Disclaimer: Standard stuff (I don't own anything, I won't be making profit, any resemblance to previously published content is purely coincidental, JK Rowling is the coolest, etc.). If I make any legal errors regarding copyrighted material, inform me and I will correct them immediately.

Pre-A/N: Read the Author's Note for this chapter for my discussion on Hermione Granger.

Harry Potter and the Lightning Scar

The moment that Harry awoke in the Chamber bedroom on Wednesday, February 24, he jumped—literally—out of his bed over to his desk, and snatched up the Marauder's Map. He had left it open the previous night, anticipating this very moment, and within seconds, his eyes had located the Slytherin dorms.

Daphne Greengrass.

Harry breathed out a sigh of relief and slumped down into his desk chair, the tension draining out of his body. All their secrecy had not gone to waste, then—if Daphne had not been taken by now, she wasn't going to be involved in the second task at all.

A sudden fear gripped him—who would the judges kidnap to use as his hostage? He and Daphne had discussed it several times, and had never really come to any conclusion. Harry wracked his brain, and focused back on the map. His eyes skipped around, alighting by chance upon the library, which was empty save for Madame Pince, rummaging around back in the stacks. The library...

The library didn't have any students in it.

His eyes flicked up to the Gryffindor girls' dorms. Lavendar Brown, Parvati Patil...and that was it.

No. They wouldn't.

Surely Dumbledore and McGonagall had noticed that Harry and Hermione hadn't even looked at each other since that evening in the Great Hall.

Harry groaned in sudden comprehension. Of course they had noticed. Dumbledore probably wanted him to make up with his old friends, and thought that kidnapping Hermione and forcing Harry to save her would be a good way to subtly push them together. That old man truly was a nutcase.

He shook those thoughts—and the attendant irritation—out of his head. The second task would begin in an hour; he had to get focused.

As Harry entered the Great Hall and began to walk toward his booth, his eyes found Daphne. However, instead of the relaxed smile he expected to see, Daphne's face was set in...fear? Their eyes met, and Daphne held a piece of parchment under the table. An instant later, Harry felt an invisible hand place something in his pocket (they never really seemed to run out of uses for Winky—what an incredible elf!). He nonchalantly sat down, and drew several items from his pockets, making it look as though he was inspecting his tools and equipment for the upcoming task. He glanced down and read the single word on the parchment.

Tracey!

The realization hit him like a train. The pick-up Quidditch tournament! Tracey Davis had been a surprise pick, and they must have been seen speaking together at the afterparty, and watched her giddily skip off to go "girl-talk" with Daphne.

He and Daphne had told Tracey their suspicions about the nature of the second task. There was no way she would have willingly allowed herself to be pressed into the Triwizard Tournament; she was far too savvy for that. No, she must have literally been kidnapped.

Infuriated, Harry turned the parchment over, took out a small muggle ball-point pen, and wrote a short note for Daphne.

Floo parents!

The instant his hand went beneath the table, the note was snatched out of his fingers. Seconds later, Daphne nodded resolutely and strode from the Great Hall (Harry made a mental note to reward Winky with a new mop or something). Daphne had once mentioned—as part of an amusing anecdote about Malfoy tattling to his father about something—that Snape allowed Slytherin students to make floo-calls to their parents (his fireplace was charmed to prevent students from calling anyone else) from his office. Daphne's parents, close friends of Tracey's parents, would immediately inform the Davises and the DMLE. It didn't even really matter if Tracey had agreed to be used as a hostage—Hogwarts students weren't even allowed into Hogsmeade without written permission from their parents, so there was no way Hogwarts could get away with putting them into the tournament without parental consent. There was no doubt about it: trouble was brewing, and it was going to be big.

