Viktor Krum
The tent was silent except for the distant roar of the crowd.
Viktor sat alone in the Durmstrang section, red and black curtains creating a wall between him and the space where Potter had been moments before. The English boy had left with the medics, his face pale as they carried Diggory away on a stretcher, blood soaking through hastily applied bandages.
Two champions down. Two injured badly enough that they needed to be brought somewhere else, Victor had seen her again on their faces, but he ignored it, she was not there.
Viktor's turn was next.
He stared at his hands, broad and scarred from years of Quidditch, from gripping broom handles in freezing winds, from training that left knuckles split and bleeding. Strong hands. Reliable hands. Now it was time to learn if he could do more than catch a ball in the air.
Karkaroff had told him the plan a dozen times. "Use your strength, Viktor. Overwhelming force. Hit the dragon hard enough, fast enough, and it won't have time to react. You are Durmstrang's finest. Show them what that means."
Overwhelming force. The force ruled the world, the dragons were fierce and dangerous because of their force...Victor would use his own force and win.
He'd watched Delacour's approach through the enchanted viewing portal Karkaroff had set up in the tent. She'd blinded the dragon, choked it, disabled it systematically. Brilliant.
Diggory had tried distraction, transfiguration, clever tricks. It had nearly gotten him killed, but he'd adapted. Improvised.
Viktor had no tricks. No clever strategies. No backup plans.
He had power. He had aggression. He had spells designed to break things.
That would have to be enough.
The whistle blew.
Viktor stood.
His wand was already in his hand. Twelve inches, hornbeam, dragon heartstring. Ironic, he would use a dragon heartstring to fight a dragon.
He walked toward the entrance.
"AND NOW, OUR THIRD CHAMPION! VIKTOR KRUM, REPRESENTING DURMSTRANG INSTITUTE!"
The tunnel opened into noise and light.
The crowd's roar washed over him, but it felt distant, muffled, as if his ears were packed with cotton. The Durmstrang section was on its feet, crimson banners snapping in the wind, but their cheers sounded hollow.
Viktor's eyes swept the arena.
Rocky terrain. Boulders for cover. And at the far end, coiled around a nest of massive eggs, the Chinese Fireball waited.
"The Chinese Fireball! Also known as the Liondragon! One of the most aggressive breeds, folks, and just look at those beautiful scarlet scales!"
The dragon was larger than either the Welsh Green or the Short-Snout. Crimson scales gleamed like fresh blood, and a mane of golden spines ran from its head down its serpentine neck. Its eyes, molten gold, fixed on Viktor.
It was already angry.
Viktor raised his wand.
No Bubble-Head Charm. No protective spells. No distractions.
Just attack.
"Confringo!"
The Blasting Curse screamed across the arena, a bolt of orange light that struck the rocks beside the dragon's head. Stone exploded, fragments spraying across the Fireball's face.
"Aggressive opening from Krum! He's not wasting any time!"
The dragon roared, the sound shaking the ground beneath Viktor's feet.
Good. Angry was predictable.
"Bombarda!"
Another explosion, this one closer, hitting the ground directly in front of the nest. The Fireball reared back, wings spreading, revealing the golden egg among the clutch.
There. Thirty feet away. Just needed to—
The dragon's chest expanded.
Viktor dove behind a boulder as a gout of flame erupted across the space where he'd been standing. The flames were shot through with sparks, burning embers that scattered like shrapnel, igniting everything they touched.
The rock Viktor hid behind began to glow.
He rolled left, came up firing.
"Reducto!"
The Reductor Curse hit the Fireball's shoulder, and the dragon shrieked. A single scale cracked, splitting down the middle.
"Krum's using heavy combat magic! This is a much more direct approach than we've seen so far!"
The Fireball's tail lashed out, smashing into the boulder Viktor had just abandoned. The stone shattered like glass.
Viktor kept moving. No point in staying still. Staying still meant dying.
"Diffindo!"
