Well, it looks like we're nearing the halfway point of Harry Potter and The
Scholar of Mystery, and I must admit that the story is going a little
longer than I thought. Don't worry, however, I promised my readers fifteen
chapters and that's what I'm going to give them! I'm sure that I'll think
of something, just as soon as my isolated brain cells stop fighting each
other and start helping me out. Well, my weekly ranting and raving is out
of the way! On to the disclaimer!
Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not own me and, in turn, I do not own Harry Potter. It seems like an even trade out in my book and I haven't seen any complaints so far! So, why mess with a good thing?
Chapter Eight- The Second Task
Seven weeks have passed since the night when Macnair broke into Hogwarts and the students, at least most of them, were gearing up for the long haul that was the spring semester. Snape's daily assignments were now maddeningly difficult and were becoming nearly impossible to deduce, even for the Slytherins. It seemed that Professor McGonagall had a new Transfiguration task for every single class, leaving most students impatient and distraught when they entered her classroom. Hagrid's blast-ended skrewts also seemed to be becoming even more anti-social than before, if such a thing were possible, and handling the volatile creatures became an even more dangerous task than before. Perhaps the most admired professor of the lot was Professor Flitwick, who every year it seemed, sympathized with the increasing labors that the spring semester brought and tried not to weigh them down with too much homework.
"Just remember," the diminutive Charms professor said as he performed another amazing feat in front of the astounded and grateful eyes of his students, "not to underestimate what you will be taught in my classroom."
Popular appeal for Professor Moody was now at an all-time low. Ever since the former Auror was denied the right to teach the Unforgivable curses to students after the debacle with Matt MacDougal, he seemed to satiate his frustrations by assigning more and more essays and field exams. The sheen of fascination and respect that many students had for the grizzled professor and the start of the term had faded away to be replaced by feelings of bare tolerance or sheer anger. Fred and George Weasley nearly dared to pull a prank on the paranoid professor, but their fear of him quickly removed Moody from their even- expanding target list.
However, the three students that pushed themselves the hardest were Matt, Harry, and Hermione. Silently agreeing that they should no longer be unprepared for something like the incident at New Years Eve, the three now engaged in laborious daily training rituals involving everything from practicing hexes to learning the martial arts. While Matt and Hermione taught Harry how to swim, Matt taught Harry and Hermione everything he knew about physical self-defense. While Hermione read up about every hex and charm that she could find in the library, Harry taught Matt and Hermione everything he knew about magical defense. Ron had attempted to adopt their new rigorous schedule for about a week until giving up in frustration when he discovered it left very little time for goofing off.
"I still don't understand how you guys ever do it." Ron claimed, as he watched Harry swim laps in the frigid water of the lake. Harry had taken to swimming very quickly and nowadays he nearly spent as much time in the water as he did on his racing broom.
"It's, huff, simple when you, huff, put your mind to it," Hermione grunted as she continued to practice her martial arts while talking to Ron. She was performing snap kicks that reached higher than her head. Ron gave an involuntary wince as he imagined the unfortunate fellow who ever stood in the way of something like that. After performing fifty kicks with the right leg she gave a few puffs of breath in the cold, winter air before shifting her stance and began kicking with her left leg. "You could probably be doing this too, Ron, if you didn't spend all your time pulling pranks and playing wizard chess."
"I wouldn't say that, Hermione," Matt said as he sat Indian-style on the snowy forest floor as he held his wand in one hand and a large book of spells in the other. "I still incite as much mayhem and general havoc as I did before we got started with this and I'm coming along just as good as you two are," he quipped as he placed the book aside and rolled the sleeves of his wizard robe up. "Forcis!"
Matt's newest incantation caused his body to hurtle backwards, his butt dragging through the snow as he tried desperately to slow his momentum before he tumbled into the lake. Ron was cackling as Matt dried himself off and stumbled back to his spell book.
"Perhaps you shouldn't speak so soon, Matt," Hermione tutted over Ron's laughter with a raised eyebrow.
"Don't worry about me, Hermione," Matt said as he sat back down to regain some composure. "Just a momentary setback," he said as he pointed his wand at Hermione's feet. "Forcis!" Matt's second attempt was far more successful than the first, causing a wave of sheer energy to collide with the snow near and around Hermione and hurtle into the air. Moments later, the bushy-haired Gryffindor was covered by a good twenty pounds of snow.
"I just needed the proper motivation," Matt said while Ron was now turning red from laughing so hard. Hermione continued to glare at the mischievous Ravenclaw as she stood unmoving despite now looking like a hastily formed snowwoman.
"Do I even want to know what just happened?" Harry asked as he strode up to join his friends, water still dripping off his chest and hair as he summoned his towel from his knap-sack.
"Nothing some perfectly good human transfiguration couldn't cure," Hermione growled menacingly as she began to brush the snow off her body.
"Don't mind her, Harry," Matt said, as he stood up off the cold ground, brushing the snow off his blue jeans. "She's always giving people cold receptions." Hermione ceased her brushing to flip Matt off while Harry's back was turned.
"Thanks for teaching me that heat shield charm, Matt," Harry said as he ran his towel through his hair. "I don't think I could have survived in that water without it!"
"Don't mention it, Harry," Matt said with a smile. "I'm always willing to go the extra mile to help the people I care about."
"Which probably explains why Hermione has so much snow on her clothes right now," Harry retorted while he assisted his friend by removing several chunks of snow from her hair.
"She just wanted to make sure that my force push hex worked!" Matt said with an innocent grin. Matt heard a significant growl from Hermione after saying those words.
"Perhaps we should get back to the castle before Hermione turns you into a rabbit," Harry said as he put his arm around Hermione's shoulders. Ron and Matt gave each other a sideways glance while Hermione tried to hide her blushing as they headed back to the warm confines of Hogwarts. The four of them could see the castle gates when a mysterious flying object suddenly crashed into the back of Ron's head.
"Yowch!" Ron said as he rubbed his head furiously, recognizing what hit him immediately. "You stupid owl!"
The owl ignored the cries of his master and continued to flutter around the four students at a very unnecessary rate of speed. Pigwidgeon, or "Pig" as he was often called, was a gift that Ron received at the end of the third term from Sirius Black. Harry's godfather called it a sort of "replacement pet" for Scabbers. At first, the youngest male Weasley was thrilled with the idea of an owl all to himself but he soon grew weary of the owl's hyperactive behavior and unerring tendency to crash into things for no apparent reason. In many ways, the diminutive, fluffy brown owl was quite similar to Ron. What Pig didn't have ways in the area of competence, he made up for with enthusiasm and sheer energy.
"When are you going to learn that you don't crash into the person that you have a letter for?" Ron screamed in frustration. Pigwidgeon, for an apology, continued to hoot merrily as he flew around Ron and the others.
"Don't be so hard on him!" Matt said with a good-natured grin as he held out his arm for Pig to land on. The Ravenclaw laughed as Pig eagerly accepted and started to bounce up and down like an out-of-control spring. "I'd just love to have an owl. I know my grandmother would never give me one!"
"I'd be happy to give you that silly git if he would just listen to a single word I say," Ron snarled as he glared at his pet. Harry, Hermione, and Matt knew he was joking. For all the words and nasty looks that Ron would give to him, he was the first to jump to Pig's protection whenever somebody talked down on him.
"Let's just see what this letter is about," Matt said as he harshly plucked the note from Pigwidgeon's leg. Matt perused the cover of the letter first before shrugging his shoulders and handing it to Harry.
"It's from Snuffles," Matt said as Harry accepted the note.
"Snuffles" was the pseudonym of Sirius Black. The former prisoner of Azkaban was currently hiding out in the outskirts of Hogsmeade so that he could better watch out for Harry during the Triwizard Tournament. The day after Macnair's attack, Harry and Hermione told Matt of Sirius' innocence and what really occurred during the night of the murder of James and Lily Potter.
"What does the note say?" Hermione asked while she tried to read the note over Harry's shoulder.
"It says to send the date of the next Hogsmeade weekend by return owl," Harry said as he rolled up the parchment.
"Wonder why he wants to know about the next Hogsmeade weekend?" Ron asked.
"Maybe we can go visit him!" Matt said as he jumped a bit in anticipation. Since learning about Black's escape from Azkaban and his well-earned reputation for being a rabble-rouser during his own days at Hogwarts, Matt had been pestering Harry to pay him a visit for the last several weeks.
"Whatever the case," said Harry, "I'm going to fetch a different owl to send a letter back."
"Matt and I will make an early trip to the library," Hermione said. "It's high time that we finish our History of Magic essay for Professor Binns," she continued, making sure to speak over Matt's grumbling. "What about you, Ron?"
"I'll go to the owlery with Harry just to make sure that this idiot," Ron said while pointing a finger at Pigwidgeon, "doesn't get into more trouble." Pigwidgeon continued to race up and down the length of Matt's arm, seemingly deaf to the frequent complaints of his owner. Soon, the four friends had arrived in the lobby of Hogwarts and went their separate ways.
It took a half an hour for Ron and Harry to make their way back from the owlery and spot Matt and Hermione sitting at their usual study table. Both of the students were writing with their quills while they leafed their way through a generous supply of books piled next to them. The two of them moved at such a frenetic pace that it almost seemed they were racing one another.
"Say what you want about Binns," Matt said while Harry and Ron took their seats and pulled out their own parchments, "but this essay on Olric the Oafish has been a real breeze to write!" Hermione looked up from her parchment and rolled her eyes at him.
"You're just happy to writing about a historical figure that's just as lame-brained and foolish as you are!" she said as lifted her essay of the table to proofread it.
"That's going a bit too far," Harry said sternly. "You underestimate Matt quite a bit."
"Damn right," Matt said, thumping Harry on the shoulder in appreciation.
"Don't be so sure," Hermione said as she smiled at her two friends. "After all, this is a man who accidentally turned his wife into a turnip and couldn't remember how to turn her back for seven months!"
"Actually, I wouldn't mind having a turnip for a wife," said Fred Weasley's voice. "That would make her much easier to manage!"
"Never thought I'd see you two here," Ron said with a grin as his brothers came into view.
"Don't make us hurt you, ya stupid prat," George said as he gave a light chokehold to his little brother.
"All kidding aside," Hermione said as she shook her head at the squabbling siblings. "Why are you here?"
"McGonagall wants to see you in her office," Fred said. "Said to come as soon as possible, she said."
"Her office?" Hermione said. Harry and Matt both began to hum a few bars of The Condemned Elegy before she shushed them. "I best go see what this is about," she said firmly as she stood up from her chair and began to pack up her belongings. "Could you put away my books for me, Matt?" she asked playfully.
"Fine, I'm your slave," Matt scoffed as he fought back the urge to throw one of the hefty tomes at her.
"And you best remember that," she said shrewdly as she walked out with a sniggering Fred and George Weasley in tow.
"She wasn't in the Great Hall for dinner," Harry said as he kicked one of the rusted over bathroom sinks in frustration. "Where on earth could she be?"
"Don't worry about it, Harry!" Matt said casually as he squirmed to find a more comfortable position on the toilet seat he was perched upon. "I'm sure she's perfectly all right."
"Maybe Professor McGonagall expelled her!" Moaning Myrtle crowed as she flitted about from one side of the bathroom to the other. It was nine o'clock at night and Harry and Matt were in the middle of their weekly pilgrimage to the gloomy ghoul's bathroom. The boys had invited Ron several times to join them on the trip but he refused right off the bat. And, after a half hour of standing around and chatting with the morose Myrtle, Harry could hardly blame him.
"In your dreams, Myrtle," Matt scoffed.
"Don't interrupt my dreams, you silly boy," Myrtle pestered while Matt cringed at the mention of Myrtle's pet name for him. Matt didn't have any complaints about visiting the ghost of the former class recluse. She reminded him of his great aunt Morgana, who would feed him lemon drops while she told him stories about his grandmother. Most children would have found such a thing extremely dull, but Matt always viewed the meeting as a valuable source of blackmail.
"You call me silly boy one more time Myrtle and I'll tell Peeves that you have a crush on him!" Matt yelled, causing Myrtle to blanch in horror. Peeves was the mischievous poltergeist whose purpose in life seemed to be to cause as much mayhem and havoc as inhumanly possible. Harry remembered back to an all-undead party in his second year when Peeves sent Myrtle back to her bathroom in tears amidst a shower of rotten peanuts and numerous insulting remarks.
"Don't you dare say a word to that scoundrel about me!" Myrtle shouted. "He's too much like Colin Grant back when I was in school. He'd constantly steal my glasses and would spread these awful rumors about me. I got back at him once I died, though," Myrtle said with the same grin she always had when she talked about pestering her childhood tormentors, "I haunted his wife for months on end. It serves him right for trying to make me feel so miserable."
Matt groaned in frustration as Myrtle continued to prattle on about her miserable time at Hogwarts. It seemed to only take the slightest remark for Myrtle to morph into a self- pitying ball of complaints about times gone by. 'For somebody who keeps telling us that she's had a rotten past, she sure likes to go on about it.' Matt grumbled.
"All right! All right!" Matt shouted over Myrtle's incessant yammering. "I won't tell Peeves anything! Just quit badgering us!"
Tears began to well up in Myrtle's eyes from the tone of Matt's voice. "Why do you have to be so rude to me?" she said sadly. "It's not like I've done anything to you."
"Except for peeking in the Prefects bathroom hoping you could see Harry naked." Myrtle blushed quite a bit at that declaration. It hadn't taken long for Matt to realize that Myrtle took quite a liking to Harry, although he honestly had no clue why and he didn't really feel like asking.
