I think we're past the point of handing out gold stars for guessing how the heads of school handled the fallout from the incident in the grove. Poorly, is the only description that I'll leave here.

It was an utterly predictable charade of Dumbledore dishing out stern words that were immediately ignored, of Maxime and Karkaroff descending into matching white-hot furies at the sheer possibility that Dumbledore could even consider suggesting that it was one of their precious students who had committed the act, and Professor McGonagall going toe-to-toe with the best of them, teaching those of us forced to listen in a few new eyebrow-raising curse words, and some creatively uncomfortable uses for a wand, should the listener be of French or Eastern European descent.

The net result was essentially zero. Maxime and Karkaroff offered an utterly bland apology that such a fell event had taken place, and accepted no responsibility on behalf of their schools or their students. They assured Dumbledore once again that they would handle matters of discipline internally. Karkaroff even had the gall to suggest that Dumbeldore do better than to arrange such a dangerously intricate set of clues for the champions in the first place. Not a hint of any thoughts of disqualification, not a single point docked, and the only reprimand handed out was to yours truly by McGonagall for involving Neville in Tournament business.

It was all about as fair as a round of Exploding Snap with the Weasley brothers, and not even half as fun. Meanwhile, in the Hospital wing, poor old Neville slept through it all, with Madam Pomfrey unable or unwilling to let us know how his recovery was tracking.

I received my clue, at least. It was a miniature figurine of myself, about a foot tall. When prodded with my wand, it cleared its diminutive throat and began pacing across the tabletop upon which I'd set it, reciting the following verse:

'Recall we invoked the Merfolks' name

Though they'll play no part within this game.

Their homes are defended by other means,

Some you'll meet if your wit's not keen.

But the true task lies above the waves,

Where your path to victory can be paved,

Seven years of spells distilled to the tune

Of that graceful artform: the Ancient Rune.'

'Well, shit.'

Hermione, Ron, Lavender and I sat around a small table in an empty classroom late one evening, four days after the incident in the grove.

I looked across at my friends for support. Ron looked a sickly shade of green. Lavender might have been sucking on a lemon. Even Hermione looked nervous. That one worried me the most.

'I mean, Runes are great,' she said in an uncertain voice. 'And surprisingly intuitive to learn, once you understand the basics… but trying to cover seven years' worth in the space of a few weeks is…'

'Utterly ridiculous,' I suggested.

'A load of horseshit,' Ron offered.

Hermione made a sound in her throat that said she might actually be inclined to agree.

'Why don't we at least write down what we do know,' Lavender suggested. Perhaps it was her status as the newest in the group that had her scrabbling for optimism, or perhaps she just genuinely possessed a rosy outlook. I still didn't know her well enough to decide.

'Well, Harry's about to get embarrassed in front of the entire school,' Ron said, eager, it seemed, to make up for Lavender's enthusiasm with some textbook moody pessimism. 'So, there's that.'

'Seven years…' Hermione muttered. 'Even I don't know most of the seventh-year runic curriculum.'

'Not really helping, guys.'

Determined to get us headed in a positive direction, Lavender produced a sheet of sweetly scented parchment and a long, elaborate quill to start taking notes.

'What about the actual task itself,' she said. 'They mention the Merfolk a lot, and water…'

'Something in the Lake?' Ron suggested. 'It has to be. But bugger that, it's the middle of winter. It'll make you shrivel up tighter than a–'

'Ron!' Lavender and Hermione scolded in perfect unison.

My smirk faltered. Huh. I hadn't realised that, with Lavender around, Ron and I were evenly matched. We might have to start thinking about giving up on some of our dirty jokes.

A shame, and I'd been saving that one about the Mermaid and the jellyfish for a rainy day, as well…

'I don't think it's in the Lake, necessarily,' Hermione mused, breaking my reverie. '"The true task lies above the waves…" and the first clue said "Step light, step sure, there'll be no trouble, but fail you'll need some kind of bubble". So… something on top of the Lake? Like ice?'

'Or just a platform of some kind,' I offered, hoping I wasn't going to have to freeze my toes off for the honour of my great embarrassment. 'And if you mess up, it drops you into the water.'

