Disclaimer: Speaking of ways, JK Rowling, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract.

Chapter 81

Hermione Portkeyed to the gates of Hogwarts in high spirits. She was naturally worried about Harry in the Third Task on Saturday, but today, she was setting that aside. She felt that she had done very well on the French N.M.A. Arithmancy exam. She had prepared herself for the N.E.W.T., which was more difficult, and she was eager to prove herself there tomorrow.

The fifth and seventh-year students were still busy taking exams, but for the rest of the school, they were already over, and they were having fun in the free period before their marks came out. That was an added benefit; it gave her plenty of time to spend with her friends.

Harry, of course, was busy learning spells for the Task.

"I reckon you could win this, Harry," Ron said. "It sounds like it'll be pretty even. All you gotta do is get to the Cup first. That can't be too hard, especially if Hermione has something good up her sleeve again."

Hermione blushed and said, "I have a few things, but I'd like to see this maze thing they've built, first."

"We can go down there now," Harry said. "It looked ever weirder when they finished it."

"Alright, let's go."

Hermione, Harry, Ron, and Ginny walked down to the Quidditch pitch. The weather was warm and sunny, and she would have loved to spend the day relaxing on the grass if they didn't have to deal with the Task. She wished once again that she knew who had entered Harry in this stupid tournament so she could hex them. She noticed that Harry and Ginny were now openly holding hands as they walked.

"When did that happen?" she asked.

Ginny shrugged and smiled: "After I told my roommates about the kiss, it didn't say secret for long."

"We decided we'd give it a try," Harry added contentedly.

Ron looked reasonably accepting, which surprised Hermione a little. Of course, he'd had a few months to get used to it. Ron himself didn't seem to have got anywhere with Parvati, from what she could tell, but she didn't know whether that meant anything or not.

The structure on the Quidditch pitch looked like an enormous stone cube about fifty yards on a side. It was largely open to the air, the outer walls being covered with windows and arches that allowed a view into the cube from the stands. (That was certainly better than the Second Task. They must have learnt their lesson.) Hermione examined it with Harry's Omnioculars from the seats. The interior was filled with freestanding staircases, columns, and buttresses. There were landings and interior walls, but they were comparatively small, so that the overall effect was rather like looking through a petrified forest. And all of them were running in different directions. There were columns, archways, windows, and stairs that were clearly sideways and even upside down. Hermione could only imagine that the gravity had been altered somehow inside, like in the M. C. Escher prints, and she could guess why it had taken a large team of both wizards and goblins to build it.

What was more, everything was moving. Much like the moving staircases of Hogwarts itself, the interior of the cube was in constant motion, with staircases swivelling from side to side, but in every direction again so that they could go from pointing up, as seen from the outside, to pointing down or even sideways. In order to make the geometry work, the stairs had to be steep. A normal stair step was about eight inches high and twelve inches wide. It was hard to tell from a distance, but it looked like all the stairs in the cube were twelve inches in both directions. The whole thing was thirteen stories high.

"This is some amazing spell work," Hermione said. "I wouldn't have thought it was possible."

"Yeah, but how do I get through it?" Harry asked.

"What did they say you had to do again?"

"Bagman said the Triwizard Cup would be at in a vault at the centre of the maze, but it…doesn't look right."

"How so?"

"Just look. It keeps appearing and disappearing, like the stairs."

"Like the stairs?" Hermione said in confusion.

"Blimey, just look at it," Ron cut it.

Ginny pointed to part of the structure. "It only happens in some places," she said, "like…um…there. Look there."

Hermione looked just in time to see one of the staircases fold into a solid wall as if it were never there to begin with. "Well, that's unsettling," she said. "That could get dangerous really fast." As she watched, another staircase folded out of a wall nearby. Now that she knew what to look for, it was obvious. Ginny was right, though; it only happened in certain areas of the structure.

"The vault-thing does the same thing," Harry added. "There, in the middle."

The exact centre of the cube contained a smaller, solid cube with a door on each face, but no windows so you couldn't see what happened inside. It was about twenty feet on a side. The stairs around it looked out of proportion—smaller than the rest. But it seemed to be…not all there—like it was folding in on itself and unfolding at the same time. And yet, the pattern looked familiar.

