At last the day of the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament had arrived. Harry tried his best not to let the excitement that had built up effect him, but as the date drew nearer the anticipation had grown to a fever pitch in the castle and it was impossible to ignore. He told himself that he should be proud to have done so well in the tournament as it was, but he knew that if he did not win the tournament he would be very disappointed. Harry had never worked so hard for anything in his entire life and at last he would have the chance to prove himself in front of everyone.

With about an hour left before the task was to start Harry, Daphne, Hermione, and Neville went to the spot where the Quidditch pitch once stood but was now a massive maze that Harry would have to navigate, The hedges that served as the maze's walls had grown since Harry last saw it and he knew that there would be no easy way to go through or over them. The stands were already at least half full and they were spending their time talking, laughing, and singing to a band that was playing festive music. All things considered, Harry thought it was a great setting for the third task.

"Wow. How many people do you think are going to be here?" Neville asked as he looked around.

"I don't know. Thousands." Harry answered as he led them to the front where they could sit down. None of the other champions had arrived yet, but Ludo Bagman was there talking to one of his assistants. Harry noticed that when Bagman saw him his face took on a very confused expression, but it quickly went away and was forgotten as Harry returned to the conversation his friends were having.

"I should have looked harder Harry, I know I could have found a way through the maze..." Hermione was saying as she looked at the massive obstacle in front of her. Harry laughed in response to her concern though.

"Stop worrying about it, Hermione. I am as ready as I can be." he assured her.

"Still, you should be careful." Daphne reminded him. "There is really no telling what they have in there. People have died in this tournament, do not underestimate it." Harry nodded in agreement, he had gone through this on his own just hours earlier. Winning the tournament was not something worth dying for, but he would fight for it none the less. He had long since vowed to win the tournament, an action that had resulted in a number of positive changes in his life, so there was no way he would let this chance slip by him.

"So what does Krum think, Hermione?" Harry asked.

"That he would rather be playing Quidditch." Hermione answered. "Karkaroff was really the one pushing him to enter the tournament and now that he's gone Viktor just seems bored with it. He'll do his best, but his real goal is to not get hurt and endanger his Quidditch career."

"That's probably the smart thing to do." Harry commented. "Cedric and Fleur won't be holding back though, at least judging from what I have seen so far. They're all good competitors, but I would guess that Cedric is going to be the toughest opponent."

"And he'll be the second one in the maze, right after you." Neville added. Due to their performances in the first two tasks Harry would enter the maze first, followed a few minutes later by Cedric, then Krum, and finally Fleur. It gave Harry a slight advantage, but by no means guaranteed his victory. The group continued chatting until a few minutes later when Hermione saw Viktor Krum arrive. She then wished Harry good luck and gave him a hug before walking off to talk to the Bulgarian champion.

"She's going to break up with him. Not right now, of course, but soon." Daphne commented as she watched Hermione and Krum talk on the other side of the stands.

"What?" Harry said in surprise. "I thought Hermione liked Krum."

"She does, just not enough. Did you know he asked her to come back to Bulgaria with him?" Daphne asked. "He even offered to help her transfer to Durmstrang."

"No, she didn't tell me." Harry answered.

"Even Krum could see that things are getting dangerous in England these days. He thought she'd be safer there with him, and he's probably right. But Hermione told him that she couldn't leave, no matter how dangerous things got. Apparently they argued about it but she wouldn't change her mind."

"When did this happen?" Harry asked, wondering why Hermione had told Daphne and not him. His friend had seemed a little distant over the past few weeks.

"Over the past few days for the most part. She wanted to tell you about it but thought you didn't need to worry about her love life with the third task coming up." Daphne said. Harry frowned, wishing that Hermione had talked to him anyway. At the very least he could have told her that he supported her decision. It wasn't surprising that Krum wanted nothing to do with the problems in England though, it was after all not his home. Still, Krum seemed like a good guy and it would have been nice to have him as an ally.

"I'll talk to her after this is all over with. I suppose I haven't spent much time with her lately either. I've just been busy." Harry said with a shrug. It was true. He felt like his days had been overwhelmed with schoolwork, practice for the tournament, studying potions with Neville, and spending any free time with Daphne that his friendship with Hermione had been neglected. He vowed to fix that once the tournament was finally over and behind him.

"Hey Harry, ready to lose?" a friendly voice asked from behind him, causing Harry to turn around and look for its source. He saw a smiling Cedric Diggory walking towards him holding hands with Cho Chang.

