Disclaimer: Standard stuff (I don't own anything, I won't be making profit, any resemblance to previously published content is purely coincidental, JK Rowling is the coolest, etc.). If I make any legal errors regarding copyrighted material, inform me and I will correct them immediately.

Harry Potter and the Lightning Scar

As Harry left the Great Hall after breakfast on the day of the third task, McGonagall caught up to him and informed him that the champions were to report to the antechamber attached to the Great Hall—apparently, their families were there to wish them luck before the third task. Despite Harry's initial surprise—what the hell were the Dursleys doing here?—he followed Fleur, Cedric, and Viktor to the antechamber while the rest of the students went off to take exams.

When he entered the room, he almost smacked himself in the forehead—Sirius and Remus were there! He should have known that those two would have jumped at the chance to see him before the third task. The two Marauders engulfed Harry in a tight (but still manly, of course) hug, which Sirius used as a cover to subtly transfigure Amos Diggory's pants into a pink skirt; apparently, Sirius had been irritated by Amos's incessant boasting about Cedric's Quidditch victory over Harry from the previous year.

"Sirius, Remus!" Harry cried out, laughing already. "I'm so glad you could make it!"

"Ah, we wouldn't miss it for all the wenches in the world, Harry," Sirius said fondly.

"It's true, you know," Remus supplied. "He was on a pretty impressive winning streak before we left our little tour."

"I'm so very touched," Harry said mock-somberly, before breaking into laughter again.

"So," Remus said as they calmed down. "Let's get serious—"

"I already am," Sirius cut in, grinning. Harry and Remus rolled their eyes, and everyone else within earshot groaned.

"As I was saying," Remus continued, "we should go over your plan for the third task once more, to make sure we've covered all the bases. Do you have all your equipment? Wands, knives, invisibility cloak, broom, emergency portkeys, mirror, map, medical gear, potions?"

"Yeah, I've got my kit all sorted," Harry answered. In fact, he and Daphne had gone on a major potion-brewing spree in the time since he had found out about the nature of the third task. Daphne had been rummaging through his trunk, looking for his potions textbook, when she had come across his expansion-charmed jar of water from the Blue Hole, from his ill-fated jaunt through the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Harry had quite forgotten about that little souvenir, but Daphne had looked up the properties of the uncannily-blue and obviously-magical fluid, and had quickly found out that it could be used as a base for potions, and that it made for particularly effective healing and restorative potions.

Even Gadsden had joined in on the brewing effort. Somewhat ashamed of his lack of success in his long-term intelligence-gathering mission to find out who had entered Harry in the tournament, Gadsden was quick to donate venom and scales—both of which were somewhat difficult to find in Britain, though not quite rare—for Harry's general-purpose antitoxins, and antidotes. Given his supply of potions and all of the training (which included many different healing spells) that he had done, Harry was confident that he could heal himself of—or at least stabilize—virtually any injury that didn't incapacitate or kill him outright. Daphne had even found in Carla's potions notes the recipe for an experimental potion that could regrow lost limbs (Harry had made enough for several doses, and figured he'd give one to Professor Moody after the third task). That, at least, had impressed Remus enough to stop him from badgering Harry any further.

Harry's visit with Remus and Sirius was interrupted by Gabrielle Delacour, who practically tackled him, clinging to his waist and chattering happily (and admittedly, quite adorably) at him in incomprehensible French. Harry, unable to get Gabrielle off without possibly hurting her, had to be rescued by Fleur, whose parents quickly struck up a conversation with Sirius and Remus. Monsieur Delacour—still feeling vengeful about the kidnapping of his younger daughter for the second task—wanted to collaborate with the Marauders to cause even more mayhem; in his eyes, the Ministry officials hadn't suffered enough. Knowing that Fudge was corrupt and deep in Lucius Malfoy's pockets, they readily accepted; Remus had a particularly predatory look in his eyes, as Fudge and Malfoy had been steadily making things harder for werewolves in Britain.

