Voldemort

[A/N: Long time no see, rather two weeks no see.

Though it has been two weeks, the length of this chapter is around double my average length per chapter, so I think this should be acceptable.

Anyway, if someone wants to know the reason for this delay, it is in Author Notes at the end, obviously, it doesn't contain anything related to this fanfic, just some info about me, so you can skip it.]

*****

~Dumbledore's Office, Hogwarts Castle: The Day Before Second Task, Early Evening~

In the Headmaster's office Madam Maxime, Dumbledore, Karkaroff, Ludo Bagman and Moody along with three students Rikard Fischer, one of the Durmstrang delegation, Elena Cortez, one of the Beauxbatons delegations, and Gabrielle Delacour, sister of Fleur Delacour and has arrived just a few hours ago along with her parents, are waiting for remaining six 'hostages for second task' to arrive in the office.

In less than a minute Professor Snape brought Aruhik, and Professor Flitwick brought Cho Chang and Sandra Flores, while Professor McGonagall brought Hermione Granger, Marie Kenneally, and Ron Weasley, from their respective houses.

Since all of the most probable 'hostages for the second task' have been brought, Dumbledore began speaking with a hint of seriousness in his usual speech.

"Since possible nine contestants have arrived...You all should already know about second task and hostages for champions, but still, let me explain once again."

"In the second task, the closest person to the champion will be taken as a hostage and hidden inside the castle lake. The task for champions is to search for their respective hostage bring them to the finish line on the surface. During this whole task, a few charms will be used on hostages to make them drowsy and have the ability to breathe underwater, moreover, this spell will be broken upon reaching the surface, that is, when champions have completed the task or when hostages will be brought to the surface upon confirming that the respective champions have failed in completing the task."

After giving a few seconds for students to digest the information, Dumbledore continued in a much more serious tone.

"Now, the important part, we can assure you all, that, during the entire process, none of the hostages will face any danger, moreover, thanks to the generosity of Mr. Lestrange, through hidden cameras, we can continuously keep an eye on hostages, as well as the champions."

Obviously, Aruhik will be generous for this, after all, even though Harry has been 'kidnaped' during the third task in the original, it isn't like it is impossible to do it in the second task, as in either of the cases the spectators or, as a matter of fact, even Judges weren't able to see or sense anything during the whole process, so Aruhik has tasked the Glaives disguised as V.N. employees to put cameras in every possible part of the lake.

Of course, the organizers also know about this, but the reason given to them is to show the action of every champion during the whole task to the audience and, also for the better safety of champions and hostages, and none of the organizers have any reason to refuse this, especially when the one paying for this not them.

After a slight pause, Dumbledore once again continued but this time he has his usual kind expression.

"Now, the only question that remains is how did we select the correct hostages for the champions ... After a long discussion, we have decided that the Professors teaching the champions will suggest the respective headmasters, who will nominate hostage candidates, that is, as you all might have already guessed, is the reason you all are called here. Then, let me inform you all about your respective champions...."

And Ludo Bagman proceeded to inform the nine possible hostages about who they are chosen for.

Sitasia: Aruhik Lestrange

Harry: Ron Weasley

Cedric: Cho Chang

Viktor: Hermione Granger

Moritz: Sandra Flores

Jacob: Rikard Fischer

Fleur: Gabrielle Delacour

Cecile: Elena Cortez

Seymour: Marie Kenneally

Then before anyone can agree or disagree with this arrangement Dumbledore continued speaking.

"Although we have made this judgment, please do keep in mind, that each one of you possesses the full right to abstain from becoming a hostage, but we hope that you all make the final decision before supper so we will have enough time to contact the next candidate."

After saying this, Dumbledore, along with other Professors and Ludo Bagman, remained quiet and waited for all nine students to make the decision.

Obviously, few of them like Aruhik, Cho Chang, Rikard, and Elena accepted it almost instantly after Dumbledore finished speaking.

Each of them has a slightly different reason to accept this proposal like Elena has quite a close friendship with Cecile, Rikard and Jacob are quite good friends but part of the reason Rikard agreed is that this is a rare chance for him to indirectly participate in this tournament.

While Cho Chang and Aruhik have somewhat similar reasons that are they don't want anyone else to be called the closest person to their lovers, however, the difference here is that Cho Chang doesn't know who will be chosen in place of her, not even male or female student, while Aruhik clearly knows that the one to replace him would most likely be Draco, even though the logical next person should be Ash and then Draco, there is no way Aruhik will allow Ash replace him for such a position so it will be Draco.

For the time being, leaving aside Cho Chang's thoughts, is Aruhik unhappy at just the idea of Draco being called Sia's most important person? Surely he is, as even though Aruhik and Sia don't have the previous unhealthy obsession over each other, both are indeed quite possessive over each other, Ash being the only exception to this, and even though it is slightly cruel on Ash, there are two main reasons for this, One, because they just didn't have any other choice as Aruhik still doesn't know how to break his special Familiar contract along with consequences of doing it, and Two, because of Ash's sincere thoughts as both confirmed through shared thoughts that Ash never thought of breaking their relationship or even taking the first position in the heart of even one of them.

Temporarily ignoring the displeasure of Sia and Ash sensed through their mental connection due to him accepting the task of becoming the hostage, Aruhik began looking at the response of other eight possible hostages, and he noticed that most of them, even those who have already accepted to take part in the second task, have a nervous expression on their face, with a clear exception to this being Aruhik, Ron, Hermione, and to some extent Gabrielle.

There is nothing to say about Aruhik and Gabrielle will be discussed later, while Ron and Hermione are quarreling. Though both of them tried to keep the voice down, even other students were able to understand the reason for their dispute. Ron doesn't want Hermione to become Viktor's 'most important person', while Hermione is angry at Ron stopping her from accepting the proposal even before she gave her decision, and looking at their discussion she will most likely agree to become 'hostage'.

Looking at Hermione and Ron's quarrel, Aruhik unconsciously compared them to his and Sia relationship, after all, at least according to original these two became a couple in the future, and even had more than one kids, though, he doesn't remember the exact count. According to Aruhik, there is a high chance that this quarrel might be resolved within seconds if both confessed their true thoughts, like their desire and complaints, however, due to some reason unknown to Aruhik both are unwilling to do it.

Nevertheless, watching both accepting to become the 'most important person' for respective champions as well as ending their 'discussion' on the bad terms, once again Aruhik felt thankful for his special familiar contract.

As, even though both Aruhik and Sia quarreled just a few weeks ago, due to their shared thoughts it would have never reached to the level of creating a permanent crack in their relationship, also Aruhik believes that in future even if they have different opinions on some major topic, due to the same shared thoughts they will always discuss it before their different choices lead to a big dispute among them, moreover, once again due to the same shared thoughts something like misunderstanding will never occur among them.

Even with all this, Aruhik still didn't understand the reason for Karkaroff nominating Hermione as the hostage for Viktor, even though, many people noticed that he is unhappy with the fact that Hermione became Viktor's date for Yule Ball.

Well, it is not like this is something related to Aruhik, so he didn't think too much about it, after all, if he went to the depth of it then at least he believes that the fact that Madame Maxime has nominated a less than ten years old kid as Fleur's hostage is a more questionable issue.

Though a couple of 'soon to be hostages' were still hesitant, soon everyone accepted the proposal in the office only, therefore, in none of the cases organizers had to go for the second option. After getting a clear reply from everyone, Dumbledore gave his final instruction in the office for tonight.

