In the last week of May, FitzSimmons and the three champions headed down to the quidditch pitch to learn what the third and final task of the tournament was going to be.

Upon arriving they discovered that the entire field was covered with low hedges crisscrossing all over it, making up what almost looked like paths of some kind, though where from and where to FitzSimmons couldn't tell upon quick glance. Jumping over all of the hedges, the five of them walked out to where Mr Bagman was standing in the very center of the field waiting on them.

"Well, what d'you think?" Mr Bagman said happily once everyone gathered around him, motioning towards the shrubs surrounding them. "Growing nicely, aren't they? Give them a month and Hagrid'll have them twenty feet high. Now, I imagine you can guess what we're making here?"

"It's a maze, isn't it?" Simmons answered, having seen Inception more than a few dozen times. "Paths crossing paths crossing paths."

"That's right!" Mr Bagman exclaimed excitedly. "A maze. The third task's really very straightforward. The Triwizard Cup will be placed in the center of the maze. The first champion to touch it will win."

"We seemply 'ave to get through ze maze?" Fleur asked in confusion. That didn't seem much of a challenge after taking on a mother dragon and surviving underwater for an hour.

"There will be obstacles," Mr Bagman answered gleefully, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Hagrid is providing a number of creatures...then there will be spells that must be broken...all that sort of thing, you know. Now, the champion leading on points will go first into the maze, followed by the second place, then third, and finally fourth. But you'll all be in with a fighting chance, depending how well you get past the obstacles. Should be fun, eh?"

Everyone nodded politely, too occupied trying to imagine exactly what this task was actually going to be like on the night in question to be paying Mr Bagman much attention anymore. It was one thing to say that it was a mazed filled with obstacles, spells, and magical creatures, but actually figuring out how to train for that over the upcoming month was something else entirely.

After several seconds of no one saying anything, just thinking, Mr Bagman continued on, "Very well — if you haven't got any questions —"

"Wait, wait, I do!" Simmons hurriedly exclaimed. When Mr Bagman looked at her, she said, "So if I'm understanding this correctly, all of us will be scattered throughout the maze when someone finds the TriWizard Cup, right? Well, how is the winner going to get from the center of the maze back outside with the cup, and how is everyone else going to know that the cup's been found and the competition is over? If this task is anything like the first two, it's going to take at least half an hour, if not an hour or more to find the cup, and while the journey out would theoretically be quicker backtracking one's steps, that's still a long time. And a lot of obstacles to have to go back through after winning."

"Excellent question, my lovely young lady!" Mr Bagman beamed. "And the answer to that is, the TriWizard Cup will be a portkey taking the person to grab it to the front of the maze where you will all be starting and the crowds will be seated watching. And once the winner shows up, the patrols who will be watching for any signs of the need of a rescue, will go into the maze to get the remaining champions and bring them out. Does that answer your question?"

"It does," Simmons answered. "Thank you."

Looking around for a second to see if anyone else had any more questions, Mr Bagman finally said, "If that's it, let's go back up to the castle, shall we? It's a bit chilly..."

Everyone began making their way out of the maze, hopping back over all of the hedges that they had crossed to get in there. As they did so, Mr Bagman sidled up to FitzSimmons and pulled them away from everyone a little bit.

"See what I said, Harry? — Still in contention," he said quietly to them.

"Any chance you can give us any hints on what we'll actually have to face in there?" Fitz asked, deciding to get ahead on the whole 'Mr Bagman trying to help them win' thing.

Mr Bagman looked pleasantly surprised at Fitz asking him for help straight away, but quickly broke out into a bright grin and pulled them further away from the other three champions, though by that point Fleur and Krum were starting to break off to go back to their domiciles, and only Sara was still heading up towards the castle a little bit in front of them.

As they continued on up to the castle, Mr Bagman said, "Happy to help the youngest competitor, Harry! Now, I can't give you too much information, that would be cheating of course, but I can say that Hagrid is importing a magical creature from Egypt — I can't tell you what, but brush up on your riddles in case you run across it. He's also said that he's got a creature from the Forbidden Forest, which even I don't know exactly what is. And remember Rita's charming article on him right after Christmas? Well, ever wondered why the Ministry never got involved with the claims of illegal crossbreeding? Just think on that a bit, and I'm sure you can guess another creature you might run across in the maze."

As they passed by Professor Moody stalking along in the opposite direction of them Mr Bagman cut off until they were back out of earshot of the DADA teacher, and then continued on, "As far as possible spells you'll need to know go, everything you've learned in Defense Against the Dark Arts class is good to review, something for determining direction in the maze so you know where you need to head towards, and dueling spells are always helpful. Just remember that beasts will be attacking you, so you need to be able to stop them, and get past them. Then after that, just keep your head about yourself — failing to 'correctly' deal with a spell-based obstacle won't seriously injure you, and certainly won't kill you. Now, the creatures you have to watch out for, but the spells can't kill you — that would be far too dangerous for a tournament designed around the safety of its participants."

By this time they had reached the front doors of the castle, and while both FitzSimmons were silently scoffing derisively at the last part about the tournament being designed around safety when it had literal slavery and dragons who could have easily killed a competitor or slave before the dragon trainers could have done a single thing about it, Fitz simply said out loud, "Thank you so much for your help, Mr Bagman. We've got to be getting back up to our dorms before Filch or Snape give us detention for being out well past curfew, even if it was required for the tournament, but we're really looking forward to this task."

And with that FitzSimmons and Mr Bagman said their goodbyes and parted ways, FitzSimmons up to Gryffindor Tower and a private dorm where they could do private things, and Mr Bagman towards the Hogwarts gates where he could apparate back home.

