“Look at that!” Bagman was yelling. “Will you look at that! Our youngest champion is quickest to get his egg! Well, this is going to shorten the odds on Mr. Potter!”
Harry saw the dragon keepers rushing forward to subdue the Horntail, and, over at the entrance to the enclosure, Professor McGonagall, Professor Moody, and Hagrid hurrying to meet him, all of them waving him toward them, their smiles evident even from this distance. He flew back over the stands, the noise of the crowd pounding his eardrums, and came in smoothly to land, his heart lighter than it had been in weeks… He had got through the first task, he had survived.
“That was excellent, Potter!” cried Professor McGonagall as he got off the Firebolt—which from her was extravagant praise. He noticed that her hand shook as she pointed at his shoulder. “You’ll need to see Madam Pomfrey before the judges give out your score… Over there, she’s had to mop up Diggory already…”
“Yeh did it, Harry!” said Hagrid hoarsely. “Yeh did it! An’ agains’ the Horntail an’ all, an’ yeh know Charlie said that was the wors’—”
“Thanks, Hagrid,” said Harry loudly, so that Hagrid wouldn’t blunder on and reveal that he had shown Harry the dragons beforehand.
Professor Moody looked very pleased too; his magical eye was dancing in its socket.
“Nice and easy does the trick, Potter,” he growled.
“Right then, Potter, the first aid tent, please…” said Professor McGonagall.
Harry walked out of the enclosure, still panting, and saw Madam Pomfrey standing at the mouth of a second tent, looking worried.
“Dragons!” she said, in a disgusted tone, pulling Harry inside. The tent was divided into cubicles; he could make out Cedric’s shadow through the canvas, but Cedric didn’t seem to be badly injured; he was sitting up, at least. Madam Pomfrey examined Harry’s shoulder, talking furiously all the while. “Last year Dementors, this year dragons, what are they going to bring into this school next? You’re very lucky… this is quite shallow… it’ll need cleaning before I heal it up, though…”
She cleaned the cut with a dab of some purple liquid that smoked and stung, but then poked his shoulder with her wand, and he felt it heal instantly.
“Now, just sit quietly for a minute—sit! And then you can go and get your score.”
She bustled out of the tent and he heard her go next door and say, “How does it feel now, Diggory?”
Harry didn’t want to sit stilclass="underline" He was too full of adrenaline. He got to his feet, wanting to see what was going on outside, but before he’d reached the mouth of the tent, two people had come darting inside—Hermione, followed closely by Ron.
“Harry, you were brilliant!” Hermione said squeakily. There were fingernail marks on her face where she had been clutching it in fear. “You were amazing! You really were!”
But Harry was looking at Ron, who was very white and staring at Harry as though he were a ghost.
“Harry,” he said, very seriously, “whoever put your name in that goblet—I—I reckon they’re trying to do you in!”
It was as though the last few weeks had never happened—as though Harry were meeting Ron for the first time, right after he’d been made champion.
“Caught on, have you?” said Harry coldly. “Took you long enough.”
Hermione stood nervously between them, looking from one to the other. Ron opened his mouth uncertainly. Harry knew Ron was about to apologize and suddenly he found he didn’t need to hear it.
“It’s okay,” he said, before Ron could get the words out. “Forget it.”
“No,” said Ron, “I shouldn’t’ve—”
“Forget it,” Harry said.
Ron grinned nervously at him, and Harry grinned back. Hermione burst into tears.
“There’s nothing to cry about!” Harry told her, bewildered.
“You two are so stupid!” she shouted, stamping her foot on the ground, tears splashing down her front. Then, before either of them could stop her, she had given both of them a hug and dashed away, now positively howling.
“Barking mad,” said Ron, shaking his head. “Harry, c’mon, they’ll be putting up your scores…”
Picking up the golden egg and his Firebolt, feeling more elated than he would have believed possible an hour ago, Harry ducked out of the tent, Ron by his side, talking fast.
“You were the best, you know, no competition. Cedric did this weird thing where he Transfigured a rock on the ground… turned it into a dog… he was trying to make the dragon go for the dog instead of him. Well, it was a pretty cool bit of Transfiguration, and it sort of worked, because he did get the egg, but he got burned as well—the dragon changed its mind halfway through and decided it would rather have him than the Labrador; he only just got away. And that Fleur girl tried this sort of charm, I think she was trying to put it into a trance—well, that kind of worked too, it went all sleepy, but then it snored, and this great jet of flame shot out, and her skirt caught fire—she put it out with a bit of water out of her wand. And Krum—you won’t believe this, but he didn’t even think of flying! He was probably the best after you, though. Hit it with some sort of spell right in the eye. Only thing is, it went trampling around in agony and squashed half the real eggs—they took marks off for that, he wasn’t supposed to do any damage to them.”
Ron drew breath as he and Harry reached the edge of the enclosure. Now that the Horntail had been taken away, Harry could see where the five judges were sitting—right at the other end, in raised seats draped in gold.
“It’s marks out of ten from each one,” Ron said, and Harry squinting up the field, saw the first judge—Madame Maxime—raise her wand in the air. What hooked like a long silver ribbon shot out of it, which twisted itself into a large figure eight.
“Not bad!” said Ron as the crowd applauded. “I suppose she took marks off for your shoulder…
Mr. Crouch came next. He shot a number nine into the air.
“Looking good!” Ron yelled, thumping Harry on the back.
Next, Dumbledore. He too put up a nine. The crowd was cheering harder than ever.
Ludo Bagman—ten.
“Ten?” said Harry in disbelief. “But… I got hurt… What’s he playing at?”
“Harry, don’t complain!” Ron yelled excitedly.
And now Karkaroff raised his wand. He paused for a moment, and then a number shot out of his wand too—four.
“What?” Ron bellowed furiously. “Four? You lousy, biased scum bag, you gave Krum ten!”
But Harry didn’t care, he wouldn’t have cared if Karkaroff had given him zero; Ron’s indignation on his behalf was worth about a hundred points to him. He didn’t tell Ron this, of course, but his heart felt lighter than air as he turned to leave the enclosure. And it wasn’t just Ron… those weren’t only Gryffindors cheering in the crowd. When it had come to it, when they had seen what he was facing, most of the school had been on his side as well as Cedric’s… He didn’t care about the Slytherins, he could stand whatever they threw at him now.
“You’re tied in first place, Harry! You and Krum!” said Charlie Weasley, hurrying to meet them as they set off back toward the school. “Listen, I’ve got to run, I’ve got to go and send Mum an owl, I swore I’d tell her what happened—but that was unbelievable! Oh yeah—and they told me to tell you you’ve got to hang around for a few more minutes… Bagman wants a word, back in the champions’ tent.”
Ron said he would wait, so Harry reentered the tent, which somehow looked quite different now: friendly and welcoming. He thought back to how he’d felt while dodging the Horntail, and compared it to the long wait before he’d walked out to face it… There was no comparison; the wait had been immeasurably worse.
Fleur, Cedric, and Krum all came in together. One side of Cedric’s face was covered in a thick orange paste, which was presumably mending his burn. He grinned at Harry when he saw him.