In the days leading up to the third task, Alastair kept his tarot deck with them at all times, using it now and then to test its accuracy by asking questions that could be verified. He found he was getting accurate answers every time, something that surprised him. Finally, a form of divination that worked, that was worth something!

Another useful new thing was Chandra and Hypatia had turned some of Chandra's wandless experiments into wanded spells with incantations. Well, incantations after a fashion; Chandra had chosen to associate the spells with musical notes, something he had apparently done with some previously existing spells as well. What was more, apparently the wand movements weren't actually necessary either, so he didn't need to bother with those. The difference these things made for him for the speed of his casting was incredible. In a matter of weeks, he'd gone from the slowest caster of all of them to the fastest, able to toss a dozen spells off in seconds just by aiming his wand and singing a few bars of song.

On the morning of the third task, however, something bad happened; Rita Skeeter, not happy with exposing their history with the Dursleys to the public, had written another article about them, which suggested they were more insane than being a multiple would even account for. The article was about how “disturbed and dangerous” they were, how they were now hallucinating in classes, claiming their scar hurt, and revealing also their Parseltongue status.

Adira sighed. “Well, that happened,” she said. “Whatever. People will think what they'll think. I'm officially done giving a crap.”

“How did she know your scar hurt in Divination?” Ron asked. “There’s no way she was there, there’s no way she could’ve heard —”

“The window was open,” said Addy. “I opened it to breathe.”

“You were at the top of North Tower!” Hermione said. “Your voice couldn’t have carried all the way down to the grounds!”

“Well, you’re the one who’s supposed to be researching magical methods of bugging!” said Addy. “You tell me how she did it!”

“I’ve been trying!” said Hermione. “But I … but …”

An odd, dreamy expression suddenly came over Hermione’s face. She slowly raised a hand and ran her fingers through her hair.

“Are you all right?” said Ron, frowning at her.

“Yes,” said Hermione breathlessly. She ran her fingers through her hair again, and then held her hand up to her mouth, as though speaking into an invisible walkie-talkie. Addy and Ron stared at each other.

“I’ve had an idea,” Hermione said, gazing into space. “I think I know … because then no one would be able to see … even Moody … and she’d have been able to get onto the window ledge … but she’s not allowed … she’s definitely not allowed … I think we’ve got her! Just give me two seconds in the library — just to make sure!”

With that, Hermione seized her school bag and dashed out of the Great Hall.

“Oi!” Ron called after her. “We’ve got our History of Magic exam in ten minutes! Blimey,” he said, turning back to Addy, “she must really hate that Skeeter woman to risk missing the start of an exam. What’re you going to do in Lupin's class — read again?”

Exempt from the end-of-term tests as a Triwizard champion, Addy had been sitting in the back of every exam class so far, even Lupin's history class, looking up fresh hexes for the third task.

“Yes, I guess I---”

(HOLY SHIT!) came a shout in their head.

Jeez Louise, Hypatia, could you shout any louder? What's up?

(I think I know what Hermione figured out! Skeeter is an animagus! She becomes a beetle!)

Really?

(Yes, remember there was a beetle in Luna's hair after the Second Task? And that beetle that nearly got eaten by your snake during your first date with Luna?)

Yes! And it would explain why we didn't see her at the ice cream shop! She could tail us by hitching a ride on our clothes!

(And Draco was talking to her in his hand! He wouldn't mind she was doing it illegally.)

Adira was about to share all this with Ron when Professor McGonagall came walking alongside the Gryffindor table toward her.

“Potter, the champions are congregating in the chamber off the Hall after breakfast,” she said.

“But the task’s not till tonight!” said Addy, accidentally spilling scrambled eggs down her front, afraid she had mistaken the time.

“I’m aware of that, Potter,” she said. “The champions’ families are invited to watch the final task, you know. This is simply a chance for you to greet them.”

“Wait, when you say our families...”

“I mean just Sirius Black, Miss Potter, not to worry.”

“Oh good.”

“Adira, I’d better hurry,” Ron said. “I’m going to be late for Lupin's class. See you later.”

“You too, Ron!”

Addy quickly finished her breakfast and followed Fleur Delacour and Cedric Diggory as they crossed to the side chamber and entered with them, Krum close behind.

Cedric and his parents were just inside the door. Viktor Krum was over in a corner, conversing with his dark-haired mother and father in rapid Bulgarian. He had inherited his father’s hooked nose. On the other side of the room, Fleur was jabbering away in French to her mother. Fleur’s little sister, Gabrielle, was holding her mother’s hand. She waved at Adira, who waved back, grinning. Then she saw Sirius, and ran over to them to hug him.

“How are you, pup?” Sirius asked.

“A little nervous, but fine.”

“I read your most recent letter to me,” Sirius said. “So Al has mastered the tarot deck, then?”

“Well he hasn't tried any of the more complex spreads yet, just one card and three-card spreads, but so far so good.”

“Excellent! And Chandra's casting with music?” Sirius asked.

“Yeah, it's pretty cool,” Adira said. “Want me to see if I can get him to show you?”

“We'd better go onto the grounds for that,” Sirius said.

“Yeah, okay,” said Addy, and they made their way back toward the door into the Great Hall. As they passed Amos Diggory, he looked around at them.

“There you are, are you?” he said, looking Addy up and down. “Bet you’re not feeling quite as full of yourself now Cedric’s caught you up on points, are you?”

“What?” said Addy.

“Ignore him,” said Cedric in a low voice to her, frowning after his father. “He’s been angry ever since Rita Skeeter’s article about the Triwizard Tournament — you know, when she made out you were the only Hogwarts champion.”

“Didn’t bother to correct her, though, did she?” said Amos Diggory, loudly enough for Addy to hear as she started to walk out of the door with Mrs. Weasley and Bill. “Still … you’ll show her, Ced. Beaten her once before, haven’t you?”

“Rita Skeeter goes out of her way to cause trouble, Amos!” Sirius said angrily. “I would have thought you’d know that, working at the Ministry!”

Mr. Diggory looked as though he was going to say something angry, but his wife laid a hand on his arm, and he merely shrugged and turned away.

“Anyway, Mr. Diggory,” Adira said, “I tried multiple times telling her off. Al even lit her parchment on fire. It didn't do any good, except that over the past few months we've made our displeasure with her even more obvious, or hadn't you read her later article where she said I attacked her? That much was at least mostly true; she insulted a friend of mine, and Chandra magically pinned her to the ceiling in retribution.”

He turned back around, looking a little mollified, and a little embarrassed.

“Rita Skeeter is vile garbage and we can't stand her. I can't believe you'd take any of her tripe seriously! You've been putting up with her lies far longer than I have, you should have figured out by now she's a lying waste of space who puts just enough truth in her lies to make them believable.”

Mr. Diggory looked sheepish all of a sudden.

“Sorry, Adira,” he said, more sheepish than ever before.

She paused a few seconds before saying, “Apology accepted.” They shook hands, and Addy turned around toward Sirius. “Come on, I want to show off Chandra's new technique.”

Adira had a very enjoyable morning walking over the sunny grounds with Sirius, showing him the Beauxbatons carriage and the Durmstrang ship, and showing off Chandra's technique. They did that by having an actual dual with Sirius, who had been practicing to get back on form, and they soundly beat Sirius by bombarding him with more spells than he could duck or shield against, though it had taken several minutes; several minutes where Adira looked like she was a dancing and singing orchestra conductor, tossing out an impressive number of spells along the way. Afterward, it took the two of them 10 minutes with their wands to clean up the mess and restore the grounds they'd damaged during the duel.

After lunch in the Great Hall, the two of them whiled away the afternoon with a long walk around the castle, and then returned again to the Great Hall for the evening feast. Ludo Bagman and Cornelius Fudge had joined the staff table now. Bagman looked quite cheerful, but Cornelius Fudge, who was sitting next to Madame Maxime, looked stern and was not talking. Madame Maxime was concentrating on her plate, and Adira thought her eyes looked red. Hagrid kept glancing along the table at her.

There were more courses than usual, but Adira, who was starting to feel really nervous now, didn’t eat much. Instead, she was letting Al do some more tarot spreads of their situation. Some of the results they were getting were bizarre, and starting to add up to a direction that was getting disturbing. They didn't want to believe it, but when they pieced it together, they put the cards away and got up.

"Sirius, Remus, I have to check something, I'll be right back," she said, running off.

"Where are you going? The Third Task starts in 20 minutes!"

"I'll be there, going to my dorm really quick!" she called back.

