Name: Lily and Prongs; aka Lily

House: Gryffindor

Week: six

character: Cedric Diggory

missing moment: GoF, Cedric figuring out the egg's clue

Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter universe!

The Element of Purity

"Oh please make this thing shut up, Diggory, will you?"

I sighed, closed the large golden egg again, and stared at the curtains of my four-poster. It was pointless. How, for Helga Hufflepuff's most precious velvet dress robes, were those horrible screams supposed to tell me what the second task was? The only thing they had achieved so far was to be so annoying that no one wanted to sit next to me. I couldn't even blame them for avoiding it- it really got on your nerves after a while.

Only, the thing was, I was running outof time. February wasn't too long away any more. I figured, even if I found out what I was going to face, it would still take some time to find a way to master whatever it was. They wouldn't make it so easy for us and tell us everything with the egg.

I decided to go to the library straight after breakfast. I had already read half of the countless number of books there, but maybe I had overlooked some very short paragraph about heavy, screaming eggs that was printed in very tiny letters. There just had to be something.

I tried everything I could think of. I had even shouted back at the voices – as far one could call it voices! It only made my room mates laugh at me.

I rolled on my back and pulled the covers up to my chin. If I was lucky, I'd dream of something that would help me in one way or the other...

For a Saturday morning, I got up rather early. I usually only do this for Quidditch practice. I missed playing Quidditch. To be honest, I wouldn't say no if they ended this tournament and gave us back my favourite free time activity. I'd rather have a replay on the Quidditch pitch with Potter than compete with him in tasks where you got noisy objects a reward for not letting yourself burn entirely or have your arm bitten off.

Potter – if he hadn't told me, if he hadn't warned me... I'd probably died of shock when seeing the dragons! Yes, I put my name in the Goblet of Fire – but that doesn't mean, I fancied life threatening encounters.

I hoped I'd figure out the egg's secret first. This way, I could repay Potter for telling me about the first task. I had to admit, he was doing better than I had thought he would. He is only a fourth-year and managed to pass a dragon better than I, the sixth-year.

We both deserved a fair competition. Sure, we were Quidditch rivals but we represented the same school, didn't we? Besides, I was more than sure that the other two got help from their heads of school – even though we weren't allowed to and should give our own best. Not someone else's.

Either way, I wouldn't let the Triwizard become even more unfair by knowingly letting someone be the only one surprised by the task.

When I went to breakfast, I met professor Moody halfway up the stairs. I doubted that he actually had something to do downstairs – all there was were our common room and the kitchens. Nevertheless, it didn't surprise me to see him there. He didn't need a reason to frequently search the whole castle for anything dangerous. And when I say the whole castle, I mean the whole castle. I think his job as an Auror made him a bit paranoid.

[On one hand, I was quite glad to have a teacher in DADA who actually taught something, but he was overdoing it. He used dark magic in class, in front of his students!

I'd have preferred to have Lupin for another year. I don't mind him being a werewolf. He was the best teacher I ever had in DADA and seemed to be a very nice person.]

Anyway, as I went upstairs, I met professor Moody. When I had already passed by, he suddenly gripped my arm. I gave a jerk and spun around, and was met by a glare from his freaky magic eye. Honestly, this man knew how to startle you!

He must have noticed my surprise. Well, it wasn't hard to miss, I think even someone normal would have seen it.

"Constant vigilance!"

I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. I always try my very best to be polite to teachers, and everyone else. But Moody's frequent warnings (which, obviously, were quite unnecessary most of the time) made it difficult to stick to my usual attitude.

"If you don't watch out, this tournament could end rather unpleasantly for you! If you even reach the end of it. After all, it doesn't even look like you've got the meaning of the chant down yet."

Chant? The noise was supposed to be someone singing? This time, I tried to hide my surprise better.

"You did not. I see." Dammit, I wouldn't be surprised if he could read minds as well as see though solid things! Since he already knew anyways, I shook my head.

"Another medium could help."

My surprise changed into confusion. "Another medium, professor?" I asked.

"The air locks our ears to the tune of the pure. Too many unworthy listeners around." As if to underline his words, he spun his magical eye around – like he expected to get jumped right from within the stone walls at any moment.

I didn't know what to say, bewilderment evident on my face.

