Harry did not hesitate. He immediately called Hagrid and the others over and went with them to investigate.
Once they drew closer, they finally saw the figure clearly.
It was a wizard wearing a fitted black wizard's robe. Harry had seen him not long ago.
His identity was none other than Barty Crouch Sr.
At this moment, the high-ranking Ministry of Magic official had lost all of his usual vitality and was lying silently on the ground. Decaying leaves had piled beneath him like a blackened cushion, giving off the rotten smell of fading life. His head was tilted to one side, his silver-gray hair tangled like a bird's nest, and a few strands were caught around the tree roots, trembling faintly in the evening wind.
His wand had slipped from his loose fingers. The tip was embedded in the mud, and the place where it lay had clearly been snapped by someone's foot.
He had completely stopped breathing. His life force was gone. Some criminal hiding in the darkness had murdered him.
Hagrid immediately cried out in shock, "Good heavens, what happened to Crouch? Was he killed by someone?"
Ron and Hermione instinctively took several steps back. They had never seen a dead body before, and now fear rose from the bottom of their hearts.
Harry, however, walked forward without changing expression. He came to Crouch's side and carefully examined his body.
Although he and Crouch were currently on opposing sides, that did not mean Harry wanted Crouch dead. Among the many officials of the Ministry of Magic, Crouch was one of the more responsible ones. Back when Voldemort had ravaged the wizarding world, most of the Ministry's officials had already surrendered, but only Crouch and a few other wizards had resisted stubbornly.
On top of that, his character was still fairly decent. Harry had even discussed with Dumbledore the possibility of giving him a rather important position after they reformed the wizarding world. So Harry still did not want Crouch to die here.
After checking him for a while, joy appeared on Harry's face. He discovered that Crouch's soul was only severely injured. He was in a near-death state, but he had not truly died.
Clearly, the wizard who had cast the spell on him had held back. For some reason, the murderer both wanted to kill him and wanted him to live.
That immediately allowed Harry to lock onto the wizard he had expected, Barty Crouch Jr., who was disguised as Mad-Eye Moody.
Barty Crouch Jr. was Barty Crouch Sr.'s son. Only he would have such complicated feelings toward the elder Crouch.
Harry asked Hagrid to move away from Crouch. "Hagrid, please step back a few paces. Crouch still has a chance of surviving. I'll try to heal him now."
Hagrid froze for a moment, then hurriedly backed away and said in his booming voice, "That's wonderful. I'll leave it to you, Harry."
Harry placed the tip of his wand against Crouch's body and quickly began chanting.
This was a high-level healing spell from Kamar-Taj. Its main effect was to heal soul backlash after spellcasting. Using it to heal Crouch's soul injury was quite appropriate.
A reassuring green light enveloped Crouch. Nearly ten minutes later, Harry moved his hand away, and Crouch gradually woke from his unconscious state.
The instant he opened his eyes, he tried to struggle upright and quickly looked around.
Hagrid thought Crouch was panicking because he had been attacked, so he hurriedly comforted him and told him to sit back down, saying his body was what mattered.
But Harry knew Crouch might not have been looking around because of panic. More likely, he was searching for his son.
After Crouch came back to his senses and regained his calm, Hagrid finally asked the question on his mind.
"Crouch, who attacked you?"
Crouch's pupils shrank slightly. He did not answer immediately, as if he were organizing his words. Then he sighed and said, "I'm sorry, Hagrid. I didn't see who the attacker was. I only saw a flash of green light, and then I passed out."
Hagrid frowned slightly, the beard on his face twitching a few times as he pressed, "You don't have any impression at all? Something like the attacker's build, or what spell he used? Judging from the green light, it seemed like the Killing Curse, but if you were hit by the Killing Curse, you shouldn't still be alive."
Crouch seemed to be recalling it. After a few minutes, he shook his head and said, "I only remember that the attacker's body seemed very small. It was very likely a child. What he used was indeed the Killing Curse. Perhaps precisely because it was a child casting the Killing Curse, it was not powerful enough and only caused me to fall unconscious instead of killing me."
Hagrid nodded. "That's right. You're right. That is possible. A child casting the Killing Curse really might be unable to kill an adult."
