Fleur's clear and resolute voice rang out powerfully through the forest.
The Slytherins were in the process of mounting their ancient, battered broomsticks. They were carefully dodging the gnarled branches as they slowly ascended into the air with cautious movements.
In this rarely-traveled section of old-growth forest, the vegetation had been allowed to grow far too densely over decades or perhaps centuries of undisturbed growth. The overlapping canopy of branches created a treacherous maze that made flying on broomsticks between the massive trees extremely dangerous.
One wrong move, one moment of inattention, and a rider could be swept from their broom or impaled on a protruding branch.
However, before the Slytherin hunting party could successfully clear the lowest level of the dense canopy, when they had barely risen thirty feet from the forest floor, a sharp unexpected shout from directly below caught the completely unprepared Slytherins utterly off guard.
Their faces turned pale with sudden shock and alarm!
Before their minds could process what was happening, before they could think to counter the spell or take evasive action, an overwhelmingly powerful force of magical gravity suddenly pressed down heavily upon them from above!
The Slytherins cried out in alarm and terror as they and their broomsticks plummeted uncontrollably toward the ground!
After a devastating series of sharp crackling sounds and heavy, sickening thuds of solid impacts against earth and rock, some of the Slytherins managed relatively smooth landings through sheer luck or quick reflexes.
However, several particularly unlucky ones were caught and snagged on thick branches during their descent. They now hung suspended like rag dolls, dangling helplessly and swaying back and forth in the air, trapped by their robes or caught in the crooks of branches.
The violent impact and sudden deceleration left Draco's head spinning. His tumbling, inverted view of the forest finally stabilized as he hit the ground.
The soft, cushioning mud beneath the leaf litter and the physical protection provided by his enchanted competition uniform prevented Draco, who had landed face-first in the most undignified manner possible from losing consciousness.
But after quickly rolling over with a groan of pain and staggering to his feet on unsteady legs, spitting out dirt and leaves, he took in the catastrophic scene around him. His gray eyes widened with rising horror.
He saw Blaise Zabini, Theodore Nott, and Daphne Greengrass hanging awkwardly from the treetops like bizarre Christmas ornaments, swaying back and forth and calling out for help in voices filed with pain and embarrassment.
He saw Millicent Bulstrode, who had unfortunately fallen directly into the shallow stream, her body was sprawled at an unnatural angle. She'd struck her head brutally against the pebbles on the streambed. Blood was now trickling steadily from a nasty wound on her forehead, running down her face as she lay motionless and unconscious in the cold water.
He saw his other scattered teammates struggling to stagger to their feet, groaning and cursing, checking themselves for broken bones and serious injuries.
Draco's pale face instantly turned ashen as the full magnitude of the disaster became clear.
With almost no intact broomsticks remaining after the devastating effects of Descending Charm, Draco roared furiously at Fleur.
"What are you doing, you stupid woman!"
"That's an interesting question," Fleur replied with remarkable composure.
She was calmly brushing away the water droplets that had splashed onto her from the stream during the chaos. She responded to Draco's explosive rage with infuriating calmness.
"You ambushed us and stole our school badge through deception and superior numbers. Surely you can't expect us not to retaliate when given the opportunity. That would be rather naive of you."
"I'll kill you!" Pansy Parkinson shrieked the very moment she managed to get to her feet.
Pure rage twisted her face into something almost frightening. She flicked her wrist, clearly about to cast something violent and probably illegal—
"You're not allowed to attack teams that don't have badges, are you?" Fleur stated with perfect calmness.
She stood her ground confidently, unlike Triana beside her, who had instinctively assumed a defensive posture with wand raised and ready.
Whoosh, whoosh!
Before Fleur could continue her logical argument, two petrification spells left wand tips, precisely striking both Fleur and Triana with accuracy.
The two Beauxbatons girls who had just been petrified once by Hermione not long ago, found themselves petrified again in the same humiliating manner.
Draco released his restraining grip on Pansy's wrist, preventing her from casting something more dangerous and rule-breaking. He lowered his own wand slowly though his hand trembled slightly with suppressed fury.
He glared with absolute hatred at Fleur's frozen body.
"But if you attack us first, then we have the right to counterattack in self-defense!"
He spat venomously.
Boom!
Suddenly, a faint rumbling sound came from somewhere in the distance, carrying through the forest like distant thunder.
The noise caused the disheveled, mud-covered hunting team's expressions to change, their attention snapped away from the petrified French girls.
Draco's head turned around. He raised his wand hand and severed the thick branches holding his three suspended teammates with quick cutting charms.
Blaise, Theo, and Daphne fell with startled yelps, landing in undignified heaps but at least free from their tree prisons. Then Draco waved his wand in a more complex motion to magically pull Millicent's unconscious body from the stream, levitating her onto the bank.