Soon enough, the families broke off and went their separate ways. Harry spent the rest of the morning taking Sirius and Remus on a tour of the Chamber of Secrets (they were both suitably impressed), and after lunch, the three spent several hours laying prank traps in the offices of several professors (especially Snape) and at the entrance to the Slytherin dorms.

At dinner, Harry, Sirius, and Remus sat in Harry's booth, ignoring the stares and whispered conversations of the students and guests around them. Their quiet dinner was only interrupted by the Weasley twins, who gave Harry an update on their scheme to scam the international guests out of their galleons (it was moving along nicely, and they had already taken dozens of bets). Finally, dusk fell, and Dumbledore informed everyone that the third task was about to begin. Harry and the other champions got up (amidst a chorus of "good luck" and "be careful" from their families and friends) and followed Ludo Bagman down to the Quidditch pitch. After a short briefing, the champions were left to wait Bagman spoke to the spectators.

"Just like we talked about?" Harry quietly asked the other three champions, who responded with nods. The four champions had held a meeting the previous week to discuss strategies for the task; the consensus had been that since the maze walls shifted, there would be no way that they'd all be able to stay together, so the best they could do was watch each others' backs if they met up inside. Also, having decided that their safety was more important than the task, they all agreed to bail out at the first sign of serious trouble or injury. "Good. I'll see you all on the other side, then."

A few moments later, Bagman finally shut up and blew the whistle. Harry squared his shoulders, raised his oak and thunderbird feather wand, and strode into the dark, foggy maze.

"Everything is prepared for tonight, Master," Wormtail panted, still out of breath. Hauling that giant cauldron down from the manor to the graveyard had been terribly tiring—it had kept trying to roll down on its own, so he had needed to get in front of it to slow it down, like some inverted parody of Sisyphus.

"Good, good," the high voice hissed. "And as I'm certain that you're now aware, there is one more service your lord requires of you...and if you succeed, you will be hailed as a hero of the new world order."

Wormtail gulped. "Yes, my Master, I understand what is required of me. It will be done."

"Ensure that it is, and that you do not...lose your nerve, when the time comes," the Dark Lord commanded. "Do not fail me in this, Wormtail. If you do, there will be legends told of your suffering."

Wormtail looked down at his hands, resigning himself to this course, though he knew that in a way, his fate had been decided over a decade ago, when he first took his Master's mark. He clenched his four-fingered right hand into a lopsided fist.

"I will not fail, Master."

Harry lit his wand as soon as he entered the maze, and found himself enveloped by the silence. Perhaps it was a side effect of the high hedges, or another spell, but the sound of the crowd was entirely muted, providing an uncomfortable reminder of the unnaturally-silent Pine Barrens. Just as Harry turned left at the first fork in the path, roughly fifty yards into the maze, he heard Bagman's whistle blow again in the distance. Harry turned around just in time to watch the walls shift, blocking Viktor from meeting up with him.

Seeing nothing ahead, but not trusting his eyes, Harry began casting detection charms every few seconds. A few minutes after Krum entered the maze, Harry turned right at another fork, and heard another whistle heralding Cedric's entrance into the maze. Maybe it was a charm embedded into the labyrinth, or perhaps just the fact that the sun was dipping ever-lower on the horizon, but the maze appeared to darken with every step Harry took. By the time he reached the next fork, the whistle blew a forth time, and Harry knew that all four champions were within the maze.

Barty Crouch, Jr. stomped around outside the eastern edge of the hedge maze, his mind whirring as fast as Moody's magical eye. His plan had originally called for the use of the Imperius Curse on Krum, to attack Diggory and Delacour, but the additional Aurors hanging around (at Amelia Bones's order, in the wake of the trouble from the second task) would make that impossible. He'd have to settle for observing the maze from the outside—at least with the magical eye, he could keep track of what was happening.