"Non-Euclidean geometry," she whispered.

"What?" Harry said.

Hermione wasn't listening. She looked again at the places where the staircases appeared and disappeared again. She hadn't noticed before, but there was a pattern there, too—walls that zigzagged inward from each edge and corner, aligned so that they seemed to suspend a smaller cube full of stairways inside the larger one. Looking at is as a whole, it was obvious.

And so shocking that she forgot where she was and started babbling in French.

"Hermione! Hermione!" her friends yelled, trying to get her to calm down. "What is it? What's the problem?"

"Mon Dieu, it's a tesseract!"

"A what?"

Of course, none of them knew. "It's a hypercube." Blank-looks. "A four-dimensional cube." More blank looks. "Never mind. It's not just one cube. It's actually eight cubes all occupying the same space. Every time one of those staircases appears and disappears, it's actually folding into one of the other cubes. If you were standing on one, it wouldn't look like it was going through a wall at all…well, you might notice something, but it wouldn't look impossible in there. Instead, it would look like the outside world was folding in on itself."

"Bloody hell, they can do that?" Ron said in amazement.

"Apparently. I'm guessing this is what happens when extension charms go wrong. Merlin, it's unsettling to watch. It looks like it ought not to exist. Have you talked to Septima, Harry? Her fingerprints are all over this. I'll eat my hat if she wasn't one of the designers."

"I asked her, but she said she couldn't help any of the champions," Harry replied.

"But how is Harry supposed to get around in there?" Ginny said worriedly. "The way it keeps moving around, it looks like you could get lost forever in there."

"I wouldn't say forever," Hermione countered. "It's finite in size, and not really insanely big, at least by muggle standards. Hmm…I honestly don't think it would be that hard. A tesseract is pretty simple as far as four-dimensional geometry is concerned."

"That is simple?" Ron protested.

"For four dimensions. A lot of figures in four-dimensional geometry are dozens, if not hundreds of times as complex."

"So what's the plan?" asked Harry.

"Okay, let me think…hmm…aha! It's easy. Follow one of those zigzag walls into the structure, and find a staircase the folds you into one of the other cubes. Remember, you'll be able to tell because your view of the outside will change. I don't know for sure if you'll be able to see the outside at all at that point. If you can, just move away from it. If not, get away from the wall your on and go to one of the other zigzag walls and find another staircase to take you into the middle cube—well, it's not really the middle cube, but the one that looks like the middle cube from here. It might take a few tries, but you'll know you're there when the vault looks normal and undistorted. Then you can just head towards it—and stay away from the zigzag walls, or they'll fold you back out again. To get out, just do the same thing in reverse until you can see the stands undistorted."

"That's…" Harry wanted to say "crazy", but it really wasn't. There were really only a couple things he needed to do, and there were clear directions for most of it. "That actually makes sense," he said. "Thanks a lot, Hermione."

"What are friends for, Harry?"

"Cool, now you can definitely win it," Ron said optimistically. "You only have to worry about the monsters and traps."

The other three all groaned.

As soon as Hermione got back to the castle, she made a beeline for Septima's office.

"Good afternoon Septima," she greeted her.

"Hermione! It's good to see you." Septima rose to hug her former student. "Congratulations again on your paper."

"Well, your name's on it, too," Hermione reminded her.

"For which I thank you. I'm not convinced I deserve that much. I hope your exam yesterday went well."

"Very well. I was a little worried about the experimental techniques, but I think I practised them enough."

"I'm glad to hear it. I'm sure you'll do just as well tomorrow."

"I hope so. So…I see you've been busy with the Third Task."

Septima gave her a coy smile: "And what makes you so sure I was involved?"

Hermione smiled back: "Because while there may be a few other people in this castle who know what a tesseract is, I highly doubt anyone but you could actually design one—including Professor Dumbledore. That's not his expertise."