Meanwhile, down on the grounds like they had passed him on their own walk from the quidditch pitch up to the castle, Professor Moody was prowling the grounds like he had been every night for the past week, waiting for his father to arrive so that he could murder the old man before said man could talk to Dumbledore. For Peter Pettigrew had sent word to Professor Moody that he hadn't been able to keep Mr Crouch properly locked up in their family home, and that the Ministry official had escaped and was on his way to Hogwarts to confess to Dumbledore everything that he had done — and that just couldn't be allowed. But Mr Crouch's mind was still scrambled by the controlling spells that had been put on him, so he wouldn't be moving fast or in his right mind, and shouldn't be too hard to catch with a little constant vigilance.

And speaking of which — was that nonsensical muttering that he heard on the edge of the Forbidden Forest a ways off, close to the paddock with the Beauxbatons horses in it? He did believe it was.

~FS~

Over the next month, FitzSimmons did actually practice all of the spells that they could and study up as much in the library as they could on spells that would be useful in a maze.

Not because they were actually going to try in the third task, but rather because the ability to quickly, efficiently, and safely make it through a real-world situation that this maze resembled was very important to them as Shield Agents wanting the ability to protect themselves and others should any situation arise. They also knew that it would have the added benefit of making all of the adults think that they gave a shit about the tournament, which would keep the slave owners off of their backs until the third task actually occurred. They would still accept any and all help that anyone would try giving them, but better at the moment to make everyone believe that they were trying this time than to do absolutely nothing like they had for the first two tasks.

And over that month they frequently saw Professor Moody give them lopsided grins as they left Defense Against the Dark Arts class, along with bringing a lot of spells into class that seemed like they would probably be good for the maze based on Mr Bagman's description of what they needed to learn, with lots of physical practice in class of those spells. So that by the time June 24 rolled around, FitzSimmons were quite confident that combined with their already extensive genius, they could have crushed the maze that evening had they wanted to — but they already had other plans in mind.

Ms Skeeter also had plans in mind for the day of the final task, as they found out when Malfoy came strutting over to them at breakfast that morning gloating.

"Hey, Potter! You going to use your dark powers and beast friends to kill all your competition tonight?" he sneered mockingly and loudly as he reached into his robes and tossed the day's Daily Prophet down on the table in front of Fitz.

It wasn't hard to find the article in question, as the front cover was plastered with a picture of Fitz and Simmons down by the lake edge before the second task with Mr Bagman whispering to them very conspiratorially, followed by the article itself.

~.~

HARRY POTTER

"DISHONORABLE AND DANGEROUS"

The boy who defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is unscrupulous and possibly dangerous, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. Alarming evidence has recently come to light about Harry Potter which casts doubts upon his suitability to compete in such an honorable competition as the Triwizard Tournament, or even to attend Hogwarts School.

The Daily Prophet has unearthed worrying facts about Harry Potter that Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, has carefully concealed from the wizarding public for the last four years.

"It's all been hushed up, of course, but in just his few short years here he's already made friends with werewolves and giants," reveals Draco Malfoy, a brilliant and handsome Hogwarts fourth year of the revered Malfoy family. "And we all think he'd do anything for a bit of power — he's certainly never had a problem fighting against authority while here."

A member of the Dark Force Defense League, who wished to remain unnamed, stated that he would regard any wizard who associates with such dangerous monsters "as worthy of investigation. Personally, I would be highly suspicious of anybody who seeks out the company of such vicious creatures as werewolves and giants, as it would appear that they have a fondness for violence. Werewolves especially are historically associated with evil, and everyone knows how brutal and bloodthirsty giants are, even when they aren't working for You-Know-Who."

Malfoy also revealed that "Potter is very secretive and hardly ever talks to anyone except for that girl he's always with, who is just as secretive as him."

Yours truly can confirm that Harry Potter has refused all attempts to talk to him about the tournament, refusing to answer even the simplest questions about how he thought his task had gone or how he was feeling about the upcoming task. Which begs the question — what is he hiding? In a tournament infamous for its cheating in the past, it's hard not to become suspicious that the Boy-Who-Lived is hiding something nefarious that he doesn't want anyone to find out about. What could he have up his sleeve to guarantee his win tonight?

And speaking of cheating, despite the fact that this is supposed to be an individual tournament — each champion completing the three tasks by themselves without any help from fellow students, professors, or judges — Harry Potter has repeatedly been seen working with others so far during this tournament. As can be seen in the photo above, right before the start of the second task Harry Potter was suspiciously talking secretively with one of the judges and another student. A student who, it should be noted, has completed both of the first two tasks with him, and is more likely than not planning on doing the third task with him tonight as well.

Albus Dumbledore should surely consider whether a boy such as this should be allowed to compete in the Triwizard Tournament. Some fear that Potter might resort to the Dark Arts and even more blatant methods of cheating than he has already engaged in this year in his desperation to win the tournament, the third and final task of which takes place this evening.

~.~

Finished reading, Fitz handed the article back to Malfoy.

"Wow. That was really — something," he said. "Really makes you think that maybe they should just disqualify me right now and not let me even do the third task tonight, doesn't it? Boy, that sure would be a real shame."

"Now, now, Harry dearest," Simmons said consolingly, teasingly rubbing Fitz's arm with her hand. "I'm sure we would get through it if they did — unstoppable together, right?"

"I don't know," Fitz replied worriedly, shaking his head pensively. "Would you still love me if I didn't win the tournament tonight?"

At this they couldn't keep it together any longer, and burst out laughing. Scowling at them, Malfoy stalked back over to the Slytherin table, it being very hard to laugh at, ridicule, and mercilessly bully someone who was too busy laughing at themselves to hear you laughing at them. Anyway, the weird couple had never been affected by anything that he'd ever thrown at them, he really should have known that he wasn't going to get a rise out of them this time either.

