Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any character thereof! I just like to play with them. =)

A/N: For what it's worth, some people may not have gotten a notice about the previous chapter. FF appears be having issues again. So if you didn't, it's there! *points* =)

Chapter 73

Harry woke up on the morning of the second task and the first thing he noticed, even before he put his glasses on, was that Ron was not in his bed. In fact, it didn't even look slept in.

Harry frowned. 'Surely he came back after McGonagall had pulled him out of the tower last night.'

He quickly got dressed and headed down to the common room. There he saw Neville.

"Morning Neville. Have you seen Ron?"

"Nope. Maybe he went on down to breakfast with Dean and Seamus."

"Maybe."

They walked toward the Great Hall together. He sat down at the table and went to grab some toast when Neville stopped him. "You can't eat one hour before you take the gillyweed. It'll make you sick."

Harry looked down at his toast. "Oh. Well, I'm not very hungry anyway. Can I drink?"

Neville nodded. "You could, technically eat, but you'll feel horrible after the gills go away."

"I'll not take the chance." Harry looked around the room. Everyone was excited about the second task today. It would be starting at 9:30 that morning. He then frowned, having just noticed that Hermione wasn't around either. 'Was she with Krum?' he wondered.

"Ready?" asked Seamus.

"Personally, I'd rather still be in bed asleep, but yeah, I guess."

"We'll be cheering you on! We're going on down to get seats! Good luck!"

Harry nodded. He was starting to get antsy. He waited on Neville to finish eating before he went to meet up with Gabriella at the Slytherin table. She took his hand as they headed down toward the Black Lake.

"Have you seen Ron and Hermione?" Harry asked Gabriella as they left the castle

"Yes, Harry. They were camped out in the Slytherin common room," she said as she looked at him.

"They were wh- ... oh ... right." Harry laughed. "Sorry. It's just that I've not seen them since last night."

"Maybe they came down earlier?"

"Maybe," he said distracted.

"Good luck Harry. I'll be cheering for you." She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

He grinned and then headed down towards the shore line where the other champions were supposed to meet up.

"Here Potter," gruffed out Moody as he carefully handed something to him. Harry looked down and saw a handful of gillyweed. "Put that in your mouth before you go under the water."

"But sir-" Harry tried to protest in shock. No one was supposed to blatantly help him like this.

"Harry, ready for the task?" interrupted an exuberant Mr. Bagman, which gave Moody a chance to limp away.

"Uh, sure."

"Over here Mr. Potter," directed the Headmaster. Harry blinked at the man and wondered how he had not spotted him as soon as he had left the castle. He was wearing the brightest set of yellow robes he had ever seen. As if that wasn't bad enough, the robes had several Hogwarts' crests on it and they flashed between all of the house colors. The same color wasn't on any two crests at the same time.

"Nice robes, sir," said Harry grinning.

The Headmaster beamed. "I'm afraid I don't get to wear them often enough," said the brilliant man in confiding tones.

Harry chuckled and looked away to see who all had arrived so far. It appeared that everyone was already there, except for Fleur.

Severus watched as Potter got ready for the task on the platform. He looked disturbed by something. Of course, he could just be disturbed by the Headmaster's robes. That had disturbed him ... and half of the staff that morning.

Looking through the crowd showed Miss Nott sitting with her friends close to the champions platform. Severus could not believe the lack of restraint the girl had shown on Valentine's Day.

He had taken her aside and had to reinforce the fact that Slytherins do not act improper in public.

Another oddity was that, despite an occasional exchange of words, the rest of the Slytherin's were leaving Potter alone.

The Headmaster seemed to find the whole thing amusing.

So to amuse himself, Severus spiked Albus' lemon drops. It took a week for the rash to go away ... or so the Headmaster complained.

Harry saw Fleur running up to the platform in a bikini. It was February and the water was going to be cold. He just shook his head and went back to scanning the crowd for Ron and Hermione. If he wouldn't have been so focused on hunting for two specific people, he would have seen the look of worship on most of the male population of Hogwarts when they had spotted Fleur.

"They better have a good reason for not being here," he mumbled.

"Welcome. Welcome to the second task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Last night, each of the champions had something of value taken from them. Their egg informed them that if it was not retrieved within an hour, it would be lost to them forever."

The crowd cheered.

"That is the task. Each champion please get ready and wade into the water to the starting line."

Harry made sure his wand was fastened securely in his holster. He had said a spell that would cause it to warm against his arm at the 45 minute marker. He then placed the gillyweed (that he had gotten himself - not what Moody had handed him) in his mouth and started chewing.

It tasted so disgusting that he almost spat it back out.

"On your mark. Get set. Go!"

Harry started having trouble breathing and he knew why. He dove under the water and felt better immediately. Thankfully the water no longer felt cold to him either.

"Now, the hard part for us is waiting," said the Headmaster.

Everyone laughed.

Severus walked up Albus. "There has to be a way for us to keep track of the progress of the champions."

He saw the Headmaster ponder something. "I might be able to come up with something for the next task."

Severus nodded and went back to waiting along with everyone else.

"Thank you Remus," muttered Harry as he swam away from the Grindylows. About 15 of them had attacked him all at once. He wouldn't have known how to deal with them if not for defense last year.

As Harry swam to what he hoped was the center of the Black Lake, he wondered how long he had been down there and where the others were. He hadn't seen anyone for a while.

Severus saw some bubbles forming near the edge of the lake. He, along with everyone else, stood to see who was coming up.

It was the Beauxbatons champion.

He watched as she swam to the platform only to be ambushed by Madam Pomphrey.

