Harry Potter and the Loo of Desire Chapter 16
This work is a parody of J.K Rowling's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and it is not endorsed by either J.K. Rowling or her publishers. As a parody, this work is protected under the Fair Use Doctrine.
The characterizations in this work deviate significantly from the original, and this does not imply these characterizations exist in the original work. The author received no financial compensation or endorsements for the production of this work.
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Harry Potter and the Loo of Desire
(A Parody)
Chapter 16: From Golden to Dark Green
The stares and the whispers that followed Harry and Neville did not bother either of them at first. Harry grew accustomed to it over the years, and Neville said he did not believe any of it got aimed at him. The first week of April passed, but the strange behavior of their schoolmates toward them did not. It gradually got on Harry's nerves, and he tried to catch what people said behind their backs. He never did. Unfortunately, it began to trigger his temper.
"All right! Enough! Out with it Padma! What is it you keep whispering about me?" Harry yelled in the middle of Transfiguration class after turning to face her.
"Mister Potter!" Professor McGonagall hollered at him. "I hope you have a good reason for squandering twenty Gryffindor points!"
Harry whipped around in his seat, saw his instructor and house matron glaring at him, and he glared right back as he loudly said: "It's been going on for over a week, and I'm sick of it. All these people looking at me and Neville and saying things they don't want us to hear. What? What? What did we do?"
The class sat in stunned silence. Harry all but snorted as his anger continued to roil in his gut. He did not care if Professor McGonagall docked him all of the Gryffindor house points, he would get to the bottom of whatever rumor his schoolmates currently tossed around about him. It seemed his teacher found a moment of human compassion.
"Harry, maybe you're a little sensitive because the last challenge is less then three weeks away," the woman tersely offered her explanation of his behavior.
"No, it's not that. I already know about the maze."
The professor's mouth hung open for a moment, clearly shocked by what he said, and asked: "Then what else is it?"
"That's what I'm trying to find out. Padma was just sitting here whispering to Hannah and she used my name and Neville's. I heard that much!" He griped and turned to face the Ravenclaw girl again.
"Miss Patil, since you saw fit to agitate Mister Potter to this degree, perhaps you'd like to share with the class what you shared with Miss Abbott?" Professor McGonagall gamely inquired, and her reputation for making students squirm got confirmed anew.
"I really don't..." Padma began to say.
"It was not a suggestion, Miss Patil," the elderly woman screeched.
"They say Harry and Neville can make love lights!" Padma blurted in a rush.
A hum ran through the room.
"Don't be stupid," Harry growled at his classmate.
"There were witnesses. I heard Séamus and Ron saw it."
The entire class turned to face either Ron or Séamus. Harry spun around and stared down at his best male friend. He saw the flush rising upward from Ron's neck.
"Mister Finnegan, Mister Weasley, can you confirm this rumor?" Professor McGonagall asked in such a way it made everyone's ears ring.
Ron nodded his head while Séamus said: "Yeah, we saw it last week when Harry and Neville really got going. Looked like a bleeding sun lamp with sparks shooting out of it. All golden yellow."
"Ron?" Harry asked, stunned.
Ron continued to nod his head.
"Do you understand what that means, Séamus?" The only adult asked and did not hide her contempt for the student she questioned.
"Sure. It means they're in love!"
Whispers whipped around the room like a whirlwind spell got cast.
"Close your mouths!" McGonagall shouted at them like some great falcon swooping down on prey. "Mister Finnegan, it means more than that, you twit. If what you say you saw actually happened, it means their soul-bonded. It's more than just love: it's a full commitment of heart and mind. Magic got involved."
Harry, along with the rest of his classmates, gaped at the professor. The usual sneer on the woman's face got replaced with one of deep concern. Harry swallowed hard against a rising sense of panic. He spun around and looked at Neville who simply shrugged his shoulders. The elderly lady stood, a process that took almost minute and got accompanied by what sounded like popping popcorn. She shuffled forward to the end of the dais on which her desk sat.
"Mister Longbottom and Mister Potter, please come forward," she ordered them.
Harry did not budge. He did not see Neville move either. A turgid hush fell over the entire room.
"I meant now!" Professor McGonagall said in an eardrum-puncturing shriek.
Harry trotted forward as if she used an imperius curse. Seconds later Neville came to stand on his left side. Her eyes, so rheumy it looked as if an entire baseball team spit their gum in her face, regarded the two teenagers with a cold glare. Fear lanced through Harry. She could say and do whatever she wanted to him, but he desperately wanted her to leave Neville out of it.
