The Second Task
Harry is the only Slytherin to get up early on Boxing Day. The other boys in his dorm are still sound asleep by the time he sneaks out, even Draco who is usually an early riser. But Harry suspects the blonde is awake and just waiting for Harry to leave, before pulling aside the hangings around bed (which is also the main reason Harry is eager to get out of there.)
As much fun as he’d had with Ron during dinner and that first dance the night before, overall the Yule Ball turned into quite the fiasco and his cunning plan to light a fire under Draco by making him jealous, had backfired like the back end of a Blast-Ended Skrewt… Now he just wants to find a quiet corner to lick his burn wounds. Luckily he’s been given special permission to visit Hogsmeade today, so that he can go home and celebrate a late Christmas with his dads — his absolute favourite corner in the world, for wound-licking as well as everything and anything else — and he can’t get out of Hogwarts quickly enough.
It’s eerie walking through the deserted corridors of the castle. Harry has never really seen Hogwarts this empty and silent. Even when he and Draco have snuck out of bed after curfew to go flying or try and break into the Chamber of Secrets, or any of the other adventures they’ve had over the years, they’ve always come across a teacher or a ghost (or a three-headed dog…) but as Harry makes his way out of the dungeon and into the Entrance Hall now, he doesn’t encounter a single soul, living or otherwise…
Same goes for Hogsmeade, by the time he reaches the small town. None of the shops have opened for the day yet and the High Street is just as deserted as the road from Hogwarts had been, the fresh blanket of snow still untouched and pure white, and it’s with an almost childish sense of satisfaction that Harry stomps through it, leaving sharp footprints in his wake… throwing a cursory look around, just to make sure he’s still alone, Harry begins taking long leaps to make it look like a really long-legged person has been walking down the street and then, chuckling to himself, he starts to create random patterns instead.
”Harry!”
He startles halfway through a figure eight and wheels around. Ludo Bagman is coming out of the Three Broomsticks, waving his arm excitedly at Harry. Feeling really stupid at having been caught playing in the snow like a little kid, Harry tries to look as mature as possible as he waves back awkwardly.
Bagman hurries over to him, giving the nearest patterns a politely interested look (much to Harry’s embarrassment.)
”Having fun in the snow?” he asks with a knowing grin. ”It’s jolly good fun, isn’t it? I love a good snowball fight, myself!”
”Er… Okay…” Harry says.
”Happy Christmas, what!” Bagman adds jovially, clapping his hands together. ”Get any good presents?”
”Ehm, I don’t know yet”, Harry says. ”I’m just on my way home now…”
He gestures vaguely behind him. Bagman looks over his shoulder in surprise.
”Oh-ho! Your family lives here in Hogsmeade, then? That’s convenient, isn’t it…”
”Ehm, yeah, sure…”
”Yeah, I’ve been staying in the Three Broomsticks”, he says, nodding. ”Just for a few days, what with the Yule Ball and everything, I’m heading back to London later today… That was fun wasn’t it?” he adds with exaggerated enthusiasm and pins Harry with a wide-eyed look.
”What was?” Harry says faintly.
”The Ball, of course! A real corker, I thought! Had a blast! Some would say a little too much of a blast, but you only live once, that’s my motto! Eh?”
”Ehm, yeah, sure… I guess…”
”So… Great job with that Horntail, Harry!” Bagman continues in the same lighthearted voice, but his eyes become a little more focused somehow and Harry starts to feel like he did when Bagman pulled him aside to offer him illegal pointers before the First Task.
”Thanks”, he mutters.
”Ingenius, I thought! To summon your broom like that, what! And — imagine — Krum never thought of it!”
”No”, Harry mumbles.
”Well, I was well impressed, Harry and I don’t mind telling you! Superb performance!” his eyes get shifty again, Harry notices and just knows what’s coming. ”Have you… what was I going to say… had a chance to look at that egg, yet? Been too busy preparing for the Ball, I should think—!”
He gives out a bark of laughter and Harry forces himself to smile.
”But…” he adds slowly, eyes flitting around their surroundings quickly. ”I meant what I said before, Harry. That was a great job on the Horntail, it really was, but you’re still the underdog in this competition and to tell you the truth I feel bad about all this… how you were thrown into this Tournament and all… and I’ve taken liking to you, I mean… the way you handled that dragon!” he whistles and shakes his head. ”So anything I can do to help, anything at all—”
”That’s all right”, Harry says quickly. ”I think I’ve got it almost cracked, couple of more days should do it…”
Bagman looks almost disappointed. With another cursory glance around, he leans in closer to Harry and lowers his voice.
”No-one needs to know, Harry…”
”We’re supposed to figure the clue out on our own, though… aren’t we, Sir?” Harry asks pointedly.
Bagman jerks back from him again, looking slightly ruffled.
”Well, yes… yes, that’s… that’s true, but… oh come on, Harry! We all want a Hogwarts victory, after all—”
”So have you offered Diggory help as well, then?” Harry asks before he can stop himself.
A look of irritation flickers into Bagman’s face, before he forces another grin on there. Except it’s looking less and less like his usual beaming smile and more like he’s experiencing heartburn, Harry thinks.
”Well, like I said, I’ve… I’ve taken a liking to you, Harry, that’s all… just thought I’d ask…”
”Thanks”, Harry says again. ”But I think I’ve got it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for lunch with my dads…”
For a second it looks as though Bagman is debating with himself over whether to object to this or not, but Harry turns around before he’s made up his mind.
Both his dads come outside to meet him when he walks up the drive to the cottage and he runs up to give them both a hug. Remus nuzzles the side of his head, breathing in his scent as usual and Harry smiles at the familiar sensation.
”We were starting to get worried…” Sirius comments lightly, taking a step back.
Remus takes the opportunity to wrap both arms around Harry and lifts him easily off his feet. Harry chuckles and wraps his legs around his daddy’s waist and clambers close.
”Merlin…” Sirius mumbles. ”I can’t remember the last time I could lift you like that, Harry.”
”Being a werewolf has some perks”, Remus comments playfully.
Giving Harry a peck on the forehead, he puts him down on the ground again and the three of them walk inside together.
Harry thinks he heard his dad murmur something else under his breath, but it was too low for him to make out the words. His daddy must have been able to though, because he shoots his husband an exasperated look and blushes a bright pink.
Sirius gives him an unrepentant grin, leaning in to give him a quick but loudly smacking kiss. Harry doesn’t object to it, knowing by now that it will only spur his dad on. Instead he pretends not to have noticed the interaction at all and starts calling for Selina instead.
”How was the ball?” Remus asks him as they enter the kitchen.
Harry blinks at the massive spread on the kitchen table. Remus has outdone himself this year and cooked up a feast to rival that of the Christmas lunch served at Hogwarts.
”I know”, Sirius intones, close to his ear. ”We’ll be eating leftovers ’til New Years…”
Harry laughs.
”Harry? The ball?” Remus asks again.
”Oh, yeah, it was… it was fine…” Harry says vaguely, turning away to pat Selina briefly, before taking his seat at the table.