Harry turned his eyes toward the staff table. Most of the professors had already left for the lake, presumably to finalize preparations and greet parents and spectators, as they had done for the first task in November. However, Professor Flitwick was still there, and he was not particularly surprised to see rage practically radiating off of Harry; if Flitwick had been closer or had a werewolf's nose, he would have smelled the sharp tang of ozone from Harry's turbulent magic. Flitwick and a few of the more sensible professors—including Snape, to the rest of the staff's surprise—had warned Dumbledore and the other judges that forcing students into the Tournament as hostages was a bad idea. What hadn't crossed their minds until this very moment, Flitwick realized, was that kidnapping Harry Potter's friend—or possibly girlfriend, depending on how much one read into his public interactions with Tracey Davis—was an absolutely terrible idea. Flitwick met Harry's gaze, and began to move toward him, but Harry had no interest in hearing whatever excuses and platitudes the diminutive Charms professor had to offer, and stormed out of the Great Hall and onto the grounds, striding toward the lake as fast as he could without running.

By the time he reached the shore, where the spectator stands and a judges' table had been erected, he had wrestled his anger into a much more helpful steely resolve. It was a good thing that he knew that the hostages were in relatively little real danger; otherwise, he probably would have rescued them immediately, without waiting for the task to officially begin. As it was, he simply stood on the pier, concentrating on his plan of attack and glaring at the judges (he noted idly that Percy Weasley, of all people, appeared to have taken Barty Crouch's place). Cedric paced anxiously, Fleur fidgeted with anxiety, and Krum leveled his customary scowl at the judges; apparently, all of the champions held a similarly dim view of the nature of the second task. Harry was sure they would be pleased when he made it his mission after the task to ensure that the DMLE arrested whoever was responsible for kidnapping Tracey and presumably the other hostages.

Finally, Ludo Bagman cleared his throat, cast a quick sonorous, and addressed the stands, which were completely filled with students, reporters, and members of the wizarding public. Harry could pick out Sirius and Remus, who—as his designated "family"—had seats with the Delacours (who were glaring daggers at the judges' table), the Krums, and Cedric's father.

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

At the shrill blast of Bagman's whistle, Fleur and Cedric both immediately applied Bubble-Head Charms and dove into the lake, while Krum transfigured himself into some sort of reverse-merman-shark-thing and sped beneath the surface. Harry, however, calmly took off his trainers and socks, walked to the water's edge, and stood with one foot in the water and one foot on land. He vaguely heard the crowd's catcalls and jeers and Bagman's inane commentary—"I wonder what Potter is doing? I guess we'll have to wait and see!"—and ignored everything, concentrating instead on the task that lay before him.

"Accio," he muttered, giving his elder and thunderbird feather wand a token wave. About a second later, a shard of granite plunked out of the water and into his left hand.

This was no random shard of granite, however. After Harry had returned to Hogwarts in January, he had used more gillyweed to make another trip to the village of the merpeople. There, he had confirmed with the merchieftainess that the hostages would be tied to the large, crudely-hewn statue of a merman at the village center, and chipped off a shard of granite from the statue's tail. Then, he had hidden the piece of rock in the water beneath the pier.

While the other champions descended into the water, Harry swiftly transfigured the rock into an exact to-scale likeness of the statue from which it was taken. He had spent over an hour examining the statue, memorizing its dimensions and proportions, and had incessantly practiced turning things into replicas of the statue for over a month—by now, he could practically do it in his sleep. This was a crucial part of his plan for the second task.

Thaumaturgy was a complex branch of magic, but it could be very powerful. Some wizards—particularly in Africa, the Caribbean, and a few places in America—could use a form of thaumaturgy to cast spells on people from very far away, using a doll and a tangible link (like hair or blood). This was popularly known as "voodoo," and its uses were usually harmful, and often identified as dark magic. However, there was no reason why the broader field of thaumaturgy couldn't be useful for more mundane things, as Harry planned to prove. Like voodoo, it was helpful to have a likeness and a link, and with his new mini-statue, Harry now had both; all that remained was to establish the link, and he would be all set.

He closed his eyes, gripped the statue tightly, brought to mind every detail of the stone merman statue which sat in the center of the village at the bottom of the lake, and began muttering under his breath.

"Idolum ligaveris," Harry intoned, building an imaginary chain between the two objects. "Idolum ligaveris. Idolum ligaveris. Idolum ligaveris. Idolum ligaveris. Idolum ligaveris. Idolum ligaveris."