Please don't let it be true, please don't let it be true, she kept thinking as she ran to her room and pulled out the Marauder's Map. Scanning it quickly, she saw Alastor Moody on the Map, where he always appeared to be on it, in his office. Most everyone else was in the Great Hall. She looked over by the library and saw... but he was dead! Wasn't he? But no, he could have run away and come back later. Why else would the name Barty Crouch be on the Map?

There was only one way to find out for sure. She put the Map away and hurried off under her invisibility cloak to check Moody's office. When she got there, she couldn't unlock the door. But Hypatia, sensing the importance of this, gave her some other spells to try, and finally she got into the office and began looking around for the thing she'd figured out would be important if she was right.

Soon enough, she found it. Getting it open was a little harder because it had seven locks, but with Hypatia's help, they soon had the trunk open to the right lock and looked down into it at Alastor Moody – the real Alastor Moody. His hair had plainly been cut quite a lot, without any concern for aesthetics. Which suggested the Polyjuice Potion.

She suddenly felt a wand at her back.

“So you figured it out, did you?” said the familiar voice of the fake Moody.

“Y-yes.”

“I worried you might, ever since I started seeing you with those tarot cards. Especially when I noticed your readings were incredibly accurate. Knew it was a matter of time. I was hoping you'd go down to the Third Task before you figured it out, though.”

“So you're going to kill us now? Now that we've found you out?”

He chuckled. “Oh no, Miss Potter. You're going to go to the Third Task. You will tell nobody what you've found out. You will offer no hint or clue that anything is amiss, that you're anything more than nervous for the Third Task for entirely normal reasons. You will not make eye contact with Snape or Dumbledore, either, or let them make eye contact with you. You will win the Tournament, touch the Triwizard Cup, which I have made into a Portkey. In so doing, you will go join my master to become an ingredient he needs for his return to power.”

“Why the Hell should I do any of that?”

“Because despite hoping I was wrong, I nonetheless anticipated your discovery of the truth. I don't know how you got past the locking spells I had on the door, but I prepared for this possibility all the same, given your track record. I think you'll find your little blond girlfriend, the Lovegood freak, will be missing from the crowd tonight. From what I know of her, I doubt anyone will notice her absence.”

“What have you done with Luna?!”

“She is alive and well. I stunned her from behind, and she's sleeping safely somewhere else. She'll be released safely when you touch the Triwizard Cup. There's no reason to keep her longer than that; she is no threat to my master, and you will not live to see the next sunrise, so by then she will no longer be useful as leverage. I give you my word of her safety, even though I doubt you'll believe me. But that's only if you cooperate. If you don't, even your tarot cards won't help you find her before she dies.”

They thought very fast, about whether they could find Luna before this unknown man could hurt her. But they had no idea where she was, what kind of danger she was in, or how this man was planning to hurt her if they didn't cooperate.

(This man is an idiot. Why doesn't he just modify our memory?)

Maybe he can't think of a cover story for why we rushed off. Shit, we should think of one, so Luna doesn't get hurt!

How about 'invisibility cloak'? It could be useful in the Third Task, and at no time was it forbidden. Also, we do have the cloak.

The wand at her back poked her.

“Fine, okay, I agree,” she said. “But if you hurt Luna, I will make you beg for the mercy of death.”

“That confident you'll survive, Potter? Sorry, but even with that dancing light show you put on earlier, my master will still kill you without a problem. Your spells are impressive looking, but they are weak and pathetic.”

“Are you going to keep yammering and make me late to the Task, or what?”

The wand lifted from her.

“Go then, Potter. But remember, one sign of trying to warn anyone, and I will kill her.”

“I swear on my magic I will go touch the Triwizard Cup and face Voldemort. Happy now?”

“Yes, quite. Then if you do something stupid, you lose both your little lover and your magic. Go now, hurry.”

She turned around. The fake Moody had a wand aimed at her still, but he had moved out of her way. She took off running, no longer caring about Filch catching her.

~

“There you are!” Sirius said as Adira ran up to the Quidditch pitch. “You're very nearly late. Where were you?”

“Had to get my invisibility cloak. Might be useful.”

“Well hurry along before they get too impatient. Be safe, pup.”

“Yes, Sirius,” she said. It wasn't even a lie; the fake Moody had only bound her to facing Voldemort, the terms of the binding said nothing about immediately fleeing the moment she saw him or surviving somehow. At least, that's how she hoped it worked.

“Feeling all right, uh... Adira?” Bagman asked as they went down the stone steps onto the grounds. “Confident?”

“Yes yes, let's just get on with this, okay?”

Bagman looked sympathetic, and turned away from her.

They walked onto the Quidditch field, which was now completely unrecognizable. A very large cube-shaped building was in the center, the inside of the structure visible, and a number of other screens up repeating the visuals for the sides of the cube the people in the stands couldn't otherwise see from where they were. There seemed to be four floors on the thing. The stands were full; the air was full of excited voices and the rumbling of feet as the hundreds of students filed into their seats. Adira scanned the stands for Luna, and saw no sign of her, which confirmed her fears.

The sky was a deep, clear blue now, and the first stars were starting to appear. Hagrid, Professor Moody, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Flitwick came walking into the stadium and approached Bagman and the champions. They were wearing large, red, luminous stars on their hats, all except Hagrid, who had his on the back of his moleskin vest.

“We are going to be patrolling the outside of the maze,” said Professor McGonagall to the champions. “If you get into difficulty, and wish to be rescued, send red sparks into the air, and one of us will come and get you, do you understand?”

The champions nodded, but Adira wondered how that would work. Did the teachers have a map of the maze, or some kind of shortcuts? Oh well, there wasn't time to ask, and she didn't trust herself not to spill the beans if she tried.

Bagman explained a bit more, about how the center of the maze was on the second floor, but there were places where they'd have to go to the third or even fourth floor to work their way there. When he was done, he asked if they understood. They all nodded.

“Off you go, then!” said Bagman brightly to the four patrollers.

“Good luck, Addy,” Hagrid whispered, and the four of them walked away in different directions, to station themselves around the maze. Bagman now pointed his wand at his throat, muttered, “Sonorus,” and his magically magnified voice echoed into the stands.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament is about to begin! Let me remind you how the points currently stand! In first place, Viktor Krum of Durmstrang Institute with 90 points! Tied in second place with 78 points each are Adira Potter and Cedric Diggory, both of Hogwarts School! And in last place, Fleur Delacour of Beauxbatons Academy!”

Adira turned and saw the fake Moody. Employing her occlumency, she hid her feelings about him well. As she turned back, she saw Sirius and Remus cheering for her. She turned away, her stomach feeling horrible, and she was suddenly very sad, thinking she might be dead before tomorrow, that this might be the last time they saw her, the last time she saw them.

“So on my whistle, Mr. Krum!” said Bagman. “Three, two, one--”

He gave a short blast on his whistle, and Krum went forward into the weird maze building. After a minute or two's head start – she wasn't sure, time was being weird again – she heard the second whistle, and she and Cedric hurried forward into the maze.

The inside of the building looked like a normal corridor, except that there weren't any doors, just other corridors intersecting with each other. Very little sound from outside made its way inside, which made sense. She felt almost as though she were underwater again. She pulled out her wand, muttered, “Lumos,” and heard Cedric do the same just behind her.

After about fifty yards, they reached a fork. They looked at each other.

“See you,” she said, taking the left one. Cedric took the right.

Adira didn't go far, though. With some help from Hypatia, she cast a few spells on the corridor to impede Fleur's progress. She couldn't yet stop Krum from winning instead of her, nor Cedric, but if she could save Fleur, then she'd have done something good. She just hoped Fleur wouldn't be able to break through before Adira could touch the accursed Triwizard Cup.

With that done, Adira hurried down the left fork again. Her chosen path seemed completely deserted. She turned right, and hurried on, holding her wand high over her head, trying to see as far ahead as possible. Still, there was nothing in sight.

Bagman’s whistle blew in the distance for the third time. All of the champions were now inside. Addy hoped Fleur would later figure out that Addy had saved her life. And that it would work.

She kept looking behind herself. The old feeling that she was being watched was upon her, which probably meant the fake Moody was watching her. The maze was growing darker with every passing minute as the sky overhead deepened to navy. She reached a second fork.

“Point Me,” she whispered to her wand, holding it flat in her palm.

The wand spun around once and pointed toward her right, into solid wall. That way was north, and she knew that she needed to go northwest and up a couple floors or more for the center of the maze. The best she could do was to take the left fork and go right again as soon as possible.

