Ch 32 HP 9

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Carl sat down for breakfast the morning of the Second Task and looked around at his friends who were there, noticing a missing face.

"Anyone seen Hermione this morning?" Carl asked. Carl receive a negative answer from everyone. Looking around he saw some worried faces for Hermione among his friends. "Well, it looks like they chose Hermione to be the hostage for this task as the thing I would sorely miss. Bunch of wankers." Carl growled as he gave Luna a hug to comfort her after he noticed her stricken expression.

Carl had known it was coming, and told all his friends about the possibility of being a hostage, and thought he was okay with it. He had even discussed the high probability with his Yule Ball dates. But now that it happened, he was surprised at how angry he was at it actually happening.

Reading about the Tournament on the pages of a book for kids while he was safe didn't really convey the sense of urgency and worry that was inherent in the situation. While Carl had been reading the story he knew that the author wouldn't kill off one of the main characters. But this was real life, and he had no real guarantees that something wouldn't go wrong.

So he was eager for the task to start so he could get Hermione out of that damned lake.

Carl showed up at the lakeshore early with his friends wearing board shorts, flip flops, and a short sleeved scuba top. His wand was in his holster on his right arm next to his forearm bracers, and he had a knife strapped to each of his calves. He was rocking the warming charms to keep from feeling the cold.

He spent the time until the task started by watching the crowd trickling in, hating every second that he had to wait for the task to get started. Looking at the faces of the crowd, he thought how the second task at the lake would be incredibly boring for everyone in the audience, since they sat lakeside for an hour with nothing to look at. But then he thought how they were all here to watch what amounted to gladiator games, and his anger returned.

Fleur and Victor arrived. Carl saw that both his fellow champions were pretty worried about their hostages in the lake, although Fleur seemed extraordinarily worried about her sister. Carl knew just how they felt.

Carl had made sure his two competitors knew about the task early on, so they could get all the preparation time they needed. Carl had made the offer a few days ago for all three of them to travel as a group to get it done quickly, but Victor and Fleur's pride apparently made them choose to complete the task solo. Carl wondered how they thought about it now that the moment was upon them and one of their loved ones were in danger.

Carl wasn't too bothered at their rejection at the time, since he hadn't made the offer for his own benefit. He wasn't too invested in the idea, he was just kind of playing around with the different tropes and plot points he remembered reading from different Harry Potter stories. In some of the stories the hostages were in real danger of dying since the safety spells weren't well done. So while he may let things play out as they would, he wouldn't be leaving any of the hostages below the lake. Especially now that everything felt more real, and not just an abstract idea.

And now, just before the start of the event, Carl was wracked with questions and concerns. Would Hermione be safe? Carl looked over at Fleur. What about Fleur? In some of the stories told, she lost limbs or was seriously maimed or even died in this event because her fire/air nature greatly weakened her under the cold water.

He was torn between competing desires. On the one hand he wanted to go straight to the hostages and help Hermione immediately. On the other, he wanted to make sure nothing happened to Fleur while under water.

The task was set to start at 10:00 a.m. so he waited impatiently, thinking over what he should do, while watching as the audience members finished filing in. He was anxious to get this over with. It's not that he didn't trust Dumbledore's spell work to keep Hermione safe, but he really didn't. Things and accidents were always a possibility, so he couldn't be complacent.

Finally the time arrived, and with a cannon blast from Bagman's wand, the second task began. Carl cast a bubble head charm on himself at the same time Fleur did, while Victor did his partial shark transformation.

Carl then did a 1 ½ flip off the pier to dive into the water headfirst. He had been planning that small action for some time before the task started, so despite his worry to get moving, he still showed off a bit, and it gave him some nice momentum to dive down. If that was the extent of the show that the audience got, he felt sorry for them for wasting their time. Oh, no wait. He didn't really feel sorry for them.

At the last moment Carl decided that instead of rushing for the hostages, he would shadow Fleur. She was also one of his friends, and according to the way the plot wanted to go, she might very well get in trouble while being attacked underwater. He wasn't willing to chance that she might be hurt badly or die without intervention on his part.

While keeping his distance from Fleur, Carl kept track of her progress as he swam. After a short 10 minutes, he saw that he was right to shadow her. Carl saw Fleur entangled with a large swarm of Grindylows. She had swum too close to some underwater vegetation that was hiding them, so they were able to ambush her before she could put up a good defense. He swam closer and started blasting the little critters away.

