Some shit is going to go down in this chapter.

I think. 

I decided to put a picture of David Tennant over there because he's sexy.

And once again, if you guys want a contest where YOU get to write Jinx and make her do whatever the hell you want her to, then you guys have to let me know. Personally, I think it would be really cool to see you guys take Jinx's story and make it your own. 

So apparently after Harry left Divination he went to Dumbledore's office, fell into Dumbledore's pensive, and witnessed Barty Crouch Jr.'s trial. 

Who is played by the very sexy David Tennant in the movies. 

What?

Now Harry was telling us all about it. 

"Dumbledore reckons You-Know-Who's getting stronger again as well?" Ron whispered. 

Harry, Ron, Hermione and I sat up late in the common room once again that night, talking it all over. 

Ron stared into the common room fire. I thought I saw Ron shiver slightly, even though the evening was warm. 

"And he trusts Snape?" Ron said. "He really trusts Snape, even though he knows he was a Death Eater?" 

"Yes," said Harry. 

Hermione had not spoken for ten minutes. She was sitting with her forehead in her hands, staring at her knees. I thought she too looked as though she could have done with a Pensieve. 

"Rita Skeeter," she muttered finally. 

"How can you be worrying about her now?" said Ron, in utter disbelief. 

"I'm not worrying about her," Hermione said to her knees. "I'm just thinking... remember what she said to me in the Three Broomsticks? 'I know things about Ludo Bagman that would make your hair curl. ' This is what she meant, isn't it? She reported his trial, she knew he'd passed information to the Death Eaters. And Winky too, remember... 'Ludo Bagman's a bad wizard.' Mr. Crouch would have been furious he got off, he would have talked about it at home." 

"Yeah, but Bagman didn't pass information on purpose, did he?" 

Hermione shrugged. 

"And Fudge reckons Madame Maxime attacked Crouch?" Ron said, turning back to Harry. 

"Yeah," said Harry, "but he's only saying that because Crouch disappeared near the Beauxbatons carriage." 

"We never thought of her, did we?" said Ron slowly. "Mind you, she's definitely got giant blood, and she doesn't want to admit it-" 

"Of course she doesn't," said Hermione sharply, looking up. "Look what happened to Hagrid when Rita found out about his mother. Look at Fudge, jumping to conclusions about her, just because she's part giant. Who needs that sort of prejudice? I'd probably say I had big bones if I knew that's what I'd get for telling the truth." 

Hermione looked at her watch. "We haven't done any practicing!" she said, looking shocked. "We were going to do the Impediment Curse! We'll have to really get down to it tomorrow! Come on. Harry, you need to get some sleep." 

We went up to our dormitory and fell asleep in minutes. 

Fun fact: The average human being takes seven minutes to fall asleep.

I dreamed i was walking with Harry, wandering around an seemingly endless maze. He couldn't see me, however. He strode down a long corridor and came face to face with a sphinx. I realized that what I was seeing was from the third task. 

"Impossible," I said, astonished in my dreamlike state. "The third task hasn't even happened yet!"

"You are very near your goal," the sphinx said. "The quickest way is past me." 

"So... so will you move, please?" said Harry. 

"No," she said, continuing to pace. "Not unless you can answer my riddle. Answer on your first guess - I let you pass. Answer wrongly - I attack. Remain silent - I will let you walk away from me unscathed." 

"Okay," he said. "Can I hear the riddle?" 

The sphinx sat down upon her hind legs, in the very middle of the path, and recited: 

"First think of the person who lives in disguise,

Who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies.

Next, tell me what's always the last thing to mend,

The middle of middle and end of the end?

And finally give me the sound often heard

During the search for a hard-to-find word.

Now string them together, and answer me this,

Which creature would you be unwilling to kiss?"

Harry gaped at her. 

"Could I have it again... more slowly?" he asked tentatively. She blinked at him, smiled, and repeated the poem. "All the clues add up to a creature I wouldn't want to kiss?" Harry asked. 

She merely smiled her mysterious smile. Harry took that for a "yes." 

"A person in disguise," Harry muttered, staring at her, "who lies... er... that'd be a - an impostor. No, that's not my guess! A - a spy? I'll come back to that... could you give me the next clue again, please?" 

She repeated the next lines of the poem. 

"'The last thing to mend,'" Harry repeated. "Er... no idea... 'middle of middle'... could I have the last bit again?" 

She gave him the last four lines. 

"'The sound often heard during the search for a hard-to-find word,'" said Harry. "Er... that'd be... er... hang on - 'er'! Er's a sound!" 

