New Romantics | Hermione Granger Book IV

|77| Chapter Seventy-Seven

S E V E N T Y  S E V E N

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Having Maya as an asset proved to be core to how Harry began to formulate his strategy around being in the Black Lake for an hour. It was quite simply an age thing, where Maya was able to transfigure her head if she took her time at it, into something that would allow her to breathe underwater. Meanwhile, Harry could barely transfigure his finger seeing as they hadn't started human transfiguration yet. Similarly, she could produce a Bubble-Head Charm - the approach she was going to take, effortlessly whereas Harry's bubble popped after a few seconds, let alone an hour.

Finding a method that would work for Harry was going to prove to be quite the task and which each passing day, the panic began to slowly creep into each one of them right until it was the day before the task and Harry still wasn't sure about what he was going to do. Maya had done all she could do by giving Harry the resources to learn about how to hold his breath underwater for such a period of time but she herself had to ensure her method lasted an hour, which was proving to be quite the challenge for her. All Harry had mastered was a feeble Bubble-Head Charm but he knew that would not suffice, not for an hour. They needed to find something different for him, they had no choice.

Saffron, Harry, Hermione and Ron were scouring every single book in the library that they thought even had a slim chance of having a resource to help them. However, any time they thought they had a lead, they were met by a dead-end soon thereafter.

"I don't reckon it can be done," said Ron sounding very deflated and negative, causing Saffron to cast a disgruntled look at him as the last thing they needed was for Harry to lose hope. "There's nothing that will simply let you hold your breath, everything happens in a round-about way like the Bubble-Head Charm or Transfiguring. The only other thing was that Drought Charm, but that was nowhere near powerful enough to drain the lake," He sighed. "Why don't you just try the bubble again, Harry?"

"I told you, I can't," Harry told him defiantly, still looking through books. "I have to find nothing else, the bubble won't last an hour, it won't even last ten minutes. If I'm lucky I'll get a few minutes out of it and who's to say it'll even withstand the water?"

"They'd never have set a task that was undoable," Hermione told them determinedly, though she looked physically exhausted and on the verge of dozing off given the fact they had spent the last few days going through the exact same routine. "And they'd never set a task with only two options to get through it, there has to be something else,"

"They have," said Ron matter-of-factly. "Harry, just go down to the lake tomorrow, right, stick your head in, yell at the merpeople to give back whatever they've nicked, and see if they chuck it out. Best you can do, mate."

"Not the time Ron! Saffron said irritably, rolling her eyes and scowling at him. "Hermione's right, there has got to be something!

"I know what I should have done," said Harry, putting his head on his arms with a yawn. "I should've learned to be an Animagus like Sirius."

"Yeah, you could've turned into a goldfish any time you wanted!" said Ron, again making Saffron glare at him. Was it his own personal mission to waste Harry's time?

"Or a frog," yawned Harry louder now.

"It takes years to become an Animagus, and then you have to register yourself and everything," Hermione informed them and it was a sign of how tired she was that she was actually entertaining what had been a blatant joke. "Professor McGonagall told us, remember...you've got to register yourself with the Improper Use of Magic Office...what animal you become, and your markings, so you can't abuse it..."