This chapter shows the events leading to the second task. Let's see how Ron views this chain of events.
RON XVII
"Wait! All you had to do was to put the egg into water?" Ron asked, bewildered, on Sunday morning, as he, Harry and Hermione went down to the Great Hall.
"Yes," Harry grunted. "That's what Susan got out of Cedric."
Ron wasn't sure whether he was more irritated by the fact this idiot of Diggory gave Harry such a vague clue or by the fact it was Susan Bones, out of all people, who got more details from him.
"So, what does it do when you put it under water?"
"Not here!" Hermione warned. "Someone could hear us."
She brought the three of them into an empty classroom, and there Harry told them everything about the song coming out from the egg, and about the merpeople in the Black Lake.
"That must be why Cedric told you to go into the Prefects' bathroom," Hermione said. "He wanted you not only to hear the song, but also to understand that it came from merpeople."
"He could have told Harry directly what the second task was about," Ron grumbled. "It would have saved us much time and effort."
"Us? Might I remind you that it is Harry who did all the work? Did you help him solve the egg? Did you even offer to help him?"
He was about to retort, but Harry stopped them.
"It's not helping. I have a bigger problem now. If the song is to be believed, I must stay under freezing water for about an hour. When was the last time you held your breath under water for an hour? And in February?"
"It's true that, people are skating on the lake right now," Ron acknowledged. "It will not only be about staying under water, but also getting under water in the first place."
"I don't think this is going to be a problem," Hermione said. "We know many spells to break or melt the ice. But breathing under water will be quite different. It is admittedly potentially problematic."
"Potentially problematic?" Harry and Ron said as a chorus. But Hermione chose to ignore them.
"The ideal solution would be for you to Transfigure yourself into a submarine or something," she said. "But we haven't done human Transfiguration already. I don't think we start until the sixth year, and it can go badly wrong if you don't know what you're doing."
"Maybe I could use aqualungs," Harry suggested.
"Aqua what?" Ron asked.
"It is some sort of suit that you put on yourself, with oxygen cylinders attached to it. The Muggles use it to dive deep into water. It kind of stores breathing air and allows you to breathe under water for some time."
Ron didn't know about these. He was surprised that his father never spoke about such a thing at home. It seemed even cooler than a flying car. He could imagine his mother's head if his father came back home with one of those things. "Well, then, you only need get one. You use a Summoning Charm, like you did with the Firebolt, and bring one of those… aqualuggers to the task."
"I'm not sure. I never used one. I wouldn't know how to fill the oxygen cylinders."
Ron had no idea what an oxygen cylinder was, but anyway Hermione quashed any hope he might still have. "Anyway, Harry, we don't know if there is such equipment in the nearby towns. And even if there are, you are very likely to break the International Code of Wizarding Secrecy, not to mention many other laws. You could get disqualified, and worse, you could get in trouble with the Ministry of Magic. Remember how Muggle newspapers wrote how some people spotted us when we travelled to Hogwarts on broomsticks two years ago. This time, it would be way worse. You couldn't hope for no one to notice flying aqualungs. The Ministry could even confiscate your wand and destroy it, like they did for Hagrid…"
"Alright, Hermione, we got it," Ron said, putting an end to her enumeration of reasons why not to do so. "So, to put it short, Harry cannot use Muggle tools, that's it?"
"I didn't say that. He could. But I don't believe it is available."
"What about your mother?" Ron asked his best friend. "You could ask her to send you one of those suits. After all, she bought you two broomsticks so far."
Harry stared at Ron with a very hard expression. "My mother is still away, Ron. I have no way to contact her. And my Firebolt was given by Sirius. Anyway, like I said, I don't even know how to use it. I live among Muggles, but that doesn't mean I can use everything they make. I wouldn't be able to drive a train or to build a Super Nintendo, even if I know how to use them."
"What is a Super Nintendo?" Ron asked, curious and intrigued by the seemingly cool name of this thing.
