After enduring the brutal, exhausting competition against Slytherin, Durmstrang's team was now reduced to only Viktor Krum standing alone, and Beauxbatons had similarly only Fleur Delacour remaining to represent their school.
The two Hogwarts teams, however, were still completely intact with all their members.
But after the fierce, prolonged battle with the tough Slytherin team, Cedric and his two companions had expended truly enormous amounts of physical energy and magical power.
Although their physical strength had recovered somewhat through rest and food, their magical power required deep rest to return from a state of complete depletion. This wasn't something that could be restored in minutes.
And what made matters considerably worse was that all three of them were still carrying multiple injuries like cuts, burns, and bruises which were not life-threatening, but enough to slow them down and cause persistent pain.
If they had to compete directly with students from the other three schools in whatever physical or magical challenges came next, it was completely fair to say that Cedric's team could no longer be of much use in combat situations.
Hermione's trio was in the best overall condition of all the remaining groups, though this assessment was only relative to the others' worse states. If they had to engage in serious dueling or similar magical contests against fresh opponents, they would likewise be crushed without much difficulty.
"Let's go," Hermione said with determination.
Watching the other three teams walk through their respective doorways one by one, Hermione took a deep breath.
She forcibly suppressed the growing unease in her heart and stomach. After exchanging encouraging glances with Harry and Ron, she too stepped through the stone doorway.
Darkness came as expected.
All three of them initially thought Professor Watson was going to use the same psychological trick again, that they would have to fumble blindly through darkness for a long while before finding their way out. But to their genuine surprise, after stepping through the doorway's threshold, they had taken only one step forward into the void when light suddenly returned.
Whoosh—
A gentle breeze brushing against their faces, carrying no scent at all, made Hermione and the others instinctively close their eyes against the unexpected sensation.
When they cautiously opened them again, slowly adjusting to the light, everything before them plunged them into incomparable shock and complete bewilderment!
They had appeared on a platform constructed of dark wooden flooring, roughly thirty feet in both length and width in about the size of a large classroom.
The platform was suspended in mid-air with no visible supports, and high above their heads stretched a magnificent starry river set against an endless, velvet-black backdrop that seemed to extend to infinity in all directions.
Within the dazzling swirling galaxy over their heads, two meteors would occasionally fall in graceful arcs. The meteors streaked across the lonely and vast cosmic space trailing tails of silver light before finally disappearing into the ominous darkness roiling beneath their feet far below.
They weren't the only ones on the floating platform.
Cedric's group, who had just "parted ways" with them moments ago on the other side of the doorway, as well as Fleur and Viktor standing separately, had also appeared on this rather spacious platform. Their eyes were equally lost and disoriented as they gazed around in wonder and growing apprehension.
"Did it get dark outside?" Ron asked in bewilderment.
Ron wore a funny, dazed expression; his mouth was slightly open as he spoke words that were both amusing and exasperating in their simplicity.
"This is obviously all done with extremely complex magic, Ron. But—" Hermione's voice trailed off.
Hermione looked up at the magnificent starry river up above them in genuine confusion. She tried to identify which region or constellation of the actual night sky this might be representing, but nothing looked familiar.
"Hiss—" Harry suddenly gasped sharply and stepped back several steps from the edge of the platform, his face was draining of color.
"What's wrong, Harry?" Hermione immediately asked with concern, turning to him.
"We'd better be extremely careful, Hermione, Ron." Harry's voice was tense with tension. "I have a very strong feeling that if we fall down there into that darkness, we're done for."
Harry said, his face having turned pale.
His serious warning immediately sparked intense curiosity in both Hermione and Ron despite the fear. The two of them supported each other carefully by the arms for balance and, like Harry had done, cautiously leaned their heads over the platform's edge to look down into the abyss below.
At first glance, their scalps immediately went numb with fear.
