The other Miss Granger
Chapter 13:
Just as it had before he faced the Horntail, time was slipping away as though somebody had bewitched the clocks to go extra-fast. There was a week to go before February the twenty-fourth (there was still time) . . . there were five days to go (he was bound to find something soon) .. . three days to go (please let me find something... please).
With two days left. Harry started to go off food again. The only good thing about breakfast on Monday was the return of the brown owl he had sent to Sirius. He pulled off the parchment, unrolled it, and saw the shortest letter Sirius had ever written to him.
Send date of next Hogsmeade weekend by return owl.
Harry turned the parchment over and looked at the back, hoping to see something else, but it was blank.
"Weekend after next," whispered Hermione, who had read the note over Harry's shoulder. "Here - take my quill and send this owl back straight away." Harry scribbled the dates down on the back of Sirius's letter, tied it onto the brown owl's leg, and watched it take flight again. What had he expected? Advice on how to survive underwater? He had been so intent on telling Sirius all about Snape and Moody he had completely forgotten to mention the eggs clue.
As Jolie was walking towards the great hall she was stopped by Cedric Diggory, he kissed her gently on the cheek.
"Next Hogsmead weekend will you come on a date with me?" he asked her, Cedric and her have been getting much closer. She did like him, he was sweet, smart, kind, funny and handsome. They had already been on a date which was ruined when Skeeter had put her in a terrible mood. They had also spent loads of time in the library talking.
"I'd like that." Jolie told him. He grinned widely before kissing her on the cheek. They both walked in to the great hall. Nearly everyone stopped to look at them.
"I'll talk to you later." Jolie said, walking towards the Gryffindor table.
"Good morning." she said as she sat down.
"What did Cedric want?" Ron asked, stuffing his mouth with bacon.
"He asked me out on another date." she told him as she poured herself a cup of tea.
"He really likes you." Harry said, staring at the Hufflepuff table.
By the evening before the second task. Harry felt as though he were trapped in a nightmare. He was fully aware that even if, by some miracle, he managed to find a suitable spell, he'd have a real job mastering it overnight. How could he have let this happen? Why hadn't he got to work on the egg's clue sooner? Why had he ever let his mind wander in class - what if a teacher had once mentioned how to breathe underwater?
He sat with Hermione and Ron in the library as the sun set outside, tearing feverishly through page after page of spells, hidden from one another by the massive piles of books on the desk in front of each of them. Harry s heart gave a huge leap every time he saw the word "water" on a page, but more often than not it was merely "Take two pints of water, half a pound of shredded mandrake leaves, and a newt..."
"I don't reckon it can be done," said Rons voice flatly from the other side of the table. "There's nothing. Nothing. Closest was that thing to dry up puddles and ponds, that Drought Charm, but that was nowhere near powerful enough to drain the lake."
"There must be something," Hermione muttered, moving a candle closer to her. Her eyes were so tired she was poring over the tiny print of Olde and Forgotten Bewitchments and Charmes with her nose about an inch from the page. "They'd never have set a task that was undoable."
"They have," said Ron. "Harry, just go down to the lake tomorrow, right, stick your head in, yell at the merpeople to give back whatever they've nicked, and see if they chuck it out. Best you can do, mate."
"There's a way of doing it!" Hermione said crossly. "There Just has to be!"
She seemed to be taking the library's lack of useful information on the subject as a personal insult; it had never failed her before.
"I know what I should have done," said Harry, resting, face-down, on Saucy Tricks for Tricky Sorts. "I should've learned to be an Animagus like Sirius."
"Yeah, you could've turned into a goldfish any time you wanted!" said Ron.
"Or a frog," yawned Harry. He was exhausted. "It takes years to become an Animagus, and then you have to register yourself and everything," said Hermione vaguely, now squinting down the index of Weird Wizarding Dilemmas and Their Solutions. "Professor McGonagall told us, 've got to register yourself with the Improper Use of Magic Office ...what animal you become, and your markings, so you can't abuse it..."
"Hermione, I was joking," said Harry wearily. "I know I haven't got a chance of turning into a frog by tomorrow morning..."
"Oh this is no use," Hermione said, snapping shut Weird Wizarding Dilemmas.
"Who on earth wants to make their nose hair grow into ringlets?"