"The mermaid's song!" Harry roared. Matt and Myrtle both turned to Harry with looks of bewilderment on their faces.
"What are you going on about, Harry?" Matt asked, pleased to finally be getting away from his inane conversation with Moaning Myrtle.
"We've taken what you'll sorely miss," Harry answered, recalling the fourth line. "Professor McGonagall must have taken Hermione to be part of the second task!"
"We've taken what you'll sorely miss," Matt pronounced. "An hour long you'll have to look, and to recover what we took."
"But past an hour the prospect's black," Harry continued, his eyes widening with realization. "Too late, it's gone, it won't come back!" Matt paled as he finally understood the full implication of the song.
"You mean to tell me Hermione's life is on the line in this task?" Matt whispered urgently
"It sure looks like it," Harry said soberly.
"Why would the Ministry do something so foolish!" Matt said as he rose up from his seat. "It's only a contest, after all!"
"This is just insane," Harry said as he paced the floor. "I don't want anybody else involved in this, least of all Hermione!"
"I thought you liked me most of all, Harry!" Myrtle wept out as she finally caught on to the gist of the conversation. "Why didn't the merpeople take me?"
"Probably because the contest organizers wanted to give Harry a reason to go down there instead of something he'd rather leave behind and forget, you pimply monstrosity! Matt shouted, regretting the words just as soon as he said them. While Harry gave Matt a cross look, Myrtle slowly slinked away from the two wizards, huge gobs of tears welling up in her eyes.
"Myrtle," Harry said cautiously. "I'm sure he didn't mean it."
"I HOPE YOUR LITTLE GIRLFRIEND DROWNS!" Myrtle screamed as she flew straight into one of the urinals, nearly splashing Harry and Matt.
"That was hardly necessary, Matt," Harry said with his arms crossed. Matt's tongue was stretching his right cheek as he searched for an answer.
"You're right," Matt said simply as he walked over to the toilet where Myrtle made her melodramatic exit. With one quick motion, the Ravenclaw pushed down the handle and five gallons of water plus one depressed ghost flooded into the lake of the giant squid.
"Matt!" Harry shouted.
"What?" Matt said with a shrug of his shoulders as he started to make his quick exit from the loo. "With any luck, she'll scare off some of the sea creatures and make tomorrow's task a little easier!"
Harry was fortunate enough to even get a few hours of sleep the night before the second task. The vision of Hermione thrashing about at the bottom of the lake gasping for oxygen seemed to haunt him every time he closed his eyes. Ron and Neville kept trying to assure him that Dumbledore would hardly allow for someone to be harmed,, but that was small consolation for Harry. Finally, Ron was forced to cast a sleeping hex on Harry so that he could at least get some rest.
Harry was greeted the next morning by the concerned faces of Ron and Matt, the latter of whom ad somehow managed to sneak back into the Gryffindor common room. Harry stretched for his glasses while Ron handed him a tray of bacon along with a healthy supply of pancakes and syrup.
"You've got three hours before the task starts, Harry!" Matt said as he removed the gillyweed from his knap-sack and handing it to him. "Best to eat up and take a shower!"
It took quite a bit of convincing on the part of Ron and Matt for Harry to consent to eating breakfast-in- bed. The black-haired boy stared out of one of the windows of the dormitory to spot an impressive array of grandstands that seemed to have been built over night. A group of Ministry officials were already about the lake, some monitoring the denizens of the water while others prepared the stands.
The next two hours before the second task were agonizing for Harry. Matt and Ron were constantly at his side asking him if he would be okay. Lavendar Brown and Parvati Patil would constantly stare at Harry and then turn to each other and whisper furiously as soon as Harry looked at them. Harry was reasonably certain that Professor Trelawney had seen a grim outcome for him today. Ginny Weasley's face was disturbingly pale, nearly the same shade as it was on the day of the first task. Meanwhile, Draco Malfoy and many of the Slytherins had their POTTER STINKS buttons out in full force and were teasing Harry about Hermione's absence.
"Is little orphan Potter crying over his little girlfriend?" Pansy Parkinson screeched with her all-too familiar rat-like voice, causing Goyle and Crabbe to nearly double over with laughter. It seemed like Harry had spent two months in the Great Hall when Ludo Bagman, the organizer of the Triwizard Tournament, appeared, looking as resplendent and over-dressed as ever in his purple and black wizard robes.
"Students of Hogwarts," Bagman cried, his voice magically amplified with a Sonorus charm. "Please make your way to the grand stands to watch the second task. Triwizard Champions, please follow me."
Once again, Harry was the center of attention as he, along with the other champions, followed Bagman out of the crowded Great Hall and made their way to the tiny lake. The jam- packed grandstands seemed to explode with applause as Fluer Delaclour, Viktor Krum, and Cedric Diggory made their way to the site of the event. Harry flanked the other participants, the ball of gillyweed crammed into the crook of his right arm. Matt and Ron were walking behind him at either side as a show of support, like foot soldiers accompanying the general to the front lines.. As Bagman approached the shallows of the lake, Harry looked out into the stands for any sign of his godfather or any members of the Weasley family.
"I'll be watching you Harry," the small voice of Peter Pettigrew rang in Harry's mind. He shuddered at the memory of the statement, knowing full well that Pettigrew was most likely out there somewhere.
"That's weird," Matt said, snapping Harry out of his reveries.
"What's weird?" asked Ron, his eyes still on the crowd.
"Your brother is one of the Triwizard judges, Ron," Matt said, pointing to the judge's table at a lanky red-haired young man with a stuffy look on his face. Ron rolled his eyes at the sight.
"Wonderful! I'm sure we'll be hearing about this from Percy," Ron said as he quickly looked away from his older brother. "Who would be stupid enough to make him a judge?"
"Barty Crouch must have taken ill or something," Harry said, his eyes also on the judge's table. Percy currently worked at the Department of International Magical Cooperation where Bartimus Crouch was his superior. Percy had made certain to remark what an incredible man that Mr. Crouch was on every occasion, so much so that Fred and George claimed that they were nearly ready to place their older brother in Azkaban under the charge of extreme egotism and hero-worship.
"That's strange," Matt said as he cupped his chin in a vaguely Snape- like fashion. "Crouch has always had a reputation for being punctual even under the most extreme circumstances."
"No wonder Percy fawns over him so much!" Ron scoffed. "Seems like two peas in a pod, those two."
"It was his branch of the Ministry that helped organize this tournament with Bagman," Matt said, ignoring Ron's petulant complaining. "What would make him miss something like this?"
"That's something we can save for later," Harry said resolutely, still trying to keep his mind on the task ahead of him.
"Sorry about that Harry," Matt said sheepishly.
"Champions, please make your way to the edge of the lake!" Bagman's voice ordered over the cheers of the audience. Before Harry could make his way there, Matt had taken a firm grip on his shoulders and turned him around, a look of pure seriousness and intensity on his usually carefree features.
"You go find Hermione. We'll be cheering you on the whole way," he said evenly.
"Get out there and show Cedric Diggory who the real champion of Hogwarts is!" Ron shouted with enthusiasm, causing Harry to smile in relief that he wasn't really alone on this one. Ron and Matt dashed to the stands, while Harry removed his robes and stripped down to a pair of red swim trunks. Once the four champions had arrived at their destination, Bagman continued.
"The task will begin on my whistle! The champions have one hour to recover their hostage and return to the surface. On the count of three, then. One. . .two. . .three!"
The harsh sound of the whistle seemed to bounce off the lake as the thousands of people in the stands erupted in cheers. Harry, not even bothering to look at what the other champions were doing, quickly peeled a generous slice of the gillyweed from the amassed ball and placed in his mouth before dashing out into the water. The late-winter weather still left the lake a bit cold, but that problem was easily solved with a carefully constructed heat shield. While the other champions dove underwater, Harry treaded a bit, awaiting for the effects of the gillyweed to take place. Quite a few people in the stands were murmuring with confusion. Some of the Slytherins even began to laugh out loud.
Harry was just about to dive underwater out of impatience and frustration until a sharp sensation stung him just above his neck, almost like he had been shot. He quickly brought his hands to his neck in hopes of alleviating the pain but was quite surprised to feel something that wasn't supposed to be there. Small slits had grown just below Harry's ears, the winter air causing them to flap about like chimes in the summer afternoon. He suddenly couldn't take in any oxygen through his lungs, his head starting to spin anemically.
'Looks like they don't call it gillyweed for nothing,' Harry mused as he poked a bit more at his newly developed gills before diving underwater.
The icy depths of the lake felt wonderful to Harry as he swam deeper and deeper, great gulps of water filtering in and out of his gills with every breath. Harry had just recovered from the shock of this occurrence only to discover that his hands had expanded, almost looking like the webbed hands of a duck. The skin of his lower legs began to loosen and expand to compliment the sudden bone-growth. He twisted around and looked at his now elongated feet, which were far more suitable for the underwater escapade before him.
'Eat your heart out Aquaman,' Harry thought with a hard grin as he continued his quest downward, his flipper-like feet propelling him at speeds that he could not possibly accomplish under normal circumstances.
It had taken several minutes for Harry to adjust his eyes to the dark- blues and inky black shades of the water. Even the use of a Lumos spell only allowed Harry to see about fifteen feet in front of him, a far cry from the normal standards. The unyielding silence of the ocean would have normally irked Harry, but the effects of the gillyweed made it seem like a second home, both physically and psychologically. His body was warmed to such an extent that he no longer even needed the heat shield. Small schools of fish seemed to watch him as he went further and further underwater, quite shocked at the very uncommon site of a young man with gills.
Harry was still swimming about the middle of the ocean, hoping for a sign as to where to go. He was reasonably certain that Hermione would be at the bottom but he didn't want to take that risk if it were possible. His speed and limited vision hurt him greatly, the ocean seemingly becoming a different place every time he blinked. His frustration was beginning to resurface again.
"How are you getting on?"
A flurry of bubbles erupted from Harry's mouth as he whirled around to see the transparent form of Moaning Myrtle. He tried to shout out at her for nearly causing him a heart attack but nothing came out of his mouth except another load of bubbles. Myrtle giggled quite a bit at that while Harry slapped his forehead with his webbed hands and cast a Sonorus charm on himself.
"Why are you down here?" Harry said, his voice distorted, but still coherent through the water.
"Hermione is at the bottom of the lake about a half mile west of here!" Myrtle said urgently. "You've got to hurry it up!"
"Thanks, Myrtle!" Harry said, giving the ghost a thumbs up in appreciation. "What made you change your mind?" Harry could spot Myrtle blushing even in the dank ocean.
"Well. . .," Myrtle said slowly, "it's just that. . ." her eyes suddenly went wide. "HARRY, LOOK OUT!"
A pair of grindylows had snuck up behind Harry during his conversation with Myrtle and now had their long fingers clutched tightly around Harry's legs. Their shiny-white jaws and wrinkled green skin looked menacing in the blue-green hues of the water. Harry frantically thought back to his classes with Professor Lupin on how to deal with these water demons. In seconds, Harry had his wand pointed at the two grindylows, the tip of it burning with white energy.
"Forcis!" he cried, as a force bolt emerged from his wand. The bolt immediately split into two and connected right between the eyes of both demons, causing them to release their grip harshly, a small stream of blood surfacing from Harry's calf. Myrtle, never being one to watch violence, stared in shock at the wound.
"Run away, Harry!" Myrtle shouted. As much as Harry would have liked to do so, he also learned in Professor Lupin's class that grindylows also tended to travel in packs. Sure enough, as soon as he turned around he was greeted by about two-dozen grindylows, each of them looking none too pleased that a disgusting human had just pounded their brethren.
Harry had managed to take out about half of them with various hexes before the rest of the water demons were upon him. They all surrounded the black-haired Gryffindor and began to lash at the boy with their sharp jaws and spindly fangs. Even underwater, Harry's body was a wave of motion as he used his arms and legs to ward the creatures off. Several of his kicks connected quite harshly with some of the creatures' horned skulls, but it only seemed to increase their fury. Myrtle was still screaming in fright as several of the water demons finally connected with their fangs and jaws, causing even more of Harry's blood to spray out into the ocean.
'This is a pretty lousy way to die,' Harry thought as he tried to drown out both the pain and Myrtle's screaming. Several more dozen grindylows had joined in the battle, attracted by the scent of Harry's blood. After several minutes of intense fighting, over a dozen long hands had trapped Harry in their grip. clasping upon his arms.
Harry often thought about how he would die. He always imagined a sea of red visions slowly forming into black as he would fade away into the great beyond. Whether it was Voldemort, Macnair, or some vicious creature, Harry always knew he would die someday. It almost seemed to be what people were waiting for him to do. After all, his parents died to save the world from Voldemort, didn't they? Why should he be any different? He was lined up to be a martyr since that fateful Halloween night.
"Run, Harry!" Myrtle screamed, her voice seemingly wedging itself into his mind's eye.
"It will all be okay, Harry!" his mother said soothingly, the scrapes of battle outside his room. "I'll die before I let them have you!"
"I promise to protect you," Sirius Black said as they made their way out of the Shrieking Shack. "It is my duty. I am your godfather after all."
"If Snape hadn't been performing that counter-curse all that time," Professor Quirrel sneered at him, "you would have fallen off that broomstick and broken your neck!"
"It's you that has to go on, Harry," Ron said while riding a porcelain- white horse. "Not me, not Hermione, you!"
"You leave Harry alone, you monster!" Matt screamed as hurtled his bloodied and broken body at Macnair.
"Get out of here!" James Potter said soberly as he pushed Lily and his young son to the living room. "Protect Harry!"