"Eet was ze Grindylows," he heard her say. They must have burst the bubble head charm that she had used.

"Miss Delacour didn't make it past the grindylows and has given up what was taken from her," announced Mr. Bagman.

"What was eet?" Severus heard her ask.

"Your sister," replied Moody with a grin.

She burst into tears.

"Alastor," admonished Albus with a frown.

Severus watched the Headmaster lean down and whisper something in the girls' ear. Whatever it was calmed her down.

Harry was looking around frantically. He had found Ron, Hermione, Cho, and someone that looked like a mini version of Fleur tied to a statue in the mer-people village. His wand had just warmed, telling him that 45 minutes had passed.

He had found the village about 10 minutes prior by following a mermaid he had seen. Then he had followed the voices.

"An hour long you'll have to look,
And to recover what we took.
Your time's half gone, so tarry not,
Lest what you seek stays here to rot."

He was horrified when he had first came upon them. He had quickly freed Ron from the boulder holding him down and was looking around.

'Where was everyone?'

Every time he tried to free Hermione, the mer-people came at him with spears.

Finally Cedric came swimming in with a bubble around his head.

Harry read his lips. "Got lost. Go. Krum and Fleur should be behind me."

He watched as Cedric used his wand to free Cho and started swimming towards the surface.

After what seemed like an eternity, Krum came flailing through the water with half of his body transfigured as a shark.

Harry knew that his time with the gillyweed was almost up so he pulled out his wand and shot a spell at the rope holding Fleur's sister. If Fleur was coming, she would have been here already, of that he was certain.

The mer-people came at him again but Harry raised his wand. They swam away the second he had done that.

Evidently they didn't have any more magic than the giant squid did.

Dragging two people along side of him, he began to head for the surface.

Severus watched as more bubbles appeared on the water.

Diggory's head appeared first then Ms. Chang's head appeared right after it.

The Hufflepuff's burst out cheering.

Severus eyed the clock. It was one minute outside of the hour time limit.

He hoped that Potter took more than an hours worth of gillyweed.

Five minutes had passed when Krum popped up with Ms. Granger.

Ten minutes.

Finally at twelve minutes passed the hour, everyone stood to see the bubbles. The others had come up near the shore. These were near the middle of the lake.

Weasley came up first, then to everyone's shock, they saw that Harry wasn't with him. It was Miss Delacour's sister.

Everyone seemed to be waiting with bated breath. Even Weasley was shocked not to see Harry beside of him.

Ten seconds.

Thirty seconds.

A full minute later Harry broke the surface coughing.

Severus let out a breath he didn't even realize he had been holding.

Harry was coughing. He had been near the surface when the grindylows had come back for revenge. He pushed Ron and the girl up ahead of him.

The gillyweed had fully worn off about the same time they attacked him. His lungs were killing him. His chest and muscles hurt. He heard ringing in his ears but he finally managed to get free of their grips and kicked himself to the surface, after inhaling two mouthfuls of water.

"Harry, you all right?"

He shook his head no but managed to get across the point that they had to help the girl.

Harry could swim better than she could, which was really saying something.

Between the two of them they managed to get her to shore. To Harry it felt as if it had taken a week to do so.

Ron was then ambushed by Hermione and his brother Percy (who was standing in as a judge for Mr. Crouch). Fleur ran to her sister.

He, however, was nearly run over by Gabriella and Madam Pomphrey.

She shoved three bottles in his hand and told him to drink.

He shook his head. He was still coughing up water.

"Drink the blue one first Mr. Potter. It'll help you expel the water you undoubtedly breathed in."

It took him another minute before he could do so because of the coughing.

He started feeling better almost immediately. He then drank the other two potions. Harry looked around for the first time since breaking the surface and saw Dumbledore talking to the mer-people.

"Harry, you prat. You didn't believe that riddle did you?" asked Ron while pulling the blanket around himself.

"The song said -"

"That was just to make sure that you got back within the time limit. Professor Dumbledore wouldn't have let anything happen to us," said Hermione around Victor Krum.

"Yeah, well. It was creepy down there and the mer-people all had weapons. They threatened me more than once. I couldn't take the chance."

Gabriella chuckled. "I'm going to have to bring out your Slytherin side more. This Gryffindor hero complex you seem to have is going to get you killed."

Harry just stuck his tongue out at her.

"'Arry! Thank you for saving my sister even though she was not your 'ostage," said Fleur as she ran over to where Harry and Ron were sitting. Fleur then leaned over and kissed him on both cheeks.

Harry flushed and saw Gabriella get a dark look in her eyes. He then saw the same look go through Hermione's eyes when Fleur thanked Ron too.

"Here Potter. Another pepper-up potion. Take it in an hour."

"Yes ma'am."

"And now for the results!"

"Harry, you're tied with Cedric in first place," squealed Hermione after they were announced.

Harry grinned. 'Maybe - just maybe - I could really win this,' he truly thought for the first time.

A/N: I hope you all enjoyed that. Reviews are always good! *sets out the desserts!*

Up next, poor Harry realizes just how big of a 'freak' he is when he finally learns what the glowy thing is. Trust me ... he isn't going to be pleased. I promise it's longer than this chapter! =) I had quite a bit of fun writing out some different happenings before the third task ... which is four months away! *get's all shifty eyed and backs away slowly*

I reckon I'll have the next chapter posted in around 2 to 3 days.

A/N: Graven: Hopefully Dumbledore's robes answered your question you asked in the review before last. ;-) *quickly drinks anti-dote before you change your mind*