Harry
A Champion's Kiss
With the third and final task of the Triwizards Tournament looming in the very near future you would think that the champions at Durmstrang Institute would be in full focus on preparing themselves for what we can only assume will be their greatest challenge thus far. This reporter was told that Durmstrang's three champions have all been spending at least five hours everyday after their classes in intense training and Beauxbatons' champions have been doing much the same. However, the same can not be said for the three champions of Hogwarts.
In my most recent trip to Durmstrang Institute, I found Hogwarts' Champions Hermione Granger and Harry Potter not in a classroom preparing for the final task, but instead out on the grounds engaged in quite the provocative display of P.D.A.. After asking a plethora of students throughout the castle this reporter learned that the scene I witnessed is in fact quite the norm and that the two love-struck champions spend most of their days like this. One student told me that Potter and Granger have even skipped classes to spend more time alone together.
Those at home rooting for Hogwarts in this year's tournament might feel that they now have to put all of their hopes on Hogwart's third champion, Marik Ose, to carry the load on his shoulders. However, this reporter has seen first hand that he is no better off than his two other champions. As my loyal readers will know it has been well known that Marik Ose has been unsuccessfully chasing after Beauxbaton's champion, Fleur Delacour, since the start of the tournament. Instead of preparing for the final task this reporter only saw Hogwart's third champion swooning after the French champion down the hallways of the castle.
Will Hogwarts' two lovebirds relationship get in the way of winning the final task? Will Marik finally get the message that Miss Delacour is not interested in time? It remains to be seen if the Hogwarts team will get themselves into gear by the time the tournament starts. For now it seems that impossible love and kissing appears to be higher on their priority list. Keep an eye out for my next article in which we will take another look at the champions and how they have been progressing before the final task.
"Hey don't crumple that, I still wanted to read it!" Marik bellowed from the other side of the table and pulled the copy of the Daily Prophet out of his hands.
"How is it that she could possibly still have a job and readers who actually believe what she writes? Seriously!" he blurted, his fist gripping his cereal spoon tighter out of annoyance and anger.
"Who knows. Probably because the ministry is ass-backwards. I'm sure there are just as many backwards readers out there too," Hermione answered bluntly.
"I have not been swooning after her!" Marik blurted out into the dining hall as he seemed to have finished the article. "I mean she got the P.D.A. part with you guys right, but the rest is just bullshit!"
"We do not kiss in public that much!" Hermione argued.
"Yes you two do. It practically looks like Harry is always wearing lipstick because he is kissing you so much," Marik retorted. Both he and Hermione blushed a little at his comments.
"Well I for one am okay with that." He leaned over and gave Hermione a kiss on the cheek, making it a point to make it louder than necessary. Hermione shot him one of her warm smiles in return as their lips broke apart.
"I am too, everyone else is just jealous," Hermione added and gave him a loud peck on the cheek in return.
"Yes we are all so jealous of you both. All couples should bow to the greatness of 'Hermarry'," Marik quipped.
"They really should," Hermione laughed. "You both just ignore Rita Skeeter, we all know better than to let her get under our skins. Today is going to be a good day and I will not let gossip ruin it!"
"Yeah, yeah just pass the syrup would ya," Marik replied and tossed the copy of the Daily Prophet aside.
Hopefully today would end up being a good day just as Hermione said. The three of them had received word yesterday from Dumbledore that today all of the champions would be given information about the third and final task of the Triwizards Tournament. They were all hopeful that today's information would shed a little light on what the task could be and alleviate a lot of their stressing and worries.
With all of their end of year projects deadlines closing in this time of the year was already stressful enough, having to add even more countless hours trying to prepare for the third task only made things much more difficult and much more stressful.
As the month of May came to a close, thankfully, the professors had begun to allow all of the students more time outside of classes to do work on their own. He and Marik had even started only attending the absolute necessary classes to create more time for their work and studies. Hermione, however, the perfect student that she was, refused to skip any classes and was only willing to sacrifice sleep in order to give herself more needed time for her work, which as a result had led to the bags under eyes growing larger and larger with each passing day. Hermione refused to slack off at all, though, and to be honest he and Marik couldn't really argue with her, they were doing the same thing after all.