"I suspect the Headmaster could surprise us all, Hermione. But you're right about the rest. Actually, I'm rather proud of my work. It scared me a little when I was done, so I think I was doing it right. I don't normally delve into eldritch constructions like that. Mr. Bagman was the one who wanted to make it harder and weirder. He couldn't quite explain what he wanted, but he thought it was brilliant when I showed him how I could make it fold in on itself."

"Bagman again? Why am I not surprised?"

"Well, that is his personality. Of course, I'm sure you could have done it better. I'd wager you know all about four-dimensional geometry."

She shook her head: "Not all about it, but enough. Be glad I didn't, though. If you set the Champions loose inside the Grand Antiprism, they could get lost for weeks."

Septima opened her mouth, but she paused and reconsidered. "No, I don't want to know," she concluded.

"Really, though, that method of making the staircases fold from one cube to another was brilliant," Hermione assured her. "And really creepy. How did you do it?"

"Well, I just…" Septima trailed off as she realised the significance of what her protégé had just said. "You figured that out…? You told Mr. Potter how to navigate that maze just by looking at it for five minutes, didn't you?"

"No! Of course not…" Hermione said. Septima stared at her suspiciously. "…It was more like ten."

Hermione was hopelessly lost in a maze of moving staircases, where gravity shifted like sand and space turned back on itself. Everything was dark and grey, lit only by a strange bio-luminescence and electric torchlight. The walls, such as there were, were painted with grotesque geometric designs and murals of abominable alien histories.

The maze wasn't supposed to be this big. Or this complicated. She couldn't see any points of reference anymore. All she could see were more stairs and columns leading out in all directions, bending in impossible ways, and in the dim shadows, she thought she could see cyclopean shapes looming in all their blasphemous glory, reflected and refracted through the non-Euclidean geometry until the mind shrank from comprehending them.

She should have known there was something evil about that maze. It had been nagging at the back of her mind all day—the strangeness, the unnaturalness of it—packing a four dimensional shape into a universe that permitted only three. Curse Bagman for demanding this monstrosity be put up, and curse the other judges for going along with it. Now, she was trapped inside it with no way out of the twice-cursed structure.

Her heart clenched tight in her chest at the horror of it. If she didn't get out soon, she was sure she would collapse from fear. She picked up the pace, faster and faster, until she broke into a run—up the stairs, down the stairs, trying to remember how to get out, trying to remember how she had got to this point in the first place. It was no use. All she saw was more of the same geometry—the same dark world that Man Was Not Meant To Know.

Near panic, she stopped by one wall to catch her breath. It was then that she heard a distant cry, and when she looked up, she saw it.

A bubbling, black mass bore down on her from above—as big as a lorry, and as powerful as a freight train. It filled the stairwell, all shapeless protoplasm and malevolent power. Dozens of glowing green eyes covered its surface, forming and unforming like sickly pustules. Its piercing cry filled the maze, and Hermione was petrified with fear as it descended upon her at a terrifying speed.

"Hermione?"

"Hermione!"

"Hermione, wake up!"

"TEKELI-LI! TEKELI-LI!"

"AHHH!"

Hermione was sitting bolt upright in her old bed in Gryffindor Tower, drenched in sweat and panting for breath as her old roommates jumped back in fear.

"Hermione, are you alright?" Parvati Patil asked. "You were screaming like you were being attacked by a monster."

"Er…it was…just a n-nightmare," she said. She was still shaking.

"It sounded like a really bad one," said Lavender Brown sympathetically.

"One of my worse ones," Hermione admitted.

"What was that yelling?" asked Lily Moon. "Tekli-something-or-other?"

"Tekeli-li," she corrected. "It's the cry of the Elder Things and their dread servants, the Shoggoths."

Three of the girls stared at her in mixed horror and confusion, but Sally-Anne Perks, as a muggle-born, showed a look of vague recognition.

"Are you sure you're alright," Parvati said. "You're starting to sound like Luna Lovegood."

"No, no, I'm fine. It's just a muggle horror story…Goodness, I haven't had that dream since I was eleven."

"You've had it before?" Lavender gasped.

Hermione nodded: "When I first read those stories. Seeing that maze of Bagman's must have brought it back…Bagman," she growled. "That's it, he's gonna get it."