The Severing Charm slashed across the dragon's left flank. A thin line of darker red appeared, blood welling up between scales.
The Fireball's head snapped toward him, eyes blazing with fury.
It breathed fire again, but this time it didn't aim at Viktor directly.
It aimed at the ground.
The flame washed across the rocky terrain in a wide arc, turning everything in a fifteen-foot radius into burning death. Viktor's options for cover suddenly became much more limited.
"Aguamenti!"
Water burst from Viktor's wand, dousing the flames immediately in front of him, creating a corridor of scorched but passable ground. He charged through it, boots smoking, closing the distance.
Twenty feet from the nest.
The dragon's claw came down.
Viktor threw himself sideways, the talons missing his head by inches. He hit the ground, rolled, came up with his wand already moving.
"Defodio!"
The Gouging Spell struck the Fireball's underbelly, the softer scales there offering less protection. The dragon roared; this time, it was feeling pain, and its wing swept out in retaliation.
The impact lifted Viktor off his feet.
He flew backward, crashed into a boulder, and the world became bright spots and ringing ears. His wand still in his hand, thank Merlin, but his left arm—
He looked down.
His sleeve was on fire.
"Aguamenti."
The water doused the flames, but not before the damage was done. The skin beneath was angry red, already blistering. Krum wondered why he wasn't feeling it yet.
"Krum's been burned! His arm is badly injured!"
Viktor pushed himself up with his right hand. His left hung useless at his side, the burned flesh screaming like cooking meat in a pod.
The dragon was between him and the nest still. It had learned to protect its position, to cut off his approach.
Fine.
If he couldn't go around it, he'd go through it.
"Confringo! Bombarda! Reducto!"
Three curses, all aimed at the dragon's head. The Fireball roared, turning to shield its face with one wing, and Viktor ran.
Not toward the nest. Toward the dragon.
Ten feet. Five.
The Fireball's jaws opened, flame building in its throat.
"Duro!"
Viktor's wand jabbed forward, and the spell hit the dragon's open mouth. The soft tissue inside began to harden, turn to stone, and the Fireball's eyes went wide with panic.
The flames died in its throat, choked off by its own petrifying mouth.
Viktor dove under the dragon's belly, scrambled past its thrashing legs, came up on the other side—
And saw the eggs.
"He's past the dragon! He's at the nest!"
The golden egg gleamed among six enormous crimson shells, each one almost as tall as Viktor's waist.
Don't damage the real eggs. Points will be deducted.
Viktor reached for the golden one.
The dragon's tail swept across the nest.
Viktor saw it coming, tried to jump back, but his burned arm threw off his balance. The tail caught him across the chest, and he went flying again, this time taking two of the real eggs with him.
Time slowed.
Viktor hit the ground. Rolled. Came to a stop against another boulder.
The two eggs he'd knocked from the nest hit the rocky ground with wet, cracking sounds.
One bounced. Survived.
The other didn't.
The shell split like pottery dropped on stone. Viscous fluid poured out, golden and thick, and inside—
A half-formed dragon, no bigger than a cat, crimson scales not yet hardened, eyes still closed.
It twitched once.
Then went still.
The Chinese Fireball's roar was different this time. Not anger. Not pain.
Grief.
"Oh no. Oh no, one of the eggs has been destroyed. One of the real eggs—"
The dragon's golden eyes found the crushed shell, the fluid spreading across the ground.
Then they found Viktor.
The Duro spell broke. The Fireball's mouth was flesh again, and when it opened this time, the flames that erupted were hotter than anything it had produced before. White-hot rage, a column of fire that turned the air itself into a weapon.
Viktor rolled behind cover, but the flames followed him. The dragon wasn't trying to drive him away anymore.
It was trying to kill him.
"Protego Maxima!"
The strongest shield charm he knew appeared just in time. The flames washed over it, and Viktor felt the magic straining, buckling under the assault. How long could he hold this? Thirty seconds? Twenty?