”Just fine?” Remus prods, a note of worry in his voice.
”Yeah…” Harry mumbles.
”Did you see the Daily Prophet yet today, Harry?” Sirius asks suddenly.
Harry looks up in surprise. Remus is frowning at his husband, but Sirius seems to be ignoring him and keeps his eyes trained on Harry instead.
”No”, he says. ”I came straight here.”
”Oh, well… our favourite reporter has found a new subject”, Sirius says grimly. ”Wrote a nice, long piece on Hagrid, saying he’s putting the students in danger during his lessons…”
”Well…” Harry says, thinking it’s not a terribly big stretch from the truth.
”Mentioned Draco getting attacked by that hippogriff last year and then went on to say you were dealing with some dangerous creatures right now that he’d bred himself, illegally according to Skeeter, or so she hinted anyway…”
”Oh, yeah, the Blast-Ended Skrewts”, Harry mutters darkly. ”Maybe Rita Skeeter isn’t all bad then, if this means Hagrid has to get rid of them now…”
”I wouldn’t go that far”, Sirius says. ”She also outed him as part giant… ”
Harry frowns in confusion. That’s hardly news though, is it?
”But… I mean… That’s obvious, isn’t it?” he says uncertainly.
”Yes, Harry”, Remus says patiently. ”But there’s a difference between people assuming something and having it stated in black on white… I don’t think Hagrid is any more eager to tell people he’s half giant, than I am to tell people I’m a werewolf…”
”But he told Rita Skeeter”, Harry says.
”Yes, that is weird…” Remus mumbles.
”I don’t believe he told her”, Sirius says. ”Not even Hagrid would be that careless…”
”Well, he agreed to give an interview anyway”, Harry says. ”She came to our Care Of Magical Creatures lesson and I heard them decide on a time and place for it—”
”Rita Skeeter came to one of your lessons?” Remus says sharply.
”Yeah”, Harry says, watching his daddy’s angry frown cautiously. ”A few weeks ago, but that’s the last time I’ve seen her at the school.”
”All right…” Remus mutters, but the frown stays on his face as he sips his wine thoughtfully.
”If she shows up again, Harry”, Sirius says. ”You let us know, okay?”
”Yeah, sure”, Harry nods.
Remus’ eyes flicker over to him again and he puts his wine goblet down in determination.
”Harry… Did something happen at the Ball last night?”
Sirius puts his fork down with a clatter and gives the other man a look of exasperation. Remus ignores him.
”No…” Harry mutters, sinking down further in his seat. ”Not exactly…”
”You don’t want to talk about it?” Remus says, giving him a kind look.
”Obviously not”, Sirius snaps.
”I believe I asked Harry, not you”, Remus snaps right back.
”Guys, don’t fight”, Harry says hurriedly. ”Nothing happened at the ball. I had a great time with Ron, it just wasn’t…”
He trails off with a sigh.
”Wasn’t what, pup?” Remus prompts.
”It wasn’t Draco”, Harry says and shrugs uncomfortably.
”Okay…” Remus says, the last remnants of worry fading from his eyes. ”I understand it’s hard, Harry. But he’ll come around again, you’ll see…”
He reaches out and pats the back of Harry’s hand gently. Harry gives him a pinched smile back and nods. He’s not so certain Draco will come around this time, fearing he’s taken things a step too far for the blonde to forgive him — but he doesn’t tell his dads that, because he’s not ready to talk about it yet…
”How’s the egg coming along?” Sirius asks, clearly changing the subject for a second time.
”Can we just…” Harry trails off awkwardly. ”Sorry, but… I just want to enjoy the day with you guys and not have to think about Draco or the Tournament or anything…”
”Of course, Harry”, Remus says immediately.
”Besides, I’m getting tired of people trying to help me”, Harry adds. ”I want to at least try and work out the clue by myself. If I can’t, I’ll come to you though, I promi—”
”Who’s been trying to help you?” Remus asks with a frown.
”Who hasn’t”, Harry mutters. ”Mad-Eye Moody gave me the idea to summon my broom in the first task and Ludo Bagman offered to give me pointers right before, and today when I was on my way here, as well — he literally stopped me in the street to help me figure out the egg!”
”Ludo Bagman did?” Remus says. ”But he’s one of the judges, he’s not supposed to be partial —”
”He’s probably got a bet on Harry winning”, Sirius says with a meaningful look.
”I’m not going to win…” Harry mumbles sullenly. ”I don’t know half the spells the others do and I’m half the size of them too… except for Fleur, but she’s still an inch taller than me… I hate being small…”
”You’re not small”, Remus says firmly. ”You’re just a late bloomer…”
”You know James didn’t get his big growth spurt until fifth year”, Sirius adds, beginning to clear the first course off the table.
”Really?” Harry says hopefully. ”James was short when he was my age? How short? Like me?”
”Ehm, yeah, thereabouts… Don’t worry about it. Really.”
”And don’t worry about winning the Tournament either—” Remus says sternly.
”I know, I know”, Harry says hurriedly. ”I didn’t mean it like that. I promise…”
”Good lad…” Sirius says as he collects his dirty plate and ruffles his hair.
Harry leans out of his reach and swats his hand away, grinning.
”Don’t make it worse”, Remus mutters with a pained look at the bird’s nest on Harry’s head.
”Hardly possible”, Sirius sniggers and gives Harry a playful wink.
Blushing slightly, Harry flattens his hair half-heartedly. But he knows it’s a lost cause.
Then he remembers Granger’s transformation at the Yule Ball. He hadn’t paid her that much attention at the time, more than noticing that she looked different — better — and had merely chalked it up to a nice dress and a straighter posture, what with her spine not being weighed down by that enormous book bag of hers and making her look like half a pretzel… but now that he thinks about it, he remembers her hair being nice and silky as well, as opposed to the frizzy tangle it usually is…
”Daddy, is there a spell or something that will make your hair unfrizz? ’Cause Hermione Granger did something to her hair at the ball, it was really nice and flat…”
”I don’t know, maybe you could ask her”, Remus suggests kindly, shooting Sirius a warning look when he snorts.
”No, that’s okay…” Harry mumbles.
It’s not so important to him, that he’s willing to have such an embarrassing conversation with Granger of all people. If Pansy was still making an effort to be nice to him, he could have asked her. But as it is, he’ll just have to live with messy hair…
After they’ve finished pudding, Remus whips up some hot chocolate that they bring into the lounge so that they can get started on the presents under the tree. He curls up in the corner of the sofa and pulls Harry close to him, then makes Sirius go and fetch the presents, refusing to let go of Harry for the rest of the afternoon.
Ever since the first task, Harry has noticed his daddy is even more affectionate and protective than he ever was before, but he doesn’t mind as long as none of his friends are around to see them and take the mick since he quite likes a good cuddle himself.
*
For the rest of the Christmas holiday there is a severe shift in attitude towards homework amongst the students compared to before the Yule Ball, as the start of spring term gets closer at an alarming speed.
