Chapter 52: Into the Labyrinth
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
“Hm,” said Daphne. “Not very helpful.”
“A fitting epitaph for Theodore Nott, in general,” said Draco. “If I outlive him, I shall take pains to inscribe it on his grave. Granger?”
Daphne passed the artifact to Hermione, who tucked it into her journal. “Thank you for that verdict,” she said dryly.
“I’m sorry, my dear, I don’t know what you want me to say.” She folded her hands in contrition. “There’s just not a great deal to work with.”
They were clustered in a corner of Gryffindor Tower that was as close to hidden as you ever truly be, in Gryffindor. May’s loveliest day drenched the alcove in sunlight so thick it was almost viscous, turning white on the varnished tabletop, warming the stone floors. Discarded robes and jumpers adorned the back of each chair. Harry and Ron lolled in the window seat, passing a pocket snitch back and forth, the tiny glint of gold like a darting firefly in the sunshine. Hermione had rolled her sleeves up and thrown her hair into one of those tiny metal claws, her wand notched behind her ear.
“Could he be asking us to set up a Portkey?” She drummed her fingers in thought.
Draco was rolling his wand around his fingers, making an intricate figure-eight. He’d figured out how to do the knuckle thing, and the effect was desirably impressive. “Where?” he said. “For whom? And why would he ask us?”
“I don’t know. He clearly wants you to know about it, so it must be important to you somehow.”
“Are you sure that he meant it for you?” Daphne pillowed her chin in her hand, curious. “It’s not addressed.”
“Parkinson almost broke a door down to deliver it, so I’d say so.”
“No, but she’s right,” said Hermione thoughtfully. “Pansy said ‘a Gryffindor.’ She went looking for you because she knew you, not because Theo told her to.”
“Hey, A-Team,” said Ron, yawning. He pitched the snitch sidelong at Harry. “Glad you’re all having fun, but this bloke does actually go here, yeah? He lives downstairs. Just go ask him.”
“Oh, thank you, Ron, why didn’t we think of that?”
“I dunno, but hey, you’re w— ow!”
She retracted the newspaper and arched her eyebrow at him.
“Nott’s gone,” said Draco. He intercepted Harry’s toss and vaulted it overhand at Ron, who nearly keeled out of the seat for it. “Hasn’t been in for three days.”
Harry frowned. “Is he sick?”
“Well, he’s not on a field trip.”
“Pansy says he hasn’t come back to the dorms,” said Daphne worriedly. “I suppose he’s gone home, but I wouldn’t have expected it. He’s never been sick before, and he refuses to see Pomfrey for anything.”
“And he was obviously in a hurry when he wrote this.” Hermione’s fingers drilled on the desk. “Which makes me think he knew he’d be gone for a while. And wouldn’t have a chance to tell us whatever he meant in person, at least before it mattered.”
“A good point,” said Draco, “which ferries us no closer to understanding what he actually meant.”
“I don’t know that that’s even possible, based on what he’s given us. One word and a page of a book on Portkeys isn’t exactly Agatha Christie. We don’t even know that ‘cup’ is the right word — it could be an abbreviation or an acronym.”
Ron caught the snitch and then leaned on his cocked knee. “Hang on,” he said, gesturing at them with the ball. “This is Theodore Nott, yeah? Rich prick? Daddy’s boy?”
“Only by default,” said Draco.
“He’s nice, sometimes,” muttered Daphne.
“Right, yeah. That one? He hasn’t done bugger-all for you or me or Harry, ever. Why are you so keen on what he’s got to say?” Ron was disbelieving. “This is the bloke who’s been helping Warrington cheat, remember. I’ll bet anything he’s just trying to distract Harry before the Third Task. Mind games, mate.” He tapped his forehead. “S’what I’d do.”
Draco wrinkled his nose. “Because Potter famously attributes his success to his diligent work ethic.”
“Nah, but he knows you and Hermione are probably helping him, right? Gotta be. And he knows you two like a good puzzle, which the Third Task isn’t, so all he’s got to do is offer one.” He snapped his fingers. “Distracted. The both of you. And if I’m him, and I want Warrington to win, that’s my first priority. Getting you two out of the way.” He shrugged, and then leaned back into the window. “But I’m not a genius, so what do I know.”
“I’m flattered, Ron, but I sincerely doubt Theodore Nott thinks about me at all,” said Hermione, with an edge of amusement.
Daphne, meanwhile, blinked at him.
“That’s a very good idea,” she said. “Ronald, why weren’t you in Slytherin?”
“Told the hat I’d off myself,” said Ron grandly, casting the ball high over Harry’s head.
“A shame,” said Daphne, presently. “You’d have been lovely.”
“I think Ron’s right,” announced Harry.
Draco caught Hermione’s eye and touched his chest, feigning shock. She smirked.
He tilted his head at her. As usual, a warm sensation happened in his chest and unfurled in billows under his ribs — but he was coming to know quite well how far it could progress before it tempted him to do anything about it, i.e., at which point it became a nuisance. So he could enjoy it until then. Then, when the temptation to smile became considerable, he averted his face.
He could manage this. All things could be tolerated, one way or another. It was a question of dosage.
“We know which side of this thing he’s on, and it’s not ours,” Harry added. “I’m not talking about the Tournament.”
Daphne made a fretful sound, but she didn’t disagree. Draco tipped his chair back, balancing on its hind feet, and carefully held his tongue.
With a sweep of her arm, Hermione cleared the table of her notes and the conversation. “Alright,” she said briskly. “Fair enough. We’ll sidebar the Portkey question until after the Third Task, or until Theodore comes back for us to ask him. In the meantime, Harry, you should’ve been drilling the Impediment Curse an hour ago.”
“Aw, Hermione, I didn’t mean now—”
“On your feet,” said Draco, throwing back his chair. Unlike Harry, he quite liked drilling sessions; it was rare that he got the chance to shoot jinxes at someone without Hermione shrilling at him, and even rarer for her to stand there and holler at the other person while he did. It was a highlight in an otherwise dreary and confusing week. “You, too, Weasley, there’s no reason you shouldn’t know it. And we’re drilling Patronuses, after that, so you can give pointers.”
“Speaking of which,” called Harry, jogging her chair, “would you show us that jinx from last week? The wobbly one?”
“The Jelly-Legs Jinx? It’s fairly simple. The aim is the trickiest part, because you’ve got to hit a joint, or the effects won’t be as strong.”
“You know, that makes ever so much sense, and I’m glad you said so,” said Daphne, idly putting her arm through Hermione’s, and steering her out. “Because I’ve struggled for ages with mine, and I always went right for the shins.”
“No, that’s where you’re wrong. It’s a common mistake, though, so you shouldn’t feel badly about it. Flitwick explained it all to me in office hours, it’s best if you go for the knees, because that’s the major joint, although the ankles aren’t terrible, either. In fact, the anatomical component is fascinating—”
It wasn’t. All the same, her explanation of the Jelly-Legs Jinx, rich in detail and useless context, lasted them to the Transfiguration classroom, where Harry became intimately acquainted with the anatomical component of quite a few other curses, including a sensational number concerning distal phalanges that Draco had discovered that morning over tea.
For all the rest of that week they were harried and sleepless, soldiers in arms marked by the dark circles under their eyes — even Draco’s, to his horror, for any tarnish on his complexion was rather as ink on parchment — driven up late by efforts to prepare Harry for the un-preparable. In the back of classrooms, they read spellbooks instead of the day’s lessons, leaving Hermione to throw up a hand and cover whenever someone was called on; during meals, Harry scarfed bites of sandwich while dancing through jinxes from Draco’s wand; at night, when Hermione and Daphne retired to the girls’, Harry stayed up with Ron, their fretful murmurs moving through the parted curtains on Harry’s bed, and sometimes Draco woke to hear twin sets of snores from the four-poster.
Hermione didn’t help; the night before the Third Task, she ordered everyone to bed at nine o’clock, which meant, naturally, that Harry lay awake muttering to himself for three heinously unrestful hours, instead of doing anything useful, like letting Draco jinx him. Not that Draco didn’t try; a quarter after midnight, he executed the most productive Langlock of his young life.
He must have slept, but it felt like no sleep he’d ever known. Instead, he rolled over, closed his eyes, and opened them to thin fingers of sunlight walking their way through the latticed window of Gryffindor Tower.
A cohort of Ministry wizards roved up the lawns like a pack of migrating bluebells. The dew reflecting on the pale sun-washed lawns was so bright it made the black of their shadows seem violet. He watched them congregate around the quidditch pitch, talking amongst themselves, until the grass had sweated out its crown of frost, and the sunrise ended with a cataclysmic blossom of pink in the east.
It was the day of the Third Task, and it was beautiful. It was odd how the mornings of his worst days always seemed so lovely, like the world was trying to convince him of something.
An hour later, a host of the same purple robes appeared in the Entrance Hall, milling around and generally obscuring foot traffic through an intently traveled region of the castle, which caused in Draco the strongest political leanings he’d felt all week.