"I take it you two are something of a couple now?" She inquired.
"Yes," they said in unison.
"Several weeks?"
"Since the second tournament challenge," Harry clarified.
"Ah, yes, quite a display by you two. So that long. Two months," she grated the words through her teeth. "And before that?"
"We, ah, just sort of got really close. Neville asked me to the Yuletide Dance, and that sort of got things really going between us," he answered.
"Like that," Neville quietly confirmed. "But Harry started being really nice to me at the start of the year."
"He deserved it. Neville's really kind and nice... and he's..."
"Enough, Potter!" Professor McGonagall's voice sliced through his stuttering statements like a chainsaw through a feather pillow. "Now, I want you two to turn and face each other. Hold hands. Look at each other. Then I want you to think, and think very clearly and very hard, about what he means to you. Ignore everything else except each other."
"Yes, ma'am," Neville said just before Harry.
They carried out her instructions and stood holding hands while facing one another. Harry tried to block out everything else except for Neville. As he did, a sense of calm drifted through him. A smile spread across his face as he gazed at the one he loved. Neville smiled in return, and it seemed to Harry like sunlight after a terrible storm. His fingers began to prickle as he thought of everything Neville came to mean to him during the course of the year. It made his heart sing.
"Oh, my!" Professor McGonagall said, but she sounded far away.
"Harry," Neville said the name and with it came a thousand sentiments Harry instinctively understood.
"Neville," he replied and tried to cram all the name meant to him into two syllables.
A claw-like hand suddenly landed on his chest and pushed him backward. His connection to Neville broke with loud buzzing hiss. Harry got angry. He turned and faced the professor who took a step back. The fear he saw on her face forced him to shift into a different mental gear.
"Professor?" Harry prodded with her name.
"Boys, this is... unheard of. It's supposed to happen only to adults and only when they fully understand their hearts and minds. This is too powerful for people your age. It should not happen," she grumbled and backed up again.
"So what does it mean for them, professor?" Séamus called out since his sense of propriety never seemed to be in attendance.
"I... well, their soul-bonded. They're partners for life or else they will perish as the loss of that specific, spontaneous magic between them fades," she said without sounding like a harpy. "This... should not be for ones so young. You can't know what... you don't have enough experience."
"I know I love him," Neville said with quiet certainty. "I've loved him for a long time."
Harry wanted to kiss his boyfriend, but instead said: "Maybe I don't know what love really is, but it's the only way to describe how I feel about Neville."
"This is serious, boys. Very serious," their teacher muttered as she continued to stare at them, although Harry wondered what she could possibly see with such huge dollops of icky crust in each eye.
The matter got brought before Professor Dumbledore who called in both Goo-eye Moody and Barty Crouch. Along with Professor McGonagall the adults discussed the fate of the teenagers, except they all agreed they could not do much since the magic now tying them together exceeded their collective powers. Harry did not fail to note the giddy delight the headmaster displayed when he postulated should Harry die then Neville would also perish. The two boys in question exchanged a series of nervous glances as the discussion droned on and on without any results. When it finally broke, Harry and Neville left to face an uncertain reception in the school.
The green-eyed monster reared it's ugly head, and not the one in the loch or Professor Dumbledore's office fish tank. Students continued to gossip and whisper about the two. However, their friends remained steadfast. Even Ass Cleft Diggory and Diktor Kum made appearances to show their support for the two. Through it all Harry learned about some of the more unpleasant aspects human nature. The envy and jealousy of many schoolmates stunned him a first, but he began to finally see that they simply craved what he and Neville found. He shared his observations with his boyfriend, and Neville further refined them with his own. It seemed oddly fitting that the greater the hostility aimed at them, the deeper and stronger their emotional connection became. Sometimes when they just got near one another love lights would begin to emerge between them. Moreover, the unwanted attention provided a side benefit: it kept Harry's mind off the impending final challenge.
"Look," Snape slurred at Harry during the last week of April, and his fetid breath rolled through the air like miasma from an ancient dead swamp. "Just let me... me, ah... just give... yes, give me a chance to, urp... capture some. Hmm? Not, ah... ah... much too much to, um, ask, is it now?"
"Professor." Harry said the word with as much deference as he could since the obviously intoxicated man could turn feral with little cause. The unanticipated friendly demeanor of the professor put the boy wizard on guard. "You still haven't told me what you want."