"Cho, it's great to see you again." Harry answered, smiling. "Although I do wonder why you still waste your time with this berk."

"Oh, he's good for the occasional laugh." Cho answered, trying not to giggle while making fun of her boyfriend. "Probably the same reason Daphne keeps you around."

"Exactly." Daphne answered before Harry could say anything.

"Harry, do you see what you've done?" Cedric replied. "You've turned them both against us. Next thing you know they'll be picking on Neville too."

"Leave me out of this." Neville wisely commented, resulting in laughs from everyone else.

'You ready for this, Harry?" Cedric asked seriously.

"I think so." Harry answered with a nod. "What about you?"

"As ready as I'll ever be. I just wanted to say that you've really impressed me, Harry." Cedric said. "When your name came out of the Goblet of Fire I thought you would be lucky to survive the tournament, but here were are nearly at the end and you're beating all of us. Whatever happens, you should be proud of yourself."

"Thanks, Cedric. That means a lot to me." Harry replied sincerely. "I really shouldn't be in this tournament to begin with, and you would be winning right now if I wasn't."

"That's not your fault, Harry." Cedric answered. He knew better than to think that Harry had put his name in the Goblet of Fire and had never really believed it. "Still, I hope your ready to get your ass kicked by me today."

"I look forward to seeing you try." Harry said with a laugh. A moment later a loud voice was heard calling for the champions to assemble at the entrance of the maze for final instructions. Harry looked around and noticed that in the time they had been talking the stands had completely filled up with eager spectators. "Sounds like it's time to go..."

Before he could leave or say anything else Daphne wrapped him up in a tight hug and softly said "Be careful, good luck." to him. Harry nodded and hugged her back before letting go of the embrace and turning towards the maze. He glanced sideways to see Cho had Cedric in a similar hug, except she appeared to be crying as Cedric assured her he would be alright. Nodding, she finally let go and the two Hogwarts champions approached the third and final task of the Triwizard tournament side by side. Ludo Bagman was at the entrance to maze motioning them over, and when all four champions were there he began to go over what was expected.

"Very good, you're all here. Congratulations on making it this far." Bagman said. "But this will be the most dangerous task yet. If, at any time, you can no longer continue in the maze all you must do is fire sparks into the air and someone will come get you. The first person to grab the Triwizard Cup will be declared the winner. Now, are there any questions?" Bagman looked from person to person, giving them the chance to say something but none of the champions seemed to have anything they needed to ask. When his eyes landed on Harry Bagman's mouth opened as if he had something to say, but quickly closed his mouth and once again got a confused expression on his face which he tried to shake off so that he could continue.

"Well then... you'll be up first Harry. The cannon firing will be your signal to proceed. Good luck to all of you." Bagman said as he walked off. Harry took his place at the entrance to the maze and tried to calm himself before he began. In the background Bagman was speaking to the audience and informing them all of the rules for the third task, although Harry wasn't really paying attention. Suddenly the crowd began to quiet down as they all waited for the cannon to fire. Harry pulled out his wand and wrapped his fingers tightly around it as the excitement in the crowd began to rise. Moments that felt like hours passed as Harry eagerly waited to begin.

BOOM!

Finally, the cannon fired and Harry happily ran into the maze. Seconds later he ran into a wall and was forced to make his first decision of the day: whether to turn left or right. Neither option appeared any more attractive than they other, so Harry picked one at random and turned left, heading deeper into the maze. He had walked about twenty paces in that direction when he met his first obstacle of the day, although this one made him laugh instead of shiver in fear. A group of about a dozen Cornish pixies was flying straight towards him and they appeared to be quite angry. This was something that even an average wizard should have no problem with, although he did remember it being too much for Gilderoy Lockhart to handle in second year.

"Stupefy!" Harry called out, altering the wand movement slightly so that the stunner was a bit weaker but covered a larger area. As the bright red light hit the pixies they immediately dropped to the ground unconscious. Harry looked at the tiny blue creatures with and laughed, wondering what else he would find in the maze. His thoughts were interrupted by a loud roar that came from somewhere deeper into the maze. The roar was easily as loud as a dragon's, although it sounded different and must have come from something else. It seemed that the more dangerous obstacles would be found farther in to the maze.