As he spoke, he could feel the stone in his hand grow cold...as though it was sitting at the bottom of a freezing-cold lake in the middle of February. Finally, on the seventh repetition of the spell, he felt the link snap into place, as though a heavy steel padlock had clicked shut on two different lengths of chain. Harry had done it; the link had been forged.

Harry carefully placed the small statue into the water, ensuring that it was completely submerged. Still ignoring the sounds of the crowd and Bagman's dull comments—it was quickly becoming clear that the tournament organizers had not thought this task through (it was very boring for the spectators, as three of the champions were not even visible, and the fourth wasn't blowing anything up)—Harry pointed his wand into the water and cast a modified form of a powerful freezing charm.

"Glacio maxima orbis!"

A translucent sphere of ice began to form around the small replica, and it quickly began to harden and thicken. Within seconds, the walls of the sphere were even thicker than the hollow space in the center which held the statue. At the same time, a proportionally-larger sphere of ice formed around the massive statue in at the bottom of the lake; soon, the ice was so thick that the buoyancy it provided—after all, ice was less dense than water—countered and overcame the weight of the statue, hostages, and water that remained in the hollow space. Physics took over, and as the small statue began to rise to the surface, so too did its big brother. A few minutes after the spheres began to rise, they both broke the surface of the lake. The crowd gasped in shock, and Bagman continued to sound stupid ("Oh ho ho! I wonder how that just happened! We'll just have to wait and see!"). Remus and Sirius whooped and clapped, and began subtly shooting prank spells at the other spectators, taking Harry's cue in making a mockery of the contest. Fred and George Weasley, of course, took notice of their heroes, and joined in on the fun; it was likely that by the end of the task, half the spectators in the stands would have itching powder in their pants and look like clowns.

Harry chuckled softly, knowing that the other three champions probably hadn't traveled even half of the distance to the village. Swimming was slow, tiring work (except perhaps for Krum-the-semi-shark), and Harry hadn't even broken a sweat. Now, though, came the somewhat more difficult part.

Harry was not as naturally adept at manipulating water as Morris or Daphne; honestly, he'd probably never quite reach their level of finesse. However, he did have enough skill to be able to stick his foot in the water and gather energy from the lake. Not thermal energy (for the lake was far too cold for that to be efficient at all), but kinetic energy. After all, the lake had tides and waves; even though the wave action was much less impressive than one would see in an ocean, there was still a huge amount of water moving around, and more importantly, it was doing so in a predictable way that Harry could easily conceptualize and perceive. Therefore, he could exploit it.

As with the dragon's flame, Harry took in as much energy as he could; a few discerning observers in the audience noticed that the small waves lapping at the shoreline were steadily reduced in frequency and amplitude, and then appeared to stop entirely. What Harry lacked in finesse with water, he planned to make up in brute force, and having a thunderbird full of energy was a great way to start. With a wordless yell, he pumped all of the energy that he had gathered back out into the lake. Rather than simply blasting water outward as he had done in the first task with lightning, however, he willed a fast-moving wavefront into existence directly behind the huge floating ball of ice. Again—this time, actually a bit winded, due to the relative difficulty of storing the lake's kinetic energy as pure magic and then releasing it back as kinetic energy again, but halfway across the lake—Harry took a break and allowed physics to take over, and watched as what appeared to be the world's largest snow-globe surfed to shore atop the crest of the large wave.

As he watched the Incredible Surfing Giant Ice-Ball, he heard several people yelling at the judges. Harry turned to see two middle-aged couples (presumably the Greengrasses and the Davises) and six crimson-robed Aurors surrounding the judges' table. One of the Aurors, clearly the leader, a tough-looking woman with close-cropped gray hair and a monocle, slammed her hand on the table to interrupt everyone else. Her monocle fell off her face from the force of the palm-strike, and dangled by a chain hooked to her collar.

"Enough!" she roared, with such authority that the entire crowd was silenced, and even Harry blinked. "Enough of this! Albus Dumbledore, you and the other judges will make yourselves available for questioning once this task is complete, and I swear that if you lack an acceptable and reasonable explanation, I will set you all before the Wizengamot on the charges of kidnapping and gross negligence!"

