Under the Sea

Chapter Eighteen

Harry sighed as he entered the common room a few nights after the incident where his legs turned purple and scaly to see Hermione and Ron waiting for him expectantly. He had visited Ariel again, trying to come up with a strategy to holding his breath under the lake for an hour. So far, nothing seemed to come to mind and Harry couldn't blame himself for growing more and more frustrated. This task wasn't something like the last task where he could just summon something to help him. If he didn't figure out a way to hold his breath, he would be in deep trouble.

The idea session hadn't gone well and the only reason he left was because he had told Ron and Hermione that he had detention with Snape. Maybe he should stop using Snape as an excuse but it was last minute and Harry didn't think Hermione would buy anything else. He knew Ron would buy it—the idea of anyone but Snape giving Harry a random detention would have been too obvious.

"How was your detention Harry?" Hermione asked as Harry pulled out his Transfiguration essay. He was almost done with it but it was due tomorrow and tournament or no, McGonagall would most likely hand him a detention for late work. Well probably not but Harry didn't want to risk it. Besides, he really didn't want to get into the habit of leaving work for the last minute. Even if he was exempt from his final exams, Harry knew that the Easter holidays would have a lot more work to come with them.

"It was okay," Harry said, looking up from looking over his book for one last fact in order to get the essay to the proper length. "He mainly had me scrub the desks."

"That classroom must be spotless, the number of times he's had you in detention. What number is this one—33 this term I think?" Hermione said and Harry paused and looked up at her. There was something about the tone of voice Hermione was using that just didn't seem right.

"Hermione, what are you getting at?" Harry asked, rolling his essay back up. If there was going to be a confrontation, he really didn't want his work to be an unwilling causality. "Snape hates me. Are you really surprised he's going out of his way to give me detentions?"

"Really because there's no record of your detentions," Hermione said, a victorious tone coloring her voice.

"Why would there be?" Harry asked, momentarily confused. Ron just sat there, looking for once the way Harry did when it came to a Ron and Hermione fight; slightly nervous and ready to jump in if things got too heated. "Do you think there's some book of detentions that the professors just write in? I can see Snape now—today I gave Potter a detention for chopping his salamander tails too loudly."

Hermione sighed and shook her head in frustration, while Ron snorted in amusement. "There's records of detentions going as far back as the early days of Hogwarts—I've been copying some of them for extra credit since they've been worn down by age."

"Who would want to keep those?" Ron asked and then, as if remembering where he was and how tense the environment already was, wisely shut up.

"The point is, none of your detentions are in there," Hermione told Harry, ignoring Ron's question for the time being. "The only ones that are are from when we went to the Forbidden Forest our first year and your detention with Lockhart in second year."

For a brief moment, Harry couldn't think about how he was going to get out of this one without giving up the fact that he was using the Room of Requirements. How had Hermione managed to figure out his lies? More importantly why hadn't he thought of possible records?

Maybe it's because you're a fourteen year old kid who's just trying to do the thing he loves when he's not trying to save the world and isn't trying to do anything nefarious other than spending time with a new friend?

Wow his inner voice needed to learn to shut up—also when did he learn the word 'nefarious'? I mean, he wasn't dumb or anything but he didn't even know that word was in his wheelhouse.