"I wouldn't mind," said Fred Weasleys voice. "Be a talking point, wouldn't it?" Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked up. Fred and George had just emerged from behind some bookshelves.
"What're you two doing here?" Ron asked.
"Looking for you," said George. "McGonagall wants you, Ron. And you, Hermione."
"Why?" said Hermione, looking surprised.
"Dunno ... she was looking a bit grim, though," said Fred.
"We're supposed to take you down to her office," said George.
Ron and Hermione stared at Harry, who felt his stomach drop. Was Professor McGonagall about to tell Ron and Hermione off? Perhaps she'd noticed how much they were helping him, when he ought to be working out how to do the task alone?
"We'll meet you back in the common room," Hermione told Harry as she got up to go with Ron - both of them looked very anxious. "Bring as many of these books as you can, okay?"
"Right," said Harry uneasily.
By eight o'clock. Madam Pince had extinguished all the lamps and came to chivvy Harry out of the library. Staggering under the weight of as many books as he could carry, Harry returned to the Gryffindor common room, pulled a table into a corner, and continued to search.
Crookshanks crawled into Harrys lap and curled up, purring deeply. The common room emptied slowly around Harry. People kept wishing him luck for the next morning in cheery, confident voices like Hagrid's, all of them apparently convinced that he was about to pull off another stunning performance like the one he had managed in the first task. Harry couldn't answer them, he just nodded, feeling as though there were a golfball stuck in his throat. By ten to midnight, he was alone in the room with Crookshanks. He had searched all the remaining books, and Ron and Hermione had not come back.
"Harry Potter must wake up, sir!"
"Stop poking me -"
"Dobby must poke Harry Potter, sir, he must wake up!"
Harry opened his eyes. He was still in the library; the Invisibility Cloak had slipped off his head as he'd slept, and the side of his face was stuck to the pages of Where There's a Wand, There's a Way. He sat up, straightening his glasses, blinking in the bright daylight.
"Harry Potter needs to hurry!" squeaked Dobby. "The second task starts in ten minutes, and Harry Potter -"
"Ten minutes?" Harry croaked. "Ten - ten minutes?"
He looked down at his watch. Dobby was right. It was twenty past nine. A large, dead weight seemed to fall through Harry's chest into his stomach.
"Hurry, Harry Potter!" squeaked Dobby, plucking at Harry's sleeve. "You is supposed to be down by the lake with the other champions, sir!"
"It's too late, Dobby," Harry said hopelessly. "I'm not doing the task, I don't know how-"
"Harry Potter will do the task!" squeaked the elf. "Dobby knew Harry had not found the right book, so Dobby did it for him!"
"What?" said Harry. "But you don't know what the second task is -"
"Dobby knows, sir! Harry Potter has to go into the lake and find his Wheezy -"
"Find my what?"
"- and take his Wheezy back from the merpeople!"
"What's a Wheezy?"
"Your Wheezy, sir, your Wheezy-Wheezy who is giving Dobby his sweater!"
Dobby plucked at the shrunken maroon sweater he was now wearing over his shorts.
"What?" Harry gasped. "They've got. . . they've got Ron?"
"The thing Harry Potter will miss most, sir!" squeaked Dobby. "'But past an hour-'"
"- 'the prospect's black,'" Harry recited, staring, horror-struck, at the elf. " 'Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.' Dobby - what've I got to do?"
"You has to eat this, sir!" s queaked the elf, and he put his hand in the pocket of his shorts and drew out a ball of what looked like slimy, grayish-green rat tails. "Right before you go into the lake, sir - gillyweed!"
"What's it do?" said Harry, staring at the gillyweed.
"It will make Harry Potter breathe underwater, sir!"
"Dobby," said Harry frantically, "listen - are you sure about this?" He couldn't quite forget that the last time Dobby had tried to "help" him, he had ended up with no bones in his right arm.
"Dobby is quite sure, sir!" said the elf earnestly. "Dobby hears things, sir, he is a house-elf, he goes all over the castle as he lights the fires and mops the floors. Dobby heard Professor McGonagall and Professor Moody in the staffroom, talking about the next task. . . . Dobby cannot let Harry Potter lose his Wheezy!"
