killroy225: Voldemort will show up at the end of the year as regularly scheduled.

Hi-Pot-And-News: I hope you're proud of yourself. One random comment from you, and my muse ambushes me with an enormous Viktor/Jen subplot.

Guest (chapter 22): I found the Futhark runes and their meanings on a website whose address I can't recall at the moment. The Ogham's all me.

skywiseskychan: As far as this universe is concerned, magical exhaustion, like physical exhaustion, is a problem solved by rest and patients not casting while their cores refill; when the mediwizards checked on Jen after her collapse, they attributed her lack of magic to that and went on with their work. Compared to the chaos normally found in a school of magic, a concussion is minor and was left to the school nurse to fix.

For those who read last chapter before I got a chance to fix it, I added the translation of Fleur's little tantrum.

Disclaimer: Did we ever find out what happened to the golden eggs after the Second Task? If not, I don't own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Press, Warner Bros., and whoever else she sold the rights to.

Chapter 26
End of a Long Day

It was the smell that woke her.

Before Jen had been the unofficial madam of a child brothel, before she had been a practitioner of Voodoo, before she had possessed even a modicum of control over her own magic, she had been a slave serving three pathetic caricatures of humanity out of fear of further pain, pain she had never, no matter how hard she worked, been able to avoid. One of her most common duties had been to clean their suburban house from top to bottom every other day. That would have been exhausting for a full-grown woman, let alone a child younger than five. She had never been permitted to use soap and water, though, oh no. The vile horse-faced shrew she had had the great misfortune of sharing blood with instead forced her to use barely diluted bleach.

The odor of bleach meant servitude. It meant being a non-entity. It meant pain as a bulbous sack of flesh not fit to be used as a sacrifice or even consumed by worms blinded her with the chemical because he had been taught all his life that she was a worthless freak who could not feel emotions like other people did, or if she could, that her emotions, her hopes, her agony were somehow less important than his own simply because that she was born blessed with the ability to distort the very foundations of reality on a whim.

Needless to say, as soon as she smelled that particular substance, she bolted straight upright.

"About time you woke up."

Jen whirled at the words to feel Cedric laying on a cot half a dozen feet from her. Sensing about herself, she realized she was in the hospital wing and quickly pulled back the blasting curse she had nearly thrown out of reflex. "You're here, too?"

"Yep."

Her sonar had curled up to only ten feet when she passed out, but now she stretched it to its full thirty-meter range, not that she could use that entire space surrounded by walls on all sides as she was. Interestingly, four of her fellow champions were in the same predicament she was. "I know Potter's in St. Mungo's, but where did Leroux disappear to?"

Little Ingrid cleared her throat hesitantly. "He is in de hospital as vell. I might haff stabbed him vith his own sword. It vas an accident!" she exclaimed when the others turned to her in surprise. "How vas I to know he vould not dodge?"

"Girl has a point." Renewing her degrading numbing charms and mental protection against sexual enticements, then subtly casting another notice-me-not charm over her blindfold as she realized the old one had faded away, Jen turned to the third female in the room. "I know this is likely crass, but if the worst should happen and you need a replacement junior champion, you're more than welcome to take Potter back to France with you."

Even blind, she would be hard-pressed to not detect the Veela's withering glare. "Non."

"What's with that stick up her arse? You'd think she'd never been struck by lightning before," she muttered, just loud enough for her fellow Hogwarts champion to hear. He promptly choked on his own soft chuckles.

"So vhat did happen to Potter?"

"Have you ever heard that hitting someone with a number of different spells at the same time will have unpredictable effects?" At Krum's nod, she continued, "It turns out that that handy piece of advice should be extended to cover topical potions as well. Last I heard, they were carting him away as an oversized slug. Jury was still out at the time over how long he'd need to stay."