His attacks gave Fleur the room she needed to maneuver and resume her defense. Between the two of them, the Grindylows were driven off quickly. He looked over Fleur, and saw that aside from some light scratches that would have been worse if he didn't help her, she looked fine.

"Thanks, Carl. You came at just the right moment." Fleur smiled at Carl.

Carl smiled back reassuringly at his fellow competitor, somewhat enjoying the look of relief on Fleur's face. While their voices were muffled from being underwater, the bubblehead charm allowed them to communicate.

"Well, shall we go and rescue our hostages, lovely lady?" Carl asked, managing to maintain his calm façade.

"Indeed, Carl. I have rethought the idea of journeying together. Let us make short work of the obstacles in our way." Fleur stuck to the formal phrasing. It somehow seemed appropriate in the moment.

"I've got a tracker on Hermione on the off chance she was my hostage. Follow me." Carl then said, as he turned to swim directly to the Merfolk village.

It was only another few minutes until they arrived at the outskirts of the village. Thankfully they were able to avoid any other obstacles by remaining clear of the lake bed. Even in the books, there wasn't much for Harry to fight against, so Carl wasn't too surprised they made it just fine.

Once in the village and seeing the crowds of Merfolk, and the hostile and angry looks the Merfolk were sending Fleur's way, Carl figured there was some truth to the idea that Veela and Merfolk didn't get along. He was glad he and Fleur could watch each other's backs here.

Carl kept his wand ready and a wary eye out for sudden attacks. The Merfolk guards kept their distance at first, likely due to Carl's ready stance and apparent willingness to fight them. They soon arrived at the large rock pillar the hostages were tied to.

Hermione, Gabrielle, and a girl that Carl recognized as Victor's date to the ball were tied to a large stone pillar, unconscious. He was relieved to see there wasn't any problems with the spells keeping them in stasis, and they seemed fine.

"Here, Fleur. I'll stand guard while you get them free." Carl palmed one of his knives, and handed it off to Fleur while keeping guard against the Merfolk, who looked increasingly angry. One of them started floating a little too closely, so Carl angrily sent a depulso his way, flinging him away.

"Back off, bitches. Just try me, and see what you get!" Carl yelled, and bared his teeth in an angry scowl. While the Merfolk didn't seem very intimidated, since they had numbers on their side, the group was a little more wary now that they saw how quickly and easily Carl would curse them if they got close. Carl was just fine with them hesitating to attack. If they truly did attack, he wasn't going to hold back.

"They are free, Carl. Come, take your Hermione and we shall depart." Carl heard from Fleur behind him.

"Sounds good, Fleur." Without turning his back on the Merfolk, Carl reached back and grabbed Hermione around the waist with his off wand hand and started swimming, keeping pace with Fleur.

Once they got away from the Merfolk village, and no more of them were around, Carl relaxed a little bit. He turned to Fleur. "Is it just me, or do they not like you?" He sarcastically asked.

"Yes, our people have a long history of conflict. Whoever chose my sister as a hostage to put in the lake with no guards against the Merfolk will pay for their arrogance." Fleur darkly spat. "If we had not rescued her, there was a good chance she would have had, as they say, an accident."

Carl scowled at that thought. "It's one thing to put the champions in danger like that, we signed up for it. But for them to do the same to people we care for, especially in your little sisters case, is unforgivable. Let me know if I can do anything to help." He offered.

Fleur flashed him a smile. "Thank you, Carl."

They then turned their efforts back to swimming back to the docks. They kept well above the lake bottom, having realized that just about anything could be hiding there. Fleur and Carl arrived at the docks with 15 minutes to spare on the time limit. Once they broke the surface, the spell keeping Hermione and Gabrielle unconscious broke, and the two hostages started shivering from the cold. Carl and Fleur thoughtfully put warming charms on them as they made their final approach to the docks.

Madam Pomfrey was there to cast some drying charms on the four before wrapping them up in warmed blankets and thrusting mugs of hot chocolate in their hands. Her angry mutters against whoever decided the tasks, "first dragons, now swimming in the lake in February? Imbeciles!" greatly amused Carl.