“Couldn’t have done this sooner,” Hermione muttered, shoving her way between a pair of gossiping bureaucrats, “would’ve killed them to set up on a Saturday, I suppose?”
“Remember this, when you’re Minister,” he said.
“Remember what, exactly? ‘Don’t stand in doorways’? I had that locked down in primary school.”
“That,” he said, “and anything that gets between the masses and their daily bread will tend to be unpopular.”
Ron exclaimed: “Oi! Perce? Is that you?”
A redhead in a rich purple Ministry robe, suit acceptable, haircut atrocious, turned away from a passel of scowling administrators and peered over his spectacles. “Ronald,” he said, with chill dignity. “It’s good to see you.”
Ron ambled over to his brother. “Didn’t know you’d be here, you git! Why didn’t you write?” He slung an arm around Percy’s shoulder.
Percy made a noise like parchment shredding and disengaged himself. “Please contain yourself,” he snapped. “I’m at work.”
“Merlin. Fine. Didn’t realize I had to file a permit to hug you, prat. Anyway, what’s with the robes? Where’s Crouch?”
“I no longer work for Mr. Crouch,” he sniffed. “I’m a legislative advisor to the Wizengamot.”
“You’re what? You? Why? When?”
Percy’s eye-roll ought to have strained a nerve.
“I suppose you mightn’t have read the papers,” he said, “but Lord Runcorn has seen fit to remove Mr. Crouch from his position.”
“Crouch was fired?” said Draco sharply.
“Yes. And quite rightly, too! His management of the tournament has been an utter disgrace — allowing a second champion to compete, let alone a fourteen-year-old — Lord Runcorn was furious, especially for your sake, Harry,” Percy added. “It was outrageous to make you compete. A clear sign of senility and judgment compromised by pressure — honestly, I was shocked Lord Runcorn didn’t remove him earlier—”
“What are you talking about?” Ron was incredulous. “You were all up Crouch’s arse last year.”
“I worked for him, Ron,” said Percy, in the tones of someone so exhausted by another’s stupidity that even condescension was too much effort. “I did my job. Let’s not exaggerate.”
“You bit Fred’s head off for calling his mustache funny!”
“I never did more than my due. Lord Runcorn agreed, and he put me in contact with Lord Selwyn, who found a position in the Wizengamot — he said that a bit of legislative experience would round out my profile, and I quite agreed—”
“Selwyn?”
“Selwyn!”
It was rare that Draco and Ron were aligned on any subject; it prompted Harry and Hermione to stare.
Hermione said, “Who?”
“Lord Selwyn is a member of the Wizengamot,” said Percy, impatiently. “A senior ranking member, at that—”
“He’s a Cavalier!” Ron stepped into his brother’s face. “He’s the enemy, Perce, what the hell?”
“Oh, please. He’s a public servant.”
“That’s Runcorn’s party, Hermione,” Daphne whispered. “Very traditional. My family’s Cavs, if that tells you anything, and so’s Draco’s—”
“I know who they are,” she said shortly, “thanks.”
“—barmy puffed-up ponce! At least Crouch was a Pop! Have you told Dad?”
“If Father has any sense, he’ll be pleased that one of his sons is making something of himself,” said Percy, purpling unpleasantly. “And he never liked Crouch, anyway.”
“At least Crouch wasn’t trying to fire him! They just sacked Bones, how can you help them?”
Percy threw a panicked look over his shoulder and seized Ron’s collar, hauling him away from the other Ministry workers in a startling show of strength.
“Listen to me,” he snapped. “Keep your voice down. Those people are important men, back there, and I’m making great headway into a position that would let me do real work at the Ministry. If you ruin this, I swear you’ll regret it.”
“Make me regret it? You’re threatening me?”
“You are in no position to speak loudly of such matters. That is all I am saying.”
He still had Ron tight by the collar, leaving a pink line on his throat. Draco decided he had had enough of that. If too many people fancied they could run around yelling at Ronald, it wouldn’t feel fun when he did it.
“Off.”
Percy stumbled back when he was pushed. Draco shook out his hand and planted it on his hip, above his wandsheath.
“Gentlemen don’t roughhouse in public,” he said coolly. “Congratulations on your new position. Give my best to Lord Selwyn, and tell him my mother appreciated his Christmas card.”
Then he steered Ron into the Great Hall, which Harry followed expeditiously. Hermione bobbed at his side, muttering to herself.
“—Crouch only days before the Third Task, what are they playing at? No wonder nothing happened with Moody! I expect he didn’t get the chance!”
“Voice down, if you please. I’m fairly certain Percival is still watching us.”
“Oh, bet he is,” whispered Ron, with faint jubilation. “Bet you just ruined his week. But also: seriously, mate, you get Christmas cards from members of the Wizengamot?”
“No, and if I did I’d bin them, Selwyn’s got no class and less sense. He hasn’t had a committee assignment in seven years. It’s a shame your brother doesn’t realize he’s being stuck on a shelf for safekeeping.” Between the breakfast rush with the exchange students about, finding seats at Gryffindor was next to impossible. Instead of complaining, however, he elected to take what Hermione called a ‘solutions-oriented’ approach, and dealt a hard kick to the bench, scattering a gaggle of first years from their seats.
“Stuck on a shelf?”
“To keep him quiet about Crouch,” said Hermione slowly, sinking into her seat. She was too lost in thought to scold him. “Percy knew what Crouch was doing better than anyone. If Runcorn fired him for a suspect reason — like going after Moody—”
“Or anything, really. It’s probably the same sweep that got Bones and Diggory,” said Draco, reaching for the teapot. “Runcorn’s cleaning house. Which reminds me — Ronald, I’d advise your father to mind his P’s and Q’s in the next few months, and keep his head down, if possible; they won’t fire a pureblood if they can help it, but all they need is a whisper of a legally viable pretext.”
Ron swallowed. “Right. I’ll tell him.”
“I don’t think it was a sweep,” said Hermione.
He filled his cup and dosed it with cream and lemon. “Of course it is. Bones has been a Populare for years.”
“But they’re not random firings. Diggory’s came out a few months after his son started seeing a half-blood—”
“Speculation, but continue.”
“—and Bones was cut a week before they closed the Dark Mark investigation. That’s bizarre, isn’t it? If you think about it? She would have overseen the whole case, start to finish, all the evidence, all the testimony, and for months there wasn’t a word about it, nothing! Not even a suspect! But then she leaves, and a week later, they’ve finished it? Not even ‘breaking developments,’ just: ‘look! We’ve arrested someone!’” She stabbed the table for emphasis. Silver rattled. “That’s not how an investigation works. Not in the muggle world, anyway.”
“You think she wouldn’t have closed it?”
Hermione’s finger almost assassinated a jam jar. “Better. I think she had a lead they didn’t like,” she said intently. “I mean, a house-elf? Really? You yourself said it wasn’t believable even to people who hate house-elves, and you’d know—”
“I resent that, thank you!”
“—so why bother? Unless you needed a reason to tell everyone involved to stop looking?” She sat back, faintly glowing from satisfaction, and then, nodding to herself as if she’d just solved a puzzle, she reached for the tea. “Anyway, if Crouch was poking his nose into maladministration with the Tournament, it’s not farfetched to think he would have stumbled into the cheating scheme for Cassius.”
He swatted her hand away and poured her a cup. “So, to be clear,” he said, “you’re taking the firing of two political operatives in entirely different branches of the government to be evidence of an illegal conspiracy to commit miscarriage of justice and conceal the identity of a domestic terrorist, a charge that you levy against persons no less significant than the Minister of Magic himself.”
“Yes.”
He shrugged and passed her the sugar bowl. “Alright.”
“Alright?”
“Yes, alright. It doesn’t make a difference,” he said, “because you’ve got no proof, and if you’re right, having proof would only put you in danger, so I’d rather we didn’t pursue the possibility. But theoretically, you could be correct.”
“I don’t even know how I’d prove it,” she said, frowning.
“Did you hear the part where I said it was a bad idea to try?”
“I suppose I could write to someone in the Department of Law Enforcement. Or ask Percy for a look at Crouch’s daybook.”
“Of course, I understand how you could have misheard me, I was only looking straight at you when I said it.”
“Actually, I should just write to the Minister’s office, shouldn’t I? Why not be direct? Do wizards have citizen’s arrest?”
“Granger,” he said, appalled, but then she gave him a flat look. He scowled and broke into muttering about mean-spiritedness.
Daphne and Ron were snickering; Hermione snorted a laugh of her own. “Really,” she said. “I mean, really. ‘Citizen’s arrest’? You thought—?”
“Before you proceed, recall that you have nowhere near the track record to mock me for taking that suggestion seriously.”
“Oh, please. Name once—”
“Horntail,” he said, cutting her a sidelong look. She flushed.