The sound of the cannon firing forced Harry to start moving again. He knew that it was the signal for Cedric to enter the maze and he wasn't that far ahead of the other Hogwart's champion. He looked back to see if it was possible to see Cedric from this point in the maze, but at that moment the huge bushes making up the wall of the maze grew together and blocked his view and his way back. The new wall looked just like all the others, meaning it would be impossible for him to tell if the maze had changed unless he remembered what it looked like previously. His thought that attempting to map out the maze would be useless proved to be absolutely correct.

Harry turned and continued in the direction he had been heading. Soon he was faced with another decision on which way to go and this time chose to turn right instead of heading straight. He knew that the Triwizard Cup was roughly in the center of the maze so decided that he would try to head in that direction, although he knew that there was no way he would find a direct route. The path he was on lead him through many twists and turns, but the path did not branch out and offer him a choice to head in a different direction. After a while he began to get a bad feeling that this part of the maze led to nowhere, a belief that was confirmed a few minutes later when he ran into a dead end. He groaned in frustration as he had no other choice but to turn around and retrace his steps. He doubted it would be the last time that happened to him today.

Once again Harry heard the cannon firing, this time meaning that Viktor Krum had now entered the maze. Harry wished he had some way of knowing how the other were doing but that was impossible. The only sign that he would have they were in trouble would be if they shot sparks into the air, and that had not happened yet.

Harry continued on and began to explore new paths that would hopefully lead him to the Triwizard Cup. Eventually he game to a circular clearing that had five paths leading off in different directions. As he stood there deciding which way to go he heard the soft sounds of some creature coming towards him. He turned to face the new challenge with his wand ready to defend himself when he saw dozens of creatures that looked like grey lobsters with green spots approaching him. The small animals were closer than he thought they would be and Harry knew he was very fortunate to have spotted them when he did. Harry recognized them to be mackled malaclaws and while it was doubtful they could kill anyone a bite from a malaclaw would make a person unlucky for about a week. Any champion that was bit by a malaclaw would therefore almost certainly not win the tournament and was likely to get hurt by one of the maze's other obstacles.

"Petrificus Totalus!" Harry called out, casting the body bind curse on all of the creatures at once. Even with the curse in place the lobster-like creatures were still attempting to bit him, although they couldn't get any closer. Harry then levitated them all into the center of the circular room where he thought one of the other champions might come and disillusioned them. Harry laughed as he walked out of the circular room and into an unexplored path. He would know better than to walk through the center of the room, but maybe his competition wouldn't. He did not want any of them to get hurt, but he would take any advantage he could get.

The cannon then fired for the fourth and final time. Now all of the champions were in the maze. Harry felt that he probably had a decent advantage on the others but the maze was so confusing that it was hard to tell how much of one he had. He felt a renewed since of urgency rising in him and knew he would have to move fast if he wanted to win.

As Harry rounded the next turn in the maze he came face to face with a giant wall of fire. He suddenly had the urge to turn around and head in a different direction and in fact was almost back around the corner when he realized that his urge to leave had been produced by a strong compulsion charm. Knowing that it was a trick, Harry turned back towards the wall of fire. He pointed his wand at the fire and cast the flame freezing charm, but his spell flew past the wall of fire and seemed to have no effect at all. Harry tried again and got identical results. With a curious look on his face, Harry began to approach the wall of fire and immediately realized something was off about it. Despite the huge flames that reached as high as the massive walls of the maze the fire was not giving off any heat at all.

"It's an illusion!" Harry suddenly realized. Smiling, Harry confidently walked through the flames and safely out the other side. He hoped this was a sign he was headed in the right direction, but knew it was possible the maze's designer just wanted him to think that. The maze was proving to be quite challenging.

Harry kept exploring the maze, but the next two paths he took resulted in dead ends that wasted valuable time. The other champions could be well ahead of him by now if they didn't face similar problems. His worries that the other champions could be beating him were lessened when he heard a feminine scream towards the direction of the entrance of the maze followed shortly there after by red sparks shooting high into the sky. Harry assumed that meant Fleur Delacour, wherever she had been, was now out of the tournament. He wondered what had gotten to her, but since she took a different path than him it was impossible to know.

As Harry continued walking the maze wall suddenly closed behind him, forcing him to continue in the direction he was heading. Only moments later though he felt the ground begin to slightly shake and heard loud footsteps approaching him. Something big was headed his way, and from the sounds of things was just around the next corner. Harry held his wand out, ready to cast any spell he needed to and waited for the threat to approach. Slowly a massive shape turned the corner in front of him and Harry found himself facing a huge troll.

