The Ice Troll's body seemed even more resistant to physical assault than the stone giants they had encountered in the arena.
Harry's spells struck it head-on, yet left no visible damage at all. The magic simply dissipated against its surface like water off stone.
That discovery made Harry's heart sink with dread. But what happened next would shatter both his and Cedric's courage entirely.
The Ice Troll, startled by the aggressive attack, finally shifted its attention.
ROAR!
The moment it spotted Harry and Cedric standing defiantly before the stone gate, the Ice Troll let out a thunderous roar that shook the very air. It instantly hoisted its enormous ice club above its head with both hands and charged straight at them with shocking speed for something so massive.
The whole world seemed to tremble beneath their feet. The troll had not yet arrived but a ferocious gust of wind from its sheer displacement of air had already hit them full in the face, stinging their eyes.
Harry and Cedric, rooted before the stone gate with legs that wouldn't obey, stood frozen in horror. It was as though an enormous mountain were barreling straight toward them, inevitable as an avalanche.
"Get out now, Harry, Cedric! Move!" Hermione's voice shrieked.
The troll roared as it charged, already winding up for the killing blow. When that club came down, it would be absolutely catastrophic. In their current exhausted condition, they had no means of blocking such a strike. Even dodging seemed impossible with their depleted speed.
Hermione's face drained of all color, going white as bone.
"Don't try to fight it head-on!" she screamed desperately. "Harry, Cedric—leave the Trial Chamber right now!"
This had always been part of the contingency plan. If you can't win, you retreat.
Without a moment's hesitation or backward glance, Harry and Cedric spun around in unison, sprinted forward on legs that felt like lead, and hurled themselves through the swirling vortex of the stone gate.
BOOM!
A deafening crash rang out behind them, as if the world itself had split open. The sound was tremendous.
The troll's ice club swept in a wide, devastating arc and slammed hard into the stone doorframe with all its tremendous strength. A violent surge of wind blasted from the impact, sending the remaining three—Hermione, Viktor, and Fleur flying backward like leaves in a storm.
Yet the stone gate itself stood utterly unmoved, completely unaffected. Not a single crack appeared on its surface. It was the ice club itself that shattered on impact, sending chips and shards of ice scattering in every direction.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Its target vanished through the portal, the Ice Troll remained furious. It swung its partially shattered club again and again with mindless rage, as though determined not to stop until the gate was reduced to rubble.
"Don't attack it!" Hermione shouted urgently, scrambling to her feet.
The three of them struggled unsteadily to their feet, bodies bruised from the fall. Fear had driven Fleur to raise her wand instinctively toward the raging troll, but Hermione grabbed her arm just in time.
"If you attack it, it'll turn on us!"
"Then what do we do?" Viktor's expression was one of sheer alarm. "After Harry and Cedric left, shouldn't it have automatically gone after the lighthouse? It's blocking the gate—we can't get out!"
As Viktor had correctly observed, the Ice Troll seemed fixated on the gate itself now. It appeared to be trying desperately to force its way through the shimmering vortex, as Harry and Cedric had done.
But its enormous head merely poked through partway and got stuck. It could not leave the Trial Chamber.
This only enraged the creature further. It raised its club once more and took out its fury on the gate.
Watching the troll's tantrum, Hermione's expression gradually shifted from raw terror to something altogether more curious. Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
"Isn't this... actually perfect?" she said slowly.
"Are you mad, Hermione?!" Viktor stared at her like she'd lost her mind.
"It's blocking the gate! We can't leave! If this keeps up, we'll—" He stopped abruptly mid-sentence.
He looked at the troll, then slowly turned to stare at the beacon lighthouse still standing in the distance.
"Oh." His eyes went wide with realization.
"Oh!" He let out another cry, this one full of delighted shock. "This is actually good for us?!"
Fleur had caught on as well, making the connection. She blinked, her expression caught somewhere between disbelief and wonder.
"Perhaps," Hermione said slowly, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips, "this is the 'shortcut' built into this challenge. The back door."
Three long minutes later, when Hermione, Fleur, and Viktor emerged from the Trial Chamber through the now-accessible gate, each holding a glowing orb of sapphire-blue light in their hands, Harry and Cedric, who had been pacing anxiously before the stone gate, stared at them with eyes practically bulging from their heads in shock.
"What happened?! You took so long, we tried to go back in, but the gate suddenly stopped working..." Harry trailed off, his gaze fixed in disbelief on the brilliant blue light in Hermione's hands. "Is that...?"
"I imagine that's because the troll was blocking the gate from the inside, Harry," Hermione said, her smile was broad and triumphant. "It couldn't get through."
"You three killed that troll?!" Cedric looked utterly incredulous, shaking his head. "That's impossible!"
"We certainly couldn't—" Hermione began, then paused for dramatic effect.
"—but the troll," she continued, clearly enjoying this immensely, "well, how to put it... it wouldn't stop chasing after the two of you through the gate and kept trying to force its way through. But Professor Watson, I suspect, has rules built into the challenge against letting monsters escape the Trial Chamber—so it was stalling for us. The candle burned down on its own while we just... waited."
"Professor Watson wouldn't have missed such an obvious loophole," Harry said thoughtfully. "Unless... it was part of his design all along."
"So, every challenge has a backdoor like this..." Cedric muttered, wincing slightly as the implication hit him hard. All that effort he and Luna had put in earlier had probably been completely unnecessary.
Just like the glass bridge under the starlit sky before, where Viktor's simple solution had made their complex plan look foolish.
They should have paused, observed carefully, thought—instead of throwing themselves at the problem head-on with brute force.
Professor Watson had said it time and again during his lessons: when raw power isn't enough to overcome what stands in your way, you need to use your head.