"Very well, since the identity of hostages won't be declared publically till tomorrow morning, and to facilitate tomorrow morning's preparation for the task, you all will be won't be meeting with the rest of students till the end of the task. Therefore, we have already prepared guest rooms in the castle for this purpose, tonight you can rest there and dinner will be delivered by house-elves."

Ignoring the high possibility of Karkaroff and Madame Maxime disclosing the identity of hostages to the champions, Aruhik is pretty sure that due to early disclosure of the second task most of the champions, if not all of them, will confirm the identity of their hostage within the next few hours by themselves, after all, each and every champion of this tournament are indeed among the best of their generation of magicians to be able to participate in this competition, so figuring out something like this shouldn't be too much of a challenge for them.

Then, Aruhik had to go through the boring narration of the entire task and safety measures prepared for the task by Ludo Bagman, as well as early testing of spells and negotiation with the cutthroat looking female leader of merpeople at the black lake by Dumbledore, obviously, Dumbledore can speak quite fluent Mermish, well, one of the advantages of living a long life.

However, Aruhik keenly noticed that during the negotiation with merpeople, due to some unknown reason, those mermen and mermaids were staring at him, unfortunately, even with all his knowledge and experience, it was impossible for Aruhik to read anything from their expression and if he used a spell for this then others might notice it.

However, due to much greater experience in this department, Sia easily identified upon 'watching' them through his eyes that they are afraid of him, upon getting this information in Aruhik also guessed that rather than being directly afraid of him, they are most likely afraid of Sia who is almost always together with him, after all, he can't even count the number of times Sia has scared them and other aquatic creatures in the lake while looking at the interior of Black Lake through the windows of Slytherin common room.

Moreover, even Dumbledore noticed the strange behavior of Merpeople towards Aruhik, however, when he directly asked them, they refused to say anything about it.

Though Merpeople didn't tell Dumbledore anything, at least for now, all three of the vampires have to once again unwillingly and somewhat shamefully accept the fact that they once again committed a mistake similar to Voldemort, that is underestimating and sometimes ignoring the creatures below them, like merpeople.

Aruhik knows through experience to never underestimate any long-established civilization, however, due to their strength and bloodline, he unconsciously ignored species like merpeople who are not as intelligent as humans and also, even while being magical creatures, are incapable of using magic like house-elves.

Also, even though the incident with Mr. Ollivander during the Wand Weighing ceremony was a wake-up call for them, by that time they had already made a few similar mistakes, such as ignoring the intelligence of merpeople during their first year, even though this species isn't as intelligent as humans, they are indeed intelligent enough to record and gather the information about the three vampires, which can later be collected by humans.

Though Aruhik has said and believes that given the current situation they don't really need to hide their strength, letting it exposed due to such a stupid mistake is quite disgraceful for them, not to mention the humiliation they are feeling due to committing the same mistake as Voldemort, who even with all his legends has always been considered as their prey for earning achievements.

Withholding the urge to release a sigh, Aruhik maintained his usual expression on the outside and began discussing metally with Sia and Ash about how to deal with these merpeople.

There are two most effective solutions for this, first and the direct one, eliminating every merperson from this lake, but due to the second task of Triwizard Championship many magicians are keeping an eye on the lake through the cameras installed by them, and they will obviously note the 'mysterious' death or disappearance of a whole species from this lake and that will definitely lead to many other complications, so yes, unknowingly they themselves blocked their first path.

And the second one, changing the memory of every merperson, but there is a major problem with this one, changing the memory for over a period of more than three years while taking care to not turn the target into an idiot is a delicate and time-consuming task, moreover, this process this must be repeated for every merperson while taking care to not let those with changed memory to meet with the unchanged ones and due to tomorrow morning's event Aruhik can't help Sia and Ash with this, furthermore, even in this case, they have to take care to not appear in front of the large number of cameras in the lake.

Even with all this, the chances of their actions being exposed along with its consequences are much bigger compared with the actual reason for doing this task, so even though somewhat unwilling, they have to let the situation remain the same, at least till the second task is over. And, if merpeople really told other people about Sia, then it isn't like this can do any real harm to them, furthermore, Aruhik is sure that he, Sia, and Ash will always remember this lesson as a consequence of their arrogance ... as well as foolishness.

A few minutes after mental discussion between the three vampires finished, Dumbledore began testing the spells they will be put under, tomorrow morning, before hiding them inside the lake.

Obviously, due to the presence of mana, there is no way such a spell executed using magical energy will affect Aruhik, therefore, Aruhik executed the spell using his internal mana, at the same moment as Dumbledore, which will allow him breath inside the water without any external addition like bubble mask and closed his eyes while pretending to be asleep.

As Aruhik still kept himself covered with a very thin layer of mana converted into the dark element, just under his skin, Dumbledore can't really sense the effectiveness of his spell on Aruhik, so it was easy for him to pretend to be affected by Dumbledore's spell. Also since they learned this trick of hiding their presence quite early on, even before meeting Dumbledore for the first time, Dumbledore should already know that he can't sense anything on the three Lestrange for whatever reason that might be, so Aruhik doesn't need to care that Dumbledore might discover that the spell was ineffective on him.

As for the reason Aruhik even used the spell for breathing underwater, because even though breathing isn't necessary for him, others don't need to know about it, and breathing water is quite discomforting as well as somewhat painful feeling, he knows this fact by personal experience while he and Sia were testing their physical capabilities before Ash joined them.

By the time all demonstration and testing were over it was already the time for dinner, so Dumbledore asked Professor McGonagall to direct the 'hostages' towards the guest room after giving the last instruction for the day.

"We will meet tomorrow morning, at 6'o clock."

*****

The guest section of the castle allotted to Aruhik and the other eight 'hostages' contains twenty-one rooms along with a central big hall and designed in a somewhat similar manner to the dorms of four houses, which is rooms for students along with a common room.

This isn't the first time Aruhik has visited here, as during his first year, along with Sia and Ash, he has 'explored' the almost whole Hogwarts castle, except personal living quarters of Professors staying in the castle and Principal's Office because they didn't have any interest in the former one while even though protection mechanism of latter one is incapable of harming them, upon sensing the office they concluded that there is a high chance Dumbledore might discover later on that somebody trespassed his office.

Also, at that time they discovered that there are actually four such guest sections in the castle, Aruhik thinks that according to the location of these guest sections there is a high chance that each might have been built for the four different houses of the Hogwarts, and most probably, this one should belong to Gryffindor house.

Upon entering the main hall of the guest section Aruhik noticed that different from three years ago, a large circular dining table has been placed at the center of the hall and a variety of dishes arranged on it, apparently their tonight's dinner.

When Aruhik casually took one of the positions at the dining table, he sensed that one of the witches from the group immediately ran and sat beside him, then cheerfully greeted him with slight anticipation but without introducing herself.

"Bonsoir, Aruhik, can I sit 'ere?"

Aruhik looked at the little girl sitting beside him and thought that they should have never met before, let alone being familiar with each other, still, he replied her in a similar manner with a smile on his face.

"Hello, Gabrielle, sure you can take the sit. I have heard many things about you from Fleur, it is good to meet you in person."

Aruhik noticed that there is a clear nervousness on Gabrielle's face and after pausing for a few moments she asked him, hoping that her elder sister didn't tell anything bad or embarrassing about her.

"What did ... elder sister mentioned, about me?"

