The swirling rush of the portkey abruptly halted, the world slamming back into clarity — Liz teetered for a step before getting her balance back. Her head was still spinning a little, the drugs she'd taken before lunch hadn't quite worn off yet...
Over the last few months, the hedge maze they were setting up for the Final Task had spread across the Valley, taking up significant portions of the unused land and even sprawling up the hills surrounding it. Which had required clearing large swaths of the Valley, but she'd heard that was actually intentional: they were planning on putting some local government stuff here, a primary school, maybe a public duelling gym, get a little bit of agriculture going. The expansion of the population here that would come when they sold off the housing in the international village into private hands would increase the amenities they'd need here, and with Hogwarts right here and now that the acromantulae were almost completely gone it was becoming an increasingly attractive place to move, so.
Apparently the centaurs and the merfolk weren't happy about the human population of the Valley spiking, but it wasn't like the Ministry gave a damn what they thought.
(The Gaels weren't happy about it either, for that matter — they considered the Valley to be stolen, largely English-speaking settlers moved in after a series of wars back in the late middle ages forced out the original inhabitants — but the Ministry was no more likely to take their objections seriously than they were the centaurs and merfolk.)
The place they'd been dumped looked like it was partway up the side of a mountain, but not so high they were quite above the tree-line, where the soil had been eroded away too much for taller plants to hold on. There were some trees around, somewhat thin and scraggly-looking pines, spaced sparsely enough to let through plenty of light, grasses and bushes and herbs and liverwort and whatever else packed between the trunks. Their sudden arrival had birds and hare and squirrels fleeing, chittering and squawking and the flapping of wings and rustle of movement in the brush.
And the dominant feature, of course, was the hedge maze itself. It was shockingly tall — which, that wasn't really a surprise, Liz guessed, since they wanted it to be effective as an obstruction and all, but it was pretty impressive, considering they'd only been growing it for however many months. The branches so close together the leaves presented a solid green wall, the tops were easily two metres high, glancing between Severus and the plants she thought they could even be three metres high in places. The wall wasn't entirely flat, looking to the left and right there was a visible wavering back and forth, bulging out a little in front of where the trunks of the trees (or bushes or whatever) were, kinking this way or that to get around uneven bits in the ground. Liz couldn't see too far to the right, some trees that way blocking off her view, but a couple dozen metres to the left the wall jutted out some — after a short distance it doubled back to continue out into the Valley, but the corner blocked off their line of sight, she couldn't see any further than that.
Directly in front of them, only a few feet away, there was a gap in the hedges, maybe a little narrower than her arm span fingertip to fingertip. That would be her entrance. There was a trellis arch at the threshold, some kind of vine crawling along it, a translucent reddish glow filling the space under the arch. That was a wardline, when the starting bell rang it would vanish, letting her pass inside. The other Champions had been dropped at other spots around the outside of the maze — eight minutes after hers opened, then Fleur would be let in, and then Cedric two minutes after her, and then Artèmi and Viktor two minutes after him, and then ten minutes later Ingrid would enter last, a full twenty-two minutes after Liz.
Eight minutes didn't really feel like that much of a lead, especially since the Task was expected to last hours, but twenty-two minutes kind of did. Ingrid was fucked, but Liz wouldn't be surprised at all if the other Champions wore down her lead pretty quickly — especially since she'd probably end up having to avoid a few traps, and who knew how much that could slow her down. She didn't think she had great odds of winning this stupid thing, despite ending up in the lead, but she guessed it wasn't impossible.
Her Seer shite really wasn't giving her enough of a hint to guess, unfortunately. She did feel all tense, all but twitching with repressed motion, like a spring pressed tight, ready to jump to defend herself at any second...but that could just be nervousness over the event itself. If she wasn't getting a very clear picture, sometimes it could be hard to tell what was a Seer hint and what was just, you know, normal feelings. The best she had was that she was mostly sure she wasn't getting seriously injured tonight, but beyond that she really didn't know.
It'd occurred to her that it might be that she simply didn't feel strongly enough about whether she won or lost to pick up any echoes from it — or maybe her Seer shite just wasn't cooperating, it wasn't like it told her everything. Could be annoyingly uncooperative like that sometimes.
(Liz was still pretty sure she was going to run into a boggart. Kind of dreading that, honestly, especially since it was going to be on fucking camera...)
She hadn't been portkeyed here alone, Severus and Síomha were here with her — once Liz was gone, a house elf would pop them over to join the rest of the spectators. After she'd gotten a look at their surroundings, she turned back around to face them. "So...how long did they say we had?"
"Only a few minutes, I believe." Severus was also noticeably tense — to her, anyway, it didn't really show visibly but Liz was a cheating mind-reader — but that was normal for the more dangerous Tasks. If maybe slightly more noticeable this time.
Like her, Severus thought it was likely that whoever had entered her into this thing had just wanted to humiliate her on an international stage; but, like Hermione, he thought it was possible that whoever it was had an ulterior motive, and this would be the final opportunity for them to carry their plan out. They'd talked about it earlier, and, Liz personally thought it was a little silly...but then Severus reminded her that it would not have been a simple matter to fool the Goblet, especially given the short window they would have had to do it in, and also that the Dark Lord was known to be active in Britain. He had no reason to believe the Dark Lord had orchestrated the whole thing, in large part because he couldn't imagine what the fuck he was supposed to get out of it, but it wasn't outside the realm of possibility.
Personally, Liz thought Severus was just being paranoid, but she kept that thought to herself. She was dreading running into the boggart, besides that she didn't think anything that bad was going to happen today. But there really wasn't any point arguing about it, so.
"Right. Kind of wished they would have just sent me here when it was time to go."
"Eager to get started?" Síomha asked, a faint tinge of amusement on her aura.
"Eager to get this over with, more like." The Tournament was finally almost over, another however many hours and she wouldn't have to deal with this shite anymore. Well, there would be the ending ceremony and shite, but other than that. "Though yes, I do hate waiting."
"Do not let your impatience get the better of you — I imagine walking into a trap that could have been easily avoided would be quite embarrassing."
Liz rolled her eyes. "I'm not an idiot, Severus."
"I don't believe I implied you are." Not directly, no, and she didn't feel a lie, but don't go skipping through the maze and get yourself knocked out was only a couple steps removed, she thought. "Do remember you are allowed to forfeit, if you feel you are too injured or too exhausted to continue."
"Yes yes, I know." They had talked about this already. She couldn't just walk across the wardline and immediately forfeit, the Goblet might punish her for that, but as long as she put in a good effort and legitimately thought she couldn't continue, that should be fine. Not that she was confident of being able to tell where that line was — in multiple duels now, she'd tried to keep going after taking a hit that might have downed someone else, because she was a stubborn mad bitch like that. (Probably just adrenaline, but still.) She couldn't imagine how badly she'd have to be hurt before deciding she had to give up, like, short of being evacuated by the elves. Maybe if she had, she didn't know, broken bones or a concussion or something — those weren't serious enough to be immediately evacuated, but also she couldn't heal them herself — or if she was ill from doxy poison?
She suspected Severus might have caught some of that thought, a cold unpleasant shiver through his mind, giving her a narrow-eyed look. "Yes, it may well be wise to forfeit if an encounter has left you with broken bones."
"Why, Severus," she drawled, forcing a smirk, "is that concern?"
Frustration suddenly snapping on the air, Liz twitching a little, Severus eyebrows dipped, his voice low and smooth and sharp, "Why would I have any cause to be concerned? It isn't as though you have a demonstrated tendency within this very Tournament of attempting to force yourself to continue beyond the limits of your own endurance — or have consistently shown, for years, a pathological disregard toward the threat of injury. You certainly haven't been hospitalised on multiple occasions since October. No, I am simply reminding you of the rules of the competition, as I might before the beginning of an exam. Since there is clearly no cause for concern."
...
Well, there was no reason to be sarcastic about it, Severus...
The next couple minutes (the start time fast approaching) passed in somewhat stiff silence, the air around her cold and sizzling with tension. Severus seemed impassive enough from the outside, staring blankly at the entrance to the maze. If you didn't know him, anyway — crossing his arms in front of him like that was a clear sign of discomfort, his mind darkly simmering. Liz occasionally glanced back at him, noticed Síomha was eyeing him too. Her mind was closed up, as always, so she couldn't really tell for sure, but Síomha was probably just as taken aback by that...
...outburst? That didn't seem like quite the right word, since it'd been pretty mild by the standards of such things. But by the standards of Severus, well. He didn't exactly emote much, did he.
Most of the time, just when she'd hurt herself doing something stupid.
Liz caught herself picking at the embroidery around the waist of her dress with her false nails (she hadn't bothered removing them last night), forced herself to stop, firmly crossed her arms.
Most of the time, when it came to things, like, quidditch, or duelling tournaments, or the Tasks for this Tournament, she didn't really consider the threat of injury. She wasn't an idiot, she did know that chance existed, she just... It was hard to explain, even to herself in her own head. It just wasn't that important? This stupid thing, it wasn't like she had a choice in participating, so worrying about it too much was just pointless, and duelling and quidditch, it... She didn't like getting injured, obviously, but she enjoyed doing them enough that she didn't really care? Like, that chance of getting hurt was just the cost of doing a thing she liked, it, she didn't even think of it most of the time. Especially since the chance of getting seriously injured was pretty low, and even...
She had had pretty shitty recoveries a handful of times, hurt badly enough that she ended up with seriously reduced mobility for a few days, which was terribly unpleasant. But when she was going into a thing, that that might again didn't...quite seem real? Like, sure, there was a chance of it happening, but it was so remote, theoretical, she didn't even think of it most of the time, and when she did it didn't slow her down at all.
It wasn't that she was trying to get hurt, on purpose, but, the chance that she might be hurt wasn't an impediment to doing something she wanted to do. And, honestly, it was kind of hard to understand why it should be? Like, the weight other people put on the chance of being hurt duelling or playing quidditch or whatever was one of those things she didn't really get — maybe if they were talking serious, permanently crippled kinds of injuries, but magical healing made the odds of that practically zero, so. It just didn't feel important to her.
Because she was going to get hurt no matter what, so there was no point in trying to avoid it.
That was what was going on here, she thought, this was a Liz is broken thing. Half the time, she had no idea what she'd done to offend Vernon this time, and even when she could identify what it was, that didn't mean she understood why Vernon gave a damn. She did learn some lines that were best avoided, of course, basic pattern recognition, or the rare things he explicitly spelled out for her in a way that actually made sense, but sometimes there didn't seem to be any pattern at all. The possibility of being punished was a vague, nebulous threat that hung over everything — and if she really wanted to do something like, say, swipe one of Dudley's books, so she'd have something to occupy herself with in the cupboard, or if she was hungry enough to be motivated to try to steal food, that she might or might not get punished for it was really no reason to not do it. The two things were disconnected, like, it wasn't obvious why she was being punished anyway, and sometimes the cause and effect might be hours or even days apart, and...
There was a chance she might get hurt doing things she liked, like duelling or quidditch, but that was no reason to not do them. The two things were disconnected. And she had no choice in participating in this bloody Tournament, so, of course she was going to take precautions, she didn't want to get hurt, but beyond that? It just wasn't worth worrying about.
(Except the boggart, she was worried about that, but that was a different thing.)
Sometimes, she forgot that other people didn't think like she did.
Sometimes, she still wasn't used to other people giving a damn what happened to her. And she understood that people sometimes felt differently about things than she did, but it was...difficult to take that into account. She did try, going all the way back to working on her marks, and Severus nagging her about eating regularly, and generally working on her shite to one day not be so much of a complete mess anymore, but, well.
It wasn't unusual for other people, her friends, to feel more strongly about Liz getting hurt than she did. Hell, when she got beat up in duelling or quidditch or whatever, that wasn't even that big of a deal — it hurt, sure, but it was just a physical pain, it...
(—Vernon's hand on heavy on her shoulder pressing her down, the fabric of the sofa scratching at her chest, she bit down on—)
It just wasn't a big deal to her. That other people cared so much was confusing.
...
She didn't mean to worry Severus. Just, sometimes, it didn't occur to her that he would worry about things that didn't really bother her.
(Abruptly, she remembered that time she'd broken her spine, and Severus had done that thing to fix it overnight. The pain had been a lot, yes, but she hadn't really felt much about it — it'd been the necessary price to not be fucking paralysed for however long, and well worth it, put her in the same situation and she'd do it again in a heartbeat.)
(Severus felt far more strongly about her own pain than she did.)
Even just in the couple minutes they had before the starting bell, Liz still managed to get her thoughts all tied up in knots. And, she couldn't put a word to what she was feeling about it, her chest burning and her shoulders itching and her stomach squirming...
She knew she could be difficult for people to deal with, sometimes — it was honestly still surprising to her that her friends tolerated her as much as they did. She wasn't trying to hurt herself, she didn't intend to worry him, it, just...
She couldn't help it. The things that made Severus concerned about her were difficult to predict — vague and nebulous, hanging over everything. She did know where some red lines were, so she tried to avoid those, but for other things, well. She knew there was a chance they would bother Severus, but it was too distant, unreal, not enough reason to avoid doing the thing, most of the time didn't even occur to her. They were disconnected, in her head, the association between cause and effect obscure.
