The grass felt wrong beneath Harry's feet—too soft, too real after the nightmare logic of the dome. Blood still dripped from his carved arm, each drop hitting the ground with a wet sound that seemed louder than Bagman's magically amplified voice announcing their completion. Harry barely heard it. His entire body screamed in different languages of pain: the burning words etched into his left arm, the spider venom making his muscles twitch, the blistered flesh on his right side where Fleur's flames had caught him, the claw marks across his chest that stung with every breath.
But Fleur's hand in his felt warm and real and right, and that mattered more than the pain.
The crowd's roar washed over them, but Harry's attention fixed on the faces in the front row. Hermione's hand covered her mouth, her eyes wide with horror as she took in his injuries. Ron stood frozen beside her. Tonks had abandoned her post among the other Aurors, pushing through the crowd toward them.
"Bloody hell," Ron breathed when Harry limped close enough to hear him. "You look like you went ten rounds with a Hungarian Horntail."
"Feels about right," Harry managed with a rough voice, his throat felt dry like a desert. The spider venom had done something to his throat. Or maybe it was from screaming. Hard to tell at this point.
Dumbledore descended from the judges' platform with surprising speed for someone his age. Behind him came Madam Maxime, Karkaroff, Fudge, Crouch, and Bagman—all wearing varying expressions of shock, satisfaction, or, in Crouch's case, cool professionalism that suggested nothing about this tournament surprised him anymore.
"Champions," Crouch said, his voice cutting through the noise. "If you would join us briefly before seeking medical attention."
Madam Pomfrey, who had been hovering near the dome's entrance with her medical kit, made an indignant sound. "Medical attention should come first, Barty. Look at them!"
Crouch's expression didn't change. "It will only take a moment."
Harry exchanged glances with Fleur. Her silver hair was disheveled, her robes torn in places, but she stood straight, chin lifted in that way she had when she refused to show weakness. Viktor looked worse—his hands were bleeding, leaving crimson smears on his vial, and his eyes, they seemed unfocused, he seemed like a house with no one inside. Cedric... Cedric had marks around his neck like rope burns, as if the nightmare had forced him to hang himself, and his hands shook so badly the memory inside his vial rippled constantly.
They gathered in a tight circle near the dome's entrance, far enough from the crowd that their conversation wouldn't carry. Up close, Harry could see Karkaroff eyeing Viktor like a prized chicken. Madam Maxime beamed at Fleur with genuine warmth, though concern flickered across her face as she took in the torn robes.
"Before we address medical concerns," Bagman announced, his voice booming with inappropriate cheerfulness given the state of the champions, "the judges must award scores for your performance in the first task!"
Harry wanted to protest that scores seemed monumentally unimportant compared to the fact that they were all bleeding and traumatized, but Crouch had already produced his wand, sending a jet of silver light into the air that formed glowing numbers.
"The scoring," Crouch explained with bureaucratic precision, "reflects completion speed, problem-solving approach, and overall performance under extreme duress. Each judge awards up to ten points."
Bagman went first, his wand producing numbers that hung in the air like accusatory stars. "For Mister Krum—eight points! For Mister Diggory—eight points! For Miss Delacour—nine points! And for Mister Potter—ten points!"
The crowd roared its approval or disapproval depending on house loyalty. Harry barely registered it, too focused on staying upright.
Madam Maxime followed, her massive wand creating elegant numbers that shimmered gold. "For Monsieur Krum—seven points. For Monsieur Diggory—seven points. For my dear Fleur—ten points! And for Monsieur Potter—eight points."
Fleur's cheeks colored slightly at the obvious favoritism, but she said nothing. Harry didn't blame Maxime for it—watching your student emerge covered in burns and torn robes probably made objective scoring difficult.
Dumbledore's turn. His blue eyes were grave as he raised his wand, and Harry noticed how they lingered on each champion's injuries before he cast. "Mister Krum—eight points. Mister Diggory—eight points. Miss Delacour—nine points. Mister Potter—nine points."