Despite his nervousness at not being able to influence the task, Crouch was confident that Potter would win. He had proven himself to be both powerful and cunning, and it was virtually guaranteed that he was more prepared than the other champions (considering how effectively he had planned for the first two tasks). As a precaution, Crouch had prepared a second portkey, in the form of a silver medallion (with the Dark Mark etched into the surface, to allow it to pass through the Dark Lord's wards surrounding the Little Hangleton graveyard); if Potter happened to lose, Crouch would simply give him the medallion and send him off to meet his fate anyway. Granted, that would blow his cover, which was why the Triwizard Cup was the first choice, but getting Potter to the Dark Lord was more important than maintaining his position in Dumbledore's camp, especially considering the declining health of Alastor Moody (he would almost certainly die soon, at which point his body would no longer be able to provide ingredients for Polyjuice).

Crouch grinned as Harry came up to his first obstacle, one of the few (but most clever) ways he had managed to stack the deck against the boy. After all, only Potter's living body was required, and it was well-known how badly these creatures affected him. If this worked out, the rest of Crouch's mission would be vastly simplified.

Harry was growing increasingly anxious. He had been in the maze for nearly ten minutes, and still had not come across any obstacles—it was as though the maze itself was trying to lull him into a false sense of security. The worst part of it, though, was that he felt like someone or something was watching him.

At one point, Harry heard the familiar—and extremely unwelcome—blast of one of Hagrid's Blast-Ended Skrewts, but he could tell that it was on a different path, at least for the time being. He hurried forward, lest the walls change and put him face-to-face with the Skrewt, and turned a corner.

As Harry turned the corner, he felt a sickly, feverish chill wash over him, as though he had been doused in ice water. He looked up, and reeled backwards at what he saw—a massive, twelve-foot-tall dementor, chained to the ground with a cold-iron manacle, with just enough slack to be able to play goalkeeper for the entire width of the path. The wall closed off behind him, and Harry knew that the only way was forward, and the dementor knew it, too, spreading its rotting, skeletal arms wide to keep Harry from simply running past.

Despair clouded Harry's thoughts, and screams from the distant past began to fill his mind. Steeling himself, he thought of spending the summer with Remus and Sirius in the much-more-cheerful (now that Dobby had replaced Kreacher) Number 12 Grimmauld Place, and cried out, "Expecto patronum!"

As with the Jersey Devil, his wand arm bucked as though it had fired off a cannon. This time, though, Harry was surprised by what came out. Instead of the stag to which Harry had become accustomed, a huge, silver-white thunderbird erupted from his wand and slammed into the dementor. With a blinding flash and a concussion that shook the ground, the dementor was knocked backwards. The chain arrested its movement, though, keeping the dementor from being blasted through the hedge wall, but the foul creature was knocked to the ground, where it lay, clearly stunned.

Shaking off the concussion, Harry drew the long, cold iron dagger that he had used to kill the Jersey Devil. Before the dementor could gather itself up from the ground, Harry lunged forward and flipped up the dementor's hood. The horror beneath, combined with the overwhelming sense of despair from being that close to the dementor, staggered Harry and forced him to take a step backward. Harry's jaw dropped open as he took in the rotten countenance of the dementor; its void-like gaping maw was made all the worse by its lack of anything resembling eyes or a nose. Harry balked for a moment before coming back to his senses, and slammed the dagger into the dementor's black mouth, angling the blade up into the dementor's skull. Thick, black, freezing-cold ichor gushed out, coating Harry's hands and forearms as he buried the dagger up to the hilt, while the dementor thrashed and bucked like the electrocuted Hungarian Horntail.

A high, thin, howling shriek pierced the night, and even the spectators in the stands had to cover their ears. Harry, at the epicenter, was dimly aware of thick, warm liquid running from his ears and nose, and he could taste blood at the back of his throat. Somehow, even though his eardrums were clearly shattered, Harry could still hear the dementor's banshee-like wail. Desperately, Harry twisted the blade, and after shrieking even higher for a few more moments, the dementor ceased thrashing, and—with one final twitch—finally fell silent.

"Blast," Crouch muttered. Oh well, he thought. This just makes it more likely that he'll get the Cup—the plan is still going to work.

"Dumbledore," Amelia Bones snarled, her eyes glinting dangerously. "What precisely the bloody hell did you put in that maze?!"

