"Again," Athena demanded.
Harry looked annoyed, but pointed his wand at his face anyway. "Fysallida!' A bubble sprouted from the tip of Harry's wand and came to rest over his nose covering the lower part of his face and parts of his neck.
Ron, sitting with his feet propped up on a desk covered in a thick coating of dust held Athena's watch, observing the ticking hands carefully. They'd been practicing in the unused classroom all afternoon while Hermione researched alternate options for Harry to complete the Second Task. They were running out of time, though. The Second Task was tomorrow and Harry had only been able to hold his bubblehead charm for 24 minutes and 38 seconds - not long enough to get him through the Task.
"So, let's work on the multi-tasking, yeah?" Athena proposed. As silly as Harry looked, it was important that he be able to hold the charm while doing other things. Merpeople weren't the only things he had to worry about in the Black Lake.
"Let's start off easy," she said, pulling up a chair to sit on.
"How are classes?"
Harry and Ron shared a look that could only be described as frightened amusement. "well, things got... uncomfortable in Defense, today." Harry's voice sounded muffled and far away as he spoke through the bubble.
"Barmy's more like it, "chimed Ron. That could have described any lesson with their nutcase ex-auror professor. Athena was finally getting used to his outbursts of "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" at random intervals throughout the class.
She rolled her eyes. "There's a reason they call the man mad, you know."
"Today was different, though. He skipped straight to the Unforgivables - wasn't even on our syllabus," Harry explained. Weirdly enough, Moody had done the same thing in her class that week.
"And poor Neville..." he trailed off.
"Yeah." Ron jumped in. "Poor bloke made Neville watch his demonstration of the cruciatus up close."
Harry looked pained. The torture curse wasn't pleasant to talk about, let alone observe. To make a student watch that up close seemed unusually cruel, even for a grizzled, battle-scarred auror.
Something didn't sit right with Athena. "Why would he do that?"
Harry looked sad. Deeply, truly sad. "Athena, the look on Neville's face... He looked broken." Ron grimly nodded in agreement.
"Should've seen 'Mione's face," the red-head offered, taking his eyes off the watch to look between Harry and Athena, "she would've exploded like a blast-ended skrewt if Moody didn't end the lesson right after he... He... "Ron couldn't say it, but looked at Harry instead. He didn't have to say it. She knew he was referring to the killing curse.
Pop!
The bubble on Harry's face exploded and he groaned audibly. It had barely been five minutes! Clearly his mind was elsewhere.
"We are never going to get you where you need to be, if you can't focus, kid." She sighed. "So what's bugging you?"
"You mean other than being wildly unprepared for a task in a tournament I'm under qualified to compete in?" Ah, sarcasm - he still had fight in him after the brutal practice session. She smirked.
"Yes, other than that." She waved her wand at a nearby chair, plopping it next to Harry. "Sit. Talk."
"We don't have time -"
"You have time to let whatever it is distract you," she cut him off. His fists were balled up by his sides and he glared at Athena, but didn't say anything to negate her observation. As irritating as it was, Harry couldn't deny that he had something on his mind. He sat down in the chair Athena procured for him and started talking.
Apparently, Athena wasn't the only one Harry ran into on the night he finally solved the Egg. He mentioned seeing Barty Crouch's name on 'the map.'
"What map? "Athena interrupted.
"The Marauder's Map," Ron stated matter-of-factly. Athena gave him a puzzled look. That explained nothing. She made a gesture for him to continue.
"Oh right, forgot you've never heard of it. Basically, it's a map Harry's dad and his mates made back in the day that shows where everyone is in the castle." Athena was impressed. It would take some serious magical engineering to create something like that. She'd have to see this for herself.
"Ok, so there's a map and you see Barty Crouch on it? The Ministry guy? Grey mustache, funny hat?" she tried to remember what he looked like. He was involved in the Tournament in some capacity for the government, but what was he doing roaming the school on a random night?
Harry was wondering the same thing. "It was really odd, so I thought I'd check it out. The last time an unexpected name showed up on the map we found out Ron's pet rat was actually the guy who betrayed my parents in animagus form."
Flabbergasted, Athena could barely keep up as Harry dropped bombshell after bombshell so casually. "Anyway, I'd seen his name by Snape's office and grabbed the cloak and went to check it out."
