Frisk had barely sat down in the great hall for dinner that night, when Ginny tapped her on the shoulder. "Look who's over by the challenge shields," she said. Frisk turned in her seat, looking over her shoulder, and saw the Creevey brothers, her siblings, and two Slytherin students she didn't recognize. The Slytherin girl and Colin Creevey held a piece of the Hogwarts crest itself between them, then he let go and let her put it in the frame.
After the requisite ceremony had been observed, they split up to come to their house table. Frisk noted that most members of the Slytherin table didn't seem to care much that they'd partnered with Gryffindor, though there were a few who did, she noticed Draco specifically. The same went at her own table, there were a few dark looks from the older students. She specifically saw Harry Potter and Ginny's brother Ron, but the darkest look came from Cormac McLaggen.
"We should have had you join us, Frisk!" Asriel exclaimed as he sat down across from her, joined a second later by Chara, Dennis, and Colin."You would have really liked this one. It's exactly what you were hoping for, we had to all work together."
"Oh?" Frisk asked.
"We did," confirmed Chara. She described the set up of the room. "Asriel, Colin, and I each took a side to handle the levers and doors. Malcolm ran the maze, with Mafalda giving him directions. Dennis was coordinating all of us, watching Colin from above. signaling us when it was time to open and close the doors, and letting Mafalda know what directions to give."
Frisk was torn between the competing feelings of disappointment that she hadn't had the chance to take part in this challenge herself, and how good she felt for her siblings in completing it, especially with members of another house. That had been what she really wanted, after all. "Did you finish it on the first try?" Frisk asked.
Asriel shook his head. "No, it took us a good five tries before we were coordinated enough. We had to figure out which levers went to which doors, be ready to open them when called for."
"And while it looked like there were multiple paths through the maze, some of them had alarm sensors in them," Dennis said, in his usual high pitched tone of excitement. "And which paths were safe changed every time."
"So how could you tell which paths you could use?" Frisk asked.
"We were on our fourth attempt before we figured that out," Colin told her. "Malcolm had to spot them, little markings near the floor. They were a dark red device, maybe some kind of muggle sensor."
Frisk was slightly grumpy with the term, but let it go. "And you did it!" She said, smiling. "Good for you. So how did you meet the Slytherins?"
"Potions. You suggested at the beginning of the term that we try to partner up with someone from Slytherin. And we did," Asriel said. "It wasn't that bad. Malcolm was almost as nervous as Chara was. He hadn't found anyone to partner up with right away, so when I stepped up, he was surprised enough to say yes."
"Mafalda came to me," Chara said. "I think she did the math and realized there were going to be one left over. So she decided to try to partner up with the Gryffindor with..." she gave a wry smile, "with the most important sounding last name. Since Asriel had already found someone, that meant me. But that's okay, she's good to work with, even if she talks my ear off with all the gossip."
Frisk finally picked a plate of food from the table. "I'm glad to know that. You're keeping up with your homework, too?" She had to duck as a carrot flew in her direction.
It was the Wednesday morning of the second Triwizard task. They had all filed down to, of all places, the giant, dark Black Lake that sat on the approach to Hogwarts. Stands had been erected all along the lake, and the whole school was filing onto them. Frisk found her friends, and climbed up about half way. They were all wearing their heavy cloaks, because it was bitterly cold that February morning. Frisk, Ginny, Steven, and Opal tried to keep to the middle of the stands, the better to be out of the wind. Her siblings were a bit further below, with some of their first year classmates.
"Who's great idea," Opal asked through chattering teeth, wrapped under her fuzzy blue blanket, "was it to hold a triwizard task out on the lake in the middle of February?"
Frisk didn't know. She was just glad Opal was sharing her blanket. It was frigid out here. And what's worse, it looked like Harry Potter was late. They could see the other three champions sitting by the judge's table, but there wasn't any sign of him.
Fred and George were picking their way through the crowd. "Anyone want to wager anything on the match?" Frisk looked at them, and shook her head. "Offering up even odds on either Harry or Cedric, three to one odds on Krum or Fleur coming first. Don't bet anything you can't afford to lose, though," he advised.
Ginny gave them a hard look, and was about to say something, when Opal spoke first. "I'll take that bet," she said, searching through her pocket. "Two sickles on Cedric!"
"I'll put a sickle on Krum, just for fun," Steven added.
"Glad we raised the odds on the other two," one of the twins said.
"Or we'd be getting no bets on them," the other agreed, making a note on some paper, handing them some sort of receipt, and taking their Sickles. "Thanks!" and they moved on try to get other bettors. Ginny just sighed and shook their head.
It was another ten minutes before Steven announced, "There he is, finally." He pointed back towards the castle path.
Harry was coming sprinting up the path. He had barely the time to catch his breath before Bagman started announcing. "Well, all our champions are ready for the second task, which will begin on my whistle. They have precisely an hour..." Frisk noted Opal checking her watch. "...to recover what's been taken from them. On the count of three, then. One, two, three!" And a sharp whistle pierced the air.