For Harry in particular, time seems to be doing that weird thing again, where it speeds up at random intervals. And since he’s got absolutely nowhere with the golden egg yet, he is feeling the passing of time all the more keenly… February the twenty-fourth seems awfully close all of the sudden, considering it had been ages away only the other day…
The rumours about Hagrid being part giant has already spread throughout the castle, but the gamekeeper himself haven’t been spotted since the Yule Ball and when Harry and the other Slytherins make their way down to his hut for their first Care Of Magical Creatures lesson of the spring term, it isn’t the half-giant who is waiting for them but an elderly witch with close-cropped grey hair and a stern expression to rival that of McGonagall’s.
”Hurry up, you lot”, she calls out. ”The bell rang five minutes ago!”
Once they have all gathered around her in the snow, the witch tells them her name is Professor Grubbly-Plank and she is their temporary Care Of Magical Creatures teacher while Hagrid is indisposed… She then leads them around the paddock where the huge Beauxbatons horses stand shivering in the cold January air, the fumes from their Single Malt Whiskey wafting towards the students as they trudge past and continue towards the edge of the forest, where a unicorn is tethered to a tree.
Harry can’t help but stare in amazement at the creature. He’s seen a unicorn once before, in First Year when he and Draco served their detention with Hagrid in the forest, but that unicorn had been dead already and it was so dark in the forest that he’d barely been able to make it out on the forest floor… not to mention Voldemort himself had been huddled over the creature’s carcass, drinking its blood at the time… this unicorn however is decidedly alive and so white that the snow around it seems almost grey in comparison.
It thrashes its horned head nervously and paws the snowy ground with its golden hooves as they approach.
”Boys keep back!” Professor Grubbly-Plank says firmly. ”Unicorn prefer a woman’s touch, so girls to the front and no sudden movements, please…”
As the bell rings, the class make their way back to the castle chatting animatedly about what had been a proper Care Of Magical Creatures lesson for once.
”I hope that woman stays!” Pansy says excitedly.
Glancing over at the drawn curtains of Hagrid’ hut, Harry feels a stab of sympathy for the half-giant but he can’t help but to agree with the other Slytherin. As hard as he tries, Hagrid just isn’t in the same league as Professor Grubbly-Plank and the other teachers, and Harry rather stand and stare at a unicorn while the girls get to pat it, than be attacked by Blast-Ended Skrewts any day of the week…
In the days that follows, Snape keeps checking up on Harry and his progress with the golden egg, but he doesn’t offer any actual help. Which is fine with Harry — in fact it’s a nice change from everyone else trying to help him, although as the days pass and he grows more and more desperate, Harry starts to almost resent Snape’s stickler for rules, since he knows that if anyone can help him figure the egg out it’s his Head of House…
”Did you open it?” the man asks curtly, when Harry finally brings himself to ask for help.
”Of course, I’m not stu—”
”And what happened?”
”Well, it started wailing. It was awfu—”
”Wailing? How?”
”What do you mean how?” Harry snaps. ”It made this horrible high-pitched noise—”
”What kind of noise was it?” Snape interrupts.
”I don’t know!” Harry exclaims in frustration.
”Hm…” Snape says noncommittally.
But his eyes are glittering intently and he fixes them on Harry like he’s trying to tell him something… But what?
Snape huffs out a sigh of exasperation.
”What”, Harry snaps. ”I can’t read minds!”
”Nor put two and two together, apparently!” Snape snaps right back. ”Just… Go away, Po- Harry! Go think about what I’ve said —”
”You haven’t said anything, you just asked me a bunch of stupid questions—!”
”Careful”, Snape murmurs darkly.
”Sorry, Sir…” Harry mutters.
There’s another Hogsmeade weekend halfway through January, but Harry decides to stay behind at the castle and work on the egg while he has the dorm to himself. He writes his dads to explain and, although Remus writes back almost instantly saying they completely understand, Harry can almost feel the disappointment oozing from the ink on the parchment.
Can’t be helped, he thinks briskly and grabs the golden egg from its perch on top of his trunk.
The Second Task is less than five weeks away and considering he’s no closer to figuring the clue out than he was the first time he opened the egg, Harry is going to need every minute of those weeks to work it out.
He flips the latch open and with a click the two empty halves fall apart. The hair-raising wail immediately rings out in the silence of the dorm and Harry’s very skull seems to vibrate from the onslaught. Gritting his teeth, he stares in determination at the hollow centre of the egg and tries to think…
But no matter how long he stares and how hard he listens, Harry just can’t wrap his mind around what the noise is supposed to be; he can’t even work out what the riddle is, let alone the answer to it…
Finally, he snaps the halves together again in frustration and hurls the egg across the dorm. It bounces off Crabbe’s bed and smashes against the floor, falling open once more. Letting out a strangled yell, Harry stomps over to if and smacks it shut once more.
But even with the latch firmly in place, Harry’s eyes continue to ring and he rubs the palm of his hands over his forehead, hoping to soothe the burgeoning headache before it blossoms completely…
Deciding he needs a break, Harry leaves the egg on top of his bed and makes his way out of the dorm. The Common Room is littered with younger students working away on their homework assignments or playing games, but they all look up when he enters and judging by the looks on their faces, Harry looks just as frustrated as he feels.
He attempts to push the tension out of his face, before smiling kindly at a First Year as he walks past her. But considering the girl cringes back with a startled eep and then tries to hide behind her Transfigurations textbook, he can’t have been too successful.
Never mind, he thinks surly and ducks out of the Common Room quickly.
He feels twitchy with restlessness and would like nothing better than to go for a spin on his broom, but since he left the dorm in such a hurry and left his Nimbus behind, he decides a walk will have to do. As long as he gets to exercise. Also, the fresh air might help his headache…
But as he reaches the ground level and gazes out of the first window he comes across, he can see that it’s partly obscured by snow and that more keeps falling beyond; fat, fluffy flakes of it singling idly past the grey-white of the sky.
So much for fresh air, Harry thinks with a sigh and decides to walk around indoors instead, turning to trot up the marble staircase.
As he walks, he replays the conversation he had with Professor Snape in his head and tries to figure out what the man had tried to tell him by dissecting what he had actually told him. But it’s not much to go on, is it, he thinks bitterly. The only thing his Head of House had done was to ask him what happened when he opened the egg and then questioned him when he’d told him… Wailing? How? What kind of noise was it?
His dark eyes had shone with intent, obviously willing Harry to put the pieces together but… What pieces, Harry thinks in frustration.
I can’t read minds!
Nor put two and two together, apparently!
He scoffs to himself. I can put two and two together — two and question mark, on the other hand—!
Wandering into the Tapestry Corridor, he lets himself get distracted for a moment and marvels at the way the different motifs seem to be connected, creating a woven narrative throughout the corridor that he’s never noticed before. Not that he’s really bothered to look that closely at the tapestries when he’d walked through this corridor in the past. Usually he’s rushing past them, late for a lesson or eager to get to dinner.
At the thought of food, his stomach growls eagerly. For a moment he considers paying the house-elves in the kitchen a visit, but then tells himself he can have food once he’s made some progress with the egg, not before…
Okay, focus, he tells himself sternly and spins on his heel, heading back the same way he came.