Harrys doubts vanished. Jumping to his feet he pulled off the Invisibility Cloak, stuffed it into his bag, grabbed the gillyweed, and put it into his pocket, then tore out of the library with Dobby at his heels.
"Dobby is supposed to be in the kitchens, sir!" Dobby squealed as they burst intothe corridor. "Dobby will be missed - good luck, Harry Potter, sir, good luck!"
"See you later, Dobby!" Harry shouted, and he sprinted along the corridor and down the stairs, three at a time.
The entrance hall contained a few last-minute stragglers, all leaving the Great Hall after breakfast and heading through the double oak doors to watch the second task.
They stared as Harry flashed past, sending Colin and Dennis Creevey flying as he leapt down the stone steps and out onto the bright, chilly grounds.
As he pounded down the lawn he saw that the seats that had encircled the dragons enclosure in November were now ranged along the opposite bank, rising in stands that were packed to the bursting point and reflected in the lake below. The excited babble of the crowd echoed strangely across the water as Harry ran flat-out around the other side of the lake toward the judges, who were sitting at another golddraped table at the water's edge. Cedric, Fleur, and Krum were beside the judges table, watching Harry sprint toward them.
"I'm . .. here ..." Harry panted, skidding to a halt in the mud and accidentally splattering Fleurs robes.
"Where have you been?" said a bossy, disapproving voice. "The task's about to start!"
Harry looked around. Percy Weasley was sitting at the judge's table,Mr. Crouch had failed to turn up again.
"Now, now, Percy!" said Ludo Bagman, who was looking intensely relieved to see Harry. "Let him catch his breath!"
Dumbledore smiled at Harry, but Karkaroff and Madame Maxime didn't look at all pleased to see him. It was obvious from the looks on their faces that they had thought he wasn't going to turn up.
Harry bent over, hands on his knees, gasping for breath; he had a stitch in his side that felt as though he had a knife between his ribs, but there was no time to get rid of it; Ludo Bagman was now moving among the champions, spacing them along the bank at intervals of ten feet. Harry was on the very end of the line, next to Krum, who was wearing swimming trunks and was holding his wand ready.
"All right. Harry?" Bagman whispered as he moved Harry a few feet farther away from Krum. "Know what you're going to do?"
"Yeah," Harry panted, massaging his ribs. Bagman gave Harry's shoulder a quick squeeze and returned to the judges' table; he pointed his wand at his throat as he had done at the World Cup, said, "Sonorus!" and his voice boomed out across the dark water toward the stands.
"Well, all our champions are ready for the second task, which will start on my whistle. They have precisely an hour to recover what has been taken from them.
On the count of three, then. One . . . two . . . three!"
He swam on for what felt like at least twenty minutes. He was passing over vast expanses of black mud now, which swirled murkily as he disturbed the water. Then, at long last, he heard a snatch of haunting mersong.
"An hour long you'll have to look, And to recover what we took..."
Harry swam faster and soon saw a large rock emerge out of the muddy water ahead. It had paintings of merpeople on it; they were carrying spears and chasing what looked like the giant squid. Harry swam on past the rock, following the mersong.
". . . your time's half gone, so tarry not Lest what you seek stays here to rot. ..."
A cluster of crude stone dwellings stained with algae loomed suddenly out of the gloom on all sides. Here and there at the dark windows, Harry saw faces . . . faces that bore no resemblance at all to the painting of the mermaid in the prefect's bathroom.
The merpeople had grayish skin and long, wild, dark green hair. Their eyes were yellow, as were their broken teeth, and they wore thick ropes of pebbles around their necks. They leered at Harry as he swam past; one or two of them emerged from their caves to watch him better, their powerful, silver fish tails beating the water, spears clutched in their hands.
Harry sped on, staring around, and soon the dwellings became more numerous; there were gardens of weed around some of them, and he even saw a pet grindylow tied to a stake outside one door. Merpeople were emerging on all sides now, watching him eagerly, pointing at his webbed hands and gills, talking behind their hands to one another. Harry sped around a corner and a very strange sight met his eyes.
A whole crowd of merpeople was floating in front of the houses that lined what looked like a mer-version of a village square. A choir of merpeople was singing in the middle, calling the champions toward them, and behind them rose a crude sort of statue; a gigantic merperson hewn from a boulder. Four people were bound tightly to the tail of the stone merperson.
