‘Impedimenta!’ Harry yelled. The spell hit the Skrewt’s armour again and ricocheted off; Harry staggered back a few paces and fell over. ‘IMPEDIMENTA!’
The Skrewt was inches from him when it froze – he had managed to hit it on its fleshy, shell-less underside. Panting, Harry pushed himself away from it and ran, hard, in the opposite direction – the Impediment Jinx was not permanent, the Skrewt would be regaining the use of its legs at any moment.
He took a left path, and hit a dead end, a right, and hit another: forcing himself to stop, heart hammering, he performed the Four-Point Spell again, backtracked, and chose a path that would take him north-west.
He had been hurrying along the new path for a few minutes, when he heard something in the path running parallel to his own which made him stop dead.
‘What are you doing?’ yelled Cedric’s voice. ‘What the hell d’you think you’re doing?’
And then Harry heard Krum’s voice.
‘Crucio!’
The air was suddenly full of Cedric’s yells. Horrified, Harry began sprinting up his path, trying to find a way into Cedric’s. When none appeared, he tried the Reductor curse again. It wasn’t very effective, but it burnt a small hole in the hedge, through which Harry forced his leg, kicking at the thick brambles and branches until they broke and made an opening; he struggled through it, tearing his robes and, looking to his right, saw Cedric jerking and twitching on the ground, Krum standing over him.
Harry pulled himself up and pointed his wand at Krum just as Krum looked up. Krum turned and began to run.
‘Stupefy!’ Harry yelled.
The spell hit Krum in the back; he stopped dead in his tracks, fell forwards and lay motionless, face down in the grass. Harry dashed over to Cedric, who had stopped twitching, and was lying there panting, his hands over his face.
‘Are you all right?’ Harry said roughly, grabbing Cedric’s arm.
‘Yeah,’ panted Cedric. ‘Yeah … I don’t believe it … he crept up behind me … I heard him, I turned round, and he had his wand on me …’
Cedric got up. He was still shaking. He and Harry looked down at Krum.
‘I can’t believe this … I thought he was all right,’ Harry said, staring at Krum.
‘So did I,’ said Cedric.
‘Did you hear Fleur scream earlier?’ said Harry.
‘Yeah,’ said Cedric. ‘You don’t think Krum got her, too?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Harry slowly.
‘Should we leave him here?’ Cedric muttered.
‘No,’ said Harry. ‘I reckon we should send up red sparks. Someone’ll come and collect him … otherwise he’ll probably be eaten by a Skrewt.’
‘He’d deserve it,’ Cedric muttered, but all the same, he raised his wand and shot a shower of red sparks into the air, which hovered high above Krum, marking the spot where he lay.
Harry and Cedric stood there in the darkness for a moment, looking around them. Then Cedric said, ‘Well … I s’pose we’d better go on …’
‘What?’ said Harry. ‘Oh … yeah … right …’
It was an odd moment. He and Cedric had been briefly united against Krum – now the fact that they were opponents came back to them both. They proceeded up the dark path without speaking, then Harry turned left, and Cedric right. Cedric’s footsteps soon died away.
Harry moved on, continuing to use the Four-Point Spell, making sure he was moving in the right direction. It was between him and Cedric now. His desire to reach the Cup first was now burning stronger than ever, but he could hardly believe what he’d just seen Krum do. The use of an Unforgivable Curse on a fellow human being meant a life term in Azkaban, that was what Moody had told them. Krum surely couldn’t have wanted the Triwizard Cup that badly … Harry sped up.
Every so often he hit more dead ends, but the increasing darkness made him feel sure he was getting near the heart of the maze. Then, as he strode down a long, straight path, he saw movement once again, and his beam of wand-light hit an extraordinary creature, one which he had only seen in picture form, in his Monster Book of Monsters.
It was a sphinx. It had the body of an overlarge lion; great clawed paws, and a long yellowish tail ending in a brown tuft. Its head, however, was that of a woman. She turned her long, almond-shaped eyes upon Harry as he approached. He raised his wand, hesitating. She was not crouching as if to spring, but pacing from side to side of the path, blocking his progress.
