What the fuck? That was it? A third-year CoMC class with Hagrid was more dangerous!
She had been in there for a good half an hour without anything happening to her, just dead-ends. The only positive was that she hadn't run into any of the beasties Cedric was complaining about whenever they crossed paths, so she wasn't getting fatigued, and even then she would have been happier with something to kill instead of just wandering around like she was.
Heri was ready to just set fire to the hedge when something out of the ordinary finally happened.
There was a sphinx blocking the way. It had the body of an over-large lion: great clawed paws and a long yellowish tail ending in a brown tuft. Its head and front torso, however, was that of a woman. She turned her long, almond-shaped eyes upon Heri as she approached.
She spoke in a deep, hoarse voice.
"You are very near your goal. The quickest way is past me."
"So . . . so, will you move, please?" Heri had asked, scrounging up some manners despite her dreadful mood.
The sphinx refused, telling Heri that she had to answer riddle if she wanted to get to the other side. She could either get the riddle correct and be allowed to pass or get it wrong and have to fight the sphinx.
"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?"
Heri gaped at her. Good gods, did she look like she was in any position to answer a riddle that came in sonnet form? She wasn't taking an English Lit. class, she was in the middle of a sodding labyrinth!
Heri let the sphinx know that she was going with option three, not answering, by giving her cloak to the likely freezing bare-breasted desert creature and turning herself to mist to seep through the walls of the hedge. She was so done. She had her fill of the shitty maze and wanted out at once.
Of course, that was when the ruddy acromantula had to show up. Where in the nine circles of Dante's Inferno had they been hiding that beast? It couldn't have been in the Forest because Magorian, Bane and Firenze's herd leader, would have ordered it killed on sight; it was nearly the size of Aragog and had no human sentimentality. She didn't know any spells that would work on acromantula exoskeleton, so she caught up its legs with her tendrils and stabbed it with the venomous end of her slingshot until it stopped moving.
If it was only a mildly crappy day, that would have been the point where Heri would reach the Triwizard Cup and finally be done with the blasted tournament. She was not at all surprised when it turned out it was going to be one of those really shitty days, and she instead got portkeyed away from the school altogether.
She had obviously travelled miles — perhaps hundreds of miles — for even the mountains surrounding the castle were gone. The black outline of a small church was visible beyond a large yew tree to her right. A hill rose above her to her left. Heri could just make out the outline of a fine old house on the hillside.
She had been caught unaware with a Stunner while she had been reorienting herself after her landing. She had just regained consciousness to find that whoever it was had tied her up proper while she was out, binding her wrists behind her and her ankles together. Of course, she could free herself with her tendrils, but she wanted to know what the bloody Hell was going on and whom it was she would be beating the piss out of when she got free.
She had a bleeding gouge in her right arm as well and she wasn't happy in the least bit about it.
Cue over-the-top entrance and melodramatic monologue.
A twitchy blond that looked like he'd been shooting up the good stuff came striding out from the mist. (Yep, there was even mist.) With the murkiness of the rain and the haziness of the fog, it should have been an entrance worthy of Hamlet's Three Witches; instead, squirrel man came shimmying forward like his body had forgotten how to produce heat with a swaddled baby on his hip. He then proceeded to ramble about his evil plans — because of course there was an evil plan — but Heri had peeked in on the Dursley's movie-nights and had been through variations of this song and dance enough times that she could have spoken his monologue for him and likely done a better job.
'Blah, blah, I have you now, Heri Potter/Little Hero/Girl Who Lived. Blah-blah, blah, no one can stop me, yada-yada. I will achieve the whatever that no one has before, and blah-di-blah," — (some preening here) — "blahblahblah, all the whoever will do who-fucking-cares-what." — (some boasting and strutting) — "I/my master/my people/my ex-boyfriend that I just got back with will be the supreme imperial Sith master god-king of the intergalactic, multi-dimensional cosmos and bring forth ten thousand years of death and darkness.
'WHOO! DARKNESS! Can I get a whoop-whoop up in here for eeee-vil?'
Honestly, Heri was watching his lips move, but she was too busy being outraged and pissed about being kidnapped and assaulted to pay attention to the words.
But there was one thing that Heri just didn't get, and she was so far beyond done that she didn't even try to censor herself anymore.
"Why the bloody Hell do you have a baby?"
The freakshow stopped mid-sentence, his mouth opening and closing without any sound, as if he hadn't realised that Heri was capable of speech.
Heri held back a sigh; while this was the most over-the-top capture she'd been involved in yet, the bad-guy could use some work.
----------------
If you want advanced chapters ahead from here, you can find it at.
P@treon/Playerfanfic
🎁 Get 50% OFF with promo code: A33C7
expires on August 31, 2026.