13. Second Task

When Ron showed up in the Common Room, Harry challenged him to a Chess game. With The Professor's help, Harry and Hermione had been steadily increasing their skill at the game. Both could now make Ron work for his victories. They never won, and only occasionally tied, but it was no longer a cake-walk for the boy.

As it was nearing curfew, the twins came over to the chess table. "Been looking for you," George said to Ron. "McGonagall wants to see you."

Harry stiffened while Ron merely looked puzzled. "Why?" Ron said.

"Dunno. She was looking a bit grim, though," said Fred.

Ron's expression changed to look alarmed.

"We're supposed to take you down to her office," said George.

"It's probably nothin' serious, Ron. You have been turning your assignments in on time, right?" Harry said.

Ron looked a bit relieved. "I think so, I haven't skived off any in months."

Harry watched as the three left. He had a good idea who would be his hostage. He was a bit relieved, actually. Ron, being from a Pure-blood family, should be relatively safe from harm. The Headmaster knew exactly what Molly would say if Ron came to any harm while in his care!

Dumbledore had managed to escape her vengeance for what had happened to Ginny because Ginny had come under the spell of Riddle's diary while at the Burrow. There would be no such escape if Ron was injured in the Tournament.

Not to mention what the Pure-bloods in the Wizengamot would say!

It would be the first night since he had died that Harry and Hermione wouldn't be in the Room of Requirement — they couldn't take the chance the adults might change their minds and go looking for her.

He thought about going himself, but the thought of two weeks without Hermione quickly nixed that idea.

It was a restless night without Hermione to cuddle, and Harry didn't get nearly as much sleep as he wanted.

A vial of the Invigoration Draught from the supply of potions they each had stocked in their trunks over the "months" in the Room took care of that quite nicely the next morning

It also was clear to see that Ron was not in the dorm-room, and had not slept in his bed.

He was startled to see Hermione walk into the Great Hall a few moments after he arrived. "I thought it would be far too late for them to try anything," she said at his questioning look. "And so, why should I miss breakfast with my favourite Champion." She leaned up against him, to Ginny's dejected dismay, after he and Luna scooted over to give her room. Luna was already leaning on him on his other side.

Ron was noticeable by his absence.

After breakfast, the entire Great Hall followed the Prefects and Professors outside and down towards Black Loch.

The stands from the dragons' enclosure for the First Task were now arranged along the bank beside the castle, the seats were quickly getting packed to the bursting point with students and other spectators. The judges were already at their gold-draped table at the water's edge. In front of the stands, twenty yards or so from the shore, were four large white walls floating several yards above the water. Each one was as big as the Knight Bus.

Harry was more than a little surprised to see them. So was everyone else, it sounded like.

Hermione, Luna, and Ginny walked over to sit in the stands.

Harry, Cedric, Fleur, and Krum were guided to a dock in front of and beside the judges' table.

Percy Weasley was sitting at the judges' table. No surprise there since Harry knew Crouch, Senior, was under Riddle's control and not likely to escape anytime soon. Harry had little sympathy for the hypocritical wizard — condemning wizards and witches to Azkaban, and then illegally rescuing his own son from the horrible prison!

After a few more minutes of waiting, Ludo Bagman started along the line of Champions, spacing them along the doc at intervals of three yards. Harry was last, next to Krum. who had discarded his outer robe, and was wearing swimming trunks, holding his wand ready. The other two Champions were also in their swimming attire. Fleur's was very tight and form-fitting, much like a Muggle swimsuit, drawing most of the interest of the male spectators, while the witches were comparing Krum's and Cedric's well-developed muscles and butts in giggling whispers.

Harry dropped his outer robe onto the dock. Instead of swimming trunks, he had opted for a wrap-around skirt that reached half-way to his knees. That, unfortunately, drew a bit of laughter from the watching younger wizards, and he heard more than a few whistles and catcalls. He ignored them.

Luna and Hermione told him later about the appreciative looks and murmurs he had missed from some of the girls in the stands.

He was acutely aware of the cold breeze softly blowing from the land over the loch. Bagman made a show of moving Harry slightly farther away from Krum, as if he weren't in the right position. "Everything all right, Harry?" he whispered. "Know what you're going to do?"

"Yeah," Harry said and rolled his eyes.

Before returning to the judges' table, Bagman gave Harry what he probably thought was a reassuring quick squeeze on his shoulder. Once back at the table, and facing the audience, he cast a quick sonorus on his throat.

