The grass at the center of the pitch turned dark red.
At first, only Theodore saw it.
Then the color spread outward in thin veins, crawling beneath the grass like ink sinking into cloth. The cheerful green of the Quidditch pitch became duller, heavier, as if the field itself had suddenly grown sick.
Madam Hooch's whistle froze halfway to her mouth.
She had seen enough today to understand one rule.
If the pitch changed color, nobody ignored it.
"All players down!"
The players obeyed at once.
No arguments.
No questions.
After half a day of nearly being dropped, frozen, cursed, and used as pieces in a formation war, even the most stubborn Quidditch player had learned humility.
The crowd quieted.
Then a dry wind rose.
It carried heat.
Not the clean heat from Hermione's fire-crab pendant.
This heat smelled of sand, ashes, and old wounds.
Theodore's eyes moved.
Flame.
Blood Transformation.
Red Sand.
The last three dangerous pieces had finally moved together.
The pitch core had stopped trying clever tricks. It had decided to spend everything in one attack.
That was not a bad choice.
If it continued fighting node by node, Theodore would keep stealing from it until nothing remained. Better to gather the remaining strength, break one part of the battlefield, and create enough chaos for the hidden will to recover its severed hand's loss.
Theodore did not blame it.
He would have made the same decision.
The difference was that Theodore had been waiting for it.
Hermione gripped the railing near the commentator's box.
"Huhu?"
The pendant against her chest burned hotter than before.
Not in warning.
In anger.
Hermione immediately understood why.
The incoming fire was not ordinary flame. It carried something filthy inside it. If it spread through the crowd, it would not simply burn robes and wood. It would ignite fear, blood, and magic together.
A fire that fed on panic.
"Lee," she said quickly.
Lee Jordan was already pale.
"What now?"
"No shouting about fire."
Lee stared at her.
"That was not on my list of things I planned to shout, but good to know."
"Tell everyone to stay seated and cover their mouths with sleeves or scarves."
Lee took one breath and shouted, "Everyone stay seated! Cover your mouths! This is a safety drill! Anyone screaming 'fire' will be mocked forever by every house!"
Professor McGonagall looked as if she might object to the wording.
Then the first red flame appeared at the center of the pitch.
She decided not to waste time.
"Do as instructed!"
The authority in her voice did what Lee's comedy could not.
Students covered their mouths.
Fear began to rise, but not explode.
That mattered.
Ron looked at the center of the pitch and slowly hugged his cabbage box.
"This is not a cabbage problem."
One cabbage opened its mouth.
Ron looked down.
"No. You are not biting fire."
The cabbage looked unconvinced.
Harry stood beside the player entrance. His willow branch was trembling, but this time it did not pull in one direction. It shook everywhere.
Too many lines.
Too much danger.
He could not cut all of it.
Theodore's voice reached him through the leaf talisman.
"Cut only what comes near people."
Harry's shoulders loosened slightly.
That he could do.
At the lower entrance, Sprout's plants recoiled as red sand began leaking from cracks in the ground. The sand moved against the wind, gathering into little dunes around the pitch boundary.
Professor Sprout's face darkened.
"Oh, absolutely not."
She pushed her sleeves up and stepped forward.
The nearest plant opened its mouth and spat a thick green sap onto the sand.
The red sand hissed.
It did not stop.
But it slowed.
Sprout smiled politely.
Then she brought out another pot.
This one had teeth.
Filch saw the red sand crawling toward his talismans and became furious.
"I just pasted those!"
He stabbed his peachwood sword into the ground. Three yellow talismans flew from his sleeve and stuck to the railing, the stone, and one unlucky student's shoe.
The student yelped.
Filch did not apologize.
"Don't move."
The talisman on the shoe burned, creating a small golden circle that blocked the sand from passing.
The student froze in place, terrified and oddly proud.
At the center of the pitch, red flame rose higher.
The dark red veins under the grass pulsed.
The Blood Transformation principle was searching for living blood.
Players.
Spectators.
Professors.
Anyone injured earlier.
Anyone afraid enough for their blood to rush faster.
Theodore pressed his palm to the ground.
The seven nails answered.
Pitch core.
Scoreboard.
Red Water vein.
Earth Fierce passage.
Hidden connection.
Severed hand.
Cold Ice air route.
Seven points lit beneath Hogwarts.
The Wuzhuang foundation gathered them into one pressure.
The red flame bent.
For a moment, the three remaining arrays were held down.
Then the hidden will behind the formation pushed.
The severed-hand nail shook violently.
Theodore's sleeve snapped.
A red cut opened across the back of his hand.
The old battlefield smell grew stronger.
A thin crack appeared in the air above the pitch.
Not a gate yet.
A scar.
The hidden will was trying to use Flame, Blood Transformation, and Red Sand together to reopen the path by force.
Theodore laughed softly.
"Impatient."
The red flame surged.
A wave of heat rushed toward the nearest players.
Harry moved.
The willow branch flashed three times.
He did not try to cut the whole flame. He cut the thin killing lines inside it, the parts reaching toward people's throats, wrists, and hearts.
The flames still passed.
But they became ordinary heat.
The players stumbled back, coughing but alive.
Hermione raised her wand from the commentator's box.
"Huhu!"
The fire-crab pendant answered.
A warm orange shield appeared in front of the lower stands. The red flame struck it, twisted, and tried to feed on it. Hermione clenched her teeth and changed the spell at once.
