Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Four.
Or, "Autistic Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Notes: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.
There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though, but there's a lot more in this one than usual because it was unavoidable. Still, lots of details are changed, so don't skip by familiar parts or you might miss something.
Just as a reminder, so I don't have to shoehorn in descriptions in the text of the story as a reminder, but in this fanfic Harry and Hermione, apart from having Asperger's Syndrome, are both black as well. Oh, and Luna has Asperger's as well, but as far as I'm concerned, that's just a part of canon, as Rowling heavily implied it. For this story, Luna is undiagnosed, as her father thinks she's part faery creature, a changeling child (but considers that a good thing for reasons).
'Italicized text between single quotes is almost always Parseltongue.'
Another note: Because it's been years since I read the Odyssey, and because I think the organizers wouldn't want someone familiar with the Odyssey to have too much of an edge over someone who wasn't, I'm going to be only *loosely* basing the Second Task off the Odyssey, and partially the Iliad. So don't have a fit if it's out of order or something. :)
Trigger warning: Harry has another panic attack in this one. Not long after the second time he goes into the Forbidden Forest. There's a note in text about where it begins, which also mentions where to jump ahead to.
Chapter 17: “The Second Task”
Harry, with the help of his friends, trained for the Second Task by practicing a bunch of different spells that might be useful for it, even though they weren't entirely sure what it would entail. He also started to go for runs around the grounds to build up his physical strength, since there was no telling how much or how little physical activity there would be needed. When circumstances didn't permit him to do that, he climbed up and down the Hogwarts stairs instead, since at least part of the Task would be up in the mountains.
Antigone had thought about the theme of the task, and since the theme involved going a long distance away by boat, likely representing the original journey to Troy, she thought that he might need to trick his way into someplace, or out of it if there was a part representing the cyclops. This was good to know, but he wasn't sure what to do with the information. If invisibility wouldn't work, there were glamours, but he was still very new to those. If he had some idea what kind of glamour he would need. But glamours weren't in the usual syllabus for Hogwarts, so he decided not to worry about it, he didn't think they'd require the use of magic that wasn't even taught at Hogwarts.
Ms. Pennyroyal found out some more rules about the Second Task. He wouldn't be allowed his familiar; while most modern “familiars” were mere pets, there was enough of a history of familiars being able to help their masters that, given the age of the Triwizard Tournament, it was considered cheating to use a familiar. There would also be wards against summoning, and since Fleur was a Veela, wards against Veela shape-shifting.
When Harry wondered to himself why there were anti-summoning charms, he thought it must be so the Champions didn't summon a broomstick to fly ahead of each other. This was confirmed when Ms. Pennyroyal said there would also be wards against casting flying charms. But she didn't mention the Featherlight Charm, so that might still be on the table.
Hagrid returned to work, as Dumbledore had told him. He seemed in a lot better spirits. Thankfully, he had also given up on the skrewts, and they were studying unicorn foals, which were easier to see and didn't mind boys as much.
As the Second Task approached, Harry got more and more nervous. The clue had still been rather vague, and he still didn't know if he was going to be able to get through the task unscathed, since he didn't know what all it entailed. But he kept up his training regimen, and that helped calm him down some.
The Thursday before the Second Task, Moody asked him to hang back after class to talk with him. Harry did, coming up to the desk curious what Moody wanted to talk about.
“Yes, Professor?”
“Potter, just a little bit of general advice for the upcoming Second Task, and life in general: if you can't out-fight an opponent, and running away isn't an option, trick the bugger. If someone's in the way, you don't necessarily have to fight them, is my point.”
“Er... okay, Professor. That's good advice.”
“Especially for you. You may be a Griffindor, but I've heard you've learned some Slytherin cunning from those friends of yours. Use that brain of yours to your advantage, laddie.”
“Right. Thanks, Professor.”
“No problem, Potter. Oh and by the way, if you can't find the Lovegood girl the morning of the Second Task, it's because she's your hostage.”
Harry thanked Moody again and went to dinner.
With that vague bit of advice, Harry started to worry even more than he had, as it seemed to indicate there might be something in the Task he wouldn't be able to fight. With that in mind, he decided to use his brain another way: re-purpose his plan for the First Task. There were lots of things glamours could work on, and he still had the knowledge of how to do that mirror glamour. He wouldn't be able to summon anything, but there was bound to be wood, or stone at least, that he could use. Stone was harder to carve with magic, and stone runes carved that way required a strong “finite” spell cast on them before they could be used, so the magic that carved them wouldn't contaminate the runes... but it was doable. He added “practice carving runes in stone with magic” to his list of preparations.
~
As it turned out, Moody was right about Luna not being there in the Great Hall at breakfast. He looked around the room throughout breakfast and noticed Cho Chang and Hermione were missing. Harry groaned inwardly at that; with Hermione gone, that had to mean Hermione was Krum's hostage. Ron and Draco were both going to be impossible to be around for a while after today.
When breakfast ended, everyone in the school went to the Quidditch pitch, except for himself, Cedric, Krum, Fleur, and the hostages that had been taken. The “Champions” went instead to the Forbidden Forest by Hagrid's hut, where four viking-style boats waited for them. It was a bit out of touch with the Greek theme of the Task, but Harry didn't mind. After all, it wasn't like he'd be able to recognize an Ancient Greek boat if he saw one.
Also waiting for them was Sirius, Mr. Bagman, Ms. Selby, and a swarm of a dozen golden flying things Harry thought were snitches at first, until he saw they were flying omnioculars. Ms. Selby scanned Harry and the other Champions for unauthorized devices or other cheating items. Finding none, she nodded at Bagman. He just stood there looking impatient for a few minutes before Ms. Selby's robes made a buzzing sound. She got a two-way mirror out of her pocket, and the person on the other side said all the audience was in place. She nodded at Bagman again.
Bagman cast 'sonorous' on his throat so it would sound like a loudspeaker, then said, “Welcome, Champions! See these flying omnioculars? These have been generously donated to us by Dreyfuss Artificing, and they mean you're already being watched by the crowd gathered in the Quidditch pitch.
