Harry Potter: Don't touch

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***

- Pay attention, Justin! - Potter exclaimed, slamming into the magic field once again.

- I'm trying, I'm trying,' Finch-Fletchley looked hurt. - I'm not an expert like you, and I don't study all this unnecessary stuff.

- We might not make it to the Cup because of this unnecessary stuff, try again,' Harry turned back to the starting line. - Are you ready? Come on!

- All right, all right... Vingardium Leviosa. Mobilicorps.

Harry took off and flew towards Finch-Fletchley.

- Don't hit that field again,' Potter directed his friend. - Go left, then a few centimetres sideways, flip it forty-five degrees and go.

Finch-Fletchley didn't reply, he was concentrating on controlling Potter's flight.

The first challenge the two Puffenduys faced was flying over a clearing with magical fields all over the place. The floor, ceiling, walls - consisted entirely of magical fields, touching which caused a chain reaction that closed the only exit. Also, as obstacles, there were poles and various figures consisting of the same magic field in the air. In order to pass the test, you had to lift yourself into the air and, bypassing all the obstacles, fly to the exit.

Controlling one's own flight was a difficult job. However, they had an advantage - there were two of them, and each could control the other's flight - it was much more convenient. Potter had managed to carry Finch-Fletchley on the first try, his vast experience in using the levitation spell, but Justin was having serious problems.

- Left. Justin, LEFT! - Harry shouted.

Finch-Fletchley reacted and Potter was able to avoid the man made up of a magical field, but he slammed into the left wall at a respectful speed.

- Not that hard! Bloody hell! - Potter said, rubbing his bruised shoulder.

Touching his shoulder had caused intense pain. Did I break something?

- I'm trying, I'm trying! My magic won't listen to me! Inadequate spell! - shouted Finch-Fletchley from the exit.

- Okay, that's it, forget it, I'll try it myself. - Harry went back to the beginning, pulled out his wand and pointed it at his shoulder. - Episkey!

He grimaced at the sharp pain, but his shoulder stopped hurting just as sharply. So it was a dislocation, not a fracture. That was good news, because the only thing Potter knew against fractures was Ferula - splinting. It was a good thing the sphinx hadn't attacked them, or he would have had a good practice using healing spells.

- Vingardium leviosa! - Potter lifted himself into the air. - Mobilicorpus! - and flew.

- Don't hit the pillar on the right! - Finch-Fletchley tried to help with directional adjustments as well as Potter.

- I can do it, I don't need any guidance,' Harry remarked, easily flying around the pillar and past the sword.

- Well, we'll see. If you crash, I'll be more helpful next time.

Potter didn't bother replying to this remark, he carefully made his way between the two closely standing fields.

The next obstacle was another human, similar to the one Harry had failed to fly properly last time, then a werewolf - or wolf, house elf, a few stargazers, and finally a ninety-degree vertical turn, and the test was passed.

- Later, if you want, I'll teach you how to fly just as cool without a broom,' Harry said to a surprised Justin as he landed. - There was no time for raptures now, we had to hurry. Let's go.

The next obstacle was the devil's snares that filled the only passage leading to the centre of the maze. Potter knew that every second counted, but still he didn't dare to use Hellfire, he and Justin used the usual Incendio. The next obstacle was the swamp, both Harry and Finch-Fletchley failed in their attempt to transfigure the boat, and only then did Potter remember levitation. He, along with Justin, repeated the same trick he had done at the beginning of the third pitch.

After passing the swamp, Harry heard the sounds of a furious battle nearby, explosions and a woman's scream. There was only one scream, which suggested that it was Fleur fighting some fauna right now. It was a conclusion that was self-evident, there was only one girl among the five remaining participants, and if Delacourt was fighting someone else, there would be another voice shouting spells.

- Are we going to team up with Fleur? - Harry asked Justin.

Potter would prefer to continue his journey in reliable company, but if Finch-Fletchley wanted Delacourt on his team, he wouldn't mind, after all, Fleur wasn't his girlfriend, so it wasn't up to him to decide.

- No. The time for teaming up has passed, perhaps Krum's out too, and if so, we'll just have to beat Fred and the Cup will be ours!

* * *

It didn't take them long to run to the sound of battle. In five minutes they found themselves in a clearing about thirty by thirty metres square. And this clearing contained a lot of interesting things.

To begin with, the Cup of the Three Wizards stood on a small hill surrounded by a red glow. One step away from the vessel, Fred Weasley lay with a happy smile on his face. Unconscious. His wand lay next to a dozen dead birds. Ten metres away from him stood Fleur Delacourt. She was surrounded by five shields, of which Harry could only identify three, her clothes were tattered and hung in rags, her hair was messy, there was barely any blood flowing from her lip, and there was a scar on her face that not long ago seemed to be a wound inflicted by a sphinx claw. Fleur looked at her friends who had arrived with relief and hope.