Ron interjected with, "invisibility cloak," before Athena could ask any more questions. Harry continued recounting the peculiar scene he stumbled upon that night. Snape and Moody had been arguing. Someone had been stealing from Snape: boomslang skin, bicorn horn, and gilly weed. Snape suggested it might be Harry , given a previous incident with poly juice potion their second year. (A story Ron promised to tell Athena later.) Moody came to Harry's defense and suggested Peeve's the school's meddling poltergeist was behind the thefts. According to Harry, Snape enchanted his store cupboard so ghosts could not enter to prevent that exact scenario.
"I can 't explain it exactly, but Moody could see me under the cloak." Harry pointed to his left eye for emphasis.
Amelia once joked that Moody's magical eye could see through clothing, which was gross, and now, probably true. She suppressed a gag at the thought of the middle aged mangled professor peeking at her knickers with this enchanted eyeball. Gross.
"Anyway, I dropped the map and Snape saw it. Moody summoned it and started raving about 'nimble-fingered house elves.'" The longer it went on, the more bizarre Harry's tale became. After the run in with Snape, Moody asked Harry if he could borrow the map and suggested Harry should look into becoming an auror post- Hogwarts.
Athena wrinkled her nose. "What does that have to do with anything?"
Harry only shrugged. Athena was still digesting the outcome of Harry's encounter with Moody. There was something amiss about the whole thing. Moody was a weird guy, but the behavior seemed strange, even for him.
"He didn't threaten to destroy it or call it a security threat? " Harry shook his head.
"Because if I were an auror, and I suddenly came into possession of an enchanted map that showed everyone in the school where they were, I'd have it erased or at the very least turned over to Dumbledore."
"You don't think... "Ron whined, looking scared.
Athena shook her head. "If he had, Harry would probably be in detention until next year, Ron."
Nothing was adding up and it was all too much for her to take in. She was exhausted. on top of helping Harry, she still had all of her N. E. W. T. work and Cedric and her own problems and anxiety and she just couldn't deal with this new nonsense. It was getting late, almost dinner time. Maybe she could get a calming draught from the hospital wing before heading to the Great Hall. It was the next best thing to a glass of fire whiskey that she could get at this point.
Her head began throbbing. "Ok, lads. Get something to eat and let's regroup with Hermione in the library."
Neither made any protest at the prospect of food and gladly ran out of the class room together. That left Athena to make her way to the Hospital wing. Every step made the throbbing in her head worse. She wasn't looking where she was walking, distracted by the pain in her head when she bumped into something, rather, someone very solid.
"Oof."
"Hey- oh, hey." That was a voice she knew. Sure enough, she'd walked directly into Cedric Diggory. She would've greeted him more enthusiastically had her head not felt like it was going to explode.
"What's wrong?" she could hear the concern in his voice.
She waved it off. "Headache. Gonna grab something from Madam Pomfrey."
"Do you need me to come with you? "He put his hands on her shoulders, steadying her.
As nice as the company would've been, the last thing Cedric needed the night before the big task was to worry about her. "Nah, I'm fine. You've got better things to do than escort me around the castle."
"If you're sure."
"I'm sure." she stood up on her tiptoes and pecked his lips. "Now, dinner and off to bed with you, young man." She watched him walk down the hall and turn the corner before resuming her own journey to the hospital wing.
When she arrived, she was surprised to find Dumbledore, McGonagall, The heads of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, and a sickly looking man with a familiar grey mustache. It was Mr. Crouch, but he looked like he'd aged 10 years in just a few months. To call the man frail would have been putting it kindly. He looked terrible.
"Please come in Ms. Mayall, though you are just a bit early," came the soft, deep voice of the Hogwarts' headmaster. The sound caused her to break her stare. Luckily, Crouch hadn't noticed.
"Sorry, professor, I was actually just stopping by to ask for a ceph-elixir on my way to the Great Hall." The throbbing in her head made it difficult to make eye contact with the older wizard.
Madam Pomfrey , the school's resident healer, pushed through the congregation of faculty to attend to Athena. She was escorted to a nearby bed where the healer drew the yellowy aged privacy curtains and began to perform a full work up. It was just a headache, so this seemed a little excessive.