Time was short and all of their priorities were the same. They were all still aiming to win the Triwizards' Tournament and at the same time were all aiming for top marks in their classes. Goals like these meant that sacrifices like missing a little sleep had to be made. As much as the constant work sucked and the idea of sleeping in their beds became that much more intoxicating in the late hours of the night they were all up for the challenge and had been moving forward at a good pace.
Even though Hogwarts was going into the final task in second place, Harry was confident that they could still win the tournament. They had kept up with the other two teams' pace throughout the first two tasks and there was no reason for why they couldn't do the same in the third task. The tournament he was confident about, when it came to end of year projects, however, he was still a little unsure of how confident he should be.
To be honest, outside of Hermione and Marik, Harry had zero information on how the rest of their year was progressing with their projects. Normally they heard all sorts of gossip and rumors about who was working on what that gave them some sort of picture of where their projects stacked up with the rest of their class. However, since they were here at Durmstrang while the majority of their class was back at Hogwarts, they were missing out on all the information, which did not help to calm their worries of what the competition might be.
Information or no information Harry was still fairly confident in all of his projects this year. This had been the first year going into June where he was nearly already finished with all of his projects. Normally his transfiguration projects consumed most of his time this late in the year, but he had finished adding the second wing to his ritual a while ago now and could consistently summon both wings with ease, though, using them for flight was still a long ways off in the future. With his transfiguration project out of the way early on he had been able to put much more of his time into his other projects, which hopefully would pay off for him in the end.
This year the majority of his time had gone into his charms, spell creations, and dark arts projects, which he would be combining this year through all of his work with mind magics. Mind magic was tough, no doubt the most difficult field of magic he had ever set out to learn, even surpassing animagus magic. Since the summer before his second year, when he had first started researching the topic, his progress with mind magics had been slow, very slow. It had taken him forever to learn how to do something as simple as whispering words into someone's head and even longer to create hallucinations.
Practically all of his summer and first half of this year had been spent organizing his mind and learning to understand and navigate through his own thoughts, which without doing so would be impossible to progress any further into the field. Finally, though, all of his dedication and hard work on mind magics was paying off. This year he would be presenting three different spells to his professors that he had worked on for his charms and dark arts end of year project, and any of the three he felt were difficult enough to help him earn top marks, hopefully.
The first spell he had mastered this year was a very old spell that had gone out of practice in the legilimency field. The spell, legobarodo, allowed the caster to briefly enter the targets mind, specifically the part of the mind that organizes one's thoughts. Once the spell was cast and the caster was inside the target's mind, the caster can overload that particular part of the mind alone, causing the target's mind to be flooded with an endless stream of disorganized thoughts until the spell is lifted.
The legobarodo spell used to be categorized as dark magic due to its use by a witch named Claudia Combes in the First Wizarding War. Claudia Combes, a supporter of Grindelwald, was the most well-known and published legilimens at the time and was known to commonly use this spell in the war against her enemies. She would hold the spell open for so long that she would literally break the minds of her enemies, causing her targets to have no control over their thoughts for the rest of their lives.
Over the years, though, the spell had eventually been knocked off the forbidden spells list, Harry guessed mainly due to the lack of practicing legilimens in the world and the rarity of able casters of the spell. The legobarodo spell could be a game changer in any duel and Harry felt was an essential spell for him to master if he wanted to become a master occlumens and legilimens. Each of his uses of the spell in practice duels had only proven this point to him more.
He had used the spell in a duel with Marik multiple times now, and each time the spell had lead him to a victory. Even with his prowess as the best duelist of their group, Marik was rendered practically useless each time he was hit with the legobarodo spell, his mind and thoughts much too chaotic to make any rational or organized decisions. Harry obviously wasn't frying Marik's mind like Claudia Combes had done with her enemies; Harry was just barely entering his target's mind, holding the spell open long enough to send a large stream of distracting thoughts that gave him just enough time to knock the target out quickly with another spell.