Then — very maturely, with the dignity befitting a young woman at the top of her class — she stuck out her tongue at him. He made a face and kicked her ankle and presently his kidney was reacquainted with a long-lost friend, her elbow, which made him hiss and glower at her over his tea for a good while, sulking. But a bit later — Harry was recounting the story of how they’d solved the egg to Daphne and Ron, apparently because Daphne had asked — Hermione gave a little smirk when they reached the part about the prefects’ bathroom, just a quirk of her mouth into her tea, and her ankle connected with his.
He twitched like she’d slapped him. Daphne cut him a curious glance, and he gestured to ignore it. Her eyes flit to Hermione, and then back to Harry with suspicious speed.
Draco cleared his throat, and she moved her foot away.
He still fancied her when she was being annoying. It was horrible news. A dismal forecast for his dignity. He’d expected to come out of this ordeal with some version of his self-respect intact, which was increasingly looking like a pipe dream.
“Potter!”
Harry popped his head up brightly.
Professor McGonagall strode down from the faculty table. “The champions are congregating in the antechamber after breakfast,” she said. “The champions’ families are invited to watch the final task. This is a chance for you to greet them.”
“Oh,” said Harry.
He didn’t move. McGonagall cleared her throat. He fiddled with his napkin.
“I apologize for my ambiguity,” she announced. “I will rephrase. Potter: get up, and go greet your family.”
“B— okay.” He slowly peeled himself out of the bench, moving sluggishly, as if with enough time she might forget about him, and go bother someone else.
Abruptly, Ron gripped his robe and hauled him back down. “He’s not talking to the Dursleys,” he said loudly. “If they want to talk to him, they can come in here, and do it through me.”
Harry cast him a look of blinding gratitude.
“An admirable sentiment,” said McGonagall crisply, “but I told Mr. Potter to come greet his family, and I will not tolerate rudeness in the members of my House.”
“But professor—”
“Mama!”
It was the unmistakable croon of Fleur. She dispatched from a flock of Beauxbatons students and went flying down the aisle, bowling over unfortunate underclassmen with every step, and vaulted herself into the arms of a tall and staggeringly well-shaped older woman in the entrance.
And there — shoulder to shoulder with a pair of tall, slender blondes whose sneers savored of the Bordeaux region, and a scruffy, short family of dark-haired people with familiar glowers — stood a nervous Arthur and Molly Weasley, dressed in their least shabby set of clothes. Bill leaned on his father’s shoulder, sporting an earring and a ponytail and whatever you called the opposite of a Sunday best, grinning.
Harry did not so much stand up as erupt from his seat, trip over his shoes, pinwheel into Professor McGonagall, and then clear off down the aisle at such a speed that it appeared his own legs were struggling to keep up with him.
The resulting embrace was vast, sappy, and overwhelmingly ginger. Ron loped after him, and whatever transpired after that was mercifully inaudible, though there were tears and exclamations and intense hair-ruffling, and in the wake of it all, Professor McGonagall strolled over to chat, smiling a terribly decorous little smile.
“Oh, how darling,” said Daphne, leaning on her fist. “I didn’t know he was adopted.”
“Neither did he,” said Draco.
Hermione gave a tender sigh, and he rolled his eyes.
McGonagall ushered them out, making to clear the entrance. In his last glimpse of the Weasleys, Molly had found some fault with Harry’s tie knot, and was fussing at it while issuing a scolding; Harry was beaming.
Breakfast finished shortly thereafter, plates shimmering out of existence at the order of the hour-bell. When they departed for History of Magic, the champions and guests still lingered in the Entrance Hall, shepherded by a small coalition of faculty including McGonagall, Dumbledore, and Snape. Beside Cassius, there stood a man with a mustache and sideburns that threatened doorframes everywhere, and this man was saying something to Snape that made the Potions Master balefully contemplate the middle distance.
As the three of them passed, Viktor Krum glanced over his shoulder and noticed them at the foot of the staircase. Abruptly, he broke off a sentence in Bulgarian, stepped away, and waved, calling: “Zdraveĭ, Her -mione!”
Hermione stopped, pinked, and waved back. “Zdrasti, Viktor,” she called. “Good to see you.”
He took another step toward them. Draco eyed the distance between them and irritably wondered how close he needed to be to make himself heard. He had lungs the size of church bells, it wasn’t near.
“Her -mione, you vill be coming, yes? To the Third Task?”
“I think everyone is,” she said, “but yes.”
He shuffled his feet, nodding stiffly. “This is good,” he said, “this is very good. I vill see you, then — later.”
“I’m sure you will,” she said, dramatically flustered, and just then the dark-haired boy beside Viktor’s parents burst into a chitter of annoying, pubescent laughter.
“Боже, Ти си такава девствена. Виждал съм прасета с повече чар—”
Viktor turned sharply. “Млъкни, идиот.”
“O? O? Слушам: Her-mione! Her-mione! Nyeh! Така звучиш— ai!”
The boy ducked the urgent sweep of his brother’s arm, then rocketed off across the Entrance Hall, while the Bulgarian national seeker gave chase. The two eventually tumbled into a flurry of limbs at the foot of the grand staircase, which resolved in the younger boy squalling and shrieking with glee as his older brother, cheeks aflame, hauled him into a firm and well-earned headlock.
“My goodness,” said Daphne, peering over Hermione’s shoulder. “I hadn’t seen him up close. He is handsome, isn’t he?”
The stares she received were withering on both counts.
“Goodness gracious. Can’t a woman can’t have eyes around here?”
“No,” snapped Draco, and she went off to Charms in a snit, which made two of them.
The day passed as the night before had: quickly and involuntarily. The distance between classrooms had never been so great. Partly because anxiety was infectious, and people kept interjecting to offer Harry their opinions on the Task, or the Skeeter article, or whatever else crossed their head; celebrity seemed to mark him, inexplicably, as a subject for testimonial. Two seventh year Gryffindors asked to shake his hand. A group of Ravenclaws came to express their earnest hope that no matter what happened, he would take second place.
At dinner, Harry and Ron were once more escorted away by McGonagall to sit at a special table for the champions and their families, adjacent to the faculty. Ron appeared to enjoy this very much, and struck up a vigorous conversation with Viktor Krum’s father, to his right, while Bill chatted easily with Harry on the end of the table, apparently blind to the intrigued looks that Fleur sent him throughout the meal.
After three courses of cream-of-parsnip soup and braised beef and trifle, Dumbledore announced the schools would be departing to the quidditch pitch for the Third Task, and the resulting surge of movement was vast.
It was all quite surreal, Draco thought, perhaps because there were so many people, but also because the evening itself did not quite admit of the possibilities that were approaching: it was cool and temperate, the sky a lavender bowl scattered with silver, and the fresh warm wind carried the scent of wild jasmine and heather down from the empty, gorgeous moors. The lawns thronged with people like a school of fish, moving with one mind of such intensity that it barred dissent; the few who tried to swim against, and turn back for any reason, were swept aside and buffeted far off course, before they had any chance; and yet the crowd’s one babbling voice was breathy and light from anticipation, anticipating the entertainment that would ensue. It was like they were going to see a play. The stage was there; the audience in high spirits; the weather compliant. The production had been executed flawlessly. It remained only incumbent on the actors to deliver.
In his stomach there was a small cold node of worry, but he set these feelings aside. They had done all they could. There was nothing more inside their power; if he had failed, then anyone would have. It was this comfort, and Hermione’s circulation-killing grip on his arm, that kept his step light and his expression indifferent on the way down to the pitch.
“Draco,” called Hermione, hopping up on her toes, “where’s Harry? Can you see him?”
“Coming down last, I expect, with the other champions. Why?”
“I didn’t say good luck, earlier,” she said anxiously. “I didn’t think that it would be the last time — I thought I’d get to — and then at dinner — but I didn’t think of it. I thought there’d be time for it.”
“I’m sure he knows.”
“Yes, but I didn’t say so! And — and! I found an easier version of the Trip Jinx this morning, and I thought I’d told him the incantation, but I don’t remember. I want to make sure — I want to tell him.”
“Because that’ll really even the odds, won’t it, a Trip Jinx.”
“You don’t know what’s in there! Neither do I! It could! And even if not, I don’t — I’d still want to — I mean, you know, if he doesn’t…”
Her lips pursed in a fretful knot. She stared at him, plaintively, with eyes so wide and entreating that one would think she was asking him for a kidney.
Apparently, he’d have given it to her.
“Merlin,” he said wearily, “fine. The champions enter from the lockers, we’ll go wait for him.”
“Oh. That would be — yes. Perfect. But how are we going to… I mean, it’ll be locked, isn’t it?”
“Do you remember your first exposure to tandem flying?”
Her lip twitched. “With Gryffindor’s only Reserve Seeker?”
Never mind. Find her own damn kidney, she could.
“Third chaser, thank you,” he said crossly, and shoved through the crowd.
