18

30th October, the Hogwarts kitchen

"Harry Potter, sir."

Harry blinked as he lifted his eyes from his tea. Matty – the only house-elf around without a ridiculous accent and Harry's favourite for that reason – was standing in front of him with an unusually grave expression on his face.

"Yes, Matty? What is it?"

"Headmaster summons you to the Great Hall. It is urgent."

The youth's eyes widened and he rose from his seat, swearing violently. After verifying that nothing was out of place, smudged with food or otherwise in need of correction, he hastened to the exit.

When he entered the Great Hall, he saw it awash in mutterings. As the teen walked inside, every head turned to him. This is not good.

Dumbledore was looking at him as well with the look that made certain alarm bells to ring in his head.

"I did not enter my name, professor," Harry said, his words clear above the murmurs.

"Your name came out, regardless. Please go to the others," the Headmaster answered shortly with a sharp gesture, peering at the scrap of paper in his hands as if it was some sort of arcane mystery. Then again, it probably is.

As the young wizard walked to the room where the other champions vanished into not five minutes before, he felt resignation fall on his shoulders like a cloak.

Merlin, I knew it would end like this.

I knew it from the beginning.

Two months before

"This year will be a clusterfuck. I feel it in my bones."

It was the beginning of the Start-of-Term Feast. The first-years had already been sorted, Dumbledore invited everyone to eat, and Harry was carefully not looking at the newest addition to the High Table, one Dolores Jane Umbridge.

"Wha...?" Ron mumbled through a piece of chicken, which he swallowed immediately after. He tried again. "What do you mean?"

Harry gestured with his fork, barely holding the piece of meat on it from leaving it prematurely.

"The abomination in pink."

"Ahm... you know her?" Ron raised a brow at his friend. Harry shrugged.

"Well, yes. That's Umbridge," he said sardonically.

"Umbridge. The Umbridge." Ron had a completely deadpan look on his face as he glanced at his friend, then shifted his gaze to the indicated woman and back. And again.

"Uh-hum."

"Yup, clusterfuck," came the affirmation.

"Boys," Hermione chided absently as she also looked at the teachers' table in worry. "She's not the only new addition. Look at that man."

The man in question, a young fellow with a neatly trimmed goatee and slacked-back black hair, sat near Snape, and by the looks of it was currently holding a conversation with him. The usually dour potions professor actually changed his expression to something close to pleasant.

"Hm. Wonder who he is, to be so chummy with the bat. Hopefully, he's not the new Defence guy," Ron remarked. Harry winced and shook his head.

"I wouldn't say that. First, he looks like he could actually be better than Quirrell or Lockhart. Second, when the alternative is the Toad in a position of power over me, I think I would take Lockhart."

"Point," the redhead nodded.

Ten minutes later, when the feast came to an end and all food had vanished, Dumbledore rose from his throne-like chair.

"Now that the grumbling of your stomachs won't get in the way, I will go over the announcements," he said with a note of humour. "First of all, I remind you – some items are not permitted in our castle. The complete list can be viewed near the office of out caretaker, Argus Filch. Next, the Forbidden Forest is actually forbidden and is not called that just for the laughs. There are quite a few dangerous creatures in there that even adult wizards would be wise to avoid. Using magic in the corridors is still very much against the rules, so I advise you not to be caught."

Chuckles met that statement. The supporters of the no-spells-in-corridors rule in the face of Filch just glared at the students and started muttering.

"Now, onto the news. With great pleasure, I introduce our new professor of the Defence Against the Dark Arts, Martin Lamberg."

The new professor waved lazily at the sound of polite applause.

"Before I introduce our other guest, though, I am afraid that I must first be the bearer of bad news; the school Quidditch championship is cancelled this year."

Cue the protest. Loud protest.

"You can't!"

"What?"

"How? What did we do?" That was Fred.

The headmaster lifted his hand, silencing the cries of indignation with but a gesture.

"The reason for this is that Hogwarts is to host something much bigger than schoolyard Quidditch. It is my great pleasure to announce that the Triwizard tournament will once again take place in our school."