Not long enough.
He needed to end this. Now.
His left arm was useless. His chest ached where the tail had hit him. His magical reserves were depleting with every second the shield held.
Karkaroff's voice echoed in his head. "Overwhelming force, Viktor. Hit harder than they can defend."
Viktor's jaw set.
Fine.
"Obscuro!"
The Fireball's vision went black, a conjured blindfold wrapping around its eyes. The flames cut off as the dragon thrashed, trying to shake off the obstruction.
Viktor dropped the shield and moved.
"Ventus!"
Wind howled across the arena, a gale-force blast that scattered ash and smoke and created clear corridors through the chaos.
The golden egg was still in the nest, fifteen feet away.
The dragon was blind, disoriented, its head swinging wildly as it tried to track Viktor by sound.
But it was still between him and the egg.
Viktor raised his wand.
"Ossio Dispersimus!"
The Bone-Shattering Curse hit the Fireball's right front leg.
The dragon's leg collapsed, the bones inside reduced to fragments, and the Fireball crashed onto its side with a roar that was half pain, half disbelief.
"Merlin's beard, what spell was that? The dragon's leg—"
Viktor didn't wait.
He ran.
The Fireball thrashed, trying to rise on three legs, the blindfold slipping from its eyes, golden gaze finding Viktor again.
Ten feet from the nest.
The dragon's head reared back, inhaling for another blast of fire.
Five feet.
Viktor's wand snapped up.
"Raschleneniye!"
The Dismemberment Curse slashed across the dragon's face.
Across its left eye.
The Fireball let out a shriek of pain. Blood poured from the ruined eye, the golden orb split open, fluid leaking down its face, mixing with the blood.
"The dragon's been blinded! Krum's actually blinded the dragon! This is-this is brutal!"
Viktor's fingers closed around the golden egg.
The Fireball saw him, half-saw him, with its one remaining eye, and lunged.
Viktor threw himself backward, clutching the egg, as massive jaws snapped shut inches from his head.
He rolled, came up running, the egg clutched against his chest with his good arm.
"HE'S GOT IT! KRUM HAS THE GOLDEN EGG!"
The exit was forty feet away. Might as well have been forty miles.
The Chinese Fireball, despite its shattered leg, despite its ruined eye, despite the blood pouring down its face, dragged itself forward. Not toward Viktor.
Toward the broken egg.
Toward its dead child.
Viktor ran.
His burned arm swung uselessly. His chest felt like it was caving in. Every breath was knives.
He ran anyway.
Twenty feet.
Behind him, the Fireball reached the crushed shell. Its undamaged eye fixed on the tiny body, and it let out sounds of grief and sorrow.
Ten feet.
The dragon's head swung back toward him, its remaining eye blazing with hatred.
Five feet.
Viktor threw himself through the entrance.
"VIKTOR KRUM COMPLETES THE FIRST TASK!"
He made it two steps before his legs gave out.
The golden egg clattered from his grip. The world tilted, and hands caught him before he could hit the ground.
"Arm's badly burned- third degree—"
"Possible broken ribs—"
"Get him stabilized, Pomfrey's still with the other two—"
Viktor's vision was graying, but he could still see through the tent entrance, back into the arena.
The Chinese Fireball had curled around the broken egg, its massive body creating a protective circle around the tiny corpse. Its ruined eye wept blood. Its shattered leg lay at an unnatural angle.
It made that sound again.
Someone's hands were on Viktor's burned arm, casting cooling charms, but he barely felt them.
I had no choice; this is to be expected in a fight. It was not my fault; it was a fight to the death, and I won. I will not feel sorry for winning. Never.
"Mr. Krum, can you hear me?"
A mediwitch's face appeared above him.
Viktor managed a nod.
"You're going to be alright. The burns are serious but treatable. Just stay still."
Alright.
The darkness pulled at him, and Viktor let it come, feeling its cold embrace.
Harry Potter
The canvas walls of the tent pressed in from all sides.
