Harry glanced up to see Hermione and Ginny staring down their wands at Popa and Krum, respectively (who had them at wandpoint too), while Morozov looked disdainfully down at him and Ron; they'd both raised their wands at the sound of her voice. Harry's was pointed right back at her, Ron's - perhaps unsurprisingly - was on Krum. He had a whole egg tucked under his arm.

"You should keep better vatch ofer your team," Krum said, scowling at Harry, as he flicked his wand between Hermione and Ginny, as if this somehow helped make his point. Harry wasn't quite sure what his point was; both Hermione and Ginny were standing, unhurt, and had their wands raised and ready.

"Er, sure," Harry said, after a moment. Morozov still hadn't hexed him, so, very slowly, he stood. She kept her wand pointed at his chest, but otherwise made no move to stop him. Ron did the same. The seven of them glanced around, and then Krum extended a hand toward Harry.

"Giff me an egg piece," he said.

"Why?" Ron demanded. "You've got yours, and you can't add to it."

"Consider it price for your passink," Popa rumbled. "Is vay to get past vithout spells."

"Vith spells vill not go vell for you," Morozov said, with a sharp grin.

"How about you let us pass and we let you pass," Ginny said, with a smile just as sharp.

"No." Krum made a hand-it-over sort of gesture at Harry.

"I think Ginny's idea seems fair," Ron said. "Maybe even a better deal for you three, what with you being outnumbered and-"

"Let Potter speak for himself," Morozov snapped.

"Don't need to," Harry said. "I haven't disagreed with anything they've said so far."

"You cannot go with all four," Krum said, sounding frustrated. "You von first task." Harry glanced at Ron, then at Hermione, then at Ginny, who all looked back unafraid.

"You're going to have to enforce that, then," Harry said, shrugging, and, without moving his wand or speaking, thought, Expelliarmus!

Morozov's wand soared out of her hand and into Harry's. She made a shocked, angry sound and launched at him, yelling, fists raised ready to punch, and Harry was so startled by that he didn't get his wand up in time. Thankfully, Ron did, and she was yanked up into the air by her ankle.

Popa knocked both Hermione and Ginny back with a blast of air; Ginny got a "Pustula!" off before she and Hermione thudded back into the tower wall, and he staggered backward, clutching his face. Krum dropped the egg - which banged open, shrieking - and yanked Popa back and down to his knees before he could step off the edge. Then Krum spun, wand flicking down to Ginny, who was gasping - winded - and rubbing the back of her head, and then to Hermione, who'd fared a little better and had her wand already trained on Krum.

He hesitated, perhaps trying to see if she was all right.

She didn't.

His wand flew into her hand and she kept both trained on him as she eased herself to her feet, expression apologetic. She stunned Popa while Ron bent to close the egg. Harry ducked under Morozov's flailing hands to go and help Ginny up.

"You should keep better watch over your team, maybe," Ron said to Krum, grin so wide it was threatening to split his face. Hermione whirled around to glare at him, and Ron cleared his throat, sobering.

"Leave that," Harry said, and Ron and Krum looked at him with identical, shocked expressions. "We'll have ours soon." Ron shrugged and set the egg down. Hermione bent and placed Krum's wand beside it.

"I'm sorry," Harry heard her say, biting her lip. Krum's frown moved from Harry to Hermione.

"Are you?" Krum asked, sounding genuinely curious.

"Maybe it'd be more accurate to say I'm sorry I had to," Hermione amended. Krum smiled slightly at that, and Ginny caught Harry's eye and mimed gagging. He grinned, and Morozov - still dangling upside down - made a coughing sound that might have been a laugh. Ron was watching Hermione and Krum, an unreadable expression on his face, scent complicated. "We should go," Hermione said, turning to Harry.

"We were waiting for you," Ron said. "Didn't want to ruin your little moment." His tone wasn't nasty, or even rude, but there was more to it than just teasing.

Hermione's cheeks pinkened but she didn't say anything back, just strode with purpose to the edge of the platform and hopped across to the next one; clearly she and Ginny had found it before he and Ron got there.

"Almost there," Ginny said with forced cheer, jumping after her. That platform was a long, curved ramp that brought them up to the next ring of the tower; they edged carefully along it, then jumped back across. Through the barely-there floor, Harry could see Krum had collected his egg and his teammates and vanished, probably to hole up somewhere and defend their egg until time ran out. And, when he looked up, Harry could see the top of the tower, only twenty or so feet higher. They really were almost there.

"Here!" Ginny called, and then a spell caught Harry in the shoulder, and numbness raced down his arm and into his fingertips. He was holding his wand - he could see that he was still holding his wand - but he couldn't feel it, and couldn't lift his arm.