Aruhik doesn't know that even though Fleur really loves and takes care of her younger sister, she is also quite overprotective towards Gabrielle, due to which the younger sister didn't think that her elder sister will have too many good things to tell about her, however, the truth is just opposite.

While thinking that Gabrielle has mastered English much better than Fleur, Aruhik answered in the same teasing manner he uses while communicating with younger wizards and witches.

"Actually, even though I suspected the high praises she has given to her dear younger sister, upon meeting you I discovered that some of them are indeed false ... as you are much cuter and courageous than your sister claimed you to be."

When Aruhik spoke the first part of the sentence Gabrielle thought that her first impression has been destroyed, but when he spoke the second part she understood that he was teasing and was feeling embarrassed at the praises, and even though this isn't the first she has been called cute, unknown to her slight blush has appeared on her cheeks.

While on the other side, upon speaking the first part of the sentence Aruhik thought that Gabrielle is indeed a little girl, whose thoughts are always 'written' on their faces, but upon watching her reaction at the second part of the statement, Aruhik almost doubted that he has lost control of his charm and unconsciously used it on less than ten years old kid.

As even though he knows that it is a fact that children with magical capabilities mature early, he couldn't help but think that isn't this kid a little precocious?

It isn't like Aruhik has never met a person who considers him as an idol or as someone to aspire for, but still, kids of this age usually look at three vampires with idolizing gaze, not like this little girl.

Indeed Gabrielle is just a little kid for Aruhik and even for Sia, as even with the physical appearance of teenagers both consider themselves as grown-up adults and they surely are.

Even the students in Hogwarts are youngsters for both of them, with one of the exceptions being Ash, as her own experience along with learning from past experience of Aruhik and Sia through their shared thoughts has mentally matured her.

Even with all this Aruhik felt that talking to Gabrielle is much more pleasant compared to her elder sister, as her disposition is indeed better than Fleur and quickly won the favorable impression of even other students at the table, as an adorable cheerful little girl.

Also because she is quite young, even while having Veela bloodline her charm is nowhere near as active as her elder sister, so unlike in Fleur's case Aruhik didn't feel irritated while talking to her, as even though Veela's charm ineffective on him, due to his senses and Veela's charm using magical energy he feels annoyed by the fact that Fleur or as a matter of fact any other Veela is 'attacking' his mind, even if it is an unconscious action.

Furthermore, Aruhik wasn't lying when he praised her, because it is indeed quite brave for a less than 10 years old girl to accept becoming hostage for this task, after all, even teenage magicians were hesitating to accept this proposal, and everyone here is also aware of this fact, well, maybe except the excited little girl who is enjoying every moment of this, moreover, Aruhik sensed from her words that she never expected others to like her this much and he believes it is most likely due to the overprotective nature of her elder sister she never got too many chances to interact properly with those significantly older than her.

What of Gabrielle's crush on Aruhik? Aruhik doesn't think he needs to bother himself with it, first, she is a small kid for him, and second, he believes that it is nothing more than an immature crush from someone who learned about him from rumors like news or magazines without actually checking its complete credibility, furthermore, he thinks that it will disappear with time as she grows up and gets more experience.

After dinner, everybody decided to rest early due to the event tomorrow morning, and Aruhik also went to his room, not for sleeping but for completing their current course on muggle science, and even with 21 rooms available he has to share the room with Rikard Fischer and Ron Weasley so he might get discovered upon warping to Sia and Ash, also the three vampires can't really sleep while being away from each other let alone he is unsure that upon sleeping they would be able to wake up on time for the task.

On a side note, Aruhik discovered an interesting fact that either his two temporary roommates have exceptionally loud snoring, or due to three of them subconsciously slowing down their breath to the level of nearly stopping it while sleeping he finds the act of taking loud breaths during sleep as something strange.

*****

The next morning, at around 4:00 am, Aruhik sensed three headmasters along with 'Moody' and an Informant class Glaive disguised as V.N. employee entering the hall of the guest section, but to avoid making it look like he sensed their arrival Aruhik waited for around one more hour before going out of the room to greet them.

As Aruhik entered the hall, Crouch jr. was second to notice his arrival after Dumbledore, and while Aruhik was greeting them, 'Moody' was glaring at him with the only working eye this face with a really gloomy expression.

Crouch Jr. really hates the twin children of Bellatrix, who Dark Lord considers as the one most loyal to him, as even though her kids are owners of a whole business empire, they haven't tried to find or help the great Dark lord even once, and even now their protection for champions has caused a great deal of nuisance for him.

It was due to his great resentment against Bellatrix and her kids that Crouch Jr. wanted to observe them at their first meeting. At first glance, he concluded that they have used something similar to Dumbledore to protect themselves from scanning spells.

Still, Crouch Jr. hoped to breach that protective layer made of jet black fumes with the famed artifact of 'Mad-Eye' Moody, the artificial magical eye capable of seeing through physical as well as magical barriers, but he never expected that jet black barrier is capable of executing such a deadly counterattack.

Even though he still hasn't found the exact method they used to destroy the magical eye, he knows that he dodged the death just by hair's breadth as even after such a long time and all his efforts that magical eye is still petrified.

During school days Crouch Jr. was one of the best students of his batch however the only major thing he can conclude is that the counterattack was a strong and most likely irreversible petrification spell, but he also believes that he has discovered quite a peculiar property of that petrification spell that the purpose of the spell he faced is not protection rather killing, as even though the artificial eye was looking through a transparent glass, the petrification spell didn't affect glass and only affected the artificial eye which upon getting connected to him will be considered as a living thing, at least in most of the cases.

Crouch Jr. even considered using the excuse of Lestrange kids using a dangerous petrifying spell and send them to their mother and father, in the Azkaban, but he has to grudgingly accept that chances of him succeeding in this are exceptionally small.

As those three aren't someone that Ministry Of Magic of any country would like to clash against without a significant cause, so even while putting Moody's name at stake Crouch Jr. might fail in just registering the case let alone arresting and putting them in Azkaban.

Moreover, even though he is impersonating Moody, he isn't sure that he would be able to hide his identity from many 'familiar people' he would have to meet while dealing with the Lestrange kids, especially when his magical eye isn't working and had to pretend it still exists using a transfigured fake eye which is set to move automatically, as saying that his artificial eye got destroyed will create too many problems.

Therefore, due to the impatience, instead of doing it in the third task like original, Crouch Jr. has planned to catch Harry today and take him to Dark Lord, so that he can prove that he is the most loyal person, which is his dream and greatest wish since a long time ago.

Although many unexpected accidents outside his plan have occurred, such as the intervention of the Lestrange family, increase in the number of champions, and him getting discovered by his father, but for his dreams Crouch jr. is willing to take any risk, even going back to Azkaban or directly getting killed, as long as it will help in Dark Lord's return, everything is worth it.

Even Dumbledore knows that since the first time 'Moody' entered the Hogwarts, he has been showing clear enmity towards the Lestrange Siblings, also Dumbledore can tell by his vast experience that 'Moody' feelings for the Lestrange Siblings is that of hate and if he isn't wrong then a pretty strong one.

However, Dumbledore doesn't want professors in Hogwarts to hate any of the students, Harry and Snape are a different case as Snape indeed cares for Harry and more than enough to sacrifice himself for Harry, so Dumbledore directly asked 'Moody' the reason for this, as this hate is quite one-sided with only 'Moody' showing negative emotions while Lestrange Siblings showing neither negative nor positive emotions towards him.

