Adventures of Harriet Potter

The Second Task

"You said you'd already worked out that egg clue!" said Hermione indignantly. "Keep your voice down!" said Harriet crossly. "I just need to — sort of fine-tune it, all right?" She, Ron, and Hermione were sitting at the very back of the Charms class with a table to themselves. They were supposed to be practicing the opposite of the Summoning Charm today — the Banishing Charm. Owing to the potential for nasty accidents when objects kept flying across the room, Professor Flitwick had given each student a stack of cushions on which to practice, the theory being that these wouldn't hurt anyone if they went off target. It was a good theory, but it wasn't working very well. Neville's aim was so poor that he kept accidentally sending much heavier things flying across the room — Professor Flitwick, for instance.
"Just forget the egg for a minute, all right?" Harriet hissed as Professor Flitwick went whizzing resignedly past them, landing on top of a large cabinet. "I'm trying to tell you about Snape and Moody. . . ." This class was an ideal cover for a private conversation, as everyone was having far too much fun to pay them any attention. Harriet had been recounting her adventures of the previous night in whispered installments for the last half hour. "Snape said Moody's searched his office as well?" Ron whispered, his eyes alight with interest as he Banished a cushion with a sweep of his wand (it soared into the air and knocked Parvati's hat off). "What . . . d'you reckon Moody's here to keep an eye on Snape as well as Karkaroff?"
"Well, I dunno if that's what Dumbledore asked him to do, but he's definitely doing it," said Harriet, waving her wand without paying much attention, so that her cushion did an odd sort of belly flop off the desk. "Moody said Dumbledore only lets Snape stay here because he's giving him a second chance or something. . . ." She wondered why Snape would need one, summoning her cushion back onto the table and properly banishing it across the room to the box this time. "What?" said Ron, his eyes widening, his next cushion spinning high into the air, ricocheting off the chandelier, and dropping heavily onto Flitwick's desk. "Harriet . . . maybe Moody thinks Snape put your name in the Goblet of Fire!"
"Oh Ron," said Hermione, shaking her head skeptically, "we thought Snape was trying to kill Harriet before, and it turned out he was saving Harriet's life, remember?" She Banished a cushion and it flew across the room and landed in the box they were all supposed to be aiming at. Harriet looked at Hermione, thinking . . . it was true that Snape had saved her life once, but the odd thing was, Snape definitely loathed her, just as he'd loathed Harriet's father when they had been at school together. Snape loved taking points from Harriet, and had certainly never missed an opportunity to give her punishments, or even to suggest that she should be suspended from the school.
"I don't care what Moody says," Hermione went on. "Dumbledore's not stupid. He was right to trust Hagrid and Professor Lupin, even though loads of people wouldn't have given them jobs, so why shouldn't he be right about Snape, even if Snape is a bit —"
"— evil," said Ron promptly. "Come on, Hermione, why are all these Dark wizard catchers searching his office, then?" Harriet had to admit, Ron had a point. "Why has Mr. Crouch been pretending to be ill?" said Hermione, ignoring Ron. "It's a bit funny, isn't it, that he can't manage to come to the Yule Ball, but he can get up here in the middle of the night when he wants to?" Hermione had a point too, it was like Harriet was missing a vital piece of information that was relevant to the situation. "You just don't like Crouch because of that elf, Winky," said Ron, sending a cushion soaring into the window. "You just want to think Snape's up to something," said Hermione, sending her cushion zooming neatly into the box. "I just want to know what Snape did with his first chance, if he's on his second one," said Harriet grimly, and her cushion, to her very great surprise, flew straight across the room and landed neatly on top of Hermione's. A near impossible feat for two people using Banishing Charms together.

Obedient to Sirius's wish of hearing about anything odd at Hogwarts, Harriet sent him a letter by brown owl that night, explaining all about Mr. Crouch breaking into Snape's office, and Moody and Snape's conversation. Then Harriet turned her attention in earnest to the most urgent problem facing her: how to survive underwater for at least an hour on the twenty-fourth of February. Ron quite liked the idea of using the Summoning Charm again — Harriet had explained about Aqua-Lungs, and Ron couldn't see why Harriet shouldn't Summon one from the nearest Muggle town. Hermione squashed this plan by pointing out that, in the unlikely event that Harriet managed to learn how to operate an Aqua-Lung within the set limit of an hour, she was sure to be disqualified for breaking the International Code of Wizarding Secrecy — it was too much to hope that no Muggles would spot an Aqua-Lung zooming across the countryside to Hogwarts.
"Of course, the ideal solution would be for you to Transfigure yourself into a submarine or something," Hermione said. "If only we'd done human Transfiguration already! But I don't think we start that until sixth year, and it can go badly wrong if you don't know what you're doing. . . ." Hermione was wracking her brain for a solution that didn't require a year's worth of work. "Yeah, I don't fancy walking around with a periscope sticking out of my head," said Harriet. "I s'pose I could always attack someone in front of Moody; he might do it for me. . . ."
"I don't think he'd let you choose what you wanted to be turned into, though," said Hermione seriously. "No, I think your best chance is some sort of charm." So Harriet, thinking that she would soon have had enough of the library to last her a lifetime, buried himself once more among the dusty volumes, looking for any spell that might enable a human to survive without oxygen. However, though she, Ron, and Hermione searched through their lunchtimes, evenings, and whole weekends — though Harriet asked Professor McGonagall for a note of permission to use the Restricted Section, and even asked the irritable, vulture-like librarian, Madam Pince, for help — they found nothing whatsoever that wasn't overly complex that would enable Harriet to spend an hour underwater and live to tell the tale.
Familiar flutterings of panic were starting to disturb Harriet now, and she was finding it difficult to concentrate in class again. The lake, which Harriet had always taken for granted as just another feature of the grounds, drew her eyes whenever she was near a classroom window, a great, iron-gray mass of chilly water, whose dark and icy depths were starting to seem as distant as the moon. Just as it had before she faced the Hebridean Black, time was slipping away as though somebody had bewitched the clocks to go extra-fast. There was a week to go before February the twenty-fourth (there was still time) . . . there were five days to go (she was bound to find something soon) . . . three days to go (please let me find something . . . please) . . . With two days left, Harriet started to go off food again. The only good thing about breakfast on Monday was the return of the brown owl she had sent to Sirius. She pulled off the parchment, unrolled it, and saw the shortest letter Sirius had ever written to her.