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The brief moment of respite vanished in an instant.
Cedric stood at the entrance to the dueling platform, drawing in a deep breath as he tried to calm the pounding of his heart that beat like a drum within his chest.
In his mind, the image of Krum's ruthless strike against Fleur replayed again and again. He could not shake the memory of that cold, merciless blow, nor the impression of his opponent's will of iron and the terrifying sense of balance and control that clung to him like a shadow.
Amid the deafening roar of the crowd, Cedric and Krum stepped onto the stage at the same time.
Cedric held himself straight and tall, his expression carrying the warmth and steadiness so characteristic of a true Hufflepuff.
He lacked Fleur's enchanting, half-magical bloodline, and he did not possess Krum's overwhelming strength nor his instincts honed by countless duels. What Cedric had instead was a foundation that was solid if not dazzling, a quiet resilience, and a repertoire of spells learned diligently from books.
Their eyes met, and for a fleeting moment they exchanged a silent nod of understanding.
On the stone stele above the platform, radiant streams of light spun and shifted, then abruptly settled into words: The Time-Turner Workshop.
The world twisted, space itself warping and folding in on itself. In the blink of an eye, the stage vanished and gave way to a strange, shadowy workshop brimming with strange machinery and half-forgotten tools.
Suspended high above the platform loomed a colossal hourglass, its sands shifting with a slow, ominous rhythm. All around it floated countless clocks of every shape and size, some fixed to the walls, others clinging to the ceiling, and still more drifting freely in the air as if gravity itself had been stripped away and forgotten.
Gears and springs whirled with manic speed, pendulums swung violently, and the whole space throbbed with restless motion.
The air filled with a chaotic cacophony: the clattering of gears, the sharp tick-tock of countless hands, the constant hum of unseen mechanisms. All of it blended into one jarring symphony of noise, a discordant music that rattled the mind.
Cedric and Krum immediately felt the oppressive weight of the scene pressing upon them.
The relentless clamor gnawed at their nerves, and time itself seemed to falter and stutter, quickening in one breath and dragging in the next, unsettling their rhythm.
Krum, as always, chose to strike first. Yet this time there was caution in his movements. He did not unleash one of his devastating, arena-shaking spells at once. Instead, with a swift flick of his wand he cried,
"Sonorus!"
But his target was not Cedric. It was the massive, spiked pendulum-clock swaying above Cedric's head.
BOOOOM—!
A resounding clang split the air. The booming sound burst forth with crushing force, like an invisible hammer slamming downward upon Cedric.
At the same moment, the massive pendulum that had been jarred by the spell suddenly accelerated. The surrounding gears roared to life, grinding with furious energy, and in the chaos several jagged shards of metal were torn free, spinning through the air with lethal speed as they whistled straight toward Cedric.
This was a double assault: the violent shockwave of sound coupled with a deadly barrage of flying shrapnel. Krum had turned the very machinery of the place into a weapon, twisting the environment itself into the first strike of his chaotic offensive.
But Cedric had not been caught unprepared.
The moment he saw Krum raise his wand, he understood what his opponent intended. Without hesitation he muttered a sharp counter under his breath and sealed his own ears with a Muffliato Charm.
At the same time his wand slashed swiftly through the air. "Protego!"
A gleaming silver shield flared to life before him, its surface shimmering like molten glass.
Yet the strange distortion of time within the workshop interfered, slowing the spinning shards by half a beat.
Cedric's eyes widened in brief surprise. In that instant he chose to dispel his shield entirely, and instead stepped calmly back a few paces. The fragments screamed past him, close enough to stir the hem of his robes, but none found their mark.
Krum pressed forward without pause, repeating his favored tactic of suppression. His wand snapped up with a sharp flick. "Stupefy!"
A jet of crimson light streaked toward Cedric, but once again he slipped aside with ease. Under the influence of the great hourglass above, even the speed of curses themselves seemed to falter, their flight slowed as though the air had thickened.
Time had become the greatest of all variables. Yet neither man abandoned his efforts to trouble the other. Both were Seekers, trained to read patterns, anticipate moves, and seize opportunities in an instant. Their thoughts, shaped by the same instincts, often mirrored one another. And so, in this warped and unpredictable battlefield, they both moved at the same moment to close the distance.
"Petrificus Totalus!"
"Impedimenta!"
"Incarcerous!"
Spell after spell burst from their wands, dazzling streaks of light flaring like fireworks in the gloom. But each beam crawled sluggishly through the air, slowed more and more by the warped flow of time, until slipping aside from them became almost effortless.
Krum's massive frame darted nimbly through the chaotic forest of clocks, his bulk moving with surprising speed between swinging pendulums and grinding gears. His wand flashed toward a tall grandfather clock to Cedric's right, its mainspring spinning itself into madness. He roared, "Confringo!"
BOOOOM—!
The grandfather clock exploded in the spot.