"Longer than any of the rest of you," Madam Pomfrey stated brusquely as she bustled out of her office. "Miss Black, let me take a look at you. Being the least injured, you'll probably be free to leave when I'm done." She swiftly tugged the curtains closed, then followed that action with a number of silencing and anti-eavesdropping spells.

Well, color me impressed, Jen thought as she felt the strands of magic weaving through the wool curtains and each other in a captivating dance of textures. Curious about why the nurse was simply standing at the foot of her bed projecting waves of intense irritation, she commented, "I thought 'taking a look at me' was a euphemism for a medical exam, not that you were literally just going to stare at me."

"Explain."

"Explain?" she asked, her head tilted in confusion. In response, the mediwitch flicked the wand in her hand, forcing the teen's blouse to slide upwards and reveal the finger-wide brands sunken into the flesh of her belly. "Ah. That."

"That." Pomfrey stalked towards her as a lioness would creep up on a young antelope. "It might have escaped your notice, Miss Black, but applying runes to yourself, especially when not done under a Rune Master's or Healer's supervision, is generally frowned upon. Doubly so when you are a fourteen-year-old girl who has been studying that particular runic language for just sixth months. Triply so when applying said runes involves branding."

"So… not something I should do again? That is what you're saying, right?"

"Yes. I think detention will make sure my point sticks." The woman sniffed in displeasure. "Considering that your 'additions' do not seem to have caused unintended harm, I suppose I can be kind and spare you Professor Babbling's tender mercies; I know how much she disapproves of students using runes before she deems them ready. Instead, you will spend your evenings for the next two weeks with Professor Snape."

"…Out of curiosity, do you even have the authority to assign detentions?"

Pomfrey leaned in until there was less than a foot separating their heads, the relaxed face belying the maelstrom of emotions churning inside the older woman. "Do you really want to try my patience right now?"

Jen frowned and slowly licked her lips. "That would not be the brightest decision I could make right now, no," she finally allowed.

"I'm glad we understand each other, then." The nurse pulled a tin from her apron and set it on the table by the wall. "Put that cream on every two hours until the burns are gone. Since I noticed it so early, you probably will not have any permanent reminders of this bit of foolishness." Pomfrey's wand swished, sending a wave of magic that prickled uncomfortably against her skin. "Strange, your core is reading as being almost totally empty, at the very least low enough for you to still be unconscious for another few hours. How are you awake and alert?"

Well, shite. Not something I planned on. "I… I don't know." She frowned, wondering if she could gather and hold some of her magic inside her body to fool the spell the nurse had used. It had never been a concern before now, and she was justifiably worried what trying to deliberately back up the flow would do to her nerves. On the other hand, inadvertently revealing I don't have a core at all would be just as bad, if not worse; that secret is second in importance only to my use of the Black Arts. Decisions, decisions.

"Hmm… Any headaches, nausea, strange sounds or smells?"

She shook her head, directing her will in preparation of modifying Pomfrey's memories.

The nurse hummed to herself for a moment. "I suppose you may just be able to function on an unusually low magical capacity compared to the average student." Jen unnoticeably relaxed and allowed the half-formed magic to collapse back into the ether. "For the rest of the day, don't cast any spells and make sure you go to bed early. Your core should finish refilling on its own without any problems, but if you start noticing any of those signs I mentioned, I want you to come back here straightaway. It's not common to any degree, but occasionally magical exhaustion can create painful or even dangerous complications. If I discover that you have again hurt yourself, I will be quite displeased." Pomfrey began unraveling the privacy charms, giving her time to pull her shirt down over the runes. Once the spells were gone, the woman opened the curtains and stormed off. "Report to Professor Snape starting tonight at seven!"

She winced with the others when the door to the office slammed shut with a tremendous bang. "I do believe she is unhappy with me."

"Doktor Schlemm, our school's Healer, vas de same vay vhen he came to lecture us earlier," Krum noted. "Someding about not taking such foolhardy risks and how ve vere lucky not to be more seriously injured. I stopped listening halfvay drough; it is nodhing I haff not heard many times before from de Vultures' trainers."

