In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 404: The Third Task (2 in 1)

Grindelwald also seemed to be speaking casually and had no intention of dwelling too much on this with Jon.

Similarly, when confronted with Jon's question, he answered bluntly.

"True prophecy couldn't see anything so detailed." He didn't take his eyes off the piece of experimentation data in his hand, "Not to mention the fact that this magic you are mastering has never appeared in history, that would leave even less of a trail in destiny, or if it did, it would be hard to see, at best it would only give some vague indication."

Jon pressed on, still undeterred.

"And what indication have you seen in me, sir?"

Hearing him press the question, Grindelwald then put down the parchment in his hand and looked up to meet Jon's golden eyes that simply could not be hidden.

"Death."

Jon's entire body froze.

"What?"

"Death." Grindelwald repeated his words again while picking up the parchment again, his voice remained calm, "From the first moment I saw you, I felt it, the aura of death wrapped around you was heavy, much heavier than the last time you left from here with me."

Jon wasn't frightened, he just rubbed his chin in thought.

"Could it be Thestral?"

"I may not have meant for you to associate it with the Animagus magical creature you are about to turn into, it was just a personal prophecy for you. I suggest you be as careful as you can be in whatever you do these days, or the next time we meet, I can expect to see you in a coffin."

Grindelwald's words were still as sharp and harsh as ever, but Jon didn't care, knowing full well that it actually constituted nothing more than a unique expression of concern on the part of the old man.

"Don't worry sir, even without your reminder I know I have to contest in the final task of the Triwizard Tournament soon, if the Dark Lord has any big plans then that's when he'll probably initiate them, I'll be careful."

"If you know that yourself then why are you still being here?" Grindelwald got up from his chair and threw the piece of research he had finished reading into the burning fire, "I've already given you all the information you can get from me, so get out of here."

Jon, who had wanted to exchange pleasantries with Grindelwald and ask him how his life was going and if he was still eating and sleeping normally, could not help but look a little down, the old man was like that, saying he did not know how to be considerate of the elderly when he arrived and then telling him to get lost when he was ready to be considerate.

But of course, Jon had no problem with that, he got up and said "Take care of yourself" and left the headmaster's office.

Grindelwald was left alone, looking at the leaping fire and squinting his eyes.

If Jon had been here now and had looked into his eyes, he would have noticed that the sight reflected in the old man's eyes was exactly the same as the one he had just shared.

At the end of the day, Jon hadn't been able to figure out what his Animagus actually is.

But overall after this episode, his body was moving in a good direction.

The physical changes had stopped the next day, and Jon had gone to a gym in Lyon city with his identity concealed to have some tests done with professional equipment and determined that his body was now at a point where all the athletic parameters were on par with some professional athletes.

It may not sound like much, but Jon had never trained systematically, and his body had not gained much muscle or size, it was still the same as before.

Such a change was still useful in the end, even if in the magical world wizards would basically never encounter a situation where there would be close physical combat, but with the trait of Jon's own ring that enchants the spell on it, should there be a situation where the wave of magic against cannot be countered, it gives him a possibility of forcing both sides into close combat.

Now that his physical qualities have improved, and the vast majority of wizards in the magical world, especially dark wizards in particular, are largely homebodies, if it comes to a close combat situation, then his chances of winning are even higher.

Not only that, but better physical fitness would also allow him to cast spells much faster and enhance his reactions and movements to avoid spells, which means it would amount to an all-around improvement.

Then there's the change in appearance.

To be honest this was something that bothered Jon more than anything else, he had recently noticed that it wasn't actually just his skin that had changed, that new-found magic had changed his whole aura along with it.

According to the information that Jon had asked Hermione to help him inquire privately among the girls, a number of young girls were secretly saying that just looking at Jon lately gave people a very warm feeling, like a spring blossom, and if Jon smiled a little more, it could make one's heart melt away.

Such a description left Jon speechless, and he made a point of asking Hermione if she felt the same way, only to find that Hermione didn't say anything, just looked at him and didn't say a word.

Well, even without saying anything, Jon could already come up with the answer.

It was like he had a different kind of charm on his body, somewhat similar to the effect of a Veela, but obviously not as radical, just an invisible change, and only for the opposite sex, for example, Neville, Ron and the others thought that Jon was no different from before, except that those eyes were quite cool.

To verify the range of such a charm effect, or affinity if you prefer, he went to Gabrielle, who had been playing crazy with the new ghosts who were arriving at the school these days, to verify it.

Although Gabrielle kept shaking her head and saying she felt nothing different about Jon than before, Jon still sensed something unusual in her flushed cheeks and a bit heavier breathing.

Even the ghost could be affected?

Jon didn't dare try any further, and he began to concentrate on how to hide his eyes which had become more conspicuous.

At first, he had gone to Lyon's downtown to buy a pair of contacts, but before he could even get them on his eyes, they were burnt to a crisp and the dust blew into his eyes, bringing tears to Jon's eyes, but unfortunately, Neville was the only person around, and if Hermione had been there, she could have helped him blow them out.

It was at this time that he realised that the golden eyes did not just look like fire on the surface, they showed the characteristics of a flame.

There was no way to control his pupils, and there was no way for Jon to finely manipulate the transfiguration to the point of only changing his eyes.

