The day had gone by smoothly and for once Harry enjoyed spending time with his… family. His sister was there, the Dursleys were there and they didn't embarrass him or belittle him or… anything else for that matter. They actually stood up for him. Petunia protected him to the best of her ability, Vernon verbally defended him, and Dudley wasn't an asshole. Hermione was there with him the whole time, and while Snape was there, he was as invisible as possible. Which he thought was impossible considering he always had an imposing presence, but it appeared that the man could be… a human, surprisingly.

He was surprised that he didn't see his best mate, Ron. He figured they were going to meet up, but then he ran into his mom and that whole… thing. He hoped Ron didn't get the wrong idea if he heard anything, but knowing his friend he probably did and that's why he never showed up. Hermione however didn't seem to care one way or the other, which was probably for the best since they would have probably started a fight.

He felt like he was on cloud nine, he had a picnic with family and friends. He had a normal day, for the most part. It was spectacular. He only hoped that it wasn't his last day on Earth, or that would explain why he had such a great time.

He tried not to think about it, but Professor McGonagall found them and let them know that it was time for the evening feast and they should use that time to get ready for the final task. The family was invited to send off the Champions in the Champions' tent before they were led to their reserved seats. She did warn them that the Headmaster had granted the Weasleys permission to sit in the reserved seats to watch the task. Her brisk no nonsense tone made it hard for others to see if she approved or disapproved.

However all those who had been taught by her were able to tell she disapproved by the way she tilted her head.

"Good luck on your task. I expect you all to do your schools proud. Do remember to hold your heads high, you are champions," she said firmly.

She was stiff and perfectly herself, but the champions took her speech to heart and it was a good morale boost they didn't even know they needed. Even their families stood straighter, proud of their family members for being part of the tournament.

She led them to the Great Hall where they were to be seated, Hermione cleared off the end farthest away from the staff table. She had noticed that the Minister and Ludo Bagman were back and joined the staff table. Bagman was cheerful while Fudge looked stern sitting next to Madame Maxine. Harry subtly nudged Hermione and pointed, both of them noticing that her eyes were red and it seemed as though she had either been crying or was about to cry. Hermione felt her hair fluff up with indignation knowing that Fudge blamed her simply because she was half giantess. Harry noticed that Hagrid kept glancing down the table at them.

There were more courses than usual, but Harry ate what he could and Hermione did the same. The Dursleys were amazed and tried a little bit of everything. They had admitted to themselves that they were jealous if Harry got to eat like this every night.

"There's extra courses this evening," Hermione murmured, making sure her family heard.

She didn't want them to take out anything on Harry before the task with petulant jealousies, knowing by appearance that her uncle and cousin loved a good meal. Her aunt was obviously picky, but had to admit that the house-elves were amazing cooks. The Dursleys were behaving themselves, but were naturally jealous and petty.

Not long after Dumbledore made an announcement that the tournament was going to begin soon, and he would be asking them to make their way down to the quidditch field for the third and final task of the blasted tournament.

He asked the Champions to follow Bagman down to the stadium, and Gyrffindor table cheered as Harry stood up. He was more than thankful however that McGonagall came down and led them instead, even though Bagman was technically near them.

She led them to the Champions' tent before nodding her head and walking away, hoping they would make time before they had to stand on the stadium.

Vernon was surprised at the wistful feeling that arose in him when she left. Even though she was a witch, she was strict and firm, someone he felt would be wonderful to teach Dudley. He knew his son was no angel, and he knew that if that woman was in his life, he would be afraid to step out of line.

The families broke apart for last hugs and kisses. Tatyana hugged her son tightly and pulled him down so she could kiss him and fix his hair one more time. His father wrapped his large hand on his son's shoulder and squeezed tightly with a tight smile on his face. Fleur was on the receiving end of many hugs and kisses.

Harry however was starting to feel awkward until Petunia held onto his shoulder.

"I know you didn't want to be part of this tournament, and I know there's no backing out. However we are… proud to be your family, and we will be rooting for you," she said.

Her grip was firm, but not tight, it was almost comforting.

Vernon patted his back, "Good luck, boy," he said gruffly.

Dudley nodded nervously at his cousin. He wasn't sure what to do. They didn't hug, a high five seemed inappropriate, he didn't want to accidentally break his hand with a fist bump or crack his ribs with a hug. He had beat up his cousin more than enough times to know how to hurt him, he never touched him aside to cause pain so it was more than a bit unnerving. However it appeared that nodding was the proper response and he felt lighter when his cousin returned it.