"Uh-oh. Better watch out. She's plotting," Lavender said with a half-giggle.

The practical N.E.W.T. exam in Arithmancy was held bright and early on Thursday morning. Hermione had had to pay a steep fee to take it while not enrolled at Hogwarts, but it would be worth it. She lined up with the seventh-year students, just as she had at Beauxbatons two days ago and waited for her name to be called. This time, though, the person directly in front of her was a sixth-year.

"Hello, Hermione," the older Ravenclaw girl said.

"Hi, Rebecca. How have you been?"

"Well enough," said Rebecca Gamp. "I thought I was going to get ahead of you in Arithmancy this year."

"Well, it's not my fault I got sent out of the country," Hermione replied without malice. "At least we got our article done. Thanks again for your help, by the way."

"Ha. Like I'd have missed a chance like that…But still, I have to admit, that was some pretty brilliant arithmancy. I could barely follow some of it. You did something really incredible, there."

"We did, Rebecca," Hermione insisted. "I couldn't have done it without your transfiguration knowledge."

Rebecca nodded: "Thank you. Good luck, then."

"Thanks. You too."

"Rebecca Gamp," the examiner called.

"Well, that's me." Rebecca stood and entered the testing room.

About ten minutes later, Rebecca was done, and the examiner called Hermione into the room.

The same three people were sitting in the examination room as last year: the ancient witch Griselda Marchbanks and two slightly younger men whose names escaped her at the moment. However, they didn't look sceptical as they had last year—not after the show she had put on then. "Miss Granger, it's good to see you again," Madam Marchbanks said. "Given your special circumstances, could you please state your school and year for the record?"

"I'm a fourth year student at Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, ma'am, transfered from Hogwarts last fall."

"Indeed. You sat your Ordinary Wizarding Level examination in Arithmancy just last year," the ancient witch continued. "What education have you had in the subject since?"

"I took the one-year N.M.A. course at Beauxbatons," Hermione said. "I sat the exam on Tuesday. I've also been doing independent studies in the muggle mathematics subjects of abstract algebra and partial differential equations."

"Really? Partial differential equations? Very interesting. It's too bad we don't have time to discuss it further. In any case, as you know the N.E.W.T. qualification requires a final project in original spell creation, or another applicable advanced arithmancy topic. I believe the N.M.A. qualification includes a similar requirement?" Hermione nodded. "You will be asked to submit a written copy of your project to the Wizarding Examination Authority for review and possible publication in the Proceedings of the British Department of Magical Education. For now, please explain in two minutes an outline or illustrative example from your final project."

Hermione hadn't made her work on Gamp's Law her final project (nor had Rebecca), both to preserve the surprise and to avoid an extra layer of complications. Nor had she used any of her side projects that she didn't want to become too widely known. She did need something fairly dazzling, though—a project worthy of a high mark. She'd done her share of "showy" things over the past year, but that wasn't the same as being arithmantically complex. There was one thing that fit the bill, though.

"For my final project," she began, "I have developed a toolkit of spells to aid in the tailoring and mending of clothing. I tested the first of them just before Christmas to make a custom suit for a friend. These spells are based on a core operation of un-spinning the individual fibres of the threads in a fabric and spinning them back together in a new configuration. A clothing-repair charm based on these principles offers an improvement over the traditional Mending Charm. The Mending Charm simply repairs a rip with magic, which never leaves it quite as strong as it was before. My innovation is a spell that essentially re-manufactures the thread inside the cloth along the rip, restoring it as good as new, as long as there isn't much severing of the actual fibres.

"Other spells in the toolkit are designed to join together cut pieces of fabric along a seam without stitching, resulting in a single, whole piece of cloth. By carefully controlling how the fibres realign themselves, this joint can be made just as strong as the rest of the cloth, allowing the creation of new types of clothes such as seamless shirts or custom-made, larger-than-life garments. Because of this capability, I've decided to call the basic spell of the toolkit the Scarborough Charm. Hmm…aha!"

