If Bahrain was a furnace, then Jeddah was a blade.
That was the first thought that crossed Harry Potter's mind as he stepped off the team shuttle onto the smooth asphalt behind the Corniche paddock. The air here wasn't dry, it was thick, humid, clinging. Every breath carried salt from the nearby sea and diesel from the freight haulers unloading the team containers.
It wasn't unbearable.
But it was sharp.
Everything in Jeddah was sharper. The circuit cut along the Red Sea like a silver ribbon, surrounded by high-rise towers and floodlights mounted like stadium rigging. Even the corners looked different—less forgiving, tighter. And the barriers? Close. Unapologetically close. Harry hoisted his gear bag over one shoulder and followed Ginny and Neville down the concrete lane toward the ART Grand Prix garage, located two units from the end. The team's containers had already been unloaded. Crates of parts, tires, and fuel drums were stacked and labeled with military precision. Everything here had to be rebuilt in less than two days. And they'd flown in on four hours of sleep.
He ran a hand over his face, trying to clear the weight of travel. Bahrain already felt far behind them—its open straights, manageable corners, and predictable wind patterns. This was something else entirely. The garage smelled like shipping foam and hydraulic fluid. Harry stepped into the echo of his own footsteps as he ducked under the open bay door, squinting under the white LED floodlights overhead. The empty chassis of car #17 sat on its stand like a body on an operating table—suspension arms exposed, wiring harnesses loose like veins.
"Welcome back," Oliver said, tablet already in hand as he walked past Harry toward the telemetry stand. "Car's late coming off the truck. We're about six hours behind."
Harry dropped his duffel. "What's priority?"
"Build the floor first. Then start bolting suspension. We'll worry about aero balance after base setup's done."
Ginny appeared from behind one of the wheel carts, already pulling on her gloves. "Tyre blankets are heating. Electronics are still sealed. We'll check everything after lunch."
Harry nodded and got to work.
It took nearly five hours to rebuild the car.
He worked silently, sleeves rolled, floor jack set low, hands quick on the wheel hub bolts. His headspace clicked into place the way it always did around machinery, precise, rhythmic, dependable. Left rear suspension first. Then brake ducts. Then the wiring harness that curved under the monocoque like a nervous system. He triple-checked the torque specs before Neville came around to verify with the digital wrench.
Teddy hadn't even shown up yet.
That was normal on setup days. Drivers came later. The ones who made the real noise were the ones behind the car—not inside it.
Harry wasn't jealous. He didn't want to drive.
He wanted to build something thatwon.
Engines fired in bursts as teams ran systems checks. Mechanics shouted over the whine of power units. The circuit transformed under the floodlights. Harry stepped out into the warm evening air with Ginny, the two of them sipping bottled water while standing just outside the ART garage entrance. The team had made up time. The car was ready for scrutineering. Teddy finally arrived, cracked a few jokes, and then disappeared to meet with the engineers. For the first time since they landed, Harry breathed. Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw something that stopped him mid-sip.
Alpine.
Their garage, just across the F2 paddock divider, was bigger. Brighter. Swarming with team personnel and engineers. Even from a distance, Harry could see how quickly they moved. No wasted steps. No casual chatter. That's when he spotted her.
Fleur Delacour, standing near the rear wing of her F1 car, fire suit zipped to her collarbone, hair tied back in a clean braid. She was talking to someone—Cho Chang, if Harry guessed right—her expression unreadable in the fading light.
She didn't look his way. Harry didn't expect her to. But the visual still lodged itself somewhere in his ribs.
Later that night, long after the garage lights dimmed and most of the crew had gone back to the hotel, Harry stayed behind to calibrate the ride height sensors. He liked being the last one there. It was quiet. Focused. He crouched beside the front wing with the sensor readout in one hand, making fine adjustments with a spanner. The numbers blinked clean: all within tolerance.
Behind him, the monitor looped the previous year's Jeddah Feature Race on mute. He caught glimpses of onboard footage—how close the cars got to the walls, how violently they shifted on braking zones, how even the smallest miscalculation meant contact.
He took a breath, stood slowly, and looked toward the far end of the garage, where the overhead lights cast long shadows down the spine of the car.
Jeddah would test everything.
Driver. Car. Team.
And Harry?
