28 The Third Task

Chapter 28: The Third Task

Jake was the first one to enter the maze because of his perfect score in the second task. He glanced down at his robes. Stitched on the fabric over his chest were some special runes that were supposed to allow the spectators to see him navigate the maze. Dumbledore had also politely asked Jake to cut down on his swearing because there could be younger children watching. Apparently, there had been a lot more profanities used in the castle ever since Jake transferred in, as the impressionable kids tried to emulate "the school champion". Jake, in return, told him no and asked Dumbledore why they were letting young children watch a violent bloodsport… Dumbledore had nothing else to say to Jake after that question.

Jake took a look around the maze, and everywhere he saw was just leaves, vines, and walls. It was also depressingly dark because they decided to hold this challenge at night for some reason. Jake pulled out his map to see if he could get a bead on where he needed to go. "Let's see here," he said to himself, "I got to go up, left, right, up, down, right, right, left, down, up, left, right... holy crap, it just keeps going." Jake just gave a sigh, realizing this was going to take forever.

He followed the first direction as he ran forward through the endless sea of vines and took the first left in front of him. He was running full sprint and his eyes widened as he slammed his heels on the ground and stopped. Instead of dirt being on the ground in front of him, there were a bunch of leaves stacked up on top of each other. Jake figured to himself sarcastically that that didn't look suspicious at all. He fired a small burst of flames from his palm that immediately set the pile of leaves on fire. As they burnt away, underneath was revealed to be a bunch of very sharp spikes sticking up, ready to impale anyone foolish enough to step on the trap without checking.

"Jesus Christ, they aren't fucking around in this place," Jake said to himself. "That trap was straight out of Indiana Jones." He laughed to himself.

"AND JAKE GREMORY NARROWLY AVOIDED DEATH WITH HIS QUICK THINKING!" The announcer's voice blasted over the maze for Jake to hear. He just gave a wave to no one around him, but he figured all the people spectating the event through the scrying spell would appreciate it.

Jake took a few steps back before taking a running leap and jumping right over the spike pit. As he continued on, he checked his map again and he was glad he did because the entire maze had apparently shifted in just that 30-second pause he just had! Now he had to take a left followed by a second right. He continued down the twisting path until he saw a large shadow in front of him. He slowed his sprint for the second time as he approached the shadow and he got closer look at it.

Jake was surprised at what he saw in front of him. He knew it was a real creature, but he didn't think he'd ever see one unless he visited Egypt at some point in his life. Standing in front of him, almost 10 feet tall with the face of a man and the body of a lion, was a sphinx!

The sphinx, noticing Jake's approach, called out to him. "Hello there, human," it smirked, cocking its head to the side, and said, "To move forward, answer my riddle." Jake knew of the supposed legends surrounding the sphinx: if you answer its riddle, it'll let you pass peacefully, but if you refuse to answer or you fail, then it's going to attack and try to eat whoever had failed in its eyes.

"Dammit," Jake thought to himself. He was never any good at riddles. "All right," he responded to the beast, "Hit me with your best shot... wait, no, not your best shot. Hit me with something that a 5-year-old could solve."

The face on the sphinx just gave him a deadpan stare, like it was looking at an absolute buffoon. But that had been the first time somebody had ever willingly admitted their lack of cleverness to the beast, so it acquiesced and chose to give him an easier riddle.

"The more you take, the more you leave behind. What am I?" The sphinx asked.

"..."

…Jake had absolutely no clue. He paused for a moment, placed his hand on his chin, and thought deeply, muttering to himself the phrase of the riddle over and over again. "The more you take, the more you leave behind... What am I?" He repeated to himself. After contemplating for another 30 seconds, Jake finally snapped his fingers in realization. "I've got it," he said to the sphinx confidently, "You're clearly an ex-girlfriend!"

Back at the start of the maze, in the spectator stand, all the people watching Jake try and solve the riddle just facepalmed in disappointment.

"An ex-girlfriend?" Hermione called out, watching what she considered to be an educational travesty. "Why the hell would he come up with that answer? Do sphinxes even have relationships?"

"Ha! I hope he gets mauled," Draco Malfoy cheered. "And if you're so smart, Granger, what's the answer to the riddle supposed to be?"

"Well, it's obviously footprints," she answered haughtily.