Dumbledore—though a long-time politician—did not seem to understand the value of keeping his mouth shut, and tried to placate the enraged Auror. "My dear Amelia—"

"That is Director Bones to you," the woman snarled. Harry connected the dots; this was Amelia Bones, the Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, known as one of the most politically and magically powerful people in magical Britain. The fact that she was coming down so hard on Dumbledore, a former political ally of hers, was a sure sign that Dumbledore had well and truly used up all of his remaining political goodwill; if he didn't have an incredibly good explanation or a convenient scapegoat, this latest scandal—actually, crime—might very well ruin him once and for all.

"This is what will happen," she continued, her words hitting with the literal force of law. "After this task is complete, you judges—yes, that includes you, Weasley—will all meet me up at the castle, and by Merlin I will get to the bottom of this. Have I made myself clear?"

The judges all nodded silently. Maxime and Karkaroff looked unconcerned, and Dumbledore looked as though he was trying to look unconcerned. Bagman and Weasley both looked like they were about to be sick. The Aurors sneered, and kept their wands in their hands, and the Davises and Greengrasses walked back to the stands together and sat with Daphne.

Harry's attention was suddenly drawn back to the task when the much smaller ball of ice (which, incidentally, was actually the size of a regular snow-globe) bumped into Harry's ankle, just as its big brother beached itself on the rocky shore several meters away. The wave had plenty of strength left, and was still high enough that it reached Harry's elbows. Only lightning-fast shielding kept Harry, the Aurors, Maxime, Karkaroff, and Dumbledore (as the judges' table was right at the water's edge) from being drenched by the wave; Ludo Bagman and Percy Weasley, though, were much less competent (and very rattled from Director Bones's tirade), and were soaked through to the bone. The audience in the stands laughed their way out of their Director Bones-induced shocked silence as Bagman and Weasley were knocked out of their seats by the freezing-cold water.

As the water from Harry's wave receded back into the lake, Harry turned his attention to the large ball of ice. It was surprisingly transparent—apparently, the spherical shape had prevented any severe stress from concentrating on any one area, which would have caused thick white cracks—so the hostages were clearly visible. Harry saw Cho Chang, which made sense because she was Cedric's girlfriend, Tracey Davis, a small blonde girl who shared Fleur's features, and Hermione (who, by process of elimination, must have been Krum's hostage; why she had been chosen for that role, Harry had no idea).

With a careful mobilis, the sphere was aligned vertically; then, it was just a matter of opening it up to release the hostages. Harry turned his wand back to the small orb, and prepared to cast a strong spell to break through the ice; a simple finite wouldn't work, as the ice had been true-formed, rather than merely conjured.

"Knus." The Norwegian Icebreaker—which had been developed to break open ice to allow ships to pass through narrow frozen fjords, back in the days before apparition and floo-travel—caused deep cracks to radiate down from the top of the small globe. The deed done, Harry turned to view the spell's effect on the large sphere.

Aided by the weight of the statue, the cracks made it all the way through the ice, and the orb broke apart with a loud groaning and creaking sound. The ice beneath the statue shattered outward, and the statue sunk into the ground a few inches, remaining upright as the water that had been trapped inside spilled out and carried away huge chunks of ice from the shell. The four hostages, no longer supported by water, hung uncomfortably from ropes around their wrists (none were tall enough for their feet to touch the ground), and—evidently because they were no longer submerged in water—began to wake up from their enchanted slumber, helpfully saving Harry the trouble of casting four ennervates.

Four quick diffindos severed the thick ropes that bound the hostages to the statue, and all four girls landed on their feet on the ground, while Harry discreetly cast a silent finite on the replica statue, turning it back into a regular shard of granite with no bond to the large statue. The crowd erupted in cheers, and Harry suddenly found himself at the center of a five-way hug; the blonde girl was speaking at him in rapid-fire French, while Cho, Hermione, and Tracey all thanked him for getting them out of the water. Harry noticed that their wet clothes were clinging distractingly to the older girls' apparently cold bodies (Tracey clearly wasn't wearing a bra—somewhat understandable, given that she was in her pajamas), and those bodies were clinging distractingly to him. Harry snapped out of his idle musings and abruptly cast several warming and drying charms on the girls before he embarrassed himself, and then disentangled himself from the four former hostages. The small French girl immediately grabbed him around the waist again, but fell silent as Harry turned his intense gaze toward Tracey.

