Harry was glad that classes had started again; it had been a good holiday for the most part, but he always liked the routine that a regular school schedule gave him. Of course Hermione was starting to subtly remind him that the second task was fast approaching and he still had no idea what kind of clue the egg was supposed to be giving him. As he wandered out one brisk January afternoon to sit on his favourite rock between the edge of the forest and the shoreline of the lake, he wondered if the rest of the Champions were having the same problem.

He huddled in his cloak, muffler wrapped warmly around his neck as he chucked pebbles that lay scattered on the top of the boulder into the rim-frosted water. His breath puffed around his face, periodically fogging his glasses as he stared out over the water, his interest captured by the Durmstrang students walking back to their ship after classes. The group had chosen not to stay in the castle for the year, preferring their own accommodations whereas the Beauxbatons group had eagerly accepted Dumbledore’s offer of beds and had been split up between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff for the duration.

Harry nearly jumped a foot when he heard a branch crack behind him, and he whirled around, his wand appearing in his hand simultaneously. He sighed in relief a moment later when Diggory raised his hands placatingly and walked slowly from the shadows of the trees. Harry snapped his wand back into its sheath and ran a calming hand over Silicia’s head as she peeked out to see what had startled her friend.

“Cedric! You nearly gave me heart failure,” Harry exclaimed. Cedric chuckled as he walked over to sit next to the smaller boy.

“Sorry about that – I was just about to hail you when I stepped on the branch. Scared me too! Glad you don’t hex first and ask questions later!”

“You never know – now if it had been Nott or Krum...”

“Understood, Snape.” He gazed around at the barren surroundings, shivering slightly in the breeze that was picking up as the sun slowly began it’s descent towards the horizon. “Do you come out here a lot?” he asked as Harry resumed his watch of the Durmstrang boat and tossing pebbles into the lake.

“Now and then,” the fourth-year replied. “Helps me think when I can get away from all the ruckus back there,” He pointed a thumb back over his shoulder before throwing the hand forward again to release another stone. They watched as it plunked down hard onto the thin ice and cracked it, lines radiating out from the impact point before it fell through into the black, icy waters. The two Champions grinned at each other for a moment.

“Have you figured out the second clue?” Diggory asked, grabbing a pebble from the pile himself and tried to skip it across the ice.

“Nope. You?” Harry asked, watching as the pebble skipped three times before falling off the edge of the rim-ice into the open water.

“Not a clue. Does yours screech like a dozen banshees?”

“Oh, yeah – Dad makes me cast quite a few room silencing charms before opening it. I still can’t make heads or tails out of it... Hey, what’s Krum doing?” he asked, grabbing his companions arm and watching as the Seeker walked out onto the deck of the ship in nothing but an old-fashioned striped bathing costume, towel slung over his shoulders.

Deciding to watch, but not wanting to be seen, the two scrambled quickly off their rock and headed back into the edge of the forest a little closer to the ship where they got a better view of the duck-footed Quidditch star.

“He’s carrying something...” Cedric whispered. “It’s – the egg!”

“What the hell...” Harry murmured as he watched the Champion hold the golden egg in his hands as he climbed onto the railing of the ship, leaving the large towel tossed onto the deck. “Is he... Merlin, he is going to...

“Jump!” they both hissed as they watched him spring feet first into the chilly black waters of the lake. They watched, breathless, as he bobbed back up to the surface, shaking the water from his face as he raised the egg partially out of the water, slapping his hand down on the top button that released the sides of it. A loud wailing was cut off as he shoved the egg back under the water, following it quickly after taking a deep breath. A watery melody could be heard as the sound travelled back towards the shore – greatly reduced in intensity. It almost sounded like a proper tune, now.