She wasn't being difficult on purpose. She, just...didn't know how to avoid it.
Ages ago now, she didn't even remember the context exactly, she remembered Severus saying he'd known what he was getting into with the trusteeship shite, and obviously he was aware she was fucked up, but it just... It wasn't like he had the most free time in the world in the first place, she still wasn't sure when he slept, and she knew he had enough on his mind already without...
It seemed like too much, sometimes, that was all.
There was a low bong noise, magical as much as physical, and the barrier disappeared, revealing the path ahead — it was somewhat dark, the angle of the afternoon sun casting the narrow gap between the tall hedges into shadow, the dirt track clear and level save for the occasional stone here or there, a hardy weed or two. Liz stared down the leafy corridor for a second, glanced at Severus over her shoulder. The tension she could feel on the air since Severus's little outburst hadn't really broken yet, her stomach squirming, something still burning in her throat, the words not quite coming to her, not sure what she wanted to say...
"Elizabeth?" Síomha said, a note on her voice she didn't quite now how to read. "It's time to go."
...Right. She should just...get going, then.
She twitched, cracking the tension holding her rigid, took a step forward. Brought short by a spike of cold nausea, she turned on her heel, the steps between her and Severus vanishing in a blink — her head ended up bonking against him harder than she meant to, oops. Her hands fisting in his robes, from this close his surprise and confusion rocking through her, dizzying, Liz mumbled, half-muffled with her face pressed against his chest, "'msorry."
"I... What have—?"
But she was supposed to be doing something right now, they didn't really have time to talk about it — besides, Liz wasn't sure what exactly was going on with her anyway, and she could feel the hot bubbling in her throat, this was not the time to start crying for no fucking reason, again. (And she was uncomfortably aware of the fact that there should be cameras trained on them right now.) She spun away, slipping between Severus's arms — belatedly moving, delayed by surprise — and darted through the arch and into shadow, stalking down the narrow green-walled path on slightly shaky knees.
Safely in the shadow of the maze, Liz ducked her head, wiped at her stinging eyes — ugghhh, what the fuck was wrong with her, if she could not be a fucking mess right now that'd be great...
The threat of embarrassing herself too badly had more or less passed by the time she got to the first intersection, Liz slowing and glancing around. It had opened up a bit, the path not nearly so narrow as it'd been by the entrance, plenty of room to move around in — either they'd designed the entrances to be especially narrow, or there was some kind of space expansion going on in here. The path she was on ended at a T-junction, she came to a stop in the middle, glanced both left and right. Her first several metres had been in shadow, but it was sunnier here, the cross path at an angle to let light through, and even a hint of a breeze, lightly tugging at the hem of her dress and her hair.
She'd gotten a little confusion from Síomha (and various other people, for that matter) over how she was dressing for the Task — basically the same as the last one, a Seer-safe linen dress with some basic protective enchantments done herself. Plus knickers enchanted to snap her awake from stunning charms, with some refinements from her original design, but of course nobody else knew about that. (Well, the organisers did — everything they'd have on them in the maze had needed to be approved the night before — but they didn't go babbling about that.) Liz was aware that her preference for skirts even while doing shite like duelling was odd, but she didn't really give a shite. Like Flitwick had said, all else being equal, it was better she be comfortable.
Besides, too many distractions niggling at her would make it more difficult to do this: left and right looked more or less identical to her, so she closed her eyes and let out a long breath, her magic expanding out to fill up the intersection.
Left. She swung into motion, blinking against the sun in her eyes. She kept at a smooth steady pace — faster than she'd normally walk, but slow enough to keep alert to any flicker of magic or a mind, or a nudging of the Sight. Before too long she came to another intersection, paused for a moment for another hint, took the right-side path, at the next continued straight, the path curling a bit as it went, and then to the left...
It was quiet in here. There must be some kind of paling blocking sound from beyond the living walls — Liz could hear her own breath, the scritch of her duelling boots, the rustle of leaves in the breeze, the occasional twitter of a bird, but too quiet, only the sounds very nearby, isolated. It didn't seem to block her magical senses — she could feel the dim, unfocussed minds of animals here and there — but she guessed the organisers didn't want them to use sound to navigate.
Out of curiosity, she cast a mirror charm up over her head, above the level of the hedges — the charm resolved correctly, but she saw only a plain, featureless grey, the spells on the maze somehow interfering. She could navigate with the Sight just fine, she'd just been wondering.
She came to her first obstacle not long after that. The path she was on took a sharp corner, opening up a little bit ahead, enough room to fit a row of trees down the middle, a faint tingle of magic on the air — that definitely wasn't suspicious at all. Slowing, she reached out with her mind, feeling for—
Ah, bowtruckles. She sped back up again, pushing a compulsion out to ignore her — she passed the dozen little animal minds entirely unnoticed. The walls pulled back in on the other side of the miniature grove, narrowing back down to a corridor, and she continued on.
Liz wandered around the maze, pausing at each intersection to feel for a hint, the enforced quiet of the maze almost a physical pressure around her...though that might actually be palings and wards she was feeling. The walls of the maze weren't entirely uniform, a couple different trees making up the hedges, occasionally holly, easily identifiable by the pale edging of the leaves, even flowering rosebushes. She wondered if there might be some kind of pattern to it, like, the different plants marking sections of the maze, but if so she couldn't figure it out. Since she'd started partway up the side of the mountains, some of her paths were angled downhill, her turns taking her alternately moving down and parallel to the slope, gradually crawling deeper into the Valley. Supposedly the Cup should be near the west-northwest edge of the Valley over here, near where the river continued on to the sea, but she wasn't really sure where she'd been dropped, and the turns made it difficult to guess how far she was travelling.
There was a lot of uneventful walking, but she did come across a few obstacles. A couple turns and maybe five minutes after the bowtruckles, she came to a shady spot, thick, dark brownish-green vines criss-crossing a section of the path maybe ten metres long. Liz came to a stop a couple feet away from the first vine, frowning — was that devil's snare? It certainly looked like it...and when she shone a light charm on a nearby vine it seemed to flinch, the leaves quivering, so yeah, devil's snare.
For a moment, she considered repelling the stuff with elemental sunlight, but she wasn't sure if casting as much as she would need would be a good idea. Having to deal with mild light magic toxicity for the rest of the Task would be a bloody pain. Instead, she cast nyktaphlégein — one of the few fire-elemental spells she could get much use out of, thanks to being tinted heavily dark (the random shite Sirius knew sometimes) — twisted the unnaturally pure white flames into a little ring around her feet a metre wide. Surrounded, she quickly started feeling uncomfortably warm, this shite really was very hot, but hopefully she wouldn't need it too long, started walking down the path. The devil's snare cringed away from the fire, retreating under the hedges to either side, parting around her before slithering back into place once she'd passed, her ring of fire forming a little cleared island for her. One vine didn't pull away quickly enough, instantly bursting alight, shivering in apparent agony (though she didn't feel anything, even magical plants didn't truly have minds), swiftly desiccating from the silent white flames licking over it, crumbling into ash in seconds.
The rest of the vines gave her a noticeably wider berth after that. Once she was clear through to the other side, she dismissed the flames with a flick of her wand — sighing a little in relief as the temperature immediately dropped back to normal — and continued on.
After a bit more uneventful walking, she came to a stop again. A short distance ahead there were two posts, maybe three metres high and six inches across, standing on either side of the path, not quite touching the hedges. They were made out of some kind of ceramic, maybe, a long line of glyphs carved into each from top to bottom — Egyptian, glowing a soft blue-white from the power channelled through them. The posts would look innocuous enough if it weren't for the fucking glowing. Liz couldn't even feel any magic coming off of them, whatever those enchantments were very tightly contained.
She suspect that she would feel something if she passed between the posts, but that seemed like a very bad idea.
For a minute or two, she looked over the glyphs, trying to interpret what they were supposed to do...but that was probably hopeless. She wasn't really used to doing runework without her dictionary on her, and also there could be more writing on the opposite side, for all she knew. She spotted what was definitely a release clause, but she couldn't figure out the context well enough. It might trigger passing between the posts, it might trigger touching them — fuck, it might trigger just trying to cast analysis charms at them, she really had no idea. Since she had no idea what the fuck the things were supposed to do, even just blowing them up probably wasn't a great idea.
Instead, Liz turned to the hedges on her left — she was pretty sure the Cup should be in that direction — and slashed into them with a severing curse. The branches were woven very dense, it took multiple castings to cut all the way through, shredded leaves and wood chips fluttering to the ground. She carved out a narrow rectangle, barely enough room for her to squeeze through (the bigger she made it, the more time it would take to finish), once she'd gotten all of the branches cut hit it with a banishing charm — it took a couple tries, bits of her cut-out and the hedges around catching on each other, the air crackling with snapping wood, but eventually her block was punched out, ploofing against the opposite wall before slumping down to the ground again. Sticking her wand back into its holster, she ducked her head, started squeezing through the gap.
She was in the middle of the hedge, twigs scratching at her skin and catching on her hair and her dress, when she heard a sudden sharp hissing. «Stop,» she snapped, pushing extra magic onto her voice to make sure the command took. Staggering out onto the other side, she took a moment to catch her breath, brushed down her dress, a few leaves shook off to flutter down to the ground. She suspected there was probably shite caught in her hair, but whatever. «Come on out, then.» The snake that had nearly attacked her came slithering out of its hiding place in the hedges, and—
Liz blinked. It wasn't alone — there was a second snake, a third, a fourth... Nine in total, it looked like, the smallest maybe a foot long and the largest probably longer than she was tall and as thick around as her arm. Most of them were in muddy browns and greens, but some of them had brighter colours here and there. Thanks to weird Parselmouth instincts, she could tell three of them were mostly harmless — getting bitten would still hurt, but it wouldn't slow someone down that much — but the other six were venomous. Nothing super deadly, by the feel of it, but it wouldn't be fun to get saddled with the effects for the rest of the Task.
...Huh.
Shrugging off her own bemusement, she ordered the snakes to follow her, and started walking again. She could probably find some use for these things.
Her pack of serpentine companions moved somewhat more slowly than Liz walked, but the delay at each intersection as she felt out which way to go was enough time for them to catch up. They were also chatty, hissing questions about where they were going, and if there would be things to hunt there, and complaining about taking a turn into a shadowed passage, even arguing with each other. She just ignored them — the consciousness the weird snake-speak magic gave mundane snakes was very simple, they were really quite boring to talk to.
She remembered how absolutely dumbfounded some of her classmates had been when, way back at the beginning of first year, she'd explained that she never used Parseltongue, because talking to snakes was boring. Now that she actually knew him better, Draco's reaction especially was funny in retrospect, she should take a look in the pensieve later...
The next obstacle she found was what was definitely a snargaluff, half-hidden in the hedges to the left, but she just casually cast, "Svartísi hvíðu," covering the tree trunk -looking mass with thick, solid black ice, glittering faintly in the sunlight. Apparently snargalove would go into hibernation during a hard freeze — good thing she'd thought to ask Hermione, she hadn't known that. She hardly even slowed as she passed, the snakes pressing over to the right side to stay as far as they could from the chill coming off the magical ice.
After some more walking, she was passing down a rather pretty part of the maze — the hedges here were speckled with little red-purple flowers. Looking over them she went down the path, she noticed that these were the same trees that made up the majority of the maze, the flowers blossoming from vines that had been teased up the branches. Like bindweed, maybe, or morning glory? They were rather pretty, no matter how odd it was that the organisers had included decorative stuff in the maze. After all, Liz was likely the only person who would ever see it...
It probably should have occurred to her that they weren't decorative.
She was about halfway down the flowery passage when she started feeling vaguely dizzy. At first, she thought it was just an effect from her drugs — they were mostly worn off by now, should be normal before she started getting to the hard part. But then she nearly tripped over a rock on the path, staggering a few steps before she caught herself, her head spinning...and, standing bent over with her hands on her knees, catching her breath, she belatedly noticed the tingly numbness in her fingers and her lips.
Exhaustion dragging at her, soft and smooth and warm...like a sleeping potion.
The pollen — it had to be.
Her wand popping into her hand, with a couple sweeps of her arm she painted over both walls with fire, the plants immediately catching alight, roaring and snapping loudly enough she could barely hear the startled hissing from the snakes still following along. She cast a bubblehead charm over herself, to prevent her exposure from worsening, before forcing herself to move, the first couple steps stiff and weak but quickly smoothing out as she kept going. Before long she reached the next intersection, the burning section well behind her, the heat pressing in at her back, a basic wind charm to push away any pollen that might have drifted this far, just in case.
She lingered there for a minute, her hands on her hips and her head tilted back, looking up at the sky, taking big, deep breaths. Slowly, the feeling came back to her hands and her face, the worst of the weakness passing — she still felt a little dizzy, but it looked like her exposure hadn't been too bad, she should be good to continue.
«I'm okay,» she hissed down to the snakes gathered around her feet, reflexively. They'd been hissing questions at her while she caught her breath, so. She didn't know why she bothered reassuring him, it's not as though they were even real...