The sphinx smiled at him. 

"Spy... er... spy... er..." said Harry, pacing up and down. "A creature I wouldn't want to kiss... a spider!" 

The sphinx smiled more broadly. She got up, stretched her front legs, and then moved aside for him to pass. 

"Thanks!" said Harry, and, amazed at his own brilliance, he dashed forward. 

The dream shattered, and I was laying in my bed, in Gryffindor Tower. I was certain that I had just witnessed the future. 

Ron, Hermione and I were supposed to be studying for our exams, which we would finish on the day of the third task, but we were putting most of our efforts into helping Harry prepare. 

I told them nothing of my dream, mostly because the fact that I had had two visions in a short period of time scared me. What scared me more, was that they were continuing. Bits and bits, I saw what was happening inside the maze during the third task. Sometimes it was Viktor, sometimes it was Fleur, sometimes it was Harry, and sometimes it was Cedric. 

For some odd reason, whenever it was Cedric I got a horrible feeling, like my stomach was bottomless and I was about to break down sobbing. I couldn't think of any explaination for it. No matter what, though, I kept it to myself. 

"Don't worry about it," Hermione said shortly when Harry pointed the studying thing out to us and said he didn't mind practicing on his own for a while, "at least we'll get top marks in Defense Against the Dark Arts. We'd never have found out about all these hexes in class." 

"Good training for when we're all Aurors," said Ron excitedly, attempting the Impediment Curse on a wasp that had buzzed into the room and making it stop dead in midair. 

The mood in the castle as we entered June became excited and tense again. Everyone was looking forward to the third task, which would take place a week before the end of term. Harry was practicing hexes at every available moment. Difficult and dangerous though it would undoubtedly be, Moody was right: Harry had managed to find his way past monstrous creatures and enchanted barriers before now, and this time he had some notice, some chance to prepare himself for what lay ahead. 

Tired of walking in on Harry, Hermione, Ron and I all over the school. Professor McGonagall had given us permission to use the empty Transfiguration classroom at lunchtimes. Harry had soon mastered the Impediment Curse, a spell to slow down and obstruct attackers; the Reductor Curse, which would enable him to blast solid objects out of his way; and the Four-Point Spell, a useful discovery of Hermione's that would make his wand point due north, therefore enabling him to check whether he was going in the right direction within the maze. He was still having trouble with the Shield Charm, though. This was supposed to cast a temporary, invisible wall around himself that deflected minor curses; Hermione managed to shatter it with a well-placed Jelly-Legs Jinx, and Harry wobbled around the room for ten minutes afterward before she had looked up the counter-jinx. 

"You're still doing really well, though," Hermione said encouragingly, looking down her list and crossing off those spells we had already learned. "Some of these are bound to come in handy." 

"Come and look at this," said Ron, who was standing by the window. He was staring down onto the grounds. "What's Malfoy doing?" 

Harry, Hermione and I went to see. Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle were standing in the shadow of a tree below. Crabbe and Goyle seemed to be keeping a lookout; both were smirking. Draco was holding his hand up to his mouth and speaking into it. 

"He looks like he's using a walkie-talkie," said Harry curiously. 

"He can't be," said Hermione, "I've told you, those sorts of things don't work around Hogwarts. Come on, Harry," she added briskly, turning away from the window and moving back into the middle of the room, "let's try that Shield Charm again." 

Sirius was sending daily owls now. Like Hermione, he seemed to want to concentrate on getting Harry through the last task before they concerned themselves with anything else. He reminded Harry in every letter that whatever might be going on outside the walls of Hogwarts was not Harry's responsibility, nor was it within his power to influence it. 

If Voldemort is really getting stronger again, he wrote, my priority is to ensure your safety. He cannot hope to lay hands on you while you are under Dumbledore's protection, but all the same, take no risks: Concentrate on getting through that maze safely, and then we can turn our attention to other matters. 

Breakfast was a very noisy affair at the Gryffindor table on the morning of the third task. The post owls appeared, bringing Harry a good-luck card from Sirius. It was only a piece of parchment, folded over and bearing a muddy paw print on its front, but Harry appreciated it all the same. A screech owl arrived for Hermione, carrying her morning copy of the Daily Prophet as usual. She unfolded the paper, glanced at the front page, and spat out a mouthful of pumpkin juice all over it. 

"What?" said Harry and Ron together, staring at her.

