Fleur nearly jumped out of her skin at the sudden voice. If not for the training she had been doing against the dummy lately, she might really have screamed.
But the imp was already above her head. Even though she reacted quickly enough to cast a Shield Charm on herself, and even with the Shield Charm from her badge layered on top of it, the force of the following Impediment Jinx still slammed into her and sent her crashing face-first onto the ground.
At that moment, however, the imp could no longer continue attacking Fleur.
"Expelliarmus!"
"Stupefy!"
"Reducto!"
As if by prior agreement, Cedric and the other two seized the gap while the imp was casting and attacked from different angles.
That forced the imp to dodge the first two spells, then hastily throw up a Shield Charm to block the last one.
Even if the first two had landed, they would not have done much to an imp.
But for an imp formed purely out of soul, a Stunning Spell was far more dangerous.
Fleur, being both observant and closest to the action, noticed that subtle difference almost immediately.
"Use Stunning Spells!"
She pushed herself up from the grass and ran toward Cedric in long strides, paying no attention to her disheveled hair or the bits of grass clinging to her clothes.
"Imps have very poor resistance to soul-targeting magic!"
The imp still wore a faint smile, but there was a distinctly human glint of approval in its eyes.
Everyone here was one of the strongest students from the three schools. None of them would lose the will to fight simply because the gap between them and Tver was too wide.
On the contrary, all four were completely focused, trying to analyze every tiny movement of the imp and fight for even the slightest chance of victory.
"Soul-targeting?" Viktor repeated, hesitating for a moment as a few spells came to mind.
Spells that were not supposed to be used at Hogwarts.
But this was only a fragment of Tver's soul. There were no other spectators here. And anyway...
He made excuses for himself in his head, but his wand was already firmly raised.
"Expulso!"
A burst of explosive blue fire shot straight at the imp's back, startling even Tver, who was controlling it from afar.
His reaction was already fast. He made the imp cast a Shield Charm behind itself without even turning around, while also forcing it upward in a sudden darting motion.
Even so, the curse exploded the moment it hit the Shield Charm, kicking up a thick cloud of dust.
That was why it was called Expulso. The violent blast not only exploded on impact, but also hurled up a cloud of debris that still carried striking force.
And for an imp in soul form, that wide area effect was the most troublesome part.
Harry, hiding nearby with Viktor, jumped at the blast. But when he saw Viktor's pleased expression, he hurriedly asked, "Did it work?"
"Hard to say. That spell covers a wide area. The imp probably couldn't avoid it." Viktor's mouth curled upward, but his eyes stayed fixed on the dust cloud.
"But I can't see it in there."
The two Seekers squinted into the cloud for a while, searching for any sign of the imp's pale little figure, but saw nothing.
As the black dust slowly thinned and drifted away, the sky beyond it came back into view. Empty.
"Did we blow it apart?"
Viktor sounded faintly guilty, though Harry clearly saw the smile he was trying very hard to suppress.
"Did we just win?"
Harry stared up at the sky in disbelief. He even stepped out from behind cover, and still there was no sign of the imp anywhere.
Viktor gave up pretending and broke into a grin, pointing at Cedric and Fleur, who were waving at them and shouting something. The distance between them had widened after all the movement, so their words did not carry clearly.
"Looks like it. They're celebrating already."
"But why do they look so panicked?" Unease crept into Harry's chest.
"Above... hurry..."
"Hurry? Hurry what?"
"Run!"
Years of dueling instinct made the skin between Viktor's brows tighten in alarm. He did not hesitate. He grabbed Harry and pulled him into a crushing embrace.
There was no time to cast anything now. And when Professor McGonagall had given them the badges, she had said that if two badges were brought together, they would produce an even stronger effect.
This was all they had left to rely on.
Harry, on the other hand, was completely bewildered as he was squeezed so hard he felt like he might come apart.
Had Viktor failed to win Hermione over and decided to copy the way she and Fleur did things?
The thought horrified him.
Unlike Viktor, who had shut his eyes as if waiting for judgment, Harry's eyes were wide open.
And this time, he truly wished they were not.
The once white imp was now covered in black soot, looking like a doll that had been dragged through dirt.
But what terrified Harry even more was that the little smile the imp always wore had vanished for the first time. Its face was expressionless as it raised one tiny hand, as though preparing something.
Half a second.
Harry had no idea why that thought flashed through his mind, but this half second felt unbearably long.
A deafening blast erupted beneath their feet. At the same time, the badges on Harry and Viktor flared like a dam giving way, pouring out magic in a frenzy to maintain an immensely powerful Shield Charm.
Even so, the surrounding grass lashed upward into flexible tendrils like the arms of an octopus, hammering at the dome of blue light over and over.
Every strike tore away a little more of its glow.
In the distance, Cedric and Fleur hurriedly attacked the imp, but their spells were brushed aside with almost insulting ease.
And Harry and Viktor's Shield Charm was already shaking violently, on the verge of collapse.
"I almost forgot about you two."
The imp suddenly turned its head, the smile returning to its face.
That expression sent a chill through Cedric and Fleur, who had rushed out from cover.
The two exchanged a glance, hesitated, then immediately tried to imitate Viktor and Harry by huddling together.
But Tver was clearly not going to give them the chance.
A wall of brilliant blue fire burst from the imp's hand and became two enormous palms that swept toward them from both sides.
The force of the flames whipped Fleur's long hair into the air and made Cedric squeeze his eyes shut.
The giant hands came crashing down with tremendous force, and the flames, agile enough not to scorch even a blade of grass, closed tightly around the two of them.
Fortunately, the Shield Charm in their badges activated, barely keeping the flames from touching their bodies.
Barely.
Whether it was Harry and Viktor clinging together, or Cedric and Fleur standing apart, the light of their badges was dimming visibly and steadily.
"One is powerful Transfiguration. The other is the fire magic I'm proudest of. Since you've had a taste of both, this trip hasn't been wasted," the imp muttered.
Not because Viktor's spell had startled him and he wanted to scare them back. Definitely not.
Then came a tiny pop.
The sound was so faint it should have been easy to miss, but the four of them, completely focused on holding their Shield Charms together, all caught it.
The Shield Charms had broken.
They stared in horror at the descending mud tendrils and giant flaming hands. But before they could be struck, something yanked violently at their navels. Their feet left the ground at once, and they were hurtled away into the distance.