Thank you to all of my 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 36 and 37 are already upon pat re on just add /Lowten to the Url.

I know I said there might not be an update this week but I got an update finished last night and my beta the amazing guy he is managed to get it done in one night. so you get it today yay!

Chapter 35 by Land, Sea and Air pt-2

The whistle blew and Fleur took off towards the forest. The other champions running to the forest all put on a burst of speed and sprinted there, but Fleur decided that a brisk jog was probably a better idea. She, Harry, and Hermione had done a lot of physical conditioning for the tournament and she knew her limits well, but it would not do for her to exhaust herself at the start of the task. It was a marathon, not a sprint.

It didn't take Fleur long to reach the tree line, even if it took twice as long as anyone else. As soon as she was under the canopy of the trees, there was an instant change in the feel of the air. Whereas before she had been out in the sunshine (even if it was chilly sunshine being November in Scotland), now the atmosphere was dark, almost foreboding. Fleur didn't know if it was just the trees blocking the light with their thick canopies, if it was something added for the tournament, or if it was some innate property of the forest. Harry and Hermione called it the Forbidden Forest, after all, and you don't tend to forbid nice, lively, happy places.

She looked around and tried to get her bearings. There was only a few seconds difference between her entering the forest and the people ahead of her, yet even now she couldn't see any of them. Despite knowing that she was within a stone's throw of a castle and a stadium filled with people watching her, Fleur couldn't help but feel isolated and alone. She started to walk forward, as it would be a bad idea to try and run in here; the ground was uneven and the low light made tripping over a tree root or a random stone a distinct possibility.

The minutes started to tick past and nothing much seemed to happen, there were just a lot of big, dark trees around her. Fleur was getting uneasy, surely something should have happened by now: some hint of where the key was or an obstacle that she should have run into. The longer she didn't encounter anything, the more uneasy she felt. Harry had told her about his trips into the forest, and some of the things that lived here didn't actually sound so bad, like the unicorns and centaurs. Unicorns were pretty placid if you left them alone, and Veela had a much better relationship with centaurs than regular witches and wizards. Veela had faced a lot of the same discrimination as the centaurs, and while things had gone well for Veela by comparison, they understood the centaurs in a way regular wix couldn't. No, the problem was going to be things like the colony of acromantula that Harry said he had run into. Individual acromantula weren't too difficult to deal with, but they were intelligent enough to hunt in packs if the threat they faced was strong enough. Living as close as they did to the school and Hogsmeade, any giant spiders she came across would assume she was magical - and therefore, a threat.

Fleur walked around some more, looking for anything that might be a clue to completing the task. What else could she do? It wasn't until about ten minutes in that she saw something. It was almost nothing, just a flicker of light in the corner of one of her eyes, but hher instincts told her it was something. She turned towards where the light came from and made off in that direction, quickening her pace slightly yet still refusing to run and risk tripping over the roots and rocks. After a few moments (and going around a rather large tree) she saw it: a glowing key that had the feet, tail and ears of a rabbit. Relief washed through the French teen and she ran forward, intent on picking up the rabbit key, only for the key to react exactly like a rabbit would and run away.

Fleur lit her wand and chased after the rabbit-like key. Even with the extra light, she found running at any kind of speed through the forest impossible, and it seemed like the key wanted to be chased (or whoever had enchanted it hadn't given it the speed of a real rabbit), as she was unable to catch the key but could keep its glowing form in sight. She tried to think of a solution, because she knew that if she just kept running after the key she would quickly wear herself out and still wouldn't have the key. One of Fleur's biggest current problems was if she wanted to cast spells then she would need to put out her Lumos spell, she couldn't keep that up and cast another spell at the same time, but she couldn't keep up with the key if couldn't see where she was putting her feet.

She was quickly running down her mental list of spells trying to think of one that would provide the light she needed. She did consider trying to conjure a lamp, but unfortunately her pure conjuration skills were not up to the task. Suddenly, a solution came to her that was so simple she wanted to shout at herself for being so stupid. Fleur called on her Veela heritage, let a little of her magic flow, and gloved her left hand in fire. The fire wasn't as bright as the Lumos spell, but it was sufficient for her to keep running in the dark forest, and now with her one free hand she pointed it toward the rabbit and cast Stupefy. However, as expected, running in a tangle of roots was not the easiest thing, and trying to hit something as small and agile as a rabbit was even harder still. Her first shot was wide by more than a metre, and while her second charge was closer it was barely enough to be called an improvement.