Harry quietly watched the two of them and did not offer an opinion.
He only decided that after he returned, he would place a mark on Mad-Eye Moody to prevent anything like this from happening again.
As for whether he should arrest Mad-Eye Moody, not yet. After all, Moody was valuable bait, bait that could lure out the Death Eaters hiding in the darkness.
Because Crouch deliberately concealed the truth, Mad-Eye Moody was not exposed. Harry even saw Crouch and Mad-Eye Moody brush past each other from time to time, but neither of them reacted in any unusual way. They only spoke as they usually did.
Between rules and family, Crouch had still chosen family.
Time passed quickly, and soon, the third task began.
The third task would not only decide who the true champion of the Triwizard Tournament was. Harry also guessed that the Death Eaters would make their move during the third task.
The third task was far livelier than the first two. Many wizards who had not watched the earlier tasks arrived one after another. They also wanted to witness the birth of the champion, the champion of the first Triwizard Tournament in decades.
The third task's arena was located on the Quidditch pitch. When Harry, Hermione, and Ron entered the Quidditch pitch, it had become completely unrecognizable.
A hedge twenty feet high surrounded the edge of the field. In front of them was an opening, the entrance to the great maze. The passages inside were pitch-black, with almost no light.
Five minutes later, people began entering the stands. Hundreds of students filed into their seats, and the air was filled with excited voices and the sound of jumbled footsteps. The sky was now a clear, deep blue, and the stars had begun to appear.
Hagrid, Professor Moody, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Flitwick entered the field and walked toward Bagman and the champions.
"We will be patrolling outside the maze," Professor McGonagall told the four champions. "If you run into trouble and need help, send red sparks into the sky. Someone will come to help you. Do you understand?"
The four champions nodded together.
"Good. Go and prepare, then!" Bagman said cheerfully to the four champions.
"Good luck, Harry," Hagrid whispered.
Then the four champions slowly walked toward the entrance of the maze and stood before it.
When the four champions stood at the maze entrance, the noise in the stands suddenly froze.
Dumbledore used the Sonorous Charm and said loudly, "Early this morning, Professor Moody hid the Triwizard Cup inside the maze. Only he knows its exact location, and the four champions will enter to search for it.
"They will face many difficulties inside the maze. Only after overcoming those difficulties will the first champion to touch the Triwizard Cup win the Triwizard Tournament."
The audience was extremely excited, shouting the names of the champions they supported.
Dumbledore continued, "I have arranged for people to patrol around the maze. If a contestant wishes to withdraw from the competition, that contestant only needs to fire red sparks from their wand. Champions, come here now."
After the four of them approached Dumbledore, Dumbledore quietly reminded them, "Champions, there will be no dragons inside the maze, nor will there be any deep-water monsters. However, when the time comes, you will face even greater challenges.
"Once a person enters the maze, the maze will undergo certain changes. What you must do is try your best to find the cup, but you must be careful. Along the way, you may very well lose yourself, or even lose your life."
Finally, Dumbledore turned and shouted toward the stands, "Then I now declare that the third task of the Triwizard Tournament has officially begun!"
After Dumbledore announced the start, the other three champions quickly rushed toward the maze entrance. Harry, however, walked leisurely into the deep opening. After all, his goal was not the Triwizard Tournament championship, but finding the Death Eaters hidden in the dark.
The instant Harry stepped into the maze for the third task of the Triwizard Tournament, he was wrapped in a gloomy, eerie atmosphere. The tall hedges were like silent giants, rising twenty feet from the ground. Their branches and leaves interwove, blocking out the sky and completely cutting off the noise of the outside world.
Mist coiled over the ground like a thin veil, yet it carried a certain sticky thickness. With every breath, Harry seemed to taste a mixture of dampness and decay. The maze passages were complicated and tangled, like a giant spiderweb. Harry followed the road before him, the ground soft beneath his feet. Every step felt as though he were treading on a sponge, producing a faint squelching sound.
The hedges on both sides of the passage were covered with sharp thorns, and unknown slime hung from some of them, flashing with strange light in the dimness. Occasionally, a leaf would break away from a branch and spiral slowly down through the air. Its rustling sound was especially abrupt in the silent environment, like the whisper of some creature.