Protect Harry. . .
Protect Harry. . .
Protect Harry. . .
'Yes, that's always been that way with you, hasn't it?' a voice inside Harry's head said evenly. 'So many people have sacrificed their lives for you and what have you given them? Why should you even The Boy Who Lived? It would be more accurate to call you The Boy Who Should Have Died! It was your mother who cast that reflective shield on you, not yourself. You were just a means to an end! You always have been! You always will be!'
"That's not true!" Harry screamed as he fought the wave of pain and nausea that assaulted him.
'You wouldn't have gotten the Sorcerer's Stone if it wasn't for Ron, Snape, and Hermione! And what about in the Chamber of Secrets with that basilisk? You didn't honestly think that it was you who summoned Fawkes and the sword of Gryffindor, did you? And what about Pettigrew? You didn't even manage to catch him! Your godfather might get sent back to Azkaban because you don't know how to take care of yourself. It's so sad that so many people have sacrificed their lives to support such an abysmal failure!'
"I AM NOT A FAILURE!!" Harry screamed as his emerald-green eyes flashed furiously. The gills below his ears began to flip about wildly as though they were caught in a typhoon. Every cell of his body seemed charged as sparks began to resonate from his body. Some of the grindylows began to inch away from their prey, quite confused about the goings about but not willing to run away from such easy prey. Soon, Harry's entire body was thinly covered with a field of pure electricity, something in his body allowing him to survive such a thing despite the vicious conditions of the water.
"I CAN PROTECT MYSELF!" The electrical field gave a short pulse before expanding violently in a ten-foot radius of Harry's heart. Some of the more unfortunate grindylows could not even run as they were struck with 200,000 volts of energy, frying their brittle bones in mere hundredths of a second. Some of the other demons were able to flee for the slightest moment, but the field soon eclipsed them too, burning the creatures' bodies into cinders of dust that were soon broken up by the water and forgotten.
Harry gasped at the sudden loss of energy as his eyes changed back to its normal elegant hue. The gills on the sides of his neck began to flutter once again at their normal rate. There was not a single living creature even close to Harry. Only Moaning Myrtle remained, who continued to stare at Harry as if she had seen a ghost.
"What just happened?" Harry said as he stared at his hands in confusion. "What did I just do?" Harry's confusion only caused Myrtle to go paler and back further away.
"I think I'll go back to my bathroom now," Myrtle said as Harry looked at her. "There are all sorts of strange creatures in these waters." Myrtle's pace seemed to increase significantly the more Harry seemed to stare at her. "It can, well, be quite frightening!"
"Well," Myrtle said as she absently pointed back at Hogwarts, "Igottagobyebye!" she said as she rocketed out of the water and out of Harry's sight. For another minute or so, Harry stood floating in the water, searching every corner of his mind to try and figure out just what had happened. Then, another vision sprang into his head, a young woman with bushy-brown hair who might die because of him. Without another thought, Harry zoomed down to the ocean floor, not even knowing how much time he had left.
It took another ten minutes of frantic searching before Harry finally found the cove of the merpeople. It was hardly the amazingly advanced civilization that Harry pictured it to be. Stone houses seemed lined up and down the ocean floor, some of them wrapped with green and blue algae while others were decorated with bright shells and paintings. He was able to spy some of the merpeople peeking out at him through holes in the walls while he swam for the town square. Their eyes reminded Harry of strong yellow flashlights, shining dully into the gloom of the water as he made his way forward. Harry knew he had come to the right place when he spotted several dozen merpeople clustered around one another, each of them holding spears or other forms of primitive weaponry. Each of them had wild, dark green hair that seemed to float along with the ocean, their yellowing teeth seemingly leering at him as he made his way closer.
Finally, he spotted his ultimate destination: a large stone statue of what appeared to be an old chief of the village. Four people were tied tightly to the tail of it with what appeared to be seaweed. 'I guess ropes don't fare too well underwater,' he thought. He recognized three of the hostages: Hermione, Cho Chang, and Katie Bell, a Chaser for the Gryffindor Quidditch team. The fourth prisoner looked to be very young and had pale-white skin and graceful silver hair that seemed to shine even in the dank atmosphere of the lake floor.
'Must be Fleur's sister,' Harry said as he placed his webbed hands on the seaweed and tried to rip it apart. 'She certainly looks the part.'
The weed was made of sterner stuff than Harry imagined, however, because no matter how much strength he put on, the bindings did not even seem to strain. Harry's eyes frantically searched around the town square for something sharp. He swam to the contingent of merpeople hoping that he could borrow a spear, but the sea creatures merely laughed and backed away.
"We do not help," one of the mermen said roughly while his apparent mate pointed at Harry and laughed. "You must find your own means!"
Other merpeople started to laugh at the look of frustration on Harry's face as he angrily turned away from them 'Something sharp, something sharp,' Harry murmured as he skimmed the ocean floor. Harry's eyes lit up when he saw a jagged rock near one of the houses surrounding the town square. He quickly swam his way over, gave a cheery wave to the merman who was watching him while inside the house, and rushed back to the stone statue.
The work was both stressful and tedious, for Harry was afraid that the rock would break while he cut and also because he didn't know how much time he had left. He gazed into the closed eyes of his best friend, who was still fast asleep amidst all this mysterious chaos, her brown hair slumping down the front of Fluer's sister. With a determined two-handed slash, Hermione's bonds were finally cut and she began to float over the statue.
Much of Harry wanted to grab Hermione and quickly zoom to the surface but the back of his mind got to thinking.
'Where are the others?' he thought as the merpeople looked at him, confused by Harry's sudden hesitation. 'It took me quite a while to get down here and there isn't any sign of the others.' Harry turned his gaze back to Katie and Cho. He remembered the times when Katie would cheer him up when a Quidditch practice went bad. And Cho, she looked so graceful even in this bleak environment. His attraction to the pretty Ravenclaw had lessened out of respect for Cedric but she could still draw butterflies in his stomach even under these stressful circumstances. He didn't know Fluer's sister, but he was sure that she was the most precious thing to Fleur for a reason.
'Can't leave 'em down here,' Harry thought resignedly as he picked up the jagged stone and began to hack away at the rest of the binds. Within moments, six mermen were upon him pulling him away from the other hostages. Some of them were still laughing at him.
"You take your own hostage," a pink-haired mermaid spoke up, her tone firm and unyielding. "You must leave the others."
"Forget it!" Harry said as he struggled impotently. "I won't let them die!"
"You have completed your task, Mr. Potter," the mermaid announced. "Return to the surface and leave the others."
"What if they don't show up!" Harry screamed. Some of the merpeople started gasping and pointing upwards.
"One of them has already arrived." Harry's head was turned to see Cedric Diggory swimming towards the stone statue. An enormous bubble was around his head, making his normally fair face look extremely wide and distorted.
'Must have used the Bubblehead charm,' Harry thought as he felt the grip of the mermen begin to loosen.
A fairly alarming looking creature that caused many of the merpeople to shortly followed Cedric shrink away. It was a human body that, bizarrely enough, had the head of a shark. Harry recognized the swim trunks the strange hybrid wore as the same that Krum was wearing when the task began.
'That's two out of three,' Harry said as the mermen finally released him while Cedric used a knife to sever the rest of Cho's bonds. 'But where's Fleur?'
Krum had used the same jagged stone that Harry had used to free Hermione and was now swimming to the surface holding Katie to his waist as he swam with a speed that nearly matched Harry's.
Once again, Harry had become the principal attraction of the merpeople as he waited for Fleur to show up. After another minute, Harry pointed his wand menacingly at the merpeople as he used his other hand to hack at the binds of Fleur's sister.
"Stop him!" the mermaid screamed as another group of mermen charged after him. Time was beginning to run out as the mermen surrounded him and closed in. Somebody else was going to die because he wasn't strong enough! Harry just wouldn't have that!
"I'm taking this girl with me!" Harry bellowed as he shot an enormous force bolt from his wand, driving the mermen back in fear. "The first one that gets in my way is going to regret it!" he warned, staring the merchieftaness in the eyes while he said it. He expected the tall and elegant leader to continue her assault, so he was quite surprised when what appeared to be a smile show up on her face as she ushered her soldiers back.
"Hurry to the surface then, Mr. Potter," she said. "Dumbledore will hear about this." Heedless of the mermaid's warning, Harry quickly slashed the seaweed holding Fleur's sister and held the little girl to his waist. A brief bit of swimming allowed him to place Hermione in his right arm. Thus, with both hostages as safely secure as possible under the circumstances, Harry set his webbed feet to the ocean floor and pushed off with all the strength he could muster.
With over two hundred pounds of deadweight now strapped to his shoulders, his legs were now begging for him to stop as he struggled slowly to the surface. The loss of blood from his fight with the grindylows was really beginning to take hold of him as a feeling of horrible weariness cascaded upon him with every kick of his feet. The water became brighter and brighter as sunlight began to filter its way through the water. Harry could feel his metatarsals shrink and the muscles around his shins give out as his feet and hands slowly returned to normal. Harry cursed as he realized that his hour of influence under gillyweed was about to end. The gills below his ears began to shrank and ultimately faded away as if they were never there, his lungs once again begging for oxygen as he continued to streak upward. He stole a glance at Hermione as he pushed to the surface, her closed eyes nearly giving a placid look on her features.
'Some people have all the luck,' Harry thought darkly as his legs and arms seemed to scream at him.
The cold air that slapped Harry in the face once he reached the surface was the closest thing to nirvana he had ever felt. The cold temperature of the water meant nothing to him as Harry began to pull Hermione and the little girl to the surface using nothing more than his own adrenaline. Nearly everyone in the crowd was on their feet making an incredible amount of noise. But, Harry was far more relieved when Hermione's chocolate-brown eyes snapped open and blinked rapidly to take in the scene.
"Harry!" she gasped, her strained voice sounding like music to Harry's ears. "What is going on? Who is that girl?" she asked, staring at the confused form of the little girl tucked away in Harry's left arm.
"Fleur's. . . sister. . ." he panted, as he labored his way across the water. "Had to help her!"
"Let me have her," Hermione said as the gears began to turn in her brain. She slowly pried the little girl from Harry's arms. "Grab onto my shoulder, I'll get us to the shore!" she cried, her sharp mind now fully aware of what was going on. Harry continued to breathe in air like a dying man as Hermione slowly kicked her way to the shore. Madam Pomfrey was upon the three of them as soon as Hermione hit the surface, covering them with towels and nearly shoving them to a nearby tent.
"Let's take care of those cuts, Potter!" Pomfrey said in her usual bossy tone. "I wish you'd take better care of yourself!"
Dumbledore and Ludo Bagman were smiling broadly at Harry as he and Hermione made their way to the tent. Percy was clapping like a madman while Igor Karkaroff simply shrugged his shoulders and remained seated. Madame Maxine, meanwhile, was with Hagrid trying to calm a hysterical Fleur Delacour, who seemed to be fighting both of them in an effort to get to her sister.
"Gabrielle! Gabrielle! Is she alive? Is she 'urt?"
"She's just fine!" Hermione shouted, her right arm supporting Harry as they both stumbled to the tent. That seemed to do little to alleviate Fleur's fears as she broke free from Maxine and Hagrid and hugged Gabrielle so fiercely that Gabrielle looked like she was about to choke.
"I am fine. I am fine." The eight-year-old half-veela said quietly. Harry winced as he saw the many cuts and bruises on Fleur's face and arms. It appeared that he wasn't the only one that had run into grindylows on the way down.
"Zey attacked me," Fleur said as tears streamed down her face, all the elegancy and posh behavior that Harry had associated with her forgotten. "Ze grindylows! I thought I would never see you again!"
"Mrs. Delacour, Mr. Potter, Mrs. Granger, please come here now!" Pomfrey said, her firm voice not losing a bit of its edge. The four magicians soon hustled their way into the tent, where Madam Pomfrey wrapped them all in blankets and gave each of them a Pepperup potion to recover from the effects of the cold water. It took quite an effort on Pomfrey's part to assist Fleur, who was refusing help and insisted to give Gabrielle the utmost care before Pomfrey laid a finger on her.
"Harry, you prat!" Hermione scolded him, although she had a huge smile on her face. "Why did you spend so much time in the town square! You could have been the first to finish!"
"Someone had to rescue her," Harry said as he motioned his head toward Gabrielle, who gave Harry a flicker of a smile. "I didn't know if Fleur would make it or not!"
"You saved 'er," Fleur said breathlessly, the beautiful glow starting to return to her graceful features. "You saved my sister!" The silver-haired half-veela rose to her feet and, taking Harry's flushed face in her hands, kissed Harry twice on each cheek.
"Er. . ." mumbled Harry, as his face went beet-red. It was his first kiss from a girl and he had never thought he'd be receiving it from a beautiful woman three years older than he was. "It wasn't nothing," he said, scratching the back of his wild hair. Hermione somehow managed to hold in her laughter as Harry nearly shrunk to the size of a house-elf.
"And you 'elped as well!" Fleur cried, her eyes now on Hermione. The brown-haired girl cocked her head a bit and gave a careless smile.
"It was the least I could do," Hermione said simply. "You don't owe me anything." 'You already paid it,' Hermione thought bemusedly as she continued to look at Harry, who continued to sink into his chair and placed his towel over his head. Even Gabrielle began to laugh at Harry's behavior.
'Serves me right for being selfless,' Harry thought darkly as he looked at the three women through the towel. Soon enough, Ron and Matt had raced into the tent, jubilant looks on their faces.