"Tracey," Harry said urgently—her knew they would only get a few minutes before the judges, the Aurors, or Tracey's parents came over. "Tell me what happened, quickly—your parents summoned the Aurors on suspicion of your kidnapping and coercion into this tournament. Did you agree to be a hostage willingly?"

"Hell no," Tracey said, scowling. "One of the prefects told me to report to McGonagall's office last night around nine, and when I got there, McGonagall told me that I was going to have "a minor supporting role" in the second task. I told her that I wanted nothing to do with it, and she told me that I didn't have a choice, because the judges had chosen me. I told her that my answer was no, and then I left. I hung out in the Slytherin common room for a while, and then I got tired and went to bed. I woke up wet, freezing, hanging from that damn rock, and looking down at your ridiculous hair."

"Wow," Harry breathed. "I can't believe that Dumbledore and the judges would be that stupid—I don't think there's any way out of this for them. Go tell your parents and the Aurors what you just told me."

Tracey nodded, and ran off to her parents, followed closely by Madame Bones, who clearly wanted to get Tracey's statement before any Hogwarts professors could coerce her into changing her story. Cho and Hermione watched her go, and turned back to Harry.

"Thanks, Harry," Cho said. Harry couldn't help but notice that Cho's clothes, too, were extremely form-fitting (perhaps having been shrunken by his powerful drying charm after being submerged in such cold water), and that she wasn't bothering to cover herself. Maybe it was her way of thanking him; if so, he approved. "Cedric is going to be a bit annoyed that he didn't get to pull the knight in shining armor routine, but I'm just glad to be out of the water. I agreed to be a hostage when they asked me, because I believed them when they told me that I'd be safe, but I won't make that mistake again—if they're willing to kidnap a student from her bed, nobody can trust a single word they say." Damn, Harry though, it's too bad Rita isn't here—that quote alone would have put Dumbledore in front of the Wizengamot. Cho's dark, pretty eyes locked onto Harry's. "For what it's worth...I'm sorry for how you've been treated this year, and I wish I could say I was never part of it, but I can't, and I'm sorry for that, too."

Harry nodded, and Cho walked away. Hermione didn't meet his eyes; looking down, she noticed that parts of her were obviously still cold, so she folded her arms across her chest and blushed. Harry gave a small snort of amusement, drawing a brief scowl from Hermione.

Hermione opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the arrival of what could only be Fleur's and the small French girl's parents.

"Gabrielle!" the angelic blonde witch cried out with a heavy French accent. Tears of relief ran down her face, and Harry realized that they might not have been consulted about their younger daughter's involvement, either.

"Maman!" the little-girl-who-was-apparently-Gabrielle squealed, and rushed into her mother's arms.

As the beautiful mother comforted her daughter (who alternated between crying from fear and chattering in excitement), her husband—a short, plump man with a dark, pointed beard—stopped an arm's length away from Harry. He had the look of a man accustomed to laughter, but his countenance was deadly serious at the moment. Hermione used the distraction of Monsieur Delacour's approach to withdraw, and avoid having to come up with something to say to Harry; Harry merely watched as she walked over to the stands, and turned his full attention to the approaching Frenchman.

"Monsieur Potter," he said, his accent thick, but not enough to disguise the formality of his tone. "It seems zat I owe you a debt of gratitude, for rescuing my daughter."

The Harry of another time would have downplayed his actions, but this Harry had been lectured on etiquette by his pureblooded girlfriend, and knew that it would only be an insult to the man. "You are most welcome, Monsieur Delacour," Harry replied. "If you do not mind my asking, were you and your wife informed about Gabrielle's involvement in the tournament?"

Monsieur Delacour's eyes flashed in dark anger, and Harry had his answer before the man spoke. "Non, we were not," he growled. "I will find the person or persons responsible, and I will destroy them."

