HP: The Wizard Who Paints with Magic

Chapter 307 308: Kill the Cursed Queen and Win the Tournament… Right?

Outside the maze, up in the stands, a huge curtain of water displayed the progress of the task, slightly blurred.

They watched as Aurors helped the eliminated Fleur to her feet.

They watched Cedric swing a massive sword of magic, driving its razor edge into the black knight's breastplate.

And they watched, at the very centre of the maze, the stone Queen of Hearts slap Durmstrang's top seed, Viktor Krum, flying with a single blow.

The students all went stupid with shock.

"Wait, what? That terrifying black knight is not the final boss?!"

"So the last task is not balanced at all, it is just Ethan showing off his own stuff!"

"Ethan, how many surprises are you still hiding?!"

Ron even muttered, "Right, then. In a bit, we can go dig Harry out of the ground."

If one slap could turn a burly bloke into a full-body fracture case, then Harry's skinny build would get hammered straight into the earth.

Hermione clasped her hands together as if she were about to change class and become a healer on the spot, praying nonstop.

"Ethan would not create a monster that cannot be beaten. The weak point has to be the heart, right? It has to be the heart…"

She stared at the roiling black mist on the water screen, frowning.

It looked disturbingly similar to the Black Egg after it shattered in the second task.

It felt like this was not going to be as simple as "defeat the statue".

Off to one side, Ludo Bagman kept wiping sweat from his forehead.

The other two headmasters' stares were practically flaying him alive.

Still, if Harry and the others made it through this last hurdle, then a Hogwarts victory would be set in stone.

Bagman glanced at Dumbledore, expecting pride, relief, something.

Instead, he froze.

Dumbledore's face held a kind of shock Bagman had never seen before.

His eyes were wide.

As though he were staring at something that simply should not exist.

The man who did not flinch even before Dark Lords stood rigid, utterly locked in place.

If that shameless Rita Skeeter were here, Bagman thought, she would be right in his face snapping pictures like mad.

He turned back to the water screen, confused.

Yes, the statue that had swatted Krum away was terrifying, but they had seen dragons.

Surely a moving statue was not enough to make Dumbledore look like this.

Bagman did not understand.

That statue had a history.

"Ariana…"

Dumbledore stared at the familiar face carved in stone.

His lips moved, barely forming the name.

His heart trembled, pain slicing through him like a knife.

After so many years, after wrinkles had crept across his brow and brown hair had turned white, after even the Muggle boys who had once hurt her had long since become bones in the ground…

He recognised that face in an instant.

The Queen of Hearts, the final boss of the third task.

It was his sister.

Ariana.

But how could Ethan know about her?

Had he gone to the Hog's Head?

Dumbledore knew his brother, Aberforth, was not someone who spoke of the past lightly.

Ariana's death had become a secret kept by silence.

A wound that never healed, stretching between him and his brother like a scar.

And the black mist churning at the statue's chest…

That was an Obscurus, the same one used in the second task.

Behind the half-moon spectacles, Dumbledore's eyes darkened.

Magic leaked from him, lifting his beard and hair slightly in the air.

Nearby, Durmstrang's headmaster, Igor Karkaroff, turned in alarm and edged back several steps.

Dumbledore… furious?

In Karkaroff's memory, only the Dark Lord had ever drawn that kind of anger from Dumbledore.

But the Dark Lord was not here.

"Ethan Vincent," Dumbledore murmured, robes stirring, "is this what you meant by reunion?"

"Watching my sister, possessed by an Obscurus… and then being killed once again, by someone else?"

He should have known.

Ethan did not feel the way ordinary people did.

So long as it served his mad art, it was enough.

And he was only a fourth-year, after all.

How could a child truly understand another person's pain?

Dumbledore closed his eyes.

He forced down the urge to storm into the maze that very second.

He did what he had done for decades.

He stayed silent.

He endured.

Inside the maze.

Boom.

The giant palm slammed down again, as though the statue could not bear its own agony.

Dust surged up like a breaking wave.

Harry barely dodged, only to be thrown off his feet by the gale it raised.

He scrambled up, plastered in mud, a complete mess.

There was no time to mourn Krum.

Only the statue mattered now.

Harry raised his wand and shouted at the black mist at its heart, "Incendio!"

A pillar of fire blasted out.

In Defence Against the Dark Arts, it would have earned an Outstanding.