"That's how you do it Harry!" Ron said, clapping Harry firmly on the shoulders.
"Couldn't have done it better myself," Matt said, standing in the corner of the tent with his arms crossed. "Bagman's announcing the scores, so you and Fleur best get out here!"
With an excited rush, Harry and the others were out of the tent and back near the coastline. They were met by Bagman's magically magnified voice announcing the results.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the judges have reached their decision after a brief conference with Merchieftainess Murcus to review just what happened below the lake and we have decided to award the points for each of our champions as follows. . ."
'Murcus?' Harry thought as he looked back at the lake, where Dumbledore was speaking with the pink- haired mermaid who had commanded Harry to leave the other hostages. Murcus apparently caught Harry's gaze and gave the young man a wink with her sharp green eyes.
"First, Fleur Delaclour," Bagman continued. "Though she demonstrated excellent use of the Bubble- Head Charm, she was attacked by grindylows as she approached her goal and failed to retrieve her hostage. She receives twenty-five points."
There was very little cheering from the stands. Fleur was hardly the fan-favorite in this tournament, mostly due to her veela blood. Perhaps the person who applauded the loudest for her was Harry, who had gained a newfound respect for the Beauxbatons champion. Fleur gave a sad smile of thanks to Harry as she shook her magnificent head.
"I don't think I deserve any at all," she said glumly as her little sister tried to cheer her up.
"Second, to Cedric Diggory," Bagman went on as he gestured to the soaked Hufflepuff to his left, "who also used the Bubble-Head Charm, was first to return with his hostage. We therefore award him forty- seven points."
An enormous wave of cheers emerged from the grandstands, particularly from the Hufflepuff section, nearly all of who were leaping about and dancing like mental ward patients. Harry couldn't help but scowl as Cho gave Cedric an exceedingly glowing look. Hermione, seemingly reading Harry's thoughts, lightly tapped Harry's shoulder and gave him a grin.
"Third, to Viktor Krum, who used a rather, er, interesting, form of Transfiguration." Much of the crowd seemed to laugh at Bagman's remark. It appeared that Viktor's choice for countering the water shocked the people in the grandstands as much as the merpeople. "However, despite the disagreements that many of the judges had with his technique, he was the second to return with his hostage. Therefore he receives forty points."
The small contingent of Durmstrang students roared with applause as Viktor kept his trademark shy, brooding look. Katie, meanwhile, had wrapped her strong arms around Viktor's neck and kissed him full on the lips, which made much of the audience to erupt with cheers (although some of the ladies were a bit jealous). Harry could see Viktor's blush from twenty-five feet away.
"Lastly, to Harry Potter," Bagman said as he gestured back to the tent where Harry was standing, "who used gillyweed to great effect, managed to deal with an enormous pack of grindylows before reaching the hostages. He returned last, and well outside the time limit of an hour. However, the Merchieftaness informed us that Mr. Potter was the first to reach the hostages and that his delay was due to his determination to return all the hostages to safety, not just his own."
Ron gaped at Harry while Matt and Fleur gave him very approving looks. Hermione simply squeezed Harry's shoulders lightly, causing Harry to perk up and smile a bit.
"Thus, for Mister Potter's moral fiber and bravery, we award Harry Potter forty-eight points."
Harry had no time to react as Ron and Matt nearly ran him over while Hermione seemed to nearly crush him with her embrace. The Gryffindor grand stands were now making enough noise to wake the dead. Not even the extensive boos of the Slytherins could drown out the racket. While Harry struggled to tell his friends to stop congratulating him, Fleur and Gabrielle also were applauding furiously.
"You've won the first two events, Harry!" Hermione shouted as she released her embrace. "You've just got one more to go!"
"The third and final task will take place on the morning of June 24th," continued Bagman. "Each champion will be notified of what is coming one month beforehand. Thank you all for your support of our Triwizard champions!"
The celebration in the Gryffindor common room lasted well into the night. Katie had somehow managed to drag Viktor Krum into the proceedings, where he was constantly being commended for his, as Dean Thomas so eloquently put it, "killer shark trick". Meanwhile, the Weasley brothers spent much of the day either gathering food from the house-elf kitchens or causing as much trouble around the Hogwarts grounds as humanly possible, so much so that Professor McGonagall had threatened them to turn them into mice if they tried anything else.
"You will return Malfoy's broom at once," Professor McGonagall shrilled as she continued to chase the siblings about the halls.
"Come on, grandma!" Ron said merrily as he rushed back to the Gryffindor common room after sneaking into the Slytherin common room and causing a rather great deal of havoc.
"Yeah! You should go and rest your varicose veins!" George snorted derisively.
"Fifty points off of Gryffindor! And a week's detention for all of you!" McGonagall screamed as she tried desperately to keep up with the troublemaking siblings.
"Oh, dear!" Fred said as he ran alongside his twin brother. "I guess you all know what this means!"
"Yep," Ron said as he stopped running. "Looks like Slytherin will finally have a chance to win the House Cup."
The trio of redheads were all howling with laughter as Professor McGonagall caught up with them and nearly dragged them to her office.
The last remains of the winter winds that crashed down upon the top of the Astronomy Tower soothed Harry as he wrapped his father's invisibility cloak around his shoulders. The visions that flooded his mind during his fight with the grindylows troubled him far more than anything Mother Nature could possibly throw at him. He wanted to talk to anyone about what happened down there: Dumbledore, Moody, Professor McGonagall. Hell, he'd settle for Snape, he wasn't that picky! But he was the golden boy, the boy of destiny, The Boy Who Lived. He was supposed to be above such petty concerns and problems. He was the hero of the wizarding world, after all. The revered looks that witches and wizards gave him now frightened him just as much as Voldemort himself. What did he ever do to earn such a high acclaim! Why did he have so much money loaded in Gringotts to his name while other wizards were starving and broken? Why does he get one of the finest racing brooms in the world while so many other deserving people must struggle for everything they receive?
In short, what made him so fucking special?
"You can call me strange if you like, but I do believe that the source of the celebration should at least remain at the celebration itself. It makes things far simpler for the rest of us."
Harry whirled around to see Hermione standing at the base of the stairs, her usual sardonic grin seemingly framed on her face.
"How did you get up here without someone spotting you?" Harry asked softly. Hermione didn't respond immediately as she slowly walked towards the precipice of the roof and looked down at the Forbidden Forest below.
"There is one advantage to the Weasleys causing so much unnecessary trouble," she responded as she sat down next to Harry, her somewhat scrawny legs dangling over the edge. "Filch and McGonagall are too busy watching them to pay attention to anyone else." Harry just gave a brooding laugh and looked up at the half-moon.
"So," Hermione started as she cupped her knees with her small hands, "why are you brooding up here in this cold February night?"
Harry sighed heavily while Hermione waited patiently for her friend's response. She knew this routine all too well. "When I was fighting the grindylows in the water," Harry said, his eyes still locked on the half-moon. "I started to visualize about everything that's happened. When I found out about Quirrel. My fight against the basilisk. The day I found out Sirius was innocent. The day when my mother and father. . ."
"The night they fought Voldemort," Hermione continued. It was the first time Hermione had ever said the vile wizard's name, but neither Harry or Hermione really noticed it.
"I did something frightening to those grindylows, Hermione," Harry went on shakily. "I killed them all without a second thought. I've always been told that I have some kind of special power, but that was really the first time I truly saw it. I saw my gifts for what they truly were. Nothing more than just simple instruments of destruction, of hatred, of death."
"They would have killed you if you hadn't Harry." Hermione said slowly.
"BUT THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT RIGHT!" Harry screamed as he stood up with a jerk and fired a Forcis hex into the night sky. "Ever since I was a year old I have been surrounded by death and suffering! My mother, my father, Remus, Sirius, so many people have been harmed or had their lives ruined simply because they knew who I was! I don't even know the number of Aurors died so that I could be kept safe while I was at the Dursleys!" Tears started to roll down Harry's cheeks as the invisibility cloak fell to his feet.
"And what about you? You nearly died on New Years Eve simply because you knew me! What's going to happen if or when Voldemort comes back to power! Everything and everyone that knows me is in danger and I don't know if I have the strength to protect them all! So many more will die simply because I remain alive!" Harry fell to his knees as his glasses fell of his nose and silently shattered on the stone.
Hermione didn't say a word as she hefted herself up from the precipice and sank to her knees to join Harry. She picked up the broken remnants of Harry's spectacles and quietly used a Repario charm to fix them. She used her right hand to gently tilt Harry's downcast face and slid the glasses across his nose.
"Harry," she began. "We are all aware of the risks that we took when we called you a friend. Ron, Sirius, Matt, Remus, even Dumbledore knows that we will become targets simply because we stand by your side. We're not innocent bystanders who you have to keep a watch over, we're people that have just joined you in the same boat. Nobody should have to handle the burden you bear alone."
Harry sniffed quietly as he used his right hand to wipe away some of the tears from his emerald-green eyes.
"Your father and your mother sacrificed their lives because they hoped that you would make them proud. I don't think they would approve of you very much if you gave up now. You should feel guilty for what has happened before, you must never let that guilt go no matter how much it hurts you! You have to use the hope and faith that people have placed in you and use it as your inspiration. Just remember that we all befriended you because we wanted to be by your side and help you face your troubles, not to get in your way."
Harry swallowed thickly as a final tear slid down his face and crashed onto the stone floor.
"Thank you, Hermione," he croaked. Hermione's compassionate countenance was once again replaced by her familiar wry grin.
"Just leave it to your big sister Hermione to cheer you up when you're down!" she said as she wrapped her arm around Harry's shoulders. Even Harry couldn't fight off a little laugh.
"Big sister, huh? I thought I was older than you are?"
"Then you should stop moaning and bitching and acting like a little brother!" Hermione said perkily. The two Gryffindors both laughed as the bright light of the winter moon shined on them. Harry's eyes slowly turned to meet Hermione's. Silence seemed to reign along Hogwarts as Harry and Hermione gazed into one another's eyes.
"All joking aside," Hermione said, her voice suddenly very strained. "I just want you to, um, remember, that I'll always be by your side."
"Always?" asked Harry, his face moving closer and closer to Hermione.
"Always," said Hermione, their lips now inches apart.
"So here you guys are!" Matt bellowed as he hopped up the stairs. Harry and Hermione's heads both lurched backward so quickly that their necks may have been broken. "I've been looking all over for you guys!" Matt seemed quite unaware of what was about to take place before he head shown up.
"Something wrong Matt?" Hermione asked softly as she hastily ran her left hand through her chestnut- brown hair.
"Naw," Matt said, as he seemingly skipped over to the Gryffindors and plopped down beside them. "I was just gonna check on Harry to see if he was all right. You didn't look too good when you left the party." His voice was flat and serious as he said this.
"I'm okay." Harry said softly. Matt looked from Harry to Hermione as if to confirm it.
"Good," Matt said as his left hand ruffled Harry's already messy-black hair. "If anybody is going to cause you trouble, Harry Potter, I want to make damn sure it's going to be me!"
"It's nice to see you've finally found a goal in your otherwise abysmal life, Matt McGonagall," Hermione said shrewdly.
"With all due respect, Hermione Granger," Matt said simply. "Why don't you take your cheery little comments and stuff them back in that horrendously disgusting hair where it belongs." Harry smiled broadly at his two quarreling compatriots as Matt performed a nifty kip-up and looked off the edge of the roof.
"It's such a lovely night," Matt said, as he peered down to look at Hagrid's hut. "Why don't we spar up here tonight?"
"Why on earth would you want to spar on top of the Astronomy tower?" Hermione asked incredulously as she stood up to join Matt.
"The same reason I wanted to steal gillyweed from Snape's storeroom," Matt said with a twinkle in his eye.
"Because you've never done it before," Harry and Hermione answered simultaneously.
"It's nice to see the two of you are learning, my grasshoppers," Matt said as he gave his two friends a mock bow. Harry and Hermione, to their credit, returned the gesture with equal sincerity.
"Fine then," Hermione sighed, not even bothering to reason with Matt. "I'll spar up here tonight on one condition."
"And what would that be, Hermione?" Matt asked.
"I want a piece of you first," Hermione said simply as she readied herself. "I want to use my best moves on you before I move onto Harry."
"Why, Hermione?" Matt said saucily as he adopted the same stance as Hermione. "I never knew you had feelings for me! You're such a flirt!"
Steam was nearly pouring from Hermione's ears after that. "Once I break all of your bones I'm going to throw you off this tower, Matt McGonagall!"
"Bring it on, General Big Brain!" Matt yipped fearlessly as Harry shook his head and took a seat to await his turn.
So, for the next three hours, the three friends trained for the challenges ahead of them, washing their troubles away with every punch, chop, and kick. A pair of unseen eyes looked upon them as the three students chatted and laughed as they prepared themselves for another day.
Of course, just whose eyes were upon them is a secret that would wait for another time.
(Breathes a huge sigh of relief) Good Lord! This is the longest chapter yet! When I started this thing I was expecting a novella of about 45,000 words, maybe as much as 75,000 if I really worked on it. Now I'm just past the halfway point and I'm already at the 65,000 mark! Either I'm a better writer than I thought or I just don't know how to say what I want to say correctly (I don't know about you but I'm looking at the latter possibility)! Well, let's move on the next chapter preview!
Spring has arrived at Hogwarts and everything is as peaceful as can be. This only means trouble up ahead for Harry, Hermione, and Matt, as they discover a body in the Forbidden Forest. Sirius thinks there's a traitor at Hogwarts and our heroes are clutching at straws as to where to look! Will our heroes succeed before disaster strikes again? Find out about all this and more as Sirius makes his first appearance (that should make you rabid Sirius fans happy!) in the next installment of Harry Potter and The Scholar of Mystery: Walking Dangerous Lines. See you soon!
Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not own me and, in turn, I do not own Harry Potter. It seems like an even trade out in my book and I haven't seen any complaints so far! So, why mess with a good thing?
Chapter Eight- The Second Task
Seven weeks have passed since the night when Macnair broke into Hogwarts and the students, at least most of them, were gearing up for the long haul that was the spring semester. Snape's daily assignments were now maddeningly difficult and were becoming nearly impossible to deduce, even for the Slytherins. It seemed that Professor McGonagall had a new Transfiguration task for every single class, leaving most students impatient and distraught when they entered her classroom. Hagrid's blast-ended skrewts also seemed to be becoming even more anti-social than before, if such a thing were possible, and handling the volatile creatures became an even more dangerous task than before. Perhaps the most admired professor of the lot was Professor Flitwick, who every year it seemed, sympathized with the increasing labors that the spring semester brought and tried not to weigh them down with too much homework.
"Just remember," the diminutive Charms professor said as he performed another amazing feat in front of the astounded and grateful eyes of his students, "not to underestimate what you will be taught in my classroom."
Popular appeal for Professor Moody was now at an all-time low. Ever since the former Auror was denied the right to teach the Unforgivable curses to students after the debacle with Matt MacDougal, he seemed to satiate his frustrations by assigning more and more essays and field exams. The sheen of fascination and respect that many students had for the grizzled professor and the start of the term had faded away to be replaced by feelings of bare tolerance or sheer anger. Fred and George Weasley nearly dared to pull a prank on the paranoid professor, but their fear of him quickly removed Moody from their even- expanding target list.
However, the three students that pushed themselves the hardest were Matt, Harry, and Hermione. Silently agreeing that they should no longer be unprepared for something like the incident at New Years Eve, the three now engaged in laborious daily training rituals involving everything from practicing hexes to learning the martial arts. While Matt and Hermione taught Harry how to swim, Matt taught Harry and Hermione everything he knew about physical self-defense. While Hermione read up about every hex and charm that she could find in the library, Harry taught Matt and Hermione everything he knew about magical defense. Ron had attempted to adopt their new rigorous schedule for about a week until giving up in frustration when he discovered it left very little time for goofing off.
"I still don't understand how you guys ever do it." Ron claimed, as he watched Harry swim laps in the frigid water of the lake. Harry had taken to swimming very quickly and nowadays he nearly spent as much time in the water as he did on his racing broom.
"It's, huff, simple when you, huff, put your mind to it," Hermione grunted as she continued to practice her martial arts while talking to Ron. She was performing snap kicks that reached higher than her head. Ron gave an involuntary wince as he imagined the unfortunate fellow who ever stood in the way of something like that. After performing fifty kicks with the right leg she gave a few puffs of breath in the cold, winter air before shifting her stance and began kicking with her left leg. "You could probably be doing this too, Ron, if you didn't spend all your time pulling pranks and playing wizard chess."
"I wouldn't say that, Hermione," Matt said as he sat Indian-style on the snowy forest floor as he held his wand in one hand and a large book of spells in the other. "I still incite as much mayhem and general havoc as I did before we got started with this and I'm coming along just as good as you two are," he quipped as he placed the book aside and rolled the sleeves of his wizard robe up. "Forcis!"
Matt's newest incantation caused his body to hurtle backwards, his butt dragging through the snow as he tried desperately to slow his momentum before he tumbled into the lake. Ron was cackling as Matt dried himself off and stumbled back to his spell book.
"Perhaps you shouldn't speak so soon, Matt," Hermione tutted over Ron's laughter with a raised eyebrow.
"Don't worry about me, Hermione," Matt said as he sat back down to regain some composure. "Just a momentary setback," he said as he pointed his wand at Hermione's feet. "Forcis!" Matt's second attempt was far more successful than the first, causing a wave of sheer energy to collide with the snow near and around Hermione and hurtle into the air. Moments later, the bushy-haired Gryffindor was covered by a good twenty pounds of snow.
"I just needed the proper motivation," Matt said while Ron was now turning red from laughing so hard. Hermione continued to glare at the mischievous Ravenclaw as she stood unmoving despite now looking like a hastily formed snowwoman.
"Do I even want to know what just happened?" Harry asked as he strode up to join his friends, water still dripping off his chest and hair as he summoned his towel from his knap-sack.
"Nothing some perfectly good human transfiguration couldn't cure," Hermione growled menacingly as she began to brush the snow off her body.
"Don't mind her, Harry," Matt said, as he stood up off the cold ground, brushing the snow off his blue jeans. "She's always giving people cold receptions." Hermione ceased her brushing to flip Matt off while Harry's back was turned.
"Thanks for teaching me that heat shield charm, Matt," Harry said as he ran his towel through his hair. "I don't think I could have survived in that water without it!"
"Don't mention it, Harry," Matt said with a smile. "I'm always willing to go the extra mile to help the people I care about."
"Which probably explains why Hermione has so much snow on her clothes right now," Harry retorted while he assisted his friend by removing several chunks of snow from her hair.
"She just wanted to make sure that my force push hex worked!" Matt said with an innocent grin. Matt heard a significant growl from Hermione after saying those words.
"Perhaps we should get back to the castle before Hermione turns you into a rabbit," Harry said as he put his arm around Hermione's shoulders. Ron and Matt gave each other a sideways glance while Hermione tried to hide her blushing as they headed back to the warm confines of Hogwarts. The four of them could see the castle gates when a mysterious flying object suddenly crashed into the back of Ron's head.
"Yowch!" Ron said as he rubbed his head furiously, recognizing what hit him immediately. "You stupid owl!"
The owl ignored the cries of his master and continued to flutter around the four students at a very unnecessary rate of speed. Pigwidgeon, or "Pig" as he was often called, was a gift that Ron received at the end of the third term from Sirius Black. Harry's godfather called it a sort of "replacement pet" for Scabbers. At first, the youngest male Weasley was thrilled with the idea of an owl all to himself but he soon grew weary of the owl's hyperactive behavior and unerring tendency to crash into things for no apparent reason. In many ways, the diminutive, fluffy brown owl was quite similar to Ron. What Pig didn't have ways in the area of competence, he made up for with enthusiasm and sheer energy.
"When are you going to learn that you don't crash into the person that you have a letter for?" Ron screamed in frustration. Pigwidgeon, for an apology, continued to hoot merrily as he flew around Ron and the others.
"Don't be so hard on him!" Matt said with a good-natured grin as he held out his arm for Pig to land on. The Ravenclaw laughed as Pig eagerly accepted and started to bounce up and down like an out-of-control spring. "I'd just love to have an owl. I know my grandmother would never give me one!"
"I'd be happy to give you that silly git if he would just listen to a single word I say," Ron snarled as he glared at his pet. Harry, Hermione, and Matt knew he was joking. For all the words and nasty looks that Ron would give to him, he was the first to jump to Pig's protection whenever somebody talked down on him.
"Let's just see what this letter is about," Matt said as he harshly plucked the note from Pigwidgeon's leg. Matt perused the cover of the letter first before shrugging his shoulders and handing it to Harry.
"It's from Snuffles," Matt said as Harry accepted the note.
"Snuffles" was the pseudonym of Sirius Black. The former prisoner of Azkaban was currently hiding out in the outskirts of Hogsmeade so that he could better watch out for Harry during the Triwizard Tournament. The day after Macnair's attack, Harry and Hermione told Matt of Sirius' innocence and what really occurred during the night of the murder of James and Lily Potter.
"What does the note say?" Hermione asked while she tried to read the note over Harry's shoulder.
"It says to send the date of the next Hogsmeade weekend by return owl," Harry said as he rolled up the parchment.
"Wonder why he wants to know about the next Hogsmeade weekend?" Ron asked.
"Maybe we can go visit him!" Matt said as he jumped a bit in anticipation. Since learning about Black's escape from Azkaban and his well-earned reputation for being a rabble-rouser during his own days at Hogwarts, Matt had been pestering Harry to pay him a visit for the last several weeks.
"Whatever the case," said Harry, "I'm going to fetch a different owl to send a letter back."
"Matt and I will make an early trip to the library," Hermione said. "It's high time that we finish our History of Magic essay for Professor Binns," she continued, making sure to speak over Matt's grumbling. "What about you, Ron?"
"I'll go to the owlery with Harry just to make sure that this idiot," Ron said while pointing a finger at Pigwidgeon, "doesn't get into more trouble." Pigwidgeon continued to race up and down the length of Matt's arm, seemingly deaf to the frequent complaints of his owner. Soon, the four friends had arrived in the lobby of Hogwarts and went their separate ways.
It took a half an hour for Ron and Harry to make their way back from the owlery and spot Matt and Hermione sitting at their usual study table. Both of the students were writing with their quills while they leafed their way through a generous supply of books piled next to them. The two of them moved at such a frenetic pace that it almost seemed they were racing one another.
"Say what you want about Binns," Matt said while Harry and Ron took their seats and pulled out their own parchments, "but this essay on Olric the Oafish has been a real breeze to write!" Hermione looked up from her parchment and rolled her eyes at him.
"You're just happy to writing about a historical figure that's just as lame-brained and foolish as you are!" she said as lifted her essay of the table to proofread it.
"That's going a bit too far," Harry said sternly. "You underestimate Matt quite a bit."
"Damn right," Matt said, thumping Harry on the shoulder in appreciation.
"Don't be so sure," Hermione said as she smiled at her two friends. "After all, this is a man who accidentally turned his wife into a turnip and couldn't remember how to turn her back for seven months!"
"Actually, I wouldn't mind having a turnip for a wife," said Fred Weasley's voice. "That would make her much easier to manage!"
"Never thought I'd see you two here," Ron said with a grin as his brothers came into view.
"Don't make us hurt you, ya stupid prat," George said as he gave a light chokehold to his little brother.
"All kidding aside," Hermione said as she shook her head at the squabbling siblings. "Why are you here?"
"McGonagall wants to see you in her office," Fred said. "Said to come as soon as possible, she said."
"Her office?" Hermione said. Harry and Matt both began to hum a few bars of The Condemned Elegy before she shushed them. "I best go see what this is about," she said firmly as she stood up from her chair and began to pack up her belongings. "Could you put away my books for me, Matt?" she asked playfully.
"Fine, I'm your slave," Matt scoffed as he fought back the urge to throw one of the hefty tomes at her.
"And you best remember that," she said shrewdly as she walked out with a sniggering Fred and George Weasley in tow.
"She wasn't in the Great Hall for dinner," Harry said as he kicked one of the rusted over bathroom sinks in frustration. "Where on earth could she be?"
"Don't worry about it, Harry!" Matt said casually as he squirmed to find a more comfortable position on the toilet seat he was perched upon. "I'm sure she's perfectly all right."
"Maybe Professor McGonagall expelled her!" Moaning Myrtle crowed as she flitted about from one side of the bathroom to the other. It was nine o'clock at night and Harry and Matt were in the middle of their weekly pilgrimage to the gloomy ghoul's bathroom. The boys had invited Ron several times to join them on the trip but he refused right off the bat. And, after a half hour of standing around and chatting with the morose Myrtle, Harry could hardly blame him.
"In your dreams, Myrtle," Matt scoffed.
"Don't interrupt my dreams, you silly boy," Myrtle pestered while Matt cringed at the mention of Myrtle's pet name for him. Matt didn't have any complaints about visiting the ghost of the former class recluse. She reminded him of his great aunt Morgana, who would feed him lemon drops while she told him stories about his grandmother. Most children would have found such a thing extremely dull, but Matt always viewed the meeting as a valuable source of blackmail.
"You call me silly boy one more time Myrtle and I'll tell Peeves that you have a crush on him!" Matt yelled, causing Myrtle to blanch in horror. Peeves was the mischievous poltergeist whose purpose in life seemed to be to cause as much mayhem and havoc as inhumanly possible. Harry remembered back to an all-undead party in his second year when Peeves sent Myrtle back to her bathroom in tears amidst a shower of rotten peanuts and numerous insulting remarks.
"Don't you dare say a word to that scoundrel about me!" Myrtle shouted. "He's too much like Colin Grant back when I was in school. He'd constantly steal my glasses and would spread these awful rumors about me. I got back at him once I died, though," Myrtle said with the same grin she always had when she talked about pestering her childhood tormentors, "I haunted his wife for months on end. It serves him right for trying to make me feel so miserable."
Matt groaned in frustration as Myrtle continued to prattle on about her miserable time at Hogwarts. It seemed to only take the slightest remark for Myrtle to morph into a self- pitying ball of complaints about times gone by. 'For somebody who keeps telling us that she's had a rotten past, she sure likes to go on about it.' Matt grumbled.
"All right! All right!" Matt shouted over Myrtle's incessant yammering. "I won't tell Peeves anything! Just quit badgering us!"
Tears began to well up in Myrtle's eyes from the tone of Matt's voice. "Why do you have to be so rude to me?" she said sadly. "It's not like I've done anything to you."
"Except for peeking in the Prefects bathroom hoping you could see Harry naked." Myrtle blushed quite a bit at that declaration. It hadn't taken long for Matt to realize that Myrtle took quite a liking to Harry, although he honestly had no clue why and he didn't really feel like asking.
"The mermaid's song!" Harry roared. Matt and Myrtle both turned to Harry with looks of bewilderment on their faces.
"What are you going on about, Harry?" Matt asked, pleased to finally be getting away from his inane conversation with Moaning Myrtle.