The east and south turnstiles into the locker rooms had been sealed up to direct traffic into the stands. Slipping through the padlocked gate was much harder than it had been when he was eleven, especially since it was warded from the outside against Alohamora — but it was also much easier to scale than it had been then, besides which, he had benefited from watching an eleven-year-old Harry Potter do it first, after which failure could not be tolerated. He dropped neatly down on the other side and charmed the lock open from the inside, holding the gate for Hermione to hurry in.
The turnstiles were frozen, so he vaulted on neatly and turned back. Behind him, Hermione feinted at it twice with a grim expression, palms pinning her skirt to her thighs, like it would soon try to bite her.
“Up you get, go on.”
“I can’t.”
“I’ve seen you clear more than that with a werewolf at your back and ill-fitting robes.”
“Yes, but back then I wasn’t — I wasn’t dressed. I’m in a skirt.”
“Is that all? Merlin’s sake. I’ve already seen your pants.”
Her cheeks could get brilliantly red.
“You looked?”
“No, I didn’t — that’s some mind of yours, you know, that would assume — but the point of it was —never mind. Sod this. Come here.”
“What? What are you doing?”
“Helping,” he said shortly, and held out his hands. She raised her arms and he hoisted her up by her waist, depositing her on the turnstile. Her legs swept up and he hooked his arm under her knees, lifting her altogether.
She yelped and grabbed him. One of her hands got his shirt, and the other got his hair. He winced.
It was a warm day. She wasn’t wearing tights. The skin on the back of her knees was softer than skin had any right to be. She was easy to carry, too, and he could swing her around in a way that made her yelp and grab his shirt like she meant to use it as a ladder, her hair everywhere, flush everywhere, and this was, actually, maybe the worst idea he’d ever had, dragons and werewolves and all.
He turned her around and tilted her on her feet. Her skirt rode up as she slid down. That was fine. She had faint tan lines on her legs, actually, right above the ruffled hem on her thigh, and that, also, was strictly her business, and certainly not the kind of thing a gentleman would remember, or think about when he was supposed to be doing other relevant things, like walking in a straight line.
“You might,” she said, “have given notice.”
She forcefully tucked in her shirt where it had slipped out of her waistband. Militantly professional, was Hermione. Especially about appearances. If she knew that one of her socks had ridden down, lapsing just under the knee, then she would’ve attended to it immediately, instead of allowing the discrepancy to distract her peers.
“I do beg your pardon,” he said, sidestepping her. “I thought we were short on time. Next time, jump.”
“Prat.”
“Prat who’s doing what, now?”
“Helping,” she muttered, none too gratefully, and they headed to the champions’ tent.
Floodlights filtered through the stands, peppering white keyholes over carpets of sawdust. It smelled of wood and peat smoke and cigarette butts, and thunder pounded from the footsteps of hundreds filing into their seats, as well as the trumpet of fanfare. It reminded him of the World Cup, but with none of the same easy thrill; this was anxiety, not entertainment, not sport.
In the champions’ tent, there was a much larger crowd. It appeared that some sort of reception was being held, because there were at least a dozen Ministry officials, plus half of the faculty, and the champions’ families, and — of all people — Ludo Bagman, in the worst shape of his life.
He had dropped at least a stone and the loose flesh sat low on his jowls. He direly needed a haircut and a night’s rest, if not a Calming Draught: he kept jumping whenever someone spoke to him, and flinched away at the sound of his name.
“What happened to him?” Hermione whispered. “And why’s he here? I thought Dumbledore said Mr. Davis would be replacing him—”
“He might be. He’s here.” Draco nodded at a dark-haired man in an Auror uniform. “Bagman must have finished his business.”
“But what happened—”
“Draco? Hermione!” Ron pressed through the crowd, holding a flute of something blue and fizzling. He beamed and gave them both a one-armed hug, which Draco permitted only to honor the solemnity of the occasion. “There you are! Look at this! Cracking, isn’t it? They’re going to let us watch the Task from in here, they’ve got another Spell-O-Vision thing — d’you want to see? I know Mum and Dad would have you if you want to stay.”
“We just came to say goodbye to Harry,” said Hermione. “Speaking of which— where—?”
“Harry? Oh, I dunno, he’s probably hiding somewhere. Been dodging Skeeter all night. When he wasn’t dodging Bagman, that is. I think we’re right about the gambling, you know, Mione, I don’t care what Padfoot says; he’s been on Harry like white on rice ever since we got in, trying to get him alone.”
“Skeeter’s here?” demanded Hermione. “Who let her in?”
“Dunno, since Dumbledore said he revoked her pass. Anyway, she can’t do much harm from here; Mum’s got her locked in a conversation about Celestina Warbeck.”
A drumroll broke out over the stands, and the Bulgarian national anthem blared. “Oh, reckon they’re headed out soon,” said Ron, pointing at the Spell-O-Vision. “They’re starting the anthems. Better find Harry soon, if you want to — let me get Bill, he’s got good lungs, he can holler—”
“Don’t bother.” Harry popped out of thin air, wearing his red Hogwarts competition uniform, thoroughly disheveled. Ron yelped and upset his drink.
“Sorry,” Harry breathed, shucking his Invisibility Cloak. “Been hiding ever since Skeeter showed up. Between her and Bagman, I mean, really— oh, hello, Hermione! Draco! What are you doing here?”
“Saying goodbye,” said Hermione anxiously, “and — and good luck, and everything, and — by any chance, do you remember the jinx I taught you this morning?”
“The Trip Jinx?”
“Yes!”
“No,” he said confidently. “That’s alright, though. I’ll do fine, I reckon.”
“Oh, God — listen, take out your wand, we’ve got time for practice—”
Another horn blared.
“We really don’t,” said Harry apologetically. Then he squeezed her. “S’okay. Show me afterwards, alright?”
“No — I mean, yes, of course, but Harry, I mean, please—”
“Be careful?”
“Don’t die,” she said, wringing her hands.
“I understand this is a high standard,” added Draco, “but you have excellent tutors.”
Harry snickered. “Arse.”
“Pissant.”
“Pedant!”
“Peon.”
“That’s not even an insult,” said Harry, wisely, “that’s a kind of poem. You’re not the only one who knows posh things.”
Draco sighed.
He held out his hand. Harry shook it.
Then Hermione, possibly feeling left out, gave him another hug. She was interrupted by a throat clearing.
“Oh, give us a moment, for the love of Pete,” she snapped, “we didn’t get the chance to say goodbye!”
“No,” agreed Viktor Krum, “ve did not.”
He swelled out of the crowd like a mountain attempting a stealth attack. With his arms folded, he nearly doubled Draco in size. Draco still liked his chances.
Hermione choked back an undignified squeak, and sprang away from Harry.
“Hello,” said Viktor, after an awkward pause, directed vaguely in the three boys’ direction. Ron scoffed.
Draco folded his arms and shifted his weight onto one hip.
“I do not suppose,” Viktor began, eyeing Hermione.
“And you shouldn’t,” said Draco.
Viktor’s fingers drummed on his bicep. At length, he turned to Hermione. “Speak privately? Yes?”
“Erm — no. No! I mean — I’d like to, but — but can’t we do it after? It’s going to start in a moment, and I really came to say goodbye to Harry.”
He nodded and then, surprisingly, gave a little smile. “You are not being distracted,” he said. “Loyal. Hearty girl.”
“I — well, that’s very sweet, thank you, but it’s really—”
“I am thinking of this, in advance,” he informed her, and he offered her an envelope. She took it tentatively, like she was inspecting it for anthrax. “I am speaking to Karkaroff, and he is making exception for me. To the rules.”
Hermione’s head snapped up. “You’re joking.”
“I am not good at that,” he said comfortably.
“What about the International Statute of Secrecy? They’re muggles!”
“Then they vill like it very much, I think. You vill come now, yes? To Durmstrang? Bring your parents?”
“They’d — love to,” she said breathlessly.
“And you vill, also?”
“Yes,” she said, stunned, and Viktor smiled, then, for real: full and truly, like a seventeen-year-old boy catching the first real stroke of good luck in his life.
Draco reached for his patience, summed up every ounce that remained to him, and did nothing to Viktor Krum but sneer.
“CHAMPIONS!”
Bagman’s voice ripped through the tent. Viktor and Harry both winced.
“TO YOUR MARKS!”
“Right,” said Harry. “Okay. Well! Goodbye. See you on the other side.”
He and Viktor headed to the front of the tent, where they stood shoulder to shoulder with Cassius and Fleur. Then trumpets shrieked, the flaps wrenched back, and they strode forth as one into the floodlights.
Hermione took a sharp breath and grabbed his wrist. He turned to look at her, and the flush had drained from her cheeks, now turned grey and lusterless as chalk.
He looked down at the place where her fingers braceleted his arm. He carefully twisted his arm — she slackened her grip, drawing away — and he caught her hand before it went, sliding their fingers together. Her pulse careened against his wrist, and he pressed their arms together, curtaining their hands with their robes.