“Now, there will be three of these for each of you, though if you're all in one group, some of them will hang back a bit so as to not crowd the air. Still, they'll follow you so everyone can see up close and personal what you're all doing. They've been enchanted with an eavesdropping spell as well, so the crowd will be able to hear everything you say. That includes whispers, so keep that in mind. Are you all ready?”
Cedric, Fleur, and Krum nodded. Harry shook his head. “I want to make an announcement before the Task starts.”
Bagman looked at Ms. Selby, confused. She looked confused, too.
“What kind of announcement? You can say now, the omnioculars are listening.”
“I did not put my name in the goblet of fire. I don't want to be here, but I've been bound by a magical contract to do so against my will, which honestly is terrifying, the implications as well as the tournament itself. But since nobody has believed me so far except friends and family and some of the teachers, I want to state that my solicitor, Ms. Pennyroyal, found out that while I am being forced to do my hardest to get through these tasks alive, the points system is relatively new and is not enforced by the Goblet of Fire. Since the points don't matter, aren't needed to win, and serve only to decide the order of who goes into the last Task, I hereby ask all the judges to award me no more than one point for this Task, no matter how well or badly I do.”
Bagman turned pale at this, and sweat beaded on his forehead. “Oh now, Mr. Potter, you can't possibly mean that!” he said.
“I do very much mean that, Mr. Bagman. Every year I've been at Hogwarts so far, there has been one crisis after another. Quirrell nearly killed me when we fought over the Philosopher's Stone. I nearly died at the hands of Lord Voldemort, who was the Heir of Slytherin in our second year. And the third year... was complicated.
“The point is, I wanted nothing more than a quiet year this year, for once. I wanted to watch from the stands with everyone else as Cedric competed in this tournament, and once more someone has conspired against me. Cedric Diggory is the true Hogwarts champion. Not only do I want no points, I also refuse the title of 'Champion' and insist on being called a 'participant' instead. And since I don't have any need of the 1000 galleon prize money or the Triwizard Cup either, if by some bizarre happenstance I win the Tournament, I will be giving both the prize money and the Triwizard Cup to the runner up. In short, if I happen to somehow win, I plan to forfeit that win. Since the contract only says I have to try my hardest to win, then as long as I do that, I can forfeit the win after the fact if necessary. I hope it isn't necessary. I want someone else to win. I just want to survive this bloody thing.”
Cedric and the other Champions all looked at Harry with wide-eyed disbelief. Sirius guffawed at Harry's speech, and laughed even harder at Bagman's look of horror. Bagman looked like he was going to be violently ill, in fact. He tried to argue with Harry again, but Ms. Selby cut him off.
“Enough, Mr. Bagman. Mr. Potter has made his position on the matter very clear, and his solicitor did inform me a few weeks ago of Mr. Potter's plans. I, for one, will be honoring Mr. Potter's wishes. Now let's not waste any more time. Tell the Cham--- I mean, tell the three Champions and our unwilling participant what they have to do for this Task.”
Still looking pale, Bagman nonetheless did as he was told.
“Um... right. Yes... of course... um... so there are these four boats, one for each Champion. And... and one for Mr. Potter as well. Um... and you... you get in the boats, and they will fly you to your first destination, which will be up in the mountains. There will be several locations you'll be going to during the course of the event, each one with a key to get into the next location. The third and final key opens the last location, where the hostages will be.
“To make things fair, there are spells on all the areas of the Second Task that prevent Summoning, and to prevent the casting of flying charms – though the levitation spell Wingardium Leviosa is an exception to that. Also, there will be a ward against shape-changing, which includes human transfiguration. Mr. Black, who is Mr. Potter's emotional health monitor, will be able to change into his animagus form here, but will not be able to become human again until they reach the Quidditch pitch.
“There will be obstacles along the way, as well as temptations. And knowing the Illiad and the Odyssey won't be as much of an edge as one would think, since this Task is only loosely based on the Odyssey. The quests within the Task might be familiar, but they are not necessarily in order, and not necessarily what you would expect.
“Anyway... are you lot all ready?”
When the three Champions and Harry nodded, Bagman – still looking ill – said, “Well, all our cham-- er, participants are ready for the second task, which will start on my whistle. They have precisely an hour to recover their hostage. On the count of three, then. One … two … three!”
The whistle blew, and Harry raced onto his boat along with the others, the taller boys getting into theirs much faster than Harry with his short legs. Even Fleur got into her boat faster, as she just jumped in one graceful attempt, pivoting on her hand as it clutched the side of the boat. Sirius, being disallowed from helping, jumped into the boat and waited while Harry struggled. Then Harry nearly hit himself when he realized the solution. He got out his wand, cast the Featherlight Charm on himself, and pulled. He was finally in the boat, the other three boats flying up, up, and away already, but he had to cancel the charm when he got in so he didn't get blasted out by a stiff breeze.
When his feet hit solid wood with a thump, Padfoot (Sirius's dog form) barked happily and the boat finally flew up into the air, far behind the other three. The boats seemed to be steering themselves, for Harry wasn't doing anything but sitting there waiting. He looked up and saw three flying omnioculars buzzing around his boat. He felt his cheeks warm up as he realized how he'd just made himself look foolish in front of the whole school, and who knew how many other people who had come to watch.
The boat soared high above the castle of Hogwarts, over the Quidditch pitch (which had been covered in what looked like wood, but he could still see the stands), and over part of the Black Lake until it landed at the shore of the lake. It hit the ground with a gentle thump, and Harry repeated his trick with the Featherlight charm to get out of it again. The three Champions were already well ahead of him.
It seemed there were four different possible paths. Three of them had brick walls in front of them, though, so he went with the only one that was available. As soon as he went through, he saw where the walls had come from; each path was intended for one participant apiece, and no more than that.