'Ooh, that sounds great!' Lavender beamed, hurrying to write it down. Personally, I was of the opinion that it sounded pretty bloody awful. But different viewpoints, I guess, depending on whose arse it was sitting on the pointy end of a Merfolk's spear.

'You must be facing each other in some manner,' Hermione added, skimming through a book of her own notes. '"Who is this foe? We hear you ask. I bid thee, find a looking glass". That's from the first clue. That could mean each other. Like, humans, as opposed to literally yourself. As I don't see how that would be possible…'

'Any idea if Cedric is much chop at Runes?' I asked without much hope.

Hermione suddenly grew very embarrassed and wouldn't meet my eyes. She became fixated instead on curling a lock of hair around a finger.

'Hermione...'

'He… he gives tutorials to third- and fourth-years every Friday. He could practically teach the subject himself.'

That hardly seemed a crime befitting the current reaction.

'And you go along, don't you?'

Hermione bit her lip and nodded sheepishly, using a curtain of hair to avoid looking me in the eyes.

Ron gasped and blustered. Lavender suggested she might tag along – despite knowing less about Runes even than I – to listen to his dreamy voice. This caused Ron to almost burst a blood vessel. I gave Hermione a gentle nudge to let her know there were no hard feelings.

'Is it his eyes?' I joked mockingly. 'Or is it the way his muscles ripple–'

She jabbed an elbow firmly into my solar plexus which sent me into a gasping, coughing fit and effectively put paid to that conversation.

'Alright, alright. Fine. So, Lavender, get this down: Something with Runes, against each other, above the Lake. Ooh, could it be flying?'

A look around the group told me there wasn't a lot of hope for that. It seemed I just couldn't catch a break.

'The way it mentions "seven years of spells" could be a clue as well,' Hermione added again. 'The most simplistic use of Runes is in the naming, or classification, of spells. Every spell is represented by a runic symbol, or group of symbols, that represent the intent behind the spell. The more complex the spell, generally, the more complex the Runic symbols describing it.'

She held out a hand to Lavender, who offered the quill and parchment. On it, Hermione sketched a series of loopy etchings that looked vaguely familiar.

'Recognise these?' she asked.

'Erm…'

There was a heavy, defeated sigh, as Hermione seemed to realise just how much work lay ahead of me - and, by extension - her.

'Lumos, Expelliarmus, and Incendio. The Runic symbology for three common, basic spells. I had hoped you might recognise them, as they are commonly recorded in our textbooks and in writing as a sort of short-hand the spell itself.'

'Right… and so we are going to somehow duel one another by drawing these squiggly lines?'

'I doubt it. For two reasons: First, there's not a lot of precedent throughout tournament history for outright duels between Champions; and secondly, instilling actual power into these symbols is an incredibly lengthy and arduous process. It's so complex that it's beyond even N.E.W.T level curriculum. I think it's probably a little advanced, even for the Tournament.'

'Well, there's some relief. I'm about as good at drawing as I am at reading Runes.'

'That's a shame,' Lavender sighed wistfully. 'I'd always thought you had the look of someone with an artistic soul.'

Nobody really knew how to respond to that.

We jawed it out for a little while longer, but didn't make much progress. We decided that the best thing for it was a crash course in Runes, courtesy of Hermione, while Ron and Lavender awarded themselves the dubious titles of "Chief Motivators" and committed to little more than random bouts of positive reinforcement over the weeks leading up to the task.

Great to see them really putting themselves out at my expense.

The teachings began in earnest. The second task was scheduled for the end of February. We were already at the very start. I had three weeks to learn seven years of Runes. Not only that, but to learn many of the spells that those Runes represented, that were part of the fifth- sixth- and seventh-year classes.

But if there was anybody on this earth who could help me manage such a feat, it was Hermione. She took the task personally. She would get me to a respectable level of competency by the time the task rolled around. I would not go out there and embarrass myself – and thus, by extension, her. She was every bit the strict taskmistress. She had been born for the role. We were in the library every evening from five until curfew. She permitted regular, but brief, breaks for refreshments or comfort, and was most insistent that we stick to the schedule. Dinner most nights was an afterthought.