Ron was there beside Hermione who was between him and Jolie. There was also a girl who looked no older than eight, whose clouds of silvery hair made Harry feel sure that she was Fleur Delacour's sister. All four of them appeared to be in a very deep sleep. Their heads were lolling onto their shoulders, and fine streams of bubbles kept issuing from their mouths.
Harry sped toward the hostages, half expecting the merpeople to lower their spears and charge at him, but they did nothing. The ropes of weed tying the hostages to the statue were thick, slimy, and very strong. For a fleeting second he thought of the knife Sirius had bought him for Christmas locked in his trunk in the castle a quarter of a mile away, no use to him whatsoever.
He looked around. Many of the merpeople surrounding them were carrying spears.
He swam swiftly toward a seven-foot-tall merman with a long green beard and a choker of shark fangs and tried to mime a request to borrow the spear. The merman laughed and shook his head.
"We do not help," he said in a harsh, croaky voice.
"Come ON!" Harry said fiercely (but only bubbles issued from his mouth), and he tried to pull the spear away from the merman, but the merman yanked it back, still shaking his head and laughing.
Harry swirled around, staring about. Something sharp . . . anything . . .There were rocks littering the lake bottom. He dived and snatched up a particularly jagged one and returned to the statue. He began to hack at the ropes binding Ron, and after several minutes' hard work, they broke apart. Ron floated, unconscious, a few inches above the lake bottom, drifting a little in the ebb of the water.
Harry looked around. There was no sign of any of the other champions. What were they playing at? Why didn't they hurry up? He turned back to Hermione, raised the jagged rock, and began to hack at her bindings too - At once, several pairs of strong gray hands seized him. Half a dozen mermen were pulling him away from Hermione, shaking their green-haired heads, and laughing.
"You take your own hostage," one of them said to him. "Leave the others ..."
"No way!" said Harry furiously - but only two large bubbles came out.
"Your task is to retrieve your own friend . . . leave the others ..."
"She's my friend too!" Harry yelled, gesturing toward Hermione, an enormous silver bubble emerging soundlessly from his lips. "And I don't want them to die either!"
Jolie's head was on Hermiones shoulder; the small silver-haired girl was ghostly green and pale. Harry struggled to fight off the mermen, but they laughed harder than ever, holding him back. Harry looked wildly around. Where were the other champions? Would he have time to take Ron to the surface and come back down for Hermione and the others? Would he be able to find them again? He looked down at his watch to see how much time was left - it had stopped working.
But then the merpeople around him pointed excitedly over his head. Harry looked up and saw Cedric swimming toward them. There was an enormous bubble around his head, which made his features look oddly wide and stretched.
"Got lost!" he mouthed, looking panic-stricken. "Fleur and Krum're coming now!"
Feeling enormously relieved, Harry watched Cedric pull a knife out of his pocket and cut Jolie free. He pulled her upward and out of sight.
Harry looked around, waiting. Where were Fleur and Krum? Time was getting short, and according to the song, the hostages would be lost after an hour. The merpeople started screeching animatedly. Those holding Harry loosened their grip, staring behind them. Harry turned and saw something monstrous cutting through the water toward them: a human body in swimming trunks with the head of a shark. ... It was Krum. He appeared to have transfigured himself- but badly. The shark-man swam straight to Hermione and began snapping and biting at her ropes; the trouble was that Krum's new teeth were positioned very awkwardly for biting anything smaller than a dolphin, and Harry was quite sure that if Krum wasn't careful, he was going to rip Hermione in half. Darting forward. Harry hit Krum hard on the shoulder and held up the jagged stone. Krum seized it and began to cut Hermione free. Within seconds, he had done it; he grabbed Hermione around the waist, and without a backward glance, began to rise rapidly with her toward the surface.
Meanwhile Cedric just reached the surface, he took a deep breath. Jolie immediately woke up and clinged to him, breathing hard. He pulled her with him towards the bank where the judges where they were immediately wrapped in thick blankets. Cedric grinned as everyone cheered. Cedric froze slightly when he saw Fleur but no sister. Fleur rushed towards Jolie and flung her arms around her.
"Gabrielle is still down there!" she sobbed in to Jolie's shoulder.