"You're joking!" George burst out; his twin's hanging jaw conveying his agreement with the sentiment. Harry glanced at Hermione questioningly, but she shook her head and nodded at Dumbledore, who was visibly smiling at the students' reaction.

"I most certainly am not joking, Mr Weasley. For those who are not aware of what the tournament entails, I will explain. The tournament was created to promote cooperation between the three schools of magic in northern Europe: Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. A single champion represented each institution in a series of certain very difficult and dangerous tasks. The winner would earn honour and recognition for both himself and his school as well as a sizable monetary prize."

The students practically buzzed in excitement.

"The tournament took place every five years for a better part of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries until the casualty rate grew too high and the schools decided to cease the practice."

"Casualty rate?" Hermione asked quietly. Harry winced and turned to her.

"I sense a mess approaching. My knees are tingling, which is not a good sign."

"There have been attempts to resurrect the tournament, of course," Dumbledore continued, blissfully unaware of (or outright ignoring) the mutterings. "None of them were truly successful. Nevertheless, our Department of Magical Cooperation along with their respective counterparts concluded that the time has come for another attempt. We have been working for a year to ensure the safety of the champions."

"The heads of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will come here in the end of October with their chosen candidates, and the choosing of champions will take place on Halloween. An objective judge will pick the most suitable student to represent the school in the Triwizard tournament and contend for the prize of one thousand Galleons."

"Oh, you're on," Fred muttered, his enthusiasm clearly visible. He was not alone in his wish – Harry could see more than three dozen people on all the four tables clearly imagining themselves as the champion.

"I know that many of you desire to be the one to defend the honour of our school, but my colleagues and the Ministry representatives have decided to implement an age rule. Only those of age will be allowed to participate," Dumbledore spoke louder as the mutinous murmurs rose at that particular news. "This measure is necessary due to the danger of the tasks that remains regardless of our efforts to limit the risks, and any student who is not a seventh year is very unlikely to beat them. I will personally ensure no one under the age of seventeen will be able to enter his or her name. Therefore, I sincerely advise you not to waste time on trying to circumvent the procedure."

"Now, the delegations from our neighbours will arrive next month and will spend the rest of the year with us. I do not doubt you will make them feel welcome and full-heartedly support the Hogwarts champion after he or she is chosen. The organisation of the tournament and all matters that pertain to it fall under the purview of our last guest today, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, Madam Dolores Umbridge."

Harry tsked as the woman was greeted by stilted applause, his mind working furiously as he contemplated the new information.

"Now, it is already late, and you have lessons tomorrow. Off you trot!"

When the trio entered the Gryffindor Common room, Harry walked to the window. As he stared into the night sky, Ron and Hermione stood near.

"What do you think?" the girl asked quietly.

"She's not a teacher. The only way she could gain opportunity to harm me is if I were to enter the tournament," Harry drummed his fingers on the glass in contemplation. "I must not be entered in this madness, otherwise this year in Hogwarts will be just as dangerous to me as our first two. Maybe even more."

"I don't think anything could top the basilisk," the redhead shrugged.

"Not helping, Ron."

The first few weeks did little to soothe Harry's progressing paranoia. The student population still believed Skeeter's articles and therefore, treated him like a leper. Still, despite Hermione's advice, he still didn't wish to "turn this farce into a pissing contest" and respond to the wave of scorn with anything but absolute indifference. This attitude made his friend want to pull her hair out from frustration – yes, she was all for not answering to insults with insults, but this was getting ridiculous!

Susan also didn't share his view on the matter. In fact, they had a huge row after this particular gem escaped his lips:

"I don't owe any explanation to the sheep. They are fools enough to believe Skeeter, who made her name on blowing things way out of proportion, and I am not obligated to waste my time on idiots."

Wrong move, Harry. Never admit to treating people like dirt in any way in the presence of a staunch Hufflepuff.

In the following ten minutes, the niece of the intimidating Head of DMLE slowly and with deadly precision tore her (currently) moronic boyfriend a new one. She called him out on being an arsehole with an ego the size of the moon, logically proved that the school populace reacted that way because they were given information with no data to contradict it (which made Harry blink and surreptitiously check if it wasn't Hermione under Polyjuice he had been snogging not a half-hour earlier). In conclusion, she finished him off with a demand for him to get his head out of his backside and actually do something about his plummeting reputation.