Professor Snape took several long moments to get both his eyes to focus on Harry, although one seemed to want to roll up into his head. It disoriented Harry in the same fashion as watching Goo-eye's magical orb that spun and rolled like a doomed airplane piloted by a suffocating orangutan. Between him and the professor Harry's small potion cauldron bubbled with an unexpected frenetic activity. Harry could not decided over which he should worry most.
"It's... rare thing... Potted, very rare... indeed," Professor Snape said once his eyes more or less aimed in the same direction. "Valuable, even. If I could... little bit, just some, erk... urp... ah, just some. Powerful stuff... for, ah... herp... potions."
"Harry, I think he wants to collect some of the love lights," Hermione whispered.
Snape's head turned and fell off his hand where he propped it. It landed with a loud bang on the tabletop, but it bounced right back up. The man looked as though he did not even notice the minor collision that left a growing lump on his forehead clearly taking shape behind the fringe of dark, dirty hair.
"Too right. A... point for Gry... Gry... Gryffin... Gryffindor," the professor haphazardly confirmed.
Harry glanced around, saw the terrified expression on Neville's face, and returned to look at the man who, by all appearances, seemed asleep. Harry sighed, and one of Snape's eyes popped open. He made a fast decision.
"Sir, if we do this, do you promise to take what you need and go back to the front of the class?" Harry offered the bargain.
"Quiet as... a... small... rodent-like... whatever it is... thing," Snape indirectly agreed.
"And points for both Harry and Neville?" Hermione astutely added.
"A... hun -- erp -- dred for each," the man sloppily agreed.
"That's not fair!" Draco shouted from the other side of the room where other Slytherins began to protest. "It's not like those two morons are doing anything special."
Draco obviously overplayed his hand. Harry's heavy pewter ladle glided threw the air with such incredible force and precision that it caught Malfoy square in the mouth. He went down cupping his face as blood oozed through his fingers. The ladle ricocheted off Draco's teeth and caught Daphne Greengrass in the left temple. She shrieked and clutched at her skull and made her hair fly in all directions. The pewter utensil hit the ground with a clatter.
"Ten points to... Snape for doub... double hit," the professor awarded himself house points. "Um... deal, Pot... ter?"
"Yes, sir," Harry said and turned to Neville who stood at his station shaking his head.
Harry, seeing the resistance in his boyfriend at approaching the erratic professor, used a secret weapon. He smiled. Then he said: "Neville, please?"
Neville's face sagged into a dopey expression. He grinned and started sliding his feet as he moved toward Harry. As he drew near, Harry held out his hand and thought of how much better his life became when he accepted he loved Neville and that Neville returned the same deep affection. Even before their hands touched they started to glow. Half the class sighed while the other half grumbled. Professor Snape seemed to become instantly sober.
"So much like your father," the man softly intoned as he produced a large stoppered jar from somewhere on his person. "The hair and glasses... and this."
Harry faced his boyfriend, and his feelings swelled. The lights began to float around them. Snape took out the circular cork from the wide mouth and gently began scooping the floating motes of light while he mumbled what Harry could only assume to be a spell. The tiny golden specks hung motionless in the glass. When it became half full, Snape gingerly placed the stopper back in the opening, drew a rune on the top with his wand that glowed silver for a second, and held it up.
"Love lights, as you call them, or illumitus amorem for the smarter among you," Professor Snape informed them in a dry, haughty manner. "These must handled carefully. One misstep and the potion brewer could be emotionally numb for the rest of his or her life. Thank you, Potter and Longbottom. You get your points. Now get back to work."
In quick succession Snape reverted to his standard form. As he began the trek back to his desk, he paused. The he turned his greasy head to the side.
"Fifty points to Slytherin if you get Malfoy and Greengrass to the infirmary without any questions being ask," he stated and continued moving.
Harry and Neville never stopped gazing at one another. Harry lifted is face, and Neville met him half way. The kiss ignited their passions already inflamed by the demonstration for the professor. Soon arms encircled bodies as they poured their passion into one another through their mouths. Harry felt liquid warmth flow through his veins. As they pressed their bodies together, the tell-tale sign of his boyfriend's arousal snuggled against his hip and rested against his own. Harry's right hand slid down and began to wrestle with Neville's belt. In the meanwhile, Neville started to pull at Harry's robes.
"Oh, bloody hell. Someone get an iron bar and pry those two apart," Harry heard the potion master sneer.
He wanted to protest as a strong set of arms wrapped around his waist and began to pull him away from Neville. He heard his boyfriend loudly complain. Whoever wrangled him did so with purpose, and ten seconds later he and Neville got separated. The effect of the love magic slowly receded as more distance separated them. Harry craned his head around and saw Hermione holding him at bay. His mind shifted from one state to another.