She chuckled, pocketing the unnecessary burn cream as she stood. Retrieving her coat from where it lay on a chair at the bed's foot, she felt the many small tears the scaly material had picked up from her last duel. Great, now I have to repair all these. "Do any of you know where my gloves went?"

"Professor Dumbledore took them after he visited so he could examine them," Cedric supplied helpfully. She stilled, not liking this at all. "He said he was impressed. I'm sure you'll get them back in the next few days."

"I hope so," she replied as the draped her jacket over her arms and made her way to the exit. It would raise questions she did not really want to answer if the headmaster found out that the gloves were merely props to hide her wandless magic, and as a rule, she did not trust anyone who had a phoenix's favor. Most dark witches didn't.

She had almost reached the door when the Bulgarian celebrity spoke up again.

"You fought vell, Dama Black," he said. "Very strong, very fierce. Perhaps, vonce we are both rested and you haff your gloves back, you vould care for a rematch?"

A smile curled her lips as she twisted her neck so he could see the right half of her face. What I wouldn't give for the ability to wink right about now. "Oh, I'm sure we'll be crossing wands again regardless of the gloves. In fact, I just about guarantee it. Maybe you'll even win next time, pansy man." Her hips were swaying a little more than usual as she left the hospital wing.

Viktor eyed the door the intriguing, self-confident, talented – and attractive, he admitted to himself – young noblewoman had just walked through. A contemplative look on his face, he turned to his fellow male. "Vhat do you know about her?"

Diggory shrugged. "Not much. She's a Ravenclaw, so obviously she's smart, and she's pretty crafty as well. Her family's a rich, old Dark House, though no one even knew she existed until she enrolled this year. It's clear she's powerful as all get out considering she killed a bloody dragon and won the duels, but you'd probably know that better than I would since you fought her. Sociable for a 'Claw but with a small group of close friends, mostly other girls. Strong sense of right and wrong; she took down a prefect who was bullying some younger kids the first week she was here. That's about all I can tell you, I'm afraid."

"I see. Danke." He glanced at the door again before asking, "She is not in relationship, no?"

"Er, I don't think so?"

I wonder why. So much power in such a delicate slip of a girl; if she were Bulgarian, she would be constantly surrounded by men proposing to her, assuming she were not already engaged or even married by now. "Hmm. She is, vhat age? Sixteen?"

The Englishman shook his head vigorously. "Merlin, no! She's only fourteen."

His curious expression morphed into a heavier than normal scowl, and he did his best to ignore Eberhardt sniggering beside him. "Verdammt."

As soon as she closed the door behind her, she slipped one hand underneath the hem of her shirt. Focusing her magic soon had the scorched skin returned to its previous unblemished state, and another few seconds did the same to the rune on her left bicep. There are days I like magic, and then there are days I love it, she thought happily, dismissing the numbing charms that had kept her wounds from distracting her during the duels. Practically skipping in glee as she remembered the showing she had given earlier – falling unconscious at the end or not, the only injury she had suffered was a concussion in the very last duel, and she still won – she entered an empty room just a short distance from the hospital wing. She threw up a suite of privacy charms and examined her coat. Now, let's take care of this.

The problem, of course, was the material itself. Dragons were resistant to magic, and though the skin used for her jacket had been treated to remove much of that, conventional wisdom stated that repairing it from all but minor scratches was difficult – and therefore expensive – to do. There was a reason dragonhide was considered a luxury good besides the price to obtain it. With the numerous scrapes and small tears from where Krum had clipped her with the jagged stones he kept slinging at high speeds, most people would have had to pay a good portion of its value to have it restored to its original luster. She, however, was anything but 'most people'. She laid the duster on the lone table at the front of the room and placed both her hands on it. It's messed up, but I shouldn't need more magic just for this. On the other hand… now would be the perfect time to kick it up a notch.

