Chapter Twenty-Six:

Tasko Numero Dos

The morning of the second task dawned bright and clear. The Funny Farm, laughing and joking with the rest of their classmates, traipsed down to the Lake, where they filed into the stands, Rachel having great fun with her Muggle camera.

After the tenth group photo, Seamus had had enough, and he plucked the camera from her hands and put it in his back pocket. Rachel wailed about the damage that would be caused when he applied that pocket to his seat, and Seamus entertained all within eyeshot by charming the object to float lazily just out of her reach.

At that moment, however, a man's voice boomed out over the crowds' din. "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—"

"An hour?" Tanya whispered.

"—from them. On the count of three, then. One…two…three!"

The whistle blew, and, after a few moments of worry and excitement, all was quiet.

"Now what?" Hannah said after a pause.

"We do what we do best," Seamus said. "…Hang out." So saying, he put his arms along the backs of first Rachel's, then Katelyn's seats. Rachel beamed.

"I thought that what we did best was tease the hell out of each other," Dean said.

"That, too."

Tanya whistled "Irish Eyes Are Smiling" absently, and Seamus looked at her.

"What?"

"Nothing. It's just that today's my da's birthday and I completely forgot." Seamus slapped his forehead and spewed out a sentence in an extremely complex foreign language.

The other Funny Farm members blinked. "Say wha?" Katelyn said blankly.

Seamus repeated the phrase. "It's Gaelic for 'pity the fool who forgets'."

Rachel looked impressed. "You never told me you spoke Gaelic!"

"I'm not fluent, yet," he replied sheepishly.

"'Yet'?"

"My móraí's taught me since I was five. I can understand people when they speak it to me, and I can pronounce the words decently, but I can't hold an intelligent conversation for very long."

"And that's the truth," Rachel said with a grin. "But it's really cool that you can speak a foreign language. ¡Yo habla español!"

"¡Y yo, también!" Hannah piped up, excited.

Slightly concerned, Seamus and Dean nodded slowly.

"Faugh a ballagh!" Rachel exclaimed.

"'Clear the way'," Seamus translated. "How'd you know that?"

"Irish brigades in the Civil War," she answered matter-of-factly.

Seamus grinned. "I shoulda known."

Thus the Funny Farm passed the hour. Eventually, Seamus' arms grew tired and he took his left on down from over Katelyn's seat. Katelyn noticed how his right remained around Rachel, and she winked at Hannah and Tanya, who grinned.

Some time later…

"Ooh, look, the Beauxbatons girl is up!" Tanya exclaimed. Seamus and Dean both stood up in order to catch a glimpse of Fleur Delacour emerging from the water, soaking wet. Hannah kicked Dean's knees, and Rachel looked rather put out.

Sometime even later….

Cedric broke through the water with Cho Chang, a Ravenclaw the girls rather disliked, in his arms.

"Hey, there's Cedric!" Rachel cried, whistling shrilly.

Almost instantly afterwards came Viktor Krum, bearing a sodden-haired Hermione. He helped her over to the dock and got her a towel before he grabbed one for himself.

"Why do they have our schoolmates?" Katelyn shrieked. "Isn't this illegal?"

"What a sweetie," Tanya said, ignoring Katelyn. (Dean and Seamus exchanged disgusted looks as the girls fawned over the other menfolk.)

Hannah glanced at her watch. "There's only ten minutes left for Harry!"

Nine minutes passed, and then the Funny Farm began to get a little nervous. "D'you think he's going to make it?" Dean asked.

"Eight…seven…six…five…"

"Maybe?"

"…Three…two…one…"

"Not."

"Negative one…negative two…negative three…"

"Definitely not."

Suddenly, Hannah noticed some movement in the water, and a second or three later, two people shot up out of it.

"YES!" everyone screamed.

"It's Ron!" Hannah exclaimed, jumping up and down. "It's Ron! It's Ron and…who's that kid? Where's Harry? We've lost Harry!" She grabbed Dean's jacket and began to shake him back and forth. "Oh, the humanity!"

"Get a grip, Hannah," Dean said, pulling her hands off his jacket. "Harry's probably fine."

"Yeah, I highly doubt he got attacked by grindylows, kidnapped by merpeople, or eaten by the Giant Squid," Rachel scoffed.

"Rachel!"

"What? I was just trying to be optimistic!"

At that moment, Harry came shooting up out of the water, flew through the air and landed hard on the dock.

"Oh, Merlin, it's Harry!" Hannah cried. "Come on, let's go down there!"

So the Funny Farm eventually pushed through the crowds and arrived on the platform Harry was on. He was shivering like mad because of the icy water and the cool air, and everyone was fetching him lots of towels.

"Harry!" the Funny Farm girls cried with relief as they all gathered around him and overpowered him with hugs.

Dean felt the slightest twinge of jealousy as he watched Hannah give Harry a big hug, and, surprisingly, Seamus felt also felt a bit resentful when Rachel joined in.

"I'm fine, you four," Harry exclaimed, even though he was covered in cuts and bruises and shaking violently.

Fleur burst from the crowd and wrapped her arms around the 'kid' Ron'd dragged up. "You saved my seester!"

"Er—"

"You saved 'er, even though she was not yours to save. Thank you!" She kissed him on the cheek. "And you"—turning to Ron—"you 'helped!"

"Well, a bit—"

She swooped down and kissed his cheek, too, which turned a brilliant ruby red.

"Merci!" Ron breathed, smitten.

The Funny Farmers rolled their eyes.

"So who won?" Tanya shrieked.

"The judges're deliberating," said Seamus. "And Dumbledore's finally gone crackers." He pointed to where the headmaster was squatting on the bank and grunting to a—really rather ugly!—merperson. But only he and Rachel could see over the crowd, so the other members of the Funny Farm ignored this little bit of information.

At last, the scores were read off. The Beauxbatons girl come away with 25 points, Cedric with 47 points, the surly-looking Durmstrang student with 40 points, and Harry with 45.

"Moral fiber, eh?" Seamus said as the crowds gradually began dispersing. "More like they thought he had died and then were super excited when they found out there wouldn't be paperwork, after all."

Rachel was the only one to get this joke, and she and Seamus sniggered all the way back to the castle.

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A/N: Y'all ready for a Funny Farm overload? ...Well, too bad, 'cause Sushi has a week off and a stack of scribbled-on notebook paper! :D Expect an update every day or so for a few days this week! I can just hear your ecstatic screams (note sarcasm).

In other news, Merry TWO DAYS UNTIL Christmas! :D