Padfoot, his tongue lolling, ran ahead (stopping now and then to look back at Harry). But this path wasn't easy. It was rocky and dusty, and he'd barely gone ten feet before it started to turn into a climb. Looking ahead, Harry didn't think there was any part of the path that he wouldn't be able to get through, but it would be difficult. Unless...
He tried casting the Featherlight charm on himself again, but nothing happened. He supposed that made sense, for multiple reasons. So he internally shrugged and kept going, picking up nice flat stones every now and then and putting them in his pockets for later use.
By now, Harry could only see one of the Champions ahead of him. He thought it was Krum, but he wasn't sure at this distance.
Towards the end of the climb, the path got so steep that Harry had to climb on all fours to keep making progress. He looked down behind him briefly. It was a long fall, but if he fell, it wasn't likely to be any worse than rolling the entire way down the hill again. In fact, it was giving him a few ideas for getting back down to the boat again, if he needed to.
He got to a shelf of rock on the mountain and saw a small stone fortress in the distance. It was a flat route now to the thing, so he took off running, Padfoot at his heels. He was almost there when he slid to an abrupt halt, just barely missing the pointy end of a spear that the suit of armor guarding the door had held out toward him. It moved, jabbing the spear at him. He ducked out of the way and scrambled to get away. When he was a few more feet away, the suit of armor went back into place in front of the door.
“Well, this is just great. How the bloody hell do I fight a suit of armor?”
Padfoot, unable to talk, just whined sympathetically.
A glint of gold caught Harry's eye, and he noticed the flying omnioculars again.
“Oh. I just cussed in front of the whole school, didn't I? Oh well. Gotta think how to get past this suit of armor.”
Deciding to be tricky, he sneaked around the edge of the shelf that bordered more mountain, trying to get close enough to the armor for it to be in range of his spell, but not so close it attacked. When he finally got to the right position, he cast “Bombarda!”
The suit of armor clanged like a bell, but didn't move more than an inch or three. It turned to face him and started running at him with its spear out. He put more power into the spell, and when that didn't work any better, he tried other spells he knew. Exploding spells, gouging spells, nothing. Not even a Disarming Charm or the Dry-Bite Hex worked. He tried attacking the ground around the armor, but it deftly avoided the holes he was putting there. So since none of that was working, he ran out of range again. Thankfully, the armor went back into its place in front of the door again.
Harry looked around at his surroundings a bit more carefully now. It was a mountain shelf, the only other things on it being the suit of armor and a stone building barely the size of Hagrid's cabin. Well, that and a few scraggly patches of grass. Also a lot of rocks. Some of which were big enough to be boulders.
“Hmm...” he judged the distance with his eyes, thinking. After a few minutes, he came to a decision and ran over to one of the smaller boulders. The armor looked in his direction for a moment, then returned to normal.
With his wand, Harry cut a piece of cloth off his robes and tied it around his mouth and nose. He took another piece from his other sleeve, and put it best he could over Padfoot's nose and mouth, Padfoot looking at him in confusion. Once that was done, he started carving a rune into the stone with his wand. If he did this right, he could kill two birds with one stone, pun intended.
This was taking him longer than he'd hoped it would, carving runes for levitation into the boulder, but after a lot of hard work, he had it. He cleared the runes of magic to prevent contamination, then empowered them with several instances of Wingardium Leviosa, two for each of the three runes. With each rune empowered, part of the flat-topped boulder lifted up, until the whole thing was floating a few inches above the air. Then he moved over to a place on the cliff's side of the armor. Since Summoning wasn't an option, he tried a spell he'd learned on the off chance he'd need to swing across a ravine: it created a whip that flew from his wand and wrapped itself around the boulder, so he just had to yank on the wand to pull the floating boulder over to himself.
When everything was in position, he undid the whip spell, judged the angles with his eyes, and then used a Banishing charm to send the boulder flying and crashing into the suit of armor, pinning it against one of the walls. Seizing his chance, he ran up to the door and turned the handle. He was inside! Padfoot barked and followed him inside.
As the door shut behind them, Harry realized this room had to be magically expanded, since it was a large room resembling a field full of flowers growing on a hill. There was a dais at the top of the small hill, that much was plain from here. That had to have the first key on it.
“Accio key,” he tried. It didn't work, but it had been worth a try. “Well, I guess we go through this meadow of flowers to get there, Padfoot.” Padfoot whuffed acknowledgement, and followed Harry up the small hill.
Harry couldn't help but think there was something familiar about this, but he couldn't place it. Not until he started to feel his eyelids drooping and realized he was on his knees. Padfoot shook his head to try to clear it.
“Oh,” Harry said drowsily. “Now I know why this is familiar. Wizard of Oz. The poppy field. But why...? Oh right, the lotus eaters. Loosely... based...”
Padfoot fell asleep, his tongue lolling as he lay on his back, his legs splayed. “Rennervate,” Harry cast, and Padfoot was up like a shot, looking annoyed he'd fallen asleep, but immediately beginning to feel drowsy again.
Harry slapped himself on the face and kept climbing the hill. Every now and then he had to wake up Padfoot or slap himself on the face again, but they finally got up to the top of the hill, and the dais on it. There was a box there, shaped like a Trojan horse. Harry opened the box and took out the key, putting it in his pocket. Then he levitated Padfoot and pulled him down the hill at a run. He fell, making Padfoot yelp in alarm, though the face-full of dirt Harry got woke him up again pretty well, and the two of them staggered the rest of the way down the hill and back out the door.
The soporific effect of the flowers ended the moment they got out into the fresh air again. The suit of armor was no longer pinned, but it was just sitting on the ground, somehow managing to look annoyed. The levitating stone was still there.
“Up on the stone, Padfoot. I have a plan. A cunning plan.”
Padfoot whined, but jumped up on the stone. Harry climbed up with a bit more difficulty, then used a Sticking Charm on both himself and Padfoot, to keep them on the stone. Then, with the whip spell, he grabbed the stump of a dead tree and pulled. Padfoot whined even more now, covering his eyes as they approached the edge of the rock shelf.