The path ahead was empty too, and when Addy reached a right turn and took it, she again found her way unblocked. Down that corridor she found a staircase, and she climbed it, finding another unimpeded path. The lack of obstacles would have unnerved her even if she hadn't known their reason; knowing, or suspecting, that the fake Moody was responsible for it made it worse.

Then she heard movement right behind her. She held out her wand, ready to attack, but its beam fell only upon Cedric, who had just hurried out of a path on the right-hand side. Cedric looked severely shaken.

“A chimera!” he hissed. “A bloody, full-sized chimera! I barely got away with my life!”

He shook his head and dived out of sight before she could react, along another path. Keen to put plenty of distance between herself and a chimera, Addy hurried off again. Then, as she turned a corner, she saw a dementor gliding toward her. Twelve feet tall, its face hidden by its hood, its rotting, scabbed hands outstretched, it advanced, sensing its way blindly toward him. Addy could hear its rattling breath; she felt clammy coldness stealing over her, but knew what she had to do.

She pointed her wand and several of them tried to say the spell at the same time. Out of the wand came several patronuses, and the dementor tripped. They realized it was a boggart, and cast Riddikulus instead; the dementor was suddenly wearing robes that looked like they were made for a clown, or else made from a circus tent.

Addy used the Riddikulus spell again, and it vanished in a puff of smoke. The patronuses vanished as well, their focus having shifted away. She moved on, quickly and quietly as possible, listening hard, her wand held high once more.

Left … right … left again … She couldn't find a staircase up to the third level, or a door to the center, so she went downstairs instead and later went back upstairs. She did the Four-Point Spell and turned a few times on its information. Twice she found herself facing dead ends. She did the Four-Point Spell yet again and found that she was going too far east. She turned back, took a right turn, and saw an odd golden mist floating ahead of her.

(Allow me), Hypatia said in their head, taking over control of the body. She began analyzing the spell with her wand, to figure out how to get past it. It only took her a minute to work out the solution. She backed up and took the mist at a run, leaping right through it to the other side.

Flush with success, Hypatia laid a few trap spells on her side of the obstacle to slow down the others if they came this way, then continued on.

A moment later, a scream shattered the silence. They knew instantly that the scream had come from Fleur, and hoped the fake Moody hadn't hurt her too badly. She paused at a junction of two paths to wonder how the fake Moody was getting past whatever spells on the walls were showing all the Champions on the outside walls, before taking the right fork with a feeling of increasing unease, then a staircase up to the third floor.

She met nothing for ten minutes, but kept running into dead ends. Twice she took the same wrong turning. Finally, she found a new route and started to jog along it, her wandlight waving, making her shadow flicker and distort on the walls. Then she rounded another corner and found herself facing a chimera.

“Nope,” she said quietly, going back the other way before it noticed her. She paused just long enough to carve a quick rune into the floor and empowered it to repel anything that tried getting through. It was quick and dirty and wouldn't last long, but hopefully it would last long enough.

She took a left path and hit a dead end, a right, and hit another; forcing herself to stop, heart hammering, she performed the Four-Point Spell again, backtracked, and chose a path that would take her northwest.

Then the floor suddenly fell out from under her. She Summoned the ceiling so powerfully that she kept from falling down the trap door, and because she'd been running, her momentum carried her across to the other side. She paused to clutch her heart and catch her breath. Then she used her wand to carve a rune into the ceiling to make it resistant to summoning charms in case someone else came this way, before hurrying off again.

Addy had been hurrying along the new path for a few minutes, when she heard something in the path running parallel to her own that made her stop dead.

“What are you doing?” yelled Cedric’s voice. “What the hell d’you think you’re doing?”

And then Addy heard Krum’s voice.

“Crucio!”

The air was suddenly full of Cedric’s yells. The Potters were horrified. What the Hell was the fake Moody doing? How the Hell was he getting away with this? She tried a Reductor curse on the wall, and it barely made a dent. There was no way through the wall, then, so she focused on getting away. It would be more efficient for the fake Moody to merely disable or stun the other Champions, rather than killing them, and it would take too long to torture them into insanity. Cedric wouldn't be tortured too badly, she hoped. She kept moving, ignoring the others arguing with her.

After a couple wrong turns, she ended up right behind Krum, who was still torturing Cedric. Well that was fortuitous; she took the opportunity to Stun him in the back. He stopped dead in his tracks, fell forward, and lay motionless, face-down on the ground. Addy dashed over to Cedric, who had stopped twitching and was lying there panting, his hands over his face.

“Are you all right?” Addy said roughly, grabbing Cedric’s arm.

“Not really,” panted Cedric. “In pain. But I'll live. I don’t believe it! He crept up behind me. I heard him, I turned around, and he had his wand on me.”

“He was Imperiused,” she said. “Doubtless he took care of Fleur, too. I heard her scream earlier.”

“You sound certain he was Imperiused.”

She winced internally at her stupid slip-up. “Yes,” she said, thinking fast. “He was Imperiused by whoever entered me in this stupid Tournament. I am to die.”

Dammit, that was over-dramatic.

Cedric stood up, still shaking. “Yeah, that makes sense. I know you and Krum were friends. If you trust him, so do I. If you think he was Imperiused, then he was. Good thing he didn't see you there, or you'd be dead.”

“Probably,” she lied.

“Should we leave him here?” Cedric muttered.

“No,” Addy said. “Send up red sparks. It wasn't his fault. We don't want him eaten by that chimera.”

“Um, about that. There's a ceiling.”

She shrugged. “I dunno. Try it anyway. I mean, they've got some kind of live image of us on the screens, they should see it.”

“Then they saw him torturing me, if that's true. And what if whoever Imperiused him knocked out the picture somehow?”

“You raise an excellent point. Well, I know some runes to protect him from monsters, anyway. Mark the spot anyway, just in case.”

“Well okay,” Cedric said. He raised his wand and shot a shower of red sparks into the air, which hovered at the ceiling above Krum, marking the spot where he lay. Adira, at the same time, carved runes into the floor with her wand and put power in them.

“There. That should protect him from the chimera and similar monsters. It's the best I can do without more information.”

“Good,” Cedric said.

Adira and Cedric stood there in the darkness (lit only by the faint glow of the red sparks) for a moment, looking around them. Then Cedric said, “Well … I s’pose we’d better go on.”

“Yes,” she said.

The two of them proceeded up the dark path without speaking, Cedric turning right. Adira waited until he had his back turned and raised her wand to send a Stunner at his back. But something, some sixth sense, must have warned him, because he ducked.

“What are you doing? Are you Imperiused, too?” He had his wand pointed at her. She lowered her own wand, to try to defuse the tension.

“No. I was trying to save your life!”

“What, by hexing me in the back?”

“It was just a Stunner!”

“Right, stun me in the back so I can't win the Tournament. You know, I'm starting to wonder if Rita Skeeter was right about you. For all I know, you Imperiused Krum!”

“If I'd been dumb enough to use illegal dark magic on another Champion just to win some stupid contest that I would literally rather be tortured than be in, when there are spells showing us on giant screens just outside, I would've just let him carry on torturing you! But no, I stopped him.”

“To make yourself look like the hero?”

“Right before Stunning you in the back? What would that accomplish?”

Cedric paused, his wand wavering. “I... I honestly don't know.”

“If I could tell you more, I would. But I can't. I don't know what's going on, besides someone wanting me dead,” she said, though it wasn't entirely honest. Honestly, she was worried she'd said and done too much already, didn't know if the fake Moody or anyone else could see this, but she was trying nonetheless to adhere as much as possible to the terms of her (admittedly forced) oath to the fake Moody, so she had to assume she had an audience, despite evidence to the contrary. Stunning another Champion in the back when they'd thought they'd had a truce was a shitty thing to do, wouldn't look good if it was being displayed on the screens, but it wasn't like she really had much to lose on that front, given she'd likely be dead by the end of the night.

“I'm not going to let you stun me, Adira. Even if you're telling the truth—and I'm not convinced you are, because why attack me and Fleur if whoever it is just wants you dead? Um... where was I? Right; even if you're telling the truth, I'm not going to let you stun me. Even if whoever wants you dead was also the one attacking me and Fleur, which makes no sense. Because I'm going to win. Hufflepuff needs some glory, we've been the butt of jokes for too long.”

“If the stakes weren't life or death, Cedric, I would put the minimum amount of effort into this Task and let you win.”

“I'd like to believe that. Either way, I'm going, and you're not going to stop me.”

“Fine. Go then, if you're so sure you're safe. I'll even let you watch me walk away.”

Chandra, can you do wandless magic without pointing?

