I'm writing a fanfiction, and while I've written most of them, I'm stuck on one of my tasks. and can't think of what it'll be.

It's supposed to have the theme of Air, but I'd rather not do anything with Quidditch. There was a fic that had Apparition and shooting at targets, but I don't want to write that, because it doesn't fit with the rest of my story. Thanks in advance for any ideas you guys put forward.

 

Airborne obstacle course with floating platforms and wind chutes boosting Champions between each platform. And a hungry chimera or two flying around.

 

Air, huh. You could always take the combat route. I don't know if you kept the dragon fight (presumably fire), but something that puts the champions into conflict with powerful, flying magical creatures. You'd have to fly using a broomstick, too.

All the canon Triwizard tasks were basically adventures. Trying to steal from a dragon. Saving someone deep within a lake full of magical stuff. Navigating a maze filled with magical obstacles - creatures and spells both. If you wanna follow this, create an adventure with conflict. It's air, so having to fly with a broomstick seems likely. But then again, when I think of the air element, I think it could be suited to a more skill-based task. Maybe something to show off your spellwork for once.

 

How about... Skydiving. The champions are lifted high into the air by magic and then need to jump from a magical platform. On the way down they try to gather magical rings. The winner is the person with the most rings. The picture in my head is the champions shooting towards the ground head first while darting around wing-suit style.

Prep for this task would be landing safely (or maybe that could be done by the teachers...), finding a way to move through the air to get the rings and fighting others mid air for the rings. You'd need to come up with a reason Harry doesn't just summon his broom, of course. Maybe the fall path has been enchanted with a Broom jinx (like the one Quirrell used in 1st year). Perhaps have "Fall don't fly" as part of the task hint.

 

Flying without a broomstick. So basically anything goes, but you can't just "Accio Firebolt" to save your ass. Making your own broomstick is ok, flying carpets, wings, animagus transformation, anti-gravity potions, what have you.

Really what you want to think is what's the narrative reason for the task. What kind of character development you get? What kind of interaction between characters? Is this the task that (presumably) Harry fails spectacularly because he just isn't on par with the other contestants? Does Harry have some kind of ace in the sleeve that makes him shine in this particular task? Does he get help from other people (or give it)?

Designing a task is a prime opportunity to force the character development into the direction you want without it feeling too forced (you've already sold us that these tasks do happen, after all), so wasting it just to show cool magic is kind of pointless.

 

Thanks for the tips. I have kept the task with the dragon, Clerith. What I'm doing i having six trials, plus a loads of other stuff for other students who aren't Champions. Stuff like broom racing, Quidditch matches with more students from other schools coming for the weekend, quizzes and debates. Make it a proper thing. In canon, the Tournament was supposed to be an amazing thing, bringing the three schools together.

In my fic, I'm planning on having events every weekend, with the Champions's tasks being rarer, but the highlight of the year. I'm nowhere near done writing it, but I'm the kind of guy that likes planning most of my fic before even posting it.

Right now I like Glimmmervoid's idea of the Champions being suspended above the air in a platform. Have some animals flying around and such. I'll work the finer details to suit the plot. To stop the Champions from just using a broom, I'll just make it so it's full of strong winds that'll wreck anybody who tries to do that

 

Air is the opposite of Earth. And when you think of Earth, you think of solid, dependable, resistance, and so on.

Air is also, apparently, linked with masculinity and intellect. Also, motion, darkness, and thinness.

So, a traditionally male task, involving thinking, and to solve a ethereal problem - they can't just hit whatever it is.

Rituals linked with air would be travel, study, freedom, knowledge, recovering lost items.

So, off the top of my head:
The champions are given a riddle, which they have to solve before the task. This encapsulates study, knowledge, and intellect.
The riddle helps provide instructions on recovering an item, probably a portkey, which would return them to the finishing line. The riddle itself could provide details on which portkey is worth the most points, and have less portkeys than champions - so if you get there first, even if you don't get the riddle, you can still get a not insignificant amount of points.

The task should be similar to a quest, in that it involves travelling to the goal.

But the participants can do whatever they want during the journey - brew potions, cast at each other, summon personal items.


Some of the stuff came from here, as well as a few quick minutes on google. Looking up pagan rituals, or anything linked with deities linked with the elements, and then stealing those ideas.

 

How about something simple and not overly flashy?
Fear of heights is quite common. Making your champions need to climb somewhere (and this don't have to be something obvious or even visible) would force them to fight their own fear. If you have them performing at the same time, they can hinder each other. And invisible path is easy to miss and fall down.

 

Without making specific suggestions, if you want to keep the tasks thematically consistent with those from canon, here's what I suggest:

- As you already identified, give it an elemental theme.

