Harry flew past the finish line without looking back. The crowd roared as Bagman announced, "...and in second place, Harry Potter! He clocks in with a time of one hour, fifty-three minutes, and eighteen seconds. This should factor very well into his scores." He was tired, his body was aching, his ears were ringing, and his throat was dry. He saw officials waving at him to go to the medical tent for a checkup, and he stumbled his way there in a daze. Inside the tent, he immediately grabbed a cup of juice and gulped it down, and immediately went for another. Four cups later, the mediwitches finally got him to walk over to one of the beds, where they closed the curtains around him as he sat down. With his head throbbing and heart pounding, he knew it would be a while before he was back to feeling normal.
The mediwitches began their checkup, immediately noticing the damage to his ears. "I knew those bats were far too dangerous! You could have been permanently deafened," one of them muttered. After dripping a potion into each of his ears, Harry almost immediately felt the ringing disappear, and some of the dizziness faded away. Looking into each of his eyes, the witches were once again surprised.
"This chart says here that only two weeks ago your eyesight needed correction, and there's no record of you coming in for the procedure. You've done it already? And it appears it's better than normal, in fact."
"Um, a friend and I brewed the potion ourselves... and it was a different version, one that was tailored to me," Harry said. "She told me it would work better than the standard potion they give at St. Mungo's."
"You didn't see a healer about it instead? You could have gone blind, or worse!"
Harry shrugged. "I'm confident in my friend's brewing abilities. It's over, it worked, so let's just leave it at that, alright?"
Shaking her head in frustration, the mediwitch proceeded to check up on his other wounds, most of which were superficial. The majority came from crashing into the walls of the narrow ravine and scratches by the harpies on the way back. A few simple spells healed them, and a single potion took care of the light bruising and aches. Noticing a small tear at the back of his robes, she asked Harry to remove his shirt. Without thinking, he began taking it off, but suddenly realized his mistake. He quickly pulled his shirt back down, but it was already too late.
"What on earth happened to your back, Mr. Potter?"
"Nothing. Old wounds. A quick Episkey should fix up the scratch I got today," Harry tried to make up as an excuse.
"Look, Mr. Potter, everything I find here will be held in strictest confidentiality. It's part of the healer's oath we mediwitches take, I promise you that. Can you show me what it is? I need to confirm it for your health..."
"No," answered Harry firmly. "I'm just telling you now that it's not affecting my health, so please don't ask anything more about it."
"Mr. Potter, I really must..." the mediwitch began to plead.
"No, and that's final. I'll be leaving now, unless you can tell me that I'm in mortal peril unless you treat me for something?" Harry faked his anger, desperate to hide the runes on his back.
The mediwitch sighed. "Nothing more, Mr. Potter, except I just need a drop of blood to confirm you didn't take any illicit potions..."
Harry nodded, allowing her to prick his finger and dripped the blood into a vial. The witch stepped through the curtains and dropped it into a cauldron at the back of the tent, which fizzed for a little and then puffed up some white smoke. "You're clear," she told Harry when she came back. He immediately left tent, noticing two other stalls had their curtains closed as he passed by. Fleur was standing outside, waving to the crowd. Evidently, both Krum and Cedric had arrived during his checkup.
Looking up at the scoreboards, he noticed that Fleur had arrived over ten minutes before he did, while Krum was less than a minute behind- his move at the vine-net had bought him just enough time to take second place. Cedric was about twenty minutes behind Krum- having the slower broom as well as being the last to grab the egg really cost him. The final scores had yet to be announced, as the judges were waiting for all the champions to finish their medical checkups and doping tests first. Beside the scoreboard, several images were projected by large orbs. They were replays of the events as recorded by the tracking orbs to keep the crowds entertained. One was dedicated to the fight with the Zuu, while two others flashed between the various obstacles. Fleur noticed Harry had left the tent and turned to him. "Eet seems I was meestaken about you," she said. "You are not quite as... inexperienced as I first thought, are you?"
"And I thought you were just another pretty face," said Harry. "To be frank, I thought Krum would be my greatest threat in this event."
"Ah, oui. You do not know 'ow many men theenk zat of me," she said. "You cannot eemagine 'ow... condescendant zey can be when zey assume I prefer to sit een a chair all day instead of feeling ze wind in my 'air..." Her accent was slipping heavily as her temper flared behind her.
"Oh, I think I can guess," Harry smirked. "I am the Boy-Who-Lived, after all. Everyone wants to put me and my scar on display like I'm some kind of freak show. Our minister of magic keeps wanting me to pose with him as if I actually support him. Of course, whenever anything goes wrong, they're just as quick to blame me as well," he growled, thinking of his second year.
"Haha, I forget you are ze great hero of Britain. Zey expect you to be a hero again, and blame you when you are not. For me, zey always theenk I am only good for one thing. When I was ze only woman in ze tournament, zey thought I would win with just my beauty and my Veela charm."
"Hah! You wouldn't have any effect on me anyways," laughed Harry.
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