"First this, then this, and then this..."
What Barty Jr.—and all the spectators outside—could not see was that beneath the thick fog, Fleur was tightly gripping a crimson stone fragment in her left hand, the one not holding her wand. And if someone had examined that fragment carefully, they would have discovered that it was made of the exact same material as the charging pillars.
That was right.
It was a fragment from the charging pillar the dragon had destroyed earlier.
And at this moment, a few drops of glittering golden-red liquid still clung to the surface of that fragment. They wobbled unsteadily in the gusts of wind stirred up by Fleur's movements, as though they might be blown off the stone at any second, yet for some reason they remained firmly stuck there, like tiny bits of jelly.
Holding that fragment tightly, Fleur kept darting rapidly through the dense mist she had created, avoiding the dragon's attacks while pressing her wand against the stone. Her eyes were half-closed, and every now and then her brows would knit slightly, as though she were concentrating with all her might on analyzing something—
All while under the pressure of a dragon.
"One last check... got it!!"
Suddenly, a flash of red light ran across the wand pressed tightly against the fragment, and Fleur's face lit up with delight.
"I knew it!"
"Heh, as if a mere enraging curse could really restrain me. Do they seriously think Veela blood only leaves behind mind-affecting magic...?"
"Miss Delacour has suddenly dispersed the fog!"
"Bagman" cried out from the stands. "She spent nearly twenty minutes hiding in the mist, during which she appeared to do almost nothing at all—I'd wager she must have prepared some sort of surprise in secret!"
'...What kind of surprise?'
Avada narrowed his eyes slightly, but still could not detect any particularly obvious magical traces. He had even observed the charging-pillar fragment in Fleur's hand, but he still could not work out why she had chosen this moment to disperse the fog.
'The liquid on that fragment... that seems to be the potion that simulates dragon breath?'
Using the telescope provided by the arena to observe more carefully for a moment, he finally caught another detail.
'A stone fragment, a potion... what exactly is she trying to do?'
'Wait... I remember now! Besides mental charm, Veela innate magic seems to include another...'
'Don't tell me she's planning to...???'
Avada's expression suddenly turned strange.
If his guess was right, then the strategy route he had originally assumed only he himself could use—and had then abandoned because it was too flashy—was actually about to be used by Fleur instead?
As time passed, another long-awaited red light lit up on the ground.
"It's coming."
A beautiful curve rose at the corner of Fleur's lips. Then she abruptly stacked several acceleration spells on herself and hurled a barrage of curses—some harmful, some merely disruptive—at the enormous Ukrainian Ironbelly, just as expected drawing it into charging after her once again—
Away from the red light.
"The charging pillar is about to rise, and this time Miss Delacour finally seems ready to do something! First she's lured the dragon even farther away, preventing this pillar from being destroyed again... but hasn't she gone a little too far? That distance seems beyond the range of the Ukrainian Ironbelly's breath attack... what is she trying to do?"
"Bagman's" commentary rang out again right on time.
"She's left behind several curses to restrain the dragon—looks like that should be enough to hold it until the pillar retracts, and then... and then she's returned to the pillar by herself? What is she planning? Guiding the dragon to breathe fire?"
"But that distance is nowhere near enough for the dragonfire to reach the charging pillar... Merlin above! What am I looking at?!"
At the same moment Bagman cried out in shock, everyone in the stands—including Avada—revealed expressions of utter astonishment, almost unable to believe what they were seeing.
A pair of long, scaled wings seemed to pass like ghosts through the cloak, slowly unfurling from Fleur's back. Her silver hair began to move without wind, floating up and down as though submerged in water. Her eyes had become beautiful vertical pupils, radiating danger. Flames burned in her hand, yet did not scorch her sleeve or skin in the slightest...
Boom!
A fireball burst from the hand holding the pillar fragment and slammed squarely into the newly risen charging pillar.
And then something happened that made everyone's jaws drop even further—
The pillar reacted as though it really had been struck by dragon breath. A stream of pure magical energy slowly rose from inside it, gathered at the top, and then formed into a thread that drifted toward the platform in the sky...
A large "1" appeared there.
"Merlin's beard! What is that?!"
Though he had already worked it out, Avada was still unable to suppress his own amazement as he heard cries of shock around him, and similar exclamations continued without pause—
"Those wings and that fire... that looks like the form Veela take when enraged! But isn't that champion only a half-Veela? How can she use magic like that too?!"
"That's not the main point! The main point is why the fire she casts can charge the pillar! She's half-Veela, not half-dragon!!"
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!!
Fleur, whose appearance had now changed completely, could not hear any of that useless noise. The moment she saw that one fireball had worked, joy flashed across her face, and she immediately followed it up with four more fireballs in rapid succession, all of them striking the charging pillar dead-on.
The result was that four streams of pure energy rose from the top of the pillar almost simultaneously and shot toward the platform in the air, making the number below jump from "1" straight to "5" in an instant...
She had completed the pillar's charge in a way no one had anticipated.
Until the sharp crack of chains snapping, accompanied by the dragon's roar, pulled everyone's attention back to the arena, the entire field was wrapped in an indescribable silence. Even the lively commentator "Ludo Bagman" had temporarily lost the ability to speak, simply staring blankly at Fleur standing in the middle of the arena, silver hair flying, bathed in flame.
As though sensing the gazes around her, Fleur even had the leisure to flick her hair lightly aside, fully revealing her face, and then tilted her head up to flash the stunned students in the stands a bold, dazzling smile.
Then, with one powerful beat of the wings on her back, she shot into the sky and, aiming at the root of the dragon's wings just as it had spread them but before it could take off, fired a vicious Impediment Jinx!
"An unimaginable sight!"
"Bagman" seemed finally to recover from his shock and began shouting excitedly. "What are we seeing?! A person—a champion—is flying in the sky and attacking downward, while the dragon, which ought to dominate the heavens, is being suppressed by a dense barrage of spells and can't even properly spread its wings! I'd wager this is the first time in its entire life this dragon has ever experienced something so absurd!"
At last, when a Stunning Spell accompanied by a fireball smashed heavily into the skin between the dragon's eyes, it let out one final unwilling howl, then its limbs went limp and it crashed heavily to the ground.
(End of Chapter)