Both of the other two spells he had managed to master this year were just as big of game changers as the legobarodo spell was too. The legidisco was a spell of his own creations. Upon casting the legidisco spell, the target would forget the action or spell they were currently performing, or just about to do, until the spell was lifted. Again, just like with the legobarodo spell, he was only barely entering the mind of his target with the legidisco spell. In this case, instead of targeting the thought area of the mind he was targeting the memory section of the mind and placing a temporary barrier on a portion of it.
In his usage of the spell in practice duels the legidisco spell was an extraordinary way to defend oneself and move on from the defensive to offensive. For example, in his last duel with Marik, Marik had been driving him into a corner with his shadow magic and just as Marik had raised his wand to end the duel with a final spell Harry cast the legidisco spell, causing Marik to temporarily forget what spell he was just about to cast. The momentarily forgetfulness gave Harry the opening to start an attack and quickly changed the course of the duel along with the eventual outcome.
In a pinch, or if an attack from a dark arts user every happened again, the legidisco spell would come in handy in making them forget any deadly spells that could potentially harm his friends; which was the main reason he was confident the spell would give him a very high dark arts mark.
The last mind magic spell he had managed to master was another one of his own creations, though he owed the inspiration of the spell largely to Hermione. The spell, legilacordus, created a temporary memory of himself inside his target's mind until either hit with a spell or the spell was lifted. So in the case of a duel if someone was throwing a spell at him he could create a temporary memory of himself in spot A and move on to a different location. His target would still see the memory of him in spot A however and attack it, which allowed him to, one, not be hit by their spell and, two, get an advantageous position on them.
Hermione had a time-magic spell that held sort of the same principals. In Hermione's time-magic spell she moved herself or the target to a position they either had just been in or would be in, in the near future. Harry's legilacordus spell had the same ideas to it, only instead of dealing with time his spell dealt with memories.
All in all Harry had done amazing work with his mind magic this year and these three spells alone would allow him to branch into much more complex areas of the field of mind magics. He was proud of the progress he had made, but was still nervous that the professors would not be as impressed with his work as he was with it himself. More so than just being happy for potential good marks, he was happy that the rest of the year the majority of his time could be spent focusing on the tournament and he no longer had to feel guilty neglecting his classes to prepare.
"So besides the, lovely, article about me and Harry's love life was their anything else in the Prophet?" Hermione asked he and Marik.
"Not really," Harry answered. He dipped his spoon into his cereal bowl and took another bite.
"No there wasn't anything too good. You guys remember Vincent Crabbe, the fatter Malfoy goonie?" Marik asked them.
"Yeah, why?" he answered.
"There was one small article that mentioned his dad. Apparently his dad just got promoted to a pretty high position in the Improper Use of Magic Office. Hard to believe someone successful enough to be in that high of a position has a son that stupid."
"Was it Crabbe or Goyle who got banned from transfiguration class for failing?" Hermione asked Marik.
"Crabbe got banned for failing transfiguration. Goyle got banned from potions, which was pretty ironic since he is a Slytherin. Nothing worse than getting banned by your Head of House."
"God I can't imagine being banned from a class. Even though my parents don't even know what half my classes are they would still kill me." Hermione shivered at the thought of her parents finding out she had failed a course.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure my mother would kill me with guilt alone if I got banned from a class," he added, joining Hermione in the shivering at the thought.
"Well I don't think we will ever have to worry about that. Well me and Harry at least, Hermione I'm still not too sure about." Marik joked. If something had been within throwing distance to Hermione he was confident Marik would have been pelted.
"You are so funny Marik! I forget why I ever became your friend," Hermione quipped.
"Marik I think your befriend potion is wearing off!" Harry joked.
"Look's like it, Harry abort plan 'befriend the smart girl to steal all her good notes' until further notice," Marik whispered.
"Excuse me," a voice said from behind them, interrupting their joking. Harry turned to see Alina's boyfriend, Dedrick standing behind them.
