"Why am I here?" Nicholas muttered to himself as he stared at the sky.
From being disowned to teaching Potter, and his participation in the tournament, it was truly a bother to young Nicholas.
"To think I would one day be working together with a Gryffindor and a Muggle, truly, a disgrace to all purists out there."
The boy seemed to sense something as he kicked off from the tree he was hiding behind.
His judgement held true as rope darted around, wrapping around the thick trunk like a decoration before tightening with an audible snap. Without any pause, Eloise darted around, aiming her wand at Nicholas with a grin.
"Impedimenta!"
"Protego!"
Nicholas felt an invisible force smash against his created shield just as he heard a large snap. With an almost unreal force, the rope from before tore the tree it had wrapped around from its roots, revealing Fleur who held her wand up high. With a snap of her wrist, she brought down the tree on Nicholas who dispelled his shield, drawing his wand back in response.
"Diffindo!"
A swing of his wand sliced the tree cleanly in two, the two pieces falling on either side of him. He didn't waste a moment as he fired off two chant less spells at the wooden beams, which collapsed into a liquid like form, circling him in a vortex.
Flicking his left hand towards Fleur and his right with his wand at Eloise simultaneously, he willed the liquid wood to fire in both directions in a stream, almost spear like, fashion as it aimed to crush the crystals hanging around their necks.
"Bombarda!"
The two girls simultaneously fired off the same explosive spell at the liquid wood. With a large boom, Nicholas' spell was blasted to bits on both ends as he leapt back, using the resulting force of the two spells to gain some distance.
"Neither of them are giving me any time to chant," Nicholas noted as he rolled backwards before righting himself. "Even though I'm shielding my thoughts, Bernard still seems to see or feel my intent, seemingly able to relay it to Delacour.
"Delacour isn't someone to ignore either, apart from the beginning, she's seamlessly managed adapt to everything I'm throwing at them, and work around Bernard to cover her blind spots and vice versa. Her charm makes it difficult to pull my gaze away as well. Either of the two would have been troubling to deal with already, yet I'm stuck with two at the same time."
Chanting, a powerful tool if used correctly. While the prospect of being able to create or alter any spell on the fly sounds good on paper, in combat, it's limits really begin to show.
For one, concentration. Being tasked to create a solid image as well as form the words that follow under pressure is a task that even experienced wizards would find difficult. That also leads to the next and most important point, as well as chanting's biggest flaw:
Chanting is something that must be done through some form of communication, preferably vocal.
Impact, structure, and even the tone all blend together with feelings, all aiming towards the imagined outcome by creating a pathway for magic to flow through. Sure one can piece together the words in mind, but without some way to convey it, one would find it difficult to make so much as a spark. It can't be rushed either, it has to mean something, after all, chanting is a direct communication towards magic itself.
Another problem that comes about from such a detriment, is that in the midst of battle, chanting may often give an opponent a general idea of what you'll do. It should go without saying, that an enemy that knows your moves in advance would often have the advantage, and that holds doubly true for chanting out loud.
That said, it's not as if chanting is completely off the table either. With the right timing, setup, and precision, a single chant if done right can turn the tide of a duel in an instant. All that matters to Nicholas right now is how he'll achieve that, when his mind is both focused on defending from Eloise's mind-reading and reacting to Delacour's bombardment.
"Looks like I'll just have to get a little creative..." Nicholas muttered as he slid under a fallen tree to avoid another fired spell.
He aimed his wand as soon as he got up, eyeing the ground in front of the girls, where a small blueish light seemed to be placed.
"Bullare!"
A mass of bubbles sprouted from where the light had been placed, catching the girls off guard slightly as the spell rushed them with their reaction to put out a shielding charm, only for them to simply stare in confusion as the bubbles harmlessly rushed past them, with some even popping against their shields without so much as an effect.
"A dizstraction?" Eloise muttered feeling a small, strange lapse in her senses, enough that she almost missed seeing a blur of white stab towards her side.
She moved her charm in response as Nicholas' wand, its tip glowing a brilliant white, collided with the wispy shield.
"Expulso!"
With a mutter, the spell blasted Eloise backwards, sending her flying as she struggled to right herself mid-air. Eyeing a tree in her path she managed to fire a spell just before impact, turning the otherwise hard tree as soft as a pillow, allowing her to land safely as she sunk into the trunk.
Nicholas didn't let his guard down as he dashed to the side of Fleur who had her wand trained on him.
"Aquamenti!"
"Protego: Parry!"
A large torrent of water jet streamed towards Nicholas who once again swung his wand at the oncoming flood.
BOOM!
All of the water was blasted back, drenching Fleur who once again felt a strange force travel through her arm as it snapped back from an unseen force.
"It's that strange shield charm variation again," Fleur thought with some frustration as she shielded her face from the splash with her free hand. When she finally took a look back, Nicholas had almost reached her as his outstretched hand was about to crush the crystal at her neck.
Just as Fleur's elimination seemed certain, Nicholas all of a sudden pulled back as a red beam of light pierced in between the two before beginning to move towards Nicholas. With yet, another swing of his wand, he slammed it into the red beam, smacking it skyward, causing the connected Eloise's arm to also snap back.