At this point, Hermione surveyed the room and saw a suitable shirt hanging in the wardrobe that was set up for the practical exam. After a quick check to make sure there were no spells on it—to the examiners' slight objection since she was getting ahead of them—she took it over to their table to demonstrate the spell.

"Diffindo," she cast, and a large rip was opened in the shirt, to slightly more objection from the examiners. "The basis of the spell is to unwind the fibres from their spun state in the thread or yarn," she explained. "Thread is made of short fibres a few inches long twirled together, relying on their mutual friction for its strength, so a simple Twirling Charm such as you might use for plaiting hair or spinning rope will fulfil the function. It's only a matter of reducing the scale factors to the size of the thread and modifying it to work many times along the tear. Unasiwod. Unasiwod. Unasiwod," she demonstrated her spell, and the shirt was repaired as good as new."

"Oh, bravo, Miss Granger. Very clever," said one of the little old men. "I look forward to reading your written copy."

"How were you able to keep that many threads aligned in the pattern of the weaving?" the other man asked.

"I approximated it by incorporating the parametric form of a Lissajous curve into the arithmantic expansion, sir. I converted it to something I could cast by truncating it with Chebyshev polynomials."

"Hmm…That would be a good start, but it's not obvious how you maintained the alignment of the weft threads," observed Madam Marchbanks. "How do you prevent runs from forming in the repaired cloth?"

"I started with a diagonal cut and took the limit as I rotated it into alignment with the weave."

"Interesting. Well, given the time, we'll have to wait for the write-up for the rest. Now, for the rest of the exam."

Like the O.W.L. exam, the N.E.W.T. practical involved a lot of spell manipulation, but this time, it was in advanced forms all the way up to basic curse-breaking. But with her knowledge of differential equations, well beyond that of other N.E.W.T. students, this came easy to Hermione. She could construct counter-curses on the fly that were much better than most of her classmates could produce, and she could find novel solutions that even the examiners themselves had never dreamt of.

"There are multi-layered charms on the cookware in the kitchen set, but the middle one is a cleaning charm that has been found to improperly activate during cooking. Remove it while maintaining the others."

That was a simple enough problem to solve arithmantically. She determined the arithmantic expansions of the spell in question and replaced it with a trivial form that didn't do anything but maintain the rest of the spell chain.

"Using only experimental techniques, remove the jinxes from the red dress robe in the wardrobe without damaging it."

Hermione managed it without choking and even surprised the examiners by turning her wand around at one point to hold it like a pen for more precision work. That was an uncommon technique.

"Construct an outline for a spell chain to allow the table to detect and keep clear of unwanted clutter—but without a Vanishing Spell."

Inspired by the maze down on the Quidditch pitch, Hermione not only constructed such an outline—a exercise analogous to writing pseudocode in computer programming—she also tested a first-order form of the non-vanishing spell to sweep clutter off of the table using hyperbolic geometry. That got her some applause. It was completely different from how almost anyone else would have done it.

"Final question, Miss Granger," Madam Marchbanks said. "I have heard that you invented the spell that Harry Potter used to defeat the Hungarian Horntail in the First Task of the Tournament."

"That's right, ma'am."

"Is there anything in here you could use to demonstrate it?"

Hermione looked over the props in the room: "Yes, ma'am. The soil for the potted plant. Although you'll need to re-pot it afterwards. I don't know what a magnesium deficiency will do to a plant, but it's probably not good. Ahem, Dialego Kathar Magnesia." A cloud of silvery dust rose out of the pot. She directed it away from the plant, averted her eyes, and cast, "Incendio."

BANG!

The examiners jumped, but they all looked please with the result.

"I'll be honest with you, Miss Granger," Madam Marchbanks said. "You've done things with a wand here today that I've never seen before. Only two other students have ever taken me completely by surprise like that. One of them was Albus Dumbledore." Hermione's eyes grew wide. "You wouldn't have heard of the other one. He did not become famous. I hope to see you follow in the footsteps of the former, and I look forward to reading more about your exploits."

Hermione gave her a sly smile: "Sooner than you think, ma'am."

