Harry Potter:Diamond Heart.

Someone had ruined the quidditch pitch. Katie, of course, had been livid when they had discovered the knee-high hedges on one of their walks.

Harry had been intrigued. Most, if not all, of the strange things that had happened this year had been connected to the Triwizard Tournament, and he had been prepared to wager much of what he had that the maze were connected to the final task.

Now he was willing to wager everything.

He had, not wanting to pass up the chance of an advantage, tried mapping the hedges, but the moment he had put quill to parchment they had shifted and moved. Someone had clearly anticipated a champion trying to plan a route through before the task began.

Katie had been rather more furious about what they'd done to the pitches, and where the quidditch goals had gone, but, once she'd vented her rage trying to set fire to them with a series of violent incendios, they'd concluded it was another first to the finish event.

Interestingly the hedges had not been so much as scorched by Katie's curses, which had immediately implied Harry's plan of simply burning his way to the finish and avoiding following the paths was unlikely to work. He wasn't surprised, but he wasn't overeager to have to follow the pre-defined routes that would certainly be full of obstacles.

Most of his plans had been to do with picking a more unconventional route through, or above, or under the maze, rather than trying to force his way down the paths.

He'd even dragged Neville down to take a look at the hedges.

Harry had rather regretted that. Neville had been reluctant right up until he'd been close enough to see the distinctive shape of the needles. The normally shy, even if Harry had managed to build up some self-belief in him over spring, had lost all signs of nervousness and rambled incessantly about extremely rare magical plants for well over five minutes. Eventually he'd managed to extract the name of the plant and its properties from Neville. The maze was grown from Lying Leylandii, a particularly rare type of Cypress that was supposed to be all but extinct in Britain.

Harry was more concerned by the fact that it was lying Leylandii and though having needles shaped like tiny tongues was quite cool, the fact that it rearranged itself to deceive anyone close to it and was magically resistant to all but the strongest cast spells made it a very annoying plant. Once they were far enough within the maze nobody would be able to observe them because of the nature of the hedges. It was the only thing Harry liked about the plant.

Neville, on the other hand, seemed to be in love with it, and Harry was fairly sure he'd seen him taking cuttings to cultivate in the greenhouses, and Gryffindor Tower, and his home, and really anywhere he thought he could safely keep it to grow.

Neville is going to be furious when he learns how I plan to get through.

Harry had very little hope of being able to avoid following the incredibly dangerous, set paths to the cup that lay at the centre without use of his sole remaining plan. He had only a single spell, one he had coaxed from Salazar with great difficulty, that he was sure would manage to damage the green walls in front of him. Unfortunately his control over fiendfyre was still quite abysmal, though he had, through great practice, mastered extinguishing it in small amounts.

It was an intent driven spell and on a par with some of the most dangerous spells Salazar knew. The portrait, of course, agreed with Harry when he had said that the spell was not dark, because there were no spells that were. It did, however, require no small amount of desire to destroy something completely, and that was rarely justifiable.

He might make an exception for the maze, though. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like being in it very much.

'All our champions are here,' Bagman boomed. 'That means it's almost time to begin.'

Harry eyed his rivals. Cedric was looking determined, Fleur, well it was best not to think about how she was looking, especially after the debacle in the Room of Requirement. He shuddered to think what would have happened if he hadn't managed to escape before retaking control of the room from her.

Krum patted him firmly on the shoulder with a wand-enclosing fist. 'I have not forgotten the fish,' he whispered, grinning.

Harry smiled innocently. 'I was afraid that if you had I might have to conjure them again,' he replied quietly. Krum laughed, thumped him on the shoulder once more, and withdrew his hand.

'Not more than a few minutes ago my assistant and I, accompanied by Alastor Moody, placed the Triwizard Trophy at the centre of the maze. The first one to retrieve it wins,' the former -beater stated simply. 'If you wish to withdraw you need only send up red sparks from your wand.'

'What about the points?' Cedric demanded, eagerly. He was last and had the most to gain if the points now turned out to be useless. Harry suspected that they would not be.

'Mr Krum will enter first, as he has the most points, and for every point the next champion is behind him ten seconds will be lost.' Cedric frowned. He was more than a minute behind the Bulgarian.

'Is there anything we should know about the maze?' Fleur asked seriously. She was eyeing the hedges with a certain level of suspicion.

'I can't tell you anything that might help you,' Bagman shrugged. He seemed rather glad that he couldn't answer Fleur's question and Harry narrowed his eyes at the man. Ludo Bagman was normally quite susceptible to her allure, even her passive charm.

Harry smelt a rat.

At least it is not Pettigrew.

That had been a potential headache. Someone had discovered Pettigrew's body in the Forbidden Forest. Harry's attempt to get rid of it had not sent it as far as he hoped. From what he had heard Pettigrew had been well beyond recognisable, which was unfortunate for Sirius, but good for him, and the Ministry had taken it to try and identify. Harry had spent some time researching the processes they might use, and he was quite confident that none of them would reveal his part in the Pettigrew's well deserved end, even Wormtail's identity eventually came to light. There wasn't a time-turner made that had the power to go back far enough to catch him in the act, and very cases were ever passed on to the Unspeakables.

I have a maze to deal with, he reminded himself, and focused on the third task again.

There were too many unknowns for Harry to decide whether the time difference would make any impact on things. He had no choice but go as quickly and directly as possible towards the trophy. Three hedges should be far enough, he decided.

📖📖📖

🪄✨This novel is available in pdf format with more than 400 chapters if you want you can visit our store🪄✨

⬇️⬇️⬇️

 ✨🪄https://sunflowersfic.tiendup.com/🪄