Thank you to all of my pat re on supporters, with a special thank you to my awesome tear supporters: Jo Daviz, Antar Das, LegendaryWasabi, Ibuki Mioda, SvenGTX, Optimum Prime and Jack Schriner. I love you all. As always chapters 35 and 36 are already available on my pat re on just add /Lowten after the site URL Sorry about being a day late uploading yesterday I had to go get a booster jab for Rona and due to outside factors that took me way too much time travelling. So you get your update a day late. I apologise that I don't have the artwork for this fic yet. The artist I was working with has had some real-world things come up and doesn't have the time. The goal was reached and it will come but with Christmas just around the corner the artists I have talked to are booked up or way out of my price range. I will get the art as soon as I can.
Chapter 34 By Land, Sea and Air pt-1
The days before the second task were hectic, not just for the inter school team, but for all the teams of champions doing last minute preparations. Even the judges seemed to have more to do, as Umbridge and Bagman showed up at the castle three days early with a crew of personnel from the Department of Magical Games and Sports and were running about the grounds making preparations. In a way, the clues that came from the first task made it worse. Going into something completely blind would usually be more stressful, but now they had loads of things to stress over. Did they have the right interpretation of the clues? Had they come up with the best plan? Were Harry's new runic arrays going to hold up to the task? Every time they laid a concern to rest, two more seemed to jump up to replace it.
The night before the second task was like the night before the first. The inter school team and the Beauxbatons team all got together with their friends in the Room of Requirement and spent the evening blowing off some steam. After the Yule Ball, there were a few more girls from Beauxbatons in the group, after Hermione had gotten to know whom to invite as she dressed for the ball. This time it was only Professor McGonagall who, about half an hour before curfew, came to check on them. However, as the group of teens were already clearing up (a job not really needed in the Room of Requirement but not everyone in the group understood that), the professor merely smiled at them and wished the people competing in the morning the best of luck. Once again, Fleur gave Harry and Hermione each a dreamless sleep potion to make sure that her team would be well rested for tomorrow's task, and after a round of hugs Fleur joined the others returning to the Beauxbatons carriage. Harry and Hermione, after getting 'lost' in a broom cupboard for 10 minutes, returned to their common room and went to bed, though Harry did have to hide the love bite* on his neck.
The next morning, the champions all met by the lake at eleven o'clock. There was some concern early on, as none of the Hogwarts team could find their girlfriends and some people jumped to the conclusion that they had been kidnapped to be used as hostages in the task. However, it turned out that the three of them (Cho Chang, lowri Griffiths, and Vanessa Nightshade) were actually setting up a surprise to support their team. That they had ignored their House rivalry and worked together seemed to be something that the Hogwarts champions were still working on, and a lot of the school were now hoping that the three of them would follow their girlfriends example. Now, though, the twelve champions were on a stage in front of the entire student population currently at Hogwarts, as well as a couple hundred members of the public who had stumped up a bag of gold for the privilege. Ludo Bagman was explaining everything to the champions and the crowd while the rest of the judges sat there and watched.
"Welcome ladies, gentlemen, and most importantly students, to the second task of the Triwizard Tournament! Before I explain today's task, let me give you a recap of the events of the first task. The Hogwarts team was the first to compete, going up against a large, cat-like fire golem to try and retrieve the three chests that were placed in the arena. Their feline opponent was fast and nimble and put in a valiant effort, and the Hogwarts team was only able to retrieve one chest. Next, it was the turn of the champions of Beauxbatons; their challenge was a fire golem in the form of a giant eagle. Through excellent teamwork, they retreated all three of their chests.
"Then we got to watch Durmstrang demonstrate the magic and skill for which they are well renowned, as they squared off against the rather counterintuitive polar bear made of fire. The Durmstrang team were well on the third way to matching Beauxbatons for a clean sweep, but as they tried to collect their third chest they ran out of time. And last, but most certainly not least, the biggest surprise and largest upset of the tournament: the inter school team faced not one giant fire snake but three! With more on the way, Britain's very own Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, unleashed an enchanted item that the budding inventor had designed and created himself, clearing the way for him and his teammates despite having the most dangerous task, sweeping the board and claiming all three chests."
