—shite, shite, shite, shite, shite!
Harry felt the electric sizzle crossing the air as spells missed him by inches, he stood up a bit to shove down on the braces, wrenching his broom level and pulling out of the dive inches from the tops of the trees, more near-misses crashing through the canopy behind him, branches snapping and cracking.
His heart pounding in his throat, fingers practically shaking against the wood of his broom, he concentrated for an instant, feeling out the position of the fliers around them — Enyo was slowly weaving in the general direction of the Durmstrang fort, surrounded by a few pursuers, Cedric was moving in a spiral over his head, arcing slowly toward Hogwarts, Harry turned to—
An odd intrusive thought rose in his head, but not like a mind magic thing inserted from outside, instead as though bubbling up from somewhere inside, his blood tingling with foreign magic. An image of the little figures Oliver used to act out quidditch plays, one figure on a broom, a white bird coming in from the right — settling into a position behind him, another figure on a broom coloured a bloody red.
(This magic music stuff was still bloody weird.)
Gritting his teeth, Harry jinked to one side, then turned to the other, corkscrewing up and to the left, the general direction Cedric had been in a second ago. He grasped out at the air around him with his mind again, a couple people were angling in on him still, he flipped around upside down, pushed down on the braces to pull up hard — or, pull down, at the moment, pointing the tip of his broom at the tops of the trees above (below) him, he dipped under a brace of spells coming from two directions at once, pulling up as he fell, dodging around a taller tree he nearly ran right into, curving back up and around and—
One of the veela — looking rather like a person-sized hawk, though the proportions were slightly off (the body a little too long and narrow, just enough to clue in it was something else), covered in gleaming white and gold and orange feathers — was exactly where Harry had expected them to be, he tossed a stunning charm straight at them. There wasn't that much space between them, and Harry was flying pretty bloody fast, making the hex travel even faster, the veela barely had a second to blink before—
The great bloody bird vanished in a burst of white-gold fire, tingling with magic — they could still fire-walk in bird form?! That was not fair! The veela appeared above and behind him, a sudden flare of intensely hot light magic and a roar of flames, Harry pulled up out of it, running right into a blue-white spellglow — bludgeoner, he thought — barely managing to snap out a shield charm to catch it, the force of the blow still shoving him hard, enough he slid back a little on the broom, the back of his knee catching on one of the leg braces, his fingers stinging from his grip on the wood.
Harry dipped again, reversing right away, pulling up and angling around, stunning charms flung from his wand one after another, aiming more by his feel of the minds around him than actually being able to see a bloody thing, suddenly breaking off in a wrenching turn when a tangle of conjured wire shot through the space he was just about to cross through, followed by several more conjured bludger-sized objects raining down on him, too many, Harry had to cheat and banish half of them out of the way. Trying to get out from another veela just before she (he?) fried him, he came into a long slide, drifting sideways and down at an angle under one of the broom fliers — one of the Beauxbatons humans, he noticed — threw up a stunning charm, and then a bludgeoning hex and a cutting curse and another stunning charm, all of which the boy blocked, damn it. Just as he was slipping away again, another image inserted itself into his mind, giving him an image of all their positions somewhat better than his mind magic could do without slowing down — both Harry and Cedric had been pushed down, the others had the high ground, they'd drifted a bit toward a corner...
Toward the wards.
Dodging another few hexes, Harry groped around for Cedric's mind, found him after a couple seconds. TO THE WARDLINE — he pushed a rough mental image through his barriers (Cedric was good, but not good enough to keep Harry out if he really wanted in), a pair of lines in Gryffindor red and Hufflepuff yellow zigzagging toward a solid silver wall, redirecting in a hard turn just before they reached it, curving away again together.
There was a moment of panic from Cedric — worried a veela was pushing in, it vanished again as soon as he realised it was Harry — and then a grim sort of agreement. Cedric was already moving, ascending not quite directly at the nearest veela, harrying them with a storm of hexes, curving in the general direction of the wardline but not straight at it.
Harry had already watched too long, another Beauxbatons flier was zipping straight at him, probably to add speed to the spell and give Harry no time to react, he feinted up and to the left, and then cut the levitation charm while spinning to the right, a hex ruffling his hair as it passed, then darted forward, a tongue of veela fire burning through where he'd been a second ago—
Shite! Tree! He was lower than he'd thought, he barely managed to twitch to the side, needles scraping over his left shoulder, the tip of his broom caught in the twigs, not stopping him but spinning his broom around a little, he instantly cut off the flying spell so he didn't get flung face-first into the tree, pulled the handle back around, by then spells were already coming in at his back, but there were branches and a veela over his head, dammit, he dipped in a shallow dive, leveling off well below the top of the trees, leafless bushes clawing at his lower legs, he ducked his head under a branch, he vaguely heard a crashing from somewhere above and behind him, a storm of cursing in a language he didn't understand (a Durmstranger, probably), he tipped over another branch, looped around a trunk, the wardline was this way...