"Er... I'm okay, Hermione," Harry rumbled at his friend.
"No, you're not. You two are a danger to each other," she grumped. "It's not like you don't have enough problems in your life."
"Neville is not a problem!" He hotly countered.
In a rare display of compassion, Hermione did not beat Harry to a bloody pulp, and instead said: "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. You truly love him, and I understand that, but you're need to keep a clear mind when Neville's around you or disaster will follow."
Harry opened his mouth, but his best female friend's words wormed their way into his thinking. He saw the logic in Hermione's statements, so he closed his mouth and nodded. She looked far too serious to dismiss.
"Neville, go back to your station unless you really want everyone to see you naked, excited, and what you like to do with Harry when you are," she ordered the other enamored teenager.
Neville's face turned pink as he whipped around in a half-circle, wriggle free of Ron, and trotted half way across the room.
"Core, Harry, how far do you think you two would've gone?" Ron asked with a sly smirk on his face.
"Oh, probably to the point where I'd be on all fours with Neville riding me like a wild centaur... or maybe the other way around. It doesn't matter to us," Harry answered.
"You don't say."
It seemed reasonable to instantly regret what he said to his best mate, so Harry started to regret what he told Ron. He knew his intuition to be right when Ron's grin got progressively more comically sinister. He shook his head and glanced at the smoke now streaming from his cauldron. It seemed somehow predictive.
With two public displays of how their relationship developed, Harry and Neville made a joint decision to continue to spend time away from one another lest they do nothing more than strip naked and wrap themselves around each other. Neville spent more time in the greenhouses and gardens, and Harry, oddly enough, sought refuge in the library where he studied and taunted the shushers. Moreover, he began to read about famous hedgerow mazes throughout England and Europe. With only five days to go before the last challenge, it seemed reasonable to put his time use preparing.
"Always turn left," he got caught repeating to himself the morning of the challenge as he sat and ate, or tried to eat, breakfast with his boyfriend and friends. Neville sat across the table from him so as not to disturb his planning and thinking.
"It won't just be a maze," Hermione warned as Sabine clung to her arm. "They've got to have traps or something in there to keep you from getting to wherever or whatever it is you need to get."
"Dumbledore'll have something nasty up his sleeve," Dean Thomas conjectured as he waved around a piece of bacon.
"You think?" Ron mocked him.
"What do you keep saying always turn left?" Séamus inquired even though he just stuffed a huge mouthful of porridge into his face.
"Strategy for not getting lost," Hermione answered before Harry.
"And it ensures you won't cover the same ground twice," Neville added the second part.
Harry nodded in agreement. The soft boiled egg no longer appealed to him, so he chewed on the toast points. Someone thoughtfully moved the plate of kippers further down the table, and he suspected Neville did him the service.
"You're going to need a cool head, mate, to pull that off if they've got traps laid in there for you," Ron opined.
"You think?" Dean imitated Ron, and it drew a scowl from the ginger-haired teenager.
"Madam Sprout always looked a bit uneasy whenever she came back from de-gnoming the pitch... as she liked to tell me," Neville said, and Harry knew it still bothered his boyfriend his favorite teacher managed to keep it secret. "There's something hiding in there, or why else would they put a glamour over the entire maze?"
"And Hagrid is involved, so it's not just roses and violets in there," Hermione theorized.
"Or even devil's snare," Ron said, and it caused Harry and Hermione to stare at him. "It'd be a right good trap even if it was obvious."
"But Dumbledore knows Harry knows how to get out of it," the smartest witch they knew tried to sideline the idea.
"Maybe, but what about what's underneath?"
Harry gaped at his best mate.
"Do not scare the `Air-ee," Sabine muttered.
"Too late for that, but thanks," Harry replied and smiled at the French girl who now rarely left Hermione's side when not in classes. "Seeing what they managed to do the first time nearly made me have to go and change my knickers."
Ron and Séamus snorted a laugh.
"Easy for you to laugh since you're not going in there," he grumbled at his friends, and they stopped snickering. "That whole maze is probably three times bigger than the fappitch pitch! And the hedgerows stand at least ten meters tall."
One by one his friends grew more serious as each took in the new information. Knowing the relative dimensions of the maze made it seem more real, and it did frighten Harry. He could not imagine what Dumbledore decided to hide within the confines. He poked at his breakfast and feared eating any more would only come up in short while. He pushed his plate away.