"Almost," Nicholas sighed as he leaped back to avoid several branches that sprouted from the ground, courtesy of Fleur.
Magic surged beneath his feet as shimmering bubbles burst into existence, swelling just enough to bear his weight. Using their buoyancy, Nicholas kicked off the air itself, vaulting backward an extra span, before creating another set of bubbles that he also leaped off of.
The snapping branches fell just short, tearing through a few of the bubbles with sharp pops, but not all of them. The remaining spheres drifted lazily upward, bobbing away as the attack lost its reach.
"No matter, I'm about all set up," Nicholas muttered as he floated down to the ground slowly. "Now I just need to wait."
High above the three champions, at the barrier's top, several bubbles could be seen slowly making its way there. If one looked closely, bubbles could be seen linking up with one another, in groups of three.
The first group touched the barrier, popping in response to the sudden stimulus, and then—if one listened closely—a voice was heard.
"Take flight, burn bright, a wish on fleeting flames..."
...
CRASH!
Vincent leapt off a fallen tree before blasting a burst of ice from his wand, creating small ramps that he skated across, using quick pulse bursts to strengthen his momentum as he launched off, repeating the same process to zip around the forest, all the while holding one poor Harry still slung across his shoulder like some large inflated sack.
"Can you go slower?!" Harry asked pleadingly, feeling incredibly ill from the sudden movements.
Vincent created another ramp before blasting backward with his wand, taking liftoff as flames burnt down where he had just been standing earlier.
"Do you want us to get eaten?!" Vincent yelled back.
"I know.... I just... but I feel like I'm going to hurl..."
"Oh, don't you dare... I thought you were a Quidditch player for crying out loud?!"
"At least I had some control over my broom! Here I can't even see straight!"
"How about I run backwards for you then, huh?!"
"Wha—No! You'll crash!"
"Then you handle the dragons—alright, combo attack, get ready!"
"What-?!
Harry felt a moment of emptiness, his mind struggling to comprehend what was happening. When he finally regained himself, he found out why he felt that way:
Vincent had tossed him, hard, in the direction of one angry Horntail whose jaws were open and ready to receive Harry's airborne body.
Just then, a large pillar of ice shot up, slamming into the dragons jaw, and thereby redirecting its momentum pass Harry as he aimed his wand at one of the wings.
"Petrificus Totalis!"
Just like that, Harry's spell seemed to freeze the dragon's extended wing, throwing it off balance as it crashed behind him in a devastating crash.
He didn't get a moment to breathe when a flash of gold was seen hurtling down at him with an intense amount of weight behind it, only to be thwarted as an unknown force slammed into Harry, pushing him just far enough that the golden meteor missed, although the resulting shockwave still blasted him even further.
His eyes caught sight of silver as a rod came hurtling towards his landing point, and with a burst of blue, a large slide of ice was erected towards him.
Without wasting the chance, Harry pointed his wand at himself.
"Decendio!"
His momentum slowed as he dropped down fast onto the sloped slide.
"Nice one Harry!" Vincent called out as he caught Harry at the bottom, this time hefting him under his arm facing forward.
"You bloody could have killed me with that!" Harry yelled. "Also, your wand!"
"Don't worry...any second now."
Harry was about to ask Vincent what on earth he was talking about when he heard a loud crack and boom from behind. Looking back, he saw the Vincent's wand get launched back by a delayed pulse blast, heading in their general direction.
With a few leaps Vincent managed to clear the remaining distance, catching it without any difficulty as he landed on a fallen tree trunk.
"Yeah, this isn't working," Vincent muttered as he watched the Horntail get back up, with it's wing now back to functioning, with the Fireball not too far behind.
The Dretle stared at him with an almost gleeful look as it screeched at him. It then bent down to almost ground level before it leaped.
It's large body with a ridiculous weight cleared the trees above before it unfurled its wings, gaining the space needed to use them as it circled their location.
"Seriously, what the heck did you feed it?" Harry grumbled.
"Ask the tamers, I'm no longer looking after it," Vincent eyed the dragons as they started circling him. "With how aggravated they are, we can try and guide them to the circle. Although, if what Nott said was true, they might just keep their distance and bombard us with flames."
"Could probably blast one inside the circle if we get close enough..."
"Look at that Potter, Wong was able to come up with something in the midst of all that. A half-baked plan, but still, a truly remarkable ability to think under pressure. Meanwhile, here you are, being nothing more than a literal burden."
Harry was about to retort to himself before a flash of red caught his eye, quickly approaching the Fireball from the ground.
"It's Krum," Vincent said, having seen the same thing.
...
From a young age, Viktor Krum was taught a simple truth: effort meant nothing without victory.
Relatives lost to dark wizards had carved that lesson deep into him. It was a loss many Durmstrang students of his generation understood all too well, having known loved ones that disappear to the same senseless violence.
Muggleborn. Pureblood. The words were preached endlessly, but to Viktor, there was no difference. No matter how many times they were repeated, blood spilled the same color in the end.
