Disclaimer: I still do not own Harry Potter.
Hey all! Thanks for the reviews! You're probably right, lions and tigers would be a breeze next to dragons and dementors!
I'm glad you're enjoying the dynamic between Cedric and Harry. As I said before, I completely adore Cedric. He's the best of them all.
Chapter 25: Celebrations and Clues
When Harry arrived in the common room, he was greeted with a round of applause. Sirius, Remus, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Fred, George, Lee, Neville and all his other housemates were there, cheering at his entrance. "Sit down, Harry!" said Fred jovially as he tried to get through the crowd.
"You're going to love what we have in store for you!" said George.
So Harry sat down in one of the squashy armchairs, and Sirius and Remus sat next to him. "Wow, I missed this place," Sirius said as he stared around the common room.
"Yeah, it reminds me of old times," sighed Remus reminiscently. "Nothing seems to have changed."
"Don't tell anyone," said Fred, "but George and I are about to go down to the kitchens to nick some food. We'll come back and then we get to celebrate in style!"
"I should tell McGonnagall," said Remus, adopting a stern tone.
"But oh, you wouldn't!" exclaimed Fred, putting a hand to his mouth in mock shock.
"O Humble Sir, please do not tell on us!" wheedled George. "We promise to be your noble slaves if you promise not to raise the temper of the lady McGonnagall!"
Remus and Sirius couldn't help it; they burst out laughing. Fred and George high-fived each other, giving huge grins to the crowd. "We'll be back, honorable men!" yelled George.
"Hey, what about the ladies?" said Ginny indignantly.
"Don't worry, Gin-Gin, we apologize, your Royal Highness," said Fred. He and George then waltzed out of the room.
"Those two," grumbled Hermione, exasperated.
"Oh lighten up, 'Mione," said Ron. "Harry here's tied in first place! He deserves a celebration!"
Within minutes, Fred and George were back, carrying huge bags of food. There were potato chips, chocolate frogs, all different kinds of sandwiches, and little cakes and cookies. "The house-elves were very happy to help us," said Fred, causing Hermione to make a "harrumph!" noise.
"Hermione's obsessed with house-elves," Ron informed Sirius and Remus. "Thinks they should be free. Got Harry and I to wear these badges that say SPEW on them."
"It's not spew, Ron!" exclaimed Hermione, glaring at the redhead. "It's S.P.E.W!"
"Oh, whatever," said Ron.
"Don't be so quick to dismiss it, Ron," said Remus. "Hermione's got a good point."
"Thank you, Remus," beamed Hermione. "I just wish more people would be interested!"
Everyone started feasting on the delicious food, and Fred and George got out candies from their pockets. "Hey, you wanna try one, Neville?" said George, holding out a piece of hard candy.
"Should I?" said Neville, grinning. "Or are you two playing a joke on me?"
"No joke," said Fred innocently. "It's just a piece of candy, that's all."
"Oh, okay," said Neville, gullible as always. Everyone watched with baited breath as he put the candy into his mouth.
For a moment, nothing happened. "Thanks, guys. This is good," he said, smiling. But all of a sudden, there was a POP! and a guinea pig appeared in the spot where Neville had been. It started to make a terrified squeaking noise, and when it looked at the twins, it uttered an angry purr. Everyone in the common room started laughing, with Fred, George, Lee, Sirius, and Remus chortling the hardest.
"That's something truly Marauder-worthy," said Sirius between chuckles. "That's genius! How did you do that, boys?"
"Some simple charms," beamed Fred.
"It didn't take much," laughed George.
Harry was taking in the scene, and he grabbed the guinea pig off the floor, stroking it. "Awww, look how cute it is!" giggled Ginny from a few seats away.
"I don't think Neville's going to be very happy with you when he reappears," Remus warned. "How long does the charm last?"
"A minute," replied George immediately.
"There's no way anyone can get as angry as Mum does," said Fred in an unconcerned tone.
"Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes!" the twins chorused together. "Our new line of products!"
"Yeah, they want to start a joke shop when they get out of Hogwarts," said Harry. "They want to get business booming!"
