So, I got a few people pretty angry with my little cliff-hanger at the end of my last chapter, but fear not, here is what happens next!

Scorpius winced as the freeing water touched his toes, and waded in up to his mid-calf, silently cursing the Kappa. He knew a little about the creatures, and one of these useful facts was that their skin was immune to curses fired from a wand. So why had the Kappa said that it 'couldn't find on land, not against that wand'? Because the creature was stronger in water, it was in its home territory.
But it's ok, he reassured himself, I have a plan.

Scorpius stood staring at the animal.
"So, are you going to attack me or not?" he asked it,
"Why, of course!" it cackled, "I just thought you might like to begin!" The Kappa ran at Scorpius, the water not even slowing it down.
Well, it is a water demon, Scorpius thought, before jumping swiftly out of the way at the last second, merely getting a scratch down his arm.
The creature growled at him, "Stand and fight like a man!" it screeched, before charging at him again.
This time Scorpius reversed to the very edge of the pool, before summoning the little courage he possessed, and literally taking the bull by the horns: he grabbed the Kappa under the arms, which were flailing and scraping at his face, and threw it back into the water.
This achieved nothing except to make the creature angry, and to leave Scorpius' face bleeding. The Kappa simply stood up, the depression on its head still full, and glared at him.
"A good effort," it growled, "but not good enough! I feed off the blood of humans who stray across my path, and you shall be my next victim!"
"Good luck with that one, you ugly monkey!" Scorpius laughed, wiping the blood from his cheek, whilst Rose covered her eyes with her hands, not wanting to see what was about to happen to him.
The Kappa growled louder than ever, bared its teeth, and ran at Scorpius for the third time. Malfoy took one further step backwards so he was now out of the water. When the creature leaped, Scorpius ducked, rolled to the side, and stood up before it had even landed.
Once the Kappa realised it had been tricked into being led out of its comfort zone, its reaction wasn't pleasant. It snarled, and crawled towards Scorpius on all fours, still with its head upright, thus retaining the water in its head, its teeth bared and claws out.
"And still you refuse to fight!" it sneered,
"I don't pretend to be brave, I know that I'm a Slytherin, not a Gryffindor, and my speciality is trickery and cunning, as you have noticed,"
"Oh, well done, you've got me out of the water!" the Kappa mocked, "It's true that I'm weaker here, but I can simply walk back in to my territory, like this,"
The creature started as if to return back to the water, before Scorpius said, "But you won't,"
It froze. "And why wouldn't I?"
"Because I refuse to fight you in the water, and if you don't fight me, you can't win, and you won't get to feast on my blood. Just picture that: a lovely juicy teenager to drink the blood of, all going to waste if you take a step closer to that pool. You'll go hungry..."
The Kappa considered this, "I could eat one of your friends,"
"They refuse to fight in the water too, don't they?" Scorpius turned to glare at the rest of his team, his eyes clearly telling them to go with it.
"Absolutely," Rose told the Kappa, "none of us will fight you in the water, you have far too much of an advantage," Lucy and Thomas nodded in agreement.
"Very well..." it growled, "But I cannot fight you here, I weaken every second I am out of the water, so here you have the advantage!"
Scorpius appeared to consider this, "well, if we can't fight in water, and we can't fight on land, we simply can't fight!"
"Disappointing," the Kappa agreed, "I was looking forward to devouring the lot of you,"
"Well, if you don't mind, we'll pass then," Rose told it, moving as if to walk round the pool, before feeling a set of sharp claws on her wrist. She gasped and jumped back in pain- the creature had managed to draw blood.
"If I cannot have what I wish, neither shall you," it growled, glaring up at Rose and letting go of her wrist.
"Ok, how about a truce?" Scorpius suggested, "We'll shake hands, and then sit down and wait for a Professor to let us out. You won't drink our blood, and we won't pass. Deal?"
"Scorpius, no! We'll lose the task!" Rose exclaimed.
"But if we fight the Kappa, we might lose our lives,"
"You will lose your lives," the creature corrected,
"See?" Scorpius pointed out,
"No! I will not let you, you coward!" Rose shrieked, "All our hard work over the past month, to be beaten by this-"
Scorpius ignored her, as he walked over to the Kappa, blocking out her outraged shrieks, "Truce?" he asked the Kappa, using the same tone of voice that he'd used with Rose when he'd helped her up on September 1st. This made her more enraged than ever, and went to hurl herself at him, but she felt a pair of hand holding her arms behind her back.
"Thomas?!" She cried in outrage, "What are you doing? We'll lose and-"
"You think I don't know that?" he asked, "But Scorpius is group leader, it's his decision,"
Rose shrieked about what a terrible leader he'd been, but no matter how much she struggled, Thomas refused to let go of her wrists.

Scorpius held his hand out, and the Kappa looked at it analytically, before deciding that Scorpius was serious, and lifting his own arm. The creature didn't have time to so much as offer his hand, before Scorpius had swung his arm back and thrown a punch in into its stomach.
The Kappa clutched the point where Scorpius' fist had made contact, and, doubling over in pain, the water drained out of the depression on its head. It swayed for a moment in confusion, before collapsing onto the floor, completely unconscious, or worse.

Thomas released Rose, who flung herself at Malfoy. "You bastard!" she shrieked as she hugged him, "You absolute arse! I thought you were serious!"
"I gathered, from the way you were screeching a minute ago," he laughed, awkwardly returning the hug by patting her on the back.
"But that was genius- well done!" she congratulated him, stepping back from their embrace, before noticing the damage that had actually been done to Scorpius; "You're bleeding!" she exclaimed.
"What?" he asked, before looking at his arm, "Oh, yeah, I know, but it's only a bit," he assured her, pulling his robe back on to cover up the cut.
"No, not on your arm, although that's pretty bad too, I meant here," she gestured to his face, but Scorpius just looked confused. Looking slightly apprehensive, she reached up, and ran her finger down his cheek, next to the cut that reached from the corner of his eye to his mouth.