"We've taken what you'll sorely miss," Harry answered, recalling the fourth line. "Professor McGonagall must have taken Hermione to be part of the second task!"
"We've taken what you'll sorely miss," Matt pronounced. "An hour long you'll have to look, and to recover what we took."
"But past an hour the prospect's black," Harry continued, his eyes widening with realization. "Too late, it's gone, it won't come back!" Matt paled as he finally understood the full implication of the song.
"You mean to tell me Hermione's life is on the line in this task?" Matt whispered urgently
"It sure looks like it," Harry said soberly.
"Why would the Ministry do something so foolish!" Matt said as he rose up from his seat. "It's only a contest, after all!"
"This is just insane," Harry said as he paced the floor. "I don't want anybody else involved in this, least of all Hermione!"
"I thought you liked me most of all, Harry!" Myrtle wept out as she finally caught on to the gist of the conversation. "Why didn't the merpeople take me?"
"Probably because the contest organizers wanted to give Harry a reason to go down there instead of something he'd rather leave behind and forget, you pimply monstrosity! Matt shouted, regretting the words just as soon as he said them. While Harry gave Matt a cross look, Myrtle slowly slinked away from the two wizards, huge gobs of tears welling up in her eyes.
"Myrtle," Harry said cautiously. "I'm sure he didn't mean it."
"I HOPE YOUR LITTLE GIRLFRIEND DROWNS!" Myrtle screamed as she flew straight into one of the urinals, nearly splashing Harry and Matt.
"That was hardly necessary, Matt," Harry said with his arms crossed. Matt's tongue was stretching his right cheek as he searched for an answer.
"You're right," Matt said simply as he walked over to the toilet where Myrtle made her melodramatic exit. With one quick motion, the Ravenclaw pushed down the handle and five gallons of water plus one depressed ghost flooded into the lake of the giant squid.
"Matt!" Harry shouted.
"What?" Matt said with a shrug of his shoulders as he started to make his quick exit from the loo. "With any luck, she'll scare off some of the sea creatures and make tomorrow's task a little easier!"
Harry was fortunate enough to even get a few hours of sleep the night before the second task. The vision of Hermione thrashing about at the bottom of the lake gasping for oxygen seemed to haunt him every time he closed his eyes. Ron and Neville kept trying to assure him that Dumbledore would hardly allow for someone to be harmed,, but that was small consolation for Harry. Finally, Ron was forced to cast a sleeping hex on Harry so that he could at least get some rest.
Harry was greeted the next morning by the concerned faces of Ron and Matt, the latter of whom ad somehow managed to sneak back into the Gryffindor common room. Harry stretched for his glasses while Ron handed him a tray of bacon along with a healthy supply of pancakes and syrup.
"You've got three hours before the task starts, Harry!" Matt said as he removed the gillyweed from his knap-sack and handing it to him. "Best to eat up and take a shower!"
It took quite a bit of convincing on the part of Ron and Matt for Harry to consent to eating breakfast-in- bed. The black-haired boy stared out of one of the windows of the dormitory to spot an impressive array of grandstands that seemed to have been built over night. A group of Ministry officials were already about the lake, some monitoring the denizens of the water while others prepared the stands.
The next two hours before the second task were agonizing for Harry. Matt and Ron were constantly at his side asking him if he would be okay. Lavendar Brown and Parvati Patil would constantly stare at Harry and then turn to each other and whisper furiously as soon as Harry looked at them. Harry was reasonably certain that Professor Trelawney had seen a grim outcome for him today. Ginny Weasley's face was disturbingly pale, nearly the same shade as it was on the day of the first task. Meanwhile, Draco Malfoy and many of the Slytherins had their POTTER STINKS buttons out in full force and were teasing Harry about Hermione's absence.
"Is little orphan Potter crying over his little girlfriend?" Pansy Parkinson screeched with her all-too familiar rat-like voice, causing Goyle and Crabbe to nearly double over with laughter. It seemed like Harry had spent two months in the Great Hall when Ludo Bagman, the organizer of the Triwizard Tournament, appeared, looking as resplendent and over-dressed as ever in his purple and black wizard robes.
"Students of Hogwarts," Bagman cried, his voice magically amplified with a Sonorus charm. "Please make your way to the grand stands to watch the second task. Triwizard Champions, please follow me."
Once again, Harry was the center of attention as he, along with the other champions, followed Bagman out of the crowded Great Hall and made their way to the tiny lake. The jam- packed grandstands seemed to explode with applause as Fluer Delaclour, Viktor Krum, and Cedric Diggory made their way to the site of the event. Harry flanked the other participants, the ball of gillyweed crammed into the crook of his right arm. Matt and Ron were walking behind him at either side as a show of support, like foot soldiers accompanying the general to the front lines.. As Bagman approached the shallows of the lake, Harry looked out into the stands for any sign of his godfather or any members of the Weasley family.
"I'll be watching you Harry," the small voice of Peter Pettigrew rang in Harry's mind. He shuddered at the memory of the statement, knowing full well that Pettigrew was most likely out there somewhere.
"That's weird," Matt said, snapping Harry out of his reveries.
"What's weird?" asked Ron, his eyes still on the crowd.
"Your brother is one of the Triwizard judges, Ron," Matt said, pointing to the judge's table at a lanky red-haired young man with a stuffy look on his face. Ron rolled his eyes at the sight.
"Wonderful! I'm sure we'll be hearing about this from Percy," Ron said as he quickly looked away from his older brother. "Who would be stupid enough to make him a judge?"
"Barty Crouch must have taken ill or something," Harry said, his eyes also on the judge's table. Percy currently worked at the Department of International Magical Cooperation where Bartimus Crouch was his superior. Percy had made certain to remark what an incredible man that Mr. Crouch was on every occasion, so much so that Fred and George claimed that they were nearly ready to place their older brother in Azkaban under the charge of extreme egotism and hero-worship.
"That's strange," Matt said as he cupped his chin in a vaguely Snape- like fashion. "Crouch has always had a reputation for being punctual even under the most extreme circumstances."
"No wonder Percy fawns over him so much!" Ron scoffed. "Seems like two peas in a pod, those two."
"It was his branch of the Ministry that helped organize this tournament with Bagman," Matt said, ignoring Ron's petulant complaining. "What would make him miss something like this?"
"That's something we can save for later," Harry said resolutely, still trying to keep his mind on the task ahead of him.
"Sorry about that Harry," Matt said sheepishly.
"Champions, please make your way to the edge of the lake!" Bagman's voice ordered over the cheers of the audience. Before Harry could make his way there, Matt had taken a firm grip on his shoulders and turned him around, a look of pure seriousness and intensity on his usually carefree features.
"You go find Hermione. We'll be cheering you on the whole way," he said evenly.
"Get out there and show Cedric Diggory who the real champion of Hogwarts is!" Ron shouted with enthusiasm, causing Harry to smile in relief that he wasn't really alone on this one. Ron and Matt dashed to the stands, while Harry removed his robes and stripped down to a pair of red swim trunks. Once the four champions had arrived at their destination, Bagman continued.
"The task will begin on my whistle! The champions have one hour to recover their hostage and return to the surface. On the count of three, then. One. . .two. . .three!"
The harsh sound of the whistle seemed to bounce off the lake as the thousands of people in the stands erupted in cheers. Harry, not even bothering to look at what the other champions were doing, quickly peeled a generous slice of the gillyweed from the amassed ball and placed in his mouth before dashing out into the water. The late-winter weather still left the lake a bit cold, but that problem was easily solved with a carefully constructed heat shield. While the other champions dove underwater, Harry treaded a bit, awaiting for the effects of the gillyweed to take place. Quite a few people in the stands were murmuring with confusion. Some of the Slytherins even began to laugh out loud.
Harry was just about to dive underwater out of impatience and frustration until a sharp sensation stung him just above his neck, almost like he had been shot. He quickly brought his hands to his neck in hopes of alleviating the pain but was quite surprised to feel something that wasn't supposed to be there. Small slits had grown just below Harry's ears, the winter air causing them to flap about like chimes in the summer afternoon. He suddenly couldn't take in any oxygen through his lungs, his head starting to spin anemically.
'Looks like they don't call it gillyweed for nothing,' Harry mused as he poked a bit more at his newly developed gills before diving underwater.
The icy depths of the lake felt wonderful to Harry as he swam deeper and deeper, great gulps of water filtering in and out of his gills with every breath. Harry had just recovered from the shock of this occurrence only to discover that his hands had expanded, almost looking like the webbed hands of a duck. The skin of his lower legs began to loosen and expand to compliment the sudden bone-growth. He twisted around and looked at his now elongated feet, which were far more suitable for the underwater escapade before him.
'Eat your heart out Aquaman,' Harry thought with a hard grin as he continued his quest downward, his flipper-like feet propelling him at speeds that he could not possibly accomplish under normal circumstances.
It had taken several minutes for Harry to adjust his eyes to the dark- blues and inky black shades of the water. Even the use of a Lumos spell only allowed Harry to see about fifteen feet in front of him, a far cry from the normal standards. The unyielding silence of the ocean would have normally irked Harry, but the effects of the gillyweed made it seem like a second home, both physically and psychologically. His body was warmed to such an extent that he no longer even needed the heat shield. Small schools of fish seemed to watch him as he went further and further underwater, quite shocked at the very uncommon site of a young man with gills.
Harry was still swimming about the middle of the ocean, hoping for a sign as to where to go. He was reasonably certain that Hermione would be at the bottom but he didn't want to take that risk if it were possible. His speed and limited vision hurt him greatly, the ocean seemingly becoming a different place every time he blinked. His frustration was beginning to resurface again.
"How are you getting on?"
A flurry of bubbles erupted from Harry's mouth as he whirled around to see the transparent form of Moaning Myrtle. He tried to shout out at her for nearly causing him a heart attack but nothing came out of his mouth except another load of bubbles. Myrtle giggled quite a bit at that while Harry slapped his forehead with his webbed hands and cast a Sonorus charm on himself.
"Why are you down here?" Harry said, his voice distorted, but still coherent through the water.
"Hermione is at the bottom of the lake about a half mile west of here!" Myrtle said urgently. "You've got to hurry it up!"
"Thanks, Myrtle!" Harry said, giving the ghost a thumbs up in appreciation. "What made you change your mind?" Harry could spot Myrtle blushing even in the dank ocean.
"Well. . .," Myrtle said slowly, "it's just that. . ." her eyes suddenly went wide. "HARRY, LOOK OUT!"
A pair of grindylows had snuck up behind Harry during his conversation with Myrtle and now had their long fingers clutched tightly around Harry's legs. Their shiny-white jaws and wrinkled green skin looked menacing in the blue-green hues of the water. Harry frantically thought back to his classes with Professor Lupin on how to deal with these water demons. In seconds, Harry had his wand pointed at the two grindylows, the tip of it burning with white energy.
"Forcis!" he cried, as a force bolt emerged from his wand. The bolt immediately split into two and connected right between the eyes of both demons, causing them to release their grip harshly, a small stream of blood surfacing from Harry's calf. Myrtle, never being one to watch violence, stared in shock at the wound.
"Run away, Harry!" Myrtle shouted. As much as Harry would have liked to do so, he also learned in Professor Lupin's class that grindylows also tended to travel in packs. Sure enough, as soon as he turned around he was greeted by about two-dozen grindylows, each of them looking none too pleased that a disgusting human had just pounded their brethren.
Harry had managed to take out about half of them with various hexes before the rest of the water demons were upon him. They all surrounded the black-haired Gryffindor and began to lash at the boy with their sharp jaws and spindly fangs. Even underwater, Harry's body was a wave of motion as he used his arms and legs to ward the creatures off. Several of his kicks connected quite harshly with some of the creatures' horned skulls, but it only seemed to increase their fury. Myrtle was still screaming in fright as several of the water demons finally connected with their fangs and jaws, causing even more of Harry's blood to spray out into the ocean.
'This is a pretty lousy way to die,' Harry thought as he tried to drown out both the pain and Myrtle's screaming. Several more dozen grindylows had joined in the battle, attracted by the scent of Harry's blood. After several minutes of intense fighting, over a dozen long hands had trapped Harry in their grip. clasping upon his arms.
Harry often thought about how he would die. He always imagined a sea of red visions slowly forming into black as he would fade away into the great beyond. Whether it was Voldemort, Macnair, or some vicious creature, Harry always knew he would die someday. It almost seemed to be what people were waiting for him to do. After all, his parents died to save the world from Voldemort, didn't they? Why should he be any different? He was lined up to be a martyr since that fateful Halloween night.
"Run, Harry!" Myrtle screamed, her voice seemingly wedging itself into his mind's eye.
"It will all be okay, Harry!" his mother said soothingly, the scrapes of battle outside his room. "I'll die before I let them have you!"
"I promise to protect you," Sirius Black said as they made their way out of the Shrieking Shack. "It is my duty. I am your godfather after all."
"If Snape hadn't been performing that counter-curse all that time," Professor Quirrel sneered at him, "you would have fallen off that broomstick and broken your neck!"
"It's you that has to go on, Harry," Ron said while riding a porcelain- white horse. "Not me, not Hermione, you!"
"You leave Harry alone, you monster!" Matt screamed as hurtled his bloodied and broken body at Macnair.
"Get out of here!" James Potter said soberly as he pushed Lily and his young son to the living room. "Protect Harry!"
Protect Harry. . .
Protect Harry. . .
Protect Harry. . .