The frozen Hogwarts students watched closely as the Durmstrang competitor rose up three times to get air before plunging back under the water before seeming satisfied with what he had gleaned. He paddled over to the ship and began to climb the ladder up the side to reach the deck high above him. Harry and Diggory waited until they saw him go back into the bowels of the ship before slipping away back to the castle. They knew what they each had to do now: find a body of water deep enough to accommodate the egg and their body in order to properly hear the message. They parted inside the front entrance, with nods to each other – each bent on their mission at hand.

Harry headed back up to the Gryffindor tower where he sketched a quick hello to the students who were milling around in the Common Room before marching up the stairs to his dorm. No one was in the round tower room and he threw his bag onto his bed as he went to the trunk at the foot. Wandlessly, he unlocked the padlocks and lifted the lid, digging under the piles of clothes until his hand connected with the slick, metallic surface of the egg. He pulled it out and stuffed it into his bag, happy that there were expanding charms inside of it so that the bulge of the egg didn’t show.

He wrote a note to Ron saying he was going down to his dad’s quarters for the evening, then left quickly – not wanting to lose any time.

He moved through the castle in near ecstasy as he realised he was finally going to figure this out on his own. 

Giving the password to the portrait, he hurried inside his father’s rooms calling out for him as he entered.

“Harry?” came the echoing answer. “I’m in the lab, son, you may come in.”

Harry gratefully dumped his bag onto the divan as he crossed the room to the lab entrance. “Dad, can I borrow your tub?”

“Mine, why not just use yours?”Severus asked, his brow furrowed as he eyed his progeny from his place behind a cauldron. “For that matter, why not use one up in the tower? I happen to know you have perfectly good bathtubs up there.”

“Yes, but they aren’t deep enough and I’m not a prefect so I can’t use the huge one in the Prefect bath. You have a large Roman tub – I need one that I can stand up in... It’s the egg, Dad – I have to listen to the egg under water! Cedric and I happened upon Krum doing that this afternoon in the lake – and I’m not doing it there either!” he clarified.

“I don’t blame you,” his father murmured in half-amusement. “Fine,” he waved his hand in the air as if to shoo the boy along. “Go borrow my tub. But, you better leave it in mint condition when you are done! Don’t forget to cast the drying charms...”

“Yes, Dad; thanks, Dad,” Harry intoned as he backed out of the lab, mock salaaming his father in the process.

“Cheeky brat,” Severus grinned as he returned to his potion. Fairly soon he heard the water in the pipes beginning their steady flow as they filled up the ultra deep, luxurious tub.

****

Harry watched as the tub filled with steamy water – he saw no reason that the water had to be near freezing in temperature for this manoeuvre – a large fluffy towel wrapped around his waist and the egg sitting patiently on the edge of the wide marble lip that surrounded the lap-length tub. There were quite a number of taps that were around the edge that filled the depression so that it did not take long for the four foot deep area to fill up to the edge.

A wave of his hand and the faucets turned off and he was mounting the steps to the rim, removing the towel and slipping into the warm scented water, feeling the heat sink into his bones and feeling so good after his hour spent outside in the winter wind. He swam a few strokes just relishing the feeling before he floated back to the edge where the egg lay waiting for him, glinting in the refracted and reflected light from the sconces bouncing off the water.

Taking a deep breath, he plunged the egg under the water following it quickly and pressing the button on the top end, releasing the petals that folded back. A wave of eerie music floated back to him and he grinned as he realised he could understand what they were saying.

****

“Hermione, I need to talk to you after dinner,” Harry said as he slid onto the bench amongst his friends, long hair still gleaming wetly in the candlelight above the tables. He was grinning like a Cheshire cat and Hermione was curious as to why.

“Um, sure, Harry – what’s going on?” she asked idly.

“I’ll tell you in the library. The rest of you are welcome, too – I just didn’t want this to be talked about at dinner,” he said cagily.

“I have a regular study room I use,” she offered. “We can set up silencing spells so no one can overhear us.”

He grinned over at her. “That would be great, ‘Mione, thanks.”