"To cut it short, let's forget about Muggle solutions," Hermione stated, before Ron could get any answer. "We only have three weeks left. Harry will not have enough time to learn human Transfiguration by the second task, and it is too dangerous. I think his best chance is some kind of charm."
"Something's telling me that I know where this is heading."
"The library," Harry muttered, not sounding any more enthusiastic than Ron was.
"This is our best chance," Hermione said.
"Very good," Harry said on a quite depressed and resigned tone. "I'll head there immediately."
"Now?" Ron asked, surprised. "We didn't even take breakfast."
"I'll catch up for lunch then."
Harry had already stood up. He opened the door and left without saying another word.
"He's not in a very good mood today," Ron commented.
"Are you surprised? With the second task coming?" Hermione asked him. "He wasn't feeling good in the weeks before the first one either."
"Yeah, but it was different. We…" It was the time he and Harry were at odds and almost the whole school was on his back. Now, things were different. But not enough according to Hermione.
"The first time, it was only about having the courage to face a dragon, Ron." Ron didn't think the use of the only word was appropriate to describe the necessary courage to face a dragon. "Now, Harry actually must find a way to survive. Against the dragon, he had a chance, even without the Firebolt. But now, he will not be able to dive into the lake if we don't find a solution. Plus, his mother is missing. He didn't have any news of her for months now."
"So? I'm far from my parents too, and I'm not all gloomy."
"He doesn't even know where she is, Ron. He's not even sure that she is alive and well. He has really no idea about what she is doing and when or if he will be able to see her again. And you, Ron, you still have Fred, George and Ginny with you. For Harry, his mother is the only family he has. Not to mention his problems with Susan."
That sparked an interest in Ron. "What problems?"
Hermione looked embarrassed. "Nothing."
"Really?"
She sighed. "Look, these times, recently, they haven't been easy for both of them. With the second task approaching and all, it's just not easy for both of them."
Ron wasn't very convinced. "I think it might be something else that causes problems between them."
"And what would that be?"
"Well… Maybe they're just not made to be together."
"Why do you think so, Ron?"
"What do they have in common?"
"A lot. And differences don't mean they are incompatible. Look at me and Vikto…"
She stopped herself at mid-sentence, but Ron knew very well what she wanted to say. Boiling from the inside, he decided to ignore it.
"Let's go and take our breakfast. We're not going to help Harry search a way to breathe under water on an empty stomach," he ended their conversation with.
He and Hermione did not say a word between the time they left the common room and through breakfast, up until the time they climbed to the library and found Harry, already searching through a pile of books.
"I found some works that might help me, but so far, nothing on breathing in the water," he said laconically.
"Well, we're going to help you," Ron said, taking a tome and beginning to browse it. He didn't show much drive, because he didn't have much, but he would do his best to help his friend, like he did when Buckbeak was sentenced to death and he made lots of research to win the appeal. He hoped that this research would prove more useful than for Buckbeak, considering how the hippogriff died.
"Don't go too quickly over it, Ron," Hermione said. "You might miss something useful."
Reluctantly, he slowed down his pace. They spent the next hour going through various works, finding nothing that could help. The spells and charms they came across mostly concerned changing the color of water, cleaning it, or creating it, but there was nothing about breathing under water.
"What are you doing?"
After this hour, they were interrupted by Susan Bones who walked into them while they were searching.
"We're trying to find a way to breathe under water for an hour," Ron replied, stating the evidence.
"That's the second task," Harry explained before Susan's incredulous gaze. "According to the egg once it is under water, I must dive into the Black Lake and bring back something valuable within an hour."
Susan remained still for a moment, then she rolled her eyes. "Why didn't you tell me right away at breakfast?"
She put down her bag and seized one of the dusty tomes on the table. "What are you doing?" Ron asked.
"I'm helping you. Do you think that I'll let my boyfriend go deep into a freezing lake without a way to breathe?"