Taking a different staircase down to the first floor, Harry finds himself in the corridor outside the library and decides it can’t hurt to do some research, even if he has no idea of where to start — What kind of noise was it? — he sighs, and heads inside.
The library is all but empty, save for a couple of studying Second Years and the librarian herself, Madam Pince, who immediately gives him a distrustful look when he enters.
”Hullo…” Harry says politely and watches as the distrustful look is dialled up a notch. ”Do you have any books on — er — noises?”
”Noises?” the elderly witch repeats incredulously.
She squints at him as if half expecting the question to be some sort of a diversion tactic to get her away from her desk, so he can steal one of her precious books or smuggle chocolate into the library.
”Yeah, noises”, he says firmly.
”I don’t know of any book on noises”, Madam Pince says with a finality that suggests that if she doesn’t know of any, they don’t exist. ”I have several on languages…”
”No…” Harry mumbles dejectedly.
He is just about to turn away again, when a memory floats to the forefront of his mind…
Sitting with Draco in the Slytherin Common Room in Second Year, discussing the Chamber of Secrets and the possibility of Harry being Salazar Slytherin’s great-great-great-great-great-etc-grandson… Say something in parsletongue, go on, please… He’d blushed, but also felt a surge of pride as the other boy’s eyes shone with unabashed fascination…
Is it really that different from English? he’d asked, since he never even noticed the shift when he’d spoken it in Duelling Club… And the blonde had nodded excitedly and… and then he’d made a hissing noise that Harry remembers sent shivers through his body and made the hairs on his arms stand up…
That’s what I sound like?
Yeah, basically! I mean, it’s snakes’ language, isn’t it —
For a fraction of a second, Draco’s words seem to echo inside his head now and then he flashes to the aftermath of the Chamber of Secrets when they soared out of the chute with Professor Snape and Dumbledore, and he’d been clutching Draco in one hand and Ginny Weasley in the other as Fawkes pulled them up to safety, landing in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom where Dumbledore then revealed that although he’s not a Parselmouth like Harry, he’s learned to speak certain phrases in parsletongue… That hissing noise, he thinks with pang. That’s an actual language — so what if…
Spinning back round to face Madam Pince, Harry feels his heart thud excitedly in his chest as he asks her about the book on languages. She gives him an unimpressed look and points to a whole section of the library dedicated to languages.
”All right then…” Harry tells himself.
Squaring his shoulders, he walks over to the Language Section and takes out a book at random.
Two hours later, Harry has flicked through ten different books and his initial excitement has ebbed considerably.
”Was there a language in particular you were looking for?”
He spins around, slightly startled. Madam Pince is peering out at him from her vantage point at the end of the row of bookcases, a toppling pile of books in her arms. The mistrustful squint has left her eyes now, however. If anything, she looks almost kind and Harry wonders how long she’s been spying on him to have concluded he’s handling the books with enough respect…
”Yeah, I think so”, Harry says. ”But I don’t know what it’s called, I just know what it sounds like…”
”Mmm”, the elderly witch says and marches past him to the very last bookcase in the Language Section and Harry follows gingerly. ”Have a look at this one…”
She nods at a rather thin book bound in blue leather. Harry wiggles it out from its position on the shelf and opens it to the first page. It looks like a dictionary, but instead of words it seems to be listing different languages.
”You tap the language you wish to study with your wand and then, speaking very clearly, say the sentence you wish to hear said in that particular language… You’ll have to check it out first, though. Some of the languages are quite… loud…” she mutters.
Harry stares at the librarian, hardly daring to believe what she’s telling him even as excitement flares once more inside his chest; this might be the key to figuring out the egg!
He bounces slightly on the balls of his feet as he waits impatiently for her to check the book out for him and as soon as it’s back in his hand he legs it out of the library and doesn’t so much as slow down until he’s back inside the Slytherin Common Room.
Studying the Table of Contents at the beginning of the book more clearly, Harry lets out a small hah of triumph as he realises the book is even divided into sections separating human languages from creature languages, making it even easier for him to navigate the thousands of languages featured in the book.
Flicking past the human languages eagerly, he begins to tap the creature languages with his wand, one at the time, and instructing the book to give him examples of what they sound like by giving it random sentences like ’I love treacle tart’ and ’Pansy is a meddling cow’ then laughs giddily when they’re (presumably) repeated back to him in strings of weird sounds.
He’s actually enjoying himself so thoroughly that, when the book suddenly lets out very familiar screeching wail, it startles him so much he drops the book to the floor.
Heart thudding in his chest, Harry stares at the book on the floor between his feet… That was it… That’s the noise the egg makes… Bending to pick the book back up with trembling fingers, Harry quickly flicks to the correct page and skims down to where he’d left off… Mermish (above water)
Harry frowns at the parentheses and then glances quickly at the next language listed by the book — Mermish (under water) — his heart seems to skip a beat, as the pieces start to fit together slowly… Tapping the book with his wand again, Harry says ”Draco is pretty” once more and then waits with bated breath…
”Draco is pretty”, the book repeats in perfect English, albeit with a slightly eerie tremor.
Harry almost drops the book again.
Mind whirring frantically, Harry scrambles to his feet and runs into the dorm. He grabs the golden egg and then, as an after thought, he digs a towel out of his trunk as well, before hurrying back out again.
The Slytherin boys’ bathrooms are at the very end of the dungeon corridor and completely empty when Harry enters. The dim light from the wall lanterns bounces off the green tiles and gives the impression that the room is made out of emeralds which is one of the reasons Harry has always liked it in here, especially early in the morning before you’ve become accustomed to the light of day… also, the shower stalls are roomy without compromising their privacy and the showers themselves have the perfect water pressure…
Eyeing the shower stalls now however, Harry doubts whether they’ll be able to help him listen to the egg. Instead he makes his way over to the bathtub in the corner and begins to fill it up. He’s always thought this tub was quite large, but looking at it now Harry wonders if he’ll be able to contort himself enough to submerge himself in the water and still fit the wide open egg under there with him…
Only one way to find out, he thinks and begins to strip.
He lets the tub fill almost to the rim, thinking he’s going to need all the water he can fit in there.
Then climbing inside the tub gingerly and hissing as the hot water scalds his skin, Harry lowers himself slowly into the water. When he’s finally sitting down, he reaches over the edge of the tub and grabs the egg from the floor. Holding it securely in both hands, he begins to slowly but steadily inch down the length of the tub until he’s lying back in the hot water with his jutting chin grazing the water surface…
Then taking a deep breath, he dunks his head completely underwater and flips over onto his side (banging his knees against the side of the tub in the process) and fits the egg between the inner wall of the tub and his chest, before snapping the latch open…
The two hollow halves come apart, however reluctantly due to the resistance of the water on either side, but it doesn’t matter because as soon as a crack appears, a loud noise springs forth and it’s not the screechy wail that Harry has come to expect from the egg at all… Instead, what is clearly a chorus of several voices, all of them eerie and almost echoing, begins to sing…
”Come seek us where our voices sound,
we cannot sing above the ground,
and while you’re searching, ponder this:
we’ve taken…”
Lungs screaming for air, Harry finally has to sit up again and he sucks in a deep breath desperately. His heart is pounding. I’ve cracked it — I’ve solved the egg, and all by himself —!