But on the face of Kram, who was opposite Delacourt, there was a completely different emotion, he clearly did not like the appearance of new participants, he was winning the battle against Fleur, and the appearance of other contenders - Potter and Justin - finally confused the situation. Victor seemed to be using non-verbal spells, and that was why his voice couldn't be heard from afar, no other explanation Potter could see...

Krum looked pretty much the same as he had before the Tournament, except that the torn sleeves and a similar wound on his forehead as Fleur's on his cheek spoke of a fight with a sphinx.

So they stood staring at each other for several seconds. Harry clearly realised that this battle would be the final test of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. The cup is right here. Whoever touches it first wins. Everything must be decided right now...

However, no one did anything about it. The allies, or rather, former allies stared at them in silence. It was the calm before the storm.

- Hey! What's going on here? - Justin couldn't think of anything smarter to say than that.

Krum waved his wand, Harry did too.

- Glysseo! - Potter exclaimed, and the ground beneath Finch-Fletchley's feet turned into a sloping slide, causing him to fall, and Krum's unknown curse flew higher.

- Bombarda! Expulso! Petrificus totalus! Aveicus! - Harry sent a combination of spells at Kram, augmenting it with a non-combat Aweik. He was limited in what he could do, because he knew there were a thousand people watching their confrontation, and half of his spell collection was not the brightest and probably forbidden, so if he showed anything he shouldn't know about, Dumbledore, and not only Dumbledore, might have questions. And the answers would lead to Riddle, who could tell him a lot of things that would get Potter sent away from the school, even if he won the Tournament.

Victor obviously did not expect such a leap from Potter and, afraid of a spell unknown to him, jumped over the end of Harry's series with the help of a spell. This manoeuvre prevented him from counterattacking, and Potter attacked again:

- Avis! Opunyo!

The summoned birds swooped down on Kram, and quite successfully, one winged creature knocking his wand out of his hand. Potter was prevented from finishing off Durmstrang's last champion by Fleur.

- Vibrinuyo! Ivue!

- Protego! Contratus! - Potter put up magical and reflective shields.

Delacourt was using French spells that anyone unfamiliar with them would try to dodge, but she hadn't taken into account that Harry happened to be familiar with both spells, having been told about them by Evette Roux back in the autumn.

So the touch-disabling spell flew back at Fleur, and while she was fending off her own spell, Harry had time to launch his own attack. He swung his wand, intending to stun Delacourt, but it was at that moment that a yellow beam of a non-verbal spell hit her. Justin Finch-Fletchley stepped into the fray. Fleur flew five metres away and hit the ground, her wand falling out midway through.

Had they won? Was it really that easy? What about the Durmstrang student?

Potter glanced round to see how Victor was doing with the birds.

And took in the face three spells sent by Kram at once....

Harry hovered above the ground for a few seconds and then collapsed. His wand fell out and bounced off in an unknown direction. His legs went numb. His vision was gone. Body covered in pimples. Hair stood on end. Glasses shattered. Blood spurted from his nose....

Potter lay on the ground, trying to regain consciousness. And then to realise what he'd been hit with, in order to find a suitable counterspell. It hurt, but not badly enough to forget that the Cup of the Three Wizards was somewhere nearby and there was an active battle for it right now. And anyway, after Pierce, the word 'pain' wasn't much of a stretch for Potter, and ordinary injuries weren't part of it. Oh, and in general, minor wounds received almost no response from the body, and pain sensations were dulled. It would be funny if, because of his high pain threshold, he was able to grab the Cup. In that case, it would appear that Harry would owe his victory in the Tournament to Pierce's torture.

Next to Potter came Finch-Fletchley's voice and then some other sound, like two heavy, huge irons hitting each other. Harry couldn't make out Justin's speech or realise which side the sounds were coming from. Another effect was that the spells were somehow preventing him from adequately perceiving reality. What had gotten into him in the first place?

One of the three spells was clearly Furunculus or something similar, there are hardly many versions of spells for pimples, but the other two... Perception, vision, nose, feet, wand, hover... The Hogwarts school curriculum clearly didn't involve learning something like that.

But not knowing about spells didn't mean Potter couldn't break them. There was no substitute for scrap; Finite could remove about a hundred, if not a thousand, different effects from spells, so there was a high probability that she would be able to protect him from this one as well. Thankfully the spell had no effect on his hands, Potter was able to pull a spare wand from his sleeve, point it at himself, and whisper quietly:

- Finite!

Nothing happened. Finite is a panacea, alas, not for all ills.

The sounds of battle continued unabated, and Potter had a plan. Fleur was probably out, Justin and Victor were busy fighting, no one was paying attention to him. In the Tournament, the first person to grab the Cup wins, and it doesn't matter who won the duel or what state the winner touched the Cup in. So he could well have quietly tried to grab the coveted prize while no one was watching. The other thing is that he saw nothing, heard nothing, and did not know where he lay in relation to the cup. That's not a problem, though.

'Point mi Goblet of Fire,' Harry thought to himself.

