After Harry came Carlos Blanco. The poor kid had obtained the Golden Egg, but that was all he had managed.
Even the Gryffindors, who were famous for their recklessness, could not help casting sidelong glances at his sheer rashness. They had never seen anyone bold enough to charge straight into a fire dragon's breath with nothing but a Fireproofing Charm, and probably never would again.
This brave soul still had not returned by the time the scores were announced. Clearly, burns inflicted all over his body by a fire dragon's breath were no easy matter to treat, even in the wizard world.
Even his own Head of House could only bring himself to give his performance a seven, which was then discarded as his highest score.
His final score was thirty-two, a little better than Shen Yalan's, but not by much.
Next came Lei Kaiming from Nanyang Magic Academy, who earned fifty-two points. Hermione felt his performance had actually been better than Krum's, yet his score was one point lower.
In Hermione's opinion, Krum had earned those points purely on his reputation.
Harry offered no opinion on that. He had not seen Krum's performance, but Lei Kaiming's had certainly been spectacular. He, too, thought the score was a little low.
Ron, however, who had seen neither performance, disagreed. He was a devoted fan of Krum and firmly believed that Krum must have performed better.
Horton, who came next, unexpectedly received only forty-two points.
Apart from Shen Yalan and Blanco, his was the lowest score.
Quite a few people found this puzzling. After all, the magical ability Horton had displayed had been quite outstanding.
Seemingly aware that the public would have questions, Barty Crouch offered an explanation on behalf of the Ministry of Magic-the Ministry had also given Horton only seven