'Yes, that's always been that way with you, hasn't it?' a voice inside Harry's head said evenly. 'So many people have sacrificed their lives for you and what have you given them? Why should you even The Boy Who Lived? It would be more accurate to call you The Boy Who Should Have Died! It was your mother who cast that reflective shield on you, not yourself. You were just a means to an end! You always have been! You always will be!'
"That's not true!" Harry screamed as he fought the wave of pain and nausea that assaulted him.
'You wouldn't have gotten the Sorcerer's Stone if it wasn't for Ron, Snape, and Hermione! And what about in the Chamber of Secrets with that basilisk? You didn't honestly think that it was you who summoned Fawkes and the sword of Gryffindor, did you? And what about Pettigrew? You didn't even manage to catch him! Your godfather might get sent back to Azkaban because you don't know how to take care of yourself. It's so sad that so many people have sacrificed their lives to support such an abysmal failure!'
"I AM NOT A FAILURE!!" Harry screamed as his emerald-green eyes flashed furiously. The gills below his ears began to flip about wildly as though they were caught in a typhoon. Every cell of his body seemed charged as sparks began to resonate from his body. Some of the grindylows began to inch away from their prey, quite confused about the goings about but not willing to run away from such easy prey. Soon, Harry's entire body was thinly covered with a field of pure electricity, something in his body allowing him to survive such a thing despite the vicious conditions of the water.
"I CAN PROTECT MYSELF!" The electrical field gave a short pulse before expanding violently in a ten-foot radius of Harry's heart. Some of the more unfortunate grindylows could not even run as they were struck with 200,000 volts of energy, frying their brittle bones in mere hundredths of a second. Some of the other demons were able to flee for the slightest moment, but the field soon eclipsed them too, burning the creatures' bodies into cinders of dust that were soon broken up by the water and forgotten.
Harry gasped at the sudden loss of energy as his eyes changed back to its normal elegant hue. The gills on the sides of his neck began to flutter once again at their normal rate. There was not a single living creature even close to Harry. Only Moaning Myrtle remained, who continued to stare at Harry as if she had seen a ghost.
"What just happened?" Harry said as he stared at his hands in confusion. "What did I just do?" Harry's confusion only caused Myrtle to go paler and back further away.
"I think I'll go back to my bathroom now," Myrtle said as Harry looked at her. "There are all sorts of strange creatures in these waters." Myrtle's pace seemed to increase significantly the more Harry seemed to stare at her. "It can, well, be quite frightening!"
"Well," Myrtle said as she absently pointed back at Hogwarts, "Igottagobyebye!" she said as she rocketed out of the water and out of Harry's sight. For another minute or so, Harry stood floating in the water, searching every corner of his mind to try and figure out just what had happened. Then, another vision sprang into his head, a young woman with bushy-brown hair who might die because of him. Without another thought, Harry zoomed down to the ocean floor, not even knowing how much time he had left.
It took another ten minutes of frantic searching before Harry finally found the cove of the merpeople. It was hardly the amazingly advanced civilization that Harry pictured it to be. Stone houses seemed lined up and down the ocean floor, some of them wrapped with green and blue algae while others were decorated with bright shells and paintings. He was able to spy some of the merpeople peeking out at him through holes in the walls while he swam for the town square. Their eyes reminded Harry of strong yellow flashlights, shining dully into the gloom of the water as he made his way forward. Harry knew he had come to the right place when he spotted several dozen merpeople clustered around one another, each of them holding spears or other forms of primitive weaponry. Each of them had wild, dark green hair that seemed to float along with the ocean, their yellowing teeth seemingly leering at him as he made his way closer.
Finally, he spotted his ultimate destination: a large stone statue of what appeared to be an old chief of the village. Four people were tied tightly to the tail of it with what appeared to be seaweed. 'I guess ropes don't fare too well underwater,' he thought. He recognized three of the hostages: Hermione, Cho Chang, and Katie Bell, a Chaser for the Gryffindor Quidditch team. The fourth prisoner looked to be very young and had pale-white skin and graceful silver hair that seemed to shine even in the dank atmosphere of the lake floor.
'Must be Fleur's sister,' Harry said as he placed his webbed hands on the seaweed and tried to rip it apart. 'She certainly looks the part.'
The weed was made of sterner stuff than Harry imagined, however, because no matter how much strength he put on, the bindings did not even seem to strain. Harry's eyes frantically searched around the town square for something sharp. He swam to the contingent of merpeople hoping that he could borrow a spear, but the sea creatures merely laughed and backed away.
"We do not help," one of the mermen said roughly while his apparent mate pointed at Harry and laughed. "You must find your own means!"
Other merpeople started to laugh at the look of frustration on Harry's face as he angrily turned away from them 'Something sharp, something sharp,' Harry murmured as he skimmed the ocean floor. Harry's eyes lit up when he saw a jagged rock near one of the houses surrounding the town square. He quickly swam his way over, gave a cheery wave to the merman who was watching him while inside the house, and rushed back to the stone statue.
The work was both stressful and tedious, for Harry was afraid that the rock would break while he cut and also because he didn't know how much time he had left. He gazed into the closed eyes of his best friend, who was still fast asleep amidst all this mysterious chaos, her brown hair slumping down the front of Fluer's sister. With a determined two-handed slash, Hermione's bonds were finally cut and she began to float over the statue.
Much of Harry wanted to grab Hermione and quickly zoom to the surface but the back of his mind got to thinking.
'Where are the others?' he thought as the merpeople looked at him, confused by Harry's sudden hesitation. 'It took me quite a while to get down here and there isn't any sign of the others.' Harry turned his gaze back to Katie and Cho. He remembered the times when Katie would cheer him up when a Quidditch practice went bad. And Cho, she looked so graceful even in this bleak environment. His attraction to the pretty Ravenclaw had lessened out of respect for Cedric but she could still draw butterflies in his stomach even under these stressful circumstances. He didn't know Fluer's sister, but he was sure that she was the most precious thing to Fleur for a reason.
'Can't leave 'em down here,' Harry thought resignedly as he picked up the jagged stone and began to hack away at the rest of the binds. Within moments, six mermen were upon him pulling him away from the other hostages. Some of them were still laughing at him.
"You take your own hostage," a pink-haired mermaid spoke up, her tone firm and unyielding. "You must leave the others."
"Forget it!" Harry said as he struggled impotently. "I won't let them die!"
"You have completed your task, Mr. Potter," the mermaid announced. "Return to the surface and leave the others."
"What if they don't show up!" Harry screamed. Some of the merpeople started gasping and pointing upwards.
"One of them has already arrived." Harry's head was turned to see Cedric Diggory swimming towards the stone statue. An enormous bubble was around his head, making his normally fair face look extremely wide and distorted.
'Must have used the Bubblehead charm,' Harry thought as he felt the grip of the mermen begin to loosen.
A fairly alarming looking creature that caused many of the merpeople to shortly followed Cedric shrink away. It was a human body that, bizarrely enough, had the head of a shark. Harry recognized the swim trunks the strange hybrid wore as the same that Krum was wearing when the task began.
'That's two out of three,' Harry said as the mermen finally released him while Cedric used a knife to sever the rest of Cho's bonds. 'But where's Fleur?'
Krum had used the same jagged stone that Harry had used to free Hermione and was now swimming to the surface holding Katie to his waist as he swam with a speed that nearly matched Harry's.
Once again, Harry had become the principal attraction of the merpeople as he waited for Fleur to show up. After another minute, Harry pointed his wand menacingly at the merpeople as he used his other hand to hack at the binds of Fleur's sister.
"Stop him!" the mermaid screamed as another group of mermen charged after him. Time was beginning to run out as the mermen surrounded him and closed in. Somebody else was going to die because he wasn't strong enough! Harry just wouldn't have that!
"I'm taking this girl with me!" Harry bellowed as he shot an enormous force bolt from his wand, driving the mermen back in fear. "The first one that gets in my way is going to regret it!" he warned, staring the merchieftaness in the eyes while he said it. He expected the tall and elegant leader to continue her assault, so he was quite surprised when what appeared to be a smile show up on her face as she ushered her soldiers back.
"Hurry to the surface then, Mr. Potter," she said. "Dumbledore will hear about this." Heedless of the mermaid's warning, Harry quickly slashed the seaweed holding Fleur's sister and held the little girl to his waist. A brief bit of swimming allowed him to place Hermione in his right arm. Thus, with both hostages as safely secure as possible under the circumstances, Harry set his webbed feet to the ocean floor and pushed off with all the strength he could muster.
With over two hundred pounds of deadweight now strapped to his shoulders, his legs were now begging for him to stop as he struggled slowly to the surface. The loss of blood from his fight with the grindylows was really beginning to take hold of him as a feeling of horrible weariness cascaded upon him with every kick of his feet. The water became brighter and brighter as sunlight began to filter its way through the water. Harry could feel his metatarsals shrink and the muscles around his shins give out as his feet and hands slowly returned to normal. Harry cursed as he realized that his hour of influence under gillyweed was about to end. The gills below his ears began to shrank and ultimately faded away as if they were never there, his lungs once again begging for oxygen as he continued to streak upward. He stole a glance at Hermione as he pushed to the surface, her closed eyes nearly giving a placid look on her features.
'Some people have all the luck,' Harry thought darkly as his legs and arms seemed to scream at him.
The cold air that slapped Harry in the face once he reached the surface was the closest thing to nirvana he had ever felt. The cold temperature of the water meant nothing to him as Harry began to pull Hermione and the little girl to the surface using nothing more than his own adrenaline. Nearly everyone in the crowd was on their feet making an incredible amount of noise. But, Harry was far more relieved when Hermione's chocolate-brown eyes snapped open and blinked rapidly to take in the scene.
"Harry!" she gasped, her strained voice sounding like music to Harry's ears. "What is going on? Who is that girl?" she asked, staring at the confused form of the little girl tucked away in Harry's left arm.
"Fleur's. . . sister. . ." he panted, as he labored his way across the water. "Had to help her!"
"Let me have her," Hermione said as the gears began to turn in her brain. She slowly pried the little girl from Harry's arms. "Grab onto my shoulder, I'll get us to the shore!" she cried, her sharp mind now fully aware of what was going on. Harry continued to breathe in air like a dying man as Hermione slowly kicked her way to the shore. Madam Pomfrey was upon the three of them as soon as Hermione hit the surface, covering them with towels and nearly shoving them to a nearby tent.
"Let's take care of those cuts, Potter!" Pomfrey said in her usual bossy tone. "I wish you'd take better care of yourself!"
Dumbledore and Ludo Bagman were smiling broadly at Harry as he and Hermione made their way to the tent. Percy was clapping like a madman while Igor Karkaroff simply shrugged his shoulders and remained seated. Madame Maxine, meanwhile, was with Hagrid trying to calm a hysterical Fleur Delacour, who seemed to be fighting both of them in an effort to get to her sister.
"Gabrielle! Gabrielle! Is she alive? Is she 'urt?"
"She's just fine!" Hermione shouted, her right arm supporting Harry as they both stumbled to the tent. That seemed to do little to alleviate Fleur's fears as she broke free from Maxine and Hagrid and hugged Gabrielle so fiercely that Gabrielle looked like she was about to choke.
"I am fine. I am fine." The eight-year-old half-veela said quietly. Harry winced as he saw the many cuts and bruises on Fleur's face and arms. It appeared that he wasn't the only one that had run into grindylows on the way down.
"Zey attacked me," Fleur said as tears streamed down her face, all the elegancy and posh behavior that Harry had associated with her forgotten. "Ze grindylows! I thought I would never see you again!"
"Mrs. Delacour, Mr. Potter, Mrs. Granger, please come here now!" Pomfrey said, her firm voice not losing a bit of its edge. The four magicians soon hustled their way into the tent, where Madam Pomfrey wrapped them all in blankets and gave each of them a Pepperup potion to recover from the effects of the cold water. It took quite an effort on Pomfrey's part to assist Fleur, who was refusing help and insisted to give Gabrielle the utmost care before Pomfrey laid a finger on her.
"Harry, you prat!" Hermione scolded him, although she had a huge smile on her face. "Why did you spend so much time in the town square! You could have been the first to finish!"
"Someone had to rescue her," Harry said as he motioned his head toward Gabrielle, who gave Harry a flicker of a smile. "I didn't know if Fleur would make it or not!"
"You saved 'er," Fleur said breathlessly, the beautiful glow starting to return to her graceful features. "You saved my sister!" The silver-haired half-veela rose to her feet and, taking Harry's flushed face in her hands, kissed Harry twice on each cheek.
"Er. . ." mumbled Harry, as his face went beet-red. It was his first kiss from a girl and he had never thought he'd be receiving it from a beautiful woman three years older than he was. "It wasn't nothing," he said, scratching the back of his wild hair. Hermione somehow managed to hold in her laughter as Harry nearly shrunk to the size of a house-elf.
"And you 'elped as well!" Fleur cried, her eyes now on Hermione. The brown-haired girl cocked her head a bit and gave a careless smile.
"It was the least I could do," Hermione said simply. "You don't owe me anything." 'You already paid it,' Hermione thought bemusedly as she continued to look at Harry, who continued to sink into his chair and placed his towel over his head. Even Gabrielle began to laugh at Harry's behavior.
'Serves me right for being selfless,' Harry thought darkly as he looked at the three women through the towel. Soon enough, Ron and Matt had raced into the tent, jubilant looks on their faces.
"That's how you do it Harry!" Ron said, clapping Harry firmly on the shoulders.
"Couldn't have done it better myself," Matt said, standing in the corner of the tent with his arms crossed. "Bagman's announcing the scores, so you and Fleur best get out here!"
