"Oh, look!" Bagman shouted. "Our youngest champion got the golden egg the fastest! It turns out that Mr. Potter is just as good as the other champions!"
Bagman was delighted.
He thought the first game was not easy to operate, and Harry refused his help. He was afraid that he would not be able to get the golden egg that represented success.
However, what Bagman didn't expect was that Harry, as the youngest warrior, not only got the golden egg, but also performed quite well!
Harry slowly landed at the edge of the audience seats and saw the dragon tamers rushing to the arena to calm the anger of the Hungarian Horntail. Ron and Hermione rushed down from their seats with excitement on their faces, and Hagrid and Professor McGonagall also hurried over to greet him.
For the first time in several months, Harry felt so relaxed that he hardly felt the pain from the wound on his arm... because he passed the first task and he survived.
"That was brilliant, Potter!" Professor McGonagall exclaimed as he stepped off the Firebolt.
Coming from the strict Professor McGonagall, these words were extremely high praise, which was rare.
Harry noticed that the hand she was holding on his shoulder was shaking slightly. "Before the judges give the scores, you need to go see Madam Pomfrey... She's over there. Diggory has already gone there. You need her to heal the wound on your arm."
"You did it, Harry!" Hagrid said excitedly beside him, "Did you hear that? Charlie said the Hornet is the fiercest of them all!"
"Thank you, Hagrid," said Harry loudly, winking at Hagrid to keep him from going on rashly and revealing that he had taken him to see the dragon beforehand.
Hermione and Ron hugged Harry one by one, and Hermione even cried with joy that Harry had successfully survived the dragon.
As Harry sat outside the first aid tent, receiving treatment from Madam Pomfrey, the scoring of the final match began.
Ms. Maxim was the first to raise the scoreboard. A long ray of silver light floated up from the board, showing the score on the board to the audience present.
The silver light gradually twisted and merged into the number "8".
"Not bad!" Ron said to Harry as the audience applauded. "She probably deducted points from you because of your injured arm..."
Next came Mr. Crouch, who held up a sign showing the number "9" in the air.
"That's promising, Harry!" Ron became even more excited. He patted Harry on the back and shouted, "At the moment, only Invermorny's Kowalski is obviously taller than you. The others are not better than you."
Next was Dumbledore, who gave Harry the same nine points as Cedric; Professor Hicks also gave Harry nine points without hesitation.
The audience cheered even louder.
Then Ludo Bagman held up his sign:
10 points.
"Ten points?" Harry said incredulously, "But... I'm hurt... Is he kidding?"
"Harry, stop complaining!" Ron shouted excitedly, "Ten points is not bad? I think you can even challenge for the top three!"
At this time, Karkaroff raised the sign, and the silver light on the sign merged into a number that was much smaller than the scores of other judges -
"4".
"What?" Ron stood up suddenly and shouted angrily, "Four points? This hateful, biased guy is getting too much!"
"Krum's golden egg was so rotten that Professor Dracula had to come out to save him, but Karkaroff still gave you a 9... You performed so well in the game, but Karkaroff only gave you a 4?"
I have to say that Karkaroff was a bit pretentious when he graded Cedric and Fleur, and gave them both a passing score of 6...
But ever since John's alternative competition ended, he didn't even bother to pretend and blatantly gave John and Harry extremely low scores of 5 and 4 respectively.
Despite this, Harry didn't care.
Even if Karkaroff gave him zero points, he wouldn't care. He felt that no matter what the final score was, at least he had proved himself in front of all the audiences, proving that he was not a false warrior who held Hogwarts back.
Moreover, it was not only Ron and Hermione who were happy for him, but also his other friends...
By now, when they saw the challenge Harry faced and how well he performed in the game, most of the students at Hogwarts were rooting for him, just as they had for Cedric...
"Merlin's beard!" At this moment, a scream of extreme shock rang in Harry's ears.
"What's wrong with you, Ron?"
Harry looked at his red-haired friend next to him and found that he was counting on his fingers with an incredible look on his face.
"Harry, it seems like... your score seems to have surpassed several warriors!" Ron shouted in shock.
Hermione had not yet recovered from her tears of joy, and she sat next to Harry with hazy eyes.
After hearing Ron's exclamation, she was stunned for a moment, then quickly wiped away her tears and took out a piece of parchment to start calculating.
"I've written down all the warriors' scores. Let me take a look..." Hermione said quickly, "According to the judges' scores, Diggory scored 48 points, Delacour scored 45 points, and Krum made a big mistake. He currently has the lowest score, 41 points..."
"Well, Kowalski's performance was amazing. Everyone except that biased guy Karkaroff gave him full marks. His final score was 55 points, making him the undisputed first place."
"And Harry your score adds up to... 49 points!"
Hermione raised her head abruptly and looked at Harry with wide eyes. "You are one point higher than Diggory who was favored by everyone before. You are now the second among all the warriors!"
"What did you say?" Harry rubbed his ears in disbelief, thinking he was hallucinating. "Hermione, did I hear it right... You said I was second?"
"Yes, Harry, you heard it right!" Hermione stood up excitedly, her eyes full of joy, "Now you don't have to worry about those bad guys questioning you anymore!"
Harry felt as if he were floating.
He originally just wanted to avoid being at the bottom, or at least avoid having Professor Dracula come out to save him from the fire dragon, but he never expected to get such a result.
"Mr. Bagman gave me a very high score, otherwise I wouldn't be as good as Cedric..."
Harry was being modest verbally, but the upturned corners of his mouth fully revealed his inner excitement and joy.
Just then, the curtain of the tent was lifted, and Cedric walked out of the first aid tent and walked straight to his side.