~I do not know, Gracious Host. What do you want me to attempt?~

Stop Cedric, for his own safety. Take him out of the game. I don't care how, as long as it breaks no laws or school rules.

~I shall attempt it.~

(No, I have a better idea), Hypatia said. (I can't guarantee it will work, since I've never attempted this before, but it's worth a shot.)

Do it then.

“Okay,” Cedric said, only a few seconds having passed. “So go already. I'll wait.”

Adira heard, inside her head, Hypatia very loudly 'shout' the incantation 'Legilimens,' at the same time she lifted the wand and pointed it at Cedric. A flood of images from Cedric's life entered her brain – Cedric with Cho at the Yule Ball, some scenes with him and his parents, Cedric watching the Quidditch Cup, Cedric running from the Death Eaters at the Cup. She didn't know what Hypatia was attempting, until she started feeling Hypatia doing something to the stream. It almost felt like she was trying to switch the direction of the spell to send Cedric images from her own mind, but she was struggling mightily with it.

Before Hypatia could make any real progress on that front, the connection was abruptly shattered by a stinging hex from Cedric. Then, despite the fact his head had to be hurting like Hell, Cedric started firing a bunch of other hexes at her. Chandra started singing the spell in their head for the ablative shield spell as Hypatia used his 'singing wand spells' technique to fire her own spells at Cedric.

Whether because of his doubtlessly aching head or being afraid by her dueling capabilities, Cedric stopped holding back, sending spells after her that included transfigurations and conjurations, but was backing up as he did. She soon figured out what was going on, and quickly bolted in the other direction before he could do the same first. She'd just have to hope they didn't run into one another again.

She used the Four-Point Spell to verify she was going the right way. Every dead end or staircase infuriated her and filled her with more panic. What if Cedric touched the Cup first? Could Voldemort use him instead? Would Luna be safe? Would the fake Moody accept that she'd tried her best? Would the oath she swore feel the same way?

Then, as she strode down a long, straight path, she saw movement once again, and her beam of wandlight hit an extraordinary creature, one which she had only seen in picture form, in her Monster Book of Monsters.

It was a sphinx. It had the body of an over-large lion: great clawed paws and a long yellowish tail ending in a brown tuft. Its head, however, was that of a woman. She turned her long, almond-shaped eyes upon Adira as she approached. She raised her wand, hesitating. She was not crouching as if to spring, but pacing from side to side of the path, blocking their progress. Then she spoke, in a deep, hoarse voice.

“You are very near your goal. The quickest way is past me. I will ask a riddle. Answer on your first guess — I let you pass. Answer wrongly — I attack. Remain silent — I will let you walk away from me unscathed.”

“Ask me your riddle then,” Hypatia said with Adira's voice. “I'm in a hurry.”

“First think of the person who lives in disguise,
Who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies.

Next, tell me what’s always the last thing to mend,
The middle of middle and end of the end?

And finally give me the sound often heard
During the search for a hard-to-find word.

Now string them together, and answer me this,
Which creature would you be unwilling to kiss?”

Hypatia glared at the sphinx. She could doubtless solve the riddle with enough time, but it wasn't her kind of riddle, unlike the math riddle in the Second Task, and she didn't know how far Cedric had gotten, and she couldn't afford to waste time. Still, she didn't know if she could fight a sphinx. She looked around, calculating trajectories and probabilities with one set of constructs while setting another to the riddle.

“A spider!” Zoey said with Adira's voice, less than a second after Hypatia had set a construct to the riddle.

Their stomach clenched in fretful anxiety, afraid she'd doomed them to fighting or running for their lives. But then the sphinx smiled broadly. She got up, stretched her front legs, and then moved aside for them to pass.

“Thanks,” Adira said as she ran through the gap.

She had to be close now, she had to be. … her wand was telling her she was bang on course; as long as she didn’t meet anything too horrible, she might have a chance.

Addy broke into a run. She had a choice of paths up ahead. “Point Me!” she whispered again to her wand, and it spun around and pointed her to the right-hand one. She dashed up this one and saw light ahead.

The Triwizard Cup was gleaming on a plinth a hundred yards away. Suddenly a dark figure hurtled out onto the path in front of her.

Cedric was going to get there first. Cedric was sprinting as fast as he could toward the cup, and Addy knew she would never catch up, Cedric was much taller, had much longer legs —

Then Addy saw something immense over a wall to Cedric's left, moving quickly along a path that intersected with his own; it was moving so fast Cedric was about to run into it, and Cedric, his eyes on the cup, had not seen it —

“Cedric!” Addy bellowed. “On your left!”

Despite their earlier fight, Cedric looked around just in time to hurl himself past the thing and avoid colliding with it, but in his haste, he tripped. She saw his wand fly out of his hand as a gigantic spider stepped into the path and began to bear down upon Cedric.

“ACCIO CEDRIC!” she shouted, and the boy flew through the air toward her.

The acromantula changed directions towards Addy, who immediately went into their new battle mode and sent a dozen stunners at the thing. Most of the stunners bounced off, but she kept it up, and finally some hit the soft underside of the beast, knocking it out. It came to a crashing halt inches from the two of them.

“Addy! Are you alright?”

“Yes. And you?”

“I hit the ground pretty hard when you Summoned me, but I don't think it's bleeding, just bruised. I don't think I broke anything.”

“Accio Cedric's wand,” she said, and his wand flew through the air. She was planning to catch it and Stun Cedric, but Cedric leaped into the air and caught it first.

“Cedric, please believe me when I say you don't want to touch that Cup,” she hissed just loud enough for him to hear, hoping the spells showing the Champions wouldn't be able to pick it up. “It's certain death for whoever touches it.”

“Still trying to win, despite your brief moment of weakness saving my life?”

“For FUCK'S SAKE,” she hissed. “It's a Hogwart's victory either way, and I'm already loaded; my parents left me millions of galleons, so I need the money like I need dragon pox. And I'm already world famous even though I detest it, so I need the fame like I need a hole in the head. We tried running away to avoid getting out of this stupid contest, when a vision warned us this would happen. Even SPLINCHED myself doing it! If it wasn't life or death, I'd have half-assed my way through this whole maze and let literally anyone else beat me to it! If it didn't know that touching that Cup would be certain death, I'd have just sat here and let you take the fucking thing already!”

Cedric looked uncertain again, looking between her and the Cup several times.

Fuck this, Al thought. “Accio Triwizard Cup!”

The Cup didn't move. But Cedric rounded on her.

“Nice try!”

“I only wanted to get this over with. I'm on a deadline, and you were wasting time dithering.”

Alastair saw Cedric's intentions in his eyes almost too late. He sent a Stunner at them, and Al made the body duck and hit the ground just in time to make it look like they'd been hit. He felt Cedric's emotions change as he turned to take the Cup, and Summoned Cedric again, the boy flying through the air as Al jumped up and bolted for the Cup, the body transforming to his form as he did. But the Summoning Charm was much weaker this time, and Cedric got up and followed them, the both of them grabbing the Cup at the same time.

Instantly, Al felt a jerk somewhere behind his navel. His feet had left the ground. He could not unclench the hand holding the Triwizard Cup; it was pulling him onward in a howl of wind and swirling color, Cedric at his side.

~

Al felt his feet slam into the ground. He immediately forced Zoey into control of the body and told her what to do. She grabbed Cedric's arm; he glowed, shrinking, and became a mouse. She let him go, and he sat there shaking.

“I told you this was life or death,” Al hissed at him. “Voldemort is on his way. Run!”

Cedric didn't need telling twice; with a squeak of surprise, he ran off into the tall grass of the unkempt cemetery. For now that he was able to look around, Chandra's shield up and their wand out for a fight, he saw they were in a cemetery. He thought about running himself, but he had vowed to face Voldemort, so he had to wait until he saw the evil git before he could run. He hoped that merely facing Voldemort's direction when the git appeared would count as 'facing' him, to the oath.

They had obviously traveled miles — perhaps hundreds of miles — for even the mountains surrounding the castle were gone. The black outline of a small church was visible beyond a large yew tree to their right. A hill rose above them to their left. Al could just make out the outline of a fine old house on the hillside. Al was still tense, ready for a battle, waiting for a direction to fire in.

Finally, he saw a figure in the distance. It was fuzzy and indistinct in the slight mist. They watched the figure drawing nearer, walking steadily toward them between the graves, waiting for it to get in range of their wand. They couldn’t make out a face, but from the way it was walking and holding its arms, he could tell that it was carrying something. Whoever it was, they were tall, and wearing a hooded cloak pulled up over their head to obscure their face. And — several paces nearer, the gap between them closing all the time — Al saw that the thing in the person’s arms looked like a baby … or was it merely a bundle of robes? He kept watching warily, unsure if this was a threat or not, though the odds were good it was a threat.

