"..."
Watching Cedric clamber up to the stands in full armor with a clatter, the expressions of the other champions became somewhat numb, especially Yamamoto—why? Why does everyone's dragon seem normal, but mine swallowed the Golden Egg?
The problem is, the referee also said he couldn't interfere with the fire dragon's behavior; if you still want the Golden Egg, you'll have to climb into the dragon's belly to fetch it—
Damn it! That was your dragon! You said a word that day, and it rolled on the ground! I remember clearly!
Ridiculous! You want me to climb in? You don't want to make dinner for it, do you? You just want to feed me to the dragon?!
This world isolates me while mocking me... boohoo, there's definitely a conspiracy!!!
Yamamoto Senren curled up in his chair, hugging his knees, feeling targeted by everyone.
"He's been like that since earlier."
Fleur sat beside Cedric, her skirt marked with a large scorch, noticing the curious glance towards Yamamoto from the latter, she explained, "He won't say what happened, but his score isn't high—"
Speaking, the girl pointed behind the crowd to the board below the podium, displaying the scores of each champion—
Scored out of one hundred, with eleven judges, then dropping the highest and lowest scores, the remaining scores averaged; before Cedric's turn, the highest score was gained by Alexander Vladimir of Koldovstoretz at eighty-nine, followed closely by Abebe Hailu of Uagadou at eighty-six.
Next was Fleur Delacour with eighty-one, Daniel Stephens with seventy-six, and Yamamoto Senren with forty-three.
Not even a passing score.
But now, Cedric's ninety-eight seemed to firmly place him at the top.
Meanwhile, all other champions besides the one from Koldovstoretz were seated in the stands.
Turning back, Cedric exchanged greetings with Cho Chang not far away before shifting a bit further away from Fleur, then refocused his attention, "Next is... Durmstrang, but before today, Krum didn't seem to know we'd face fire dragons? Did you not tell him?"
"Of course not."
"Oh, alright, I thought your relationship was good?"
"... But we're also competitors."
Fleur bared her teeth, this time without bits of leaves stuck between her silver-white teeth.
Next, the girl sneakily glanced back at Igor Karkaroff on the podium, his face sour like Uncle Sam's shoe soles, unwashed for three years. Apparently seeking vengeance on society, he scored each champion the lowest, granting even Cedric only fifty for his perfect performance.
But after discarding the lowest and highest scores, Karkaroff's antics couldn't affect the final average score.
Thus, his expression grew darker.
"Now entering is Mr. Krum!" Bagman announced.
A hunched figure slowly entered everyone's sight, greeting Referee William before standing in the field, opposing the largest, widest-winged, sharpest-toothed fire dragon so far—the Ukrainian Ironbelly named Lina.
"Roar—"
The Ukrainian Ironbelly rose upright, its burning Dragon Flame nearly igniting half the sky.
"... His face turned even whiter."
Ilvermorny's Daniel came over, holding binoculars of unknown origin, handing a pair to Cedric as well. Cedric accepted the binoculars, looking towards the field's center; indeed, Daniel was right, Krum's face was as white as a sheet of paper.
Lacking preparation meant Krum's "response plans" had to be improvised; grasping his magic wand, aligning tactics with Cedric, a Newfoundland Hunting Dog appeared near the fire dragon, persistently tempting its nerves.
"Roar—"
Lina ignored all distractions, swiftly smashing the Hunting Dog.
"Woof woof woof—"
Then emerged another Hunting Dog, sweat dripping from Krum's head; he produced just one each time—finally, on the third Transfiguration Spell, the Hunting Dog dodged Lina's claw, luring it out of the nest using its wiggling rear.
Krum seized the opportunity, dashing swiftly toward the Golden Egg—
Succeeding soon?!
Near enough to touch the Golden Egg, a hint of excitement surfaced on his pale face, until the moment a sigh came from the stands, freezing his expression slightly as he turned to meet a pair of crimson-red pupils.
He saw the Ukrainian Ironbelly seemingly grin.
"..."
It was never truly distracted!
