Different Together

Chapter 6: Confinement and Closure

~~~ Uncovering the Final Task ~~~

The six friends stayed at Hogwarts through the Easter holidays, and when the summer term began, bringing with it warmer weather, they were often together, sprawled out under a beech tree near the lake where Harry had almost drowned. Luna was lying with her head in Harry's lap, looking up at his face, framed by the leafery of the beech canopy above him. Neville was clutching a packet of fat butter biscuits into which Ginny dipped now and again.

"What you reckon the next task will be, Harry?" asked Ginny.

But Harry had spotted Tonks sitting cross-legged at the edge of his group of friends, and almost one of them. Although her eyes were constantly scanning the grounds for any sign of trouble, she smiled when Luna reached up and feathered Harry's face with her fingertips. The moment Tonks saw she had Harry's attention she pout-kissed the back of her hand and made goo-goo eyes at him, mouthing, Give her one, Harry! Harry's face felt very hot all of a sudden.

He had already been uncomfortable because her Not-Notice charm made him almost forget about her most of the time, and that she had to spend so much time all alone. Nobody else seemed to see her at all, even Luna, except those periods when Harry was in an innocent huddle with the Auror in the corridors of Hogwarts. But Luna understood now better than Harry, that Tonks' cheeky and cheerful disposition was an attempt to help Harry lighten up, to give him a few minutes distraction from worrying about the danger he was in.

Dear Luna... mused Harry, stroking her hair.

"Harry?" urged Ginny, again. "The next task?"

"Huh? Aah... yeah, well, Malfoy got it wrong twice, but what if he really heard something, and what if it was for the third task not the first or second?"

"That's very unlikely," said Hermione swiftly before he had even finished.

"Harry, this is Malfoy we're talking about!" said Ron. "He's a foul git and you can't rely on anything he says."

"Perhaps this time there may be some accidental truth in what he said though," piped up Luna.

"What do you mean?" said Ginny.

"Clearly, the first task involved death by fire while the second was by water..."

"The four classic elements!" cried Hermione. "That's what you mean, isn't it?"

"The what?" said Ron.

"The four elements known to antiquity. They are fire, water, earth, and air, so..."

"So the final task might involve flying or, more likely, being enclosed... or trapped in – something connected with the ground like the puzzle traps I mentioned." He frowned. "Hermione, is there a digging spell I could learn? It wouldn't hurt to know one, just in case."

Ginny pulled up a tuft of grass and blew it away. "You could use the vanishing charm, you know, to vanish earth and rocks and things."

"Or a blasting spell like Bombarda," said Hermione.

"A pet Niffler might be useful if it's a treasure hunt through underground caverns," Luna said dreamily.

"Without a clue, it's all guesswork though," put in Neville.

The discussion continued along these lines, not only that afternoon, but most of the following days. The only thing they all agreed on was that Harry should be prepared for anything, but do nothing when he was finally facing danger. They hoped the day would never come, and yet they were impatient to get it out of the way too.

They did not have too long to wait. In the last week of May, Professor McGonagall held Harry back in Transfiguration.

"You are to go down to the Quidditch pitch tonight at nine o"clock, Potter," she told him. "Mr Bagman will be there to tell the champions about the third task."