The Tenth Weasley - CH - 149

The maze breathed.

Harry realized that the moment he stepped deeper into the twisting green corridors. The hedges did not simply stand there like ordinary plants—they swayed, tightened, expanded, exhaled, as though the entire structure possessed lungs buried beneath the soil. Fog curled low along the pathway, brushing the tops of Harry’s shoes like cold fingers, guiding him forward while whispering in a language no human tongue could decipher.

He moved cautiously, wand raised, every nerve alert.

When he reached the end of one twisting corridor, the path split in two. Harry chose the right fork—only to hear the hedge behind him groan like a living thing. He turned just in time to see the passage he had come through seal shut, vines knitting together in an instant.

“Terrific,” Harry muttered. “A maze with trust issues.”

He continued deeper, hands steady though his heartbeat quickened. Several dead ends opened into peculiar alcoves—half circular chambers that felt wrong, like the maze was setting a trap. Each time Harry entered one, the air trembled as if something were preparing to attack.

On the fourth such alcove, something finally did.

The fog thickened abruptly, rising higher, swirling into a tight funnel. The temperature in the chamber plummeted. Harry felt it in his bones—cold that wasn’t natural, cold that belonged to graves and nightmares.

He raised his wand.

“Show yourself.”

The fog stopped spinning.

It began to shape itself.

A shoulder.

A torso.

A face.

Harry’s face.

The figure solidified, stepping out of the haze until it stood fully visible—a perfect copy of himself, except for the wrongness that radiated from it like poison.

This Harry was draped in dark robes embroidered with ancient symbols. A runic gauntlet covered his right arm, pulsing faintly with corrupted magic. His eyes glowed with a cold red, serpentine and cruel, devoid of warmth. Power radiated from him—heavy, suffocating, terrifying.

Harry inhaled sharply.

The copy smiled, a slow, chilling curve of lips that mirrored Harry’s own expressions in the worst possible way.

Its eyes narrowed with predatory delight.

“I am what you fear you’ll become.”

Harry’s fingers tightened around his wand. He tried to steady his breath, but something inside him twisted painfully. No creature had ever unsettled him the way this figure did now.

Because this was not an external threat.

This was the monster that lived inside him.

The Boggart-Harry walked forward silently, each footstep echoing unnaturally.

“You pretend to fear nothing,” it said, circling him. “You fight dragons and storms. You wield ancient magic. A schoolboy playing with fire.”

Harry hissed, “Shut up.”

But the Boggart continued, relentless.

“You hunger for knowledge. For power. You adore the secrets of Grindelwald, the relics of Slytherin, the sealed vaults of Durmstrang… You walk closer to darkness than any wizard your age.”

“Enough.” Harry’s voice cracked like a whip.

The false Harry leaned closer, emerald eyes glowing brighter.

“How long until the world begins to fear you? Until you begin to fear yourself? The boy who killed a Basilisk. The boy who conjured blue dragonfire. The boy who breaks wards like glass.”

Harry felt his breath hitch.

“Stop.”

The Boggart smiled, cruel and triumphant, sensing weakness.

“You try so hard to be good, Harry. But you know how this ends.”

It spread its arms, robes fluttering like dark wings.

“You become the next Dark Lord.”

Harry stumbled back a step, pulse roaring in his ears.

This was his nightmare.

Not Voldemort.

Not Grindelwald.

Not death.

Becoming what he hated.

Becoming the creature others already feared him to be.

The Boggart-Harry’s voice dropped to a whisper, venomous and soft:

“You don’t fear me, Harry. You fear yourself.”

Something snapped inside him.

His breathing steadied.

His hand tightened around his wand.

Heat replaced the icy dread strangling his chest.

Harry Weasley straightened his back.

“You’re right,” he said quietly.

The Boggart paused.

“I fear what I could become,” Harry continued, voice gaining strength. “But I’m not him. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”

He raised his wand.

“Riddikulus!”

A crack of brilliant light exploded outward. The Boggart stumbled, robes shrinking, hair turning neon pink, the sinister gauntlet becoming a squeaky rubber glove. Its glowing eyes turned into huge cartoonish spirals.

It looked utterly ridiculous.

Harry exhaled, chest trembling with relief.

With a final spark, the creature imploded into nothingness.

The fog dispersed.

The vines loosened their grip on the walls.

The chamber opened, revealing a new path forward.

Harry wiped sweat from his forehead.

“That,” he muttered, “is going straight into my list of problems to unpack later.”

He stepped forward, deeper into the shifting maze.

The hedges shuddered as if disappointed their trap had failed.

Harry raised his wand higher, eyes sharp, ready for whatever came next.

Harry pushed deeper into the twisting corridors, but a growing frustration gnawed at him. The longer he wandered, the more he realized that this maze wasn’t a contest of talent, bravery, or intelligence—nothing like the first two tasks.

This… this felt like pure, chaotic chance.

A hundred times over, Harry caught himself thinking the same thing:

Winning the Triwizard Cup in a maze like this wasn’t skill. It was luck. Dumb, blind, infuriating luck.

