Now that Christmas was over, the Second Task loomed much nearer than it had before Christmas break began.

Harry and Hermione had been trying to figure out the clue — or really what the clue even was supposed to be — ever since Bagman had told them about there being a clue following the first task, but so far they'd had no luck. They had opened the egg up several times in the weeks between the First Task and Christmas, in the Gryffindor common room or in Harry's dorm room, but they had been limited to times when no one else was around to have to hear the incessant screeching, so as not to annoy all their fellow Gryffindors into murdering them in the middle of the night. And since Christmas, Harry and Hermione had started spending almost all of their free time in the library to avoid Ron, who still hadn't come to terms with Harry and Hermione's newfound relationship.

While limiting the amount of affection they could express, it did have the advantage that Harry had quickly caught up on all of his homework, and was no longer dragged down by mountains of parchments. And as his amount of work needing finished had gone down, his enjoyment of his classes had gone up, and along with it his speed of learning. While certainly not up to the level of Hermione, he had become one of the top students in their year, much to the delight of their teachers, and much to the ire of Ron, who preferred spending classes joking around, and then copying the answers off Hermione at the last minute. And now that Hermione was no longer letting him copy off of her, the redhead's ire was piling up at nearly the same rate as his homework.

But the library wasn't an ideal place for figuring out the clue, as studying a screaming egg in her tranquil, silent palace was greatly frowned upon by Madam Pince.

And it was a screaming egg.

But it was during one of the evenings of studying in the library that Cedric Diggory, the Hogwarts champion, walked up to them.

"Figured out your egg yet?" he asked quietly, looking around to make sure no one was listening.

"Not yet, no," replied Harry shaking his head, wondering why a fellow competitor was asking him if he'd figured out the clue yet. To the best of his knowledge, they weren't supposed to be sharing or helping each other.

"Try taking a bath with it...in fact, use the Prefects' Bathroom; fourth door to the left of the statue of Boris the Bewildered on the fifth floor. Password's 'pine fresh'."

"Thanks, but why are you telling me this?" asked Harry, a look of confusion on his face. Why would Cedric be wanting to help him when they were competing against each other?

"I owe you one for telling me about the dragon," replied Cedric, before saying, "I gotta go, but just — remember what I said."

And with that he hurried away, leaving them alone again.

Harry and Hermione just looked at each other for several seconds, before Harry commented, "That was weird."

"He kind of has a point though," answered Hermione. "You did tell him about the dragon, which if he hadn't known about he certainly wouldn't have the thirty-eight points he currently does, so if he's figured out his clue and thinks it's something you really should know about beforehand, it makes since he would want to reciprocate."

"I guess. Do you really think it's something as bad as a dragon again, though?" asked Harry.

"I certainly hope not," replied Hermione. "I really don't want to lose you right after we just started dating." She paused for a second, before smirking, "Or anytime, I guess, but especially not now that I have someone to snog any time I like."

"Except when Madam Pince is hovering around like a vulture," said Harry with a slight smirk of his own.

"Yes, well, that is an unfortunate side effect of the fact Ron still refuses to accept us, and we're too nice to shove it in his face in the common room. It definitely limits our affectionate time — but fortunately broom cupboards exist."

"Three cheers for broom cupboards," replied Harry, before asking, "But what about about this clue Cedric's given us?"

"Since we'll have to do it after hours so as not to run into any actual prefects, we need to plan it very carefully, as Snape won't take being a champion as an excuse for being out of bounds. But I think we should definitely try it out, as we have nothing better to go on at the moment, and I don't think he was trying to trick you or anything," answered Hermione. "And I think we need to do it soon, so if we don't figure out the clue there, we'll still have time to try to figure it out some other way."

So the remainder of that evening Harry and Hermione schemed and planned, working out all the details and minutia for a late night excursion to take a bath, putting the finishing touches on their stratagem just before Madam Pince walked over to kick them out of the library. Happy with their plan, Harry and Hermione walked hand in hand back to the Gryffindor common room, sharing a brief kiss outside the fat lady's portrait before they entered.

~HP~

The following night, once the common room had emptied, Harry and Hermione donned Harry's invisibility cloak, and snuck out of the portrait hole.

Thanks to Hermione's careful planning, and their use of the Marauder's map to make sure no one was taking a midnight stroll down the hallways they needed, Harry and Hermione arrived at the statue of Boris the Bewildered safe and sound. Entering the Prefects' Bathroom, they looked around and marveled at its extravagance.

"This is definitely worth becoming a prefect for, but how is this supposed to help us figure out the clue?" whispered Harry.

"Well, Cedric did say to take a bath with it, so I suppose we should start there," whispered Hermione back. There was no one else in there, but it was just the kind of place they couldn't help but whisper in.

Harry nodded his agreement, so they walked over to the sunken swimming pool, grabbing a couple fluffy towels off a pile on their way. After Harry set his golden egg down on top of the towels so it wouldn't roll away, they spent several minutes testing and comparing the hundreds of golden taps, until they soon had the pool filled to the brim.

With nothing left to do, Harry walked back over to where they'd set the towels down by the edge of the pool, and pulled off his robes and shirt, leaving him standing there in just his bathing suit. Hermione, who'd followed him over, did the exact same thing.