A quick moment to feel out the direction she should be going now, and she started walking again. She went down one passage, another, before long the last of the dizziness had faded away. By this point, she was pretty sure her drugs had worn off too, felt more or less normal — or as normal as she ever did, she guessed.
The next trap caught her unawares as easily as those bloody flowers. She was walking along a passage, dirt ground and tall solid hedges to either side, this one on a somewhat sharp downslope. There was nothing out of the ordinary, she didn't feel any magic nearby...until the tingly gossamer curtain of a wardline swept over her skin. It came out of nowhere, she didn't have time to avoid it, twitching in surprise and her heart jumping into her throat, she tried to jump back, but her momentum—
There was a brief, subtle sensation of falling, and everything went black. Her heartbeat thundering in her ears, almost overpowering the rustling of leaves and the hooting of an owl and the chittering of some kind of animal, her little minions hissing in distress and confusion, the air thick and moist and earthy and green, maybe a good five degrees cooler than it'd been a second ago, she blinked her eyes over and over, trying to force them to adjust. It wasn't entirely black, faint silvery light filtering down from overhead, it...
She frowned, looking around — she was in the Forbidden Forest. Or a forest, anyway, tall trees interspersed with brush and grasses, thinned in places where the tangled bed of roots surfaced through the soil. Also, it was nighttime all of a sudden, the only light from the moon, the faintest glow making it down through the canopy.
She glanced over her shoulder, but she wasn't surprised to see more forest behind her, she couldn't see any sign of the gateway to...wherever this was.
...What the fuck?
Her wand was in hand — she'd drawn it the instant the environment abruptly changed around her — but she hesitated. She had no idea what the fuck she was supposed to do. It didn't seem likely she'd actually been teleported off somewhere, if only because she'd have to have been sent pretty fucking far for it to be this dark. This must be a trap ward of some kind, she was in expanded space — there would be some way to escape, cursebreaking to do or a puzzle to solve. All she saw was the forest, though, no obvious artificial features drawing her attention, she didn't know...
While she was still floundering, she felt a mind approaching — her wand instinctively moved to point in that direction...but then she hesitated, frowning to herself. This mind felt familiar. They were wilderfolk, definitely, of a size and intensity that Liz instinctively recognised as a belonging to a being but filled with a sizzle of colourful chaotic sparks that were quite unlike a human mind, but more than that, she felt certain that she'd met this specific person before.
She figured it out before the source actually came into sight, her wand hand dropping against her hip. "Isolde?! Is that you?"
There was a sharp cheerful bark, a rustling in the brush in the same direction as the mind, and then a muddled pale orangeish shape came looming out of the darkness. That was Isolde, it had to be. It was somewhat difficult to make her out through the darkness, but as she got closer, yes, that was a wolf, orangeish along her back and fading toward a snowy white on her belly — combined with how familiar her mind felt, it couldn't be anyone else. She trotted over closer, a faint prickle of nervousness crawling down the back of Liz's neck — she wasn't really comfortable with dogs in the first place, and wolves were big in person — but her mind felt bright and warm and pleasant, as she got into reach started nosing at Liz's free hand...
...and, bemused, she started scritching at Isolde's ears. Maybe an odd thing to do, considering Isolde was a person, but, reflex. "Hello again. I guess they roped you into this silly Tournament?"
There was a fluttering of amusement from Isolde, letting out a little coughing huff. She'd volunteered for the job. Someone had passed along word that the humans were looking for a few people who might want to help with these games they were putting on. Most of her people had been pretty sceptical, but she was curious, so here she was. Isolde was supposed to show whoever came in the way out, but only if they were nice about it. She hadn't even known Liz would be in this thing, the people of the forest didn't actually understand much of what was going on out here, with their games and all.
Liz guessed that the solution to the 'puzzle' was to realise that Isolde wasn't an ordinary wolf, and figure out how to communicate with her to ask for help. That was a pretty interesting test, she thought, especially with how racist people could be about non-humans in general, and wilderfolk in particular. Maybe slightly risky for the wilderfolk in question — it was very possible whoever they trapped in here might have resorted to cursing first and asking questions second — but Isolde was a fighter, and some kind of magic prodigy, she'd been helping against the acromantulae since she'd been younger than Liz was now. (Also, presumably the elves could get in here, and would evacuate an injured wilderfolk assistant the same as the contestants.) Of course, it would be stupid easy for her even if she didn't already know Isolde, since she was a mind mage and would recognise another being immediately, but still an interesting test. "Right, well. Wanna help me get out of here, then?"
With a low wuff and a warm pulse of agreement, Isolde turned around and started trotting off. She froze for a second at the sound of the pack of snakes moving through the brush, turning to glance over at them, but she stated moving again before Liz could explain. Since she was a mind-reading cheater, she could tell Isolde had somehow been able to tell that the snakes were following Liz, but she wasn't aware of what Parselmouths were — but it was relatively easy to command animals through all manner of magics, it wasn't really special to her.
Extending a thought out to her — Isolde's grasp of English was very shaky, but the mind had no language — she asked, It's been a while. How have things in the forest been lately?
It turned out, a lot better. It'd taken a while for them to ramp up their operation, but the humans fighting in the forest (primarily Hit Wizards sent by the Ministry, but Isolde didn't understand that kind of detail) had managed to help them push all the way to the central nest, and destroy it. Plenty of spiders had escaped, of course, there'd even been some desperate retaliatory strikes against the locals which had hurt or killed a fair few people, but those attacks had dribbled away to almost nothing as they destroyed the secondary nests and eliminated the hunting parties. There were still a handful of survivors out there, but Isolde was one of their warriors and she hadn't even seen an acromantula in weeks. The war was almost over, and they'd finally be safe — there was a hopeful mood back home now, for the first time since literally before Isolde had been born. Recovery would take time, and there would still be a lot of work to do going forward, but things were pretty good, actually.
Well, that was good. It was a fucking travesty that Hagrid had been able to start a fucking acromantula colony in the middle of the forest and nobody had done shite about it for decades — especially since they'd been fucking up territory that belonged to the centaurs by treaty. Cedric's dad's excuse that they'd thought the centaurs' complaints were metaphorical was sort of believable, since acromantulae were not native to Britain, and they still weren't even sure how they survived the winter here, but someone should have at least checked. She was aware the wilderfolk had been hurt badly in the little war they'd had going on out there for however long, and, it was good, that they were catching a break.
(It made no difference to her, of course, but she did like Isolde, from what little she knew of her after only meeting a couple times. If she ended up dead somehow, Liz would feel at least mildly bad about it.)
It didn't actually take very long for Isolde to lead her to the exit. After only a couple minutes of picking through the brush — the wolf slipping through obstructions smoothly and silently, Liz kept stepping on twigs and getting her dress caught on things, slowing them down a little — they reached a small clear area, thinly lit by moonlight, the ground carpeted with a patch of grass. Isolde trotted up to a short little stump sticking out of the grass, slapped one of her paws down on it — there was a flash of cool magic, and vines started sprouting up into the air, ascending unsupported. They grew out of two spots a couple feet apart, forming thick woven posts, up one metre, two, curving over to meet in the middle, forming an archway.
Liz cringed, squeezing her eyes shut and shielding her face with an elbow, as daylight suddenly slashed into the blackness — fuck, that was bright. There was a pulse of annoyance from Isolde, dazzled by the light herself. Squinting, trying to force her eyes to adjust back, she hissed down at the snakes, telling them to go through ahead of her. Thanks for going easy on me.
Isolde let out a little wuff, colourful mind crackling with amusement. Then she concentrated, a mental image forming — distorted, something odd about the perspective, and the colours were off, but Liz still recognised the grounds down by the quidditch pitch — and then running into another image, at the edge of the forest, flashes leading deeper...
What was this about? Were those supposed to be directions? Where to?
With things beginning to calm down, the people of the forest were starting to be more comfortable with the idea of visitors coming around — though it would still be a good idea to try not to offend anyone, of course. Isolde was aware that Liz was curious about wilderfolk, almost as much as Isolde was about humans, so she was showing Liz where she could go to find her, if she wanted.
...Liz really hadn't expected to be getting an invite from the infamously reclusive wilderfolk community in the forest today, but all right. I'm not going to be able to remember this, do you mind if I copy it? I won't take the memory, just copy it, you'll still remember after I'm done.
There was a brief moment of creeping hesitation — having grown up in a war and all, Isolde could be about as defensive as Liz, in her own way — but then she let out a little huff of agreement. Liz walked closer, still blinking against the too-bright light from the exit, lightly set a hand on the top of Isolde's furry head.
As much practice as she'd had with subsumption by now, the process went very quickly and smoothly. The longest part was probably gathering specifically the directions Isolde was trying to give her, and nothing else — all of Isolde's knowledge of the layout of the Forest would be a lot of information. Once she withdrew the little bundle of knowledge out of Isolde's mind and into her own, it only took a second to burn it in place, making it her own. It didn't even hurt that badly, as small as it was, a faint grimace and a couple hard blinks and she was back to normal already. Right, I have it. I'm going to be busy this summer, I don't know if I'll have to time to drop by until autumn. I'll look different then, by the way, and I guess probably smell different too I guess, but it'll still be me.
Somewhat to Liz's surprise, Isolde wasn't at all confused by the idea of a person's appearance inexplicably changing from one meeting to the next — but then, she guessed maybe that idea wasn't so odd to wilderfolk. Her directions didn't actually lead Liz to their home, just somewhere someone would notice her, Isolde would double-check it was her before leading her in further. That should be pretty easy to prove, since Liz could work thoughts.
Didn't have to worry about that then, good. Thanks for the help, see you then. Liz gave Isolde a final ear scritch, getting an almost exasperated-sounding wuff in response, sidled over to the sunlight-filled archway. Only a step from the threshold, she hesitated, glancing back at Isolde.
A moment ago, Isolde had thought that Liz was almost as curious about wilderfolk as she was humans. That was honestly kind of overstating her interest in wilderfolk — Isolde was fascinated with humans, had spent a lot of time watching the Hit Wizards and even poking around Hogsmeade now and then, volunteering to come up to the Castle for the events the locals had started being invited to. It was mostly just watching, since she couldn't communicate very well, and didn't know how human things worked well enough to not draw too much attention, but...
Crazy thought, would you be interested in going to school? I can probably make that happen. The education reform they'd just passed explicitly excluded wilderfolk, so she couldn't just go to public primary school — the programme wasn't to be age-limited the same way muggle primary school was, since so many adults in the country were functionally illiterate — but there were other ways. There were schools in other countries, which might be complicated but doable, and she'd bet with a little asking around she could probably find some private programme that would take her, like something some religious group or another were doing. Or, hell, she could probably just get a private tutor to do it...
Isolde didn't respond, steadily staring at Liz with big, shiny blue eyes. Reading the feelings off of non-humans could be difficult sometimes, but if she had to boil down the sizzly fluttering of sparks in Isolde's head to a single word, she'd go with ambivalent — the thought was interesting, but at the same time extremely intimidating. And she wasn't sure if her...well, the people in charge where she lived, Liz wasn't sure if the concept was translatable into English. She wasn't sure if they'd agree to it, and going without permission would be...complicated.
You don't have to decide right now — and I really should get going, just think about it. I can take you out to lunch or something when I come back next autumn, if that's easier.
Yes, that was much easier to agree to, Isolde would like to try that. Autumn, then. Liz should get going, though, she didn't want to lose her game!
Liz shot her a grin, All right, see you later, and stepped through the archway. There was another brief sense of falling, and then she was standing in daylight, the temperature jumping back up several degrees, the artificial silence of the maze again pressing down around her. She was standing in an unfamiliar intersection, she glanced over her shoulder — the path behind her was sloping down this way, and it was impossible to say for sure, but she was pretty sure that was the same path she'd been on when she'd been caught up in the trap. There was absolutely no sign there was anything there, visual or magical, seeming perfectly innocuous.
Shaking her head to herself, she picked a direction and set off again.
Not long later, she followed a nudge to turn toward the presence of some kind of animal nearby — after a short walk she found it was a hippogriff. Liz had hardly ever seen a hippogriff in person before, only from a distance. They were sort of odd-looking creatures — not a big surprise, animals artificially created with blood alchemy generally were — the rear end and hind legs of a horse, partway up the body fur transitioning into feathers, front legs showing the leathery scales and long talons of a bird, at the end of a thick neck the curling-beaked head of an eagle, huge wings sprouting from its shoulders. They seemed oddly lopsided to her, the avian front legs too delicate-looking for the weight of an animal this size, furred and feathered all at once, almost surreal, a thing that shouldn't rightly exist.
This one was a vaguely reddish-auburn sort of colour, the talons and beak a solid black, eyes a vivid yellow-orange she could make out from this distance. It was sitting in the middle of the path ahead, head resting on its folded front feet, but it quickly perked up to stare at her, unblinking. As she stepped closer, it got up to its feet — the motion surprisingly smooth and graceful for such an awkward-looking animal — sort of leaning back, its head held high, front feet stretched out to balance on its knuckles (those feet had to be seriously fucking strong, to hold that kind of weight), wings arching up over its back, not fully unfurling but making the thing look even bigger than it already was. It let out a high, sharp hiss, glaring at her.
