Chapter 14

NO INFRINGEMENT INTENDED J.K. Rowling owns a majority of the things in my fanfic, I just added a few faces.

Chapter 14

 

   I sat next to Al as usual, but we didn’t say much.  We ate in silence, while Rose tried desperately to keep up a conversation.  The Third task loomed over us like a dark cloud.  We didn’t have much time before it came around.  Classes went slow, and I could feel eyes on me no matter where I went.  I sat in the common room that night and twirled my wand in my fingers like I’d seen the Centaur did.  I’d done it many times, but this time something happened.  Gold started coming from it, and it spelled out Tonight at 8, Forbidden Forest.  I dropped my wand I was so shocked.  The message could only have been from the Centaur who’d taken my wand.  It was 7:45, so I stood up abruptly and walked outside.  Once I reached the forest, I found him, waiting a little ways in. He whistled me over.  I didn’t trust him.

“Come on… This is why I don’t work with wizards.  Come on!”  I walked over to the sound of his whispered nagging.  “Look, I’ll be brief, the stars have foretold something terrible, and I fear you are the only one who can stop it.”  He grabbed my shoulders.  I flinched, remembering the X in my shoulder, but he ignored it.  “Your friend Hagrid is in grave danger.”  He looked like he would continue, but a stick snapped behind him.  “You have been warned.  I don’t like wizards, but I’m endebted to Hagrid.  I hope we will never meet again.”  He said, backing away.  “Because if we do, it will end in bloodshed.”  He disappeared into the darkness and I raced for Hagrid’s house.  What could this mean?

When he arrived at the door, I was thrilled.  “Hagrid!  You’re okay!”  I hugged him.  He had become like a second father to me.

“Yeah, ‘course I am.  What’s the matter?”

“I… Well…” I told him about the Centaur, X, and his foretelling of danger.  “Do you have any idea what that means?”  Hagrid had gone very pale.

“I’m afraid…” He said, quietly.  “I know exactly what that means, and I can’t tell ye.”  He patted my shoulder.  “But thanks for the warnin.  I’ve got to go speak with Professor McGonagall.  Goodnight, Sophie.”  He left me there, sitting at his table and clutching a chipped cup of tea.  This was the first time he’d refused to tell me something.

But it wouldn’t be the last.

 

I arrived back at our common room just before curfew to find Al sitting by the fire and glaring.  I told him about the events of the evening and he listened, nodding occasionally.  When I’d finished, I felt shaky, my mentor, Hagrid, in danger?  And he wouldn’t tell me what it was… I was worried.  Al grabbed my shoulders and turned me to face him.

“I know you don’t want to hear it.”  He said, calmly, “But Hagrid didn’t tell you for a reason, and we have other things to focus on.  I promise,” he looked into my eyes, and I found I couldn’t look away.  “I promise that we’ll find a way to help him just as soon as we both survive the third task.”

“Okay.”  I said quietly.  We spent the next ten minutes quietly staring into the dying flames with his arm around me.  James interrupted us, after a little while.

“You two love birds just sitting there again?  Bloody Hell, kids!  Did you forget how to talk?”  He sat down next to us.  “Look, this is getting serious.  You have to communicate to be a team, and… And if you’re not a team there’s a good chance you’ll die.”  His fist came down on the couch and popped back up comically.  He shook his hand and blushed a little.  “Please, if you won’t do it for yourselves, do it for me.”  He pled.

“We’re trying, James.”  I said, quietly.  “I promise.”

We spent the rest of the night talking about what we saw in the second task when we got split up.  It took a lot to talk about our fears like that.  Al said, on top of all the things he was consciously afraid of, he was also afraid of loosing me, and drowning.  It was rough on him.  He saw me die three times.  I shook my head, it was a cruel thing.  Maybe that’s why he was being so cold, he was preparing to loose me.

“But, Al…” I grabbed his hand.  “I’m still here.  It’s okay!”

“I know…” He said and kissed me.  “I know.