A few minutes later after FitzSimmons had finally calmed themselves back down, and right as Simmons was looking at her watch and about to say that they needed to get a move on so that they would be predictably early for their History of Magic final that morning, Professor McGonagall strode up to them.

"Potter, the champions are congregating in the chamber off the Hall after breakfast," she said.

"Why?" Simmons demanded — the task was that night, and while she and her husband had gone to the Yule Ball and third task reveal party on the quidditch pitch that weren't technically part of the tournament, they hadn't gone to the Wand Weighting ceremony, and she highly doubted that they would be going to whatever this was, either, even more so since they had an exam to take.

"The champions' families are invited to watch the final task, you know. This is simply a chance for you to greet them," McGonagall answered.

"No, we didn't know," Simmons began coolly, before shouting as loudly as she could, "BECAUSE NO ONE BLOODY FUCKING TOLD US!" Taking a calming breath, she continued on normally again, "Do you idiots ever think about the things that come out of your mouths before you say them? Or even after? How could we possibly know that the champions' families are invited to watch the third task when no one ever told us? You haven't told us a single damn thing about this tournament except when the tasks are, that there was a clue for the second task and that tonight's task is maze, and that we had to attend the Yule Ball despite it not being part of the tournament. Not a single one of you adults ever told us a bloody thing else! So sod off! Also, we have no family, so they can't possibly have been invited, and we have final exams to get to, because this is a bloody school and we're here to learn, not do stupid sports! So fuck off! We're going to History of Magic!"

And with that she leapt up and strode out of the Great Hall to their first final exam of the day, Fitz following along right beside her without a word or even a glance at the Head of Gryffindor and deputy headmistress of Hogwarts.

Meanwhile, certainly not wanting to be the one to have to tell Mrs Weasley that she yet again wasn't going to be able to have Harry Potter in her grasps, Professor McGonagall left the Great Hall as well, heading towards her office to get ready for her own final exam that she had to give next. While she didn't understand in the least Potter still taking his final exams when he was exempt from them, for one thing it wasn't interfering with anyone else that they were taking them, and for another no one ever told that pair that they couldn't do something they wanted to do, so she hadn't concerned herself with it when she saw that Potter was taking the exams despite not having to as a champion of the TriWizard Tournament.

Meanwhile meanwhile in the side chamber, Mrs Weasley was impatiently waiting with her oldest son to finally get the Boy-Who-Lived into her tender, motherly care for the first time after three years of constant failures on Dumbledore and the school's part. But the other three champions came in and started talking to their families, and yet her honorary son persisted in his absence. The bell telling everyone to hurry their late arses to class rang, and then the bell signifying the actual start of class rang a few minutes later, and still there was no Harry. Finally, she walked over to the other Hogwarts champion and said sweetly, "Be a dear and go tell Harry that we're waiting on him, will you?"

Sara gave Mrs Weasley a strange, 'who the F— are you?' look, before saying, "Go look for them yourself," and turning back around to talk with her family like she had been doing before being so rudely interrupted by this random fat woman who most certainly did not look or feel like Harry or Hermione's mum — Harry's because everyone knew that both of his parents were dead, and Hermione's because this woman was wearing witches robes and just looked like a witch, and everyone knew that Hermione was a muggleborn. The red hair also reminded her distinctly of the Weasleys, not Harry or Hermione.

Mrs Weasley couldn't help but wonder if 'them' still referred to that skanky muggleborn girl whom Ms Rita had said was only after her poor Boy-Who-Lived's money and prestige in the wizarding world. The one who was presumably the same girl whom Ron frequently mentioned that Harry always hung out with, and whom she had met the parents of at the end of their first year when the Hogwarts Express had returned to Kings Cross in June without Harry aboard — the start of three years worth of broken promises and her not being able to protect and nurture and mother Harry. She had really hoped that after Ms Rita's exposé and her own letter to Harry that she had sent with his Easter egg, that he would have wised up and would no longer be seeing her. Hoping that he would already be seeing her own perfect daughter Ginevra was obviously too much to ask for so soon, and anyway she would have already heard about it from her perfect daughter if that had happened already, but she had hoped that he would have at least dumped that muggleborn by now. But it seemed as if her poor Harry was still stuck on this skank, trapped in the muggleborn's devious web of lies that the girl was telling him. But maybe now that she was here, she could remedy that problem for Harry once and for all, and make his life better forever, including carefully nudging him and her daughter closer together.

And to start that rescue of the savior of the wizarding world, she poked her head out the door to spot a Harry who should be sitting all alone at the Gryffindor table since everyone else (including that muggleborn) was in class by that point except for the champions, who were of course exempt from final exams. But the Great Hall was completely empty, nary a student or professor in sight.

As the other three champions started leading their families out of the side chamber a few minutes later to show them around the castle, Mrs Weasley walked out as well with her son to try to find someone to tell her where her Harry was — she was absolutely not being denied this time when he had to be at the castle to compete in the third task that night.

But wander the school though she might, she saw no one to help her as everyone was in final exams at the moment, and nor did she see hide nor hair of the Boy-Who-Lived. She searched the library, walked as many of the halls as she could and popped her head into all of the secret passageways and hidden alcoves that she could remember that he might be holed away in doing whatever he was doing instead of final exams and instead of greeting his honorary family, and even went by Gryffindor Tower, but as she didn't have the password and hadn't thought to get it from Ron or Ginny earlier, she couldn't go inside and the Fat Lady wasn't being lenient even when she explained that she was just looking for Harry, that she was his family there for the tournament. Finally in a last, desperate attempt she stepped outside into the courtyard but he wasn't there either, and she quickly returned inside to go sit at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall until he had to come down for lunch, which by that point she didn't think should be any more than thirty minutes — she and her son had spent a long time looking for him.