So he trained. Relentlessly. He pushed his body past its limits, studied until exhaustion set in, and earned his place as one of the youngest professional Quidditch players in history.
He should have been happy.
He wasn't. Not even close.
Standing among his teammates after the World Cup loss, watching their shoulders slump and their faces fall, Viktor felt something unfamiliar settle in his chest. He had caught the Snitch. He had done everything expected of him. And yet, it hadn't been enough.
It left him feeling lost, as though everyone else understood something he didn't.
He wanted to be the best. Or at least, he thought he did.
The question that followed him was quieter, but far more persistent: Why did he want to be the best?
For as long as he could remember, Viktor had been moving forward because he could. Because others expected him to. Not because he truly knew what he wanted for himself.
Then came the rumors.
A Muggle attending Hogwarts. The first of his kind.
At first, Viktor scoffed. Wizards exaggerated everything. But the stories didn't fade, if anything, they grew. Accounts of feats both extraordinary and mundane filtered their way through the schools, persistent enough to catch his attention.
Vincent Wong.
He wanted to know why this boy fought the way he did. What drove him to throw himself into danger without the advantages every witch or wizard took for granted.
And now, with the chance to compete against him at last, Viktor felt something he couldn't quite describe, a feeling that he had almost forgotten.
Was it anticipation? Excitement?
He hoped he'd have his answer at the end of the Tournament.
...
Viktor Krum did not hesitate.
He ran straight toward the dragon.
To anyone watching, it looked suicidal. No opening chant. No spell prepared. Just a lone figure charging through scorched earth and splintered roots, a coil of rope slung over his shoulder.
The Fireball reared back its head as it prepared to torch Krum's incoming figure only for him to toss something directly into its face; a rock with glowing runes etched onto it.
With a flash of light, the stone turned into a dust cloud that smothered the Fireball's face, choking it mid inhale as its head thrashed side to side, coughing our small bursts of flame, one of which set fire to Krum's right sleeve.
The boy rushed on regardless, tearing the burning piece off with his bare hand and tossing it, seemingly not caring about the burns that resulted from such an action as he leaped onto the neck of the Fireball.
With a timed swing, aided by the continuous thrashing about, Krum was sent flying into the air before landing on top of the dragon's neck.
The rope came free in one smooth motion.
No spell guided it. No charm steadied his grip. The enchantment woven into the fibers waited, dormant, patient. It would not help him cheat.
It would only reward success.
He managed to loop it, once, twice, three times. His muscles bulged, straining from the effort it took to commit to the action, all the while the dragon bucked and roared beneath him, aiming to throw the boy off.
He pulled. Inch by inch. Breath by breath.
Until it held.
Only then did Krum exhale.
The Fireball shuddered. Its fury dulled, thoughts clouding as something unfamiliar settled in its mind. A connection. A presence bound through the rope at its throat.
Krum did not speak.
He didn't need to.
The dragon felt his intent all the same, steady and unyielding, and against its will, it found itself compelled to follow.
It felt... right.
"Holy... what on earth was that?" Vincent muttered, still staring.
Harry felt the same. The two of them stood rooted in place as Krum adjusted atop the Fireball, the massive dragon responding to his movements with surprising compliance.
Krum glanced their way and flashed a crooked grin. "I'll be taking zis."
Vincent barely had time to react before the Horntail lunged. He sprang back, the rush of displaced air singing past him. "I thought we weren't allowed items?"
"I 'ave a teammate 'vat is very good at making cursed tools."
"Wonderful...got a spare we can use?"
Krum chuckled, shaking his head as he turned the Fireball away.
"Heh... jus' one. I'll leave 've rest to you."
He glanced back at them, a crooked grin tugging at his lips.
"See you around."
And then he was gone. Dragon and all.
Vincent exhaled slowly, eyes flicking between the Dretle circling above and the Horntail stalking him from the ground.
"Great," he muttered. "Now what?"
Harry didn't answer. His mind replayed everything he had seen from the other champions so far.
Fleur's charm and lightning-fast reactions.
Eloise's ability to read and link her mind with others.
Sylvie's golem.
Nikolai's sharpshooting.
And now Krum's reckless charge, aided by a rope that was presumably crafted by Nina Fortner.
Every champion had revealed something extraordinary. Different paths of magic and an abundance of skills, each displayed with terrifying competence.
It was overwhelming.
It made Harry feel small.
"So," a voice echoed in his thoughts, "are you going to give up?"
Harry tuned out the world, sinking deeper into thought. Vincent's constant movement, the sway of combat and chaos around them, barely registered as he mulled over the question.
"Continuing then? You lack the experience, the vision, and the skill others have honed. How do you overcome that?"
Harry's eyes sharpened as they landed on Vincent.
Mad scientist.
That was the name others had given him. A boy who experimented with reckless intensity, regardless of danger, and somehow turned madness into results. Potions, devices, ideas no one else would even dare to try.
For some reason, Harry's thoughts drifted to Dumbledore.
He remembered his first year on the train to Hogwarts, telling Ron that the Headmaster was a little off his rocker. Not unhinged, just... willing to think differently.