Crouch's scoring was predictably uniform, his numbers appearing in stark white that seemed judgmental somehow. "Eight points for Mister Krum. Eight points for Mister Diggory. Eight points for Miss Delacour. Eight points for Mister Potter."
Then came Karkaroff.
"For my champion, Viktor Krum—ten points! A magnificent display of Durmstrang fortitude!" The crowd's reaction was mixed—cheers from the Durmstrang section, boos from others who saw the bias. Karkaroff ignored it entirely. "For Mister Diggory—three points. For Miss Delacour—three points. For Mister Potter—three points."
"Three?" Ron's voice carried from the stands, outraged. "That's bollocks!"
Harry felt a spike of anger cut through his exhaustion. Three points. Karkaroff had given him three points after he'd saved his champion, after he'd carved words into his own arm and let spiders poison him and burned half his body and let a werewolf claw his chest. Three points because he wasn't wearing Durmstrang red.
But what did it matter? The points were meaningless compared to survival, and getting angry would only give Karkaroff satisfaction.
Bagman waved his wand, and the scores tallied themselves in glowing numbers above each champion's head:
Viktor Krum: 41 pointsHarry Potter: 38 points
Fleur Delacour: 39 pointsCedric Diggory: 34 points
"Well then!" Bagman announced, looking a little less cheerful than he did a moment ago. "Mister Krum takes the lead going into the second task! Though I must say, all four champions performed admirably under truly extraordinary circumstances!"
Viktor said nothing, staring at his bleeding hands like they belonged to someone else. The point advantage seemed to mean nothing to him, which Harry respected. Hard to care about scores when you were still processing psychological torture.
Cedric's jaw was tight, and Harry realized with a jolt that the Hufflepuff was fighting tears. Last place. Hogwarts' "real champion" in last place, marked by rope burns and trembling hands that wouldn't stop shaking.
"The scores reflect one task only," Dumbledore said gently, as if reading Harry's thoughts. "There are two more tasks ahead. Much can change."
"Indeed," Crouch agreed, though his tone suggested he found the scoring controversy tiresome and wanted to move past it. "Now, regarding the second task each of you," Crouch started explaining, pulling a piece of parchment from his robes, "has successfully retrieved a memory from your construct. These memories are unique to each of you—moments from your past, carefully selected by the tournament's magic to be personally significant."
Harry glanced down at his vial. What memory had his corpse held? What moment from his life did the tournament consider significant enough to hide behind that nightmare?
"Your task," Crouch continued, "is to view these memories at your leisure and discover the clues contained within them. These clues will reveal the nature and requirements of the second task."
"The second task," Karkaroff cut in, unable to contain himself, "will challenge your imagination, your resourcefulness, and most importantly—your desire for survival." He smiled, showing too many teeth. "I trust you all possess sufficient quantities of each."
"Indeed," Madam Maxime added, her voice gentler. "Take ze time you need to understand ze memories. Ze second task will not occur for several weeks, giving you ample opportunity to prepare once you 'ave deciphered ze clues."
Karkaroff moved to Viktor's side, clapping him on the shoulder hard enough to make the Bulgarian wince. "Excellent work, Viktor! Durmstrang is proud! You have shown the world what we produce—champions with steel in their spines!"
Viktor nodded once, mechanically, but said nothing. His eyes remained distant, still seeing whatever horrors his nightmare had shown him.
Madam Maxime's congratulations were warmer, her massive hand resting gently on Fleur's shoulder. "Magnifique, ma chérie. You 'ave done Beauxbatons proud. Your grandmuzzer will be thrilled to 'ear of your success."
Fleur's smile was radiant despite the exhaustion Harry could see around her eyes. "Merci, Madame. I could not 'ave done it wizout—" She glanced at Harry, then seemed to reconsider. "Wizout ze preparation we discussed."
Dumbledore turned to Cedric and Harry last, his blue eyes unusually serious behind his half-moon spectacles. "Mister Diggory, Mister Potter—you both showed remarkable courage today. Hogwarts is fortunate to have such representatives."
Cedric's smile looked borrowed, like he'd found it in someone else's face, and it didn't quite fit. "Thank you, Professor."
