Chapter 84 - Tri-wizard maze (2/2)

Then, pointing his wand towards this magical creature, he yelled, ”Impedimenta.” The spell hit the skrewt's armor and ricocheted off; Harry staggered back a few paces and fell over. ”IMPEDIMENTA!”

As he shouted again while hitting it at a close range just when it neared him, it hit its fleshy part and it slowed down but just when it regained its momentum and Harry immediately ran away as hard as he can. Meanwhile, as the Skrewt regained its momentum, it tried to follow Harry but suddenly, it felt that it was wrapped by something and it was raised in the air before getting thrown a dozen meters away and got crashed into one of the devil snares, which began to strangle it while Neal continued to follow Harry.

A while later, Harry found himself before an Acromantula but to his surprise, it immediately fled upon seeing him as Neal became visible for a moment to scare it. Meanwhile, Krum was actively searching for Neal to finish him off from the race at the last minute under the Imperius curse placed on him long ago by Moody. But who could have expected; the Acromantula that fled because of Neal's Animagus form encountered him in the middle, which forced Krum to use the killing curse on it before proceeding his way.

At the same time, Harry, who successively escaped, began to steadily progress without any traps, found the darkness was increasing, which made him smile as it's the indication that the center of the maze is near.

Soon, as he turned right, he saw a straight path that was leading to the center of the maze while the place was shimmering in the light and saw the Triwizard cup from away.

Looking at it, a wide smile appeared on his face as Harry began to imagine, him raising the cup in one hand while grabbing the waist of his girlfriend, Cho, with the other hand and kissing her. But soon within a few seconds, he returned to reality as the darkness loomed over and suddenly, finding an animal, which has a body of a lion, huge head that resembles human and a tail of a scorpion, jumped before him from god knows where and obstructing his path.

As Neal frowned, ”is that Moody sick? Who the hell puts a manticore as the final guardian. Don't he know how dangerous it is? Just one sting from its tail will cause instant death to a human.”

Looking at this dangerous beast, which is as big as 30ft in height, as Harry began to get worried while hands are shaking as he points his wand at it, it spoke, ”human, you get one chance to answer. Answer my riddle right and I will let you pass and answer it wrong and I will eat you. Or you can just back off away now before listening to my riddle.”

Confident Harry replied, ”I'm ready. Please proceed with the riddle.”

The Manticore then asked,

”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 the 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?”