22nd of May 1995 - Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Glencoe Highlands, Scotland.
To say that Harry had been using the time since that first visit back to the Burrow highlighting layer after layer of sweetly gleaming incentives to help tempt the Weasleys to say goodbye to their old home and follow their children into greener pastures might sound a little heavy handed.
Though he was secure enough with his decision to keep his found family close to him to admit it wasn't far off the black and white truth of it.
Space for all the family, local markets and shops that would stock and sell local and imported goods from their nearest neighbours and their growing list of ally nations. Solid school curriculum with class sizes small enough to all but guarantee students that wanted or needed a little extra here or there had access to it along with facilities for higher learning if the kids wanted to keep studying post their 'basic' education rather than join the job force immediately.
State of the art magi-healing facilities both in the schools and Ministry, on top of the hospitals and smaller neighbourhood medi-clinics to make sure there was timely access to help if it was needed. Plus the teams of well trained and vetted mind-healers employed in each.
Convenience stores at almost every street corner that provided quick and easy access to basic resources such as stationery, drinks, snacks, newspapers and magazines. And even fresh ready to go boxed meals that had been introduced to Harry in Japan, made fresh at strategic points of the day with a rotating menu and kept under a - honestly overkill - stasis charm to make sure they stayed fresh and at their intended temperature for customers.
While the boxes themselves were enchanted to return to their correct store for thorough cleaning and reuse once empty. Which made it very easy for the hard working individual access to a fast elf-cooked meal on the way to work, during a quick lunch break or on the way home.
Sirius and Remus had been practically living on them since the first little convenience store of the colourful chain 'Magi-Mart' had opened for business.
Then there was the glittering white sand beaches and merrily rolling waves and coral reef. Or the idyllic gently curving landscape surrounding Skyfall that was just about ideal for picnics. Or the flower gardens that had been popping up around the city thanks to the elves, that included some truly breathtaking places to stroll through for ones evening constitutional or a romantic date.
The Great Library that had had an impressive boom on its construction, meaning it was nearing the halfway point. A major point where he, Sirius and their small and very carefully picked team would be starting work on the mammoth task that was the runic arrays and enchantments that would make the Library a haven of knowledge that would be well protected from time and malicious interference. The same sort of interference that had claimed so many of the world's ancient libraries.
The intensely modern and state of the art law enforcement facilities along with special worded and provisioned mini-stations that dotted the city almost as prolific in number as the convenience stores with permanent portkeys inside that would allow aurors to get around the city quickly for fast responses and to get criminals - when found - off the streets and away from innocent civilians and into holding cells for processing at a rapid clip. Protected to make sure only law enforcement and key government officials could step foot inside so no one could use them as a back door for mischief or worse.
Adding all of that to the tax and employment laws, the anti-discrimination laws and the lush job market and it made for a tempting option for a new home.
Plus all the other stuff, of course.
Harry may have been laying it on a little thick, throwing in the benefit of magic trams and brooms and magic carpets for easy city wide conveyance, along with bountiful public access permanent portkeys that were dotted about to save time and to keep foot traffic moving at a quick clip without having to resort to something less savory like automobiles that would foul the air and clutter their roads.
Which was a good idea since some of their magical races that had been thinking allowing promotion of Volstar to their people as a suitable home choice were particularly sensitive to pollution, which had driven them further and further from mundane expansion over the years.
So he'd been pointing out any and every selling point to try and entice both Mr. and Mrs. Weasley away from the home of more than a decade to somewhere completely new in the hope that it would be enough to outweigh the deep emotional attachment they had to the Burrow.
They had shortlisted a few of the house plans that Harry had drawn up for them that they had liked, though they hadn't gotten the number lower than three potential home designs if they did go through with the move.
They had instead left Harry with the promise that they would take today, the day of the final Tri-Wizard task to hold a family meeting since most of the Weasleys would all be at Hogwarts to spectate or as part of Harry's entourage. They would be discussing the move as a family in true Weasley fashion and give him their final answer after all the tournament mess was finally done with and he had one less thing dragging on his focus.