Harry stood in the Ravenclaw section, blue and bronze curtains doing absolutely nothing to block out the sounds filtering in from outside. The crowd. Thousands of them. Waiting.
Three champions down. He hoped Ced and Fleur were doing well. From what he was told, neither would have any permanent damage from their injuries, but Ced had it the worst. Madam Pomfrey even said that the claw had almost slashed his heart. Harry felt grateful for small mercies, he and Ced, they would work together once the two finished Hogwarts, they would remain friends even after school.
But now, he had a task to finish. His turn.
Harry's fingers found his wand. Eleven inches. Phoenix feather core.
Harry took a deep breath.
Then he walked toward the entrance.
Summon the broom. Don't get eaten. Seal the mouth if necessary. Don't get set on fire.
Tonks's voice in his head. He'd practiced this. Trained for this. He was ready.
Or he'd die trying.
The tunnel ended.
Harry stepped into the arena.
"AND OUR FINAL CHAMPION! HARRY POTTER, REPRESENTING RAVENCLAW HOUSE AND HOGWARTS SCHOOL!"
The noise echoed, louder than during the Duelling Race.
The Ravenclaw section was divided. Half on their feet, blue and bronze banners waving, voices raised in support. The other half seated, arms crossed, expressions ranging from neutral to openly hostile.
Gryffindor was similarly split. Fred and George's voices cut through everything else, whooping and hollering. Hermione was on her feet, hands cupped around her mouth.
Hufflepuff was worse. More boos than cheers, yellow and black a wall of rejection. "CHEATER!" someone shouted, the word picked up and repeated. "FRAUD!"
But Susan Bones was on her feet, her voice joining the supporters, and that was something.
Slytherin was booing because of course they were. Malfoy's pale face was visible, smirking, leading the jeers.
Beauxbatons and Durmstrang were mostly quiet, watching with professional interest.
Harry's eyes found the family box.
Sirius was there, standing and shouting his name. Harry could not hear what he was shouting, but he was sure it was 'Harry kick her ass'.
Andromeda sat beside him. Ted Tonks was on his feet too, and Tonks herself, her hair bright pink, unmistakable even from this distance, was cheering loud enough that Harry could almost hear her over the crowd.
And Luna. Luna Lovegood was on her feet in the Ravenclaw section, her sign held high, cheering louder than anyone else, radish earrings swinging wildly.
Harry forced himself to look away.
To look at the dragon.
"The Hungarian Horntail! The most dangerous of the four breeds! Known for its aggressive nature and, good grief, look at the size of it!"
The Horntail was curled into an almost spherical shape, floating above its nest without moving its wings. The wings were wrapped around its body, creating a shell of black scales and deadly spikes. The chain attached to the collar around its neck was the only thing keeping it from rushing him immediately.
Then one eye opened.
Yellow and slit-pupiled, it found Harry in the chaos of noise and movement.
The sphere began to uncurl.
Wings spread wide, each one large enough to block out the sun. The Horntail landed on the stony ground with an impact that cracked the arena floor, and its roar shook the world.
"Oh my, everyone hold on to something!"
Suddenly, the stones near Harry were cracking like eggs, and it was getting closer and closer to Harry. His bones vibrated. His teeth rattled. Harry felt like every bone in his body would shatter from the sudden pressure in the air; his ears were ringing like bells, and he felt hot liquid inside his ears.
"Protego!"
The roar's force broke against it like waves against a cliff, and Harry could breathe again.
He raised his wand.
"Accio Firebolt!"
The summoning charm shot out into the world beyond the arena. The Horntail took a massive step forward, chain links groaning, its chest expanding for another attack.
Then a streak of beautiful, long wood and enchanted twigs shot over the arena walls.
The Firebolt landed in Harry's outstretched hand.
The Horntail's roar came again, the sound accompanied by cracks spreading across the arena floor like lightning. Harry mounted his broom and kicked off hard, shooting upward as the ground where he'd been standing shattered into fragments.