'What makes a witch or wizard strong?' Nicholas' final words echoed clearly now.
Harry inhaled.
"Creating a solution to any scenario," he muttered, "and making it work, no matter how insane it is."
"You say something, Harry?!" Vincent shouted as he narrowly avoided a golden dive-bomb from the Dretle, immediately blasting the Horntail away with his wand.
A plan began to form.
It was stupid. Reckless. Almost certainly dangerous.
But it was a plan.
His plan.
And he was going to make it work.
"Sometimes, all it takes to succeed is a little bit of madness. Seems like you're finally getting it."
"Vince, I've got something."
Vincent glanced at him, gold eyes meeting emerald. For a brief moment, Vincent thought they glowed with something new. Resolve.
He grinned at his friend. "Alright. I'm listening."
...
"How is this happening?" Fleur thought, frustration tightening her jaw. "How is one person holding us off like this?"
Once again, the three champions found themselves locked in a standoff. Beauxbatons spells hammered toward Nicholas in relentless succession, leaving him little room to breathe. Yet he moved through the storm with unnerving precision, deflecting and evading through even the smallest of gaps.
Still, cracks were beginning to show.
Nicholas was slower now than when the fight had begun. Dirt streaked his robes, fabric torn in more than one place. Every shallow breath, every imperfect step, spoke to how close this battle had come to ending.
No, how close it still was.
"Easy, Fleur," Eloise's voice echoed calmly in her mind. "He's tiring, but he's still sharp enough to exploit any mistake we make. We can't afford to slip now that Sylvie's been eliminated."
Fleur exhaled slowly, forcing the frustration out with her breath. Her focus sharpened. With a flick of her wand, she sent a flock of transfigured birds spiraling toward Nicholas from multiple angles at once.
He answered instantly.
A spray of sparks burst outward from his wand, detonating the birds mid-flight in a violent explosion of feathers. Before they could even hit the ground, Nicholas swept his wand in a tight arc, gathering the debris back together. Feathers hardened into stone in an instant, and he hurled them straight back at the two girls with lethal force.
Fleur took the brunt, using her shielding charm to block for Eloise as well as herself, whom took the chance to pick up some of the fallen stones before tossing them up high above, aiming at it with her wand.
"Engorgio!"
The small stones turned into boulders as it fell towards Nicholas whose wand glowed a familiar blue as he swung at the oncoming attack.
"Protego: Parry!"
With an earth-shattering sound, the first and foremost boulder exploded into chunks, the force seemingly traveling even beyond the boulder and to the other ones as they too ruptured as they flew back towards the girls, bouncing off harmlessly off of Fleur's shield, although it did nothing for the shockwave they felt was over them as they both skidded back from the force.
"That strange variation again," Fleur complained inwardly.
"He must have attached several conditions and rules for it to exert such power," Eloise analyzed.
"You still can't read his mind?" Fleur asked.
Eloise shook her head. "He hasn't yet slipped up with his defenses. The most I can gather is an 'intent' towards things I can generally perceive. I can only predict when he'll act, not how he'll act. That said...he's most definitely planning something, and the time on when he'll act on it is fast approaching."
"About an hour left, if I'm counting right," Nicholas said, his voice cutting cleanly through their thoughts. "Doesn't leave you with much time, does it?"
All three stood with wands raised, each trained on the others, muscles coiled and ready to fire at the slightest twitch.
"I could say ze same to you," Fleur replied curtly.
Nicholas shrugged. "Fair. But tell me, is Flamel eliminated?"
Silence answered him.
Nicholas tilted his head, a knowing look crossing his face. "Ah. I see."
"Well then," he continued lightly, "since we're all running short on time, and I don't even know whether my teammates are still in this, what do you say we call it here and move on?"
"V'hat? And give up after all of zis vork?" Eloise laughed. "Not a chance."
Nicholas sighed. "That's a shame. I was hoping to avoid a double knockout."
The girls stiffened as he tapped a finger against his temple.
"Tell you what," he said. "I'll give you a quick preview of what comes next."
"Eloise, what is he—?!" Fleur started.
Then Eloise gasped, having accepted Nicholas' open invitation to look into his mind.
"No way," she blurted, blood draining from her face as she stared skyward. Fleur followed her gaze.
High above them, the protective barrier flickered violently. Its vast surface began collapsing inward, all its energy condensing into a single point glowing a furious red. Around that shrinking shell, tiny black silhouettes of witches and wizards scrambled in chaos, racing to contain the damage.
...
"What's happening to the barrier?!"
"I don't know—it's destabilizing! All of its energy is being forced into a single point!"
"Can we fix it? What if we remove the bubbles?!"
"That might cause it to prematurely explode, we could all get caught up in it!"
They were just about to act when a transparent, wispy blue eagle manifested before them. Every voice died at once—save for one.
"That's Amelia Bones' Patronus... right?"
Before anyone could answer, the eagle burst apart, dissolving into a fine mist that swept through the air. It passed through every witch and wizard present, flooding their minds with the same message all at once.
"She... wants us not to interfere?"
"It would seem so. Tournament rules."