Speaking of the Tournament, it was just past noon and classes had been cancelled for the day to let everyone soak in the excited atmosphere and give all the staff that were offering up their assistance to the event, to prepare themselves and go over their own responsibilities one last time.
Meanwhile the students had been making good on their free time and were either swamping the merchandise stalls or getting in bets on the various possible outcomes of the task.
Though the latter was obviously done as covertly as hundreds of teens and pre-teens could do something.
Which is to say, not at all.
Not that the professors were making any move to put a stop to it. Harry had already been reliably informed by none other than Dumbledore, McGonagall and Flitwick that they all had money riding on his various successes.
Oh, and Slughorn.
Though honestly Harry still wasn't overly sure what if anything he wanted to do regarding the man and his merry attempts at hobnobbing.
Odd teachers that probably shouldn't be tacitly encouraging - or participating in - gambling aside, he and the other champions had been given their briefing regarding the task not ten minutes past.
And Harry was excited.
A maze of a grand scale that stretched both above and below ground. A mammoth structure right out of someone's M. nightmare that had targeted charms all over the place that messed with gravity, temperature, precision located weather pockets and riddle locked doorways and portkeys - overt and hidden - that would twist them around and turn the maze and their own sense of direction against them.
The maze was encircled by a protective sphere that would allow spectators to see in but would not allow any spells, people or creatures to pass or see through it.
At least not without specially crafted portkeys.
And there were creatures and artefacts they had to capture on their way toward the goal. Each one gave them points toward their point tally for the task. The way they dealt with the creature, puzzle and teacher obstacles they ran into in the maze could gain or lose them points.
Also the portkeys were a risk to take as there were apparently portkeys that would take them up levels, down levels, closer to the middle of the maze, closer to the edge, right back to one of the starting points, or even out of the maze to the finish line with only as many points as they had managed to acquire.
The difficulty was increased again because they were not only racing each other to points and the finish line but were racing the maze itself. The entire structure had been enchanted to change at certain intervals and under certain triggers, like an incorrect answer to a question or riddle, or a failure to properly contain, tag and send to their designated points area a captured creature or artifact. Even the teachers and creatures would change places when the effect was triggered, which meant memorising a path was effectively useless.
And just to be extra fun and special if they used the same door or portkey successively, as in if they failed to keep track of what portkey or door they used and when, they would both lose points and be transported back to their starting locations.
Though admittedly, with the maze and its denizens constantly shifting there was some benefit to starting again, as it may put you on the path to more capture targets which in turn would give you more points.
It was, Harry thought, a rather nifty challenge all told. Though he had had to swear not to use his magic to pick apart any portkeys he came across to discern their keyed destination and give himself an advantage that was frankly a little obscene.
Harry had to admit it would be grossly unfair if he could just walk around and use something that was more of a freak fluke of his magic rather than a properly learnable skill to avoid the portkey pitfalls and hunt straight for the one that would take him out of the maze.
Although, given the sheer opportunity for acquiring points in this final task, there was a high likelihood that one of the other champions could gain enough points to knock him out of first place even with his comfortable lead and snatch the first place for themselves.
Similarly, rather than his either of his 'normal' crowns - if that could even be a thing, he wasn't entirely sure - with their deep protective enchantments, Harry was sporting a very simple circlet of gold with a octagon cut diamond that sparkled brilliantly in the early afternoon light, slightly overcast though it was.
The circlet, unlike its predecessors, had been charmed to only come off if Sirius, Remus, Frederick or Goldhammer were touching it when it was pulled off, just in case there was something in the maze that could somehow compel him to remove it against his will. Though honestly he wasn't entirely sure how given his seeming immunity to magics that targeted the brain. But the enchantment also meant no one else but those bound people could remove it, so someone else couldn't just rip it from his head either.
Considering the fact that it was enchanted as an emergency portkey that would whisk him to his private treatment room in Glimmerbright Hospital back on Volstar if it was triggered so he could receive emergency medical care.