"Go!" Ron shouted, and Hermione and Ginny took off, Hermione flinging a shield charm up at their backs to cover their escape. Rather than flinging spells, Ron had gone oddly quiet.

Harry twisted - awkwardly, because of his dead arm - and saw Fleur, Garcon and Colbert stepping off a levitating platform and onto theirs.

Fleur looked absolutely stunning. He'd known, objectively, that she was pretty- beautiful, even - but he'd never really appreciated it before, somehow. Her eyes were as blue as the sky, her hair like white gold, and her uniform was very flattering… Her scent was floral and sweet as treacle tart, and- and- devious, in a way that Harry had only ever smelled on Fred and George before, when they were waiting for a prank to trigger.

"Blimey," Ron said from beside Harry, sounding dazed. His wand soared out of his hand, landing at Garcon's feet, and he barely seemed to notice. Harry shook his head, trying to clear it, trying to get his arm to move, but Fleur's scent hardened, focused, eyes just on him now, and he found he couldn't quite look away from her. Ron shifted beside him.

"Well," Bagman said, sounding oddly echoey, "our youngest Champion's impressive, that's for certain, but apparently he's still human…" He chortled.

"Allez, j'ai ça sous contrôle," Fleur said, the words like music, despite the obvious effort it took her to say them. Garcon and Colbert smirked, stepped into the tower and disappeared.

"She's-" Harry tried, but his mouth felt dry. She was distracting them, he knew it, he could smell it, and the others were headed up to Hermione and Ginny, and- Fleur's scent was growing strained and sweat trickled like a liquid diamond down her temple, and she was incredible-

Ron moved suddenly and Harry saw rather than felt him snatch his wand away. Fleur went stumbling back as Ron hit her with a Knockback jinx, and then summoned his own wand back and conjured a wall of fire between her and them and the bit of the tower the other two had disappeared into. He tossed Harry his wand, and Harry cast a quick Finite on his numb arm and breathed a sigh of relief as feeling returned with painful tingles.

Ron's wall of fire shuddered and opened in the middle to let Fleur step through it, wand twisting this way and that; she flung a fireball at them, which Harry swept away with a non-verbal Ventus and the wall leaned back toward them, impossibly hot.

Ron made a frustrated noise and the wall started to close on her again, at least until she flicked her wand and the wall unravelled, into a whip of fire that coiled around her and then lashed out. Harry flung up a shield of water, remembering the veela at the World Cup and wondered if Fleur didn't have a bit of their affinity for fire.

Ron twisted his own wand and the fire turned and went for Fleur instead. Harry tried a Disarmer and then a Stunner, but the strands of fire around Fleur kept writhing to take the spells for her.

"Got this," Ron said through gritted teeth; he had a slightly messier set up than Fleur did, but it seemed to be working for him. "Go!"

For a moment, with the fire and the red hair and the same words, Harry was back at the World Cup with Charlie. And, just like then, going was the right thing to do; then, it had been to hopefully lure the Death Eaters away and even Charlie's odds. Here, it was to make sure Hermione could get the egg together. He tapped Ron's back with a quick fire-freezing charm, and hurried through the opening after the girls. He slipped a little - invisible stairs - and made his way up as quickly and quietly as he could; the stairs came out in the very centre of the highest platform.

He couldn't see Ginny, but Hermione was crouched perilously close to where he guessed the tower's edge must be, one arm hugging what was probably a pillar, the other taking careful aim at something Harry couldn't see.

A spell hit the pillar she was holding and it shimmered. Hermione flinched back but recovered quickly, leaning around it to fire a spell off at either Garcon or Colbert.

There was a BOOM that shook the tower and then Ginny came running around the other side, throwing herself into the alcove beside Harry to avoid a pair of spells.

"Nice of you to show up," she gasped, holding her side. She had a scrape on her cheek that she hadn't before. Then, more sharply, she asked, "Where's Ron?"

Harry tilted his head down to where orange flashes and the crackling of fire could be heard.

Hermione flung another spell - the tower shuddered again - and used that as a distraction to dart over to join Harry and Ginny, shaking, and breathing hard.

"It's a long way down," she gasped. Harry heard cautious footsteps and nudged both girls in warning.

"Get the egg together," he breathed to Hermione.

"I need all four pieces."

"Ginny'll catch up," he promised, and Ginny nodded.