Harry just nodded, too tired and in too much pain to formulate proper words. Dumbledore's gaze lingered on him, taking in the carved words still bleeding on his arm, the burns, the claw marks visible through his torn robes.
"Mister Potter," Dumbledore said quietly, "I would like to speak with you tomorrow morning. My office, after breakfast. I believe we have much to discuss."
"Yes, sir." Harry's voice was stronger than he felt. He knew what that conversation would be about—the physical wounds that shouldn't exist from a purely mental trial, the Holy Magic he'd used to break free, probably a dozen other questions Dumbledore had been accumulating since the tournament began.
"Now," Madam Pomfrey announced, brooking no further argument, "these champions need immediate medical attention. Barty, your speeches can wait. Come along, all of you. To the medical tent this instant."
The medical tent had been erected near the dome—a large canvas structure with the sharp smell of healing potions and sterilization charms. Inside, four cots waited with pristine white sheets that would soon be stained with blood and other fluids Harry preferred not to think about.
Madam Pomfrey worked like she was in borrowed time, starting with Viktor since his bleeding hands posed the most immediate concern. She muttered under her breath the entire time, a running commentary on the madness of tournaments, the stupidity of putting children in mortal danger, and the complete lack of sense possessed by the Ministry officials who'd approved this whole disaster.
"Nightmare creatures," she spat, wrapping Viktor's hands in bandages that glowed faintly blue. "House of Mirrors that cause physical trauma from mental torture. What's next? Dragons? Acromantulas? Perhaps we should just throw them into an active volcano and be done with it!"
"Madam Pomfrey," Dumbledore said gently, "I believe—"
"I don't care what you believe, Albus. This is madness." She moved to Cedric, her expression softening slightly as she examined the rope burns around his neck. "What happened in there, Mister Diggory?"
Cedric swallowed hard, and for a brief moment, he seemed frightened. "I'd rather not discuss it, if that's alright."
"Of course, dear. Of course." Her wand moved around his throat, touching it gently, blue light washing over the angry welts. "But if you need to talk to someone, my door is always open. Sometimes the mind needs healing as much as the body."
She then checked Fleur, and luckily, out of all of them, she didn't need much healing in her body; she simply applied a few spells, and it was done within ten minutes.
When she reached Harry, her sharp intake of breath told him how bad he looked. Her hands hovered over his carved arm, where words continued to bleed freely—failure, worthless, fraud, insufficient, pretender—each one burning like the nightmare logic that had created them still had purchase on reality.
"Merlin's beard," she whispered. "What kind of dark magic...?" She pulled out several vials from her seemingly endless supply, muttering incantations Harry didn't recognize. The carved words began to fade, though the pain lingered like phantom limbs. "The spider bites, the burns, the claw marks—Mister Potter, you look like you've been tortured."
"Felt like it too," Harry admitted with what he hoped was a smile, but Madam Pomfrey didn't seem to appreciate it.
She worked in silence for several minutes, healing potions burning as they hit his wounds, knitting flesh back together with magic that felt like hot needles. When she finally stepped back, Harry looked down at his arm to find only faint scars where the words had been—pale silver lines that spelled out his inadequacies in a language only he could read.
"The scars may fade with time," Madam Pomfrey said quietly, "or they may not. Some wounds... some wounds go deeper than magic can easily reach. I've done what I can for now, but I want to see you again tomorrow. All of you," she added, addressing all four champions. "This kind of trauma—physical and mental both—requires more than a single treatment."
The other officials had departed during the healing process, leaving only Dumbledore, who lingered near the tent's entrance. He caught Harry's eye and nodded once before sweeping out.
Fleur waited near Harry's cot now, her hand resting on his shoulder in a touch that grounded him.
"We survived," she said softly, for his ears only.
"We did more than survive," Harry replied, meeting her eyes. "We won."
Her smile was brilliant, transforming exhaustion into something like joy. "Oui. We won."
Twenty minutes later, after Madam Pomfrey had pronounced them fit enough to return to their dormitories with strict instructions about rest and returning tomorrow for follow-up treatments, Harry found himself walking with Fleur away from the medical tent. The crowd had dispersed, students heading back to the castle for dinner or to their respective accommodations.