Which thankfully no-one had argued over him having.
That might have had something to do with the look on Ruknukle's craggy face when they had been talking to the tournament organising team and Madam Bones as the auror representative in charge of the Ministry's security presence for the event.
He had very clearly still had thoughts about the British aurors and their ideas on suitable security.
They had known the downgrade to the simple circlet with it's emergency only portkey enchantment was the best they could hope for though, to both keep Harry relatively protected from potential attacks during the event but make sure he didn't have too much of an advantage over the other teens.
A belief that both Sirius and Remus had had quite a lot to say about.
Most of it on the rather disparaging side of things.
At the thought of Sirius, Harry shifted the little he needed to peer through the slight gap in their Champion pavilion outside the maze to where he knew his godfather was sitting, squeezed in next to Molly and Arthur who seemed to be chatting amicably with him while one or the other gestured towards the hulking form of the nightmare maze.
A Sirius who had already been outfitted with Harry's special relay sensors that allowed Athena to 'travel' about with him.
The young king had found that he had actually gotten quite used to the perpetual feel and weight of them on his skin. So much so that now without them, his wrists and neck felt almost uncomfortably bare.
Instead he was once again equipped with the relay sensors and recorders for the Tournament monitoring and projection array so that all the spectators could clearly see and hear what he was doing and what the questions and answers that were being posed and given were.
So Sirius got to sit with Athena and the Weasleys, with the benefit of more than one person staring while they probably thought they were being subtle about it. Because as far and wide as the news of his having been exonerated of all the crimes he had allegedly performed, some people obviously were a little slow on reconciling those facts.
Although there were a fair few that were staring at him for different reasons.
Healed of the ravages of wartime stress and Azkaban, it left him now a single, unconscionably attractive and very well off man who wasn't even thirty-six yet. Which for a wizard was little better than being just past his teens.
So intellectually it made sense to Harry, that the people he could remember overhearing gushing from time to time about this or that person while he had still been at Hogwarts as a student himself made sense.
Much more than the few lingering suspicious looks that remained despite all the publicity the reigning Lord of House Black had gained in recent months thanks to the trial and Harry's efforts to slip in positive titbits about Sirius whenever someone asked him about how he was training for the tournament.
So that was still a thing that needed monitoring, though not nearly as much as it might have been, which was nice.
Though the crash course he had given Sirius in PR and creating and maintaining a public image was probable helping a bit. Given the overall positive response the man had gotten when they had been chatting with the various members of the staff and organisers that had been milling around earlier, he seemed to be doing decently well.
Feeling a nudge against his arm, Harry turned his attention away from the gap in the pavilion flaps to look at Viktor, one dark brow raised.
"Are you ready?" The older teen asked, strong arms shifting to cross over his chest.
"As I'll ever be, I guess." Harry responded with a small shrug. "You?"
"I think so, yes. This is very...intense compared to the others. Even the dragons." The Bulgarian Seeker said, pausing a little to consider his words.
Thinking about that a moment Harry nodded. "In slightly different ways, I think. The confined spaces in the maze will limit some of the creatures that are thrown against us, but there are still a lot of smaller dangerous creatures."
Viktor nodded, humming quietly. "And riddles and questions about who knows what."
Huffing a sigh, Harry ran a hand over his hair, hair that had grown out long enough to be neatly tied back with a simple slender strip of leather. Something he had adopted after having snapped more than a few elastic ties. "Bloody Riddle, bane of my existence."
The taller boy raised an eyebrow at him but Harry shook his head and waved it away.
"I'm curious to see what sort of traps are in there." The young king admitted, flashing Viktor a grin.
"Traps?"
"Oh definitely, magical traps to add to the challenge and keep us from flying through the task." Harry confirmed with a nod. "Being able to spot and diffuse magical traps is a skill that's useful in several professions. Auror, cursebreaker, magi-archaeologist, plus several others. With as many people, and more importantly, potential employers included, one of the best things this tournament can do is to give its participants as many options to display as many different skills as possible."