Everyone else watching just kept their heads down and didn't say anything, too afraid to admit that none of them had gotten even close to the correct answer either…

Back in the maze, the sphinx was just staring at Jake once again with a deadpan expression. It had given him an easy riddle and he had still failed, 'so now it could only come to this', the beast thought to itself. "No," it spoke out loud, "you have failed to answer correctly, and therefore you must die."

With that, the sphinx bared its fangs and lunged towards Jake, claws first. Jake widened his eyes in shock. He had somehow answered incorrectly when he was sure that was the right answer! He ducked out of the way of the claws coming towards his face.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, do we have to move right to violence? Can't we just have a civil conversation?" Jake said, meanwhile dodging claws and fangs coming at him every second from the sphinx trying to maul him. The beast no longer responded to him and just kept the ferocious expression on its face as it kept charging him over and over. Finally, Jake realized that there was going to be no more dialogue between them and with a sigh, he just formed a spell circle on his hand and blasted out a wave of ice that completely turned the sphinx into a frozen popsicle. It was an intelligent magical beast, but at the end of the day, it was no stronger than an ordinary lion…Just one that was 10 feet tall. Jake felt a bit saddened that he had to end the life of an intelligent creature, but he quickly shook his head, stowing those thoughts away as he checked his map again and found that once again, the maze had once again changed on him. Now he had to backtrack the way he came!

He spun around and quickly took off in a sprint, taking the second left in front of him. Once again, he found another pile of leaves on the ground. This time he just jumped over the entire thing instead of wasting any more time exposing another trap. He kept sprinting on, checking his map every couple of seconds for changes.

"AND JAKE GREMORY IS MAKING GREAT TIME!" the announcer yelled out over the maze, causing Jake to smirk. "HE IS CURRENTLY IN FIRST PLACE, BEING THE DEEPEST TOWARDS THE CENTER OF THE MAZE, BUT WILL HE HOLD HIS LEAD? BECAUSE HARRY POTTER IS HOT ON HIS HEELS AFTER CORRECTLY SOLVING THE RIDDLE OF A DIFFERENT SPHINX."

After about a dozen more twists and turns and constantly checking his map, Jake finally reached what he would consider to be the halfway point towards the center. Suddenly, Jake's instincts flared up as he felt something - or rather multiple somethings - were stalking him, intending to attack.

Jake heard rustling coming from the plant walls all around him and suddenly springing through the walls themselves were a whole lot of acromantulas, giant spiders that he'd seen in the Forbidden Forest. From the shrubbery emerged ten enormous, hairy spiders, their pincers clicking in hunger and anticipation. Jake cracked his knuckles. His confident grin didn't waver. "Well, if it isn't my eight-legged friends. Ready for round two?" Individually or in small groups, he didn't particularly think these things were much of a threat to him.

"Human, we told you we would have our revenge, and now we will feast on you!" A spider hissed out. It slowly lowered itself closer to the ground, crouching down on its legs, ready to pounce.

Jake, meanwhile, was surprised. That was actually the same spider he had faced earlier in the Forbidden Forest that ran away from him. It appeared this thing really held a grudge if it waited this long for revenge, and it brought some serious backup too!

All ten of the spiders charged him simultaneously. Jake threw up a blast of cold towards the spider that was closest to him coming at him from behind, freezing it solid as he simultaneously threw up a shield in front of him. However, a few of the spiders behind him just ignored their dead comrade and kept charging him, able to actually get in close on him. It seemed that the spider that had escaped him earlier had told its friends about Jake's abilities, and they were just employing an all-out suicide charge strategy on him, trying to bombard him before he could fight back.

One of the smaller but still almost 2 ft tall spiders got right underneath Jake and sprang up at him, its fangs going for his throat. Jake leaned his head back as its pincer grazed his shirt collar, immediately tearing the fabric. The spider continued on its trajectory as it flew and landed on the wall of vines nearby, letting out a hiss of disappointment. Jake fired another icy blast towards the arachnid, killing that one as well.

The remaining eight spiders hissed that two of their comrades had just been taken out almost instantly. The ice shield Jake had thrown up to hold off the five spiders in front of him actually crumbled and melted away as all of them had been simultaneously spitting their corrosive venom on it at the exact same time. Jake was actually finding himself impressed by the strategies these beasts were employing to try and kill him.

