Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter
Sorry I didn't post last week, honestly just been really busy with work.
Also... Thank you guys so much for 300+ reviews! I really appreciate it!
"So, do you think Harry Potter's going to show?" Mike asked, a playful glint in his eyes.
Terry pushed Mike in the lake.
They'd realised two days prior to the date of the second task that it was - somehow - fixated around the lake.
How had they realised? Well, it was actually rather simple. Firstly, all three of the contestants had suddenly all gravitated to the lake, Viktor Krum taking early morning swims, Fleur Delacour walking around on the pier, and Cassius Warrington flying over it on his broom.
Then the second clue: the large spectator stands that had been constructed by the side of the lake, and noticeboards in the common room telling them clearly that the second task started at 9:30 am promptly by the lakes.
So it had really been rather easy for the Ravenclaws to work out that the task had involved lake, and based on Viktor's swims they had reaffirmed that it obviously involved going into the lake - why else would the Bulgarian torture himself in the freezing waters? - and so they had worked out that participating in the task would likely entail the contestants entering the lake in some way or another.
The rule books were clear, that each contestant had to start the task and participate in some form or another, as Harry had demonstrated in the first task. What the rule books had also shown was that, despite the second task formally starting at 9:30 am, the legal magical binding aspect of the tournament allowed was based around whole 24 hour days, and thus as long as you participated in some way on the date of the second task - whether you do so at one minute past midnight or ten a clock at night - you wouldn't be victim to the punishments of not participating.
So, Terry pushed Mike in the lake. And Mike sputtered and flailed around a bit and glared at Terry for pushing him - because, whilst he knew that he would be pushed in the lake at some point, he hadn't expected it to be then - and Harry in turn reached a hand into the water to help pull Mike up, out of the lake.
"Boot!" An irritated voice yelled from behind them and the four boys froze, as Mike climbed onto the bank. "What were you thinking?!" Professor Flitwick asked as he scurried over.
"I still don't get why it had to be me." Mike muttered to Harry as Flitwick cast a drying spell at him, and took Terry off to the side to talk to him (and likely give him a detention).
"Well, it couldn't be Harry, because we don't want to give any reason for Dumbledore to be suspicious of him," Anthony began to explain, with all the exasperation of someone who had had this conversation many times over, "it couldn't be me, because all the teachers know I would never do something like that,"
"Never get caught doing something like that." Harry corrected quietly and Anthony smirked.
"And it couldn't be Terry because?" Mike asked.
"Oh it definitely could've been Terry." Anthony replied with a laugh as Mike glared at him. "But it was his plan so he got to opt out."
"Besides," Terry said as he returned to the group, overhearing the last parts of their conversation, "it isn't as if I get out of this completely unscathed."
Harry narrowed his eyes, "How many?"
"Oh just one, you know Flitwick loves me." Terry shrugged, and the Ravenclaws resumed their walk to the spectator stands, mission accomplished.
"Thanks." Harry muttered quietly, feeling sheepish for getting Terry into trouble.
"No worries. Just doing my part in saving the world." Terry grinned widely.
"How is this saving the world?"
"Well, the way I see it, preserving the secret ravioli recipe-" Harry rolled his eyes, Terry had started coming up with increasingly bizarre codenames for the secret, not yet finding one he was willing to commit to, "- means keeping the ravioli safe so that when the evil spaghetti man resurfaces,"
"If." Harry said, biting his lip.
"If," Terry nodded, "the evil spaghetti man resurfaces, than the ravioli isn't in danger, along with his compatriots, tortellini, macaroni and penne-"
"Wait, why's Anthony penne?" Harry scrunched up his face as he tried to keep up with the long-winded metaphor.
"I couldn't think of a pasta type which begins with 'a'." Terry explained with a shrug. "So, we preserve the secret ravioli recipe, and keep all the other pasta types safe from the evil spaghetti man, and that way the... evil pizza and seafood groups also can't steal our secret ravioli recipe."
"Pizza and seafood?"
"Fudge, well, the ministry, and Dumbledore... duh."
"Who's who?"
Terry paused as they began to follow Anthony and Michael up the steps to the stands. "Hm. I reckon... Dumbledore's seafood because he's slimy."
Harry nodded seriously. "That makes sense." He agreed.
"What are you guys talking about?" Anthony turned in the steps.
"Evil pasta wars." Terry replied nonchalantly, a small grin escaping his mouth as Anthony frowned before deciding it was better to just leave it and return to his conversation with Mike.
"There's a lot more ministry personnel around." Draco said as the Ravenclaws found the Slytherins' seats. Harry slid in besides Draco. "There's even quite a few aurors all around the lake."
"Well, they were embarrassed last time by how easy it was for Potter to escape." Terry replied, subtly shooting Harry a wry grin. Harry's ability to morph his appearance had enabled his escape in the first task, allowing him to hide in the crowd back as Harry Reynolds. This time he wouldn't even have to endure that trouble, instead he could watch the task just sitting in the stands, with no anxiety about having to perform, knowing that he's already - as far as the rule books go - participated.
"How long to go?" Daphne asked over Harry's shoulder. The fourth year Slytherins had occupied two rows to themselves.
Harry glanced at his watch. "Nine minutes."
"Potter's not here yet." She mentioned, and Harry cast his eyes down to the pier where the other three contestants were standing, pretending to be surprised as his own absence.
"Look at Fudge." Draco pointed out. The minister stood pacing on the banks of the lake, surrounded by aurors and other ministry personnel who were all surveying the area for any sight of Harry Potter.
"Is that your dad?" Harry asked, catching sight of long blonde hair attached to a sneering face. "Why's he here?"
"The same reason everyone else is," Draco replied, the 'duh' in his tone clear, "to see the Harry Potter."
