CH 12
Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter
The day of the second task arrived. It was a cold day in February, but it looked like the Champions had taken Harry's advice after the first task. The looked slightly more prepared for second section of the tournament.
Harry had looked around for the past few days to make sure that all of his friends were okay. It was then that he realized that Luna had not been at the Ravenclaw table the previous night. When he spoke to Martha, one of Luna's dorm mates he found that she hadn't been seen since the day before. He knew then that he'd need to get to her before it was too late.
The Champions had lined up on the docks and were all in warm robes to keep the cold from affecting them. Under the robes they were all in swimsuits with the exception of Harry. He'd ordered and received a black wetsuit with red piping on the arms and legs in his size. He had his backpack with him and he pulled out a pair of muggle rubber flippers.
His excursion to the Canyon School had a good effect on him, since that's where he'd learned how to swim and dive. He put on the flippers and waddled up to the dock, which caused many students and some adults to snicker at him.
He ignored all of that, as he put on the large underwater mask that would securely protect his nose and eyes. He cast an impermeable and auto-clean feature to the lens of the mask and then waited. He tied a belt around his waist, which held a pair of short sword sheathes, just in case he needed a cutting weapon.
Any more than that would have been too much and many of the audience felt that he was trying too hard.
The other Champions looked at him in curiosity because let's face it he looked quite strange in that get-up. The firecracker exploded, announcing that they had to begin their next task. The three older students removed their cloaks and jumped into the lake.
Harry double checked that he had his wand tucked up his sleeve and then he place his ring on his thumb, shrinking it to ensure that it tightened and stayed in place for his underwater journey. He dove from the dock like someone that had experience diving into deep waters.
'I'm glad for the light,' he thought, as he followed the murky path that the older students had made from the lakebed. He made his way cautiously, not knowing what kind of creatures he'd encounter on his way. Sure enough he encountered several 'Grinylows' among the weeds nearer to the lake's edge. He used his wand to fire sharp stunning spells at them.
There were about fifteen of them all gathered around a struggling body. He zapped them all and that's when he noticed that Fleur had been the one surrounded. He cast a serenity spell at her to calm her down and then motioned in a way to ask, 'Are you all right?'
She shook her head no and headed back to the surface because she needed to re-think her strategy before going down again. Meanwhile Harry just shrugged his shoulders and continued down, following some of the bubbles that burbled up from below him. 'At least I'm past the Grindylows,' he thought. 'This light must be making them uncomfortable. Maybe that's why I wasn't attacked by them?'
He paddled his feet and soon got into the rythym of moving them like he'd done many times before. He saw Moaning Myrtle the Ravenclaw ghost in the lake and she pointed him in the direction of the mermaid village. He nodded to her and then headed in the direction that she'd indicated.
Harry arrived there and noticed that Cedric must have been the fastest one and the better, prepared student because he was using the Bubble Head charm. He was paddling away with a senior Ravenclaw student Cho Chang in his arms. He shook his head and hadn't noticed her disappearance, but then she wasn't someone he looked for among the other students.
Tied to poles or statues in the middle of the Mermaid village was a blond girl that resembled Fleur, the Champion from Beauxbatons.
Hermione was there too and that's when he realized that he didn't notice that she'd been gone from the dorms or classes the previous day. He'd thought it was because of a female thing. Viktor was there and tried to get her untied from the pole, but he hadn't come to the village that prepared. He had partially transfigured his head to that of a shark.
The last person tied to a pole was Luna. She was the only one that he'd been aware of being missed, since she was the one he'd asked about. He took out one of his short swords and cut Luna away from the pole and then nudged Viktor that he could use it. Harry conjured ropes to tie her to him, as she didn't look like she could move.
Viktor gripped the sword and cut the Gryffindor girl away. He gave the sword back and signalled that he was going up to the surface.
Harry nodded and then used his wand to call up a time clock. He looked around and noticed that Fleur still hadn't come down. He waited until there was fifteen minutes left and the he moved to cut the ropes to the other girl.
The merfolk tried to prevent him, but he told them, "I'm not leaving without her too."
The merfolk were trying to get him to leave the girl behind, but he refused and even brandished both weapons in defence of his actions. The swimmers of the lake backed away and let him cut the other girl away from the pole she'd been tied to.
'Bloody nuisance,' he thought. 'I can't leave anyone behind and it doesn't look like Fleur is coming.' He looped the rope around the other girl and kicked his feet hard to propel him to the surface. Just as they were about to break the surface, Luna woke up, but didn't panic. She took a huge gasp of air when they surfaced.