"Shhh she'll be fine don't worry." Jolie whispered, Madame Pomfrey came over and checked Fleur over to see if she was all right. Madame Pomfrey handed Jolie and Cedric a very hot potion.
Jolie spotted Viktor return to him normal self and pull Hermione up with him. As soon as Hermione reached the bank Jolie pulled Hermione in to her arms.
"I'm fine Jolie." she whined, Jolie looked down grinning at her "I know but it's my duty as big sister to worry about you." and then she kissed her forehead. As Hermione sat down with Viktor and Cedric. Jolie tried to calm down a hysteric Fleur but she to was worried for little Gabrielle.
Suddenly Jolie saw Harry reaching the surface with Ron and Gabrielle. Jolie saw Percy splashing out to meet them. Fleur and Jolie both took of running towards Gabrielle. They both hugged the little girl between them
"It was ze grindylows . . . zey attacked me ... oh Gabrielle, I thought... I thought..." Fleur said sobbing. As Fleur and Jolie walked towards the rest of them, Madame Pomfrey rushed to Fleur to clean her cuts but she refused.
"Look after Gabrielle," she told her, and then she turned to Harry. "You saved 'er," she said breathlessly. "Even though she was not your 'ostage."
"Yeah," said Harry, who was now heartily wishing he'd left all three girls tied to
the statue.
Fleur bent down, kissed Harry twice on each cheek (he felt his face burn and
wouldn't have been surprised if steam was coming out of his ears again), then said
to Ron, "And you too-you 'elped -"
"Yeah," said Ron, looking extremely hopeful, "yeah, a bit -"
Fleur swooped down on him too and kissed him. Hermione looked simply furious, but just then, Ludo Bagman's magically magnified voice boomed out beside them, making them all jump, and causing the crowd in the stands to go very quiet.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our decision. Merchieftainess Murcus has told us exactly what happened at the bottom of the lake, and we have therefore decided to award marks out of fifty for each of the champions, as follows. Fleur Delacour, though she demonstrated excellent use of the Bubble-Head Charm, was attacked by grindylows as she approached her goal, and failed to retrieve her hostage. We award her twenty-five points."
Applause from the stands.
"I deserved zero," said Fleur throatily, shaking her magnificent head. Jolie squeezed her hand.
"Cedric Diggory, who also used the Bubble-Head Charm, was first to return with his hostage, though he returned one minute outside the time limit of an hour."
Enormous cheers from the Hufflepuffs in the crowd; Harry saw Jolie gice Cedric a smile. "We therefore award him forty-seven points."
Harrys heart sank. If Cedric had been outside the time limit, he most certainly had been.
"Viktor Krum used an incomplete form of Transfiguration, which was nevertheless effective, and was second to return with his hostage. We award him forty points."
Karkaroff clapped particularly hard, looking very superior.
"Harry Potter used gillyweed to great effect," Bagman continued. "He returned last, and well outside the time limit of an hour. However, the Merchieftainess informs us that Mr. Potter was first to reach the hostages, and that the delay in his return was due to his determination to return all hostages to safety, not merely his own."
Ron and Hermione both gave Harry half-exasperated, half-commiserating looks.
"Most of the judges," and here, Bagman gave Karkaroff a very nasty look, "feel that this shows moral fiber and merits full marks. However . . . Mr. Potter's score is forty-five points."
Harry's stomach leapt - he was now tying for first place with Cedric. Ron and Hermione, caught by surprise, stared at Harry, then laughed and started applauding hard with the rest of the crowd.
"There you go. Harry!" Ron shouted over the noise. "You weren't being thick after all - you were showing moral fiber!"
Fleur was clapping very hard too, but Krum didn't look happy at all. He attempted to engage Hermione in conversation again, but she was too busy cheering Harry to listen.
"The third and final task will take place at dusk on the twenty-fourth of June," continued Bagman. "The champions will be notified of what is coming precisely one month beforehand. Thank you all for your support of the champions."
"You done great." Jolie said to Cedric and pulled him down to kiss her, this get a few cheers from the crowd. As Jolie pulled back she saw the dreamy look on Cedric's face and whispered "Thank you." Madam Pomfrey began herding the champions and hostages back to the castle to get into dry clothes.