Harry truly disliked the surrounding environment, so he released a shield around himself, isolating himself from the outside. This way, the filth and stench outside could no longer interfere with him.
After turning a corner, a sharp hissing sound came from ahead. A giant Blast-Ended Skrewt appeared in front of Harry. Its body was enormous, a full ten feet long. Its body resembled a huge lion, its thick armor reflecting cold light, and its long yellow tail swayed behind it, the fur at the tip burning like fire.
The Blast-Ended Skrewt sprayed out a burst of scorching flame. The heat wave rushed toward Harry's face, but it was easily blocked by the transparent barrier.
Immediately afterward, Harry waved his wand at the giant Blast-Ended Skrewt. A flash of light passed, and the creature instantly fell into a deep sleep.
At that moment, Harry heard a cry of alarm in the distance. Then he raised his eyebrows. The rat hiding in the dark had finally been unable to resist showing itself.
He did not quickly advance in that direction. Instead, he casually raised his wand, aimed it that way, and dazzling white light burst from the tip of the wand.
Countless bolts of lightning interwove at the wand tip, forming a regular magnetic field. In the center of it, a green longsword gradually took shape and was also given magnetism.
Boom!
From complete stillness to extreme motion, it took only an instant.
The railgun gave the disintegration sword terrifying initial speed. It tore through the air, tore through the walls of trees along its path, tore through the unlucky magical creatures in its way, and accurately struck Krum, who was trying to attack Fleur. It ripped apart the arm holding his wand, while precisely avoiding any further harm to him.
After hitting Krum, the disintegration sword did not stop. It continued forward.
However, unlike its previous straight path, this time the disintegration sword turned in a wide arc and struck a black figure.
Unlike Krum, who had only had his arm crushed, the disintegration sword directly struck the black figure in the chest, almost tearing his body in half.
But just as he was about to die, a green light descended from the sky and fell onto his body. His life seemed to be frozen in place, maintained in a severely injured state, with no danger of death in the short term.
Only then did Harry leisurely walk toward Fleur and arrive beside her.
Fleur had been badly frightened by the powerful attack just now. She collapsed on the ground, her whole body trembling nonstop.
First, Krum had suddenly attacked her, trying to cast some cruel dark curse on her. Then a sudden, powerful attack had appeared, tearing through everything and destroying everything, passing right in front of her cheek. In such a short time, she had encountered two life-threatening dangers in a row. How could this young witch, who had not yet graduated, possibly remain calm?
She had entered a stress response and could barely think.
Harry waved his hand in front of Fleur and cast a Calming Charm on her. Only after she recovered somewhat did he say, "Don't be afraid, Fleur. There's been a small accident in the Triwizard Tournament."
Fleur was still very frightened. She hurriedly hugged Harry, hid behind him, and looked at Krum in fear. Even though his arm had been crushed, his expression had not changed at all.
"What… what happened to him?"
"The Imperius Curse," Harry explained calmly.
After that, he did not remove the curse from Krum first. Instead, he healed Krum's injury first.
In reality, time magic would have been the simplest treatment for this kind of injury. But since time magic could not be used right now, Harry could only cast a powerful healing spell on him.
Along with Harry's spellcasting, Krum's arm grew rapidly. A few seconds later, an entirely new arm had fully grown back.
Only then did Harry help Krum remove the Imperius Curse.
Seeing Krum wake up, Fleur immediately asked impatiently, "Krum, who cast the spell on you?"
Krum shook his head and said blankly, "I didn't see clearly, but that person felt very familiar."
Harry used the Levitation Charm to pull back the Death Eater he had severely injured and asked Krum, "Was he the one who attacked you?"
Krum examined the person carefully. It was an unfamiliar middle-aged man. He nodded and said, "Yes, it was him. Is he dead?"
Harry shook his head and said, "No. He's only unconscious. Something new has happened at the Triwizard Tournament site. You should withdraw from the competition immediately and report what happened here to Dumbledore."
"What about you?" Fleur asked worriedly.
Harry smiled and did not answer.
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