"Nothing," said Hermione quickly, trying to shove the paper out of sight, but Ron grabbed it. He stared at the headline and said, "No way. Not today. That old cow." 

"What?" said Harry. "Rita Skeeter again?" 

"No," said Ron, and just like Hermione, he attempted to push the paper out of sight. 

"It's about me, isn't it?" said Harry. 

"No," said Ron, in an entirely unconvincing tone. But before Harry could demand to see the paper. Draco shouted across the Great Hall from the Slytherin table. 

"Hey, Potter! Potter! How's your head? You feeling all right? Sure you're not going to go berserk on us?" 

Draco was holding a copy of the Daily Prophet too. Slytherins up and down the table were sniggering, twisting in their seats to see Harry's reaction. 

"Let me see it," Harry said to Ron. "Give it here." 

Very reluctantly, Ron handed over the newspaper. I looked over as Harry turned it over and found himself staring at his own picture, beneath the banner headline: 

"HARRY POTTER"

"DISTURBED AND DANGEROUS"

The boy who defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is unstable and possibly dangerous, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. Alarming evidence has recently come to light about Harry Potter's strange behavior, which casts doubts upon his suitability to compete in a demanding competition like the Triwizard Tournament, or even to attend Hogwarts School. 

Potter, the Daily Prophet can exclusively reveal, regularly collapses at school, and is often heard to complain of pain in the scar on his forehead (relic of the curse with which You-Know-Who attempted to kill him). On Monday last, midway through a Divination lesson, your Daily Prophet reporter witnessed Potter storming from the class, claiming that his scar was hurting too badly to continue studying. 

It is possible, say top experts at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, that Potters brain was affected by the attack inflicted upon him by You-Know-Who, and that his insistence that the scar is still hurting is an expression of his deep-seated confusion. 

"He might even be pretending," said one specialist. "This could be a plea for attention." 

The Daily Prophet, however, has unearthed worrying facts about Harry Potter that Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, has carefully concealed from the wizarding public. 

"Potter can speak Parseltongue," reveals Draco Malfoy, a Hogwarts fourth year. "There were a lot of attacks on students a couple of years ago, and most people thought Potter was behind them after they saw him lose his temper at a dueling club and set a snake on another boy. It was all hushed up, though. But he's made friends with werewolves and giants too. We think he'd do anything for a bit of power." 

Parseltongue, the ability to converse with snakes, has long been considered a Dark Art. Indeed, the most famous Parselmouth of our times is none other than You-Know-Who himself. A member of the Dark Force Defense League, who wished to remain unnamed, stated that he would regard any wizard who could speak Parseltongue "as worthy of investigation. Personally, I would be highly suspicious of anybody who could converse with snakes, as serpents are often used in the worst kinds of Dark Magic, and are historically associated with evildoers." Similarly, "anyone who seeks out the company of such vicious creatures as werewolves and giants would appear to have a fondness for violence." 

Albus Dumbledore should surely consider whether a boy such as this should be allowed to compete in the Triwizard Tournament. Some fear that Potter might resort to the Dark Arts in his desperation to win the tournament, the third task of which takes place this evening. 

"Gone off me a bit, hasn't she?" said Harry lightly, folding up the paper. 

"You? Using the Dark Arts?" I snorted. "That\s the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. And I put up with myself."

Over at the Slytherin table, Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle were laughing at him, tapping their heads with their fingers, pulling grotesquely mad faces, and waggling their tongues like snakes. 

"How did she know your scar hurt in Divination?" Ron said. "There's no way she was there, there's no way she could've heard -" 

"The window was open," said Harry. "I opened it to breathe." 

"You were at the top of North Tower!" Hermione said. "Your voice couldn't have carried all the way down to the grounds!" 

"Well, you're the one who's supposed to be researching magical methods of bugging!" said Harry. "You tell me how she did it!"

"I've been trying!" said Hermione. "But I... but..." 

An odd, dreamy expression suddenly came over Hermione's face. She slowly raised a hand and ran her fingers through her hair. 

"Are you all right?" said Ron, frowning at her. 

"Yes," said Hermione breathlessly. She ran her fingers through her hair again, and then held her hand up to her mouth, as though speaking into an invisible walkie-talkie. Harry and Ron stared at each other. 

"I've had an idea," Hermione said, gazing into space. "I think I know... because then no one would be able to see... even Moody... and she'd have been able to get onto the window ledge... but she's not allowed... she's definitely not allowed... I think we've got her! Just give me two seconds in the library - just to make sure!" 

With that, Hermione seized her school bag and dashed out of the Great Hall. 

