potter and Delacour just FUCKING UP AND VANISHED!" Daphne screeched. She wasn't the only one – at the disappearance of the two Champions, most of the stands had exploded into yelling and motion.

Dumbledore got to his feet, raising his hands and trying to call for calm. "Do not worry! The Cup was spelled a portkey in order to transport the Champions back to the front of the maze!"

It worked, for the most part; the Hogwarts students, at least, calmed themselves, sitting back down, albeit whispering and slightly shaky. Unfortunately for the attempted media farce, however, the Durmstrang students had both the complete and utter lack of propriety and the 40-degrees-below-zero-wintertime-acquired-balls-of-steel to speak up, which one of them did, quite bluntly.

"No offense, Headmaster Dumbledore, but if it vas a Portkey, then, excuse my French, vere the hell are they now? Texas?" Vanya asked irritably. "Ve are getting bored of this, Poliakoff is getting hungry and his stomach von't shut up, we want to see a real Tournament, not this – vat is the term – fuck up."

"That is indeed the term," Poliakoff said solemnly behind him as the crowd exploded into hysterics as they realised that the Portkey should, in fact, have arrived a good while ago and that it was, in fact, highly possible that Harry and Fleur had landed in some magic-forsaken part of the world.

"Uh…" Bagman began, tugging nervously at his collar. "I'm sure it's just a technical fault…"

"Where the hell did he learn that phrase?" Hemione hissed from her spot at the back of the stands; a nearby muggleborn made a face at her and turned back to the front.

"Where eez my student?" Madame Maxime demanded. "What 'ave you done now, Dumbly-door?"

"I told you we should have cancelled," Percy said smugly.

The ground rushed up to meet them, cold air whistling around them as they impacted with a loud thump on the slightly damp ground. Harry groaned, rolling over onto his back, reaching up a hand to check if his glasses were broken. They weren't, but with the way his nose was burning, the landing had left much to be desired. Letting his hand drop down, he stared up the blackened sky for a moment, before raising his head a little to look around. He could hear animals scurrying around nearby, their footsteps shockingly loud on in the relative silence, crackling over leaves and swishing in the grass. He squinted at the horizon and felt dread coil within him. The castle was nowhere to be seen.

"Ugh, zere eez grass een my mouth," Fleur complained beside him, and he turned around to see her spitting plant matter onto the ground next to her. "Where are we?"

"Dunno," Harry muttered, slowly getting to his feet, glancing around at the dimly lit scene. A graveyard. Charming. "Was the Cup meant to be a Portkey?"

"To ze front of ze maze, maybe," Fleur hissed. "Not 'ere."

"Wands out?" Harry asked.

"I zeenk so," she agreed.

They both stepped away from the fallen Cup, wands held out in front of them. "Lumos," Harry whispered, and the light fell just before a dark figure, inscrutable and grey in the darkness, edges ragged.

And then Harry's scar erupted with what felt like fire; staggering, he nearly dropped his wand as a haze overtook him, held up by Fleur's hand gripping the back of his collar. "Don't move forwards," she whispered to him. "We might 'ave to run."

Harry hissed quietly, but didn't respond, trying to make out the figure ahead of them – and then the familiar voice sliced through the air, cold and high and dragging unwanted remnants of emotion to the surface –

"Kill the spare," the voice ordered, and Harry's heart stopped.

He saw the bright, agonizingly familiar flash of green before he could react, felt the hand release his collar as he struggled to stay on his feet, heard footsteps and a yell, a hand gripped his arm, a rough tugging and then he was falling…

A high-pitched wail, the sound travelling straight to his core, eliciting shivers from the sheer unearthliness, and then all was light again, or as light as the night could be, but he was still falling – Harry twisted around to look at his assailant, caught a snatch of buck teeth and mousy brown hair –

He felt his back hit something solid, sharp pain snapping through his spine as his head jolted downward, and he felt something – or perhaps somethings – he couldn't quite discern break. There was the high, jarring noise of something stiff and brittle shattering into a million pieces, his own winded gasp for breath, and then, for a brief moment, he was in flight once again, floating through the wind. He realised he had closed his eyes in shock, and as he did, they snapped open once more, just in time to make out golden-yellow, flickering lights, a shadow alongside him, a hole through which he could see the stars winking in the pitch sky –