Harry had no interest in passing the test.
He wanted to ace it.
There was something strange about walking a racetrack at sunrise.
The grandstands were empty. The floodlights were still humming above, casting long shadows across the fresh-painted curbs. Jeddah's Corniche Circuit—without cars—felt deceptively calm. Almost peaceful. But Harry Potter knew better.
He stood beside Neville and Ginny at the apex of turn 4, scribbling notes in his pocket pad while mechanics and engineers from other F2 teams made their way down the track. No one walked fast. They all knew this was the only time they'd get to study it like this—without chaos, without tire smoke.
Ginny crouched beside the curb and ran her fingers along the edge. "Still smooth. Probably repainted this week."
"Exit here's going to be critical," Neville added. "Fast transition into five. No room for throttle hesitation."
Harry looked down the line of corners ahead. The walls curved in like jaws. There was no runoff. No exit strategy.
He circled something in his instability = disaster. Need consistent traction.
As they made their way further down the circuit, Harry couldn't help glancing across to where the F1 teams were beginning their own walk on the other side. Even at a distance, he could pick them out—team colors, engineers with tablets, drivers talking with one another, discussing the upcoming race.
The garage swelled with sound—the whine of air guns, the hiss of nitrogen lines, the click of laptops opening in sequence. ART's crew worked quickly. Setup changes were being applied in full before the car rolled out for FP1.
Teddy's race suit was already half-zipped as he sat on the edge of a crate beside the telemetry screens, sipping from a thermos and looking almost bored.
"You nervous?" Harry asked, walking past with a pressure gauge in hand.
Teddy grinned. "Nervous is for people who don't trust their car."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "You should be nervous, then."
"Oi."
The car was started as Teddy fully suited up and got himseld situated into his seat. The session had finally started. The car rolled out clean. Harry stood just inside the garage, one eye on the monitor, the other on Ginny's readings as she tracked tire temperatures in real time. But something wasn't right.
By lap four, Teddy came on the radio, "Rear's floating in sector two. Feels light under throttle."
Neville responded calmly. "Copy. Any slide on exit?"
"Yeah. Out of nine and ten especially. Front's biting but rear's late to follow."
Harry stepped forward. "That's a balance issue. Maybe diffuser flow's off. Did we check floor mount clearances after shipping?"
Ginny flipped through her notes. "I did, but we didn't re-measure post-suspension build."
Neville nodded. "Bring him in."
Harry was already moving. Teddy rolled to a stop and killed the engine as he drove into the garage.
"Didn't crash," he said, popping his visor up.
"Not for lack of trying," Ginny muttered.
Harry was under the car within seconds, sliding on his creeper board to inspect the diffuser paneling. He checked the mount brackets with a flashlight and called out to Oliver.
"Rear-left floor edge is loose by 1.5 millimeters. It's lifting under load."
"That would unstick the back end on throttle exit," Oliver said, mostly to himself.
Harry slid back out. "I can shim the mounting point. Just enough to lock it down."
"Do it," Oliver confirmed.
Teddy returned to the track with the updated setup and quickly reported improved grip in the rear, though corner entry still felt twitchy. The next run was better. Not perfect, but better.
Harry watched the car through sector two with an almost obsessive focus. The ART chassis danced closer to the barriers now—more confident, but still cautious. When Teddy returned after his final stint, he didn't complain.
He just nodded at Harry as he climbed out. "Whatever you fixed, it helped."
Harry wiped grease from his hands. "Still some twitch on entry. We'll adjust the front toe and tweak ride height before quali."
Neville looked at him. Really looked.
Then nodded. "Good call."
The rest of the session passed in a blur.
Harry moved like he always did, quiet, precise, methodical. But the way people responded to him today felt different. Ginny asked for his opinion twice. Neville looped him in directly on a balance discussion.
Teddy… didn't joke when Harry handed him water. He just said, "Thanks."
It wasn't dramatic. But Harry noticed.
As the team began prepping the car for overnight maintenance, Harry found himself standing alone by the tire warmers, staring out into the night paddock. The lights above glared down like a stadium. The F1 garages were lit in the distance, their flags high and clean, their crew members still running simulator tests and aero programs.
He thought of Bahrain.
He thought of the ghost of a glance exchanged at a food truck.
