"Charge!!!"
Twin ropes of golden light shot from Fred and George's wands, braiding together mid-air. The brothers shot forward like human bullets, weaving through the roiling black mist until the glowing cords snapped tight around the Hungarian Horntail's sinewy neck.
"They've got moves," Viktor Krum muttered, voice low and gravelly.
If he hadn't been caked head-to-toe in dust and dragon soot, the line might have sounded properly brooding.
Another Durmstrang champion was already down, sprawled across the rubble and whimpering for his mother in Bulgarian. Fine by Krum. Fewer people to share the glory with.
His dark eyes narrowed; a cold, wolfish glint flickered across his face.
He alone would be enough.
"I've read this dragon completely," Krum announced, rolling the words like he was savoring them. "It only looks terrifying. All show."
"That area spell—whatever they're calling 'Lightning Lance Through Earth'—and those claw sweeps? Child's play if you defend properly."
As if to prove it, he dropped into a sudden roll, wand flicking upward. A slab of solid granite erupted from the arena floor just in time to meet the incoming crimson spear of electricity. Rock exploded into gravel; Krum emerged unscathed.
"Just as I predicted." A thin, confident smirk.
Victory already glinted in his eyes.
All he had to do was wait for the Hogwarts team to wear the beast down, then swoop in and steal the points from under Ethan Vincent's nose.
He never noticed the pair of glowing cobalt eyes watching him from far above the arena.
Hoo… hoo…
Tattered, raven-like wings beat lazily against the wind. Black mist curled around a half-skeletal, half-devastatingly handsome face. In the empty socket of Ethan's fused Death-Bird form, ghostly blue fire danced.
He tilted his head, surveying the chaos below like a bored monarch.
"Warm-up's gone on long enough," he said pleasantly, snapping his bone-white fingers.
High above the arena, suspended beneath a sky of churning storm clouds, with the roaring Horntail silhouetted behind him, Ethan's dark hair whipped in the gale. His black robes flared like living shadow.
A gentle, terribly polite smile curved across what little flesh remained on the left side of his face.
"You may stop holding back now, Forsanx," he called down, voice carrying with soft, theatrical regret. "My beautiful Death Dragon who feasts on death itself… feel free to play a little."
The moment the words left his mouth, something inside the dragon snapped loose.
The Horntail threw its head back. Scales flared outward like black iron petals. An aura of pure, ancient terror rolled off it in waves.
[ROOOOOAAAAARRRRR!!!!]
The sound wasn't just a roar anymore.
Any wizard with half-decent hearing felt the hairs on their neck rise—because woven inside that earth-shaking bellow were syllables. Old syllables. Draconic spellcraft.
Professor Bathsheda Babbling, Ancient Runes, went white as parchment and sagged in her seat.
"It's… casting," she whispered, voice cracking. "That dragon is casting a spell."
Everyone knew dragons could use magic once. Most had forgotten how.
Today, the arena was remembering for them.
Krum felt it first—a prickling, animal dread crawling over his skin. He looked down and saw every hair on his forearms standing straight.
Crimson lightning began to crackle through the air, not in lances this time, but in writhing, living arcs.
He threw up Protego on pure instinct, eyes locked on the glowing spear still clutched in the dragon's claw.
Any second now…
Any second…
Why wasn't it throwing it?
Then he noticed the sky.
The storm clouds weren't drifting anymore. They were lowering, pressing down like a lid on a boiling cauldron. Inside the bruise-purple mass, crimson light pulsed—huge, coiling, angry.
Krum's survival instinct finally screamed.
"NO—"
He flung himself sideways, wand slashing desperate furrows through the earth. Stone and soil surged up, swallowing him whole in a crude bunker.
One heartbeat later—
BOOM.
Judgment fell.
Thicker than tree trunks, bolts of blood-red lightning hammered straight down. The arena floor shattered into smoking craters. One bolt found Krum's hiding place with spiteful precision. His earthen shell burst apart like wet paper.
"GRAAAAAHHH!!!"
Krum screamed, arching backward, teeth bared in a rictus of agony as cursed lightning danced over every nerve.
Up in the stands, Headmaster Karkaroff lunged against the railing, face purple with rage.
"DUMBLEDORE!"
Dumbledore gave a serene little smile. "Relax, Igor. People rarely die in the Triwizard Tournament."
Karkaroff looked ready to commit murder.
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "I'm joking, I'm joking. With young Mr. Vincent overseeing things, no one will die."
A pause.
"They'll just wish they had."
On the field, the storm finally broke. What remained of the Beauxbatons team lay blackened and twitching. Durmstrang wasn't much better.
The Horntail closed its jaws with a satisfied snap. Cursed lightning still crawled lovingly over its scales like affectionate serpents.
[Pathetic mortals… Had my Master not stayed my claws, your ashes would already fertilize this ground…]
It turned, ready to bask in well-earned silence.
And felt something tighten around its throat.
Golden chains—the Weasley twins' handiwork—yanked viciously. The dragon's head jerked sideways.
[ROAR!!!]
Furious, it shattered the bindings with raw draconic strength.
But that one heartbeat of immobility was enough.
A tiny figure rocketed through the air on the back of an over-sized crossbow bolt, wind screaming past his robes. Harry Potter's emerald eyes burned with focus, locked on the single reversed scale beneath the dragon's jaw.
"BOMBARDAAAA!!!"
The spell hit dead-center.
Scale shattered. Dragon blood sprayed in a hot crimson arc, splattering Harry's glasses, painting his face like war paint.
The Horntail froze, golden eyes wide with utter disbelief that a human had dared—
Then incandescent rage.
Its jaws yawned open, fangs longer than swords—
"Playtime's over."
The voice drifted down, calm, almost kind.
The dragon's pupils shrank to pinpricks.
[Master—no! I can still—]
Black scales began to slough away like dead leaves. Muscle and bone melted into viscous paint, dripping upward against gravity. In seconds the colossal beast collapsed into a puddle of living ink that spiraled obediently into Ethan Vincent's outstretched hand.
He closed his fingers.
The ink solidified into an elegant, framed canvas—an oil painting of a perfectly intact, perfectly furious Hungarian Horntail forever trapped mid-roar.
Ethan floated there a moment, admiring his work, then glanced toward the judges' stands with theatrical disappointment.
"Dark magic?" Karkaroff sputtered.
Dumbledore stroked his beard thoughtfully. "I prefer to call it performance art."
Karkaroff made a strangled noise that might have been a scream dying in his throat.
Sunlight finally broke through the dispersing clouds, a single warm beam spearing down like a spotlight.
It illuminated a treasure chest that definitely hadn't been there thirty seconds ago.
Ornate. Gold filigree. Gemstones the size of Knuts. Every inch the fairy-tale reward.
Harry hovered mid-air, panting, glasses askew and face still dripping dragon blood. Fred and George flanked him, identical expressions of deep suspicion.
All three stared at the chest.
Then at Ethan, who was smiling far too innocently.
After three and a half years of friendship (or whatever nightmare-tinged relationship they had with him), alarm bells the size of Big Ben went off in their heads.
Harry wiped blood from his cheek and muttered, "That thing is one hundred percent rigged."
George nodded slowly. "Ten Galleons says it explodes."
Fred grinned without humor. "Twenty says whatever's inside is worse than exploding."
High above, Ethan waved cheerfully, the dragon painting tucked beneath one arm like a rolled-up poster.
"Come now, gentlemen," he called down, voice honey-sweet and utterly terrifying. "Where's your sense of adventure?"