Colbert was the first to appear, holding a shield charm in front of her, and Ginny sprang into action flicking a low tripping jinx under the bottom edge of it. Colbert stumbled and Ginny disarmed and bound her. Garcon gave up on her cautious approach as soon as Ginny moved and dove forward to help… or tried to; Harry got her with a stickfast hex and she tipped forward, shoes stuck.

"Accio!" she cried as she fell, and Harry's glasses flew off his face.

"Aspectum," he said, tapping himself between the eyes, and everything cleared.

"Examen!" Garcon said loudly, and bees burst from her wand, heading straight for Harry.

"Procellus!" A hurricane swept them up and away. "Protego! Stupefy!"

Garcon had used his distraction to free herself from his stickfast hex and dove behind a pillar to get out of the way of Harry's Stunner.

"Accio," she said again, and this time it was Colbert - or rather, the rope holding Colbert - that zoomed toward her.

Accio glasses, Harry thought, then, "Occulus reparo." He cancelled his eyesight spell so he could put them back on. Hermione and Ginny had made it onto an elevated platform and were loading the four egg pieces onto a thick wooden workbench.

"Ginny!" Harry shouted. "Get a dome up! I'm going back for Ron!" She didn't acknowledge him, but a moment later an orange shield dome sprang up around her and Hermione. Harry ran back toward the stairs, deflecting a spell from Colbert as he went.

Fire was still flashing on the platform below. Harry took a deep breath and conjured a ball of water about the size of an armchair and sent it floating down to where Ron and Fleur were. He shot a quick Bombarda at it and it exploded; Ron yelped, Fleur shrieked, and then Ron barrelled into the stairway. Harry cast a shield charm behind him and a spell of Fleur's bounced into one of the tower's invisible walls, harmless.

"All right?" Harry asked. Ron nodded, breathing heavily. He smelled a bit like a fireplace, but he seemed unharmed and flicked his wand to dry himself.

"Good timing," he said. "Any longer and she'd have had- Protego!" Colbert's spell bounced into a pillar, which shuddered.

Harry conjured a larger shield, holding it in place between him, and Colbert and Garcon, as he and Ron headed around to Hermione and Ginny.

There was an awful screech which shut off with a metallic snap and Hermione made a satisfied sound. Ginny dropped the dome and their pair of them came to join them, Hermione with a golden egg just like Krum's tucked under her arm and a pleased smile on her face.

They were both forced to duck as a dripping Fleur - flanked by Garcon and Colbert - came striding around the corner with a rather terrifying look on her face, flinging spell after spell.

"Get the egg out of here," Harry said, focusing on keeping his shield charm up.

"How?" Ginny hissed.

Garcon turned suddenly, casting at something behind her, and Cedric, Stebbins, and Fisher appeared a moment later. Several of their spells - intended for the Beauxbatons team, who dodged - and several from the Beauxbatons team that were aimed at Harry and his friends thudded into Harry's shield, jarring his arm. He gritted his teeth.

"Foraminium!" Hermione said, and there was a scraping sound at their feet. It wasn't until she said, "Culcitum!", drew in a shaky breath, and dropped through the floor that he realised what she'd done. He saw her bounce once - thankfully, back toward the tower rather than toward the edge - and then scramble up, hugging the egg to her chest.

Another spell crashed into Harry's shield, which wavered, and a second passed completely through it, missing him and Ginny, but catching Ron in the chest.

His eyes widened in shock, wand dropping from suddenly limp fingers, and he stumbled back, first foot hitting the platform, second foot landing on empty air - Harry hadn't realised the edge was that close. Ginny dove forward, reaching, Harry a second behind her-

"No!"

Harry was conscious of three things; one, that Ron was falling, two that he'd never heard Hermione make such an awful sound, and three, that that was Ron's wand by Ginny's skidding foot...

Ginny latched onto one of the pillars to steady herself lest she go over too, but Harry launched right past her and into open air.

It went against everything in him to go head first, especially without a broom, but he did it, wand tight in one hand, his other hand extended.

Bagman was probably beside himself but Harry couldn't hear anything other than the wind in his ears.

"Vent-" But the rushing air was making it impossible to get the word out and he didn't want to mispronounce it and hit Ron with a different spell. Ventus, Harry tried again, non-verbally. A gust of upward air caught Ron, the strength of it enough to stop him for just a moment, and it was enough; Harry slammed into him a bit harder than he'd hoped, winced, and hooked an arm around him.

The glimmer of a disillusioned platform right in their path made Harry's heart stop, because they were falling too quickly and it was going to hurt but a moment later the platform had been blown apart and simply wasn't there.

Densissima, Harry thought. They slowed a little as the air thickened around them, buying Harry enough time to point his wand at the ground and think Mollis Impulsum.

