And here's the update for the "Harry Potter: the Serpent Lord". Enjoy! The next couple of chapters should be done relatively quickly. I most definitely have the plot ready for them. Also note that for this chapter I'm using movie-verse description of the Delacour family, not the one found in the books.

* Review response:
DarkLord98, it will happen in the chapter 73, no questions about that. Though... maybe Harry's attempts to botch the ritual the next chapter can be counted as part of that battle as well...
Penny is wise, geetac, The Swordslinger, ShadowCub, shugokage, Dragon and Sword Master, FateBurn, Shattering, nopparitari, war sage, lou2003us, Kairan1979, Edward95, ClownWhosFeelnDown, ElementalMaster16, , thank you for your reviews, folks!
Zikarn Krais, a very valid concern. Especially since they all have been around (fake) Moddy for like nine months already. But does it never happen to you in the real life when you notice something interesting/usual/strange about the things that should be treated as norm? It van happen in real life, so why not in the story as well?
McGeezel, Gruffard, It happened but a few days before the task. While Harry and Draconica and co will be more cautious around Moody-who-is-Crouch, they just can't have enough evidence to be assured that this is nothing more that a conspiracy theory conjured by Harry's brain. At least until Crouch actually does something that exposes him as an agent of evil.
moonl337, diadem has been collected. At the moment there are the following horcruxes remaining: the locket, the cup and (possibly, not sure when it was made) Nagini - haven't decided whether I want this snake to be one or not.
JPElles, well, it easy if you know what ritual is used beforehand and you are conscious enough to act... To have your blood forcibly taken doesn't require you to be awake and in sound mind after all.
soarath, yes, there are very few female-Malfoy stories. Even less if we exclude gender-switch ones... I think you can count what would remain with just your fingers...

* Disclaimer: I DO NOT own "Harry Potter" and its characters in any shape or form. Same with "Freezing" anime/manga series or anything else I might mix in.

"human speech"
"wraith speech"
'human thoughts'
"powered speech / true prophecies by the seer"
"spells / parseltongue"
messages

chapter 71: The third task

The day of the final task of the damned Triwizard tournament had finally arrived. And even though the event wouldn't start until early evening, everyone was given an afternoon off. The classes after the lunch were canceled,.. not that even a single student of either of the three schools minded that. Harry and Draconica had originally planned to spend that couple of free hours lazing together somewhere, but those plans were foiled before the lunch even began.

They were intercepted at the Great hall's doors by the three real champions and invited to join them and their families at the picnic they had organized. With a shrug, the young couple accepted the invitation – this picnic could be a nice way to spend the afternoon too. That, and declining this invitation would be quite impolite of them as well...

Thus, they found themselves guided to the bathed in the sunlight slope of the hill the Hogwarts castle stood on. And it seemed like everyone else was already there, sitting on spread coverings with a number of snacks and filling foods betwixt them.

Mr. Amos Diggory, Cedric's father, and his wife were rather easy to recognize for Harry and Draconica and they had met them both previously during their visits to the Ministry for Magic and events held there.

Fleur's mother and younger sister too were easy to recognize as they were part-veelas just like the Beauxbaton champion was herself. But whereas Apolline – that was lady Delacour's name – was calm and refined like a proper lady was supposed to be, her youngest daughter, Gabrielle, was an adorable ball of boundless energy that seemed to be unable to sit still even for a minute. Then again, probably all kids of her age were like that... And Mr. Declacour, despite his rather impressive for a pure-blood wizard physique, still was somehow lost against the background of the three beauties that his wife and daughters were, though...

The Krums, despite having an international star seeker for their son, too looked like an ordinary if a well off family. Mr. Krum looked like an aged version of his son and was just as burly and seemed to have a nearly-permanent grumpy look on his face. Yet despite not looking like the most friendly or even approachable person, he quickly proved himself to be quite a gentleman. His wife was a dark-haired woman that, while not possessing the nigh-inhuman beauty of veela, still could turn man's head, despite being in her early forties already. And much like her husband, she was actually quite nice to have a conversation with.