Liz wasn't in Care class, but enough people in the study group were for her to pick up things from discussions going on — that was a threat display, basically saying fuck off or I'll fuck you up. But she didn't slow down, kept walking toward the thing while maintaining eye contact — from those same discussions, she remembered that hippogriffs took breaking eye contact as a sign of vulnerability — she reached forward into the hippogriff's mind, and twisted its thoughts around to think of her as a friend.
Surprisingly, the hippogriff managed to partially resist. Animals basically had no defence against mind magic whatsoever (unless they had a high magical resistance generally), and she was in direct contact with its mind, so she could tell it was an animal — an intelligent animal, sure, like a cat or an owl or something, but definitely not a being. It didn't fully resist, but it did realise something was wrong, retreating a couple steps, whipping its head back and forth as though trying to shake the compulsion off, letting out high squawks, its beak clacking.
It calmed down pretty quickly, she stepped closer — fuck, hippogriffs were big in person, its head well above hers. She could feel it did 'recognise' her, but it was still tense, wings still arched up, suspicious. After a second of thought, staring up at it, she hunched down a little — still holding eye contact, just in case — and told the smallest snake to come climb up her arm. Passing the snake from one hand to the other, she gathered it up into a little coil. She sent a quick spike of thought into the hippogriff's head, feeding time, tossed the snake up at it.
There was a bright excited chirp, startlingly loud, the hippogriff sprung up — woah, thing was bloody fast — snapped the snake out of the air, scarfed it down in a few quick chomps. While it was distracted with that, unfocussed animal glee temporarily replacing the edge of nervousness, she pushed down harder on its mind, forcing in the idea that she was a friend, associating its pleasant yay food! excitement with her, outlining the shape of their relationship with a pulse of magic to make sure it'd stick.
She was done by the time the hippogriff had finished off the snake, none the wiser. It trotted up to her, and started nosing at her side, under her arm — she clamped down on her own nervousness, trying not to tense up or twitch away. The hippogriff wasn't any threat, calm and relaxed, just looking for more treats.
There, much better. She sidled past the unnervingly large animal and continued down the path, now followed by the hippogriff and her slightly reduced pack of snakes.
Eventually she came upon what was definitely another trap. A short distance ahead, the path she was on was filled with fog, thick enough she couldn't see past it, completely opaque. It wasn't ordinary fog, though, an odd smear of colours, orange and green and violet and red, sparkling lazily in the sun. She paused for a moment some feet away (just in case it tried to spring out at her or something), considering her options. There was no telling what the fuck this stuff did, and trying to walk through it was probably a bad idea. For all she knew, that could be some kind of potion suspended in the air — even if she put on a bubblehead charm, it could be that touching it was also bad. The feeling of the magic coming off it was smooth and tingly and...not sure, too unfocussed for her to read what it was supposed to do. It was faintly light, not intensely enough to be a serious problem for her...but that didn't mean just walking through that shite was a good idea.
So, she turned to the...right wall, and started carving her way through again. With three slicing curses, she outlined the shape of a door — and then glanced back at the hippogriff, made her door bigger, so the thing would fit — traced over the outline again and again, carving deeper into the hedges. Shredded leaves and bits of shattered twigs falling down to the ground in a thick rain, she punched all the way through on one side, moving over to—
There was a deep droning buzz, a sudden hard flare of shock spanging through her, she jumped, stumbling back when a bunch of fist-sized violet-black shapes came surging out of the holes she'd carved, she fell against the opposite hedge, the spiny branches catching her weight and scratching at her skin. Vaguely fairy-looking figures, but covered in black fuzz, their wings glimmering blue-purple, a pack of two dozen of them at least, the combined buzzing of their wings like a hundred bees, lifting out of the hedges and starting to zoom toward her.
Doxies. A quick stab of a command at the hippogriff and the snakes, a slash of her wand bisected three of them, blueish blood raining down to the dirt, but they were too fast, she scrambled to cast a physical barrier, one ended up inside with her, flying right at her face, a frantic flailing of her free hand managed to connect, sending it spinning upward, bouncing off the hedge a metre over her head, a brilliantly-aimed piercing curse (if she did say so herself) reducing it to a black-blue splatter. Protected behind her barrier, she took a few seconds to catch her breath — gasping and twitching, her heart thundering in her throat — before turning back to the rest of the swarm.
Between her curses, the hippogriff, and the pack of snakes, it only took maybe a minute for them to off the rest of the doxies, the dirt and the hedges for a couple feet around splattered at random with tiny body parts and blueish blood. The hippogriff seemed to have a lot of fun with it, prancing around and jumping up to snatch doxies out of the air, while she took another moment to catch her breath the snakes going around and snapping up some of the corpses sitting around, the hippogriff getting to this or that one first, lapping up bits of blood...
She didn't think that was a problem? Doxies were venomous to humans, sure, but she wasn't sure if they were poisonous to eat — and things that were poisonous to humans often weren't for animals anyway. Oh well, it was probably fine, and if it wasn't like it would be her problem for too much longer.
Once she'd calmed down enough that her wand hand wasn't shaking anymore and her heart rate had more or less returned to normal, she finished carving her door, punched it through to the other side with an overpowered banishing charm, and continued leading the way ahead. She wanted to go left, a short pause at the next intersection before turning right, then straight, this path curving along for a little bit, and then right...
She came up short, blinking — the path abruptly ended a few metres in front of her, a dead end. The Sight was hardly perfect, of course, but these instincts normally were, she never got lost. Frowning to herself, she turned around, and...
A short distance away, there was a corner. But there shouldn't be, she'd just come from an intersection, straight this way. Bemused, she sidled past the hippogriff and took the corner, shortly coming to a completely unfamiliar Y-intersection.
...She must have passed through some kind of space-manipulation. There were corridors in Hogwarts that, if you backtracked, would bring you somewhere different from where you started — it must be something like that. Her cheating Seer instincts told her she should be taking a right, so. She shrugged off her confusion, and continued on.
She noticed it was starting to get darker. The Task had started at, like, three in the afternoon or so, but she didn't think it'd been that long — they were far enough north that, at this time of year, the sun didn't set at Hogwarts until after ten in the evening. They did expect the Task to maybe run that late, but she didn't think it could have been more than a couple hours yet. With how much walking around she'd been doing, it might already be six or seven? Not late enough to be noticeably darker, though. But it was possible that that she was close to the western side of the Valley, tucked in close enough to the hills over here to be in their shadow — the mountains around the Valley weren't really that big, so far as mountains go, but they could block the sun in some places in the morning or evening, so.
Either that, or it was some environmental effect the organisers had set up to give the competition some more dramatic, spooky vibes. Could really go either way.
She came to an intersection, quickly felt out that she was supposed to turn right...but she didn't want to. Looking down the path that way — the hedges no different than anywhere else, the same tall dense trees, this patch again showing some of those white-rimmed holly leaves, curling to the left and quickly out of sight — she felt a vague, inexplicable uneasiness, a chill draping over her shoulders, her throat tight. There was nothing obviously wrong with it, she couldn't see anything, or even feel any magical or mental presence, just, she didn't want to.
...She had a nasty feeling this was when she was supposed to run into a boggart.
Idly rubbing at her wrist, she glanced ahead, then to the left — those were the wrong way. She could probably backtrack, find some way back to a path that would get her to the centre of the maze eventually. But it was hard to guess how far that would set her back. They were the wrong way.
But she really didn't want to have to deal with the boggart.
Mind mages could shake off compulsions easily enough, but the way her mind was loud and constantly open all the time, she was aware, Severus had warned her ages ago, that she was vulnerable to constant influence, like from mind-altering potions or enchantments or, yes, demons. Like when the Dark Lord (possessing Quirrell) had forced her down to that bloody mirror back in first year, same basic idea. In a way, she was even more vulnerable to that kind of thing than a normal person — at least normal people could learn occlumency — it was arguably the biggest real weakness she still had.
She had no idea what it would show her — but she knew it would hit hard. Hard enough that she'd been feeling a vague creeping dread over it for what had to be weeks...though it was really hard to say whether that was because of how badly the thing itself would suck, or if it'd be embarrassing enough that people would mock her about it later...
But even with how much it was going to suck, how much she did not want to go that way...she could still feel it was the quickest path. Even counting however much the boggart was going to slow her down.
...It couldn't be that bad, could it? She meant, honestly. She had no idea what it was going to show her, but whatever it was, she knew multiple different ways to deal with a demon — even if she couldn't think of a way to make it funny, to use the charm Lupin had taught them last year, she could just disrupt the magic making it up enough to temporarily incapacitate it, be long gone before it pulled itself back together. Boggarts did compel people to be afraid, but she was generally pretty good at managing fear. (Had enough experience with it, after all.) It was going to be unpleasant, sure, but she should be able to manage it.
After all, if it was going to be too much for her, her Seer nudges would be telling her to avoid it. She was only being directed this way because she could handle it.
Right. Yeah, that made sense. So she should just...go, then.
She took a few long, slow breaths...and then turned to the right, her steps stiff and graceless, her fingers tight around her wand.
Around the turn, there was something here, she could feel it. It was unusually dark, the path quickly bringing her into deep shadow — not night dark, but noticeably thicker than the shadow of the hedges should be, the air slightly cooler, heavy and dank. There was magic on the air, faintly warm — despite the cultural implications of the term, demons could be dark- or light-aligned to various degrees, and boggarts were only slightly dark-tinted — with a slippery, glimmery quality to it she didn't quite know how to describe. Perhaps, reminding her of streaks of rainbow colour on oil, black but with unexpected depth to it...
She would almost think it was kind of pretty, if her nerves weren't already on edge, her skin prickling, tense enough to twitch at the faintest rustle from the hedges.
There was some kind of motion from the glimmery black magic around, something rushing in at her. She grit her teeth, trying to push back, to shove it off, but it seeped through her and in, like trying to hold back a smell with her bare hands, its presence smooth and slippery and frustratingly quiet, far more innocuous than she would have expected, she couldn't even feel what it was— A figure detached from the shadows of the passage, rising to its full height, tall and narrow and—
Frowning, she hitched to a stop. "Severus?" It was him, as he stepped more out into the open it was easier to tell. In casual trousers and a tee shirt, like they were at home, his hair tied back out of his face, with that ever-present Saturday morning cartoon villain goatee of his (she still thought that looked very silly), he stepped—
No! No, it wasn't Severus, she knew that — he had no reason to be here, he should be out there watching the Task like everyone else, and she couldn't feel his mind at all, only the oddly colourful black magic of the boggart, there was nothing there, not even the shuttered presence of his aura. She knew that, but at the same time it was hard to hold onto that thought, she recognised him, of course she knew Severus when she saw him, it—
Belatedly, she realised what the boggart was doing: it was compelling her to believe what she was seeing. She knew it wasn't real, just an illusion, but at the same time she felt that this was actually Severus, trying to fight against the compulsion she couldn't even feel happening, gritting her teeth and her wand hand shivering against her hip—
This was a mistake. She'd thought she'd just have to power through the fear the thing would throw at her so she could disperse it or whatever — she'd had no idea boggarts also made their prey believe what they were being shown. This was a mistake, she should have gone around.
Severus (not him!) moved as smooth and silent as always, but there was something different about it this time, a weight to it, pressing down on her, she felt herself retreating a couple steps, numb. His eyes on her hard and hot, she couldn't think, inescapable, lingering over her like a bad smell, she always knew what would come before it did, like a cloud crossing the sky, a shadow cast deep and cold, drowning in it, she could hardly breathe (it wasn't him!), drawing his wand, slow and deliberate, his eyes on her skin like wasps, pinning her in place, her insides twisting hard, like a spring compressed too tight, the moment heavy, she always knew, tension like a too-full balloon about to tear itself apart, his low smooth voice, battering her over the head, heavy with disdain, like she were nothing, some disgusting thing, not anything like a person, a worthless freak who—
"Take off your dress."
—SNAP—
—that nameless thing hot and twitching, like it might shake her apart and burn her up inside out—
—the fabric of the sofa scratching on her chest, hand on her shoulder forcing her down, her breath thick and muffled against—
—a line of fire cut across her hip—
—curled up under her blanket, sweating, the fresh marks stinging, hugging her pillow around her head, trying to muffle the crying, he always hated it when she cried—
—pants sliding down to hook over her heels somehow louder than anything else—
"Ðia-stíbēn ton-aiþéra ðialȳ́oi!"
The bright white spellglow passed through Severus, the illusion stuttering, and then beginning to fall apart, the image cracking and twisting as though seen through a prism, and then the image failed completely, taken over with white-edged ice crystals, sprouting from the point of contact and racing outward, extending past where the human figure had ended, following tendrils extending outward—
And with a series of high, piercing crack noises, the crystals shattered, falling to the dirt as scattered snow — the flakes large and icey and delicate, a pure white against the shadowy passage around.