Then he turned back to the Spell-O-Vision screen before he could see her reaction.
The floodlights cleared, and there was a smattering of yells and applause as the four champions swelled to life, echoed by the thunder of greeting from the stands above.
The Third Task was a maze. Twenty feet of hedge so densely packed that it resembled an ornate green wall more than any plant nature ever touched, crowned with a sheer silver film of Anti-Sensory Charms that floated like fog over the dark lattice. Before the four champions stood four gates, each wrought from a different metal, and each marking a different entrance to the maze.
Madame Maxime led Fleur to stand in front of the iron gate, where they stood with their noses at identical lofty angles to the air. Krum and Karkaroff stopped in front of the copper, Krum surly and silent, Karkaroff whispering hurriedly in his ear. Dumbledore hung back with Bagman and Davis while Professor Snape stalked alongside Cassius to the golden gate, and McGonagall — with one hand clamped firmly on his shoulder, for whose benefit it was hard to say — steered Harry to the silver.
“LADIES AND GENTLEWIZARDS! FOR THE THIRD AND FINAL TASK OF THE TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT, I GIVE YOU: THE LABYRINTH!”
The stands quaked. Draco winced and cast a Silencing Charm on his own ears, but it barely held for a moment.
“THE TASK IS SIMPLE! AT THE HEART OF THE LABYRINTH RESTS A SPECIAL REWARD. THE CHAMPIONS WILL RACE TO ACQUIRE IT!”
Hermione hummed thoughtfully.
“What?”
“Nothing. No — no, it’s nothing. It’s just… did you ever read the rest of that book on the Greeks? The one that Viktor left us?”
“I was rather busy brewing you a Sleeping Draught, as I recall.”
“Yes, yes. That’s fine, I’m sure it doesn’t matter; but when he said that, I just remembered… Labyrinth isn’t just another word for ‘maze,’ you know.” She was frowning. “It’s a very specific maze, in Crete, and the thing inside it… it’s not a reward.”
“PROFESSORS WILL BE PATROLLING THE OUTSIDE OF THE MAZE! IF AT ANY POINT, ANY CHAMPION REQUIRES ASSISTANCE, ALL THEY MUST DO IS SEND RED SPARKS IN THE AIR,” Bagman sounded faintly hoarse, “AND THEY WILL BE RETRIEVED! I REPEAT, AT ANY POINT WHATSOEVER!”
“Oh, good,” said Hermione, with feeling. “Finally! Where was this in the First Task, honestly? He can just shoot up red sparks as soon as he gets in!”
“If he’s got any brains at all,” Draco agreed, much cheered. Even Harry wasn’t so stupid as to stay in the Task longer than he had to. And they’d all agreed that his objective was to live, not to win.
McGonagall was saying something to Harry. She gave his shoulder a gentle shake, and Harry nodded up at her.
“SO! ONNNNNNN MY WHISTLE, THEN!” Bagman was certainly taking his sweet time; each word was drawled out to the point of parody, syrupy and trilled. “GET RRRRRRREADY…. ONNNNN YOUR MARKS….. GEEEEEEETTTT SEEEEEEEET…”
“God, I’m going to kill him if he doesn’t just get on with it,” muttered Hermione. He wondered distantly if the affection he felt at that was normal.
“ANNNNND! GO!”
The gates all swung open at once, with a thunderous clang. The cheers blotted out any sound from Bagman’s whistle, and the champions shot forth like sprinters off the mark — with the exception of Harry, who sort of trotted in after them, shooting a last anxious look over his shoulder.
The gates swung forth again with an identical clamor of metal, and there was a moment where the Spell-O-Vision swirled, flickering into a dull image of four dark lanes, lit only by the identical gleams of Lumos — resolving into that quartered screen from the Second Task — and then there was a crack like a firework detonating several inches over one’s head, and the screen went dark.
A heartbeat passed. Another. Then the shouts erupted.
“OI!”
“WHERE’D IT GO?”
“WHERE ARE THEY?”
“GET IT BACK ON—”
“What happened?” demanded Ron, shouldering in close.
“It’s — it might be a technical problem,” said Hermione, her voice pitched like a prayer. “These things happen, in areas with lots of magical activity — if you Apparate on the same frequency as a Spell-O-Vision projection, or a radio broadcast, it can disrupt the connection—”
“You can’t Apparate at Hogwarts!”
“No, of course not, but it might—”
Someone shouldered into Ron and he spilled his drink. “Sod this,” he snapped. “Let’s just go out and see, yeah? Maybe the big one’s working.”
“Yes— yes, absolutely—”
They wrestled their way through the crowd at the reception center, wading through a roaring knot of legs and dismayed Ministry workers, and spilled out onto the quidditch pitch in the same profusion as a flood of Ministry workers, all of whom were shouting at each other so furiously it was impossible to hear anything. Ludo Bagman was bellowing into an inert microphone like a soundless picture.
But outside, it was worse. The floodlights had gone out, and the whole pitch was lit by the emergency will-o-wisp lights that bobbed along the stairs, as well as the scant lingering daylight in the sky. Ministry workers raced back and forth, hurling screams and orders at each other, while the crowd bayed in furious bedlam at the upset. The champions were gone.
The worst of it wasn’t the chaos, however. The chaos was fine. Draco had been in bad crowds before.
The worst was that the Anti-Sensory Charm over the Labyrinth had been sealed over with the crackling, faintly glowing blue screen of an Anti-Enchantment Charm.
The champions, wherever they were, had been sealed off. And the Spell-O-Vision screens were all black.
Hermione’s hand in his was a tourniquet. He was hers. A Ministry worker shoved past them and knocked her off her feet, and he caught her, hauled her upright against him, and held her there, which pressed into his wrist the ratcheting pace of her heartbeat, the rapid acceleration of her breaths, the strangled scream that was wrestling its way out of her throat, like an illborn creature—
“Granger.”
“No! No, no, no, no, no! Harry!”
“You need to breathe.”
“He’s gone! He’s gone! Harry’s gone, they took him, something’s wrong, it’s like the World Cup again, he’s gone!”
“I know, but you need to breathe.”
“I can’t! I can’t breathe! They’ve taken him, oh, God, he’s going to die—”
“Nobody’s dying,” he snapped, “unless you stop breathing, which is what’s going to happen if you don’t calm down— you need to think, alright, think rationally— ”
“NO!” she screamed, and she bucked so violently he almost dropped her. “Don’t tell me to calm down! Don’t you dare! Look at what’s happening! Look! And I told you it would, I knew it would, and now he’s gone, and nobody knows what’s going to happen to us—”
“I need you here.”
Her voice cut off like someone took a razor to it. She breathed in ragged harmonies with him, crushed to his chest by the press of the crowd, her hand still knotted so tightly with his he would be surprised if either of them could feel it.
“I need you to think. You need to think. That’s your job. Potter is going to live,” he said, with confidence he didn’t feel, “but he needs you to think.”
“I — I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Listen to me. We’ve done this before—”
“Not like this!”
“—you and me, Harry needs you—”
“I can’t help him! What are we going to do? This isn’t like doing his homework, this isn’t an exam, Draco, it’s real—”
“Fine. Help me. I’m your partner, remember? I’ll handle the knifework. Tell me what’s next.”
She screwed her eyes shut. Her first deep breath was a jagged, pointy thing, full of wet edges, but she held it with the stubbornness of someone guarding a treasure. Then she let it go.
Roughly, she said: “Stay close?”
“Obviously.”
“Obviously,” she whispered.
Her hand was still tangled in his, so she clumsily extricated it, wiping her palms on her robes. He flexed his fingers and planted his palm on his wand, willing away the phantom warmth.
“Talk,” he said. “You’ve had a full fifteen seconds to come up with something.”
She blinked once, and her face was a clean picture of terror.
Twice, and it was the cool stare of a girl glancing down at her exam book, reading a list of problems she already knew.
“We could—” She turned around. Purple cloaks swirled among black and blue, shouts bled into screams, spells glittered across the night like a panoply of falling stars. “We could — and then — no, maybe — but we’d have to find someone who knew—”
“Orders, Granger.”
She stopped. “We need to find Ron,” she said, and pulled his arm — didn’t look back, didn’t wait for him to catch on — she knew he would — and they were running at once to the tent, through the flap, a Knockback Jinx and a Bombardment Charm issued at the same time.
She only had to shout Ron’s name twice for him to appear from the crowd, rumpled and breathing fast, and clamp his hands on her shoulders.
“Hermione! Are you alright? I didn’t see you—”
“Fine, now, doesn’t matter, we have to go,” she snapped. “We’ve got to get into the maze—”
“In!”
“Yes, in. Harry’s alone, and something’s wrong, and we’re not going to wait—”
“DRACO!”
There was a bellow from the front of the tent. Draco turned on his heel and nearly walked into Theo’s fist.
Theo had seen better days. ‘Better’ included all of them. Soot and bruising purpled his face where it wasn’t black, with an earring of blood dribbling from a deep gouge in his ear.