"Roar—"
"Crack—"
William grabbed Krum by the collar and pulled him out of the range of the Dragon Flame. Looking at the man's pale face, William spoke calmly, "You failed. The judges will score you based on your performance just now. You can go rest now, sir—"
"...Alright."
Krum's face instantly turned from ghastly pale to livid, but he merely opened his mouth and didn't say anything further.
"...100 points! Mr. Karkaroff gave a full hundred, how shameless... Ahem, let's see what Dumbledore's score is."
Amidst Bagman's dramatic commentary, Krum's score finally settled at 44 points, exactly one point more than Yamamoto Senren.
"..."
So, Cedric saw that the latter's face became even paler than Krum's just now.
Unless either Cauliflower or Harry scores lower than 43 points, he'll be the one at the bottom—
But obviously, the others had prior knowledge of the competition and their dragons didn't use "world-shattering wisdom" or "spur-of-the-moment brilliance". Cauliflower used the Summoning Charm to conjure a bunch of fireworks, then started bombarding the dragon—which was raised in the Romanian Reserve and had never seen such a spectacle.
The Antipodean Opaleye nearly went berserk from the fireworks and launched a war stomp, crushing nearly half the nest's eggs, which would dock him quite a few points.
However, in the end, Cauliflower managed to safely snatch the Golden Egg when the dragon was mentally drained.
"Weasley's Whizzing Wiz-bangs—Boom, fireworks, you deserve them!"
Holding the Golden Egg, with lips tied and hands short, Cauliflower even advertised the fireworks. The next moment, a huge red-and-gold banner appeared in the stands, waving at the cameras in the sky, then Professor McGonagall stood up with a jolt.
"Okay, Mr. Hamilton's score is 88 points... Alright, now let's welcome our final champion, Mr. Potter!!"
Finally, Harry walked into the arena, and as usual, William asked, "Are you ready?"
"...Almost?"
Harry grinned, calming his nervous emotions, then he tapped his wand on his forehead. A refreshing sensation filled his body, and the anxiety was forcibly dispelled by magic. He took a deep breath, his tone much calmer, "I'm ready."
"Then let's start."
William nodded and released the dragon, then stepped back—he was also curious to see how Harry would handle it, as Cedric had privately asked him for advice, but Harry hadn't approached him even once during the week. For Harry's preparations, William had no clue.
It can't be that he'll use the Patronus Charm to call Hagrid out to beat the dragon up, right?
Besides, not even Hagrid could fight a dragon. Didn't you see that Norbert, the dragon Hagrid raised from an egg during Harry's first year—according to Hagrid—didn't even recognize him now? When Hagrid tried to get close for a friendly gesture, he got kicked.
While William speculated, Harry had already entered the arena and locked eyes with the Hungarian Horntail.
Then the boy raised his wand, taking a stance as if he intended for a direct confrontation.
"?"
But while both the human and the dragon were bewildered, Harry suddenly flicked his wand, and a thick green vine sprouted from the ground—then another, and another—nobody saw how many vines there actually were. Suddenly, a green ocean surged up in front of Harry—
"Roar—"
The dragon instinctively breathed fire, attempting to burn these things away, but as deep blue patterns lit up on the vines, the green ocean knocked the Hungarian Horntail, which tried to fly up, back down. The vines bound its claws where necessary, its wings where needed—
Soon, the once fearsome, arrogant dragon was hung on a large green tree, struggling in vain.
So, it could only whimper and lower its head, evidently somewhat reclusive.
"Phew..."
Only then did Harry heave a sigh of relief, putting away his "pretentious" wand, skirting around the green trunk to clasp the Golden Egg in his arms.
"..."
The scene was utterly silent, and Bagman once again forgot to give commentary, while even Dumbledore forgot to remind him, inadvertently exchanging glances with Grindelwald seated not far away, both seeing disbelief in each other's eyes.
This was something a fourth-year, underage, and even occasionally failing Little Wizard could pull off?
...Has the world gone mad? Or has my brain short-circuited?
"Cheating! This must be cheating!!!"
Karkaroff finally lost his temper, abruptly standing up, pointing vehemently at Harry, who was walking towards the podium, shouting loudly.
"Impossible!"
But in the next instant, several figures stood up, staring back at Karkaroff.