"Harry, you have got to focus!" Hermione exclaimed. It was the night before the Second Task, and Harry still didn't know what to do. The four of them-Harry, Hermione, Ron and Christi-were all in the library since Harry had gotten permission from McGonagall to use the restricted section for this. They were trying to find something-anything-that Harry could use.

All three of them had suggested many things to Harry, all of which was either forbidden or he would not be able to do them. Ron had suggested summoning an aqualung from a near Muggle town, but Hermione said it would get him disqualified, breaking the International Code of Wizard Secrecy. Christi suggested Transfiguring a rock into an air tank, but Hermione said that the air in it would run out too quickly, especially if he was Transfiguring it. Many other things had been suggested, all of which Hermione had found something wrong with.

"Well what's you sister doing?" Harry finally asked Christi.

Christi thought for a moment, then said, "I think she said something about transforming her lungs to gills so she could breathe, or something like that. She said she was working with both Flitwick and McGonagall to accomplish it. I take that it's gonna be really special and complicated."

Harry looked sort of disappointed, "Oh, okay. So, what else?"

"How about a snorkel?" Ron proposed.

Hermione sighed irately, and rolled her eyes. "Ronald," she started like she usually did when she wanted to explain something simple to him. She continued slowly, "Snorkels are only for when you are close to the surface. Harry will be deep underwater."

Ron grumbled a bit before going back to searching through his book, "Not like I would know…" he muttered.

"Harry, maybe you should-no, that's too advanced…" Hermione said, muttering the last part, "Well actually, you could do something like… No, that would get you disqualified if it didn't kill you…"

"Yes, maybe we should refrain from anything very dangerous for Harry." Christi said lightly.

Hermione didn't even looked up before going on, "Or you could… Actually, that wouldn't last even an hour… And this other one would last far too long, you'd have to be in water for over a day."

"Wouldn't want to do that." Harry said, "I've never actually learned to swim."

"Harry, you've never learned to swim?" Hermione asked frightfully, "Well how will you accomplish the task then?"

Harry shrugged, "Can't be that hard."

"Well it isn't after you've learned!" Hermione said, "I took classes young, so I know how to."

Ron added, "For me it was swim or drown, with my brothers."

Christi shrugged, "We just had a big lake in our backyard, sort of. It didn't occur to me to learn how, so much as follow Caprice around in the water."

"Well…" Harry said, at a loss for words, "One more thing to worry about isn't that bad."

Hermione wouldn't have any of that though, "No, Harry, you have to learn how to swim."

"Before tomorrow?" Christi scoffed, "Hermione, you know very well it takes a while to learn how to swim. First eight times I tried on my own, Caprice had to come and rescue me!"

Hermione nodded, "Maybe we could Charm it into you."

Ron snorted, "Yeah, like there's really a way to do that…"

"Well maybe we could just cover the basics with you!"

Christi chuckled, "Yes, Harry, just paddle your arms and kick your legs and try not to worry about breathing too much!"

Harry smiled and said, "Well that draws us back to the question of how I'm going to breathe underwater for an hour."

"Right!" Hermione exclaimed, "We must quit getting sidetracked!"

"You started it, Herms." Christi giggled. Hermione briefly glared at Christi before getting back to flipping through the pages of a large book with chunks of the binding missing.

"How about… no… How about! Wait, no… But how's this? No, that won't work… Why don't you try-no… We could always-no! But then there's the-"

"You're gonna say no again, Hermione!" Christi exclaimed.

Hermione looked at the page, ignoring Christi, "That won't work either…"

"Hermione, unless you know something will work for sure, don't say anything!" Ron said sharply.

Hermione looked at him angrily, but stayed quiet throughout the rest of the time they were flipping through books.

Fred and George interrupted them though.

"Oi! Granger, we need you to come with us!" Fred said with authority.

"McGonagall needs you." George said.

"You too, Venizelos."

"Don't call my sister by her last name, do you?" Christi muttered.

Fred smirked and said, "Not in-"

George interrupted him, "Best not to scar the girlfriend's little sister. Ron, we need you too."

"Why do you need us?" Ron asked immediately.

"We're helping Harry!" Hermione protested.

"Sorry." Fred said.

George nodded, "McGonagall's orders, we must follow."

"So just quit whining and come with us."

George said a word of goodbye to Harry, "Good luck, Harry!"

Fred nodded, "We'll be cheering for you!"

George agreed, "That is, when we aren't cheering for Capricia."

"She doesn't like being called that." Christi informed him.

Fred and George both smirked again, "Exactly!" and then, "Bye, Harry!"

"Bye, guys." Harry said wearily. Then they left. So Harry was left to search by himself, and unfortunately, he fell right asleep.