(He couldn't see it from here, the trees too thick to see much of anything, but he was pretty sure.)
Harry tried to pull up above the canopy again, but that damn veela was still waiting for him, a burst of flame coming in at the back of his head, he jinked to the left, the fire rushing past him to splash into a tree. Much of the top of the tree instantly burst into flames, needles sizzling and sap popping, Harry's stomach clenched with dread — getting hit with that shite would seriously hurt. Before he could pull up any more, the Durmstrang flier was there, mind clanging with frustration, Harry dove again, barely evading a few hexes...
Okay. He was getting to the wardline the hard way, then...
Afterward, he would hardly even remember this part, and at the time it was just a chaotic, mindless blur of action and reaction, dipping above or below branches as they whipped into sight, jolting back and forth, weaving between the trees at a speed that was entirely not safe, but absolutely necessary, there were still fliers tracking him, throwing an occasional spell down through the trees, but the worst was the bloody veela, tossing lines of fire after him, seemingly not caring that he was lighting up a significant part of the field, firewalking ahead every once in a while to set on fire trees in front of him, trying to box him in, which was so not fair.
Watching a recording of this part later, Harry would honestly be astounded he'd pulled it off. He wouldn't have thought he could do this kind of insane flying but, well, instincts were like that sometimes.
(If he was thinking anything at the time, it was that he was a bloody idiot for agreeing with Cedric that yeah, it did seem a bit unfair to basically have a built-in shield against anything the veela could throw at them while they were in the air and maybe they should be red-shirts, for the sake of fair play and also because veela fire shouldn't even be Category Five magic anyway, that was just racist and stupid and Harry didn't want to benefit from racist stupidity. That'd seemed reasonable and fair and good at the time, but Harry was seriously starting to regret it.)
Harry lifted a bit further off the ground, his jaw clenched enough it hurt, dipping between and over the tips of the trees — like terrain flying, but not quite at ground level — a steady stream of hexes and veela fire thrown at him, dodging half of it, a shield charm held over his shoulder catching the rest — a dark shield charm, one of the ones he'd picked up in Defence this year, had a better shot surviving veela fire. His wrist was aching with the effort of channelling enough magic to hold it, but he only had a couple more seconds, he was almost there...
Ducking behind one of the taller trees, Harry dropped the shield. He started the next spell even as he zipped off at full acceleration, another couple spells falling short, his pursuers chasing after him. He cut off the flying spell, kicked his broom vertical, and released the spell, all at the same time — the air around him, a dozen metres in all directions, was filled with illusory smoke. Harry pushed hard, flying up and back the way he'd come at a sharp angle to the direction he'd been going a second ago, his momentum pushing him against his broom hard enough he thought his chest might bruise, his legs, propping him up against the braces, burning with the effort.
He felt someone zip past him, only a couple feet away — the wards flashed as they crossed through. There was a second flash a few seconds later, one of Cedric's pursuers also tricked out of bounds.
Harry grinned. That had gone well, at least...
Easing back on his acceleration a bit — he wasn't in danger of accidentally drifting backward through the wards anymore — he looped up and around towards Cedric's position, easing in from behind and to his right. He felt a spark of surprise from him, the older boy's wand coming up and around barely visible through the illusory smoke, but he stopped himself before getting a hex off, clearly recognising Harry. "That went well!" he chirped, his teeth dully gleaming in the wan light. "I got mine, you get yours?"
He nodded. "The broom flier, I think, the veela made it." Another image wormed its way into his head, the fliers above them — a pair of veela and one broom flier (Krum, Harry recognised the feel of his mind) — arranging themselves to pin them against the ground by the wards. The smoke had obscured them though, Cedric and Harry were already outside of their net, they slipped further east just in case, in unison without really thinking about it.
"Lead them toward Hogwarts?"
"I'll shield." Harry coughed, blinked against the grittiness stinging at his eyes, glanced down — he could barely make out the trees through the smoke, fire flickering somewhere down there. Huh, this was real smoke, not his illusion. Okay, then. "Let's go."