On her last attempt she would have hit the rabbit spot-on, but unfortunately just before the spell hit the rabbit changed direction and dove into a burrow that she was sure hadn't been there a few moments before. Fleur let out a string of French that, if her mother had been around to hear, would have gotten her a lecture on appropriate language, but given how often Fleur had heard her mother use the same words Fleur wasn't particularly worried. She leaned on a tree for a couple of minutes catching her breath - chasing rabbits was exhausting. After a couple of minutes, however, the key came hopping back out of its burrow, and once it saw Fleur standing nearby the chase was on again. She ran after the rabbit key again, but this time she was only looking to keep up with it enough to give herself time to think of a solution.

Running and thinking at the same time wasn't exactly easy either, though. It took Fleur about five, maybe even ten minutes before she came up with an idea. She raised her wand and took aim at the rabbit key and began firing stunning spells. It didn't really matter how good she was shooting at a running rabbit-like construct, it was always going to be a matter of averages; if she shot enough times, eventually she was going to hit something. This time it took 8 shots before she would have hit the rabbit, and again it dove into a burrow that had not been there before. This time, however, instead of being frustrated and getting dejected at the loss of her quarry, Fleur began casting the same shields that she had taught to Hermione in preparation for the first task.

Her plan was to completely enclose the burrow in a circle of stone, and when the key re-emerged she would just be able to grab it. Fleur had to completely encircle one of the forest's trees, but the spell work had been simple enough; while creating walls from the ground wasn't as easy as turning a twig into a match, it wasn't exactly N.E.W.T. level magic either. She waited directly over the burrow, but the key didn't emerge in the first five minutes. She was distinctly aware of the time limit and felt that she at least needed to try something different, but for once she got lucky and her first idea seemed to be right. There must have been a proximity sensor involved where the key would not emerge if she was too close to the entrance of the burrow. Almost as soon as she slid behind the tree to a point where she could still watch from further away but still inside the circle of stone that surrounded the barrow, the key climbed out of its hole.

Fleur immediately dove after it. The key was faster, though, and all she got was dirty robes as she overbalanced trying to follow the key as it shot to her right. She quickly got to her feet and ran after the key, but even in this enclosed space the key was still faster and more maneuverable, and with the tree there it was almost impossible for her to grab the key as it always leapt around the tree to put it between them. Fleur tried chasing it clockwise for a few times around the tree, and then turned and ran the other way hoping to catch the key as it came around (that was how she used to catch her little sister when she was smaller running around the dinner table). However, the key was much faster to react than Gabby had ever been and turned and ran the other way.

Unfortunately, Fleur was so caught up in chasing the key that she had forgotten the warnings that Harry and Hermione had given her about the forest. All of the people in the forest, first the tournament organisers who had set up the perimeter and enchanted the keys and now the champions, had attracted the attention of some of the forest inhabitants. The centaurs were told of what was going on and avoided the area (wanting little to do with wand carriers) and the unicorns naturally avoided all humans anyway. However, one of the denizens of the forest didn't see something to avoid - it saw what might be an easy meal, and now it saw that one of the invaders of its hunting ground had even trapped itself in a wall of earth.

Fleur didn't even realise she was in any danger until the key dove into another of its instant burrows even though she hadn't cast a spell at it. Thinking that one of the other champions had found her and was trying to catch the key for themselves, she finally looked up, right into a collection of eight eyes that were set into an upside down head attached to a body with too many long hairy legs that it was using to hang from a net of thin gossamer threads laid over the top of the stone pen Fleur had created to hem in the key. She had just enough warning to throw herself forward and under the giant spider to the other side of it as it leapt at her, its fangs dripping with venom. On instinct, Fleurs' Veela heritage came to life; her face lengthened not unlike a werewolf transformation at the beginning, but while the werewolves' features transformed into canine features, her face became a sharp hooked beak. In addition, wings burst from her shoulders, and her hands transformed into claws. This would have been intimidating enough for most people, but Fleur called up the fire that was her birthright and cloaked her off hand in fire. Unlike earlier when she had called on the fire for light, this time it was fear that had called the fire to her and it burned hot enough that it instantly burned away the sleeves of her robes and the bracelet that connected her to Hermione.