Hundreds of gears and broken springs burst outward, a storm of steel teeth and coiled wire. The fragments scythed through the workshop like a fan-shaped barrage, sealing every avenue of escape and threatening to tear Cedric apart where he stood.
But Cedric would not be outdone. His wand snapped upward, targeting the heavy wall clock hanging directly above Krum's head. With a fierce motion he cried,
"Depulso!"
There was a metallic crash.
The great clock tore loose from its hook with a groan of iron and wood, tumbling straight down toward Krum, its immense bulk promising to crush him beneath its weight.
Yet in that moment something stranger still occurred.
The whistling shards of metal and the falling clock both began to slow, their movement dragging to a crawl. Before their eyes, the storm of debris and the tumbling giant timepiece lost all momentum, until they simply hovered in the air, unnaturally suspended as though the world itself had frozen.
Because of that, neither Cedric nor Krum gave the looming dangers a second glance. They did not even bother to step aside. Instead, they kept their wands raised, hurling more spells at one another in the stillness.
Just then—DONG!!!
A thunderous crack split the workshop apart.
Above them, the massive hourglass shuddered violently, its sands twisting in midair before abruptly inverting.
The reversal was instantaneous. Time lurched forward with brutal force.
The storm of jagged shards, which had been frozen a breath ago, suddenly erupted into motion once more. They surged toward Cedric in a torrent of death, propelled as though by an invisible hand.
At the same time, the suspended clock above Krum's head resumed its fall, plummeting with the unstoppable weight and fury of a collapsing tower.
Both men recoiled, caught off guard by the sudden violence of the shift. The changes came too fast, the attacks too swift, and the danger pressed too close. There was no chance to dodge.
In that fleeting instant, Cedric's eyes locked with Krum's through the storm-charged air. A spark leapt between them like a flash of lightning, and without the slightest hesitation, both reached the very same decision.
Their wands snapped upward, not toward the threats above or around them, but at each other.
"Banishing Charm!"
"Banishing Charm!"
Twin beams of magic tore through the distorted air, passing one another by a hair's breadth before striking their marks with unerring precision.
BAAANG—!
The two duelists were hurled backward at the same time, their bodies thrown through the air by the force of each other's spells.
Cedric's backward flight carried him just clear of the storm of fragments, the deadly gears whistling past his chest close enough to brush his robes.
Krum was flung the other way, and by the narrowest margin he avoided the crushing weight of the falling clock, which smashed into the floor with an earth-shaking crack, splintering the spot where he had stood only a heartbeat earlier.
"Beautiful!"
From the stands, countless spectators finally released the breath they had been holding. Their strained nerves loosened in an instant, and the silence of dread erupted into a wave of cheers and applause that rolled like thunder through the arena.
The two duelists, however, had no time to share in that release. Both hit the ground hard, their bodies jolted by the impact, and before they could even draw a steady breath, the battle was already pressing forward.
Krum, leaning on his powerful physique, was the first to rise. His movements were swift yet unsteady, still rough from the fall. With no chance to aim carefully, he snapped off another Banishing Spell, reckless and fast.
A heavy pendulum clock, still hanging in the air under fractured enchantments, groaned as though dragged by invisible chains. At Krum's command, it swung down with terrible force, careening straight toward Cedric.
Cedric had only just gritted his teeth against the pain and begun to push himself up. Before he could regain his balance, the clock, its body as large as a man's head, came screaming down toward his skull.
"Reducto!"
A sharp crack split the air.
The pendulum exploded into fragments under the force of Cedric's spell, shattered into a cloud of jagged shards. But he did not stop there. Before the pieces even touched the ground, Cedric's wand flicked sharply upward from below, his motion smooth and unhesitating.
"Arrow Shooting Spell!"
At once, every fragment of the shattered pendulum surged into motion, transfigured into a storm of metal. They streaked forward like a rain of arrows, a glittering tide of death rushing through the air so fast it was almost impossible for the eye to follow.
Krum bellowed, his voice echoing like a beast driven to its limits, and the silver sheen of a Shield Charm burst to life in front of him. The fragments slammed against it in a deafening barrage, the sound like a downpour of iron against glass.
But Cedric pressed his advantage mercilessly, refusing to grant even a heartbeat of reprieve. His wand lashed forward again and again, sending spell after spell streaking toward Krum in blinding succession.
"Stupefy!"
"Expelliarmus!"
"Confringo!"
Under the warped flow of time within the workshop, the spells cut through the air so quickly they left behind only afterimages, glowing trails that seemed to blur into one another. Krum had no chance of dodging; he could only hold his shield tight, bracing against the relentless assault.
Cedric's eyes were razor sharp, his focus unwavering. His wand flicked left, then right, weaving a sudden pincer strike.
Two clocks suspended on either side of Krum suddenly lurched into motion, as though seized by unseen hands. They swung inward with brutal speed, aiming to smash him between their heavy bodies.
