Fleur couldn't dodge the flurry of spells, and had to block most of them. Cedric continued to cast as he was getting back up and was nearly on his feet again when Fleur advanced. Dropping her shield to cast a strong fireball, she let herself get hit with two stinging hexes and a jelly-legs jinx, which she immediately dispelled. The fireball melted a clear path for her straight towards Cedric, who dove out of the way and rolled to the side. Fleur used this chance to try to end it with a stunner, but Cedric managed to fire off a freezing charm this time, causing Fleur to slip. Her stunner went wide and Cedric bought himself enough time to get to his feet. Just as he was about to disarm her, Fleur let her allure loose again. Cedric, having seen her use it against Krum, cast a Bubble-Head charm on himself, which seemed to lessen the effects enough for him to keep his mind. Fleur conjured a flock of birds as she disillusioned herself, but before she could move away, Cedric managed to get a sticking charm on her shoe, causing her to stumble on her next step, twisting her ankle. Cedric finished with an Incarcerous, binding her with ropes before he disarmed her.
So, Cedric decided to take out her main strength right from the beginning. Can I do that against Krum? wondered Harry. Krum's strength is... hi s strength. And his knowledge. Maybe I can try to get a confounding charm in... He felt that was his best bet. He and Krum walked to the duelling platform in silence. As he passed by Cedric, he received a pitying look from the Hogwarts champion. They both stepped onto the duelling platform. He heard the crowd roar for the final duel as the referee stepped up and greeted the two duellers. They bowed in return, then to each other.
I can do this... just blind, him, delay him, confound him. Don't get hit, Harry reminded himself. As they stared each other down from across the arena, Harry attempted as best he could to read Krum with legilimency. He immediately found himself against a basic barrier. Nuts! It figures he'd have at least basic occlumency. Krum gave an angry snarl just before the referee's hand dropped. Both of the duellers exploded into action. Krum began right away with a bone-breaker followed by reductors. Harry didn't want to try blocking them, just in case they packed enough power to shatter his shield. After dodging out of the way of the initial flurry of spells, he went on the offensive. Running purely on instinct, he cast the Dueller's Hello again. He realized his mistake as the second spell left his wand. That combination was the most common combination in duelling- at the amateur leagues. Krum, having fought many duels in his years at Durmstrang, could tell exactly what Harry was casting from the wand movements alone. He let the silencing charm hit him, being perfectly comfortable with non-verbal casting. He took that extra second to charge up a powerful spell as he sidestepped the body-bind curse, and let loose a powerful fire-whip at the same time Harry finished casting Incarcerous.
The powerful flames of Krum's whip sliced straight through the conjured ropes and continued straight towards Harry. Harry just managed to dodge out of the way, but Krum simply flicked his wand and the whip snapped back, forcing Harry to jump again. Unfortunately, he couldn't jump high enough this time and the flames brushed across his ankle, causing him to stumble as he landed. With another flick, Krum's whip lashed down hard, straight at Harry, forcing him to put up a shield to block. That one hit nearly broke through Harry's shield, straining him as he fended off the concentrated cord of flames. As Krum pulled back for another strike, he dropped his shields as quickly as he could, throwing what was normally called a "distraction combo" at Krum. Similar to what Cedric did to Fleur when he was down, it consisted of easy-to-cast spells that used minimal wand movement to force the opponent to back down with quantity, instead of quality, of spells. Harry tried to force Krum to stop his attack, while throwing a confounding charm into the mix.
Unfortunately, Krum had seen this combination used against him many times in the past as well, and had an counter-combination for just the occasion. The March of the Golem was simple to cast but a magic-intensive combination that consisted of only two spells. Protego Progresso was a variation of the standard shield, which sent the shield flying forward, buying a split-second for the caster to drop the shield and cast the next spell: Malleossis, the bone-bludgeoner, which required less wand movement than the standard bludgeoning hex but much more power. Alternating between the two continuously would have drained most wizards quickly, and if Harry could move to the side, it would mostly render the variant of the shield charm moot. Unfortuantely, with him on the ground and Krum being far above average in power, his simple chain of spells bounced off Krum's shield and he had to throw up his own shield to block the bone-bludgeoner. He then returned to the string of simple hexes while Krum threw up another shield. By the third bone-bludgeoner, Harry's shield broke and he was knocked off the platform. Well, that was a disappointment, he thought as he hit the grass.
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