 

The Third Task had come, and we were still distant, even though we were acting like it was all right, all we could really talk about was the Tournament.  On that dreaded day, we pulled on the red and gold outfits we were given, and lead to the starting blocks.  They were positioned in a giant triangle on the field.  We looked up at the stands, full of people.  I spotted Rose, James, and Scorpius immediately.  Trillie was nearby too.  On the spectator side, a reporter was talking to the famous Harry Potter and his wife, who’d made it out to see us.  We could see three panes of glass, and far, far, FAR above us, there was another pane of glass upon which rested the Cup.  It was too simple, all we had to do was summon our brooms and fly up.  Al was the fastest.  But it was too easy.

“Welcome, Champions!”  McGonagall called out.  “Today is the day one of you takes home the Cup!!”  She called out.  “Anyone could win at this point.  There are no brooms allowed.”  She said.  Ah, that’s the catch.  “I know in the past, this hasn’t been a rule.  You are forbidden to summon a broom of any sort, I apologize.  Now, at the sound of the cannon, you may begin!”  She smiled.  Filch, who was an ancient, nasty old man, pulled the chain and let loose a cannon blast.  Al and I looked around for something to grab onto, but there was nothing.  Suddenly, I caught sight of something glinting in the sun.

That’s it!  I thought.  Glass… But we can’t see it.  Immediately, the color-changing charm came to mind, and I shot off a blast of color to the spot where I’d seen the glint.  There were panes of glass lining the sky all the way to the cup.  I grabbed it and pulled myself on.  They were charmed to float.

“Come on!”  I helped Al up on the platform and we shot color all around until we found the next pane.  Cheers erupted as we made our way upward.  We were a brilliant team.  I noticed the other competitors shooting color into the sky as well.  The Beauxbatons girls were moving at a steady pace.  I rushed to match, if not beat it.  Al seemed distracted.

“Al, I need you to focus.  Forget about your parents, okay?”  I said, softly as we pulled up onto another pane of glass.

“No, it’s not that… Its just… This is too easy.”  He stated.  I looked around.  It was true, this was far too easy.  Just as he said it, a bludger smashed into the glass around us and we almost fell.  I just managed to grab onto another levitating pane of glass before we fell.  Al grabbed it too and we struggled onto it.

“We need to move.”  He said, taking the lead.  We moved as quickly as we could and watched as the Durmstrang students were bludgered off their glass pane and fell to the ground, having to start again if they wanted to stand a chance.  I used a levitate charm on the bludger coming towards us, but it only diverted the evil thing.  We continued to climb until we were out of range of the bludgers.  I was bleeding badly from my hand, and Al had multiple cuts to his arms, and another on his ear, all of which bled profusely.  I dragged him along behind me as we continued to climb.  I looked down, we were very high up in the air.  Why weren’t we allowed brooms?  I shot another color charm into the air and we pulled up onto the glass , my blood staining it as I yanked myself over the edge.  They were never close enough to step onto.  I was about to zap another spell into the air when I noticed a shadow.

“Al…” I whispered.  “What do you suppose that is?”

“I don’t know…”  He said back, softly.  “But I don’t think we’re going to like it.”  We both took up our fighting stance as I shot color onto whatever was holding the shadow up, but there was a disconnect.  I didn’t feel like I was fighting with Al, I felt like I was fighting, and so was he, but we weren’t a team like before.  We were just two people.  It broke my heart.

The shadow turned out to be nothing short of a Dementor.  The very fear and desolation of the Wizarding world.  My heart stopped in my throat, I couldn’t fight it.  The great thing glided my way, and suddenly I felt like there was nothing left in the world to live for.  I lowered my wand.  There was nothing left.  There was no happiness or warmth anywhere.  I had nothing left to live for.  So why not let the Dementor kill me?  At that moment, I thought it best.  As it flew closer and closer, I began to welcome it.  No where in my memory did it click that the Dementor wouldn’t kill me, just deprive me of all happiness.  It would suck out my soul.  It was close enough to touch when Al came to his senses.

“EXPECTO PATRONUM!”  Al shouted.  I couldn’t look away from the pale white image coming toward me.  I heard the spell, and out of the corner of my eye noticed a great white bird flying my way.  It attacked the Dementor, sending it flying.  I fell backward, my head spinning.  I felt the need to throw up, but there was little in my stomach to begin with.  Al turned to me, his face white.