"Well look who it is. Come to threaten me again?" Marik questioned, his eyebrow raised as if to taunt Dedrick.
"Not now Ose. Have any of you seen Alina today? She's been acting really weird this week and she got really mad at me for no reason yesterday morning and I haven't been able to find her since."
"For no reason huh, yeah I bet," Marik Murmured.
"Shut it you. Just answer the damn question. Have you, or have you not seen her?"
"I haven't today no. I saw her briefly before I turned in last night though in her room. I wouldn't worry too much Dedrick, you know how Alina gets sometimes. I'm sure whatever is upsetting her will blow over soon," Hermione assured Dedrick.
"Yeah, thanks. It's just about time to go to the champions' tent by the way. Don't be late. I don't want Durmstrang winning because of a technicality." Dedrick turned and left their table.
"Would be the only way Durmstrang would win. He's right though, we should go ahead and head down their." Marik insisted and stood up from the table.
"Yeah, let's go," he added, following Marik's lead.
They were the first team to arrive at the champions tent and as per usual found their seats in the Hogwarts corner while they waited for everyone else to arrive. Durmstrang's champions showed up shortly after they did and Beauxbatons a few minutes later. The tent was quieter and calmer today than usual. Harry guessed that was mainly because everyone there wasn't stressed about having to actually perform well in a task today. The mood could change quickly though and they all might end up being stressed though after hearing what information the Headmasters had to give them.
After a few more minutes of waiting in the calm silence of the tent, the large entrance flap parted and the three Headmasters made their ways inside. Durmstrang's Headmaster made his way to the center of the room and called all of the champions over to him.
"Thank you all for coming here today. In the first task your quick-thinking, strategy-making, power, and abilities were put on full display for all to see. In the second task your teamwork, focus, and knowledge were challenged as you partook in a number of difficult and complex puzzles. In both of these tasks you showed the world what the three champions of each school are capable of achieving together as a single unit and a collaborative mind.
"In the first two tasks you have proven to everyone watching that as a collective group you are all able to climb the highest of mountains and defeat the fiercest of foes. In the third task, however, things will be different than they were in the first two tasks. In the final task you will have the opportunity to show the world what you are capable of achieving on your own." A few whispered murmurs could be heard from the other schools' champions following the Headmaster's words.
"In the first and second task you were only told what the task would entail minutes before the task took place. For the final task, however, we will be telling you what you will be up against today." Harry saw Hermione's eyes go wide at this; his probably did the same, it was hard to believe that they were going to find out what the final task was today.
"That means that you will have over a month to ready yourselves. However, simply being told what the future task will hold for you today is not just a gift, but also a test itself. Each of you will have a month to prepare yourselves for the final task, how well you do in the task will depend on how good each of you are at utilizing your time over this next month.
"At the start of the third task each of you will be separated from your teammates and you will find yourself waking up alone in a random part of a very large castle. The castle in this task will be a mock-up of all three of the host schools' castles. Some of you will wake up in Beauxbatons, others in Hogwarts, and some in Durmstrang. All three castles will be connected to one another, so you will be able to move freely from one castle to another throughout the entire task if you choose to do so or remain in the castle you were placed in. The choice is entirely up to you.
"The castle, minus one or two rooms, is an exact replica of the three schools, however, what you find among the many familiar hallways and rooms may be different than what you are used to. You will have only one goal in the final task. . . survive. Your only mission is to eliminate all of the other teams' champions. Once only members from a single school remain standing will the task be finished.
"Only one member from a school is needed to win the task, so even if all other champions from your team have been eliminated, you still have a chance to win the task by being the last champion standing. Although you will start off the third task alone, teamwork is allowed; you may look to find your partners if you choose to do so and work together to complete the task. Again, the choice is up to you.
"In regards to points for the final task, two points will be awarded to your school for every opponent that you knock out and five points will be awarded to the school with the last champion standing. Unlike in the first two tasks, no points will be given to you by us Headmasters, but instead all of the points you earn will simply just be added to your current scores.
