Written by: John

"Ladies and Gentlemen," said Dumbledore. He had quietly silenced Bagman and tied him to his chair to keep him out of the way. "First an announcement. There has been a slight change to tonight's programme. In particular, I will be handling the announcements so Mr. Bagman can think of the merits of scarpering on bets made with minors. Not that I'm judging, Ludo, my boy, but stealing from teenagers? That's low."

He turned and faced the audience with his usual, beatific smile and twinkling eyes. "The task tonight has been altered slightly in light of the casualties during the first two tasks. The loss of Mr. Diggory during the first task—we have almost gathered him for the matchbox—and in the second task, Mr. Krum when he attacked a Merman and was stabbed and Ms. Delacour when she drowned instead of conceding that as a fire/air creature, she might not do well underwater. Also, getting gutted by a Grindylow didn't help.

"As such, instead of a race against one another, it is a task of survival. Our only remaining champion must enter the maze you see before you and bring the cup back from the center. I need not remind anyone that this is a dangerous activity, and after the fifty students who died during the first task to Mr. Potter's dragon when it tried to roast him, I think you all will remember that spectators really must stay behind the lines marked out in the stands or be considered fair game for the magical creatures in the maze.

"A final word before I bring out our champion: your tickets were at a premium as you well know. As such, we don't want anyone to lose out on their investment and so they came with a magical contract. By taking your seat tonight, you are bound to watch this to its conclusion so that you cannot complain that you left and missed the whole thing."

Dumbledore smiled again and turned to the edge of the pitch. "And now, without further ado, I give you the remaining contestant for Living Through the Triwizard Tournament, Harry Potter!" There was a distinct lack of applause.

Harry walked out of the lockers and there was a smattering of clapping. He had over a shoulder a messenger bag. On his back was a tube apparently made of canvas and sticks. He trotted over to Dumbledore.

"Professor?" he asked. "A question: is there a time limit on this task?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "No, Harry. This is just a survival challenge."

Harry beamed. "Oh good." He walked to the entrance to the maze. "Ready when you are."

A moment later, there was a crack of spellfire and Harry stepped into the maze.

Two minutes later, the silence was broken by a staccato crackle that sounded like spellfire, but louder. "Is that gunfire?" asked Hermione. Ron shrugged. Even as she spoke, objects about the size of Hagrid's head came spitting out of the wall of the maze and ploughed into the bottom wall of the pitch. The stone splintered under the hail and holes began to appear.

After three seconds, it was over and silence reigned.

Harry patted the barrel of his heavily modified submachinegun. Sirius hadn't believed that this would work, but he and Remus had explained that Muggles were much better at killing than Wizards and, what's more, they didn't take as much work to use. They hadn't convinced the pureblood, but he'd helped enchant the thing anyway.

Harry had decided not to ask how they had acquired a museum-quality Thompson submachinegun, circa 1942. He probably wouldn't like the answer. The result had been a serious—his godfather had been a pain about that—monster-killing weapon. Runes negated the kick of the weapon, more runes kept the barrel cool, a rune provided the acceleration of the bullet. The best part, though, was the ammunition rune-scheme: it conjured a shrunken lead projectile jacketed in copper; at the end of the barrel was a rune that stripped the shrinking effect off, leaving a fully accelerated round the size of a large artillery shell. And it was fully-automatic. Good times.

He took the bundle off his back and set it down. Then he withdrew a string from his satchel and used a charm to duplicate it and string it across the length of the maze, blocking passage. The joy of rune-triggered primacord.

It took him several minutes to set up the Wizard tent. Once it was ready, he slipped inside and proceeded to clean his gun and check that the runes hadn't overcharged themselves—they were supposed to be good unless he went for about ten hours of continual fire, but best to be sure. He checked over the underslung attachment to his gun—another of his ideas: it conjured and sprayed petroleum jelly and yet another rune ignited it.

Having cleaned his weapon, he disassembled the tent, unstrung the trap and walked to the corner. Then he drew a couple of marbles from his bag and chucked them around the corner. Two seconds later, there was a deafening boom as the runes inside the metal spheres triggered, sending the pre-scored triangles of its shell outwards at the speed of sound.

Hermione stormed down to where Dumbledore was watching the maze with every sign of enjoyment. "What in all that is good and right is Harry doing in there?" she hissed at the Headmaster.

