The Truth About Cedric Diggory

Chapter Six

This had to be the most nerve racking day of my life. I was about to enter the labyrinth that would lead me to the Triwizard Cup—which I recently had been calling the Tetrawizard (tetra means 4) cup due to the whole Harry Potter slip up.

It wasn't the maze that scared me. Alice's vision showed me with the cup, which means I made it to the end. What I was nervous about was the fact that I would most likely die by the end of this.

Dumbledore signalled for us to start, so I headed into the labyrinth. I walked for some time, until someone tapped me on the shoulder.

I turned around fast. "Who's there?"

"Relax, it's just me," Alice said, lifting a cloak off her shoulders.

"How—what—?"

"I stole some guy's invisibility cloak. Don't worry; I'll return it."

I shook my head in confusion, but didn't ask anything about it. "Why are you here?"

"To change your fate!"

She pulled out a potion, and uncorked it. She plucked a strand of my hair and put it into the vial.

"Ow! What'd you do that for?"

"That's what Luna said to do," she replied with a shrug.

"Luna? You mean Luna Lovegood?"

"Yeah, I guess. She found me looking for you through the halls and asked what a vampire was doing in the castle. I didn't answer, and when I didn't deny it, she said something like 'are you looking for Cedric?' So I told her everything."

"Wait. Luna knew my secret this whole time?"

"Apparently. She's a weird one; they tend to be the most understanding."

"What's the potion for?"

"Luna said it was a pooly—uh, polly..."

"Polyjuice?"

"Yeah, that's it! She told me to use your hair, and force feed the potion to this crazy parrot who for some reason has a death wish."

"Uh, okay..." I muttered. "What's the plan, exactly?"

——————

Alice told me what she was planning, and we got right to it. Luna's parrot was old and was suffering from some disease, and Luna wanted him to die soon to be out of his misery. He also apparently liked to fly into windows, which always injured him badly but never killed him.

We made him drink the polyjuice potion, and he turned into my look-alike. I knew that this wasn't a normal thing to do—turning an animal into a human—and I was surprised when it actually worked.

Using the imperious curse, I controlled him to move through the maze for me. I didn't want to use that spell, but I decided it was best considering the parrot didn't know how to walk without bobbing its head like a maniac.

Through the parrot's eyes, I could see him fighting Harry, and being caught in the devilsnare. Eventually, the parrot and Harry made it to the cup.

Upon touching the cup, the parrot and Harry were transported to a graveyard. Not at my command, the parrot got distracted by the shiny trophy and bent down to look at it.

The next thing I knew, the parrot was dead by the killing curse. I felt bad about it, but Luna said that he wanted to die anyway—hence the crashing-into-glass-windows habit.

I sighed, knowing that this was the end of my adventure at Hogwarts.

"We should get going," Alice said.

"Where?"

"Well, obviously the universe didn't want you to stay in the wizarding world, so I guess it's time to find a new home."