"What's he doing?" Frisk asked. Fleur and Cedric had both conjured some sort of bubble around their heads, making themselves look like some sort of astronaut. Krum had partially transfigured himself into something that looked like a large menacing fish. But Harry was just standing in the shallows, perhaps waiting for something.
Opal had brought out something that looked like small binoculars. "Birthday present from my parents," she explained. "Omnioculars." She held them up to her eyes. "I just wish I could get them to figure out we're not at a quidditch match anymore. But, I think Harry just swallowed something."
"Oh! I know! It's Gillyweed!" Frisk turned around to see Neville sitting behind her. "It's a Mediterranean Sea plant, you find it around Sicily or Corsica. And you use can use it to grow Gills. It's kind of dangerous, though, since it blocks up your nose and mouth. You can drown on dry land if you use it wrong."
"Really?" Frisk said, impressed with Neville's herbology knowledge. She started staring into the dark water before coming to a realization, "Wait. How is this exciting? Can anyone see what's going on under the water?" As if they heard her, the five judges raised their wands as one, and cast some sort of charm on the water, turning the normally dark water crystal clear. They could watch as the champions head out towards the deeper parts of the lake.
At about fifteen minutes in, they saw them each get attacked by a group of small, aquatic creatures. "Could those be grindylows?" Frisk said. "Didn't Professor Lupin have one of those in his office? I can't see very well."
"I think so," said Opal, staring through her omnioculars. "But they're getting too far even for these things. But, wait, Fleur's coming back already! I think she's bleeding!"
Opal was right. Fleur was forced up to the surface by the grindylows. It was too far for Frisk to tell, but Madame Maxine had cast some sort of enchantment, and was walking directly across the water towards her student. She lifted her up bodily, and when they returned to shore, Fleur was set down gingerly. From the way Madam Pomfrey was already moving, Frisk could tell that Fleur was, in fact, covered in some deep looking cuts and nasty bruises.
"She's crying," Opal reported. "I can't tell what she's saying, but Madam Pomfrey is seeing to her wounds."
"Can you see the others?" Steven asked, grumpily. Frisk felt the same way. If this was the show they were going to get, she might as well sneaked a couple extra hours of sleep.
"No," Opal told him. "They're just too far away." Frisk grumbled and pulled the blanket closer to her.
As time ticked on, there was an increase of panicked noises coming from behind them. After the third time Neville asked how long they'd been down, Ginny was finally motivated enough to ask him, "Neville, what's wrong?"
"Gillyweed only lasts about an hour in fresh water. It's a salt water plant, Harry might be drowning! He said someone was trying to kill him! Why isn't someone doing something?" he said, his voice frantic. Ginny looked over in alarm.
"Dumbledore's watching," Opal put her hand up, trying to soothe them. "He's cocked his head, I think he's curious about something, but he doesn't look worried."
About five minutes after the hour was up, Cedric broke the surface, pulling out a raven haired girl that Frisk didn't recognize, and they both began to swim to shore. A few minutes after that, the fishy head of whatever creature Krum had transfigured himself into came into view with...
"Is that Hermione?" Frisk asked as Krum got back to the shore.
"Huh," Steven said. "I'd have thought she would have been Harry's hostage."
"Hostage?" Frisk asked, alarmed before thinking better of it.
"Goal?" Steven suggested. Behind them, Neville was making strangled noises. "I don't think Dumbledore would put non-champions into any real danger. I think it was to see how the champions would react, and give it an element of urgency."
When Dumbledore rose to his feet, moving to get into the water, Frisk thought Neville had been right all along. But a few seconds afterward, the fourth champion's head bobbed to to the surface with two other heads. Both Neville, and Ginny let out large sighs of relief. Dumbledore returned to his seat as the three of them swam toward shore.
"Ginny," Opal said, "I think that's Ron." If Ron hadn't been moving under his own power, Frisk thought Ginny would have had a panic attack. "Your brother, the one who works for the ministry, is seeing to him.
"Percy's there?" Ginny said, sounding relieved. "Oh, good. Percy's there."
"I think the other one is Fleur's sister. Look at her!" Frisk said, pointing at Fleur trying to break away from Madam Pomfrey. She finally did so, going to embrace the bemused Harry.
As all this was going on, four of the five judges were in a huddle, and Percy joined them after seeing to Ron. "What are they talking about?" asked Opal. The others turned to look at her, and her omnioculars, pretty much as a group. "I can't tell what they're saying!" she protested.
As it turned out, they were discussing the scores. Cedric took the win with forty eight points, with Harry coming in second, Krum third, and Fleur, surprising no one, in a distant fourth. "That was exciting," Frisk complained as they made their way up to the castle.
"Would you rather have had class?" Steven asked, then added quickly. "Don't answer that. I think I would have rather had class too. At least we have the rest of the morning free."