"No," Harry said, and the man's eyes flashed again, and Harry's lips curled up in a not-at-all-friendly way as he continued. "We will destroy them."

Monsieur Delacour's glinting eyes and unpleasant smirk matched Harry's as they shook hands. If any more was to be said, though, they would not find out, because their attention was drawn to Fleur Delacour's panicked yelling.

"Gabrielle! Gabrielle! Is she alive? Is she 'urt?"

Fleur—still soaking wet, with her one-piece swimsuit shredded well beyond halfway to indecency—sprinted to her mother and sister, and embraced them both tightly. The three Delacour women exchanged words almost as rapidly as Monsieur Delacour could translate for Harry, but he got the gist of what had happened. As a veela, Fleur had a great affinity for fire magic, and her powers had been weakened somewhat by submersion in the freezing cold water, to the point that a pack of grindylows (minor water demons) had been able to ambush her, get the better of her, and force her to retreat. She had feared that her failure had actually doomed her little sister to a watery grave, and had barely held it together until she got out of the water and saw Gabrielle with Harry and her parents.

"And you!" Fleur exclaimed, spinning around to face Harry, as Monsieur Delacour left Harry's side to go speak quietly to his wife. "You saved 'er," she said, breathing heavily. Her deep breaths were causing her upper body to move hypnotically. Despite the cuts on her face and arms, she looked more gorgeous than ever, and the long, wide tears up the front and right side of her swimsuit revealed much of the side and underside of her breasts. "Even though she was not your 'ostage."

"Well—"

Anything Harry might have said was cut off in surprise as Fleur embraced him tightly. He was acutely aware of her soft chest pressing up against his body, and nearly fell to her veela allure moments later when she kissed him twice on each cheek. Harry couldn't take his eyes off her backside as she sauntered away, swaying her hips with each step.

"Okay there, settle down, loverboy," a familiar voice said dryly. Harry turned, half-expecting to see Daphne standing with a hand on her hip, a raised eyebrow, and a wry smile, but knowing that—even though that was almost certainly the posture she had taken (it being the quintessential Daphne pose)—he wouldn't see anything at all, since Daphne would undoubtedly be wearing his invisibility cloak. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that you ought to look girls in the eyes? Jeez, if you ogled them any harder, they would have burst into flame. You know, I think that I might actually be a little bit jealous."

"Well, we can't have that, now can we?" Harry asked, grinning cheekily at the empty space in front of him. He could tell by the footprints in the sand that she was standing exactly as he had expected. "I guess I'll have to make it up to you tonight in the Chamber."

"Or," Daphne replied, her voice lowered to a sultry, husky whisper as she pressed her invisible body against Harry, "we could get down there as soon as you get your score, and I'll remind you why you ought to stick around."

"Ladies and gentlemen," Bagman's voice cut in—apparently Cedric and Viktor had returned (empty-handed, of course) from the lake while Harry had been speaking to Tracey, Cho, and the Delacours. "The judges have reached their decision regarding scoring."

—"Oh thank God!" Harry muttered, causing Daphne to giggle—

Bagman continued speaking (at length—he was probably hoping that if he took long enough, the Aurors might go away), and Harry tuned him out, only waiting to hear his own name and score. Finally, after Fleur had been awarded 25 points, and Cedric and Krum had each been awarded 30 points, Bagman mentioned Harry's name.

"Finally, Harry Potter used...remind me again what exactly he did, Igor? Right, thaumaturgy, thanks old chap—"

"Thaumaturgy!" Percy Weasley yelled, before adopting a righteous, pompous air (he was probably trying to emulate Barty Crouch, Sr.'s well-known disdain for the dark arts). "Nobody mentioned that before! I just thought he used a really strong freezing charm and summoning charm! Thaumaturgy is borderline dark magic! First he gets away with murdering and stealing the Tournament's dragon, and now he's using dark magic? He should be taken in for questioning by the Aurors, and he shouldn't get any points at all!"