As the picnic, which indeed turned out to be a fun experience for both him and his beautiful lady Slytherin, progressed, Harry kept wondering how these so different people came to be friends like they were. His guess, of course, was that this had happened while they all were working together to resolve the mess that the binding magical contract of the Goblet of Fire had created on the Halloween night this last autumn... Well, if anything good had come out of this trice damned contract the inability of the Ministry to provide all of the relevant details about it, it had to be this bond of friendship the four houses of three countries had formed.

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Maybe half an hour before the task was scheduled to begin, Mr. Bagman had all four champions brought to a large tent placed next to the edge of the wards around the maze. The ministry official once again repeated the rules of the final task to the four teens and reminded them about the orb, which they would need for the task – but the champions all had their orbs on them already.

Once this briefing was over, the head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports asked for the Hogwarts professors to help him guide the champions to their starting positions. These very same professors will be patrolling around the edge of the maze during the task, ready to help in case one of the four ran into a situation, they couldn't find a way out themselves... Of course, receiving such help would automatically disqualify the said champion from the task, but that was quite obvious.

Harry ended up with professor Moody as his 'guide'. And he quickly noticed that the scarred man was giving off a weak and well-suppressed killing intent, which was one more point towards the theory that something wasn't right with the wizard. But since so far Moody, or whoever was impersonating him, hadn't acted against him in any way, the young lord Slytherin also didn't particularly act on his suspicious. Still, the green-eyed teen was constantly vigilant around the DADA professor ever since that day.

"Follow me, Potter." Moody barked and, without waiting for the teen's response, turned around on his prosthetic leg and walked out of the tent. Not wishing to be left behind and forced to look for his starting position on his own, Harry hurried after the professor.

The first thing he noticed upon walking out of the tent was the fact that the wards around the maze were finally dropped and now the ten feet high walls of dense magical bushes could be seen. Damn, that thing grew really fast as it was barely a few inches tall just a month ago... But the dark-haired youth had no time to study the obviously-magical shrubs as his guide in the form of Alastor Moody was hobbling away quite more faster than one could expect from a man with a peg leg... It took them almost ten minutes to reach the gate number two through which Harry was supposed to enter the maze – it was located almost on the opposite from the tent side of the quidditch pitch.

"There you go, Potter." Moody said. "You will be able to open this gate when your time to begin the task comes. They explained it to you how to do this, right?" The young lord Slytherin nodded. "Alright then." He continued. "I better go get to my position, wouldn't want something to happen just because I wasn't where I'm supposed to be." After making a few steps, Moody stopped and turned around to face Harry again. "And one last advice, Potter. Constant vigilance!"

"Of course, professor." The green-eyed teen replied.

"Good." And with those words the ex-auror resumed hobbling away...

Soon enough, the magically-amplified voice of Ludo Bagman announced the beginning of the third and final task of the Triwizard tournament. And the ever-cheerful head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports began with reminding everyone about the current ranking of the champions. Harry was in the third position, though just six points behind the leader, Victor Krum. Not that the green-eyed teen cared much about it. Still, this difference meant that the young Potter will be forced to stand and do nothing in front of his gate for the whole minute, following the actual beginning of the task...

Once this speech was over and the clock on the Hogwarts' tower struck six in the evening, a loud bang could be heard. This was the signal for Victor Krum to enter the maze. Twenty seconds later another bang happened – now it was Fleur's turn. Then, after annoyingly long forty seconds, the third signal was given, and Harry immediately saw some ward over his gate vanish, revealing a locking mechanism.

Placing the orb he had picked up during the second task into the socket of the gate's lock, the young Potter saw the the said gate disappear, while the orb found its way back into his hands. With the way now open for him, the green-eyed teen stepped into the maze and immediately noticed how he couldn't hear the crowds anymore. The organizers of the tournament must have placed some ward around the maze to prevent the sounds from the outside reaching the champions. Not bad.

Shaking his head, Harry began carefully walking deeper into the maze. Since he knew in which direction the center of the labyrinth lay – and the Goblet he needed to reach to complete the task was there – the young lord Slytherin had a rough idea which turns he should be taking. Of course, there were no guarantees that he wouldn't end up in some dead-end, but it was still somewhat better than using the standard 'wall follower' algorithm.