Very, very carefully, she nudged her connection wider. Knowing her body as well as she did allowed her to stop just before the tingles her nerves were reporting morphed into signals of pain. It was not much; while she could more than double the volume of energy she channeled for short periods without concern that her own power would immolate her, she estimated that the increase this time was only about five percent. Unlike her temporary enhancements, however, she could and would maintain this larger connection indefinitely, forcing her body to adjust to the greater current. She had been slowly boosting her channeling capacity since she sacrificed her core when she was seven, and by this date and presuming her internal measurements were correct, she had nearly tripled the magic she could handle flowing through her at any one time.

Magical cores increased as well, and they did so far faster than she could safely modify her connection. Fivefold increases in core size between the ages of eleven and twenty were common. Her primary limitation, however, was not the same as her fellow witches'. Her reserves were technically infinite as she drew on the constantly recycled magic of the planet; what she had to work with was the rate. There was also a benefit that offset the slower increases she had to undergo. A core grew quickly before a mage reached seventeen, then slowed dramatically until it attained its final size. She, on the other hand, would be gaining strength for the rest of her life. Considering that casting magic and wielding Voodoo both dramatically slowed the aging process and assuming she did not meet an unnatural end, that was a long, long time off.

She reveled in the additional power coursing its way along her nerves. It had been six months since the last time she altered her connection like this, which had been only a week before her fateful meeting with Sirius. Normally she waited four or five months between sessions, but she had simply had so many things going on with acclimating to her new life that she forgot. Aware that her body would never acclimate if she just sat there twiddling her thumbs, she turned her attention to the task at hand. Using the additional magic she drew on had turned out to be the best way to adjust to it.

Though they were very different things, Jen decided to try a strategy similar to the one she had used when she had healed Eberhardt's spine to repair her coat. Magic rushed through her hands in a continuous current, filling the scales with energy. As I thought, the hide is like nerves in that magic races through it but can still only go so fast. So, if I add magic to it faster than it can drain, it will become saturated and won't be able to fight back when I actually perform the repairs. She grinned in self-satisfaction; the number of people worldwide who could do this solo was incredibly low, and other than herself and Dumbledore, she didn't think there was anyone else in all of Britain at that level.

It took several minutes, each one punctuated by cursing at how slippery the scales were, but soon the coat could hold no more of her power. With a thought, yet more energy flowed over it and concentrated around the abrasions and punctures; seconds passed before the material was as pristine as it had been on Christmas morning. Picking it up, she was displeased to find that it was also stiff, like it was fresh off the dragon rather than out of the box.

What a drag, she grumbled mentally. Sliding her arms through the unyielding sleeves, she resigned herself to breaking the coat in, regardless of how long that would undoubtedly take. The instant it was all the way on, though, the hide began relaxing around her. Now that I did not expect. Carefully feeling it with her sonar revealed that while the magic she had pushed into it had already flowed away, there was still a faint echo lingering inside that was straining against the leather and making it pliable once again.

Surprise, surprise. I have never spent much time around materials from magical creatures; could it be that they develop a memory of sorts for the magical signature of the person who uses them, or at least who works with them? If so, and I periodically run magic through it, I could possibly make myself familiar enough to easily affect it while others cannot. That might even cause the rune on it to work better since the hide will not fight so hard against the magic strengthening it.

Grinning at the possible implications of her discovery, she walked through the deserted hallways, her duster softening further and further as the minutes ticked by. I have no clue what the time is, but I'm hungry. If I'm lucky, it's about time for dinner, but if not, I can always track down the kitchens. It will just be a matter of locating the strongest remnants of house-elf magic aside from the Great Hall and the dormitories.

Thankfully, she did not have to resort to stalking through the corridors on her hunt for elves. Entering the Great Hall, she immediately located her friends gathered at the near end of the Hufflepuff table, each manifesting an aura of worry and mild sorrow. She dropped next to Justin, who started in shock. "What's got all of you down?"