"Well, all our champions are ready for the second task," he said, his voice booming out, "which will start on my whistle. They have precisely an hour to recover what has been taken from them.

"Don't worry about missing any of the thrilling action; the four screens you see in front of the stands are going to display each Champion's progress."

The four suddenly had images of the four appear on them, taken from the loch. Looking down into the loch in front of him, Harry could see the heads of four Wizards wearing helmets that left their faces visible.

"So," Bagman continued, "On the count of three, then. One . . . two . . . three!"

The stands erupted with cheers and applause as the whistle echoed shrilly in the cold air. He saw both Fleur and Cedric cast something at themselves and then dive into the water. Krum was doing something else and transfigured his head and part of his torso into a shark before he, too, jumped into the water.

Harry was sitting down, sideways on the dock, by then. He carefully raised and pointed his wand and began his transfiguration. Just as fast as Krum had done it, he changed his whole body into a merman.

The audience, which heretofore had been laughing and jeering at him went quiet at seeing his legs transform into a long silvery tail, gills appearing down the sides of his neck, and his ears changing to small, narrow fins.

His reason for not wearing normal swimming trunks was obvious.

Still holding his wand in his hand, he flipped sideways off the dock into the water. He took off at his best speed towards the centre of the loch, about two yards below the surface, a depth where he seemed to get the most distance for the least effort.*

He and Hermione suspected that the hostages would be either in or near the Merfolk village.

As soon as he left the shallows behind, he could clearly hear the merfolk singing. He hoped that was supposed to be a clue as to where the hostages were.

When he reached what he gauged to be directly over the village, and the singing, he quickly tossed himself into the air like a porpoise breaching, and dove straight down. It got dark quickly, but soon he could make out the centre of the village, and adjusted his course. A choir of merfolk was singing, there, in front of the gigantic stone merman. Four people were tied by their feet to the stone merman's tail.

Harry was surprised to see three people, who had obviously taken gillyweed, evenly spaced around the village centre. They were wearing headbands, armbands, and anklebands in addition to their swimming trunks that indicated they were Auror's. They stared at Harry, shocked.

Ron was tied between Cho Chang and a girl who looked no older than eight. Her clouds of silvery hair floating around her head made Harry think that she was Fleur's sister. There was a third girl there, but Harry didn't recognize her at all. All four of them appeared to be in a very deep sleep. Their heads were lolling onto their shoulders, and fine streams of bubbles kept issuing from their mouths.

Harry headed for Ron, and ran the tip of his wand along the seaweed rope that held him in place, cutting and freeing him. He held his wand in his fist, grabbed Ron under his arms, and headed for the surface.

If not for the obvious presence of the Aurors, he would have had misgivings about leaving before the other Champions had arrived. With the Aurors there, he wasn't too worried about the other hostages.

He stayed the same two-yards below the surface on the way back. He didn't want to find out that Ron woke when he reached the surface, and have to deal with Ron trying to help by swimming, himself.

Despite the additional resistance of carrying Ron underwater, he still made excellent time. By his and Hermione's estimates, he was twice as fast as a human swimmer over the distance from the shore to the village, if he wasn't exerting himself for maximum speed. When he tried for speed, he was four times faster, but there was no way he could keep that up for the distance, about a mile each way.

Just as he could keep up a fast walk over a mile on land, sprinting such a distance would be simply out of the question. He was in fairly good shape, but not that good!

According to Ludo's exclamation when he surfaced at the temporary dock, he had made the round-trip in twenty-nine minutes. Pulling Ron's head out of the water did break the spell he was in, and he immediately started shivering from the icy-cold water. Harry levitated him up onto the dock. Noting the boy's blue lips, he quickly cast drying and warming charms on Ron. Then he flung himself up onto the dock with a powerful swipe of his fishtail. He deliberately only made it high enough to twist sideways into a seated position, but it sufficed. Then he reversed his transfiguration, and did the same drying and warming charms on himself.

Madam Pomfrey had arrived by then with several, blankets which she threw over them both and started them towards the Medical Tent. Harry made sure to grab his travelling robe from the dock as he passed it.

The crowd in the stands by Black Loch were making a great deal of noise, Harry finally noticed, as he trudged towards the Medical Tent. They were shouting and screaming, and they all seemed to be on their feet. He had barely made it to the tent when two missiles ran into him — one brown-haired, the other blonde.