~FS~

The bell rang signaling the end of their History of Magic exam, and FitzSimmons set down their quills.

One more exam that they would have the privilege of being able to take and ace, the final task that night that they unfortunately had yet to be disqualified from despite a front-page Daily Prophet article accusing them of cheating and being dangerously violent, and they would be free for the summer, to study what they wanted when they wanted, instead of what their professors had to be teaching all of their classmates who were only on grade level, not years past it.

Allowing the rest of the class to rush out in front of them turning their papers in to ghost Binns on their way out, FitzSimmons neatly packed up their bags, walked up to the ghost's desk and set down their exam parchments, and leisurely walked out into the hall. As was their custom that year upon the finishing of an exam they shared a leisurely kiss in the completely empty hallway, before unhurriedly strolling down towards the Great Hall for lunch, stopping by a few of their most trustworthy broom cupboards along the way to make sure that they were still in good working order for a midday snog.

Finding that they were all working, FitzSimmons finally made it down to the Great Hall about fifteen minutes after everyone else had rushed down there upon being released from their exams, and walked over to their normal spots at the Gryffindor table that everyone always left open for them, knowing that that's where they sat. But no sooner had they sat down than a fat, red-haired woman waddled up to them from where she had been sitting further down the table.

"Surprise!" she said excitedly. "Thought we'd come and watch you, Harry!"

She started to bend down towards him, planning on kissing him on the cheek like she did with all of her children, but suddenly she was met with Simmons' wand in her chest and Fitz's wand poking in the hollow of her throat.

"Who the fuck are you? Get away from us — we don't know you," Fitz growled warningly.

"Harry! — It's me, Ron's mother, Mrs Weasley!" Mrs Weasley exclaimed, taking a step back in shock at the less than joyful greeting that she was receiving. "The one who's made sure that you didn't wake up on Christmas morning without any presents the past four years! Who sent you an Easter egg earlier this year!"

Now actually knowing who this stranger was (though the red hair had been a strong hint), and not dropping his wand a single inch, Fitz growled at her, "So you're our stalker. You're not our family — you shouldn't be here. Now leave us alone before we're forced to make you."

Mrs Weasley stared at him in shock for several seconds, before exclaiming, "But Harry—!"

"No," Fitz cut her off sternly. "You have five seconds to leave before I start cursing. One. Two. Three. Four. Five."

When she was still standing there at 'five', his immediate next words were, "Petrificus totalus," and the fat woman's body froze in the position that it was.

Having spotted a wand coming into the picture in their peripheral, and knowing that it was completely possible for Ron to try to attack them physically, both FitzSimmonses immediately whipped their wands in the direction of the three newcomers.

For when Mrs Weasley had taken a step back at finding two wands pointed threateningly at her, the rest of her family who had all been watching as she went over to talk to Harry, noticed for the first time the wands being pointed at their mum. Ron immediately jumped up to rush over to yell at the people threatening his mother; Ginny stared at her future husband in shock for a second for pointing a wand at his future mother-in-law, before realizing that the skank who was trying to steal her future husband away from her was also pointing a wand at her dear precious mum, and leapt up as well to go fight Hermione; and Bill stood up and more slowly walked over to make sure that nothing got out of hand, and was the only one to actually think to pull his wand out in case it was needed. The twins, on the other hand, stood up and moved a few spots down the table in the opposite direction to sit with Lee Jordan and some of their other friends, knowing what the couple was capable of and willing to do when they thought it necessary, and not wanting to get involved in that fight, and also not disagreeing with the couple's desire to be left alone by the overbearing, mollycoddling woman who was their mother.

Upon seeing his mum frozen before his very eyes by the boy who had lied to him about entering his name in the goblet, proceeded to waste the incredible opportunity that he had been given without getting in any trouble for it, and then didn't even try to rescue him from the bottom of the Black Lake, Ron froze for a split second before shouting, "How dare you curse my mother, you—"

But he never finished his sentence, as he had started rushing at FitzSimmons with his fists flying as he yelled at them, so they had defended themselves from his assault by simultaneously casting Petrificus Totalus at him, which thanks to his forward momentum when his body froze from their spell, sent him splatting face-first onto the floor, his head skidding to a stop close to their feet.

Before he had even hit the ground, though, FitzSimmons had already redirected their wands at the oldest redhead and the girl redhead, male on male and female on female. Both redheads wisely stood still.

"Do you want a war? Because we will give you a bloody war if that's what you're looking for," Simmons growled at them. "And our next curses aren't going to be passive like those two. You will hurt and bleed and very possibly die if you don't turn around right this moment and go back to your seats."

But before either of the redheads could actually make a decision about their future and whether it was going to exist or not, a stern voice demanded from behind them, "What is going on here?!"

Because all of the raised voices and scuffling had also attracted the attention of Professor McGonagall up at the staff table, and she had just made it down there as well.

"These people are harassing us, won't leave, and the one on the ground tried attacking us," Fitz answered calmly as Professor McGonagall stepped around the two Weasley's whom she had walked up behind, her jaw dropping when she saw Mrs Weasley and Ronald Weasley both petrificied. Neither Fitz nor his wife's wands ever lowered though, still prepared for any attack by anyone present, as he continued on, "Please tell them all to leave us alone before we make sure that they can never bother us again, and then punish the ones still attending this school by the applicable rules of the school."

"They were invited for you, Potter!" McGonagall shouted, completely ignoring everything that Fitz had just said, like she normally did whenever FitzSimmons spoke. "So that you would have a family here to cheer you on in the last task like the rest of the champions!"

