Year Four - Chapter Twenty-Seven

What defines a hero?

Imagine the situation. You know that there might be an illegal portkey attached to the cup. You also know that if you do not take the cup, someone else will. If you do take the cup, and someone else takes it with you, the risk is high they may die. At the same time, by taking them along you all might live. With that being said, there were countless other variables that one had to take into account.

Perhaps the portkey was smeared with contact poison. Perhaps there was a powerful dark curse on the cup. Perhaps someone had placed dangerous creatures like that damn Nundu that prowled the Forbidden Forest. Whatever the reason, I had to be far more paranoid than usual.

However, returning to the previously self-asked question, the trouble with being heroic is that heroism ceases to matter when you know what's supposed to happen. Sharing the cup between all participants, for example, is far less heroic if you've got reason to suspect it's not going to end well.

Thus, being a real hero would mean taking the cup for oneself, with the caveat that nobody would actually know just how heroic you were in selfishly winning.

"Incredible," I grumbled as I made my way to the start of the maze, "In order to be selfless, I actually need to be selfish."

Yet, it would be for naught. Krum would go first; the penalty I had received in the second part placing me only slightly behind him, but enough to give him the few minutes of advantage he needed to pick a direction and stick to it.

I could actually base my reaction on whether or not Krum ended up Imperiused, now that I thought about it. If someone wanted me elsewhere, perhaps in a quaint little graveyard, then they'd do their best to ensure my victory.

As such, as Ludo Bagman delivered the final rules, and my eyes were drawn to the judging committee, I couldn't help but ponder. There was no Minister of magic in attendance, no Cornelius Fudge; there was Crouch Senior, looking every bit as stern as he had been the last time I had seen him. The fact he looked as if he had eaten a sour lemon told me he had noticed Sirius' presence in the attendance rows.

There was quite the crowd, admittedly.

Tonks, Professor McGonagall, Hagrid and Professor Flitwick were all ready to begin their task of staying by the sides of the maze, willing to come in and rescue those who'd release a red spark. I dimly wondered which direction Krum would take first, and which would mark his doom.

Unless the unknown assailant would hit the quarter-Veela? Anything was possible, I reckoned.

"Good luck," I said as we took our positions, waiting for the blowing of the whistle that would signal Krum's start.

"Good luck," Fleur said in french. "Though you probably won't need it."

"I vill vin this," Krum said, then he smiled, "Don't cry. Gif autograff later."

I beamed him a smile, "I'll give you one too if I win, then."

He nodded, surprising me. "Vould haf asked."

Ludo blew the whistle, having properly riled up the crowd, and Krum rushed inside the maze with a look of pure determination. I began to earnestly tap my foot against the ground. My wand was tightly held, and I began to make the tip spin lazily. Smallish sparks left the tip.

The whistle blew again, and I dashed forward. The moment I stepped past the entrance, the crowd's noise died out to nothing. The stars twinkled overhead, the twenty feet of hedges stretching upwards, as far as my eyes could see. Deep below, I had an inkling I'd find roots without end. The only way through the hedge required to honestly make an attempt.

"In order to leave mazes, always pick the right," I muttered as I did just that. I knew that after a right, I had to take two lefts. What I hadn't counted on was the enemy in front of me. The humanoid head growled in my direction, threatening in a foreign language words I couldn't really parse.

Since they couldn't put a Blast-Ended Skrewt, Hagrid had upped the ante with a Manticore.

The Manticore in question reeled its Scorpion tail, and as I stared at the creature, only one thought pressed and pushed through my mind.

"They want to kill us, I guess," I muttered. It was either that, or something was off with the creature. It pounced, claws extended and fangs cruelly gleaming with saliva and froth. I twisted the wand, flicked it upwards, and stone swords wordlessly left the ground in a barrage of rocks. They struck the fur, matting it with the color of mud and blood, and the creature rolled to the side, angered even further.

"Or maybe," I continued, "Immunity to charms does not mean toughness of the skin," I growled as I dashed to the side, the scorpion tail's extension quite longer than expected, the wicked needle passing a inch away from my face. I could hear the creature run behind me, snarling and growing closer by the second. I swung my left hand, the tinkling of my bracelet heralding the arrival of my shield.

The stone shield floated ever so briefly in front of me, connected by a thin rock string to the bracelet itself. The impact shattered it, but sent the creature to reel back.

It coughed out chunks of rock, and then gasped as I flicked my wand in its direction. The stone within his mouth turned to mud, pouring through its throat as the creature clawed with teary eyes on the ground.

I then twisted the wand, and pushed it forth.

It made just a few hesitant steps, and then crumbled on the ground, wheezing for air from its nostrils.

"One less manticore in the world," I said flatly, looking at it, lifting my wand. "One less risk for someone else's life."

The stone within its mouth turned to steel. Lightning flickered across the tip of my wand.

"Fulgur Percutiens," I snarled, and the boom of thunder echoed through the hedges. The ground fumed from the point of impact, the Manticore vaporized. It could resist charms, but it couldn't resist Lightning Conjuration, apparently, and even if it could, the impact would send it to fly away.