"Jen!" Luna nearly hurtled over the table, but in the end only raced around to latch onto the older girl like a limpet. "We were worried about you! You really hurt yourself out there today."

She laughed softly and carded one hand through the third-year's soft hair for a moment. "It was just a concussion; I'm fine. I think Pomfrey simply decided that the best way to prevent her patients from getting too unruly was to keep them conked out the whole time they're in her care."

Kenneth snorted. "Yeah, that sounds like something she'd do."

"Trust the brash Lion to know," she returned. "What happened while I was stuck in the infirmary?"

"You won the Task, if you don't remember," Susan said helpfully. "You're also in first place overall, so congratulations for that, as well. Everyone's been concerned since all of the champions had to be taken to the hospital wing or St. Mungo's. Um, that's about it; you were only out for few hours. How are the others?"

"In good shape, mostly; I was the last one to wake up but the least injured. I think they'll be getting out tomorrow at the very latest. What happened to Leroux, by the way? I know Eberhardt stabbed him, but…" She trailed off and pulled a platter of brisket closer to her. With the duels starting at eleven, she had apparently caught the very front edge of dinner.

Morag shook her head. "It wasn't pretty. Eberhardt had this staff she was using to create wind like you did and threw the guy around for a while. Eventually, he dropped the rapier he was carrying around, and she had the wind pick it up and throw it back at him. Caught him straight in the gut, which would have been bad enough except for the potion he coated the blade with. It looked like it was dissolving him when Bagman finally called the match and let the Healers Portkey him to London. She was really torn up about it, and it kept her from fighting Krum at her best."

Jen paused, a forkful of meat hovering in the air. "She probably didn't mean to hurt him that badly. After all, with magic, healing a stab wound like that isn't a big deal. That potion, though… if it was actually doing what you think it was, that could have killed him." She moved the bite into her mouth and savored it for a moment. "Any news on the Slug-Who-Lived?"

"Well, he moved up to third place overall." Her head shot to Tracey, who continued, "Apparently, the judges decided that since he lost in the second round, he deserved ten points just like Eberhardt even though he was only there because he got the bye. A lot of people aren't happy about that, and I'm not just talking about the other Slytherins."

"Of course we aren't happy. Not only did he cheat to get into the Tournament to begin with, now he's getting points even though he didn't do anything," Susan complained. "It's not fair."

"And the fact that the judges doing so pushed Diggory down to fourth has nothing to do with it, I'm sure," Tracey retorted with a smirk.

"…Maybe a little." The Hufflepuff blushed as the rest of the group laughed.

Running his wand over the unusual focus on his desk, Albus frowned at the nonsensical readings his tests were giving him. Is the latent energy the gems hold altering their organization on a magical level? The arithmancy is showing them to be more like blobs of glass than crystals, which makes absolutely no sense. He lightly prodded one especially clear stone in an attempt to reinforce its structure, only for it to quiver and blink out of existence. That seemed to be the call for the others to follow, and in a second he was looking at nothing more than a plain leather glove. Cursing lightly, he picked it up and tossed it onto its fellow, which was likewise devoid of ornamentation.

"And I was sure I was on the right track that time," he muttered in frustration. Those gloves had been as good as a wand for the elemental spells the Potter girl had been throwing around earlier in the day, and he was very curious as to how they had come into her possession. He was by no means an expert on alternate foci, but something that allowed that much control over an entire branch of magic should have been fairly well known, yet these were new. Such a loss. Had I been able to discern their mysteries and adapt whatever process those gems had undergone to another set of spells, they could have made an excellent tool for the Greater Good. It is not as if I can simply ask the girl where she got them; if she knew she had outsmarted me with something this minor, what would stop her from attempting less innocent actions?