With a wave of his hand, a dozen icy spears formed all around him as he immediately launched them at the spiders in front of him. Instead of dodging to the sides or even temporarily retreating, the beasts shocked Jake as they charged into the spears and towards him. Every single one of them ended up wounded and impaled. Two of them actually died to headshots from the spears, but the three injured spiders pounced on Jake simultaneously. Three more spiders behind him did the same. Having nowhere to dodge to his sides, Jake did something he didn't exactly want to do while he was on live "TV", but he was forced to deploy his devil wings and lift into the air. The six spiders coming at him all crashed into each other and were immediately confused at how their prey had just instantly vanished from in front of them. With all of his enemies in one location, Jake formed a giant block of ice right above his head, draining a fair bit of his magical power. He quickly slammed the giant block downwards, immediately on top of all six spiders, crushing them into the ground!

"Phew," Jake said out loud as he landed on the ground and rescinded his devil wings. That was actually almost a close one for him!

Meanwhile, back in the spectator stands, everyone was watching on a large projected scrying screen as Jake was about to be crushed to death under six Giant Acromantulas. They were shocked when he deployed his wings and could actually fly in the air.

"Wait, what was that? Those wings are so cool!" A spectator shouted out.

"Yeah, but where did they come from!? Could he always do that? Was that a spell or something? It didn't look normal."

"Hey, maybe it was an Animagus transformation that he hasn't mastered yet," one guy called out. "He could be a bat Animagus, but he's only able to form the wings so far."

Hermione, with Luna sitting next to her, just sighed in relief that the people watching thought that Jake was a partial Animagus. When Hermione pondered on it a bit more, she did think it's silly that they'd be so afraid that wizards would immediately connect him having wings to being a devil. After all, most of them didn't even know devils existed other than the few rare Hogwarts students and the officials high up in the ICW.

Luna herself was pouting in disappointment because she could have been flying around the school this entire time just by lying and saying she was a partial Animagus too.

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Back in the maze, Jake just made another right turn and he almost slammed head-first into Harry! "Whoa," Harry said as he dodged out of the way at the last second, avoiding their collision.

"Hey there, Harry. How has your journey through this death maze been going so far?" Jake said jokingly. He took in Harry's form and he looked to be slightly worse for wear. He had scrapes and bruises all over, and his robes appeared to have been torn in multiple places.

Harry just scoffed. "Honestly, I never wanted to be in this bloody tournament anyway and I hate this stupid place! I just had to fight off an Acromantula." Harry said out loud with a shudder. "Do you have any idea how terrifying those things are? Just one of those things can take down a full-blown wizard. I'm lucky there weren't more of them!"

Jake meanwhile just deadpanned at Harry. He was complaining about fighting off one of those things when he himself just had to take on 10!

Once more, Jake just gave Harry a glance, inspecting his wounds and his ragged state before speaking to him. "You know this is the third task, Harry, and you have, I guess, given it your best shot," Jake explained to him as Harry nodded along. "What I'm saying," Jake continued, "is that you know you can give up now, right? You don't exactly need the thousand Galleons, do you? Haven't you already made absolute bank on this tournament anyway?"

Harry just had a look of shock and realization on his face at the fact that he could just give up. Why didn't he think about that before? He could have just entered the maze, walked a couple of steps, and then walked back out saying it was too hard, and he wouldn't have had to have gone through all of this in the first place. Harry immediately raised his wand into the air and declared, "I give up, I'm done with this tournament."

"What the hell?" Harry exclaimed in shock before it was too late to take back his declaration. Jake watched in shock as well as all the vines and walls around him started shaking. His instincts told him that he needed to get the hell out of there, so he immediately booked it away from Harry! He was just in time too, as the plants all slammed down and converged on Harry, wrapping him up "safely" until the challenge was over and he could be safely retrieved…

Jake hoped Harry wouldn't have a fear of plants after all this as he once again opened his map and headed back on the correct path. For about the next 10 minutes, Jake hopped over spiked pits, avoided poison darts, and dodged a couple more vicious spiders. Finally, he was at the very end of the maze, the last final stretch. About 100 meters in front of him, he could see the cup at the end just waiting for him to take it! Suddenly, he heard footsteps coming from the path to his left, and whipping around the corner was a familiar beautiful blonde.