Scorpius' skin tingled where she had touched him, and hated to admit that he was disappointed when she moved her hand away. Rose looked at him expectantly, as if waiting for him to say something, but he couldn't gather his thoughts. He could feel himself blushing too, which didn't help matters. "Oh, right... erm, thanks?" he mumbled, before attempting to wipe the blood off his face.

"C'mon, you two, we haven't done yet," Lucy gestured to the other side of the pool, where a table filled with bottles was set out.
Rose sighed, "Well, let's get on with it then,"

As the four skirted the edges of the Kappa's pond, Rose couldn't help doing a mental checklist. The Challenge was supposed to test the qualities of each House, and so far the Gryffindor had identified the Kappa, as traditionally the Lions excelled at DADA. Then the Slytherin had used trickery and cunning against it, as were the Snake's typical qualities. And the Hufflepuff, who valued team-work, had kept the team together by preventing Rose stopping Scorpius making the decisions that were his to make, as group leader. All that was left was for Lucy to do something intelligent, and then surely they'd score well.
Once the team had passed the pond, they saw a door behind the table. In between the two, however, was a pillar, on the top of which a box was resting. The team ran up to the box, to see a poem engraved on the top:

To complete the task you need a key,
and one is conveniently inside of me!
However, a potion must be made,
If you are to finish the task unscathed.
Do not dally, for there is no time to waste,
So create that potion, then make haste!

"That is a terrible poem," Thomas announced,
"Well, it will be if my Mum wrote it," Rose confessed, slightly embarrassed. "Anyway, it basically means that we need to create a potion to open the box, and reach the key that'll get us out of here. Lucy, any ideas?"
Lucy pondered for a minute, wandering around to examine the different ingredients they had on offer. Eventually she spoke, "There are several options," she began, "I could create a potion that'd burn away the box, but it may be protected against that, or I could explode it, but-" she was cut off by Rose:
"Just skip to the potion we're actually going to use, Lucy," she said, in a bored voice.
Lucy looked at her cousin huffily, before continuing: "The Strength Potion. If I can make it up, one of us may take it, and merely break the box in half. It's a fairly simple potion anyway." A smart idea from the Ravenclaw- check, Rose thought.
"That's actually a pretty good idea, Lucy," Scorpius said, almost kindly, "I'm excellent at those anyway, so we should have no problems,"
Lucy clearly had no intention of letting Scorpius take all the credit, so she set to work straight away crushing a bone, whilst Scorpius began to chop up a plant of some sort. Rose knew enough about potions to remember that this one needed a snake fang, and began to crush one as soon as she found it. Thomas was allocated a task by Lucy, and soon the four of them were hard at work.

Within a few minutes, the ingredients were all in a cauldron, bubbling, and heading towards a yellow colour.
"Excellent!" Lucy decided, stirring the concoction, "Now the question is- who takes it?"
"What if it doesn't work?" Scorpius asked, ever the coward, "I don't want it to have the reverse effect, and have to be carried away or something,"
"Well, you don't have to take that risk then," Lucy told him scornfully.
"I'll do it," Rose volunteered. After all, Gryffindors were supposed to be risk-takers, and she definitely was. She tipped the potion into a vial, pointed her wand at it, and murmured a cooling spell, and poured it down her throat, before the others had a chance to object.

At first nothing happened.
Then she felt a strange sensation in her throat, which spread through her veins until her whole body was tingling with energy.
"How do you feel?" Lucy asked cautiously,
"Strange..." Rose replied dreamily,
"We should've tested it on that Kappa first- I knew something would go wrong!" Scorpius announced.
That got Rose's attention, "What makes you think something's wrong?" she asked sharply,
"There's nothing wrong, Rose," Thomas assured her, "besides, Scorpius, that Kappa's most likely dead, and even if it wasn't, it's be wrong to test something on a creature capable of human pain and emotion, if we weren't willing to test it on ourselves," he pointed out.
"Grab a SPEW badge," Scorpius muttered under his breath, before addressing Rose, "I only thought something was wrong because you went all dreamy, but you appear to be back now, Rose,"
"Yes, I'm fine, so, if you'll allow me..." she walked over to the box, her legs heavier since taking the potion. Clearly muscle came with strength. Rose picked up the box with one hand, and immediately cracks appeared as she wasn't used to this new power. She held the box with both hands, and snapped it in half, the way one might break a thin piece of wood.

A key clattered to the floor.

It was nothing special, just rusty iron, but the only key available, so Rose bent down to pick it up.
"Stop!" Lucy cried, "You'll bend or break it whilst you're under the effects of the potion, let me get it,"
"Great," Rose grumbled, standing up, "How long until it wears off?"
"Shouldn't be too long, maybe another 10 minutes? Just don't hug anyone, otherwise you'll squash them,"
"Noted," Rose replied, as Lucy stepped towards the door.
"Ready, everyone?" the Ravenclaw asked.
"Just do it, Lucy," Rose and Scorpius said, simultaneously, before laughing. Even Lucy grinned at them. She placed the key in the lock, turned it, and the door swung open.

Hope you all liked it- I'll post the next chapter as soon as it's written
Thanks for continuing to read!
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Thanks again!
Lucy x