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Chapter 257: Chapter 257 A surprising change on the field
The judges in the referee's booth looked at the broom that fell on the stage in front of them, and their expressions gradually changed from doubt to astonishment.
Among the six judges, Dumbledore seemed to have anticipated such a result, but just shook his head helplessly.
As for the remaining five judges, Ms. Maxim, Karkaroff, Professor Hicks, Mr. Crouch and Bagman, they all widened their eyes at the same time, looking at Dracula who was floating in the air without any support.
"This... This is not a flying broom at all!"
Bagman jumped from the commentary seat to the referee's stage at some point, and picked up the broom that Dracula threw down with a shocked face, "This is just an ordinary broom, it has no flying effect at all!"
After hearing Bagman's exclamation, the faces of the other judges changed again.
It turns out that this safety officer does not need a flying broom to fly at all, and this broom is just pretending in front of them?
Karkaroff, who had just questioned whether Dracula could control the flying broom, now wanted to find a crack in the ground to crawl into... He felt his face being slapped.
"How about it, judges, do you think I can control the flying broom now?" Dracula crossed his arms and looked at Ms. Maxim and Karkaroff with a smile.
The two principals didn't know how to answer, but Professor Hicks next to them coughed twice, which was considered to be a relief for them:
"Ahem... Professor Dracula, the warriors seem to be coming out soon, do you want to go and take a look?" Dracula turned his head and saw that the first warrior had walked out of the tent.
It was Cedric Diggory, and the whole audience burst into extremely warm applause.
The little wizards of Hogwarts waved the yellow flag representing Hufflepuff College vigorously, and the cheers, screams and applause merged together, even forming a kind of momentum of tsunami.
Charlie Weiss and other dragon trainers from the Romanian Fire Dragon Reserve dragged a silver-blue scaled dragon into the competition venue, and then tied it firmly to the ground with many chains.
Bagman returned to the commentary booth, pointed his wand at his throat, and spread his voice in all directions:
"The first warrior to come on stage is Mr. Cedric Diggory from Hogwarts. His opponent is a Swedish short-nosed dragon... Everyone can look at the feet of the dragon, where a golden egg has been placed."
"Now, professionals have tied the four feet of this dragon to the ground and will not let it break free. The dragons participating in this competition are all female dragons. Now they are all under the Confusion Spell, thinking that the golden egg is their own dragon egg..."
"And what Mr. Diggory has to do is to snatch the golden egg from the feet of the dragon! The judges will score him based on his specific performance..."
Dracula's attention was indeed attracted by the upcoming competition.
He flapped his wings, which turned transparent and were not discovered by others, and came to the top of the arena. He looked at Cedric with interest, wondering how he would face a fire dragon.
A shrill whistle sounded in the noisy voices, and all the dragon trainers and staff left the arena, leaving this space for the participating warriors.
The audience suddenly fell into silence, and everyone stared at Cedric firmly-
This situation of relying on one's own strength to fight against a behemoth like a fire dragon, almost no one present had ever witnessed it.
They all stared intently, wanting to see whether the warriors on the field would live up to their trust and successfully get the golden egg, or be defeated by the fire dragon instead?
Cedric stood at the entrance of the fence of the venue and took a deep breath.
Then, he suddenly pulled out his wand and pointed it at a huge stone next to him-
"Vera Verto!"
A spell belonging to the Transfiguration came out of his mouth.
The next moment, the stone block, which was nearly half the size of a dragon, quickly changed its shape, from a sharp-edged stone to a rounded shape, and turned into a big dog made of rock.
"Nice Transfiguration!" Bagman shouted in the commentary booth, "Mr. Diggory used a very clever method to divert the dragon's attention..."
The rock dog rushed towards the Swedish short-nosed dragon, but suddenly changed direction before entering the range of the dragon's claws.
The short-nosed dragon's attention was indeed attracted by the big dog, and it raised its claws wrapped in chains and wanted to chase the big dog.
Obviously, these chains only restricted the range of the dragon's activities, and could not directly make them immobile.
While the Swedish short-nosed dragon was chasing the big dog, Cedric cast a speed-increasing spell on himself and rushed to the dragon's nest where the golden eggs were stored.
"Oh, beautiful, he really distracted the dragon... Wait, this dragon cares too much about its eggs, it gave up the big dog and pounced on Mr. Diggory!" Bagman exclaimed.
On the field, the Swedish short-nosed dragon blew out a dazzling blue flame from its nostrils, directly covering Cedric!
Above the field, Dracula's eyes condensed, and he subconsciously lowered his body a little, ready to go over to save the situation at any time.
At the critical moment, Cedric performed Transfiguration again, turning over a small piece of land under his feet, squeezing it around him to form an earth wall, and rolling to the side with the force generated when the earth wall was formed.
The blue flames were all sprayed on the earth wall, turning the wet wall into a solid, hard and charred solid block, and the wall cracked with several huge cracks.
There were screams and gasps from the audience, and Bagman's commentary sounded:
"Oh, so dangerous, too dangerous... I have to say, this move is really dangerous!"
And Cedric had no time to care about the commentary and the audience's reaction. He hid behind another low wall and became more cautious.
He tried to reduce his presence as much as possible, waving his wand constantly, letting various transfiguration products swim constantly to influence the Swedish short-nosed dragon's mind and look for an opportunity to take the golden egg.
About fifteen minutes later, after Cedric kept pulling and testing the fire dragon, he finally seized a great opportunity-
Accompanied by a deafening cheer, Cedric finally took advantage of the fire dragon's attention being attracted by another big rock dog, quietly passed its defense, and took the golden egg back from the dragon's nest.
The Swedish short-nosed dragon realized that its egg had been stolen, and let out a series of angry roars, and a piece of dazzling blue flames sprayed out of its nose.