He didn’t like that feeling.

Not at all.

The walls shifted again with a loud, wet groan, sealing the corridor behind him and opening another to the left. Harry stared at the new passage, resisting the urge to swear.

“This is ridiculous,” he muttered, stepping cautiously forward. “How is anyone supposed to strategize in here?”

He had fought poachers.

He had deciphered ancient riddles.

Those tasks had rules. Structure. Logic.

But this?

This maze had none.

Every step Harry took, the hedge walls trembled like irritated giants waking from a slumber. Sometimes a dead end simply melted into a new hallway. Sometimes a straight corridor twisted into a loop. Twice, Harry reached the same crooked statue of a faun, even though he was certain he had taken different paths.

He stopped in the center of a fork, chest rising and falling steadily.

Winning this felt wrong.

Winning this felt like chance.

Winning this felt like something he couldn’t control.

His thoughts repeated themselves, spiraling louder in his mind:

Winning the Triwizard Cup using this maze felt more like luck than skill.

Again.

As if the maze was whispering agreement.

The fog curled around his ankles like it wanted to drag him deeper, and Harry exhaled sharply.

“No,” he said under his breath. “I’m not losing to a glorified shrubbery.”

He forced himself to move.

Each step made the maze feel tighter, narrower, more claustrophobic. Harry had grown used to duels and dark spells, but there was something uniquely maddening about fighting an enemy that refused to show its face.

He paused again as a sudden rumble shook the hedge walls. A gap opened in front of him, revealing a dimly lit corridor leading downward.

Harry hesitated.

“Wonderful,” he said. “A conveniently placed path. That’s not suspicious at all.”

He rolled his shoulders, refocused, and stepped into the new passage.

The hedges closed behind him like a throat swallowing prey.

Harry gripped his wand harder.

The maze might rely on luck—but he wouldn’t.

He would survive it.

He would outmatch it.

And if the Cup really was waiting somewhere inside…

The maze shifted again—this time violently, as though the entire structure wanted to shove Harry forward.

A wall behind him closed with a thundering snap, vines knitting so aggressively that sparks flew.

“Alright, alright,” Harry muttered, “I’m moving.”

The new passage ahead sloped downward, into a fog-filled darkness that felt unnaturally cold. Harry descended cautiously, wand raised, each step echoing faintly.

Then the smell hit him.

Rotting leaves.

Damp earth.

And something else—thicker, sharper, like venom.

Harry’s eyes narrowed.

“Acromantulas.”

The fog thinned as he entered a cavern-sized chamber. The ceiling stretched high overhead, roots dangling like monstrous tendrils. The floor was uneven, littered with old webbing and broken husks of past prey.

Movement whispered across the stone.

Then he saw them.

These were giants.

Their hairy legs were thicker than Harry’s arms. Their gleaming fangs dripped with poison strong enough to melt stone. Their many eyes reflected the dim maze-light like cold jewels.

At least a dozen of them.

Harry exhaled sharply.

“Not today.”

He turned to retreat—

—and froze.

The passage he’d come through had vanished, replaced by a wall of writhing vines.

Of course it had.

The spiders sensed his hesitation. Their legs scratched against the floor in eager, rhythmic clicks. The biggest Acromantula raised its front legs and screeched—a sound that echoed through the chamber like a broken violin dragged across iron.

Harry’s jaw tightened.

He didn’t have time.

The maze was already rearranging itself.

He needed to finish this quickly.

“Fine,” he whispered. “No holding back.”

He raised his wand.

The spiders leapt.

“Sectum Serpentis!”

A blade of shimmering, serpent-shaped magic slashed across the room. One Acromantula flew backward, its monstrous body split clean in half.

Another dove from above—Harry twisted beneath it, flicked his wand upward—

“Sectum—”

A second spider fell, legs twitching as its head separated from its body.

Harry stepped aside, letting two more collide with each other, then sliced them apart with clean, vicious arcs of magic.

The curse wasn’t unforgivable.

Not technically.

Not written in any Ministry book.

But it carried the bite of Grindelwald’s spellwork—precise, lethal, merciless.

Within minutes, the chamber was covered in unmoving bodies, ichor steaming where it touched the stone.

The last Acromantula lunged desperately, fangs bared.

Harry didn’t flinch.

“Sectum Serpentis.”

The creature fell with a dull thud.

Silence followed.

Harry stood still, chest rising and falling steadily, expression unreadable. He wiped a line of venom off his sleeve with a flick of magic.

“Next time,” he muttered, “I’m filing a complaint.”

A crackling sound filled the chamber.

The vines behind him shuddered, twisted, and split open—forming a new exit.

Harry wasted no time.

He stepped through the passage, wiping sweat from his forehead.

The next chamber wasn’t dim or cold.

It was hot.

Violently, uncomfortably hot—like the inside of a furnace. The air shimmered, and the ground trembled under Harry’s feet.

Then he heard it.

A low growl.

A hiss of steam.

A blast of exploding fire.