Harry had seen her next to him out of the corner of his eye, and just felt her presence next to him in general, so when he finished, he looked over at her. And thinking back on it later after his brain turned back on, he knew he should have expected what he saw, or at least something similar, but he hadn't. And his jaw dropped for it.

For Hermione stood there in a pale turquoise bikini, looking serenely out over the pool. And Harry thought he'd never seen such a picture of grace and beauty and perfection in his life.

When she turned to see if he was ready yet and caught him staring at her, she blushed slightly and smiled shyly at him, before turning and diving into the warm water. After a second to return his jaw to its normal position, Harry dove in after her. She was already halfway across the pool when he resurfaced, so he hurriedly swam after her to catch up.

She paused at the far end to let him finish catching up, and asked, "Care to swim a few laps before we start working on the egg? It's been since vacation last summer that I've been able to swim."

"Of course," replied Harry, and they proceeded to swim several laps of the long pool, before eventually returning to the egg, and the reason they were there in the first place.

But as they leaned up against the edge of the pool, before Harry could pick the egg up off of the towel he'd laid it down on, Hermione asked, "I have to ask, Harry — is this the first time you've ever seen a girl in a bikini?"

Harry nodded. "I mean, I've seen them on tv or in movies or something, so I know what they are, but no — I've never seen one in person. The Dursleys never took me on vacation to the beach, or even to a pool or anything, where I might have seen one. And sorry for staring, I just couldn't help it — you're so beautiful."

Hermione blushed again, and she knew she couldn't blame it on the warmth of the water they were in — but thankfully Harry didn't mention it.

"Thanks, Harry," she said shyly, before continuing on more confidently, "And I wore it because I knew you would stare. I have a couple one-piece suits I could have worn instead if I'd chosen to, but I didn't. You're my boyfriend — you're allowed to stare at your girlfriend when she's showing off for you."

She paused for a second to give him time to absorb what she'd told him, knowing his upbringing had left him without certain norms she took for granted, before saying, "Now what about that egg?"

Since their feet could barely touch the bottom of the pool, the two of them tread water as Harry opened the egg. While the cacophony of screams echoing around the marble bathroom was quite spectacular, it unfortunately did nothing to help them solve the mystery, unless the clue was that the second task was going to be a complete headache. After several seconds of the awful din, Harry slammed the egg back shut, rubbing his temples as the echoes finally stopped bouncing around the marble walls.

"Get anything from that other than a headache?" he asked his girlfriend.

Hermione shook her head, staring thoughtfully at the offending ovoid of gold. "But Cedric did say to take a bath with it, not simply to open it in the Prefects' bathroom, so I'm guessing the water has to have something to do with it. Maybe trying opening it underwater?"

Harry stuck the egg beneath the surface of the water, and opened it again. This time, at least, there was no wailing; however, there was no discernible clue, either. To Harry it just sounded like a mixture of garble and bubbles.

"It's a song, Harry! But I can't understand it," exclaimed Hermione excitedly, living up to her reputation as era-defining genius.

And with a splash, she disappeared under the water. Resurfacing a few seconds later, she excitedly motioned to Harry to go underwater as well, spluttering out, "Underwater, Harry! Underwater!"

Taking a deep breath, Harry plunged his head beneath the surface. To his great surprise, instead of the bubbles he could hear above the water, underneath he could hear a chorus of eerie voices singing to him from the egg in his hand. And they were singing some kind of song that he assumed must be the clue for the second task.

When they both resurfaced a few seconds later, Harry said, "Looks like we found the clue."

"Indeed — but even I can't remember the whole thing from a single listen, or even two," replied Hermione. "We're going to have to go back down."

After several more trips up and down, they had finally memorized the song — or at least Hermione had, as Harry had been rather distracted staring at Hermione's bikini-covered breasts. But since Hermione had memorized it, Harry set the egg back down on the top towel, and he and Hermione started floating around in the water, trying to figure out what it all meant.

"Come seek us where our voices sound, we cannot sing above the ground," began Harry, floating on his back staring up at the ceiling.

"Since you had to open the egg underwater, that presumably means you have to go underwater," said Hermione. "I'm assuming the Black Lake, since they do like grandeur for this tournament."

"So I have to go into the Black Lake, to find something they've taken from me that I'll dearly miss. But who are they that can't sing above the water and will be taking something from me? Who is it I'm searching for? I mean, surely not the giant squid."

"The squid's only one thing, Harry, and last time I asked him he wasn't too big on singing," chided Hermione, as she stared at the painting of the mermaid on the far wall. "But they are."

Harry flipped over in the water to see what she was looking at. "Mermaids?"

"There's a whole colony of them at the bottom of the Black Lake. Which you'd know if you ever read Hogwarts: A History."

"I did!" exclaimed Harry indignantly, before mumbling, "Start to—must have missed that chapter."

Hermione merely rolled her eyes at him, before reciting the next verse of the song. " 'An hour long you'll have to look, and to recover what we took'. Simple enough — you have an hour to complete the second task."

"Ah yes, because surviving underwater for an hour is quite simple."

"I just meant we know what you have to do," replied Hermione, flicking water at him.

"But past an hour — the prospect's black; too late, it's gone, it won't come back," finished Harry. "So as if finding whatever they've taken in under an hour isn't enough, if we don't find it in time, we'll lose it forever."

"Sounds like it," answered Hermione gravely.