Sighing, he leaning back into his chair. Has Alastor's paranoia rubbed off on me? Am I seeing enemies where there are none? He picked up a lemon drop from the crystal dish on his desk and popped it into his mouth, enjoying the sweet tang. No, while I may be paranoid when it comes to her, it is far better to be cautious than to let her run around unhindered. The Prophecy was clear about her 'knowing only hate and cruelty'. If she was that evil as a babe, how much more must she be as a teenager? Taken in by a Dark family, Sorted into Ravenclaw so she might ferret out further knowledge of forbidden magics, killing without a shred of remorse, and now using an unknown focus to defeat a witch and a wizard three years her senior. If she is capable of this now, what will she be like once she reaches her majority and her core's full growth?

I had hopes that she would seek the path of Light once she was among other children, but it seems they were all for naught. If something does not happen soon, she might even drag the students she has ensnared into Darkness with her! He shot to his feet in agitation and paced for several minutes before inspiration struck.

I am going about this all wrong. Change cannot come from inside her; she is too far gone. If, however, the change comes from outside… A friendship rather than collecting followers, possibly even love? Would that alone be enough?

It will have to be someone who can be trusted, someone from a family that is unfailingly Light. Perhaps one of the Weasley boys? Jenny and Ronald are both at the age where they will soon start seeking romance. As he and Danny are close friends, this would also give her incentive to reconcile with her parents. With both the Weasleys and the Potters influencing her, she will eventually recognize that something is wrong with her and seek to cleanse herself of her taint. Such a task is impossible due to her inherent evil, but it would weaken her enough that she is no longer a threat to our world.

Potions would guarantee that things between Jenny and Ronald turn out as they must, but the consequences should they be detected are too great for that to be my opening gambit, especially with her actively corrupting Amelia's niece. No, I will see if any degree of love springs up on its own and follow up if need be.

He smiled and settled back into his chair; why hadn't he thought of this before? Even Tom was destined to succumb to the power of love. Now, what would be the best way to arrange this?

Severus opened the door to his classroom at precisely seven o'clock, pleased to find the girl waiting outside quietly. "Get in," he said with a mild snarl. Once the door was closed again, he pointed unnecessarily to the table absolutely covered in bright red desert snails. "Since you were in need of burn cream after your little… misadventure, it seems only proper that you should have a first-hand experience with every step in its production, starting with rendering the ingredients. These snails, which you will later pulp to form the juice needed for creating the base of the potion, lose nearly all their potency if magic is used to extract them from their shells. Therefore, you will need to remove them by hand, taking great care not to rip them apart and leave half of their bodies inside the shell. I assure you, this is exceedingly easy to do if you do not pay close attention. Once you have put all those in the bucket on the floor, you can start on the next batch; there are five in total, which should keep you quite busy tonight."

He sat at his desk marking essays while Miss Black worked diligently in silence, not once complaining like many – many – of her contemporaries would have done in her place. An hour and two sets of snails later, he ordered, "Tell me in a single sentence why you are serving these detentions in the first place."

"I broke a school rule and passed out before I could get rid of the evidence, Professor."

He smirked against his will at that response; did the Ravens know they had a Snake in their nest? "An acceptable answer. Continue; those creatures will not shuck themselves."

Sundays were normally lazy days at Hogwarts, but one girl in Ravenclaw Tower was seemingly unaware of that as she ran her hands over a smooth golden egg a third the size of her own torso.

Jen was quite frustrated at this point; try as she might, she could not figure out the secret to getting into the egg. There were no latches or keyholes, no seams from welding or sticking charms to hold two halves together. She had even tried to cut it to get at the contents, but to no avail. The blasted thing just sat there, taunting her with its refusal to reveal its secrets.

With an angry growl, she picked the egg up and threw it at her dormitory wall before flopping down on the floor. She had enjoyed slacking off for the near two months between the Gryffindor and Slytherin Tasks, but now that was coming back to bite her in the arse. It would be terrible for a Ravenclaw to fail at the task inspired by her own house.