“Don't worry, the boulder is stablllllLLLLEEEEE!!!” His sentence morphed into a scream as they fell over the edge and started rocketing down the path at top speed. They bumped up and down, side to side against some kind of invisible ward, and went sailing through the air at one point, coming down with a hard thump that scraped the bottom of the boulder, and kept going, Padfoot howling and Harry screaming all the way down.
It was only as the brick wall came into view that Harry realized he'd forgotten about that. Their screams/howls intensified, and Harry closed his eyes. But they didn't hit anything. He risked opening his eyes again, just in time to see they were about to hit the boat. The wooden boat.
With a quick Banishing charm, he stopped their momentum. Only the Sticking Charm kept them from continuing on face-first into the boats.
Wait, boats plural? Were he and Padfoot the first ones back? He counted quickly. Yes, there were still four boats. Never mind that, he thought. He undid the Sticking Charm on Padfoot, who immediately leaped into the boat to cower inside it. Then he undid the charm on himself as well, and jumped from the floating boulder into the boat.
It floated up for a moment, then touched down on the water. A pair of oars lifted up from the bottom of the boat and attached themselves to the oar placements on the sides of the boat.
“I guess I have to do it the Muggle way. I wish I knew a spell to make the oars paddle themselves.”
Glancing up, he saw that the flying omnioculars were buzzing around them again. Though he realized, now, that the things had kept pace with them even as they'd zoomed down the mountain. Impressive.
He was about to paddle himself until he had a thought, and decided to try it out. Just to see if it would work, he tapped the oars with his wand, and they started to paddle by themselves.
“Oh. Well that's convenient.” He really hadn't fancied his chances of paddling by hand.
They were nearly twenty feet from shore when Cedric came running down the path, the brick wall disappearing as he approached it. A moment later, Fleur came through, then Krum. They all stared for a moment between the still-floating boulder and Harry out on the water, before coming to their senses and jumping easily into the boats.
“Hmm... I wonder if I can make this thing go faster?”
Harry tapped the oars again with his wand, but that made them stop, so he got them started again. It seemed there was one speed only on these boats, unless...
Krum grabbed the oars himself and began to paddle, going faster than the boat did on its own. Fearing the Goblet might punish him if he didn't, Harry also started paddling manually, but his arms hurt so badly so quickly that he just went back to letting the oars do it themselves. Cedric looked to be having the same issue, but Fleur was a lot stronger than she looked, for she was overtaking Krum, who glared at her, and tried hexing her with his wand. But the spell splashed against some kind of invisible shield instead of hitting her, so he gave that up.
They were beginning to approach an island on the lake that Harry was sure hadn't been there the day before. He squinted at it and saw what looked like Luna standing there, waving at him with a smile on her face. He waved back, smiling, but Padfoot was looking at him in a puzzled way. Padfoot looked at the island, let out a yelp, and started trying to jump out of the boat. Harry grabbed onto his shoulders and kept him inside the boat, wondering why Padfoot was so excited to see Luna.
He looked up, and saw Fleur was rowing harder than ever toward the island, shouting something Harry couldn't hear for some reason. All he could hear, aside from wind and the water noises, was Luna calling to him. He started to row harder himself, he had to get to Luna first.
SPLASH!
Harry broke out of a reverie when Krum jumped out of the boat to swim to the island. This seemed very odd to Harry, so he tried focusing on his Occlumency. He wasn't very good at it yet, it was challenging despite Dumbledore being a very good teacher, but he had gotten good enough he started to see what was really on the island: absolutely nothing.
“It's a trap! There's nothing there!”
No sooner had Harry said this than the water rose sharply as something within it displaced water on its way up. He shouted at the others to try to warn them, but nobody was paying attention. Fleur was on the island, desperately feeling around for someone who wasn't there, crying and shouting. Cedric was angrily shooting spells at Fleur and missing by a wide margin, and Krum was starting to slow down in the water. Harry realized the water had to be freezing cold, it was February in Scotland after all. Not caring about winning, or about what was coming up out of the depths toward them, he cast the whip spell at Krum, trying to pull him out of the water before he got hypothermia. Harry missed the first time and the second time, but got him on the third try and pulled him into the boat, snapping Padfoot out of his own vision just as he was about to try jumping overboard again.
WHOOSH! Something reared out of the water, nearly capsizing Harry's boat. Cedric went flying as his own boat capsized, and Fleur got doused with freezing water, snapping her out of her vision as she turned to see what had gotten her wet. Soaked and shivering, she looked up wide-eyed in terror along with Harry at the sight before them.
He'd been expecting the giant squid, but it was an enormous water serpent instead. It looked like a cobra rearing out of the water, but with a weird fleshy plume on its head. It flicked its tongue at them, flared its hood, and opened its mouth.
By instinct, forgetting he was being watched and listened to by the whole school, forgetting he was trying to keep it a secret, Harry spoke Parseltongue at the thing.
'DOWN! LEAVE US ALONE!'
The giant water-snake turned its head to look at him.
'A Speaker? Well now that's a surprise. But why should I listen to you? You are tasty meat, as are the others.'
'I'm a magic-stick wielder,' he said, his wand pointing at it. He'd been trying to say “wizard,” but Parseltongue didn't exactly have a word for that. 'I can hurt you with my magic stick!'
The snake looked annoyed at him, but it backed off. 'Oh fine, ruin my fun then. It's just as well, I wasn't really very hungry anyway.'
And with that, the enormous water serpent plunged back into the depths of the lake. With that done, Harry looked up to see how the others were doing. Krum, still shivering, was looking at him with fear, but a fear that Harry thought might be tempered with respect and gratitude. Harry dried Krum off with a spell from his wand that Hermione had taught him once.
Looking over for the others, Harry saw Cedric climbing back into his boat, using the same spell to dry himself off. Fleur was still on the island, staring at Harry in awe and fear.