The acromantula suddenly seemed to realise that it hadn't trapped some helpless bit of prey in here with it, but that it had trapped itself in with a predator that was just as dangerous as itself. If the acromantula had been a strategic thinker it might have tried to see if she would have let it retreat unchallenged, but it never considered that possibility and attacked Fleur, charging at her for the second time. Fleur tossed a ball of fire in its face, hoping to destroy its eyes, and despite doing damage most of the eyes were still perfectly fine. The acromantula did just have a bright ball of light shoved in its face, so even without causing damage the spider was still blinded for a few moments. In that time, Fleur dove to one side, tossing a second ball of fire as soon as she landed, followed by a nonverbal cutting charm. Both hit, but unfortunately Fleur was still getting the hang of nonverbal casting (and she couldn't exactly say the words when she had a beak instead of lips), so her spell didn't have quite the power it normally would.

The spider, after clearing the spots from its vision, charged Fleur again. This time, however, she wasn't fast enough to get away and was knocked to the floor, and only the acromantula's unwillingness to try and bite past the arm covered in fire kept it from sinking its fangs into her as it stood over her. However, it had also exposed its underside to her wand. Fleur didn't have long to think, but as she had been drilling into Hermione in combat, it was better to strike early with the wrong spell than it was to spend time working out what the right spell was, so she tried one of the easiest combat spells she knew, a first year spell that even nonverbal she shouldn't have any trouble with.

"Petrificus Totalus!"

Either she had gotten lucky and hit a weak spot, or a single acromantula just wasn't as dangerous as people thought, because the spider standing over her stiffened and stopped moving. Fleur quickly scrambled out from under the monster and tried to think what to do, and she realised that her spell wasn't going to hold such a large magical creature for long. Still with adrenaline pumping in her veins, Fleur put the tip of her wand directly into the forehead of the spider, concentrated for a few moments, and then cast a non-verbal piercing spell.

The effect was immediate and messy, but undeniably effective. She leaned against the tree and spent the next five minutes calming herself down. She hadn't had this problem with killing the constructs in the first task because they weren't alive, but acromantula according to the literature she had read (and according to Harry) were capable of human speech and were sentient creatures. While Fleur believed that her actions were definitely justified, emotionally it wasn't as easy to accept.

After those five minutes, she was able to pull herself together enough to remember that she was in the middle of the second task and that she had to catch the key. She looked up to check the webs to make sure there wasn't another spider; originally she was planning on just burning the webs, but she realized they might prove useful in another way. She raised her wand and started slicing the webs that were over the burrow and sticky gossamer strands landed all over the floor around it. If she was lucky, the key would get caught on the webs and she would be able to walk up and grab it. Indeed, for once everything went as planned, the key got caught up in the webbing and Fleur was able to retrieve it. Now if she could just remember her way out of this damned forest.

-ϟϟϟ-

Harry turned his broom around and shot towards the lake. He fished around inside his robes pocket looking for his own visor like Hermione's, only sized to fit his own face. He flashed magic through his bracelet connected to Hermione, telling her he was on his way, and the bracelet gave a long continuous pulse in response from Hermione. All the while she fed a little of her magic into the connection, and Harry was able to get a direction towards her. He dismounted his broom and left it on the shore along with his robes and shoes. Unfortunately, he didn't have a nice wetsuit enchanted to keep him warm like Hermione had, as there had only been the time to enchant the one and they had hoped that would be all they needed, so going into a Scottish lake in February was going to suck. Still, Harry didn't hesitate; he pressed the visor to his face, and as soon as he felt the sticking charms take hold he jumped into the lake.

Under the lake was like a totally different world. He couldn't see very far due to the murkiness of the water, but from what he could see it was vastly different to what it was like on the surface. Beds of short kelp that almost looked like grass fields, with occasional larger pieces that looked like a crazy cross between a tree and a rope. It was vastly different to the 'landscape' he had seen when he went scuba diving in the Mediterranean over the summer. He pressed on as fast as he dared, memories of Professor Lupin's classes on grindylows and kelpies playing in his mind, yet every warning he remembered from class was set against knowing that Hermione needed help, and as the bracelets couldn't communicate how much danger someone was in he had to assume that Hermione needed help as soon as possible.

Harry did come across a couple of grindylows, but a couple of quick cutting charms was enough to make them scatter. It took him some time to locate Hermione, the cold water sapping his energy and leaving him tired, but when he found her he was relatively surprised to find her perfectly fine, just completely without her wand, her wand summoning ring, and without a visor to let her breath. The only reason she was sitting on a rock waiting for him was that someone had conjured a bubble of air that Hermione was sitting inside of, completely unable to leave.