But 'Moody' didn't tell Dumbledore the basis for his hate or rather he didn't tell the true cause, it was due to this reason Dumbledore didn't take any action upon learning that Lestrange siblings have stopped attending 'Moody's classes' and very cleverly put all the blame on 'Moody's' head, also from other Professors he knows that even while being lazy they have completed the fourth year course for most of the subjects, except History of Magic and Divination, so he is pretty sure that have they have much more theoretical and practical experience in Defence Against Dark Arts than any fourth year can have at the end of the year, moreover, for him, Sia crossing the age line proved that he really underestimated the extent of their knowledge and experience.

Watching Aruhik awake this early in the morning Dumbledore was slightly surprised, as he expected due to the reputation of Lestrange Siblings that he will be the last to wake up, but then he concluded that even though Aruhik didn't show any nervousness like others, he is still an early teenage kid, how can he not be afraid, he must have hidden better it better due to his experience in socializing with a vast number of people because of their work, so most likely, he might have been awake the whole night.

By this time Aruhik has already reached near the Headmasters so he greeted them and the Glaive disguised as V.N. employee.

"Good morning, Professors, and, it has been a while, Mr. Devin."

The way Aruhik greeted the adults differently is somewhat displeasing for a couple of them, but this V.N. employee is indeed a subordinate of him so it is not like he did anything wrong.

Dumbledore greeted Aruhik with a kind smile, hoping to reduce the 'nervousness' he might be feeling.

"Good Morning Aruhik, it looks like, you hadn't had a good sleep?"

Aruhik was confused about this question, as this isn't the first time he has woke early in the Hogwarts and his bloodlines shouldn't make him feel or look weary even if he didn't sleep for months or as a matter of fact even years. Still, he replied with the reason matching with his character.

"Yeah! Possibly because I was too excited about today's event."

However, after giving this reply, Aruhik was more confused, as Dumbledore didn't believe him.

Dumbledore assured Aruhik in a calm voice while gently patting his shoulder.

"Don't be worried, you will not encounter any danger in the lake. We have made the completely safe preparation, even for the champions, especially with your company's help, believe me, you all will return in great health, good luck!"

Hearing this though his confusion increased, Aruhik gave up and decided to play along.

"Thanks, Professor."

Soon, other 'hostages' as well as McGonagall, Snape, Percy, and Minister of Magic along with two Aurors entered the hall. Aruhik noticed that hostages are looking quite sleep-deprived, well, although last night he sensed that all the 'hostages' were able to sleep, he also sensed that they slept quite late.

After everyone arrived, they went to the black lake, then same as yesterday night, Dumbledore began the process of hiding them inside water.

*****

On the other side, Sia is sitting at the Slytherin table along with Ash and students from all four houses, while listening to some of them who are trying to cheer her up and reduce her nervousness for the competition, as, since Sia sat here she hasn't eaten anything.

In reality, there is no way Sia will become nervous by this easy competition, well, as a matter of fact even this competition was really dangerous she won't feel any nervousness rather it will be exciting for her to take part in it.

Sia is acting this way because she is trying to keep in check the annoyance she has been feeling since last night, as since meeting with Aruhik this is the first time she has to spend a night away from him for some 'worthless reason'.

As a matter of fact even while performing the task as Glaives they tend to work together unless it is absolutely necessary for them to separate, like in the case of the Rwandan genocide where they were needed to take fast actions otherwise Ministry would have discovered them even before their task was completed, moreover, in case they need to form the two groups, almost always Ash volunteers to take separate actions, hence making Sia and Aruhik stay together.

Aruhik is someone who has experienced a normal civilized society, so even though he is quite attached to Sia, he knows and understands that sometimes they are required to stay at separate places, moreover, they can always talk to each other through their mental connection at any given moment.

However, since Sia has been born near those clouds, she has always been alone and though she yearned for companionship, she got it for the first time through Aruhik that too after being alone for millennia, therefore her attachment is somewhat different from Aruhik and even though she also knows the reason for their short separation, she doesn't want to accept it.

Furthermore, just because of this as well as the whole thing about taking Aruhik as hostage Sia even hoped that she never participated in this competition, as even though she can always withdraw from this tournament and even Aruhik won't stop her, she also understands that it will create more troubles for Aruhik, therefore when Aruhik asked her about the same upon learning from her thoughts she refused it.

As Sia and Ash were waiting for the task to start so they can bring back Aruhik as soon as possible, suddenly they sensed through Aruhik, who is already 'hidden' inside the lake, that he has found a strangely familiar but unwanted magical artifact inside the lake quite near to the merpeople village, around a 100 meters from the position hostages have been hidden.

Though this might be related to their final goal for taking part in this championship, both Sia and Ash maintained their facial expression to not show it outside and Aruhik still hasn't found the true nature of that magical artifact, so both waited to receive further news from him.

In less than 10 seconds Aruhik confirmed their suspicion, it is an improved Portkey, designed by him but released in the name of the V.N. research department. If it would have been Sia or Ash, they might not have been able to identify it in such a short but Aruhik has a much better subconscious understanding of space-based spells so he identified it.

They indeed allowed Barty Crouch Jr. to 'check' the protection arrangement after everyone else in the form of bait, but they really didn't expect Moody to catch it, however, the sooner they deal with Voldemort and his followers, the better it is for them, as they won't have to be so careful with arrangements of tournament's third task.

Upon sensing the Portkey, Aruhik can already guess most of his plan, but the most confusing and somewhat intriguing part is that no matter how he executes this plan, it is too crude, with quite a low success rate.

After all, Crouch Jr.'s goal is to kidnap Harry and the presence of Portkey inside the lake indicates that Harry must be dragged or lured to that place during the task, whether forcefully or willfully, moreover, any suspicious behavior would be instantly captured by cameras and transmitted to Aurors and safety team.

However, chances of Harry touching that Portkey by himself is negligible, especially after he awakened his magical senses, so he must be dragged to that Portkey and since Crouch Jr. can't personally enter the lake only available options for this job are champions, hostages, as well as creatures inside the lake.

Aruhik has already checked that none of the hostages are controlled in any way and at the moment champions aren't near enough for him to check for any spells on them, so he began spreading his senses for finding magical creatures which might be controlled.

After a few minutes, Sia and Ash received two more new discoveries from Aruhik, one that there are more than one Portkeys as he discovered two more, means a total of three portkeys in the whole lake, and two that he already found one mermaid controlled by the imperious curse which has Crouch Jr.'s magical signature.

Three of them has to acknowledge that even though this plan is quite crude, Barty Crouch Jr. is indeed an intelligent wizard, as not many people think of using imperious curse on magical creatures along with its advantages because even though it is quite difficult to command non-intelligent creatures for performing a precise task, they can indeed be quite useful in more than one ways, a quite simple example of it would be controlling a rodent to carry a voice transmitter in some secret meeting.

After confirming the number of Portkeys and that at least one magical creature has been controlled, Aruhik didn't continue searching for any more controlled creatures or moved to use the Portkeys. As even though they might find Voldemort on the other side of Portkeys, Aruhik isn't sure that they will definitely find him on the opposite side, after all, Voldemort might arrive there after Portkey got activated and at the moment he is hiding at a different place, moreover, who knows that all three Portkeys might lead to three different places, so three of them decided to not use Portkey at the moment and wait for Harry to get kidnapped as well as the appearance of Voldemort.