She was soon so focused on what she was reading that she paid no attention to Ron nor to anybody. The entire morning went this way, with almost none of them talking, except when they asked to grab one book or another or believed they found something, only to be disappointed in the end.
"Nothing. We couldn't find anything," Ron said, venting his frustration as they headed for lunch.
"The library is huge. There must be a spell somewhere that we haven't found yet," Susan stated. Ron groaned internally. With that kind of statements, he had the impression they had a second Hermione in their group, as if one wasn't enough.
"Maybe I could ask McGonagall for permission to consult the Restricted Section," Harry suggested.
"Good idea," Hermione said. "She won't refuse. Not if you tell her this is for the Triwizard Tournament."
Harry's girlfriend left them when they reached the Great Hall to join her own table. When they were done with their lunch, Ron and Hermione went back to the library while Harry headed to see McGonagall. Susan caught up on them in the Entrance Hall.
"Hey, I've been thinking," she said. "Maybe we are not approaching the problem like we should."
"What do you mean? We're searching for ways to breathe under water. That's what we must find," Ron stated.
"Yes, but we mostly looked for things that were related to water. But breathing spells could also apply to other circumstances. For example, wizards who want to travel areas where air is unbreathable, or to cancel the effects of a curse that poisons their lungs. I mean, maybe we should search for anything related to breathing instead of looking only at water stuff."
"You may be right, Susan," Hermione said. "I'll try to compile a list of works that may concern this domain."
And so they searched for other works still, concerning both breathing and water. Harry came back with the authorization to access the Restricted Section from Professor McGonagall. He focused on this section, since he was the one with the authorization and he didn't tell McGonagall that three people were helping him, but this process looked cumbersome. He could only borrow a few books at the time, and had to ask Madam Pince each time, slowing down their work. By the time of dinner (which they went to very late), they were still without a solution.
"Nothing. We found absolutely nothing," Ron groaned as they sat down at the Gryffindor table, Susan Bones being back to the Hufflepuff table once again.
"We have only begun," Hermione said, which did not help Ron feel any more positive. "There is a solution. We only haven't found it yet."
As the days went on, Ron didn't feel they were getting any closer to a solution. They spent almost all their time in the library, either to do their homework or to continue their research on ways to breathe under water. And to not arrange things, Susan Bones was always there.
Ron was never really bothered by this girl. She was Hermione's friend and Harry's neighbor, but Ron couldn't claim he was close to her in any way. He knew who she was, and it stopped there. This girl was not very noticeable. He remembered though that she had a crush on Gilderoy Lockhart, like Hermione did, during their second year, which did not impress Ron at all and was encouraging him to not have an extraordinary opinion of her.
But what bothered Ron was the fact that she was dating Harry. Ron wasn't really bothered by the fact that Harry had a girlfriend. Not really. He didn't mind much after he learned that Harry had a short relationship with Parvati during summer, even though, like Hermione, he agreed that Harry did a good thing by breaking up with her. Aside from the momentaneous discomfort it created for Ron at the Yule Ball, Ron never had any problem with this former relationship. However, that girl, Susan Bones, was somehow getting on his nerves from time to time. Ron had tried very hard to be on better terms with Harry after their fallout during November, and he felt that this girl was somehow ruining his efforts. Harry spent a lot of time with her. They sat together during lessons, making Ron sit with Hermione almost all the time, and Harry often spent entire evenings with her. He even dodged a visit to Hogsmeade with him and Hermione to spend time with her, not to mention that this resulted in his absence when they went to see Hagrid and convinced him to come back teaching. Overall, Ron almost had the feeling that he was losing his best friend.
There were also other details that bothered Ron. First, she was from Hufflepuff. He didn't care that Hermione said she was one of the few in this house to not take on Harry after he was chosen as a champion. She remained a member of the house of Cedric Diggory, and automatically, one of his supporters. And he didn't feel comfortable about her trying to help them. Who could be sure that she wasn't sabotaging their efforts to help Harry?