Viktor thought about that a moment, head tipping back while he stared off into the eternity beyond the tent roof before he hummed. "Yes, I suppose that is true. The better a champion can advertise our talent to future employers who may be more tempted to hire us into our future professions, yes?"
"Yeah, though you and I both have our immediate futures squared away as far as careers go. This is still a good opportunity for Cedric and Fleur on that front. Or still you, if you wanted to switch careers at some point down the line." Harry told him with a shrug.
"That is true I suppose, though quidditch is a great passion of mine so likely even if I did not fly, I would maybe coach a team or some such thing." The older seeker admitted with a small grin, one hand reaching out to mimic grabbing a snitch.
Harry nodded. Quidditch was one of the more frequent topics of conversation whenever the tournament champions were in remotely the same area. With Viktor, Cedric and Harry all playing the game themselves and as seekers on top of it, and Fleur's father being something of a die hard fan for the French national team it meant that quidditch was one of the many common ground topics that came up in conversation.
Cedric popped up on Harry's other side, offering the other two boys a friendly smile. "I heard my favourite word."
"Quidditch?" Viktor asked with a wry smile.
"That's the one. What are we talking about?" Cedric asked, strong hands shoved into the pockets of his uniform.
"Probable magic traps and employment options in the future." Harry told him, head cocked to one side as he shrugged, returning the taller teens smile with one of his own.
Cedric raised one brown brow at Harry. "Traps, what traps?"
"The ones that are absolutely going to be all over that maze." The young king replied then huffed a laugh at his expression. "They shouldn't be too bad, given that they're targeted towards us rather than guarding a tomb or some such. So that means anything potentially lethal can be ruled out."
"Lethal." Cedric repeated, losing a little colour as he exchanged a look with Viktor over Harry's head.
"Yup." Harry grinned, rocking on his heels, before his attention turned to Mr. Bagman as the man pushed through the pavilion entrance and scanned the space before moving to them while waving Fleur closer.
When the French champion had sent off her headmistress after a final wish for luck and moved to stand beside Cedric, Bagman gazed from face to face before he nodded at some thought. "Alright, we're about ready to get started. I'll go out first and explain the task goals and a few of the things our audience will be seeing. These are portkeys that will take you to your starting point when you use the trigger."
He reached into one pocket and drew out a small black velvet pouch. He tugged open its drawstrings and shook four smooth pebbles out into the palm of his hand and gestured for them each to take one.
"Now, the trigger is 'Champion' and you'll be starting in the reverse order for your current tournament ranking. Which of course, as he's currently sitting in first place, his majesty will go last. When I call your name, speak the trigger and begin immediately." He explained, stuffing the empty pouch back into his pocket. "And remember, the first person the moment you exit the maze, either by forfeit or by taking up the Cup, you cease earning any points and your total point tally will be added together to decide your final ranking."
They each inclined their heads, each fiddling with the small portkey in their hands.
Mr. Bagman gave them each a last look over before nodding again and straightening. "Right, good luck to each of you. Don't forget that a lot of people will be watching your efforts, so do your best."
With that said he took a moment to shake each of their hands before spinning around and striding out of the pavilion, leaving them behind to wish each other luck and do a few last minute stretches.
Harry waited in silence, mind similarly quiet for once in the small bubble of peace.
Outside he could hear Bagman hyping up the crowd, explaining the point of the task as he had said he would. Eventually he announced the first of them to go into the M. nightmare that was the massive maze, extolling virtues and reminding the audiences across Europe of past successes.
One by one his fellow champions disappeared from the tent and reappeared in their places in the maze to a raucous of applause and chanting of names while Harry half listened until his own virtues and achievements started to be announced.
Absently he stretched out his back and rolled his shoulders, fingers curled around the enchanted pebble.
Finally he heard his name followed by a near deafening wave of noise that may have at a quieter volume might have been considered a cheer and idly wondered if half of the audience hadn't thought it would be a clever idea to utilise a charm or two to make their excitement known and felt.
