The last weeks before the Third Task were stressful. Between studying for the exams at the end of the year, Hermione helped Harry practising spells. He knew the task was a maze, but what exactly would await him between these hedges, he could only guess.

Harry himself did not have to study for exams, being exempt for being a Champion. Still, Harry was anxious. It was hard to wake up in the mornings because there was so much he had to do without an ending in sight. He knew there was always something he could still do, still improve, still learn... There was no business before pleasure. It was simply all work and no play.

Since the Slytherins had the same stress as most of the Gryffindors, Harry did not even get to have his run inn's with Malfoy. Despite not having the stress of the Third Task, Ron was complaining more than Harry about the workloads. But Harry was thankful for it because he had someone who suffered with him, even if it was for a different reason.

The days passed in a blur. Harry had to listen to the complaints of his roommates whenever one exam was over. They talked about how difficult the exams were, which mistakes they had made, where they had black outs, and Harry was grateful that he did not have to go through that stress.

But when he woke up in the morning, after all the exams had passed, and he realized that in the evening, he had to handle a task made for witches and wizards much more skilled than him, in front of the whole school, he wished he had been able to write the exams instead. At least no one could be killed writing an essay or answering questions. And normally no one was interested in each others grades so he could have hardly made a fool of himself in front of the whole student body.

With a sick feeling in his stomach he trudged through the hallways to get breakfast, flanked by his two best friends. Hermione kept telling him it was going to be alright while Ron just tried to keep his mind off the Triwizard Tournament completely. Neither one of them did make him feel better.

It was not completely their fault though. The hallways were filled with excited chatter, with was understandable since the exams were over and there were only three days left until summer break. Additionally, the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students would leave tomorrow. Some students had found dear new friends. And last but not least, this evening, they would have a winner for the Triwizard's Tournament.

Harry did not even have the motivation to send Malfoy a wink as he passed the group of Slytherins. Malfoy seemed sensible enough not to bother Harry today. He actually had a deep worried frown as he spotted him. Harry briefly noticed the absence of the usual Beauxbatons bunch that had grown to this certain Slytherin group.

At least one good thing today, Harry thought. Then again, maybe that had something to do with Malfoy looking so upset. Oh well, he would get over it. He deserved better than that arrogant French prat.

People kept coming up to Harry, wishing him luck. He smiled and thanked them. But inside, he wished they would just stop reminding him, stop giving him attention for something he was basically forced to do.

Reaching the Great Hall, Hermione was now repeating every spell she had practised with Harry. "Could you stop?" Ron said. "You're stressing him out."

"Oh, and talking about Dragons is going to calm him, you think?" Hermione asked dryly. Harry sent Luna a small smile, who gave him thumbs up from the Ravenclaw table.

"I was just telling him about Charlie's letter." Ron defended, ignoring the shoulder bump he accidentally gave a fifth year Hufflepuff. "What's your tactic? Reminding him of all the things that could go wrong?"

"No, I'm simply repeating what could be helpful in defence." Hermione said.

"He already knows everything." Ron said. "You're just making an unnecessarily big deal out of it."

"It is a big deal." Hermione said. "Distracting oneself from the issue is not going to help."

"No-"

"Could you both please stop?" Harry interrupted them, sitting down at the table where no one was seated yet. It was close to the teachers tables, but the advantage was that less students wanted to walk that far only to be in the potential listening range of their teachers.

Hermione and Ron joined him. "Sorry." They said simultaneously.

Harry was saved from reacting by the arrival of the mail. Owls swished over their heads, dropping packets and letters. One letter landed on Harry's head. Picking it up, he could not help the laugh. It was a Good Luck card from Sirius, basically just a piece of parchment bearing a paw print, but it was the first time someone was able to draw a laugh from him this awful morning.

An owl landed on their table. Hermione gave it a sickle and untied the Daily Prophet from its leg. The owl, a pretty barn owl, picked a piece of sausage from Ron's plate before spreading its wings and joining the other owls on their way out of the high windows.

"Eww," Ron said, laying the residue of the sausage to the side.

"Oh no." Hermione said.

"What?" Ron and Harry asked, leaning forward to look into the front page of the Daily Prophet that Hermione was holding. She turned the page away from Harry, but Ron could see it. "Oh no." Ron said.

"What?" Harry asked and tried to look at the news paper again, but Hermione hid it under the table. Harry glared and looked at Ron, who looked worried. "What?" Harry repeated, more menacingly this time. "Accio newspaper." He said, holding his wand under the table. Sure enough, the Daily Prophet flew from Hermione's hands into Harry's. He grinned victoriously, ignoring his friends worried looks and looked down on the newspaper.

A huge image of Harry's grim face could be seen on the front page. "Rita Skeeter." Harry's voice dripped with venom. Harry put the article on the table so Ron and Hermione could read with him. The article basically said that Harry had gone crazy, his head was too far up in the clouds, fame made him unbearable. "This is ridiculous."

"That evil witch." Hermione said. "This kind of article on the day of the task."

"You're not thinking I'm gonna let her get me down just because of an article, are you?" Harry said. He has had plenty of bad articles written about him during the last year. Sure, the timing was bad, but Harry had much bigger problems.

He looked around the Great Hall to see the impact the article had made, but most people did not really seem to care, except for the usual Slytherins, who laughed obnoxiously. The Third Task and the upcoming holidays were much more exciting.

Inevitably, his gaze rested on a certain Slytherin. Puzzled, he noticed that Malfoy was not playing his usual show of quoting the article and mocking Harry the loudest of them all. Pansy had adopted that role and Malfoy was simply laughing, but it seemed restrained. A worried frown settled on his face and he met Harry's gaze. Quickly, Malfoy looked away again and faked another laugh. How did Harry know it was fake? Well, he had watched Malfoy a lot during the recent month.