"Then you should have bloody asked us," Fitz growled. "The fat one's a stalker whom we have never talked to a day in our lives, we have barely ever talked to any of her children who attend this school, the one lying at our feet who tried to attack us hates our bloody guts and thinks I'm a liar and has ever since the moment my name came out of the Goblet at the end of October, and they are absolutely not our family. And if this fat one here ever approaches us again, we will use force — very, very painful force, as that seems to be all any of you can understand. A certain letter by owl post earlier this year containing a highly dangerous poison ringing any bells for you? Now get them away from us so that we can get back to eating before our last exam this afternoon."

And with that he moved his wand away from the oldest Weasley son and onto their Head of House.

Knowing that she couldn't expel them, and very afraid that they would have no hesitations attacking her if she didn't obey them, especially based on the two bodies already in front of her and the undiluted bubotuber pus smeared all over her hands a few months before, Professor McGonagall did the wise thing and looked over at the two free Weasleys.

"Move back where you came from," she clipped sharply, waving her hand. "Potter is the champion and technically he is correct in saying that you aren't his family and therefore have no right to bother him before the final task tonight. Now move on."

Bill immediately stowed his wand away and turned to walk back to where they had been sitting before, having been surprised himself that they had been invited for Harry when they had never actually met the boy before despite their mother's best attempts. Ginny hesitated for a second, but a stern, threatening glare of points removed and possible detention by Professor McGonagall sent her sulking back to her seat as well.

As Professor McGonagall pulled out her wand to reverse the spells on the remaining two Weasleys, Fitz ordered firmly, "Levitate their clothes with them inside away from us to talk to them, don't unpetrificus them here. We don't want them anywhere near us."

So Professor McGonagall used Wingardium Leviosa to move first Mrs Weasley and then Ron far down the table to where they had been sitting before Mrs Weasley had come over to harass Fitz, and undid the spells there.

As FitzSimmons returned to their lunch that they hadn't even been able to start before being attacked, they could hear Professor McGonagall talking in a stern tone to all of the redheads, and throughout the rest of the meal they saw frequent glares coming from the mum and the two youngest, but they couldn't hear what their Head of House said to them, nor did the Shield couple particularly care exactly what the Transfiguration teacher was saying. As long as the redheads left them alone they were happy, and if the redheads didn't — well, they had been warned what would happen to them, and even petrificused people could still hear perfectly fine.

~FS~

The redheads did leave FitzSimmons alone for the rest of the day, and after another enjoyable final exam the Shield couple was now sitting with everyone else in the Great Hall finishing up supper.

They had already finished their own meal and were wondering when the last task was going to get started so that they could just get it out of the way already, when Dumbledore finally stood up and told the champions to follow Mr Bagman down to the quidditch pitch, that everyone else would be following along behind in five minutes.

As they walked across the grounds a few minutes later Mr Bagman pulled FitzSimmons off to the side a bit and asked Fitz, "Feeling all right, Harry? Confident?"

"Absolutely," Fitz answered with conviction, and completely truthfully as he was very confident about his ability to not try in the task ahead.

"Great — glad to hear it!" Mr Bagman replied cheerfully. "You'll do great, I know it."

They soon arrived at the quidditch pitch and discovered that where before there had only been short shrubs maybe a foot tall, there was now a twenty-foot-high hedge wall preventing any sight at all of what the inside of the maze looked like, or what was contained inside to challenge them. There was a single narrow gap right where Mr Bagman brought them to a stop that was clearly the entrance to the maze, through which they could see that the hedges on the inside were just as tall as the outer hedge surrounding the maze — perfectly logical, considering that it was in fact supposed to be a maze.

As the quidditch stands around them began filling up, Hagrid and Professors Moody, McGonagall, and Flitwick came walking up to where the champions were all gathered, eagerly — and three of them nervously as well — awaiting the start of the final task.

"We are going to be patrolling the outside of the maze," Professor McGonagall said. "If you get into difficulty and wish to be rescued, send red sparks into the air, and one of us will come and get you. Do you understand?"

At the champions' nods of understanding, Mr Bagman sent the four patrollers on their merry ways, to go ahead and get situated around the maze before the first competitor entered in a few minutes.

And as Hagrid went in his assigned direction, he walked past FitzSimmons and leant down low and whispered to them, "Good luck, Harry."

The stands being completely full by that point, Mr Bagman magically magnified his voice and addressed the crowds, saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament is about to begin! Let me remind you of the order that the champions will be entering the maze! First up will be Sara Jones, of Hogwarts School! Followed by Mr. Viktor Krum, of Durmstrang Institute! Then Miss Fleur Delacour, of Beauxbatons Academy! Before last but not least, and still very much in contention for winning, our youngest champion, Harry Potter! So...on my whistle, Sara! Three — two — one —"

His shrill whistle cut through the late-June night air, and Sara ran into the maze.

Three minutes later Mr Bagman blew his whistle for a second time, and Krum hurried through the gap to meet the awaiting obstacles. Seven minutes after that the whistle blew again, and Fleur ran into the maze to try to catch the two champions in front of her.

After that it was a twenty minute wait before Mr Bagman blew his whistle for the final time and FitzSimmons ran through the gap in the hedges hand in hand, quite positive that the math wasn't quite adding up for the time gaps between the four competitors' entrances, specifically between them and everyone who had actually scored more than five points in the first two tasks. But as they weren't actually competing anyway it didn't matter whether were sent in first with an hour head start or five minutes before the winner found the Cup, they didn't actually care and it didn't make any difference to the results of the tournament, they simply added it to the list of made up rules in this elaborate game of Calvinball that the tournament had turned out to actually be.