Harry, shell-shocked and actually quite impressed, couldn't disagree and promised to think about it.

To Harry's slight bewilderment, the newest Defence teacher turned out to be an ex-Hit Wizard and a mercenary, therefore very knowledgeable in the subject he taught. He favoured a straight-away and practical approach to teaching, which was actually great fun, but Harry found himself bored. He had been – and still was twice a week – put through the wringer by Flitwick, and performing on the expected level of his peers (which to him was no level at all) taxed his patience. Still, professor Lamberg only shrugged when told of the problem and said something in the spirit of: "Not my problem, I have other brats to take care of. Occupy yourself somehow."

Umbridge, to Harry's growing bemusement and suspicion, was not making any moves and was rarely seen aside of mealtime, bustling about the castle and talking to staff members – mostly Filch. Still, organising an event such as the Tournament was probably a rather time-consuming job, so it was to be expected.

The twins' venture of selling potions to the school populace turned out to be a big success, as they were known to be very talented in Potions, their manner of pushing Snape to the brink of apoplexy on a weekly basis with their antics aside. Of course, only select few knew that it was Ron who was actually doing most of the work. Speaking of Ron, Snape's face when he realised that the "second dunderhead" of the fifth year suddenly gained some competency in brewing should have been immortalised with a picture. Never before had Harry wished for Colin Creevey with his infernal camera to be nearby.

Harry's own studies, too, took a rather unexpected turn.

The Hogwarts Library in the beginning of the term usually contained only the most hard-core of Ravenclaws, the librarian and Hermione, searching for some fresh light reading. The bright morning of September 3, however, the latter was in the natural nerd pilgrimage destination in search for something else. Or, rather, someone else.

"Harry?"

The youth in question only hummed acknowledgement without raising his head from the book he was reading with his brow creased. Hermione rolled her eyes and leaned closer, looking at the title of the book.

""Artificial, Yet Life-Like: Golems". Oh, Harry, please tell me you don't plan on wasting your time on a golem in our OWL year!"

"I don't plan on wasting my time on a golem in our OWL year," the mechanical answer came.

"Good."

"I plan on creating a golem in our OWL year, nevertheless. It won't count as a waste of time if I actually succeed."

Hermione exhaled in defeat and slumped down on the seat next to him.

"Why do you want to do that, anyway?"

"Many reasons," Harry responded vaguely, leafing through a couple of pages. "Do you want the nice one, the paranoia induced one, or the science freak one?"

"How about the true reason?"

The teen tilted his head in thought, bookmarking the page he was on and closing the book.

"Huh, I don't remember which was the first... But never mind that, let's get to the question that I wanted to ask you: will you assist me in this noble task?"

"Tell me one reason why would I want that."

"Easily. First, I am Harry Potter and you are Hermione Granger."

"Prat. That doesn't count."

"Second, this won't actually affect our OWLs in any negative way, as I think we'll finish the job by March. On the contrary, as this is going to be one damn impressive for our age work which incorporates Runes, Arithmancy, Charms and Transfiguration, we will almost certainly manage to wrangle a lot of special credit for this."

"Deal."

Without any significant events to mark its progress, September bustled by quickly in a swish of dark robes, leaving the scene to October. The Durmstrang and Beauxbatons delegations arrived one gloomy evening in the middle of the month and were quickly ushered inside without much pomp.

You would think that the presence of the newcomers would change the routine of the castle's inhabitants, but it was not so. The most visible changes were the new faces in the Great Hall during mealtime and the more frequent Umbridge sightings. The drawing of champions was scheduled for the Halloween feast, which set Harry on edge.

Things never went well on Halloween.

Despite the somewhat worsening state of affairs in school for the youth, his own studies progressed rather nicely. The creation of a golem, it seemed, was much more complicated than he'd believed before actually getting to work.