Harry, Hermione and Fleur weren't fans of Bagmans commentary; for one, he was glossing over the fact that the first task and their participation in this tournament as a whole seemed to be one big attempted murder, but especially the the first task. On top of that, the man was trying to focus on Harry and his celebrity status, something they all knew he hated. Bagman continued and they all listened, as they would be finding out the details of the task at the same time as the crowd. "The chests that the champions collected each contain a clue as to the nature of today's task. The champions had almost three months to work out their clues and decide how they were going to deal with each obstacle. The goal of today's task is for the champions to collect as many of the task keys that they possibly can. There are twelve keys in total, four in each of the three environments. Three clues, three environments! The clues were to give each team the opportunity to prepare to traverse the depth of the Black Lake, the skies, and the Dark Forest!"
As he said the three environments, he gestured to them in turn and Disillusionment charms were removed, revealing the challenge areas. There was a pier that had been built out into the lake with balls floating on the surface of the water holding up softly glowing nets that separated a large part of the lake from the rest, obviously creating a marked area for the water part of the task. The sky wasn't given any boundaries, but the strange transparent purple bubbles that appeared over the ground that sat next to the Black Lake and the Forbidden Forest were all that was needed to say where they were meant to be. There looked to be a similar barrier around a section of the forest as there was in the lake, but they could only see the edges of it as it disappeared into the trees.
"The task will last for one hour, and the keys that count are the ones that are in the possession of a champion when the time runs out. This isn't a seeker and the snitch scenario, it isn't over when it's caught; the champions need to keep ahold of them. Now some of you must be wondering how you will be able to watch anything? We will be debuting a new piece of magic today, the 'Remote Eye' developed by Jasper Hawks, a former seeker for Puddlemere United. The Remote Eye is set to revolutionize spectating the game of Quidditch by letting the crowd see what the players see. This small device is placed around the eye, and then everything the wearer sees is projected into a crystal ball. All our champions will be wearing them today and we will get to see things from their point of view!"
The crowd cheered at the announcement, and even Harry felt a grin cross his face as he imagined being able to watch a Quidditch game from the point of view of a player. Depending on the range of those orbs he might even get see the the next World Cup; after all, it would be a lot easier for a group of people to pay 10 gallons each and send one person to watch the match wearing the eye part than it would be for each of them to spend 200 galleons on a ticket (although the price was only that high for the final of the World Cup, club level games were as little as a single galleon sometimes). And if the remote eye was reusable, then maybe Tom or Rosmerta would foot the bill for one and then make their money back in drink sales like pubs did in the mundane world. Though even as that thought occurred to him, he doubted that mundane pubs had to pay a thousand pounds to show a single match, so there would need to be some fees involved for big games, but if you spread the cost out enough then that fee wouldn't be too bad.
Harry's thoughts were interrupted by Hermione elbowing him in the ribs and muttering at him to stop thinking about Quidditch and focus. She was right, there was a dangerous task for them to face. Harry refocused on what the blowhard was saying. "Our champions now have five minutes to make any final preparations and then the task will begin." Final preparations turned out to be a bunch of techs coming and applying the face component to the bony ridges at the top and bottom of one of their eyes. The 'camera' parts were made out of what felt like a type of soft rubber and Harry had to admit to himself that they weren't at all uncomfortable.
There was just enough time for them to finish getting ready. Harry made sure that they all had the bracelets he had made for them, and Hermione pulled out the glass visor that Harry had made for her out of her robes, before she pulled off her robes revealing a mundane wet suit underneath that he had added runes to to keep her warm. The visor was designed to cover her face and to provide Hermione with good breathable air. Harry's first design had been heavily inspired by a scuba mask he had seen in a James bond film once, but that design had needed a regular sub mouthpiece to work and she had pointed out that she wouldn't be able to cast spells with that in her mouth, so he had redesigned it so that she could have a pocket of air in front of her face. The bracelets were rather crude by comparison to Harry's other inventions. There were three sets of two, and if you fed a little magic into one of them then it's partner would warm up and vibrate. It was a simple system for calling for help, as they planned to split up for this task. They had developed a few simple messages that they could send through them, but the range on them was incredibly limited. Harry was wearing the bracelet connected to Hermione's on his left wrist and Fleur's on his right.