“Are you okay?”  He asked.

“I… I didn’t know…”

“Are you okay?”  He repeated, a strange coldness in his eyes.

“Yes.”  I blinked back tears.  I needed Al on my team.  I could have lost everything in that moment. I needed him.  He led on now, pulling himself onto the purple pane of glass and wiping away a trail of blood on his ear.

“Hurry.”  He said, shooting his own red color into the air.  I clambered up onto the platform with him, feeling like there was nothing left in the world, even though the Dementor was gone and dead.  In a way, there was nothing left.  As I watched the man I loved casting spells aimlessly into the air, I realized that he was my life.  If he was through with me, then I might as well be through with living.  I shook the thought from my head, following him onto another platform.  The next glass he blasted had another shadow.  This one held an even more dangerous creature.

The grossly unshaven face of a giant shone above our heads, and he looked anything but happy.

 

We climbed up to face it, if not maybe sneak around it.  The glass floor we mounted was perhaps ten times the size of any other’s we’d seen.  I looked down and noticed that the platforms had been getting larger and larger as we rose up into the sky.  How had I missed it before?  The giant noticed us as soon as we reached the top.  Al immediately hit it with a stunning spell, to which it just got angrier.

“Al!”  I said, urgently, “If we can get above it, and then get it to hit the glass-“

“Way ahead of you.”  He said, shooting color into the air and then taking off towards the giant.   “Hey big guy!”  Al shouted.  “Want a piece of this?”  He was slowly dragging the Giant towards us.  The huge man started to lumber in our direction.  I started shooting color up to find the next platform.  It was so large that I hardly needed to look.  I swung up onto it, reaching my hand out for Al.  The giant was slowly making his way over, suddenly a thought popped into my head.  An image, actually… I saw Al falling with  the giant, all the way to the ground.

Falling to the ground would mean instant death.

I silently cheered him on as he slowly dragged the giant to the other side, where he would swing up onto the glass as the giant smashed it, in a best-case scenario.  Of course, life doesn’t always work out best-case scenario.  As I watched him fight the giant, I felt something like a tiny-clawed hand rake across the skin on the back of my neck.  I swatted it away as warm blood ran down my back.  Coronish Pixies.  I swatted one away and it’s frail bones broke, sending it to the ground.  I didn’t want to hurt them, so instead I tried to freeze them all.  “Petrificus Totalus!”  I said, casting a spell to freeze them where they flew.  They fell to the ground as I did so, but the more I disposed of, the more seemed to appear.  I stunned some when I felt the need to and lashed out at others with my hands and feet, but there were too many for one person.  This was a team challenge, after all.  I tried to keep an eye on Al, just in case.  He had brought the giant over, but was failing to get it to smash at the glass.  He was resorting to spells, perhaps his weight would break the massive field into pieces.  I fought the pixies with all my might, running away when I needed time to recoup, but it was never enough.  Tiny claws raked my skin and my face and yanked at my hair.  I wondered if Al would suffer the same fate as he battled on alone.  These challenges were not meant for single competitors.  I thought of trying to help him, but realized that I would just bring the pixies to him.  Their numbers had been growing fewer now, and I was managing to take them out.  By the time I had finished them all off, the ground lay skattered with tiny, frozen or severely wounded bodies.  I walked over to the edge, tiny cuts surrounding my frame screamed in pain.

Al was not faring as well as I was.  The Giant didn’t look to good, and was bleeding profusely in many places, but they’d backtracked to the middle of the field, instead of the edge.  If the glass shattered now, Al would fall too.  He seemed to catch my eye.  There was something in his expression I didn’t read until it was too late.  I saw his mouth moved as I stood, breathless, at the edge of my own glass playing field.  It took me a moment to catch what he said.  By the time I understood, it was too late.  He had already talked the injured giant, causing it to stumble backward and fall straight through the massive pane of glass.

Al had said “Go on without me.”

Author's Note

:')
Go on without me... Famous last words. Let me know what you thought! 3rd task of awesomeness? Leave me a prediction of what you think is gonna come next, and if you want, write an alternate ending and post it, then inbox me ;) I'd love to hear where you guys would have made this go. Love you!