Well, he amends, looking at the bubbles floating from the still open egg as it continues to sing. I’ve solved the first part anyway…
Harry stays in the bathtub until the water has gone cold, patiently dunking his head underwater and holding his breath while he listens to the song, that seems to be on a loop, until he’s finally heard the whole thing and memorised it.
Come seek us where our voices sound
We cannot sing above the ground
and while you’re searching, ponder this:
we’ve taken what you’ll sorely miss.
An hour long you’ll have to look
and to recover what we took.
But past an hour — the prospect’s black;
too late, it’s gone, it won’t come back.
So that’s it, he thinks excitedly.
The Second Task is to go find these underwater creatures who can’t sing above water (merpeople, clearly!) But he already knew that… That’s how he know how to put the egg underwater in the first place —
Shivering violently and really noticing how cold the water has got for the first time, Harry climbs out of the bathtub and wraps the towel around himself and tries to rub some feeling back into his arms while his thoughts keep whirring frantically in his head, flitting back and forth so fast they finally end up going round in circles…
Okay, focus, he tells himself sternly. Where can I find merpeople? — the Dark Lake?
That seems the most logical answer, since Harry doubts the organisers of the Triwizard Tournament would go so far as to arrange a task outside the grounds of Hogwarts and then transport the champions and the whole audience to a different location…
So… Harry thinks faintly, vaguely distracted by the clattering sound of his own teeth shattering. So that’s it. I’ll have to go into the lake and… and… and I’ll have an hour to recover something the merpeople have taken from me —
Even as he thinks this, the last of Harry’s excitement drains out of him and he looks up at his own reflection in dismay… An hour… under water…
A small gasp behind him, makes Harry startle and he spins around.
Draco is standing just inside the doorway, clutching a neatly folded green towel and his pink and silver toiletry bag to his chest and scrunching up his face in a look of pain as he exhales sharply, his breath shooting out in a whoosh that seems to echo inside the bathroom.
”You scared me”, he mutters, opening his eyes again and giving Harry a half-hearted glare.
”You scared me”, Harry counters petulantly, before he can stop himself.
They stand there blinking at each other owlishly for a moment, before the realisation that they’re actually acknowledging each other’s existence plummets on top of them like a wet blanket and they both wrench their eyes away and glare at opposing walls.
”I was just leaving”, Harry mumbles after another awkward moment of silence.
When Draco doesn’t say anything, or give him any sign that he’s even heard him, Harry snatches the golden egg from the bottom of the tub. The wail fills the room for about half a second while he drains the egg of water, before it’s cut off abruptly when he snaps it shut.
Then without another word to the blonde, Harry leaves the bathroom as quickly as his feet will carry him and still not slip from underneath him on the wet tiles.
Harry had thought that once he’d worked out the clue, he’d be all set for the Second Task. But it turns out that working out the clue just opened up a whole other jar of problems… Like breathing under water for an hour… Now he really wishes he hadn’t left the egg to the last minute. He spends every waking moment mulling it over in the next few days — and some sleeping moments as well, since his dreams have started to feature dark waters as an on-going theme.
Usually they start inside the Slytherin boys’ bathroom or on his four-poster bed, with Draco emerging from the shadows and kissing him deeply, only to be swept away from him as the window behind him breaks and the water from the Dark Lake rushes in and floods the whole dorm or, if they’re in the bathroom the green tiles suddenly turn to murky water that pours down on top of them from all sides as the bathroom collapses around them…
Harry then spends the rest of the dream-turned-nightmare swimming through seaweed, searching desperately for Draco as his lungs are screaming for air. Just before he loses consciousness, he catches sight of the other boy’s pale body in the distance — and then he wakes up in a cold sweat.
He’s so obsessed with coming up with a solution it is beginning to interfere with his school work and the teachers have started to notice. Both Professor Snape and McGonagall have approached him about it twice and now even Professor Flitwick is throwing him worried glances… They’re practising the opposite of the Summoning Charm Harry learned for the First Task and despite the principle being the same and Professor Flitwick hinting at the beginning of the lesson that Harry ought to get the hang of it in no time, Harry is so distracted that his cushions keep bouncing off the walls and windows instead of landing inside the designated box where they’re supposed to…
But at least he’s managing to hit the cushions, he tells himself. Longbottom’s aim is so bad he’s sent Professor Flitwick across the room twice already.
*
When the Second Task is less than two weeks away, Harry seeks refuge inside the dusty library at every available opportunity between classes, at lunchtimes, every evening and the whole weekends, and when there’s only four days left he even starts to skive off Divination, Care of Magical Creatures and History of Magic.
Several times he debates with himself whether he should write to his dads and ask them for help, but for some reason he can’t bring himself to… just picturing their alarm and disappointment at finding out he’s let things get this far, that he’s waited this long to reach out to them when he’d explicitly promised them he would ask for help as soon as he needed it.
And if he asks them now and they can’t help him, because he hasn’t given them enough time, that will not only send them into a panic but it will also make them blame themselves for his failure… So instead, he buries himself amongst the thousands and thousands of books inside the Hogwarts library and pours over any and every book that could possibly help him think of a way to survive for an hour without oxygen.
Finally on the evening of the twenty-third, Harry smuggles his Invisibility Cloak into the Library, just in case he’ll need to stay past the prompt closing time at eight o’clock, and it turns out he’d been right to do so because he’s no closer to finding an answer at eight o’clock than he’d been two weeks ago… Quickly draping the Cloak over himself, he continues to pour over Powers You Never Knew You Had and What to Do With Them Now You’ve Wised Up —
Startled awake as someone shakes his shoulder roughly, Harry sits up in a panic and the Invisibility Cloak that had been hanging from his arm falls to the floor.
Pale morning light is pouring through the window and Harry heart stutters in his chest — it’s morning already, he’s out of time — and as he blinks the sleep furiously from his eyes, Professor Snape’s scowling face comes into view above him.
”What…” Harry croaks faintly as panic begins to course through him.
”It’s twenty past”, the man snarls and pulls him up roughly by the arm. ”You’re late for the task!”
Harry’s heart plummets like boulder. It’s too late. He’s failed —
”Come on…” Snape urges and continues to pull on his arm.
Harry automatically bends down and snatches the Invisibility Cloak from the floor, before stumbling after his Head of House. He means to tell him there’s no point, he’ll have to forfeit the Second Task anyway… but the words don’t seem to want to form on his tongue.
”Let’s go…” the man hisses impatiently.
”But —”
Snape propels him around and pushes him out of the library. Harry stumbles forward, nearly tripping over the Invisibility Cloak hanging from his hand and falling flat on his face, but Professor Snape catches him and holds him up until he finds his feet again.
He tries to catch the professor’s eyes, but the man is stubbornly staring straight ahead as he continues to push and prod Harry towards the Entrance Hall and then past a few curiously goggling last-minute stragglers out of the large oak doors and onto the lawn.