'How about a half a night off,' I eventually suggested, a week into the grind, after a particularly difficult session trying to distinguish between the three different Runic sub-sets used for dealing with the description of emotions, depending on if the subject was male, female, or non-human.

'We can't, Harry. There's still so much to get through. If we take time off now, we'll miss out on the important stuff down the track. The things I'm saving till the end which are going to be the most advanced concepts and wandwork. We can't afford to have even an hour off if we're to fit in the entire schedule.'

I leaned back in my chair, listening to its groan of protest. A sentiment perfectly matching my own. 'I think you're enjoying this, you know.'

A hint of a smile, and then she looked away. Gotcha.

'I'm just trying to help you with the Tournament, Harry. That's all.'

'Mistress Granger. You love it. Why don't you tie your hair in a bun and wield a wooden ruler to rap my knuckles when I misbehave?'

The little minx gave me a sly grin. 'We're here to learn, Harry. Not to live out one of your bedroom fantasies.'

'Well maybe when this is all over…'

That shut her up. Two could play that game. The horrified look plastered across her face was almost worth the swift kick in the shins she delivered me underneath the table. Almost.

And so it went. Evenings blurred into one another. The jokes became fewer and farther between as the deadline became more and more real. A week passed, and I felt as though I had learned not a thing. Then ten days, then a fortnight. I had a few epiphanic moments along the journey, so my learnings came in leaps and starts, rather than a steady progression. I had not so much as looked at a rune in anger throughout all my four years of Hogwarts, let alone during my muggle upbringing. Until this began, the concept had been utterly foreign to me. My mind was the round hole through which Hermione was determined to drive this square peg of information.

If I had to guess, I'd say it was sort of like trying to learn an entirely new language. But one of those ones without a Latin alphabet, so I was trying to recall the figures and characters in terms of skiing snowmen, or dancing turtles, rather than anything I could actually draw a link to intuitively. Hermione ran me through the individual runes that represented single letters, though these were of lesser import in the representation of spells. She showed me the symbols and creatures used to represent numbers, and even had me craft my name and a few short sentences using some of the more common runic scripts taught in school. She thought this would give me "a feel" for how Runes worked, and how the structure of a Rune was created, melded, and built upon by the context in which it was used, the gender of the subject, and – sometimes – even the time of day to which it was referring.

The only "feels" I got were camps in my hand from writing so damned much. Needless to say, I was offered very little sympathy when I voiced my concerns to my evil overlady.

And then there were the Runes actually crafted to represent magic. They were all these other complexities cranked up to eleven. I'm not here to try and teach you about them. There aren't enough hours in the day. If I can offer any advice on the subject, it would be to stay away. There are variations upon variations. Sub-sets, family trees, cross-discipline linkages, you name it. I'm boring myself just writing about them now, so I'll shut up and get on with it.

The eve of the second task found me exhausted, drained and borderline delusional. Hermione was dragging me – yet again – up from the dinner table before dessert had even touched the sides, and off up to a room where we were to carry out some exhaustive final review before tomorrow's task.

I could hardly wait.

'So, we'll cover off on Hexes from years one through four to start,' Hermione was saying, in a businesslike tone, as she practically frogmarched me up the Grand Staircase. 'And then Jinxes after that, due to their inherent similarities. Then a five-minute break, then years five through seven – you'll need to really focus. That's where the others have the greatest advantage over you. They will recognise many more of those spells, as they have already learned them in class. Then we'll backtrack to Charms…'

I faded her out, drawing back inside myself as I trudged along in that driven, headstrong wake. Tomorrow, I would be at it again. Heart pumping, breath racing. Palms slick and eyes wild. But this time there was no overgrown lizard to stare down. It would just be me against the other champions, in one way or another. Somehow, I was getting the feeling that my odds were better against the dragon.

All I had to get through to figure that out was one more night with Hermione.

Actually, I wasn't sure which I was dreading more.

Best of luck, Harry. I know you can do this!

HJG xx