"Hm?" Dumbledore turned to face her. "Oh, Miss Granger. I haven't the slightest idea. But I find myself intrigued nevertheless." He paused as, from the maze, was the sound of more gunfire and a cry of 'die, fiend! Hahahahahaha!'. "It sounds as if he's working out some aggression, though."

Conjured bullets pockmarked the walls again, blasting more ancient architecture to splinters of stone and gaping holes. After a moment, there was a sound rather like a dragon's exhalation, and the maze was lit by the fires of hell. Dumbledore twinkled at Hermione as 'burn, scum!' filled the air, along with the stink of burning hair. "I am glad that he is finally taking a more proactive approach."

Harry kicked aside the broken shell of a Blast-Ended Skrewt and the charred corpse of an Acromantula. This was fun! He reached a corner and flung a few more of his magical frag grenades past it, waited for the boom, and spun around it, crouching low and filling the empty stretch of space with lead. "Oh." He triggered his flamethrower anyway, just to be sure. Then he fired for another few seconds, sweeping the path with doom moving at well past the speed of sound. "Huh."

He set his traps and went about cleaning his guns.

"I think those are sonic booms," muttered Hermione.

Dumbledore looked over at her, apparently unconcerned that his quidditch stadium was being blasted to rubble by one of his students. "What?"

"The louder banging sound that comes with those . . . bullets . . . flying out of the maze."

"Sorry, Miss Granger, I would say you're speaking Greek to me, but I'm fluent."

"A sonic boom, professor, is a sound that only happens when an object moves faster than sound does. When that happens . . . something happens that makes a really loud bang."

"Ah. I was going to say that this reminded me rather a lot about the early forties."

"The . . . oh. Oh!" Hermione looked at the wreckage being strewn about. "Oh dear."

From the maze came the jubilant call of 'this is what I think of your mom, Mr. Dementor!' followed by a blast of fire and then a high pitched scream that carried on as an object the size of a mature hippogriff came flying out of the maze to strike against the stadium wall. Then it exploded.

"I do believe that was a V2 rocket," commented Dumbledore. "Rather bad taste to use it in England, I think. I think Hogwarts will be having to send several of the elder generation through therapy. Really. Many of us are old enough to remember Diagon Alley getting hit during the Blitz."

Hermione was looking at the maze with a sort of horrified dread.

Harry danced where the Dementor had been before unzipping and relieving himself on the burnt patch of ground. "Fuck you, fear." He proceeded down the path until he reached a fork. "Well, that's a thing." He strung the lefthand path with primacord traps and began to walk down the right path, occasionally firing his gun to make sure he hadn't missed anything or just not seen it.

"I do believe that was the boggart he used the rocket on," mused Dumbledore. "I suppose I should have recalled his boggart. Then again, I rather expected it would have changed to look like an ornate cup now. Oh well. On the upside, it appears that Mr. Potter has discovered a valid method for the removal of boggarts permanently."

Hermione glanced at the maze as it lit with fire again. She was finding the silence aside from gunfire and flames more worrying. She sighed in a dark sort of comfort as there was a cackle of laughter.

Harry yawned and set up the tent. Inside, he lay down on the very nice bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

"What's going on?" asked Hermione. It had been a half hour and nothing had happened.

"Well, I know he's not dead, because the maze would have reacted badly to that. Other than that, I'm at a loss."

Two hours later, Hermione had conceded that Dumbledore could have a chess set brought out and the two were playing horribly against one another. There was grumbling from the rest of the audience. They were under the impression that there would be more action.

"Check." Dumbledore smiled.

"That's true." Hermione moved a piece. "And not anymore."

"How angry is Harry?"

"On a scale of one to ten?"

"Sure."

"Somewhere around fifty."

"I see."

"Why?"

"Well, I was trying to guess how rude he was planning to be. I would wager that he decided to take a nap."

"A . . . nap? Really?"

"Indeed. I suppose I could use one, but my seat isn't that comfortable. Fifty, you say?"

"Maybe more. It wasn't a good year, Headmaster."

"So, and this is just a guess, mind you, but I'm figuring we have several more hours to kill. If you would consent to having a House Elf involved, I will have some school books brought out. I don't get to teach much anymore and I would be happy to answer questions if you have them."

Harry yawned as he unpitched the tent and proceeded further along. A flying bug blurred across his line of sight and he filled the air with fire, cooking Rita Skeeter alive.