The calendar had turned to March. The weather had started to get warmer, turning the previously snowy grounds into wide tracks of limp grass and mud. The Easter holidays were on the horizon, but not yet close enough to really look forward to. The challenge shields were, if Frisk had to guess, not quite half way complete. They'd found another one, something of a logic puzzle about potions of five different colors (set on five trays in front of them), made to cure five different kinds of maladies, needing to be delivered to five different patients. The had esoteric clues like "Bertha Babbage didn't need the red potion, nor did she need the antidote."
Frisk had seen something like that before, in a book of puzzles Sans had bought for his brother. So she knew how to start this challenge at least. There had been a handy chalkboard in the room, so she drew a grid out, labeling each row and column, and they worked through it. Steven enjoyed it, and Frisk liked the way they threw ideas out, but it moved a little slowly for Opal.
This particular Monday had her trying to cram for a Charms quiz, when she was distracted by an entire parliament of owls flying in over their heads, and dropped a large handful of letters in front of Hermione Granger. "What's that about?" Frisk asked.
"Search me," Asriel asked, craning his neck to stare up the table. "That is a lot of letters."
Frisk went back to her notes, until Hermione suddenly let out a shriek of pain. "What just happened?" she asked, standing, moving up the table. Hermione's breathing was coming in short bursts.
Ron was carefully holding up the edge of an envelope, sniffing at it. "Undiluted bubotuber pus!" he exclaimed.
Without asking, Frisk grabbed a goblet of orange juice from in front of a fourth year she didn't know and pushed it toward Hermione. "Trust me! Madam Pomfrey told me! Vinegar, or orange juice, for someone who's gotten bubotuber pus on their hands!"
Hermione stared at Frisk for a moment. She held her hands over the table, and let Frisk pour the orange juice over her hands. Immediately, her breathing slowed and normalized. "Thanks, Frisk," Hermione said. "Lucky for me that you volunteer in the hospital wing."
"You still ought to go see Madam Pomfrey," Frisk said. "It's probably not the best idea to use orange juice someone was drinking from, uh, I apologize." The fourth year gave her a bemused shrug, and reached out to get a fresh goblet.
"Do you want us to come with you?" Ron asked, looking worried.
"I think I'll be okay," Hermione said, though there was still ugly looking marks on her now dripping hands. "Just tell Professor Sprout where I am?" she asked, as she stood, making her way out of the great hall.
"We will," Harry Potter promised.
Frisk watched her leave, before turning back to the table. "Where did that pus come from, anyway?" Ron was trying to wipe it away, but it still oozed and bubbled on the table. "Might need a cloth."
"Ever hear of Rita Skeeter?" Ron asked. "Nasty woman who writes articles for Witch Weekly." Frisk had heard that name before. At the world cup, and then afterward at the minister's office, when her parents got the Order of Merlin awarded. "She wrote an article about Hermione dumping Harry on Friday, and this was the result," Ron told her.
Frisk blinked. "Wait, were you two actually dating?" She wasn't really up on Gryffindor gossip, but she thought she'd have heard of that.
Harry sighed, probably realizing that Frisk was the first in a long line of people about to ask that question. "No. We weren't. Hermione is my friend, but that's it. I promise."
"I believe you," Frisk said.
As she went back to her seat, she could hear Ron complaining about how he'd warned Hermione to not test Rita Skeeter. Not that their friend deserved it, but they weren't in a position to do anything about it, and it was fruitless to try to fight her.
During their morning break, Frisk detoured down to the hospital wing see how Hermione was doing. It wasn't that she wanted to skive off from History of Magic (though, she did wonder if the ghost professor Binns would notice her absent), but wanted to make she had done the right thing.
"Hey, Frisk," Hermione said as she came in. She had her hands resting in some some sort of liquid that Frisk wasn't sure she recognized. "Thank you again for what happened at breakfast."
Madam Pomfrey came out of her office at Frisk's name. "You remembered orange juice!" she exclaimed, sweeping Frisk into her arms for a moment. "That makes you better than two of the last three defense against the dark arts teachers!"
Hermione choked a bit, laughing. "I'm glad she did. You said this would have been much worse
if she hadn't."
"And it would have," the matron confirmed. "How are your hands feeling? The murtlap essence doing its work?" She walked over to Hermione, looking at the student's hands critically. "Another ten or fifteen minutes, I think. Then we can bind them up."
"Do you have any way of figuring out who sent the letter?" Frisk asked. "And I'm surprised Ron and Harry aren't here."
"Dumbledore has the envelope, but I don't know if there's anything to work with," Madam Pomfrey said, a dark cloud passing over her face. Frisk could hear the restraint in her voice. Angry might be been an understatement.
"I was supposed to have Herbology, then Care of Magical Creatures, so I doubt they even made it inside," Hermione said. She continued, less restrained but no less angry.. "It's that Rita Skeeter! I'm going to find out how she's getting this information if it's the last thing I do."
"Don't let it be that," Frisk said, "But, I better run to History of Magic. But I'm glad to know you're okay, more or less Hermione. See you later!" and with that, Frisk headed out the door, needing to race to class to get there by the bell.
A/N: The game mentioned in the last chapter is a real world game called Dominion. Other things may have been recognizable too. ;)