Now Aruhik is trying to find the destination co-ordinates of all three Portkeys, however, it isn't an easy task to find and locate the destination of Portkeys without actually destroying or directly using it, especially in this case where he needs to scan all three spells from the distance of more than hundred meters, as by now Aurors should be observing the hostages through cameras, thankfully for Aruhik, this Portkey spell was designed by him which significantly reduced his workload.

After more than 15 minutes Aruhik finally traced the destination co-ordinates of all three Portkeys, and as expected they are indeed for three different places, however, just finding the co-ordinates isn't enough for Warping directly to that place, as they have never visited or marked that place, at best they can Warp to a previously visited place nearby that location.

Moreover, they also need to contact Glaives for their help, as even though they are strong, they are not sure if they can prevent everyone from escaping, after all, they have personally experienced that this world has awesome movement spells, especially after Aruhik made his improved spell public through Lucius Malfoy.

And although rare, some black wizards were indeed able to escape from their hunt, therefore, when dealing with magicians they usually trap them inside a barrier and this work generally falls on Glaives accompanying them, moreover, this time, after spending so much time and effort they can't allow Voldemort to escape.

Therefore, even before Aruhik found out all three destinations, Ash left for their dorm room so she can contact Glaives and leave Hogwarts without being detected, while Sia decided to stay and participate in the tournament, so she can bring out Aruhik within the rules without creating any big issues or public unrest as they have decided to keep the appearance as well as the elimination of Voldemort a secret from the public.

*****

The place where the first task of Triwizard Championship was performed has once again been filled with the audience sitting on viewing stands, but unlike previous time this stand isn't circular with an arena in the middle instead it is an extended one, facing towards the black lake as well as multiple screens floating in the air, showing the view inside the lake from constantly changing position and angles from different cameras.

In front of the viewing stand for the audience, the Judges' table has been arranged, while the nine champions are standing on a wooden platform at one side of the black lake in their athletic swimwear, fortunately, nobody had the misfortune of going down the lake in their school uniform similar to what Harry did in the original.

Obviously, because of skin-tight swimwears, three girls are receiving much greater attention than boys even before the competition started, and one receiving the most attention is Sia, mostly from boys, as due to Lucian Vampire bloodline Sia has the so-called ideal appearance, from her shiny waist-length black hair, deep blue eyes, beautiful face to her height, hips, chest everything seems like a perfect match with each other, finally, making her appearance into a girl without any detectable defect, well, along with this even her political, social, and economical standing are also somewhat responsible for the great number of people paying attention to her.

Due to the same reason, among the hostages, Aruhik is the one receiving the most attention, as even though Dumbledore's spell somewhat protected them, because of being underwater for hours their skin has become puffy, making them look like looking like boiled potatoes, however, for a bloodline associated to immortality how can it make skin affected just from the few hours of exposure to water.

A small difference between the attention two of them receiving is that the one staring at Sia are mostly boys while for Aruhik it is girls, but both are already used to the stares of public, moreover, this time most of the gazes are filled with admiration, friendliness, or similar positive emotions, which isn't always the case. Indeed, in their early years, they were quite affected by such gazes but over time they learned that practically nothing significant can be done about it and after a few years got used to it.

Completely ignoring the eyes of the audience and the nervous expression on other champions' faces as well as their shivering due to cold, Sia began scanning for the presence of any type of strangeness in them.

And, as expected by Sia, neither of Hogwarts champions have any type of manipulation spell used on them, most likely because Dumbledore will easily sense if either of Harry or Cedric has any problem with them, even Beauxbatons champions don't have anything wrong with them.

However, upon sensing the Durmstrangs champions, Sia felt that similar to the first task, Durmstrang is once again the unluckiest one. No, none of the Durmstrang 'champions' have been controlled, however, Viktor is the only one among the three who is real while Jacob and Moritz have been replaced with two unknown magicians, as Sia doesn't remember meeting humans with these magical signatures.

Soon after Sia found that the two disguisings as Jacob and Moritz should be one who will try to kidnap Harry through the Portkeys, she received a mental message from Aruhik explaining why did only two champions from Durmstrang got replaced and Viktor was not included.

Aruhik explained that most likely Barty Crouch Jr. isn't putting all his hope on this crude plan and those impersonating Jacob and Moritz will continue doing the same if this plan failed, therefore, if Viktor got replaced then, although involuntary, due to breaking the contract with Goblet of Fire he will receive a severe backlash for not attending the competition, which will make it difficult for the person impersonating Viktor Krum to extract information and continue pretending to be him.

As the competition was about to start, Ludo Bagman stood up from the Judge's table and entered a small tent nearby, inside which multiple smaller displays have been arranged to show the whole lake which will help him with his commentary. Originally, no commentary was planned for the second task, but with the help of V.N. even the audience is able to clearly watch the whole competition so commentary also became possible.

And soon a loud voice of Ludo Bagman reached the whole of the audience, judges, and champions.

"Well, all our champions are ready for the second task, which will start on my whistle. They have precisely an hour to recover what has been taken from them. On the count of three, then. One...two...three!"

As the shrill whistle echoed, and the stands erupted with cheers and applause, every participant except Sia instantly dived into the lake while simultaneously using their respective methods for breathing underwater.

The other warriors didn't take too long to complete their preparation and began searching for the hostages, on the one hand, they have been practicing to rescue the hostages as fast as possible to win the game since Ministry gave details about the second task, and on the other hand, staying underwater in this cold winter is really unbearable for all of them.

This time Harry didn't have to search for a way of breathing underwater or steal gillyweed, as there is no way the three vampires can forget to teach him general life-saving spells such as Bubble Head charm, so Harry as well as Cedric, 'Jacob', 'Moritz', Fleur, and Seymour used the Bubble Head charm.

However, Cecile from Beauxbatons once again surprised many including the three vampires by using gillyweed, as even though her not using bubblehead charm might be perceived by many as a 'proof' of her inferior magical capabilities, in actuality using gillyweed instead of bubblehead charm is a much wiser choice.

As bubblehead charm is only for breathing underwater however gillyweed transform magicians and even other terrestrial magical creatures into an aquatic creature, breathing is just one of its capabilities, its transformation even helps in better underwater vision, movement, and hearing.

While, as in the original, Viktor used partial human transformation to turn his head into a shark, well, even according to the standards of the three vampires this one is quite a dangerous spell and they don't dare to use it on themselves or any of their allies because the consequence of losing control over this spell is the target of spell permanently getting some features or all features from the transformed form.

It is due to this reason three of them used illusion spell on their ears and never used a transformation spell, as even though they don't really like their pointed ears, they are very much aware of the fact that their hearing capabilities are much better than any magician, human, and most of the other wild creatures and they don't want to lose or degrade it.

When other champions just entered the lake, Sia also jumped down from the wooden stage, not into the lake but stood on its surface and began moving towards the direction she has perceived Aruhik to be. Walking on the water is the second mana control training exercise Aruhik and Sia performed, they had to spend a lot of time and effort to master this ability to level where they can walk on water unconsciously while having a high-intensity fight, and those who haven't experienced it might never understand the pain of making something into 'muscle memory'.

As even though Sia doesn't consider themselves as geniuses, she believes that individually they can surely be considered above average and with their shared thoughts they should be on the border of genius, but still, she has lost the count of the number of times she has fallen in the water during the first 24 hours of this training.

On the audience side, except for the eight screens meant for continuously showing eight other champions, all other screens had a scene of Sia 'running' on the surface of the water, from different angles, well, even though Sia is just walking, that too nowhere near her full speed, for magicians in the audience this is same as running at the maximum speed possible by humans.

