Beyond the maze, in the towering stands.
The colossal water-screen shimmered faintly, showing the chaos within in rippling, half-transparent images.
They watched an Auror gently lift the dazed, eliminated Fleur Delacour to safety.
They watched Cedric Diggory, teeth bared in grim triumph, drive a blazing greatsword straight through the breastplate of the black knight.
And then—right at the heart of the labyrinth—they saw it.
The towering stone statue of the Queen of Hearts swung one colossal hand and sent Viktor Krum flying like a discarded rag doll.
"???"
The stands fell deathly silent for half a heartbeat before erupting.
"That black knight wasn't even the final boss?!"
"This task is completely unbalanced—it's just whatever Ethan felt like throwing at us!"
"Ethan Vincent, how many more horrors do you have waiting?!"
Ron exhaled, already resigned. "Right. In a minute we can go dig Harry out of the dirt he's been pasted into."
One casual slap had shattered the bones of the strongest Durmstrang champion. Harry's smaller frame wouldn't even leave a smear.
Hermione, hands clasped so tightly her knuckles went white, muttered prayers under her breath like a frantic healer. "Ethan wouldn't make something unbeatable… maybe the weakness is the heart? Just like with real Obscurials…"
She stared harder at the screen, eyes narrowing at the roiling black mist pouring from the statue's chest.
It looked exactly like the shattered [Black Egg] from the second task.
This wasn't nearly simple gargoyle hunt.
Far away in the officials' box, Ludo Bagman kept mopping his forehead with a trembling handkerchief.
He felt as though Maxime and Karkaroff were roasting him alive with their glares alone.
It was over. The moment Harry and Cedric survived this last nightmare, the Triwizard glory belonged to Hogwarts beyond all doubt.
Bagman risked a glance at Dumbledore, expecting serene pride.
Instead he found the old headmaster frozen, half-moon spectacles flashing, face drained of color—an expression Bagman had never seen on him before.
Not against Grindelwald.
Not against Voldemort in his prime.
If Rita Skeeter were here, she'd have jammed her Quick-Quotes Quill straight into Dumbledore's beard and cackled all the way to press.
Bagman frowned at the screen. Yes, a giant animated statue was impressive, but they'd already seen dragons. Why would—
He didn't know the statue's face.
Dumbledore did.
"Ariana…"
The name left the headmaster's lips as the faintest breath, yet it carried the weight of a century.
His heart spasmed—knife-sharp, familiar pain.
Decades had passed. His auburn hair had gone silver, the Muggle boys who hurt her were dust, and still the wound had never closed.
Yet here she was, carved in merciless stone, features twisted into eternal anguish, black Obscurus raging where her heart should have been.
His little sister.
The Queen of Hearts—the final guardian—was Ariana Dumbledore.
How could Ethan possibly know that face?
Had he spoken to Aberforth? No—Aberforth would sooner hex someone than speak her name to a student.
And that mist… identical to the one Ethan had unleashed in the lake.
Dumbledore's eyes darkened behind his spectacles. Magic crackled faintly around him; his beard lifted as though caught in a storm only he could feel.
To his left, Karkaroff took two instinctive steps back, pale as parchment.
Dumbledore… angry?
He had only ever seen that look aimed across a duel at the Dark Lord himself.
"Ethan Vincent," Dumbledore whispered, robes beginning to billow though there was no wind. "Is this your idea of a 'reunion'?"
To drag his sister's likeness from the grave, bind an Obscurus to her stone corpse, and force children to destroy her again—for art?
He should have realized sooner.
Ethan did not feel things the way normal people did.
All that mattered to him was the perfect tableau, the grand twisted joke.
And he was, after all, only fourteen.
Dumbledore closed his eyes, forced his trembling hands still, and endured—exactly as he had for the last hundred years.
Inside the maze.
BOOM!
The statue's palm slammed down again, unable to bear its own torment.
Dust exploded outward in a choking wave.
"Hu—hu—!"
Harry rolled desperately, tasting soil and blood as the shockwave hurled him sideways.
No time to check on Krum's broken body.
Only the monster in front of him mattered.
He scrambled up, wand raised. "Incendio!"
A roaring jet of fire lanced toward the black mist coiled in the statue's chest.
The flames vanished the instant they touched it, swallowed whole.
Bloody hell—it's completely immune!
Harry's stomach dropped.
He finally understood just how terrifying Luna and Ethan had been during the second task—banishing something like this in a single strike.
[Aaaaaah—!!!]
A scream tore through the sky, raw and childlike, making every thorn and rose in the maze quiver.
Thick black tears oozed from the statue's stone eyes like tar.
The mist churned harder, spilling onto the ground where it coalesced into twisted, faceless silhouettes—Obscurus fragments wearing human shape.
They drifted toward him, hollow mouths gaping.
It can summon adds too?!
Harry bit back a curse and fired again. "Incendio!"
One shadow caught fire, shrieking [Kill me—please kill me—!] in a voice that sounded exactly like a terrified little girl.
The cry was so real, so desperate, that Harry's wand arm faltered mid-spell.
For one fatal second he hesitated.
Wind roared from his left.
He caught only a glimpse of the descending stone palm—large enough to flatten him into paste.
Time slowed.
Why did Ethan make us fight this?
Just to teach us that sometimes the enemy looks like an innocent girl—and we still have to kill her?
The thought flashed white-hot—then—
CLANG!
Harry's body did not become red mist.
Metal rang on stone with a sound like a church bell.
The gale reversed, blasting outward.
Cedric Diggory stood between Harry and death, glowing greatsword braced with both hands, boots carving furrows in the earth.
The stands exploded.
"DIGGORY! DIGGORY! DIGGORY!"
"That's my boy!" Amos Diggory leapt onto his seat, arms flung wide, shouting it to the entire stadium.
George Weasley grinned despite himself. "Always thought that pretty-boy swagger was insufferable. Suddenly I don't hate it."
High above, untouched by the chaos, Ethan Vincent watched with diamond-bright eyes and the faintest smirk.
"Push a person far enough," he murmured, voice soft and amused, "and even Cedric Diggory finds something ferocious inside."
He glanced at an invisible mental timer.
"About time for the finale."
His gaze slid to Harry—muddy, bleeding, staring at Cedric in stunned gratitude.
"The real ordeal begins now, Savior."
Ethan flicked his wrist.
A circle of liquid shadow opened in the air before him like a wound in reality.
He cast one last look at the desperate stand below, smiled a smile that was somehow both boyish and dreadful, and stepped through.
The portal snapped shut behind him without a sound.
Back in the heart of the maze.
Through swirling dust Harry gaped at Cedric—Cedric—who had apparently Apparated in front of certain death.
Cedric turned, flashing the same heroic, mud-streaked grin he wore in every adventure serial.
"You know what, Harry?" he panted. "Under all that ridiculous armor… there was absolutely nothing inside the black knight!"
Magical energy crackled over his torn robes, muscles straining.
"Hrah—!"
BOOM!
Cedric shoved the massive palm away, the recoil hurling him backward to crash and roll across the ground.
"Cedric!"
Harry blasted another shadow, then darted forward to haul the Hufflepuff upright.
Cedric coughed, forced a crooked smile.
He pressed something into Harry's hand—a single thorny rose stem, still budding scarlet, pulsing faintly with magic.
"This came off the knight when I broke him. It's the only thing that can kill the Queen."
His voice was hoarse but steady.
"Go, Harry. Drive it straight into the Obscurus in her chest."
Cedric gripped Harry's shoulder, gray eyes fierce.
"Finish the task. Bring the Cup home."