Chapter 184: Ninety Points

The Horntail breathed fire, and Edward changed again.

Gold-red flame replaced the upper half of his body as the dragon's breath crossed the stones. He did not become untouchable. Heat still pressed through the transformation, and holding the shape without his wand felt like keeping a door shut against several people at once. He moved with the blast instead of through its centre and reformed behind a black ridge.

The heat charm at his belt flashed amber.

"Black, you may withdraw!" the nearest judge called.

Edward knew. The emergency gate stood open behind the western barrier. A keeper waited there with a shield already raised.

The Horntail turned before he could reach it.

Her tail blocked the direct route, and the movement exposed the marked egg beneath her wing. Edward saw both facts at once. He also saw his wand lying on the wrong side of the sweep.

He could not duel a dragon barehanded. He did not need to.

The Horntail was defending a nest, not trying to conquer an arena. Every time the champions moved toward the real eggs, she widened her stance and raised her wings. Every time the threat withdrew, she folded inward.

Edward stopped advancing, and the dragon hesitated.

He raised both empty hands and called his fire close rather than throwing it. Thin lines formed over his fingers and along his forearms. They were not spells shaped by wand movement. They were the same elemental magic he had trained under Flitwick and Sirius, harder to control because nothing focused it except attention.

The lines widened into two vertical curtains several yards apart. Edward kept them low, outside the Horntail's reach and well clear of her scales. They did not close around her. They gave her two bright directions to watch while leaving the dark centre open.

The dragon lowered her head between them. Edward stepped backward, and she followed the movement with her eyes but did not lunge.

A charred support beam from the false nest had fallen across the nearest retreat path. Edward gathered the fire along his right hand until it stretched into a narrow blade. The shape looked far more dramatic than its purpose deserved. He used it once, cutting through the weakened timber rather than flesh, and kicked the two halves apart.

A roar came from the stands, but Edward barely heard it. The flame blade dissolved as soon as the path was clear.

The Horntail shifted again. One wing opened. The marked egg rolled free of the cloth Harry had disturbed earlier and stopped against a stone several paces from Edward.

He could leave it. The keeper's yellow flag remained raised, no red stop signal had appeared, and Sirius had not pulled the guardian cord. Edward took one step toward the egg.

The Horntail's head rose, and he stopped.

That was the limit. Reaching for the egg while she was rising would turn a controlled retreat into another contest of nerve. Edward stepped back instead and widened the fire curtains by inches, not toward the dragon but away from her, making the open space around the nest larger.

The Horntail chose the nest, folding both wings over the real eggs and lowering her body until her chest rested against the black stone. Her tail remained dangerous, but its arc shortened as she crouched. Nothing had struck her. Not one scale carried a burn.

"Now," Adeline shouted from beyond the boundary.

Edward moved, changing for the third time as he crossed the exposed ground. He held Elementalization from the waist up, not because it made him invulnerable but because he had no wand for a conventional shield. The effort became painful almost immediately. His vision tightened, and the gold-red patterns beneath his skin brightened before they began to flicker.

He reached the marked egg, let the transformation fall, and hooked both hands beneath it. The Horntail's tail moved before he had straightened.

Edward changed for the fourth time. Spikes passed close enough to scatter the edge of his shape, and when he reformed one knee struck the ground. The egg nearly escaped him, but he caught it against his chest and forced himself up.

A judge shouted for the keeper gate. Another called Edward's name. The arena had stopped being about points several breaths ago.

Edward turned toward the exit. The Horntail rose halfway, uncertain whether to defend the false egg or remain over the real nest, and Edward used the last clean control he had left. He drew both fire curtains inward toward himself, not her, until the light gathered around his body in a single tall flare.

Her attention followed it as he backed away. The dragon stayed down.

Edward crossed the black boundary stones with the golden egg against his ribs. A keeper stepped between him and the Horntail. Only then did Edward release Elementalization completely.

His legs almost failed. He found his wand where another keeper had recovered it and accepted it without trying to cast. Fire still traced his fingertips in faint gold-red lines, and each breath felt too shallow.

The judges stopped the task and began the review before anyone announced a score.

Krum's attack came first. The spell had been aimed at Edward while Edward stood inside the Horntail's marked danger range. It had not injured him directly, but it broke the rule every champion had signed and pushed another student toward a dragon. Krum kept the ten points for carrying out his own egg. The twenty points available for control and safety were removed.

Karkaroff protested until the spell record appeared above the judges' table.

Krum did not deny casting it.

"I thought Black was leaving the range," he said.

"You did not have permission to test that assumption with a Stunning Spell," the chief judge replied.

Edward's review was less comfortable than the cheering suggested. The judges credited him for retrieving an egg without striking the Horntail and for changing tactics once its defensive behaviour became clear. They also marked the cost of continuing after losing his wand. The yellow warning had not ordered him out, but his sustained Elementalization left too little margin for another failure.

Ten points for the egg. Ten for control and restraint. None of the final ten for safety.

Twenty.

Edward accepted the score without arguing that spectacle deserved more.

Harry received ten. He had brought out an egg but crossed the line with his heat charm near its limit and had needed immediate treatment for a scorched sleeve. Cedric received thirty for a clean retrieval. Adeline also received thirty after the judges confirmed that every spell she used had stayed outside the Short-Snout's body and nest.

Hogwarts finished the first task on ninety points.

Durmstrang stood thirty behind after Krum's penalty and several rougher approaches reduced its control marks. Beauxbatons remained within reach. The tournament had a leader, not a winner.

The keepers reported on the dragons before the totals became official. The Welsh Green had settled. The Short-Snout showed no injury. The Horntail remained over her real eggs and had no burn, cut, or curse mark anywhere on her body. Her agitation fell once the arena emptied.

That report mattered more to Edward than the noise in the stands.

Sirius reached the medical barrier while a healer checked Edward's pulse.

"You lost your wand," Sirius said.

"Krum helped with that."

"You stayed in anyway."

Edward looked at the Horntail, now only a bronze shape behind the keeper wards. "I had an open emergency gate and did not take it immediately. The judges were right to remove the safety marks."

Sirius's anger lost some of its edge. "And the part where you did not set a dragon on fire?"

"That part I intend to keep."

The healer ordered a restorative draught and no further casting until Edward's magic steadied. Edward drank it. The potion helped his hands stop shaking but did not refill what he had spent. Elementalization had cost him four changes, including one sustained stretch without a wand. Nothing about the result made that cheap.

Cedric and Adeline waited beyond the barrier. Harry had already been cleared and stood with Ron and Hermione near the arena steps. Edward's golden egg rested beside his recovered wand.

The judges raised the final board.

HOGWARTS: 90.

The stands erupted again.

Edward lifted the egg, thanked the healer, and walked toward the stairs with the last gold-red lines still fading from his fingers.