She only watched enough to be sure the spell had taken, that the thing was dead (she hadn't been certain that would work), her head spinning, despite the sickening heat on her face and in her stomach shivering from cold, the lines on her back and bum burning, like accidentally touching the rim of a pan. But it worked, it was gone, the subtle slippery presence in her head vanished, alone in the passage again, with the hippogriff and the snakes behind her.
Her hands on her knees, shaking, she struggled to breathe, her chest and her throat twisted up too tight, like a spring compressed. It hurt, hard and sharp and hot, the tiny bits of air she managed to drag past not enough, going even more light-headed, her vision greying at the edges, her ears ringing, Vernon's half-remembered voice at the edge of hearing.
(It'd been years, she wasn't even entirely certain what Vernon actually sounded like anymore. When she heard him, she honestly couldn't say whether that was actually his voice, as it'd sounded, or just her own self-destructive imagination.)
Something inside hot and twitching, like she might shake apart and burn up from the inside out, his eyes on her skin like wasps and her chest itching and her marks still burning, she rolled her shoulders, awkward in this position, once and again, trying to shake off the phantom weight, lingering over her like an unpleasant smell, it wasn't going away, she still couldn't breathe...
At some point she ended up on her knees in the dirt, pressing both hands against her face, shivering, still fighting to breathe. (She didn't have a calming potion on her, unfortunately.) Her very healthy and cooperative and definitely not at all fucked-up brain helpfully provided her an image of herself being forced down on that damn sofa in the Dursleys' sitting room, Severus's wand coming down, a somewhat indistinct echo of the pain from that time he carved runes in her spine by hand (she didn't remember it very well) ripping through her, she forced out a harsh, half-strangled, frustrated groan, leaning even harder into her hands against her face, colourful spots flaring behind her eyes...
It was not pleasant, but her reflexive attempt to try to, just, she didn't fucking know, shout down her own fucking brain? Whatever, it managed to actually open up her throat somewhat, each breath high and thin and shaky and painful, but getting through. Her forehead pressed against the dirt, her hands folded behind her head, her chest and her sides aching, her breath interrupted with hoarse coughing and sniffling, she could feel her eyes burning, bringing on a flare of stale fear (Uncle Vernon hated it when she cried), but she tried to shrug it off, fought to calm down.
She'd had no idea what a boggart would do with her, but she had to admit that was a good fucking play.
But it was irrational, she knew that. Severus had never— Fuck, the one thing her awful fucking imagination had managed to come up with was something she'd asked for! That ritual to heal her spine had hurt worse than anything Vernon had ever done to her, sure, but she'd chosen that, so she wouldn't be fucking trapped for however many weeks it'd take for her to heal up the slow way. Honestly, Severus had hated doing it more than she'd hated having it done to her, he still didn't like thinking about it, and she'd gone and looked at her memory of it in her pensieve like a fucking psycho...
(As she'd been thinking to herself only a few hours ago, Severus felt more strongly about her own pain than she did.)
She remembered she did used to be paranoid about Severus somehow turning into Vernon one day, but she didn't even really think about that anymore! It didn't occur to her, hadn't for, like, going on a year now? Or, not consciously, she guessed — fucked up PTSD-brain shite didn't necessarily go away, after all — but it wasn't— It was irrational, she knew that.
Hell, he'd only even really yelled at her the one time, like almost exactly two years ago now, when he'd shown up at her hotel room and dragged her off to his house — which had kind of freaked her out a little, of course, because Liz is broken, had been unreasonably uneasy around him for like the rest of the day, fuck. And he hadn't even been angry at her, just, he hadn't slept at all and had spent however many hours dealing with frustrating Ministry people, she'd felt that at the time, he'd apologised immediately, which didn't really make a difference for fucked-up brain broken reasons, because of course...
It wasn't real. Just because the boggart had shown it to her, fucked with her to make her believe it, her useless fucking brain then running away with it, that didn't mean it was real. She had no reason to be— Fuck, the shite Severus put up with from her...
Jittery and twitchy, she tried to force herself away from bad thoughts, she—
She remembered, with a flash of tingly warmth, focussed, on that sofa in her living room, after the Yule Ball, Severus holding her as she cried over some stupid nonsense, honestly she didn't even remember what that'd been about. That was real, not whatever nonsense her awful fucking imagination decided to conjure up.
That was the sofa she'd rather remember, no matter how kind of embarrassing it'd been at the time — and then very embarrassing, when Katie and Susan showed up, fuck...
(Severus took care of her, even when he didn't know how, he still tried. That boggart was full of shite, it wasn't real.)
That line of thought didn't really make her cry less, but she did start calming down, eventually. She hadn't really been paying attention, but the snakes were hissing at her, asking if she was hurt, arguing with each other about what to do, she could feel the hippogriff was defensively stalking around them. How much of that behaviour was her influencing them, somehow? Hard to say, really, mind magic was trippy sometimes. She pushed herself up to sit back on her heels, light-headed, grimacing against protesting muscles, sore from being held in one place too long (and the crying), wiped at her face. Her fingers came back a little gritty, from the dirt, um...there was her wand, reached over to grab it, cast a cleaning charm over herself...
Wiping at her eyes again, she froze as she belatedly remembered that she was being watched, there were cameras on her right now — not only was the audience in the Valley watching, but they were also broadcasting it out to who knew how many people, there would be recordings.
Well, fuck. That was embarrassing.
It took longer than it should have to get up to her feet, her legs sore and stiff, still coughing and sniffling a little, ugh. Still feeling a little weak and shaky, her knees practically vibrating, she stalled for a moment, leaning over with her hands on her knees, breathing, as long and deep as she could, interrupted by a hoarse cough now and then.
Severus was out in the audience too. He would have seen that.
Everyone would have thoughts about what had just happened, of course, they'd assume things. She didn't really care what some random strangers thought they knew — unless they made it her problem, of course — but she didn't want... If they thought it was, like... She didn't want Severus to think she...
With a wide swish of her wand, she cast an illusion for the cameras, big red-orange letters hanging in the air: I KNOW YOURE NOT HIM. She had no idea how much sense that'd make for everyone else, but she knew Severus would understand what she meant, and that was more important. The first few steps stiff and awkward, nearly stumbling and losing her balance, she forced herself to start walking again.
It took a longer delay at the next intersection to feel out which way to go, difficult to calm down enough to pick up any Seer hints. Not long later, she paused in the middle of a passage — a human mind had just come into her range ahead. She didn't recognise him, must be someone they'd brought in to make the competition more interesting. His mind was cool and calm, giving off very little, doing his best to hold himself in with occlumency — not bad, but occlumency didn't do shite to hide his presence from her view — it didn't feel like he was moving, waiting just off the intersection ahead...
Waiting. This was an ambush.
...She was still feeling pretty shaky — not on the edge of panicking or breaking down or whatever the fuck, but that didn't mean she was in the mood to fight someone just now. But there were always alternative solutions to every problem. She quick cast concealment spells over the snakes following her, hissed, «There's a man ahead, to the left. Bite him.» With a chorus of excited hissing, the snakes surged ahead, once they'd shut up almost silent in the dirt, some of them even weaving under the hedges to come at him from the side. She waited a few seconds before following after them, walking toward the intersection at a slow, casual pace.
She was still some metres away when there was a sudden spike of mixed pain and confusion from the mind ahead, a harsh shouting followed by cursing, the banging of combat magic, flashes of spellglow. By the time she reached the intersection, the boy was on the ground, propped up with one hand, gasping and pale and bleeding from multiple places — she quick knocked him out with a single stunning charm.
That went well. None of her snakes had even been hit with his wildly flinging spells around — glancing over the damage to the hedges, it looked like he'd expected a human attacker, aiming at waist- to chest-height. While she was feeling out which direction to go, an elf came in to pop away the boy (probably to get him treatment for the venom), and she continued on.
Liz didn't run into anything else for the next few turns, which gave her enough time to mostly calm down. She still felt slightly twitchy, her throat aching a little, but she was more or less back to normal. (It probably helped that she was trying very hard to not think about her little near-breakdown back there, because it was extremely embarrassing in retrospect.) It was getting noticeably darker in the maze, but she hadn't noticed any colours of sunset overhead, and she didn't think it'd been that long? Definitely getting later in the evening — she was even starting to feel slightly hungry — but she she suspected it was darker than it should be for this time of day. The organisers had definitely tweaked the environment towards the heart of the maze, that was the best explanation she could think of.
And, increasingly, she wasn't alone. She'd occasionally feel animals beyond the hedge walls surrounding her — one more complex animal mind seemed vaguely familiar, that was probably a troll — and now and then she even picked up on a human presence. Quite far away, still, she mostly couldn't read explicit thoughts at all, but she understood from Tamsyn and Severus now that this was actually Seer shite, and very weird. She must be getting closer to the end, the volunteers concentrating at the choke points to wait for the Champions to reach them. Things were probably going to start getting interesting soon.
She hitched to a stop when she felt a familiar mind — Fleur. It was really no surprise that Fleur was so close, since she was in second place, the first to enter the maze after Liz. After a moment of surprise, she started moving again, rather more cautiously, alert for any sign that they were about to run into each other. There was a second mind in her range, and then a minute later she spotted a third, none close to her...
It didn't feel like Fleur was that close. At the next intersection, her Seer instincts seemed to be leading her, well, not away from Fleur, but not toward her, either. As she continued walking, it did feel like Fleur was getting closer physically, but, she didn't know, she thought they were on different paths, parallel to each other — maybe Fleur would have to go through the intersection she'd just been at. As she started getting close enough to better feel out the shape of Fleur's thoughts, she became aware Liz was here too, could practically feel Fleur's attention on her through the greenery of the maze, but Fleur was somewhat distracted by the few other minds she could feel around her.
And then she got even more distracted, almost putting Liz out of mind completely, when a turn brought her stumbling right into one of the other nearby minds, instantly breaking out into a fight.
A short distance later, Liz paused, staring at the hedge just to her right — the fight was going just on the other side of this wall, metres away. She couldn't hear it at all, the palings sealing up the maze entirely containing the sound, the magic released by their spellfire diffuse, coming in pulses like an intermittent breeze. The fight seemed unexpectedly evenly matched, Fleur's frustration burning away in Liz's chest, an occasional flash of shock or mild pain from one mind or the other at near misses.
She probably could tip the fight to either of them by attacking one of her minds, as close as it felt like the match was. It might be worth it to knock out one of the other Champions.
...Nah. She suspected Fleur would do surprisingly well in a mind-magic fight — that weird soul-magic enthrallment shite was cheating — and it was actually hard to guess whether her occlumency was good enough to hold off Liz and fight whoever that was at the same time. Even if Fleur won, she'd probably be exhausted and lightly injured from the fight — which would be good enough, especially as there was more maze to go still. She started walking again, putting the silent fight behind her.
She kind of half-expected the next obstruction she was faced with to be another person, so she was a little surprised when she came across a trap instead. The passage opened up somewhat, forming a square maybe two times as wide as normal, and at the centre of the square was...some kind of enchanted construct. There was some stuff built into the ground, a ring of metal and ceramic, but the most easily visible feature was a tall column, maybe six to eight inches wide and taller than Liz. The entire column was made out of some kind of crystalline material, presumably alchemically-produced quartz or gemstone or something.
It also happened to be visibly glowing, a soft blueish-white — the column must be some kind of reservoir, absolutely packed with energy. Whatever the enchantment was supposed to do, it would release such large amounts of energy in a burst that it needed such extensive reserves primed. It was honestly hard to imagine what the fuck that could be. It couldn't be a ward, they worked by progressively altering the character of the environment, they could just use ambient magic for that...
Well, she wasn't going to figure it out just sitting here glaring at it. But walking into the open square around the device herself seemed very stupid, so she ordered one of the snakes to go out there instead. With a tentative, reluctant sort of hissing, almost as though grumbling under its breath — she was pretty sure the snakes weren't smart enough to understand what was going on, but she suspected they were picking up on her mood somehow — the snake she'd picked slithered ahead, scaly coils sliding over the dirt, crossing out into the open area.
It was a couple feet into the square when there was a crackle of static around the column, and a bright yellow-white spellglow went zipping straight at the snake. There was a harsh crack-boom, Liz glancing away at the flash of light — when she turned back, there was a smoking crater maybe a foot wide blown into the dirt, the snake reduced to strips of scorched flesh, the largest piece a few inches of the back end still sitting there at the edge of the hole.
...All right, then.
For a minute or two, she considered her options. Backtracking would be wasting time, which she was probably low on by this point, as close to the centre of the maze as she felt she was getting — also, there could be other Champions coming up behind her now, Fleur had not been that far away. Cutting through the sides also probably wasn't a great idea. The snakes had been easy to deal with, and while she'd managed to fight off the doxies, that had definitely been an escalation. There was really no telling what they had hiding in there now. Not to mention, wasting time, and it'd be kind of obvious. There were other people around, somebody might be close enough to hear the noise and come running, hit her while she was distracted with that.
Going through was probably the best option, if she could figure out how to do that. She might be able to hold a shield up long enough to get all the way across...though there was really no way to guess how fast that thing would be tossing out blasting curses, and whether they'd be enough to overwhelm her. She did not want to get caught in the middle of the column's range without a shield up. Also, she'd probably have to leave the hippogriff behind.