- Make sure not to have the Champions competing directly against each other (in the sense of casting spells at each other). Rather they should each be seeking to overcome some "third party" (animate or inanimate), and the one who does it best wins.

- Make sure the task is designed such that it is essentially a problem-solving task, one which has multiple different possible solutions.

- Consider the following dichotomies: creature opponent vs obstacle, preparation vs improvisation, confrontation vs evasion, placement vs retrieval. So, canon first task is a creature-improvisation-evasion-retrieval task. Canon second task is a obstacle-preparation-confrontation-retrieval task. Create new combinations to get new tasks.

 

I'd go with something simple; like the champions must walk head-on into a very powerful gale wind (e.g. like advancing through a wind tunnel) to get to the end. You can have the wind change direction to switch things up, like it starts with the wind blowing in the face of the champion as they approach the finish line, but then it changes randomly and instead starts blowing top-down, forcing them into the ground, or to the side that will push them out of the 'lane' and disqualify them.

There could be a number of ways to progress. E.g. One competitor decides to propel themselves through the gale with force (faster, but dangerous), whereas another conjures/transfigures objects to act as wind breaks and advance more steadily. The course could also adapt so that it actively works against the champions by presenting obstacles that their chosen method can't deal with, requiring them to improvise on the spot.

You could have it as a singular one-at-a-time challenge, e.g. Harry's turn, them Krum etc, or have them all do it at the same time. Scoring could be by judges or strictly time-taken.

 

The problem with this task though is that it's not actually dangerous enough. A Tri-Wizard task needs to put the Champions' lives in danger.

I would recommend the champions starting off way up in the air on brooms (So high up that death is a certainty if you fall) . They then have to get off their brooms and jump down.

The goal would be to survive the fall somehow and make it as close as possible to the target area, a small 1 metre diameter circle about a hundred metres from their starting position.

 

Even I have to write the triwizard tasks for my fic but for me its totally different as i am totally AU. However I had idea,

By drinking GillyWeed if one can grow fins, then there could be potion using which one can grow wings and fly. My idea revolved around theme of Icarus and to be more specific, have you seen Deus Ex intro video with man flying with his hands turned into wings... there was superb maneuverability and being smaller frame compared to Dragon, dodging etc... you get the idea!

 

Why? The whole premise of starting the tournament again (in canon, that is) was that it was supposedly a lot safer than previously.

Really I'd be a lot more interested in tasks that don't involve any deliberately dangerous elements. There's so much more to magic than just combat and survival.

 

Or maybe the ministry was being pussy and adopting to new world where people couldn't stand little blood.

Fanon we try to decipher from Rowlings book was that Tri Wizard Tournament was centuries old when people weren't quimish about death etc (seeing it regularly)

2. People had died in it and horrifically too, proving the point of eternal glory where Goblet chooses the bestest of best for survival. A person who stands apart from other in all aspects of magic

If

then maybe we should not try to use the old tournament and then bend the interpretations to our modern thinking. Old wine in new bottle eh?? nah... better go for new wine in totally new bottle then

 

Hogwarts Parkour? Get yourself from the courtyard to the top of the Astronomy Tower without setting foot inside the castle, or using brooms etc.

 

There still needs to be at least SOME element of danger. It's not like the dragon was a walk in the park or anything either.

 

Well, yeah. But without the danger it's boring. If the tasks are all nice and safe with the task being to draw some rune array then it's all nice and technical but it's boring to read (at least to me).

 

Personally, I think the tasks themselves are immaterial. Changing them just for the sake of changing them tends to bog down a story, especially when it tries too hard to be interesting or clever or original. I've read a ton of year 4 stories, and written a fair share of them myself, and the most interesting stories always keep the tasks mostly canon. Otherwise you end up with stuff like ferrari-sponsored brooms and a never-ending chain of filler chapters to get to voldemort's resurrection.

Anyways, with that out of the way... You could do something like walking on clouds, or something to do with weather, or perhaps it would involve traditional elemental air creatures like sphinxes, pegasi, hippogryffs, djinn. Perhaps he has to craft an airship to travel from X to Y and fend off various flying monsters.

 

Please choose something for your story that the spectators are able to view. If you want it to be an actually cool event. In Canon the people watching them must have been pretty bored out of their minds.

Choose a challenge that forces them to take control of the situation. The broomstick idea form the first task is clever but its like using a car to drive trough an obstacle course. It doesn't require skill.

Make them use magic to take control of the situation

 

I always thought there should be a magical equivalent of, like, major sports event coverage. Perhaps some sort of crystal relay, that plays live footage from each contestant on a larger slab of crystal - the 'screen'.

I think that'd be suitably magical enough without seeming too obvious. Though it would have given the game away in the Third Task, so perhaps that's why such a method of involving the 1000+ spectators and, indeed, the wizarding world at large, was avoided.