Hermione re-formed a Carian Greatsword, calm as ever.
"I don't have any brand-new tricks," she said, "but I can do what I just did for another half hour. Want to test it?"
It wasn't bluffing.
While she'd been throwing Arthur's magic grenades, she'd quietly downed a mana restoration potion—and the elf aura had been refilling her the whole time.
At this moment, her reserves were already back to 70–80%.
Voldemort stared at her.
She looked way too energetic for someone who was supposedly "out of magic."
His instincts screamed one word:
Run.
He turned into black mist and fled.
Hermione didn't let him.
She pulled out a gray sphere and threw it into the mist.
The moment it touched Voldemort's smoke-form, it burst—gray fog swallowing the black mist completely.
When the fog dispersed…
Voldemort was gone.
Then Hermione did the exact same thing—one gray sphere per Death Eater, including Wormtail the "corner rat."
A few seconds later, the graveyard contained only one person:
Hermione.
She finished her cleanup and Apparated away.
Back at Hogwarts, nobody even had time to wonder where Voldemort and the Death Eaters went—
because the next second, the "missing" Voldemort appeared right in front of them.
Those gray spheres were Arthur's invention: Teleport Mist—fog grenades pre-set to send anything caught inside to a fixed destination.
And Hermione's destination setting wasn't random.
It was the Triwizard arena.
Arthur had already configured that as an emergency "battlefield transfer" point in case Hermione ever needed to retreat or relocate.
Turns out he was over-prepared.
Voldemort arrived disoriented… and looked up to see three schools' worth of students, plus Dumbledore and the professors—
all holding boxed meals, watching him like this was a theater show.
Voldemort had clearly never experienced "public humiliation with dinner service."
Before he could react…
people started falling from the sky.
Death Eater after Death Eater dropped—landing onto Voldemort and burying him under bodies like a grotesque dogpile.
The last thing to fall was Wormtail-as-a-rat, plopping onto the heap.
The arena looked less like a battlefield and more like a cursed comedy sketch.
Arthur calmly raised a hand.
Petrificus-style? No. Better.
He hit the entire pile with his long-duration Binding Spell.
Nobody moved.
Right then, Hermione emerged from the maze entrance holding the real Triwizard Cup.
She hadn't Apparated into the arena.
She'd returned to the maze center, grabbed the genuine Cup, and walked out properly—because she still wanted the win to be official.
Arthur turned to Dumbledore.
"Headmaster. The tournament's over. Are you going to announce the result or what?"
Dumbledore blinked—then remembered he was still hosting a school event.
He stepped forward and declared the Triwizard Tournament officially concluded.
"And the champion—without question—is Hermione Granger!"
The arena erupted.
And honestly, nobody protested—not even Beauxbatons or Durmstrang.
Because "winning the maze" was one thing.
But "soloing Voldemort and his Death Eaters" was… not a category anyone else could claim.
Hermione approached Arthur, practically glowing.
"Cousin—how was I?"
Arthur cupped her cheek.
"Perfect."
Then he kissed her.
Hermione, completely unbothered by the audience, tossed the Triwizard Cup behind her and kissed him back even harder.
Dumbledore caught the Cup on reflex, smiling like a man accepting that the world had changed.
He let the cheering run until everyone had exhausted themselves, then sent the students back to their dorms.
Most left—even though they wanted to stay and see what happened to Voldemort—because they assumed the Prophet would scream about it by morning anyway.
But the core group stayed:
Arthur, Hermione, Harry, Draco…
and of course Draco, because his father was currently somewhere inside that frozen body-pile.
Draco stepped up, tense but determined.
"Can you… pull my father out first? I swear he only answered the call because he was forced."
He even said "Voldemort" out loud.
For Draco, that was huge.
Arthur snapped his fingers and lifted Lucius out of the heap.
Lucius looked dramatic—blood on his robes, multiple cuts—
but those wounds were obviously self-inflicted "I'm a victim too" cosmetics, carefully away from vital spots.
Lucius steadied himself and bowed.
"Thank you… truly."
Not just for being spared—but because he understood Hermione had deliberately shown restraint.
Arthur waved it off.
Draco was his friend.
He wasn't going to destroy Draco's father if Lucius hadn't crossed the line into genuine evil.
Then Fudge stepped in—finally remembering he was "in charge."
He put on his official voice.
"Thank you for capturing Voldemort and his followers… but they are criminals. They must be handed over to the Ministry."
This wasn't bravery.
It was greed.
Fudge didn't want Voldemort escaping his political grasp.
He wanted Lucius too—either as a trophy arrest to "prove competence," or as a wealthy bargaining chip to squeeze concessions and then quietly release.
And Fudge absolutely intended to claim half the credit for Voldemort's capture to rebuild his reputation after the earlier disasters.
Arthur didn't even argue.
He simply flicked his wand-hand and froze Fudge with the Binding Spell as well.
Then he turned to Lucius.
"Use Malfoy influence. Ruin him. That's doable, right?"
And he nodded toward the immobilized Minister.
Because Fudge's little political fantasy wasn't just annoying.
It was a threat.
This moment—Voldemort exposed, captured in public—was the cornerstone of Hermione's future path to becoming Minister of Magic.
Arthur was not letting anyone steal that foundation.
Lucius's answer was immediate.
"Of course. By tomorrow morning, the entire wizarding world will hear: the Minister was helpless, panicked, and contributed nothing when the Dark Lord returned."
And you could tell Lucius meant it.
Because after what Fudge had just implied—
Lucius had no reason left to spare him.
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