Fifty feet up. Seventy. A hundred.
The dragon's head tracked his movement, neck craning back, and then it breathed fire.
A column of flame erupted upward, orange and red and white-hot at its core, reaching for Harry with greedy fingers.
But Harry was too far. Too fast. The flames lost coherence, broke apart, dissipated into smoke and heat before they could reach him.
"Potter's airborne! Smart thinking! The Horntail can't reach him up there!"
The dragon's eyes narrowed.
It was thinking. Harry could see the intelligence there, it felt like looking at Professor Flitwick's eyes. It couldn't fly with the chain restraining it. Couldn't reach him with fire. So it would need another approach.
Harry didn't wait to see what that approach would be.
"Sonorus Maximus!"
The amplification charm hit the air around the Horntail's head, and suddenly every sound was magnified a hundredfold. The crowd's roar became deafening. The wind became a howl. The dragon's own breathing became thunder in its ears.
The Horntail roared, this time in confusion and pain, head shaking violently. Fire burst from its mouth in every direction, uncontrolled, desperate to hit whatever was causing the noise.
Harry dove.
He'd cast a second charm on his Firebolt during the descent, a spell from the Black Combat Grimoire that Sirius probably shouldn't have shown him. The broom's speed doubled, then tripled, until he was moving so fast the world became a blur.
The Horntail's eyes locked onto him.
Then slits along the dragon's body opened.
Not mouths. Not exactly. Vents in the scales, dozens of them, running along its neck and spine and flanks. Steam erupted from all of them simultaneously, filling the arena with thick white clouds that obscured everything.
"What is...steam? The Horntail is producing steam! I've never seen anything like this!"
Harry's vision went white. He was flying blind, the Firebolt streaking through clouds of superheated vapor, and then the steam touched his skin.
Like acid had been thrown across every exposed inch of his body. His face. His hands. Anywhere the steam could reach, it burned.
Harry screamed.
The amplification charm was still active. The sound it had been producing cut off suddenly, replaced by a different noise entirely, a sharp crack from somewhere in the steam.
Harry's instincts took over. He pulled the Firebolt into a sharp turn, flying blindly away from where he'd been, and a gout of flame shot through the space he'd occupied half a second earlier.
The dragon had used the steam as cover. Had waited for him to fly through it, to be blinded and burning, and then struck.
It was smarter than he'd given it credit for.
Harry kept flying, putting distance between himself and the dragon, breaking free of the steam cloud. His skin was raw and red where the steam had touched it, his face feeling like it had been held over an open flame.
But he was alive.
He looked down.
The Horntail was staring up at him, and if a dragon could smirk, this one was smirking.
Then it inhaled.
The steam began moving. Flowing back toward the dragon's open mouth, pulled in by the vacuum of its breath. All of it, the entire cloud that had filled the arena, rushing back toward the mouth.
And as the steam compressed, as it gathered and concentrated, Harry realized what was about to happen.
"Oh, bloody—"
The Horntail's chest expanded.
Harry pulled the Firebolt into a dive, trying to get behind cover, but there was no cover high enough. The compressed steam shot out like a cannon blast, moving much faster than the dragon's normal firebreath, and it was aimed exactly where Harry was flying.
He tried to dodge.
The steam clipped his back.
The impact spun him in midair, and then the burning started. His entire back was screaming in pain, and he could feel the wind on his back; it felt like he was being cooked alive.
Harry's scream echoed across the arena.
"POTTER'S BEEN HIT! He's—he's still flying! How is he still flying?"
Because falling meant dying. Because the Firebolt was still responding to his grip. Because he'd been through worse and survived.
Harry leveled out, his back screaming, and looked down at the dragon.
The Horntail was watching him. Waiting. Ready to do it again.
Steam was already building around its body, vents opening, preparing for another attack.
Fine.
Harry's jaw set. His hand tightened on his wand.