Another voice cut in sharply, urgency overriding disbelief. "She's also ordering a secondary barrier erected immediately after the first breaks! If those dragons realize they're no longer caged—"
"—they'll tear through everything," someone finished grimly. "Get to it, and stay clear, who knows how big of a blast that spell will be."
The security team scattered into motion, panic barely contained, as more bubbles popped upon touching the barrier, each one collapsing into motes of light that streamed toward the growing singularity, feeding the spell further.
Then, beneath it all, a voice echoed.
"...I herald the beginning and the end..."
...
"I suggest you eliminate yourselves within the next minute," Nicholas said calmly, spreading his hands. "Unless you'd like to experience firsthand how the dinosaurs went extinct."
"Fleur, launch me!" Eloise shouted, already moving. She leveled her wand at herself as Fleur snapped hers into position without hesitation.
"Ascendio!"
"Alarte Ascendare!"
The spells synchronized perfectly.
Eloise was hurled skyward, her small frame rocketing upward at a velocity just shy of breaking the sound barrier.
At that speed, a normal human would have suffered catastrophic internal damage from pressure, inertia, and sheer force.
Thankfully, Eloise was not a normal human.
A silent auxiliary charm woven into her casting dampened the strain, redistributing force along her body and bleeding off excess pressure. It was a technique commonly used by professional broom riders, but here it proved its worth in a far deadlier application.
Their plan was simple—detonate the condensed spell early before it could complete itself. A well placed explosive spell would do the trick. So their first thought was to get enough distance cleared to avoid Nicholas' possible intervention to their actions.
But in their urgency, the Beauxbatons champions made one fatal mistake.
They gave their opponent time.
"Let loose, oh arrow that pierces the sky," Nicholas intoned calmly, "sail forth and bring down the moon..."
Fleur's eyes widened in horror as realization struck. She spun, wand snapping toward him.
Too slow.
Adrenaline flooded her system, stretching the world into something thick and sluggish. Her limbs felt heavy, unresponsive. She caught only a glimpse of Nicholas' smirk—
—and then he finished the spell.
"Decendio!"
The detonation cracked the air.
If Eloise's ascent had nearly broken the sound barrier, then Nicholas' spell obliterated it. The shockwave alone threatened to tear Fleur's eardrums apart as she was thrown back from the mere force emitted during its release.
"Eloise! Behind you!"
Hearing Fleur's panicked thoughts through their link, Eloise twisted midair, turning to face the oncoming spell as it screamed toward her.
She didn't hesitate.
"Protego!"
The shield formed just in time.
It shattered an instant later.
The impact was overwhelming. Empowered by momentum and reshaped by Nicholas's chant, the spell tore straight through her hastily raised defense, exploding it into motes of light and hurling her violently aside.
"It didn't hit me?"
The thought flickered through her mind before realization struck. Her gaze snapped upward.
"No... it was never meant for me."
The spell continued past her, unimpeded, and slammed into the red orb overhead.
The reaction was immediate.
The sphere pulsed, swelling outward before contracting, its surface warping as it began to descend. Slowly at first, then faster, accelerating as gravity and magic conspired together.
Eloise stared up at the growing catastrophe and let out a tired sigh, "Fleur... call it in. We've lost this one."
Her free hand rose to the crystal at her neck. She was just about to crush it when faint voices reached her ears.
"...spirit... condense... gather..."
She froze.
Below the orb, streams of shimmering bubbles had begun to converge, clustering beneath the descending sphere. With every pop, fragments of the chant spilled into the air, feeding the spell.
Understanding dawned.
"So that's how he did it." A small, rueful smile tugged at her lips as she watched the spectacle unfold.
"Ah well. There are still two more challenges." Her gaze sharpened. "Nicholas Nott, huh? Consider this your victory."
She crushed the crystal.
Her body dissolved into light, leaving behind only an empty sky—and a massive orb of unstable energy, moments from rupture.
Had she stayed a second longer, she would have heard the final words of the chant.
"...echo in an era of ruin, I dub thee—"
"—The Red Comet."
...
Nicholas stared up as the comet fell toward him, his free hand absently rolling the crystal between his fingers. Fleur was already gone, having crushed her crystal immediately after receiving Eloise's signal, leaving him alone to face the consequence of his own making.
Chanting was a powerful tool with many layers and complexities to it. Yet if one were to simplify it to the unlearned, it could be boiled down to three points—communication, intent, and precise visualization.
Three things that were almost impossible to sustain while under constant spellfire and active mental intrusion.
With Eloise pressing into his thoughts, Nicholas had been forced to divide his mind between reaction and resistance. He couldn't afford to guess how deep her Legilimency reached. That uncertainty left him only one reliable option.
Hide his thoughts behind other thoughts.
There were cleaner methods. Formal defenses. Trained mental partitions. But all of them slowed him down. This approach, crude as it was, let him think and act at full speed—at the cost of focus. With his mind layered and obscured, shaping intent and visualization into a chant became unreliable at best.
So he found a work around.
Instead of holding the spell together himself, he broke it apart using a medium to carry it out.
Bubbles.
In one set, he imbued the words.
In another, the intent.