The figure stopped beside a towering marble headstone, only six feet from them. For a second, Al and the figure looked at one another.

And then, without warning, their scar exploded with pain. It was agony such as they had never felt in all their life; despite their best effort, their wand slipped from his fingers as he put his hands over his face; his knees buckled; he was on the ground and he could see nothing at all; his head was about to split open.

“Ooh, is wittle bitty baby Potter having a booboo head?” came a woman's voice, speaking in baby talk. Even in his pain, Al recognized it as the voice of the woman who had been enjoying being tortured... as well as the voice of one Bellatrix LeStrange, from one of those pensieve memories.

“Po wittle baby Potter an his wittle booboo head. But don't worry, bitty baby Potter, the pain will go away soon, because you'll be dead.” She laughed at him, and it reminded him of the Muggle stereotype of a witch's cackle.

Still holding her bundle, she used her wand to drag Al along toward the marble headstone. Al saw the name upon it flickering in the wandlight before he was forced around and slammed against it.

TOM RIDDLE

The cloaked woman was now conjuring tight cords around Al, tying him from neck to ankles to the headstone.

“You should feel honored, baby Potter,” she said as she worked. “You're going to help my master rise again, before he kills you. Baby Potter can die knowing his mommy sacrificed herself for nothing, now won't that be fun?”

“I'd tell you to burn in Hell,” Al said, “but from what I saw the other day, you'd probably just enjoy it. Tell me, do you orgasm when Moldyshorts tortures you?”

She backhanded him so hard he felt blood.

“How DARE you mock him? How dare you mangle the name of the greatest wizard to ever live?”

“I didn't say anything about Merlin, though.”

“IMPUDENT--”

“Bellatrix,” a high, cold voice said from the bundle in her arms, “he is stalling. Ignore him. His words are nothing but the mewling of a helpless child.”

“Of course, Master. Thank you for bringing me to my senses.”

“Yes. And Bella, remember, they have the Philosopher's Stone inside their worthless body somehow. You've been itching to torture someone, I suggest you try it on Potter.”

“You'll never get it,” Al said, as calmly as he could. “It has to be taken out willingly, by one of us – Zoey to be accurate. She's the only one who can do it, and we won't let you have it. There's too many of us. No matter how hard you try to torture us, we won't let you have it. We're legion, and willful. You'll end up torturing us into insanity like Frank and Alice Longbottom before we'll crack. And if that happens, not even Nicolas Flamel will be able to get it. Not even Dumbledore.”

Voldemort sighed.

“I can feel the truth in his words, Bella. Oh well, you shall have to wait. It was a long shot, I knew that, which is why we have the ritual ready to go instead. Let us do it now!”

Bellatrix rushed to obey. Once sure that she'd bound him so tightly to the headstone that he couldn’t move an inch, she drew a length of some black material from the inside of her cloak and stuffed it roughly into his mouth; then, without a word, she turned from Al and hurried away. Al couldn’t make a sound, nor could he see where Bellatrix had gone; he couldn’t turn his head to see beyond the headstone; he could see only what was right in front of him.

Al felt a furry little body brush his fingers, and knew somehow that it was Cedric. He used his limited finger mobility to push Cedric-the-mouse away, trying to communicate that the older boy should run and hide. Cedric tried chewing the ropes, and Al pushed him away again. A couple more times he had to do this before Cedric got the point and scampered off.

Some twenty feet away, Al saw their wand. He also realized she hadn't checked him for a spare wand. Not that this knowledge helped him; the spare was up his left sleeve, and he was tied very tight to the headstone. But he could do wandless magic, too.

With that thought, Chandra began singing inside their shared headspace. The ropes came away, and Al broke out. He grabbed his spare wand and ran at Bellatrix, who easily disarmed him with a spell. He kept running and grabbed her arm, not knowing what he was doing, he was so angry. She laughed at him, but suddenly the laughter turned to screams as her skin burned and blistered where he was grabbing her. He was so astonished himself he almost let go, but instead held on tighter, pouring more energy into the effort, even though he had no idea how this was possible.

“How is this possible?” Voldemort screeched. “You left your Muggle relatives years ago! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?”

Bellatrix managed to get hold of a knife, and stabbed Al in the right arm so hard he yelped and let go of her. But by then, the damage was done; her right arm was burning up so badly that it wouldn't be there much longer. She made to cut it off, but Voldemort stopped her.

“NO! The ritual! Do the ritual first! You can sacrifice the ruined limb, the fire hasn't spread that far yet!”

She did stop in time, setting the knife aside and using her wand to tie Al back down, shoved the wad of cloth back into his mouth, hitting him with a Full Body Bind and a Confundus for good measure, though it was a weak one in her haste and it faded fast. She collected some of his blood in a glass vial and set it aside as well.

Struggling to work through the pain of her still-burning arm, she moved an enormous stone cauldron to the foot of the grave with her body instead of her wand. It was full of what seemed to be water — even in pain from his arm, Al could hear it slopping around — and it was larger than any cauldron Al had ever used; a great stone belly large enough for a full-grown man to sit in.

The thing inside the bundle of robes on the ground was stirring more persistently, as though it was trying to free itself. Now Bellatrix was busying herself at the bottom of the cauldron with a wand. Suddenly there were crackling flames beneath it. A large snake Al hadn't noticed before suddenly slithered away into the darkness.

The liquid in the cauldron seemed to heat very fast. The surface began not only to bubble, but to send out fiery sparks, as though it were on fire. Steam was thickening, blurring the outline of Bellatrix tending the fire. The movements beneath the robes became more agitated. And Al heard the high, cold voice again.

“Hurry!”

The whole surface of the water was alight with sparks now. It might have been encrusted with diamonds.

“It is ready, Master,” she said in a pained voice.

“Now …” said the cold voice.

Bellatrix pulled open the robes on the ground, revealing what was inside them, and Al let out a yell that was strangled in the wad of material blocking his mouth.

It was as though she had flipped over a stone and revealed something ugly, slimy, and blind — but worse, a hundred times worse. The thing Bellatrix had been carrying had the shape of a crouched human child, except that Al had never seen anything less like a child. It was hairless and scaly-looking, a dark, raw, reddish black. Its arms and legs were thin and feeble, and its face — no child alive ever had a face like that — flat and snakelike, with gleaming red eyes.

The thing seemed almost helpless; it raised its thin arms, put them around Bellatrix's neck, and she lifted it. As she did so, her hood fell down, and Al saw her face contorted in agony as she struggled to carry the creature to the rim of the cauldron. For one moment, Al saw the evil, flat face illuminated in the sparks dancing on the surface of the potion. And then Bellatrix lowered the creature into the cauldron; there was a hiss, and it vanished below the surface; Al heard its frail body hit the bottom with a soft thud.

Hope it drowns, he thought vehemently. His arm and head both hurt so badly he could no longer think well enough to try escape again.

Bellatrix was speaking. Her voice shook with pain as she did. She raised her wand, closed her eyes, and spoke into the night.

“Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!”

The surface of the grave at Al's feet cracked. Horrified, Al watched as a fine trickle of dust rose into the air at Bellatrix's command and fell softly into the cauldron. The diamond surface of the water broke and hissed; it sent sparks in all directions and turned a vivid, poisonous-looking blue.

Bellatrix pulled a long, thin, shining silver dagger from inside her robes. Despite being in pain, she smiled a little here.

“Flesh of the servant, willingly given, you will revive your master!”

She stretched her blackened right arm in front of her, gripped the dagger tight, and swung it up. He realized what she was about to do a second before it happened — he closed his eyes as tightly as he could, but he could not block the scream that pierced the night, that went through him as though he had been stabbed with the dagger too. Then there was a splash as her arm fell into the water. Al couldn’t stand to look … but the potion had turned a burning red; the light of it shone through his closed eyelids.

Bellatrix was hissing and gasping with agony.

“Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe!”

Al opened his eyes to see her use the blood she'd collected from him in the potion. The liquid within turned, instantly, a blinding white. Her job done, Bellatrix pulled a glass jar from her robes, taking something out of it to smear over her left hand, then smeared the stuff over her bleeding stump. Skin immediately grew over the exposed muscle and bone.

The cauldron was simmering, sending its diamond sparks in all directions, so blindingly bright that it turned all else to velvety blackness. Nothing happened.

Let it have drowned, Al thought, let it have gone wrong.