Friday was the big day for Hermione. Most of the school was growing in excitement for the Third Task tomorrow—and in nervousness, for the champions—but this was Hermione's time to shine. A number of extra owls swooped into breakfast to deliver this month's issue of Transfiguration Today, one of which approached Hermione at the Gryffindor Table.

"I didn't know you took Transfiguration Today," said Alicia Spinnet.

"I don't normally," she answered.

"Is this about that big project you were working on?" asked Ginny.

"Mm hmm." Hermione opened the journal and smiled. There it was: LETTER: A PROOF A SIXTH EXCEPTION TO GAMP'S LAW OF ELEMENTAL TRANSFIGURATION by H. J. Granger, R. H. Gamp, and S. O. Vector. Hermione gazed up at the High Table.

"What're you looking at?" said Ron.

"Wait for it…"

Professors McGonagall and Dumbledore took their copies from the owls. McGonagall opened hers up and—

CLANK!

—promptly dropped her teacup.

Dumbledore gave his Deputy a questioning look, and she pointed out the letter to him. His eyes grew wide, and they started whispering back and forth to each other, flipping through the pages, and frequently glancing up at certain people in the Great Hall. McGonagall shot Septima an annoyed look, to which Septima just smiled back. That would be an interesting discussion later.

A discussion of a transfiguration paper between Dumbledore and McGonagall wasn't a big deal, but this one was so heated that more people started paying attention. After a few minutes, they came to a consensus, and Dumbledore stood up.

"May I have your attention, please?" he said. "I have just been apprised of a most extraordinary paper in this month's Transfiguration Today. Many of you will be aware of the five exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, one of the most fundamental principles of the field. Today, we have received definitive proof of a sixth exception—the previously conjectured exception of radioactive materials. What's more, this discovery was made by three people, all of whom are here with us today: Hermione Granger of Beauxbatons, our own Rebecca Gamp of Ravenclaw, and Professor Septima Vector. My sincere congratulations to all three of you, and to Miss Gamp, I award fifty points to Ravenclaw.

Loud applause filled the Great Hall, and excited chatter from the upper year students. It was probably more about the fifty points to Ravenclaw than the discovery, but all the students who understood the significance of the discovery were amazed and congratulated Hermione when they saw her. Even Fleur was impressed, and that was saying something.

Cedric Diggory had a slightly different motive in approaching her after breakfast, though. "Congratulations, Hermione," he said. "I didn't realise you were working on something that big."

"Thanks, Cedric," she replied. "That was really only part of the long-term program I'm working on, but that was probably the most important part for most people. Anyway, how have you been?"

"Pretty well, but I wanted to ask you something. I know you were going to teach Harry some of your spells for the Task today. I was wondering if your offer was still open to join you."

Hermione opened her mouth, but Ron jumped in and said, "Don't do it, Hermione. Harry can win this if he's the only one who knows your tricks."

"They're not 'tricks', Ron," Hermione chided. "And I already offered, so I'm not going to go back on it. I hope you don't mind, Harry."

Harry shrugged. "I wasn't supposed to be in this in the first place. I think it's okay." He didn't mention the big advantage he'd have since he knew how to get through the maze and Cedric didn't. He still held onto a wild hope that he might actually win the Tournament.

After showing Cedric the Room of Requirement (and politely asking him to keep its existence confidential), Hermione started drilling him on spells. She focused on those that would help keep him safe from the creatures that were supposed to be lurking in the maze as opposed to any that would help him navigate and make him more likely to win the Tournament. Hermione still liked Cedric a lot, but she'd committed herself, to some extent, to help Harry win. Wouldn't it be a perfect coup de grâce if a fourth-year won a tournament designed for seventh-years and showed everyone how big a farce it really was? Okay, that was what she told herself, but her real motive, if she admitted it, was more selfish: wouldn't it be great if Harry won the Tournament using mostly her spells and strategies?

"Dasask Cohaerens!" Hermione cast, and Cedric squeezed his eyes shut and turned away with a shout as he was assailed by a beam of green laser light. "They use something very similar to that in the muggle world to stop violent assailants," she explained. "It blinds the target and makes them unable to fight effectively, but it doesn't do any actual damage." The Taser Hex is similar, and so is the Heat Ray Hex I invented, but I set that one aside until I understand it better.