They found a quiet spot behind one of the empty viewing stands, hidden from casual observation but not so isolated as to be inappropriate. Fleur leaned against the wooden structure, her blue eyes looking at his emerald ones.
"You came for me," she said. "In ze mirrors. I saw you fighting to reach me."
"The mirrors were connected," Harry explained, remembering that moment of clarity when he'd pressed his hand against the glass and felt her warmth on the other side. "I could see you struggling with your trial. I tried to tell you to break them all, to—"
"I know." Fleur reached up, her fingers tracing the faint scars on his arm. "You saved everyone in your nightmare. Hermione, Ron, Sirius, all of zem. I saw ze wounds, 'Arry. Each person you saved left zeir mark."
Harry looked away, uncomfortable with the admiration in her voice. "What about your trial?" Harry asked, partly to deflect attention from himself and partly because he genuinely wanted to know. "The seven mirrors—I saw them breaking when you spoke, but I couldn't hear what you said."
Fleur's expression grew distant, remembering. "Zey wanted me to sacrifice parts of myself. My beauty, my magic, my intelligence, your love, my family, my free will, my identity itself. Seven mirrors, seven sacrifices to proceed to my corpse."
"But you didn't."
"Non." Her smile was fierce, proud. "I told zem I would not fragment myself for zeir comfort. I am 'ole—contradictions and all. And zat wholeness, zat refusal to be less zan what I am, it broke ze mirrors."
Harry found himself staring at her. Fleur wasn't just beautiful in the way that made men walk into walls—though she was certainly that. She was beautiful in the way a sword was beautiful, forged in fire and tested in battle. She had faced her deepest fears about herself and come through whole, uncompromising.
"You're amazing," Harry said, the words inadequate but true.
Fleur's laugh was soft, breathless. "You helped me in the forest, I was just a stranger to you, you helped that Susan girl, and you helped your friends to get better at using spells, and you always looked at me. Do not speak to me of amazing, 'Arry Potter."
"For what it's worth, I've always taken you seriously. Terrifyingly so." Harry said with a little teasing smile.
Fleur got closer to him, and her eyes, they were never been more beautiful than now. "You never looked at me ze way others do. Not from ze first moment."
"I saw your pride first. Then your intelligence. The beauty was... obvious, but not what made you interesting." Harry said, and Fleur leaned even closer.
"And what makes me interesting, 'Arry?" Fleur asked, her voice cracking a little, her eyes full of emotion.
"Everything else. Everything they don't see." Harry confessed, touching her beautiful face.
Fleur kissed him first, rising on her toes to close the small distance between them. The kiss was different from their previous ones, it was fierce, claiming, victorious. They had faced their nightmares and won, and this kiss tasted like that triumph.
Harry's hands found her waist, pulling her closer, and Fleur made a small sound of approval that sent heat rushing through him. Her fingers moved from his chest up to his shoulders, his neck, tangling in his hair as the kiss deepened. When her tongue traced his lower lip, Harry opened to her, and suddenly they were pressed together so tightly that he could feel every curve of her body against his.
Fleur's hands slid down again, finding the hem of his shirt and slipping beneath it to touch bare skin. Her fingers traced the lean muscles of his chest. The sensation of her hands on his skin made Harry's brain get all stupid. He made an involuntary sound, something between a gasp and a groan, and Fleur's answering moan vibrated against his mouth.
Her nails scraped lightly over his abs, and Harry's hands tightened on her waist, pulling her impossibly closer. The kiss had gone from triumphant to hungry, all the fear and adrenaline and raw emotion of the past hours transforming into this.
Fleur broke the kiss only to trail her lips down his jaw, his neck, finding the pulse point there and making Harry want to tear her clothes off. Her hands continued their exploration under his shirt, mapping every ridge and plane of muscle, and when she moaned again—breathy and wanting—Harry thought he might actually die right here.
"Ahem."