Shaking his head he whispered the trigger on an exhale, knowing his own habit of breathing in the moment he touched down after traveling via portkey or apparation.
Glancing around at the dimly lit stone corridor he found himself in once the world had solidified under his feet, Harry stuffed the pebble into his pocket.
Given the lack of light he assumed he was in one of the underground spaces, since the ones above ground had seemed fairly open to sky and light so the spectators could clearly see what was happening as the champions approached the finish line.
Shrugging he started making his way forward, glowing eyes flicking about to check ahead of himself for marks or objects that might denote a trap trigger while listening intently for the sound of movement that wasn't his own.
Given the fact that he had gone from raucous cheering to a grave sort of silence when he had touched down, he didn't think that would be overly hard. Particularly after he charmed his feet silent so he wouldn't give away his own position as he moved about the maze.
In terms of traps he wasn't disappointed.
His first five minutes saw him neatly stepping around a rune array trap that would have, upon being stepped on, lock him in place and cause him to break into laughter.
The slumbering creature he found in a disguised alcove a little further down both gave him an explanation as to why someone had decided to utilise a laughing jinx of all things, and made him consider not for the first time just the motivations and/or intellect of the organising team.
A humped back, grey-purple hide with four toes per each of its four legs and two long horns that slimmed down into piercing sharp points. Harry recognised the graphorn for what it was and idly wondered if their status had been shifted from endangered if one had been wrangled for the tournament.
Though if they had, Harry did have to wonder how long it would take for their numbers to dip back down since their horns and hide were both highly sought after. The horns being a vital ingredient in several noteworthy and complex potions, while the hide was rather famous - or infamous - for being even tougher than most dragon's and being able to repel most spells.
The last fact along with their typically aggressive disposition had landed them a XXXX danger rating across the vast majority of magical Europe, though they typically only dwelled in mountainous regions where their hide allowed them to blend into the natural landscape. Though in this particular setting its hide was just a bit darker than the worked stone around it, allowing Harry to spot it a little easier than the pseudo camouflage it would have enjoyed in its natural habitat.
Reaching into his pocket he withdrew one of the black and gold tags he had been given earlier that would transport his captured artefacts or creatures to a waiting container and used his magic to carefully float it closer until the tag settled neatly in place, dangling from one long horn.
"Royal." He whispered and watched it swirl away before blowing out a breath and idly sent out a brief thanks to whomever had crafted the sound nullifying charm he had used before pushing on.
In short order two statues of varying size and questionable artistic merit and a very lost looking pixie had similarly been captured and sent off before he found his first door. It looked a lot like the many that dotted the halls of Hogwarts, complete with heavy hinges and iron doorknob.
He reached for it after he paused a moment and checked it for traps, a paranoia borne from prank wars with Sirius and Remus rather than any innate sense of caution or practicality. Finding it locked though gave him another moment of pause before he tried knocking.
As he watched the wooden panels that made up the door warped and a face appeared in it, a face that looked him up and down then sighed.
Before Harry could decide whether to be insulted or not its wooden mouth opened a deep voice emerged. "Slayer of regrets, old and new, sought by many, found by few. What am I?"
Blinking at the riddle, Harry cocked his head as he ran it back to himself and thought it over. "Redemption." He replied finally, confident in his answer.
Rather than give a vocal response to indicate whether he had in fact been correct or not the face melted back into the door and a soft, almost inaudible click came from the vicinity of the doorknob.
Casting a look at the rest of the door, he checked for any more surprise faces before he reached for the handle and gave it an experimental turn. Rather than catch like the last time it turned easily with the motion of his hand and he was able to push the door slowly open.
He poked his head around the edge of the door as it swung wide, glowing eyes sweeping the space beyond it for anything immediately worrisome before allowing himself to step into the wide round stone room on the other side.
There were ten other doorways, spaced evenly along the wall, and there were signs of odd shapes and sizes above each with a different word in a different style. There were old fashioned torches spread about to help illuminate the room and in the middle stood a plain wooden pedestal with a scroll neatly placed atop it.