The sight of the dark waters of the lake reflecting the grey clouds overhead and lapping rhythmically at the shore, makes Harry’s chest feel impossibly tight.
”Wait —” he says, digging his heels in as he tries to twist out of the professor’s grip.
”There’s no time”, Snape snaps and then before Harry can say anything else, he’s shoved something slimy and rubbery into his hand, adding in an undertone, ”Eat it. Just before you dive into the water. Now, let’s go…”
As they get closer to the lake, Harry can see that the gold-draped judges table has been set up along the water’s edge on this side whereas the seats that had encircled the dragon’s enclosure during the First Task have been stacked into high stands along the opposite shore. Most of the students are already seated and chatting excitedly, but a few are standing on this side of the lake still.
A few of the students from both Beauxbatons and Durmstrang are clustered around Fleur and Krum, giving them smiles of encouragement while they talk quietly, and the familiar group of Hufflepuffs that always seem to surround Diggory are huddled around him now as well, clapping him on the back.
And, Harry notices with a thrill, his own friends are standing there as well, waiting for him. He can see Seamus and Theodore break out inte a set of matching grins and Blaise smirk coolly as they notice him approach… but no Draco…
They reach the judges’ table and Professor Snape finally lets go of Harry’s arm and he stumbles forward, splashing mud all over the Beauxbatons’ robes as he stomps to a stop next to them.
”Thank you, Severus”, Dumbledore says lightly, his eyes twinkling at the Potions Master over the rim of his spectacles for a second before flitting to Harry. ”We were beginning to worry…”
”Heya Harry…” Seamus says with a barely suppressed snicker as he sidles up to him.
”Shut up…” Harry mutters, blushing slightly as he throws an apologetic look at the affronted French students.
His heart is pounding furiously in his chest and the slimy stuff Professor Snape gave him seems to be melting inside his fist.
Even though he hadn’t really expected Draco to show up, as Harry looks between his friends’ faces, the blonde’s absence still hits him like a slap to the face.
Ludo Bagman appears at his shoulder suddenly and whisks him away, steering him into position along the water’s edge ten feet from Krum. Harry can tell the older boy’s eyes are hard with focus and he’s got his wand clutched tightly in his hand, ready at his side.
”Sonorous!” Bagman says, pointing his own wand at his throat before addressing the crowd on the other side of the lake. ”Well, all the champions are ready for the second task, which will start on my whistle! They have precisely one hour to recover the thing they will miss the most, which has been taken from them… on the count of three, then…”
Harry glances over at Professor Snape desperately. The man gives him a curt nod, his face calm and composed. It settles some of Harry’s nerves, at least. And he takes a deep breath and releases it in a shaky whoosh.
”… one… two… three!”
The sharp screech of the whistle cuts through the chilly February air and Harry’s heart leaps into his throat. Next to him, Krum points his wand at himself and Harry just has time to see his entire head begin to contort as he transfigures himself into a shark, before he whips his head around and stares in determination at the deceptively calm surface of the lake.
Shoving the slimy stuff into his mouth, he clamps his mouth shut to prevent it from shooting out of him again as he gags, then hurriedly toes off his shoes. Then bending quickly, he pulls the socks off his feet and wades out into the lake. He chews mechanically, trying not to focus too much on the salty taste or what the rubbery consistency reminds him off.
The ice cold water soaks into his robes and they begin to weigh him down. When he’s knee deep in the water, his numb feet slip over the rocks underneath him and he crumples ungracefully and begins to paddle jerkily. Shivering violently, he swallows the slimy stuff convulsively and waits anxiously for something to happen…
Then suddenly he feels like an invisible hand has clamped over his nose and mouth and no matter how hard he tries to suck some air into his lungs, nothing happens…
Panic surges inside of him and just when he thinks he’s about to faint, he experiences a searing pain on either side of his neck. Clutching at the skin desperately, Harry feels two sets of gashes on either side of his neck and for a split second he thinks the slimy, rubbery stuff has somehow exploded out of his throat and left these gaping wounds in its wake… but then it hits him: he’s got gills!
Acting on pure instinct, Harry lunges head-first into the water and as he’s submerged in the depths of the lake, something incredible happens… the temperature of the water doesn’t feel cold as ice anymore, but rather pleasantly cool and as he gulps in a mouthful of water, he feels it pass through his new gills and as the oxygen is passed to his brain, his mind begins to clear again.
But that’s not all… when Harry stretches his arms out in front of him, he can see his fingers connected to each other with webbing. Twisting his body around, Harry can see that his feet have grown longer and become flattened and webbed as well, almost like fins… flapping them experimentally, Harry is thrilled to realise how much stronger this new addition makes him and how fast he can now swim through the water.
Not wishing to waste any more time, Harry begins to swim towards the centre of the lake until he can no longer see the bottom or the shore in any direction. Then he dives into the dark depths.
As eerie as the heavy silence is, something about the murky green light feels like home to Harry… after all, this is the light he wakes up to every morning in his dorm, the window next to his four-poster bed facing the very same depths that he’s now exploring.
Swimming across what can only be described as a small forest of two foot long weeds, Harry keeps his eyes wide open and peeled for merpeople and the giant squid in particular, but also whatever possession of his that the organisers of the Tournament might have stolen from him and planted in the lake… the thing they’ll miss the most, Bagman had said… Could it be his Nimbus Two Thousand?
It can’t be Hedwig or Selina, he tells himself even as his pulse gives a frantic flutter at the thought. They can’t have put a living animal in the lake, that’s just cruel — besides, how would they be able to survive for an hour underwater?
Unless they’d been given the same stuff that Professor Snape had given him —
Seized unexpectedly by the ankle, Harry lets out a startled yell but the only thing that comes out of his mouth is one large bubble. Twisting around in a panic as whatever’s got his ankle in a firm grip begins to tug him into the weeds, Harry spots the sharp-fanged mouth of a Grindylow gaping up at him… Fumbling frantically inside his wet robes, Harry scrambles to grab his wand with his webbed fingers and by the time he’s got a firm grip on it, more Grindylows have appeared all around him, their long fingers clutching his limbs and pulling him deeper and deeper into the weeds…
”Relashio!” he shouts, pointing his wand at the Grindylow holding his ankle, but again no sound comes out.
Instead, another bubble blossoms from his mouth, but the spell seems to have worked anyway. Although instead of the sparks he’d meant to shoot at the water demon, a jet of boiling water streams forth and burns the Grindylows green skin.
Kicking furiously while sending more jets of boiling water around him at random, Harry finally manages to break free and swims clear of the Grindylows.
Unsure of how much time has passed but aware that he spent at least a quarter of his allotted hour fighting the Grindylows, Harry feels a paradoxically calm sense of panic set in and pocketing his wand again, he begins to swim in earnest.
Finally he hears something.
Soft but clear in the dense silence of the lake, he can make out snippets of musical notes — as he continues to swim towards the sound, he begins to recognise the song from the golden egg, except sung by even more voices now and twice as eerie in this underwater setting, ”… an hour long you’ll have to look, and recover what we took…”
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Harry thinks and swims faster.