"Each team has the opportunity to win the Triwizards Cup here and we expect you all to give everything in this final task. How well you do and where your school finishes in the rankings is entirely up to you from this point on. Good luck." And with that the three Headmasters turned and left the champions' tent before any of them could so much as blink, let alone ask any questions.
Harry repeated the words of Headmaster Karkaroff again in his head, making sure he remembered everything with clarity. They had come to the champions' tent today just expecting to get some clues about the task. It was hard to digest that they now new exactly what they were up against and had an entire month to prepare for it.
"Good luck, everyone," Beauxbatons, Weiss Marceau broke the silence of the tent as she and the rest of the French team exited the tent. Durmstrang's team followed the French team's exit shortly after.
"Well I did not expect that much info," he croaked out into the tent as the other teams disappeared.
"Yeah, so much for just getting a few clues. We know everything now!" Marik added.
"Not everything. There is no way the task is going to be just that simple and you both heard Headmaster Karkaroff say that what we find in the familiar hallways may be different. There is definitely going to be a twist to this task and honestly I think telling us what the task would be was really just a clue in itself," Hermione explained.
"Well regardless of what the twist is we should feel confident going into this task. We are all great duelists and this task is centered around dueling," Marik said.
"Yeah, that part does alleviate some of the stress. We obviously should put this memory in my pocket pensive and examine all of the Headmaster's words again to check if their are any more hints hidden there," he chimed.
"I agree for sure. And I think going back and watching the first two tasks from the other school's perspectives again and making a list of every spell we see them cast would benefit us a lot too. That way we make sure we are least able to predict some of what we might be up against," Hermione added.
"We should see if we can get any maps of Beauxbatons too. We can explore Durmstrang a lot more over the month and we already know Hogwarts well enough," said Marik.
"Sounds like we have a lot of work ahead of us." Hermione grinned.
"Seems so. Everyone ready to get started?" he asked them both and received two confident nods and grins. "Well let's get going."
The three of them left the champions' tent and headed back up towards the castle. He could sense the change in the mood around them now and could almost feel the motivation in the air. They had all been very aware beforehand that they final task was nearing closer, but after being told about the task it felt much realer and the sense of urgency had increased tenfold.
"Harry, isn't that your uncle Sirius, and your aunt Hemera?" Hermione stopped walking a few feet in front of them and pointed up the hill a ways. Harry followed her finger. Sure enough, walking at a brisk pace was his aunt and uncle. Why the hell were they here at Durmstrang?
"Sirius! Hemera!" he shouted across the grounds and immediately began running up the hill towards them. "What are you both doing here?" he asked, his voice a little out of breath as he made it to where they were.
"Alina is in the hospital wing," Sirius answered, his voice sounding hoarse. "You three didn't know?"
"No. . . we didn't," Harry whispered. Alina was in the hospital wing? Why? What had happened to her?
"What happened to her?" Marik asked Sirius and Hemera.
"I'm sorry, we can talk about it later. Right now we just want to see our daughter." Hemera answered Marik and immediately headed into the castle, Sirius following right behind her.
Without hesitation the three of them followed them and made their way up to the hospital wing of Durmstrang. Sirius and Hemera quickly made their way into the hospital wing but they were forced by the attending doctor to wait outside upon their arrival. They all grabbed a seat on the bench outside the large wooden doors.
"What the hell do you think happened?" Marik asked the group.
"I have no idea. Hermione, you said you saw her last night right? Did something seem wrong with her then?" he turned and asked her.
"I didn't really notice anything. She looked tired maybe but other than that I didn't see anything. I was only in their to drop of a book real quick though. Have you guys noticed anything with her recently?"
"I haven't seen her recently. Last time I saw her was probably over a week ago in the dining hall. I used to always see her in the practice room but she never seems to show up anymore," Marik answered.
"Yeah, I honestly haven't seen her too much recently either. I had lunch with her a few days ago but I was so busy with my projects we didn't really talk much," he added, feeling a little guilty at realising he hadn't seen her in that long.