Of course, it's not like the others are having an easy time of this, either, she consoled herself. I'm not an idiot, far from it; if I can't figure it out, then they won't be able to, either.

She mentally slapped herself. No, no, I can't let myself go down that trail of thought. The last Task was a bloody wandless duel, and yet I nearly lost the damn thing due purely to my own arrogance. I'm not going to put myself at a disadvantage here by assuming that I'm the smartest of the seven champions. Even if I am, there is no telling what the others have learned that I have not. For all I know, the older champions have a spell in their repertoire that makes this egg a minor hurdle. The only one I'm guaranteed to have an advantage over is Potter, and let's be honest, that's not saying much.

What if… what if I'm looking at this all wrong? Bagman said what I need for the Task is inside the egg, but what if he was speaking metaphorically? It was resistant to damage, but I detected no charms activating to protect it. That means the magic is integrated into the metal, which is a key quality of either goblin or dwarven origin. The former are bankers but used to be warriors. The latter are the world's best mechanical engineers: buildings, toys, bridges, aqueducts, what have you. Both of them live underground, though; could the Task take place inside a tunnel system? The egg is made of solid gold, so maybe a race for treasure?

She summoned the baffling object back to her hand, curious if there was anything else she could glean from it. There was, but it wasn't what she expected; the egg's impact with the wall had forced a small section to slide almost a centimeter from its original position, a flat crescent now present at the edge. Or maybe I'm overthinking the whole problem. Groaning, she banged her forehead against the cold metal for a few seconds. "Stupid, stupid, stupid."

So the damn thing's nothing more than an obscenely expensive puzzle box. Okay, this I can handle. Puzzle boxes were something she was quite familiar with. When she first started at Candyland, a friendly ten-year-old boy named Anthony Merchant had taken her under his wings to explain how things worked in their little corner of Avryporth. He had been a prodigy when it came to working with his hands, crafting small toys for the youngest children or the new arrivals, be they wooden puppets or plush animals. What he really loved, however, were puzzles of all shapes and forms. Solving them and building them, fifty or 1000 pieces, cartoons of farm animals and even one that, when completed, became a photograph of four of the brothel girls cuddling naked on a couch.

During the eighteen months they had both been employed there, he had taught her how to manipulate the tiny wooden panels of the few boxes he had painstakingly built over the years in order to increase her dexterity and sense of touch, though she also used them to train her – at the time – unwieldy sixth sense. Now was the time to put those old skills to good use.

She reeled in her sonar, losing touch of the walls of the room, then the furniture. It was unnerving to be unaware of her surroundings after so long relying on this gift, but she continued until she was no longer feel even the floor she was laying on. Slowly, she focused the entirety of her magical sense on the egg. Sliding the displaced panel back into place, she examined the edges she knew were present. There! Good grief, no wonder I couldn't find anything; that crack is thinner than one of my hairs. Now, if this is a puzzle box, where are the other panels? Starting at the narrow end, she slowly moved down what she had thought was a smooth surface, astounded at the number of intersecting lines she could now detect.

Assuming whoever made this egg followed the same strategy Muggles do, moving this piece… She slid the panel as far as it could go, then searched again. In a matter of seconds, she located an edge that had nearly tripled in width, though the original size meant the distance the segment had moved was otherwise imperceptible. …will loosen the next in the sequence. She had to rotate this one, and after it was in place, she repeated the process. A minute and six steps later, she unscrewed the bottom panel that made up the wide end of the egg and heard a small roll of parchment hit the floor.

With her sonar still centered on the hollow hunk of precious metal, she was reduced to fumbling with her hands in the general area where the clue – for what else could it be? – had stopped. She finally found and unrolled it, then with a finger spread her magic over the newly-revealed sheet. There was no writing on it, which did little to improve her temper.