At the same time, Ludo Bagman also paused for a moment, but as an experienced commentator, he immediately continued and focused his commentary on Sia, however, even though Bagman can clearly explain the methods used by others, he was only able to speculate the possible method used by Sia.

Inside the lake, Harry hadn't gone too deep so the sudden rise in cheers made him look up and he vaguely saw someone walking on the surface of the water, though within seconds he guessed the identity of that person, he still looked around him and found that only Sitasia isn't inside the lake.

Once, Harry saw Sitasia moving towards a certain direction, he presumed that she might have discovered Aruhik and followed behind her, expecting that even if all hostages aren't kept at the same place he might find some clue for the position of Ron.

And Harry isn't the only one following behind Sia, as Seymour also thought the same, while the two magicians disguised as Jacob and Moritz have the task of capturing Harry, so they also went to the same direction, but soon all four of them were left behind by Sia, as the swimming speed of humans is much slower than their running speed.

In just a few minutes, Sia was already above the position where Aruhik, or rather where all hostages are kept. Sia can't see through the turbid lake water at the bottom part but she knows through her senses as well as Aruhik that all hostages are floating near the central part of the merpeople village, tied to a partially broken giant statue of a mermaid wielding a trident.

As for the village itself, the moment merpeople saw that Sia is coming towards them it has already been emptied and sensing the hilarious scene of merpeople running away from the village within seconds, which looked like they are abandoning the village for running away from a doomsday monster, it was really difficult for Aruhik to keep a straight face and pretend to be unconscious for the camera.

For Sia, this isn't the first time first she has received such a 'welcome' from a village of intelligent species but for Aruhik this was the first time he saw the scene of a whole village of intelligent species fearing their mere presence and knowing that merpeople keep murals of the history of their village, Aruhik had the strange idea of 'gifting' merpeople village with a statue of Sia, and recording the video of the village 'worshiping' her, but soon he stopped this line of thoughts, as he sensed Sia isn't happy with this idea, and he still remembers the consequences of supporting those novelists disguised as journalists.

Yes, judges, audience, and even those watching live on television also saw merpeople escaping the village, but they can't do anything about it, at most, after the competition they will try to cover it up with the fact that merpeople are afraid of magicians.

As the audience was getting curious about how will Sitasia free Aruhik, will she dive down after keeping herself dry since the start? They soon received their answers as Sia bent down and put one of her hands on the surface of the lake.

Although most of the audience didn't understand what actually happened and only saw the thick green rope tied to Aruhik snapping in two, the few experienced ones like Judges and senior Aurors noticed the strange movement of smaller dust particle inside the water, therefore concluded that Sitasia must be controlling the flow of water and used reverse flow in the two adjacent part of the ropes to break it into two.

And those who understood the method used by Sia, know the fact that difficulty of controlling the fluid is far above that of controlling a solid object, let alone controlling it to such an extent that even such a thick rope broke within seconds, the only ones who can do such an act are experienced magicians like Dumbledore and Moody, even in this case the later one might require his wand to perform it at such a large distance.

After the rope broke, due to Aruhik's body density being lower than the water he began rising slowly, and soon the water controlled by Sia helped him in rising much faster.

As Aruhik was about to reach the surface, Sia slowed him down and slowly brought him out of the lake surface, with her hand which was touching the lake surface resting on his chest.

The moment Aruhik came out of the water, he instantly opened his eye and was about to jump away from Sia as he already knew what is about to happen to him, but he was a step late and Aruhik cursed his fate for the necessity to hide his capability of using Warping in an apparition restricted area in front of so many people.

What made Aruhik wanted to run away? Because now he is lifted by Sia in the famed princess carry, then she lowered her face while bringing his head up and gave him a forceful rare kiss on his lips, as they usually kiss each other on the neck.

As the kiss was about to turn into a deep one, Sia removed her lips while giving him a teasing smile. When Sia ended the kiss, Aruhik was feeling the rise in the temperature of his face and he was sure that at least his cheeks have turned red, and through Sia's eyes he confirmed that it is indeed the case, also most likely even audience should be able to see it through the screens.

Though both of them have already resolved it, Sia was still unhappy with the fact that Aruhik supported those 'novelists' for creating more stories about her, and the exceptional plans of Aruhik about giving her statue to merpeople village just rubbed her the wrong way, so she decided to give some material to those 'novelist' that Aruhik definitely won't like.

Sia remembered that due to some reason that she is incapable of understanding, Aruhik is quite embarrassed by the idea of her or Ash carrying him in the way called princess carry in front of other people, but she still can't understand the hypocritical reason for this as she and Ash obviously don't feel embarrassed or resistive to the idea of him carrying either of them in the so-called princess carry style, rather, to be honest, she even thinks that it might feel good to be carried like this.

Therefore, instantly after Aruhik came out of Sia didn't give him any chance to run away and picked him up in princess carry, even kissed him on lips instead of going for the neck like she usually does. Sia is pretty sure that this scene will be shown on most of the screens, that too from different angles, and will most probably give enough material to those novelists for twisting their 'story' in such a way that Aruhik won't like, and will teach him a lesson to not have those strange ideas again.

Aruhik also knows that what has happened can't be changed, and cheers from the audience are telling him that even his effort for covering it up might lead to a bigger mess, so he released a sigh while giving up the thought of getting down from Sia's hands, as he knows that she is determined to take him to the finish line of the task on the platform at the side of the lake.

As soon as Sia climbed the platform, her completion time was recorded which is 6 minutes 52 seconds, then after Sia let Aruhik stand on his feet they both were taken to the medic tent. Actually, the ones responsible for the working of this medic tent is V.N. so ones working here are informant class Glaives, and even though they can't be considered as best healers, they do have quite good accomplishments in healing arts and spells.

Though Madame Pomfrey was quite unhappy with the fact that V.N. didn't give her permission to enter the Medic tent for healing the students, during the negotiation with Barty Crouch Sr. about investment in Triwizard Championship, Aruhik willingly took complete charge of this healing tent on his personal cost, because after completion of the task champions are supposed to rest inside this tent, so it will become easier for three of them to leave the Hogwarts while not being noted by anyone, in a case like today.

After entering the magically expanded tent, first, both Aruhik and Sia went to the changing room to change into proper dry clothes, as Aruhik is wearing dripping wet Hogwarts school robes while Sia is still wearing her dark purple swimwear. While they were drying each other with spells, Sia sensed the thoughts of Aruhik who has been continuously staring at her since they entered this room, so she looked towards him and he answered her mental question.

"Although I have already seen you through Ash, looking directly, you do look quite enchanting in this skin-tight dress ... let's go to the beach after this, due to this cold temperature even rush would be quite less."

Sia still doesn't like aquatic creatures as well as large water bodies like seas and oceans, therefore, beaches have always been one of their least visited places. However, Sia already knows where did Aruhik got this idea from, so after thinking for a few moments she agreed to it.

"... Alright."

And indeed Aruhik put forward his other request.

"But we need to view some better-looking swimsuits for you and Ash, not this athletic one, although, this one is also good in its own way."

"Sure."

This time Sia agreed instantly, as even though she didn't like wearing clothes in the beginning, now she has learned that most of times clothes do increase their beauty, so while Aruhik has planned to search some beautiful clothes for her and Ash, she has also planned to do the same for him.

Soon both changed into their usual black dress with hoods by changing their inherent clothing and after coming out of changing room they went towards their assigned medic room.