For most people, the word "golem" meant a lumbering, intimidating hulk of rock that was only useful for lugging around heavy weights and large-scale battles between wizard collectives. However, those rock-golems were the least complicated and useful type of golem. Harry had no need for a portable spell-resistant battering ram, so he went for a more practical and challenging variant: flesh-golem.

The ignorant often mistakenly called a flesh-golem "homunculus", but they couldn't be further from truth. A homunculus was a hypothetical creation, a living creature biologically very close to human, but created artificially with alchemy. Flesh-golem, however, was more like a statue made of flesh and animated to do the bidding of their masters. Due to the fact that organic matter was a much better conductor for magic than non-organic, flesh-golems were much smarter than their stone cousins and actually were capable of limited independent thinking. Of course, they were not sentient; in that regard they were much like portraits, only a bit dumber. The other important fact about them was that done right, they always looked identical to their creator due to the methods involved in their creation.

The process started by the crafting of body itself. It was slowly transfigured out of organic matter (pig flesh, in this case) and fed mana until it saturated the flesh to the point where the transfiguration became permanent. After that, the skin was inscribed with runic arrays in key places, such as joints, the spine, and the back of the head. The more experienced wizards created the skeleton first and added the flesh later, as it was much easier and safer to inscribe the control runes on bones themselves than rely on a spell that would copy the runes on skin to the surface of the bone, but Harry wasn't sure he would be able to accomplish this feat.

Finally, the last step was the most difficult. The "imprinting", which required a ritualistic sacrifice of a drop of blood and a lot of precise wand work.

Naturally, the use of blood along with the very nature of flesh-golems made the whole thing borderline Dark in the eyes of the Ministry. The only reason it wasn't restricted, in Harry's opinion, was the relative scarcity of the wizards who decided to create a flesh-golem instead of making a somewhat living body with any other method, most of which were really Dark.

By the end of the month Harry and Hermione barely finished the transfiguration of the body due to frequent annoying mishaps like the pig corpses starting to rot in the middle of the conversion (stasis charm malfunction), weird misfires of transfiguration spells (solved later by the use of stabilisation runes) and faint oinks (reason unknown, it left Hermione flabbergasted and repeating that there is no such thing as accidental necromancy). This strip of bad luck vexed Harry something fierce, but as he further investigated the following steps, he discovered several shortcuts that would still allow them to meet the deadline they set for themselves.

And that was where the plan went down in flames.

30th October, the room behind the Great Hall

The door opened with a loud bang, letting everyone know of Harry's foul mood. The startled jump the talking Ministry official made would be somewhat amusing at any other time, but Harry had sunk too deeply in thought to give it more than a cursory glance. He strolled to the closest wall and leaned on it, shutting himself off from any attempt at conversation.

Finally, after five minutes of waiting, the door opened again, admitting the three heads of schools along with Umbridge.

"...unprecedented offence!" Karkaroff ranted, his fur-lined coat jumping on his back from his agitation. "Dumbledore, we need this crisis solved, and we need it solved yesterday!"

"Be patient, Igor," the elderly wizard admonished, striding to the fireplace and turning sharply, putting himself in the spotlight. "Now that we are all gathered, we need to find out just what has led to the situation we find ourselves in, and how we should proceed from here."

Madam Maxime wanted to say something, but Dumbledore lifted his hand in a sign that he was not yet finished, and the imposing woman abruptly shut her mouth. Harry's eyebrow twitched upwards – he wasn't aware that Dumbledore was influential enough to be able to shut his (technically) equals with a mere gesture. Granted, they were on his turf...

"First of all, let me sincerely congratulate the champions. You are now in the spotlight of three countries. I wish you best of luck in this noble competition."

He was being every inch the gracious host. Harry glanced at the trio of students. The only one he even vaguely recognised was the seventh-year Slytherin the name of whom he did not remember. The guy's only remarkable features was him being a near-prodigy and having the misfortune to be born from a Muggleborn. The teen himself was physically unassuming, his face frozen in a stony mask.

The next champion was a girl wearing Durmstrang attire. She made the impression of being a fighter, but something of an attention-seeker, which automatically translated into 'duellist' in Harry's mind. She had sharp features, only adding to the 'tough girl' image. Despite it all, Harry found her rather attractive.