"We'll get something sent up for you from the kitchens, Ms. Mayall. "Madam Pomfrey continued waving her wand over Athena methodically .
"It's only a headache, "Athena protested. It seemed silly to keep her in the hospital wing over a little headache.
"Poppy, may we come in? "she heard McGonagall ask from just outside the curtains.
"I'll be back with something for your head, Ms. Mayall." With a stiff smile, the matronly witch opened the curtain allowing the group of professors to gather around the foot of the bed she sat in.
"Ms. Mayall," croaked Mr. Crouch, "Thank you for your cooperation with the exam. You may be wondering why you are here this evening." He sounded almost as terrible as he looked. He wasn't a particularly strong speaker, but the crackly weakness in his tone made him sound fragile, almost burdened by the use of his own voice. "You are an integral part of the second Task of the Tri wizard Tournament. You, and three other individuals are to be recovered by your respective champion as part of the Task." He began to cough. It was a choking, wheezing sound. No wonder his voice was so hoarse.
Dumbledore took over for the struggling Mr. Crouch. "As such, you will be placed in a deep sleep like so." He gestured to another cot where a little blonde girl lay, sleeping almost completely still. Athena was surprised she didn't see her when she entered the hospital wing. She looked like a younger version of the Beauxbations Champion, Fleur. Silvery blonde hair, narrow frame, long and spindly limbs... they could've been sisters. They might be sisters, for all she knew.
"You will remain in the colony of the silkies, the merfolk of our lake, who will be guarding you for the duration of the task. The enchantment keeping you unconscious will break once you reach the surface of the water."
He said it like it was a completely routine exercise, not like the circus act Athena was visualizing. Every worst case scenario ran through her mind – accidentally getting speared by a mermaid, strangled by a kelpie stallion, dragged to the depths by the giant squid she heard Fred and George joke about every so often. Any appetite she had before the conversation was gone.
The whole thing sounded dubious. Her face must have given away how she was feeling.
"I assure you, Ms. Mayall, no harm shall come to you." Of course Dumbledore wouldn't let anything bad happen to a student. 'Except let an underage wizard compete in a dangerous, highly - complex magical tournament he wasn't prepared for,' her brain screamed.
Yeah, except for that.
Madam Pomfrey returned with two vials. One, an opaque orange-y liquid - the ceph-elixir for Athena's headache - and the other, a periwinkle brew she recognized as a standard calming draught. Athena hadn't asked for it but was grateful, regardless. She downed both in rapid succession. Despite tasting foul, the potions offered near - immediate relief.
"Okay, "she breathed deeply. "Let's do this." As soon as the words left her mouth she realized she still needed to help Harry, but before she could object everything went dark and all the sounds of the world faded to the quiet hum of nothingness.
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Everyone was screaming.
Athena frantically kicked took in icy cold water when she tried to relieve her burning lungs. She choked as the water filled her mouth. Blinking rapidly allowed her eyes to come back into focus. Someone was pulling her towards the shore, it was a very wet Cedric Diggory. She tried calling his name, but there's no way he could have heard her over the hundreds of screaming spectators. Now that she was conscious, she could swim herself and avoid choking on the frigid lake water. She tugged on Cedric's arm to get his attention. When he realized Athena was awake, he looked so relieved. They swam side by side to land where they were immediately met with towels and blankets.
Cold was not the right word to describe how Athena felt. It felt like someone transfigured her into a living, breathing icicle. She found herself pulling the wet towel tighter to her body as she shivered in the freezing February air. Cedric broke away from a group of Ravenclaws that lined up to shake his hand and wrapped her in his arms. If she could feel her arms, she would've returned the embrace. She was too cold to move beyond the shivers that wracked her body, but the heat of his body on hers was a welcome sensation. She leaned into it.
"Lunacy! Students in the water in this weather?" From the corner of her eye, Athena spotted the medi-witch plowing through the crowds toward the soggy pair.
"Impervius, "she said, drying them off. It was a notable improvement. She made each of them take a dose of Pepper-Up potion, just as another pair surfaced from the dark water - Viktor Krum and Hermione Granger.
Rita Skeeter was going to have a field day with this picture. The crowd roared as the pair were lifted from the lake by several Durmstrang boys. Madam Pomfrey gave them a similar treatment.