“I spoke Parseltongue while those omnioculars were watching, didn't I?” he asked Krum and Padfoot. They both nodded.
“Damn,” Harry said. “Oh well.”
Harry used his wand to make the whip spell so he could drag Krum's boat over to his. Somehow, Krum's boat had righted itself, even though it was full to the brim with water. Probably magic. Krum used his wand to make the water start pouring itself overboard, getting back on his own boat once it was empty. Cedric was already under way again. Fleur was using the same whip spell to pull her boat over to the island so she could leave. As soon as Krum was on his own boat, Harry tapped his oars and continued forward.
“Well, that cat's out of the bag now,” Harry told Padfoot glumly as they waited for the boat to finish rowing over the Black Lake. “Unless all twelve omnioculars stopped working at the same time?” he added hopefully. But seeing as the things were quite clearly still flying around, that didn't seem very likely.
~
Over in the stands, Harry's friends had been watching the Tournament on the giant Jumbotron-looking magic mirrors that showed all four participants. A lot of people in the crowd had laughed at Harry trying to get into the boat and back out again. Knott and his cronies mocked Harry for being unable to stop the suit of armor with just his wand, as the other three had done. But really, the other three were much older and more skilled with magic. Harry, for all he was ahead of those in his year, was still only 14. There was only so much power someone that young could reasonably be expected to be able to channel.
While the room of poppies had been kind of dull, the crowd was nearly unanimous in its alarm at Harry's stupid idea of riding a floating rock down the side of a mountain like some kind of suicidal maniac. Nearly everyone screamed. Quite a few people fainted, including Professor McGonagall. Some of Harry's friends cried. Ron was going to kick Harry in the bum for being that stupid and reckless, and Draco was going to be there to hold Harry down.
As reckless as it was, it had bought him time. He'd spent so much time carving those three runes into that stone to deal with the suit of armor that if he hadn't ridden the bloody stone down the side of the bloody mountain (a phrase that had the same emotional impact to his friends every time they thought it as the event itself had done), he would have ended up getting into his boat about the time the other three finished the Task!
It was hard to count how many people were shouting at the screens when Harry and the Champions started seeing some kind of alluring illusion on that island. There were more screams and faintings when the Selma rose out of the water, looking like a giant water cobra with a fleshy crest on its head. The moment Harry's friends saw it, Antigone said “Oh shit. Oh god. He's gonna--”
When he spoke Parseltongue at it, even Bagman's running commentary on the match – which had barely paused the whole time – abruptly stopped. It was so quiet in the stands you could've heard a pin drop. Antigone wasn't alone among Harry's friends in putting her face in her hands and groaning. Especially once the frightened whispers and alarmed cries started up.
“Well that cat's out of the bag now,” they heard Harry say, once his boat was under way again.
“No shit, Harry,” Danzia said. “No shit.”
~
When the boats landed on shore again and they got out of the boats, they found four more paths like on the mountain, all of them blocked off from on another. Harry followed the paths with his eyes and saw their destination was the Whomping Willow. This was a violent tree that liked to swing its branches around like curled up fists at anything that approached it. Harry looked at Padfoot, who was wagging his tail and lolling his tongue. Harry grinned at him and they ran ahead into one of the paths, since Harry already knew how to get past the Willow.
When Harry got to the end of his path, there was a stone pillar there. He didn't know what it did at first, as the way ahead was blocked from view by a brick wall. But after a moment, the stone pillar spoke a riddle to him.
“Fists fly at the rage of this violent tree,
But there's a way past it if you stick with me.
Wood you believe a first-year student could find the way?
I would knot kid you about that, okay!”
“Yeah yeah,” Harry said impatiently. “I already know how to get past the Whomping Willow. Get on with it!”
The brick wall disappeared and Harry surged forward. Padfoot hung back. Padfoot had been the one to let Harry through before. This time, though, Harry cast a Sumerian Strike Hex at the knot that froze the tree. The simple hex, which felt like being punched, activated the knot. Harry ran up to the hole that was the entrance, Padfoot coming in behind him.
There were four doors here, which he could see because there was a diffuse magical light coming from the walls and ceiling of the passageway. One door already had an X over it. Harry tried the other three with the key he'd procured on the flowered hill until he found one that unlocked. He and Padfoot surged through it, the door closing behind them and the key switching to being in the inside keyhole of the lock. He guessed this meant they'd be coming back this way, later. Which was pretty obvious now he thought of it.
Going through the passage between the tree and the Shrieking Shack was long and dull as he remembered. It wasn't nearly as long a trip as the one to Honeyduke's was, but still, long enough.
When they came out of the path, they were faced with an unfamiliar entrance into the shack. Harry supposed that if they were trying to keep the participants from interfering with one another as much as possible, that Dumbledore or someone with the school had added extra routes into the Shrieking Shack, at least on a temporary basis. So Harry opened the entrance with his wand and looked up.
“Hominem revelio,” he cast. The spell couldn't get past the walls of the room the entrance led into, but nobody was in there, so he took a chance and poked his head up into the room.
The room was huge, had to have been expanded again, but what stood out the most to Harry was a familiar sight: Fluffy, Hagrid's three-headed dog. The dog's three heads all growled and barked at Harry, who ducked back into the passageway.
Ignoring for now the question of where Fluffy had been kept this entire time, Harry considered his options. Music was the answer. Then he noticed he'd gone right by another of those talking stone columns. He got closer to it, and it began to speak, but by the fifth word, Harry knew it was just going to tell him more stuff he already knew, so he went back.
Sighing as he looked at the flying omnioculars again, knowing what he would have to do, he screwed up his courage and popped back into the room in front of Fluffy. The cerberus had barely begun to growl when Harry began to sing a very poorly-remembered and tone-deaf version of “Don't Fear The Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult.
As predicted, Fluffy fell asleep at once. Harry kept singing, Padfoot joining in with a howl here and there, as Harry looked around the room for a trap door or something. And he found a trap door alright, but it was in the ceiling. Still singing, he popped it open with his wand, and a ladder descended on its own at a quick but measured speed. Harry didn't keep singing until after he had gotten both himself and Padfoot up the ladder into the room above.