There was a surprising amount of noise coming from the crowd as Harry was running through his mental checklist to make sure there wasn't anything he had forgotten, and he was surprised when Fleur elbowed him in the ribs before she leaned in and whispered in his ear. "Harry, you might want to stop staring at Hermione's ass. Your remote eye is projecting that view to everyone." Harry panicked as he realised that whilst he was thinking he had been unconsciously staring at Hermione's backside in the tight wetsuit. They hadn't been able to modify the wetsuit for Hermione's tail in time for the task, so she was wearing her tail sock under the suit. He looked around at the stands, and there were now twelve ten-foot-wide crystal balls floating in the air in front of the stands, each with a wizard or witch underneath it. The witch holding up Harry's was quickly lowering it to the ground to provide some measure of dignity to Hermione. however the orb was now showing something like the infinity mirror trick as he looked at it. The witch lowering the orb didn't see that as she was shooting Harry a glare, though whether it was for him staring at a witch's backside or because it was being broadcast to the crowd he had no clue. He also had no time to ponder it as Bagman started counting down.
"Ten… nine…" the crowd started to join in. "...eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one" only the crowd counted one, Bagman instead blew a whistle, and the task had begun. Hermione ran for the pier, leading the group of champions that included Roger Davies, Marcus Flint and Marie DeVilliers. At the same time Fleur took off towards the forest, though she was behind Alexander DeVilliers, Leonid Poliakuff, Emilia Ivanova and Cedric Diggory. At first, Harry was a little taken aback by the fact that both the Hogwarts team and the Durmstrang team had each decided to commit two champions to one area, but then he remembered the clues. Hogwarts only had one (he guessed the lake one) and Durmstrang only had two, likely air and ground. With only one clue, Hogwarts had put everything into swimming; however, once they realized that one was on land they sent one into the forest. Durmstrang was following their plan and that was probably to leave one of the best flyers in the world to deal with the skies while the other two dealt with the land based tasks.
Harry raised his wand and shouted 'Accio Firebolt', only to realise there was an echo just behind him as Krum was doing the exact same thing. He felt a strange mix of dread and elation that they were obviously using the same strategy, Harry was going to get the opportunity to fly against one of the best flyers in the world, and because he was flying against one of the world's top seekers, he was going to look like an amateur who could barely fly in front of hundreds of people.
Hermione had worked out after they had opened the chests that you could actually use an item made by someone else as long as you don't start the task with it, so as long as Harry summoned his broom then there was no breaking of the letter of the rules, even if it did break the spirit of them. As his broom came flying towards him, and Krum's was doing the same, Harry spared a glance at Ali, who was throwing aside a set of wings that she and the DeVilliers must have been working on and raised her wand. "Accio Comet 260!" she yelled; apparently the Beauxbatons team hadn't worked out that you could summon a broom and had created something, which he would love to look at after the task, but it was apparently not as good as a broom. Seeing what the other two were doing, she adapted; however her broom, while a good strong choice for a broom, wasn't even as good as a Nimbus, let alone a Firebolt, and Harry's and Krum's brooms were already arriving. Krum's broom had less distance to travel, coming from the Durmstrang ship whereas Harry's was coming from his dorm, so Krum grabbed his broom and was off a full two seconds before Harry. The two shot up towards the strange floating bubbles that made up their task. Harry started to fly around them and examine them, but there didn't seem to be anything about them; they were just slowly moving, floating purple bubbles. He tried to cast a spell on them only for the spell to vanquish as it touched the bubble.
Three and a half years in the magical world had taught him not to touch strange magical things about which nothing is known, and even though Harry doubted that whoever had designed this task had added floating bubbles that would kill anyone who touched them, he had already had one task try to kill him so he wasn't going to take any chances. Harry accio'ed a lump of dirt from the ground, knowing that it would come with some grass on it. Then, he tried to feed the grass through the bubble he was examining. As the dirt and grass passed through the bubble, he was relieved that it remained unchanged, but as soon as the last part of the lump of dirt and plants passed into the bubble it fell, no longer supported by Harry's magic. He now had a suspicion about what these bubbles did, and as he reached his left arm out and pushed it into the bubble there was a soft tingle as his arm passed through the surface of the bubble. Harry tried to send a quick message to Hermione through his bracelet, two quick pulses that meant 'Things are good here, how are you doing?' However, he couldn't push any magic out of his arm and into the bracelet. He pulled his arm back and quickly tried the bracelet again, and this time his magic flowed into the ring of copper that was encircling his wrist. A few moments later he felt it warm and vibrate in two sort pulses, the 'All's good here' answer.