XXX

Fred stood with his arms wrapped around his girlfriend's waist. He had his head nuzzled in her neck and was lightly kissing the beautiful, pale flesh there. They stood outside, amongst so many people but did not care. They didn't care about the bitter winter cold. They didn't care about the dozens of people watching. They only cared about each other.

"You gonna be alright, Capri?" Fred asked softly against her ear.

Caprice nodded slightly and smiled, "I'll be fine, Fred. Don't worry about me."

"Can't help it. It's freezing out, and you'll be underwater. Under the water with mean merpeople and Grindylows and the Giant Squid!"

"I could take on the Giant Squid." Caprice defended herself.

Fred chuckled, but nodded. "And what about those mermaids and mermen? They're nasty little creatures."

Caprice nodded, "Well, I think I can handle them."

"Hope so." he said protectively, which made her smile. His grip tightened around her as several Durmstrang boys passed them, looking at Caprice appreciatively while Fred glared threateningly back.

"Calm down, love." Caprice told him. Champions were then called to the starting positions, and students were asked to sit down.

"I love you." he said sincerely.

She smiled and kissed him on the lips quickly, but he held her there. Caprice said, "I love you, too." before having to leave, "By the way, have you seen Christi? Haven't seen her all day, and she should be here."

He shook his head, "Brought her to McGonagall's last night, along with Ron and Hermione. Dunno what McGonagall did with them."

Caprice sighed and shrugged, "I'm sure she's here. Probably with her skulking friends, somewhere."

Fred smiled at her, and then she left to join the other champions at the judges' table. Harry was there last, late as always. He had run there, and was out of breath. On top of that, he looked like he had a bad night, like he had just woken up.

Caprice leaned over and murmured, "Harry, you look terrible."

He nodded, but didn't get the chance to say anything more, since Bagman was know placing them all ten feet apart. Caprice was at one end while Harry was at the other, so she couldn't talk to him.

With a Sonorus, Bagman's voice suddenly boomed out, "Well, all our champions are ready for the second task, which will start on my whistle. They have precisely an hour to recover what has been taken from them. On the count of three, then. One… Two… Three!"

Caprice dove in, getting far enough from the shore to fully engulf herself in the icy water. The chill of it made her skin ache, since she was only wearing a pair of women's swimming shorts and a short sleeved swimming shirt. This was more than she would wear at home to swim, but she usually didn't swim in the wintertime.

Suddenly, her lungs were aching for air, and then she knew she had to do the spell at that moment. She had her wand in her hand, and pointed it at her neck and muttered the spell that McGonagall and Flitwick had taught her. And then she felt slits forming in her neck. Her lungs no longer worked, but instead she was breathing in water for oxygen through gills on her neck.

At that moment, all was quiet. Caprice had finally gone deep enough under the water to silence the screams and cheers of people above. She saw nothing but green seaweed for as far as she could see ahead. All was still, and no one was there to make noise.

Silence.

Then something gripped her.

"Ahh!" she screamed, though it came out as bubbles. She looked down to see Grindylows gripping her feet, trying to pull her into the seaweed.

Caprice pointed her wand at them and said, "Confundus!"

She didn't want to actually hurt them-only make them let go. They did, and sat there, floating in mid water. Caprice swam away quickly, swimming for a long, long time. She was seeing the same things over and over again, though she couldn't be sure. All seaweed looked the same. But it was all she was seeing. She was taking random lefts and rights, and she was all over the place.

Finally, she heard something like voices.

It was the song from the egg.

"An hour long you'll have to look, and to recover what we took…"

Caprice almost stopped just to be sure the song wouldn't go away, but kept on going instead. The song continued, but different, "Your time's half gone, so tarry not, Lest what you seek stays here to rot…"

This bit brought back her thinking of what the objects could be. Caprice had a lot of objects, but not many that she couldn't live with out. She had some that meant more than anything to her, like a few inherited pieces of jewelry, or some silly little lucky charms that she depended on, but she didn't know what else there could be.

It took a long time to realize she wasn't lost, but going forward. Eventually, Caprice suddenly began to swim into what looked like a merpeople village. There were simple stone houses, stained with algae, and had dark windows that had merpeople peering out at her. They were all mean looking creatures, disturbing in appearance and giving off a certain feeling of gloom. They all had grey skin with yellow eyes and teeth, and wild hair that matched the color of the seaweed.

Caprice didn't look at any of them in the eyes or for too long. There were mermaids in the lake at her house, but not these kinds. The mermaids she knew were pretty, with long blonde hair and pale skin, red lips and shiny, pretty tails instead of the sleek silver ones that these merpeople had. The mermaids that Caprice knew were nice, too, unlike other sirens. These mermaids didn't try to seduce anyone or be evil and nasty. They were kindhearted, and normal for the most part.