In the last, the outcome he had already visualized.
Individually, they were meaningless. Together, when gathered, they completed the spell without needing his continued input.
An automated construct.
All it required was a destination.
That had been prepared earlier. The pillar of flame he and Potter had raised together had licked the very top of the dome, scorching his magic into the barrier itself. A beacon. A convergence point.
While magic doesn't have to be a one for one in terms of giving and taking, an energy source is generally appreciated and preferred to power spells, and the barrier itself could be identified as one, no?
Once everything was in motion and set, all Nicholas had to do was wait, continually counting, keeping track of when the spell would reach completion.
And now the comet was coming down on him.
He considered, idly, whether this would be the sensible moment to crush his crystal and be done with it.
After all—
—he had no control over the spell anymore.
That was the price of automation. He could shape the beginning, influence the process, but the result no longer belonged to him. It was being fed by the barrier itself, a construct powered by the combined magic of dozens of witches and wizards.
In simple terms, if he stayed, there was a very real chance he would die by his own hand.
Ten seconds to impact.
'I think this is the perfect moment to cut loose, and tell everyone to shove it, don't you think?'
Vincent's words echoed in his mind.
Nicholas' fingers stilled.
"Cut loose, huh?" he murmured, rolling his shoulder and cracking his neck. He tugged his sleeve up, exposing his forearm. "I've already shown off a lot today. I suppose one last move won't hurt."
Five seconds.
The soft jingle of the zipper by his mouth sounded absurdly loud to him, even as the sphere of death closed in.
Three seconds.
His wand flared to life, glowing a vivid blue as he drew it back, posture mirroring a swordsman on the brink of a draw.
Two seconds.
The pressure hit him then—an oppressive weight, dense and suffocating, as though the air itself were trying to crush him flat. His wand felt pitifully small in comparison.
One second.
The surrounding trees flattened.
His skin burned, yet he didn't flinch.
Zero.
"Protego: Parry."
With that, Nicholas swung.
The wand struck the comet head-on, his expression calm and focused even as the world erupted into light and fire around him.
...
RUMBLE!
The stadium shook.
Viewing screens flickered wildly as panic rippled through the stands. Students cried out, grabbing at one another as the ground trembled beneath their feet.
And then—far in the distance—a towering pillar of red light tore through the sky.
The source of it all.
Slowly, the pillar faded. Moments later, a new barrier snapped into place around the champions' battlefield, sealing it once more.
The crowd remained frozen, stunned into silence by what they had just witnessed.
"M-m-m-Merlin's beard!" Bagman stammered, his voice cracking. "What on earth just happened?!"yh
That was all it took.
The stadium erupted into noise.
"What the hell was that?!"
"Was that actually a student?!"
"Is he still alive?!"
"How do you cast something like that?!"
Even the judges were no calmer, leaning toward one another in hurried discussion.
"That was excessive," Igor Karkaroff said sharply, eyes locked on Dumbledore, who looked entirely unfazed. "Is your student even alive?"
"I vould quite agree," Madame Maxime added, her tone tight, having just checked up on her champions. "My students vere in the middle of that. Vat exactly are you teaching at Hogwarts? And vhy did Madam Bones not intervene?"
Madam Bones folded her hands. "Had anything gone wrong, Headmistress Maxime, I would have taken full responsibility. But we all saw the same footage. Mr. Nott warned Miss Delacour and Miss Eloise well in advance. They had ample time to withdraw—and did so of their own accord."
She paused, then continued, "Additionally, Professor Dumbledore has informed me that the crystals possess a failsafe. Should he deem any participant in immediate danger, he may activate a forced Portkey return. No manual activation required."
Karkaroff's gaze snapped back to Dumbledore. "And you neglected to mention this earlier why?"
Dumbledore scratched his cheek.
"...I forgot."
Silence fell.
"You... forgot?" Madame Maxime repeated.
"It quite slipped my mind," Dumbledore said mildly, clearing his throat. "But now everyone knows, so—well—no harm done?"
The judges stared at him.
Dumbledore chuckled weakly.
"As for what I've taught Mr. Nott," he continued, "very little, actually. He's a seeker by nature—constantly asking questions. I've shown him the occasional wand flourish, but most of our time is spent discussing perspectives on magic, not instruction."
"In short," he concluded pleasantly, "he's largely self-taught."
"And possibly dead," Karkaroff scoffed, turning back to the screens—only to freeze. "What—how—?!"
The image resolved.
There stood Nicholas Nott.
His wand arm sleeve was shredded, skin burned and scraped, but he remained upright, unphased even, and unmistakably alive.
The camera pulled back.
The stadium gasped.
Everything within a hundred meters—save for a small circle around Nicholas—had been scorched several feet into the ground. Heat still shimmered above the blackened earth.
"Most of the energy vented upward," Madam Bones murmured. "Had it detonated fully at ground level, the damage would have been catastrophic."
Madame Maxime stared. "You are telling me zat boy redirected magic on zat scale alone?"
"It appears so."
In the stands, Ron and Hermione could only stare.
"Are all seventh years like this?" Ron whispered.