So the bubbles were some type of magic suppression area, but the effects were limited to the inside of the bubble. If Harry was to try flying through it, then his broom would probably stop working until he was out of the bubble again. However, there had to be more to this task than that. It wasn't like there was a key in the middle of each bubble and you just had to get to it, there were about twenty bubbles and only four keys. And the clue had shown the keys with wings, like the time in first year when Dumbledore hid the philosopher's stone in an expanded space under the third floor corridor.
Harry started to fly around looking for one of the keys. They weren't snitches, so it didn't take him long at all; they didn't seem to be trying to hide either, they just flew around. He put on a burst of speed, weaving in and out of the purple bubbles trying to get to the flying key, but he wasn't having any luck. Any time he got near one, it seemed to fly into one of the bubbles, only they were able to keep flying unaffected by the bubble. He looked around at the other two flyers. Krum seemed to be doing better than Harry, though not by much. The international-level seeker was getting close enough that he was able to try grabbing it, but much to the Bulgarian's obvious annoyance the keys were able to evade him. Ali was having more trouble. She was not a bad flyer, but her slower broom was hardly a help to her.
Krum was now barreling towards Harry chasing a key. He waited, hoping to get a chance at snatching the keys as it went past, but the key swerved to Harry's right and Harry had to join the pursuit. He wasn't able to get ahead of Krum, his seeker reflexes saw Harry as a rival seeker in pursuit of the snitch, and any time Harry moved to go around Krum the professional would drift a little in the same direction as Harry, increasing the distance the younger seeker would need to travel to get up level and have a chance to catch the key. Finally, Harry saw something he was expecting for a while now, but the outcome was the exact opposite. Krum reached out and caught the key, Harry actually saw his fist close around the key, but instead of there now being a key with fluttering wings clenched in the hand of the seeker the key continued to fly on unobstructed. It had passed through krums hand like a ghost.
Things started to click into place in Harry's head: the flying keys were spelled to make them intangible somehow, and while they could fly in the anti magic bubbles he would bet that they were completely solid inside the bubble. The charm making them insubstantial would probably end as soon as they were caught. Krum seemed to have reached the same conclusion as Harry, because now the key of which Harry had joined in the chase had flown into a bubble, and Krum was flying around the bubble, leaning and reaching in at the key whenever it flew close to the outside. The key wasn't exactly cooperative; it kept turning around and going back to the center of the bubble as Krum flew around to the side it was getting close to. Harry looked over at Ali to see how she was getting on. The French champion had seen what Krum was doing and she was now doing the same. Harry was just about to do what they were in an attempt to get a key when he had a sudden brainwave, so he flew over the purple bubble that Krum was circling and watched. He could have just as easily gone for the key Ali was trying to catch,, but Ali was a friend and it was far easier for Harry to convince himself to swipe the key from the Bulgarian he barely knew.
Harry flew up so that he was over the bubbles and looked down on them. He waited for the key that Krum was after to reach the center of the bubble, then he dove down aiming for the top of the bubble. He hadn't tried a dive like this on his Firebolt before, but it wasn't too dissimilar to when he had used a faint last year that led to Draco destroying his own broom, the only difference was this time he was actually trying to catch something and he would need to restart his broom after flying through the bubble. As soon as the tip of the broom touched the purple skin of the bubble, Harry lost all control of his broom to Sir Isaac Newton. His instincts were to get his broom going again, but he had to fight them. Instead Harry focused on the key that was now turning to fly down and away from him. The problem for the key was that because he had come straight down he hadn't encountered any bubbles that he needed to turn around, and so he hadn't needed to sacrifice his speed for maneuverability and was falling much faster than the key was flying. Harry reached out with his left hand, being sure to keep his other on his broom. Less than a foot from the bottom of the bubble, his hand closed on the key and there was a small pop of magic. Half a second later, when he passed through the bottom of the bubble, he could still feel the key and its wings fluttering against his hand.