Over Amelia's shoulder, Dumbledore could see Sirius Black and Remus Lupin stalking toward the judges' table. Monsieur Delacour was not far behind. All three men had their wands in their hands, and they did not look pleased.

"Blast," he muttered. And here I thought that things couldn't get any worse.

Harry wiped the freezing, fetid ichor off his hands and forearms as best he could. It was almost like liquid tar, clinging to his skin and the blade of his knife stubbornly. Once his fingers warmed up enough to wield a wand, though, the dementor blood quickly succumbed to a series of cleaning charms.

What the hell were they thinking, putting a bloody dementor in here?! Every time I think they can't be more irresponsible, they go and dig themselves a deeper hole.

Harry shuddered involuntarily, took a dose of a general-purpose healing potion, cast an episkey at each of his eardrums, ate a piece of chocolate from his medical kit, and moved forward, keeping his eyes on the path ahead—he wasn't certain he'd be able to keep from vomiting if he looked back at the dementor's corpse.

Four turns, two dead ends, and three uses of the Four-Point Spell later, Harry found himself standing in front of a patch of glimmering golden mist. A slew of diagnostic charms revealed no particularly harmful magic; in fact, it appeared to be a sort of perception filter that would affect the eyes. Harry grinned, thinking that it was quite clever—it would almost certainly cause conflict in the brain between what a person saw and what their inner ears indicated, so they would be off-balance and disoriented. Harry decided that he would have to see if he could replicate the effect without the glowing golden mist—if he could, it'd be a great prank for Snape's office.

Harry closed his eyes and strode through the mist without any problems, and continued forward. Still casting detection charms ("Constant vigilance!") several times per minute, Harry did his best to ignore the nagging feeling that he was being watched. After several dead ends and wrong turns (once actually stumbling across the dead dementor again), Harry suddenly heard a familiar sizzling hiss, and cranked his head back in time to see red sparks flying into the air from a few dozen yards away, in the direction that his current path was taking him. Wondering which champion had forfeited the game, and what had caused them to do so, Harry moved forward cautiously. Less than a minute later, one of Harry's questions was answered, when he heard a familiar and entirely unwelcome sort of chitinous skittering around the corner ahead, and knew that he was about to face the dreaded Blast-Ended Skrewt.

Harry thought back to the spell he had almost used against the gargoyle guarding the staircase to Dumbledore's office. Earp's Offensive Magic for Defensive Mages had suggested using it for blowing apart earthen or stone defenses, or against heavily armored creatures and wizards. Having seen Hagrid's Blast-Ended Skrewts recently during Care of Magical Creatures, Harry was certain that he'd need something as powerful as the modified tunneling spell to even make a dent. He practiced the wand motion a few times, just to make sure he had it right, and then flung himself around the corner.

Harry's eyes had only a brief moment to pick out the Skrewt in the darkness, but that was enough time to see more detail than he really cared to. The Skrewt was enormous—well over ten feet long, it looked like a rhinoceros-sized mutant scorpion. Its gray armor glinted dully in the azure light of Harry's wand, and the stinger at the end of its tail swiftly cocked back like the hammer of a revolver. The Skrewt hissed like a giant snake from its segmented mandibles, and the huge pincers—large enough to snip a man in half—clacked loudly in anticipation. That was the only warning it provided. A split second later, a blast of fire from its other end propelled it forward at a frighteningly high speed, while its pincers opened wide and its tail-mounted stinger snapped forward.

Harry's wand was mostly through the required motions, though, and he was already screaming the incantation.

"TEREBRUS PETRA!" Harry roared. The Drill Tunneling Curse had the same incantation as the original mining version of the spell, but had tighter, more precise wand motions which helped to focus the energy over a much smaller cross-sectional area. Harry hadn't used the spell before, but he knew what to expect, and he was not disappointed in the slightest; after all, the spell had been meant for blasting through walls and bunkers, and what it did to flesh and blood was nothing short of impressive.

An incandescent crimson beam of energy erupted from Harry's wand and lanced directly into the open, hissing maw of the Skrewt when it was less than a dozen feet away from ripping Harry to pieces. Instantly, the Blast-Ended Skrewt simply exploded—only a hasty shield kept Harry from being showered in blood, gore, and razor-sharp shrapnel from the Skrewt's chitinous exoskeleton.

