The Hagrid's son

Cedric jumped into the water, positioning himself far enough from where the creature he would face would fall, but close enough to react in time and avoid being expelled from the water.

"The Hogwarts champion is using the Bubble-Head Charm! A delicate choice, as the amount of air is limited, and he also needs to avoid any damage to it, but as long as he manages that, he should be able to last long enough!" boomed the voice from the loudspeakers. "Now, let's see the creature for this round."

The first thought that crossed people's minds when they saw the layer of bubbles around the fallen creature was:

"It's definitely bigger than a mermaid!"

Cedric frowned in concern, hoping he hadn't picked the "bad" box out of the remaining ones. When the bubbles rose and revealed the figure, for a moment he was bewildered.

Why did it look a bit like the transformed Krum from just a moment ago?

As that thought crossed his mind for an instant, the other part took the opportunity to attack.

"Hyakumaigawara Seiken!!"

Bam!

Cedric was flung out of the water sphere as his bubble exploded, and he spat a mouthful of blood, startling everyone as Sprout hurried down to check on him and bring him to Poppy.

"He had the bad luck of facing Jinbe, even though his chances were one in three," said Barnaby, rubbing his forehead and shaking his head.

A whale shark Fishman, an expert in Fishman Karate, and also the "strongest" of the four boxes. A real gentleman, if you ask me. He agreed to participate in the second task as long as Barnaby made him a magical necklace or bracelet capable of nullifying any type of projectile, no matter the direction.

A simple request, though not so much when he went into details.

Giant spinning flying axes?

Three-meter harpoons?

And that wasn't the only odd thing—the size of the requested accessory was enormous, had to be resistant to seawater, wider than Jinbe's waist, and he still said it was just a wrist bracelet...

What kind of giant was he going to give it to?

"At least he held back on that punch," Barnaby sighed in relief.

In hindsight, it was a good idea to go with this rather than a food-eating contest against Kirby...

Tonks stared at Barnaby, her mouth agape.

Poor Cedric not only shot out like a cannonball, spitting blood and crashing flat into the Black Lake with a sound painful just to watch, but his face was visibly deformed from the impact when they pulled him out of the water.

"C-Cedric is out with... eight seconds recorded!" came the announcement from the loudspeaker, after a moment of checking the time mark.

The spectators glanced at each other, unsure of what had just happened. They only saw the creature slowly punch forward—not even reaching Cedric, who was several meters away—before he seemed affected by some unknown force and abruptly lost.

Eight miserable seconds!

If they were right, that was probably the strongest creature of the boxes, and whether it was Harry or Fleur next, they could place higher than poor Cedric.

And if it wasn't...

Harry got a close-up of Cedric's battered face as he flew past him, just a meter away, as if in slow motion. He looked nervously at Jinbe, who saluted Barnaby and then left.

"There's definitely nothing worse than that, right?" Harry consoled himself in a low voice. "I can last at least ten seconds..."

Fleur gave Harry a subtle look when she overheard him.

Boy, do you even think before you speak?

Your words are very open to misinterpretation!

Lasting ten seconds is not something to be proud of!

Harry didn't notice Fleur's look, nor did he realize the problem with his words. Instead, he stepped forward to choose a box, with numbers two and four remaining.

"I'll choose number four!"

"Harry Potter has chosen box number four, the toughest one of them all!"

Harry's face paled when he heard that announcement.

Is there really something worse?!

"Well then, huh?" The loudspeaker paused briefly. "Oh, I've just been informed I was wrong and that Cedric already took that problem. Forget what I said, it doesn't matter."

Harry suppressed the urge to curse and storm up to the commentator to teach him a lesson for scaring him without reason. He needed to focus on the upcoming challenge.

"I hope this works," he thought as he ate the Gillyweed Neville had given him, which turned out to taste like salty spinach...

He was still worried about its duration in freshwater or saltwater!

But Krum barely managed more than two minutes—he should be able to last that long and more without a problem.

He jumped into the water sphere, and the creature from the box fell in, starting the timer.