Then she spoke, in a deep, hoarse voice. ‘You are very near your goal. The quickest way is past me.’
‘So … so will you move, please?’ said Harry, knowing what the answer was going to be.
‘No,’ she said, continuing to pace. ‘Not unless you can answer my riddle. Answer on your first guess – I let you pass. Answer wrongly – I attack. Remain silent – I will let you walk away from me, unscathed.’
Harry’s stomach slipped several notches. It was Hermione who was good at this sort of thing, not him. He weighed his chances. If the riddle was too hard, he could keep silent, get away from her unharmed, and try and find an alternative route to the centre.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Can I hear the riddle?’
The sphinx sat down upon her hind legs, in the very centre of the path, and recited:
‘First think of the person who lives in disguise,
Who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies.
Next, tell me what’s always the last thing to mend,
The middle of middle and end of the end?
And finally give me the sound often heard
During the search for a hard-to-find word.
Now string them together, and answer me this,
Which creature would you be unwilling to kiss?’
Harry gaped at her.
‘Could I have it again … more slowly?’ he asked tentatively.
She blinked at him, smiled, and repeated the poem.
‘All the clues add up to a creature I wouldn’t want to kiss?’ Harry asked.
She merely smiled her mysterious smile. Harry took that for a ‘yes’. Harry cast his mind around. There were plenty of animals he wouldn’t want to kiss; his immediate thought was a Blast-Ended Skrewt, but something told him that wasn’t the answer. He’d have to try and work out the clues …
‘A person in disguise,’ Harry muttered, staring at her, ‘who lies … er … that’d be a – an impostor. No, that’s not my guess! A – a spy? I’ll come back to that … could you give me the next clue again, please?’
She repeated the next lines of the poem.
‘The last thing to mend,’ Harry repeated. ‘Er … no idea … middle of middle … could I have the last bit again?’
She gave him the last four lines.
‘A sound often heard in the search for a hard-to-find word,’ said Harry. ‘Er … that’d be … er … hang on – “er”! “Er”’s a sound!’
The sphinx smiled at him.
‘Spy … er … spy … er …’ said Harry, pacing up and down himself. ‘A creature I wouldn’t want to kiss … a spider!’
The sphinx smiled more broadly. She got up, stretched her front legs, and then moved aside for him to pass.
‘Thanks!’ said Harry, and, amazed at his own brilliance, he dashed forwards.
He had to be close now, he had to be … his wand was telling him he was bang on course; as long as he didn’t meet anything too horrible, he might be in with a chance …
He had a choice of paths up ahead. ‘Point me!’ he whispered again to his wand, and it spun around and pointed him to the right-hand one. He dashed up this one, and saw light ahead.
The Triwizard Cup was gleaming on a plinth a hundred yards away. Harry had just broken into a run, when a dark figure hurtled out onto the path in front of him.
Cedric was going to get there first. Cedric was sprinting as fast as he could towards the Cup, and Harry knew he would never catch up, Cedric was much taller, had much longer legs –
Then Harry saw s
omething immense over a hedge to his left, moving quickly along a path that intersected with his own; it was moving so fast Cedric was about to run into it, and Cedric, his eyes on the Cup, had not seen it –
‘Cedric!’ Harry bellowed. ‘On your left!’
Cedric looked around just in time to hurl himself past the thing and avoid colliding with it but, in his haste, he tripped. Harry saw Cedric’s wand fly out of his hand, as a gigantic spider stepped into the path, and began to bear down upon Cedric.
‘Stupefy!’ Harry yelled again; the spell hit the spider’s gigantic, hairy black body but, for all the good it did, he might as well have thrown a stone at it; the spider jerked, scuttled around, and ran at Harry instead.
‘Stupefy! Impedimenta! Stupefy!’
But it was no use – the spider was either so large, or so magical, that the spells were doing no more than aggravating it – Harry had one horrifying glimpse of eight shining black eyes, and razor-sharp pincers, before it was upon him.