"Harry?" Neville inquired with an excess of concern in his voice.
"I never wanted to be in the stupid tournament. Can't wait to find the bugger who decided to slip my name into the loo," he grumbled and looked to Ron. "Think Giney might be interested in casting some hexes for me?"
"Oh, mate, she'd love you for that. You know she spent most of this year in detention for hexing people. They never did figure out she studied and practiced hexes during detention," Ron intoned as he spoke about his sister.
"Well, I'm glad you got chosen, Harry. I'm not sure we'd be us if you hadn't," Neville said in the most serious tone Harry ever heard him use.
He thought to answer, but paused. Neville's response made complete sense. Desperation before the first challenge drove him to find solitude, but instead he found Neville who gave him the best and simplest advice that lead to his challenge victory. In Harry's mind, that brief conversation marked the turning point when their relationship truly began. Neville lent him aid without any expectation of reciprocation. Harry smiled at the memory, and then he aimed it his boyfriend.
"You're right," he said as his feelings redoubled. "Doesn't matter what happens in the maze, I already won."
Neville's face split into wide grin. Harry felt the warmth of the love he felt for the teenager wash through him. The long face across the table seemed to radiate like the sun. Harry wanted to bathe in the glow for the rest of the day.
"Good night, Thurston! Now they can do it with a meter between them," Séamus crowed.
"Someone get Harry out of here before he forgets what he's supposed to be doing," Hermione ordered.
"Come on, Harry. You've got other things to worry about," Ron said and laid a wide hand on his forearm.
"But I'm not worried about anything right now," Harry rejoined in fluttery manner.
"And that worries me, mate."
The young wizard dressed in patched jeans, new trainers he got from his godfather for Yuletide, and his favorite fappitch practice jersey made him a look very much like he did for the first challenge. Only the subtle golden glow about his face and hands, aside form the sappy look on his face, made him appear different. Ron hauled him out of the great hall and into the grand foyer where students wandered in and out of the main doors. Beyond that Harry could see the barbican gates kept everyone inside the fortified castle grounds. It meant no one could see what lay outside awaiting the champions
Ron kept Harry distracted by regaling him with a story he heard about Lee Jordan and Cassius Warrington. It seemed the Slytherin thought he caught the wily Gryffindor all alone deep in the dungeon level where, according to Ron, Lee planned on purloining some items from one of Felch's storage closets. Cassius believed he trapped Lee until Lee began to say how much he always wanted to the experience the vaunted prowess of Slytherin sex techniques. Ron said it took Jordan a while to convince Warrington he meant what he said. After a while, Lee got Cassius to start disrobing while making it appear he would do the same. The Slytherin got ahead of himself and Lee. While standing naked waiting for Lee to join him, Lee stole Cassius' clothing and took off running. The nude Slytherin chased him as far as the main level, but Jordan outmaneuvered him and disappeared into the throng of students who became quite amused at Cassius state of dress. Harry laughed and believed every word of it.
"So that's what he was selling at the Lady Primple's Clothier last time we were there," Harry said through a chuckle.
"Only got a handful of sickles for it, too," Ron told him and grinned all the more.
"Potter!" Goo-eye Moody's voice chimed through the foyer. "Get yer arse to the committee room `fore I transform you into a wet sleeve and use you the rest of the day."
"Sheesh! Good luck with that and the maze," Ron said and scampered away before receiving a farewell.
"POTTER!" Moody bellowed.
Harry stood and went to go find the perpetually irritated auror and teacher.
Half an hour later he stood with the other champions just outside of the northwest tower facing the huge expanse of the maze. It started just twenty five meters west of the main castle road, followed along the wall ringing all of Snogwarts, and then south until it ran parallel to the castle fortifications. The dense hedgerows rose as high as Harry claimed, and they served as a testament to both Madam Sprout and Hagrid. The rows themselves measured at least two meters thick if Harry proved any sort of judge. Moreover, from where they stood on a slight rise that allowed the audience to reach the newly erected bleachers to see into the maze, it did not seem worth the while. The interior of the maze, now that Professor Flitwick lifted the glamour charm, looked completely dark and unlit. Harry and the champions got led down into a small clearing before they got a chance to really study the maze.
"Champions!" Dumbledore's voice rang sounded out from the dais where the tournament committee sat. "Behold the final challenge!"
"They already knew it was a maze weeks ago, you doddering old fool!" Someone from the stands yelled.