The troll slowly turned it head as if it knew someone was close by but wasn't sure where. Harry noticed that it was dragging a large wooden club behind it, although due to its size the club looked more like a tree trunk than anything else. It then began snarling and sniffing the air like an animal still looking for its prey. Harry knew that he could get past this obstacle, after all he and Ron had fought off a troll as first years. This one was quite a bit bigger, but it still had weaknesses. While trolls were incredibly resistant to spells cast on them, spells that affected the environment around them were especially useful.

The troll finally spotted Harry and began charging towards him, his massive club held up high in the air waiting to strike. Harry knew he had to act quickly and first cast "Aguamenti", causing a large pool of water appear between him and the troll. His next spells was "Glacius", which froze the water he had just conjured. When the troll hit the ice it began to slip and Harry helped it fall by cast a strong "Impedimenta". As the tripping hex hit the troll it fell hard on its face and broke its nose. Harry wasted no time in conjuring vines out of the earth that wrapped around the troll and held him down. He kept conjuring vines until he was sure that the troll could not move at all, although it still was shaking in a useless attempt to free itself. He then calmly walked past it and further into the maze, leaving the troll screaming in frustration.

Harry kept searching for the Triwizard Cup, but after another fifteen minutes he was still unable to figure out where to go. He knew that he was now somewhere close to the center of the maze and that the Cup should be close by, but he had still not seen it. At one point he had heard the sound of Krum battling some type of beast, but the thick walls prevented him from seeing what was going on. He did not see any sparks shoot up from where the fight was going on however, and assumed Krum had won.

He then resumed his search and walked down a path that had just become available to him when the walls shifted again. He knew he was now in a part of the maze he had not seen before and hoped it would produce better results than the last one. Harry had been walking for a few minutes when he heard a scream coming from very close by. He started running towards the scream and when he turned the next corner saw what had caused it.

Cedric Diggory was in a violent battle with an acromantula, and the giant spider was winning. Cedric had been knocked to the ground and the acromantula had him pinned down, its huge fangs ready to strike and release their venom into its victim. Cedric could hardly move and his wand appeared to have been knocked out of his hand and out of reach.

Harry reacted immediately and jumped into battle to save the older champion who had become his friend. A strong cutting curse aimed at one of the spider's legs severed it in half and drew a pained hissing noise from the beast. Its attention turned towards Harry and as it approached him Cedric was able to free himself and crawl away towards his wand.

"Conjuctivitus!" Harry said as he pointed his wand towards the acromantula's many eyes. When the curse hit the spider's eyes it howled in pain and frustration because it could no longer see. Cedric took advantage of the creature's attention towards Harry and hit one of its back legs with a strong Reducto that shattered the appendage and left it useless. Harry's next spell was one that would almost certainly be considered dark if it had been used on a human being, but he had no problems using it on a spider. "Cruormorsus!" he called, causing a dull orange spell to fly towards and hit the spider. As it did the acromantula's blood became slightly acidic, causing the beast to violently shake in pain. Harry held the spell for a few seconds longer and soon the animal was curled up in a ball making strange cries of pain.

"I think you beat it, Harry." Cedric said as he walked over to the other champion. Harry had stopped the spell, but the animal was still clearly in excruciating pain.

"I wasn't sure what that spell would do. Now I feel a little bad about using it, even on an acromantula." Harry said softly. He then walked towards the spider and cast another cutting curse, this time on its neck. The spider died immediately. "It would have died anyway, I just hope I saved it a little pain." he explained.

"I understand. It was the nice thing to do." Cedric agreed. He then turned his back towards Harry to look around the maze, still trying to figure out which way he wanted to go. "This tournament is pretty crazy, huh?"

"I'd say so." Harry answered. For a moment neither of them said anything else, but then Harry decided it was time to leave. "Hey Cedric..."

"Yeah Harry?"

"I'm sorry about this."

"Huh?" Cedric said as he turned his head back towards Harry. He immediately saw that Harry had his wand pointed at him, but Cedric had no time to draw his wand and defend himself. Harry silently cast Stupefy and his fellow Hogwart's champion dropped to the ground as soon as the spell hit him. Harry almost felt bad about this, but figured he had done enough to help Cedric by saving him from the acromantula. Besides, what he did wasn't against the rules. He shot sparks into the air so that someone would come and help his friend before leaving the area behind him.

