Hogwarts: The Enchanted Chalice - BOOK 4 (A Harry Potter Fanfic)

11: The Third Task

It was the day of the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament. I had sent Remus his potion early to make sure he received it on time, Snape had given it to me early to make sure I received it, but warned me not to drink it too early on. As my group set off towards the Quidditch Pitch, I felt Harry's fear. He was tense, on edge, and I felt extremely bad for him. He never wanted to take part in the first place.

'Good luck!' I said to him as we set off in different directions. He was headed to where the Champions waited and me, Nico, Ron and Hermione went to the spectators stands. The task was going to be a massive maze. The Champions had to fight all sorts of different creatures in it and the first one to find the Triwizard Cup wins.

We sat down near the front and then the Champions came out. Harry and Diggory went in first, followed by Krum then Fleur.

'Who d'you think'll win?' asked Ron.

'Harry!' me and Nico said in unison.

We all looked at Hermione with our eyebrows raised.

'Well... It all depends on luck, doesn't it! What creatures you come across and what path you choose!' catching Ron's annoyed expression, she hastily added, 'Of course, I think Harry will win!'

Me and Nico looked at each other and grinned. Hermione and Ron had an interesting relationship and it wasn't something either of us wanted to get in the middle of. That would normally end with getting your head bitten off by one of them, depending on the side you decided to take.

'Full moon tonight,' said Nico and I sighed. Yay.

We sat for a while in silence. It wasn't the most exciting task, we couldn't see anything going on in the maze. We just had to sit and wait until someone won, then we'd find out what actually happened during the task. However, the whole school was forced to turn up for the task, despite the fact it was the most boring thing ever.

Nico and I had resorted to playing a game of Exploding Snap in the stands. Hermione was giving us disapproving glares but Ron was egging us on, much to her annoyance. What else were we expected to do, sit in silence? Other members of the crowd had begun to socialise as well, but that was the whole point of the Triwizard Tournament! Send some students to get killed and socialise with other schools while they did so.

Some Durmstrang boys came over to us and joined in our game, learning the rules of Exploding Snap. Hilarity quickly ensued as they didn't pick it up quickly enough and were always the ones the deck exploded on. We quickly became distracted from the task Harry was in the middle of, focusing instead on making some new friends from Durmstrang!

'RED SPARKS!' someone yelled and we all looked at the maze, forgetting our game very quickly. Someone was in danger!

Sure enough, red sparks were coming from one corner of the maze. Red sparks meant a Champion needed rescuing and none of the Champions would have used it lightly.

'Oh, I hope it's not Harry!' said Hermione.

It wasn't. It was Fleur Delacour. We all sighed in relief and glanced at the Beauxbatons pupils. They looked really annoyed. I felt bad for them, it must have been disappointing knowing you were out of the running so early on. Fleur had never been a strong contender though, so I wasn't really surprised.

Minutes later, more red sparks came. We all held our breath and hoped that it wasn't Harry. We were in for a surprise though, it was Viktor Krum. That maze must have included some real challenges, for many people had bet money on Krum to win. The Durmstrang boys we had been playing with groaned in frustration as their Champion was eliminated, returning to their school rather swiftly.