Harry was just about to enter the bubble when Hermione started waving her arms at him and shouting. "No! No! You'll pop the bubble!" Her voice was distorted by the water, but Harry was able to understand her so he stopped short.

"What happened!?" Harry had to shout a few times before Hermione could hear him.

"Davies and Flint ambushed me! They disarmed me and grabbed my ring away! As they are both wood, they just floated off, and then Davies and Flint took my visor and left me here in this bubble! It's too far for me to swim to the surface on my own!" Hermione explained.

Harry nodded to Hermione that he understood, it was a lot easier than trying to shout through the water. He had to see if he could get Hermione's visor back, if she was removed from the risk of drowning then that was a good 80% of the problem sorted. Harry tried the simplest solution first, one that Davies and Flint wouldn't have thought they needed to block given how they had disarmed Hermione of her wand, and summoned it.

It was slower than normal, the water a bigger resistance than air, but the visor did come floating up to Harry. He looked it over and was shocked to find that the pair hadn't needed to prevent anyone from summoning the visor, they had just put a hole in it. Right in the middle of the glass plate was a large hole that, if he had to guess, was the result of a piercing hex. Harry examined the visor looking at what exactly the damage was, luckily the rune work was fine as the hole wasn't anywhere near the etchings that he had hidden under the soft leather he had used to form an airtight seal between Hermione's face and the glass.

Harry tried a simple Reparo spell on the glass and that helped some by fixing the cracks that spidered out from the hole in the mask, but the glass that made up the hole was gone and couldn't be fixed. He was sure someone like McGonagall or even Fleur could transfigure the glass so that it was thinner over all and the hole would close up, but that was beyond his current skills. He was definitely going to look into learning how to do that in the future, and while he was at it he was going to redesign his summoning ring so that only the person who put it on could remove it, as well as his visor to resist spells like piercing hexes.

Harry tried to consider what he could do. He could try giving Hermione his visor and try for the surface without one, but he didn't think she would take it. He could perhaps go and try and find enough glass to fix it, but that would probably take time they didn't have, as neither of them knew when that bubble would give out. Then Harry realised he didn't need to fix it with glass, as long as it was airtight and sealed that would be all Hermione needed to get to the surface again. He found a pebble, and a quick cutting charm was all it took to create a flat surface that was larger than the hole. A sticking charm, and now the visor was at least somewhat functional again; it would probably leak a little air but it would do for now.

During Harry's little field repair, Hermione was pacing back and forth, constantly shouting at Harry and asking him what was going on. The low light at this depth of the Lake wasn't enough for her to be able to really see what he was doing, and the fact that he was concentrating and only giving Hermione a few basic hand gestures to say everything was fine wasn't exactly helping her calm her anxiety. But when he was done and showed Hermione her visor, she leapt through the wall of her bubble (popping it instantly) and pressed the visor to her face. Hermione scowled as she had to swallow a mouthful of salt water, but swam over to Harry and pulled him into a hug. When she wrapped her arms around him, she noticed how cold he was. She pressed the glass of her visor up against his ear before she started to speak. "Harry, you're freezing, you need to cast some warming charms on yourself. Now."

Harry felt like an idiot when she said that, he had been so focused on getting to Hermione that he had forgotten about warming charms. The worst part was that he would have probably gotten here sooner if he had remembered them. It took him a few tries to work out how to use the charm underwater, as the warming effect would apply to the water unless the tip of the wand was in contact with the clothes Harry wanted to warm. It was still cold, but it was a lot better now, and Harry had experienced worse while playing Quidditch. He summoned Hermione's wand ring, and it came almost straight down as it had floated straight up to the surface. He gave it to her and she used it to summon her wand.

"So Harry, what should we do now?" She checked her pocket watch that she had charmed to be water resistant and unbreakable. "We still have twenty minutes of the task."

"Well, have all the keys from the lake been caught? Or are we better off trying to get one from one of the other teams?"

"I don't know," Hermione thought for a second. "Davies and Flint caught the key I was chasing but I haven't seen any others. What about you, did you get any?"

Harry pulled up his sleeve and showed Hermione the two keys he had sticking charmed to his arm. "I got two in the air, no clue how Fleur is doing, did you call her for help as well?"

"I tried, but my bracelet wouldn't connect with hers. I thought I might have damaged mine." Harry instantly sent a pulse of his magic into his bracelet connected with Fleur and relaxed when she sent back a signal saying she was fine. He told Hermione who looked relieved at the news.