I turned, and resumed my jogging. Manticores were dangerous to those without the common sense to face them. Hagrid could easily grab one, fling it away, or even bat it to death with a large metal pole. As I rushed on the maze's dirt, I glanced to the left every so often. In a matter of minutes, I came upon a fork I dimly remembered. Left. It was time to go left.

Turning left, I came face to face with an interesting nightmare.

There was a large mirror, silvery in appearance, propped against the hedges' wall. I briefly considered taking the other fork, since the unknown wasn't something I wished to face unless literally flung against it, but as things stood, something rocked in the back of my mind that I knew that mirror, and so who was I to refuse the challenge?

My steps brought me in front of it, and there I witnessed my older self, humming contently along with countless prizes on the bookshelves, and-and no, that wasn't what my heart truly desired. The mirror shifted. It was interesting to witness it shift, blur, morph, as if attempting to pick my heart's true desire and yet fail miserably at it. Was it because it didn't belong to this world? Was it because it stood locked behind knowledge I wasn't supposed to have?

Whatever the reason, the mirror of Erised showed me trite desires. Championship, money, Veelas, writing fame, and a lot of other things that, while definitely on my top ten list, weren't the things that would make me stop in front of it in wonder and amazement.

"Have a nice day," I said in the end to the mirror, stepping away from it. I reckoned the poor artifact was having a bad day, all things considered. As I moved past it, I cast wary glances around. I needed to take another left, but while I felt it should have been earlier, it instead turned out to be further away. Perhaps the hedges had moved? Whatever the reason, the next left I took brought me face to face with a small swarm of golden-eyed, sharply pointed noses, and leafy green creatures snarling in a mockery of the human tongue.

"Hurt! Hurt them! Yes, we can hurt them all! The filthy wizards!" they yipped at one another, gurgling happily and spitting out needle-like sharp sticks. I looked at them, held my wand in front of me, and as billowing, brilliant cerulean flames burst from the tip of it, their screams ceased to matter only a few seconds later, replaced by the wooshing of their ashes on the ground.

"I kind of feel bad for them," I muttered as I moved past the bundles of ash, "But then again, they pretty much-"

Something thunked against my back, making me reel and quickly turn with my wand in hand. That was how I came face to face with Fleur Delacour, her wand in hand and a perplexed expression on her face.

"B-But I hit you-" she mumbled, surprised.

"In the back," I agreed amenably, "I, on the other hand, prefer the front."

The pulsing blast of Expelliarmus slammed into her midriff with enough concussive force that the very hedges trembled, sending her to fly back a good while. She rolled on the ground, her wand flung somewhere in the maze.

I dreadfully sighed. Perhaps I shouldn't have hit her that strongly, but hey, she had hit me first in the back. My back shifted, awkwardly propping a stony manta-like head from my back. "Everything's all right, Shield-chan," I said with a giggle, "Go back to being the helpful Manta-shield you can be."

With a small movement of its flaps, the Manta-like Gargoyle did just that.

I sighed as I threw up some red sparks over Fleur's unconscious body, and then moved along. She'd be fine, at least she'd be out of the maze and out of troubles.

The next direction I had to take was a Right. I knew the Cup was supposed to be in sight, or at the very least just one turn away. At least, I was going from memory, so if I made a mistake...I'd have to just keep on going.

It was thus with a final turn left that I witnessed the Sphynx in all of its glory. I had even avoided the enchantments, funnily enough. Perhaps taking the right meant going against creatures and taking the left meant spells? Though I couldn't put it past the maze itself to be utterly biased.

The Sphinx gave me an enigmatic smile, and I, in turn, took a stance and pointed my wand at her. I didn't trust in my ability to solve riddles, and I didn't even remember which one she gave to Harry Potter to begin with.

"Every dawn begins with me.

At dusk I'll be the first you see,

and daybreak couldn't come without.

What midday centers all about.

Daisies grow from me, I'm told.

And when I come, I end all code,

but in the sun I won't be found.

Yet still, each day I'll be around.

I stand at the edge of say,

brightly you find me in the day.

towards the end of today,

if you think hard, find me you may.

This thing all things devours,

Birds, beasts, trees, and flowers.

Gnaws iron bites steel,

Grinds hard stones to meal,

Slays king, ruins town,

And beats high mountain down.

What am I?"

I looked at the Sphinx, and then I apologized.

The Sphinx didn't understand why I was apologizing, but then again she stopped understanding once the lightning bolt struck her straight in the face. Dead creatures couldn't understand anything, after all.

"I am honestly sorry about this," I said staring at its still twitching, lightning-coursing corpse, "But you can't really expect me to go easy on a monster with a Four-X classification," and then I moved past it.

I was reasonably sure that I was exaggerating with the killing, but at the same time, it wasn't like I had much of a choice. Rather than get hurt, wounded, or whatnot, it was highly better to just point my wand and get the enemy dead as soon as possible; afterwards, it was just a matter of apologizing. As long as you were still alive, apologizing was the better alternative to being dead.

Finally, a short distance away from the Sphinx, the maze opened up in a circular spot at the dead center of the maze.

There, the Champions' Cup rested. Thus, there I would wait for Viktor Krum's arrival.

"Let him not be Imperiused," I muttered. "So I can get the silly cup and walk away unscathed."

Whether he was or not became moot, however...

...for the moment he saw me, he opened fire with a Dark Curse.