Harry had no time to celebrate though, as if he didn't do something soon he was going to get to know the ground far too much for his liking. Harry pulled up on his broom hard, but for a split second nothing happened and he was terrified that he had killed his broom and himself with it. However, he then felt the power of the Firebolt kick in and he pulled up as hard as he could. It was really close, he even caught the shoe of his right foot on one of the stray boulders that littered the grounds of Hogwarts. It didn't feel like he had broken anything, but he would probably have one hell of a bruise tomorrow. He looked to see what Krum and Ali were doing now, and Krum was looking at him in a way that Harry had seen a few times before but that he had never expected to see from someone like Krum. The Bulgarian's look was that of a seeker who was disappointed in not catching the snitch but also impressed by the way Harry had done it. Ali, however, looked at him like he had just kicked a puppy, and it was only then that he remembered she wanted to be a healer and disapproved of Quidditch (or more accurately, the stunts that Quidditch players did that resulted in them getting injured). Harry just knew that Madam Pomfrey had just gotten herself some backup for the lecture he was bound to get after the task.
Now with three keys left in this area, the three flying champions set their attention to claiming them, and Harry was just as determined to catch more keys than the others. Ever since the clues showed keys, he and his teammates had been speculating, why keys? The best that they could figure was that the keys would open either some clues to the third task, or they were part of the third task somehow. It was all speculation, but there was one thing they agreed on: the more keys they were able to get, the easier the third task would be, and with someone trying to kill them any advantage was something you wanted.
Harry used a sticking charm to glue the key to his arm and began searching for his next key. He had considered going to get the one Ali had cornered, but she had lost it while she was too busy watching his stunt diving, so Harry was stuck looking for another key on his own. It didn't take long for him to find one. The organisers wanted this task over inside an hour, after all, and as such the keys were nowhere near as good at hiding as a snitch. But he was having the same problem soloing a key that Krum had, he tried diving through the bubble again but without someone there to keep the key near the middle of the bubble it just didn't work.
Harry let the key out of the bubble and began chasing it again hoping that he could grab it just as it entered the next bubble. However, every time the key was just out of his reach when he stopped at the edge of the bubble. Then he saw Krum catch a key and he could have kicked himself at the obviousness of the Bulgarian's new method. He had assumed that because the lump of dirt and grass had dropped straight down once it was inside the field that his broomstick would do the same. That hadn't mattered when he had dropped in from the top, he was going straight down anyway. However, the big difference to what Krum was doing on his broom to what Harry did with his little test was momentum. Harry had been moving the grass slowly, looking to see if the bubble burnt the grass or something, while Krum was flying as fast as he could while chasing the key, so he continued forwards in the bubble before falling, and that was just enough to catch the key.
Now that Harry knew what to do, he was off after the key he had been chasing. However, he could hear Krum coming up behind him. Apparently he still felt a little vindictive over Harry taking the key that Krum himself had been after and was now looking to return the favour. Luckily the bubbles were slowing Krum down, so Harry lay flat on his broom and went all out going for the key. He wasn't able to get his broom up to full speed, but that wasn't anything new; during games of Quidditch he was often weaving in and out of players and the bubbles were only slightly different in size. Krum still caught up to him rather quickly, so Harry was emulating the same tricks that Krum had against him earlier when their roles were reversed, driving across into whatever path Krum tried to use to overtake.
Of course, being a professional seeker, Krum had so much more experience that it didn't help much, and soon he was beside Harry as the key flew into a bubble directly ahead. Both the seekers went for it, flying into the bubble at high speed. They both reached out for the key, Krum a little ahead, but the key turned a little to get away from the one closest to it, putting itself at equal distance between the two. Two hands closed on the key at the same time, but Harry was lucky enough to get the wider back of the key whilst Krum got the smooth key shaft, and all it took was a little tug from Harry and the key slid out of Krum's fingers. He then pulled out of the dive, which was a lot easier when the momentum was still carrying you forward. Harry was just about to see if he could grab the last key in the air, but he suddenly felt the band on his left wrist warm up and start vibrating constantly. That signal could only mean one thing: Hermione was in trouble.
A/N
Love bite* - British slang for what I believe in America you call a hickey