Charlie Weasley suddenly realized that he was going to die.
It wasn't that he hadn't known it was a possibility. Dragon handling had a similar death rate as curse-breaking and being an Auror or hit wizard.
His only regret was having it happen in front of his mother. She was in the audience, watching with horrified eyes as the dragon lunged toward him.
If the chain had held, he'd have been at a safe distance to try and stun the animal. He was wearing a dragonhide suit that was flame resistant. It should have been enough.
The world seemed to be moving in slow motion; he didn't see his life passing in front of his eyes, but he had time to regret not having done more with the life that he had. He should have found love, spent more time with his family, done more with friends.
He tried to move his wand upward, but he was falling, and his body seemed to move slower than his consciousness.
Charlie didn't close his eyes as he stared up at his death, and so he was confused when the world suddenly turned pink.
The dragon's face suddenly slammed into whatever it was that had interposed itself, and suddenly the world seemed to speed up again.
It was the Universe boy, Charlie suddenly realized, the champion. He'd heard only good things about him and now the boy had interposed himself between Charlie and the dragon.
He was sliding backward as the dragon pushed forward, his feet leaving tracks in the earth.
Steven Universe looked down at him and said, "Get up. We need to get her calmed down before she gets hurt."
Charlie stared up at him for a moment, uncomprehending. Not one wizard in a thousand would think of the dragon's safety when they were being attacked. Even the ones who did were usually only the ones who were trained and worked with them on a daily basis.
He snapped into action a moment later.
"Can I cast through the shield?" he asked.
"Not unless it's Avada Kedavra," Steven said. He glanced back toward the stands with a worried look. "Listen, if we don't get this done quickly, Pearl and Amethyst are going to get involved, and they're likely to really hurt her."
Charlie glanced out in the audience where he saw two women with strange colored skin trying to break through the barriers protecting the audience from the dragons. The barriers were also designed to protect those inside the arena from the spells of those outside the arena after a cheating scandal in the 1500's made it necessary.
The dragon tried to grab the shield and pull it away, but it was attached to the Universe boy's arm somehow.
Unfortunately the boy didn't have the mass to resist being pulled instead of pushed, and a moment later he was in the air hanging on to his shield for dear life.
Charlie launched a spell that hit the dragon in the eye, and a moment later he realized that the other dragon handlers were rallying as well.
Steven's shield dissolved, and a moment later he was scrambling up the side of the dragon's arm like a monkey. The dragon turned and snapped at him, and it took Charlie a moment to realize what he was doing.
He was trying to distract the dragon so that the dragon handlers could do their job without the risk of being killed by the dragon.
Charlie launched spell after spell after the dragon as did the dragon handlers around him.
It shouldn't have been necessary. The chains the dragons were chained with had enchantments to keep them from breaking, and other enchantments to make them more docile than normal.
Nobody wanted to see dead teenagers at a school function, so the game was rigged in their favor. No one knew about it, and Charlie didn't even disapprove, but something had gone drastically wrong.
The dragon was sliding downward, falling asleep from the sheer weight of all the stunning spells directed against it.
There was an explosion from the stands, and a moment later the two women from before were entering the arena, looking furious.
Steven was at the dragon's head by now, and he was leaning down saying something soothing into the dragon's ear.
Charlie wanted to yell at the boy; even though a creature seemed to be stunned, there wasn't any guarantees. More than one dragon handler had died from overconfidence.
Still, the dragon seemed to be responding, and the two women charging toward them didn't seem as likely to kill the creature out of hand.
"Steven, are you all right?" the pale woman's voice sounded panicked, even if the way she was moving was anything but fearful.
"It's fine," Steven said. He patted the dragon on the head, and it stared up at him balefully.
"I wasn't really gonna take your egg," Steven said. "I'm sorry for tricking you."
Hearing any kind of wizard apologizing to a dragon wasn't something Charlie had ever expected to experience.
Of course, this was the boy who'd rescued Ginny from the hold of a nasty magical artifact simply by asking the right questions.
Charlie had assumed that half the things he'd been hearing about the boy were exaggerations. Stories had a way of getting blown out of proportion when Wizards were involved in telling them. Yet now he was starting to believe that there might be some truth to them.
"I can't believe I made first place," Steven said.