However, this medic room isn't for healing them, the whole room is arranged multiple screens, each showing a view from different a camera put inside the lake and four Glaives are keeping an eye for any unusual actions occurring inside the lake.

Upon entering the room Aruhik and Sia began observing the screen showing Harry and two magicians impersonating Jacob and Moritz, they also noticed Seymour who is following behind them but still some distance away.

*****

Harry has been going in the same direction as Sia while observing the bottom of the lake for any clues when even with the dampening of sound by the water he suddenly heard loud cheers from outside the outside, which made him believe that Sitasia has discovered Aruhik and even rescued him, so he was sure that he might find some clue in that direction and further increased his speed.

Obviously, Harry noticed the presence of 'Jacob' and 'Moritz' who are just behind him and saw that they also increased their speed along with him, but they never went ahead of him as if they are following him instead of searching for their hostages, however, when he tried talking to them due to being underwater nobody was able to understand each other.

So, to not waste any more time, Harry continued swimming in the same direction as Sitasia went while keeping guard against both of them. However, due to paying more attention to these two, Harry missed a group of Grindylows hiding between the bushes in front of him.

Harry noticed these creatures when one of them entered the range of his magical sense and was going for his ankle, but he is not used to moving inside water due to which he wasn't able to dodge and that Grindylow caught his leg.

The training Harry went through in his childhood worked and he reflexively attacked that Grindylow, a jet of what looked like boiling water came out of his wand and hit that Grindylow, due to which red patches began appearing on its green skin and it left his ankle, but Harry knew that it isn't over as he clearly remembers that Grindylows live and hunt in groups.

Though Harry wanted to be proved wrong, he was right, as more Grindylows began rising from the weed bushes around him. Harry understood the fact, that although he has confidence in winning against this relatively small group of Grindylows, engaging in combat with Grindylows would be fruitless and time-consuming so he decided to swim away from here.

As Harry was about to run away his magical senses pick two spells coming near him, so he instantly stopped attacking Grindylows and created a barrier around him while preparing himself for the impact.

However, within seconds Harry was surprised to find that the target of those spells isn't him rather it is the Grindylows coming near him. Though Harry had already guessed it, he still looked towards the ones following him and confirmed that 'Jacob' and 'Moritz' are indeed the ones who helped him.

Then both came near Harry and together they began moving away from here while attacking Grindylows at back, but this time the one leading them is 'Moritz' due to which Harry didn't notice that the direction they are swimming at is slightly different from his initial one.

Although Harry wasn't in desperate need of help, he had seen both 'Jacob' and 'Moritz' helping him 'selflessly', therefore, even while being from different schools his trust in them increased and Harry stopped guarding against them, moreover, even if they released a spell within the range of his senses after initial few times he stopped checking what their target is.

For the audience looking at them through hidden cameras, this was quite a good co-operation between competitors depending on their condition and many were discussing the pros and cons of this partnership, but one thing was sure almost all of them are excited watching something unexpected. Even the judges weren't expecting champions from different schools co-operating with each other for such a long time, however, unlike the other two principals, Dumbledore was more supportive of this behavior between students, rather than letting them attack each other.

As Harry's group of three was swimming ahead, after dealing with one more group of Grindylow they encountered two mermaids floating above a rare rocky area in the lake bottom. Harry noticed both cutthroat looking mermaids looked at them and moved slightly to the side as if they are indicating that they won't be blocking the path for three of them.

Still, Harry was slightly surprised by their reaction, as even though he can't read their expression, from what he knows these merpeople should be quite afraid of magicians, so the moment they see wands, even if they greatly outnumber the magician, generally they back off to a quite far away place, however, these mermaids are staying within hands reach, so, just for precaution, he warned other two by hand sings to keep an eye on the mermaids, as who knows they might be ordered to stop champions.

As Harry followed behind 'Moritz' while keeping an eye on two mermaids in case they attacked them, when Harry shifted his sights for a moment suddenly both mermaids launched towards his wand holding hand.

However, even though mermaids are quite faster than him underwater, due to his magical senses keeping track of both of them he immediately reacted and created a barrier between them and himself.

As both mermaids bounced off his shield, Harry backed off while sending stunning spell towards the mermaid closer to him and simultaneously tried to warn his two teammates, but only bubbles came out of his mouth, moreover .... they didn't really require his warning.

On the surface, Karkaroff and Madame Maxime were looking at Dumbledore with questioning gaze as according to their discussion last night merpeople are supposed to look over and in case of emergency help the champions, not attack them. However, before either of them can voice their doubts, the situation inside the lake took such a turn that they were left shocked.

While Harry was trying to warn the other two, he sensed two spells forming beside him, as he was feeling thankful for working with Durmstrang's champions, he was surprised to discover that those two spells are coming towards him, but by the time he realized this it was already late to even strengthen his current barrier and dodging underwater is impossible for him.

And, obviously, Harry's barrier wasn't able to bear two spells from adult magicians disguised as teenagers, so one spell completely crushed his barrier while the other one disarmed him while throwing him back.

Harry didn't even have a chance to complain as he once again sensed two spells coming towards him, so he created a makeshift barrier using a wandless spell, which he has been learning from Draco but wasn't able to make much progress without the help of the three vampires' magical senses, which even Harry knows is far, far superior to him.

Still, even though Harry can be considered as a genius for being able to use wandless barrier spells in his early teens, it can't change the fact that without proper proficiency wandless spells are relatively weaker than spells executed using wands, so as expected, once again his barrier got crushed and he got thrown while being rendered unconscious.

And the moment spells took effect on Harry, both 'Jacob' and 'Moritz' swam towards Harry and dragged him to a nearby strangely shaped stone, which is actually a Portkey, then all three touched the stone at the same time and disappeared from inside the lake along with the stone, while the two mermaids looked like they have just wakened up began swimming towards the direction of their village.

On the surface, initially, most of the audience were outraged by the 'betrayal' of 'Jacob' and 'Moritz' but when Harry disappeared, panic began spreading, although, some still didn't want to believe the fact that one of the champions has been kidnaped in front of so many magicians.

And on the side of Judges, safety unit, and Aurors none of them thought that something like this can happen till Harry disappeared, as both imposters used non-lethal spells to make it look like a fight among champions, moreover, all this happened so fast that they weren't even able to take any action to prevent it, Dumbledore was the only one who called Fawkes based on his suspicion, but still, he was late.

While on Aruhik and Sia's side, when Aruhik saw the two mermaids floating above the rocky area of the lake bottom, he mentally instructed Ash to prepare for the next step.

'Ash, prepare for location B.'

And on the other side, Ash and Glaives appeared at some distance from 'Location B', the destination of the Portkey that Harry was dragged through, which is ironically enough an abandoned muggle amusement park.

Just this morning, Ash has personally checked this place from the distance while hiding, and easily found the location of resurrection ceremony, which is a large open area in the middle of the park where a large cauldron has been placed filled with some liquid which has a large amount of magical energy in it.

Upon watching that those two imposters actually managed to knock out Harry, that too quite easily because he wasn't even able to retaliate or even resist, Aruhik wondered how much of a bad luck one needs to have to be captured like Harry, but soon thought that this might be the effect of his own good luck he wished for, as he actually hoped for Harry to get kidnaped.

And the moment Harry got transported through Portkey, Aruhik and Sia also warped near Ash after giving a few instructions to the four Glaives in the room.

