Fleur, it seemed, had already given up trying to sneak past it with a simple disillusionment- it could read air currents so well, it could practically feel the champions' breaths. Instead, she was slowly approaching the Zuu on her broom, backwards. Why was she doing that? thought Harry. As he continued to approach, he saw Fleur cast a few spells, when the Zuu tried to peck at Fleur. She bolted forward to a safe distance, and then repeated. Of course... racing broom. Forwards is the only direction she can move quickly with that thing.
When Krum arrived, he went for the direct approach. He flew straight into spell-casting range and launched a bone-breaking curse at the massive creature. Amazingly, it dodged the spell and recovered immediately, hovering in front of its nest without even flapping its wings.
Thankfully, although the bird was quite large and magically powerful, it wasn't exactly magic-resistant. Direct attacks would take more power to have effect simply because it was a larger creature, but its skin and feathers didn't deflect magic like dragon scale or basilisk hide. Harry and Fleur felt the same way, and as Cedric finally caught up, all four of them decided to attack simultaneously. The massive creature would have difficulty dodging four spells at once. Fleur decided to blind it first with a Light Flash. Unfortunately, it could still tell where they all were, but it did make it easier to hit with more spells. Harry kept with stunners, not wanting to kill the creature, while Cedric attempted to slow it down with impediment jinxes. Krum kept tossing bone-breakers, reductors, and slicing hexes, but the Zuu seemed to know which spells were the deadliest and dodged them. Fleur continued trying to distract it, conjuring some simple pigeons and banishing loose rocks at the massive bird, but it swept them all away, along with the champions, with another massive gust of wind. It wasn't until Krum finally managed to hit one wing with a bone-breaking hex that the Zuu could no longer generate its gusts, but it could still hover menacingly in front of its nest. It also seemed less nimble now, with one of its wings folded awkwardly, and it only took another few tries before Krum connected another bonebreaker with the other wing. Seizing the opportunity, Krum flew around it, and Harry knew this was the best time for him as well. The two of them had the most manoeuvrable brooms out of the four, and now they only had to contend with the Zuu's beak and talons. While Cedric and Fleur kept launching more spells to try to disable the bird further, Harry and Krum went on opposite sides of the bird to the nest behind it.
The Zuu knew that Krum was the one who had injured it badly, and decided to attack him with its talons first. Harry's relief didn't last long, as the bird turned around and decided to try to catch both of them at once, one with each claw. Harry concentrated on dodging, while Krum set another powerful spell at the bird's foot, causing it to recoil in pain. Cedric, now facing the bird's back, decided to charge ahead, conjuring thick ropes to lasso its head. He then conjured more rope to tie it to some vines growing on the sides of the cliff. The Zuu thrashed angrily, but with its mobility severely reduced, Harry could now try to grab one of the golden eggs. Diving down towards the nest and snatching the egg up quickly, he stuffed it in his shirt. He continued downwards towards the bottom of the gorge, out of the Zuu's reach as it snapped at the ropes that were tying it up. Krum did the same, and the two of them were off, once again racing neck and neck. They didn't look back at Cedric or Fleur, but they knew that, with the bird already badly injured and now partially tied up, the two of them would be gathering their eggs soon.
Another five minutes of full-speed flying across the free-flight section of the path brought them back to the windswept portion of the race. Harry pulled ahead when he used his smoke-spewing spell again to help guide him, but Krum quickly caught on to what Harry was doing and performed a similar spell, conjuring a fine mist of water instead. Harry was coming out ahead, though, as he seemed to have a better instinct for positioning himself to take advantage of the winds, while Krum was mostly fighting against it the entire way across. Behind him, he knew Fleur had already caught up, taking full advantage of her higher top speed to make up for lost time.
As he approached the narrow ravine again, he took the higher path, to avoid what Krum did to him the first time. Knowing the bats were probably still active, but without knowing an earmuff spell, he simply conjured a pair of foam earplugs and stuck them in his ears, and then rushed ahead. This time, the sound was annoyingly loud, but not debilitating like before. He didn't feel the same nausea or disorientation as last time, so he could concentrate on tossing low-powered stunners at any little bat that got in his way. The last thing he did before exiting the ravine was take a look behind, making sure Krum was still slightly behind him, and cast a reductor.
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