The truth was harsh but undeniable: only a rare few individuals ever possessed the kind of overwhelming strength that could bulldoze through any obstacle. For everyone else, wisdom was not optional—it was essential for survival.
When the group fed the sapphire orb into the ice block, it dissolved another significant portion, just as expected. The ice was now less than half its original size. They were tantalizingly close—just two steps away from claiming the second key.
"Then it's our turn," Cedric said, straightening up with determination.
After a brief rest to recover some strength, Cedric led the group back through transport to the dark shore of the Black Lake.
A stone pillar, carved with a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a serpent held suspended in the air a glowing orange orb at its peak. It was strikingly similar to the reward orbs they had earned from the challenges they'd already cleared.
At the water's edge, a small boat rocked gently on the lapping waves, waiting patiently for the next pair of brave souls foolish enough to attempt the crossing.
"So, if I understand correctly—" Hermione's brow furrowed deeply as the group gathered in a circle to talk through the challenge.
"The orange orb will follow the predetermined route marked by those aqua-blue lights floating along the water, and along the way you'll encounter whirlpools that capsize the boat, crosswinds that push it off course, and underwater creatures that attack from below—is that right, Cedric?"
"Your memory is impeccable as always, Hermione." Cedric nodded grimly; the memory was clearly unpleasant.
"And once any of those things happen, the boat becomes completely uncontrollable. It spins, tips, you fall in. And as you know—steering the boat drains your magic the entire time."
The group fell into contemplative silence, staring out over the dark water that looked utterly bleak. Each of them was turning the problem over in their mind, searching for the trick.
"I can't find any obvious loophole this time," Harry admitted at last, glancing sidelong at Hermione for guidance. "Nothing like the golems or the troll."
"Neither can I, honestly—" She hesitated, looking frustrated. "Though I think every challenge we've faced has been teaching us the same lesson: don't charge in blindly. Find another way. Think."
"But—" Fleur looked around the rocky shore carefully, examining every detail. "From what I can see, there's nothing here that could actually help us. No tools, no clues. Unless the water creatures attack each other... and I doubt they'd charge up onto the bank and get themselves wedged in the portal the way that troll did."
"Whatever the case, we have to try something," Harry shrugged and hopped into the boat with a light jump, turning back to face the others. The boat rocked under his weight. "This one's a rough ride according to Cedric—no need for you to take it too, Hermione. I can test it."
"I'll go with you," Cedric said, raising his hand without hesitation. "At least I know what's coming from experience—I might be able to spare us some of the worst of it."
Under the watchful eyes of the three left on the shore, Harry and Cedric set off across the dark water, rowing with magic.
It didn't take long before disaster struck. Barely thirty seconds after their silhouettes vanished into the blackness beyond the first few lights, a cry of alarm rang out across the lake, echoing off distant rocks.
Then the orange orb drifted back on its own, floating serenely as though nothing had happened.
Shortly after, two thoroughly soaked young men came puttering back to shore in the boat, looking miserable and defeated. Water streamed from their hair and clothes.
Harry and Cedric gave no one a chance to ask questions or offer sympathy. They leapt out of the boat and bolted through the portal without looking back, leaving wet footprints.
Two minutes later, they stepped back through the gate, dry and composed but clearly shaken.
"I'm with you," Harry said with a long exhale, still visibly disturbed by whatever had happened out there. "There has to be a trick to this one."
"But what?" Viktor's brow was knotted tight with concentration. "All we have is this oddly fascinating boat, the lights, the pillar... Oh. What if we pushed more magic into the boat—could it go faster or—"
"Doesn't work," Cedric shook his head.
"Then the only other thing is..." Viktor's eyes drifted up and landed on the aqua orbs hovering ten or so feet above the water surface, marking the path. "Those lights—they mark the route, yes, but could they have another use entirely?"
Hermione raised an eyebrow, intrigued by the possibility. She drew her wand.
"Let's find out," she said with determination.
Without further word or hesitation, she acted. A flash of red light shot from her wand tip and struck the first aqua orb, thirty feet out across the dark water.
It winked out instantly with a soft pop, disappearing.
Two disappointing seconds passed in silence. Harry was already beginning to sigh, but then something extraordinary happened.
WHOOSH.
A gust of wind surged out of nowhere with tremendous force.
Hermione, standing right beside Harry on the shore, let out a startled yelp of surprise.
He spun around just in time to see something invisible snatch at the cloth of her robes like an enormous hand grabbing her. Before he could react or reach for her, she was yanked toward the lake's surface, dragged at incredible speed to the exact spot where the first aqua light had been floating.
Harry's fingers just barely grazed the hem of her sleeve before she was gone, pulled away.
"Harry!" Her voice echoed across the water.
The others were still frozen in shock, processing what had just happened. But at the sound of his name, Harry moved instinctively. He rolled around, dashed to the stone pillar, and slammed his hand against it to release the orange orb into motion.
WHOOSH.
During her fall through the air, Hermione whipped her wand around with speed and struck the second aqua light ahead of her. Just as before, her body was seized by the invisible magical force and yanked forward to its position, flying through the air like she'd been grabbed.
"I think," Harry said cheerfully despite the danger, glancing at the thunderstruck Cedric and grinning, "we've found the right way to do this. The shortcut."
Barely three minutes later, a ripple passed through the stone gate and Hermione stepped through, hair was windswept but unharmed.
She opened her palm with a triumphant smile.
A key lay there, gleaming silver in the dim light.
The rest of the group stared at it in stunned silence, unable to quite believe it.
"The route ends at a small rocky island," Hermione explained, clearly delighted by the discovery and still catching her breath.
"There's another stone gate there that leads back. The orange orb floated in on its own... and delivered itself to the outside world. And it melted more of the ice."
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