After a few minutes of navigating through the maze, Harry began suspecting that something wasn't entirely right: while he hadn't covered much of his part of the labyrinth yet, he still found it strange that he hadn't ran into some obstacle, be it some sort of magical trap or a beast, yet. Well, maybe he was being too paranoid, but still... With that thought, the green-eyed took a turn and almost literally ran into an acromantula. The spider wasn't that big for its species – only about as bit as a pony – but it was still quite dangerous... Quick to react, Harry managed to hide by jumping back behind the corner before the giant arthropod's pincers could bisect him. Taking a couple of steps back, the dark-haired youth waited for the spider to enter his field of view. And as soon as that happened...

"Confringo!" He cast the blasting curse at the monster's legs, severely damaging the acromantula's not-that-well-protected joint with it. As the beast let out a pain-filled wail, the young Potter sent the most powerful piercing curse he was willing to use in front of the audience at the spider's head. Because of its nature and the power put into it, the spell managed to hole through the carapace and destroy the brain. After the acromantula collapsed onto the ground, Harry observed it for a few seconds to be sure that the beast was indeed dead. And seeing no movements coming from the downed spider, the green-eyed lord Slytherin stepped over it and continued on his way deeper into the maze.

Truth to be said, Harry had expected the maze to be more, let's say, challenging. According to his watch, he was wandering in this maze for close to twenty five minutes already and, yet, he could count the number of the magical traps and creatures he had run into with his fingers on a single hand. There was that acromantula at the beginning and another one, albeit a slightly bigger one, a little later; then there was a dark dead-end where devil's snare was waiting for him; and finally there was an enchanted mist that confused one's senses into believing that the world had suddenly turned upside down... And that was all. For the task that supposedly only the strongest wizards or witches could complete, this maze was surprisingly devoid of dangers.

After another couple of minutes of navigating through the labyrinth, the young Potter found himself standing in front of the gates that were quite similar to the ones he had opened when entering the maze. And, indeed, once he had placed his orb into the locking mechanism of these gates, they too had vanished, opening the path for the green-eyed teen.

Seeing that nothing had been waiting for him behind those gates, Harry took a couple of steps forward. And that was when he heard an uneven clattering of many feet rapidly approaching him from behind. Quickly turning around, the dark-haired teen found himself staring at a very unfriendly blast-ended screwt that was ready to propel itself towards him in order to capture its meal.

Jumping to the side as fast as he could, the young lord Slytherin managed to avoid being pierced by the beast's scorpion-like stinger. But he wasn't fast enough, and the jagged spikes on the screwt's armor tore into his left arm, leaving several rather nasty wounds there. Cursing out along as pain filled his being, Harry tried to put as much distance between himself as the screwt as he could before the creature recovered from its failed attack and was ready to try to impale him again.

As the Hagrid's beast was turning around, the green-eyed wizard did his best to recall the weaknesses of the monster he was currently facing. First, the beast's underbelly wasn't armored nearly as well as the rest of their bodies – but one still needed to do quite a bit of work to make one of these monstrosities expose this weak point of its. Then, while screwts were big and powerful, they lacked intelligence and were not very had to fool. And, finally, their senses weren't very sharp and they took a lot of time to recover after propelling themselves forward...

Since it didn't look like the beast would willingly expose its weak point and forcing it to do that would be too hard, Harry decided to use the exploit the other two weaknesses. And the blast-ended screwt didn't make him wait for long – once it recovered from its first, failed, attack, it was ready to charge at the green-eyed wizard again. But this time the young Potter was ready and managed to dodge the monstrosity without getting a single scratch.

Acting quickly, Harry threw a blasting curse at the ground between himself and the Hagrid's beastie to create a smoke screen and, hopefully, at least somewhat cover his scent as well. Then he tore the blood-stained sleeve of his shirt off and threw it onto the ground in hopes that it will keep the screwt occupied for some time... That done, the young lord Slytherin dashed to hide behind the corner of the maze. This might have not been exactly the smartest move as he has no idea what was behind that corner, but unless he wanted to definitely deal with this armored monstrosity again, this was the only way... Thankfully, he didn't run into a trap there, so the dark-haired wizard could proceed with fixing himself in a relative peace.