"The Heat Ray Hex?" Harry asked.

"Yes, it's a little creepy, to be honest. It almost makes you feel like you're on fire, but it doesn't leave any burns. I couldn't find any indication that I'd accidentally created a dark spell, but I need to do some more research to figure out what it's actually doing. Anyway, let's start with the Dazzling Jinx."

She showed Cedric the wand movement and directed him to try to cast the spell, but he didn't find it quite as easy.

"Dasako—Dasaskoreh—Dasassask—Boy, that really doesn't roll off the tongue, does it? Dasask Cohaerens," he said slowly, and his wand produced the dazzling green pattern. "How do you cast it so fast, Hermione?"

"Just practice. I was tripping over it myself at first. It's good practice to work on your reflexes, anyway. You'll need to be able to cast it pretty quickly to do a lot of good."

Cedric kept at it for a while longer, but Hermione was eager to move on since she had some new spells she wanted to teach Harry.

"I developed another spell to slow down an opponent's spellcasting," she explained. "I call it the Hand-Freezing Hex."

Cedric raised an eyebrow: "That sounds…kind of painful."

She shook her head. "It doesn't literally freeze the target's hands. It just makes them cold and numb so they can't hold a wand properly."

"Okay, so how does it work?"

Hermione raised her wand. "Do you mind, Harry?" He shrugged and shook his head. "Refrigera Manibus."

Harry cringed. He felt like his hands had been plunged into ice water, and sure enough, his fingers grew stiff and would no longer obey him. "I think it works," he said through clenched teeth.

Hermione taught them that spell and a few others. She had an infrared version of her Burning Laser Spell that was more efficient than the red beam, albeit harder to aim. She also had an experimental spell that she called a Bouncing Disarming Charm.

"Expelliarmus Resilio!" Hermione's spell bounced off the wall and narrowly missed Cedric. "I got the idea from my experimental spellcrafting exercises," she said. "I haven't figured out how to make it work on general spells, or even if that's possible, but I figured out how to wrap a Disarming Charm in an extra layer of magic that will dissipate when it hits something, so it will bounce exactly once before it disarms the target. It won't work if you score a direct hit on someone, but it'll be good if you need to cast around a corner."

"Won't that be hard to aim, though?" Cedric asked.

"Well, there's that, but how well can you aim if you cast around a corner normally?"

He conceded that point, although he personally didn't think there was much call to cast spells around corners in the first place. Actually, a lot of Hermione's spells seemed off the wall—the Eyelash Curling Hex, the Pocket-Sealing Jinx, the Iambic Pentameter Curse. But her judgement had been good about other aspects of the Tournament, so he concluded her spells were worth learning.

They concluded with a series of one-on-on duels. Harry and Hermione looked pretty evenly matched, and Cedric found both of them to be tougher opponents than he expected. He defeated both of them, but Hermione nearly got the better of him when she pulled a backup wand—one of her "toys"—and cast left-handed at him. He'd never seen that tactic in person before.

"Thank you for your help, Hermione," he told her when they broke for lunch. "Harry, good luck tomorrow…You'll need it."

"Er, thanks," Harry said.

Hermione waiting until Cedric was out of earshot before saying the one other thing she wanted to say: "Harry, I hope you understand, I didn't tell Cedric how to get through the maze because I really do want you to win. But I wasn't sure…if Fleur asks me, it's sort of a matter of school honour."

Harry nodded uneasily. "I get it. I guess it wouldn't be so bad. I'll have a ten minute head start, and she doesn't know these spells, does she?"

"No, she's never asked me for spells," Hermione agreed.

"Although…maybe you don't have to tell her all the details."

Hermione rolled her eyes: "I can think about it. Good luck tomorrow, Harry." She hugged him, and they walked back down to the Great Hall.

HARRY POTTER "DISTURBED AND DANGEROUS"

By Rita Skeeter

"That old cow," Hermione spat. "That's it. No more Miss Nice Witch. I'm going to get her this time?"