It was not as graceful a landing as the rolling one Harry had done in the first task; he hit the cushioned ground side on. The sudden stop jarred his neck and he bit his tongue and copped one of Ron's sharp elbows to the cheek - crack! went his glasses - but his wand was in one piece. He rolled onto his back and lay there for just a moment, heart racing, then pushed himself into a sitting position to check on Ron.

His arm was at an unnatural- wait, no, that was the crack in his glasses, distorting the way he looked. He calmed, then began to stress again; Ron wasn't breathing, Harry realised, horrified- except- except his eyes were open and wide and he lifted a shaky hand to gesture at his chest.

"Finite," Harry said, and Ron sucked in a breath, eyes still wide.

"Probably," he gasped, "a go-od thing I couldn't- breathe. Would've screamed- whole way down." He took another deep breath in. "And you- bloody lunatic." Harry laughed, relieved, and helped him up.

The arena exploded with noise and Harry jerked his wand up, pushing Ron behind him, but it was just the crowd.

"What a stunt!" Bagman roared. "What absolute madness! He might be the youngest Champion but he's got more nerve than the rest combined!"

"I'm fine, thanks," Ron muttered, rolling his eyes. "Nice to know you were all worried."

"Your mum'll be worried enough for all of them," Harry said, and Ron winced, then shook his head, mouth twitching.

"She won't have time to worry. She's probably too busy trying to stop Sirius from jumping in here and strangling you. At least I fell accidentally." He looked up; Ginny had joined Hermione one level below the top, and they were hanging about as far off as they dared, faces white.

"Accio Ron's wand," Harry said and it dropped out of Ginny's hand toward them.

"Cheers," Ron said taking his wand from Harry. "Occulus reparo." Harry's warped vision righted itself as his lenses did. "Do we head back up, or… Ah, nevermind." Harry followed his gaze and saw Hermione and Ginny stepping out onto a platform; Hermione flicked her wand and they began to descend - rather like a lift - slowly but steadily down. Ginny blasted another platform out of their path and Harry suddenly knew what had happened to the one he'd been about to hit when he jumped after Ron.

"So, Durmstrang with their egg, Walpurgis looking like they'll get away with theirs, and thanks to some clever spellwork by Stebbins, three pieces each for Hogwarts and Beauxbatons." Jets of coloured light were flying out of the tower's top in all directions and Harry was rather glad they'd put their egg together when they had. "And not long left now, ladies and gentlemen…"

Hermione and Ginny touched down and ran to join them. Once they were close enough, Harry flicked his wand to conjure a shield dome that covered all four of them.

"Catch," Ginny said with a grin, tossing the egg like a Quaffle.

"Thanks," he said. "Nice Reductos." Her grin widened and she tucked herself against Ron's side. Hermione, who'd just released Ron, threw her arms around Harry (or as best she could, given the awkward size and position of the egg he was holding). "We're fine," he said as she looked him over with a critical eye.

"Physically," she said, with a shaky little laugh. "I'm beginning to think you're a bit mad." Harry laughed.

"Nah - we'd practiced for this." She arched an eyebrow. "Well, we'd practiced falling from a height," he amended.

"You practiced falling from thirty feet," she said. "If that." Harry glanced at her, then at the tower - which was significantly higher than thirty feet - then grinned again, sheepish.

"Hogwarts have their egg, made with three of the four pieces!" Bagman said, and three figures escaped the top of the tower using a conjured slide; Cedric, Stebbins, and Fisher, surely. They alighted on what had been one of the starting platforms amidst spellfire from above, just as Bagman said, "Team Beauxbatons, you're running out of time!"

Harry found himself worrying, hoping Fleur would get her egg together in time. She'd be at a fairly serious disadvantage for the next task if she didn't… perhaps Harry'd be able to get her some information through Moony-

There was a loud shriek from the tower that cut off just as a louder bell rang throughout the arena.

"In the very last moments the ladies have done it!" Bagman said. "Because that's it, time's up!"

Screams and whistles and clapping like thunder echoed down from the stands and Harry felt almost boneless with relief. Hermione beamed at him, and Ron reached over to clap him on the shoulder, looking pleased but overwhelmed by the crowd's attention. Ginny bowled Hermione into Harry with a hug; Hermione hadn't been paying attention - she was looking for Krum, he suspected - and Harry steadied them both with the hand that wasn't holding the egg.

"Teams to the base of the tower for your scores - and no attacking each other on the way." Bagman laughed like this was a particularly funny thing to say and Harry tried not to roll his eyes as he lowered his shield dome.