The wand in Potter's hands turned thirty degrees to the left and Potter, trying to move as quietly as possible, crawled in the direction the wand pointed him.

After about forty seconds, his actions were still noticed. It was likely he'd got close to the cup after all.

- No! Stop! Stupefy! - exclaimed Fleur?

Where had she got her wand from?

Harry didn't really understand where the spell was coming from, so he tried to stand up quickly on his working legs and jump to the right. The manoeuvre was successful, because he was still conscious, which meant that the stun curse had passed him by. And that wasn't the only good news, Kram's spells, whatever they were, were wearing off.

The ability to orientate himself was returning to Potter, objects were beginning to take shape, blood had stopped flowing from his nose, and his legs were regaining their sensitivity.

- Architectus! Conjunctivitus! - shouted Finch-Fletchley about twenty metres away, probably fighting Cram.

- Stop! I propose a truce! - Harry exclaimed loudly. He had an idea, and he needed to buy time until Kram's spells were no longer working. After all, he wasn't a fighter in his current condition, and Fleur would easily defeat him.

The sounds of fighting had stopped... Well, at least he'd been listened to. They could have ignored him and kept fighting.

- Don't tell me you're suggesting a four-way split,' Krum said in broken English.

- No, of course not,' Harry waved his hand, his vision getting better by the second. Stalling for time! - Look, you and Fleur are fighting on the same team, right?

- That's right! - This line was said more confidently, apparently Krum had often heard the English say that.

- I'm the weakest fighter among you in my current condition, and Justin-' Harry looked at Finch-Fletchley; the spell and the lack of glasses meant he could only see his outline, but the smoke billowing from Justin's head was a clear indication of his problems in this fight. - Obviously losing to Krum. In the current arrangement, your pair will easily defeat ours.

- That's right! - Krum repeats a line he likes. - What do you want? You want us to spare you, is that it? Or fight without a stick to even the odds? That's not gonna happen.

- What do you think, Fleur? - Harry looked at the French girl, whose wand was staring at his chest.

In those few minutes of battle, she had started to look even worse. Added to her injuries were an unnaturally twisted arm and what appeared to be a head injury, at least that was what the droplets of blood dripping, actually, from her head itself indicated. Once Kram's spells are broken from him, it is Delacour who will be the weakest fighter.

- When we first arrived, you fought, and the battle was clearly not in your favour. After our defeat, and it will be if we keep fighting, things will go that way. And there's only one Cup, you know? Fight us and you put yourself and the Cup in Cram's hands.

- What are you suggesting? - Fleur's voice was filled with such pain and fatigue that Harry even faltered for a second.

But Finch-Fletchley, on the contrary, perked up and proposed his plan:

- 'Look, Fleur, why don't we go together? There's no advantage in teaming up with Kram, Harry's right, Potter's in for something nasty, and he's hardly a strong fighter. I'm your best bet.

- Yeah, come on,' Fleur said tiredly and quickly.

- Harry? Shall we team up? - Krum, too, had quickly adapted to the changed circumstances.

For Harry, however, everything was happening too fast. It was his plan, but such an incredibly rapid success of a plan and a series of betrayals didn't fit in his head. The picture had changed completely.

- Great,' Finch-Fletchley pointed his wand at Harry. - Tarantallegra!

- Protego! - Harry mirrored Justin's simple curse, and then returned the favour:

- Reducto!

Finch-Fletchley dodged the curse and sent three purple orbs at Kram, who summoned a dark wall that took the orbs and onto itself, and consequently impaled the long-suffering Fleur against the stone perimeter surrounding the clearing. But Harry wasn't too saddened by this fact, nor concerned about her condition, because a second before Delacour's head met the stone, she had managed to send five spells at once at him, Potter.

Reflecting all five spells with his mirrored shield at Justin, Harry must have completely confused all the spectators watching the fight by unleashing a stun curse at his temporary ally's back. Krum hadn't expected such a set-up and, rendered unconscious, fell over.

Minus one. Goodbye, World Championship silver medallist.

Harry sent the birds to attack Finch-Fletchley, and began to attack Fleur, who, unexpectedly for Harry, remained conscious even after Kram's attack. How much suffering would she endure?

- Incendio! Reducto! Bombarda! Conjunctivitus! Confundo! Silenzio! - Harry began to storm Delacourt with spells.

Potter's plan was to eliminate all three opponents at once and was brilliantly executed. Krum took Justin's attack and took out Fleur, Finch-Fletchley was now fighting Delacourt's birds and spells, and Victor was eliminated by Potter himself.

Except the plan didn't work. The reason was simple - Harry had underestimated the Sharmbaton. Fleur, even after another encounter with the stone wall, stayed on her feet and refused to drop out of battles. She wasn't even trying to attack, though, just fending off Potter's attacks and buying time, during which Justin was just about to take out the birds.

Perhaps Harry was in a hurry to eliminate Cram.