Ron also didn't have the impression that she made Harry very happy. His best friend's mood had gone sourer after the first days they were together, and he never seemed enthusiastic to go and see her. Ron didn't understand why people seemed to make a lot out of this girl dating Harry. He didn't even understand why people gave so much importance to the fact of having a boyfriend or a girlfriend. He only had to think about how most of the dates of the Yule Ball ended. Ginny struggled to walk the day after she danced with Neville. Seamus and Lavender were often seen smooching, to Ron's disgust. As for Hermione and Krum… Ron locked his fork hard into a potato at this thought. He had not seen the Seeker and Hermione exchange even a few words since the Yule Ball. And seeing Harry's lack of enthusiasm for his new girlfriend and how it poorly ended with Parvati… for both he and Harry, Ron felt this would not last long between his best friend and Susan. To be honest, Ron felt she was some kind of intruder into their trio that existed since the end of their first year at Hogwarts.
During the last week preceding the second task, they put aside everything that was not related to their search. They spent the entire weekend, but also the early morning before breakfast, their lunch time, and their entire evenings until the last minute consulting all kinds of books.
The evening of February 23, before the second task, the four of them were in a corner in the library, with so many books on tables and the floor that it looked worse than the library itself. It was a miracle that Madam Pince never came to berate them for leaving such a mess.
"I don't see how it can be done," Ron said, discouraged. "There's nothing. Nothing!" He said it more than once over the last few days, which obviously irritated everyone, including himself, and especially Harry. But this time Ron really believed what he was saying. "The closest thing was that spell to dry up puddles and ponds, the Drought Charm. But that was nowhere near powerful enough to drain the lake."
"There must be something," Hermione whispered. "They would never have set a task that was undoable." She read so closely from the old tome she was consulting right now that her nose almost touched it.
"They have," Ron said, discouraged, turning pages of a book whose title he could not remember, without knowing really whether or not he was reading it. He was exhausted. "Harry, just go down to the lake tomorrow, right, stick your head in, and yell at the merpeople to give back whatever they've nicked and see if they chuck it out. Best you can do, mate."
"There's a way of doing it! There just has to be!" Hermione said, almost hysterically.
Harry and Susan were going feverishly through books as well, not saying a single word. When they started researching, they always sat next to each other, but in the last few days, Ron noticed they slowly took farther positions from each other.
The Hufflepuff closed the book in front of her. She looked exhausted as well. They all were. Harry was especially close to the end. Ron didn't see how he could compete tomorrow if he was in such a state, without a good night of sleep. Harry's girlfriend rubbed her eyes.
"Maybe we haven't looked at it from the right angle." It wasn't the first time she said that. More than once, she suggested to make research following different methods, which always resulted in them finding more books to cover that gave them nothing. "Maybe…"
"No time," Ron abruptly said. "We don't have time to start a whole new research."
"Hey, leave her alone, Ron," Harry said in his tired voice. "She's trying to help."
"For what it's worth," he muttered back, but no one reacted. Ron himself chose to go back to another book.
"Maybe we missed something in a previous tome…" the Hufflepuff girl then said.
"No. We're not going through all of them again. It would be too long anyway," he snapped.
No one reacted this time, and silence settled again.
"Well, look at what's going on here!"
Ron jumped back, fully woken up all of a sudden. He almost dozed off on some work on long forgotten spells, but the arrival of his twin brothers opened his eyes wide.
"Don't tell me you gave yourself the challenge of reading up the whole library," Fred continued.
"I cannot imagine something duller," George added, looking all around.
"Maybe we should write about this to Mom, Dad and Percy."
"They would be proud of you, Ron."
"What are you two doing here?" Ron asked them, irritated, scratching the back of his head while yawning.