Athena scanned the crowd for any sign of Harry, but couldn't find him anywhere. She did see a group of Beauxbatons students gathered around a weeping Fleur Delacour, crumpled over.
"Ced," Athena said excitedly, "I think you came in first!" He smiled and kissed the top of her head. He didn't say anything, but she could tell he was thrilled with the result.
A few minutes later, Harry surfaced with Ron and the little blonde girl from the previous evening in tow. Madam Maxime restrained a screaming Fleur who lunged toward the lake screeching and reaching out for the younger girl. Definitely sisters.
More cheers erupted from the wooden bleachers that had been erected along the shoreline until a fourth figure emerged from the surface. The crowd hushed as a green, scaly creature swam to the shallows near the judges. Unless they spoke mermish, no one would really know what she (or he, it was really hard to tell from this distance)had to say. After a few minutes of deliberation, the mermaid departed and the judges turned to face the crowd.
While the judges were occupied, Athena took the opportunity to address Cedric. "So? How was it?"
His caramel eyes were watering with emotion. What did she to say to warrant that reaction?
"I never want to do that again," he said softly, tucking a piece of hair behind Athena's ear.
"Ced, it's ok," Athena replied, wrapping her arms around his waist and laying her head on his chest. He held her tightly.
"Athena, you don't understand. Down there, you looked – I was so scared you were – you looked…dead." She could hear a trembling vulnerability in his voice. She leaned back just far enough to look him in the eye.
Tears looked like they threatened to fall at any moment.
"Hey," she whispered, reaching up to touch his cheek. He tilted his head into her hand, comforted by the gentle caress. "I'm ok. We're ok."
He closed his eyes and took a deep, but still shaky breath. Athena felt heartbroken and flattered that he felt so strongly about her to express himself so readily. He was clearly torn up about what happened in the lake. She thought about how she might feel if the roles were reversed and Cedric was the one floating lifelessly at the bottom of the murky water. Pressure filled her chest, like a hand slowly squeezing her heart. She didn't want to imagine it. Tears welled in her own eyes.
She pulled his face down to hers and pressed a tender, sweet kiss to his lips, that he returned in kind. Breaking apart, she pressed her forehead to his. "I won't die on you, if you won't die on me, deal?"
He managed a half smile. "Deal." He kissed her again, much to the enjoyment of the spectators that whooped and whistled at them. They parted when the crowd hushed.
The judges Finished their deliberations and walked to where the Champions we're gathered on the shore. Dumbledore pointed his wand at his throat to magnify his voice. "Merchieftaness Murcus has just informed us what happened at the bottom of the lake, and we have decided to award the following marks."
From the Congress of judges, a rotund man in vibrant plum robes and a pink paisley tie stepped forward. Somewhere in the distance the Weasley twins were booing him. Athena did not recognize him, nor did she care, but the Weasley's reaction *was* curious. Ignoring the twins' jeers, the man continued announcing the scores.
They gave 25 points to Fleur for using the bubble head charm, even though she didn't finish. Krum was awarded 40 points for partial transfiguration (which Athena didn't think was possible). They gave Cedric 47 points, deducting a small amount for returning one minute outside the hour they'd been given for the task. Despite being the last one to the surface, the Merchieftaness reported Harry was the first to reach the hostages and was only delayed because he tried to rescue them all. They said something about moral fiber and determination to justify the decision to give Harry 45 points.
Athena couldn't help but roll her eyes. 'Of course he did,' she thought. As much as Harry would try to deny it, the boy had a savior complex.
Athena tuned out the rest of the announcement once they identified June 24th as the date of the Third Task. She snuggled into Cedric's side trying to absorb as much of his body heat as she possibly could. He didn't seem to mind. Even though she was dry, she was not prepared for the biting chill of the February wind.
Several feet away, Harry huddled up with Ron and Hermione, the latter of whom appeared to be swatting at a fly that buzzed around her fluffy hair. She breathed a sigh of relief, looking at the three fourth years. Even without her, they somehow figured it out in time. She made a mental note to ask Harry now he managed to do it later, but for now all she could focus on was the warmth of Cedric's body.
AN: We all know how Moody gets the Map, but no one ever mentions how Harry gets it back from him...Perhaps someone else takes possession of it?