Chapter 29: Where Our Voices Sound

The First Task had occurred in mid-November. The four Triwizard Champions were now given a four-week reprieve to prepare for the Second Task, to be held in mid-December.

Which meant Neville, along with his rivals, had four weeks to figure out how to open the dragon egg.

It quickly became apparent that retrieving the egg had been the easy part, insane as that sounded. Cracking it open was to be another matter entirely. Having patched things up, Ron was back to joining Hermione as a 100% supportive cheerleader of their best mate. The redhead worked tirelessly to find ways to unseal the egg. A first attempt to drop the egg from a decent height – for example, from the boys' dormitory interior balcony down into the main Gryffindor Common Room – came up empty. The damn thing refused to bash open.

"Never mind, Ron," Neville had smiled. "It was a good suggestion."

Ron frowned in annoyance over why the egg just wouldn't bust. "So we know it's not made anywhere remotely like a regular egg. Bloody hell, it's inlaid with gold around it!"

"What did you think?" Hermione almost giggled, more than a little amused. "Golden yolk was going to come out of it, like in Willy Wonka?"

"Willy who?" Ron blinked.

Hermione waved off his blank incomprehension with a wave of her hand and a smile. "Oh, just a Muggle story."

Ron grinned. "I'd quite like to hear it sometime – you know, when we're not cracking an egg!" Hermione brightly smiled back.

Neville couldn't fault either of his friends for trying to find an element of fun in this puzzle – he certainly wasn't. The closer and closer the Second Task got with the egg refusing to budge, the more and more panicked he became. He was starting to think he wouldn't extract the clue supposedly inside at all, and he would get drummed out of the Second Task much as he had the First. Even though he had been waiting inside the tent, and then later unconscious, and thus missed the results of the First Task entirely, Ron and Hermione were both remaining tight-lipped about how Neville had gotten soundly beaten by all three of his competitors. Perhaps it was out of some noble desire to spare his feelings, but when pressed, Ron did admit to Neville that Cedric Diggory had won the whole Task in a rout. Though how Fleur Delacour had outdrawn Neville for third place was, in Ron's words, "total bloody bullshite."

Snow began to descend onto the grounds as winter came in like a lion. Hogsmeade trips were one of the few things about this year to not have been upended by the Tournament, but by now, with the clock running down, Neville was barely finding any escape even in these. He did like talking with Luna Lovegood on these outings, however, mostly because he was allowed to not bring up anything about Second Tasks and Tournaments and Luna – rather refreshingly – did not ask. The pressure to find a breakthrough was stifling enough as it was every day the Task drew closer, grating on Neville more and more until Hermione too was clearly getting frustrated with both the egg and him.

"Neville, what are you going to do? The Task is two days from now!" she scolded him one winter's morning out on the Covered Bridge, overlooking the viaduct. She sounded like a teacher disciplining a student for not turning their homework in. Worse than that, she sounded like his Gran, who'd actually deigned to send a Howler chastising her grandson for not performing better in the First Task.

"Really? I had no idea," Neville snipped back sarcastically.

A gust of wind blowing through her chestnut tresses, Hermione sighed, softening. "These Tasks are designed to test you," she reminded him. "In the most brutal way, almost cruel! And, um…." She rounded to his other side, her brown eyes on him. "I'm scared for you."

It seemed like a big admission for the always-confident Hermione to make, and Neville turned to stare at her, moved by her caring. Reaching up a hand, he dared to cup, even caress, her cheek a little bit, causing Hermione to suck in a breath sharply. After a moment, she shied away.

"We'd… better get back up to the castle," she murmured quietly.

They met up with Ron in one of the courtyards, slipping into an adjacent, open-air corridor as they prepared to walk to their next class. On top of being a Champion, Neville still had to keep up with his studies, and it was a wonder he was doing so; he'd likely be failing without Hermione's help.

"What if we borrowed one of my Dad's Muggle artifacts?" Ron was pondering aloud as the Trio set off at an ambling stroll for Charms. "There's this thing called a drill, see; we can chip away at the egg! …."

"Finally," Hermione hummed dryly. "You manage to describe something Muggle by citing its proper function!"

Ron grinned at her. "Well, with you as my best girl, how can I do anything else?" It might have been from the snow flurries, but Hermione seemed to turn pink with the praise, pleased by Ron's willingness to learn about her culture.

"Neville!" a voice suddenly cut through the hubbub of class changes, and the Trio glanced back to see Cedric Diggory's head of thick, curly hair bouncing above the rest of the throng towards them.

Ron stiffened. "What does he want?" He still hadn't entirely forgiven Diggory for beating Neville and the rest of the field in the First Task.

Neville raised a hand to stay his best mate. "Let it be," he murmured. "We'll see what he wants…."

Cedric came to a halt, catching his breath. "Um…. how…. how are you?"

Neville blinked dumbly. "Spectacular."

"Well, if that's all you came to say…" Ron eyed the Hufflepuff mistrustfully, accepting the offer of Hermione's arm as they moved to stalk away.