"What? What?" The headmaster snarled in anger. "Who told you? Who told? I'll skin them alive!"
"No one told us," Diggory stepped forward and said. "We figured out the gnome holes were an illusion, and we pushed past the disguising glamour. Nice work, Professor Flitwick!"
"Thank you," the tiny professor's voice squeaked out from the grandstand.
"You're fired, Filius, You utterly failed..."
"Go stuff it up your bum, Dumbledore. I told you it wasn't perfect. Too large of an area to maintain consistency," Flitwick boldly countered the man.
"We're not done with this. Do you hear me?" Professor Dumbledore roared.
"Blah, blah, blah," the charms master droned.
The students started to laugh at the exchange until Dumbledore began to wave his wand around his head. It emitted a stream of sparks, and everyone tried to duck behind the person in front of them. The entire crowd cowered in the stands.
"Right. Shut your gobs," Dumbledore lambasted them. He then coughed once and faced the champions again. "Okay, we're going to be sending you into the maze one at time. We've averaged your results from the two previous challenges. Potter and Kum with go in ten seconds apart, Ass Cleft third, and what's her face last."
"DelaCunt," person yelled.
"Listen you Aussie bastard, I'll do you a good one if you call me that again!" The professor hollered.
"It's her name, you fool," McGonagall shouted at the headmaster. "Just get on with it so we can go get tea."
Professor Dumbledore glared at the assembled, but an insidious smile took over when he looked at the tournament champions. He cracked his knuckles once. Then he said: "Somewhere in there is the tournament trophy. It sort of resembles a troll with a big tonker and bigger tits squatting over a loo. Looks golden, but I think someone swapped it out for pyrite a century or two ago. Find it, and you win. If you get into trouble send up sparks and maybe someone might help... but I doubt it. Anyone who knows anything of what's in there is going to keep clear."
The committee members and the faculty glanced at one another, and Harry could see none of them would likely lend assistance. It seemed rather obvious Dumbledore did not intend any of the participants to exit the maze alive. Harry, however, found ample reason to remain living and whole: his death would lead to Neville's, and he could not accept that.
"Oh, and if you're not out by sunset, you're never getting out because that's when the really horrid things come out to play," the headmaster gleefully informed them "No time limit. Get in and get out is the order of the day... except you need the trophy to get out. Did I tell you that?"
The champions slowly shook their heads as they looked in horror at the old man.
"Right. The trophy is the key."
"What if someone gets to it before I do?" Ass Cleft inquired.
Professor Dumbledore simply started laughing. He did not stop when he waved his wand at Lee Jordan who would again act as commentator. The African-English young man gave a long askance glance at the cackling old wizard.
"Okay," he breathed the words into his magic megaphone. "Go stand anywhere you want along the hedge. The professor will open it for you at the correct intervals. Good... uh, luck, I guess."
"We will die, yes?" Foul asked and looked to her competitors.
"If Dumbledore has his way, probably," Ass Cleft replied.
"I did not come to this to die," Diktor grumbled. "Find me, and I will help. See me, help me. That is my rule now."
"Agreed," Harry said without pause. "He does mean to kill us all."
"Then we try to beat him at his own game... if we can, together," Diggory sternly added his support for the idea.
"Try to keep close together," Foul said, but it sounded more like a plea.
"To the hedge!" Jordan all but yelled at them.
The foursome turned and walked straight to the dense green barrier. They spaced themselves roughly three meters apart. They glanced back and forth as they waited. Harry began to think he might actually bring up the few toast points he ate. A new breed of fear welled in him between what he knew and what he could imagine. Harry almost wished he never found out about the maze.
"Diktor Kum!" Lee Jordan announced the first name.
A fireball of red and black struck the wall just above Diktor's head, and it made him duck. No one could blame him. The fire slid downward and left an opening just large enough for him to walk through. He did. Harry watched as the hedge sealed itself once Diktor entered. He started counting down in his head.
"Harry Potter!" Lee's voice called out.
Since he knew what to expect, he did not duck when the gold and scarlet fire hit the greenery above his head. The fire flowed down, and Harry got his first look into the hedge maze. A bizarrely dim interior awaited him. When the opening fully formed, he forced himself into it, and then through it. A rustling noise erupted behind him, and the safe world outside disappeared as the hedge grew back. Only a gray, silent realm awaited him. He swallowed against his fear. Harry Potter then truly began the final challenge.
The novel parts of this work, including characters, plot, and setting, are licensed under
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The characters, plot, and settings originating in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire remain licensed to J.K. Rowling.