And then, suddenly, the sparks emanating from the cauldron were extinguished. A surge of white steam billowed thickly from the cauldron instead, obliterating everything in front of Al, so that he couldn’t see anything but vapor hanging in the air. It’s gone wrong, Adira thought … it’s drowned … please … please let it be dead.

But then, through the mist in front of him, he saw, with an icy surge of terror, the dark outline of a man, tall and skeletally thin, rising slowly from inside the cauldron.

“Robe me,” said the high, cold voice from behind the steam, and Bellatrix, no longer in pain, hurried forward to robe him with a delighted look of awe and wonder on her face, pulling them on one-handed over her master's head.

The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, staring at Al … and Al stared back into the face that had haunted their nightmares for three years. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snake’s with slits for nostrils …

Lord Voldemort had risen again.

~

Voldemort looked away from Al and began examining his own body. His hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cat’s, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness. He held up his hands and flexed the fingers, his expression rapt and exultant. Al wanted to tell him to get a room with himself, but he didn't have the energy for sass yet.

Voldemort slipped one of those unnaturally long-fingered hands into a deep pocket and drew out a wand. He caressed it gently too.

“Thank you, Bella dear, for your hard work, dedication, and loyalty,” Voldemort said. “And, of course, for your sacrifice. You will be greatly rewarded.”

“The honor is all mine, my lord,” she said, bowing so low she could probably kiss his feet if she'd chosen to.

“I will reward you in a bit, Bella dear, but first, hold out your remaining arm for me, please.”

“Yes, Master,” she said, stepping forward to hold out her left arm.

Old snake-face rolled up the sleeve of her arm to reveal a vivid red mark on her arm, a miniature red version of the Dark Mark that had appeared in the sky last summer. Even in his poor state, Al made note of this fact.

“It is back,” he said softly, “they will all have noticed it … and now, we shall see … now we shall know…”

He pressed his long white forefinger to the brand on Bellatrix's arm.

The scar on Al's forehead seared with a sharp pain again, and Bellatrix's eyes rolled back in her head while her face looked ecstatic; Voldemort removed his fingers from her mark, and Al saw that it had turned jet black.

A look of cruel satisfaction on his face, Voldemort straightened up, threw back his head, and stared around at the dark graveyard.

“How many will be brave enough to return when they feel it?” he whispered, his gleaming red eyes fixed upon the stars. “And how many will be foolish enough to stay away?”

Oh for the love of Merlin, just kill me already and have done with it, Al thought. He really did not feel like listening to this man's evil monologue.

Voldemort began to pace up and down before Al and Bellatrix, his eyes sweeping the graveyard all the while. After a minute or so, he looked down at Al again, a cruel smile twisting his snakelike face.

“You stand, Harry Potter, upon the remains of my late father,” he hissed softly. “A Muggle and a fool … very like your dear mother. But they both had their uses, did they not? Your mother died to defend you as a child … and I killed my father, and see how useful he has proved himself, in death.”

Voldemort laughed again. Up and down he paced, looking all around him as he walked, and the snake continued to circle in the grass.

Al groaned. Was it really so hard to remember Adira's new name? Kill them, sure, but even mortal enemies deserved to have their gender respected. Al would honor Voldemort's gender if he decided to suddenly become a Dark Lady, why couldn't Snake-Face do him the same courtesy? Oh right, he was the wizard version of a Nazi; fascists hate anyone different from themselves. Al focused some of his Will and made the wad of material pop out of his mouth. It also broke the Body Bind, which was weak to begin with.

“My mother was a witch, you worthless sack of crap,” Al said.

“Crucio!” Voldemort cried, and Al felt every nerve in his body light up in agony briefly.

“That is but a small taste of what I will do to you later. Speak out of turn again and I will skip to the true torture earlier than planned!”

I'd rather be Crucioed than listen to you yammer on, Al thought but didn't say aloud.

Bellatrix got up and shoved the wad of cloth back into his mouth, before sitting down to listen to her master again.

“Anyway, where was I?” Voldemort asked. “Oh yes. You see that house upon the hillside, Potter? My father lived there. My mother, a witch who lived here in this village, fell in love with him. But he abandoned her when she told him what she was. … He didn’t like magic, my father.

Blah blah blah I have daddy issues, listen to me bitch and moan, Potter, about how bad I had it. A literal captive audience, Al thought.

Voldemort was still talking. Al rolled his eyes. “Yes, Potter, he left her and returned to his Muggle parents before I was even born, and she died giving birth to me, leaving me to be raised in a Muggle orphanage … but I vowed to find him … I revenged myself upon him, that fool who gave me his name … Tom Riddle.”

So I take it this means Bellatrix already knows, he thought. He glanced at Bellatrix. She was listening raptly, but looked unsurprised and unconcerned by the knowledge.

Still he paced, his red eyes darting from grave to grave.

“Listen to me, reliving family history,” he said quietly, “why, I am growing quite sentimental. … But look, Harry! My true family returns.”

The air was suddenly full of the swishing of cloaks, distracting him. Between graves, behind the yew tree, in every shadowy space, wizards were Apparating. All of them were hooded and masked. And one by one they moved forward … slowly, cautiously, as though they could hardly believe their eyes. Voldemort stood in silence, waiting for them. Then one of the Death Eaters fell to his knees, crawled toward Voldemort, and kissed the hem of his black robes.

“Master … Master …” he murmured. Al sighed heavily.

The Death Eaters behind him did the same; each of them approaching Voldemort on his knees and kissing his robes, before backing away and standing up, forming a silent circle, which enclosed Tom Riddle’s grave, Al, Voldemort, and Bellatrix.

Yet they left gaps in the circle, as though waiting for more people. Voldemort, however, did not seem to expect more. He looked around at the hooded faces, and though there was no wind, a rustling seemed to run around the circle, as though it had shivered.

“Welcome, Death Eaters,” said Voldemort quietly. “Thirteen years … thirteen years since last we met. Yet you answer my call as though it were yesterday. … We are still united under the Dark Mark, then! Or are we?”

He put back his terrible face and sniffed, his slit-like nostrils widening.

“I smell guilt,” he said. “There is a stench of guilt upon the air.”

Al suddenly noticed he wasn't bleeding anymore. As Voldemort kept yammering on, Hypatia setting a construct to listen to it all and remember in case any of it proved useful for escaping alive, they focused instead on what to do to get out of this situation alive.

Are there any rituals we could do, Hypatia?

(With as much as we've been through in the last hour or so? Bleeding and adrenaline crashes and stuff? Without any hope of getting a hair off that idiot's bald body? I can't think of a gods-damned thing. I mean sure, apparently we still somehow have that Mother's Protection business going on, no idea how that happened, but I'll bet that won't work now he's used our blood.)

How about sacrificing some of our own magic for something? Would that work?

(Possibly. Sacrificing all of one's magic for a certain amount of time is very powerful. It could be useful.)

What kind of thing might help us out here?

(Well the most efficient use of the ritual would be getting away. But we don't really know how to Apparate yet; we got splinched the one time we tried, and he might have wards up to prevent anyone Apparating away.)

I'd take that risk, to get away from here alive.

(Yes, but last time you only lost a foot. What if it's more serious next time? It could kill us before we could be put back together.)

Maybe a Patronus? We could get a message to Dumbledore and Sirius.

(That's a very conspicuous spell, the Patronus. And all it would take to knock out the Patronus would be to knock us out.)

What if we supercharge it with a ritual? I mean, if it's powered by a ritual, doesn't that mean it would keep going even if we got knocked out or died? Then at least people would know he was back.

There was a pause then, as she thought about it.

(Yes, the arithmancy checks out. Wand spells powered by ritual sacrifices have the kind of staying power you talked about. We'd have to sacrifice at least a month's worth of magic, though, to make it that far. I don't know how far away from Hogwarts we are, after all.)

Yeah, let's do that. Do the maths on it, Hypatia.

(Right. You lot think of other things too, while I sort that out. We'll need a distraction of some sort, keep these berks busy while I do the chanting and runes and other stuff necessary. Also, if you can come up with a getaway plan that doesn't require us to use any magic, that would be great. I'd prefer to live, if at all possible.)

% About that, Hypatia, % came the voice of Avani Maznah, AKA Mother, % I have some ideas about Patronuses you can use. Give the thing enough power, and it could be a useful weapon against humans. It's not common knowledge around here, but Patronuses can be empowered to destroy dementors. There's two ways of doing it, and of those two, one of them also works against mortal foes. %

(How the heck does that work?)