"Wait!" Cedric was chewing on his bottom lip, looking altogether sheepish in a way that seemed rather unlike him. Finally, he leaned into Neville and murmured quietly:

"You know the Prefects' bathroom? On the fifth floor?"

Neville nodded. "Yeah. What of it?"

Cedric nickered out an awkward chuckle through his mouth, smile tightening as though this entire conversation was mortifying. "It's not….. a bad place for a bath." He placed an inappropriate, strange emphasis on those last words.

"I always knew the fellow was mad!" Ron shook his head, baffled voice not quite sotte voce, prompting Hermione to kick him in the shin.

Eyes darting about, Cedric drew back, still smiling tightly. "Just…. take your egg and… mull things over in the hot water." He slipped off into the sea of students.

Neville glanced back to his mates, mind spinning. "Did…. did Cedric just give me a clue? About how to break the egg?"

"Why the bloody hell would he do that?" Ron gawped.

Glancing back to where Cedric had vanished, Neville allowed himself a small smile. "Because he owed me. At least, that's what he thinks…" After all, it had been Neville who warned Cedric about the dragons in the first place. His brain latched onto what the Hufflepuff had said: the prefects' bathroom…. Take the egg for a bath…

"How can I get into the Prefects' bathroom? It's for Prefects only – fifth year and above!"

Ron bit his lip apologetically. "Well, for all his hot air talk about being a Prefect, Percy never exactly mentioned where he went to take a dip in his skivvies, and thank heavens for that!" Hermione giggled. "But…. I might have a way…. We've gotta find Potter!"

"No," Harry said, flatly and with assertiveness so out-of-character, it caused both Ron and Neville to pull up short.

"What? Why the bloody well not, prat?!" Ron looked outraged.

"Ginny says I need to stop letting people take advantage of me."

Ron spluttered like a fish for a moment. "This is…. this is not taking advantage of you!" he hissed, quickly growing peeved.

"No. Just my stuff."

"That's not the point! Since when are you listening to my sister the way you'd listen to your mum?"

Harry turned a bright shade of red, and whether it was entirely born of outrage, Neville couldn't say. "None of your business!"

"You hanging about my sister like a Merlindamn puppy dog is bloody damn well so my business, Potter….!"

"OK, we're getting off topic!" Neville redirected. "Harry…." he kept his voice deliberately gentle, figuring he could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. "May we please borrow your Cloak?"

Harry took entirely too long of a beat to consider this. "All right," he stated mildly. "Let me just compile the necessary documentation…" And he retrieved from his trunk a small ream of parchment, setting it before the boys.

Ron frowned down at it, squinting to read the fine print. "What's this rubbish?"

" 'What's this rubbish,' he says!" Harry scoffed. "It's called a waiver, Ron. From now on, anyone who wants to use the Invisibility Cloak has to sign it out."

Ron looked appalled. After a beat of silence, he blasted: "We're the only ones who ever use it! Waiver, my…. foot," he amended, after Neville surreptitiously kicked him in the shin.

"I use it," Harry countered. "It is my property."

"For what?" Ron jeered. Harry didn't answer, merely pushing the waiver towards them.

"Sign here, please."

"What, so you can profit off having a better Cloak than everyone else? You're as bad as Fred and George!" Ron's tone might have been bitter, except Neville suspected that secretly, his best friend was kind of impressed.

"Actually, I have you to thank for the idea, Ron."

"Me?" Ron pulled up short.

"I seem to recall someone telling me how they once overheard you say I should sign out the Cloak to those who want to use it. Well, that's what I'm doing!" Harry smiled with innocent relish. "I'm asserting my power!"

Ron scowled, but he snatched the quill out of Harry's hand and affixed his signature to the sign-out waiver, grumbling. "This is a load of bollocks…" he muttered. "You know, Potter, I sort of liked you better when you were a meek little mouse."

"Ronald!" Neville growled, embarrassed on his friend's behalf. "I beg your pardon!"

"Oh, I beg yours," Ron waved him off tiredly. "We only have enough room in this castle for one Hermione, mate, so don't you start giving me lectures – I'm in no mood for it!"

Neville was left to accept the borrowed cloak from Harry with a sheepish smile of thanks.

That very night, Neville found himself alone in the Prefects' bathroom, having broken in thanks to Harry's Invisibility Cloak and a well-placed Alohamora spell Hermione had taught him. He stared at the egg, and it seemed to stare back, mocking him. Gingerly, he reached out to touch a finger to the claw-like markings at the top of the egg. What if…. what if he twisted those? Might the egg open then?

Cedric had said the egg needed to be in water to open….

Huffing out a breath, Neville muttered, "I must be out of my mind." Taking the egg, he submerged in the bath. Testing his theory about the claw markings, he was elated to discover that it did twist so that the egg opened.

"Come seek us where our voices sound…. We cannot sing above the ground…. An hour long you'll have to look…. To recover what we took…."

Neville surfaced quickly, coughing and spluttering, gaping at the egg. He gathered his towel, plus the Cloak, and fled sopping wet from the bathroom, the egg's siren song ringing in his ears.