But today, Harry had bigger problems than Malfoy's worried look. He could think about that tomorrow. When the last task, and along with that the tournament, was over.

#

That morning, the families of the Champions were supposed to come to Hogwarts to watch the last task. Harry had not given it another thought since Cedric Diggory told him about it the day after the Second Task. No one would come for Harry anyway.

Before Hermione, Ron and Harry could leave the Great Hall though, Professor McGonagall caught up with them. "What are you still doing here, Mr Potter? The families are waiting."

"But Professor-" Harry tried to explain.

"Go on," Professor McGonagall said. "They're waiting." With that, she moved away.

Harry gaped after her. "She doesn't expect the Dursleys to turn up, does she?"

Hermione shrugged. "Just go and see. We'll be in the Gryffindor tower."

Harry nodded and did as Hermione said, wondering if it could be in any way possible that the Dursleys had been tricked to come watch him. Or if they changed their minds about him. And if he should be happy about them coming, although Harry seriously doubted it. What was he even doing, he thought as he turned the last corner to the room where guests were usually greeted.

He reached the door. Without wasting more thoughts, he opened the door. Cedric was already talking to his dad, Amos Diggory, who Harry had already met at the Quidditch world cup. Then there was Fleur with her sister and an equally blonde woman who was probably their mother. In the far corner, Victor Krum was talking in rapid Bulgarian to who were probably his parents, judging by their age and the general looks.

Harry's gaze was pulled away from the handsome family by a familiar voice. "Harry, finally." Harry turned to Mrs Weasley.

"Left us waiting a while, buddy." Bill said from behind her. Harry could not help the huge smile as he was pulled into a hug by Mrs Weasley.

"Surprise." She pulled away and smiled at him.

"What are you doing here?" Harry asked.

"Watch your Third Task, what did you think?" Bill said.

The three of them decided to go on a walk around Hogwarts. On their way, they picked up Hermione and Ron at the Gryffindor tower, who were just as surprised as Harry to see Mrs Weasley and Bill. Harry was in such a good mood that he almost forgot being scared of the last task.

"Hey," Bill said to Ron, but Harry could hear it too. "Did you notice that blonde guy over there?"

Ron looked to the direction Bill had pointed out. Harry did not even have to look to see who Bill meant. "Malfoy?" Ron asked.

Bill frowned. "He's a Malfoy? I kinda feel like he's following us around."

"Not us." Ron shook his head. "Harry." They did not seem aware of Harry listening.

Bill gave him a side glance. "You're not surprised." He stated. Ron laughed. "You think he's a threat?"

"To Harry?" Ron said. "Maybe. But differently than you think."

"If he's a Malfoy-"

"I know." Ron said. "But I don't think it has anything to do with Death Eaters. You see, Harry and Malfoy have this weird thing going on-"

Confused, Harry looked at Ron to see why he had stopped talking. He was really interested in what exactly had led Ron to characterize his relationship with Malfoy as "Weird thing". But as he had to detect, both Ron and Bill were both distracted by Fleur Delacour passing them. She sent them a charming smile and turned back to her sister. She flipped her hair and Harry was pretty sure she knew the boys were staring after her.

"She's a Champion, right?" Bill asked. "I saw her in the room we were waiting for Harry in." And Fleur saw him too, Harry had noticed her sending Bill interested glances. Harry sighed. Now he would never find out what Ron had been about to say.

Back to Malfoy though, Harry had also noticed him lingering around them a lot this midmorning. Sometimes in company of Slytherins, sometimes alone. But it was not to provoke Harry, he was sure, because he never actually tried to interact with Harry. It was more like he did not want to be noticed. For a Slytherin, he was not very good at sneaking around, Harry thought.

The day passed like that, walking around Hogwarts with the Weasleys trying to keep his spirits up. The closer the clock ticked towards dinner, the more nerves balled up in his stomach.

The evening feast was marvellous. The house elves did not only cook the usual end of the year feast food, they also included some French and Bulgarian dishes. And the French really seemed to know how to make exceptionally good desserts.

Nevertheless, it was hard to convince Harry's stomach that it could ingest something, needed to. Because whatever waited for the champions behind these huge maze hedges, it would be draining. "Harry," He heard behind him as he tried to eat some kind of chocolate fudge. Harry turned around to see Neville, who was standing behind him, nervously shifting from one foot to the other. "Could we talk for a second? In private?" He quickly added.

"Neville," Mrs Weasley said. "This is really not a good time."

"It's important." Neville said, looking back at Harry pleadingly. He seemed scared about something.

"Okay." Harry stood up.

"Harry-"

"It's okay." Harry interrupted Hermione's worried interjection. He followed Neville out of the Great Hall, being a bit relieved to get away from all the food. He was getting a bit nauseous. Exiting the Great Hall, Neville turned right. The Entrance Hall was empty. Everyone was at the feast, but Neville still turned another corner so they were in an empty hallway that looked like only Mr Filch came here, and only once a year at most.

"Harry," Neville finally stopped walking and turned to him. "I heard some people talking."

Harry frowned. Neville looked nervous. That was nothing new. But he also looked genuinely worried. And not just the 'my friend is going to be part of a dangerous tournament task'-worried. "Who?"

"I don't know, irrelevant." Neville said. "I think something terrible is going to happen in that maze. Like, deadly terrible. And I know no one is supposed to help you, but-"

Neville's face suddenly went stony and his hands were pressed to his sides. Straight as a plank, he fell backwards. "Nev-"

Before Harry could react, something hit him on the chest. He could not move. His hands felt like they were tied to his body and his legs were rigid. He could not even turn his head. There was no preventing his fall. Straight as a plank, he felt himself falling backwards.