The others looked at him curiously, but knew he would reveal whatever was making him happy in time. They didn’t catch the look that passed between him and Diggory as the Hufflepuff Captain entered the Great Hall. He decided to take the long way around to his table and as he passed by Harry’s section of the Gryffindor table he stopped a moment.

“Alright there, Snape?”

“Absolutely,” Harry agreed with a nod as the other boy winked at him before continuing on.

****

Harry sat on the corner of the table that had been scooted to the back wall of the study cubicle to make room for his group of friends. He waited until Draco signalled him from the back that everyone was in before setting the silencing charms. He dragged the egg out of his book bag and held it in his lap as he gazed happily at his mates.

“I finally solved it. Well, at least as to how to listen to it. Now I need to figure out the clue.” He waited patiently while everyone jabbered at him, exclaiming their surprise and trepidations.

“So, it’s actually a song that can only be heard under water. Cedric and I saw Krum jump into the lake with his egg this afternoon and we could just barely hear music coming across the water from his egg. So when we got back to the castle, Cedric probably headed to the prefect bath,” he said, amused as Hermione bobbed her head in agreement. “And I headed down to Dad’s rooms where he has a four foot deep roman lap tub.” Draco snorted, but quickly shut up when Hermione elbowed him. “Yeah, I know,” Harry agreed. He and his brother would constantly wheedle their dad to let them take a bath in the big black tub, and it was a rare opportunity when he would allow them to do so.

“So what does it say?” Hermione asked.

“Here, I wrote it down.” Harry handed out several sheets of parchment with a poem written on it. Hermione’s eyes glazed over as she read the clue.

“This does not sound good, Harry,” she stated after studying the clue for a few minutes.

“I know. What lives in the black lake?” he asked the knowledgeable witch.

“Hang on,” she said slipping out the door and returning a moment later with a thin volume that she was perusing as she walked up where he still sat on the table edge. “Here,” she said holding the book open to a page with a list of the lakes inhabitants.

Besides various types of fish both magical and non, there were Grindylows, the giant squid, Mermaids, a cousin of the Loch Ness monster and various other denizens of the deep.

“Mermaids...” Harry murmured. “Definitely not good.”

“No, nor is the time limit. Harry, can you swim?” she asked with a worried tone in her voice.

He shook his head. “Not very well. Dad tried to teach me this summer, but we didn’t get much further than floating and really basic strokes. I can swim in his tub – but that’s only four feet deep.”

“Well this lake is over a hundred metres in depth in several places,” she informed him. “And according to this clue you have to retrieve something from its depths – most probably in the Mermaid colony. You can’t hold your breath that long.” He gave her a look which she interpreted as ‘Well, duh!’ “Sorry, of course you know that. So, we need to find some way of letting you breathe underwater...”

“And I need to study up on these species to find out how to get by each of them,” he added.

“And we need to worry about this...” Draco looked down at his copy of the poem “Taken what you’ll sorely miss” he quoted. “I wonder what that’s all about?”

“Well it’s obvious,” Pansy stated. “He has to have some reason to go into the lake and retrieve something – it has to be something that the Champions would never want to be without – something precious, otherwise where’s the motivation? And they have to time it somehow so they have some way of rewarding points. Seems simple enough to me.” She crossed her arms and stared down at the blond.

“Right,” Harry said, trying to break the tension. “We have three weeks until the second task, I’d best get to work. If anyone has any good ideas as to how to survive an hour in the lake, let me know. I think I’ll just set up shop in here,” he said looking around the cubicle. His friends started to leave and Draco and Ron helped him reset the room while Hermione went out into the stacks, returning several minutes later with a huge stack of books that Draco halved for her before she dropped the entire load. Harry sighed, but sat down and removed a stack of parchment, quill and ink bottle from his bag before reaching for the top book and flipping back to the index to see if anything caught his eye.

****

A week later, Harry had amassed a large stack of notes that he now had scattered on his dad’s parlour floor. He was dividing it up into smaller stacks of types of methods to reach his goal – namely surviving underwater.