He was lifted into the air in its front legs; struggling madly, he tried to kick it; his leg connected with the pincers and next moment he was in excruciating pain – he could hear Cedric yelling ‘Stupefy!’ too, but his spell had no more effect than Harry’s – Harry raised his wand as the spider opened its pincers once more, and shouted, ‘Expelliarmus!’
It worked – the Disarming spell made the spider drop him, but that meant that Harry fell twelve feet onto his already injured leg, which crumpled beneath him. Without pausing to think, he aimed high at the spider’s underbelly, as he had done with the Skrewt, and shouted ‘Stupefy!’ just as Cedric yelled the same thing.
The two spells combined did what one alone had not – the spider keeled over sideways, flattening a nearby hedge, and strewing the path with a tangle of hairy legs.
‘Harry!’ he heard Cedric shouting. ‘You all right? Did it fall on you?’
‘No,’ Harry called back, panting. He looked down at his leg. It was bleeding badly. He could see some sort of thick, gluey secretion from the spider’s pincers on his torn robes. He tried to get up, but his leg was shaking badly and did not want to support his weight. He leant against the hedge, gasping for breath, and looked around.
Cedric was standing feet from the Triwizard Cup, which was gleaming behind him.
‘Take it, then,’ Harry panted to Cedric. ‘Go on, take it. You’re there.’
But Cedric didn’t move. He merely stood there, looking at Harry. Then he turned to stare at the Cup. Harry saw the longing expression on his face in its golden light. Cedric looked around at Harry again, who was now holding onto the hedge to support himself.
Cedric took a deep breath. ‘You take it. You should win. That’s twice you’ve saved my neck in here.’
‘That’s not how it’s supposed to work,’ Harry said. He felt angry; his leg was very painful, he was aching all over from trying to throw off the spider, and after all his efforts, Cedric had beaten him to it, just as he’d beaten Harry to ask Cho to the ball. ‘The one who reaches the Cup first gets the points. That’s you. I’m telling you, I’m not going to win any races on this leg.’
Cedric took a few paces nearer to the Stunned spider, away from the Cup, shaking his head.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Stop being noble,’ said Harry irritably. ‘Just take it, then we can get out of here.’
Cedric watched Harry steadying himself, holding tight to the hedge.
‘You told me about the dragons,’ Cedric said. ‘I would’ve gone down in the first task if you hadn’t told me what was coming.’
‘I had help on that, too,’ Harry snapped, trying to mop up his bloody leg with his robes. ‘You helped me with the egg – we’re square.’
‘I had help on the egg in the first place,’ said Cedric.
‘We’re still square,’ said Harry, testing his leg gingerly; it shook violently as he put weight on it; he had sprained his ankle when the spider had dropped him.
‘You should’ve got more points on the second task,’ said Cedric mulishly. ‘You stayed behind to get all the hostages. I should’ve done that.’
‘I was the only one who was thick enough to take that song seriously!’ said Harry bitterly. ‘Just take the Cup!’
‘No,’ said Cedric.
He stepped over the spider’s tangled legs to join Harry, who stared at him. Cedric was serious. He was walking away from the sort of glory Hufflepuff house hadn’t had in centuries.
‘Go on,’ Cedric said. He looked as though this was costing him every ounce of resolution he had, but his face was set, his arms were folded, he seemed decided.
Harry looked from Cedric to the Cup. For one shining moment, he saw himself emerging from the maze, holding it. He saw himself holding the Triwizard Cup aloft, heard the roar of the crowd, saw Cho’s face shining with admiration, more clearly than he had ever seen it before … and then the picture faded, and he found himself staring at Cedric’s shadowy, stubborn face.
‘Both of us,’ Harry said.
‘What?’
‘We’ll take it at the same time. It’s still a Hogwarts victory. We’ll tie for it.’
Cedric stared at Harry. He unfolded his arms. ‘You – you sure?’
‘Yeah,’ said Harry. ‘Yeah … we’ve helped each other out, haven’t we? We both got here. Let’s just take it together.’
For a moment, Cedric looked as though he couldn’t believe his ears; then his face split in a grin.