As soon as they crossed the threshold between normal world and what was a clearly smaller on the outside maze world, a thick, heavy silence befell our intrepid duo, blocking out all sounds of the crowds. All around them the hedges towered high above their heads, ominously casting the entire maze into an eerie dimness very reminiscent of only every horror movie ever made — the only thing it needed was for a nice fog to roll in, and the bad guy with a large kitchen knife or chainsaw to stab or chop up the coed.

FitzSimmons ran to the end of the fifty meter straightaway and took the fork to the right for a few dozen feet before coming to a halt so that they would be out of sight of the crowds, patrollers, judges, and anyone else watching who didn't have Professor Moody's magical eye, or some other magical way of seeing through hedges.

Now was the time to put their foolproof plan into action.

It had only taken them a few days of knowing that the third task was going to be a maze for Simmons to come up with the absolutely perfect idea to mess with the tournament organizers' carefully constructed plans. Because unless wizards were far more advanced-thinking than FitzSimmons had ever had any reason to believe before then, the maze would be entirely two dimensional. Which meant that like Captain Kirk in 'The Wrath of Khan' when facing off against Khan in the famous space ship battle, they could use their understanding of the existence of a third dimension to their advantage.

Holding his wand up to the sky, Fitz shouted, "Accio Firebolt!"

And then waited.

It didn't take long before Harry Potter's international standard broomstick — which they had left lying in the dorm room below theirs on the empty bed nearest to the windows that they had left open so that the broomstick could fly out of the dorm room without breaking a window, while not having to leave the windows to their own dorm room open — came soaring over the hedges and stopped dead in the air at waist height right next to him, waiting to be mounted. So Fitz swung his leg over it, before Simmons climbed on right behind him and wrapped her arms around his stomach, and Fitz kicked off into the sky like he'd done on dozens of weekends before — turned out that Professor Moody's hint for the first task came in helpful after all, just for a different task.

Soaring fifty feet up into the air, Fitz drifted towards where they could see the TriWizard cup gleaming in the center of the maze, both his and his wife's eyes searching for the three champions still below in the maze. As soon as they had crossed through twenty feet, the height of the hedges, sound had returned, and just a few seconds after appearing up over the top of the hedges they heard the noises of the crowd gasping at seeing one of the champions flying above the maze.

It was to this background mixture of shock, cheering for creative thinking, and booing for 'breaking the rules' (or the spirit of the rules or something, as no one had ever told FitzSimmons that they couldn't use their wand to summon help for the third task in the exact same way that Professor Moody had told them to summon help for the first task when they were allowed to start with nothing but their wands and their wits), that Simmons spotted the first of the three champions for whom they were looking, in this case Miss Fleur casting red spells at something that they couldn't see from their height. Fitz then spotted Sara a fair bit ahead of the veela, before Simmons finally spotted the Bulgarian seeker a little ways sideways from Sara, both of them clearly leading Fleur in the hunt for the center of the maze.

Meanwhile prowling around the edges of the maze, Professor Moody was going through several different emotions in a row. The first had obviously been shock like everyone else there, never having thought of avoiding the maze entirely by using magic to get on to an entirely different plane than the maze and all of its obstacles existed on. This was then quickly replaced by elation, as Harry Potter was going to fly straight over everyone's heads to the cup and grab it long before anyone else had made it halfway through the maze, and he wasn't going to have to do a single thing to ease Potter's way or knock the competition out.

Which he hadn't done yet, as if one champion stumbled upon another one downed he didn't want any red sparks sent up and rescues to occur before Harry entered the maze to avoid raising any suspicions from anyone that something was off that a champion would need rescuing before they could all even get into the maze. Additionally, he didn't want to have to cast any more spells than he absolutely had to in order to make sure that Harry got to the cup first, as the more spells that he cast the more likely it was that someone would discover now or later that he had been casting any spells at all, and that wouldn't be a good thing. Anyway — Harry's mind-blowing idea of flying not included — the maze would take an hour without any help for even the best champion to navigate their way through, so he wasn't worried about anyone getting to the cup before Harry could enter and find a much shorter, quicker, easier path awaiting him than anyone else was finding.

But then, as he continued to watch Harry just float up in the sky, not actually going to the cup that he had to be able to see from his position high up in the sky, especially with two pairs of eyes, Professor Moody started to become very, very worried. Despite having a guaranteed victory, were they seriously not going to take it? And now they had a bird's-eye view of all three champions, making it that much harder for him to knock the other three out and force Harry to take the cup by a process of elimination.

And then the odd pair did the absolutely last thing that he would have ever expected.

Flying back down closer to the tops of the hedges and then to within forty feet of the cup that he so desperately needed Harry to touch, Granger used her wand to levitate the cup up over the top of the hedge, and then fling it as hard as she could in the general direction of where the other three champions were all going through their various obstacles. As it so happened, landing ten rows away from Krum, and a mere five away from Fleur.

But because of the layout of the maze and the obstacles between them and where they needed to go, Krum was actually the closest based on time, followed by Sara despite being close to twenty rows away, and lastly Fleur. But unless he did something in a hurry, any of the three of them could stumble upon the cup in under ten minutes depending on how well they tackled what lay before them. So in desperation, he shifted around all of the hedges just out of sight and sound of the three champions, so that instead of all of them baring down on the cup, now none of them were, redirected way around to the complete other side of the maze where it would take them at least forty-five minutes to work their way back near the cup.

Unfortunately for him, however, Simmons spotted all of the hedges in the area near where the cup had landed shifting around.

Leaning forward, she said in her husband's ear, "Fly towards the cup! Something strange is going on with the hedges over there!"