Karkaroff and Maxime chuckled, while Dumblefore and Bagman both facepalmed—this was not the kind of debate that would cast a good light on the judges, and since it was Percy bringing it up, it would look bad for the British Ministry, too. Smirking, Harry cast a quiet sonorous and addressed the judges. He had wondered whether any of the judges would object to his methodology, but he had thought—especially considering the Auror's involvement over the kidnapping of hostages—that they would let it slide.

"Borderline dark magic? What does that even mean?" Harry said sarcastically. "I happen to know thaumaturgy is perfectly legal in Britain unless it's used to break any existing laws—"

"That's just because the Wizengamot never got around to banning it!" Percy cut in harshly. His face was beginning to turn a bright shade of red—he was probably realizing that he had made a huge mistake by bringing this up, but his only option at this point was to ride it out.

"Just like they never got around to banning, oh I don't know, kidnapping children? Oh, wait, how silly of me, that's exactly why those Aurors and the director of the DMLE are here waiting to interrogate you all." Percy's face reddened further at the crowd's jeers. "Meanwhile, I saved four children from a watery grave, and you've got a problem with how I did it?! Just think of what the papers will say: 'Tournament Judges Kidnap Children; Ministry Official Accuses Harry Potter of Dark Magic for Rescuing Them!' Personally, I can't wait to see tomorrow's Daily Prophet. How about you, Weatherby?"

The crowd erupted in laughter, and Daphne was by now giggling uncontrollably (and invisibly) behind him. From the corner of his eye, Harry could see Rita Skeeter scrawling frantically with a malicious grin on her face, and her photographer was taking shot after shot of Percy's ever-reddening face. "Please continue, Mr. Bagman—I believe you were about to say how I did?"

"Right, right," Bagman murmured, wiping sweat from his brow and wishing fervently that someone else was in the spotlight. "As I was about to say, Harry Potter cleverly used a rare and powerful branch of magic known as thaumaturgy to great effect, rescuing all four hostages! Therefore, it is only appropriate that we once again award him full marks. Harry Potter remains in the lead going into the third task!"

Still sneering condescendingly (Harry was just trying to imitate how Malfoy would look—say what you wanted about the little ferret, but it couldn't be denied that he could sneer with the best of them), Harry gave a deep, clearly-ironic bow toward the judges' table, and strode off toward the crowd to talk to Sirius and Remus, who were positively howling with laughter.

"Harry!" Sirius cried out, clapping him on the shoulders. "That was brilliant, lad!"

Remus, still chortling, agreed. "I can't believe they actually let Weasley open his mouth. I almost feel bad for Arthur...he's going to be the butt of even more jokes around the Ministry after this."

"And that Fleur!" Sirius said proudly. "Great work! Now that is a mighty fine-looking piece—"

"Et hem," Daphne's voice cut in before Sirius could get any dirtier. "You might be interested to know that Harry's girlfriend is standing right here, listening to you all talk about that brainless French tart. Harry, care to introduce me?"

Harry blinked—they had never really talked about what to call their relationship—and immediately filled Sirius and Remus's stunned silence with a brief introduction.

"Padfoot, Mooney, meet Daphne Greengrass," Harry said hastily. "Daphne, this is my godfather, Sirius Black, and my god-uncle, Remus Lupin."

"Charmed," Daphne said dryly, and Harry rolled his eyes. Meanwhile, Remus's eyes were getting suspiciously watery—he was clearly quite touched that Harry had so matter-of-factly (as though it had been perfectly obvious) included him in his little family.

"Daphne's under the cloak right now—we've been keeping it quiet, since we didn't want to get her involved in the Tournament. Plus, her housemates might make problems for her."

Remus hummed, knowing that Daphne was a Slytherin. Last year, she had been one of the highest-scoring students in his third-year classes, and she had seemed to keep herself separated from most of the others in her house. He briefly feared that Sirius would make a big deal over her being a Slytherin—a fear that Harry clearly shared, based on the apprehension clearly visible on his face—but his fears were soon put to rest.

"Hmm," Sirius said thoughtfully. "Is she as good-looking as her mother? I remember back in sixth year we had a detention together, and she did this thing with her—"

"Yes Sirius thank you very much we don't want to hear about it!" Harry yelped, covering his ears as Daphne cried out "Too much information please stop talking!"