But the instant it struck the mist, it was swallowed without a trace.

Damn it. It cannot even hurt it.

Only now did Harry truly understand.

How terrifyingly strong Luna and Ethan had been to dispel that darkness in a single blow.

"Aaaaaah!"

The wailing scream tore into the sky, making the thorns and roses tremble.

Tar-like black tears poured from the statue's grey-white eyes, turning its face vicious and twisted.

The mist surged, spilling outward.

It poured into the ground and rose up into several warped human shapes.

Like Dementors without cloaks.

Each one turned a black, hollow face toward Harry.

It summons minions too?!

Harry swore in his head and snapped his wand toward the staggering shadows. "Incendio!"

Flames swallowed one of them.

"Aaaah! Kill me! Kill me!"

It shrieked as it burned to ash.

The cry was the same as the statue's, but closer, more real.

Like a real girl, helpless and in pain.

Harry froze.

The flash of triumph from destroying a shadow died instantly.

He held his wand up, unable to form another spell.

In that moment of hesitation, a gust of wind slammed into his side.

No.

Harry's pupils shrank.

There was not even time to turn his head.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the massive palm roaring toward him.

For an instant, Harry's mind went blank, and one question would not leave him.

Why would Ethan design a hurdle like this?

Was the point to tell them that no matter what stood in front of them, they had to harden their hearts and fight?

Even if the enemy was a little girl controlled by an Obscurus?

Then.

Clang!

Harry did not become "Harry paste".

A huge metallic crash rang out.

The onrushing wind snapped back as if it had struck an unbreakable wall.

Cedric.

When Cedric's figure appeared on the water screen, Harry and every Hogwarts student in the stands shot to their feet.

Cheers rolled like an avalanche.

"Diggory! Diggory! Diggory!"

"That is my son! That is my son!"

Mr Diggory bounced in place, arms spread wide, proclaiming it to anyone within reach, pride and boastfulness completely unhidden.

George Weasley grinned. "I always thought that bloke's smug face was a bit annoying. But right now he is sort of… adorable."

"Still, hmph. Should have been me out there."

He looked at the brother being carried out, half scowling and half worried.

On the water screen, Cedric gripped a glowing greatsword of magic in both hands.

His clothes were shredded.

Blood stained him.

But his stance was solid, his feet dug into the earth like roots.

His whole body had become a shield.

He held the line, stopping the statue's palm dead.

Boom.

The collision detonated into a shockwave that blasted outward from where he stood.

"Cedric! The champion who fought the black knight has arrived at the final stage!"

Lee Jordan screamed himself hoarse, practically climbing the railings as he howled.

His eyes shone with excitement, bright as fire.

Even high above, watching, Ethan's mouth curled slightly.

"See? People just need a push, and they will squeeze out power they never knew they had."

The Morning Star Club's training methods were questionable.

"But the timing… it is about right for me to step in."

Ethan's deep blue eyes looked down at the two fighting side by side in the maze's centre, and then fixed on Harry's stunned face.

"The real test is only about to begin."

"Saviour, Harry Potter."

He swept his hand.

A pitch-black portal opened in front of him.

Ethan took one last look at the desperate battle, then stepped into the darkness.

His figure vanished in an instant.

After the warm-up, it was time to face the real enemy.

Voldemort.

At the maze's centre, grit and dust hung in the air.

Harry forced his eyes wide, staring at Cedric, who had almost appeared out of nowhere in front of him.

Cedric turned his head.

Mud covered his face, but he wore the kind of grin a righteous hero in an adventure story would wear.

"Do you know something, Harry?"

"That armour's thick as a dragon's hide, but there's nothing inside it."

As he spoke, magic poured off him in waves, the air around Cedric rippling with heat.

He growled, "Hah!"

With a boom, he forced the statue's palm back.

At the same time, his body flew backwards, and he crashed to the ground.

"Cedric!" Harry shouted.

He blasted apart a shadow that lunged at them, then hurried to brace Cedric and pull him up.

"Agh, agh…"

Cedric panted heavily, struggling to stand.

From inside his robe he pulled out a rose branch, still tightly budded.

His voice was raw. "This is the weapon to kill that statue. It dropped off the black knight."

He pressed it into Harry's hand.

His gaze was fierce, every word deliberate.

"Go, Harry. Drive it into the statue's heart."

"End this Tournament."