Harry frowned. "Isn't your dad- or wasn't your... wasn't your dad a..." Harry stumbled over his words, flustered as Draco raised an eyebrow at him. "A you know, a..."
"An evil spaghetti man's accomplice?" Terry intervened.
"A -" Draco paused, looking disappointed in his selection of friends "Yes. He was an... evil spaghetti man's accomplice. But Harry Pott-"
"Ravioli." Terry interrupted.
"Right. Well... even an evil spaghetti man's accomplice wants to see if ravioli is really... back in the market?" Draco shook his head as he tried to keep up with Terry's metaphor. "Basically: Ravioli is popular. Everyone wants ravioli. Everyone wants to know what ravioli wants. Perhaps the evil spaghetti man's accomplice wants to know whether ravioli might consider joining the evil spaghetti man. Honestly though, I'm not sure what my father's angle is, maybe he's maintaining pretences with Fudge or maybe he has a... secret spaghetti agenda," Draco sighed deeply as if Terry and Harry's antics had made him lost all will to live, whilst the others looked on with a mixed amount of amusement and intrigue, "I don't really talk to my father about that side of the family business." He added bitterly.
"Oh. Sorry." Harry mumbled, not knowing what else to say.
Terry grabbed Harry's wrist and twisted it around slightly. "Four minutes. No Potter. Bet Fudge is getting stressed now."
"Seafood too." Harry replied, gesturing in Dumbledore's direction.
"Dumbledore's seafood? Because he's fishy?" Daphne asked and Terry turned to her, a small grin on his face.
"Well, originally we were doing a 'equate the wizarding world to Italian cuisine' thing, hence the pasta analogies, and then pizza was Fudge-"
"Because he's... round?" Daphne asked and Terry's grin widened.
"I mean, there wasn't really a reason. But that definitely works. Dumbledore was seafood because he's slimy, but yours is better anyway." He acknowledged and Daphne smirked, leaning back in her seat looking oddly proud of herself.
"Why are you using all these analogies in the first place?" Draco questioned and Terry and Harry froze.
"Uh... For fun?" Terry said, rather unconvincingly.
Draco rolled his eyes, twisting in his seat to exchange a look with Daphne. "Ravenclaws." He said, and she nodded as if that meant anything. Perhaps to Slytherins it did...
Harry scanned the other people sitting around them, before glancing at his watch. "Where's Blaise? There's only two minutes to the task, I figured he'd be here by now."
"He's just talking to Ginny." Draco pointed him out.
"Is that a thing now?" Harry asked, taking a mental note to check in with Ginny. It had been far too long since he'd talked to her - Harry had been distracted with the whole secret ravioli recipe issue and the Triwizard tournament.
"It's Blaise." Draco replied.
"Which means...?"
"It means that I have no idea, and won't have any idea, until one night he sneaks in some Firewhisky, gets a little bit tipsy, and then ends up telling me everything. Everything." Draco repeated with a shudder.
"Ladies and gentlemen. Witches and Wizards. Welcome to the second task of the Triwizard Tournament." Bagman's voice boomed.
"No Potter." Draco said, an amused smirk tugging at his lips. "Fudge's going to go ape."
"Honestly, the chaos caused at the ministry is far more interesting entertainment than the actual Tournament." Blaise snarked, squeezing in between Draco and Harry.
"The second task involves a perilous task for our favourite four contestants,"
"Four." Terry scoffed.
"In which they must venture into the lake and regain a prized possession taken from them last night."
Harry turned to Terry nervously, "A prized possession?" He mouthed but Terry just shrugged, equally confused.
"The prized possession being..." Bagman paused for suspense, clearly loving the feeling of the entire crowd hanging on to his every word, "the person most dear to their hearts, currently being held hostage somewhere in this lake."
Harry froze.
"Who's the person most dear to Potter then?" Blaise piped up.
Draco sighed. "That's not the right question. The real question is, who do the ministry think is the person most dear to Potter. They didn't even realise he was alive until this year, how on earth are they supposed to know who Potter cares about," Harry turned to Terry desperately, "they don't know where he's been, who he lives with, who are his friends. And we all know he doesn't have any family - they're all either dead or abusive."
Terry gently rested his hand on Harry's shoulder, but even that wasn't enough to stop Harry from spiralling.
On the bright side he knew that all of his friends were safe - they were all sitting around him. He also knew that Luke was safe, because otherwise Harry would likely be being dragged in front of Fudge and Dumbledore right now. He half-considered the possibility of someone from his childhood - somebody from his life pre-Luke and pre-coma, but even that was unlikely.
He'd never really had any friends before Hogwarts anyway, his home life hadn't made that possible - especially when it followed him to school in the figure of Dudley, well, Dudley 1.0 as Harry had begun to refer to him in his head. The current Dudley he knew was a completely different person to the Dudley he had lived with in the Dursley household.
Dudley. Harry realised with a start.
The ministry definitely wouldn't pick Vernon - the stories of abuse had filled pages of the Prophet for years, if a wizard ever got hands on Vernon he wouldn't survive a day - and Petunia was dead, but Dudley? Dudley had never been slated in the Prophet, in fact his name was rarely even mentioned, thus maybe the ministry had presumed Harry and Dudley were close - or at least close enough to be used as a hostage in the task.
Maybe Dudley was currently down there in the lake, waiting with no one there to save him.
What happened when the one hour limit was up? Were their precautions in place, or was Harry's need to maintain his identity going to lead to Dudley's death?
A/N: So who do y'all think is Harry's hostage? - or does he even have one?!
Oh and also... I know a lot of you disagree with Terry's actions in 38/9 and just a quick explanation of it: Terry's like 14, he's by no means perfect and I will later address that choice again ( at some point ).