Since the torn wound was pretty deep, simple Episkey spell would not be enough: more powerful magic was required to heal something like this quickly. Thankfully, Harry had studied both magical and non-magical ways of healing quite extensively and so he knew the spell that would do the job.

"Vulnus Obducture." The green-eyed teen chanted as he pointed his wand at his wound. After a few seconds the bleeding started to weaken and soon enough stopped completely. Then, the flesh began regenerating and another thirty seconds later only the discolored skin and rather annoying itch there reminded about a wound that was there a mere minute ago.

Still, this spell took quite a bit of his power, and right now Harry felt rather tired. Yet he had no time to rest as he could hear the screwt still trying to understand where he did go. Creating a smoke screen between himself and beast with another blasting curse, the young Potter also cast a spell normally used to freshen the air – the strong smell of pine fresh should be enough to make the armored monstrosity completely lose his scent... That done, the dark-haired wizard continued to advance deeper into the maze. If he was right, he shouldn't be too far away from the center, where the Goblet of Fire was waiting for someone to pick it up, right now...

At long last, the young Potter found himself near the very center of the maze, just a single gate away from where the Goblet of Fire was waiting for the champions to collect it. And once it was collected, the Third task and the tournament itself will be over...

Well, there still was a problem of how the real winner of the tournament will be determined, should Harry be the one to reach the Goblet first – and since the task was still continuing, the dark-haired wizard could only assume that no other champion had reached the center of the maze yet – but the desire to finally leave this fiasco behind was pushing him forward. So, he placed his key-orb into the locking mechanism of the gate and watched it vanish like all other gates on his way here did.

With those gates no longer in his way, the green-eyed teen found himself looking at a small square 'room' of about forty square yards. It had four entrances, the three of which were still sealed up by the gates. And in the very center of this 'room' there was a small plinth with the Goblet of Fire sitting proudly on it. Shaking his head as he resolved to finish the task and conclude this damn tournament by obtaining the Goblet, Harry took a step into the 'room'.

Suddenly one of the remaining three gates vanished as well, revealing battered Cedric, who had apparently met his share of dangerous magical beasts and traps on his way here. The two Hogwarts students stared at each other owlishly for a few seconds. Then, they both took a couple of steps forward, which brought them to standing just another step away from the plinth with the Goblet.

"Go on, take it, Cedric." The green-eyed Potter urged.

"But, Harry, Hogwarts has already won regardless. Take it, you deserve it." The Hufflepuff teen said back, his righteousness not allowing him to just take away a victory from another. Indeed, Harry was the first one to arrive to center of the maze, even if just by a few seconds. The young lord Slytherin, though, wasn't about to give in easily.

"I'm not a real champion!" He protested. "I'll be giving my victory to you in a minute anyway. You should take it." The tournament's fourth champion insisted. There was a long pause during which the two teens just kept looking at each other. Then Cedric finally seemed to yield.

"Alright." He said as he did another step towards the plinth with the Goblet of Fire. "Then we as the champions from Hogwarts should take it together!" And before Harry could react, the older teen grabbed his hand and forced him to touch the Goblet along with him. As soon as they touched the wooden cup, though, they both felt the unmistakable sensation of a hook just behind his navel being suddenly jerked – the Goblet was a portkey!

For a brief moment both Harry and Cedric thought that this was a portkey to deliver them to some sort of a podium where their victory and the conclusion of the tournament would be announced, but once they saw Hogsmeade flash past them, they both came to a frightful realization that they had been abducted... The green-eyed Potter hoped that his desire to surrender the Goblet won't make Cedric believe that what was going on was his doing...

Their unexpected portkey journey ended almost as suddenly as it began, and the two Hogwarts students found themselves unceremoniously dropped onto the ground in the middle of some rather neglected cemetery.

"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore..." Harry groaned as he pushed himself back onto his feet. Yes, even with how his head seemed to be filled with fog at the moment, the black-haired teen could clearly see that right now he – and Cedric by extension – was neck-deep in trouble...

That's all, folks!
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