Victor arrived just a few minutes after the time limit. While he had been able to breathe underwater thanks to his half shark transformation, he didn't have the tail of a shark so he had been stuck at his slow human swimming speed, and had had some difficulty gnawing away the ropes on his hostage, thus falling into last place.

Fleur and Gabrielle, with their parents blessing, joined Carl and his friends as they celebrated in their clubhouse for a few hours afterwards. Everyone seemed to think Gabrielle was the cutest thing, even if her rapid French was difficult to understand, and she was pretty much adopted as everyone's little sister.

When the party ended, little Gabrielle didn't want the fun to end, but she had to be returned to her parents at the end of the day, no matter how much fun she was having.

While everyone was busy at one point in the party, Carl contacted his journalist "friend", Skeeter. He wasn't too happy with the pointless use of hostages in the second task, and wanted to hurt those who made that decision. So he gave Skeeter the goal of giving the ministry and those who chose the task a black eye.

It wasn't nearly as satisfying as literally punching them in the face, but it would have to do for now. At the very least it might push some of the wizards in the ministry to think twice about stupid schemes if they were aware they would get castigated by the public for their stupidity.

Over the next few days, Carl followed the news closely as he saw a series of articles talking about the political concessions the British Ministry gave to the French Ministry. Carl sighed. That wasn't exactly what he'd been hoping for. He was hoping to see some people arrested. But in hindsight, that was rather naïve of him to expect the whole situation not to devolve into politics.

And while the British Ministry might give up some concessions, actually arresting those responsible due to something that only could have happened was not something the British Ministry decision makers were willing to do. It would hurt their political capitol too much.

Several nights later Carl had finished his fourth set of different ward stones to try reading the wards on Slytherin's vault. The past three attempts had all been counter attacked by whatever ward scheme Slytherin had placed. Carl hadn't given up yet, and kept researching the theories and principles behind the Arithmancy probes.

The previous three attempts he had basically just copied what others had done before. But this fourth attempt he had left the beaten path and changed the method to be a bit more sideways in the way it gathered the information. It was experimental, but he was hoping the more passive method would not trigger the wards that Slytherin put up.

It did make him wonder sometimes. Slytherin had put up the defenses 1000 years ago. How were the wards still so good compared to the modern techniques?

After some thought, and remembering many of the stories he had read in his original life, Carl came to a startling realization. It was bloody obvious, but he hadn't thought of it before now. The wizarding world and knowledge wasn't like the modern muggle science world.

Hell, even in the muggle world, information wasn't freely shared like some idealists liked to believe. Information, recipes, patents, all different kinds of knowledge that were used to make money were tightly guarded. Freely sharing that information was not something that is done.

Sure, many muggles have the idea that information should be shared, but that's only applied practically to very basic knowledge. Advanced knowledge has to be paid for and protected since it was used to make money. And governments and businesses safeguard the knowledge they need to operate. Information was not a universally and freely shared commodity.

And that kind of attitude wasn't new. There were all kinds of stories of lost wizarding civilizations, like Atlantis, that was a marvel of magical feats. But all that knowledge was lost when they sank into the ocean.

Merlin was reputed to be the most powerful Wizard in history, and no one has matched his feats and knowledge since. Just because one wizard or civilization in the past knew how to do something, didn't mean it got passed on to their current knowledge base. They more often than not jealously horded their valuable knowledge.

All these puzzle pieces led Carl to the realization that the general knowledge of wizard kind didn't necessarily advance steadily over the years like muggle tech had over the past 100 some years. Even today, the wizarding world's ministry kept a tight hold on the reins on what was considered appropriate magic and what was forbidden Just another example of much knowledge being restricted.

Which meant that there was probably a lot of magical knowledge out there that had never been brought into Hogwarts wards. For Slytherin to have researched some particularly powerful wards and never pass the knowledge on wasn't that unheard of, really. It made sense now why he was having so much trouble with Slytherin's old wards.

Carl landed easily when Rover flamed them to the chamber of secrets. Smiling at how convenient having special transport was, Carl once more made his way inside the mouth of the statue.

He carefully placed his wardstones, making sure they were aligned properly to work as a whole while scanning the wards. The mathematics of magic that he had been learning had greatly increased his knowledge of how magic interacted with other magic and materials.

