The team made their way back through the swirling snow to the "safe zone" and gathered for a strategy meeting.
"So, what's everyone thinking?" Fleur asked, resting her chin thoughtfully on her arm as she studied the faces around her. "We've seen three of the four challenges now."
After warming themselves thoroughly with the protective red mist they'd brought along, the group settled themselves against the enormous ice-blue blocks that contained the second key.
Three challenges had been scouted and analyzed: Harry and Hermione faced the Giant Twin Stone Golems that resurrected when only one was destroyed,
Viktor had the Lighthouse Guardian with its exponentially increasing waves of ice creatures, and Cedric and Luna were assigned what Viktor had dubbed the Swift Ship Leap—the treacherous lake crossing with its hidden dangers.
Each trial had its own distinct difficulty profile, its own unique torture. None of them were easy.
After a long moment's thought, turning possibilities over in her mind, Hermione spoke first.
"I don't think we need to attempt Cedric's challenge," she said carefully, as though working through the logic even as she spoke it aloud.
"Why not?" Harry pressed immediately, leaning forward with confusion across his face. "At least in Cedric's trial we don't have to fight anything directly, do we?"
"Oh, dear Harry," Fleur said with an easy, knowing smile, "that's precisely the problem, isn't it? There's only one ship."
Harry's expression stiffened. His mouth opened slightly, then closed again. He had no answer for that obvious flaw. Indeed, now that they'd agreed to cooperate and pool their resources, numbers were their greatest advantage which meant they needed a challenge where those numbers actually counted for something, where having multiple people made the task easier.
"So, what's it going to be?" Cedric said, shrugging without much visible concern. "Do we take on the Stone Golems, or defend Viktor's lighthouse?"
"My instinct is to try your challenge," Viktor said, looking at Hermione with his intense dark eyes.
"From what you've described about your first attempt, I think we could reasonably take down both Golems simultaneously if we coordinate carefully and divide our forces. My challenge, on the other hand—"
He paused, grimacing at the memory,
"—I won't mince words about it. The ice sculptures are numerous beyond counting, and even with a full group of six, taking some damage would be completely unavoidable. That's not ideal if we need to be in good physical shape for whatever comes after this."
"What do you think, Harry?" Hermione turned to him after a moment's reflection; her eyes were seeking his opinion.
"No objections from me," Harry said, the corner of his mouth pulling into a wry grin that showed a hint of his old reckless confidence returning. "I'll admit quite freely, I'd like to watch those two Golems fall apart with my own eyes."
"All right, then. We take on the Golems again!" Hermione took a deep breath, visibly steeling herself, her expression was hardening with determination and resolve.
The group set off toward the dueling arena in full force, boots crunching through snow, breath misting in the frigid air.
When they entered inside through the stone door, Harry was genuinely surprised to notice that Fleur had drifted to the back of the group and followed them through as well.
Catching his look of surprise, his eyebrows raised in question, Fleur gave him one of her graceful smiles. "Waiting outside alone seemed terribly dull."
"So, you're saying you want to help us?" Hermione cut straight to the point, as was her way.
"You were generous enough to hand me your key in the last round without hesitation, weren't you?" Fleur said pleasantly, examining her nails with casualness. "So why shouldn't I return the favor? Though, to be clear, I still won't be competing for the second key. I already have one."
"So, all four teams are joining forces again?" Cedric smiled broadly and clapped his hands together lightly, clearly pleased by this development. "I like this. Cooperation suits us far better than rivalry. This is how it should be."
No one had any objection to Fleur's offer. It was simply good news, an unexpected advantage.
"This actually works out perfectly—six of us," Hermione said, her mind was already reorganizing the battle plan.
"We can split into two groups of three, each taking one Golem and coordinating our attacks. Harry and I have both fought them before and understand their patterns, so we should be on separate teams to lead them and provide experience. I'll go with Cedric's group to take the left one. Harry, you take Viktor and Fleur for the right. Does that work for everyone?"
"Fine by me, Hermione," Harry said without hesitation.
He studied the Golems looming in the distance through the falling snow, and felt the last remnants of his old fear toward them quietly dissolve like ice in warm water, replaced by a rising, sharp excitement.
"Now—based on our previous attempt and what went wrong, I think we failed for one of two possible reasons," Hermione continued in her lecture voice.
"The first, as Viktor suggested earlier, is that we need to defeat both Golems at exactly the same time—within seconds of each other so neither can resurrect its companion. The second possibility is that a revived Golem entering a berserk state is simply a natural part of the challenge process, something you're meant to survive and endure to achieve victory.
Personally, I don't believe that's the case. A berserk Golem is beyond anything we can reasonably handle with our current abilities and resources. We had absolutely no chance against it when it went into that mode."
"And if you're wrong?" Fleur asked, watching Hermione with undisguised curiosity. "What if it is part of the design?"
Harry knew Hermione well enough to see that she didn't particularly appreciate the question. Still, after a brief pause where she visibly controlled her irritation, she answered the question honestly.
"Then I'm afraid there isn't much of a good answer," She let out a quiet sigh.