"Okay there, Luna," Harry said, as she wrapped her legs about his waist, giving him free room to kick his feet.
"Quite," she said. "I wasn't expecting this."
"Romantic lot, aren't they," Harry said, as he explained about those that had been selected, who had been tied in the merfolk village. The other girl came to and nearly screamed in fear. "Easy girl," he told her. "We're just helping you."
"J'ais peur, vous êtes qui?" She asked in French. She tried to push away in her panic, but ended up swallowing water and coughed it up.
Luna was the one that answered her, "Calme toi ma petite! Nous sommes des amies de ta sœur, tiens biens ici et on va la rejoindre sur la plage bien tôt, da cors? "
Harry lifted his diving mask up to his forehead and he put away his swords while treading water. He pulled out his wand and conjured an old, fashioned swimming flutter board. He cast an additional warming charm on the device so that the girls wouldn't get chilled from being out in the open.
"Oui," the young girl said. She held onto the flutter board, between the two older students. It held up the three of them and was one long board with three long handles that they could grip, as their upper torsos were braced on the on it. The paddled all the way back to the beach, where they saw Dumbledore having a conversation with the merperson that had threatened Harry.
"Gabrielle," Fleur cried, as she saw that her little sister was all right. She escaped the clutches of the medi-witch in order to wrap her arms and blanket around her little sister. "Merci, Harry," she said.
"Bienvenue," Harry replied, as he dried his wetsuit and hair with a mild warm wind spell of the Destruction School of Magic. Everyone thought he used a standard warming charm. He summoned his pack, putting away his flippers, water exploration ring, swords and swimming mask. He put on a pair of thick soled fur lined boots and pulled on a large cloak with bear fur lining, covering his head with the hood.
"Vous parlez Français," Fleur declared. She was ushered back into the medical tent along with her sister in order to take another pepper up to help prevent them from catching colds.
"Non," Harry replied, his ears blowing smoke from the pepper-up potion's effects that the medi-witch made him take. "I just know some basic words. I'm sorry."
"No, zat is all right," Fleur said. "At least Gabrielle eez zafe, I was worried."
"I understand," Harry said. He looked in Luna's direction. She too had smoke coming out of her ears, but it looked like she was having fun, as her father had shown up to witness the completion of the second task. She waved at him and he waved back at her. He turned his attention to the girl he'd retrieved and asked, "Are you all right mademoiselle?"
The little girl nodded shyly and snuggled into her sister's arms.
He smiled and then stepped out of the tent to find Ron, since Hermione was in the medical tent too. He found him hanging around with his older brothers, when found that Bill Weasley was present to witness the task. "Hey Bill," he said. "What are you doing here?"
"Came to see the task," the tall, long-haired Weasley said. "There wasn't much to see, though, since you were all under the lake. Now tell me who she is?" He asked pointing to Fleur.
"That's the Champion for Beauxbatons," Harry said with a small sneeze. "Her name is Fleur Delacour, do you want me to introduce you?"
"Yes, please," Bill said and they walked over to speak to the French girls as the judges were still deliberating about the second task.
Harry re-joined Fred and George, near Ron, who was still upset that Hermione had been taken and that his idol Viktor Krum was the one that had to rescue her. He was still sulking when the results were posted. Harry and the twins rolled their eyes at the boy's attitude.
Cedric won first place with Harry, in the second task, because the Gryffindor had rescued a victim not belonging to him. Viktor got second place and Fleur was last, since she never made it to the Merfolk Village in time to rescue her sister.
"Now folks," Ludo Bagman announced. "That will be the order of delay for the final task, which is scheduled for June 24th. Do well in your studies children and I hope to see you all there."
Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter
It was now March and Harry's studies were getting intense. He couldn't believe that Snape had wanted him to research the properties of a flower that he'd conjured on a whim. However in his research he looked in the potions journal belonging to one Helga Hufflepuff, which was part of the library in his house-tent.
Truth be told, he knew that journals from the Founders were in there, he just hadn't had the curiosity to read them and he believed that they were personal. On the good woman's suggestion he skimmed through it and found several potions that he wanted to try, a few of them required the False Diamond Orchid in a base.
With the help of the Founders, he had begun keeping his own potions journal during the past summer, although his was an Alchemical journal where he made notes about certain effects or results when one ingredient was mixed with another. He paused in his current note-taking task when he received a one-line note from one of the school's smaller brown coloured owls.
...Write back with dates and times of your Hogsmeade weekends...