"You were the only candidate to actually fight the dragon," Harry said. "I'm sure they give extra credit for that."
Harry felt it was unfair actually that he was only one point behind Steven. While it was true that he'd managed to get through the event totally uninjured, his dragon had been far less vicious than Steven's. On a brighter note, that put him in second place, with Krum falling behind due to destroying dragon eggs.
"I wasn't supposed to," Steven said. He seemed downcast. "I was really trying to get out of there without letting her get hurt."
Hermione appeared at the mouth of the tent. "You were brilliant, Steven!" She rushed forward and hugged Steven, a little more tightly than Harry would have expected.
Behind her was Ron. His face was white as a sheet.
"I'm sorry." He said. "I can't believe I.."
He shook his head.
"I guess somebody else really did put your name in the goblet."
"That's what I've been telling you," Harry said. He felt elated. Being separated from Ron all term had dragged at him. It had been like a bad tooth; he'd never been able to stop thinking about it completely.
"Did somebody put your name in too?" Ron asked.
Steven smiled slightly and shook his head. "I put my own name in the Goblet."
"But why?" Ron asked. "You aren't the type to be out for the glory."
"He wants to keep people from getting hurt." Hermione said. She still hadn't stopped hugging him, but she looked up from him for a moment.
"If someone else became champion because I didn't put my name in, and they got hurt...I couldn't let that happen."
Ron blinked and then rushed forward.
"Thanks for saving Charlie," he said earnestly. "I may not talk about him much because he lives so far away, but growing up he was always the best towards me out of all of my brothers."
He looked down. "Besides, I don't think mum could have taken seeing it happen like that. Losing one of the boys would be hard enough without it happenin right in front of you."
Two more figures appeared, silhouetted in the door to the tent.
It was Charlie Weasley and Professor Moody. The soft ground outside had made his artificial leg a lot more stealthy. It click against the stonework the way it did when they were inside Hogwarts. It was a point that Harry would have to remind himself.
Just because you thought you'd hear someone coming, even someone as obvious as Professor Moody didn't mean that they wouldn't be able to find a way to surprise you.
"The chains were tampered with," Charlie said. "There were spells to keep them from breaking, but someone undid them and put a curse on the chains so they'd actually break."
"Someone is out to kill you boy," Moody said. "You're gonna have to be more vigilant."
Steven chuckled and everyone stared at him.
"It's actually a nice change. Someone is after me instead of Harry for once."
"That's nothing to be jealous of," Ron said quietly, leaning toward Steven and Hermione. He glanced at Harry. "Havin people out to murder you isn't fun at all."
Steven shrugged. "I'm probably harder to kill than Harry."
"Don't get ahead of yerself, boy, and don't get cocky. You might be a little harder to kill than a regular wizard, but that doesn't mean that someone out there can't actually do it."
"I wonder why they've targeted Steven," Hermione asked. She finally pulled away from her embrace/
"Some of the old guard thinks it's insultin that a half-breed is representing Hogwarts. I've been keeping my ear to he ground, and I hear that a lot of the old guard would have been happier if a mudblood had been champion instead of someone who isn't even human at all."
Herrmione looked insulted, for multiple reasons. Harry rushed to interject before she said something that got her in trouble.
"Just because they're after Steven doesn't mean they aren't after me too."
Moody nodded at him approvingly. "Thinkin ahead boy. Good to hear that you're actually listening in class."
"So what do we do?" Hermione asked, this time in a quieter voice. "We can't just let somebody kill Harry or Steven."
"Magical contract with the Goblet means that neither one of you can back out." Moody said. He was quiet for a minute, seemingly deep in thought.
"Main thing they are worried about is that a half-breed might actually win this," Moody said. "It'd make mockery of all their ideas about blood supremacy."
"Doesn't that mean Fleur is actually in just as much danger?" Steven asked.
Moody shook his head. "She's in last place. Nobody cares about last place, especially from heathen foreigners. If she was pushing for the top spot, I'd worry a little more about her."
"Still," Steven said. "We need to keep an eye on her."
"Safest place for you to be would be in the back of the pack with her," Moody said.
Hermione blinked. "Are you saying that he should throw the whole tournament?"
"I'm not going to hide," Steven said. His voice was strong and commanding. ""I'm not going to prove to them that they are right."
He was silent for a moment, then he said, "I'm going to win this."