Krum threw himself into a desperate backward lean, his body bending to its limit. The clocks hurtled past, grazing his sides before colliding with an earsplitting crash, their wooden frames bursting apart into a storm of splinters and shards.
He had barely begun to think of using those fragments as a weapon, to turn Cedric's own trap against him, when yet another cold beam of light blazed from Cedric's wand.
"Bombarda Maxima!"
Krum's heart sank like a stone into the pit of despair.
The spell struck a cluster of fragments falling directly in front of him.
In the very next heartbeat, the workshop shook with a deafening explosion.
Even though Krum had, in the very last heartbeat, forced every ounce of magic he could muster into a Shield Charm, the sheer force of the explosion ripped through his defense. The impact lifted his entire body off the ground as though he were nothing more than a rag doll and hurled him violently across the room. He crashed to the floor with bone-jarring weight.
"CEDRIC—!"
From the Hogwarts section of the stands, the students erupted into wild cheers, voices rising in waves that shook the rafters. But the duel was far from finished.
BOOOOM—!
Another colossal roar thundered through the chamber.
The giant hourglass at the heart of the workshop trembled and flipped again, its sands surging upward as though time itself had rebelled.
The flow of the world slowed once more.
Cedric's follow-up spells, which had been flying toward Krum like streaks of lightning, suddenly dragged into sluggish arcs. Their speed fell visibly, like arrows caught in honey.
Seeing this, the crowd thought the fight was about to shift. With time warped in his favor, the battered and bloodied Krum would finally snatch a precious moment to breathe, to steady himself, to recover even a fragment of strength.
But in that very instant, Cedric made a move that no one had anticipated.
"Apparate!"
His body vanished from the spot in a shimmer of distortion, leaving nothing behind but the echo of the word.
The next heartbeat, he reappeared… directly at the place where Krum had fallen. His wand was already leveled, its tip glowing with a violent red light.
"Bombarda Maxima!"
But the voice that rang out was not Cedric'…
It was Krum's!
Cedric's face drained of color. He realized too late what had happened. The attack was already upon him. At such close range, there was no chance to dodge.
He twisted his body on instinct, just enough to throw the aim of the curse off. The spell missed its mark, but still struck the ground between the two duelists.
BOOOM—!!!
The explosion this time was even greater than the last. At point-blank range, the shockwave was monstrous. The blast tore outward with brutal force, hurling both duelists into the air like ragdolls caught in a storm.
Krum, however, had already been sprawled on the ground. Compared to Cedric, the blast flung him only a short distance. He gritted his teeth against the agony ripping through his body and forced himself upright. Raising his wand toward the giant hourglass above, he bellowed another curse.
CRASH—!!!
The massive glass shell shattered with a sound like ice breaking on a frozen lake. A torrent of heavy golden sand came crashing down, a suffocating cascade that poured across the workshop floor. In that instant, the warped field of time unraveled. The unnatural distortion collapsed, and the world's rhythm returned to its steady, familiar flow.
Krum's breath was ragged, every movement agony, yet he did not falter. Through sheer willpower he lifted his wand once more, this time aiming at Cedric, who was still lying crumpled on the ground after the blast.
"Stupefy!"
The blue beam shot true.
Cedric was struck squarely. His wand slipped from his fingers, clattering against the oil-stained floor with a small, final chime.
He tried to rise, his body trembling, but it was as though his bones had been stripped away. He swayed helplessly, then collapsed again, this time with no strength left to resist.
A gentle shimmer of pale blue light spread across the floor just in time to catch his body before it struck the ground.
The stone stele rose once more from beneath the arena, and the twisted battlefield dissolved around them, restoring the arena to its original state.
Krum walked slowly to Cedric's side. He bent down in silence, his breath heavy and uneven, and picked up the wand Cedric had dropped.
By the time Cedric regained consciousness, his lashes fluttering under the protective magic's glow, his eyes were still dazed and unfocused. But when he looked up, Krum was already standing there, his opponent's wand held out in front of him.
"You are… resilient," Krum said in his deep, gravel-edged voice. It was the longest sentence he had spoken that day.
Cedric accepted the wand. The lingering chill of its touch seeped into his palm. He looked at the powerful wizard before him, and despite his exhaustion, his lips curved into a weary but sincere smile.
"You… are stronger. Congratulations, Krum."
His voice was weak, almost breaking, but the honesty in it rang clear.
Krum gave a small nod. He said nothing more. Turning on his heel, he faced the roaring Durmstrang stands. Slowly, he raised his wand high into the air.
"VIKTOR! VIKTOR! VIKTOR—!"
The cheer burst like thunder, surging straight toward the sky.
Through the clouds, a shaft of sunlight broke free. It poured over Krum's battered frame and resolute face, a crown of light falling upon the silent victor.
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[Chapter End's]
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