Hermione however pulled her brother in for a tight hug, squeezing him firmly.

"I will drag you back from the depths of hell and kill you myself if you die in this task, Harry Potter," she said sternly.

Harry grinned and laughed at his sister knowing that she would probably find some way to do it.

The Dursleys quickly smiled at Harry before shuffling out to their seats, Snape was surprisingly close beside them. He was like a shadow and he was doing a fair job at keeping them safe.

No sooner than they left did Dumbledore arrive with a small cup of butterbeer.

"Harry m'boy," he greeted, "Miss Granger. I figured you could do with a quick pick me up before you went out there. It's butterbeer," he said with a wink, his eyes twinkling madly.

"Thanks, Professor," Harry said grabbing the offered drink.

Dumbledore smiled and clapped his hands, appearing pleased with Harry, even though he was internally pleased that he had managed to find a drink that he knew his student liked. It was the perfect way to slip him the potion with the excuse of, liquid luck, ironically enough.

"Good luck, Champions," he said and waltzed back out the way he came, his job done.

Harry looked at the drink and offered it to his sister.

"I don't think I should drink this before I go in," he said with a weak smile.

Hermione smiled in understanding knowing that his stomach either wouldn't be able to hold it or knowing that his bladder would give out first. Either of those scenarios were not on her brother's list of things for the audience to see. So she took the drink and downed it so there was no evidence that it existed at all.

Surprisingly as soon as she was finished Hermione felt... lucky. She knew the only way for that to be possible was if the butterbeer was laced with a potion. The curly haired witch wanted to hit herself in the forehead for not checking the drink beforehand. However that would seem suspicious, to not trust your own Headmaster. So it wasn't worth crying over spilt milk. She had a mission to do, and she was going to do it right.

"Good luck, Harry," she said as she kissed him on the check and flounced out of the tent, disillusioning herself as soon as she turned the corner.

She would be going in with her brother to protect him. She would let him participate in the task as he was supposed to, but she would be his shadow. She would be with him every step of the way and hoped after tonight it would be enough for both of them to survive. While she felt lucky, she knew it was dangerous to rely on that feeling.

Meanwhile she noticed Bagman come over to lead them to the stadium and started talking to her brother and she glared at the man. She knew he was placing bets on her brother and would have liked to kick him where the sun didn't shine. Her brother was a human, not a horse.

The stands started to fill and Hagrid, Moody, McGonagall and Flitwick came to the stadium and approached Bagman and the Champions. All but Hagrid were wearing large red luminous stars on their hats, Hagrid's was on his back.

Hermione had taken advantage of their appearance and silenced her feet, following them so she could stand closer to her brother.

"We are going to be patrolling the outside of the maze. If you get into difficulty and wish to be rescued, send red sparks into the air, and one of us will come and get you, do you understand?" McGonagall said as though she didn't see them less than five minutes ago.

They all nodded.

"Off you go then!" Bagman said cheerfully.

Hagrid quietly wished Harry luck as he was walking off.

Bagman was announcing the points and the order of which the champions would enter the maze. He was riling up the audience and the cheers were deafening.

"So… on my whistle, Harry, Cedric! Three – Two – One –!" Bagman gave a short blast on his whistle, instructing the two Hogwarts' champions to enter the maze.

Hermione quickly followed behind, once again glad for all the running Barty and Moody made her do. She wouldn't be breathing heavily and give herself away. She could have silenced herself as Barty had suggested, but she wanted the advantage of having to whisper a spell if she truly needed to.

As soon as they entered the maze they could no longer hear the audience. Hermione was impressed, either they cast a large sound dampener or placed sound canceling runes around the edges of the maze. It certainly wasn't a ward, which surprised her considering how much easier it would be. But there was more than one way to skin a kneazle.

She watched as Harry and Cedric split at the fork and bolted after Harry. They heard the whistles being blown for Viktor and Fleur, but Hermione was completely focused on her brother. Terrible things were going to happen tonight and she had to make sure he made it back alive. She knew Barty was helping make things easier for Harry so he could get to the trophy… the portkey… before the other champions. If she wasn't aware of the plan she would be just as uneasy as Harry was at the moment.

"Point Me," she heard him whisper, holding his wand flat in his palm.

She raised her eyebrow at her brother. While it gave him a general direction of where to go, it didn't help him decide which paths to take in the maze. Granted it was a spell she helped him with, she felt that he could have used something better.