He reached the dead end and paused. He considered going back and decided that he couldn't be bothered. Just for the sake of checking, he tried to set the wall on fire. He was unsurprised to find that it had been thoroughly flame-proofed. Well, let's see if they prepared for this!

His thumb flicked a switch on the side of his gun. It had been another of his ideas. He'd spent a good bit of time over his life reading history books and knew that humanity had developed plenty of efficient ways of killing, maiming, and destroying without the need for magic.

When he pulled the trigger, instead of a single projectile, what was conjured was a shrunken cluster of ball-bearings and spikes that spat from the barrel and exploded to full size, filling the air with shredding death. It tore the hedge to brambles that began to regrow as he ducked through it. "Grapeshot and fletchettes as defoliant. I should tell Neville."

"Hm," Dumbledore interrupted his discussion with Hermione on the subject of Gamp's unwritten Eight Law. "It appears Harry has found some way of bypassing the hedges that we hadn't planned for. I do hope he'll tell us what it is."

"He might, if you ask nicely." Hermione held up the book they'd been pouring over. "So if I'm reading this right, it's possible to violate at least two known laws of physics more than I had thought. Why don't we use electricity if we can make perpetual motion machines?"

Harry set up his traps and settled down to a good night's rest, having taken his time down the ten feet of passage, stretching the travel to three hours as he tested for devious traps and just enjoyed firing various explosives at things.

Dumbledore sipped from his cup of coffee. It was the brew he had used when he was studying for NEWTs. The best way he could describe it was using muggle terms. He was fairly certain it was roughly like amphetamines. He took another sip and shuddered. It tasted incredibly bitter, but it kept a wizard body awake.

"I think we may both have underestimated how annoyed Harry is," he commented.

Hermione yawned, having so far resisted the offer of a cup of her own. "Perhaps. Or he might be up to something. Crazier things have happened."

Harry had enjoyed the rest and took a few hours to catch up on some school reading he'd been putting off. He also worked on Snape's most annoying essay to date. It was only another three hours of work to finish the blasted thing. Then he felt tired and needed a nap.

"Twenty-four hours and counting," muttered Hermione as she stretched.

"Indeed. You're certain I cannot interest you in some coffee? I daren't try to sleep in these seats at my age."

She waved him off. "No, no. I'm awake enough now. Could you review the rules for conjuring living things again?"

Harry poked his head out of the tent and then proceeded to the corner and chucked a handful of grenades around it. When the squelching had died down, he slipped around the side and sprayed the area with death. He wasn't sure what there had been, since it had been turned into a pile of goo, but it had been green in places before.

He decided to take a rest and clean his guns, so he set up the tent.

"Thirty-two hours," Hermione was glaring at the hedge.

"I commend you, Miss Granger," replied Dumbledore. "You have a positive talent for stating the obvious. I myself have certainly not been keeping careful track of the time so I can know just how stiff I will be when this ends."

"So we've done a good bit of Transfiguration, yes?"

"Oh yes. Though if you have a real interest in the subject, we've barely scratched the surface."

Harry woke from yet another restful night of sleep and thanked Dobby for the food. After a leisurely breakfast in bed, he took the time to wash and brush and make sure he'd gotten caught up on his Transfiguration assignments. It was nice to know nothing new was being assigned while he worked on it.

Outside the tent, he paused as he felt something like euphoria drift over him. There was a hint of a desire to get moving faster. But he decided that he didn't like doing things because the Imperius told him to and so proceeded to turn and begin to make his way back.

He wasn't going to rush, though. No reason to be stupid and get hurt by going too fast.

"Sixty hours," snarled Hermione.

"Yes indeed. I rather think Harry has decided to get his revenge on the school in a nice little coup. And he can even point out that he asked quite specifically if this task is timed." Dumbledore was twinkling, but there was a hard line to his mouth. "Though I am becoming less amused and more sore. I am likely going to have a bit of revenge of my own after this is over."

"Agreed." Hermione rose. "I'll be right back."

Ten minutes later, she returned, towing Gred and Forge, Ginny bringing up the rear. "Ginny explained to them that failing to help us show our displeasure would be grounds for spending the summer under the Bat Bogey hex." The twins shuddered. "So, let's begin."

Harry waved from the entrance to the maze. "Ahoy the crowd!"

Dumbledore stormed over. "As amusing as this is, Harry, someone my age is really not going to enjoy spending three and a half days out in an uncomfortable seat."