Due to his studies in Arithmancy at Hogwarts, he was actually starting to understand how the rituals he used back in the BtVS world worked. Before he had basically been putting his magical coin in the cosmic vending machine. He had no real understanding of just why it worked. He just knew that if he added certain ritual ingredients along with his magic, he got results.

Once Carl had double checked the placement of his ward stones, verifying that everything was in place, and making sure that Rover was on standby so he wouldn't get caught in the backlash, Carl activated the diagnostic stones and began feeding them magic. He glared at his wardstones, just daring them to not do the job this time.

After a minute of watching his activated wards soak up the ambient magic of Slytherin's defenses, Carl let his expression relax. It seemed that fourth time was the charm. He smiled as the parchment that was starting to fill up with the arithmancy formulas that represented Slytherin's ward scheme.

"Success!" Carl crowed in triumph. "Take that you crusty old bastard!" He laughed at his success, and he laughed at himself for taking such pleasure in defeating someone who was already 1000 years dead and gone.

He hadn't even broken into the vault yet, so he shouldn't feel quite so happy. But whatever, Carl still felt good about his accomplishment.

Carl spent a good 45 minutes channeling his magic into his ward scheme while it mapped out the arithmancy of Slytherin's ward scheme. When he finally had everything recorded, he turned off his ward stones and packed them up. He then made a duplicate of the results. He would work with the copy so he didn't accidentally ruin the original results and have to repeat the performance.

After he was all packed up, he got Rover to give him a lift back to his room, before Carl sent Rover off on his way to play.

Looking over the many pages of Arithmancy, Carl sighed. This would be the long and tedious part. Sighing despondently once more, his earlier excitement having completely drained away, Carl picked up the first page and began the time intensive task of crunching numbers to figure out just what made up Slytherin's Jenga tower, and how he was going to dismantle it.

One Tuesday evening at the end of April while Carl and his friends were doing their animagus meditations. Carl finally got to the point where he was ready to shift to his animal form. By that time everyone had found out what their base animal was.

Luna had actually been the first to discover their animal through the meditations. Carl figured it was because she just had that open and accepting nature that made it easy for her to discover herself. But everyone had followed along within a short time, seeming to be spurred on by Luna's success.

"Okay, I'm ready to give it a go, guys. Give me some space to make my transformation." Carl said when their small snack break was over during their study time. He didn't want to interrupt anyone's meditations or exercises so he waited until everyone had paused for a bit.

Carl gathered his magic and ran it through his body in the now familiar pathway while visualizing his change. His body changed quickly and without pain. In his place stood a very large black panther.

Carl easily stood up on four legs and stretched, completely comfortable in his new form. It was a benefit of the long and tedious method, that when he finally shifted forms his magic was already adapted to the new body shape.

Carl looked at himself, and was pretty surprised at the sheer size of his animal form. He knew he was a panther, but he didn't expect to be so large. As he stood on all four paws it looked like he was nearly five feet tall at the shoulder. He was a freaking huge cat. Where did the extra mass come from? Magic, of course.

He settled back on his haunches and raised his front right paw. He flexed his muscles and the large claws unsheathed. He admired the sharp and deadly natural weapons for a moment before resting his paw back on the ground and looked around at his friends surrounding him.

Carl quite enjoyed the exclamations of surprise his friends had at seeing his form. He heard an exclamation of "Kitty!" before Luna launched herself at him, landing on his back and clamped on, rubbing her face up and down on his fur. Thankfully he had control of his instincts and didn't freak out over her sudden actions.

Carl then settled down on his side, lounging like a cat while Luna draped herself over him. Hermione was the next to approach, settling in next to his head and petting him behind the ears. It felt amazingly good to be petted while in his panther form. The rest of the group then got close, emboldened by the control he had and that he wasn't lashing out at anyone.

Now that he was in his animagus form, he instinctually got a sense of just what type of cat he was and what his abilities were. He was a Shadow Panther. He could dive into shadows and travel the shadow paths from location to location. He could also cloak himself in shadows and silence, enabling him to be a better hunter.

He would have to spend some time in the next few days practicing those skills at night when he had time. He wanted full control over them.

Eventually he changed back to his human form, much to Luna's disappointment. He already had incredible senses from his body mod, but they were still human senses ramped up. Now that he had fully embraced his animagus form and animal senses, he felt like his senses were a broadened a bit. It felt like a bit of the cat transferred over to him.