Bloody Hagrid is a bloody menace, Harry thought savagely. If Harry had been an instant slower, or if he hadn't used a spell that was so overpowered, he would have just been torn apart by that monstrous Skrewt. I swear I'm going to kill that bloody idiot if I run into Aragog in here.

Harry hadn't seen much of Hagrid outside of classes this year; the half-giant had been rather put off by what he saw as Harry's betrayal of Dumbledore. Harry was increasingly becoming convinced that it was a good thing that Hagrid had been expelled from Hogwarts; even though he hadn't been guilty of opening the Chamber of Secrets and killing Myrtle, it had certainly only been a matter of time before Aragog had killed any students. Expelling Hagrid had technically been wrong, but it had certainly saved lives, though now Hagrid was apparently trying to make up for lost time with his bloody Skrewts.

His anger blooming, Harry stalked forward. A Four-Point Spell told him that the Cup was just ahead, likely around the next corner, and as he turned, he came face-to-face with a creature he had only ever read about in his Monster Book of Monsters.

The sphinx took the form of a giant lion, roughly the size of a small car, with the head and breasts of a woman. Harry tore his eyes away from the sphinx's staggeringly large (and surprisingly well-formed) breasts, blushing furiously. The sphinx's long, almond-shaped eyes met Harry's as she paced across the path, and her deep, seductive, purring voice caressed his ears.

"You are very near your goal, dragon-blooded bird of thunder. The quickest way, in your current form, is past me."

Harry wasn't surprised that she knew about his animagus form—the ancient Egyptians had used sphinxes to guard their treasures and tombs because sphinxes were uncommonly intelligent and perceptive.

"What do I need to do to pass?" Harry asked, undaunted. "I suggest that you avoid attacking me—it didn't work for the dementor, and it didn't work for the Blast-Ended Skrewt. I'd hate to have to kill you too, over this bloody stupid tournament."

The sphinx sniffed the air, and her eyes widened in surprise. "The dementor...you smell of demon's blood. You truly killed it?"

"I did," Harry said, nodding. He figured that the sphinx likely had a way of sensing veracity, and she probably would have attacked him if he were merely boasting.

He was right. "Indeed, you did," the sphinx murmured. "Pass, then, demonslayer. You have already proven your worth this night."

Pleased that he wouldn't have to splatter the sphinx (after all, he had a certain fondness for topless women), Harry moved past the creature, keeping his back to the hedge wall. Once he made it past, he walked quickly around the next corner, and the path behind him closed off. Knowing that the central clearing was close, Harry broke into a jog.

Harry met another fork ahead, and the Four-Point Spell directed him down the right-hand path. Harry saw light ahead and increased his speed to a flat-out run.

The Triwizard Cup sat upon a plinth nearly a hundred yards away—Harry couldn't tell if the Cup itself was gleaming brightly, or if there was some light being cast upon it, but either way, it illuminated the entire clearing. It was thanks to this light that Harry noticed the final threat in time.

Harry was halfway to the Cup when his peripheral vision picked up a huge black shape crawling over the hedge wall and into the clearing. Nearly twice the size of the Skrewt, the gigantic acromantula skittered toward him as fast as it could upon its eight long legs, clearly intending to intercept him on the way to the Cup. Harry came to a stop, to give himself a little more time to deal with the vast spider, and quickly came to a decision.

Harry had read about this particular spell over the summer, but its use required the caster to first drink a particular potion containing dragon's blood, and even then, it could only be used once (before another dose of the potion, that is). At the time, he hadn't had any dragon's blood sitting around, and had simply filed away the information for a rainy day. Now, however, Harry had dragon's blood coursing through his own veins (courtesy of the ritual he had performed with the carcass of the Hungarian Horntail from the first task), so he was confident that he would be able to make it work—he'd have to, because at the speed the acromantula was running, he'd only get one shot before it was upon him.