They sprang apart like guilty fourth-years caught snogging in the corridors. Hermione stood a few feet away, arms crossed, eyebrows raised in an expression of amused exasperation. Beside her, Tonks grinned like Christmas had come early, her hair a particularly bright shade of purple that suggested she was in a mood to cause chaos.
"Don't stop on our account," Tonks said cheerfully. "That was just getting good. Though maybe find a room next time? Less chance of traumatizing passing students."
Harry's face felt hot enough to reignite the burns Madam Pomfrey had just healed. Fleur, to her credit, looked only mildly embarrassed, smoothing down her robes with a composure that suggested she wasn't at all sorry they'd been caught.
"How long have you been standing there?" Harry managed.
"Long enough to wonder if we should intervene before things got really inappropriate for a public space," Hermione said dryly. "You do remember we're still technically on school grounds, right? Where teachers and younger students might wander by?"
"We were behind ze viewing stand," Fleur pointed out, her accent more pronounced than usual. "Zat is 'ardly public."
"Behind a viewing stand is not the same as behind closed doors," Hermione countered, but she was smiling now. She stepped forward and hugged Harry carefully, mindful of his recently healed wounds. "I'm glad you're okay. We were so worried."
"I'm fine," Harry assured her, though the words felt inadequate given what he'd just been through. "Pomfrey fixed me up."
"Fixed the physical wounds," Tonks corrected, her expression turning serious for a moment. "That kind of mental trauma... that takes longer to heal. Trust me, I've seen it. You should talk to someone, Harry. A real mind healer, not just—"
"I will," Harry interrupted, partly because he knew she was right and partly because he really didn't want to have this conversation right now. "Later. Right now I just want to not think about it."
Tonks studied him for a moment, then nodded. "Fair enough. But I'm holding you to that, Potter. No brooding in silence like some tragic hero."
"I don't brood," Harry protested.
All three women looked at him with identical expressions of disbelief.
"Right," he amended. "I brood sometimes. A healthy, normal amount of brooding."
"Sure you do," Hermione said, patting his arm. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."
"Speaking of which," Tonks said, her grin returning, "There's apparently going to be a 'massive celebration' in Gryffindor Tower, and your presence is explicitly required as the guest of honor."
Harry groaned. "I'm exhausted, I just want to—"
"Nope," Hermione said firmly. "You're coming. The whole house has been waiting for hours to celebrate with you. You don't get to hide in your dormitory and process your trauma alone. That's literally the opposite of healthy coping."
"She's right," Fleur said, though she sounded reluctant. "You should celebrate wiz your 'ousemates. Zey care about you." She glanced at Hermione and Tonks, something complicated passing across her face. "I should return to ze carriage anyway. Madame Maxime will want to discuss my performance, and ze ozzer girls will want to 'ear about ze task."
"Will they throw you a party too?" Harry asked.
Fleur's smile was wry. "Per'aps. Zough I suspect it will be more subdued zan Gryffindor celebrations. We French prefer elegance to chaos."
"Boring," Tonks declared. "Chaos is where all the fun happens."
"Zis, I 'ave learned," Fleur said, meeting Harry's eyes with a look that made his stomach flip. She stepped closer, pressing a quick kiss to his lips that was chaste compared to moments ago but still left him slightly breathless. "Tomorrow, we will talk about our memories, oui? And what zey might tell us about ze second task."
"Tomorrow," Harry agreed.
Fleur nodded to Hermione and Tonks, then walked away toward the Beauxbatons carriage. Harry watched her go, still feeling the ghost of her hands on his chest, her mouth on his.
"You've got it bad," Tonks observed.
"Shut up," Harry said without heat.
"No, really. Like, puppy-dog-eyes, compose-bad-poetry, probably-think-about-her-when-you-should-be-focusing-on-other-things bad."
"I don't write poetry."
"Yet," Hermione added. "Give it time. Love makes fools of us all."
Harry looked between them, these two women who had somehow become important parts of his increasingly complicated life, and felt a surge of affection mixed with exasperation. "Are you two done?"
"Not even close," Tonks said cheerfully. "But we can continue the teasing while walking. Come on, Romeo. Your adoring fans await."