The last competitor, a French guy, was very, very tall and almost painfully thin. Somehow, he managed to not look ridiculous and instead pull off a vaguely Snape-ish impression, something along the lines of being all tall, dark and broody. Add in a somewhat crooked nose, and the resemblance was rather striking. The only thing that spoiled (or fixed) the picture was the clean hair...

"...we need to ascertain one thing. Harry, did you put your name in the goblet?"

"Hm?" the teen was drawn from his momentary musings. "No, of course not."

"Did you ask anyone else to put your name in?" the headmaster pressed. Harry frowned in irritation.

"No, and, before you ask, I have neither wish to participate nor any kind of idea of who put my name in."

"No wish to participate? Truly?" Karkaroff cut in, staring at the youth. His voice suggested, no, outright shouted to anyone who listened that he didn't believe him.

"I have no need for anything this tournament could give me," Harry shrugged and started counting on his fingers. "Money? I have it. Recognition? I've only ever wished to fade into obscurity, or at the very least not be known solely for the fact that I somehow discorporated a Dark Lord before I even could walk under the table. Excitement? Despite my love for Quidditch, I'm not an adrenaline junkie and possess a rather healthy, if I may say so, self-preservation instinct that violently disapproves of participating in any event that can, quite possibly, end with me dying in a blaze of glory. Or a blaze of gory, which is much more likely... Finally, the postponement of the exams and special credit? Please. I'm rather looking forward to my OWLs and the way a certain project of mine will impact my marks."

"To sum up: the tournament will not give me anything of value, and yet will most likely consume an unreasonable amount of time for preparations, not to mention the risk of being seriously maimed or killed outright. In light of this, I repeat: I did not enter myself, have no idea of what idiot put me in, and request that you don't count me as a champion despite some questionable piece of enchanted wood saying otherwise."

"I'm afraid it is not that simple, my boy," Dumbledore looked troubled.

Not a good sign. Not a good sign at all.

Journal entry #51, 2nd November

The past two days were... trying.

Despite my suspicions about the Triwizard Tournament, the fact that I was drafted to participate managed to blindside me. I never actually believed that fate would drop that bomb on me. I should have known better.

The school population is now actively grumbling at my sight. Skeeter is having a field day with this, and I told Susan to stop bothering with the crowd control. It's beyond help, now. I'm afraid that Umbridge won this little clash, and she knows it. She keeps looking at me with that little smirk...

I am considering my future perspectives. As my reputation is finally shot to death (for which I am, to my shame, partially to blame – I thought that answering to the slander was beneath me, which the masses seem to have interpreted as an admission of guilt), any kind of job that deals with society is out of question.

Correction: any job that deals with the British population. Maybe I should consider moving out of the country? Something to think about, anyway.

The other bad thing to come out of this farce is the fact that Flitwick is no longer able to tutor me. The rules explicitly state that no member of staff from any school can tutor a champion. He was very apologetic, but still dropped some hints as to what I need to know to survive this mess. He's a nice guy. A little of a pain in the ass sometimes (literally, that pinching hex of his forced me to drop my shield a couple of times already), but nice.

My friends – all the Weasleys here, Hermione, Neville and even Luna – ambushed me on my way to the kitchens yesterday and dragged me into an unused classroom, where they had prepared a little feast and assured me that they still believed in me and were my friends and no articles or tricks of fate would change that.

Honestly, it was more than a little heart-warming.

But on to the more pressing matters. The First Task is scheduled for the 29th, and Hermione supplied me with the recordings of the previous Tournaments. The First Task traditionally involves dealing with dangerous magical creatures, anything from swarms of Lethifolds up to dragons and basilisks. She, Ron and I brainstormed the issue and came up with a study plan.

First, I will research heavy-duty shields that protect from most of possible threats – poison fumes, acid, fire, physical force. Next, I will look into illusions, disorientation and confusion charms along with some reliable stealth spells. Finally, I need something to move faster to dodge crap and/or bug out quickly if things get really ugly.

I sincerely hope that it will be enough, but...

It must be enough.

It must.

