"Very bold!"
Mr. Bagman was shouting. "He showed extraordinary courage—ah—yes, he got the golden egg!"
Thunderous applause shattered the winter air like breaking glass.
Krum had finally completed his mission. His two teammates also breathed long sighs of relief and hurriedly withdrew from the competition field.
The dragon handlers came on again, like firefighters going to pacify the Chinese Fireball.
"The time was much longer than ours!" Ron said excitedly.
Dean nodded vigorously. "And those real eggs were crushed too. They'll definitely deduct points for that!"
"Exactly," Seamus loudly agreed. "This is in the bag!"
The spectators in the stands all applauded.
Just like at the Quidditch finals, Krum had earned everyone's respect through his own efforts.
"Look at Karkaroff!"
Harry suddenly pointed at the judges' table, telling his friends.
Everyone looked up to see that Durmstrang headmaster Professor Karkaroff's face had almost become like Krum's usual expression, so dark it could drip water.
His fingers gripped the chair's armrest tightly. The way he looked at Toby Thornton and Lucas Poliakov was like...
"His eyes now look like Snape's!"
Dean couldn't help saying. "Harry, that's exactly how Snape looks at you normally."
Harry remained silent, though the comparison stung. It was unfortunately accurate, Snape's usual gaze at him was exactly like Karkaroff's current look at Thornton and Poliakov, filled with disgust.
"No teamwork," Sherlock commented briefly. "It's even worse than if he'd gone solo. That might have taken even less time."
Harry and Cedric nodded in agreement.
They could naturally see that Krum had actually found several opportunities, but gave them up to save his two teammates.
If he'd operated separately, he really might have been even faster.
Next came the scoring round.
As everyone predicted, the Chinese Fireball had crushed nearly half the real dragon eggs while struggling after its eye was cursed.
The judges all took this into account when scoring.
Madame Maxime gave six points, Moody also gave six points, and Dumbledore gave eight points.
These three judges' scores were all within expectations.
However, when it was Karkaroff's turn, his action once again aroused the entire audience's displeasure.
Because just like Mr. Bagman in the previous round, he gave this round's only ten points.
Full marks!
"Rigged!"
"Shameless!"
"Bastard!"
"Karkaroff, fuck you!"
Karkaroff turned a deaf ear to the insults from the spectator stands.
However, this time Mr. Bagman spoke up. "Igor, aren't you going too far?"
"How am I going too far?" Karkaroff said shamelessly. "You can give your country's champions full marks. Can't I do the same?"
"Is that the issue?"
Bagman was shocked by Karkaroff's shamelessness. "Your champions didn't perform well and let the dragon crush half the eggs! Even leaving that aside, they took several times longer than the Hogwarts team! You just gave Hogwarts four points but gave your own school's team ten points. How do you explain that?"
Karkaroff sneered coldly. "So what? Although the Hogwarts three took less time, two of them were injured! Although Durmstrang took longer, every person is completely unharmed!"
"Karkaroff, you—"
"Alright, Ludo."
At this moment, Dumbledore stopped the two from continuing to argue. "You should give your score. If this continues, I'm afraid Beauxbatons' champions will have to wait too long."
Bagman looked deeply at Karkaroff, then raised his wand.
Six points!
He'd originally wanted to return Karkaroff's favor with a four.
However, looking at the current scoring situation, whether he gave four points or six points made no difference.
Either way, Hogwarts was in the lead, which didn't affect his plans.
Plus, Krum's performance was indeed outstanding. Giving four points would truly be an insult to him.
So, he ultimately gave six points.
Karkaroff sneered coldly and said no more.
Next came Beauxbatons' team.
Their opponent was a Swedish Short-Snout.
Compared to Durmstrang's team, Beauxbatons' team showed much better coordination.
The three cast a spell together and actually succeeded in making the Swedish Short-Snout enter a drowsy state.
"Oh no!"
In the spectator stands, Hermione and Ginny, the two girls, immediately became nervous.
If Beauxbatons succeeded like this, Hogwarts' ranking would drop to second.
"It's not that easy," Sherlock said quietly. "Think about what Professor Lupin said."
Hearing Sherlock's words, Harry, Hermione, and Ron immediately recalled.
"Don't be tempted to try some Stunning Spell."
"Dragons are enormously powerful and have very strong magic. They can't be knocked down by a single Stunning Spell."
"It takes about ten adult wizards casting spells simultaneously to subdue a dragon."
Sure enough, the already drowsy Chinese Fireball suddenly snorted loudly and abruptly woke up.
Furious at the three humans who'd nearly put it to sleep, it roared and spewed out flames.
Team captain Fleur Delacour reacted fastest, dodging while loudly warning the others.
Roy Lefon, the young man, rolled on the ground. Though his posture was ungainly, it was very practical.
Philly Raven either reacted a half-beat too slow or couldn't bring herself to roll on the ground—her skirt caught fire.
Fortunately, she was unharmed.
Roy Lefon, after getting up from the ground, immediately conjured water from his wand to extinguish the fire.
Next, the three kept splitting up and surrounding, planning to use the Stunning Spell again.
Through their persistent efforts, they finally seized an opportunity. Taking advantage of the Swedish Short-Snout being half-asleep and half-awake, they successfully stole the golden egg.
The entire process was faster than Krum's, though it still took nearly seven minutes.
Unlike Durmstrang's awkwardness, their coordination, though not perfect and with some tactical errors, showed a certain elegant composure under pressure.