"Oi!" Ron called after her. "We've got our History of Magic exam in ten minutes! Blimey," he said, turning back to Harry, "she must really hate that Skeeter woman to risk missing the start of an exam. What're you going to do in Binns's class - read again?" 

Exempt from the end-of-term tests as a Triwizard champion, Harry had been sitting in the back of every exam class so far, looking up fresh hexes for the third task. 

"S'pose so," Harry said to Ron and I; but just then. Professor McGonagall came walking alongside the Gryffindor table toward him. 

"Potter, the champions are congregating in the chamber off the Hall after breakfast," she said. 

"But the task's not till tonight!" said Harry, accidentally spilling scrambled eggs down his front, afraid he had mistaken the time. 

"I'm aware of that, Potter," she said. "The champions' families are invited to watch the final task, you know. This is simply a chance for you to greet them." 

She moved away. Harry gaped after her. 

"She doesn't expect the Dursleys to turn up, does she?" he asked Ron blankly. 

"Dunno," said Ron. "Harry, we'd better hurry, I'm going to be late for Binns. See you later." 

"Bye," I said quickly, following Ron.

A couple hours later, we returned to the great hall, our heas swimming with facts about goblins and dragons and elves. (Oh my!) We spotted Harry sitting at the Gryffindor table with Bill and Mrs. Weasley. 

"Mum - Bill!" said Ron, looking stunned, as we joined the Gryffindor table. "What're you doing here?" 

"Come to watch Harry in the last task!" said Mrs. Weasley brightly. "I must say, it makes a lovely change, not having to cook. How was your exam?" 

"Oh... okay," said Ron. "Couldn't remember all the goblin rebels' names, so I invented a few. It's all right," he said, helping himself to a Cornish pasty, while Mrs. Weasley looked stern, "they're all called stuff like Bodrod the Bearded and Urg the Unclean; it wasn't hard." 

Fred, George, and Ginny came to sit next to us too. Fred and I held hands under the table, without even thinking about it really. I remembered that I didn't know if Mrs. Weasley knew about us. Fred suddenly took our hands and set them on top of the table, in clear view. Mrs. Weasley smiled at us. It was a simple thing, but I really appriciated having her permission. 

Hermione joined us. 

"Hello, Hermione," said Mrs. Weasley, much more stiffly than usual. 

"Hello," said Hermione, her smile faltering at the cold expression on Mrs. Weasley's face. 

I looked between them, and Harry then said, "Mrs. Weasley, you didn't believe that rubbish Rita Skeeter wrote in Witch Weekly, did you? Because Hermione's not my girlfriend." 

"Oh!" said Mrs. Weasley "No - of course I didn't!" 

But she became considerably warmer toward Hermione after that. 

We had more exams and then returned to the Great Hall for the evening feast. Ludo Bagman and Cornelius Fudge had joined the staff table now. Bagman looked quite cheerful, but Cornelius Fudge, who was sitting next to Madame Maxime, looked stern and was not talking. Madame Maxime was concentrating on her plate, and I thought her eyes looked red. Hagrid kept glancing along the table at her. I wondered if she and Hagrid had fought again.

There were more courses than usual, but Harry, who was starting to feel really nervous now, didn't eat much. I, however, was a bottomless pit when I was nervous. So naturally I ate about five of everything. As the enchanted ceiling overhead began to fade from blue to a dusky purple, Dumbledore rose to his feet at the staff table, and silence fell. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, in five minutes' time, I will be asking you to make your way down to the Quidditch field for the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament. Will the champions please follow Mr. Bagman down to the stadium now." 

Harry got up. The Gryffindors all along the table were applauding him; the Weasleys and Hermione and I all wished him good luck, and he headed off out of the Great Hall with Cedric, Fleur, and Viktor. 

Five minutes later, we began to make our way down to the Quidditch field. Halfway there, I heard someone call my name. I stopped in my tracks. 

"You olay love?" Fred asked me. 

"I thought I heard someone call my name," I said, confused. 

"Jinx!" the voice said again, more urgently. I looked around. Everyone had gone past us now, and only Fred and I stood behind. 

"You go on," I said automatically, the words flying out of my mouth without thinking about them. "I want to have a look around."

"Alright," Fred said hesitantly. "Meet you there then?"

"Yeah," I said, absentmindedly. He left and I began looking for the source of the voice. I knew in my gut that they were still here. 

"Who's there?" I called out. I heard some movement behind me. I whirled around. 

And I came face to face with myself.