It was only minutes later that Harry turned another corner that looked like countless others he had seen in the past few hours, but this time something was different. The corner led to a long straight hallway and at the end the path the Triwizard Cup was softly glowing as it stood on a pedestal. Harry grinned in excitement, he was finally at the end! He began running towards the Cup and realized a moment later that it was good he was running because the maze's walls began to crash down around him. Harry ran as fast as he could and was only barely able to keep ahead of the falling bushes that threatened to crush him. When he reached the clearing at the end of the path he took a moment to catch his breath before walking up to the Triwizard Cup.

The trophy itself was beautiful and Harry thought with a smile that it would look good hanging up in his dorm room. As he reached towards it he stopped with his fingers only inches away from the Cup. He could feel magic flowing off of it, but he was unable to identify what spells had been cast on it from the feel alone. He paused, wondering if this was some trick and not really the Triwizard Cup. Unfortunately he had no way to know for sure. It certainly looked like the Triwizard Cup. Harry cast the diagnostic charms he knew on the cup and was able to determine that it had not been poisoned and there were not any deadly curses placed on it, but beyond that he was clueless.

After a few moments he decided that he had no choice but to take the Triwizard Cup and see what happened. Taking one final breath to prepare himself, Harry grabbed the cup and immediately felt a familiar pulling sensation at his navel.

"A portkey!" he said in realization as he vanished. Harry had never liked traveling by portkey, but remembered the tips he had heard on how to land safely unlike his last journey by portkey. Even so when he landed he dropped down to a knee and immediately had his wand out ready to face anything. He was still surprised by what he saw...

"HARRY POTTER WINS THE TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT!" Ludo Bagman's voice called out as the crowd erupted into cheers so loud that Harry was tempted to put his hands over his ears to protect himself from them. He looked around and saw that the portkey had dropped him on a huge stage that had been erected in front of the maze's entrance. Fleur Delacour was seated in a chair towards the back of the stage looking quite unhappy. Harry then noticed that Cedric Diggory and Viktor Krum were both being led out of the maze and towards the stage. Krum also looked disappointed, but Cedric was surprisingly laughing as he looked at Harry. Harry smiled back, happy that Cedric apparently didn't hold any hard feeling towards him for what happened in the maze.

"Congratulations, Harry." Cedric said after leaping onto the stage. "But that was still a dirty trick you used."

"I know, but I said I was sorry." Harry reminded him as they both started laughing about it. Krum calmly climbed the steps to the stage and nodded slightly in Harry's direction. Harry shrugged and decided that was as much of a congratulations as he was going to get from the Durmstrang champion. The crowd, meanwhile, had not quieted down in the least. The cheers only became louder when Harry proudly raised the Triwizard Cup over his head for all to see. As he did he scanned the crowd looking for his friends. Eventually he found them and saw that they were all excitedly waving at him and cheering.

"Come, Harry. There is still much to be done." Ludo Bagman said from behind him. Harry nodded and walked towards the podium that Bagman had positioned himself behind. Another tournament official was motioning for him to place the Triwizard cup on a small stand in front of him and Harry happily did so. They had to wait several minutes for the cheering to die down so that Bagman could begin the presentation, but eventually he did.

"Ladies and gentlemen, today is a monumental day for our world." Bagman began. Harry looked at the older man curiously. His normal speaking voice was excited and spontaneous, but he was now talking in an odd monotone and as if he were reading from a script. "Truly, a day for the history books. You, Harry Potter, are more important than you realize."

The crowd continued to cheer. They, apparently, did not share Harry's concern that something felt a bit off about the whole situation.

"You will bear witness. You shall see the rise of the greatest wizard of our age." Bagman continued. He then pulled a galleon out of his pocket and turned towards Harry. "Tonight, the Dark Lord lives again!" Bagman then thrust the galleon towards Harry and as it touched him Harry once again felt the odd pull at his navel which he knew meant the coin was a portkey, this time definitely not one taking him to a safe location. In the brief moment before he disappeared, Harry looked into Bagman's eyes. They were dull, emotionless, and looked slightly clouded over.

'The imperius curse!' Harry was able to think before he vanished.

In those few short moments the cheers of the crowd turned to screams and panic. This only escalated when Ludo Bagman pointed his wand in the air and yelled "Morsmordre!", causing the dark mark to appear in the sky. The first one to act was actually Cedric Diggory, who promptly knocked Bagman unconscious with a stunner to the back. Aurors and Professor Dumbledore rushed to the stage, but by that time there was little they could do.

Harry Potter was gone, and they had no idea where he could possibly be.