[Harry] stood up, noticing dimly that his legs seemed to be made of marshmallow. He waited. And then he heard the whistle blow. He walked out through the entrance of the tent, the panic rising into a crescendo inside him. And now he was walking past trees, though a gap in the enclosure fence.
He saw everything in front of him as though it was a very highly colored dream. There were hundreds and hundreds of faces staring down at him from stands that had been magicked there since he'd last stood on this spot. And there was the Horntail, at the other end of the enclosure, crouched low over her clutch of legs, her wings half-furled, her evil, yellow eyes upon him, a monstrous, scaly, black lizard, thrashing her spiked tail, leaving yard-long gouge marks in the hard ground. (20.139-40)
This physical description of Harry's fear – his "marshmallow" legs, his sense of disconnection from what's happening, and the feeling that it's all "a very highly colored dream" – really ramps up our own suspense. As J.K. Rowling describes Harry's state of total panic, we can't help but feel at least some sympathetic fear of our own. These descriptions really heighten the thrill of this section of the novel.