The young king hummed quietly and moved to the pedestal. Then after a quick check - and removal of a stinging charm on the scrolls casing - picked up the scroll and removed it from it's rather plain wooden case.
He shifted a little so one of the torches was shining its light over his shoulder and unravelled the scroll. "Each doorway leads to a different path. One will take you quicker to your goal, one will delay you endlessly. The others will send you elsewhere unto dangers fierce and treasures unknown. Now tell me truly; What begins but has no end and is the ending of all that begins?"
Frowning a little at the riddle - and wondering for a moment just how many riddle challenges had been set up throughout the maze if he was finding two in such proximity - Harry rewound the scroll and slipped it back into its protective cover and back into place. He glanced once more from doorway to doorway and then up at the signs that rested above each.
There were of course ten signs but each seemed to have a partner that lay opposite of itself.
Joy sat atop one doorway, while Sorrow sat above the doorway opposite it.
There was also Peace and War. Health and Sickness. Wealth and Poverty.
And lastly, side by side in the round chamber, sitting opposite the door Harry had entered through, waited Life and Death.
"What begins but has no end and is the end of all that begins?" He repeated, looking from one to the next while he considered each and one by one discarded each until he was left with just one.
Certain of his response Harry turned and strolled through the door marked 'Death'.
In the stands, Sirius sat bedecked in a black and gold scarf with little crowns and his godson's name knitted into it.
He had taken the time to raid the merchandise stands for bits and pieces of memorabilia to add to his steadily growing collection that may or may not have started to overtake the shelves in his temporary room at the Seekers Rest back in Skyfall.
Having made the decision just a few weeks prior to move permanently after having full citizenship of Volstar conferred upon him along with the slightly daunting job of Head of the Department of Law and Order in Volstar's Ministry of Magic. Sirius had opted to move out of the flat he had originally been staying in after a bit of discussion back and forth between he, Remus and Harry about building a proper manor - that wasn't a depressing heap of mouldering wood and wilting wallpaper - and settle the 'family' as it were, in Volstar.
It would effectively tie the Black family magic, the House magic, to the land and allow the people who shared his blood and whom had been tied into that bond to seed power into a well that could be drawn on down the line by themselves and their descendants for wards, rituals, house-locked enchantments and, of course, those individuals themselves in times of great strife.
Though when a magical family released their ties to the land they had settled upon, there was no such thing as moving the well of power that had already been seeded and established. This meant that all those many generations of donations to the House pool of magic would be lost, released into the earth to nourish it as thanks to the elements that had nourished the family for the time it had dwelled wherever they had previously settled.
Of course, wizards being wizards there had been some Houses over the years that had tried to hold onto that power, however every one had failed and fallen on great misfortune either during or directly after those attempts.
Whether a quirk of ill luck or retribution for their selfishness and greed in having taken from the land without offering anything in return upon the parting, the vast majority of magical families were strongly of a mind to avoid the same fate.
Which meant that typically speaking when a wizarding family settled in a place they tended to stay there. Generations upon generations would remain live upon the same land as their forefathers and swear to the same sovereign.
As far as the magical world - and certainly the wix of the magical world - were concerned, it was all but unheard of to move from ancestral lands. Particularly if a particular House had called those lands home for any significant amount of time.
For a House as old and thoroughly established as his own, moving was damn near blasphemous.
And since it was the sort of thing that would have had the vast majority of his family rolling in their gravedust, Sirius was of course, more that passively receptive to the idea.
The fact that it had the added benefit of making sure his 'dear' cousins Bellatrix and Narcissa were well and truly cut off from the family line and magic since the old pool would disappear and they wouldn't be included in the new one.
There of course was always the possibility of adding in Andromeda, but she'd been cut off from the family magic for most of her life at this point and had not struggled for the lack. So Sirius had mentally assigned Andromeda a tentative yes, providing she wanted it. With a similar idea for her children.
Though as he understood it she had only had the one daughter thus far.
Still, she was young enough not to count her and her husband out of having additional children at some point in the future, so Sirius was opting to keep an open plan in mind as far as his only 'Not Rubbish' cousin was concerned.