"Like what?" Fitz asked back as he flew them towards the cup, carefully avoiding actually flying over any of the three champions, not wanting them to know that he and Simmons were flying in case it made them give up if they thought that he was going for the cup and would easily beat them. Also, he didn't want to give any of them the idea to fly themselves if they hadn't thought of it on their own, which they clearly hadn't.

"Maybe it's part of the maze, to make it more challenging, but the hedges all moved around and it kind of looked like they blocked the champions' paths to the cup!" Simmons answered.

Coming to a halt in the air over the area in question, Fitz climbed back up to fifty feet above the ground to give them a better view of the entire maze. And sure enough, they both quickly saw that the head of the only path to the cup now lay on the complete opposite side of the maze, blocked off completely from the three champions within a hundred feet of the cup as measured straight through the hedges.

"Okay, that seems absolutely ridiculous, and they'll all be out here forever if they have to find that one single path on the complete other side of the map!" Simmons said. "And I for one don't want to be flying up here for that long, so let's give them a little help! Let's blast some of those impeding hedges out of the way!"

Fitz nodded his head and dropped them fifteen feet closer to the ground, where they both pointed their wands at different hedges that were blocking the champions' paths, and shouted "Incindio", followed by "Confringo", and finally "Reducto", to first set the hedges on fire, then make them explode, and finally blast the charred remains to smithereens that would have no chance of regrowing, even magically.

Thanks to their extensive practice of all three spells, and truly astonishing amount of practice of hundreds of other spells as well over their four years in the wizarding world, they had built their magical cores up very, very strong, and so despite the heavy amounts of magic that the hedges had been imbued with in order to prevent destruction by normal spells, they were able to destroy good-sized chunks of the hedges where they cast their spells, plenty wide enough for the champions to easily walk through where they previously would have encountered a dead end. And another advantage of their heavy-handed spell casting that they were completely unaware of, was the fact that they had destroyed the magic of the hedges so much that despite Professor Moody's best efforts outside of the maze, none of the attached hedges within forty feet of where their spells had landed were moving any more. The spells to completely rid the field of all the hedges after the task was over would still work, but no lesser magic was going to do anything on those hedges, leaving them permanently open.

FitzSimmons blasted open a dozen holes in the area surrounding the TriWizard cup, unintentionally rendering nearly all of the hedges between the three champions — who were blissfully unaware that anything was going on — and the cup completely immovable. They also happened to open up a shortcut for Krum even compared to his already quickest path to the cup, which he soon came across, and before Professor Moody could think of anything that he could do that wouldn't be spotted by the blasted pair floating above the maze like sentinels or something, Krum had turned the final corner and spotted the TriWizard cup lying gleaming on the grass fifty meters in front of him. And after a quick look around to make sure that there were no spells on this particular stretch, he sprinted towards the cup.

He arrived quickly, and with a gleeful grin grabbed the handle of the cup, finally winning a tournament after having lost the (admittedly much more impressive and important) Quidditch World Cup the previous summer.

Floating fifty feet in the sky above him, FitzSimmons watched the portkey activate and make him and the cup disappear in a whirling blur. The tournament over, they flew back towards the quidditch stands, maze entrance, and all of the crowds, expecting to find Krum waiting for them when they arrived, and the other two champions either already retrieved or arriving shortly after with patrollers sent in to retrieve them now that the tournament was finally over.

But as they got within sight of where everyone had started, they saw absolutely no one there, Mr Bagman having joined the judges in the stands rather than stand around by himself at the maze's entrance. Landing lightly, they looked around in confusion. Finally after several seconds of still no one appearing, Krum, Sara, or Fleur, they spotted where Dumbledore and the rest of the adults in charge of the tournament were sitting in the lowest level of the stands.

"Dumbledore, Sir, where's Krum?" Simmons asked as soon as Fitz had flown them close enough to speak, her husband bringing them to a halt in the air right in front of the adults.

Dumbledore looked at FitzSimmons in confusion. "What do you mean? He's in the maze trying to find the cup, like you should be as well, Harry."

"No, he's not," Simmons answered, shaking her head. "We watched him grab the cup and disappear, but he's not down there at the entrance to the maze like Mr Bagman said the portkey would take him."

Dumbledore looked disconcerted. He may not have approved of Harry Potter and his female friend 'cheating', and then refusing to win after they did 'cheat', and the whole blasting spells at the hedges wasn't great (though from his position in the stands he couldn't tell exactly what they were doing, and certainly not why, just that they were doing something), but he did know from the professors of his school that the two were unrivaled geniuses when it came to magic, and that they had a much better view of what had happened in the maze than he possibly could from his position in the stands. A better view than anyone except perhaps —

He pulled out his wand and conjured a ghost-looking phoenix, saying to it, "Professor Moody, please come to the entrance of the maze immediately," before flicking his wand and sending the silver shadow soaring off though the air.

Looking back at FitzSimmons, he said, "Come with me to the entrance. Professor Moody will meet us there in a moment."

Fitz nodded before flying him and his wife off on their broom, nimbly landing by the entrance of the maze a few seconds later. It took Dumbledore a little longer to walk from his position in the stands down there, and Professor Moody a few minutes longer than that to stump over from wherever he had been patrolling when he had received Dumbledore's patronus message, but soon the four of them were all gathered together.

"Professor Moody, Harry and Miss Granger say that they saw Viktor Krum grab the TriWizard cup. Did you see it as well, or can you look through the maze to see if you can see Mr Krum?"

"I didn't see it, I've been going back and forth watching all three champions in the maze," Professor Moody smoothly lied as his magical eye went whizzing about, looking all over the maze and at the two remaining champions inside.