"Um, Cedric, I..."
Harry looked at him a little guiltily, thinking that if he had not participated in this competition, Cedric would have been the second-placed warrior.
However, before he could say anything to apologize, Cedric suddenly opened his mouth and smiled at him.
"Well done, Harry," he smiled.
Harry's worry disappeared in an instant and he started laughing too.
"Same to you, Cedric."
…
“You all did a great job!”
In the tent where the warriors first gathered, Bagman praised cheerfully.
He was shaking his legs briskly in the tent, looking extremely happy, as if he had just successfully jumped over the fire dragon and got the golden egg.
"Okay, I just have a few words to say." Bagman smiled as he gave the warriors instructions for follow-up matters. "The second project will begin at 9:30 a.m. on February 24 next year. Before that, you can rest for a long time—"
"But we'll leave you with something to think about! If you look down at those golden eggs you're holding, you'll see that they can be opened. See that seam there... Oh, Mr. Kowalski, don't open it here, close it!"
Before Bagman could finish his words, John had already used his fingernails to pry open the two halves of the eggshell along the gap between them.
The moment the golden egg was opened, an extremely terrifying, sharp and piercing scream filled the entire tent.
The warriors subconsciously covered their ears. Harry felt that this sound was much sharper than the sound he heard at Nearly Headless Nick's Deathday party... It was the noise of the ghost band playing with the musical saw.
John himself was startled and quickly slammed the eggshells shut.
The harsh noise that filled the entire tent finally stopped.
"Mr. Bagman, what is this piercing noise?" Cedric, as a good student with excellent character and academic performance, habitually raised his hand to ask a question.
"Oh, I can't tell you that," Bagman said to the warriors, removing his hands from his ears. "You'll have to solve the clues in the egg yourself - that'll tell you what the second item is."
"Before the competition, I hope you can be fully prepared!"
…
After the first event of the semi-finals was over, time quickly came to December.
Strong winds blew around Hogwarts, and heavy rain and snowflakes often fell.
Dracula stood on the stone bridge connecting the main tower and the astronomical tower, leaning against the railing, letting the strong wind blow his silver hair into disarray and the snowflakes fall on his shoulders. He looked at the white mist at the end of the frozen black lake, and the lawns and bushes covered with snow nearby.
"Professor Dracula, the place you chose is really inconsiderate to the elderly." Dumbledore walked over from the porch on the main tower side and chuckled.
He held his magic wand upright, as if holding a transparent umbrella to keep the wind and snow out.
The Phoenix Fawkes lay on Dumbledore's shoulder, emitting warmth that melted the snowflakes floating around.
"You should be thankful that I didn't choose the top of the Astronomy Tower." Dracula glanced at Dumbledore and raised his lips slightly. "Compared to the top of the tower, the view here is inevitably much narrower."
"I thought it would be more appropriate for us to sit by the warm fireplace in the castle and chat in such cold weather." Dumbledore brushed the snowflakes accumulated on the marble railing with his sleeves and leaned on the railing next to Dracula. "Oh, this railing is really cold."
"It's indeed quite comfortable inside the castle." Dracula nodded, looking at the shore of the Black Lake in the distance. "But I'm a little curious, what would it feel like for the people living in Durmstrang's ship?"
Dumbledore also followed Dracula's gaze and looked at the large ship docked by the Black Lake - the ship was pitching and swaying in the strong wind, and the black sails were fluttering and dancing in the dark night sky.
I don't know what the mentality of those people from Durmstrang was, but they actually used magic to prevent the lake water near the ship from freezing, and they showed no intention of retracting the black sails.
Therefore, the big ship swayed greatly in the strong wind, and I'm afraid the rooms there would not be very warm. After all, the wind by the lake is not only strong but also quite cold.
"They should have their own unique way of keeping warm, right?" Dumbledore glanced over there, smiled and shook his head, "And the people of Durmstrang have been living in this cold environment for a long time. Maybe they can only exert their full strength when the temperature drops."
"Maybe..." Skipping other trivial matters, Dracula suddenly asked: "Hasn't it been found out who used the Confusion Spell on the Goblet of Fire?"
Dumbledore's expression suddenly became serious.
"I really didn't find anything..." He said slowly, "On the night before Halloween, there were not many candidates who had the opportunity to come into contact with the Goblet of Fire. I observed their situation carefully, but did not find any problems."
"What about the professors from other schools? Do they have any problems?" Dracula frowned and asked, "The Confusion Charm on the Goblet of Fire can't have appeared out of thin air, right?"
"Madame Maxime and Professor Hicks are both trustworthy, and Karkaroff was once a Death Eater. He was originally a certain suspect..." Dumbledore said slowly, "So I asked Severus to test him."
"Severus judged that Karkaroff was not the real culprit who cast the curse on the Goblet of Fire. He was only afraid of Voldemort's return and even planned to escape... I agree with Severus' point of view."
"Think about it from another angle. In addition to professors, wouldn't Voldemort's helpers disguise themselves as students?" Dracula asked again, "Could there be Death Eaters disguised as students, casting the Confusion Charm while throwing the note into the Goblet of Fire?"
"I don't think it's likely." Dumbledore shook his head. "The students from Invermorny, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang were organized by their headmasters and signed up for the Goblet of Fire together. They don't have much chance to cast spells."
"As for the students of Hogwarts, they have already passed a test when entering Platform 9 3/4 of King's Cross Station to prevent the use of Polyjuice Potion to impersonate others..."
"It's a bit strange indeed. How come the caster of the spell is nowhere to be found?"
…
…