He had no choice but to squint his eyes as much as possible to keep his pale gold eyes from showing too much, but it was this squinting that made him look even more warm and sunny like a central heating device to the girls.

It was just that wearing the hood all day at school was even weirder, otherwise, Jon would have refrained from taking the hood off his robe.

Luckily, the days passed quickly and Jon didn't have to wait long before the final task of the Triwizard Tournament was drawing nearer and nearer.

The day before the tournament officially began, Dumbledore took Jon and the gang back to the premises of Hogwarts Castle, and unbeknownst to them, there had been some unspoken secrets happening within the castle during the time they had been away.

Snape officially received a message on the third day before the last task began.

He rebuffed Matthew at first, but Matthew simply stated that he wasn't asking for Snape's opinion, but rather that they, the three judges, couldn't reach Voldemort right now, which was why he had asked him to pass it on to him.

"Even if I did pass it on, our lord is unlikely to agree, so I think there's no need to waste your time, Mr Graves." Snape grimaced as he wondered exactly what had gone wrong in Matthew's head that he had made such a request to him.

Matthew just smiled mysteriously and then said to Snape.

"Yes or no, please just go and ask the gentleman's opinion, if he reprimands you, you can put all the blame on me; since I dare to ask you this, it means I know what to expect in my mind."

Snape was silent.

Of course, he didn't think Matthew was a fool, but if he wasn't a fool, and yet he could make such an absurd request, then he had something to stand on.

But the key problem was that he couldn't contact Voldemort at all, so how could he authenticate the story?

The truth could not be told to Matthew, so Snape had to stall him and then find Crouch.

And Crouch, after hearing Snape's retelling, instantly grimaced.

"Who gave them the nerve!"

"That's the problem, a request that no normal person would even think about, and he just told me, what made him think our lord would agree?"

Snape's question silenced Crouch.

He paced back and forth in his office as if restraining the anger in his heart.

"This is something that if we give the wrong answer, then there is a good chance that it will reveal that we have lost contact with our lord."

Such things were certainly known to Snape, and he looked at Crouch.

"We need to think about this from the beginning. For starters this tournament was initiated by our lord, the first and second tasks had nothing to do with Graves and the group, but the third was organized by the three of them themselves. But what the task was actually going to be competed against was determined long before the tournament had even begun."

Crouch stopped his pace as he picked up on Snape's words.

"And in the first task, since we had the means to get that faulty golden snitch into the Forbidden Forest and have Jon Green get it, it means that one of the three Confederation judges who are primarily running this Triwizard Tournament has submitted to our lord. It would mean that our lord actually knew everything about all three tasks before the tournament even started, and that person would tell all that he or she had learned."

Snape said calmly.

"And there was the intrusion into the Headmaster's office, we all know full well that to actually secure that office, there were many ways our lord could have actually been able to use, even the simplest house elf could do the work, but he didn't use any of them, and it was at this same time that he had disappeared. Does this mean that he didn't actually care about such a thing happening from the beginning to the end?"

Crouch looked closely at Snape.

"You need to think carefully about the consequences of this if we have guessed wrong about our lord's thoughts."

"That's why I came to you." Snape said with an expressionless face, "The risks and responsibilities need to be shared."

Such blunt words made Crouch look slightly annoyed, of course, he knew what Snape had in mind, and he wasn't in fear of taking responsibility, but he was worried that if he chose wrongly it would ruin the plans of his lord, whom he considered a god.

Eventually, Crouch sat back in his chair and spoke.

"Go and reply to Graves and say that we agree."

***

Jon and the others spent the night in the wagon and were ready to leave early the next morning.

As they left the wagon, Dumbledore pulled out what he had got from Baron's side that had been prepared for a long time as per Slytherin's advice.

"Two copies in total, you keep one, and I'll keep one, it depends on which one of us encounters bad luck first." Dumbledore said softly.

Jon placed the item in the interior space of his robe's inner pocket, where a special spell had been applied specifically to hide alchemical props of a magical nature.

"Still, I hope I don't have to be the one to encounter it." Jon muttered and then walked down the wagon with Dumbledore, "Be careful Professor, I don't want to turn up to find you in a hospital bed after my task is over."

Dumbledore blinked.

"Maybe when you come back you'll find me turned into a tombstone?"

"That joke isn't funny."

The two men stopped talking once they got closer to Matthew and his group, and it was at this point that they realized that there were a lot of students gathered in this spot right in front of the Quidditch pitch of the castle.

A quick glance at it only gave Jon the impression that there were only more spectators than at the previous task, which made him frown.

According to what he had expected, there would be no spectators for this task, or if there were, those who weren't involved in the task wouldn't be able to see much, but as far as he could tell, it was different from what he had thought.

As Jon and Diane approached, Emil and Draco were brought along by Snape, and only when all four of the competing champions arrived before Matthew that he was ready to start announcing the exact rules for this last task.

"I'm actually rather honoured as I have received the appointment to be a judge for this tournament." Matthew's voice carried across the stadium, "This is not just a grand event that has been restarted after hundreds of years, it is about the merits of two ideologies and two systems. And now we are well on our way to the final task, which I hope will bring the tournament to a successful conclusion, whatever the final result may be."

"And the venue for this final task is not in this stadium."

He faced the four of them, and with a smile on his face, he pointed a finger towards the towering Hogwarts castle.

"The next task that you will be contesting will be in this castle itself that you are contesting for!"

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