บท 259: The Final Task Revealed

"Oi!" a woman's voice cried out angrily. "What do you think you're doing, you three?"

Oleandra lowered her altitude, and turning in the direction the voice was coming from, saw that it belonged to Professor Sprout. There were also a number of her students following her; Oleandra counted Ernie Macmillan, Hannah Abott and Cedric Diggory among them.

"Just practising, Professor," Oleandra said, slipping her wand back into its holster.

"First of all, I don't want to crane my neck to speak to someone floating ten feet above me, so I'll thank you to land," said Professor Sprout. "And it rather looked to me like you were bullying this poor Weasley girl…Finite Incantatem!"

She must have thought from her Gryffindor robes and red hair, that Astoria must have been Ginny Weasley. And to her surprise, the General Counter-Spell didn't release Astoria from her icy bindings. Firstly, the ice was made of real water, which necessitated a different spell to Vanish, and secondly, Oleandra had imbued her Freezing Charm with the rune of ice and stillness, and runic magic had a lot of staying power: in short, it was difficult to dispel.

"Let me take care of that," said Oleandra, but the instant she landed, she slipped and fell on her back; she had forgotten that Astoria had cast a Slippery Shoes Jinx on her, and she'd been out of range of Professor Sprout's Finite.

Daphne: "…"

A few embarrassing moments later, Oleandra and Astoria were freed from the spells on their persons. As she got to her feet, Oleandra caught Cedric glowering at her. What was the matter with him? Perhaps he didn't approve of the way the twins had repeatedly planted their younger sister's face in the dirt.

"Are you okay, dear?" Professor Sprout said, turning to Astoria. "Hold on, you're…"

"Pfft— Not Ginny," said Astoria, spitting out small mouthfuls of dirt. "We really were practising. The third task is coming up soon, and Oleandra needs to train."

"Good for her," Professor Sprout nodded. "But I'll need you to find a different spot."

"What have you got there?" Daphne asked, pointing at the various gardening supplies the Hufflepuffs had brought with them.

Indeed, Professor Sprout's students had their hands full with trowels, spades and pitchforks. A long line of bulging bags was floating behind them, each bag tethered to the next by a length of rope.

"That's not for you to know," Macmillan said haughtily, glaring at Oleandra.

"Peace, Ernie," Professor Sprout said reproachfully, before smiling at Oleandra. "You'll see soon enough, dear."

And with those words, they were unceremoniously ousted from their training location. It was a shame, as the Quidditch pitch had been the best spot to verify Astoria's newfound abilities. When it came to wide-open spaces, there were still the castle grounds' fabulous lawns, but Oleandra and Daphne had vaporized enough of their mother's flowerbeds to know it was best not to anger the gardeners.

===========================================================================

The end of Easter marked the beginning of the summer term, but it would only be one month later that Oleandra would finally learn why the Hufflepuffs had begun growing hedges in the Quidditch pitch. In the last week of May, after their Transfiguration class, Professor McGonagall held Oleandra and Harry back before they left.

"You are to go down to the Quidditch pitch tonight at nine o'clock, Potter, Greengrass," she told them. "Mr. Bagman will be there to tell the champions about the third task."

And so, half an hour before the appointed hour, Oleandra left the dungeons and made her way to the Quidditch pitch, where she found the other champions and an about knee-high hedge.

"Hello there!" Ludo Bagman called out to her. Catching Oleandra admiring the hedges, he added, "Growing nicely, aren't they? Give them a week, and Professor Sprout'll have them thirty foot high."

He chuckled to himself.

"It's a good thing that none of the Hogwarts Champions are Hufflepuffs; otherwise, the task would have fallen to Hagrid, and there's only so much you can do with Ez-Gro Dragon dung fertilizer!"

It's not as if Professor Dumbledore couldn't have trusted Professor Sprout to keep a secret, had the Hogwarts champion been, say, Cedric, but due to the tournament's widespread history of cheating and double-dealing, the rules and regulations specifically stated that the House Head of a Hogwarts Champion couldn't be involved in the creation of a task.

Other teachers were exempt from this specific rule, though. Case in point: Hagrid, who was only a regular teacher. Dumbledore had assigned him as an intermediary between the school and Charlie Weasley's gang of Dragon-keepers… and had immediately told Harry all about the first task at the first chance he'd found.

"Now, I imagine you can guess what we're making here?" Bagman asked them.

"Hedge sculpting competition?" Oleandra suggested.

"Maze?" Viktor Krum said.

"That's right, a maze!" Bagman said. "The Triwizard Cup will be placed in the centre of it; the first champion to touch it will receive full marks."

A thought occurred to Oleandra.

"How will points be attributed for the others?" she asked.

"They'll get no points," said Bagman. "Which means that Miss Delacour can still win, as long as she touches the Cup first."

It didn't matter if she was in first or last in the scoring so far; they all had the chance to win it or lose it all!

"We seemply 'ave to get through the maze?" said Fleur, a hint of hope gracing her lilting voice.

"Of course, it won't be that easy," said Bagman happily, bouncing in place as if he couldn't wait for the task to begin. "There will be obstacles; spells to be broken, monsters to be defeated… that sort of thing! Now, don't look at me like that, Miss Greengrass… The points you've gained so far still matter; you get to enter the maze first; then comes Mr. Krum, then Mr. Potter, and finally Miss Delacour."

"But don't you worry," he said, grinning at Harry and Fleur, "you'll all have a fighting chance to win it all!"