Second Task : A Game (5).

Loki looked at Harry and the four monsters and flicked his wand. A sudden cloud of dust rose out of the ground underneath Harry.

"Did you all see that!?" Bagman narrated with surprise.

"After The Beauxbatons champion Fleur Delacour and The Drumstrang champion Viktor Krum abandoned their comrades it seems like One of the Hogwarts' champions is abandoning the other! It seems like Loki has betraye-"

Bagman's words were stuck in his throat as the dust cleared and so was the audience's voice.

Even the judges were not spared after they saw what Loki had done.

Dumbledore especially had a prominent smile on his face.

"HARRY!!!!!! RUN!!!!!!!" Loki shouted as he tossed a red key that had the name Harry Potter to the giant in front of him while he used the shadow tentacles to pull his own key to him and bind himself to the Golem he had turned Harry into.

Harry felt strange. His hands suddenly felt heavy and his legs felt like tree stumps instead of flesh and bone.

Harry was encased in a sand mech with a small viewing window to see out of. Literally. 

Loki had used the sand from the ground he had exploded and moulded it to form a giant five-meter-tall mech that Harry was currently piloting.

All held together and lubricated generously by Loki's shadows.

"Harry!! Don't make us late!!! Run!!!! I can't keep this up for long!!" Loki shouted again, this time from the giant mech's shoulder.

Harry *gulped* as he felt the mech around himself and took the first step.

*THUD*

It was surprisingly easy to move.

'Is he animating the mech to move as I want it to move?' Harry thought surprised.

That guess was correct since Loki observed Harry's thoughts in his Body of Heart and Mind and applied the correct animation to the large sand mech as Harry intended it to move.

*THUD*

With the first step taken, Harry moved his legs again. This time the movement felt even smoother than before.

Seeing the giant sand mech, the lava golem was the first to attack.

It raised its hands and slammed it to the ground, creating large fissures from which Lava erupted. But to Harry all this meant nothing.

Once he realised that the Lava couldn't damage the Mech faster than Loki was transfiguring it to remove the damages, he broke into a run.

Each step Harry took caused the entire arena to tremble.

Harry's first move was to rush to the Lava Golem. Once in front of it, he picked up the golem by its waist and tossed it at the Lethifold about to attack them since none of them could sustain a Patronus in their current states.

With a giant Lava Golem coming towards it, the Lethifold was unable to move in time and was immediately thrashed by it, landing on a random wall and ending up pinned to the ground by the golem.

Next Harry looked at the Wampus Cat that had its fur bristled.

The sense of danger the cat felt from the giant mech was not small, yet it couldn't retreat since something in its body and mind wanted it to fight to the bitter end.

So Harry quickly picked up the cat and started swinging it by its tail above his head.

And with a precise throw, Harry launched the cat right at the Druid that was about to try shooting vines at the giant mech to try and stop them by using a net.

"Run you fool!! They'll respawn if you kill them and I won't be able to fight then!" Loki reminded, prompting Harry to break out of his admiration of the mech as he took a dashing stance and immediately broke out into a sprint.

Harry cared not for any walls set up between the capture point and the respawn point. He just ran through everything like a bulldozer.

And very soon they were at the enemy respawn point. 

Fleur and Krum were flabbergasted. Krum's mouth hung wide open as if someone had broken his jaw and Fleur tripped on her shoes as she stepped back to avoid becoming a paste under the mech.

As Harry and Loki broke through the last of the large walls a large dry and dying tree holding four people came into view.

Loki dismembered the mech and panted a little because of the ridiculous amount of spirituality it had taken to do what he'd just done.

Harry patiently waited but kept his wand pointed at Fleur and Krum who were looking at them through the hole in the wall.

"You can go first Loki. I think you deserve it. At least I think you do after letting me become a real tank…" Harry stated calmly with a bit of humour in his tone.

Loki looked up and saw Harry laughing slightly causing him to break out laughing too.

Loki gave Harry and quick fist bump and walked to the large dry and dying tree.

"What am I supposed to do to it? Give it my key? Will it attack me if I go close to it?" Loki asked randomly and Harry shrugged. He truly didn't know what would happen.

Loki couldn't care less about this tournament and simply threw his key at the tree.

Surprisingly, the tree opened a mouth and ate the key with a sickening crunch.

'I guess it'd have attacked only those who didn't have the key and tried saving their hostages.'

'But mine's Daphne? Seriously? Isn't that like really embarrassing? Why'd they choose Fleur's little sister for her? Unfair, I love Elane more than Daphne anyway…I mean like.'

Daphne who was unconscious was slowly let down by the tree. She slowly opened her eyes and came awake. Then she looked at Loki and smiled.

"Won the bet." Daphne said with a smirk as she searched around the audience for someone in particular.

"Seriously? You and Tory bet if I'd save you? Can't you trust your prince charming even a little bit?"

Daphne rolled her eyes good naturedly.

"I thought you'd leave me alone telling me it was the right punishment for taking part in this farce!" Daphne shouted rapidly and Loki just shook his head before he felt the Portkey in his pockets activate.

He quickly held Daphne's hands and they vanished from the spot they were just standing in, appearing back in the tent for the champions with Madam Pomfrey ready on standby to heal them.

Daphne stumbled a little as she reoriented herself from the sudden teleportation after being unconscious for so long. Madam Pomfrey walked over and gave them a quick checkup before looking at Loki with a smile as she spoke happily.

"That was a good show you put on out there. I'm glad those fools from the other schools will fear you and wonder what'll happen in the competition now. Good job teaching traitors how it's done!"

Madam Pomfrey then left Daphne and Loki alone as she went to check on the others who were slowly appearing.

Daphne looked at Loki and asked with a confused look on her face, "What did you do?"

But Loki just smiled.

"Why do you wanna know? Did I just steal your heart after saving the princess who was trapped in the tower by an evil wizard?"

Daphne just frowned and punched Loki's shoulder lightly.

"Stop it with that stuff. It's unbearable when you say it for some reason." Daphne said cryptically but the meaning was lost on Loki.

Instead, he asked her something else.

"Why did you take part in this anyway? I thought you'd have avoided it because of your pride as Heiress Greengrass?"

Daphne shook her head quickly, "No. I didn't want to, but Mom asked me to, and she said that it was going to be a good event for me."

Loki frowned.

"This? Good? Why?"

And Daphne just shrugged her shoulders while attempting to keep her face away from a blush while simultaneously cursing at Loki for being dense.

Finally, after a few excruciating seconds where Loki was pondering about things while staring at her, Daphne finally saw Hermione enter the tent and walked to her as they talked to Madam Pomfrey and tried helping her with the checkup of the other champions.

Loki on the other hand was a lot more analytical.

'It'd be something good for Daphne?'

'This might form a connection between the two of us that might force me to help her out sometime in the future?'

'But helping Heiress Greengrass?'

'What could I possibly do that they couldn't themselves?'

'....this…I feel like I'm getting roped into something I don't understand very well.'

________________________________________________________________________________________________

A/N : Join my Patreon (p@treon.com/hooin_kyoma_au) to read 20 chapters ahead for just $3.