He had transfiguration, charms, spellwork and herbology. The last had been one entry given to him by Neville, of all people, when the boy had heard what was going on one night in the dorm. He had handed Harry a book and pointed to a page that showed a picture of what looked like a tangled pile of gummy worms, but were in fact an herb called gillyweed. Harry had added it to the pile of notes, not sure if he would be able to eat something that squirmed around like that.

Severus walked in carrying a large stack of midterms that he piled on his home desk and came to stand over his son who was stretched out on the rug, legs waving in the air and head propped up on one hand, staring at the four stacks of parchment with a glazed look in his eyes.

“What is all this?” he asked, reaching out a hand to stop the legs before they hit him somewhere disastrous. Harry turned his head to gaze up at his father.

“Ways to breathe underwater for at least an hour.”

“The second task? You know this for sure?”

Harry reached forward and snagged a smaller bit of parchment that had been off to the side, holding it up for his father to take it.

Severus sat down in his chair and began to read.

“Come seek us where our voices sound,

We cannot sing above the ground,

And while you’re searching, ponder this:

We’ve taken what you’ll sorely miss,

An hour long you’ll have to look,

And to recover what we took,

But past an hour – the prospect’s black,

Too late, it’s gone, it won’t come back.”[i]

He stared down at his son for a moment, then grunted in amazement.

“Yeah, that was my opinion as well,” Harry agreed. “Anyways, Hermione and Draco – and well, just about all of my friends, helped me find books with ways to survive in the water. It’s just that some of these spells are really advanced – way past where we are at. I thought about using Accio and summoning breathing gear – you know, like what Muggles use when snorkelling? But Hermione talked me out of that one. Said it would look strange for a big tank to go flying around the countryside. I guess I can see her point.” He shuffled some papers around. “We then thought about human transfiguration – but I don’t have time to become an Animagus and the other spells are just too complicated for me, yet. So, we thought of charms and we found some good ones – this one here seems to be the best,” He had sat up and was now leaning against his father’s chair and leg and he grabbed the top sheet off of the second pile, handing it up to Severus.

“Ah, yes, the bubblehead charm. This is also advanced, but well within your talents, Harry. The trick will be getting it to last long enough. I use this quite a lot when I’m dealing with noxious fumes in the lab. It takes concentration. What else do you have?” he asked setting the slip of parchment on top of the poem.

“Well, we looked for transfiguring potions, but couldn’t find any that weren’t illegal or didn’t include class IV ingredients,” he began.

“And polyjuice is not recommended for use with Human to animal transformations. Next?”

Harry handed up the lone slip of paper from Neville’s contribution.

“Ah, gillyweed. Of course; Longbottom – smart lad when it comes to Herbology.” Harry nearly choked when he heard his dad praising Neville. “Don’t be too surprised, Harry. The boy is an absolute genius in the greenhouses. Pity, that knowledge isn’t transferred to when those plants are used. However, he has yet to explode a cauldron this term, so things are improving with his tutoring. I do have one specimen of gillyweed in the storeroom, but let’s use that as a last alternative. There is a lot of discussion as to whether the effects last as long in fresh water as they do in salt water – and you don’t want the gills to disappear half-way back up to the surface.” He tapped the previous sheet with his finger.

“I think the charm would be your best choice. We shall start teaching it to you this weekend. Now, I’m starving, have you had anything yet? No? I believe they’ve stopped serving upstairs, so we shall dine in this evening and then I’ll walk you up to your dorm.” He ruffled the teen’s hair where it was leaning against his knee.

“Good work, Harry. I’m proud of you.” Harry beamed up at him then reached over to gather together his notes and put them away.

****

Harry wandered into dinner a few days later, looking a bit worse for wear; robes mussed, tie nearly undone, hair wet and a snarled mess. He plonked his pile of books down on the bench and sat next to them, burying his head in his folded arms.

“Just let me die here and now...” he mumbled to no one in particular.