"From what we experienced firsthand, there's roughly a twenty-second window between a Golem collapsing and then reviving. If that nightmare scenario happens despite our coordination, we use that precious time to get everyone out of the arena as fast as possible through the transport gate and move on to a different challenge."
Fleur pressed her lips together thoughtfully but said nothing more.
With that uncomfortable possibility acknowledged, Hermione began walking everyone through the detailed plan for how to fight the Golems.
"Hold on, I have a question," Viktor interrupted.
Fighting these creatures was genuinely dangerous, potentially lethal, and everyone had been listening with full attention. Everyone except Viktor. Viktor had been frowning quietly through the entire explanation; his thick brows were drawn together in concentration.
Now he raised his hand like a student in class.
"Yes?" Hermione asked, turning to him. "Do you need me to go over any part of the plan again?"
"No, that's not it. I understood everything. I just—" Viktor turned his body to face the two Golems directly, hesitating as he chose his words carefully.
"I don't mean your plan isn't good, Hermione. It's solid. But... have you considered a different approach? Something that might be simpler?"
'Simpler?'
The word hung in the air.
Hermione blinked, caught off guard. "What are you thinking, Viktor?"
"Well..." He paused briefly, organizing his thoughts, then spoke slowly. "Taking down both Golems simultaneously through coordinated attacks—have you considered simply making them attack each other instead of us?"
'Attack each other.'
The words seemed to echo.
The group exchanged puzzled looks; confusion was spreading across faces. But Hermione's eyes flickered rapidly from Viktor, to the Golems, and back again in rapid succession, her mind was making connections at lightning speed until all at once they lit up with sudden understanding. Her mouth fell open slightly.
"You mean—!" she exclaimed, unable to finish the thought she was so excited.
"Well?" Viktor allowed a small, satisfied smile to cross his stern face, sensing she'd caught on immediately to what he was suggesting. "Is it worth trying, Hermione?"
Two minutes later, everyone had climbed up onto the wall near the transport gate and was watching the arena floor below in tense, breathless silence.
On the dueling floor far below, only two people remained: Viktor and Fleur, standing prominently on the central axis between the two enormous Golems like tiny figures dwarfed by monuments. Both had transfigured their shoes into proper ice skates.
"Ready, Fleur?" Viktor tightened his grip on his wand and swallowed hard.
Fleur bent down gracefully to adjust her skates one final time, testing the fit, then straightened up. "Just about! On your count!"
Their expressions grew serious in unison as they raised their wands with steady hands despite the danger.
"I'll count to three!" Viktor called out, his voice was echoing in the arena. "Three—two—one—go!"
WHOOSH. WHOOSH.
Two jets of red light shot through the air simultaneously.
Fleur struck the left Golem in its chest and immediately pushed off, skating hard and fast toward the right one with powerful strokes. Viktor did the exact opposite, hitting the right Golem and gliding swiftly to the left. Each of them slipped behind the Golem their partner had just baited, using the massive stone bodies as shields.
SCRITCH!
They had barely ducked behind the enormous Golems when the retaliating strikes came roaring in, right on schedule.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The arena erupted in clouds of dust and flying stone fragments as the first volley of stone eggs hammered into the Golems that stood between the attackers and their actual targets.
WHOOSH. WHOOSH.
Two green signal flares burst through the obscuring haze and shot up into the sky—the pre-arranged sign that they were safe and unharmed. Up on the wall, those who had been braced to intervene and draw fire all exhaled in one collective, relieved breath.
'Is this actually going to work?' Harry thought, hardly daring to believe it.
Harry's mouth twitched with suppressed excitement and disbelief at the simple brilliance of it.
WHOOSH. WHOOSH. WHOOSH.
Another ferocious volley of stone projectiles and the two Golems, roaring in blind fury at the figures they could sense sheltering behind their counterparts but couldn't reach, hammered their own kin without mercy or hesitation.
BOOM.
Each Golem had now absorbed two full rounds of its sibling's devastating attacks. Both massive forms began to sway precariously, cracks were spreading across their surfaces like spiderwebs.
WHOOSH. WHOOSH. WHOOSH—CRASH.
The third wave came in dense as rain, overwhelming.
Before the onlookers' astonished eyes, both Golems toppled with a thunderous, earth-shaking roar that vibrated through the stone seats.
This time, they shattered far more thoroughly than before. The rubble simply dissolved in the biting wind, scattering into fine dust that drifted away on the currents. And as the dust cleared gradually, Viktor and Fleur reappeared, standing in the open arena floor, perfectly unharmed.
HUM.
A mass of deep crimson light appeared from thin air, merging from nothing, drifting slowly down from above like a falling star and hovering at the precise center of the arena: the artifact capable of melting the ice block.
The cold wind kept blowing steadily across the arena, stirring dust and snow.
No one spoke for a moment.
Harry slowly turned his head toward Hermione, whose cheeks had flushed a telling shade of deep pink that had nothing to do with the cold.
"What are you looking at, Potter?!" Hermione's indignant cry, somewhere between fury and acute embarrassment, shattered the silence.
The whole group burst out laughing. Their warmth and joy cut right through the frozen air like a spell.
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