He thought of the feeling in his chest when the carworked—when it finally did what he'd told it to do.
That was his version of speed.
The sun hadn't even crested the Red Sea when Harry Potter was already wrist-deep in brake fluid. He stood at the front of car #17, sleeves rolled, latex gloves stained from a full caliper bleed. Jeddah wasn't the place to risk a soft pedal. Every corner punished hesitation, and Teddy needed confidence on entry.
Ginny leaned over his shoulder, scanning the brake bias settings on her tablet. "Fronts were over-temping during sector two yesterday. Want to rebalance the split?"
Harry tightened the bleeder valve and wiped his hands. "No—he was dragging the brakes mid-turn. That's driver-induced. Keep it 54-46 and see if he adapts."
Ginny raised an eyebrow. "You're really going to put that on him?"
"I'm going to give him a car that punishes bad habits," Harry replied. "Up to him to break them."
Neville walked by just in time to catch the tail end. "That's a mechanic who trusts his driver," he said dryly.
"Or one who's had enough of overnight adjustments," Harry shot back.
Neville gave a small nod. "Track opens in 90. Check tire blankets in twenty."
While the rest of the paddock trickled in, ART moved with sharp purpose. Every tool had its drawer. Every cable had its coil. The garage was calm. Focused. But beneath the surface, tension hummed. Qualifying was the session that mattered most. Sprint races could be chaos, Feature Races had strategy—but qualifying determined control. Position. Clean air. And Jeddah was a circuit where control was everything.
Harry moved through the routine: torquing down the front wing endplates, checking rear suspension stiffness, confirming fuel load with the data team.
Teddy arrived later than usual, but fully suited. No coffee. No jokes.
Good, Harry thought. He's feeling it too.
"Alright," Neville called during the final setup check. "We're going out third wave. Track will still be green, but we'll get space."
Harry handed Teddy a towel as he leaned back against the garage wall.
"Cold tires, cold track. Take the first two laps for feel," Harry said. "She'll come alive around lap three."
Teddy nodded. "What if someone bins it before then?"
"Then you adapt faster."
That got the ghost of a smirk. "You always give me the encouraging version, huh?"
Harry tapped the halo with two fingers. "I give you the honest one."
Qualifying began under blazing sun.
From the pit wall, Harry stood just behind Neville and Ginny, headset tight, eyes flicking between the telemetry feed and the live feed on the monitors. He could see everything—the brake inputs, throttle curves, steering angle. Teddy was smooth through the outlap. Tire warm-up looked clean. Sector one was green. No traffic yet.
Neville's voice came calm over the comms. "Alright, push this lap. Let's see what she's got."
Harry watched closely as Teddy took the entry into turn four—tight, but composed. Through five and six, the car moved with balance. The rear held firm under throttle.
"Good rotation," Ginny murmured.
Sector two lit green.
Harry narrowed his eyes. "Bit of understeer through nine. He's missing the apex."
Neville nodded. "Minimal time loss. Tell him to sharpen the turn-in next lap."
Teddy completed the lap: P5 on the first run.
Not bad, but not where they needed to be.
They brought him in for adjustments. Harry crouched beside the car, unscrewing the front toe link cover and tweaking the angle by half a turn on both sides.
"Giving you quicker response," he told Teddy, who sat in the cockpit sipping water. "Use it."
Teddy didn't answer. Just lowered his visor.
The second run started smoother.
Sector one: green again.
Sector two: purple.
Harry grinned faintly behind the monitor. Teddy was pushing harder now, flirting with the edge of the wall in sector three. The tire temps held. Brake balance was perfect. He launched onto the main straight—across the line.
P3.
Just behind the lead Prema and a Carlin who had found pace late. The garage nodded in approval. Ginny clapped Harry on the shoulder.
"Your toe adjustment did it."
He just nodded, watching Teddy roll slowly back into the garage on cool-down.
The mood after the session wasn't jubilant—but it was satisfied.
Harry helped remove the nose cone and roll the car back into the bay. Teddy climbed out, sweaty and flushed, but smiling faintly.
"That was close," he said.
"You had P2 in you," Harry replied. "Sector three cost you a tenth and a half."
"I overcooked turn 21. Car danced."
"You caught it."
Teddy looked at him then, more serious than before. "Car responded when I needed it to. That's you."