Harry sighed through his teeth.

“Blast-Ended Skrewts,” he groaned. “Hagrid, why?”

A Skrewt the size of a fully grown boar charged out of the haze, sparks erupting from its stinger as it barreled toward him. Harry dodged, sliding across the dirt. Another Skrewt, smaller but faster, shot a jet of blazing fire from its rear end, scorching the hedge wall behind him.

These things were ugly.

Armored.

Barely magical.

And horribly unpredictable.

Harry flicked his wand—

“Stupe—!”

The spell hit the Skrewt’s shell and ricocheted backward, nearly smacking Harry in the face.

“Right,” Harry hissed. “Definitely magic-resistant.”

The large Skrewt whipped its tail and launched a concussive blast. Harry shielded himself, sliding backward several feet.

He didn't have time for this.

He needed something the creatures couldn't resist.

Something physical.

Something brutal.

Harry’s eyes sharpened.

“Fine,” he said. “Let’s see how you handle this.”

He stabbed his wand forward.

“Confringo!”

The blasting curse hit the ground between the Skrewts, erupting in a controlled explosion. Dirt rained down. The blast was enough to flip the smaller Skrewt onto its back, legs flailing.

Harry rushed forward, leapt over a sweeping tail, and—

WHAM

—sent another explosion under the larger Skrewt’s belly, the one area not covered fully by its thick exoskeleton.

A screech ripped through the chamber. The Skrewt fell, legs twitching violently, its armor cracked along the underside.

Harry exhaled, sweat dripping from his brow.

“That,” he panted, “was unpleasant.”

The remaining Skrewts skittered backward, defeated or stunned. The vines sensed the victory and slowly uncurled, revealing another passage.

Harry took one last look at the ruined chamber.

“First spiders. Now this,” he muttered. “If there’s a dragon in the next room, I’m quitting.”

Harry stepped into the next chamber expecting another monster, another trap, another twisting puzzle of hedge and fog.

But the chamber was… empty.

No creatures.

No hidden traps

Just silence.

Well—almost silent.

The floor was littered with scorched fragments of carapace, faintly smoking shells cracked open like eggs. Harry knelt, picking up a jagged piece.

“Skrewt shell,” he murmured. “Big ones. Someone else already fought them.”

He straightened, scanning the area.

If one of the champions had come through here recently, then Harry wasn’t alone in this stretch of the maze. He took a cautious step toward the next passage when—

BANG!

A bolt of red light shot up into the sky above the hedges, bursting in a shower of crimson sparks. The signal for withdrawal.

Someone had quit.

Harry frowned. Cedric? Charlie? Fleur? He didn’t know. But the sudden surrender, combined with the torn-apart Skrewts, made his stomach twist with unease.

He barely had time to process it before he heard—

THUD.

A heavy, deliberate footstep.

Another.

Then a figure limped out of the misted corridor, the wooden leg thumping rhythmically against the stone floor.

Alastor Moody.

His magical eye whirled wildly in its socket, fixing on every inch of Harry, while the normal eye remained disturbingly calm—too calm for a man entering a maze filled with monsters.

His wand was already raised.

Harry’s grip on his own wand tightened.

“Professor Moody?” he asked cautiously.

Moody stopped ten feet away, face half-shadowed by the dancing maze-light.

“Quick thinking, Weasley,” he growled. “But you’re not as clever as you think.”

Harry didn’t move.

He felt the hedges behind him tighten, closing slightly as though the maze itself wanted to keep him here.

Moody stepped closer, leaning heavily on his staff.

“You’ll quit the task now.”

Harry blinked. “What?”

“You heard me, boy,” Moody snarled, the magical eye spinning. “Send up sparks. Step out. Leave the rest of the tournament to others—to the one who deserves it.”

Harry’s jaw clenched. “Charlie doesn’t want that.”

“Oh, but everyone else does,” Moody snapped. “The Ministry. The crowds. Half the Hogwarts staff. A story like that—Potter winning the Cup? That’s golden, lad.”

Harry glared. “You’re talking nonsense.”

Moody’s real eye hardened, becoming frighteningly cold.

“No, I’m talking sense. You quitting is the right thing to do. Keeps you alive.”

Harry raised his wand.

Moody laughed softly, a chilling sound.

“There it is. The spark. That hunger. That defiance.”

His magical eye froze suddenly, both eyes locking onto Harry with predatory attention.

“Just like Karkaroff told.”

Harry’s blood ran cold.

Moody’s voice dropped to a rough whisper.

“You’ll quit now,” he said, stepping forward, wand aimed straight at Harry’s heart,

“or I’ll make you.”

This was the imposter Karkaroff feared.

The man behind the strange hostility.

The one who stole the Marauder’s Map.

The one manipulating the entire tournament.

Harry exhaled slowly, raising his wand to meet Moody’s.

“No,” Harry said quietly. “You won’t.”

The maze around them rustled, anticipating the duel.

Moody’s lips curled into a cold, hungry smile.

“Then perish with pride, boy.”