"Very good question, little brother," Fred said. "A very philosophical one. These books must bear their fruits."
"More seriously, we're here for you," George said as he turned towards Hermione. "McGonagall wants to see you, Hermione."
"Why?" she asked, surprised.
"I don't know. She didn't say. She looked a bit grim though," Fred said.
"She asked us to bring you to her office," George added.
Ron looked first at Hermione, then to his brothers, trying to understand. "Why would McGonagall want to see her at this hour?" he asked, hostile.
"We don't know, little brother," Fred said. "Don't fire on the messenger."
"The messengers," his twin corrected.
This seemed to bother Hermione, and it bothered Ron too. Why was McGonagall summoning her so late? If there was someone who didn't get in trouble here, it was Hermione. Well, no more than he or Harry got into trouble themselves. Why would McGonagall only call her if it was to berate her about something else they did wrong?
"I'll see you at the common room," she told the others. "Bring as many books as you can, okay?"
They all nodded as she walked away.
They didn't get much time to continue searching after Hermione left. They were already close to eight o'clock, and at this precise hour, Madam Pince threw them out.
"Madam, please, it's important," Susan had pleaded. "Could you leave us a little more time?"
"The library closes at eight o'clock. No exception," she stated, unflinching.
They began to gather their stuff, filling their bags full of books and carrying some in their arms as well.
"Susan," Harry then said in his tired voice. "Don't bring anything with you. It's useless."
"What do you mean? I could still find something tonight. I'm not going to abandon that close to the second task," she stated.
"Even if you find something, you won't be able to tell me before tomorrow morning. It will be too late to learn a new spell."
"We cannot be sure of that. Anyway, there are tons of books you cannot bring with you, you and Ron. Furthermore… What is the password of your common room?"
"What?" Harry said, sounding surprised despite his obvious tiredness.
"Give me the password to your common room. If I find something, I'll come and tell you. Even if you're in your dormitory, I'll be able to come and see you. Hermione told me that girls are not stopped from entering boys' dormitories, just like in Hufflepuff."
In his exhausted state, as Ron put the straps of his heavy bag on his shoulder, he would have felt a little uncomfortable hearing a girl talking about visiting her boyfriend in their dormitory, but his mind was too tired to feel it.
"We cannot travel in the corridors at night," Harry reminded her.
"So what? I would rather take the risk of getting a detention if it can help you get through this task alive."
"Okay. The password is Banana Fritters."
"Thank you. Bye."
She kissed Harry before she left, which always made Ron feel uneasy. The two boys then headed back to the Gryffindor Tower, not saying a word on their way. Once arrived, they proceeded to go through the large piles of books they brought with them. Ron was so empty that he barely noticed the people wishing good luck to Harry. As he tried to go through the Guide to Medieval Sorcery, he looked more and more closely to the page as he struggled to understand any of the words put down on paper.
He was swimming in a sea of paper, trying to find a way to breathe under ink as he felt the pages slowly engulfing him. Far away, a mermaid who looked a lot like Hermione kept laughing at him as he drowned, trying to reach her. Her laugh only got higher pitched, and as the paper absorbed him, he saw Krum on his Firebolt coming to get her. He tried to scream, but no sound came out of his mouth. He was then falling into darkness, and far away, in some bubble of water, Harry drifted, unmoving, lifeless.
Ron woke up all of a sudden, his head against a dusty book. He straightened up, yawned, stretched himself. The common room was empty, but full of light. Ron was confused for a moment as he stood up. Then he looked at his watch.
His eyes grew wide on the spot. It was the morning. The second task would begin in… It began ten minutes ago!
"Harry! Wake up! You must…"
Then he realized that he had been alone to that table. He fell asleep alone. Quickly, Ron ran up to the dormitory, only to find it empty. He then ran back into the common room, where there was absolutely no one. Of course, there would be no one. Everyone had to be at the Black Lake.