"That was incredible!" Hermione crowed. Luna just laughed in delight. She pulled him around and pointed at the four large floating walls he had seen. In three of the walls were moving images. It took him a moment to recognize each of the Champions!

Someone was following them and showing everyone in the audience what was happening. The images were startling clear and not dark and murky as the water really was.

Hermione laughed delightedly. "You were so fast," she said mirthfully, "The camera-wizard couldn't keep up with you! We just watched you swim out of sight. No one knew where you were or what was happening until you surfaced over the village and again, here!"

Fleur, it seemed, was in a losing battle with a flock of grindylows. Cedric had Chang and was towing her as he swam as fast as he could. Krum was just arriving at the village centre.

Madam Pomfrey pulled on Harry's arm. "You can congratulate him after I finish checking him over!" she said to Hermione. She closed the tent-flap and directed him one of the beds.

She waved her wand at Ron and studied the writing that appeared. "You're fine," she said curtly. "Clean robes are in that basket," she pointed, and cast another warming charm on him. Then she closed the curtain around the bed he sat on.

She turned and cast a diagnosis charm on Harry. "Humph," she said. "You're tired, but other than that, you're as fine as you ever are." She frowned. "In fact, better." She cast a second charm. "You've gained a few pounds and grown a couple of inches since the First Task." She gave him an evaluating look.

She looked at them both, "Now, out with you!" and she shooed them towards the tent flap.

Watching Fleur having to retreat from the grindylows and give up trying to reach her hostage was disappointing, but watching the progress of the other two was a bit more fun. The first one back was Fleur, of course, then came Cedric, and Krum was last.

The Headmaster called up his patronus, and it rapidly shot off into the loch. The audience broke out in admiring murmurs over the rarely-seen spell.

Fleur was extremely distraught about Gabrielle, who was her sister, it seemed. Bagman assured her the girl was safe. The Aurors' in the Village soon would be returning with her after the Headmaster's patronus alerted them that the Task was complete.

Bagman returned to the judges' table to consult with the others. He stood up from his chair. Even though he was expecting it, Bagman's magically magnified voice made Harry and the others jump as it boomed out beside them. The crowd in the stands went very quiet.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our decision. We have decided to award marks out of fifty for each of the champions, as follows . . .."

Failing to retrieve her hostage cost Fleur Delacour half the points possible, leaving her only twenty-five points for her Bubble-Head Charm.

There was polite applause from the audience.

Cedric Diggory returned with his hostage but was one minute outside the one-hour time limit. He also used the Bubble-Head Charm, earning him a total of forty-seven points. The Hufflepuffs in the crowd cheered loudly.

Viktor Krum returned with his hostage, but he was also outside the one-hour time limit, being later than Cedric. That and his incomplete, but effective, shark transfiguration earned him forty points.

"Harry Potter transfigured completely into a Mediterranean Merman," Bagman said. "He returned first with his hostage, and was well inside the time-limit at only half-an-hour. A remarkable achievement for a Fourth-Year student. We award him forty-eight points." He paused a moment to let the cheering and applause from the Gryffindors, and many other Hogwarts students, to subside.

Finally, he had to set off a cannon blast from his wand. "The third, final task will take place at dusk on the twenty-fourth of June," continued Bagman. "The champions will be notified of what is coming precisely one month beforehand. Thank you all for your support of the champions."

The stands devolved into cheering, again.

Three Aurors came up to the dock bearing a little girl. They levitated her out of the water, casting warming and drying charms almost at the same time.

The Delacours were quick to reach her, and escort her to the Medical Tent.

Harry was quickly mobbed by the Gryffindors, who carried him into the castle. The party lasted the rest of the day and evening, and gradually expanded to include all the Houses, as well as the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons students. If not for the permanently-cast contraceptive charms The Professor had told him were on the castle, Harry was sure there would have been more than few unplanned pregnancies started that day.

.o\O/o.

Albus was upset. The Head House-elf had assured him that every meal the Granger girl had in the Great Hall, and the occasional snack in the kitchens, had been properly dosed with his love-potion directed at Krum, but she still seemed attracted to Harry. She had barely glanced at Krum since Christmas.

Krum had responded well to the potions; he was practically stalking her. But her proximity to Harry, and the way she acted with him, clearly had kept the boy distant.

And the boy's transfiguration! That had been stunning to see. Somehow, the boy had managed to improve his grades in the other classes while still managing to master that level of self-transfiguration! An accomplishment many NEWT graduates would have difficulty managing.