She tossed a blasting curse at the column — about a handspan before it hit, the spellglow abruptly burst into a rain of glinting yellowish sparks, static sizzling around the column for a second. Well, that was an odd reaction. It didn't look like her curse had been blocked so much as shredded...
Was that a dissolving filter of some kind? But that would mean...
...Liz was having a completely mad idea.
Spanging with nerves — this was so fucking stupid — she took a few long breaths, psyching herself up. She glared out at the column, all but bouncing on her toes in anticipation, her skin prickling in anticipation. She could do this, she could. Pretty much anyone would tell her she was being fucking insane, she could imagine Sirius rolling his eyes with a scoff, but she wasn't thinking of any other way to deal with it, and the Sight was fucking cheating, she knew it would work. Risky, obviously, but she could do it.
Go. Go. Go, damn it!
With a lurch, her skin crawling, she jumped out into the open square around the column. It only took a couple steps before there was a crackle of static flickering over the column, she dug in her heels — a blink later and a bright yellow-white spellglow was lancing straight at her, a pulse of magic and a swirl of her wand and she deflected it to the side, the curse continuing on to smash into the back corner of the square. Barely a second passed before the column was firing again, she deflected it again, and then another, another, another, fast enough her wand hardly even stopped moving, from one deflection straight into the next...
...until she got a good feeling for the timing. The column was aiming straight for her centre off mass — slightly off, she noticed, probably to avoid a direct hit on the major organs — so she took a step to the side to get a good angle to aim a sideways flick at the spellglow as it passed. A hard thrum echoing through her hand and up her wrist, and the curse reversed direction, zipping back at the column — it missed, streaking away maybe a couple metres wide up and to the left. Another curse, she just deflected this one, and then the next one she took a quick hop to the side, flick, a bit to the right this time, hopping back the other way, a backhanded flick, sending this one carving into the ground just a bit behind the column, flick, flick, flick, flick, all of her reflected curses going wide, her hand starting to go a little numb from the impacts.
And then, finally, one of them hit, smashing into the column about a third of the way from the top. The spellglow hit a little off the centre-line, but it didn't matter — with a brief flash of light, an ear-piercing crashing and jangling of breaking glass, the crystalline structure of the column shattered. Sizzling with releasing energy, tines of electricity sparking in every colour of the rainbow, the thing actually managed to get off one last blasting curse, catching her flat-footed, she barely managed to slap it away, and then it erupted, the light blinding and the air around her shivering with the intensity of the released magic, rushing out in a skin-prickling wave, she scrambled to cover herself with a shield, shards from the reservoirs plinking against the barrier.
When the light faded away and her vision cleared, the column was gone, only a few crystal fragments left sitting broken and dark on the circular base.
"Ha!" A little shaky and giddy, feeling herself grinning, she whirled around to point up above the square in a seemingly random direction. She hadn't really thought about it, moving on instinct, but she was still certain she was looking right into one of the cameras — an elf must be floating up there, hidden. "I fucking told you I could pull it off! Insisting on learning curse-reflection doesn't seem like a waste of effort now, does it? Fffuuuuck..."
She needed a couple minutes to collect herself, practically vibrating from adrenaline — if even one of those curses had slipped through, she would have been fucked — but before long she was continuing on, her steps so light on the dirt it almost felt like she was skipping.
The minds were growing thicker around her, multiple volunteers and Champions in her range. Over the next few minutes, she felt Cedric and Artèmi get into a fight, Cedric evacuated away and Artèmi continuing on, two volunteers teaming up to hit Viktor but still getting their arses kicked, damn...
Liz ground to a stop, frowning off to her left, through the hedges straight toward a familiar mind at the edge of her range. Professor Ollivander? What the fuck was he doing in here?
Shaking off her confusion, she continued on. She couldn't afford to get distracted by her History Professor being in the maze for some reason — maybe they had staff around keeping an eye on things, Zabini hadn't mentioned anything but it wasn't an unreasonable precaution — there were multiple minds around her, and close. Tense, her pace quick and stiff, she tapped her wand anxiously against the palm of her other hand. She could be attacked at any moment, she had to be close to the centre of the maze now...
She was at an intersection feeling out which way to go next when warning spanged through her head to toe, her hair standing on end — she'd just felt a mind come around a nearby corner, attention landing on her like hot needles. The bloke snapped off a stunning charm almost instantly, she leaned out of the way, cast a blasting curse, but he just stepped around it, running to close the distance, sending a hail of icicles ahead—
Fuck, he was definitely older than her, a NEWT(/Proficiency) student — she had a nasty feeling this was about to get messy.
A wind charm sending the icicles spinning off, "Rḗtte!" covered by the booming of thunder she hissed, «attack,» and then leapt straight into a quick-step. The boy — tall and pale and blond-haired, wearing duelling-style trousers and jacket in muddy greens and browns — turned into a smear in her peripheral vision, but as she streaked into the passage he was running down she still made out him stop and turn, his wand beginning a slow sweep through the space she was about to pass through. She ripped the magic apart early, interference crackling over her skin, even as she stumbled from her momentum she threw up a glittering orange shield charm — the flames, a funny clashing orange and green, splashed against the barrier and whorled away, dissolving into the air.
Dropping the shield, the boy was standing only a couple metres away, wand turning, but she got there first, a weak stripping hex zipping between them, it struck the boy in the gut but runes hidden in the fabric of his clothes lit up in a flash and there was no effect, a slash of his wand, she stepped to the side and ducked her head, the slicing curse slashing into the hedges behind her, at the same time stabbing out with a piercing hex, but the boy leapt to the side, they'd both dodged toward each other, now practically crammed into the narrow passage with the hedges to both of their backs, barely two steps apart, the boy cast some kind of elemental fire spell, but she parted it with a quick wind charm, a slicing curse cast on the follow-through back the other way, a shield charm blinking in and out to catch it (the bands of the curse to his left and right crashing into the hedges behind him), he snapped back with a purplish dark hex of some kind, she slapped it aside — a little flicker of surprise from his head, deflecting a hex at this range was ridiculous, but she was a cheater — twisting it into a blundgeoning hex, punching into the boy's chest and slamming him against the hedges, her follow-up stunning charm missed as the boy dropped, a swish aimed low at her legs, she quick-stepped to the side, the hedges behind where she'd just been bursting into flames, the boy rolled out of the way of a piercing hex, another swish of his wand casting some kind of arc spell an intense reddish-violet, filling the narrow confines of the passage, she caught it with a barrier of ice, shattering and bursting into steam with the impact—
And then the snakes caught up. She felt a pulse of surprise from the boy, parted the cloud of steam with a wind charm — he'd shoved them away with a wide-angled banishing of some kind, tried to dispel them, another shiver of surprise as that didn't work. (Assuming they were conjured, apparently.) "Svartísi hvíðu!" as the starry black spellglow sailed off casting "arcum fragmentum," with a spiralling motion of her wand, she started—
The boy caught the first spell with a conjured barrier, the entire surface icing over — dammit! that one worked best when it was blocked with a shield, clever bastard — the arc spell twisted into a spiral then pulverising the ice and the shield beneath, the boy stepping to the side to avoid any bits that came through, even as he directed tightly-aimed curses down at the snakes around his feet, she tried to tag him with a blasting curse but he skipped out of the way, aimed some kind of spell at the debris of his shield still collapsing to the ground—
—all the shattered bits and pieces of black ice and conjured stone send zipping straight at her, fuck! Diving to the dirt, Steðjinn detti! the stonehammer charm aimed at the ground bursting into a storm of wind, the force angling the stuff up and over her. She only had a second to breathe, scrambling to get her feet back under her, "hvítan," shining white ice spreading over the passage ahead of her in a blink, the boy's boots skidding, "lacera mutila trans—"
The boy let himself fall into the hedges, her first couple curses missing him, a harsh jab of his wand had an unusually large blue-green spellglow flying at her, hot dark magic prickling on the air, she dove to the side, unthinkingly crashing right into one of the hedge walls, twigs clutching at her clothes and scratching at her skin, dammit. The ice poofed up in a burst of steam, there was a funny shivering grinding noise from behind her as that funny-looking curse hit something, the boy blocked a piercing hex, the steam was somehow concentrated into a spear of ice, sent zipping at her with a flick of his wand, she batted it away with a quick banishing charm, while she was on the back foot from that he shot another intense dark curse at her, she took a very short quick-step to the side to dodge it, staggering shoulder-first into the opposite hedge, the curse carving a hole not far away, a complex blasting curse aimed at the boy's feet had fingers of lightning clawing at his legs, he skipped back out of reach—
There was a high, ear-piercing screech, and the hippogriff struck — the boy was startled, distracted by Liz he hadn't seen it coming, he tried to twist away but claws slashed across his shoulder, cloth shredded. He dove to the ground and rolled away, trying to open up some distance — which actually put the hippogriff between her and the boy, she scrambled at the last second to redirect her own blasting curse up and to the side to avoid hitting it —
A curse slashed across the hippogriff's side, staggering and letting out a long wavering warble, blood splashing down onto the dirt. A second spell ripped into the animal's chest, tearing it apart — a broken mass of feathers and bone and organs, the hippogriff was still moving, claws and beak fitfully twitching, but that was an obviously lethal wound, it wasn't getting up again. She caught a flash of surprise, creeping regret: the boy hadn't thought the hippogriff was real, some construct of hers, but the details of the exposed innards made it very clear that it wasn't conjured.
Liz ignored that, though, used the boy's temporary distraction as an opportunity to quick step back out into the more open area of the intersection. Whirling back around and tossing a complex blasting curse at the boy, he shook himself out of it in time to lean out of the way, the curse sailing past him down one of the passages, a slash of his wand casting an arc spell, canted at an angle so she could easily quick-step around it, another hex was flying in at her just as she came out, she deflected it away and retaliated with a piercing curse, and then deflected another hex, another, the boy advancing in an attempt to cut down the time she had to react, blocking a fire hex and skipping out of the way of a dark-feeling spell that likely would have gone straight through her shield, and then deflecting one two three hexes, she tried to slip in a curse of her own but had to abandon it to deflect another spell, fuck, this bastard was fast when he didn't have other shite to worry about...
Skipping out of the way of a hex, she managed to slip in another "hvítan" down at the ground, the boy's next spell going wide as his boots skid, "deseca transige cumfulmine-lacera!" While the boy vanished in a cloud of steam and crackling lightning, she quick-stepped to the side, "hrím-grípi arcum-fragmentum," another quick-step, "suprimat, apó as—"
Alarm spanging through her, she abandoned the curse, interference crackling up her arm, wrenched through it to throw up a shield — a bright blueish curse slammed into it, the force tipping Liz back a couple steps, and then condensed into a blue-white ball of ice about a foot wide, which then exploded, sending shards of ice flinging in all directions. Her shield wasn't a physical barrier, she was pelted with several pieces, tucking her face into her elbow, grimacing. She felt a streak of dark magic lancing toward her, quick-stepped to the side without looking, nearly tripped on landing as the spot she'd been standing a second ago burst into flames, the air sizzling with dark magic.
The boy had obviously been hit with something, she could make out frost still clinging to his hair and his clothes, but it didn't look like she'd managed to tag him with anything serious. So far, the hippogriff had done the worst to him, the shoulder of his jacket slashed up and wet with blood, narrow streams running down his arm and side. It didn't seem to slow him down any, though — unfortunately the damage wasn't to his wand arm — whipping around to face her, she barely got off a piercing hex before a narrow stream of fire was surging out toward her, she quick-stepped out of the way, an arc spell already only a second away when she landed, barely got a shield up in time, the force of the curse cracking it, but she dropped it immediately anyway, slapping aside one hex and then a second one before getting off a lightning hex, the boy barely managing to dodge it, a wave of fire sent sweeping across the dirt, she parted it with a shot of "svartísi hvíðu" aimed at the ground not far from her feet, she transmuted the black ice into a noisy burst of unnatural dark purplish lightning (the effort burning through her arm and her vision going grey at the edges), but the boy saw that coming, managed to get up a conjured barrier, bronzish metal simultaneously frosting over from condensation and glowing from the heat, reforming into a brace of spears the boy sent flying at her, she sent them spinning off end-over-end with a wind charm, a curse of some kind burning right at her heart, she quick-stepped out of the way, batting away another hex a blink after landing—
There was a deep, harsh, ear-piercing roar, and a troll suddenly came barrelling down one of the passages, behind the boy to his right — distracted by the duel, Liz hadn't even felt it coming. That was a forest troll, longer and lankier than the mountain troll she'd compelled to sleep as a first-year, four metres high and muscular, but without the dense flab. Its skin and fur were in shades of brown, but there was moss growing on the thing, in sheets wreathing its legs and down its back and chest and hanging from its chin and the back of its head. Its fingers ended in long black claws, in one hand a club that seemed to be fashioned out of the trunk of a tree, spikes of what looked like bone and antler sticking out of it.