”Your time’s half gone, so tarry not —”
Wait, what, Harry thinks listening more closely…
”Lest what you seek stays here to rot…”
Suddenly a large shape emerges from the gloom in front of Harry and his heart lurches, as he thinks he might have encountered the giant squid after all… But it’s not the giant squid. It’s not even a living thing. It’s several stones stacked together to make some sort of buildings and with a jolt, Harry realises he’s reached the merpeople finally.
And sure enough, in a few of the dark windows he can make our faces staring at him. They don’t look at all like any mermaids he’s seen in books or paintings… Their skin is a sickly grey and their long, wild hair a dark green colour which reminds him of the weeds the Grindylows tried to drag him into. Their eyes as well as their broken and uneven teeth are yellow, whereas their fishtails, he notices as a few ventured outside their dwellings to get a better look at him, are silver.
As he continues to speed forward, more and more stone houses emerge from the gloom and soon he finds himself in the heart of the merpeople’s village and there, at the very centre, in what must be the village square, in front of a large statue of a merperson, floats the choir of merpeople guiding the champions to them with their song…
This is it, Harry thinks as he swims closer to the choir and looks around apprehensively, searching for a familiar object but seeing nothing but more and more merpeople watching him curiously, whispering amongst themselves and pointing at his webbed hands and feet.
Do I ask them, he thinks uncertainly as the merpeople seem to be closing in on him.
But then he sees it.
Behind the choir, tied to the long tail of the statue: four figures, four people —
And no sooner has this realisation hit Harry than he spots the white-blonde hair flowing around the head of the figure on the far left. Heart stuttering in his chest, Harry gapes in horror, his shout of alarm emerging silently from his mouth in yet another perfectly round bubble that floats away and disappears into the gloom above him.
Speeding forward, Harry more or less crashes into Draco’s lifeless body and grabs his head as it rolls from one shoulder to the other, clutching it tight and giving it a firm shake from side to side… Nothing happens. The other boy’s eyes remain shut. For one heart-stopping moment Harry actually believes him to be dead, until he sees a stream of tiny bubbles squeeze out of the corner of his mouth and trail up his face and float away into the gloom. Just to be sure, he shoves his fingers under the boy’s jaws… there, he thinks in relief. It’s soft, but he can definitely feel the patter of a pulse.
Okay, he thinks frantically. Okay, it’s okay, he’s okay, I just have to get him to the surface and… and… yeah…
He claws at the ropes cutting into the other boy’s body, pulling on it to test their strength. To his dismay, they seem to be quite strong indeed. There’s no way he’ll be able to tear them apart.
Looking around desperately, his gaze lands on the spear in one of the merpeople’s hands and he swims over and points to it with a hopeful look.
”We do not help”, the merman says in a croaky voice, leering so that Harry gets a good look at all of his yellow, jagged teeth.
Feeling a surge of frustration, Harry tries to grab the spear from him anyway and nearly gets impaled for his troubles.
Fine, he thinks surlishly and looks around for something else… something sharp… anything…
Spotting a particularly sharp rock on the lake bottom beneath him, he dives and grabs it before hurrying over to Draco again. He swims around to the back of the statue and begins to hack at the ropes. It’s frustrating work, with the water slowing his movements, but finally the ropes snap apart and Draco’s limp body begins to fall away slowly from the statue.
Harry swims back around and grabs the other boy’s arm, looping it around his own shoulder before him firmly by the waist. As soon as he’s got him in a secure grip, he begins to swim towards the surface. It’s a lot more work and takes him twice as long since can no longer use his hands, but he kicks furiously until his legs feel numb…
In fact his whole body is numbing rapidly, the water getting colder and colder around him, pushing painfully on his skull and stinging his throat… but it’s not until he feels a searing pain on either side of his neck again, that he realises what’s happening: the effects of whatever Snape gave him is wearing off…
Aware of merpeople still surrounding him, leering and watching him struggle with shining eyes, as they rise towards the surface with him and Draco, Harry begins to worry about what will happen when he runs out of time… if he doesn’t make it to the surface before the hour is up, will they seize him and Draco and pull them back down again? will they be held captive in the depths of the lake until they suffocate and drown? will their bodies rot at the bottom of the lake, just like the merpeople sang in their stupid song?
Just as the pain on his neck subsides and his lungs start to smart instead, Harry sees the daylight above him and with a final surge of hope propelling him forward, he kicks his numb and uselessly unwebbed feet as hard as he can —
It’s the weirdest sensation; as if hanging upside-down in the crisp February air before being lowered head-first into ice cold water, Harry feels like someone has suddenly dumped a bucket of fresh air over him, as his head breaks through the surface… Gulping desperately, he sucks in a lungful of it and splutters.
The air seems to have broken whatever magic had put Draco to sleep as well, because he immediately tenses in Harry’s arms and begins to twitch and splash in a panic even before his eyes have regained their focus and he’s realised where he is… The entire audience seems to be on their feet, cheering and clapping madly and Harry can see the judges rise to their feet as well.
”Are you… ok-kay…?” he gasps, peering over at the splashing blonde worriedly.
”Y-Yeah, I… I… th-think… so”, the other boy stutters, his teeth chattering even worse than Harry’s and he continues to cling to Harry desperately.
”Y-Y-You … d-don’t know… how t-t-to… swim…?”
The blonde simply shakes his head, his wild eyes darting between the leering faces of the merpeople all around them and Harry’s face.
”…’s ok-k-kay… I’ve… got-t-t… you”, Harry mumbles, tightening his hold on the other boy’s body and resuming his kicking with determination.
When they’re two hundred yards from the shore, Sirius wades out to meet them. He loops an arm around Draco’s waist and smoothly transfers the boy’s weight from Harry to himself, dragging him towards the shore and Harry feels a surge of relief and gratitude as his numb limbs barely have enough strength left in them to carry his weight out of the water, let alone the combined weight of himself and Draco and it would have been extremely embarrassing if he would have collapsed this close to the finish line…
As they reach the shore, Remus wraps big fluffy blankets around both of them, then sits with Harry and rubs his arms furiously until they start to fill up with blood again. Weirdly enough, the stronger the sensation of pins and needles in his arms get, the more violently Harry shakes…
Professor Snape thrusts a phial of Pepper-Up Potion in each of Harry’s and Draco’s shaky hands and gives them strict instructions to drink up. The hot liquid burns all the way down Harry’s throat and into his stomach and he can feel himself warm up immediately. Coughing in the steam that billows from his ears, Harry looks around to see how the other champions are faring, but it looks as though he is the first one out of the lake.
Sirius claps Draco awkwardly on the back through the blanket, then gratefully steps aside to let Professor Snape take over and rub the boy’s back in much the same way that Remus is rubbing Harry. There’s a tension in the air, Harry notices… even with the crowd cheering all around them and the judges beaming, Harry’s dads and Head of House look anything byt happy.
