Death is but the Next Great Adventure

What an Egg-cellent Evening

In the last chapter: Harry finally finished working out the details of the ritual. Harry and Anthony attend the Yule Ball together. Anthony has a few realizations about his feelings. Harry has a confrontation with Viktor that reveals the real reason for Viktor's suspicion and Harry deflects when the other gets a little too close to the truth. Harry and Viktor witness an interesting conversation between Snape and Karkaroff on their way back to the ball.

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Yule left the residents of Hogwarts drained and sated. Most attendants had spent the few days following in the dorms to recuperate—or to either avoid/deal with the consequences of whatever happened that night. From what Harry had heard from Draco—ever the one for school gossip—quite a few students had snuck alcohol into the ball, or partook afterwards, and with wizards as their chaperones, most of them were caught. Madam Pomfrey had been forbidden from doling out any hangover-relieving potions. Which meant that on top of a heavy amount of detentions, students were also dealing with quite the after effects of a night of too much fun.

Harry would have thought it served them right and would have found it amusing if it weren't for the fact that this meant that most of these students were now bound by their symptoms to the dorms, with him. The grumbling, irritable Ravenclaws were enough to chase Harry out of the dorms and common room most days.

It was because of this, that Harry found himself spending much more time out of and about in the rest of the castle than he usually would and then coincidentally running into Cedric who stopped him in the hall to speak quietly.

"Harry, it's good that I ran into you, I didn't see you at dinner, so I feared I might have had to wait until tomorrow to tell you since it's almost curfew." Then, in a more hushed tone as he leaned in, Cedric said, "I had a little help recently and was finally able to figure out the clue." Harry was immediately alert at the news, but then he saw a small group of Hufflepuffs coming down the hallway the same way Cedric had come from and he noticed the other boy panic a little when he caught sight of them as well. Cedric had promised that he'd aid Harry in the tasks as best as he could, but they still weren't supposed to get help from others—officially—and Hufflepuffs might think to 'help' Cedric along a bit by trying to get Harry in trouble.

"The egg, Harry. Put it in water, someplace private." Cedric hurriedly whispered before spouting off something about the Yule Ball louder for the other Hufflepuffs who had noticed them as well at that point. Cedric was pulled into the current of the others as they passed and tugged him with them, sending Harry a few abrasive glances that went ignored by the young raven. Harry waited until they were gone before changing directions from a quick trip to the library to check in some books to go back up to his dorm. He had nothing else to do at that point and knew everyone else expected him to be out so he wouldn't be missed if he snuck down to the chamber with his golden egg.

At first, Harry had thought about going to the washroom with the egg, but that certainly wasn't 'private' enough and he wasn't sure yet what exactly would happen when he put it in the water. The chamber was still half flooded with water and would be far enough away from everyone that if the screeching continued, he wouldn't have to worry about anyone hearing—save for perhaps the Basilisk, but then he only had to explain to it what he'd been doing and maybe apologize.

When Harry got to his room, he retrieved the egg and wrapped it in his invisibility cloak so no one would see it and slipped in the Marauder's map for good measure. He could just walk out with the egg and no one would stop him, but he still didn't wish to stir up any suspicion if those Hufflepuffs from before told someone else about his little chat with Cedric—which would put them both in a difficult position if people thought they were working together. He imagined it would end up coming out as some sort of conspiracy of Hogwarts—and Britain in the broader sense—to get a leg up on the foreign schools. The fact that there are two Hogwarts students even in the tournament has already cropped up enough rubbish. Perhaps Harry was overthinking the whole thing and being too paranoid about walking around with an egg under his arm, but one doesn't hold as many world-changing secrets as he does and not end up just a little irrational.