“What the hell happened to you?” Draco demanded hoarsely. He turned away from the others and stalked towards him, half of a mind to do the other ear. “What kind of a time do you call this? This is some week you’ve had, you know — row with Greengrass in front of the whole school, make Pansy do more stairs than she’s had in her life, vanish from the planet for three days—”
“Excuse me?” Theo, who was holding most of his blood in with one hand on his ear, was outraged. “Fuck off, Mum!”
“—come back looking like the cat wouldn’t drag you in for fear of tetanus—”
“Oh, God, I cannot deal with you right now, mother of Merlin,” he snapped, “I leave for seventy hours and you have an aneurysm. Don’t you have better things to do?”
Draco shoved him. He squawked and shoved back.
“Daphne was worried about you, prat.”
Theo took a sharp, short breath, and his eyes flickered over Draco. “Just her?”
“Entirely. I myself was enjoying the peace and quiet.”
He gave a shaky gust of a laugh.
“Draco Malfoy,” he said, “you’re a remarkable fool.”
An explosion sounded outside. Something shattered; a bulb went out. When the emergency lights came up, Theo seized Draco’s shirtfront. “It’s a trap,” he hissed. His eyes were panic-wide and bright with a gleam of something slightly unfettered, some infant cousin to madness. “The cup is a Portkey. You have to tell Potter. You can’t let him touch it. They’re going to kill him.”
“What?”
“What do you mean?” said Hermione. Her voice came from somewhere far away — faintly, through the screaming, but also through the thunder in Draco’s ears. She was strangely calm. “A Portkey to where? Theodore, who’s going to kill him?”
“The cup! The Triwizard Cup, they’re going to take him and kill him and I can’t stop it, they’ll kill me, my father, but you have to get him—”
Another explosion, and Theo tore away from him as if burned.
“This didn’t happen,” he said, breathing fast. “I never said that. You understand?”
“Theo—”
“No. Listen to me.” His finger held them at bay, as if it were a rapier, a wand, anything stronger than a fourteen-year-old’s naked plea. “Tell anyone I said that, and you’ve killed me. Do you understand? I’m not being figurative. If you tell anyone, I’ll be dead, and it will be your fault. Yours. And I hope you never find peace for it.”
It would have been more impressive if his voice hadn’t cracked when he snarled. His shoulders rose and fell with a wild dog’s ravenous breaths.
“We’re not going to tell anyone,” said Hermione, still very calm. On some level, Draco appreciated it, because shock had stilled his tongue. “Thank you, Theodore. What you just did was tremendously brave.”
“No. It wasn’t. I told you, I never said that,” he snarled. “Are we clear?”
“Perfectly. No one will ever know that you risked your life,” she said calmly. “But I won’t forget it.”
She held out her hand. He glanced down at it for a long moment and swallowed. It was like watching a dog being held back from a bone.
“Spare me your pity, mudblood,” he said. Then he whirled around and stalked out of the tent, vanishing into the crush of the moving crowd.
Ron made a noise like he’d been punched.
“What an arse,” he said, thick with fury. “I hope he does get offed, raging bastard, after everything he’s said to you.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Hermione dropped to her knees and tore through her satchel, searching for something. “Where’s the sodding — tell me Harry didn’t take it — oh, he did, damn him! I didn’t want to go by memory. There’s a secret passage that runs under the quidditch field,” she blurted, by way of explanation. “I found it on the Marauder’s Map. It’s a steam tunnel, it’s built to carry water to the quidditch showers, and it terminates in a hatch under the east goalposts. That hatch is inside the maze.”
“Is it big enough?”
“Has to be,” she said breathlessly, shoving her bag onto her, “because they need to do maintenance work on the pipes. Only problem—”
“You memorized the Marauder’s Map?” said Ron faintly. “All of it?”
“No, I’m still working on the towers. The only problem, though, is the entrance, because they divert the steam—”
“Into the lake,” said Draco.
She nodded. “You’ve seen it?”
“No,” he said, “but there’s always steam on the lake after quidditch practices.”
“Quite. So — it might be flooded. Technically.”
“Technically?” repeated Ron. “And — sorry to ask — but on a scale from ‘oxygen’ to ‘no oxygen,’ where is ‘technically’, exactly?”
“Oh, I don’t know — enough oxygen? Probably? How’s that?”
“Uncomfortably subjective, frankly, Mione!”
“I’d love to hear your other ideas!”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Draco suddenly.
They gave him identical stares of disagreement.
“No, it doesn’t. Listen. It’s not a long walk from the lake to the pitch. Five minutes, possibly. Your Bubble-Head Charm,” he said, pointing at Hermione, “taps out at seventeen.”
She stared at him. Her mouth had curled, a little, under the rictus of fear, though the expression wasn’t quite happy — it was just fascinated, like he’d said the most interesting thing she’d heard all month. Like the whole world ought to get together and have a symposium on whatever came out of his mouth.
It was very nearly as good as her smile.
“Right,” said Ron loudly, “that’s great for her, but you and I—”
“Are at thirteen and four,” he interrupted, “and I’ve seen you swim. You can hold your breath for a minute.”
“I would prefer not to!”
“Then come up with another way to get into the maze,” he said, helping Hermione to her feet. “And do it soon.”
Hermione shook her head. “No,” she said. “Ron, Harry’s your friend. This is our best plan; what do you think?”
Ron blinked at her, surprised.
“What d’you mean?”
“I mean that I want your opinion,” she said. “Preferably sooner rather than later—”
“See above, soon,” said Draco, “and relatedly, it’s said that truly brilliant wizards can walk and talk at the same time—”
“—but all the same, if you think this isn’t a good idea, we can do something else. We’re not — we’re all here for Harry. Draco and I aren’t doing this by ourselves.”
“Yet,” said Draco significantly, hauling on her arm, as they stumbled toward the exits at an excruciating pace.
Ron raked one hand through his hair in amazement. Then he swept his eyes around, like he was flitting between squares on an invisible chessboard.
“I — I reckon it’s good,” he said. “Better if we had the Cloak, better still if we had a teacher, but one’s in the dorms and the other’ll be a nightmare to find in this mess.”
“I know. I was thinking McGonagall, but I couldn’t see her.”
“Nah, and they’ll all be with the Ministry. I saw four of them with Sprout trying to pry the walls open, but there’s something wrong with the maze, it’s not letting anyone in.”
“And I don’t want the Ministry to know what we’re doing, either — who knows how deep the conspiracy goes, but if Theo knew about it, then I’d wager his father does, too, and we’d make ourselves targets—”
“You wouldn’t need to wager,” said Draco darkly. “His father’s in on it.” He flicked out his wand and cast Bombarda at the turnstile, blasting a hole through which the three of them walked swiftly into the warm night air. The stars had begun to glint in the bolt of indigo overhead, in between wreaths of clouds like snuffed candlesmoke, and the faint black shapes of trees lingered like palimpsests on the horizon. The lake glowed eerie with starlight.
“How d’you reckon?” Ron broke into a jog, catching up with Draco, and Hermione put on speed to keep up with them.
“He said ‘they’ll kill my father.’ That means they would be able to identify him as the source of a leak.”
“Blimey. So he’s in it? With the Death Eaters?”
“Or someone of comparable malice.”
“But why Harry? He’s not done anything to them!”
“And it doesn’t make sense,” said Hermione. Her cheeks were bright from running. They scrambled down the pebble shores of the bank. “Theo was helping Cassius cheat, not Harry, and if the Cup is a Portkey, you wouldn’t want Cassius close to it at all.”
She cut through a knot of cattails with a slash of her wand. “Which is another thing! The entrance gates were based on tournament rank, so Cassius has the best chance of getting there first! It’s certainly far more likely than Harry, who might do the sensible thing and just stay put!”
“In an awe-inspiring lifetime first,” said Draco, razing a hank of reeds like scything wheat, “from one Harry James Potter.”
“He might. We don’t know what’s happening in there. It could be anything.”
“In my experience,” he said, “‘it could be anything’ is rarely a statement of optimism.”
They waded into the water, a cold shock like several volts of electricity straight to the ankles, and through a tall clump of marshes that parted before them to reveal the gaping lip of a metal pipe rising over the water like a sunken eye. The pipe itself was a flat black lightless disc that told some part of the hindbrain STOP, DO NOT GO, and emitted various smells that made the same argument. It was flooded, with only a slender crescent of air hovering between the waterline and the top of the pipe.
“After you,” said Ron.
“No, I insist.”
“Really, be my guest.”
Hermione huffed and shucked her robes onto the bank. “I’ll go, stop it. Just don’t touch the sides of the pipe, you’ll burn yourself.”
“What?”
She swirled a Bubble-Head Charm around her mouth, braced herself, and dove into the gloom of the gurgling steam pipe.
The water sloshed and swirled around her, and the darkness soon swallowed her up.
“Granger?”
There was a muted call, and a splash.