"I think our best chance is to just see what we find. If we come across a free key we try to catch it, and if we come across one of the others with a key we will see how convenient we feel." Harry suggested. Hermione agreed, and they set off looking for another key. The two of them searched for ten minutes before they found another key, but the water ones swam fast and were slippery. Harry actually managed to catch the key three times, but each time it squirted some type of slime to escape, similar to the gunk that flobberworms secreted that they used to thicken potions.

While Harry acted like a seeker, Hermione used her head. She went round and gathered up a bunch of the rope-like kelp, and with some quick rough transfiguration work she was able to make a couple of nets. She couldn't exactly take credit for this as she had watched Davies and Flint do this exact thing earlier on. Being only a fourth year, Hermione's nets were a lot rougher than theirs, but they were good enough. She handed one of the nets to Harry, and working together they were able to corral the slippery git of a key into a corner that was made by a couple of boulders lying on top of each other. A bit of finagling later and they had captured themselves another key. They considered trying to find another, but Hermione checked her watch again and found that there were only 5 minutes left on the task, so they decided to start swimming back to the shore, hoping that they wouldn't be penalised for being late back to the platform.

-ϟϟϟ-

They needn't have worried, as it turned out; the remote viewer eyepieces had also been enchanted to be portkeys. As soon as the task ended, they were all teleported straight back to the starting platform. This led to a cry of indignity from a number of the champions, mostly those who were bone dry and were suddenly splashed by the excess water that came along with the champions that had been in the lake.

The crowd erupted in cheers and applause, but Harry and Hermione completely ignored them and instead pulled a protesting Fleur into a hug. They were soon interrupted by the ever-present voice of the tournament, as Bagman once again gave his commentary. "And there you have it ladies and gentlemen, the second task! First, the flying challenge: both Mr. Potter and Mr. Krum scored two keys. Unfortunately for Miss Alison Tucker of Beauxbatons, the only other champion to attempt the flying challenge, both Mr. Potter and Mr. Krum are demons on broomsticks. I hope that one day I will get to see them competing against each other on the Quidditch pitch, that would be a match to see!" The stands again erupted into cheering and applause, it seemed that they all agreed that they too would want to see a match between Harry Potter and Victor Krum.

"Next, let's take a look at the Forbidden Forest, all four teams sent at least one person into the forest with the team from Durmstrang sending two. Every single one of them was able to return with one key. Most of the judges agree that special commendation should be given to Miss. Delacour, who not only faced the challenge of the task but also had to fight off a wild acromantula!" Whispers and murmurs broke out in the crowd at this statement and Harry and Hermione pulled Fleur into another hug, This time she didn't protest, just hugged them back tighter. "While we are not giving out points in this tournament, it should again be noted that a member of the international team has faced a tougher challenge than the other teams." Again the crowd celebrated, but this time they could hear a large number of the Beauxbâtons students shouting Fleur's name in celebration.

"And finally we come to the lake challenge. The interschool team committed one team member, as did Beauxbâtons; however, the Hogwarts team committed two of theirs to the challenge. This proved to be a good strategy for Hogwarts, as after a run in with the interschool team member, they were able to capture two keys. Miss Granger of the interschool team was somehow able to call for the aid of Mr. Potter, who abandoned trying to catch his third key in the air challenge and rushed to Miss Granger's aid, and together they were able to retrieve one more key from the lake. The champion from the Beauxbâtons team was also able to retrieve one key. The scores for this challenge are as follows: Beauxbâtons has moved to the bottom of the table with two keys! Durmstrang and Hogwarts have both moved up and are in joint-second with three keys each! And in the lead with four keys, the interschool team! The champions are advised to keep hold of the keys as they will be essential to the last task, which will be on June 24th. The champions will be told what the task is exactly one Lunar month before then. Congratulations champions, you all did yourselves and your schools proud."

With the task obviously officially over now, Madam Pomfrey came striding up and guided all of the champions into her medical tent to make sure all of them were OK. Harry found himself very happy with the blanket she placed around his and every other sodden champion's shoulders before she followed up by dosing them with pepperup potion. Bowels burning and ears steaming, both Harry and Hermione turned to Fleur to find out what happened with the acromantula.

A/N

The fish key's defence is inspired by the hagfish but Harry, Hermione and the wizarding world would be far more familiar with flobberworms than hagfish.