Fine, then. There's more than one way to skin a kneazle. She summoned her scrying mirror from where she had left it in her writing desk, her reliance on what was essentially a long-range form of touch having granted her an extremely precise memory for objects and their relative positions. Catching the mirror and placing it on the floor next to her, her hand moved around its glassy face.

There were two possible means a person could use to scry. The one Jen preferred was the more advanced version and consisted of sending her five physical senses to another location via a mental projection. This allowed her to observe the area of interest as if she were actually there, but in return it eliminated all awareness of what was occurring around her body and also took away her ability to move. This time, however, she chose to use the basic method. The swirl of color in her otherwise dark world cleared, leaving her a foot-wide circle of vision. Controlled by her will, the image the 'screen' showed shifted from its default placement directly above her and zoomed in on the square of parchment she held in the hand not feeding magic to the mirror.

Presented to her was an extremely simplistic collection of intersecting lines; though not even an infant would have trouble navigating it, what it represented was clear. "A maze," she said in disbelief. "That's the clue hidden in the egg? I'm supposed to create a strategy based on this?! What a waste of time!" Tearing her hand away from the mirror and abruptly ending her scrying session, she balled the parchment up and threw it to the other side of her room. She returned her attention to her new keepsake. "Well, at least I got something out of the deal."

She picked up the pieces of the egg and began fitting them together again. When the last panel was back in place, the entire thing let out a sound midway between a click and a thunk. "What in the world?" Glad that she had not expanded her sonar from its narrow focus, she examined the object anew. The starting panel had moved closer to the rest of the egg, and she tested it only to find that its slide was much more difficult to initiate. I can reopen it in the previous configuration, but perhaps I'm not supposed to? Running her hands randomly over the shell, she nudged the top slightly off-center. Okay, a multimodal puzzle box is much more appropriate for the Ravenclaw Task.

An hour passed before Jen quit manipulating the panels of the egg; in that time, she had collected many more hints. And there's move 100, she thought, returning the clue dispenser to its original shape. She flared her sonar and rocked back as the various items in the room suddenly reappeared in her awareness. Having placed her hand once again on the scrying mirror earlier to identify the clues as they emerged, she looked through it to review the three groups she had created.

The 'Setting' division was first, consisting of the childish maze; a square divided into thirds, each filled by clouds, flowers, and what she presumed to be waves; a moving photograph of a lake, possibly the one on the castle grounds; and another photo, this time of the empty stands in the arena. Other than the segmented square, they were all fairly self-explanatory.

Next came 'Dangers'. A third photograph of a bonfire was joined by artistic impressions of some slavering beast, a large rock falling through the air, bows firing without anyone behind them, and a humanoid figure chained to a thick vertical post. Perhaps a troll or a giant?, she wondered as she examined it again. To one side, midway between this set and the third was a slip that read only 'FEAR'. She was unsure exactly what this meant, but it certainly sounded like a threat.

The last group was 'Unknown'. A final wizarding photograph showing students as they milled in front of the house hourglasses, a picture of a compass, and a diagram she could not for the life of her interpret. It had another square, but this time there was a single figure inside that had slumped against the borders. An arrow pointed from that figure to a second within a house-like drawing. Perhaps that is meant to be a medic tent like the one set up during the first Task? I can't tell; there simply isn't enough information.

She traced the lines on the clues with magic so that she could distinguish the images without scrying again before dismissing the ring of vision and floating the mirror back to her desk. "Thirteen clues, though I'm sure others are held inside more difficult settings of the egg. Now the question becomes what the hell do they mean?" She summoned her pocket watch and flipped it open to feel the hands. "Almost ten. Padma, Morag, and Luna should be up by now; maybe they'll be able to help me out. If not, we can check to see if there has been a similar Task before.

"Only one way to know for certain. To the library!"

Apparently, Madam Pomfrey doesn't approve of self-mutilation. Who knew?

Another movie reference for you guys to find… if you dare.

Silently Watches out.