Scrambling out of the way, the boy tossed a fire spell at the troll — it accomplished little but making the beds of moss smoke a bit, but the troll still let out a low bellow, echoing through her chest and skull, aimed a backhanded swipe at the boy, he barely scrambled out of the way. Liz's slicing hex didn't accomplish much more than that, cutting through the moss but just scratching a shallow line across the skin beneath...and she'd drawn its attention toward herself, so huge it practically filled the intersection, crossing it only a couple thundering steps. She reached out to its simple, animal mind, compelled it to focus on the boy—
Just as she tried to twist the troll's thoughts, she lost her grip, as sudden and disorienting as her hand abruptly going numb. What the...?
The troll looming over her, gripping its club with both hands and rearing back to swing, she barely had enough time to throw up a physical barrier — the club slammed into it, shattering the shield and the force carrying through to her, whipping her off her feet and sending her flying back to the left. The angle of the hit tipping her into a spin, the hedges and the sky and the dirt a dizzying mess, she concentrated, moved to cast a wide-angled banishing—
Before she could get the spell off she smashed into the hedges, branches jabbing hard into her side, her momentum had her ploughing through the bush for a little bit, twigs snapping and hot lines of sharp pain slashing across her face and he legs, tugging at her hair and her clothes, before she finally fell to the dirt, landing hard on her bum and nearly banging her head on her knees. Dizzy, she laid flat on her back, trying to catch her breath, the tops of the hedges and the sky overhead spinning, seemingly her whole body pounding.
Ow.
...The organisers must have given the troll an amulet of some kind to protect it from mind magic. That was annoying.
But she only delayed for a second, scrambling to get her feet back under her. She'd lost her wand at some point while crashing against the hedge, she summoned it back to her hand, darted back toward the intersection. The boy was still fighting the troll, managing to dodge or block all the hits coming at him, scrambling around the big damn thing in circles, too clumsy and slow to pin him down, shallow cuts and superficial burns visible here and there. A near miss, the troll's club smashing through the hedge behind the boy, pelting him over the head with fragments of leafy branches, half-burying him.
"Cumfulmine lacera!" The complex blasting curse struck the troll square in the back, over where its heart should be — it didn't penetrate, though, exploding in a burst of grasping lightning, the moss smoking and the troll lurching forward a bit. It whipped around to face her with an ear-splitting roar, she tried to aim a "Mutila!" right into its gaping mouth, but it started moving even as the spell flew, throwing off her aim. A curse of some kind from the boy bit into the troll's legs, it aimed a backward kick at him, catching him in the chest, the boy knocked back and toppling to the ground. Lifting its club over its head, it started turning back to the boy, "Rḗtte!" it bloody well screeched at the lightning, Liz's hands jumping up to cover her ears, and turned back around to charge at her, the ground seeming to shiver with its footsteps.
Of course, she did remember that trolls were afraid of lightning, but this was exactly what she'd been trying to accomplish: unfortunately, her range with this curse wasn't very good yet. Calling up magic thick and hot and crackling in her chest, she glared up at the advancing troll, "Machearā—" crossing the space between them in only a few massive steps, bloody fast, "—inānī an—" as it neared, looming over her, with a wide slash of her wand, "—nūllō!"
The curse searing through her, gritting her teeth, left burning and tingling numb, her head spinning and her vision greying for a second. The arc of the spell was invisible, but the effects certainly weren't — the troll just fell apart, opening up in a band from the middle of its chest, across and up, the tail end through its right arm. It didn't quite carve all the way through, she simply didn't have the power to compensate for the troll's magical resistance, but it was still very deep, thick dark red blood spilling down its chest, its right arm going limp as critical muscles were severed. Groaning in pain and confusion, the troll tipped down to its knees, its momentum still carrying it toward her, Liz leapt out of the way, running right into the hedge wall, the troll smashing down to the dirt only a couple metres away.
It was hurt very badly, that was a lethal wound, blood already forming a muddy puddle, but it wasn't dead yet. Fat toes scratching at the dirt, it tried to reach for her with its functional hand, she batted it away with banishing charm. Beady stupid eyes glaring at her, simmering with animal fear and hatred, mind sizzling and desperate, it reached for her again, she dipped out of the way of its oversized clawed hand, took careful aim. "Fulminelancea transige."
The curse struck the troll square on the right eye — with a flash of light and a snap of thunder, lightning pierced into the troll's skull. Because these things had absurd magical resistance, it didn't actually punch all the way through, like it was supposed to, but it went far enough. The troll abruptly went still, functional arm flopping limp to the ground, half of its face ruined with a blackened burn centred on where its right eye had been, steam lifting off of its head and some reddish-blackish gunk dribbling out of its ears. She scowled at the sight and the burnt flesh smell, covering her nose and mouth with one hand.
Effective, but gross.
Turning her back on the dead troll, she stepped back out into the intersection. The boy was still here, looking somewhat worse for wear — hunched over a little, obviously bruised from that kick (probably a couple broken ribs, too), still bleeding badly from the hippogriff scratches, walking with a bit of a limp. She bet she looked like a mess too, she could feel the stinging of scratches on her exposed skin from crashing through the hedge, she had a couple tears in her dress, probably had fucking leaves in her hair. They met in the middle of the intersection, watching each other, wands held loose and ready to their sides.
For a few breaths, they just stood there, only a couple steps apart, waiting. She could feel he thought he was fucked, he might have had her without that bloody troll, but he was too hurt now. He was basically just hoping he could get lucky, land the reward for bringing a Champion down before needing to call it quits.
Take your shot, then.
The feel of his mind firming up giving her warning, they moved simultaneously. She caught a dark fire charm on a glittery silvery shield — funny black-yellow flames expending themselves in flickers and whorls of turbulence — at the same time a flare of surprise and pain from the boy as the bludgeoning hex she'd cast with her wandless hand punched him hard in the gut. Not waiting for the flames to part, she cast a slicing curse in a downward slash, the blueish arc zipping through her shield and the cloud of fire.
By the time the flames cleared, the boy had already been evacuated away.
Alone in the intersection again — save for the mangled bloody corpses of the hippogriff and the snakes and the big damn troll — she paused a moment to heal up the worst of her cuts and bruises. She closed her eyes, felt out a hint for the right way to go, and she continued on.
She moved as fast as she could, going down passages just under a jog, delaying at intersections as briefly as possible. This was nearly the end, she could feel it, the air tense and anticipatory, like something was about to happen, her heart pounding in he ears. She could feel minds around — Artèmi relatively nearby, Viktor a bit further away over there, a couple of the volunteers (she'd lost track of Ollivander during the fight) — but none too immediate, she didn't feel like she was in danger of running into anyone, but if she delayed too long she might get someone coming up behind her. She thought Artèmi and one of the volunteers might be in the same general area of the maze as she was, but behind her, as long as she kept moving she should be able to stay ahead...
It wasn't just the tension on the air (her own or some hint from the Sight, she couldn't tell), her sense of the maze's wards had gotten more intense. She didn't realise what they were doing at first, but in time it became clear they were trying to misdirect the Champions — presumably to keep them here for longer, where they and the volunteers had more opportunity to run into each other. They were mostly useless against her, though. There were some points where illusions were cast into the maze, the correct route looking to be nothing but solid hedge-wall...to people who weren't Liz, of course, she could tell immediately that the image was fake. It was hard to express how she knew that, it wasn't as though the hedges in that spot actually looked any different from any of the other hedges around, she just knew, instinct, the same way the fake doors and stairs and shite in Hogwarts never fooled her. The Sight was like that sometimes. She hardly even payed any attention to what she was seeing, following the hints she picked up, walking straight through seemingly solid walls without any thought.
She noticed Artèmi and that other nearby mind had met each other, breaking out into a fight — good, that might slow Artèmi down a little bit, at least.
It wasn't just visual illusion, there were also avoidance spells, emotional manipulation. Her eyes wanting to slide over one direction, a little thrill of anticipation tugging her one way, or a feeling of not wanting to pushing her away from another. But she just ignored all of it, and kept following her cheating Seer hints. Coming down one passage — the end so close now she could practically taste it — prickles sweeping over her skin in a wave, the hair at the back of her neck standing up, suddenly feeling jittery and— This was the wrong way, she was in danger, she had to— She grit her teeth, glaring at the corner up ahead, and kept walking, one foot after the other, her chest tight and her knees shaking with artificial fear, forced herself to keep moving regardless, she was almost there...
The fear dribbled away as she reached the corner, like a physical weight being lifted off of her, she let out a relieved breath. Ahead, there was a large, wide-open space, fifteen to twenty metres to a side, the murky cover of the wards sealing the maze pulled back to show the sky streaked with the oranges and pinks of approaching sunset — in the middle was a circle of stone tile, at the centre a plain stone plinth, atop it a two-handled crystal chalice, decorated with golden detailing, glittering and gleaming in the fading light.
...Was she here first? Was she actually about to win this stupid fucking Tournament? Ugh, she wasn't even supposed to be in this stupid thing...
Letting out a heavy sigh, she started moving again. She didn't run straight up to the plinth, taking it slow, casting detection spells every few steps — if she were designing this thing, she'd put a few hidden traps just after the Cup came into sight, to catch anyone over-eagerly rushing forward. And it seemed like someone on the organisers' team had had the same idea, because she did run into a few traps hidden on the way. They weren't trap hexes, but enchantments, projected by objects hidden in the dirt. Mostly she could just weave around them, but sometimes that way ended up blocked by additional traps, so she had to dig them out with a few charms, levitated them over against the side-wall out of the way. But she couldn't stall too long, she felt Artèmi's mind behind her and Viktor's to her left, getting closer...
She'd glance up at the Cup now and then — it was a pretty little thing. The crystal was almost certainly alchemically-produced, which would have been a pretty impressive accomplishment at the time, the handles and the base metal, probably silver or some kind of magical steel, golden threads beaten into the surface twisting in complicated Celtic-knot sort of shapes. There was some debate about just what the thing was, and what it was originally used for. It'd been associated with the Tournament since just about the beginning, but using cups like this as a trophy was far more modern than that. It'd definitely been made in Britain, the art style kind of gave that away, but beyond that they weren't really sure. The best theory Hermione had managed to find was that it was originally used in some kind of hospitality ritual to open up the Tournament — both the Celts and the Norse had had practices like that, so it wouldn't have seemed weird to the staff and students of two out of three of the schools, at least — held in trust by whichever of the schools would be hosting the next one, the transition into being used as a trophy gradual over the centuries. That seemed reasonable to Liz, neatly explained what seemed like an anachronism at first glance.
There was also a not uncommon theory that it was actually the famous golden chalice of Helga Hufflepuff, which supposedly had mysterious magical powers, but that was almost certainly nonsense.
Finally, she had an open path out of her passage and to the Cup. Liz sped up into a trot, practically buzzing with excitement, she could feel the smile twitching at her lips. She did enjoy winning at things, but at the same time she was a little exasperated — she just knew some people were going to be a fucking pain about this, winning the Tournament after inappropriately being entered in the first place...
Oh well, people were a fucking pain about her in general, she guessed this really wouldn't be that much of a change. Still annoying.
She was only a few metres away from the circle of tile when she jumped at attention crashing on her, hitting like a rain of hot needles — following the line of sight back, she immediately found Viktor, coming in through a passage ninety degrees around from hers. Her heart jumping into her throat, she turned to leap toward the Cup, but then scrambled back at a flare of warning spanging through her, a searing cold light curse burning right through where she would have been if she hadn't backed off. She tossed a complex blasting curse off at him, but he caught it on a conjured disc of bronze, which he sent winging over at her, fuck—
He had been charing forward, but he stopped before he actually reached the open area — there must be traps over there too. That would slow him down, she tossed another curse his way before turning to run at the Cup — but before she could get more than a few steps there was a huge flare of magic on the air, a deafening grinding explosion, she glanced that way to see a massive damn wave of earth tossed into the air and flying her way, she jumped into a quick-step, frantic enough that she wasn't really aiming, tripped on landing, rolling in the grass once before catching herself on her hands and knees. The huge mass of overturned dirt came plunking and scattering back to the ground, drifting to a stop, a couple feet deep in places...
Fuck, that spell had been absurd — she'd seen recordings of his performance in previous Tasks, but he'd never pulled out something quite on that scale. She might be fucked, here.
A little disoriented from her messy quick-step, she staggered up to her feet, the Cup was this way — but before she could get there another curse was burning in at her, she had to throw up a shield to catch it, the force sending sizzling cracks through her shield, she dropped it before Viktor could shatter it. He was charging out into the square now, his overpowered spell must have chewed up the ground badly enough to uproot all the enchanted trap things, spellglows flying out of his wand one after the other, she deflected one, the impact shivering numb through her wrist, skipped out of the way of another, deflected a second, tried to toss of a hex but gave it up to shield an arc spell, slipped to the side (out of the way of another curse) managing to get off an "Arcum fragmentum!" her sideways motion dragging the arc into a long band, skipping closer to the plinth—
The space between her and the Cup suddenly erupted in flames, hot on her skin, digging in her heels and nearly falling on her arse, barely managed to stop herself from running right into the flames, fuck!