Even he, The Great Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, hadn't had that level of mastery over transfiguration until he was almost at graduation!

How had the boy done it? He didn't have a time-turner! Minny would never have given one to the boy without clearing it with him, first.

His monitoring charms indicated the boy never left the castle, except for the Hogsmeade weekends, so he wasn't getting extra tutoring from outside the castle.

He would have to check his monitoring charms more closely, to see where he was during the day.

If the boy wasn't getting outside tutoring, that his transfiguration work was strictly from self-study, then Albus needed to make sure the boy died when he fought Voldemort. If the boy was as powerful and learned as quickly as it appeared, then he might actually become a threat to Albus' legacy as the greatest Wizard of all time. Not to mention Albus' control over Wizarding society in the short term. Only Albus knew how to guide Wizarding society, for the good of all. A young boy would make too many damaging mistakes to let him gain any sort of political power like that.

.o\O/o.

Harry, Hermione, and Luna did manage to sneak off to the Room for half-an-hour, via that secret passage, and spent a "night" with their own private celebration.

Unfortunately, the Heads of the Houses insisted on maintaining the normal weekday curfew hours for the students. It was really the only reason why Harry and Hermione were able to sneak off to the Room before one in the morning.

The next "morning," over breakfast in the RoR, Harry looked at Hermione and asked, "Now what? We've got one hundred and nineteen days between now and the Third Task. That's over six years here in the Room if we continue doing this at two weeks every night! What're we gonna do with all that time? We've finished our version of the Marauders' Map . . .," They both had a copy of the new and improved version, with a third copy they intended to give to the twins — after fixing it to not show Crouch's name for the rest of the school year. That should only take another hour of experimentation to get it to work, Harry figured.

"Not to mention," he continued, "we've learned enough to pass our NEWTs in Charms, DADA, Transfiguration, Potions, Arithmancy, Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures, and Runes!"

He shook his head. "Studying for the Astronomy and History of Magic NEWTs won't take that long, if we want to add them. Our occlumency will take care of the memorization." He shrugged his shoulders. "Heck, even if you included Muggle Studies and Divination, we could easily finish everything by the middle of March!" **

She looked at him thoughtfully, nodded, and smirked. "I've been thinking about that, too." She grinned, "Twelve NEWTs at our age would certainly set a record for the wizarding world, wouldn't it?"

Harry really didn't care for the other classes, but Hermione had been more than willing to help and support him, it was only fair for him to return the favour.

"But instead of doing two weeks each night in the Room until March and then just stopping," she paused and looked around the Room, "Why not make it just three "days", we only have half the subjects to study? It would take twenty normal days, at most, for each year, probably only sixteen, we could still cover everything from Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh years in those subjects, revise everything, and get twelve NEWTs with Outstandings on all of them." She smirked at Harry. "That would still give us a 'day' at the beach, every night!"

"Then we can take the night before each NEWT test in June as two weeks and revise the course!" she concluded happily.

"And we can use the 'afternoons' to work on other stuff, like duelling," Harry added, nodding.

Satisfied with what they had worked out they headed over to the section set-up as a classroom.

The Professor, as usual, appeared when they arrived. "There's one more transfiguration you need to master," s/he said surprising them. "You saw it on your first day in Professor McGonagall's class . . .,"

Hermione gasped.

The Professor nodded to her, "That is correct, the animagus transfiguration."

They both leaned forward eagerly.

"The animagus form is an inherent part of a wizard's or witch's magic, as well as an expression of their personality," s/he explained.

Harry sighed, "Pettigrew being a rat, Sirius a dog." He glanced at Hermione. "Their personalities do seem to match, didn't they?"

"Correct. Or Rita Skeeter being a water beetle."

"What!?" they both exclaimed.

"She is not registered, I believe," The Professor continued. "From what she has printed about the Tournament and other matters at Hogwarts, I believe she uses her form to spy on people for her stories."

"How do you know this?" said Hermione.

"Hogwarts has an internal map. Her name appears on it, but the portraits, house-elves, gargoyles, and armours do not see her, only an insect flying or crawling about, if they see anything at all. She is a water beetle."

They both nodded.

Hermione stared off at the wall for a moment, then turned to Harry. "We need to adapt the Marauders' Map's feature of displaying someone's name to our glasses."

"That will work as long as you are within spell-range of Hogwarts," The Professor commented.