Over the next few days he soon discovered that he now had a bit of the animal brain and instincts needed to have a different perspective on different smells, sounds, and tastes. When he was around other wizards and witches in the Great Hall, he found himself irritated by the strong artificial scents of some of the perfumes that various witches wore. They smelled so fake, and disgusting, they made his nose itch.

His sense of taste was affected too. He gained a greater appreciation for the taste for meat. He could practically taste the difference from animal to animal, and could likely pick them out of a blind taste test. Even the smell of raw meat was a bit more appealing to him. He tried eating some in his panther form, and found it was de-licious.

But the thing that impressed Carl the most was that as delicious as his Root Beer was to him as a human, it was damn near Nectar of the Gods to him in his animal form. Words could not describe just how delicious it was.

It was very delicious.

Over the next month and a half, the people in Carl's group started to change into their animagus forms one at a time. The WDS always made a big production of it, since it was such an accomplishment.

It was a lot of fun each time someone perfected their form, seeing how they acted in their animal forms, and watching as some of the traits of their animal forms carried over to their human forms. Carl was especially amused each time he set out a bowl of Root Beer for them to try in their animal forms. Watching his friends in their animal forms acting like he'd just set out liquid Ambrosia, laughing as they lost all dignity in their haste to slurp up his Root Beer was especially amusing.

While some of the group had appreciated his Root Beer before, they never seemed to really give it the respect Carl felt it deserved. Hey, if a multi-dimensional god like being like Spere 037 thought it was tasty, then it was officially tasty, dammit. Carl felt quite smug at seeing that they all finally appreciated his Root Beer as much as he did.

Luna was the first after Carl to turn into her animagus form. She turned into a magical White Rabbit that was nearly the size of a St. Bernard, and she had a single sharp pointy horn on her head. Carl wasn't sure what her abilities as a rabbit were, but she became incredibly sneaky even in her human form. He got the sense that she was somehow linked to water, but he wasn't sure just why.

Carl just about busted a gut though when Luna declared that her animal form wasn't a bunny, but a Crumpled Horn Snorkack. That could explain why she was so sneaky, since her supposed imaginary creatures were sneaky enough that most wizards and witches thought they didn't exist.

Hermione had the form of a golden Lioness. Her form felt like it was connected to the Earth to Carl. Her cat form was as large as Carl's panther form, which she was amused by for some reason. Carl and Hermione had a fun time playing around and wrestling in their cat forms, with Luna often pouncing on them out of nowhere in her Snorkack form, bouncing on them a few times and then disappearing before they could retaliate.

Harry of course was a bird linked with the winds. It made sense he would have an avian form, since he was such a natural flyer. He had a falcon form that stood nearly four feet tall. It was a very large bird, and he was fast in the air, they discovered.

Neville was a truly massive bear. When he first changed, he bumped his head against the classroom's ceiling. Carl sensed that Neville's bear form seemed to be linked to plants in some way. It made sense to Carl, because Neville's biggest gift was his green thumb. Neville had already been growing quite confident through the efforts of his friends over the years, but after finding his animal form his quiet confidence seemed to become somehow deeper and more dangerous. Carl didn't think anyone who woke Neville's anger would fare very well, like waking a sleeping bear.

Susan's form was an enormous Red Fox that had two tails. Her form seemed to be linked to fire. It reminded him of Fiona, and he spent some time remembering his time in the Pokemon world. He was still missing his Pokemon and was upset that he couldn't bring them out to join him in the Farmville world. They would have enjoyed having a near constant assault of animals to hunt, for entertainment if for nothing else.

Hannah was amusingly proud to have the form of a badger. She was a Hufflepuff through and through. The sheer size of her badger form was intimidating, since a normal one foot tall badger could back down bears, her three and a half foot tall badger that seemed linked to earth was not one to mess with.

Daphne's lightning linked horse was a creature of beauty. She seemed pleased with her form, she liked to run in her animagus form, and she could move.

Tracy's form of a mongoose amused Carl, since she was a Slytherin. Instead of being a snake, she was a snake hunter. Her two foot tall form was quick as lightning, and nothing to mess with.

Blaise was one of the three that had a bird form. He was a large Crow, linked to earth of all things. An earth linked bird, it just amused Carl at the dichotomy.