So he was back to living in the Inn until his new family manor was complete in a couple of weeks. And honestly it said more about him that he was starting to lose space in the decently sized room than he could probably get away with - without teasing - than just about any other way he showed his affection and support of his godson.
Although he was pretty certain he was getting closer and closer to that invisible line that meant he would start getting a lot of eye rolls and heckling from Moony about being an overly attached parental figure.
Sirius was allowed to be attached and proud. He was allowed to have a little shrine on his bookshelves with bits and bobs that celebrated his godsons achievements. Because if muggles could stick their kids atrocious drawings to their refrigerators, Sirius could keep memory orbs of his godson inventing a revolutionary potion.
Besides, it wasn't like the other man had room to talk, since he was a bigger mother hen to Harry more than everyone else in his life combined.
Sirius was sitting fairly resolute now on his plan to roll around on Remus' bed the next time his animagus form started moulting.
It worked when they were sixteen, it would work now.
He watched on the floating crystal screens as Harry moved from obstacle to obstacle and huffed a laugh when the teen started plotting out maze designs out loud to fill the space in between his obstacles once he decided that he was less worried about having to sneak up on something than about keeping himself entertained while he moved through long stretches of corridors and up and down staircases. It was easy to see just how much he was relaxing into the task as time progressed. Still taking it seriously, of course, but becoming noticeably less worried about what he might find as he dealt with traps, wandering creatures and puzzles with relative ease.
Molly, Arthur and he had each been offering up their own odd observations as they watched the event go on. Though admittedly the Weasleys were splitting their attention between Harry and their potential future daughter-in-law. The two of them making idle - or possibly not entirely idle - note of each of the lovely young girls successes thus far and making the odd comment here and there about what she might have done differently if she had had a Hogwarts education instead.
Using the task and the actions of the four champions to illustrate the merit of each schools curriculum.
Though admittedly Harry did muddy those waters a bit, since the sum of his magical knowledge couldn't really be attributed to a particular educational institution since the vast majority of his knowledge had been acquired after leaving a formal educational setting.
Still, the crowd seemed to be suitably impressed with everyone's performances so far as the four champions walked, jogged or were portrayed through the maze and its different challenges.
Which he supposed was the whole point of the thing.
"Is that Dumbledore?"
At Arthur's question, Sirius shifted his gaze from screen to screen until he found the correct one, which apparently was showing footage from behind Harry.
He tracked the figure as Harry turned, putting him in front of him as he moved into the small partially hidden room that the teen had apparently almost missed. "Looks like it."
"I'd wondered where he had gotten off to." Molly said absently. "He sat with the judges for the other tasks, but he's not there now."
She gestured to the far end of the field where a platform had been set up with appropriate seating for the three headmasters and the Ministry representatives. Though Minerva was sitting in the Hogwarts spot, apparently filling in for the wandering Hogwarts Headmaster.
"What's that in the room with them?" Arthur asked, leaning forward in his seat as he studied the view.
"It looks like a mirror." Molly replied, head cocked to one side in puzzlement.
Spine straightening as he studied what little he could see in the dim light, Sirius' hand clenched around one end of the glittery scarf he wore and the flag he had been holding in his other hand with Harry's smiling face on it.
He knew that mirror.
Recognised it from the memories his godson had shared with him.
Memories of a tiny firstie confronting a would-be thief and killer.
"The Mirror of Erised." He whispered, expression grim while Molly squarked beside him.
Of all the things for Harry to stumble into again.
It was no wonder Dumbledore was in the maze then, since he had been entrusted with its safekeeping, and with making sure noone else fell victim to the thing.
"I rather wondered who might be the first to stumble upon this room." The wizened headmaster said as stood beside the ancient mirror. "It seems an interesting twist of fate that the one champion to do so, be the only one to have encountered it once before."
Moving deeper into the room Harry brought himself to a stop in front of the mirror, though kept his attention on Dumbledore for the moment. "Hello, Professor. Fancy meeting you here." He greeted the older man wryly.