"Is Percy?" Hermione shot back.
"...I don't think so," Ron said uncertainly. "Mum, maybe..."
"Look!" Hermione pointed, pushing aside her growing curiosity for the safety of her friends. "Harry and Vincent are back on screen. Wait—did they split up?"
They had.
On one screen, Harry stood perfectly still, chanting. His eyes were locked on something unseen, each word deliberate, shaping something that had yet to exist.
"What do you think he's doing?" Ron asked.
"He said he had a plan before Nott blew up the forest," Hermione said faintly. "Where's Vince—oh."
On another screen, Vincent darted between two dragons, weaving through flame, claws, and snapping jaws with barely a hair's breadth in between.
"He looks tired," Ron frowned. "You think he's exhausted?"
"He's been chased by dragons for over an hour," Hermione said. "That'd drain anyone." Her gaze shifted. "Krum's still moving. Looks like he'll reach his base in five to ten minutes."
Ron swallowed. "So Harry and Vince have maybe five minutes to finish this... or Durmstrang wins?"
"That's what it looks like," Hermione said quietly.
She clasped her hands together.
"Please... be safe."
...
Vincent saw the beam of light, he felt the vibrations and heard the explosion. He wanted to so desperately check on what had happened, but seeing the barrier close up again immediately after, he could safely assume that no one had been hurt, otherwise someone would have forcibly stopped this trial, at least, he'd like to think they would.
The explosion made the dragons hesitate for a moment, enough time for Vincent to slam a large hammer of ice into the Dretle's head, once again enraging it as it, along with the Horntail, resumed its pursuit of him.
He needed their attention, their focus on him. He swung again, this time at the Horntail, smacking its claws to the side before tossing his weapon into its face, creating a shower of ice upon impact that the Dretle clawed through, aiming to tear him apart.
'Three minutes! I need exactly three minutes before you can bring them back!'
"Somewhat of a tall order if you ask me," Vincent sighed as he vaulted over and onto the outstretched claw. "That said—"
With one leap, Vincent slammed his wand into Dretle's chin, a sharp booming noise sounding as he did so, with the result of the dragon's head snapping backwards along with the rest of its body as it fell onto it's back.
Vincent landed on top of its belly, staring it right in the eye as it glared at him hatefully.
"My friend is trying his best right now, it'd be a bit shameful of me not to do the same," Vincent flashed a grin at the outraged Dretle.
...
"An impenetrable fort—build, rise. One that can weather any storm, halt any advance..."
Any other time, Harry would have cringed at the words spilling from his mouth.
They were clumsy. Half-formed. The grammar was a mess, the phrasing riddled with gaps. But he didn't stop. He couldn't. He voiced every fragment of thought as it surfaced, clinging to the image in his mind and refusing to let it slip.
'Water walking?' Harry had asked during the first lesson of their training, just a week ago.
'You need to be able to continuously feed the imagery,' Nicholas had replied. 'Even with distractions. Walking on water through chanting alone is a foundational exercise, keeping yourself afloat while moving, all while your focus stays locked on the task. Master that, and you'll have something solid to build everything else on.'
'And I'm meant to do that in a week?'
Nicholas had met his eyes, unflinching. 'No. You need to do it in a week if you want any chance of winning this tournament with your own strength. If you want to excel, you'll do it. Otherwise, stay exactly where you are, and let Wong carry you to the finish line. I'm sure he won't mind.'
The memory shattered as the ground trembled.
An ear-splitting explosion tore through the air, nearly ripping his concentration apart. The magic he'd gathered lurched and twisted, turning unstable as panic clawed its way in.
"No...not now," Harry ground out, teeth clenched as control slipped through his fingers. "I can't fail now. Not after all this."
Then...silence.
A strange calm washed over him, so absolute it felt like time had stopped.
A voice echoed in his head.
"How pathetic. You can't even manage something that simple."
"Shut up..."
"Do you need me to hold your hand, Potter?"
"...Shut up."
"Why not leave it to me? I can do what you can't with a flick of the wrist. No one would know. You'd still get the glory."
"SHUT UP!"
A pause.
"...Very well. Do as you please."
Time lurched back into motion.
The ground rumbled beneath his feet, and Harry dragged his focus back by sheer force of will.
"I stand immovable against all forces," he shouted, pressing the base of his wand to his forehead. "Unshaken. Unbroken. No man nor beast shall move me—"
"Amongst a field of stone..."
"Across the armies of heaven..."
"Thy voice rings loud into the stars—"
A thunderous crash erupted to his right.
Vincent burst into view, the two dragons surging after him. They exchanged a single nod as they passed—nothing more needed. Harry kept chanting as Vincent vaulted onto a branch, swung once, and launched back the way he'd come, narrowly avoiding the Horntail's dive as it tore beneath him.
The Dretle shrieked, swiping with a massive claw. Vincent surged upward at the last second, sliding along the length of its arm as frost bloomed in his wake.
He didn't slow.
Ice traced his path as he zipped around the creature—claws, legs, wings, torso—layer after layer freezing over as the dragon thrashed, unable to burn it away with its jaw locked solid in ice.