Ginny's form was a very large Weasel, that was also linked with the earth. She got teased a bit for being a Weasley Weasel, but took it with good grace. She had come into her own as she was integrated into the group, and no longer showed her clumsy, ditzy side from being dazzled by the celebrity in their midst.

Fred and George had red chimpanzee forms that Carl swore were linked to chaos. He swore to the heavens that if they started flinging poo, very bad things would happen to them.

Fleur was the last bird of their group. Carl thought it made sense that she would have a full avian form, since she already had a partial change due to her Veela heritage. Her white bird form linked to fire was absolutely gorgeous. She was as large as Harry's bird form, and it was entertaining to see the three large birds wheeling and flying in the air when they finally got outside.

Every one of their animagus forms were much larger, and felt much more powerful, than normal animals. Needless to say, they kept their forms secret for the time being from the ministry.

Once the last person in the group accomplished their transformation, they threw themselves a party to celebrate. They held their party in the forbidden forest, animal forms only. Carl had a lot of fun running wild in his panther form with his friends. With the number of extremely large magical animals playing around, nothing else in the forest bothered them during their party, afraid to be targeted.

And it was a riot. As they played, everyone started to learn a bit of how they could express magic while in their animagus forms. Magic related to their elemental affinity were quite easy to make use of.

Carl found that being able to travel through the shadows was nice for a shortcut. The amount of ground that he could travel was shortened, or had shortcuts, while he was in the shadow paths. So he could travel a great distance in only a fraction of the time.

From then on the group would occasionally sneak out at night to really let loose with their animal forms. Carl even hunted some of the acromantula he found. His animal instincts made the hunt fun, and he actually thought the spiders were a bit tasty, like lobsters.

Carl also made sure to catch some live small acromantula to introduce to his Farmville farms so he could add them to the animals he could produce. Being able to produce their silk would be a welcome addition to his finances. He had already been snagging cuttings from different plants they went over in Herbology to add to his farms. There was no way he was leaving the Harry Potter world before he had the vast majority of plants and animals needed for potions making secured.

At some point in the future he would have to sneak onto a dragon reserve to snag eggs from the other species besides the Chinese Fireball to add to his ranches. There were a lot of magical animals out there.

He felt like it was a return to his Pokemon days, when he felt like he had to catch them all. Only instead of being part of his army of pokemon, they would be his meal ticket and production resources.

The crowd was loud the evening of the third task as Carl, Fleur, and Victor arrived at the maze. The excitement in the air for the finale of the tournament was palpable.

Carl snorted in amusement. 'We'll see how long they can be excited when they realize they are just staring at a bunch of hedges.'

"Fleur, Victor, it has been a fun year." Carl said to his new friends of that year. While Victor had not become as close a fiend as Fleur was to Carl, due to having his own close friends, he was still a good man to know. "May the fastest one win." He then shook each of their hands. It made a good PR moment that the camera men for the papers took advantage of.

"Yes, this has been a good year. Excitement, learning, and new friends. I am glad I joined." Fleur said.

"Indeed. It has been a good competition. You are worthy opponents." Krum said in his usual stoic way.

"And the finale of the Tri-Wizard tournament is about to begin!" The announcer voice of Ludo Bagman sounded out, enhanced by the sonorous charm. "Would the competitors make their way to the starting line. This is a very close race! Carl Edwards is currently in first place and will enter the maze first. Second will be Fleur Delacour 10 seconds later. And 25 seconds after that will be Victor Krum. But don't be worried! The maze and the obstacles inside will ensure that each contestant has a chance to pull ahead in this last task!"

Carl looked over at Fleur, who had a superior smirk on her face, like she knew something no one else did. 'Hmm, just what are you planning, Fleur?' Carl thought.

"At the sound of the bang, the first champion, will enter. In 3! 2! 1!" The loud bang saw Carl dash into the maze.

The moment he was out of sight of the audience, he shifted to his panther form and shadow walked the few steps needed to bypass the maze and obstacles. He came out of the shadows in the clearing with the winner's cup.

He also saw a very large acromantula skittering around the clearing. It seemed to be kept inside by magic, keeping it from exiting the clearing so it could act as an obstacle. Carl gave the equivalent of a smirk in his panther form. Gathering the shadows around him to keep him from being noticed, he positioned himself, and then pounced on the spider.

