Death is but the Next Great Adventure

Second Tasks & 'Harry-the-Heart-Stopper'

In the last chapter: Cedric helps Harry with the egg. Harry gets the clue from the egg. Barty almost gets himself caught stealing from Snape's personal stores but Harry saves him and promises to get his ingredients for him. Voldemort gets one minuscule step closer to figuring out who his 'friend' is. Philias starts getting grey hairs before he's forty.

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The frozen grip of the harsh Scottish winter eventually thawed and gave way to chilled grey mornings with stubborn, dirty patches of snow refusing to disappear completely dotting the grounds. Thick clumps of plush verdant grass that were threading through the layer of its brown dead predecessors that had carried the weight of the suffocating snow on their backs all winter. Spring was dragging its feet lazily around the school.

The four champions had become noticeably withdrawn in the last week or so leading up to the second task, which took place on the twenty-fourth or February. They were tense about the notion of something precious being taken from them—and possibly never returned if they failed—wondering over the 'when, where, and what' almost constantly. As well as doing their bests to prepare themselves for the task, as they'd all figured out that they would be in the Black Lake for an hour, searching for what they'd lost and would therefore need to be able to breathe under water for that long.

Harry had been in the middle of researching a complex charm that would form a bubble around his head while underwater, when he received a surprise visit from a Hogwarts house elf by the name of Winky. The little elf was in a right state of drunkenness due to recently being publicly fired from service with Barty Crouch Snr after being instigated in the Quidditch World Cup the summer previous if the papers were to be believed, and had absently set a small package on his table before popping off without a word. Curious, Harry checked the little package for any curses or jinxes, but it was completely clean, so he felt it was alright to open it. Inside, Harry found an odd, slimy green plant, and when he checked that for spells, the only one he could find was a preservation charm to keep it fresh.

Harry immediately set aside the book he had been reading and began to scour the library for herbology books that might tell him just what exactly he'd been given. It took a frustrating amount of time—two days-worth of searching­—before he found a book on very obscure Eastern Europe Herbology that detailed a plant called Gillyweed. According to the book, the plant was meant to have certain specific transfiguration properties. Supposedly, it would give the person who ingested it things like gills and more amphibious appendages to move through the water quickly. That peeked Harry's interest, considering that it would not only allow him to breathe under water, but also aid him in moving through it quickly, which would be suited perfectly for the task.

However, there were a few grey areas when it came to quantities consumed and how the environment and state of the water might affect the Gillyweed. So, Harry kept the Gillyweed, but also continued to search for any other, more reliable options.

It wasn't a question of where the Gillyweed had come from, though, as Harry knew exactly who had given it to him. He had to say, becoming the provider of Barty's polyjuice ingredients had paid off now that the man was able to focus on something else and do his job of helping get Harry through the tasks and to his lord when the time was right. It went far in redeeming the man in Harry's eyes after his last near-devastating cock-up. Gillyweed was not an easy solution to come by, and he had to admit that the older man would know of things he did not with both his age and his many years working with dark wizards.

In all honesty, Harry didn't know much about 'dark magic' and their practices. No, his knowledge revolved mostly around necromancy with a bit of it composed of what Hogwarts had to offer. That fact didn't bother Harry, though. Harry was still quite young and relatively new to the wizarding world. Logically speaking, he had the rest of eternity—should he wish to live that long—to uncover every little secret the world and everything beyond that had to hide.