Marauder's Daughter (Eventual Tom Riddle X OC)

Chapter 49: Graveyard Battle

I walked through the dark maze in near silence for a while. I used directional spells to guide me, and I used the papers I stole from fake Moody's desk earlier this week to have his footsteps illuminated with the same seeking spell I use to find Trevor the toad whenever he's missing. Fake Moody's footsteps aren't always visible, likely because the maze keeps changing around and he was able to take a more direct route, but it helps when I see them.

As I'm walking and listening to my surroundings in the maze, I hear a stumbling of footsteps and raise my wand to prepare for an attack. However, it's only Cedric who comes through the bushes, a little singed but otherwise fine.

"Don't go that way, it's got Hagrid's skrewts." Cedric warns me, and I nod to him.

"Thanks, you ok?" I ask him seriously, seeing the minor burns on his arm.

"I'm alright, better get going though." He ducks away quickly to the next fork in the road, and I continued my wandering.

I felt the cold dread surround me, seeping into my bones when I rounded one corner and came face to face with a Dementor. I quickly remembered my friends and family, and why I'm here in this maze in the first place, and sent out a Patronus. My robin Patronus attacked the Dementor making it stumble back away from me, proving it was in fact a boggart like I thought. I just walked past it then, the Robin making it keep distance away from me as I moved. 

However, when I was halfway past the boggart, it must have realized I am not fearing fear right now. It's not scaring me. So it did something I wasn't expecting, and it changed form. My Patronus faded away nearly instantly as the new shape of my fear stalked towards me, swinging its crowbar. He's still animated, but three dimensional and looking so much more terrifying that way.

The being of my nightmares came towards me, cackling his evil, raspy laugh loudly, the echoes of it surrounding me in the dark empty maze. I backed away from the Joker, the Clown Prince of all things evil. The main face of my first huge failure in saving someone. Of course the boggart would turn into him right now, I'm on a mission to save someone dear to me, and the Joker is my constant reminder that I have failed at that in the past. 

My mind started to race, caught up in the thoughts and fears that maybe tonight I wouldn't be able to save everyone, to save Cedric. But as the clown approached me more, my grip on my wand tightened, and I found strength in the fact that I am not weak, that I'm in control now. I conquered this fear in front of me once before, I can do it again now.

"Riddikulus!" I cried out with resolution, thinking of the one thing that would make me happy and laugh when faced with the Joker. I remember how I shot the Joker in his laughing face when I was Nightingale, how he had died with a frown when he realized he lost. So now with my spell, the boggart-Joker had an arrow appear through its face, and I laughed loudly in victory. It was an evil, slightly maniacal laugh, but it was laughter none-the-less.

I was able to get away from the boggart as I laughed a little maniacally and it shrunk away from me, the arrow causing blood to pour out of its mouth. I know that tonight, right now, I need to be Nightingale. I've been too nice in this world so far, which is why events keep happening like in the stories no matter how much I intervene. It's time to let my own darkness take over now.

It was very empty in the maze after that. I wandered for a good five minutes without meeting any opposition, no doubt thanks to fake Moody wanting me to get to the cup first. I heard Fleur scream up ahead of me, and came across a floating mist along the way to her. I remember this one from the books, it's harmless, but I didn't want to take any chances. I used a complex series of spells that dissipated and dissolved the mist, and I kept running through it. Nothing happened to me, and I came to a fork in the road.