"Harry? What are you doing here?"

Hermione was looking fairly annoyed, as the boy in question was not studying the spells that could help him survive the upcoming event, but was tinkering with the golem instead – again.

"I know what you're going to say. Don't bother," came a flat answer, accompanied by a tired glance. "I need this. If I learn another useless spell in the next three hours, my head is going to explode. This... this helps."

The girl groaned softly and approached him, absently noting the newly drawn runes on the completely featureless body.

"Harry, Dumbledore postponed your OWLs to the next year. This is pointless. If you are tired, then nap, you aren't doing anyone any favours by staying up."

"I'm not sleepy. On the contrary, I'm restless," the youth waved her off, pausing in his drawing for a second to aim a proper glare at her. Or try to, at least. The bags under his eyes somewhat sabotaged his efforts.

"Your insomnia is worsening," Hermione sat down near him, a worried expression on her face. "Ron told me. Harry, you're running yourself dry."

An explosive sigh. The thin brush covered in blood-ink clattered on the table. He leaned against the wall, gazing upwards.

"I just can't shut down for hours. Worrying. Questioning. Ideas bouncing in my head." I wonder for how long that webbing has been there... "As bad an Occlumens as I am right now, I can't cut down the time needed to sleep, so my thinking suffers and worsens my nerves even further. I have already asked Pomfrey for some calming potion, but she'd had only two doses left. I already drank those to get some sleep."

"Is it that bad?"

"It is. I... I'm afraid, Hermione. Afraid that I won't measure up. Afraid that I won't survive."

A tight embrace.

"You have the luck of the devil, Harry. You always survive. Just do all you can and hope for the best."

Silence. Only the drips of red liquid on the floor disturb it. Finally, a hoarse whisper:

"Thank you."

20th of November

Hagrid's hut

"…I s'ppose tha' a couple of dragon species can see heat," Hagrid palmed his beard in thought and added: "Seems to be a common trait amongst anythin' reptilian, like snakes and summat."

"Heat," Harry murmured thoughtfully. "Now that's going to be tricky."

"Some burrowin' creatures sense tremors in the earth and use it to navigate. Nifflers, Dune-Worms from the Sahara desert, those little pesky li'l buggers… wha' were they called…"

The half-giant started snapping his fingers with a look of supreme concentration on his face, trying to recall the name of the rare species.

When Harry came to him with a request to explain how different magical creatures sense the world, Hagrid was delighted and almost immediately started babbling information right as he poured an enormous cup of tea to the – frankly – chilled teen. Harry could only stare at him as his enchanted quill started writing down the comprehensive – if not redacted – guide "Magical Creatures and their Magical Senses".

It rarely comes up, Harry mused, but Hagrid really is an expert in his field.

He felt rather warm inside at the thought that the absent-mindedness aside, his friend was actually very competent, his reputation as something of a buffoon notwithstanding.

"Ah, yes! Amazonian scaled moles! Bad-tempered, bu' if they were tamed, they would revolutionize mining. I wonder if the Goblins tried…"

As the evening went on, Harry's mental list of spells he needed to look at in order to mask his presence from any creature gradually increased.

I think I'm going to sleep in the library for the next couple of days…

29Th of November

A large clearing in the Forbidden Forest

Harry was pale like a ghost, but his eyes were set with determination. He had a real cause for feeling nervous: the first task was historically the most lethal, and the tensions were high this day.

The Durmstrang girl – Aletha Gramm – was the calmest out of the four, routinely checking her gear and not paying any mind to her fellow contestants. The lanky French, Jean Maredeau, on the opposite, was pacing and wringing his hands. The Slytherin, Mark Reinth, didn't show any emotion at all, preferring to gaze into nothing, only occasionally glancing at the other three.

They had been waiting in the tent for a few minutes before an exuberant Ministry representative, one Mr Bagman, entered it with a huge grin on his face and a spring in his step.

For a moment, the four champions were unified in their hatred for the cheerful man.

"Everyone ready? Good! Now, for the Task. Each one of you will have to face a certain magical creature. You are, as stated before, permitted to take only your wand to the arena. Your goal is to take the disk from the chest that the creature protects. The disk is needed for the future tasks, so be careful with it."