Harry shrugged. "That's us."
As the team powered down and rolled gear into place for the evening, Harry found a quiet moment by the rear wing. He stood there, towel around his neck, watching the sky over Jeddah turn from blue to orange. He didn't crave recognition. But he craved impact—the kind of work that changed outcomes.
And today, he'd felt that.
Harry stood near the tire rack just outside the ART garage, watching the floodlights bleed off the edges of the pit lane as the F2 field rolled toward the grid. The sea glinted in the distance, framed by safety fences and the tight, shimmering ribbon of track ahead. Teddy's car was ready—final checks done, tire pressures confirmed, wing angles locked. But Harry still felt tight across the chest. Jeddah didn't forgive mistakes. The walls didn't blink.
Ginny appeared beside him, headset slung around her neck. "He's not going to hold back."
Harry didn't look at her. "He can't afford to."
Neville's voice crackled over the comms. "Final install lap underway. Grid up in three."
The car came to a stop in its eighth-place slot. Harry walked to the side of the grid, headset still on, eyes flicking between the track and the readouts on his tablet.
Teddy's engine note was steady.
No wheelspin. No nerves.
Just calm focus.
Harry crouched beside the car, helmet visor still down, and gave the front wing a quick pressure test.
"You'll have slipstream into turn one," he said low. "But the middle pack's going to panic. Wait. Let the mess clear, then attack."
Teddy didn't reply immediately. Then, with a subtle nod: "Understood."
Harry stood and stepped back.
Lights on.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Out.
Carnage.
Turn one bunched six cars together like cattle at a gate. Brake smoke. A wheel lock. Someone cut the corner. Someone else went wide.
Teddy held his line. Conservative.
Through turn two, he squeezed inside a struggling Trident car. One position gained. Lap two—clean exit off the straight, nailed the braking point into turn four. Another pass into turn six. P6. Harry's eyes darted between sector times and live feed. Tire temps holding. Engine running smooth. Teddy was slicing through the field with surgeon precision.
"Rear rotation's better," Oliver murmured beside him. "Harry, your front wing trim's working."
Harry nodded, eyes locked on the screen.
Lap four—Teddy braked deep into turn 13 and took two cars at once. Bold. Clean.
P4.
Then came the stall.
The top three had pulled ahead. Gaps stabilized.
Teddy was alone in a no-man's-land—too far from the leaders to draft, too fast for the group behind.
Lap eight. Sector two. Slight under-rotation into the chicane. No contact, but the tire wear was creeping in.
"He's losing grip," Ginny said, checking surface temps.
"Tires are peaking," Harry muttered. "Neville, tell him to short-shift out of slow corners."
Neville relayed the instruction. Teddy complied. Smoothed his driving. Nursed the tires.
Lap ten. No changes.
Lap eleven—defending.
Lap twelve—pressure building.
Final lap. A Carlin behind tried a dive into turn one. Teddy closed the door hard. It was legal—barely.
"Careful," Neville warned. "That was close."
Harry didn't breathe for the final sector. Not until Teddy crossed the line in P4, just a tenth ahead of P5.
It wasn't a podium. But it was a clean, smart drive from a risky starting spot.
Harry took off his headset and exhaled slowly.
The car returned to the garage with sand on the floor tray and rubber scuffs on the sidepod. Teddy climbed out slower than usual. He peeled off his gloves and handed the helmet to a crew member before slumping against the wall beside the tire racks. Harry passed him a water bottle without a word.
Teddy took it. Drank. Then, still looking down, he muttered, "I should've pushed harder."
Harry shook his head. "You pushed smart. You didn't wreck it. You took what the car gave you."
Teddy's jaw tightened. "I want more than fourth."
"You'll get it tomorrow."
This time, Teddy looked at him. "You sure?"
Harry didn't hesitate. "I built you a car for twenty-five laps. Not twelve. You'll feel the difference."
For a moment, Teddy just stared at him.
Then he gave a faint, tired smile.
"Alright. Let's go win something."
Harry Potter was awake before the sun.
The hotel room was dark and still, except for the blinking of his travel charger and the quiet rustle of Neville in the next bed, dead to the world. The race day nerves had stirred him early, as they always did. Not anxiety. Just energy. Focus. He dressed quickly, tossed his duffel over his shoulder, and left for the circuit while the city was still caught in the gray haze of pre-dawn.