"How?" Ginny asked incredulously. "She's practically untouchable at the newspaper."

"I've got a plan," Hermione said. "I'll tell you later."

The article was based on eyewitness accounts of Harry's vision of Voldemort in Arithmancy class a few weeks ago. All that most people had seen was him suddenly screaming and complaining of his scar hurting. "Experts" from St. Mungo's suggested that Voldemort's attempt on his life when he was a baby could have left him emotionally unstable—or it could all just be attention-seeking behaviour. Draco Malfoy was quoted with the revelation that Harry was a Parselmouth, and since he was in Arithmancy, too, it was a good guess that he was the source for the rest of the story, too. Most of Harry's friends were indignant on his behalf, but Harry himself took it in stride. He was used to Malfoy screwing with him by now.

"Excuse me, Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall interrupted. "The champions' families have been invited to watch the finally task. You may greet them in the chamber off the Great Hall after breakfast."

"Them?" Hermione said. "Not just Sirius?"

"She must mean Remus," Harry said. "I can't imagine what the Dursleys would do if they tried to haul them in here."

Ron and Ginny giggled at the thought.

Harry's three friends followed him, intent on waiting outside so they could say hi to Sirius and Remus, but as soon as Harry entered the room, he called out, "Ron! Ginny!"

They rushed inside, and to their surprise, Bill Weasley was there along with Sirius and Remus.

"Bill!" Ginny cried, and she ran to hug him.

"Hey there, pipsqueak," he said. "How have you been? Harry still treating you right?"

Ginny giggled while Harry flushed deeply.

"Oi! What're you doin' here, Bill?" Ron cut in.

"Well, I helped build the maze, and I'll need to help tear it down afterwards, so I decided to stick around to watch the Task. There's a couple of goblins lurking about, too." He leaned close to Hermione: "The rumour is you already figured out how to get through it."

"Well, it was a simple problem in four-dimensional geometry," she admitted.

Bill shook his head: "I think you're the only person I know who can put those words together." He went on to pass along word from the rest of the family. Percy was in a bind at the Ministry. Barty Crouch's alleged illness had got worse, and they were suspicious that he wasn't actually sending Percy instructions anymore. Minister Fudge had taken over for him as judge in the Task. Charlie was busy in Romania, but Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were at home and doing as fine as ever.

Sirius and Remus said hello and led Harry out of the room, away from prying ears. "Just focus on getting through the Task in one piece," Sirius told him. "We'll worry about Voldemort afterwards."

"Don't try anything fancy to beat the others," Remus added. "You just need to make it until someone gets the Cup."

"That said, if Hermione's plan gets you there first, more power to you," Sirius countered.

"Thanks, guys. I'll be careful," Harry assured them.

The Defence Professor of Hogwarts had a plan for the Third Task, and this time, his plan was working. He couldn't dissuade Potter from his blind faith in the mudblood (how she had managed to pull off the transfiguration advance of the decade he couldn't fathom), so he instead decided to turn it to his advantage. With a few instructions passed along to the other judges, he had set a maths problem with the maze that only Granger could solve, and did she ever. She told Potter exactly how to get through it in just a few minutes.

Now there was one other loose end to tie up. He had heard through his careful questioning that Granger had also told the Delacour girl something about how to get through the maze. That wouldn't do at all. Potter may have a head start, but Delacour was much more advanced at magic. He needed someone on the inside for that, so he waited until one of the other champions was walking by, and he cursed him from behind.

"Imperio."

Viktor Krum stood still and blinked in confusion for a few moments.

"Continue acting normally until the Task," the Defence Professor instructed. "When you enter the maze, stay close to Fleur Delacour, and prevent her from reaching the vault before Potter. Use any means necessary other than the Unforgivable Curses." It wouldn't do for someone to see the Quidditch star use one of those. Diggory he wasn't worried about. The boy was bright, but not that bright. He'd have to be extremely lucky to catch up with Potter without knowing the way.

A/N: Refrigera Manibus: Latin for "freeze hands". Credit to Aisyah for this idea.

Resilio: based on the Latin for "rebound".