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This witch. Still just as fond of messing with people.
He took a deep breath and walked toward the arena.
Facing the Swedish Short-Snout, Cedric kept his composure. He transfigured a rock into the shape of a golden egg, drew the dragon's attention, and slipped away with the real one while it was occupied.
The Hogwarts stands erupted in thunderous cheers.
Now only Harry remained.
Harry swallowed nervously and glanced at Hermione.
Hermione gave him an "it's fine" gesture. "Don't worry. You won't get squashed to death."
Harry: "..."
Great comfort. Don't bother next time.
He took a deep breath and walked into the arena.
Hermione followed close behind, then dissolved. A black-and-red tempest tore into existence above the arena, swirling freely in the air, radiating something that made the chest tighten just to feel it.
The stands went instantly silent. Every head tilted up. Every mouth hung open.
The professors' faces hardened all at once.
"This... this is..." Professor McGonagall's voice failed her completely.
"The Dark Lord's flying magic!" Karkaroff shot to his feet, face gone deathly pale, voice shaking. "How can she?! That's impossible!"
A flicker of unease crossed Snape's face. He stared hard at the churning mass of black and red in the sky, then gave a slight shake of his head. "It isn't the Dark Lord's magic. When he flies, black smoke trails him, his physical form stays intact. Granger's physical form has become the tempest entirely. The nature of it is different."
Dumbledore nodded, his voice quiet but certain. "Severus is correct. If I'm reading it right, this is an extraordinarily deep piece of ancient magic. Elemental Transformation, the conversion of one's own existence into a pure element."
The assembled professors fell silent and looked up at that wild, wheeling storm above the arena. Shock. Incomprehension. Both, written plainly across their faces.
Most of them had only ever encountered ancient magic in scattered lines from old texts. None had imagined they would ever see it with their own eyes. None had imagined a student would be the one to cast it.
While their thoughts were still churning, the arena shifted.
"ROAR,—!"
The Hungarian Horntail plunged from altitude. Its enormous shadow swallowed Harry whole before it even landed.
Talons sliced the air. They came down hard on the spot where Harry was standing.
BOOM!
Harry rolled desperately sideways. The solid rock where he'd been standing an instant before exploded into powder, chunks of stone mixed with dust blasting outward in every direction. The sheer force of it was appalling.
The Hogwarts students in the stands gasped as one, color draining from their faces.
They'd known the Hungarian Horntail was the most dangerous of the four. But seeing that blow in person, a strike like a battering ram, made them understand it in a way knowing it never had. That power. That savagery. It wasn't in the same category as the three dragons before it. It wasn't even close.
Every heart in the stands climbed into every throat.
Up in the spectator area, Draco had gone white as a sheet.
Ginny noticed and leaned over. "Don't worry. Look, Hermione's still up there. If things go really wrong, she'll come down and pin that dragon before it can do anything. Harry's going to be fine."
Then she grabbed the still-dazed Draco by the arm, and together they turned toward the arena and waved.
"Harry! Come on——!"
Harry caught them in the corner of his eye between dodges, two girls in the stands waving their arms and shouting for him. Especially the platinum-haired one who looked so small up there, so genuinely worried, watching him with her hands clasped together.
Something ignited in his chest.
Every rational thought promptly shut off.
"FOR HOGWARTS!"
Harry let out a yell and, throwing every last shred of strategy out the window, broke into a dead sprint, on foot, across open ground, straight toward the golden egg in the dragon's nest.
"Huh?"
The Hungarian Horntail's enormous head tilted to one side, apparently thrown by this response.
Then it registered what was happening and went absolutely berserk. Scorching dragon-breath roared out. Its massive claws came hammering down.
Flames and rock shards filled the arena. Explosions rolled one into the next.
Harry tore through the gaps between blasts, between talons, lurching left and right with no room to breathe. Several strikes grazed past him by centimeters, close enough that half the stands couldn't watch. Plenty of the braver ones had their hands pressed over their mouths. Several of the less brave ones had their eyes covered entirely.
At first, the whole crowd was holding their breath for him.
But as Harry drew closer and closer to the egg, worry on the faces in the stands began to quietly curdle into something else.
Hold on.
This Hungarian Horntail. Was it... a bit off?
The attacks looked devastating. The noise was catastrophic. The destructive power was genuinely real. But the aim, the aim was absolutely abysmal. Blow after blow after blow, the entire length of the arena, and not one strike had actually connected. Every single one had landed on the ground, or a rock, somewhere next to Harry.
If you squinted, it was less like a dragon hunting Harry, and more like a dragon helpfully clearing debris from his path.
So was Harry's footwork genuinely insane? Was he just built different? Or was today his lucky day in a way that defied all statistical reasoning?
Under the increasingly baffled stares of the crowd, Harry rolled, scrambled, tripped, and stumbled his way to the edge of the nest, and grabbed the golden egg.
The match was over.
The arena went quiet for exactly one second.
Then it exploded.
The process had been a little strange. Nobody could put their finger on quite why. But by the time the cheering started, nobody was thinking about it anymore.
Harry had just set a record that would probably never be broken: the only champion in the entire history of the Triwizard Tournament to outrun a dragon on two legs.
Krum, Fleur, and Cedric stood at the entrance to the champions' corridor and stared. They looked at each other. None of them had words for what they were feeling.
Something had been off about that match. They were all certain of it. They just couldn't name it.
That night, Hogwarts threw a party.
Harry got tossed into the air by his classmates and didn't come down for a while.
As things wound down and the crowd thinned, Ginny came over pulling Draco behind her. The two of them settled on either side of Harry.
"Congratulations." Ginny's smile was warm and completely genuine.
"Con... congratulations," Draco said, quietly.
Ginny clocked Draco's other hand still wrapped around Harry's arm. She shot Draco a look, subtle, pointed.
Draco pulled the hand back and looked away.
Harry surveyed the mildly charged atmosphere in front of him and gave a diplomatic cough. "So. At the time, I genuinely thought I was just fast enough. Brave enough. But now that I've had a moment to think," He frowned. "Something was weird."
He looked at the two of them. "That dragon was avoiding me. It looked like it was going all-out, but every strike landed right next to me, not on me. Made it look like I was the one dodging brilliantly."
He shook his head. "I was certain I'd been hit, at least three times. And then somehow it just... missed."
"That tracks."
A calm voice cut in.
Hermione was standing beside them, had apparently been there for a while, holding a cup of apple juice.
She looked at Harry, who had only just worked it out, and let one corner of her mouth curve upward.
"Because that dragon," she said, "I raised it."
➤ Next: Kuntukutakatikotesuvasilason — Face to Face
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