Viktor's rhetorical question fell like a stone into water, creating ripples of silence that spread through the Slytherin group.
No matter who the Durmstrang team had actually encountered in that clash, in any case, it could only have been a Hogwarts squad.
Whether it was Potter, Granger, and Weasley, or the alternative combination of Diggory, Longbottom, and Lovegood, they were all students from Professor Watson's Physical Education class.
Having endured a year of absolutely brutal training under Professor Watson's standards, having been pushed to their limits and beyond countless times in that spiritual training world, the Slytherins knew closely how completely transformed they themselves had become through the process.
And so, they had absolutely no doubt at all that the three battered students from Durmstrang sitting before them had been defeated.
"Which way did they go?" Draco asked with a frown.
"Sorry—" Viktor responded, showing no sign of dejection despite having his school badge taken from him.
He remained remarkably calm as he met Draco's gaze directly. "No comment. I have nothing to say to you. There's no rule stating we must report our activities to you, is there?"
His tone was extremely pleasant, which made the refusal all the more infuriating.
The Slytherin group, who had just suffered their own major, humiliating setback at Fleur's clever hands immediately became indignant at this continued defiance.
Each of them glared coldly at Viktor with suppressed rage, their faces were flushing with anger. Their expressions showed they might pounce and tear the three defeated Durmstrang students apart in the very next second.
But as had been pointed out before, this was a competition ground with rules and oversight. Countless people throughout Europe were watching them through the live broadcast
They couldn't possibly torture Viktor for information, no matter how much they might want to.
However, figuring out where the other team that had just fought here had departed to wasn't particularly difficult.
After a quick examination of the disturbed ground, they soon found the footprints of three people who had left in haste.
After casting an indifferent, dismissive glance at the three Durmstrang students who were watching their investigative movements with wary eyes, Draco made a hand gesture to his team. He led them in swift pursuit along the revealed trail.
Viktor, Poliakoff, and Lanquarde remained silently in place, not moving from their positions against the tree. They watched the Slytherins leave with blank expressions, tracking the hunting party's progress through the forest.
Only after the Slytherins had completely disappeared from view and their sounds could no longer be heard even faintly in the distance, did the three Durmstrang students finally relaxed.
"They're also snatching school badges!" Poliakoff burst out.
The tall, thin boy who had been desperately struggling to maintain his composure and appear unfazed just moments ago was now thoroughly drenched in nervous sweat.
He gasped for breath like someone who had nearly drowned in deep water and had just been pulled to safety at the last possible moment, clutching his chest dramatically with one hand. His expression showed disbelief mixed with relief.
"I can hardly believe it. We're so lucky!"
"We don't have much time," Viktor interrupted, his voice was sharp with urgency.
His face remained equally pale. "The locations will refresh again soon. We must leave here quickly, get as far away as possible. They'll come back to hunt us down."
After another location refresh cycle completed, it was no longer any mystery or puzzle which teams the other three glowing light spots on the magical map represented.
Fleur and Triana, the Beauxbatons pair, were still resting in that same position by the small stream where they'd been petrified.
Viktor's team had already departed from the battlefield site, though they clearly hadn't managed to travel very far yet in their exhausted, injured state. They would almost certainly run into Malfoy's pursuing group within the next few minutes.
As for Cedric's team, they had ventured slightly deeper into the forest but were still deliberately circling along the outer edge of the mapped area.
After committing everyone's current positions to memory, Hermione tucked the blackboard back into her sports jacket pocket and simply said one terse word: "Move!"
And so, despite their overwhelming fatigue, despite every muscle screaming in protest, they began running again.
They headed intentionally toward the outer areas of the forest, away from the center where confrontations seemed inevitable.
But after only five minutes of difficult running, having barely managed to escape from their last tracked location and put minimal distance between themselves and pursuing threats, Ron who was struggling at the back of their formation suddenly cried out sharply in pain.
His voice was high-pitched with agony.
Harry immediately turned around to see Ron collapsed heavily on the ground clutching desperately at his left leg and moaning softly through clenched teeth. His face had gone white with pain.
"He's got a cramp!" Harry said, his own face went pale with concern and fear.
He rushed over quickly to help Ron, kneeling beside him and trying to ease the seized muscle. "It's okay, just breathe—"
Without wasting time on words, Hermione immediately pointed her wand behind them at the forest floor. She erased their three sets of revealing footprints with quick, efficient magic, removing any trace of their passage.