Hermione was glaring at the twins with an infuriated look on her face. "Can't you two ever be serious?" she griped.
"Merlin, Hermione, you're as bad as our mother," said Fred.
"You need to loosen up a little," said George.
At that moment, there was another POP! and Neville materialised, his face turning red with embarrassment. But he took it in good humor, and even started laughing as well. "Good one," he said to Fred and George.
"Why, thank you, Monsieur Longbottom," said Fred.
"Our first product tester!" said George, shaking Neville's hand vigorously.
"You know," said Hermione, glaring at the twins again, "that could be really dangerous! Why would you test these products on people?"
"Ah, we tested them on ourselves first," said George. "Gred and I didn't want to run into that problem either."
"Yeah, me and old Forge here make sure nothing's unsafe," said Fred, pounding his twin on the back.
The party continued late into the night. Sirius and Remus stayed for a few hours, and then they bid goodbye to Harry and left, promising to see him again in a few days' time. "Make sure those twins don't destroy school property," Sirius grinned.
"Or I really will tell Professor McGonnagall," Remus laughed.
Speaking of the woman, she came into the common room at about one in the morning, telling everyone that as much as she knew they were having fun and celebrating their champion's good fortune, it was time to go to bed. Fred and George, of course, tried to wheedle the professor into letting them party longer, but McGonnagall sternly put her foot down. Grumbling, the twins and Lee mock-bowed to her, causing her to scowl at them. They then disappeared up to their dormitory, followed by many others.
"Mate, are you coming to bed?" asked Ron, yawning.
"In a minute," said Harry. Ron and Hermione bid him good night and disappeared upstairs. It was now just he and Ginny left in the room.
"Did you enjoy your party?" Ginny asked, smiling.
"Yeah," said Harry. "It was a bit much, having the whole common room cheering for me, but the food and your brothers' antics were really something else."
"Yeah, and I had to grow up with them," Ginny giggled. "I'm glad you've made up with that idiot Ron, too."
"Yeah," answered Harry, "but as I said to him, it's going to take a while for me to trust him again."
"Well, it should," said Ginny indignantly. "He was a real git. He deserves to be on the outs until he grows up a bit."
"Well, I'm going to bed," Harry told her. "Thanks for the party. See you in the morning."
"See you. Congratulations for today, by the way. You were bloody fantastic!"
"Thanks."
xxx
The next day, Harry was in the bathroom brushing his teeth when he suddenly remembered about the egg Ludo Bagman had given all the champions so they could work out the clue for the second task. He had placed it in his robes pocket, and slowly got it out. He might as well be prepared, he thought to himself. It wouldn't be good to wait till the last minute and then have to rush. February was three months away, but he wanted to find the clue sooner rather than later.
He had just filled the sink with water, ready to wash himself. He placed the egg right near the sink and then began to wash.
The water was still in the sink, and he thought to himself, I might as well open the egg. He was so anxious to see what the clue was that he had totally forgotten to empty the water out.
When he opened the egg, a horrible screeching sound filled the air. It sounded like a banshee, and as Harry hurried to close it, he accidentally knocked it with his hand and caused it to go tumbling into the water.
Immediately, the screaming ceased, and at once, a beautiful melody began to sound in the water. Harry tried to listen, for he could hear muffled words, but he couldn't hear what they were. So he put his head down, ending up getting it in the water. And then he heard:
Come listen to our voices sound,
We cannot sing above the ground.
An hour long you'll have to look
To discover what we took.
But after an hour, the prospect's black
Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.
Harry let out a gasp of surprise. He couldn't believe it! He had found the clue through this string of events! He closed the egg, then opened it again, and listened to the song once more. It's going to take me a while to figure out what this means, he realized. Maybe I can ask Hermione, or Cedric and I can try to work it out. He knew at once he should give Cedric a clue as to what to do so that he could hear the riddle.
As it happened, Hermione was in the common room when Harry walked downstairs. He told her about what he had heard, and she said in a mock imitation of Professor Trelawney, "The Fates told you to accidentally drop that egg into the water."