It was from his Godfather. He'd been exchanging letters with the man for the majority of the year. 'I guess he's going to be close by for the last task,' he thought. 'I wonder if I should let Ron and Hermione know about him being nearby...' He paused to consider it and then knew that he was going to selfish about it. 'He's my Godfather and the only true adult, parental type figure that I trust. Besides he' probably going to question me about the dream I had and I don't want them to know about it. I might tell them about who runs the Underground Courier, though. I'll see what Sirius says about that.'
He wrote back and told the poor owl to send another of its brethren for a delivery, after he'd given it a treat for its troubles. The weather was not good for the birds this time of year.
He looked to the carryall bag next to his desk. He'd prepared it on the off chance that he could deliver it or meet up with his Godfather. He'd been able to purchase a second house-tent from 'Bits & Bobs', a shop that contained second-hand equipment of many types. He used the money from his winning bets during the Quidditch World Cup, which was a relief because he technically didn't want that to count as a school event, to purchase it.
It was similar to the one that he'd purchased for himself with several rooms. The newer one had more food storage in the kitchen area and less cooking surfaces. He stuffed the bedroom closet and drawers with clothing that he bought from another second hand shop in Hogsmeade.
The tent also contained a library space with very few books that were there from a previous owner. He copied them and left the originals on the shelves, in case the man needed something to occupy his time.
The new tent had a full bathroom, that he fully stocked with towels and cleaning supplies. It also had two additional rooms that looked to have been used for storage purposes, judging by the crates and shelving units that were left behind in the rooms.
Of course, anything that he found of interest, he examined. Books and scrolls were copied and anything of use, like pots, pans and kettles, he made sure that they were in tip, top working order. He stocked the food storage units with plenty of non-perishable foods, most from muggle sources like rice, grains, there were pasta noodles of all kinds and an extensive variety of canned goods too. He re-enforced the food storage units with carved runes and hissed Parseltongue magic.
Pulled from thinking about the carryall and its prepared contents, he returned his attentions to the potions journal in order to decide which one to study in depth. "Which do you think would be more useful," Harry questioned Helga. "The Wound Stabilizer Potion, the Occlude Draft or the Masking Vapours. I'm not going to mention the Truth Serum Neutralizer to him since he's already threatened to dose me with Veritaserum."
"The Masking Vapours would be the best one that you can do in less time," Helga said. "That's the one that can be done within a student's time span. It takes about ten to fifteen minutes to prepare the ingredients and then half an hour of brewing time. Also it'd be a useful gift to your godfather."
"Right then," Harry said. "I'll have to double check my ingredients and sent an Owl Order for any missing ones." He read off the ingredients and then made notations in his potions journal, adding a tab to indicate its importance and that he was working on that one.
"The potion creates a vapour that can mask a person's identity by altering key features, unlike the Polyjuice Potion which complete alters a person's full physical aspect in order to take over someone's role by use of human body parts. The Masking Vapours Potion is limited in duration, but that duration time can be altered with the changes to a few ingredients. Due to the rarity of many of these ingredients this potion has not seen much use in recent years." He read out loud. "I wonder if this is on the Ministry's controlled potions list."
"You'll have to look it up," Rowena said. "Perhaps you should invest in an updating list of controlled potions."
"I'll have to use the school's library for that," Harry said. He looked through the journal and stumbled across on that peaked his interest. "Truth Serum Antidote, a derivative of the Truth Serum Neutralizer," he looked to Helga. "I've never seen anything on that subject."
"It was just a fiddle," Helga said. "I was hoping to get the chance to test it out. Theoretically it's supposed take neutralizer ingredients that force the truth from someone to be completely nullified, but you've got your Parseltongue spells to prevent that."
Harry nodded, but he figured that sometime in the future he'd play with that potion, probably using Alchemical formulations instead of following the Potions Standards of the Potioneers Guild.
That was one of the things that he'd happily discovered. Some spells were stronger, if he used the snake-language in conjunction with another language be it Latin, English or even Gobbledegook, which he'd been learning these past few months. He tested several base spells and was pleased to note their differences in execution. The ones he pronounced in the Goblin Language without using going through the intermediary of snake language were powerful and more destructive. No wonder the Ministry of Magic prevented the goblins from using wands.
The books he used in his researches for potions or to write his essays had expanded due to the languages he now had access to. It was interesting to read and use them as references, but he couldn't wait for the chance to purchase some muggle fiction books in other languages. He didn't want to study all the time.
Harry packed up his essays and other projects in order to go research in Hogwarts' library for the list of banned or controlled potions. He didn't want to give his potions Professor any room to call attention to the legalities of his research.
Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter
TBC…