Chapter 67: Chapter 67: Third Task!
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Maria glared back at him and picked up the pillow. She hurled threw it back. With a flick of his hand, he grasped it with his magic and sent it flying back at her once more.
This time, it caught her in the stomach and sent her flying backwards into the wall in an explosion of feathers.
She bounced onto the floor, groaning.
Harry eyed her. She would be okay. She let out a louder groan. Well, she would hopefully be okay.
"See you in a few months," he said, and walked from the room.
For once in his life, Harry was telling the truth: the next time he saw Maria was months later, as he arrived at Hogwarts in preparation for the third task, which was three days away. His first line of business, of course, was talking to Daphne Greengrass.
Since he had left at Christmas, he had sent her a single letter, detailing how he was going on a quest oddly reminiscent of an Indiana Jones film he had been watching while writing the letter and, thus, would not be able to speak to her.
He hoped she had fallen for it. She probably would: she seemed to think he was as smitten with her as she was with him—and he hadn't even used a love potion on her!
It was obviously just his incredible personality that attracted her. Not his immense handsomeness, money, or fame. He was the only one who could be that shallow.
"Hey, Daphne." He walked up to her and pulled her into a hug. She hugged back, satisfyingly: she had nice breasts—for a fifteen-year-old, at least. It also meant that she was still in love with him.
'Ah, yes,' said Loki. 'One of the many perks of pulling girls out of lakes, even if they were in no danger in the first place, and the only reason they're there is mostly because of you. Next time, just put her under the Imperius for a few seconds and then release her; maybe she'll think you saved her again.'
'Now is not the time for your rants about the stupidity of mortals again'
'Why? Do you want to demonstrate to her how much you've improved at kissing since you last met her.' Loki snickered. 'I'm sure that'll brighten her mood.'
Harry pulled back from the awkwardly long hug, removing his hands from Daphne's behind as he did so. "It's been such a long time."
"Yes," said Daphne. "I really missed you."
"You too," lied Harry. "If what I was doing hadn't been so important…"
Daphne fluttered her eyelashes. "I hope you won't have to leave again soon."
'Are you sure we at no point drugged her with some kind of love potion? Because this is kind of ridiculous. Or maybe someone else drugged her as a present for us?'
"Yeah, hopefully they won't lose the Holy Grail again."
Sadly, the Holy Grail didn't exist. Harry had looked for it at some point. Tracking down holy artefacts had seemed like an appropriate thing to do, when he was practising his illusions by entering the meetings of satanic cults and pretending to be Lucifer.
Especially since a few of those occasions had resulted in multiple murders, not that they were Harry's fault.
Daphne smiled and nodded. Harry wondered whether it was possible that she had drugged herself so that she fell in love with him. That seemed like a pureblood thing to do.
"Anyway," Harry said with a smile, stepping backwards as Daphne attempted to touch his arm, "I need to go and check what the Third Task looks like."
With that, he walked away as rapidly as he could, lest she ask if she could come with him.
Harry asked another student where they had actually prepared the Third Task, and then headed out to the Quidditch Pitch, which normally held a sport with rules that were either too confusing or too ridiculous for him to understand.
Now, the lush, green grass of the field had been marred by a network of hedged passages crossing over it: a maze.
After making sure that no one was looking, he subtly walked over to it and launched a fire spell at the side. The fire half fizzled out, and Harry was forced to dodge the rest as it came back at him.
There was no burning his way out of this one, like he had in the Amazon rainforest or that corn maze last week.
He cursed. He would just have to use his other method of cheating when it came to mazes, or as Loki called it: the Thor.
Three days later, the Third Task came. By that time, everyone was already well aware that Harry had returned to Hogwarts—he made sure to enter every meal as dramatically as possible.
When Dumbledore—on the only occasion he had spoken to him—asked him to stop, he had simply said that he was practising his illusion magic, and, therefore, required to get better at trumpet fanfares.
As the champions stood next to the maze, the crowds were already cheering. Harry supposed that they had more of a reason to cheer here than they did when the champions were actually in the maze, where they wouldn't even be able to see them, except if they fired up the red sparks that meant they surrendered. Honestly, who designed these tasks?
In the centre of the maze waited the Triwizard Trophy. Whoever reached it first got it. The champion in first, Cedric, would get a five minute head start.
Viktor, who was in second, would enter the maze five minutes after him. Harry would enter five minutes after him. Fleur didn't matter whatsoever, because she didn't have a chance.
As with the other tasks, the beginning was marked by a cannon shot created by a spell that Harry had mastered in his attempts to appear dramatic to the students of Hogwarts.
Cedric sprinted right in, unaware of the tracking charm that Harry had placed on him a few moments prior when he had given him an encouraging pat on the shoulder.
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