"Yes, my dear," Harry said, continuing with her mockery. "Otherwise, you would die a most gruesome and painful death!"
In seriousness, Hermione promised to help him work out the clue if he needed help.
xxx
The next day they had Care of Magical Creatures. Poor Hagrid was beside himself with worry. Harry thought some more about the egg clue as he went through the pointless task of taking the Blast-Ended Skrewts for a walk. Unfortunately, or fortunately, as most students thought, there were only ten Skrewts left. All the others were dead; they had killed each other.
But there was a disturbing development in the class when half an hour into it, none other than Rita Skeeter showed up, carrying a horrible-looking handbag. "Hello, Hagrid!" she said cheerfully as she surveyed the scene. "How are you today?"
"I'm fine, thank yeh," grumbled Hagrid, glaring at the reporter. "What do yeh want?"
"Ah," said Rita, "I was just very interested in what you and your class are studying. What are these fascinating creatures?"
"Blast-Ended Skrewts," said Hagrid uncomfortably.
"Blast-Ended who?" said Skeeter.
"Skrewts."
"Ah. I've never heard of them before in my entire life. Where on Earth did you get them from?"
Harry's heart sank as he waited for Hagrid's answer. Where HAD he gotten the Skrewts from?
"It's none of yer business," said Hagrid ferociously. "Yeh must have some ulterior motive fer comin' here."
"As a matter of fact," said Skeeter, seeming to ignore Hagrid's anger, "I was wondering if you would be so kind as to grant me an interview."
"If yeh're gonna ask me about 'Arry, I'm not answerin' any questions regardin' 'im," Hagrid said in a very final sort of tone.
"No worries," said Skeeter, plastering on her normal fake smile. "I will only ask you things you are comfortable talking about. How about we make it for this Saturday at the Three Broomsticks?"
"All righ'," said Hagrid, and Harry's heart sank even lower. What horrible story was Rita Skeeter going to come up with about Hagrid? Sirius and Remus had told him that Hagrid was what wizards called a half-giant, and the majority of the wizarding world was very prejudiced against giants. Skeeter was bigoted against werewolves, so Harry guessed that she'd have nothing nice to say about Hagrid either.
After the lesson was over, Harry, Ron, and Hermione hung back so they could talk to Hagrid. "I don't think you should go through with that interview," Hermione warned the half-giant. "Skeeter will probably find some disgusting thing to say about you."
"Ain't no harm in it," Hagrid reassured the trio. "I won't tell her anythin' I don' wan' ter."
"Just be careful," implored Harry. "I don't want you getting hurt."
"I will," Hagrid promised. "Get ter yer next class, now. Yeh don' wan' ter be late."
xxx
Double Divination that afternoon was absolute torture. "Do you know what I see looming ahead of us, my children?" Professor Trelawney said. She was seated on a poof before the fire, gazing at the students with a very worried look on her face.
"Oooooh, what, Professor?" cried Lavender Brown, staring at the Divination teacher with absolute adoration.
"Death, my dears," said Trelawney, sighing deeply. "Death. It is coming closer and closer to our school."
Ron snickered. Trelawney glared at him. "It is no laughing matter, my dear," she said angrily.
xxx
That night after dinner, Harry met up with Cedric and Cho to go flying. After they had flown animatedly around the Quidditch pitch for many enjoyable minutes, the three of them hung out in the Hufflepuff common room again. There were forced apologies from Cedric's dormmates, and Harry, being the forgiving person he was, said it was all right. He noticed the tension between the three of them and Cedric, and told his older friend to just forget about what they'd said. He hated seeing conflict between anyone because of him.
Cho started to become tired a few hours later, so she went to bed. Harry asked Cedric if they could talk outside the common room, because he had something to tell him. Cedric agreed, so the two boys took a nice walk around the castle.
"I worked out part of the egg clue," Harry informed him as they walked.
"Wow, you did?" said Cedric, impressed. "Merlin, Harry, you're quick. We only got the egg two days ago!"