Harry planted his feet securely, knowing that this spell might knock him over if he wasn't careful. He swung his wand around his head in a wide circle, and then slashed it downward in the direction of the acromantula.

"IGNIS INFERNUS DRACONIS MAXIMUS!" Harry bellowed.

The acromantula was bearing down on Harry, and was within twenty feet—close enough for Harry to count its eight shiny black eyes—when a vast gout of red-gold fire erupted from Harry's wand. The blazing torrent of the Dragon's Breath Curse flowed through the air, scorching the earth beneath it, before slamming into the acromantula like a wrecking ball.

The acromantula didn't explode like the Blast-Ended Skrewt had when it had been hit by the Drill Tunneling Curse, but it was blasted backwards over a dozen yards, and several of its long, hairy legs were sheared off solely by the force of the impact. By the time the spell ended and dragonfire stopped pumping from Harry's wand, the acromantula had already been completely immolated. What hadn't been vaporized or turned to ash had been melted—in fact, there was precious little left to identify the remains as being those of an acromantula.

The still-burning pile of acromantula ash and goo cast a red-gold flickering light over the clearing, outshining even the luminescent Triwizard Cup.

"Holy shite, Harry, what the bloody buggering hell was that?!"

Harry turned to see Fleur and Cedric standing at another entrance to the clearing. He grinned in response, and the dancing shadows on his face made him look almost demonic.

"Gee, Cedric, want to try that again? I don't think you sounded quite British enough just then."

"Eet was zee Dragon's Breath Curse, wasn't eet?" Fleur gasped. Her chest heaved outward, and Harry's raptor vision could see her nipples straining against the fabric of her robes. Of course she gets all hot and bothered from guys who blow shit up—veela love fire. "Casting eet requires zee conzumpzion of dragon's blood—zee Horntail, non?"

"Yep," Harry said cheerfully, going back to chanting you already have a girlfriend, you already have a girlfriend in his head. "Let it never be said that I don't come prepared. I guess the fact that you're both here means that it was Viktor who bailed out?"

"Yeah," Cedric said. "No surprise, really—he did say that this tournament wasn't important enough to risk taking an injury that would impact his Quidditch career. He probably took one look at the Skrewt and called it quits. Can't say I blame him, really."

"So what happens now, since there are three of us standing here and the Cup is right there?" Harry asked idly.

"Well, in zee tournaments past, zee champions would duel for zee Cup," Fleur said. "But I theenk it eez fairly obvious who would win. You should take zee Cup, 'Arry."

"I agree," Cedric chimed in. "You've clearly earned it. Go ahead."

Harry shrugged, and turned to grab the gleaming Triwizard Cup. A moment before he touched it, though, his hand froze, less than an inch from the Cup's surface; Harry had felt a hint of familiar hook-behind-the-navel sensation, and had stopped his hand just in time.

"What's the matter?" Cedric asked. "Take it, and we can get the hell out of here."

"The Cup is enchanted as a portkey," Harry murmured, rubbing his face. Was this part of the task? No, not given the range. "Even weirder, it's enchanted as a portkey twice; one of the charms would take it about two hundred yards, probably to the podium by the judges' table, but the other charm—layered on top so it activates first—has a much longer range. Something like a few hundred miles."

"But 'Arry, 'ow can you tell?" Fleur asked.

"I've used a bunch of portkeys this past year, and I started practicing making them recently," Harry responded. "You get a feel for them pretty quickly. I bet this long-range one is a trap, probably set by the same person who entered me into this tournament."

"Well, it's a good thing you agreed to take the Cup, then," Cedric said, clearly impressed and relieved. "If Fleur or I did it, we would have been taken wherever that portkey goes. Now what?"

In answer, Harry raised his left hand and clenched it into a fist. He wasn't nearly at Morris's level with earth and stone channeling, but he could do something simple like this, especially given all the thermal energy he could use from the burning acromantula remains. The stone plinth supporting the Cup flowed up like liquid, surrounding the Cup, and then solidified into a large sphere. Harry made a motion with his wand, and the ball was animated to roll in front of him.