At the edge of Harry's vision, a black spike of flame began to form as the Horntail inhaled.
"As if I'll let you," Vincent snapped.
A bolt of ice was fired from his wand, slamming into the Horntail's mouth, freezing it from the inside out. The dragon gagged, jaws snapping shut as it crushed the ice apart. It was an inconvenience, nothing more.
But the delay was enough.
Vincent landed behind the Dretle and slammed his wand into the ground.
Ice surged outward, flash-freezing the earth into a wide, slick plain that ran straight beneath the Horntail, locking its limbs in place.
Realization dawned in the Dretle's eyes just as Vincent leapt, wand drawn back.
"Bang."
The impact was earth-shattering.
The absurdly oversized beetle-dragon was launched bodily into the immobilized Horntail, panic flashing through both as they collided in a violent tangle of limbs, wings, and roaring fury. They skidded across the ice, plowing through trees and undergrowth—
—and came skidding to a halt mere meters from Harry Potter.
He stared at them, terrifyingly calm, his emerald eyes almost seem to be glowing as he did so.
As they struggled to rise, a massive wave of ice surged over them, sealing the pair together in a single frozen shell. Neither had time to gather the strength to break free.
Harry's chant reached its end.
"I command all beneath me—rise."
The ground exploded.
...
"..."
"..."
"...Huh?"
The stands were utterly still.
Every spectator stared, gobsmacked, at the massive screen before them. The judges and teachers weren't spared either, with McGonagall frozen mid-breath, Bagman blinking rapidly, and even Dumbledore looked, for once, genuinely nonplussed, although a small trace of amusement lingered in his eyes.
Then a single voice cut through the silence, more questioning than anything else.
"Did Harry just... toss the dragons?" Arnya asked.
In the distance, the image resolved: a colossal pillar of stone jutting skyward, formed almost instantly as Harry's chant ended. And sailing through the air—
The frozen shell containing both dragons.
They spun helplessly, claws and wings thrashing inside the ice as they hurtled toward a single destination.
The circle.
The designated capture zone for the Hogwarts champions.
"...Please make it," Hermione whispered, bouncing anxiously on the balls of her feet.
The screens zoomed out, reframing the shot. Dragons. Circle. Trajectory. Every display pushed the moment front and center as the crowd leaned in collectively.
"They're not going to make it," someone muttered.
"It's off..." another sighed. "Just a bit—"
They were right. The spell had the distance, but the angle was wrong. The dragons would overshoot the mark.
"Hey—what's that light?"
A streak of brilliance cut across the sky.
BOOM!
A second shockwave thundered through the arena as the ice casing shattered—not outward, but forward. The blast redirected the dragons in a violent arc—
Straight into the circle.
"No way..."
The moment they hit the ground, chains erupted from below, one after another, snapping around limbs, wings, and torsos. The dragons roared and struggled, but the bindings held fast, dragging them down until both lay immobilized within the ring.
"...What was that?" someone breathed.
"...Wait."
"...Wait, does that mean—"
A beat.
"...Did Hogwarts just win?"
Silence.
Then—
"NO WAY!"
The stands exploded.
Cheers roared like thunder, students leaping to their feet, fists pumping into the air. Red and gold banners waved wildly as screams of triumph drowned out everything else.
"HOGWARTS!"
"DID YOU SEE THAT?!"
"HE THREW THEM—HE ACTUALLY THREW THEM!"
Hermione let out a breathless laugh, hands clapped over her mouth. Ron was yelling incoherently. Somewhere, Fred and George were screaming their lungs out.
And at the center of it all, on the screen—
Harry Potter and Vincent Wong both lay there completely worn out, unaware of the storm they had just created.
...
"Vince... still alive?"
"...Barely. You?"
"...Feel like I'm about to throw up. World's spinning. Head's killing me. Other than that—peachy."
"...Good to hear."
"..."
"..."
"...Vince?"
"...Yeah?"
"...Your arms are broken, aren't they?"
"...Just a bit. Might've overdone it on that last move."
"...Then how'd you fire the final ice blast?"
"...Held the wand in my mouth."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"..."
"..."
"...I'm gonna pass out now. Wake me when it's all over."
"...Same. If you wake up first, do the same for me."
"Deal."
"..."
"..."
"...Just another year at Hogwarts, huh?"
Harry exhaled slowly, eyes fixed on the open sky above them.
"Yeah," he murmured. "Just another year at Hogwarts."
...
High above, Nicholas Nott stood balanced atop a tree branch, wand lowering as the glowing motes of light, the remains of his spell, faded.
He looked out over the restrained dragons, where wizards and witches were struggling to contain the two beasts that were thrashing about.
The circle that was made to contain the two dragons was made to contain one, not two. Hence, the desperate struggle to maintain the two dragons from escaping.
He then looked toward where the two boys lay sprawled on the ground.
"...They actually pulled it off," he muttered. "Who would've thought."
His gaze lingered for a moment longer before he shook his head with a sigh escaping his lips.
"Honestly," Nicholas added dryly, "those two are a nightmare."
"What a pain."
...
Alternative chapter name - End of the First Task
...