If the dragon wanted to play with steam, he'd play with steam.
He dove again.
The Horntail's eyes tracked him, and steam erupted from every vent simultaneously, filling the space between them with that same white cloud.
Harry flew straight into it.
The burning was agony, but he'd expected it this time. Braced for it. The pain was just noise. Just another thing happening to his body that he could ignore.
He broke through the other side, and the dragon was there, head pulled back, inhaling, ready to vacuum up the steam and spit it back at him.
The last wisps of vapor were flowing into its open mouth.
"Glacius Maxima!"
The freezing charm hit the steam just as it entered the dragon's jaws.
Water vapor became ice, expanding as it froze. The steam that had been flowing into the Horntail's mouth became a glacier, sealing its jaws shut, spreading across its face, encasing its entire head in a tomb of ice.
"THE DRAGON'S HEAD! IT'S FROZEN SOLID!"
The Horntail's eyes went wide behind the ice. It shook its massive head, once, twice, trying to shatter the prison. Nothing. It slammed its head against the arena wall. The ice cracked but held. It smashed its skull into the ground. More cracks, but the ice was too thick.
Harry didn't waste the opportunity.
He dove for the nest.
The Horntail's tail swung toward him, those deadly spikes aimed to impale, to crush, to end this.
Harry's wand snapped up.
"Tardus Maxima!"
The slowing charm hit the tail mid-swing. Its movement turned sluggish, like it was moving through thick water.
Harry flew past it.
His hand closed around the golden egg.
"HE'S GOT IT! POTTER'S GOT THE GOLDEN EGG!"
The Horntail was still thrashing, trying to break the ice, but Harry was already moving. He pulled the Firebolt into a sharp climb, the golden egg clutched against his burned chest, and shot toward the exit.
The tent entrance was there. Forty feet. Thirty. Twenty.
Behind him, the ice finally cracked. Shattered. The Horntail's roar of fury shook the arena.
Ten feet.
Harry flew through the entrance and dismounted in one motion. His legs hit the ground and immediately buckled, the adrenaline that had kept him airborne suddenly gone.
He managed three steps before his legs decided to give up, his heart felt like it was on his throat.
Hands caught him before he could hit the canvas floor.
"Easy! I've got you!"
Sirius's voice, Harry had never heard him sound so scared. More hands joined his, supporting Harry's weight, and then Tonks was there too, her face pale beneath the pink hair.
"Bloody hell, Harry. Your back-"
"Got the egg," Harry managed. His voice came out hoarse, ragged. "Did I get the egg?"
"You got it." Sirius's grip tightened. "You complete maniac, you got it."
The golden egg was still clutched in Harry's hand. Proof that he'd done it.
"HARRY POTTER COMPLETES THE FIRST TASK! ALL FOUR CHAMPIONS HAVE SUCCEEDED!"
The crowd noise was deafening even through the tent walls, but it felt distant now. Unimportant.
Madam Pomfrey appeared, her face looking grim as usual. "Out of my way, Black. I need to see the damage."
"He's—"
"NOW."
Sirius stepped back, and Pomfrey's hands were immediately on Harry's back. "Second and third-degree burns across eighty percent of the back and shoulders. Steam damage to the face and hands. Possible shock. Get him on a stretcher immediately."
Everything was slowly turning black, but he could still see Sirius's face. His godfather looked like he'd aged ten years in the past five minutes.
"I'm okay," Harry said, knowing it was a lie but needing to say it anyway. "I'm-"
The darkness pulled at him.
"You're going to be fine," Sirius said, his hand finding Harry's shoulder, careful to avoid the burns. "You hear me? You're going to be fine."
Harry wanted to answer, but the world was tilting sideways, and his body had finally decided that consciousness was optional.
The last thing he heard before the darkness took him was Bagman's voice, still booming across the arena:
"WHAT A DAY, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! WHAT AN ABSOLUTELY EXTRAORDINARY DAY!"
Then nothing.