His jaws and claws were so much stronger and sharper than regular animals in nature. The big cats usually had to kill their prey by either strangulation or bleeding them out over time after wearing them down to exhaustion.

Carl, on the other hand, was a magical kitty. And his animagus form was equivalently strong to his human form, which, being nearly a grand master of martial arts, meant his panther form could just tear through the spider. It only took him a few seconds to kill the spider.

Carl then trotted over next to the trophy and began licking himself clean. The spider blood tasted like butter soaked lobster to him, so delicious. The grooming activity of a cat was just one of those things that required the animal instincts. Doing that kind of grooming as a human would have had him gagging, not to mention the spider blood would have made him puke.

Just as he finished with his left paw, Carl noticed a very large white bird come gliding in over the hedges of the maze. That particular bird was the same color as Fleur's hair. Carl kitty laughed aloud. It was a good thing he had his shadow panther form to shadow walk, or Fleur would have stolen the win out from under him.

The four foot tall bird landed and glared at him in frustration from seeing him already sitting right next to the cup.

Carl shifted back to human form, and a moment later so did Fleur. Looking at Carl's smug face just seemed to anger Fleur even more, as she pouted for not being the first to the cup.

"Your smile gave you away, Fleur." Carl finally explained, when it looked like she wasn't going to say anything. "At the entrance to the maze. You looked entirely too knowing and complacent. Like you knew you were going to win. So, I took a shortcut, just in case."

Fleur eventually sighed in defeat. "Fine, you won. Congratulations. Why have you not taken the cup yet, then?"

Carl shrugged. "I wanted to finish cleaning up first after taking out the spider." He casually pointed at the acromantula carcass. "And I wanted to see how long it took the beautiful flower to show up." He declared with a grin, before grabbing the cup.

Sure, he liked Fleur quite a bit, but he wasn't going to hand away his legitimate win just to be noble, or some nonsense. That would be an insult to both him and Fleur, who would feel like he was looking down on her and her abilities. He wouldn't expect her to share a win with him if she got to the cup first, after all.

The cup portkey hooked into Carl's navel, pulling him along to land on his feet at the winner's circle. All told, the maze didn't even last 5 minutes.

Fleur and Victor were soon retrieved from the remains of the maze, and joined him in the winner's circle for interviews and the award ceremony.

Carl casually accepted the accolades, but he was more happy with the sack of galleons he received that would supplement his meager income. Tangible benefits outweighed bragging rights, even if the popularity would help him network and gain allies.

The news interviews and everyone wanting to congratulate him was a bit of an annoyance to get through, but he had some experience in his life in the SAO world with dealing with the press. Not only had he been one of the players stuck in the game, but he had been heavily involved later with his Grandfather's company in developing the technology. He hadn't been able to get out of interviews, and so his Grandfather had given him a bit of training and tips on how to handle it.

After an hour, Carl was able to get away and join the celebration his friends were throwing. Butterbeers and Firewhisky smuggled into the castle made the party entertaining, and a fun end to the night, the year, and the Triwizard Tournament.

Over the summer, aside from meeting up and hanging out with his friends and crunching numbers on the Slytherin wards, Carl started work on two new projects. Or rather, one new project and one new area of study.

The area of study was computer programming. He knew enough now about Arithmancy that he felt he could do a decent job of creating a program to crunch the numbers. He just needed to learn the programming language needed to create the program.

The project he started was researching a rune scheme that would act like a muggle battery by converting ambient magic into electricity.

He had all kinds of plans in store for the rune scheme. But he needed to get everything just right. He needed to figure out how to get the needed rune schemes into a device the size of muggle batteries. A rune cluster for gathering magic, converting the magic to electricity, discharging the electricity in a measured way, and of course anti-piracy defenses. And finally, one little bit of contract magic expressed in runes.

With his full schedule, the summer passed by quickly. By the end of summer, he had the battery product planned out, but he needed a bit more research into how to make the end produce small enough to work as a muggle battery, and how to mass produce it.

Once he solved those problems, finished paying off the goblins, and got his revenue stream back so he could fund the project, he would be set up to accomplish the scenario the jump documents detailed for him.