Below them yawned an unfathomably deep, dark abyss that seemed to have no bottom at all. That in itself wasn't particularly unusual or terrifying. When the first trial had begun, they had spent quite some time in complete darkness as well, and that had been manageable.
But now the darkness beneath them was deeply different, it was not still or peaceful like the previous dark space they'd experienced.
The darkness below the suspended platform was flowing in some mysterious way. It moved like surging waves and spine-chilling whirlpools in a raging, storm-tossed sea during the most violent weather! The patterns shifted and changed, creating hypnotic yet terrifying spirals that seemed to pull at the eyes.
Although they knew logically that everything around them was magical illusion just like the enchanted ceiling of the castle's Great Hall that showed the sky outside, Harry and the others still felt deep, instinctive awe and genuine fear toward everything surrounding them.
"But what are we actually supposed to do here?" Harry turned slowly in place, scanning the platform.
He saw the other three teams also cautiously occupying different sections of the platform, warily casting nervous glances down into the churning abyss below, their faces reflecting the same confusion.
He asked in genuine puzzlement, "Don't tell me Fred and George are hiding somewhere around here using invisibility magic, ready to push us off the platform for a laugh?"
"If they dare do something like that, I'll never forgive them! Ever!" Ron's face tightened with anger, his voice was extremely sharp and rising in pitch.
"I think you should come see this!" Suddenly, Fleur's clear, ringing voice drifted through the spacious area, cutting through the ambient tension and attracting everyone's attention.
Harry and his two friends exchanged quick, uncertain glances before hurrying over to where the Beauxbatons champion stood.
"Oh, that's—" Neville squinted hard toward the space beyond the edge of the platform where Fleur was standing and pointing.
Against the cosmos-like background, something whose exact shape remained unclear was radiating flowing, pulsing white light that seemed almost alive.
Harry also saw the distant glowing object, his eyes were narrowing to focus.
But without any reference points or sense of scale in this terrible space, he couldn't accurately judge the distance to the luminous thing at all. Was it close or miles away?
"I think you should pay more attention to this detail," Fleur spoke up again to redirect their focus.
Everyone's eyes had been drawn up to the mysterious glowing object floating in the distance, so Fleur had to speak more insistently to remind them. She raised her hand and extended an index finger, pointing downward below the platform's wooden edge.
About three or four feet below the platform's edge, barely visible, were two transparent glass panels placed side by side in parallel. Each panel was roughly two feet wide, only able to accommodate one person standing with feet together and the glass was nearly completely invisible against the dark background.
If the glass surfaces hadn't occasionally reflected the bright light of meteors streaking across the artificial sky above, creating brief glints and sparkles, they wouldn't have spotted the panels at all.
Moreover, these two fragile-looking glass panels floating on the dark sea were not alone or isolated. Ahead of them, separated by a gap of about a foot or perhaps slightly more, there were similarly two more parallel glass panels.
And further beyond those, stretching into the distance, they could dimly perceive what might be more panels, though they couldn't see clearly enough to be certain.
The contestants crouching at the platform's edge, peering down with increasing unease, looked at each other with wide eyes, momentarily rendered completely speechless by the implications.
"Does anyone want to share their thoughts on this?" Ron glanced back and forth repeatedly between the glass panels suspended above the abyss and the distant, mysterious glowing object. He asked with an ugly, forced smile on his face.
"Obviously—" Hermione exchanged looks with Cedric, Viktor, and Fleur, seeing her own understanding reflected there.
"We need to retrieve that glowing thing by crossing the glass walkway below," she concluded.
"That doesn't sound too terribly difficult, does it?" Neville's tone was rather relaxed as he carefully examined the glass panels, leaning further over.
"This challenge seems to be primarily testing courage and nerve. But we all know that even if we lose our footing and fall off the glass panels into that darkness, we won't actually die. As long as we know that fact, there's really nothing to be genuinely afraid of."
"It seems that way on the surface," Fleur acknowledged.