Ron ran as quickly as he could through the corridors of the castle, earning some disapprovals from the portraits and the armors, which he didn't bother about. Everywhere was empty. Even when he reached the Entrance Hall, there was no one. Once outside, Ron cursed as the cold bit him. The park was only partially covered by snow, but it was still very cold.
When he approached the bank, he noticed three large wooden towers that had been erected in the middle of the Lake. And a few small boats on the shore. Not thinking, instinctively, Ron jumped into one of those boats. The moment he set foot on it, the boat rushed forward, making him fall behind, on his back, into the boat. It advanced by itself. Ron noticed how similar they were to those they used to cross the lake when they arrived to Hogwarts for their first year.
As he neared the wooden towers, he heard the voice of Ludo Bagman.
"Fifteen minutes have gone. The champions now have forty-five minutes left to recover what has been taken from them."
Forty-five minutes! Damn. Not that it made any difference. Without a way to breathe underneath the water, Harry could not win this task, whether he had an hour or an entire day to get whatever there was deep in the lake.
The boat stopped next to one of the towers. Ron didn't recognize the people on the wooden planks, but he climbed on it all the same, then tried to make his way through the crowd. He finally fell on someone he knew.
"Hey, Hannah!"
Hannah Abbott, a friend of Susan Bones in Hufflepuff and another student in the same year as Ron, turned to look at him.
"Hi, Ron. You must be excited," she said with a huge smile. Ron had no envy to smile, and he didn't feel excited at all.
"Where is Harry? Have you seen him?" he asked the girl. He was probably with her friend somewhere as she tried to console him for not being able to enter this task.
Hannah looked surprised. "He's in the lake, like the others."
For a moment, Ron didn't understand. "Wait. He's down there?" he asked.
"Ron, you know he's down there. You saw him dive with all the others, like all of us."
"I…" He was speechless. Harry dove into the Black Lake? How did he do it?
"Mr Bagman said that he used Gillyweed. I asked Neville a few minutes ago. He says that this is a plant that allows someone to breathe under water for about an hour. Although he said the effects could last longer or shorter depending of the water in which you used it."
A plant. A plant? Ron wanted to smash his own head. Why didn't they think to look at plants? They spent three weeks searching for charms, while the solution was a plant. Why didn't they think about it?
"Cedric and Fleur used a Bubble-Head Charm," Hannah continued. "And Viktor Krum turned himself into a shark. But apparently, his transformation was not perfect. But we don't know much yet. They've been under water for some time now. All we can do is wait."
No, indeed. Hannah was right. All they could do was wait. Ron was there, on the wooden platform, powerless, while his best friend was in an icy water trying to recover… trying to recover what?
"Do we know what it is they must bring back to the surface?" Ron asked Hannah.
"No. They only said it was something that they stole to each champion, and that they had an hour to bring it back to the surface. They didn't say what it was. Only that it was a treasure. I wonder what it could be. I don't know Cedric enough to guess, but… Do you have any idea as to what they could have stolen to Harry?"
"His Firebolt, maybe," Ron suggested, not entirely convinced.
But Harry's Firebolt was indeed very precious to him. Last year, he always checked on it between two lessons while the final match of the Quidditch season approached. But he thought he saw the case of the broom firmly closed, if he remembered correctly. Though he couldn't be sure. He went very fast through their dormitory this morning, and he didn't really see the broom itself.
"Did you see Hermione?" Ron asked, wondering where she was.
"No, I haven't. Not since the task began. It's strange that you ask me this. Neville and Lily both asked me about her as well. They didn't know where she was." Some kind of idea seemed to appear in her eyes. "We should search for her. Maybe if we find her, she could help me too."
And so Ron went on to find Hermione with Hannah's help, despite the fact that she was a Hufflepuff, as Harry was doing who knew what in those cold waters under their feet.
As you can see, something has changed from canon. The next chapter will provide more details.
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Next chapter: Harry