When he closed the trap door again, he looked around the new room. There were four vampires in here, three men and one woman. They were pale and gaunt, and had visible fangs. The female vampire was sort of pretty, despite being plainly not human, but she was pretty in the way a tiger or a great white shark was pretty... beautiful but deadly.
“Um... do I have to fight you?” he asked the vampires, hoping the answer was 'no.'
“No,” said the female vampire. “Your journey below the earth represents Odysseus's trip to Hades. My brothers in blood represent the dead, while I represent the blind, dead prophet Teiresias, whom Odysseus sought for information about his trip home.”
Harry nodded. The trip to the mountains and up to the stone shack had represented Odysseus going to Troy for the Trojan War, that part combined with the lotus eaters. Then the island could have represented Circe, and the sea serpent probably represented Scylla and Charybdis.
“Okay,” he said. “So I'm ready for your information.”
She smirked at him, and began to recite a poem riddle:
“Deep in the dark of a sea of green,
That is where we set the scene.
Journey inside to a cavern to know
Where it is you need to go.
“You'll have no ship, for he did not,
While you seek what needs be sought.
In there you'll find a key to take,
If you do not first make a giant mistake.
“Take your treasure and flee for your life,
Going home like Odysseus went to his wife.
You'll need both pieces to finish, won't that be fun?
All the while helped by no-one.
“Once your treasure is in your grip,
Only then will you find your ship.
And once in your boat you may depart
To seek out the truest treasure of your heart.”
Harry used his wand to conjure a piece of parchment, a quill, and ink so he could write it down. He had her repeat the poem a couple times to make sure he had it, before he thanked her and left.
Thankfully, the exit wasn't past Fluffy; it was a simple door that had another route to the passageway. Harry was very thankful he didn't need to sing again. He and Padfoot went back down the passageway, out the door at the end, and up into the open air. Harry paused to press the knot on the tree before he and Padfoot went toward Hagrid's hut.
Harry was trying to get to the Forbidden Forest, of course, and Hagrid's hut was the closest landmark to the forest that they knew of. It was a bit of a long shot, but it was logical, and anyway--
“Oh, whadda ya know,” Harry said, as they spotted a sign not far from the cabin that pointed into the Forbidden Forest.
~
Fred and George looked at each other, impressed, as Harry was the second person past the Willow, though the feed from the omnioculars had blacked out for the riddle and the solutions, only resuming when the participants were underground. Fred and George figured Dumbledore hadn't wanted people to know how to get down there, but Fred and George could ask Harry what he'd done.
A lot of people were further surprised when Harry plainly knew how to get past the three-headed dog, too. Even his friends cringed at his singing, and Knott and his cronies were laughing. But bad as it was, it worked, and Harry was the first person past the beast. But where Harry's trap door was in the ceiling, Krum's was in the floor. Krum was the second to get past Fluffy, using three overpowered stunners, one for each head.
When Krum got into his trapdoor, some spell automatically woke up Fluffy, and Fleur was next up. She sang, of course, and beautifully. Most of the boys and men in the stands, and a few of the girls, were entranced as she sang Fluffy to sleep, and slipped past him to a secret door in the wall behind Fluffy. The walls rotated once when she left.
Cedric was last past Fluffy. He transfigured a stone into an oboe and played Fluffy a lullabye with it. There was another door behind Fluffy that Cedric went through, but since the walls had rotated, it went to a different chamber.
In the same order, the four participants exited through their different paths around Fluffy, and all eventually made it back up into the sunlight, and over to the Forbidden Forest.
~
Harry and Padfoot ran past the sign and into the forest, along the path. There were more arrow signs here, and they kept following the path. Harry thought they might be going deeper into the forest, but also felt like they were going north, which if true was well away from the nest of giant talking spiders Hagrid was responsible for. Harry thanked the gods for that favor.
At one point, Harry found a spot where the path split into four directions. One was crossed out with an X. Harry heard noise behind him, someone coming through the trees, and saw Cedric. Fleur was hot on his tail. Harry picked a direction and went, Padfoot right behind him. Cedric and Fleur went in different directions, and soon they lost each other in the dense forest.
After a few more minutes of running – how long exactly he wasn't sure – they came to a clearing. There was a cave entrance visible in the middle of it, but it was guarded by a massive security troll. Harry hid behind a tree before it could see him, Padfoot joining him.
His mind was racing, and his heart was following suit. A troll? A bloody great troll? It was bigger even than Hagrid, it had a huge club that looked made of an uprooted tree, it stank like an open sewer, and it growled and bellowed every now and then. It was sitting right in front of the cave entrance, hitting the ground with its massive club out of boredom.
(Trigger warning: panic attack ahead. Ends at “Slowly, Harry started to calm down.”)
Harry didn't know what to do. A giant snake he could talk to. The suit of armor had been made by people. The dragon he had fooled. He resisted the illusions, and the vampires had seemed nice. But trolls, despite being really stupid, were smart enough to have language, wear rudimentary clothing, and use tools. Harry couldn't think of a single bloody thing that he, a 14 year old kid, could do to get past a troll parked right in front of the entrance of the place he needed to be. There had been a troll in the castle in his first year, but he'd never seen it, being safe with everyone else in the Great Hall while the teachers sorted it out. And there'd been one down defending the Philosopher's Stone, but that one had been knocked out already.
His heart was racing faster, he broke into a cold sweat, and he was beginning to hyperventilate. He noted dully that he had fallen against a tree and was curling up at the base of it, watching the troll through the underbrush. A sudden thought struck him, and he suddenly had to worry about the troll spotting him in turn, but Harry couldn't force himself to move. He was shaking and dizzy and light-headed anyway, his vision closing into a narrow tunnel, and silent tears were rolling down his cheeks.