"If somebody asked about us, tell them that when Harry got kidnapped, we have been taken to a safe place, for safety reasons. Also, tell other Glaives to prepare for capturing Crouch Jr. after Harry exposes him, in case he managed to escape from Aurors."

*****

By the time Aruhik and Sia warped near Ash, Glaives had already done most of the preparation to trap Voldemort and his followers with a barrier that stops people from trespassing it with both magical and physical means also this barrier capable of traping even ghosts that means souls, while Ash is observing the Amusement Park through her senses for the presence of Voldemort, and obviously, she noted the sudden appearance of Harry along with two imposters.

Though Harry was rendered unconscious inside the lake, getting transported through Portkey overloaded his magical senses which woke him up, and with wandless spells, he was able to remove his petrification in few seconds, then instantly went for the wand of 'Moritz' as he is nearest to him while sending a weak wandless spell at 'Jacob' to keep him busy.

However 'Moritz' noted Harry before he was able to take hold of the wand, still, to not waste this chance, Harry took hold of his wand holding hand to stop him from casting any curse at him, and both tumbled to the ground together.

Since Harry wasn't letting loose the hold, 'Moritz' began punching him in the face with the freehand, but Harry still didn't weaken his hold or even tried to defend the punch, rather he put his palm on Moritz's chest while simultaneously invoking an even weaker wandless spell, along with the appearance of red light 'Moritz' got thrown back, but Harry managed to take hold of the wand at the right time and managed to snatch the wand due to 'Moritz's' surprise.

The moment Harry got hold of 'Moritz's wand' he immediately ducked to avoid a dirty yellow spell sent by 'Jacob', who has already stood up after getting hit by Harry's initial wandless spell.

By this time Harry was already out of breath and left side of his face along with his lips were swollen and bleeding from previous punches that he didn't even count, but he very aware of the fact that he can't stop even for a moment and needs to create a window of time, long enough to use apparition spell and get out of here.

Unfortunately for Harry, as he was getting the upper hand against armed 'Jacob' and unarmed 'Moritz', few more magicians appeared in the amusement park and due to combined assault, Harry got captured, once again.

On the other side, Ash instantly sensed the presence of four more people, and Voldemort being one of them, therefore, Aruhik, who also knew it through shared thoughts, instructed the Glaives.

"Begin deploying the barrier."

The barrier that Glaives are about to deploy is a combined spell, executed and maintained by multiple magicians at once, moreover, even though the spell isn't difficult in itself, there is one major drawback in most of the combined barrier spells, that it can't be deployed at once. However, they can't have it here as Voldemort and his followers will discover the barrier rising above them and run away.

Therefore, even though Voldemort has already arrived, they are waiting for Glaives to complete all the preparation for creating an instant barrier.

Soon, Glaives informed them that preparations are complete, so Aruhik instructed the Glaives to activate the barrier.

After the barrier covered the amusement park the three vampires covered their faces with the black fumes and Warped inside the barrier.

*****

By this time, Harry is lying unconscious on the ground, tightly bound with a thick rope and two of magicians keeping an eye on him for any strange actions, as even Sia acknowledged him for being able to escape once again in such a short amount of time, and now 'Jacob' is holding his broken nose.

As for the reason Harry made such desperate attempts because he has learned it from the three vampires. Sia has taught Aruhik and Ash as well as fixed in their mind to not give up fighting as long as they are even able to move their fingers, moreover, both understood from from 'watching' Sia's past experience that although things like pride and respect are good, if they can save their or their companions' life by fighting dirty they must not hesitate to do it, also sometimes fighting till last breath is far better than getting captured to save your life. And Harry also learned, accepted, and practiced this habit.

The moment barrier got deployed magicians in the park were shocked, but before Voldemort can give any orders, three people with their faces hidden in black fumes appeared among them.

Aruhik Warped beside unconscious Harry and instantly warped him to a predetermined place where two Glaives will heal him and inform him about Moody's true identity, then send him back to the Hogwarts through Portkey to get past the anti-apparition barrier of the castle.

While Sia and Ash each Warped behind one of the magicians keeping an eye on Harry and killed them by stabbing the already summoned dagger through their hearts.

By this time Aruhik has already transported Harry so he threw his dagger at the one disguised as Jacob, who is trying to escape but the anti-apparition effect of this barrier stopped him, then Warped behind 'Moritz' and instantly slit his throat, next he looked towards 'Jacob' to confirm that he has indeed died.

At the same time, Sia and Ash, with their daggers in their hand, appeared on either side of one holding that deformed creature named as Voldemort, but still hasn't reacted to the situation, and immediately cut both his hands from the shoulder.

It was the sound of his hands and Voldemort hitting the ground that woke him and upon noticing his situation, his dazed expression was replaced with horror and then with a painful one, and a loud pained cry came out of his mouth. While wailing he fell and rolled on the ground which removed the hood and confirmed his identity, Peter Pettigrew.

It all happened so fast that none of the magicians, except 'Jacob', were able to react properly and everyone except Voldemort and the one holding him were killed, these two are left alive not for any conversation rather to just extract some information from them, this is another thing Sia has taught other two, to never enter a conversation during a fight, unless all of their enemies are completely eliminated, it was also due to this reason that Harry didn't speak even a single word during the whole desperate confrontation.

Voldemort was also speaking to them in a muffled voice, but none of the three vampires paid any attention to him, as whatever he might want to convey they will know it soon, through Legilimency.

Ash kicked Peter rolling on the ground to make him look into her eyes, and the moment he did, Ash forcefully broke his shield, completely ignoring the serious aftereffects of such an act on the mind of Peter, and began searching for the position of other hidden active Death Eaters like him, who has been supporting Voldemort even now.

On the other side, Aruhik went to that deformed baby, who he sensed has prepared a spell in such a short time, most likely to take them out by surprise, but still trying to make them converse. However, Voldemort was destined to be disappointed, as all it took was a small wave of pure reddish-black mana from Aruhik to completely destroy that spell.

Aruhik also used his leg to make Voldemort look into his eyes, because, to be honest, this deformed baby is really disgusting, so much so that Aruhik doesn't want to touch it with his hands. Once Voldemort looked at him, Aruhik entered his mind and began searching for the presence of any undiscovered Horcrux and hideout of remaining active Death Eaters as well as their identity.

It only took less than a minute for Ash to search through Peter's memory and after getting the required information she killed him by puncturing his heart, and then began taking out some items from her spatial ring to prepare for the next step.

Aruhik took more than a couple of minutes to get the required information, however, finally, he got a piece of good news for them, that this deformed baby has the last piece of Voldemort's soul, which was initially lodged in Nagini, who died when Voldemort separated his soul from her.

After getting the required information, Aruhik kicked Voldemort to throw him on top of the small magic circle inscribed platform arranged by Ash after killing Peter. This magic circle will let the user sense the soul in its surroundings and cover up their weakness of not being able to sense souls.

As Voldemort watched the magic circle below him light up and one of the attackers summon purple-black lightning in its hand, he knew that today this soul can't escape from the destruction because he still doesn't know that all of the Horcruxes have been destroyed he still didn't think that he will die, but he is quite panicked as he knows that these powerful attackers have learned about his biggest secret, Horcruxes and its position, so he asked the one major doubt he had in his mind since these masked attackers appeared here.

"Who are you?..."

But same as all previous attempts, none of them responded to him, rather they haven't spoken even a single word since arriving here, no matter he asks them or swears at them.

Voldemort wasn't even able to ask one more time as that lightning arrived and stopped all his thoughts.