% Dementors are partially solid. Break through the solid robe and skin, and the light of a Patronus can kill a dementor. The power needed to break through that robe and skin gives it power against mortal foes, too. %

(Well holy crap. If the rest of you can make a long enough and good enough diversion, we might be in for a chance at surviving this.)

How long do you need?

(Two minutes at the very least. Three if you can swing it.)

Right then. Time to get to work.

Something was happening on the outside. Voldemort's speech had turned to them.

“Yes,” said Voldemort, a grin curling his lipless mouth as the eyes of the circle flashed in Al’s direction. “Harry Potter has kindly joined us for my rebirthing party. One might go so far as to call him my guest of honor.”

There was a silence. Then the Death Eater to the right of Bellatrix stepped forward, and Lucius Malfoy’s voice spoke from under the mask.

“Master, we crave to know … we beg you to tell us … how you have achieved this … this miracle … how you managed to return to us.”

“Ah, what a story it is, Lucius,” said Voldemort. “And it begins — and ends — with my young friend here.”

He walked lazily over to stand next to Al, so that the eyes of the whole circle were upon the two of them. The snake continued to circle.

“You know, of course, that they have called this boy my downfall?” Voldemort said softly, his red eyes upon Al, whose scar began to burn so fiercely that he almost screamed in agony. “You all know that on the night I lost my powers and my body, I tried to kill him. His mother died in the attempt to save him — and unwittingly provided him with a protection I admit I had not foreseen. I could not touch the boy.”

Voldemort raised one of his long white fingers and put it very close to Al's cheek.

“His mother left upon him the traces of her sacrifice. This is old magic, I should have remembered it, I was foolish to overlook it; but no matter. I can touch him now.”

Al felt the cold tip of the long white finger touch him, and thought his head would burst with the pain. Voldemort laughed softly in his ear, then took the finger away and continued addressing the Death Eaters.

“I miscalculated, my friends, I admit it. My curse was deflected by the woman’s foolish sacrifice, and it rebounded upon myself. Aaah … pain beyond pain, my friends; nothing could have prepared me for it. I was ripped from my body, I was less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost … but still, I was alive. What I was, even I do not know … I, who have gone further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality. You know my goal — to conquer death. And now, I was tested, and it appeared that one or more of my experiments had worked … for I had not been killed, though the curse should have done it. Nevertheless, I was as powerless as the weakest creature alive, and without the means to help myself … for I had no body, and every spell that might have helped me required the use of a wand.”

“Blah blah blah! Gods, you sure love the sound of your own voice,” Al said. He'd gotten the cloth out of his mouth again.

Voldemort laughed at him. “Willful little pestilence, I'll grant you that. Such cheek in the face of death. But hush, I was talking!”

Al felt a silencing charm being cast on his person. Since he was mostly still focused on thinking of a diversion, he didn't fight it.

“Now where was I? Oh yes, the years I spent bodiless and abandoned by my supposedly faithful followers. Yes, I remember only forcing myself, sleeplessly, endlessly, second by second, to exist. … I settled in a faraway place, in a forest, and I waited. … Surely, one of my faithful Death Eaters would try and find me … one of them would come and perform the magic I could not, to restore me to a body … but I waited in vain. …”

The shiver ran once more around the circle of listening Death Eaters. Voldemort let the silence spiral horribly before continuing. Al started to tune it out again, as it was plain this was going to take a long bloody time. What was it with megalomaniacs and loving the sound of their own voice so much?

Anyway, they had the beginnings of an idea forming for their diversion. It had been inspired by something in a list Hypatia had given them of the things she could do so far. Al thought it would be funny as Hell if they used something to make themselves look like a more powerful Dark Lord on the rise, something that would have an even greater impact on the assembled Death Eaters if the rest of their plan worked.

And getting away, well that was interesting. Hypatia had sensed some magic remaining in the Triwizard Cup, and Mother had identified it as a return trip on the portkey. Al didn't know why that was, but Hypatia casually mentioned one way to have gotten them here was to redirect an already-made Portkey to make a detour on the way to its original destination. Another option was that Voldemort wanted to surprise everyone at the Tournament by slaughtering as many of the spectators as possible, which with even the small numbers the assembled Death Eaters had would surely get lots of people killed before Dumbledore stepped in. But that was very risky to Voldemort's side, since he had to rebuild and there was no way to Apparate out of Hogwarts.

Also, you needed Ministry approval to cast the Portkey spell, and the Triwizard Cup would be so carefully guarded that the only way to cast the Portkey spell on it was to do so with Ministry approval. Likely that meant the Cup was intended to take the winner to the front of the maze building so everyone could see right away who'd won and celebrate the victory rather than waiting for the Champion to find their way back out of the maze. So Hypatia decided the more likely scenario was a hacked Portkey. Which meant that all they had to do was grab it, and it would take them to wherever the Portkey had been originally intended to go, which was most likely right to Dumbledore's feet, or nearly so.

So all they had to figure out was the exact details of the diversion, and a way to get the Portkey without being able to use magic.

Suddenly remembering Cedric, they wondered if they could get him to come back, and transform him back into a human. That would take care of both the diversion and getting the Portkey, if it worked and he didn't die in the process. But how to get his attention? With an exertion of Willpower that left them sweating and exhausted, they broke the Silencing Charm.

“Psst, Cedric?” Al stage-whispered out of the corner of his mouth as Voldemort kept rambling on, oblivious. “Cedric, can you hear me?”

He tried it a few more times before he felt a furry face against his finger.

“Good. I'll need a diversion later. And I'll need you to Summon the Triwizard Cup in such a way we can both grab it. It should take us home, don't ask how I know. Squeak twice if you understand me, three times if you don't.”

There came, just barely audible, the sound of two squeaks. Excellent.

“Free me now if you can, then attack Voldemort as soon as you're human,” Al whispered. “Understand?”

A pause, then two squeaks. Good. This might just work, if he could turn Cedric human before he was murdered. He felt Cedric chewing on the ropes. Al could have freed himself, but that could have drawn attention to them, and Voldemort and his stupid minions were still distracted by Voldemort's big Supervillain Monologue.

“...And here he is, the boy you all believed had been my downfall.”

Voldemort moved slowly forward and turned to face Al. He raised his wand.

“Crucio!”

It wasn't like the last time he'd hit them with that curse; that one was a love-tap by comparison. This time, it was pain beyond anything they'd ever experienced; their very bones were on fire; his head was surely splitting along his scar; his eyes were rolling madly in his head; he wanted it to end … to black out … to die …

And then it was gone. He was hanging limply in the ropes binding him to the headstone of Voldemort’s father, looking up into those bright red eyes through a kind of mist. The night was ringing with the sound of the Death Eaters’ laughter.

“You see, I think, how foolish it was to suppose that this boy could ever have been stronger than me,” said Voldemort. “But I want there to be no mistake in anybody’s mind. Harry Potter escaped me by a lucky chance. And I am now going to prove my power by killing him, here and now, in front of you all, when there is no Dumbledore to help him, and no mother to die for him. I will give him his chance. He will be allowed to fight, and you will be left in no doubt which of us is the stronger. Just a little longer, Nagini,” he whispered, and the snake glided away through the grass to where the Death Eaters stood watching.

“Now untie him, Bellatrix, and give him back his wand.”

“Which one, My Lord? He had two.”

“The first wand, I think. It seems to be his primary wand. We don't want any doubt of my superiority, Bella.”

She nodded and fetched the holly wand.

Well now that was foolish of him, Al thought. Why not just kill us while we're helpless? It's what I'd have done, if I were an evil, murderous narcissist with delusions of adequacy. He thanked his lucky stars Voldemort was apparently an overconfident moron. The fact that Voldemort was likely correct in his assessment didn't help Al's mood.

Bellatrix approached him warily, since the protection of his mother's blood would still work on her. She cut his ropes from a distance with her wand, and stepped back, then tossed the holly wand at him.

Now was the time for action. He wouldn't give Moldyshorts a single moment to react. He caught the wand midair, touched Cedric and poured a dispelling charm into the tiny mouse body, and said, “NOW!”

Cedric ran behind the gravestone in mid-transformation, Al joining him shortly. Cedric started shooting off a barrage of spells at Voldemort as Hypatia cut Al's arm afresh with a spell, using the blood to write runes all over her skin.

“Give us two minutes, preferably three if you can,” she told Cedric with Al's voice.

Cedric nodded, still casting spells at Voldemort, even though he looked terrified.

As she started drawing the runes on their skin, Voldemort screamed, “NO! Leave them to me! They're just children, they will die by my hand alone!”