"There are few places I belong more at present. We felt it would be safer to keep someone well familiar with this particular artefact close by, just in case. And there are few people in Britain that understand it with the same level of depth as I do." The old man admitted easily, arms crossed before him. "For this task, champions are required to identify and give an explanation regarding the artefact in order to proceed onward, though given your familiarity your own explanation would need to be quite detailed in order to keep things fair."
Harry inclined his head, having already suspected as much and after a moment of pause turned glowing eyes to the mirror's surface.
He watched quietly as the image solidified before his eyes and let his focus sway to a fro over the different elements.
Skyfall, shining sun, the fountain specifically and the bustling street around it full of smiling people going about their business.
He was sitting there, at the fountain with Sirius and Remus on one side and Ron and Hermione on the other. They were chatting over lunch. It looked like, laughing at something one of them had said looking like they had not a single problem between them.
"This, is the Mirror of Erised which you can see both by its reversed engraving around the frame and through the observation of what is revealed in its surface." The young king began, all the while scrutinising the scene. "The enchantments on it are quite advanced. A form of divination actually, along with a truth telling geas. In this instance a compulsion to reveal the truth even if the individual under its influence is not consciously aware of the truth themselves. Specifically the enchantment is geared towards revealing a person's deepest desire, much like a Boggart can reveal a victims deepest fear."
He paused for a moment to consider what to say next before sighing.
"It like other forms of divination is more than what you see at surface level, it reveals its deepest truths when you properly take the time to consider each element over the overall image revealed. For example, right now I see myself and the people closest to me sitting at the fountain at the heart of Skyfall, Volstar's capital. We're all relaxed and happy, as are the people going about their business around us, the weather is fair and there's not a hint of trouble in sight." He explained, surveying the scene before his eyes moved from it to the old headmaster. "If you take that at its base surface meaning, my strongest desire currently is to sit about and have lunch in the company of my loved ones. Which would be nice, but looking deeper reveals more."
"The scene is inherently peaceful. There are no frowns or sorrows in sight, no one, not even in the background is fighting or running late or looks ill. The streets are bustling, full of people all going about their business. They're all dressed well and carry themselves well, upright and bold, which denotes a certain level of success, of plenty. And lastly out of all the places that could be shown, it specifically shows this particular place, a place that has a deeper emotional meaning that ties all the other elements together."
"Put together we can see that at present my greatest desire is peace and prosperity for Skyfall and its people. Which is notably different from the last time I saw the Mirror because time has passed and I've grown and changed as a person and as a result my needs and desires have similarly changed."
Harry paused again to take one last look at the image before turning his whole body to face the headmaster instead and sighed. "It's also an artefact with a pretty troubled past since for a lot of people, the allure of those desires can draw a person in and make them unwilling to be parted from the Mirror. So much so that they've wasted away and died while sitting in front of it. As such it is one of twenty ancient artefact that are both celebrated for the achievement their creation represents as far as wixen understanding of magic is concerned, while also feared because of the loss of life it caused either directly or indirectly."
"Just so." Albus said with a nod, offering the young kind a small bittersweet smile. "An excellent and thorough explanation both on its function and its danger."
The older male turned and raised his wand as he moved to the wall behind the Mirror before tapping out a specific pattern on the stone bricks reminiscent of the coded pattern used to gain entry to London's Diagon Alley via the Leaky Cauldron pub.
They both watched as the wall opened itself before ceasing to move, revealing a well lit corridor behind it. Though from the looks of it, Harry thought it was lit with natural light rather than torches or enchantments like the other corridors he had passed through so far.
Having raised a wizened hand to gesture at the doorway, Dumbledore offered the teen a smile. "With this success you have earned access to the higher level and have placed yourself that much closer to reaching your goal. And though you are the first to do so, your fellow champions are not far behind so do not tarry or you may find yourself surpassed yet."
Giving the older man a nod Harry carefully sidestepped around the larger mirror and made his way to the doorway and out into the light.