"I'm not done, Headmaster," replied Harry. "But I thought you should know someone was using the Imperius on me . . ." he looked into the distance. "About two days ago?"

"I see."

"Yep. I should probably get going though. I need to clear my way back."

He smiled as the Headmaster stomped away, muttering darkly.

"Minerva."

"Yes Headmaster?"

"Has anyone been around the outside of the Hedge?"

"Only Mad-Eye."

"Interesting."

"Yes?"

"For two reasons. The first is that young Harry says that two days ago, someone cast the Imperius on him."

"And the second?"

"That I see no Professor Moody. I do, though, see someone who looks remarkably like the missing Barty Crouch. And he does not look happy to see me staring at him. Oh, there he goes."

"Why aren't you chasing him, Headmaster?"

"Because in about four seconds . . . ah." Dumbledore raised his wand and summoned the sobbing man back from beyond the edge of the grounds. "He violated the contract by leaving and thus rendered himself far more harmless than I could have managed."

Dumbledore began to carry the stunned figure along. "Miss Granger? Would you please tell Severus that I require Veritaserum? As Chief Warlock, I'm authorizing its use under the Boss Says So Act of 1633. Now, please."

Harry yawned. He was pretty sure he'd managed to find the middle of the maze. It had taken a while. He suspected he'd kept missing it when he went across directly. It was possible he'd managed to clear the whole place without hitting it. Story of his life, really.

"So, what you're saying is that my godson has somehow trapped a large portion of the most important persons in magical Britain here for more than a week?" Sirius Black, newly freed—agreeing not to sue for wrongful imprisonment in exchange for a rapid processing of the paperwork—threw his head back and laughed and laughed.

"Yes, I suppose it's more amusing when you're able to leave," muttered Dumbledore. "And if you don't stop laughing, lad, I'm going to tan your hide. I might have to put up with your godson's antics, but I'll be a monkey's uncle if I take them from you at the same time."

Sirius subsided into snickers. "His father would be so proud."

Harry took out a long stick and poked the cup with it. There was a yanking sensation from behind his navel. Great.

He landed in what looked like a graveyard.

"Where is he?" snapped a voice.

"I don't know, my lord." Harry knew that voice. That was Wormtail. He poked his head around a tombstone and saw the rat. He drew his wand for the first time in a week (barring homework) and stunned the bastard.

He paused. "Fawkes!" It was a gamble that paid off. "Did I win?" The phoenix shook its head. "Can you bring me back so I do? And then bring Dumbledore here?"

A ball of fire resolved itself into Harry Potter and the Triwizard Cup.

"You utter bastard!" Hermione punched her best friend in the face as Dumbledore found himself grabbed by his familiar and transported away.

"What?"

"It's been almost two weeks! I haven't had a decent meal or sleep or a shower! There were no classes!"

Harry was grabbed by Sirius and swung around. "Good news! I'm free!"

Harry blinked. "Not that I'm not glad, Sirius, but how?"

The man shrugged. "I think there was some escaped Death Eater. They didn't really bother me with the details after they said that I was free. I think he said something about Peter being alive and they figured that if that part were true, maybe the rest of your story was also. Fudge couldn't pardon me fast enough once it sounded like that. I think he wanted to make this go away. I agreed to not sue them if they just got it dealt with."

"Yes. And I think that I will be dealing with this thing on my own time," commented Dumbledore from behind them. He was holding the ugliest baby they'd ever seen. "On the upside, I have a few projects to work on. And you can move in with Sirius. When you're a bit older, I'll explain that part." He smiled, eyes twinkling with mischief again as he looked down at the bundle in his arms. "I will be having fun this summer."

Harry, meanwhile, brought out the tent so Hermione could get a shower to ward off her fists which, once he'd hugged Sirius a couple times, she had returned to using on his head.

"So, caution worked?" asked Sirius.

"Yeah. But man was it boring. I think I'll stick to charging in from now on."

(A/N John)

A word on the title. It just comes from the fact that I wanted the name to sound more Viking-y than "Harry" and Spoon got all difficult about "Harold" so I went with something she didn't whine about so much.

The rest of the story basically came from the idea that if the other competitors were dead, he could take his time. From there, things spiraled out of control. As always. I suggested excessive caution on the grounds that it would be hilarious. I don't know if it is, but it made me snicker to write it.

John Out