Fleur's brows furrowed slightly in concentration as she stared at the surrounding darkness with suspicious eyes, searching for hidden threats.
"But if it's like the last round of trials, where your Hogwarts classmates are hiding nearby somewhere and they attack us while we're crossing the glass bridge, we'll have no ability to fight back. We'll be completely vulnerable."
Falling from the glass bridge into the dark ocean certainly wouldn't kill them. But being eliminated from the competition through a fall would be absolutely certain.
"What's your take on this, Hermione?" Harry looked at her expectantly.
"Well, about the same as Fleur's assessment, actually," Hermione said in response.
She pursed her lips thoughtfully, looking with worry at the glass panels far below. "If it's just a matter of crossing the glass walkway to retrieve that glowing thing, it seems a bit too simple and straightforward, doesn't it? We only need to overcome our fear of heights and falling, so—"
Hermione's eyes darted around warily, scanning the darkness.
"Maybe the other students are hiding nearby somewhere and once we step onto the walkway, they'll attack us from their positions. That would fit Professor Watson's style."
"Then we wouldn't have any realistic chance of winning this, would we?" Ron pointed out the flaw.
He continued reasonably, "It would be far too easy to knock someone off this kind of narrow walkway. I mean, if we go up there, we can only move forward or backward."
What Ron questioned was indeed quite reasonable.
On such a narrow passage which was barely enough for one person, they would have to walk very carefully and couldn't possibly be as agile or mobile as they would be on normal ground.
Under those restrictive circumstances, it would be utterly effortless for the Physical Education classmates with their professional combat training to drive them off the walkway with even basic spells.
The group fell into contemplative silence, all of them were thinking hard, trying to plan how best to respond if they encountered the dangerous situation they had envisioned.
Viktor and Fleur exchanged glances.
Their two teams were reduced down to just themselves alone. They had no margin for error at all and could only hope that Hogwarts' two intact teams would first find a feasible path forward, blazing the trail.
"What if we all go up together at once and use Shield Charms?" Harry suggested thoughtfully, but halfway through speaking his sentence, he was already shaking his head in rejection of his own idea.
When reduced to being slow targets on a narrow walkway, the Shield Charm would only help them hold out for a few seconds longer before being overwhelmed. It wouldn't change the ultimate outcome.
Time passed minute by minute.
Some contestants sat cross-legged on the wooden platform, their faces full of distress and frustration, squinting and glaring intensely at the darkness beneath the starry river. They stared as if doing so with enough concentration would somehow enable them to find those suspected hidden enemies lurking in the shadows.
Hermione and Cedric kept whispering to each other in low tones. Both of them understood clearly that Fleur and Viktor, being alone, wouldn't take the initiative and lead. Only the Hogwarts teams could afford to charge forward first and test the waters.
But after discussing options for quite a while, going through scenario after scenario, neither of them had developed a reliable tactical way to effectively block or defend against students from any school in such an inherently unfavorable situation. The walkway was simply too exposed.
Neville was listlessly counting the meteors streaking across the artificial sky while half-listening with one ear to Hermione and Cedric's increasingly circular discussion.
Suddenly, breaking the pattern, Neville stood up decisively from his cross-legged sitting position.
He walked past Luna and stood at the very edge of the platform.
"I'm going to give it a try,"
Looking down at the two small glass panels suspended above the raging dark sea far below, Neville said with a slight, brave smile.
Cedric was stunned for a moment, his mouth opened in surprise, then quickly stood up with alarm. Harry and the others also scrambled to their feet one after another, rushing over.
"The situation isn't clear right now, Neville. Attempting it blindly without a plan isn't wise or safe," Cedric said with a deeply furrowed brow.
"But if we don't try and test it, the situation will remain completely unclear, won't it?"
The words Neville spoke with an unconcerned, almost casual smile left everyone momentarily speechless.
————————————
For More Chapters; patreon.com/FicFrenzy