Looking down at Millicent lying motionless at his feet, blood still flowing from her forehead wound and soaking into her hair, creating a disturbing scarlet patch around her head, Draco's mouth twisted.
He couldn't just leave her, much as the delay frustrated him.
He raised his wand hand toward sky and shot a bright red distress flare into the air. The magical sparks climbed high above the treetops, clearly visible for miles, calling for medical assistance.
Seeing Pansy desperately trying to gather together the scattered pile of broken wood pieces that had once been functional broomsticks, trying to see if any could be repaired with magic, Draco said impatiently, his voice was sharp with urgency.
"Leave that useless thing alone, Pansy! It's completely beyond repair now. Everyone!" He gestured sharply to the rest of his team, demanding their attention.
Draco cast one more deeply hateful glance at Fleur's frozen form and barked out commands.
"Follow me immediately! There are at least two teams fighting over there in that direction. We heard the explosions. We have the stamina advantage since we've been flying—they'll be exhausted from running and fighting. They can't possibly escape from us!"
With that decisive announcement, the Slytherin hunting team suffering only superficial injuries despite the crash, protected by their competition uniforms took large strides and rushed at full speed toward the source of the distant commotion.
They moved with determination, leaving only Millicent lying unconscious on the ground waiting for the inevitable rescue.
Just one minute later, Snape descended from the sky on his broomstick like a dark bird of prey.
He waved his wand to levitate Millicent's unconscious body onto a floating stretcher that materialized at his command.
He completely ignored the hopeful looks that the petrified Fleur and Triana were directing at him with their eyes. Without a word or glance of sympathy, he departed swiftly with the stretcher floating beside him.
The two French girls remained frozen, and abandoned.
Outside the Forbidden Forest, on the crowded viewing platform where thousands of spectators had gathered to watch the competition unfold on the giant screens, many people cheered enthusiastically and applauded Fleur's impressively clever spell.
The Descending Charm had been brilliantly timed and executed. Shouts of approval and admiration rang out, particularly from the French supporters who had traveled to watch their champion.
But the subsequent fate of the two beautiful girls drew worried sighs and sympathetic murmurs from the crowd. The excitement turned to concern as viewers realized the vulnerable position the girls were now in.
"Bryan—" Madame Maxime's voice carried a disapproving edge.
The competition had barely begun, when one of her team members had withdrawn due to complete psychological collapse under the pressure of the darkness trial. Then the hunting team had immediately targeted her remaining girls and stripped them of their badge through ambush tactics.
The fact that Madame Maxime hadn't physically flipped the judges' table in rage, already proved her restraint and professional composure.
So, Bryan could fully understand with Madame Maxime's grim, tight-lipped expression as she turned to speak to him.
"Doesn't this situation require some form of special intervention?" Madame Maxime demanded, pointing at the large screen.
Her voice carried indignation and concern. "Fleur and Triana have both been petrified by those Slytherin children. They cannot send a distress signal themselves! They're completely helpless!"
"Are you saying," Bryan leaned forward slightly in his seat, his purple eyes meeting hers calmly, speaking with politeness, "that Fleur's team is ready to give up the competition, that they want to quit, but they simply can't use their wands to send the withdrawal signal because of the petrification?"
Madame Maxime's breath caught in her throat.
"That's not what I meant, Bryan!" she protested quickly, realizing how her words might be interpreted.
"I'm not saying they want to quit! I'm saying they've been petrified. If no one helps them, if they're left frozen like that, they'll just have to stay there indefinitely. That seems rather cruel!"
Looking thoughtfully at Fleur's magnified face on the screen, Bryan could read the embarrassment and indignant anger flickering in the subtle glimmer of her eyes.
"I don't think they'll be abandoned, Madame," Bryan said reasonably. "As you know very well, team positions refresh and display on the maps every half hour without fail. Someone will eventually go to investigate their location to see what's happened."
"But what if no one goes?" Madame Maxime pressed, her brow was furrowing deeply with concern.
"What if everyone avoids them, sees their position but chooses to ignore it? Or what if whoever does go to check on them isn't as kindhearted and chivalrous as that Harry Potter boy proved to be?"
"Then that would indeed be quite unfortunate," Vipor Dreghorn interjected with a sour face.
The stern Durmstrang headmaster was watching his own school's team locked in an increasingly difficult battle on another screen. His attention was divided. "They would simply lose the match, Madame. That's the nature of competition. Not everything can be comfortable."
Whether it was easier to steal badges from competing champion teams weakened by hours of running and fighting, or from Malfoy's well-rested hunting crew who had been flying and conserving their energy—this was a question that required absolutely no thought or debate to answer.