He grabbed a leather bag and opened it, offering it to the four teens. Aletha lifted an eyebrow and drew first, dragging out a scrap of parchment with the number "2". Reinth had the luck of being placed fourth, while Harry barely stifled a groan of dismay at the bold "1" at his piece. Maredeau, of course, was to be the third to go into the arena.

"Splendid! Now that we have the order established, we can begin. Mr Potter, you go on the whistle. Oh," Bagman grinned mischievously over his shoulder as he prepared to exit the tent. "I almost forgot. The creature that you will face is a mature Roman manticore. Good luck!"

Harry's mouth opened slightly. A manticore? I think I would prefer going against a dragon! Think, Harry, think, what do you know of them?

The relevant information immediately sprang to the forefront of his mind. He could almost hear Hermione reading it aloud:

Manticores are vicious, very aggressive Class V Dark Creatures. They inhabit Northern Africa and the south of Europe. They are nocturnal, territorial, live solitary or in very small groups of up to five specimen depending on the subspecies. Manticores possess the body of a lion, but have bat-like wings, a human-looking face and the tail of a scorpion. They are capable of short-distance flight and projectile poison-spitting via their tail with impressive precision. Very, very quick. In no circumstances engage them in close ranges. If possible, escape any confrontation with manticores. If it is for some reason unfeasible, confuse them, redirect their attention or bind them. Their claws and jaws are capable of inflicting heavy injuries, and the poison is slightly acidic.

Harry breathed in. Breathed out. His Occlumency exercises steadied him, gave him focus, allowing him to move past the grip of his panic.

This is what I've been preparing for this past month. The fact that it's going to be a manticore that I'm facing doesn't change anything, the same strategy applies. Distract, slip in, and get out. Distract, slip in, and get out. Simple, short, to the point. Effective.

His fear lessened, morphing into something useful: the adrenalin rush that will give him the edge required to survive a life-or-death situation.

When the whistle came, Harry was ready.

Ron was watching the beast on the arena with wariness. From his place on the stands it was easy to see in all its glory: the budging muscles on the cat-like body, the impressive mane, moving slightly with every breath the manticore made, the wings, folding and unfolding in agitation at the presence of the hundreds of humans on the stands, the tail, swishing and flicking, a vicious-looking stinger on the end.

Ron was more than slightly worried. Of course, compared to Hermione, who had already chewed down a couple of nails, he was downright calm, but that was because he had every confidence in his friend and believed him to be able to breeze through the challenge. But the manticore looked threatening enough for him to doubt.

Finally, Bagman gave the whistle. Ron gripped the railing in front of him and leaned forward, not wanting to miss a thing. He glanced to the side.

"Hermione, stop worrying and watch," he advised. "I might miss something that he'll do."

Hermione gave him a grateful, if a bit sickly, smile and followed his advice.

The tent's entrance lifted, and the whole stadium quietened in anticipation.

The flap fell down. No figure was seen.

"MR POTTER! IT'S YOUR TURN!" Bagman shouted.

After a couple of seconds an annoyed voice echoed from all sides of arena.

"I'm under a Disillusionment charm, if you're wondering."

"AN INTERESTING START! POTTER GOES FOR STEALTH, BUT WILL HE AVOID CONFRONTATION AT ALL?"

The answer came when a fog started condensing on the arena, darker and denser than what was natural.

"HEADMASTER DUMBLEDORE JUST IDENTIFIED THE SPELL BEFORE YOU AS THE FINIKIAN MIST, VERY USEFUL FOR FOOLING ALL SENSES!"

It was Finikian Mist, alright. Ron recognised it as the spell Harry practiced a couple of weeks ago. Its density prevented anyone but the caster from seeing inside it, and it caused all sounds to behave very weirdly. And oh boy, it stank.

Within the cloud, Harry fought hard not to gag. I really wish I took time to learn the Bubblehead charm. Ugh, disgusting. The teen shook away the thoughts and tuned out everything except the task at hand.