Fleur looked rougher for wear, to say the least. She was even worse off than Harry. Her robes were almost completely shredded, exposing quite a bit of skin, probably to the cheering adoration of everyone spectating her in the stands. She also had burn marks scattered throughout her body. Her face, however, was still perfectly unmarred and as beautiful as ever. She took a moment to catch her breath, panting and near exhaustion when she finally turned and spotted Jake standing next to her looking completely fine.

"Hello, Fleur. I see you've made it to the end of the road as well," Jake said as he gave her a smile. She, meanwhile, just gave him a slight glare at the fact that he seemed completely fine while she had quite the experience herself, being attacked by giant spiders constantly, along with having to duel a wizard as powerful as Victor Krum in order to steal his map. She was particularly proud of herself about defeating him though. And then it took everything she had to make it this far. She was determined to win though and finish this. She may have had a date with him planned for after this tournament, but that didn't mean she was going to hold back on him right now…

Jake watched as the somewhat ragged Fleur walked up to him and gave him an incredibly alluring smile. Suddenly, he could feel himself getting slightly hot and flushed. He also suddenly found that Fleur was extremely beautiful, a lot more beautiful than he thought she was just seconds ago. His head felt a little fuzzy, but that didn't matter to him as Jake really liked the way she was currently looking at him!

… Fleur was flaring her allure to its absolute maximum and focusing all of it on Jake. This was something that would turn men twice his age into absolute drooling messes. Despite her allure affecting him, she was surprised that he was still relatively calm. She walked right up to him and gave him a gentle smile, resting her hand on her cheek. "Oh Jake," her voice was dripping with honey, "you know it would be so lovely if you could just stand here for a while and let me go and claim that cup over there. Would that be okay?" She asked. Fleur followed that up by leaning down and placing a gentle kiss right over Jake's lips! With a small giggle, Fleur turned around and left him in his addled state as she headed towards the cup.

"Sure thing," Jake whispered out, his face as red as a tomato. "I'll just stand right here... go ahead and do whatever you want," he said, almost slurring his words.

Meanwhile, back in the spectator stands, a certain Satan, who had been spectating the whole event from the upper stand so far, was grinding her teeth in absolute anger at the fact that Jake's first kiss had just been stolen by that annoying Veela, and that she had dared to use her allure against him! Serafall knew Jake was a teenage boy, so of course, seduction was going to work against him!

Meanwhile, back at the end of the maze, Jake was standing there, his mind still addled, as he watched Fleur saunter on over towards the cup to claim victory. "She's absolutely incredible and beautiful and she deserves it," he thought to himself.

As the magic from Fleur's allure was coursing through Jake, something that he hadn't experienced since his time in the forest with Serafall was occurring in his body. His innate ability, his bloodline inherited from Solomon, was judging this allure to be a bloodline ability and a magical attack that was targeting his whole being. It started to break down the magic and absorb its properties into Jake's body.

Slowly, Jake's daze faded away as his bloodline ability broke down the allure's magic, absorbing it into his being, granting him innate resistance to it and the ability to use it himself! When his head finally cleared, Jake realized all of this.

"Woah," he said to himself out loud. "I'd heard about a female Veela's allure being extremely effective, but I didn't think it would be that strong. It seems like once again, I've been saved due to my bloodline. And oh crap, she's almost at the cup!" Jake shouted to himself, realizing in that small span where he was borderline mind-controlled by love, she was about to win the tournament right in front of him, probably making him look like a fool to everyone watching.

Knowing that he wasn't going to catch her on foot as she was mere feet away from the cup, Jake deployed his devil wings and rocketed himself forward, flying as fast as possible to try and reach the cup at the same time as her. "You're not winning that easily," he yelled out, causing Fleur to turn around and gape at him in shock, as within the span of a few seconds, he was already right on top of her.

Neither of them wanted to lose, and both of them reached for the cup as fast as possible! Each of their hands grabbing onto one side of it.

"Damn it, did we just tie?" Jake yelled out loud.

Suddenly, the world around Fleur and Jake spun rapidly as they clung to the cup desperately, being flung through space itself!

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Jake found himself disoriented from his first experience with a portkey. The world spinning every which way around him for like a minute straight wasn't pleasant. He looked over at Fleur, and she looked the same.

"Where are we?" she asked, looking around the spooky graveyard they'd found themselves flung to. Jake just shrugged at her. He had no idea either. Maybe this was a continuation of the third task, he thought to himself.

"No, this is one creepy-ass graveyard," Jake commented out loud, to which she just nodded along.