"Clever," Cedric commented. "But how do we get out of here?"

"Easy," Harry said, grinning. "We burn our way out."

Ten minutes later, the champions emerged through a smoking hole in the west outer wall of the maze. They had come across several obstacles along the way, but the combined efforts of the three champions had reduced each trap or creature to ash and smoke. Most of the time, the trio didn't even need to stop and think, simply blasting their way through everything that got in their way, including a hinkypunk, two red caps, and a large patch of Devil's Snare.

Professor Flitwick, who had been patrolling that side of the maze, ran over to the three champions with surprise written all over his face.

"What are you three doing? If you wanted to leave, you could have just sent up red sparks!"

"Professor," Cedric said—by unspoken agreement, it had been decided that the universally well-liked Cedric would do all the talking. "Harry already won the task. The Cup is in that ball of stone—he didn't want to touch it because he noticed that it's enchanted with an extra portkey spell."

Flitwick's eyes widened in shock. Realizing that this was a chance to improve Harry's opinion of him—and perhaps give Hogwarts a chance at enticing the Boy-Who-Lived to stay, rather than attending a different school next year—Flitwick accepted the explanation without reservation, and escorted the three champions to the judges' table. Viktor Krum was also nearby, speaking quietly with his parents and Igor Karkaroff. Igor didn't look pleased, but Viktor's parents clearly approved of his decision to escape the maze at the first sign of trouble.

Ignoring the buzzing of the confused spectators, Flitwick rapidly and quietly briefed the judges, finally turning to Harry for confirmation. The crowd fell silent as Flitwick spoke.

"Can you dispell this rock ball?" Flitwick asked. "The judges have agreed that if the Cup is inside, you will have won the tournament."

With a wave of his hand, the rock crumbled to sand, leaving the somewhat-dirty but still recognizable Cup sitting on the ground.

The crowd roared in approval, while Ludo Bagman made the official announcement.

"And the winner of this year's Triwizard Tournament is Harry Potter! Congratulations, Harry, come on up here and get your reward!"

Grinning, Harry walked to the podium, where Ludo Bagman held a comically oversized Gringotts draft for a thousand galleons. Just as he reached the podium, though, Professor Moody called his name, and Harry turned around.

"Good work, Potter! Hold on a sec, I got summat for ya." Moody dug into his pocket, withdrawing a silver medallion a few inches in diameter. "Catch!"

Moody tossed the medallion to Harry. His seeker reflexes kicked in, and he reached out his left hand to catch it. Just before his fingers closed around the medallion, Harry's eyes widened in realization, and time seemed to slow down.

Harry took in the manic glint in Moody's remaining normal eye, and the twisted grin on his face.

Harry dimly noted the skull-and-snake design etched into the surface of the medallion.

Harry watched Moody raise his wand to the sky and begin an incantation.

Harry felt a familiar twinge behind his navel.

Harry raised his wand, already knowing that it was far too late.

"MORSMORDRE!"

"STUPEF—"

Harry disappeared.

Author's Note

The third task! Harry enters a maze! Things happen! A cliffhanger!

As of the end of Chapter 33, HPatLS is at 94,112 words.

The non-canon spell that Harry uses against the Skrewt, "terebrus petra," is from the Latin "terebro" (drill/bore) and "petra" (rock). As one might expect, a spell meant for rock has very destructive results when applied to flesh.

The non-canon spell that Harry uses against the acromantula, obviously comes from a few different bastardized Latin words for fire/flame, dragon, and maximum. Thus, it translates roughly to "light the inferno of the dragon as strong as possible."

Since Harry speeds up when he hears the Skrewt the first time, he doesn't meet Cedric (who in this story escapes from the Skrewt just after Harry turns the corner to face the dementor, and is thus walled off from him). Since Krum isn't Imperiused to use the Cruciatus on Cedric (or, for that matter, Fleur), Harry never has any reason to blast through the hedge wall to save Cedric, so they don't meet up the second time.

I was able to get this chapter done and uploaded a day earlier than I had anticipated...that gives you all a day more to read it, enjoy it, and review it!

(Review!)