Draco cast his own charm and followed her.
The Bubble-Head protected him from the worst of the smell, but the best of the smell was none too pleasant, either. Scummy pondwater and mold and the peaty acidic smells of spongy things that grew in the damp, an ample helping of fecal matter, and whatever else had been embalming in the water since the beginning of forever. The water was oily and warm, filmed with things he couldn’t see too well and didn’t want to, and whenever something brushed up against his arm on the current he had to steel every nerve in his body not to jump.
Breathing slowly made the air last, but it was stale and clammy within thirty seconds. It was thin in a minute, musty in two, and foul-tasting besides. The intellectual understanding that he could survive on recycled air failed to convince his lungs, which insisted he was suffocating.
It was the last time he let Hermione make plans. Bathrooms and sewage pipes. Madwoman had some obsession with plumbing, come to think.
From deep within the pipes there was something churning, a burble like the indigestion of a buried beast, the deeper counterpart to the babbling current through the tunnel. His eyes adjusted to the dark gradually, making out the undulations of the water, and Hermione’s silhouette wading through the path before him. The walls were ribbed with metal frets and behind them the light from the lake had faded to a ghostly gray pinprick. The minutes passed like hours.
By and by the darkness at the end of the tunnel changed in texture, and he belatedly recognized it for a wall. Faint gray light emanating from above suggested a channel overhead, and when he reached it, he craned his neck back and saw that the tunnel bent at a ninety-degree angle and ran upward. They were at the end of the pipe. Hermione was fussing at something on the ceiling, hauling like she were trying to do a pull-up on the roof; bemusement gave way to understanding when a shriek of metal let a bolt free, and a ladder came racketing down from the channel over their heads.
It cut the water with a splash. She hauled herself up, bringing her head fully free of the current, and dispelled the Charm with a gasp. Her shoulders heaved. Scummy water trailed from her shoulders and dyed an inky line of stains along her collar, running from the soaked ends of her hair. He gripped the ladder and pulled.
The Charm broke at a jerk of his head. The first breath of air was wonderful, being the first fresh oxygen he’d had in full minutes. The second was less so, as his brain recovered from the relief enough to actually smell it. He clung to the ladder and breathed shallowly through his mouth, loathing everyone who had ever been involved in the invention of plumbing, and none more so than himself.
Ron erupted from the water behind them, spluttering like a breaching whale.
“Ron!”
“Weasley, watch it.”
“Lost the charm,” he gasped, his voice hoarse and guttering wet. “Something grabbed my ankle. Lost focus. Had to hold m’breath.”
“It was probably a bit of kelp,” said Hermione absently, already drawing herself up the ladder. Her clothes clung to her frame like they had been sewn to it. When she had climbed several feet out of the water, she carefully hooked her legs over the topmost rung of the ladder and leaned out, reaching for the hatch at the top. “There’s lots of rubbish floating around down here.”
“It wasn’t kelp. It grabbed me, I swear.”
“Keep an eye out, then,” said Draco, and he hauled himself up to join Hermione at the top of the hatch. Heat radiated from the sides of the channel, and a sting on his elbow informed him he’d brushed the walls; he flinched it back, hissing. “Or come help us.”
Hermione wrenched on the hatch, to no avail. The handle refused to yield. “Damn,” she said, “it’s stuck—”
“Let me do it.”
“Well, go on, but I warn you—”
He drew his wand and pointed it at the hatch.
“No! Wait, don’t—”
“Bombarda.”
The explosion flared like a white bloom in the tunnel. The shockwave hit the hatch and ricocheted back, wrenched him free of the ladder like tearing tissue paper, and he was hurtling back down into water that caught him like a hard clap to the back, solid like real ground. The pain lasted only a moment before he was underwater, head spinning, his balance scrabbling to reassert itself, and no idea which way was up, no air, no light, no upwards, just the dark filthy water like oil in his throat.
A hand grabbed his collar and hauled.
He came up with a wild sound, gasping.
Ron let go shirt and threw him aside, snarling, “—serves you right, you sodding idiot, she told you not to— where’d she go? Hermione!”
He dove back into the water.
There were two seconds where their heads were both gone. Draco breathed hard, air scraping his throat like the wind carried a serrated edge.
They came up with a pair of shouts. Ron hauled Hermione up by the armpits and shoved her against the ladder, where she fastened and clung like a soaked limpet, breathing in high short bursts. She was soaked down to the bone, now, her hair thick and ropy with water, and shaking.
“I told you,” she snarled, “to wait! There’s a Runic seal on the hatch!”
“You might have said that,” he snapped, raking wet hair from his head. His heart was fast. She had been underwater for several long seconds.
“You might have seen that! I didn’t think you’d go whaling on it like a first year—”
“—being efficient, ‘it’s stuck’ you said, the hell am I supposed to infer, unless ‘stuck’ means ‘Runic seal’ in madwoman—”
“I’m the madwoman? I am?”
“SHUT UP,” bellowed Ron.
His declaration bounced off down the pipe at a gallop. He shoved his hair out of his eyes and stabbed a finger at Draco. “Don’t do that again,” he said. Then he turned his finger on Hermione. “Go solve it.” Back to Draco. “You help her.”
“Hark at him — who died and made you king of the steam tunnels—”
“Shut up! I’d do it, but I don’t know how,” he snapped, drawing his wand. “So you get up there and break out some parchment, or whatever the hell you swots do in Runes, and I’ll keep watch.”
Hermione scrambled the ladder, muttering invective. Draco glared at Ron and clambered up after her.
The seal was a Runic triad, three concentric circles of engravings that rotated when pulled. Hermione cast Lumos, peering at the tiny scablike engravings, and was muttering something to herself as she ran the wand over each mark.
“Triad,” she decided. “It’s like a rotary lock, mechanically. There’s some combination that defuses the Lock enchantment. But you’d have to know the combination.”
“What?”
“The combination, the sealbreaker, the word that makes it unlock,” she said impatiently. “Whatever they set as the runic key.”
“Like ‘unlock,’ for instance?”
“That’s ridiculously simplistic. Who would use ‘unlock’ as a password?”
“This thing was built for plumbers, they’re not trying to wall it up like Gringotts. You’ve got the ingredients for it, there — the negating article, and two for the word, ‘lock,’ laguz, there, and othal.”
“Yes, but they’re on the same ring, so they can’t both be used in the combination. Besides, you’re trying a phonetic translation, that’s not proper form.”
“See again, plumbers, you think they’re cross-referencing with the Old English lexicon—?”
“I think that whoever knows runes well enough to engineer a triad seal for these plumbers you’ve so little respect for would probably know the correct translation of ‘unlock,’ Draco, yes!”
“Fine. Have it your way, but you’ll have to conjugate, I was arse deep in Sleeping Draughts the week we did all those sodding charts.”
“Hey? You lot?” Ron’s voice floated up the tunnel. “Something’s in here.”
“Probably fish,” called Hermione, hauling the first ring into place. “Keep an eye on it.”
“It’s not a fish. It’s — eugh!”
Splash. Ron jumped, and ripped his hand out of the water: it held a grindylow, which thrashed and writhed, its tiny pink tentacles slapping wetly and inertly at his arm. He thrust it away from his body, yelping.
“Grindylows!”
“Rats.” Hermione was still fixated on the seal. “Must’ve come in from the lake. Can you deal with them, Ron?”
“Reckon,” said Ron uncomfortably. He Stunned it and tossed it away with a wet plorp. “Not too keen on them if they swarm, you remember what Lupin said.”
“We only need a few minutes.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Another splash, and he grunted, wading up the tunnel. Now that he was paying attention, Draco noticed that the water had more chop than it did when they’d come in, still writhing white and foamy from the Bombarda. Three more grindylows encircled Ron’s ankles, and he ripped them out of the water, hurling them back up the pipe.
“Where’s thauris?” Hermione swept her wand over the seal. “Or is that wunjo? It’s so eroded I can’t tell.”
“Thauris, it’s curved.”
“Thought so too, but it’s missing a notch.”
“Guys?” Ron’s voice was louder. “Lot more of them.”
“Almost got it,” she called. “Babbling said simple triads use the infinitive, so we needn’t worry about subject agreement—”
“Guys!”
Something splashed, and something shrieked, and at least one was Ron. They whipped their heads around to see him vanish under the black water, covered in a circlet of churned foam. Hermione screamed.
Draco let go of the ladder and dropped. He landed in the water with a hard jolt and a small explosion of waves, stabbed his wand at the last place Ron had been, and cast Relashio.
Ron’s head thrust out of the water, spluttering furiously, while something enormous flipped and slithered back into the current.
“The hell was that?” Draco demanded, hauling him up.
“I dunno, but it wasn’t a grindylow,” he gasped. “It was bigger than me.”
Grindylows had started to swarm, their bony fingers pricking greedily at the bottom of Draco’s robes. He cut through them with a disgusted sweep of his wand, and they swam away, regrouping at the mouth of the tunnel.