"Hurry!" Hermione gasped out between breaths.
The three of them were running through the dense forest at their fastest possible speed, pushing their bodies to the absolute limit of endurance. Every muscle screamed in protest. But Hermione still felt dissatisfied with their pace, and felt they weren't moving fast enough.
"We must get a badge as quickly as possible and then hide ourselves before Malfoy and his group arrive at the scene!" Her voice was tight with urgency. "If Malfoy gets there first, we'll have almost no choices left!"
"I hope we run into Viktor's group!" Harry called out, his breathing was sounding like a blacksmith's bellows being pulled rapidly.
Nearly an hour and a half into the grueling competition, after constant running and combat readiness, he could clearly feel that his physical stamina was rapidly approaching its absolute limit.
"If it's Neville and his team we encounter, we'll be in enormous trouble!" Harry wheezed, barely able to get the words out.
Perhaps the goddess of fortune, who had seemed to abandon them earlier, finally began to smile upon their desperate efforts.
When Harry, maintaining his position in the lead despite his exhaustion, leaped powerfully down from a steep slope, the very corner of his sharp vision caught sight of a distinctive figure about two hundred feet away to his right.
The figure was also in midair, also leaping, grabbing a thick vine suspended in mid-air and using the natural rope to swing athletically across a deep ravine that had been carved out over centuries by rainwater erosion.
Time seemed to stretched to slow to a crawl. Harry felt suspended in that moment of flight.
He slowly turned his head in mid-air and the person gripping the vine also shifted their gaze in his direction at precisely the same instant.
Their eyes met across the brightening forest.
Almost simultaneously with perfect synchronization, Harry Potter and Viktor Krum spotted each other.
Thud! Splash!
Harry landed solidly on a large, flat rock, his knees were absorbing the impact. Meanwhile, Viktor dropped less gracefully into a muddy pit on the far side of the ravine.
But neither break in their stride mattered. Their gazes immediately locked onto each other with intensity.
In the few seconds of heavy silence that followed this mutual discovery, Hermione and Ron skidded to halts beside Harry.
Meanwhile, Viktor's two teammates—one stocky and powerfully built, the other tall and thin also turned startled, wide-eyed looks toward the unexpected appearance of competitors.
Without any greeting or friendly communication, both teams simultaneously began running directly toward each other with aggressive intent.
When the distance between the charging teams had closed rapidly to only seventy or eighty feet, close enough to see facial expressions clearly, Viktor's team made the first decision. They stopped their forward rush abruptly and launched an immediate magical attack on Harry's approaching trio!
The spell-light that shot from their wand tips like arrows released from a drawn bowstring carried an ominous, sickly dark quality that Harry had never seen in normal school magic.
Even though Harry's experienced combat instincts had already judged and calculated that two of the three incoming spells were heading for tree trunks in their trajectory rather than human targets, his heart still pounded hard with alarm and adrenaline.
The attacking spells contained a sinister power completely unfamiliar to Harry. This dark magical signature seemed to confirm the persistent rumors that Durmstrang taught dark magic internally to its students.
As this troubling thought crossed his racing mind, a thread of anger rose hot in his chest.
Objectively speaking, his personal relationship with Viktor had been fairly good throughout the year. Even though they were now on opposing sides in competition, Harry believed that Viktor shouldn't be using vicious, potentially harmful magic against them.
However, on second thought, Harry could understand from a tactical perspective that Viktor and his teammates had instinctively used their most practiced and familiar magic in their tense, high-pressure state.
When faced with sudden combat, people defaulted to what they knew best, regardless of their intentions.
The tree trunks struck by the two misdirected spells burst immediately into strange, unnatural gray flames with a loud bang.
As Harry dodged Viktor's third spell the one actually aimed at him with a side leap, and passed dangerously close by the two burning trunks, he could smell an absolutely unpleasant odor rising from the cursed flames.
Clearly, these were no ordinary fires created by simple Incendio charms. If any of them were struck even once by this dark magic, it would mean immediate elimination from the competition and quite possibly long hospitalization for treatment of curse damage.
"Full offensive—finish this quickly!" Hermione's commanding voice called sharply from behind Harry.
When the distance between the two teams broke through the critical fifty-foot threshold, close enough for reliable spell accuracy, Hermione issued her tactical order with the authority of a military commander.
Then the previously chaotic, scattered formation of the three running Gryffindors immediately transformed, becoming precisely orderly. They shifted into a sharp triangular arrowhead formation with Harry at the point.
The arrangement carried fierce, unstoppable momentum as they charged straight at the Durmstrang team.
The Durmstrang students, having missed with their first volley of attacks and now faced with this decisive, aggressive momentum from opponents who showed no fear of their dark magic fell into some panic!
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