Then she aimed her wand at a natural depression in the ground nearby, a shallow hollow that might once have been an animal burrow or simply an erosion.
"Defodio," she muttered, and the hollow widened and deepened under her magic, becoming large enough to conceal three people if they pressed close together.
She and Harry, working in silent coordination, dragged the grimacing Ron into the widened hollow. The three of them pressed uncomfortably close against each other.
They curled up tightly in the depression, making themselves as small as possible.
Then Hermione waved her wand one more time to carefully camouflage the opening with fallen leaves, branches, and forest debris. She made it look natural, as though no one had disturbed the ground.
No one dared speak.
In the darkness of their hiding place, with barely enough room to breathe properly, there was only the sound of their suppressed breathing. Each person tried desperately to remain silent despite their racing hearts and burning lungs.
The seconds stretched into minutes.
Ten tense minutes later, Harry heard Draco Malfoy's angry, frustrated cursing voice carrying through the forest from somewhere not too far away.
"If that stupid woman hadn't broken our broomsticks!" Draco's drawl was filled with rage. "We'd have caught them by now!!"
In the cramped, dark hollow, Harry who felt like he was nearly passing out from lack of proper air and the crushing exhaustion lifted his heavy eyelids slightly.
Malfoy's broomsticks were broken?
Despite everything, that was genuinely excellent news! Harry felt a small surge of satisfaction cut through his exhaustion.
After another five agonizing minutes of listening to the Slytherins searching nearby, their footsteps and voices coming frighteningly close at times, Draco finally gave up the search of the vicinity.
His voice resounded back through the trees, filled with frustration. "They're not here. We're wasting time."
In reality, Daphne Greengrass from his team had come within less than ten feet of their hiding spot at her very closest approach!
But luck held.
The Slytherins soon left the area. Draco announced his new plan to his team: they would linger in a different sector for a while, conserving energy and waiting for the next location refresh before continuing the hunt.
After she was absolutely certain they were gone, Hermione waved her wand weakly. Her arm felt like it weighed a hundred pounds.
The spell scattered the fallen leaves and forest debris, letting sunlight fall upon their pale, dirt-covered faces once more.
Harry tilted his head with difficulty.
He saw Ron lying beside him with his eyes closed, appearing as if he had completely fainted. Meanwhile, Hermione on his other side had completely disregarded her image and appearance.
She was resting her head directly on the dirty ground, her mouth was slightly open like a fish that had been left out of water too long, desperately thirsting for rain that would never come.
Harry grimaced at the sight, knowing without looking that his own condition was certainly no better than Hermione's or Ron's.
They were utterly spent.
Four location refresh cycles had passed. Two hours and fifteen exhausting minutes had elapsed since the competition began!
The sustained high-intensity physical movement and the intense magical combat had completely drained their last ounce of strength!
After another two minutes of simply existing, of forcing air in and out of burning lungs, Harry finally gathered just enough energy to form words and speak in a hoarse whisper.
"Are Neville and the others still in that same position?"
Hermione's condition could be accurately described as barely breathing. She didn't waste energy on speaking, only nodded faintly.
Harry grimaced again at this confirmation.
Now they had completely figured out that team's clever strategy: staying carefully on the sidelines and letting the others clash and exhaust themselves.
Waiting like vultures for the perfect moment to strike weakened prey.
"Really a good idea... ha..." Harry spoke one partial sentence and had to gasp for air before continuing. "Who came up with it? Cedric doesn't have that good a brain for tactics... must be Neville. He's gotten even more clever than Fred and George now."
Harry took another pause for breathing. "Are we being a bit too straightforward, Hermione?"
Hermione didn't answer his question, didn't have the energy for tactical discussion. Instead, surprisingly, it was Ron who emerged from his semi-conscious state.
He smiled bitterly at Harry's words and tried to prop himself up with his arms to sit upright. But after two failed attempts that left him groaning with effort and pain, he could only resignedly continue lying flat in the dirt like a corpse.
Without needing to say anything more, all three understood their situation.
Their physical strength and magical power reserves had both been consumed completely, pushed to the limit. In their current pathetic state, even a handful of first-year students could probably give them a thorough beating.
They were that vulnerable.
After another two minutes of silence, of simply trying to recover enough to function, Ron tried again to get up. This time, moving with excruciating slowness and pain, he finally managed to achieve a sitting position.