"Keep your eyes open, young man!" professor Moody advised me, continuing his way down the staircase.

I didn't care about what Moody had told me until it was lunch time and I could barely make out the table under the mounds of library books I had piled in it. Perhaps I should give it a try and think about what he could have meant.

So air, for some reason, was not the right medium. Did that mean, I had to open the egg somewhere without any air around? How was that supposed to work? And what about that "pure" thing?

But... if you took "medium" as a surrounding, an element or so, then I could only think of one: water. Water was supposed to be the element of purity, wasn't it?

So all I needed to do was to take a bath? Was that old man kidding me?

Moody was almost worse than Dumbledore. He suggested a lot of... funny stuff, too.

I decided to try it. But I had to take the egg somewhere without too many witnesses. For one thing, the screams were annoying and hurt people's ears. For another, I didn't want anyone to watch me taking a bath with the egg in my lap!

Being a prefect had its advantages, one of which was that we had our own bathroom. So I went up to the fifth floor around half past five. I hoped I had chosen a time at which no one else would walk in. Most of the students didn't use the bathrooms for bathing too short before, during or directly after dinner.

I called out the password, "Pine fresh!" The painting swung open to show the huge and magnificent bathroom. I loved that bathroom.

I picked up one of the fluffy towels and then let in some water. I just hoped, I didn't accidentally put in too much perfume. Trouble was, there were simply too many tabs to remember which one held what.

Finally, I took my clothes off and took seat in the mountains of bubbles.

The mermaid in the painting wasn't watching, for a change. She was much to occupied with brushing her hair to even notice that the water was no longer running. Lucky me.

Once more I thought about what I knew. Or rather, what I had tried to assume from the riddle Moody had given me.

Obviously, I had to put the egg underwater. Otherwise, it made no sense at all since even within the walls of a bathroom, it would still be in the medium of air.

I reached out for the egg and submerged it. Slowly, very carefully, I opened it. I had prepared myselffor the familiar screams – but the sounds that came from under the water's surface were different. Unexpected. Almost... beautiful. But I still couldn't understand a word.

When the sound stopped, I shut the egg, took a deep breath, put my head underwater right next to the egg, and opened it again.

I almost swallowed a full mouth of water when I gasped at what made its way to my ears.

It was a song that was for sure. But what did it mean?

I sat for a long time, with my head in the neck, thinking hard. I realized that I must have been talking to myself all the time, when I heard the mermaid giggle. She always does, it sometimes gets as annoying as the screaming egg.

The mermaid! Did the song refer to mermaids? Weren't the tasks supposed to take place within the school grounds? There definitely weren't any mermaids at Hogwarts. Well, except this one in the painting. Did the task have to do with her? But then, wasn't that a bit unfair? I was the only one who could possibly know about her. Potter was to young to be a prefect and the other two had never been to Hogwarts before.

No, the song was sung by someone else. Perhaps the mermaid knew something.

"Hey...," I suddenly realized I didn't know her name. "Hey you, mermaid," I tried to address her. I had thought she might be offended, butI was wrong. It made her giggle even more, but she stilldidn't say anything. I decided to continue. "What creatures live down in the black lake? Anything that can sing, by any chance?"

No answer. No spoken answer, that was. She sort of did answer, but only by flashing her fins and more giggling, if this was even possible.

She was no help. No help at all.

I sighed – and then it hit me like a flash of lightning: merpeople!

Was that the answer? Merpeople? Down in the lake? I never knew there were any. But what else could it be? It fit perfectly.

That brought up a whole new problem: If they were in the lake and under the water's surface, and they would take something from me that I had to get back within one hour... how was I supposed to breath? I'm human- I need air, not water!

It was exactly like I had expected. Solving one problem only gave you another difficult thing to worry about. Though there was some hope in this case. The library definitely held some information on how to breath underwater. To find out what I would have to do would be the next step for me.

Looking down on the water, I thought that I was quite lucky not to have needed a minute longer to figure out the egg's clue. There were hardly any bubbles left. What fun the mermaid would have had!

Nervously, I took one last look at her, and when I saw she wasn't watching, I hastily got out, towelled myself, and got dressed.

Egg under my arm and with my heart at least a tad lighter, I left the prefect's bathroom.

Beta: Charlie'sDragon [thanks ^^]