Harry peers up into his daddy’s face. Remus says nothing, just keeps rubbing Harry’s arms and back through the blanket while staring straight ahead at the deceptively calm surface of the lake, but his face is drawn and the look in his eyes is almost haunted.
There’s another roar of cheers from the audience and Harry turns to see Krum’s transfigured shark head break through the surface of the water, his untransfigured arm wrapped securely around Granger’s chest as he pulls her towards the shore. Karkaroff leaps up from his seat at the judges table and runs to meet his star student, wrapping a blanket around him fussily, but ignoring Granger completely. Krum removes the blanket from around his shoulders immediately and offers it to the Gryffindor girl, much to Karkaroff’s annoyance.
Within moments, Diggory and Fleur have swam ashore as well. Diggory with an arm around Cho Chang, but Fleur empty-handed and quite hysterical, as she had to leave her hostage at the bottom of the lake when she couldn’t get past the Grindylows… Madam Maxime restrains her and tries to calm her down, but the girl doesn’t stop fighting her until one of the merpeople bring her hostage to the shore. It’s a young girl with similarly long, blonde hair as Fleur herself and Harry thinks it must be the Beauxbatons champion’s little sister.
”All right, ladies and gentlemen…” Bagman’s magically enhanced voice booms over the ruckus of the audience. ”Now that all four champions have completed the Task and the judges have conferred, it is time to award marks out of fifty for each of the champions… Miss Fleur Delacour, though she demonstrated excellent use of a Bubble-Head Charm, was attacked by Grindylows as she approached her goal and failed to retrieve her hostage. We award her twenty-five points… Mr Harry Potter used Gillyweed to great effect and although he was one minute outside the time limit, he was the first to return with his hostage and we therefore award him forty-seven points…”
Feeling a thrill of excitement and pride, Harry turns to smile at his daddy, but Remus is still staring at the lake and looking anything but pleased… Sirius however crouches down next to Harry and gives him an encourageing smile and a wink, before thumping him on the back.
”… Mr Viktor Krum used an incomplete form of Transfiguration”, Bagman continues. ”Which was nevertheless effective, and was second to return with his hostage. We award him forty points… And finally, Mr Cedric Diggory, who also used the Bubble-Head Charm to great effect, returned with his hostage but well outside of the time limit, so we award him forty points!… The third and final task will take place at dusk on the twenty-fourth of June and the champions will be notified of what is coming exactly one month before. Thank you all for your support of the champions!”
”I can’t believe it”, Sirius mutters. ”You’re in the lead Harry!”
”Yeah…” Harry breathes, hardly believing it himself… it’s over… I did it…
”How are you feeling, Harry?” Remus asks him in an undertone, finally tearing his eyes away from the lake to look into Harry’s face. ”Do you need some more Pepper-Up?”
”No, I’m okay”, Harry says. ”I just want to get inside…”
Remus nods quickly, standing up and pulling Harry up with him. Sirius falls into step with them on Harry’s other side and Harry catches him grin proudly, before Remus gives him a stern look.
Twisting around slightly, Harry looks around for Draco. Professor Snape keeps his arm around the blonde’s shoulders and the two of them stand as well, following Harry and his dads towards the castle. Draco’s eyes flicker up and lock with Harry’s for a second and Harry feels his insides squirm as the shuttered look in the blonde’s face registers… Not being able to read the other boy’s feelings, when his own has been ruthlessly and publicly exposed makes Harry feel vulnerable and at a significant disadvantage; he feels like his chest has been slit open and his heart put on public display, whereas Draco gets to keep his feelings close to his chest as always.
Later in the afternoon, he hugs his dads good bye and returns to the Slytherin Common Room and as he enters, a tense hush settles over the other students and they look between Draco and Harry awkwardly as they stand on opposite sides of the circular room, eyeing each other uncertainly… It makes Harry feel itchy and irritated, and he’s just about to turn away and go hide in the dorm, when Draco finally caves and blurts out, ”I’m sorry!”
Harry blinks, and shifts his weight uncertainly from one leg to the other.
”I’ve been an idiot”, Draco adds thickly. ”I’ll — I’ll stand up to my parents, okay? If you… If you’ll… have me back, that is…”
The tension in the room thickens further and Harry feels the prickle of almost seventy sidelong gazes fall on him as the other Slytherins wait for his reaction, which only aggravates the itchy sensation Harry experiences but as he peers up at the blonde’s face and notices the sheen of unshed tears in his grey eyes, he also feels an overwhelming sense of relief and love…
”Of course I will”, he mutters. ”I mean it’s not exactly a secret how I feel about you… anymore…”
Draco lets out a breathy chuckle and nods. Then killing the distance between them in five quick strides, he throws his arms around Harry and hugs him tightly.
There is a smatter of applause and catcalls around them. Someone yells Finally and Seamus says, ”Does that mean we can celebrate now?”
”Yes, please!” Harry exclaims, to the amusement of the other Slytherins.
Unearthing a staggering amount of firewhiskey bottles and treats knicked from the kitchen, Seamus gets the party started in less than two seconds and Blaise tunes the Wireless until a Weird Sisters song can be heard.
As if making up for lost time, Draco plasters himself to Harry’s side for the rest of the evening, even as they talk to different people, but Harry doesn’t mind the warmth of the other boy’s body along his side at all but rather welcomes it. Especially after spending an hour in the ice cold waters of the Dark Lake.
The party is finally broken up at midnight when Professor Snape marches in wearing a long, grey nightshirt and looking particularly flustered.
Seamus tries to persuade their Head of House to let them stay up a little longer and even has the gall to invite him to stay for a drink, but the Potions Master merely shoots him an unimpressed look.
”I will pretend I didn’t hear that, Finnigan… and speaking of drinks, that had better be pumpkin juice…”
”Er…”
”Off to bed, all of you!” Snape barks. ”And anyone who happens to accidentally oversleep or wakes up feeling under the weather in the morning, will be serving detention every night for a week!”
Harry goes to bed with a huge grin on his face and is just drifting off to sleep when the bed dips next to him and startles him awake again. He just has time to see a flash of blonde hair in the gloom, before his lips are captured in a searing kiss and a warm body is pressed flush against his own.
Nestling his fingers in Draco’s soft hair, Harry kisses back eagerly. He is acutely aware of the other boy’s hard-on poking him in the hip and shifts a little to align it with his own… Draco sucks in a small gasp and Harry quickly chases it, eager to lap up any noises that might escape from the other boy.
Finally they break apart for air, both panting softly as they stare at each other in the dim light spilling in from a nearby wall lantern through a crack in the bed hangings… Remembering the other boy’s deathly pale and unconscious face at the bottom of the lake, Harry is gripped by an overwhelming need to reassure himself that Draco is in fact alive and well, and here, and his… he cups the other boy’s face in his hands and gently caresses his cheekbones with his thumbs, and smiles softly at the awed and almost alarmed expression on the other boy’s face.
”What are you thinking?” Harry whispers.
Clearly unable to find his voice, Draco just swallows a couple of times and shakes his head. His eyes shine silver in the gloom and just as Harry leans in to cover his mouth once more with his own, a small tear seeps into the line of lashes underneath.