Glancing around, Caprice thought she saw the thick, muscular legs of Krum, and occasionally the sleek blonde hair of Fleur. She couldn't be sure though, until each of them emerged o either side of her. Krum had transformed his head into that of a shark. He looked beastly, very scary. Fleur had used the bubblehead charm, and was going as fast as she could. Caprice swam straight ahead, going as fast as she could, which was apparently faster than them. She left them in her dust, and didn't know what happened to them next.

The music was growing louder now, and then Caprice came upon a village square sort of area. Houses lines it and merpeople were all around. A chorus of merpeople were singing the egg's song, calling for champions. A large stone statue showed a gigantic merperson. Tied to his tail were four people, and another person was floating in front of them. She swam forward to where she saw Harry. The four prisoners were Hermione, Ron, Christi and a young girl with silvery blonde hair.

Harry had gotten Ron's rope free with a sharp rock, and it looked like he wanted to free Hermione, too. Harry finally sensed Caprice's presence and looked at her.

"I got lost!" she mouthed sheepishly. "Krum and Fleur are coming!"

Caprice grabbed a hold of Christi's rope and cut it with a Severing Charm. Caprice swam with her sister upwards, and soon the people below were out of sight. Several Grindylows tried to grab Caprice's feet on the way up, but she was too quick for them-she repelled them before they even grabbed hold.

Caprice got to the shore quickly, and did the anti-charm for the gills. She breathed in several breaths of fresh air, and then started moving to the shore. Christi was awake now, and moving with Caprice.

"What happened, Capri?" Christi asked dazedly.

"You were my treasure and I rescued you." Caprice smiled proudly as they stepped onto dry land. Fred was there with a large fluffy towel for Caprice, while Draco and Pansy stood there, awaiting Christi.

Christi smiled at Caprice and said, "Thanks."

"Well I couldn't have very well left you there." Caprice smiled and hugged Christi. Christi went over to Pansy and Draco, and Pansy flung herself on her.

"Christi! I am so sorry!"

Christi hugged back and said, "So am I."

"I thought you were in so much danger!" Pansy said, pulling back to look at her friend, "I thought I would never see you again!"

Christi just pulled Pansy into another hug. After they finished reuniting, Christi turned to Draco.

"I'm sorry, Chris." he said sincerely. Christi pulled him into a hug and kissed him on the lips. He kissed back lovingly, and didn't stop for a while. When they pulled back, Christi smiled at him, and he smiled back. That was all the words they needed.

Meanwhile, Fred and Caprice were watching with amusement in their looks. Caprice chuckled and turned away, accepting the towel from Fred. She wrapped it around herself while Fred wrapped his arm around her waist, even though she was still wet. Fred kissed her cheek and said, "You did awesome, Caprice."

From the stands, not very far away, Caprice heard loud, prominent cheering. It tuned out everyone else, and stuck out from the rest, and she saw it was her friends-George, Lee, Alicia, Angelina and Patricia.

"Well done, Caprice!" Lee and George bellowed at the same time. Caprice ran over to all of them and hugged them.

"Did I come in first?" she asked, looking around to see none of the other champions were there yet. Well, it made sense. All the hostages were there when she arrived, and she didn't see anyone surpass her when coming up.

"Of course you did, you're brilliant!" George exclaimed.

Caprice smiled happily, and then Madame Pomfrey came along. She made sure Caprice was wrapped tightly in a blanket, and then gave Caprice a potion to drink. Caprice had learned to never question Madame Pomfrey and just take the potions she gives. As she drank the boiling hot potion, steam gushed out her ears.

"Ow…" Caprice whined quietly afterwards, rubbing her head.

She watched as Krum arrived with Hermione, who got the same treatment as her, and then Fleur showed up. It had gone outside the time limit-she had taken too long. Caprice watched with mild interest as Fleur was calmed down by her French friends, and treated by Madame Pomfrey.

Harry was last to show, with both Ron and that other girl, who Caprice now could tell was Fleur's sister. Fleur was frantic when they arrived, and they overheard Harry talking with Hermione and Ron about how the song wasn't serious-they wouldn't have left the people there to die. Harry was feeling stupid, but when Caprice sensed Fred's lips on hers, she forgot all about it.

When Caprice started kissing back, Fred pulled away. Caprice let out a small whine of disapproval, but Fred smiled at her. "Finally you wake up. You've been zoned out for the past five minutes."

Caprice blushed, "Sorry… Just, err, thinking."

Fred chuckled and tightened his grip around her waist. Right then, Caprice felt so happy. She didn't think anything could go bad. Come June, she would be proved wrong.