"Well, I figured now would be the right time to start," Harry answered. He then launched into the tale of how he'd had the egg near the water, opened it, heard the sound of inhuman screeching, accidentally knocked it into the water, and then heard the melody. Hermione had written the lyrics of the short song down on a piece of parchment twice, so Harry handed one copy to Cedric.
"Hey, thanks," Cedric said. Smiling softly, he added, "But really, Harry, you're too noble for your own good. You know I was supposed to work that out for myself."
"I know," Harry replied, "but you helped me with the summoning charms for the first task. I had to help you with this one."
Cedric smiled again and patted Harry's shoulder. "You're still too noble," he murmured. "Anyway, I wonder what this means. It sounds like something we treasure is going to be taken away from us, and we need to find it again."
"Yeah, but we need to work out why the egg screamed when it wasn't underwater," Harry said. "Do you think we could go to the library?"
"Yeah, why don't we?" replied Cedric. "I'm a prefect, but tonight's not my night for patrol. If you get caught out-of-bounds, I'll just tell them you were with me, and they'll understand. After all, it's for a good cause."
So the two champions walked to the library. "Where should we start looking?" asked Harry as they wandered through the stacks of books.
"Let's search in the Underwater Creatures section," suggested Cedric.
He and Harry sat at a table, after they had collected several weighty tomes. They started looking through them, and they spent a while pondering over this mystery.
After about an hour, Cedric's gray eyes lit up. "Hey, Harry, I found it!" he exclaimed. "This makes sense! Look!"
He had a book open to a passage on merpeople. It said:
Merpeople are known to live underwater. Their speech is understood when they are below the surface, but when they are above water, it will sound like they are screaming to the human ear. The sound is so ear-shattering that humans never really listen to them when they are not submerged.
"Wow, that's IT!" said Harry happily. "But what do you think the task has to do with merpeople?"
"Well," said Cedric, a serious expression on his face, "there are merpeople in the lake, you know. The lake right near the castle."
"Oh, I didn't know that," said Harry. "I thought the giant squid was the only thing in there."
"Nope," said Cedric. "Cho told me. Merpeople are in there as well."
"So do you think we have to go in the lake for the second task?" asked Harry. "What do you think we have to do in there?"
Cedric thought for a minute. "Maybe," he said slowly, "we have to go in the lake and find something. It sounds like, as I said, something's going to be taken away which means a lot to us, and we have to find it before an hour's up."
"Maybe it'll be taken by the merpeople," said Harry, experiencing the same vein of thoughts. But then his face grew worried. "How on Earth do we breathe underwater?"
"Don't worry, there are several ways," said Cedric at once. "We can make sure we know what we're doing by looking in here. I'm getting tired now, but maybe we could come back here some other time."
"Okay," said Harry, feeling comforted by his older friend's words. Cedric really was a role model.
"I was thinking of talking to the Slytherins, you know, about being friends with us. I've really been thinking a lot about what you said at my birthday party: all Slytherins can't be evil." Said Harry after a moment of thought.
"I'm glad you've thought about it, Harry. Maybe some time this week we could talk to Professor Snape and see if he'd let a few of us talk to them."
Harry was worried about talking to the sour Potions Master, but he'd do anything if it was for a good cause. "Don't worry," Cedric said, seeing the twitch of anxiety that passed over Harry's face. "Believe me, I've heard about how Snape treats you, and it's not right. I'll talk to him if you'd like."
"Thanks. How about I be there with you, though? It wouldn't seem fair to make you do it all by yourself."
"Oh, that's okay. But you can be there if you want. Anyway, let's go back to our dorms."
So the two Hogwarts champions left the library and walked back. They bid each other good night and Harry continued back to the Gryffindor common room. He actually felt really good; he and Cedric were on their way to being prepared for the second task, and they were going to talk to the Slytherins. They were going to try to remove the Gryffindor/Slytherin rivalry that had been present for so long. Harry decided that he was going to talk to Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, and Cho to see if they wanted to get involved. Those thoughts continued to wander around his mind as he fell asleep that night.