Chapter 10

On Tuesday morning, the day of the first task, I popped into the Great Hall for breakfast which was a mistake. Ron attitude scared off the friendly atmosphere...

"If you don't want everyone else to know, fine, but I don't know why you're bothering to lie, you didn't get into trouble for entering, did you? Dumbledore's only in the tournament to keep you safe and protected you, isn't he?"

"Ron why don't you take a long walk a short pier? Dumbledore's got his own agenda." I replied. I wasn't even thinking about asking where he came up with this lunacy.

Of course that got a response from Hermione," Dumbledore knows what's best! He'll take care of protecting you in the tournament Harry. You need to trust him Harry, Harry!

I had seen the Weasley owl delivering howlers before, this one was headed directly for me. The Weasley twins ducked under the table as the owl dive bombed and dropped the howler into my plate.

"How dare you take someone besides your intended to the Yule ball? You have a marriage contract Ginny which we expect you to honor. I consider this an insult and demand your presence with a formal apology for the Weasley family."

As the Weasley twins peeked over the side of the table I asked...

"What do I do when she finds out she's not going to get what she wants?" The twins just shook their heads. Apparently no one would dare to go in that direction.

/Scene Break/

As soon as I finished with my Dragon I popped home only to get an interrogation from Ava. I had convinced her to stay home during the task as it was too dangerous to be anywhere near me and Hogwarts.

"Come on, spill what happened? What did you do this time to upset them? "

"Fleur tried this sort of charm, I think she was trying to put the Dragon into a trance - well, that kind of worked too, it went all sleepy. Krum tried to blind the Dragon. Malfoy took one look at the Dragon passed out. Diggery got hurt the worst but is probably the luckiest. He got burnt pretty bad and stomped on a good bit so he will be out of the tournament and in St. Mungo's for the rest of the tournament. Dumbledore charmed the Dragon into doing a dance while he got the egg."

"Well, what did you do?"

"Using an invisibility charm and knowing that dragons have a good ability to smell pray I gave it some thing to smell. I lobbed a vile of fresh blood one way and went the other. I levitated myself to the egg, snatched it up, and beat a hasty retreat. By the time the Dragon got a whiff of my scent I was already at the exit. Easy Pease. I will tell you that there was one thing that ticked me off. They had erected this huge stadium for the first task. But can you believe they made the witches and wizards pay entrance fees to come and watch the first task. Wasn't this tournament originally a friendly competition between magical schools and not soak the wizard population to build a stadium nor to line the ministry's pockets with entrance fees.

"So what are you going to do for the second task?

"Now that could be a bit of a problem. The TV cloud did not show me the second task and only the end of the third task. Besides I refuse to perform for their entertainment. Its one of the reason they saw nothing of me in the first task. I am going to have to ask around because I do not want to cross the line when it comes to magic."

"Harry you going have to clear up that last sentence, what line?"

"I'm required to participate in the tournament. I have a golden egg that screams at me when it is opened. How hard must I try to figure out what the screaming stands for? What if I only put in an hour day and I don't figured it out, do I lose my magic? If I spend twelve hours a day, is that enough?"

"Well you just have to cut down on your morning exercise regiment or fit it into your afternoon study and research time. However, don't you try and add twelve hours to your current schedule! I for one would like to see you every once in a while.

/Scene Break/

The second task, which was taking place at half past nine on the morning of February the twenty-fourth, was here. The golden egg had confirmed that the almost frozen lake is where the task would be conducted but I only figured that out on 21st of February. All I could do was wait until the last minute to see how hard I had to work at this task or whether I could just sit and laugh as I lost my magic. Evelyn had not shown up to give me any advice and the TV cloud never had shown me everything in the future. In the Chamber of Secrets I had seen Fawkes deliver the hat and I've seen my clone battling the basilisk but I never saw how he got down into the chamber or how he got out. Furthermore things were changing as Cedric was no longer in the tournament.

A good portion of the male students were ogling Fleur, Albus Dumbledore did not go unnoticed. His bathing attire appeared to be from the 1920s. The only things visible were his arms from the elbows to his hands. He had long socks that covered up to his knees. A blue horizontal striped suit covered the rest. He even had his long white beard stuffed into the rear of a rubber bathing cap on his head.

"The remaining champions on my whistle have precisely an hour to recover what has been taken from them. On the count of three, then. One… two… three!"

Oh well, I thought, the great Albus Dumbledore will take care of everything. I cast a warming charm on myself and then a bubblehead charm and then waded out until I could flounder in the shallows and still be underwater. The Dursleys damn sure had not taught me how to swim and Evelyn's group were too busy teaching me how to fight. In the three days since I got the information from the egg I had taught myself only how to swallow a lot of pool water. Suicide by drowning was not on my agenda but I continue to make my best attempt to rescue my hostage. All my attempts at swimming ended up with me in the mud on the bottom of the lake. I'd hardly gotten started and out of the shallows when the hour was up and the second task was over. A couple of the older students finally jumped into the lake to drag me out of the muddy shallows.