With an excited rush, Harry and the others were out of the tent and back near the coastline. They were met by Bagman's magically magnified voice announcing the results.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the judges have reached their decision after a brief conference with Merchieftainess Murcus to review just what happened below the lake and we have decided to award the points for each of our champions as follows. . ."
'Murcus?' Harry thought as he looked back at the lake, where Dumbledore was speaking with the pink- haired mermaid who had commanded Harry to leave the other hostages. Murcus apparently caught Harry's gaze and gave the young man a wink with her sharp green eyes.
"First, Fleur Delaclour," Bagman continued. "Though she demonstrated excellent use of the Bubble- Head Charm, she was attacked by grindylows as she approached her goal and failed to retrieve her hostage. She receives twenty-five points."
There was very little cheering from the stands. Fleur was hardly the fan-favorite in this tournament, mostly due to her veela blood. Perhaps the person who applauded the loudest for her was Harry, who had gained a newfound respect for the Beauxbatons champion. Fleur gave a sad smile of thanks to Harry as she shook her magnificent head.
"I don't think I deserve any at all," she said glumly as her little sister tried to cheer her up.
"Second, to Cedric Diggory," Bagman went on as he gestured to the soaked Hufflepuff to his left, "who also used the Bubble-Head Charm, was first to return with his hostage. We therefore award him forty- seven points."
An enormous wave of cheers emerged from the grandstands, particularly from the Hufflepuff section, nearly all of who were leaping about and dancing like mental ward patients. Harry couldn't help but scowl as Cho gave Cedric an exceedingly glowing look. Hermione, seemingly reading Harry's thoughts, lightly tapped Harry's shoulder and gave him a grin.
"Third, to Viktor Krum, who used a rather, er, interesting, form of Transfiguration." Much of the crowd seemed to laugh at Bagman's remark. It appeared that Viktor's choice for countering the water shocked the people in the grandstands as much as the merpeople. "However, despite the disagreements that many of the judges had with his technique, he was the second to return with his hostage. Therefore he receives forty points."
The small contingent of Durmstrang students roared with applause as Viktor kept his trademark shy, brooding look. Katie, meanwhile, had wrapped her strong arms around Viktor's neck and kissed him full on the lips, which made much of the audience to erupt with cheers (although some of the ladies were a bit jealous). Harry could see Viktor's blush from twenty-five feet away.
"Lastly, to Harry Potter," Bagman said as he gestured back to the tent where Harry was standing, "who used gillyweed to great effect, managed to deal with an enormous pack of grindylows before reaching the hostages. He returned last, and well outside the time limit of an hour. However, the Merchieftaness informed us that Mr. Potter was the first to reach the hostages and that his delay was due to his determination to return all the hostages to safety, not just his own."
Ron gaped at Harry while Matt and Fleur gave him very approving looks. Hermione simply squeezed Harry's shoulders lightly, causing Harry to perk up and smile a bit.
"Thus, for Mister Potter's moral fiber and bravery, we award Harry Potter forty-eight points."
Harry had no time to react as Ron and Matt nearly ran him over while Hermione seemed to nearly crush him with her embrace. The Gryffindor grand stands were now making enough noise to wake the dead. Not even the extensive boos of the Slytherins could drown out the racket. While Harry struggled to tell his friends to stop congratulating him, Fleur and Gabrielle also were applauding furiously.
"You've won the first two events, Harry!" Hermione shouted as she released her embrace. "You've just got one more to go!"
"The third and final task will take place on the morning of June 24th," continued Bagman. "Each champion will be notified of what is coming one month beforehand. Thank you all for your support of our Triwizard champions!"
The celebration in the Gryffindor common room lasted well into the night. Katie had somehow managed to drag Viktor Krum into the proceedings, where he was constantly being commended for his, as Dean Thomas so eloquently put it, "killer shark trick". Meanwhile, the Weasley brothers spent much of the day either gathering food from the house-elf kitchens or causing as much trouble around the Hogwarts grounds as humanly possible, so much so that Professor McGonagall had threatened them to turn them into mice if they tried anything else.
"You will return Malfoy's broom at once," Professor McGonagall shrilled as she continued to chase the siblings about the halls.
"Come on, grandma!" Ron said merrily as he rushed back to the Gryffindor common room after sneaking into the Slytherin common room and causing a rather great deal of havoc.
"Yeah! You should go and rest your varicose veins!" George snorted derisively.
"Fifty points off of Gryffindor! And a week's detention for all of you!" McGonagall screamed as she tried desperately to keep up with the troublemaking siblings.
"Oh, dear!" Fred said as he ran alongside his twin brother. "I guess you all know what this means!"
"Yep," Ron said as he stopped running. "Looks like Slytherin will finally have a chance to win the House Cup."
The trio of redheads were all howling with laughter as Professor McGonagall caught up with them and nearly dragged them to her office.
The last remains of the winter winds that crashed down upon the top of the Astronomy Tower soothed Harry as he wrapped his father's invisibility cloak around his shoulders. The visions that flooded his mind during his fight with the grindylows troubled him far more than anything Mother Nature could possibly throw at him. He wanted to talk to anyone about what happened down there: Dumbledore, Moody, Professor McGonagall. Hell, he'd settle for Snape, he wasn't that picky! But he was the golden boy, the boy of destiny, The Boy Who Lived. He was supposed to be above such petty concerns and problems. He was the hero of the wizarding world, after all. The revered looks that witches and wizards gave him now frightened him just as much as Voldemort himself. What did he ever do to earn such a high acclaim! Why did he have so much money loaded in Gringotts to his name while other wizards were starving and broken? Why does he get one of the finest racing brooms in the world while so many other deserving people must struggle for everything they receive?
In short, what made him so fucking special?
"You can call me strange if you like, but I do believe that the source of the celebration should at least remain at the celebration itself. It makes things far simpler for the rest of us."
Harry whirled around to see Hermione standing at the base of the stairs, her usual sardonic grin seemingly framed on her face.
"How did you get up here without someone spotting you?" Harry asked softly. Hermione didn't respond immediately as she slowly walked towards the precipice of the roof and looked down at the Forbidden Forest below.
"There is one advantage to the Weasleys causing so much unnecessary trouble," she responded as she sat down next to Harry, her somewhat scrawny legs dangling over the edge. "Filch and McGonagall are too busy watching them to pay attention to anyone else." Harry just gave a brooding laugh and looked up at the half-moon.
"So," Hermione started as she cupped her knees with her small hands, "why are you brooding up here in this cold February night?"
Harry sighed heavily while Hermione waited patiently for her friend's response. She knew this routine all too well. "When I was fighting the grindylows in the water," Harry said, his eyes still locked on the half-moon. "I started to visualize about everything that's happened. When I found out about Quirrel. My fight against the basilisk. The day I found out Sirius was innocent. The day when my mother and father. . ."
"The night they fought Voldemort," Hermione continued. It was the first time Hermione had ever said the vile wizard's name, but neither Harry or Hermione really noticed it.
"I did something frightening to those grindylows, Hermione," Harry went on shakily. "I killed them all without a second thought. I've always been told that I have some kind of special power, but that was really the first time I truly saw it. I saw my gifts for what they truly were. Nothing more than just simple instruments of destruction, of hatred, of death."
"They would have killed you if you hadn't Harry." Hermione said slowly.
"BUT THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT RIGHT!" Harry screamed as he stood up with a jerk and fired a Forcis hex into the night sky. "Ever since I was a year old I have been surrounded by death and suffering! My mother, my father, Remus, Sirius, so many people have been harmed or had their lives ruined simply because they knew who I was! I don't even know the number of Aurors died so that I could be kept safe while I was at the Dursleys!" Tears started to roll down Harry's cheeks as the invisibility cloak fell to his feet.
"And what about you? You nearly died on New Years Eve simply because you knew me! What's going to happen if or when Voldemort comes back to power! Everything and everyone that knows me is in danger and I don't know if I have the strength to protect them all! So many more will die simply because I remain alive!" Harry fell to his knees as his glasses fell of his nose and silently shattered on the stone.
Hermione didn't say a word as she hefted herself up from the precipice and sank to her knees to join Harry. She picked up the broken remnants of Harry's spectacles and quietly used a Repario charm to fix them. She used her right hand to gently tilt Harry's downcast face and slid the glasses across his nose.
"Harry," she began. "We are all aware of the risks that we took when we called you a friend. Ron, Sirius, Matt, Remus, even Dumbledore knows that we will become targets simply because we stand by your side. We're not innocent bystanders who you have to keep a watch over, we're people that have just joined you in the same boat. Nobody should have to handle the burden you bear alone."
Harry sniffed quietly as he used his right hand to wipe away some of the tears from his emerald-green eyes.
"Your father and your mother sacrificed their lives because they hoped that you would make them proud. I don't think they would approve of you very much if you gave up now. You should feel guilty for what has happened before, you must never let that guilt go no matter how much it hurts you! You have to use the hope and faith that people have placed in you and use it as your inspiration. Just remember that we all befriended you because we wanted to be by your side and help you face your troubles, not to get in your way."
Harry swallowed thickly as a final tear slid down his face and crashed onto the stone floor.
"Thank you, Hermione," he croaked. Hermione's compassionate countenance was once again replaced by her familiar wry grin.
"Just leave it to your big sister Hermione to cheer you up when you're down!" she said as she wrapped her arm around Harry's shoulders. Even Harry couldn't fight off a little laugh.
"Big sister, huh? I thought I was older than you are?"
"Then you should stop moaning and bitching and acting like a little brother!" Hermione said perkily. The two Gryffindors both laughed as the bright light of the winter moon shined on them. Harry's eyes slowly turned to meet Hermione's. Silence seemed to reign along Hogwarts as Harry and Hermione gazed into one another's eyes.
"All joking aside," Hermione said, her voice suddenly very strained. "I just want you to, um, remember, that I'll always be by your side."
"Always?" asked Harry, his face moving closer and closer to Hermione.
"Always," said Hermione, their lips now inches apart.
"So here you guys are!" Matt bellowed as he hopped up the stairs. Harry and Hermione's heads both lurched backward so quickly that their necks may have been broken. "I've been looking all over for you guys!" Matt seemed quite unaware of what was about to take place before he head shown up.
"Something wrong Matt?" Hermione asked softly as she hastily ran her left hand through her chestnut- brown hair.
"Naw," Matt said, as he seemingly skipped over to the Gryffindors and plopped down beside them. "I was just gonna check on Harry to see if he was all right. You didn't look too good when you left the party." His voice was flat and serious as he said this.
"I'm okay." Harry said softly. Matt looked from Harry to Hermione as if to confirm it.
"Good," Matt said as his left hand ruffled Harry's already messy-black hair. "If anybody is going to cause you trouble, Harry Potter, I want to make damn sure it's going to be me!"
"It's nice to see you've finally found a goal in your otherwise abysmal life, Matt McGonagall," Hermione said shrewdly.
"With all due respect, Hermione Granger," Matt said simply. "Why don't you take your cheery little comments and stuff them back in that horrendously disgusting hair where it belongs." Harry smiled broadly at his two quarreling compatriots as Matt performed a nifty kip-up and looked off the edge of the roof.
"It's such a lovely night," Matt said, as he peered down to look at Hagrid's hut. "Why don't we spar up here tonight?"
"Why on earth would you want to spar on top of the Astronomy tower?" Hermione asked incredulously as she stood up to join Matt.
"The same reason I wanted to steal gillyweed from Snape's storeroom," Matt said with a twinkle in his eye.
"Because you've never done it before," Harry and Hermione answered simultaneously.
"It's nice to see the two of you are learning, my grasshoppers," Matt said as he gave his two friends a mock bow. Harry and Hermione, to their credit, returned the gesture with equal sincerity.
"Fine then," Hermione sighed, not even bothering to reason with Matt. "I'll spar up here tonight on one condition."
"And what would that be, Hermione?" Matt asked.
"I want a piece of you first," Hermione said simply as she readied herself. "I want to use my best moves on you before I move onto Harry."
"Why, Hermione?" Matt said saucily as he adopted the same stance as Hermione. "I never knew you had feelings for me! You're such a flirt!"
Steam was nearly pouring from Hermione's ears after that. "Once I break all of your bones I'm going to throw you off this tower, Matt McGonagall!"
"Bring it on, General Big Brain!" Matt yipped fearlessly as Harry shook his head and took a seat to await his turn.
So, for the next three hours, the three friends trained for the challenges ahead of them, washing their troubles away with every punch, chop, and kick. A pair of unseen eyes looked upon them as the three students chatted and laughed as they prepared themselves for another day.
Of course, just whose eyes were upon them is a secret that would wait for another time.
(Breathes a huge sigh of relief) Good Lord! This is the longest chapter yet! When I started this thing I was expecting a novella of about 45,000 words, maybe as much as 75,000 if I really worked on it. Now I'm just past the halfway point and I'm already at the 65,000 mark! Either I'm a better writer than I thought or I just don't know how to say what I want to say correctly (I don't know about you but I'm looking at the latter possibility)! Well, let's move on the next chapter preview!
Spring has arrived at Hogwarts and everything is as peaceful as can be. This only means trouble up ahead for Harry, Hermione, and Matt, as they discover a body in the Forbidden Forest. Sirius thinks there's a traitor at Hogwarts and our heroes are clutching at straws as to where to look! Will our heroes succeed before disaster strikes again? Find out about all this and more as Sirius makes his first appearance (that should make you rabid Sirius fans happy!) in the next installment of Harry Potter and The Scholar of Mystery: Walking Dangerous Lines. See you soon!