Voldemort started shooting his own spells at the gravestone. The first spells hit is so hard the stone cracked in half and rained dust on the two of them. Chandra started singing inside their mind, causing the ablative shield to go around both of them and the gravestone. This weakened the shield spell, but it bought Hypatia more time, and spells could still be sent out from it, so Cedric kept firing whatever he could think of at Voldemort.

The Death Eaters weren't happy; they were worried for their master, and pacing; they wanted to help crush the impertinent whelps, but they had their orders. They watched in amazement as Voldemort's powerful spells broke layer after layer of the ablative shield, but even though Chandra and the others were feeling the strain, Chandra kept new layers of the shield coming as fast as Voldemort could break them. It helped that the few times he wasn't fast enough, Cedric's own shield or the remains of the gravestone blocked the incoming spells. As it was, Cedric had to take precious moments to repair the gravestone as well as he could so it didn't come crashing on top of their heads, but it wasn't very well done in his haste. If it broke again, he was prepared to shove it forward with a Banishing Charm, grab Al, and run like hell.

Hypatia finished the runes and began chanting, tuning out the noise of spells flying through the air in both directions, and the occasional sound of the gravestone getting blasted again. After a minute of chanting, the power around Al as Hypatia worked got high enough in intensity that it was beginning to make the hairs on the back of everyone's necks rise up.

“They're doing some kind of ritual! Stop them!” Voldemort shouted. “But don't kill them, that's for me to do!”

The Death Eaters now in the game, the spells flying at them intensified. Cedric started conjuring things to take as many of the hits as possible so Chandra's shield wouldn't be fully penetrated yet. He also kept an eye out for Death Eaters circling around behind them, as much as he could, but it was getting more difficult; a war on multiple fronts is never easy.

Trying to help Cedric, Chandra summoned his own wand to his hand and peppered his shield-song with bits of casting song, sending debris flying everywhere whenever dozens of his Reductors and other related spells would hit the ground, other gravestones, or the occasional unlucky Death Eater. Luckily, this did not seem to slow down Hypatia's chanting, the runes on their skin glowing brighter. Still, it was challenging with all of them trying to have the body doing three things at once, when those things were so energy-intensive. They were sweating so bad their eyes burned, since they couldn't spare even a second to wipe the sweat from their brow.

Finally, the myriad spells flying at them broke through Chandra's shield, and the gravestone exploded in Cedric's face, nearly stunning Chandra and the others from the force of the stone shrapnel cutting into their head. Al was almost certain they'd lost an ear, and they could no longer hear what Hypatia was chanting because their ears were ringing. Which meant she couldn't hear, either. But somehow she'd managed to keep chanting while barely pausing from having a bloody gravestone explode in her face. She bolted for another gravestone, still chanting as she did.

When they were in position again, Al looked back and saw Cedric was moving slowly, like he was barely conscious. Al Summoned Cedric again, the older boy's body dragging across the ground in a painful looking way, but finally Cedric was behind cover, too.

Fuck it, close enough, Al thought, Hypatia then saying the final word of the chant, the activating word. If Al understood this as well as he thought he did, they'd only have a second or two to do the next part. But they were all tired from fighting, and they thought they were getting like, adrenaline burnout or something, if that was possible.

Al felt Mother shove him aside as She took control.

“Expecto Patronum!” She shouted.

It felt like suddenly finding out he had been a water tower all his life, discovering this fact only by the feeling of suddenly being completely emptied, as literally all of their magic poured out of them, through the wand, and into the Patronus. The light from the Patronus was blinding; so blinding that all other spells stopped flying, because everyone was covering their eyes.

When the light dimmed a little, Al looked up and saw a remarkable sight. Mother's usual Patronus was a three-tailed fox, technically a kitsune. Her supercharged Patronus, however, was as big as Hagrid, humanoid, and was a nine-tailed kitsune. It looked human, aside from the nine tails and the fox ears, and it was completely nude, except for a quiver of arrows slung over its shoulder. It was also quite plainly a female, her breasts and... other bits... fully exposed.

As everyone gaped at it, the Patronus drew several arrows from her quiver and nocked one of them, the other two held in the same hand as she aimed for one of the Death Eaters. Al heard Voldemort and several other Death Eaters laugh, and he knew why; even he would have thought it absurd to summon a Patronus against mortal foes, before today. Even now, he wasn't sure this would work.

The Patronus loosed her arrow, and the laughing, masked Death Eater exploded into a cloud of red mist when the arrow hit him. There was a horrified silence for a moment as she nocked another arrow and took aim, which took only a second. Then there was screaming, as the Death Eaters ran as fast as they could, or tried to Apparate away, one of the latter ducking away just in time to keep his life but lose an arm. Even Voldemort was running away, leaving Bellatrix to save herself, but she was running in such a panic that she hadn't even noticed.

Another arrow missed its target entirely, and the stone angel it hit instead exploded, throwing small boulders and smaller rubble in every direction. Al and Cedric were only spared because one of the boulders bounced off the Patronus's knee. The Patronus barely noticed this, as she nocked another arrow.

But it was over, now; all the Death Eaters and Voldemort had vanished. The Patronus noticed this, too. She kept an arrow nocked for a little bit while she wandered around looking behind gravestones for stragglers. When she was certain they were all gone, she put the arrows back in her quiver and walked over to Al and Cedric, pausing on the way to pick up the Triwizard Cup and hold it over them, waiting for Al's signal.

“Cedric, you awake?” He said too loudly; he could barely hear himself speak even then, the ringing in his ears was so bad.

Cedric giggled with a faint note of hysteria. “Yes, Al, I'm awake. Don't think I didn't notice the glowing, 12-foot tall naked woman going around exploding Death Eaters with her arrows. Especially since I think I accidentally got a mouthful of that first bloke's brain.”

The Patronus was dimming rapidly, Al noticed, and wavering.

“Shut up and get ready to grab the Cup. No wait, grab me around the middle with one arm first, just in case. She's about to collapse, and I don't want to get knocked out before we go.”

“Alright, Al,” Cedric said, still sounding a little hysterical. “I'm ready.”

Al checked, and nodded. The Patronus dropped the Cup, then she vanished completely. Al caught the Cup, and instantly he and Cedric were yanked away from the carnage and flying off to safety.

Endnotes: MWAH HA HA HA! I've been planning that surprise about their mother's sacrifice still being in effect since before I finished their first year! It's been so HARD keeping that a secret all this time, but now it's out!!! *Evil laughter* *Dances an excited jig around a bonfire while playing a pan pipe*

Okay, now that I've celebrated, let me just say that the protection of their mother's blood still works because of their multiplicity; Adira (and the others, by extension) is protected (or was, before Voldy used their blood) because the Potters all have the same blood, and they each have their own soul, so even though it's all the same body, the fact they have multiple souls means that anywhere they call home is the “home where (their) mother's blood dwells.” I thought of this halfway through finishing their first year, and it was just so good an idea I kept it under my hat all this time! *More evil laughter*

(Despite having different souls, their having the same body and intertwined minds via the common memory means they're also tightly magically bound to one another. It might be possible for them to get their own bodies, but it would be very difficult. Would probably take a decade and tons of research into alchemy and so on, if it's even possible at all.)

I've also been planning the supercharged Patronus for a while now, too. I'd guess about six months? My friend Andrea helped me think of it. :) As weird as the idea may sound, I do believe it's much more believable than the deus ex machina that was the Priori Incantatem effect in canon. By the way, just to stem the tide of questions a little until the next chapter is out, the supercharged Patronus comes with a price: they sacrificed two months of magic to fuel it. They'll be out of commission, magic-wise, for most of the summer.

And yes, “nocked” and “nocking” are the correct spellings, in that context; I know, I checked.

The Mega-Patronus's technique of holding several arrows in the same hand as it nocked another arrow was a real technique back in the Middle Ages, that I first heard about on a YouTube video, by a man who had recreated the technique and related techniques and was demonstrating them. It's a pretty bad-ass video.

I've been worrying about this chapter so long, making so many changes in my notes, but finally it's done!

By the way, that stuff about sacrificing other people's magic was supposed to be a setup for this chapter, but I changed my mind. I might see if I can use it later. Not sure when, if ever. But I did realize some of the ritual magic was overpowered, and I've been working to fetter it since then.

Lastly, I fully admit to lifting Chandra's new “associating wand spells with music notes” technique from “The Long Game” by inwardtransience. But he'd already been doing some spells with music long before I read that story, and the idea fit so well I couldn't resist. In “The Long Game,” it's Luna who was using that technique. I may have them teach Luna the technique in this story. :)

That's all for now.