The ART garage was empty when he arrived, still locked in its overnight quiet. But he liked it this way. It gave him time.
He took a deep breath as he unlocked the rear service door and stepped into the cool, shadowed space. The car sat in the center like it was waiting for him.
He approached it slowly, trailing his hand across the chassis.
Today, it had to be perfect.
By nine in the morning, the garage was awake again.
Fuel load finalized. Tire strategy locked. Prema and Hitech were playing it safe with their stints, but ART had committed to something bolder—softer rubber early, then a late switch to hards once traffic settled. High risk, but high reward.
Harry torqued the suspension arms one last time. "Load transfer should be cleaner now," he said aloud.
Oliver nodded beside him. "Teddy'll feel that in turn 12."
Ginny double-checked the tire blankets. "Rear pressures are hot already."
"Let them cool two degrees before final mount," Harry said. "We'll hit our target by the outlap."
There wasn't much more to say.
They were ready.
The grid was tense.
Teddy sat second, slotted in between a Prema on pole and a Hitech in third. Harry walked alongside the car, checking wing angles and brake ducts, clipboard in hand, while crew members swarmed around like a choreographed swarm. Teddy sat still, helmet on, visor down.
Harry tapped the halo gently with the back of his hand. "You have a launch advantage. Get clear into turn one."
Teddy gave a thumbs-up.
"You hold position through lap five, we control this race."
Another thumbs-up.
Harry didn't smile.
He just walked away.
Lights out.
Launch: Clean. Just as they had discussed, Teddy pulled even down the straight and edged ahead by the entry to turn two.
P1.
Harry didn't flinch. He gripped the pit wall rail tightly and watched the onboard feed without blinking.
Lap 3. Still leading.
Lap 5. Gap: 0.8 seconds.
Lap 7. Rear tire temps climbed.
"Tire deg higher than forecast," Ginny said, frowning. "Still manageable."
Harry leaned closer. "Tell him to widen his line slightly into turn 9. He's scrubbing more rubber than he needs to."
Neville passed it on.
Teddy adjusted. Gap grew.
Lap 10. Pit window opened.
ART waited one more lap, letting traffic clear.
Lap 11. Box.
The stop was flawless.
Harry was rear jack this time. He dropped the car on the dot, stepped back, and Teddy roared out of the box.
"4.4," Oliver muttered. "Could've been faster."
Harry shrugged. "Was clean."
The undercut worked. As the field cycled through their own pit windows, ART emerged still ahead—barely. Now came the real race.
Lap 15. Traffic. Teddy defended against a hard-charging Carlin who had gone for the overcut and was now on fresher tires.
Lap 18. The Carlin drew alongside into turn 1—but Teddy held.
Harry's hands tightened into fists behind the wall.
"Don't burn the rears," Ginny warned.
"He's squeezing every bit of grip out," Harry muttered.
Lap 20. The Carlin backed off.
Lap 22. The checkered flag waved.
Win.
ART took first in the Jeddah Feature Race.
The garage erupted. Crew members shouted, slapped backs, raised fists in celebration. Harry didn't. He just turned toward the telemetry stand and exhaled. Teddy returned with the victory lap, waving to the crowd, voice cracking over the radio.
"That was for Bahrain."
Harry smiled faintly.
Later, as the sun dipped below the skyline and the garage cooled into silence, Harry sat beside the car, alone.
He ran his hand across the sidepod. Dust clung to the livery. Rubber marks scuffed the corners.
But it was intact. He had built this. And it had won.
He stepped out of the garage just as the F1 cars rolled onto the track for their final laps. He didn't need to watch. But he did.
From the pit wall, he saw the blur of blue and black as the Alpine flew past—tight, composed, dancing millimeters from the wall.
Fleur Delacour.
She didn't know his name. But Harry knew hers.
That night, as the team packed gear and logistics scrambled for flights to Melbourne, Harry pulled out his notebook and sat under the flickering light outside the paddock gate.
Jeddah:
- Launch success
- Pit stop timing
- Setup response perfect
- Late race tire fade (acceptable)
- We're in the fight now.
At the bottom, he wrote:
F1 still feels miles away. But the road is starting to appear.