On getting to the surface I found that Fleur placed first and that Dumbledore and the merpeople had taken care of everything else. Dumbledore's hostage however was madder than a wet hen when she broke the surface of the lake. Professor McGonagall was not a happy person as she lit into Dumbledore with Scottish fire and brimstone.

/Scene Break/

Ava was about ready to have a mental breakdown by the last week in June over the third task. Not that I was overly thrilled but I had been busy making investments in the colonies to keep me busy. I arrived early for a Hogwarts breakfast on the day of the third task. I was curious what the mood in the castle was like.

After breakfast Ron and Hermione dragged me up to the dorm room to show me some interesting spells that I could use later in the maze. I was tempted to ask how long they had to work with Dumbledore to learn those spells. Those two were not acting as they normally did around me. I went along to keep the peace.

"Come and look at this," said Ron, who was standing by the window. He was staring down onto the grounds. "What's Malfoy doing?"

Hermione and I went to see. Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle. They were standing in the shadow of a tree below. Crabbe and Goyle seemed to be keeping a lookout; both were smirking. Malfoy was holding a conversation with a pigeon. Dah! I was wondering if this tournament had been too much for Draco and he had finally snapped.

By lunch time, Finnigan said, "Check out Malfoy" .

A glance at the Slytherin table showed Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle were laughing at me, pulling weird faces, and sending lewd hand gestures in my direction. This was not normal behavior for Malfoy as he had acted like a scared mouse and fainted throughout most of the tournament's tasks. I guess my original assessment of Draco was correct; he had finally gone around the bend and was in Lala land.

I made the mistake of being talked in staying around Hogwarts for lunch by Ron and Hermione. I again acquiesced rather than listening to Hermione's questions of where I was going or what I was going to do. Hanging around Hogwarts cause me to be dragged to the headmaster's office for a talk after lunch by Professor McGonagall.

"Harry my boy when are you coming back to Hogwarts permanently? Your friends miss you and so do the teachers." When was I going to come back, ha ha. Was Dumbledore attempting to be a comedian? So far I've been around Hogwarts enough not to make Evelyn mad and that was enough as far as I was concerned.

At dinner time Ludo Bagman and Cornelius Fudge had joined the staff table. Bagman Mme. Maxime quite cheerful, but Cornelius Fudge, who was sitting next to Madame Maxime. Fudge looked like the simplest move on her part would crush him so he was trying to shrink into his chair. Being as fat as he was there was no room left in the chair to scrunch down into. It was almost funny to watch.

"Feeling all right. Harry?" The minister asked as we went down the stone steps and onto the grounds. "Confident?"

"I'm okay," I said with the hope of putting a great amount of distance between us as soon as possible.

Contestants entered the maze one at a time according to their standing and at the sound of a whistle. After I entered the maze I picked up my pace as my chosen path seemed completely deserted. I turned left, and hurried on, holding my wand pointed forward, trying to see as far ahead as possible using the Lumos charm.

Left… right… left again… I found myself finding nothing and was beginning to feel that I was wondering in circles. But then I almost fell stumbling over Fleur's body which was out cold on the ground with a severely bleeding leg. I fired off red stars and waited until help arrived before taking off on the dark passageways once again. While I might not know what was lurking in the maze I had a pretty good idea what would happen when I grabbed the tri-wizard cup.

The Hedges muffled all the sounds so I was again surprise as I almost tripped over Krum lying on the ground. The Rennervate spell didn't help so red stars again flew into the sky as I waited for help to arrive. A laughing Malfoy came to mind as I didn't think Dumbledore was attacking the contestants. Hell I hadn't seen any obstacles or anything dangerous in this silly maze. I wasn't going to take a chance so I disillusioned myself and said…"Boss Evelyn". While the clone could not impart information that it had learned to me it knew everything I knew the second that it was called.

/Scene Break/

I followed the clone and saw the clone walked towards the podium as Dumbledore was looking over the tri-wizard cup which sat atop the podium. I remained standing quietly off to the side.

"Headmaster you really are sick, just destroy the cup and end this farce. You know the cup is a trap." Clone Harry expounded as he walked towards Dumbledore.

"This is interesting Harry, why don't you come stand next to me while I further explore the magic on this cup. While I would normally recommend that you take the cup and the glory, however, this cup has been turned into a portkey to a location outside of Hogwarts."

As the two of were examining the tri-wizard cup I was recalling what I had seen in the TV cloud, not that it applied here. All I knew was that the headmaster was powerful as hell but I was wondering if there was more manipulations in all this blather he was throwing around. How involved was he, he had to know that that tri-wizard cup was nothing but danger.

Further analysis was lost as Draco yelled, "Accio tri-wizard cup" from one of the different paths, this sent the tri-wizard cup into Dumbledore and the clone. As I spun around ready to lay down some spells I saw Draco pull out what was obviously a portkey as he disappeared.

Cursing myself for wanting to be anywhere close to that graveyard, but I knew that baby Voldemort and Wormtail awaited. I transported to the graveyard using my instant transportation capabilities... Whoops, wrong again!