“What if we gave you a great pick-me-up...” one twin started.

“...the kind that will keep you laughing for a long while?” the other finished. Harry just waved his hand in the air to let them know they should continue.

“Well, we have been working on our joke products this year...” Harry knew this, having witnessed their several marketing attempts in the common room.

“And we have decided that we need a much wider audience,” George continued.

“Correct, brother mine. To that end we have devised a demonstration of sorts. At everyone’s seat tonight will be a toffee crème that we’ve invented. Well, actually...” Fred hedged.

“At every Slytherin’s seat. Everyone else gets a regular toffee,” explained George.

Harry actually perked up at this, willing to raise his head up and look at the two pranksters. “And what will it do?”

“Not quite sure – depends on who gets what.”

“Yes, we gave the elves an assortment...”

Harry raised his eyebrows, looking like his father for a scary moment. “Don’t let Hermione know that; she’ll bust you for including them in on one of your pranks,” he warned them.

“Never fear... they won’t tell on us.” George grinned widely. “Oy, here comes the food now. Budge up there, mate – you need your nutrition if you’re going to win this thing. Although, I have to tell you, your odds spread is eighteen to one.”

“To win?”

“’Fraid so. You’re the smallest one – and word has gotten out you can’t swim. Sorry, mate,” Fred sympathised.

“No, that’s alright. I’ll be doing good just to get down there and back. So, when will these toffee’s show up?” Harry asked, dishing himself some roast beef and jacket potatoes, smothering it all in a rich, brown gravy. It was one of his favourite meals the elves made and he dug in with relish.

“For afters, so eat up. So what happened to you that you’re such a mess?” Fred enquired.

“Dad and Moody. I’m starting to learn a Bubblehead charm – and they are spelling things around it to see how sturdy it is. Water is the hardest,” he explained between bites.

“Eh, you’ll get it, don’t worry,” George predicted.

“From your mouth to Merlin’s ears,” Harry prayed. They continued on in the small chat as more and more of their group wandered in. Hermione took pity on her friend and spelled his hair dry and brushed. Harry always thought that was the weirdest sensation: having an invisible brush go through your hair. But he was grateful for the help, he wasn’t the best when it came to domestic charms, his forte was defensive spellwork.

The word slowly spread down the table to watch the Slytherin table when pudding was served and when the little toffees showed up at everyone’s place, the Gryffindors and their friends chewed contentedly as they glanced at the green and silver house.

They were soon rewarded with a squawk as Theodore Nott suddenly turned into a giant yellow canary, reminiscent of Big Bird from the Muggle children’s show, causing all the Muggle-born and Half-bloods in the room to start laughing uproariously. By the time he had moulted, it was too late and the other Slytherins were experiencing various other effects. Crabbe and Goyle’s tongues suddenly enlarged and elongated, rolling onto the ground like large, pink rat tails. Everyone there had something weird happen to them, from drooping and dripping body parts, to complete transformations that lasted several minutes before returning the partaker back to their original form. All except for Crabbe and Goyle who ended up having to have help rolling their tongues back up and carrying them upstairs to the hospital wing.

“Hmm, a little too much fenugreek on that one, George.”

“I agree, Fred. Have to work on the timing ingredients... Otherwise, it was a good show.” George jotted down his observations in a little notebook before hiding it as McGonagall came barrelling down the aisle.

“You two. Now. My Office,” she said, eyes flashing as the twins sighed heavily and got to their feet as a small wave of applause began to swell through the room. They stood still for a moment, basking in the admiration and taking a few bows, ignoring their Head of House’s tapping foot. Harry saluted them before McGonagall got tired of waiting and grabbed them by their ear-lobes and marched them from the room; a comical sight as she was nearly a foot shorter than the redheads and they protested the entire way.

“Well, I feel better now!” Harry declared and he grabbed his books to head back upstairs to study.

[i] Goblet of Fire, Chapter Twenty-Five