Remus and Sirius laughed, and after a few more minutes of jokes and comfortable small-talk, Harry and Daphne promised to mirror-call the Marauders soon, and Remus and Sirius moved off to go chat up a pair of blonde witches that Sirius had sniffed out. Harry and Daphne took the opportunity to escape from the crowd of people milling about, and practically ran back to the school. After all, they had their own little victory party to attend.

Author's Note

The long-awaited second task! Finally! Hostages are literally taken hostage! Harry uses thaumaturgy, and wrecks the second task the Black Family way (he sort of cheats)! Madame Bones yells at people! Everybody kisses Harry! The Marauders meet Daphne (kind of)!

Note: Harry's been reading a lot of non-standard books, and Daphne has been helping him out. The spells idolum ligaveris, glacio maxima orbis, and knus are non-canon; credit goes to Google Translator. They mean (roughly) "bind statue," "maximum frozen sphere," and "shatter," respectively. -Note: Thanks to Cyrus Dragonhunter, for his information; apparently Google Translator isn't very precise.

Thaumaturgy is a common type of magic in many fantasy books, and I always thought it was strange that the word "voodoo" never made it into Rowling's books. In HPatLS, thaumaturgy—like channeling and the Native American animagus ritual—represents Harry's independence from the typical British ideas of magic. Plus, I think it's pretty cool, and with proper preparation, it could be much more useful and powerful than many of the "regular" spellwork taught at Hogwarts. Tell me how you think the second task went! And really, you must have expected Percy to make a fool of himself.

On Chapter 28: I think that I made a few mistakes in chapter 28, such that it was probably the weakest chapter I've written so far. In particular, I think that most or all of Dumbledore's staff meeting should have happened off-screen; maybe I should have included just an introduction, cutting off after Dumbledore says he met with Harry the previous night. The rest of that section was unnecessary—readers could infer from the beginning of the next section that Dumbledore had told the professors to lay off Harry. I just got caught up with the idea of having Dumbledore telling his staff that his position as headmaster is barely tenable, and can't survive any more Potter-related backlash.

More importantly, I want to clarify something, because I think—based on several reviews giving opinions on whether Harry should forgive Hermione—that another fault of chapter 28 was that it may not have been sufficiently clear to the reader. The ambiguity was likely due to me trying to be all subtle and literary and shit, but unfortunately I'm apparently not very good at that yet. Specifically, why was Harry so upset after his discussion with Hermione? Remember, Harry has started thinking before making his decisions. In chapter 28, "Harry sat in silence for a moment, thinking, really thinking about whether he had it in him [to forgive Hermione]". He thinks. And then he tells Hermione "maybe." The thing is, he is definitely not an indecisive young man, so both teens know that "maybe" isn't really an answer Harry would truly mean—so what was his real decision, that was painful enough that he couldn't come right out and say it? Because he did decide, and I think Hermione, who is a perceptive young woman with three years of close friendship with Harry (enough to know what that "maybe" actually meant, coming from him), knew what he decided, too. That's why she sort of brokenly accepts his decision with more tears and a whispered "okay," rather than thanking him, and that's why she fled. Both of them know that what Harry is really saying is that he can not and will not forgive Hermione, and that their friendship is broken beyond repair.

And then you have Harry, who has just finished putting the final nail in the coffin of one of his oldest and only friendships—of course he's going to be upset! That shit hurts, especially if you're a teenager, and even more so for a teenager who probably has some serious abandonment issues by now. Even worse, he's absolutely enraged at Hermione because she couldn't just let things be, and instead she put Harry on the spot and forced him to kill their friendship. It's the difference between your dog dying peacefully in his sleep, and having to take Old Yeller into the back yard and put him down yourself—she could have just let their already-estranged relationship die off quietly, but instead she tore open the still-healing wound, and then forced Harry to be the one responsible for killing it once and for all, just because she couldn't keep her nose out of his business. Harry's in a glass cage of emotion, and his only recourse is to vent—the perfect recipe for a bigass thunderstorm.