“Whuff,” Padfoot very quietly said, putting his head on Harry's lap. Harry put his hands on Padfoot's head and idly scratched him behind the ear. This helped him feel better, but he was still in a panic, still had no idea what to do about the troll.
Slowly, Harry started to calm down. He had no idea how long it had been, and didn't care. But he was getting back to himself. When he had calmed down enough to think clearly, he remembered Moody's advice. Outsmart the creature, if you couldn't fight it. Well, if that was the case, he would need a diversion, some loud noise to direct its attention away from the cave.
Making a strategic withdrawal, Harry got back far enough away from the troll so he could work without the troll overhearing. He took the flat stones out of his pockets, put the dust cover rags back over his and Padfoot's mouths and noses, and got to work carving Second Wand sigils with his wand. These were a little more complicated than he usually did, as he had to add in runes to act as countdown timers, so they'd go off at a certain time. The best he could do was giving himself five minutes on the countdown.
When he had two of these done and ready to take in magic, he put them back in his pocket. Using his wand, he said “Point me.” The wand pointed due north, which was right at the troll. Disillusioning himself first, he sneaked through the woods to the other side of the clearing behind the cavern entrance.
Once there, he touched the two runic sigils with his wand, one at a time, and cast the most powerful nonverbal Blasting Curses he could into them. He tossed both charged runes onto the ground where he was and took off back to where he'd started from.
When he got back, he waited almost another minute before it happened.
BOOM! With an explosion like an enormous cannon going off, the troll jumped up to its feet at the noise, and ran... away from the explosion?
“Shit!” Harry said, leaping to the left and running full tilt ahead, thankful the troll was making so much noise that it completely drowned out the sound of Harry and Padfoot running through the trees. They didn't go far, because the troll was so keen on getting away that it knocked a few trees over on its way out of the forest, giving Harry and Padfoot the time they needed to get into the cavern.
Inside the cavern was another box. Inside this box was a map and a key. The map was very simple, showing a “you are here,” an image of a Quidditch pitch, and a line from one to the other.
Not wanting to risk the troll returning, Harry and Padfoot bolted out the cave entrance and ran the direction they'd run to get away from the troll, since Harry didn't want to risk running into the troll on the way back along the route he'd taken to get here.
It only took a little over five minutes to get out of the Forbidden Forest this way. He spotted his boat and one other in the distance, and began to run at it, back toward Hagrid's hut. He was running so fast that he jumped right into the boat on the first try. It floated, but didn't move otherwise.
That's when he noticed there was a new addition to it; it now had a wheel, the kind you saw on sailing ships in the movies and on TV, and beside it was a lever. He grabbed it, and the boat was skimming the ground, barely an inch from the grass. On a guess, Harry pulled the lever back, and the ship rose higher in the air and turned east to fly up over the trees.
Wait, the trees? That wasn't right. He spun the wheel around, and to his relief the boat started to head northwest instead. But he had to fight with the wheel, as the ship would only go the right way for about a minute before it started drifting in a different, somewhat random direction every time it started to get back on course again. And he wasn't alone, either. In the distance he saw Krum's ship drifting southwest, toward the gates to the grounds. Krum was fighting it with obvious frustration.
Fleur was a little better off than Krum, as she was at least going north. But she kept drifting east. And when Cedric, limping and bloody, finally got into his boat, it just kept drifting higher up. He would come down and to the northwest sometimes, but it kept drifting after a minute or two, like all the others.
Thinking outside the box, Harry looked down at the ground and tried to Summon the ground ahead of him. Whatever ward had blocked Summoning before was down now, because he had to grab tighter hold of the wheel to keep from being pulled out of the boat, which was now flying in the right direction. He kept Summoning the ground a few times until he was in range of the castle. With the whip spell, he grabbed hold of one of the towers and pulled.
He kept using the whip spell to pull the boat along until he was floating past the castle, where he started Summoning the ground again.
The others had spotted what he was doing and were now mimicking it. Fleur was making the best progress, seemingly able to Summon spots farther away than the others. Cedric had apparently decided to let his boat keep floating higher and higher. When he was too far away from the ground to get much out of Summoning the ground, Cedric transfigured something into a sail, tied it to the empty mast, and used some kind of spell to make the sail billow in the right direction. Only when he was over the pitch did he find a way down again, using the whip spell Harry had been using as a long rope to rappel down to the ground. Only when he landed did the ship begin to come back toward the Earth.
Harry was second to land after Cedric, actually managing to land his. Fleur was next, followed by Krum. Cedric had landed on the roof, but he ran quickly to the edge and jumped off, ducking into the first door available. That door sealed itself with a big X over it.
Fleur was a faster runner than Krum, but both were faster than Harry. Padfoot, too, but only because he was hanging back to keep an eye on Harry. Anyway, Fleur made it to her door before Krum made it to his, and Harry was the last one inside.
“What the---” Harry said as he looked around at the space inside. It was a large room, and it was full of a dozen beds. There were people on all the beds, and every single one of them was asleep. But more importantly, they were all Luna, or looked like Luna anyway. They were identical down to the last strand of hair, and all dressed identically.
Harry went around the room poking them all to make sure they were real. When he found they were, he decided it must be Polyjuice Potion they'd used. And maybe transfiguration? Luna's style would be difficult to copy, even in her school robes. He tried casting “finite” at different parts of their wardrobes, but against all odds, nothing changed.
So instead, he cast “Rennervate” on each of them in turn. A few of them he knew at once weren't Luna. He marked them by turning their black robes blue with a color-change spell. They made no attempt to remove this spell.
The rest... they were all looking at him in the same serene manner that Luna almost always had about her. There were seven of them, and he couldn't tell them apart yet.
“Nargles are giant purple toads that live in the Amazon river,” Harry said to the room at large.
“Now Harry, you know full well nargles are pixie-like creatures that live in mistletoe and like to hide things from people,” chided the Luna nearest the far corner. The rest of the Lunas just looked bewildered. Smiling, Harry ran over to Luna and hugged her.