She was proud of her brother for being wary at how 'easy' the maze was so far considering the danger of the other tasks. She felt a lot better being able to be here with her brother in the task rather than sitting in the audience and hoping for the best. At least she could do something this time.

Hermione heard the movement behind them and kept her wand at the ready while crouching. She was invisible to Harry at the moment and she wasn't keen on being hit with a spell simply because he didn't know she was there.

Thankfully it was just Cedric who had rushed out of a path with the sleeve of his robe smoking. The wizard was clearly shaken by whatever it was he ran into.

"Hagrid's blast-ended skrewts are bloody enormous! I only just got away!" the wizard explained himself.

He looked self-consciously at Harry and then took off into a run again, obviously trying to put as much space between himself and the skrewts.

Hermione wanted to laugh at him even though she knew what he was talking about. Those skrewts were their project for most of the year and with how big they got she supposed they didn't do too poorly with raising the odd creatures. The task was dangerous, but she couldn't help but want to laugh. It really was a task of knowledge considering that a Fourth Year would be able to pass them with a small amount of trouble since they had hands on experience with the monsters.

Harry also had the same idea however and took off at a run, not wanting to be any closer to the blast-ended skrewts any more than he had to. However as he turned a corner he saw a dementor making its way towards him.

It was at taller than Madame Maxine, its face hidden in its hood while its rotting scabbed hands were reaching out for him. Harry felt the familiar cold clamminess wash over him and he scrambled to pull up the happiest thought he could think of. It helped that he had such a wonderful day with his family, with his sister.

"Expect Patronum!"

The familiar silver stag leapt out proudly from Harry's wand and charged the dementor. Yet the dementor didn't disperse or run away, it tripped over the hem of its robes.

Harry stared baffled at the unexpected turn of events. The only other experience he had with something taking the form of a dementor was… "A boggart! Riddikulus!"

Hermione was surprised that even with the lack of laughter the boggart exploded in a wisp of smoke. She wondered if anyone else had stumbled upon that breakthrough. A patronus coupled with a riddikulus would make a boggart explode.

Alas her brother was on the move again and, ever vigilant, she followed.

In front of them was a strange golden mist. Hermione was curious as to how her brother thought he would get by it. She was happy that he didn't just charge through it though. She had her doubts about his common sense from time to time, but it would seem to be something that just rubbed off of Ron. Apparently you could catch stupid, she would be sure to keep her distance.

"Reducto!" he shouted.

Hermione glared at her brother. While she was pleased he didn't run into it, it was a gas. Mist was a gas. The reductor curse was for solid objects!

She watched as Harry thought about his next course of action when they heard a scream.

"Fleur!?" Harry yelled.

There was no answer. Hermione was worried for her blond friend who seemed to get nothing but the short end of the stick in this tournament. Harry was looking all around him trying to figure out where the scream came from.

It was obvious that he decided his friend was worth the risk of the odd mist. He held his breath and ran through, Hermione watched his disbelievingly.

'That moron! For all he knows that could be a flesh dissolving potion in the form of a mist! But for all purposes, "If I hold my breath, I'll be fine!"… At least he did hold his breath,' Hermione mentally grumbled to herself.

She pulled out her wand and started casting reveling spells. She discovered that it was the pollen from a plant, which had planted its roots at the top of the hedges. Unsurprisingly it caught Harry. He was hanging upside down by his right foot, holding his glasses to his face, looking just as terrified as he did first year trapped in devils' snare. Only this time he was alone… at least he thought so. He clenched his eyes tight and Hermione took the opportunity to stun the plant as he decided to try to pull his foot as hard as he could.

Hermione walked slowly past the plant as her brother dropped onto his knees. Would have served him right if he fell on his head. Harry took a deep breath before getting back up and hurrying forward. The witch hurried after the wizard wondering what he would do if she wasn't there. With his reaction to the plant all it would have done was strangle him tighter, didn't his experience with devils' snare teach him anything?

After quite a few dead ends they eventually ran into a blast-ended skrewt. This one was at least 10 feet long, looking more like a giant scorpion than anything. The witch was exasperated but impressed with Hagrid's obviously illegal creature.

"Stupefy!"

Hermione ducked as soon as she heard the spell leave her brother's wand.

'Of all the asinine things!' she thought furiously.