Finally, the five judges gave relatively fair scores, making Beauxbatons' score land right between Hogwarts' team and Durmstrang's team.
After the five judges finished scoring, Bagman finally picked up the microphone again.
His voice was hoarse but still resonant.
"Ladies and gentlemen! A dramatic competition has concluded! All three schools have demonstrated their wisdom and courage! We saw truly legendary teamwork—from Hogwarts! We also saw unyielding will and powerful individual magic—from Durmstrang! We also saw elegant adaptability and team coordination—from Beauxbatons!
History repeats itself at this moment! The Triwizard Tournament's flame is reignited! Let us cheer once more for all the champions!"
Applause and cheers flooded the entire arena. Hogwarts teachers and students hugged each other.
Only Ron was still muttering about Karkaroff's four points.
However, when they were preparing to return to the school, Charlie hurried up to them.
"Brilliant, Harry!"
He was very excited, his face almost as red as his hair.
"You got off to a flying start right away. Durmstrang and Beauxbatons were left far behind! Listen, I've got to run. I've got to send an owl to Mum. I swore I'd tell her everything. Oh, it's just unbelievable!"
"You're not just here to tell us this, are you, Charlie?"
Sherlock looked at this Weasley.
"Oh, you reminded me! I almost forgot the important thing!"
Charlie slapped his forehead. "They told me to tell you three... you need to stay here a few more minutes... Bagman has a few words to say, in that champions' tent you just visited."
Sherlock, Harry, and Cedric entered the tent for the second time.
Harry didn't know what the others thought, but this time he felt the tent gave a completely different feeling, it had become friendly and warm.
He recalled the feeling when they'd just dodged the Horntail's attacks, and compared that feeling to the long wait while the judges scored...
That waiting was painfully unbearable, incomparable to anything else.
After a while, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang's champions also came in successively.
Surprisingly, Krum actually took the initiative to talk to them.
"You did well."
His gaze moved between Sherlock, Harry, and Cedric, finally settling on Cedric, the team captain.
"Thanks to your inspiration, I thought of this method."
Though somewhat surprised, Cedric still smiled at him. "You weren't bad either. You flew much better than me."
Krum shook his head and said nothing more.
"You all did excellently!"
Ludo Bagman said, hopping lightly into the tent.
Sherlock's gaze swept over him, noticing he looked overjoyed, as if he himself had just successfully navigated past a dragon.
"Well, considering everyone's waiting to celebrate, I'll keep this short. The second task will take place at nine-thirty in the morning on February twenty-fourth next year. Before then, you can rest for quite a long time—but we're going to leave you with some questions to ponder!
Look down at those golden eggs you're holding, and you'll find they can open... See the seam there? You must solve the clue provided inside—that will tell you what the second task is, so you can prepare! All clear? No problems? Good, off you go!"
After saying this, Bagman left impatiently, as if something was still waiting for him.
Sherlock, Harry, and Cedric walked out of the tent together, discussing what Bagman had just said.
"Cedric, shall I keep the golden egg for now?" Sherlock looked at Cedric.
"I was thinking the same thing without you saying it!"
Cedric said with relief, "I didn't expect this golden egg to be related to the second task's clue. Now I'm not worried at all, because we have you."
Harry nodded repeatedly.
This kind of thing requiring brainpower couldn't possibly stump Sherlock.
"The time between the two tasks is stretched so long, which gives us plenty of preparation time."
Cedric continued. "Sherlock, this is a good thing for us. I just don't know if Durmstrang and Beauxbatons people can solve the secret before this time."
Seeing that Sherlock wasn't speaking, Cedric looked over curiously, only to see Sherlock staring at a grove of trees to their side front.
"What's wrong, Sherlock?"
Harry also noticed Sherlock's gaze and followed his line of sight, couldn't help but pause slightly.
He remembered very clearly that last Sunday at dawn, he and Sherlock had first heard the dragon's roar from behind this grove of trees.
So, was Sherlock... feeling sentimental?
Just then, Sherlock suddenly spoke. "If you don't come out now, we're leaving."
Harry was shocked.
Cedric was even more baffled. "Sherlock, who are you talking to?"
As soon as he finished speaking, a witch suddenly jumped out from behind the trees.
It was Rita Skeeter, who had previously brought Harry enormous trouble.
Today she wore bright green robes and held a long, equally dazzlingly green quill that matched the color of her robes perfectly.
"Congratulations, Hogwarts champions!"
She looked at the three with a face full of smiles, though mainly at Harry. "As the youngest champion, could you tell me a word? What did you feel facing the dragon? What do you feel now? Do you think the judges' scoring was fair?"
Harry first felt somewhat astonished, then nameless anger rose in his heart.
It was this damned woman who had brought great trouble to his previous life.
Unexpectedly, she was still pestering him like this?
For a moment, Harry even felt some regret that he hadn't agreed to let Sirius deal with her using that special method.
He looked at Sherlock, who nodded slightly at him, so he took a deep breath.
"Okay, I can tell you one word."
Under Rita Skeeter's expectant gaze, Harry said crisply, "Goodbye!"
With that, he walked toward the castle without looking back.
"Goodbye, Miss Skeetear."
Cedric smiled slightly at Rita Skeeter, then lifted his feet to catch up with Harry.
Sherlock looked deeply at Rita Skeeter, then spoke. "Miss Skeeter, you've already interfered with my friend's normal life."
"So, what do you want to tell me, the second youngest champion after Harry?"
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