Not shield.
Guide.
She turned the heat sideways, sending it toward the empty part of the pitch.
Theodore noticed and nodded.
Good reaction.
A shield would feed the flame.
Guidance made it waste strength.
Ron saw red sand climbing the stairs toward the Gryffindor section.
This, unfortunately, had become a cabbage problem.
"Bite the piles, not the people!"
He kicked the box open.
The Chomping Cabbages leapt out.
They hit the red sand and began biting furiously.
For once, they did not look pleased.
The sand tasted terrible.
That only made them angrier.
Fred stared.
"Your cabbages are eating cursed sand."
George leaned closer. "Do we sell this as bravery or poor judgment?"
Ron shouted, "Help me throw them!"
The twins did not need to be asked twice.
Within seconds, Chomping Cabbages were being tossed into crawling patches of red sand across the stand.
McGonagall saw this from above.
Her lips moved.
No sound came out.
There were moments when deducting points felt too small for what she was witnessing.
Below, Theodore looked toward the center.
The three arrays were now fully exposed.
The Flame fragment sat inside the red fire.
The Blood Transformation fragment hid in the veins beneath the grass.
The Red Sand fragment was scattered through the crawling dunes.
Three pieces.
One combined attack.
He could not pin them separately now.
The formation would not allow it.
So he would not.
Theodore raised both hands.
Heaven and Earth in My Palm opened wider than before.
The space over the center of the pitch folded inward, not swallowing the whole attack, but forcing the three principles into the same small battlefield.
Flame tried to burn upward.
Red Sand tried to grind outward.
Blood Transformation tried to seep downward.
Theodore pressed the seven nails together.
"Since you want to move together…"
Wutu Divine Light rose from below.
Yimu Divine Light descended through Willow Immortal's roots.
The two lights met around the folded space.
"…then stay together."
The three fragments collided.
The result was ugly.
The red flame burned the sand.
The sand absorbed the blood light.
The blood light fed the flame.
The hidden will had intended to use that cycle against Hogwarts.
Theodore reversed the direction.
Wutu sealed the foundation.
Yimu forced growth into the cycle.
The flame burned too fast.
The blood light fed too much.
The sand grew heavy.
The three principles, instead of supporting each other, began choking each other.
The pitch core realized the problem and tried to separate them.
Too late.
Hermione's orange heat path pushed the outer flame back into the center.
Harry cut the escaping killing lines.
Ron's cabbages delayed the sand long enough for Sprout's plants to bind it.
Filch's talismans blocked the retreat routes.
Flitwick's silver charms tightened the air above the stands.
Dumbledore raised his wand from the high stand, and a clean arc of white light sealed the sky over the pitch for one breath.
One breath was enough.
Theodore closed his hands.
The folded space collapsed inward.
Flame, Blood Transformation, and Red Sand screamed together.
A red-gold-black bead formed above the center of the pitch, shaking violently.
Theodore drove it down.
The eighth nail sank into the heart of the combined attack.
The entire stadium shook.
The stands groaned.
Students screamed, then stopped as the clapping rhythm began again. Nobody knew who started it this time. Maybe Hermione. Maybe Lee. Maybe one terrified Hufflepuff who simply remembered what worked.
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
The rhythm steadied the crowd.
The eighth nail locked.
The red flame vanished.
The sand fell still.
The dark veins under the grass faded.
For a long moment, only smoke drifted across the pitch.
Madam Hooch lowered her whistle slowly.
Ron looked at the cabbages scattered across the stand.
Several were lying upside down, spitting sand.
"They're going to complain about dinner."
Fred patted his shoulder.
"Heroes often do."
George nodded. "Especially vegetable heroes."
Hermione sank into her seat, exhausted.
Harry lowered the willow branch, his arm shaking badly now.
On the pitch, Theodore looked down.
Eight nails.
Only the core remained.
The hidden will had lost the combined strike.
The Ten Absolute Arrays were nearly trapped.
Then the pitch core did something Theodore did not expect.
It stopped resisting.
Completely.
The cracked eye beneath the grass closed.
The red lines withdrew.
The pressure vanished.
For the first time since the tournament began, the Quidditch pitch felt almost normal.
That was wrong.
Very wrong.
Dumbledore stood slowly.
Snape, from the shadowed entrance, narrowed his eyes.
Theodore looked toward the Headmaster's office.
Quirrell's bindings were still intact.
Voldemort had gone silent.
Too silent.
Theodore's gaze returned to the pitch.
The core was not surrendering.
It was offering itself.
A sacrifice.
The hidden will had realized it could not win through the nodes anymore.
So it chose to burn the core and use the explosion to break the eight nails at once.
Theodore's smile faded.
"Everyone off the pitch."
Madam Hooch reacted instantly.
"All players evacuate!"
Theodore looked toward the stands.
"Now."
His voice was not loud.
But every prepared talisman carried it.
Filch shouted.
Professors moved.
Hermione grabbed Lee and pulled him from the commentator's box.
Harry ran toward the nearest players.
Ron and the twins began throwing stunned cabbages back into the box.
Under the grass, the pitch core opened its eye again.
This time, the eye was calm.
Then it began to crack from the inside.
◇ BONUS & SUPPORT ◇
◇ 1 bonus chapter for every 10 reviews — drop a comment!
◇ 1 bonus chapter for every 100 Power Stones.
◇ Read 60 chapters ahead on P@treon → patreon.com/StrawHatStudios