Harry ducked as his spell rebounded off the skrewt's body armor. The skrewt quickly retaliated by blasting a bit of fire from its end. They could both smell burning hair, and Hermione was thankful for once that it was not hers. It was a close call though, but she couldn't even be mad with the damn thing since Harry fired first.

"Impedimenta!" he shouted.

The spell bounced off the hard exoskeleton. Harry stumbled backwards and shouted the spell again, "IMPEDIMENTA!"

Hermione was going to jump in, but was glad that Harry finally hit the blast-ended skrewt's underside. He was right there! Hermione had to take a deep breath as she chalked it up to shock. Not everyone thought clearly when they were in shock. She was still haunted by first year;

"But we haven't got any wood."

They were surrounded by a plant… and they didn't have any wood… she would never let herself live it down.

She followed Harry as he ran like Fluffy was on his heels, she was starting to get a lovely cardio workout. The small breaks were nice as it kept her breath even, even though she was starting to work up a small sweat.

They were heading down a path for a while when they heard Cedric in the path next to theirs.

"What do you think you're doing?"

There was no answer.

"What they hell do you think you're doing!?"

And then they heard Viktor's voice, "Crucio!"

Suddenly all they heard were Cedric's screams. Hermione was privately comparing the tone of the curse to the one cast on her. It was less emotional, like he didn't mean it. It sounded off… she wasn't sure how to explain it, but she knew the pain wasn't as bad as what it could be. However she was trained to handle it, to bypass the pain, Cedric was not.

Harry was blasting a hole into one of the hedges, Hermione cast a few silent reducto's and an impedimenta on it, thus avoiding attracting attention to herself. Granted with Cedric screaming it was pretty hard, but to be on the safe side…

Harry was kicking and struggling, tearing his robes, to make it to the other side of the hedge where Hermione was waiting for him. She didn't look to see what Viktor was doing to Cedric, more concerned that her brother wouldn't be overcome by the plant.

As soon as he made it through, Krum looked up and tried to run for it. Harry shot a stunner that hit the wizard directly in the back.

The green eyed wizard ran over to the Hufflepuff, checking on him. Hermione left Cedric to Harry as she went over to check on her boyfriend. She knew Viktor wouldn't do that and cast a few spells of her own. She couldn't tell anything so she knelt down and opened one of his eyes… it was cloudy and starting to clear up. He was under the imperius when he cast the unforgivable and for some reason she felt lighter and heavier at the same time.

She was glad that he didn't cast the torture curse on his own, more than glad really. However she was disappointed that he wasn't able to throw off the curse. She knew that Barty must have cast it, causing an altercation for Viktor or Fleur being too close to the trophy before Harry. She just wished that he hadn't given such harsh instructions to the wizard.

Further thinking though she realized it was an order that Viktor could have pushed through if he tried hard enough. It was an action so deplorable to most that they would be able to overcome it. Either Viktor was too close to dark magic which left him unable to avoid its tempting call, thus making him want to cast the dark spell, or his will wasn't as strong as he made it seem. Both left a disgusting taste in her mouth.

Thankfully she was able to place his face back in the dirt before her fellow Hogwarts students came over and shot a shower of red sparks over the fallen wizard.

There was a moment of awkward silence as the two wizards checked their surroundings.

There was another awkward moment where Cedric reminded Harry that they should continue with the task. It was hard to imagine that they were still partaking in the tournament and went in the same direction before going their separate ways.

They ran for a while, hitting more dead ends before running into a magnificent creature that had Hermione stunned. How they managed to obtain one for the task was simply beyond her current mental grasp. It was a sphinx. She had the body of an overly large lion. Her clawed paws were huge and she had a long yellowish tail ending in a brown tuft. The head, of course, was that of a woman.

The young witch was mildly surprised that she didn't have the torso of a woman as well, just the head. She supposed that it might be a sub-species thing. She kept her eyes trained on the sphinx hoping that her brother wouldn't be stupid and cast first and ask questions after.

The sphinx was pacing, so she was obviously guarding something since she didn't move from the path.

"You are very near your goal. The quickest way is past me," she said. Her voice was deep and hoarse, as though she hadn't spoken in some time.

"So… so will you move, please?" Harry asked, figuring he'd give it a try.

Hermione smiled at her brother's naïve hopefulness. The sphinx also thought it was cute apparently as she merely answered him instead.

"No. Not unless you answer my riddle. Answer on your first guess – you may pass. Answer wrongly – I will attack. Remain silent – I will let you walk away from me unscathed."