Year Four - Chapter Twenty-Five

The Quidditch pitch was starting to resemble a maze, rather than the usual pitch. The magical fast-growing bushes would soon become leafy walls, preventing sight. It was nine o'clock in the night when I ended up witnessing the hedges, Fleur and Viktor both looking on, summoned by Bagman too.

We stood at the center of the smallish maze, the walls yet to even grow past our ankles. I glanced at them crisscrossing, humming ever so thoughtfully while Bagman droned on about them. Staring at the paths, it was easy to lose oneself over them. Some were dead-ends, and the way into the center came from three distinctively different paths.

"What if we just burn ourselves a path through the walls?" I asked, looking up at Bagman as he finished explaining. Ludo's smile remained cheerful.

"Well, I wouldn't put it past Dumbledore's apprentice to be capable of that, which is why we asked the Headmasters of the schools to put protective charms over the hedges. They will be burn-proof, slash-proof, herbicide-proof and pretty much indestructible until the end of the task. We will return the Quidditch pitch to how it was afterwards, you can rest assured we wouldn't want Hogwarts to be without its Quidditch cup next year!" as he said that with a beaming smile, my own eyes twinkled in return.

"So there could be a mishap and the maze might remain if something goes wrong?" I asked, innocently enough. I felt a chill cruise down my spine, a dark, foreboding chill. I quickly kept the smile up, even as I imagined quite a few people throw daggers at an imaginary bull's eye behind my back. It wouldn't do for them to know I had a hand in it, but perhaps if I got a peculiarly evil permanency charm to stick to the maze itself...

I'd probably die within the end of the week, by a frothing mad crowd of Quidditch fanatics, but it would be worth it, I reckoned.

"Well then," Ludo Bagman said, "If there aren't anymore questions, I suppose we can head back to the castle! Quite chilly out here, isn't it?" as he said that, and grinned towards Fleur, the quarter-Veela nodded. Though she was actually holding on to one of Hogwarts' extra cloaks, if with the added benefit of having been charmed to appear teal-colored. Even the Hogwarts' symbol had been replaced with Beauxbatons' one.

"I vill vin this," Viktor Krum said abruptly as we made our way back, looking straight at me. I looked back up at him, and raised an eyebrow. "You vill not humiliate me again."

I gave him a nod. "I look forward to it," I answered. "There is always something to learn from our defeats, just like there is something to learn from our friends, and our enemies." I gave him a charming wink. "How's the Hogwarts' experience been? Had fun?"

Viktor's expression seemed slightly startled, but he then slowly answered me to the best of his linguistic abilities. As we reached the point of separation, I waved both Fleur and Viktor goodbye. It would be interesting to watch what the maze would turn out, both in terms of obstacles and in terms of the other contestants' ability.

Right. Left. Left. Right. Left. Right. Straight. Straight. Right. Left. Left. Right. Left. Right. Straight. Straight. I inwardly thought until I quietly summoned a parchment to scribble it all down. Unless the hedges grew even more, and blocked the path I had laid out in my head, this would lead to the cup.

I always did wonder why nobody thought about using the opportunity of witnessing the hedges still small to mentally plan a path through it, but then again, Wizarding Logic.

"So, final task's a maze," I said as I found my gang doing their end of the year studying. I had been excused from the final exams. Somehow, though, I had a feeling there were Outstandings waiting for me across all subjects. "It took the Quidditch pitch. Might be impossible to remove the hedges depending on how they're rendered indestructible."

Amanda's eyes rose, and they stared at me with the same soulless expression of a Necron Overlord seeking out the enemy of its Pharaoh. I nervously smiled in her direction. "But they'll do their best," I added in a hushed whisper, quietly flexing my fingers to pull to me a book on mythical creatures. I needed to know how to fight, and kill, Manticores and Sphynxes. It was within the realms of Hagrid to go grab a Manticore since the Skrewts had all died, and if not those, then a Firecrab.

And while I could reason with the Sphynx, I couldn't do the same with a Manticore.

"So, what if there are spells?" Wayne asked, and I lifted my gaze up to meet his. "I mean, you're pretty much capable of facing a dragon, but what about spells?"

I raised both eyebrows. "I should avoid them when possible," I muttered. "But if I can't, then..." I turned thoughtful. "Suppose I need to swing by Madame Pomfrey, and ask her about the most common curse effects and how to deal with them."

"Potions," Megan said instead by my side, in a hushed whisper, "You should have some potions too. They can really be useful in a pinch."

I nodded, and the image of twin swords on my back, of which one silver for monsters, popped up. I only needed the correct Human Transfiguration spell, and then I could become a Witcher, a hunter of monsters.

Though I doubted the swords would work against the tough hide of a Firecrab.

Madame Pomfrey was quite surprised to see me come in without the slightest scratch, and even double-checked I had no internal injuries before letting me explain why I was there.

Once I did, she gave me a long, very long indeed, list of books. I pulled them out of Hogwarts' library, much to Madam Pince's chagrin. I sighed as I flipped through the pages of some of them, quietly letting the silent atmosphere of the Hall of Shadows get to me.

In the silence of the wrinkling pages, my eyes glanced to the crackling firepit, and to the pipes that connected directly to Hogwarts' own chimneys. I had become Bob the Builder, or well, Shade the Magical Construction Worker.

I returned to my reading, when the Draghul by the door craned its neck. I glanced at it, and furrowed my brows. It seemed ironic, but I had set the Draghul on the left of the door to crane its neck if it heard noises by the Room of Requirements' exit in the sewers, and the one on the right if it felt noises directly beyond the main door. The one that craned its neck was the one on the right, which meant that whoever stood behind the door had made a noise, but hadn't come through the Room of Requirements, as much as through the gauntlet of Charms.

And whoever they were, they had even understood there were illusions shaped like walls and actual, quite thin walls to keep out people with small pivot-like doors barely indistinguishable from the walls themselves.

I hadn't put any pitfalls or traps in them though; didn't want anyone to get hurt, even by mistake.

There was a knock.

It was a very polite knock.

"Who is it?" I asked from my armchair, the voice echoing all the way through the hall.

"Your Headmaster, Mister Umbrus," Albus Dumbledore serene voice came through, and I hastily obliged opening the door and setting the Gargoyles down.

Albus Dumbledore looked around, quite surprised at the new state of the room from the last time he had looked at it, and then exhaled.

"Well, Mister Umbrus," he said in the end, "I do hope you have some tea."

I awkwardly looked at the Headmaster. "I actually do," I said in the end, "But they're not lemony; it's Earl Grey."

"That will do just fine," the Headmaster said, acknowledging my words. I hastily proceeded to prep another armchair and place a table in the middle of them both.

I watched as the headmaster took a sip of the tea, and waited for the reason of such a visit.

Needless to say, I was anxious there was something I had done wrong.

"Mister Umbrus," he said, "have you already planned your Summer Holidays?"

I exhaled in relief, and shook my head.

I really shouldn't have been relieved.

For as it turned out, I would not be enjoying them at the end of the year to come.

Apparently Dumbledore had learned from his mistakes, and rather than send a promising orphan back to a Muggle orphanage, had decided to offer me an interesting proposition. It was nothing so grandiose as to actually be his apprentice, of course. It was something far milder, and far more interesting.

His brother needed a helping hand at his pub.

Of course, who was I to refuse?

It meant I'd be able to stay at Hogsmeade, and considering the secret passage that led to Hogwarts from it, it wasn't that bad of a proposition.

Though I dimly recalled something about cleaning problems at the Hog's Head pub...

...but how bad could they be, after I cleaned up centuries of muck from Basilisk excrement?