In the meantime, it was time to return for his fifth year. He was a little miffed that Professor Flitwick assigned him the prefect badge. He may have thought about rejecting the badge for a bit, but he knew Hermione would never forgive him. So he sighed and resigned himself to having to do patrols at night when he could be doing better things with his time.

"Oh, but at least I'll be doing patrols with Hermione. So it won't be too bad, actually." Carl realized. "And with Hermione having enhanced senses from her animagus form, I don't have to hide my own enhanced senses. It will be very easy to catch people out of bounds. So it won't really be that much of a chore."

After the start of the year, when Carl saw just how much the first years looked up to him as a prefect and listened to his every word, he could see how some students would let the position go to their heads. Suddenly, they were important. It's no wonder some of them abused their rank and privileges a bit.

Carl of course couldn't be bothered with the ego trip. While having followers and political capital was a form of power, Carl was more interested in developing his direct power and abilities to ever let a little thing like being prefect go to his head.

Besides, it wasn't like Hermione would let him have fun by marshalling his forces of first year Ravenclaws for prank assaults on the other houses, now would she? No matter how much he argued that it would be freaking hilarious.

So he settled down and resigned himself to being a "model" student, for Hermione's sake. Luna was no help as she rolled around on the ground laughing for some reason. He still didn't know why...

"And what is up with the weak locking charm? Are they even trying?" Hermione muttered derisively as she broke the charm before slamming open the broom closet door, exposing the two sixth years as they were in the midst of getting to know each other intimately.

The couple froze in shock, before they broke apart and started gathering their clothes, fumbling them on.

"Seriously though. Did you even make sure to use anti-pregnancy charms? And how unromantic can you get, going at it like rabbits in a closet. Are you sure he's worth it, girl?" Hermione kept up a continuous rant at the girl's stupidity while they dressed.

Carl just sat back and let Hermione get it out of her system. It was an amusing scene, after all. They eventually escorted the two Hufflepuffs to their dorms, with points and detentions assigned.

"Feeling better?" Carl asked with a smile.

"Yes. No." Hermione immediately answered, then changed her answer. She scowled at Carl for a moment. Carl could see the moment that she made a decision. "You've been avoiding it enough, Carl. It's time for you to take your responsibility seriously."

Carl gulped. Just what was going on? He never bothered to use his Sherlock like insight on his friends, that would make interaction with them boring. So he had no idea just what she was on about.

"This weekend is Hogsmeade. You will take me out on Saturday. Luna gets Sunday. No, you don't get a say in this." Hermione scowled at Carl, daring him to reject her. "You started something last year at the Yule ball, and I've been patient long enough. But you can't just leave us hanging like that, mister. It's long past time you step up and act responsibly."

'Well, this is different.' Carl thought as he was blindsided by her declaration. 'Only one thing to do in this situation.'

"It would be my pleasure if you would join me on a date this Saturday, Hermione." Carl smiled at her. He reached out and took her hand, gently laying a kiss on her knuckles while keeping eye contact.

Well, if she was ready and demanding a date and romance, it would be the height of foolishness to deny her. Especially since she seemed to have decided they would be a trio. Only a fool would deny his girls. And Carl tried not to be a fool if he could help it.

A week later in the middle of the night Carl was pacing back and forth in his Warehouse. The dates he had with Hermione and Luna were fun. There wasn't a whole lot to do in Hogsmeade, but spending time with them on what they both knew was a date had a different feel to just hanging out. And he hadn't tried to take things too far with them, just a couple kisses.

But now he was facing a conundrum. Just when should he share his biggest secret with Hermione and Luna? What would be the consequences, how would they react?

Carl abruptly paused in his pacing and outright laughed at himself, giving himself a face palm for good effect. This was the kind of nonsense that superheroes agonized and stewed in their angst over. And he always made fun of them for it. Carl always thought their drama and angst could be easily solved with a bit of straight forward communication.

"Yeah, no way am I going to be that guy." Carl decided. "While trusting too early is bad, keeping the secret for too long will just poison a relationship. Yup, time to come clean with the girls before it goes any further. If they decide they are in, bonus. If not, we can still be friends, I'm sure. And at least I won't be in danger of brooding like a certain souled vampire."

With that decision made, Carl felt better. Two more days until the weekend. He could tell the girls his tale on Friday night, thus giving them all weekend without classes to digest his story.