Fred had taken that last blow full-on.
Stunned. Again.
One Protego shield after another shattered like glass, dissolving into glittering motes that winked out beside him.
Cedric stared, chest heaving, as the monstrous black knight wheeled its warhorse with terrible slowness and began to advance.
His breath came in ragged bursts. His mind was a perfect blank.
How do you even fight something like this?
Impossible. Completely impossible.
Then—
"Are you alright?!"
A desperate shout snapped him out of the void. Cedric jolted, whipping his head around.
Harry came sprinting out of a side passage—the same voice that had yelled the warning a moment earlier.
"Harry!"
Cedric pushed himself up on trembling arms, refusing to let anyone see him crumpled like that.
Harry skidded to a halt, eyes wide at the knight. "What in Merlin's name is that thing? Does Ethan actually want us dead?"
Just the sight of that halberd—easily as tall as a grown wizard—was enough to make Harry's blood freeze. In his head he was already split cleanly in two.
No time.
Clank. Clank.
The rhythmic scrape of armored joints approached, each footfall deliberate, as though a god were deigning to crush an insect.
Cedric had always been proud of his height, his build. Yet next to the black knight he felt like a child beside an adult. He didn't even come up to the horse's shoulder.
"Krum's already gone ahead," Cedric said, voice tight. "I don't know why he hasn't grabbed the trophy yet, but we're out of time."
He tightened his grip on his wand. Decision made in a heartbeat.
"Harry—take Fred's wand, fire the red sparks for rescue. I'll keep this thing busy. You slip past and go."
Harry's jaw dropped. "But—"
"No buts." Cedric cut him off, raising his wand toward the oncoming mountain of black steel. "Go, Harry!"
"We are not losing to Durmstrang!"
A crooked, stubborn grin forced its way onto Cedric's blood-flecked face. "Don't worry. I'll come find you once I've scrapped this walking tin suit."
Two seconds of silence.
Harry's green eyes hardened. He gave one sharp nod, snatched Fred's spare wand, and sent crimson sparks soaring into the air like a distress flare.
Then he ran—straight at the black knight.
Before the Tournament, he and Cedric had barely spoken. Now Harry would trust the Hufflepuff with his life.
That was the gift Ethan kept forcing on them, whether they wanted it or not: real comrades, revealed only when everything was on fire.
Whoosh!
The warhorse screamed, rearing high. The black knight leveled its halberd with a metallic shriek, driving the blade down to impale the running boy in one merciless thrust.
Right then—
"BOMBARDA MAXIMA!"
CRASH!
A crimson jet slammed into the knight's helmet. The explosion rocked the armored giant, freezing it for one precious heartbeat.
That heartbeat was all Harry needed.
He dove, rolled, felt the halberd's edge kiss his scalp and shear away a lock of hair. One breathless second later he was past, scrambling to his feet and tearing toward the narrow passage ahead.
Victory would belong to Hogwarts—to the Enlightenment Society!
Behind him the iron-shod hoof slammed down like a hammer. The knight spun to pursue—only to jerk sideways as another spell crashed into its flank.
"Leaving already?" Cedric's voice rasped out, hoarse but steady. "Your fight's with me."
A bead of sweat slid from his temple.
The black knight turned its smoking, undented helm toward him. Empty eye-slits stared down in silence.
The air itself seemed to grow heavier, darker.
Clank. Clank.
The halberd's tip dragged across stone, carving shallow grooves as the knight advanced, horse snorting plumes of frost.
Cedric closed his eyes.
Inhale. Exhale.
When he opened them again, the fear was still there—but beneath it burned something fiercer.
Hold the line. Buy time. That was his job.
Magic roared through his veins, flooding his wand. Light flared along the holly and unicorn hair until the wood flowed like molten silver, stretching, flattening, hardening—until Cedric held a glowing, translucent greatsword almost two meters long.
A blade of pure magic.
He gave it an experimental swing. It sliced the air with a whisper, weightless as a feather—then clipped a nearby thorn branch.
Swish.
The thorn fell in two perfect halves, scattering crimson petals across the ground.
"Ethan," Cedric muttered, voice low and reverent, "this is the spell you drilled into me. Now watch me use it."
He planted his feet, both hands wrapping the hilt, muscles cording beneath his torn robes. A second layer of shimmering armor rippled into existence over his skin.
His heart thundered. His palms were slick.
But his mind was calm.
Because no matter how terrifying the black knight looked, it still wasn't half as scary as Ethan Vincent on a bad day during "training."
"This is our bond!" Cedric roared, and charged.
He believed—absolutely—that every blistering lap, every brutal spar, every drop of sweat and blood he'd spilled under Ethan's manic laughter had forged him for this exact moment.
"Let's see if there's a body under all that plate worth a damn!"
CLANG!!!
On the other side of the thorn wall, the impact rang out like a church bell struck by a giant.
Harry flinched at the sound but didn't slow. The passage ahead was blocked by living thorns—he couldn't see a thing.
"It's fine," he panted to himself, gripping his wand until his knuckles went white. "Cedric's got this."
"My job is to stop Krum."
He burst out of the tunnel and into an enormous circular chamber—and stopped dead.
A colossal stone statue dominated the space, half-sunk into the floor like a titan emerging from the earth. It was carved in the shape of a regal girl, crowned and ruffed in Elizabethan splendor, her thick stone hair sculpted into the shape of an enormous heart. She knelt, head bowed, palms flat on the ground as if in eternal reverence.
Directly before her downcast eyes lay a circular basin—empty and bone-dry.
Viktor Krum stood in front of the statue, back to Harry.
"I have to hand it to Ethan," Krum said without turning, voice low and bitter. "No loopholes."
He pivoted slowly. A long gash split his forehead; blood sheeted down the side of his face and dripped from his jaw. In the torchlight he looked half-mad.
"The trophy is hidden. Seems the only way to reveal it is to beat that knight outside first."
His wand rose, leveling at Harry's chest.
"So I think I'll just ask the champion who managed it. Much simpler."
Harry's breath caught.
"Don't blame me, Potter." Krum's eyes gleamed with feverish certainty. "The one who takes the cup—the one who finally beats Ethan Vincent in front of the whole world—"
"That will be me."
Harry raised a trembling finger. "Krum… behind you—"
Krum snarled, too wired, too desperate to listen. He started to turn—
A rush of air howled past him.
BANG!
The marble hand the size of a carriage smashed into Krum's side. He flew like a rag doll, bones cracking audibly, and slammed into the far wall before sliding limply to the ground.
Unconscious. Maybe worse.
Harry winced. "Ouch."
Of course Ethan put two bosses in the same task. Classic.
The grinding of stone on stone made him look up.
The statue was rising.
Joints shrieked as centuries of stillness ended. The Stone Queen of Hearts lifted her crowned head, gray eyes weeping thick black tears that poured into the empty basin. Where the liquid pooled, black mist boiled upward like a living thing.
Harry's stomach dropped.
He'd seen that mist before.
Second task. The obscurus-like substance that had nearly killed them all.
And if basic maze geography was any indication, the creature at the center was always the worst.
The black knight had just been an elite monster.
Harry seriously considered turning around and begging Cedric for help.
Then he glanced back—the thorn passage had sealed itself behind him like a mouthful of teeth.
The Stone Queen finished standing. Forty feet of animated marble glared down at him, black tears still streaming.
From the basin, the dark mist coalesced into a writhing, screaming silhouette.
Harry tightened his grip on his wand and swallowed hard.
Right. No pressure.
Just the final boss.
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