He dragged the battered canvas backpack out from behind him where it had been jammed uncomfortably against his back during their hiding.
The time had reached past eleven in the morning. Having been running literally for their lives all morning, constantly moving and fighting and fleeing, the various foods that had been squeezed and deformed and crushed in the backpack looked like absolutely rare delicacies to the starving three.
Harry had never felt as strongly as he did in that desperate moment that the food produced by Hogwarts' kitchens was so incredibly sweet and fragrant, so perfect in every way.
Like a possessed person, Harry demolished three entire sausages, two potato cakes, and a stack of bread slices before finally feeling he had escaped from the crisis of starvation.
Just as his hand reached toward the backpack again, Hermione's hand shot out and stopped him.
Facing his puzzled and aggrieved expression, Hermione said with absolute firmness, "The rest is for our dinner, Harry. We need to ration carefully."
"Dinner?" Ron repeated in a voice of horror.
He nearly cried. "Do you really think we're going to be eating dinner here in the Forbidden Forest, Hermione?"
"The only hunting team who has appeared so far are the Slytherins," Hermione pointed out with logic.
"I don't believe for a moment that the others are all just hiding somewhere in the forest resting peacefully, Ron. That makes no sense. Professor Watson must have assigned them other specific tasks."
Ron had nothing to say in response to this reasonable assessment. After reluctantly sucking clean the remnants of food from his fingers, savoring every last trace, he listlessly leaned back against the earth again with a heavy sigh.
"What are we going to do next?" he asked wearily. "Go try to steal Diggory's school badge from his team? I bet with our current terrible condition, we'll definitely get beaten up."
Hermione didn't answer his question immediately. Instead, her brows furrowed tightly together as if she had fallen into contemplation of a particularly difficult problem that had no obvious solution.
"What are you thinking about, Hermione?" Harry asked, recognizing that expression.
"Oh, I'm just... just wondering—" Hermione began slowly.
She looked up at the tree canopy, at the swaying leaves dancing in the breeze and the patches of blue sky visible between the gaps.
"I don't understand... how exactly does the competition end? What are the victory conditions? Does it mean we must successfully collect all four school badges to win? But that's already impossible at this point, isn't it?"
She gestured helplessly. "We can't possibly take Fleur's school badge away from Malfoy's team. And if this situation continues on its current trajectory, all the badges will inevitably be taken and held by Malfoy and his team. Even without their broomsticks giving them mobility, they still have a huge numerical advantage over any individual champion team."
This was indeed a very perplexing, troubling question that cut to the heart of their situation. Harry couldn't figure it out either, despite turning it over in his exhausted mind.
However, there wasn't enough time left for them to properly ponder this question about victory conditions and game theory.
The half-hour location refresh cycle was like a death warrant hanging over their heads, forcing them to quickly distance themselves from this compromised area and put enough safe distance between themselves and Malfoy's hunting team.
Then, when the next location inevitably refreshed and revealed their new position, they would need to urgently shift away and hide yet again in a new location.
Only by maintaining this exhausting pattern of movement and concealment could they prevent Malfoy's larger, stronger team from finally catching and defeating them.
Additionally, their experience from training in Physical Education class had taught them an important physiological principle: after periods of high-intensity physical exertion, they absolutely must keep moving slowly rather than remaining completely stationary.
If they just collapsed here and stayed motionless for hours, their muscles would seize up completely. They might be unable to move properly for several days, might suffer serious cramping and injury.
Harry was the first to struggle to his feet with enormous difficulty. Then he extended his hand down to pull up Hermione, helping her to her feet.
Thud!
Something dark and heavy slipped out of Hermione's jacket pocket as she rose. The object fell into the hollow where they'd been hiding, rolled several times with small clattering sounds, and finally stopped moving.
Harry looked carefully at the object and saw it was a round, dark-colored stone.
He looked at Hermione with puzzlement. However, Hermione's ashen expression startled Harry badly.
And he thought of a terrible answer, a horrible possibility.
"Why are you carrying a stone in your pocket?" Ron asked with innocent confusion, not yet understanding.
He looked between his two friends, seeking an explanation. "Did you pick it up for some reason?"
"This isn't a stone, Ron!" Hermione said in a voice Harry had never heard from her before.
She spoke through gritted teeth, each word seem to be forced out from between clenched teeth with effort.
"This is the Durmstrang school badge that Viktor gave me!"
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