She stared at The Professor. "Can you make sure she never sneaks into the Room, and chase her away if she tries to follow Harry or me?"

He nodded. "That can be done."

"Will you please do so, then?"

"Certainly. While not violent, she is a foe to Hogwarts, the students, and the faculty."

Harry took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He looked up at the magical construct that was The Professor. "Animagus?" he said.

"There is a ritual developed by the Chinese to reveal a person's animagus form."

The two students exchanged excited grins.

"However, in view of your conversation regarding your courses, this morning we will start with what you need to know for Divination."

Harry had shared with Hermione his thoughts on how Professor Trelawney had actually been right in some of her predictions, forcing the girl to re-evaluate her opinion of the subject. Maybe, like Harry with Professor Snape in Potions, her opinion of the subject was being coloured by The Professor teaching it.

"While some of Divination, such as Crystal-gazing or Chinese Fortune Sticks, and Bibliomancy, requires that you have a talent in that area, much of the rest will work for the average wizard or witch.

"For example, even Muggles can manage Tessomancy, reading tea leaves, Numerology, and Dream Interpretation. Those requires little talent beyond a sharp eye for images and memorizing the many possibilities. The same is true for Cartomancy with Tarot cards, Ovomancy with eggs, and casting Rune stones, which are more dependent on the person being read manipulating the objects before casting them. Palmistry and Astrology are strictly memorization of the myriad possibilities.

"So, despite lacking magical abilities, even Muggles can achieve a NEWT in Divination. Just as they can with Runes, Astronomy, History of Magic, and Arithmancy."

After an hour revising what they should have learned from Professor Trelawney, they moved on to Astronomy — which was mostly memorization — with lots of math. Having the room change into a whole-sky planetarium was convenient.

Muggle Studies was decades out of date, but it was interesting to see what the wizards thought was important. If its goal was to make it easier for wizards and witches to blend in with the Muggles, or develop an understanding of them, it failed both goals spectacularly with out-dated fashions and behind-the-times technology.

History of Magic was completely unlike what Binns taught. Instead of a monotone drone, The Professor projected images of the events they were studying, as well as some of the background on why those events happened.

After lunch, The Professor had them perform a Chinese ritual that revealed their animagus forms. Harry was a magpie, Cracticus tibicen, The Professor told them, also known as the Australian Magpie. It was close to crows and ravens, but not actually related to the magpies found in the rest of the world.

Hermione was a cat, a Bengal cat, to be precise. It was an agile and graceful breed, with a strong, muscular body — she looked as if she belonged in the jungle. She was neither a small cat nor a large one, between eight and fifteen pounds.

For the remainder of their time in the Room that night they spent their "mornings" revising and studying the four subjects, and the "afternoons" split between learning about the animals that were their animagus forms, and on self-transfiguration. Harry also practiced with the duelling manikins, learning offensive spells, finished the map for the twins, and worked sporadically at pumping magic into the Vanishing Cabinet. Hermione devoted most of her attention on making their glasses identify everyone in their field of view, out to a reasonable distance.

By the time twelve "workdays" had passed, they knew their animagus forms better than their natural bodies. The map for the twins and Hermione's glasses projects were also completed.

One of the last things they did their last "afternoon" before returning to the castle was to undertake a second Chinese ritual that transformed them into their animagus form for several minutes.

To say they were chuffed by the experience would be an understatement.

They had spent time in the "evenings" thinking about their future. Harry had to face Tom, and they both had to deal with Death Eaters who wanted them dead.

As a result, they decided certain things needed to be kept secret. Thus, one of the things they did after dinner was cast the fidelius charm to protect their animagus forms, and that they could cast magic silently and wandlessly, as well. Harry was the Secret Keeper for that fidelius.

Hermione's finished spell, which she named the Gamer's Spell — she had to explain what that referred to — was very interesting. "First," she explained, "it shows you the name of the people directly in front of you. If they are in an animagus form, or have used one in your range before, then underneath their name a pictorial of their animal and its name appears. Above their name is a Physical Health Bar, Magic Ability, and a Tiredness bar, based on what is normal for them. If they are friendly towards you, their name is in green, a foe is red, neutral is black."

After she cast the spell on his glasses, Harry could see that Hermione was a bit tired, physically healthy, had plenty of magical ability left, had a Bengal Cat as her animagus form, and her name fairly glowed a neon-green.