“Oh, I see what you did there,” Luna said. The others all looked relieved to not have to pretend anymore, and started talking amongst themselves as Harry and Luna left the building.
When they came out, Madam Pomfrey, Ron, Draco, and Antigone came over, Angela and Danzia following behind them. Madam Pomfrey scanned Harry with her wand, gave him a pepper-up potion in case of any lingering after-effects from being splashed by freezing water earlier. She offered him a calming draft, but he refused. He was sufficiently recovered from his earlier panic attack.
Cedric was not so lucky. Harry could see him and Cho over in a nearby medical tent, Cedric covered in bandages after presumably being attacked by a troll. Fleur was next out of the final building, walking alongside an eight or nine year old girl who could only be Fleur's little sister. Then Krum was last, followed by an annoyed Hermione.
“What's the matter, Hermione?” Harry asked.
“What? Oh, just--- depulso!” she cast, sending the flying omnioculars scattering to the four winds with her spell. “Dratted things. It's just that Viktor took so long trying to figure out which me was me that I got rather cross with him and started yelling.”
“Ve haff only been on vun date,” Krum said. “And yes, ve haff talked some since then, but still, I am barely knowink you. Still, I am sorry I vas not knowink which vun vas you.”
Hermione sighed. “Apology accepted. And I'm sorry I got cross with you.”
“Apology not needed. It is understandable.”
“At least he knew I wasn't one of the nine people making googly eyes at him when he came in the room.”
At that moment, all the spare Lunas, Chos, Hermiones, and Gabrielles came out of the building.
“I wonder who they all were.”
As if in answer, their skins began bubbling and changing, some people growing taller, others getting shorter. When they were back to themselves, Harry recognized some Ministry workers from the Quidditch World Cup last summer. Others were total strangers.
“Mix of Ministry employees and their family members,” explained a voice behind Harry. He turned around and saw Percy standing there.
“Percy? What're you doing here?” asked Ron.
“Watching the Tournament, of course. I work in the Department of International Magical Cooperation under Ms. Selby, after all. By the way, Harry, the scores will be announced soon.”
After a few more minutes of idle chatter, Bagman's voice boomed over the stands once more. A mirror Harry hadn't noticed until now changed to display a view of the judges' stand.
“And the scores are in now, let's see what our Champions have scored. Oh, and Mr. Potter, too,” he added in a sullen voice. “Anyway, first up is Mr. Cedric Diggory of Hogwarts, who finished his task first, ten minutes over the limit of an hour.”
The judges put up points for Cedric. They were almost all 8's or 9's, except for Karkaroff, who gave him a five. Next was Harry, who got mostly 1's like he'd asked for, except Karkaroff, who gave him a zero, and Bagman, who gave him a ten. Harry rolled his eyes at this.
Then Fleur got mostly 7's and 8's, with Karkaroff giving her a three. And lastly, Krum got pretty much solid 6's, and a ten from Karkaroff.
“Together with the points from the first task,” continued Bagman, “the ranks are as follows: Cedric Diggory in the lead with 77 points. Viktor Krum in second at 74 points. Fleur Delacour in third at 72 points, and Harry Potter... Harry Potter in fourth with... 51 points.
“The third and final task will take place at dusk on the twenty-fourth of June. The cham-- er, participants will be notified of what is coming precisely one month beforehand. Thank you all for your support of the champions. And Mr. Potter.”
Harry stayed behind with his friends as the excited crowd left the stands and went back toward the school, wincing every now and then when one or more of them would look at him with terror in their eyes.
On their way back to the castle, his friends told him what the other champions had done. Among other highlights, Krum had blasted the rock shelf apart under the suit of armor and then transfigured a bridge for himself to get inside. Cedric had tried the distraction trick again, having transfigured a rock into a dog and setting it on the suit of armor. It had worked a lot better this time than last time. And Fleur had frozen the suit with a blast of arctic wind from her wand, then shattered it to pieces with a Bombarda. Fleur had also been the most able to resist the sleeping spell of the flower room, ahead of Krum and Cedric. Then all three of them had rappelled down the side of the “cliff” until they got down low enough to run the rest of the way.
It seemed Luna hadn't been sleeping the whole time, either; she'd been watching up until the point when Harry got in his boat for the last time, and she and his other friends gave him a real stern talking-to about rocketing down what was essentially a cliff on a floating rock. Sirius, for his part, was torn between disapproval and excitement at the memory of it, his human side less afraid of it than his canine side had been.
~
Endnotes: The water snake in this chapter is an actual canon Potterverse creature called a Selma. It's a kind of lake serpent. Description is based on the picture of it on the 'harrypotter' wikia. I don't know if Parseltongue would really work on it or not, but it IS a giant snake.
I wasn't planning on Harry exposing his Parselmouth ability here, but I *had* been planning on using the Selma. When I first looked it up, there was no picture. When I looked it up again, as soon as I saw it was a giant snake, I knew Harry would be Speaking to it.
And no, the Selma isn't a permanent Black Lake resident, it was brought in for the Tournament for an obstacle and will be going back to its home again after the Second Task.
The Sumerian Strike Hex is one of those spells that's popular in fan fiction (I've seen it in several fics by different authors), but isn't listed in the Wikia, so it's not canon.
Oh and wow, reading the Wikia's description of nargles, I realized she's talking about what I call pixies. I've had pixies in every house I've ever lived in, and they do in fact hide things from people. Ever lost something, only to find it again later in a place you'd already looked, where it was obviously right there and there's no way you could possibly have missed seeing it when you looked there a dozen times before? That's pixies. Though they can also sometimes leave gifts, if they feel sorry for you or if you show them kindness. I once found a brand new blouse in my closet when I was living alone at the time and barely had money for food, let alone clothes. Either it was pixies, or someone broke into my house without any sign of forced entry and left me something instead of stealing from me. Pixies seem more likely to me than that. (I don't know what keeps pixies away. Wish I did, sometimes.)