"Hmm, well I'm sure she will be okay. Knowing Alina she probably pulled one too many all nighters stressing about her end of year projects or something," Hermione said with a faint smile.
The three of them waited outside of the hospital wing for a few hours before the doors opened and they were allowed to enter. A majority of the beds inside the large room were empty and it was easy to find Sirius and Hemera beside Alina's bed. Even from the entrance to the room Harry could tell that Alina looked pale. Her normally tan skin looked drained and the bags under her eyes were pitch black. They made their way over to Alina's bedside and pulled up three nearby chairs.
"Try and be quiet if you can. The doctor gave her a sleeping draught before we arrived," Hemera whispered. As drained and exhausted as Alina's body looked she did look currently to be in some peace as she slept there.
"What happened?" he asked them.
"We still don't really know the whole story ourselves. The doctor told us that Alina's roommate carried her in here early this morning, saying that Alina had been having trouble sleeping for a while now and that she had passed out from exhaustion," Sirius answered.
"Did the three of you know that she was having trouble sleeping, or when her troubles started?" Hemera asked them.
"No, we didn't," Harry answered, feeling guilty again. He had no idea that Alina had been struggling to sleep.
"Do you know why she was having trouble sleeping all of the sudden? Was it stress with her end of year projects or something?" Hermione asked.
"Her roommate told the doctor that Alina had been having nightmares frequently, right now that's all we can assume has been causing the lack of sleep," Sirius replied.
For a while they all stayed by Alina's bedside, watching her sleep peacefully and the wear on her body disappear slightly. Eventually it seemed that the sleeping draught was wearing off and Alina's eyes slowly began to open.
"Ughh where am I? Dad? Mom? What are you doing here?" Alina croaked. Alina's hands starting rubbing her eyes aggressively as if to make sure what she was seeing was real.
"You haven't been sleeping Alina. You passed out in your room and your roommate had to carry you to the hospital wing. Alina, have you been having nightmares?" Sirius asked his daughter.
"Guys? What are you doing here too?" Alina ignored her father's question and turned to them, her cheeks getting a little flushed.
"Alina darling. Please tell us what has been going on," Hemera insisted.
"Nothing has been going on. I'm fine. I just have had a few bad dreams and haven't been able to sleep as much as normal. I feel fine now, really," Alina argued.
"You don't look fine," Marik interjected bluntly.
"Well thanks assho. . ."
"Alina watch your mouth!" her mother shouted.
"Sorry mom," Alina apologized.
"Your friend is right Alina. You don't look fine, and not being able to sleep is not fine. This is not fine. Talk to us," Sirius pleaded.
"I just. . . It's just. . . I'm so tired." The dams holding Alina together seemed to break at that moment. A full stream of tears poured from the corners of her eyes and began dotting the white sheets of her bed with wet marks. Sirius and Hemera rose from their seats and wrapped themselves around their daughter. It was painful to see her looking like that.
"What do you need baby? What can we do for you to help you?" Sirius whispered into Alina's ears as Alina's cries grew louder and tearful wails echoed through the hospital wing.
"I h-hate i-t-t here. I j-just w-want to g-go home!" Alina cried out.
"We can do that darling. We can take you home for a while until you feel better and then you can come back when you are ready," Hemera hushed Alina.
"NO! I d-dont want t-to come b-back! I hate D-Durmstrang! I w-want t-to j-just go home!" Alina wailed through gasps of tears.
"What?" the three of them on their side of Alina's bed said in unison.
"Go a-away!" Alina turned and yelled at them through more tears. "Take m-me h-home!"
"Alina, we just want to be here for you, and make sure that you are okay," Hermione replied.
"No you d-don't! G-go a-away!" Alina shouted again, more tears falling from her eyes.
"Alina-" Marik started.
"Get out! Get out!" Alina screamed again.
"Maybe you three should just give us some time," Hemera said and motioned them to the door.
"Yeah, okay." Hermione whispered, looking on the verge of tears.
"Sorry, get better Alina," Harry muttered as they unwillingly followed Hemera's orders and they left the hospital wing and painfully left their wailing friend behind.
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