There was conjured stuff flying at her, she quick-stepped out of the way, coming out with a lightning hex, Viktor catching it with more conjured shite, twisting it into a cloud of wires, some of them visibly glowing from the heat of the lightning strike, sent them winging off at her, fuck, she quick-stepped again, at an angle back toward the Cup, Viktor still charging across the square shooting curses at her, she deflected a couple more away — she could feel the harsh icey chill, he was using light spells, probably just to fuck with her — jumped into another quick-step, coming out to more conjured shite flying at her, she tried to deflect it away but still got hit in the shoulder with what felt a lot like a bludger, grimacing at the dull pain and rearing back a couple steps from the momentum, fuck...
She barely ducked out of the way of some kind of spell aimed at her chest (stunner, maybe), with an underhanded flick sent a blasting curse back at Viktor, he spun out of the way, an arc spell of some kind zipping across the air, bursting into nothing against a silvery shield charm, and then there were more hexes, she deflected one two three, jumped out of the way of an especially strong light-feeling one she wasn't sure she'd be able to deflect, started casting a curse but then immediately had to cut it off when there was already another hex coming at her, come on!
Viktor was already getting close to the middle of the square, leaning around a hex she aimed a stonehammer charm at the space between him and the plinth, the blast of wind slowing him down for a second, pausing to duck down and cover his face with an arm, "Affragmen percute!" He conjured up a column of dirt to catch the curse, too thick for the shotgun blast of piercing curses to transmit through it — dammit! — the dirt then transfigured into a column of circular blades of steel — double dammit! — he sent them cutting through the air at her, she quick-stepped out of the way—
Some invisible hex struck somewhere near her, there wasn't any obvious effect, but then the world seemed to tilt, her head spinning as gravity swung ninety degrees, parallel to the ground, Liz 'fell' backward, pretty quickly she left the area of effect, gravity swinging around only making her more dizzy, landing at an awkward angle and flopping over, slamming down hard in the dirt chest first, her arm twinging as she pulled something, fuuuuck...
She was only there for a blink before there was a snap of magic, bright orange bands of some kind of binding spell appearing out of nowhere and wrapping around her, wrenching her legs tight together and forcing her arms to hug around her middle. What...?
Oh, this was dirt, the square was actually covered in grass — she must have landed in the debris from Viktor's big earth-moving spell, right on one of the traps. That was fucking unlucky.
Craning her neck, back and around, she saw Viktor running for the plinth. She took in a sharp breath, concentrating, reached out to the magic cinched tight around her and shredded it apart, tore her wand arm out of their grip, "Hvítan!" Smooth ice raced across the ground, Viktor's feet were suddenly whipped out from under him and he fell hard — she was pretty sure he'd even hit his head. Shaking off the rest of the binding magic, pushing herself up to her feet, "Lacera verveikt affragmen-percute!"
Viktor slid out of the way of the blasting curse, the ice then beginning to steam and melt away, he caught the stunning charm on a shield while still on one knee, and moved to stand...holding his shield — the complex piercing curse made contact, and then shifted colours, a rain of narrow blue-violet spellglows slashed through the inside of his shield, at least a few of them hitting Viktor. She didn't see much damage, though, there must be some protective enchantments in his clothes, but she was pretty sure at least one had done something...
Lurching up to his feet, staggering a little, he caught a complex blasting curse on a conjured bronze disc, sent it flying at her, quickly followed with a tight swirl of an arc spell, she quick-stepped out of the way, a wide smear of fire moving at her in a wave, she caught it on a shield, a band of steel wire then flying through the shield, wrapping around her middle and cutting at her dress and the skin of her off-arm, fuck, she tossed off a severing curse before quick-stepping away, using the second it took Viktor to deal with the curse and reorient toward her to vanish the conjured wire, caught an overpowered complex blasting curse on a shield, the force enough to shatter her shield instantly, slamming down hard on her arse, the breath knocked out of her and hot-cold sizzling interference clawing at her wand arm, she scrambled out of the way of a brace of conjured spears stabbing down at her, barely got a foot under her before she had to quick-step out of the path of another arc spell, instantly tumbling to the ground on landing, another burning cold curse sailing through the air over her, Viktor easily sidled out of the way of a wild piercing curse aimed from the ground, she rolled out of the way of a slicing curse, getting a knee back under her, slashed at Viktor's legs, a graceful hop aided with a banishing charm got him clean over the band of her curse — that was her trick, had she ever fought anyone else who actually pulled off that kind of shite? — staggering to her feet, a blasting curse aimed at him in mid-air going wide, Viktor landing with a sudden roaring flood of blue-white fire she recognised as calore vindicans, swirling around to rush in at her, fuck fuck fuck...
When the flames cleared, she saw Viktor was very close to the Cup, she frantically cast a blasting curse. He cast a shield to catch it, well in time, but she wasn't aiming at him — her curse struck the plinth, the plain stone was smashed into several pieces, debris clattering against the tile, the Cup was tossed up in a little arc, bounced against the tile and into the grass. She started running toward it, but Viktor hit the Cup with a bludgeoning hex or something before she could reach it, sent bouncing and tumbling away through the grass. And she couldn't follow it, more hexes and curses from Viktor raining down on her, because of course, dodging and deflecting and blocking, her shield fucking shattering again, stumbling out of the way of another curse...
Viktor was too damn fast, and more powerful than her, fucking shattering her shields, and without even what looked like too much effort, tossing those curses out as easily as anything else. He was visibly bleeding a little, from that one little piercing hex that got through, but he was still moving more or less smoothly — and Liz was all bruised to hell, and tired, made even worse when she was clipped by the tail end of an unfamiliar orange arc spell, a bludgeoning effect spinning her around and sending her to the ground again, her knee throbbing with pain, pulled something, barely rolled out of the way of a follow up hex, still on her knees caught a blasting curse on a shield...
If it kept going on like this, she was fucked, he'd get a shot through eventually.
Her rescue came from an unexpected source: there was a harsh whistling scream of protesting air, both of them turning toward the noise, a maelstrom of red-white flames came spiralling out of one of the passages, arcing up into the air before tipping down to come to a landing nearby, she threw up a shield, the flames rushing out in a wave, slamming down like an overpowered bludgeoning hex, digging in her toes against the weight...
Artèmi sprung up to her feet from the epicentre, shrouded with smoke and a few lingering wisps of flame — and she came out cursing, painfully bright spellglows lancing out at Viktor, tossing one over her shoulder toward Liz seemingly as an afterthought...
This was probably the best chance she was about to get.
They quickly fell into a terribly confusing three-way fight, Artèmi and Viktor both going all-out, the latter casting shockingly powerful curses and conjuring metal shields and spears and wires, the former shrouded with swirls of flames and flashes of elemental sunlight, almost hurt to look at — which Liz was sure was on purpose, since it made it harder to see what she was doing. The majority of their spellwork was aimed at each other — they were both better fighters than her, and she was more badly injured — but even the smattering of spells she got from the two of them was still a lot to deal with when put together, blocking curses or pushing off burst of fire or just dancing out of the way, firing back whenever she had a shot, Viktor mostly covering himself with conjured shields, firm and implacable, Artèmi gracefully weaving around the spells aimed at her — once she even deflected one of Liz's curses at Viktor, woah...
Once she thought she had an opening, covering herself with an overpowered breaking curse, the sweep of the arc wide enough to hit them both, she spun on her heel and quick-stepped in the direction of the Cup.
She didn't take the trip all in one jump, or straight toward it, aware she'd be making herself a target — when she came out an arc spell was only seconds away, caught it on a shield charm, jumped into another quick-step, a roar of searingly cold flames, "Norðri hvirfilbylinn!" gritting her teeth as the spell burned through her, the flames torn apart by the whirlwind, a grinding shove of magic sending it spinning off toward Artèmi and Viktor, another flare of pain at an overpowered elemental spell, "Vetranjólu fönn!" aimed at the centre of the whirlwind, immediately darkening as it sucked up the eerie sparkling black-purple snow, she didn't wait to see what they'd do with that, turned around and quick-stepped again—
She was only a couple metres away, the Cup sitting on its side in the grass ahead, when it was suddenly whipped up off the ground, zipping away — someone was summoning it, Viktor. Spinning around, she started leaning into a quick-step — she could probably get to Viktor before the Cup could, but before she could even take off, a narrow white spellglow struck the Cup in mid-air, with an audible plunk sending it zipping away as quickly as a bludger from a beater's bat, breaking the summoning charm's grip. Fuck, that was a brilliant shot, Artèmi's aim was fucking incredible sometimes, as in literally unbelievable...
The Cup was skipping away across the grass, Liz summoned it toward her, but she didn't wait for it to come to her, spun around and quick-stepped closer to the fight. Someone had dealt with her snowstorm somehow, the clumps and streaks of discoloured snow scattered across the grass here and there, letting off a thin rainbow mist as the magic dissolved back into the environment. Since she'd last looked, Viktor had gotten slightly scorched, his clothes blackened on one side and his hair uneven, Artèmi thinly bleeding from a couple little knicks, probably from conjured wire. Both still in fighting shape, unfortunately — if one of them seemed to be getting the worse of it Liz would focus on the other, hoping the two of them could take them out, leaving her with the more injured one...
Since she wasn't that lucky, "lacera" to Viktor and then "rḗtte" to Artèmi, slapping aside a burning orange spellglow and spinning out of the way of an arc spell, "flévas sparassésþō" to Artèmi, "frangatur" to Viktor in the second she had before she needed to get out a physical barrier to catch the conjured shite flung at her, a couple wires wrapping around the dome and a spear sent flipping end-over-end over her head, levitating up the wire, she sent it flying at Artèmi, "dilabentem" aimed at the wire itself before it hit (the lightning should do funny things with that) followed by a "mitigare," the light hex leaving an unpleasant chill behind — if she was lucky, Artèmi wouldn't be expecting a light spell from her, slip right through her usual shield charms — slapping aside another curse, "arcum fragmentum" toward Viktor, her head shook with a deafening bang as one of Artèmi's curses struck one of Viktor's shields, she ducked her head and covered her face with an arm, little bits of debris pelting her over the shoulder—
This seemed like a good time. Spinning on her heel, she quick-stepped away again — the Cup was this way, glittering innocently in the grass. She zigged, and then she zagged, misaimed spellglows passing in slow motion behind her, a breaking curse of some kind tore up the ground not far from her feet, staggering, but she got her feet back under her and—
—she felt a spell strike her in the lower back, numb weakness sweeping over her in a wave, her head spinning, everything went black...
...she woke with a surge of adrenaline, the world snapping back into bright, noisy clarity, her heart pounding in her ears and her skin crawling and her whole body seeming to thrum almost painfully, catching herself on her hands and knees in the grass before she could even fall all the way. (Enchanting her knickers to wake her up from stunning spells? Brilliant idea.) Gasping, she glanced around, looking for—
There! Even as she spotted it a smallish wolf — a bit sleeker and less fluffy than she knew real wolves tended to be — was running by some metres away, one handle of the Cup held in its jaws. Viktor, he must have conjured that. It leapt over a curse from Artèmi, the force from the fiery explosion making it stumble a bit on landing, its paws scrabbling at the grass, Liz snapped up to her feet, metal discs were slamming themselves into the ground in a long row, forming a physical barrier to protect the wolf, curses from Artèmi smashing them into debris, the wolf occasionally hit but still running—
Liz quick-stepped around to the right side of the barrier then, a featherweight charm covering her with a tingle, she skipped off the ground and cast the strongest summoning charm she could manage, at the hedge wall beyond the wolf.
She was bodily yanked into the air, wind clawing at her hair and her dress and stinging in her eyes, the wolf coming up fast, practically holding her breath, her heart heavy and hard in her throat, she felt surprise jolting from her left and ahead to her right (they'd both thought she was knocked out), she felt her speed start to drag, accelerated with a second summoning charm, debris pattering against her legs as a barrier nearby was blown apart, sending her slightly off-course, a third summoning charm at the ground ahead, tugging her down—
—she slammed into the wolf, both arms snapping around it, bringing them both tumbling to the grass, more debris pelting over them and a stunning charm from Viktor missing by inches, the wolf was growling, paws scrabbling, she fisted her hand in the scruff its neck, reached around for the Cup—
—the instant her skin touched it, he wand clinking against the metal, a jittery energetic surge of magic snapped out of the Cup and latched onto her, a hard yank at her middle and Viktor and Artèmi's minds blinked out of existence, the square around her vanishing in a swirl of nonsense colour, twisting as she spun, falling, the motion of the magic and of the colours didn't match up, squeezing her eyes closed against the nausea, wind buffeting her from every direction as the portkey pulled her into itself but also down and to her right, vomit bubbling in her throat—
But it only lasted a couple seconds, Liz soon slammed back down against the ground, hard on her side, her knees banging together and her arm squished and the Cup and her wand bouncing out of numb fingers. Her bruises throbbing in protest, she coughed, trying to catch her breath. Her head was still spinning from the portkey, hadn't even gotten a good look at her surroundings yet — she should have been teleported straight to the front of the stands, but it was too quiet, no minds around — when she felt a sudden sizzling of magic jumping out of the ground under her, zeroing in on her like knives against her skin.
She recognised the incoming magic as a trap hex the instant before she lost consciousness.