He carefully waded through the thick pungent mist, stepping lightly and watching the faint silhouette of the manticore stalking the other side of the arena in agitation. The main advantage of the spell he used was the fact that the caster's perception was much less limited by it than its victims. Plus, it allowed for some adjustment on-the-fly. To be on the safe side, he cast the Disillusionment, Muffling and Odour-Nullifying charms.

Yes, he really didn't want to have to fight the manticore. However, no one ever told him he had to fight it, right?

He placed a Voice-Throwing Charm on the other edge of the arena and gently tuned down the sound-warping properties of the Mist. After a couple of taunts thrown at it from that direction, the beast hunkered down for a moment and pounced off the chest it was guarding. Harry immediately slithered up to the prize, muffled the lid and opened it. Inside he saw a bronze disk, which he grabbed.

As soon as he touched it, he could feel an unmistakable tingling on his spine that always accompanied a dispelling.

Uh-oh.

A wave of energy burst out of the chest and literally washed away the mist along with the spells Harry placed on himself.

Double uh-oh!

The manticore let out a confused roar, which galvanised Harry into action… or, as the case was, into a hasty withdrawal to the edge of the field, signified by the transparent wall of a physical ward.

The exit directly opposite the manticore was fifty meters from the chest. A mature manticore is capable of reacting to the sound of a running wizard within 0.1 second and can move at the speed of approximately 90 km per hour if it is hungry and a juicy robed steak is in sight. Said robed steak, while terrified out of his regrettably edible brain, is capable of accelerating up to 21 km per hour and already has a head start of thirty meters.

The question of the day is: will the hungry manticore cease to be such?

Normally, the answer would be yes.

However, while the manticore was sailing through the air in a pounce that would eat up half the distance between its jaws and its prospective prey, said prey was finishing a sharp jab with his wand in the exit's direction, calling out the incantation of the spell with fervour only summoned in life-or-death situations.

The spell in question was aptly named "Arrow Sprint", and would launch the caster in the pointed direction with incredible speed while compensating for inertial forces, so as to save the wizard from becoming paste under the influence of the forces involved.

As the following events demonstrated, it compensated just enough.

In the blink of an eye, Harry went from running full-tilt towards the exit to standing in the middle of the first aid tent, which now possessed a wizard-shaped hole in its side. The teen immediately grabbed at his mouth to suppress the sudden urge to retch from vertigo that the sudden acceleration and deceleration caused.

The manticore, sitting on the place where its prey should have been, was looking around with an extremely bemused expression. What went through its head at the sight of its prey vanishing from right in front of it will forever remain a mystery.

Five minutes later, Harry was staring at his marks. Everyone except Karkaroff went and gave him 9. The surly Durmstrang Headmaster's 6 looked rather obviously out-of place there.

"Hey, that's unfair!" Ron sputtered. "What kind of guy gives out a 6 for getting away from a freaking manticore without any injury?! He's obviously trying to rig this contest!"

"Objectively, with manticores, it is either you escape completely untouched, or you don't escape at all," Hermione corrected half-heartedly. "Plus, we don't know for sure. He may be just hard to impress and will measure his champion just as strictly."

"Hah! Not bloody likely," Ron muttered as they took their seats.

"Let's see for ourselves, shall we?"

Evidently, Karkaroff was really out to help his champion as much as he could. Aletha tried to trap the manticore with a transfigured cage, but the iron she created broke easily under the beast's assault, and she just barely managed to escape with her life intact. The judges rated her 7 or 6, but Karkaroff went and gave her a 10.

Jean Maredeau, however, did manage to bind the manticore with chains in an impressive display of transfiguration and charms, earning himself the first place.

Out of all contestants, Reinth proved to have either the least in terms of talent, or the most in terms of balls and common sense, as he just summoned a huge slab of meat from somewhere and distracted the manticore long enough for him to grab his disk and bug out. Dumbledore gave him an 8 with a chuckle, but everyone else didn't rate him higher than 6, stranding him on the fourth place.

As Harry was walking back to the castle with a spring in his step and the weird, featureless bronze disk in his hands, relief nearly flooded his being with the thought that he passed the First, and usually the most dangerous, task.

One down, two to go.