His back slammed into something hard once more, and his time there was no denying the sensation of bones snapping; his breath, only just snatched back, was violently expelled from his lungs, and his head spun as if he'd been pitched from a tornado. For a split second, he was painfully, horrifyingly aware of every sensation around him; his ribs splintered in two, the wind swirling frigid and uncaring around him, the rush of adrenaline, his broken finger burning as if it were on fire, the scent of iron in the air, a thousand knives slicing through his skin as he crashed onto a floor littered with knife-like shards, blood through the air and building in his throat –

His head snapped back onto cold stone, and he just had time to perceive his neck and skull screaming in protest at the sudden stop before the colour of nothing overtook his vision, emptiness seeping into his fingers and toes and ears and skin.

If he could have been honest in that moment, he would have been grateful for it.

It happened far too quickly for anyone's comfort.

Fleur appeared without warning, collapsing face down onto the ground, the cup detaching from her ankle as she did so. Their first thoughts were that she was dead; who, after all, used a Portkey with their foot, what graceful woman landed flat on her face like a ragdoll? The stands stood there, staring silently at the limp body on the ground even as Madam Pomfrey grabbed Cedric and Krum by the scruffs of their necks to stop them storming the pitch; but before either of the young men had even been jerked backwards, Fleur was moving, jumping to her feet with surprising speed, whipping out her wand and pointing it out in front of her.

"'Arry," she gasped, staring around at them. "Where is 'Arry?"

And then there was a noise like the ghost of a young girl's screams, and the entire mass of people seemed to jump out of their skin, heads whipping around so quickly it must have pained them. They saw a figure slam into the tiled roof of one of the towers, heard, faint yet clear, hitting the crowd like a swarm of arrows, the sound of tiles breaking, of wood splintering.

And then the stands exploded into screaming.

A.N

I don't remember when I last wrote a 'long' long chapter for this. They're all, like, 2.5k words now. Is is good? Is it bad? Who knows. Not me.

I hand-type these notes, so they vary from AO3 to FF and sometimes I wonder if I have, like, split personas between them. Nah. That's impossible.

It's been a month, and y'all (oh my god hat, you're turning into a southerner, you're not even American, you're a HAT) voted for Daphne, who is slowly becoming more and more done with everything, 8[D] to 5[T] to 4[M] to 2[P] to 1[Th]. To the singular person who voted for Theodore Nott, I'm proud of your independence. And also very glad you lot didn't all vote for Draco Malfoy because I realise now I have no clue how the hell I would pull that off. Haphne it is.

Holy crap, 200 followers? That's a lot of followers... thank you all for reading! I'm glad you like it! 3

R.R

Guest (1): No. I refuse to. :D

Guest (2): It would get very fun. Although it would probably also get very messy. 'Alcohol solves everything' NOT CIRRHOSIS IT DOESN'T! [Sorry, inner nerd escaped, please stand by...]

Enolfer27Black: Unfortunately, Harry did not get to fight Voldemort in a skirt and instead got yeeted through a roof. Maybe later. I think crossdressing characters, whether they do it for disguise, because they're trolls, to overthrow the establishment, or because they decided they wanted to wear one today, are too interesting to leave out of a story, so once they get in, they NEVER LEAVE. Unfortunately, I have no clue what 'update quickly' means anymore, because it is much easier to crank out 1 decent chapter every 3 days when you are in the introductory phases of a fic and only have two others. Even with my own plot bunny pit they still get out of control.

Edit:

Dear those of you who have made it this far,

Technically, I should have updated ages ago. But a whole heap of things got in the way, and in any case, Sirius hasn't been cooperating. Thus, I'm going to work updates differently. I'm going to finish my current works one at a time, as I can plan them out, and as information comes to me. This means I'm putting most of my other stories on a hiatus until I can finish Luna, Queen of Azkaban. Then I'm going to finish off my short series, Harry Gains a Harem and Sirius Destroys the Aesop, before moving back onto Spiderwebs.

Considering how much more of the above stories I have to wrap up, I'm anticipating the entire process taking anywhere between 1 and 4 months until I'm on my last piece - depending on how fast the inspiration comes.

Hopefully, everything will be up and running again soon.

All the best,

~ Hat