He had of course seen Krum grab the cup, as he'd been helpless to do anything to stop it thanks to Harry and his mudblood friend's drastic meddling in his carefully constructed plan, but he also knew that it was very reasonable for him not to have been looking at Krum at the exact moment that Krum found the cup, as it was his job as the only magical eye present to keep an eye on all four champions as well as the creature obstacles of the maze to make sure that everyone was safe and not in need of rescue that they couldn't signal for themselves, and that everything was in its correct place — or move things around as he pleased to make things a guarantee for Harry as he had actually been doing, though only he knew that because it was a secret. But the next thing he said wasn't a lie in any form or fashion.

"Krum is definitely gone, though, Sir. There's no sign of him in the maze, and the cup's gone, too. It's just Delacour and Jones in there."

"Okay, then," Dumbledore sighed heavily.

He had been worried that someone was trying to use the tournament to do something to Harry Potter, and he still believed that that had been the intention, but apparently their method was messing with the portkey on the TriWizard cup, which Krum had got to before Harry and it had taken the quidditch star away instead of Harry.

"Go get Miss Jones and Miss Delacour and bring them back here — the tournament is clearly over."

~FS~

Krum, meanwhile, had weathered the swirling vortex of the portkey, and landed at its destination.

But when he looked around, he clearly wasn't in front of the maze like Mr Bagman had told them that the portkey would take the winner to. In fact, he was standing in the middle of a long-abandoned overgrown graveyard, that felt like it wasn't anywhere near the castle that he had just left. And it all felt very, very wrong.

Nothing happened for several very long seconds, before he got the eerie, prickly feeling that he was being watched. Holding his wand out in front of him that he had never put away before grabbing the TriWizard cup, he turned all around looking for anyone, anything, but saw absolutely nothing.

Looking back in the direction that he had been facing when he landed, he did finally see something. A short figure who was wearing a hooded cloak covering his face was slowly walking through the gravestones towards Krum, carrying some kind of bundle or baby in his arms.

"Stop! Who are you, and where is this?!" Krum shouted, pointing his wand at the still steadily approaching figure.

But the man never stopped coming, nor did he answer. Krum slowly backed away as the figure approached, not wanting to curse the man if he didn't have to in case this was some British Ministry official for the tournament acting really strangely for some reason that he didn't understand.

Finally coming to a stop beside a towering marble headstone only six feet away from where Krum had landed, the figure just stared at a Krum — who was now twenty feet away from the unknown figure and still pointing his wand at him warily — for several seconds before all of a sudden there was a high, cold voice out of the bundle the man was holding that said, "Kill him."

And before Krum could even try to fire a curse of his own, the figure had swished his wand through the air and screeched out, "Avada Kedavra!"

Krum fell heavily to the ground spread-eagle on his back, his open eyes blank and expressionless, his half-open mouth in a look of slight surprise, and his entire body very, very dead.

Peter Pettigrew (for that is who the figure in the hooded cloak was), looked around the graveyard for several seconds, as if expecting someone else to be there as well — because he was expecting someone else to be there as well. Barty Crouch Jr had literally one job to do, and that was to get Harry Potter to this very graveyard in order to resurrect their master's body, and so that their newly resurrected master could then finally kill Harry Potter once and for all. But no matter how hard he looked, there was absolutely no Harry Potter in that graveyard.

Horror-movie-creature-Voldemort was also coming to that exact same conclusion as he peered out through his blankets, and soon asked in his high, cold voice, "Where is the boy?"

"I — I don't know, Master!" Pettigrew squeaked out timorously. "He isn't here!"

Creature-Voldemort sighed deeply — Crouch Jr would be paying heavily for this mistake later. But as for now — well, it was pretty clear that Harry Potter would not be joining the party that night for the rest of his would be very short life, and Voldy still needed a body so that he could resume taking over the world, and while he would obviously prefer using Harry Potter's blood so that he could touch the boy and then kill him, he did still have all of the necessary ingredients there to resurrect a body for himself as planned.

In the end, after giving Crouch Jr another fifteen minutes to rectify his mistake and get Harry Potter to the graveyard by some means other than the TriWizard cup portkey, his desire to return to a body outweighed his desire to have Harry Potter's blood coursing through his veins, and he ordered Pettigrew, "Start the potion."

Nodding his understanding, Pettigrew hurried off before returning half a minute later levitating a gigantic cauldron in front of him, which upon setting down on the ground close to the blankets he used Aguamenti to fill nearly to the brim with water. Then he lit a fire under the bottom of the cauldron, setting it to boil with fiery sparks coming off of the water's surface. The necessary preparations done, with a revulsed look Pettigrew lifted Voldemort up out of the blankets, and lowered him into the cauldron.

Then he waved his wand at the grave of Voldemort's father and caused a trickle of bone dust to come up out of the ground and float over to the cauldron as he said, "Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!

"Flesh — of the servant — w-willingly given — you will — revive — your master," he continued before cutting off his left hand over the cauldron with a scream.

Gasping and moaning in agony, he walked over to Krum's dead body and pricked the inside of Krum's elbow with the silver knife that he had just cut his hand off with, collecting in a glass vial a drop of blood that oozed out. Carrying it back over to the cauldron he poured the blood inside, saying, "B-blood of the enemy...forcibly taken...you will...resurrect your foe."

For while Krum wasn't as important of an enemy to Voldemort as Harry Potter was, Krum was a good guy who had never joined any evil group and would not have joined Voldemort if he had been given a choice, and was therefore by definition an enemy of Voldemort's. The 'forcibly taken' part was self-evident, him having been killed in order to get the blood, and wouldn't have willingly given it to Pettigrew and Voldemort if he had still been alive and asked politely for it.

White steam billowed up from the inside of the cauldron, before a second later a tall, skeletally thin man with a flat, snake-like face slowly rose inside the cauldron.

Lord Voldemort had risen again.