‘You’re on,’ he said. ‘Come here.’
He grabbed Harry’s arm below the shoulder, and helped Harry limp towards the plinth where the Cup stood. When they had reached it, they both held out a hand over one of the Cup’s gleaming handles.
‘On three, right?’ said Harry. ‘One – two – three –’
He and Cedric both grasped a handle.
Instantly, Harry felt a jerk somewhere behind his navel. His feet had left the ground. He could not unclench the hand holding the Triwizard Cup; it was pulling him onwards, in a howl of wind and swirling colour, Cedric at his side.
— CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO —
Flesh, Blood and Bone
Harry felt his feet slam into the ground; his injured leg gave way and he fell forwards; his hand let go of the Triwizard Cup at last. He raised his head.
‘Where are we?’ he said.
Cedric shook his head. He got up, pulled Harry to his feet, and they looked around.
They had left the Hogwarts grounds completely; they had obviously travelled miles – perhaps hundreds of miles – for even the mountains surrounding the castle were gone. They were standing instead in a dark and overgrown graveyard; the black outline of a small church was visible beyond a large yew tree to their right. A hill rose above them to their left. Harry could just make out the outline of a fine old house on the hillside.
Cedric looked down at the Triwizard Cup and then up at Harry.
‘Did anyone tell you the Cup was a Portkey?’ he asked.
‘Nope,’ said Harry. He was looking around the graveyard. It was completely silent, and slightly eerie. ‘Is this supposed to be part of the task?’
‘I dunno,’ said Cedric. He sounded slightly nervous. ‘Wands out, d’you reckon?’
‘Yeah,’ said Harry, glad that Cedric had made the suggestion rather than him.
They pulled out their wands. Harry kept looking around him. He had, yet again, the strange feeling that they were being watched.
‘Someone’s coming,’ he said suddenly.
Squinting tensely through the darkness, they watched the figure drawing nearer, walking steadily towards them between the graves. Harry couldn’t make out a face; but from the way it was walking, and holding its arms, he could tell that it was carrying something. Whoever they were, they were short, and wearing a hooded cloak pulled up over their head to obscure their face. And – several paces nearer, the space between them closing all the time – he saw that the thing in the person’s arms looked like a baby … or was it mer
ely a bundle of robes?
Harry lowered his wand slightly, and glanced sideways at Cedric. Cedric shot him a quizzical look. They both turned back to watch the approaching figure.
It stopped beside a towering marble headstone, only six feet from them. For a second, Harry and Cedric and the short figure simply looked at each other.
And then, without warning, Harry’s scar exploded with pain. It was agony such as he had never felt in all his life; his wand slipped from his fingers as he put his hands over his face; his knees buckled; he was on the ground and he could see nothing at all, his head was about to split open.
From far away, above his head, he heard a high, cold voice say, ‘Kill the spare.’
A swishing noise and a second voice, which screeched the words to the night: ‘Avada Kedavra!’
A blast of green light blazed through Harry’s eyelids, and he heard something heavy fall to the ground beside him; the pain in his scar reached such a pitch that he retched, and then it diminished; terrified of what he was about to see, he opened his stinging eyes.
Cedric was lying spread-eagled on the ground beside him. He was dead.
For a second that contained an eternity, Harry stared into Cedric’s face, at his open grey eyes, blank and expressionless as the windows of a deserted house, at his half-open mouth, which looked slightly surprised. And then, before Harry’s mind had accepted what he was seeing, before he could feel anything but numb disbelief, he felt himself being pulled to his feet.
The short man in the cloak had put down his bundle, lit his wand, and was dragging Harry towards the marble headstone. Harry saw the name upon it flickering in the wand-light before he was forced around and slammed against it.
TOM RIDDLE
The cloaked man was now conjuring tight cords around Harry, tying him from neck to ankles to the headstone. Harry could hear shallow, fast breathing from the depths of the hood; he struggled, and the man hit him – hit him with a hand that had a finger missing. And Harry realised who was under the hood. It was Wormtail.
The Goblet of Fire Page 54