“There’s something else in here, then.”
“I reckon,” breathed Ron, rubbing his wrists. “Whatever it is, it’s got fingers, and it wants us out. Nearly dragged me back into the tunnel.”
“You didn’t see it when it grabbed you?”
There was a long groan, and then something shuddered into place. A gust of steam shot up the pipe, spraying their faces with rancid hot air, and Draco hauled his shirt over his nose.
“How’s it going, Hermione?” Ron called bleakly, eyes watering.
“Good! It’s good! I’m close!”
The black water refused to grow still again. It thrashed and lapped at the sides of the tunnel, leaving fresh watermarks on the iron.
Draco frowned.
“Granger, how high was the tide when we got here?”
“I don’t know,” she called. Her voice was tinny. “My elbows, maybe?”
“It’s getting higher.”
The water lapped around his arms, soaking new stripes of his shirt. The current coming down from the lake was faster, more purposeful. The tunnel was filling.
“Oh, God,” said Ron thinly. “Great. We’re going to drown.”
“No we’re not, you louse, we’ll do a Bubble-Head.”
“Fat lot of good that’ll be when a sea monster sucks you under, idiot, it’s a concentration spell! Remember what happened to Fleur?”
“I’m not Fleur Delacour,” snapped Draco, but he spoke with more confidence than he felt. He’d never tried to do a Bubble-Head while under attack before.
“More’s the pity,” muttered Ron. “Now the last thing I see’s gonna be your weaselly face.”
“If that’s true, it’ll be because I strangled you before the water gets the chance.”
“Boys!” Hermione’s voice echoed sharply. “Do something about it, please!”
“Like what? Mione, it’s coming up, there’s no use—”
“For Pete’s sake! Shield Charm!” she cried. She turned away from the hatch, dangling from the ladder with one hand, and pointed at the tunnel. “Over the pipe, like a seal! The pressure will build, but you don’t have to hold it for long.” She wheeled back to the runes without waiting for agreement.
Ron squinted at her. “You can do a waterproof Shield Charm?”
“I can do an anything-proof Shield Charm,” she said absently. “That’s the point.”
It wasn’t even arrogance, just an absentminded statement of fact. Draco laughed, a little, just because she didn’t seem to hear herself. She wasn’t wrong, only egotistical, which was all the better.
The water rippled. Grindylows swarmed and then parted, as if split by an invisible edge, and something long and black rippled through the water toward them, arcing to and fro on a sinusoid curve.
“Shield Charm,” said Ron quickly, “shield, shield, Draco, shield—”
“Shut up! Hang on! Do you hear that?”
There was music drifting from somewhere; music in the water, a thin, warbling voice.
“What’s that?” said Ron.
Draco closed his eyes, briefly.
“Mermish,” he said.
He cast Protego as the mermaid surged from the water, eight feet of towering gray skin and a furious, ghoulish scream, the trident clutched in its skeletal fist.
The trident slammed into the shield and bounced off. The mermaid floundered back into the water, its tail beating thunder on the walls. The Shield held.
“Merlin’s fucking sack!”
“Calm down.”
“What the hell is that?”
“A mermaid.”
“What the hell’s it doing here?”
“She’s likely trying to chase us out,” Hermione called. “They’re tasked to defend the lake, and we’re not supposed to be here—”
“With a big fucking trident?”
“It could have killed you earlier and it didn’t,” he snapped. “So not only is it probably peaceful, it’s also incredibly good at resisting temptation.”
“Peaceful! Peaceful? Looked peaceful to you, did it?”
“I said ‘peaceful,’ not ‘pleasant,’ and have you noticed it hasn’t tried again?”
It hadn’t. The mermaid swirled in the water, its reptilian head just cresting the tide, glowering at them with its luminous, candle-yellow eyes. Its expression seemed faintly scolding.
“Thanks to your Shield Charm,” muttered Ron. “Give it a bonk on the head if it comes nearer, I don’t like the look of those teeth.”
The mermaid gave a shrieking bark, like the clap of a seal. Ron stumbled backward.
“I think the feeling’s mutual,” said Draco. “Granger, how’s it coming?”
“One circle left!”
“Grand. This thing wants to haul us out by the hair, and it’s got cavalry coming.”
Faint harmonies of music echoed queerly down the pipe, the echoes twisting into new pitches and striking new, gloomy minor chords.
The mer bucked out of the water, its teeth bared in a gravelly hiss. It slapped its hand against the Shield Charm, which buckled white, but held fast.
“Merlin,” swore Ron.
The mer blinked at Draco intently, a lightning shutter of transparent eyelids. It slapped the Charm again, twice, and let out another shriek.
There was another Bombarda on his tongue, this one well-suited for the task at hand. He could have cast it with a twitch. It was nothing to him if a mer lost a few fins, or if some grindylows were charred on the way up. Anything that stood between him and a healthy serving of oxygen could well be seen as asking to be deprived of it, from his point of view.
And yet the mer was palpating the shield, not like it wanted to break it, but like it wanted to get his attention. Like it was knocking.
“It’s talking to us.”
“Yeah, and I’ll tell you what it’s saying,” said Ron. “‘Get out or I’ll bugger you with this pointy bit.’”
“No, you moron. Put your hand on the shield.”
“What?”
“It uses hand language. Put your hand on the shield.”
“What happens if your shield breaks?”
“Then it’ll be the funniest thing I ever did, and your twin brothers will write hymns to me once they’ve executed my murder. Do it, Ronald, it’s not going to break.”
Ron muttered something about tyranny and shuffled forward to press his palm gingerly against the shield. It flickered and warped around his fingers.
The mer reared up and slapped its hand against his, palms flush through the crackling layer of blue. It shrieked long and hard in Ron’s face, and he grimaced, leaning back, but kept his hand firm.
“Good. Now—” He tried to remember what Daphne had done. It had been so fast, and he hadn’t cared about it at the time, so he hadn’t thought to pay attention. “Touch your mouth. And then touch your palm.”
“Have you gone mad?”
“I’m sorry, are you busy? Do you have other things to be doing?”
Ron grumbled and obeyed him. It was clumsy, and not half as elegant as Daphne had done it, but the mer peered at him and gave a querulous croak.
“What does it mean?” muttered Ron.
“‘Help,’” said Draco.
The mer peered between them, and gave another suspicious shriek. It pointed a clawed finger at Draco.
He slowly touched two fingers to his lips.
“What is that? What are you saying?”
“No idea.” He spoke through his fingers. “But I suspect it’s ‘please.’”
The mer screamed, once more. Then she whirled and dove into the water. The snaking tip of her tail vanished into the current.
Distantly, the chorus of voices stopped swelling, and grew fainter, as if a roving band of carolers were moving away.
“Got it!”
Hermione’s cry of victory was swallowed by a shriek of metal. Golden bolts seared under the runes, and the hatch spun, the ancient tumblers rattling into place. When she pushed, it sprang free, pouring pale blue light into the tunnel from a hole in the ceiling so bright the world turned momentarily white.
“Finally!” Ron shouted. “Get up!”
Draco dispelled the Shield and clambered up the ladder, which was no easy task, dragging several stone of waterlogged clothes on arms that were already tired. He was faintly fatigued from spellcasting and filmed in scummy water, and when he hauled himself through the hatch, his arms gave a hard quake, not giving in, but warning him that the possibility was not so far as he might prefer.
Hermione was already there when he surfaced, grabbing his arms, trying to haul him up. Her strength being what it was, this failed to be of much help, but it was a comfort. He listed onto the ground and laid for a moment on his back on the damp grass as the air turned his wet clothes to a girdle of ice.
“Draco? Are you alright?”
Ron wrestled his way out and scrambled upright. “Damn,” he breathed, kicking it shut. “Think I’ll never swim again.”
Hermione prodded Draco again, fretfully. He groaned, waved her off, and rolled to his feet.
The walls of the maze cast deep shadows, and the wind moaned coolly between the hedges. Overhead there were no stars, only the blue glaze of the Anti-Enchantment Charm, like they were still suspended in some kind of subterranean realm.
The hatch swung closed with a cold toll like a steel bell. A black flutter of ravens lifted from one of the hedges and rose baying into the dead blue sky.
They were in the Third Task.
-Viktor’s brother is speaking Bulgarian, which is written in Cyrillic script. The exchange, if you’re wondering, is basically what you think it is.
-Harry is thinking of “paean,” but he’s trying.
-I always thought it was funny that in Chamber of Secrets, they could get the whole plot from one piece of paper with a word on it. Like, if that was all I had to go on, I would be wildly out of my depth. Even Hermione had to go to the library; that sort of riddling is pretty far-fetched.
-And we’re off!! Thank you so, so, so much to all the love and encouragement — it’s the reason I stay posting. Incredible love to all of you. I hope you have your favorite dessert soon this week.
-Next chapter: “The Triwizard Cup.” In which we see what our respective champions are made of.
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