Then they spent some time invoking their animagus forms and returning, trying to get more comfortable with the process before heading to bed. It was easy to see that the animagus forms were superior to their self-transfiguration forms. They didn't need a wand and their clothes were automatically "stored", somehow, along with anything they were holding.

Surprisingly, their wand-holster bracelets, while not visible at all on the animagus forms, still allowed them to eject their wands and return them! The only catch was that to return the wands to the holster required dropping it and waiting for the auto-return feature of the holster to retrieve the wand.

That was something neither of them were comfortable with doing. But they could live with it if it meant they could use their wands while transformed.

.o\O/o.

That morning, seeing the names of his dormmates above their heads with green bars was a weird experience. What was interesting was that it displayed their full names with a nickname in quotes, as-in Ronald Bilius Weasley "Ron" and Neville Longbottom "Nev".

That, and the health bars did not go all the way across over their names.

Hitting the Common Room made it weirder. The names of most of the dorm residents were in varying shades of green, with a few shading into orange.

It would take a bit of time to get used to it.

It was fascinating to watch, though, as the green health bars of his classmates increased their length as the students ate breakfast.

While it had been two weeks for them, for everyone else in the castle, the previous day's Tournament — and after-party — were still the centre of attention at breakfast.

He was surprised when Professor McGonagall came over to him and Hermione just as breakfast was breaking up. Her name was, as he expected, Professor Minerva McGonagall, but seeing Min, Minny, and Miss Kitty as her nicknames was strange.

"Please come with me, Mr. Potter," she said. A hint of a smile followed her words.

He glanced at Hermoine and shrugged. "I'll see you later, I guess."

She nodded, a bit of worry in her eyes.

As they walked off, The Professor said, "Relax, Mr. Potter, you are not in trouble. Professor Marchbanks from the Examination committee at the Ministry heard about your merman transfiguration and desires to see it herself."

Harry stopped. "Oh," he said, "Hermione can do it, too!"

McGonagall stopped and looked at him with a raised, eyebrow. "Can she, now?"

Harry nodded. "Yes, we did it together. She's been helping me prepare for the Tournament ever since Halloween."

She turned and called out to Hermione, who had been watching them walk away before starting to head for the Transfiguration Classroom. "Miss Granger! Would you come here a moment?"

Hermione not-quite ran over to them. "Yes, Professor?"

"Mr. Potter tells me you can do a mermaid transfiguration, too, Miss Granger. Is it true?"

The girl glanced at Harry. "Yes, Professor. I learned at the same time as Harry."

Minerva nodded. "Then come along. Professor Marchbanks will want to see you, as well.

A few minutes later, they were entering the Prefects Bathroom, where a woman with glasses was sitting on a comfortable armchair to one side of the pool that was the enormous Prefects' bathtub. The moment they walked in, she stood up. She was a short and very elderly witch. From her narrow-eyed inspection of them as they approached her, she appeared to be a tough and strict woman, just as McGonagall had impressed them the first time they had seen her.

"Professor Marchbanks, this is Mr. Harry Potter," she nodded at him, "and this is Miss Hermione Granger." She nodded at the girl. "Mr. Potter, Miss Granger, this is Professor Griselda Marchbanks. She is the lead Examiner in the Ministry and qualified to judge all twelve NEWT-level subjects at Hogwarts."

The two stared at her in surprise as they said their hellos and how honoured they were to meet her.

"I have been informed that Miss Granger is capable of the mermaid self-transfiguration, as well as Mr. Potter," McGonagall said in response to Marchbanks inquisitive look. The older witch nodded.

"Well, I have business to attend to," McGonagall said the three of them. "Mr. Potter, Miss Granger," she nodded to the elderly witch, "Professor Marchbanks, I will see you later."

She gave the two students a narrow-eyed glare that said they had better be on their best behaviour, then turned and left.

The Examiner waited until she had left before saying anything, just eyeing them both carefully.

"When I heard," she said without further preamble, "That a Fourth-year student had mastered a merfolk transfiguration, I decided to come see just how good of one it was." She stared at Hermione "And you can do it, too?"

Hermione nodded, "Yes, Professor."

The woman stared at her.

Hermione nervously glanced at Harry. "I've been helping Harry since Halloween to prepare for the Tasks, so we've been doing a lot of studying together."

The woman nodded, and turned to Harry. "I've already filled the bathtub with plain water. Would you please show me your transfiguration?"