At the same time, seven or eight dragon trainers from the Romanian Fire Dragon Sanctuary rushed in from around the venue, cast various calming spells on the dragon, and then took it away from the arena.
"Mr. Diggory's performance was excellent!" Bagman shouted at the top of his voice, "Now please let the judges give the score!"
Dumbledore did not shy away from it and took the lead in raising a sign with the number "9". freewebnoveℓ.com
Nine points is a very high score out of ten.
"Mr. Diggory's Transfiguration is very good. I believe Professor McGonagall will be very pleased that she has taught such an excellent student." Dumbledore commented, "If the start is more stable, the efficiency may be higher."
Professor Hicks smiled and also scored "9".
Afterwards, Bagman, Mr. Crouch and Ms. Maxime raised the "8" sign at the same time.
Overall, it can be seen that Cedric's excellent Transfiguration has indeed been recognized by various judges.
However, Durmstrang's headmaster, Ingor Karkaroff, held up a sign with "6" written on it.
After seeing his score clearly, there was a booing from the audience.
Many young wizards from Hogwarts loudly denounced his injustice, and Fred and George took out a loud speaker from nowhere, spreading the voice of protest throughout the stadium:
"Karkaroff is partial to others and cheating...Karkaroff is partial to others and cheating..."
They kept repeating this sentence, which added a bit of humor to the solemn atmosphere.
"I scored completely fairly!" Karkaroff's face flushed with anger, and he loudly retorted to the audience, "He was almost sprayed by the dragon's flames, which was definitely a major mistake!"
In the end, Cedric got 48 points, which was pretty good overall. At least he smiled and waved to the audience with satisfaction.
"Okay, please come to the audience and take a break..." Bagman said to him, "Mr. Diggory, please keep your golden egg safe - the clue to the next game is hidden in the golden egg."
"Very good, there are four more warriors... The next one is Miss Delacour, and her opponent is a Welsh green dragon!"
As the whistle sounded again, Fleur appeared at the entrance of the stadium.
With Fleur's appearance, many boys cheered uncontrollably. If the warriors were not too far away from the audience, they might not be able to control their expressions.
Dracula floated in the sky, looking at the reactions of the crowd with interest.
He saw that Ron, with his fiery red hair, couldn't help but look like a pig again, and Hermione next to him rolled her eyes.
Unlike the wonderful transformation of Cedric's endless creations in the previous game, Fleur's operation seemed much more monotonous and boring.
She was pale, raised her hands nervously, and chanted a long, plain spell softly.
As Fleur muttered the spell, the heated atmosphere in the audience became calm unconsciously, and even the Welsh green dragon who was glaring at her gradually fell asleep.
"Hypnotic spell, very creative approach..."
Even Bagman was infected by the quiet atmosphere in the arena, and spoke in a low voice, just barely audible.
Hypnosis is a continuous process. Fleur chanted continuously for nearly ten minutes before finally making the Welsh green dragon fall to the ground, snoring from its nose.
A little cold sweat dripped from Fleur's forehead, and she began to chant the spell while moving towards the golden egg.
However, just when she was about to get the golden egg, I don't know whether it was because the fire dragon was not completely hypnotized or its subconscious was still guarding its dragon egg, a green flame spurted out of the fire dragon's mouth.
Furong reacted quickly and dodged to the side.
However, the flames covered too much area, and her skirt was still set on fire by the dragon.
Furong subconsciously thought that the dragon was about to wake up, and lost her sense of proportion for a moment. After a long time of panic, she finally used the water-making spell to extinguish the sparks on her skirt.
Fortunately, the Welsh green dragon seemed to be hypnotized and did not take the next step.
Furong recovered from her panic, picked up the golden egg and left the arena.
"Oh, she succeeded! I really didn't dare to breathe just now!"
There was a strong cheer from the audience, and Bagman, who had been silent for a long time, finally laughed and returned to his previous style of loud commentary.
Next, it was the judges' turn to score.
Although Fleur's overall response was quite good, she was flustered when facing the dragon's breath, which was a big loss of points-
So Dumbledore and Bagman gave 8 points, Professor Hicks and Mr. Crouch gave 7 points, and Karkaroff looked at Ms. Maxime, hesitated for a moment, and scored 6 points, the same as Cedric.
Ms. Maxime gritted her teeth and finally raised her sign: there was a big number "9" written on it.
In the end, Fleur temporarily ranked second with 45 points.
The next one to appear was Krum, and the opponent he drew was the colorful Australian egg white eye.
As soon as Krum appeared, he quickly raised his wand and quickly cast a spell at the dragon's eyes.
"Very brave!" Bagman shouted, "This is the first time in the three games we have seen that a warrior directly chooses to attack the dragon!"
The Australian White Eyes's eyes without a child were suddenly attacked. It let out a roar of pain that reached the sky, flapped its wings constantly, and stomped back and forth on the ground, shaking the chain and making it clang.
"Oh, I just consulted Professor Dumbledore beside me, and he told me that Mr. Krum used an eye-sickness spell." Bagman explained loudly, "The dragon's body is covered with tough scales, which are highly resistant to magic... but dragon eyes are different!"
"The dragon's eyes are the most vulnerable part of their body. If you can hit the dragon's eyes with the eye-sickness spell, then they will probably be in so much pain that they won't care about your little tricks..."
Just then, Bagman exclaimed:
"Oh, no! This Australian egg white eye actually crushed its own dragon egg... Mr. Krum got the dragon egg that was broken into two halves. I don't know what the result should be..."
Originally, the audience thought that the game was going to end like this, but the next moment, the Australian egg white eye shook its head violently.
Then, it seemed to get rid of the influence of the eye-sickness spell, and it completely quieted down, staring at Krum coldly with its eyes without childishness.