"Indeed," she replied. "Maybe the cup at the end wasn't the end of the task itself. Maybe this graveyard is the true final challenge that we have to navigate, or something like that?" She questioned out loud, a fair assessment for their situation. Neither of them knew that the cup had been tampered with to send them here on purpose…

Meanwhile, back in the spectator stands, everybody was cheering in excitement when they saw that Jake and Fleur had actually tied in a photo finish! The scrying spell had shown everyone that they had been whisked away by the cup that had been a portkey, so everyone was waiting in anticipation for them to appear at the winners' stand right in front of them. However, something wasn't right. Even after a full minute, Jake and Fleur never showed up!

"Something isn't right," McGonagall said to Dumbledore. "That portkey should have taken them right here once they touched it, so that the task would end."

"I don't know what's going on, Minerva. That cup was supposed to be enchanted by the best. Professor Moody himself was the one who did it. He wanted to make sure there was no tampering this time."

McGonagall looked around. "And where is Moody, anyway? I haven't seen him in the stands during this whole task, now that I think about it."

Albus wondered that himself, feeling a strange sense of foreboding.

Up in the spectator stands, Serafall let out a sad sigh. That was truly it, she thought to herself. The last time she'd see Jake for a while… She heard footsteps to her right and spotted Jake's newest peerage member, Luna, giving her a sad smile.

"It'll be alright, Luna said. "This is the way it was always meant to be. Jake is a hero, you know, and this was just the start of his journey." Serafall just gave her a sad nod in response. She'd been in contact with Luna for a while now, ever since she had found out that Luna was a seer.

The two devil girls embraced in a gentle hug, both of them had slight tears in their eyes at the fact that they wouldn't be seeing Jake again for a while….

"So, do you know what's going to happen to Jake in the future?" Serafall asked Luna. Luna just shook her head. "As I've told you before, every time I use my gift to try to see Jake's future, the next time I use it, it becomes slightly more difficult. It's as if his magic somehow knows that I've been spying on him, and it's been adapting and making it harder for me to see. This was one of the last events that I could truly see clearly," Luna said with a sigh. She figured it was better this way, anyway. After all, nobody likes spoilers.

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Back in the graveyard, Jake and Fleur were growing more and more confused, as it seemed like this wasn't part of the challenge after all and that they really were in just some random Muggle graveyard…

Jake spoke to Fleur with a smile. "Maybe the cup that was a portkey was defective and it accidentally put us here. You wouldn't happen to know how to apparate, would you? You could take us to Hogsmeade."

Fleur gave him a sigh followed by a happier smile. "In that case, maybe we could start our date a bit earlier, oui?" She gave him a sultry grin.

Jake would have liked that, but as he looked her over, he said, "You should probably get some medical attention first. You're still looking pretty banged up."

She just gave him a nod, as she realized she probably shouldn't be walking around on a date looking like she just came out of a war zone. She reached out her hand towards Jake for him to grab. "You are probably right. Alright, take my hand and I'll apparate us back to Hog-" Before Jake could touch her, an irritating, screech-like voice shouted out from behind the two of them!

"Kill the spare, Wormtail!" The voice shouted out, followed by a flash of familiar green spell light that sent Jake into an immediate panic. The familiar spell wasn't heading for him, though!

"Avada Kedavra!" The spell, coming out of nowhere, was too quick for Fleur to react to, and as it struck her, she let out a scream of agony before her body dropped to the dirt…

Jake immediately lost himself to his wrath as he screamed in absolute rage and released all of his magical power in fury. "You bastards! I'm going to kill you!" He turned to the now quaking pudgy man who had cast the spell. The fat, mouse-like man holding a disgusting-looking infant in his arms started trembling in fear at Jake's rage. Before Jake could attack in retaliation, however…

"Not so fast there, you disgusting half-breed Gremory!" A man's voice called out from right behind Jake, and he immediately sensed an ultimate-class devil's power flare up near him! Jake turned around to attack as fast as he could, but all he saw was a fist inches from his face before it connected, and his world went dark…

-End Chapter-

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And yes I am evil with that cliffhanger…I know lol. But this is it! The next two chapters are the E.N.D. of the HP arc! Thank you so much to everyone who's stuck with the story this far! The Vote on my p.a.t.r.e.o.n has decided that the next place Jake will visit is ---^%*&%*--- I won't spoil it just yet.

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