Harry shrugged. He walked over to the chair and draped his outer robe over it, then took off his shirt. With his back to the other two, he unzipped and lowered his trousers enough, then used his wand to transfigure his pants into the same style opaque skirt he had used the day before, held in place with a sticking charm. Then he took off his shoes, socks, and trousers.

He walked over to the tub and sat sideways as he had done yesterday. "I can hold my breath for several minutes before I have to go into the water," he explained.

She nodded and moved closer.

It took only a few moments' concentration to complete the transfiguration.

She watched everything he did with a critical eye. He leaned back and held up his fishtail for her to examine.

She studied him carefully, ran a finger along his scales and fin, and held his fin between her thumb and forefinger for a moment, flexing it up and down. She waved her wand and lifted his torso to her eye-level and inspected his waist where his skin and scales merged together. Then she looked at his hand, inspecting and flexing the webbing between his fingers, then ran her fingers across his claws. She studied his ears carefully.

She nodded and levitated him over the water before settling him into it.

He sank underwater for a few moments and took several deep breaths, just below the surface with his head tilted sideways so she could see his gills at the side of his throat and the slits in his cheeks in action. Then he raised his head out of the water to watch her.

Hermione was standing beside the tub, now. She had shed her clothes while The Professor had been examining him. She had the same style skirt as Harry had around her waist, as well as another band around her chest.

"Why the slits in your cheeks?" the elderly witch asked Harry.

"To make it easier to suck in water without having my mouth open. They close firmly when I'm talking, and when eating."

She nodded and turned to Hermione. Hermione followed his routine and soon was in the water beside him.

She had them swim around the tub a couple of times, as well as leap out of the water to demonstrate the strength of their tails. Soon, they were out of the pool and back to normal.

Before they redressed, she said, "Are there any other transfiguration skills you have?"

They exchanged looks, "We can do birds," Hermione said slowly.

"Birds?"

They demonstrated their owls and hawks.

She pursed her lips, nodded, and walked over to her oversized-purse that was on the floor beside the chair now draped with Harry's and Hermione's clothes and robes. She took out two rocks. Turning she held them out to them. They each took one.

"Transfigure the rocks into pixies, and have them tap-dance."

Shrugging, Harry motioned to Hermione to go first. Then he went.

She had them perform several other complicated transfigurations. Fortunately, The Professor had had them perform a dozen or so similar tasks in the Room for their practice NEWTs.

She nodded again, and conjured up two classroom desks several yards from each other. She reached into her purse again and pulled out a couple of sets of parchments, two quills, and two inkpots. She put one of each on the desks. "Here," she said, "You have two hours."

Still in their transfiguration-to-merfolk skirts and band, they each sat at a desk. Harry looked at the first question. What are the Five Principal Exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, it said.

He sighed, closed his eyes for a moment, then started writing what his occlumency-reinforced memory told him was the proper answer.

The Professor watched them both intently enough, whenever Harry happened to glance up, that Harry had to wonder if she was a hawk animagus.

.o\O/o.

Author's Note: * According my research, the human-dolphin kick is ~25% faster than the fastest free-hand style swimming – and forbidden in Olympic competitions for more the 15 meters because of that! Most average swimmers can do about 2 miles an hour, with professional athletes averaging 5. Sprinting speeds of about 8.8 miles per hour are possible, but can't be maintained for any reasonable distance beyond an Olympic-sized pool. Dolphins, streamlined for swimming, on the other hand, can hit 20 miles an hour at top speeds, and can outswim sharks. So, a comfortable cruising speed for them would be about 10 miles an hour.

Harry has both the advantages of a sleek lower-body (much less turbulence and resistance to water-flow and a large amount of fin-surface area for kicking the tail, like a dolphin), and the disadvantages of a non-streamlined human torso. None of the Champions are professionals, so that makes them average swimmers. Thus, I figure he's about twice as fast as the average swimmer, about 4-to-5 miles an hour.

In canon, Cedric made the roundtrip in just outside an hour, making the loch about two miles across, assuming the merfolk village is in the centre. Which means Harry could do it in half-an-hour or less.

** If they take the extra classes at an hour each for each "day", they could cover a week's worth of normal classes each "morning" before taking lunch. Which, at two "study-days" per night, is only twenty nights at their current rate of study in the Room (two days per normal week per class in Hogwarts) to cover an entire year of normal class-time! That ignores the time in the afternoons and evenings that could be used to shorten the time to finish a year even faster.