As the Sister of Harry Potter

It wasn’t what I’d label as terrifying, but sitting alone in the maze was making my hair stand on end. I pressed myself against the now 20 foot hedge, trying to make myself as invisible as possible. It was so agonizing, just sitting here waiting for anyone, let alone Harry, to show up. I tried to think about something else, and I ended up pondering our Apparation tests. The sixth years had been taking Apparation classes for a while now, and the Twins, Sarlanda, and Cedric had passed the tests just a few weeks ago. Ophilia, Sophia and Lee were all due to take them this summer. And me? Oh no, I had to wait until next school year, and even then I had another two months wait after that.

I was clawing at the grass in anxiety, straining my ears for any signs of life, but I still couldn’t hear any crowd on the other side of the hedges. ‘Where are they?’ I asked myself, almost ready to get back up and go peak out of the hedges.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard a shrill whistle. Soft footsteps approached, and I pushed myself further into the hedge. Around the bend came Cedric, looking a bit wild. He took the fork that I wasn’t in, not even giving me a glance. If I could sigh, I would have when he moved on. I wanted to follow him, but I needed and wanted to follow Harry even more. So I waited.

And soon, there was another whistle and moments later, Harry came along. He took my bend, and I followed behind silently. Once again, I was thankful I was a cat and not some random other animal, especially one that was noisy.

We didn’t meet anything for a while. It was even more eerie than waiting for Harry to show up. We were just starting on a west-ward path when Cedric jumped out of another path, robes smoking. “The Blast-Ended Skrewts! They’re huge!” he warned Harry before dashing off down another path. Harry picked up his pace down his path, eager to get away from the Skrewt. Suddenly, the path got cold and dark, and a Dementor floated towards us.

“Expecto Patronum!” Harry yelled, sending his stag charging as the Dementor… and it stumbled.

‘What the heck?’ I thought.

“Hang on, you’re a Boggart… Riddikulus!”

With a crack, the Boggart burst into smoke. Well, that was exciting.

I stuck closer to Harry after that. After taking a few wrong turns, we reached a golden mist. It wasn’t like anything I had seen in any book or class.

“Reducto!” Harry’s spell went right through the mist.

‘Idiot, that’s for solid objects!’ I scolded in my head. I would have rolled my eyes if I could have.

Then came a scream. A girl’s scream.

“Fleur?” Harry called out. He gulped, and shifted his weight from side to side, anxious. Then he walked through the mist.

He hung upside-down in it, looking terrified and clutched his glasses to his face. He wouldn’t move. I was frozen in fright, contemplating transforming and running in to help him. But I restrained myself, and watched and waited. Eventually, he walked out and he was reunited with the ground. I ran through after him, making myself sick. I coughed up quick and then sprinted silently after him.

A COLLECTION OF THINGS WE MET:
-A giant fricken Blast-Ended Skrewt
-Krum torturing Cedric (Harry knocked Krum out)
-Millions of dead-ends
-And a sphinx

Yes, a sphinx.

It had been a while since our last dead end, and I had a strong feeling we were getting close. But pacing in our path that was leading us due north, straight to the Cup, was a huge lion with a woman’s head. She sat in the middle of the path as we approached.

“The quickest way is past me. Answer correct, and I’ll let you pass. Answer wrong, and I attack. Don’t answer, and you can walk away.

“Alright, can I here it please?” Harry asked.

The sphinx began:

“First think of a person who lives in disguise
Who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies.

Next, tell me what’s always the last thing to mend,
The middle of middle and end of the end?

And finally give me the sound often heard
During the search for a head-to-find word.

Now string them together, and answer me this,
Which creature would you be unwilling to kiss?”

“Er, would you repeat it?”

The sphinx did so. Harry was frozen in thought, and it took him a minute or so before he was muttering, “Spy…er…spy…er…don’t want to kiss…a spider?” The sphinx smiled and moved aside. Harry ran past, and when I tried to follow, the sphinx stood in my way.

“Transform, human, you will need to answer a riddle too,” she said, a deadly growl on the edge of her voice. Harry was gone from sight, so I figured it was okay. I transformed safely, and stood as close as I dared.

“Alright, I’ll hear mine then.”

“Alive without breath,
As cold as death;
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail, never clinking.”

It was considerably shorter, yet harder. Great.

‘So,’ I began in my head, ‘Um… it doesn’t… breathe? I’ll get back to that… “ever drinking”… so it lives by water?’ I remembered the Second Task and how cold the water was. ‘“Cold as death”… so, IN the water? A fish? They don’t breathe air, and I guess the scales are mail-ish looking,’ I thought hesitantly.

“A fish?”

The sphinx smiled again and moved out of the way. “Brilliant, thanks!” I said to her as I charged down the path after Harry, not even bothering to transform again.

I had to use Point Me a few times, but I soon saw the Cup and ran faster than ever. Then I saw Cedric, a bleeding Harry on the ground, and the biggest spider I’ve seen since our encounter with Aragog two years back. Cedric’s stunning spells were bouncing off it, and Harry was trying to avoid getting eaten. None of them noticed me as I charged into the clearing and took out my wand.

“STUPIFY!” I yelled, concentrating every magical particle in myself into a spell. The red jet of light hit the spider’s underside, and it keeled over, twitching.

We all stood there, panting. My arm was stiff, my wand still pointing to where the spider had been. Cedric was looking at me, angry, but motionless. Harry had managed to pull himself to standing against a hedge, and he was giving me a rather angry look as well. I walked over to him. His ankle looked sprained, and it was bleeding from where the spider had apparently bit him. I waved my wand.

“Ferula.” That at least splinted his leg.

“Jennifer,” Cedric asked, his voice shaking with anger, “What are you doing in here? You can’t be helping him!”

“Don’t you tell me what I can and can’t do!” I spat, “I’d rather be expelled and Harry disqualified than him dead!” I loved him, but right now, Cedric was annoying me.

“Jen, he’s right, you’re not supposed to be here,” Harry added as I put his arm around my shoulders so he could walk.

“Really Harry, you honestly think I care? I told you, I’d rather be expelled than have you dead,” I growled. No one argued after that, at least not verbally.

And Cedric stood there, two feet from the Cup. He was so close to total victory, to the glory Hufflepuff so greatly craved and deserved… but all he did was stand still.

“Take it,” he finally said. “You’ve saved my neck twice in here now. Take it Harry.

“Cedric, you take it! You got here first, that’s how this works!” Harry said, at the end of his patience. All that glory was about to go down the drain, thanks to Cedric being a noble, stubborn ass.

“In the lake, you stayed and got everyone. I should have done that…”

“Cedric!” I yelled out. “Just take the freaking Cup!” What the hell was he thinking? What in the world could be fairer than him just taking the Cup?

Harry was the one who broke the silence. “Together.”

“What?” asked Cedric.

“We take it together. Either way, Hogwarts wins.”

Cedric grinned. “Alright, you’re on.”

I helped my brother hobble over to the Cup, and the two guys stood, hands inches away from the Triwizard Cup.

“On three,” Harry said.

“One, two, three!”

He and Cedric gripped the handles closest to them.

What none of us expected was the jerking motion that followed. We started spinning, and the last thing I remember thinking as we left the ground was, ‘Not another Portkey!’