Out of The Shadows (Golden Trio Era) {1}

Dobby the Genius!

Mikayla watched as Harry winced after Dobby had poked him in the cheek rather hard insistently. "Harry Potter must wake up, sir!" "Stop poking me—" Harry groaned, not bothering to open his eyes. "Dobby must poke Harry Potter, sir, he must wake up!" Harry slowly opened his eyes and looked around. He must have fallen asleep after coming back to the library under the Invisibility Cloak. Harry sat up from his pillow- the book Where There's a Wand, There's a Way- and straightened his glasses as the sunlight that poured through the window almost blinded him. "Harry Potter needs to hurry!" Dobby squeaked. "The second task starts in ten minutes, and Harry Potter-" "Ten minutes?" Harry croaked, freezing. "Ten- ten minutes?" Mikayla shook her head disapprovingly at the scene, of course Harry would over sleep on one of the most important days of the year. He looked down at his watch. Dobby was right. It was twenty past nine. A large, dead weight seemed to fall through his chest into my stomach. "Hurry, Harry Potter!" Dobby squeaked, plucking at his sleeve. "You is supposed to be down by the lake with the other champions, sir!"  "It's too late, Dobby," Harry said, feeling rather hopeless.

Mikayla scoffed, "I swear to god Harry, if you're the reason Ron dies, I'll kill you." Mikayla warned, obviously not heard by Harry since she's not really in the boys dormitory, but her vision is there so she can keep an eye on those she cares about. One great advantage of being an Aevus Seer, even after a sleeping spell, she can use her powers. "I'm not doing the task, I don't know how—"  "Harry Potter will do the task!" Dobby squeaked sternly before beaming at him. "Dobby knew Harry had not found the right book, so Dobby did it for him! With Peppy's help of course"  "What?" Harry looked at him, shocked. "But you don't know what the second task is—"  "Dobby knows, sir! Harry Potter has to go into the lake and find his Wheezy—"  "Find my what?" Harry questioned, not catching on. "—and take his Wheezy back from the merpeople!"  "Ron..." Harry repeated.

Harry gasped as he figured out what Dobby meant. "What? They've got—they've got Ron?"  "The thing Harry Potter will miss most, sir!" Dobby squeaked. "'But past an hour—'"  "—'the prospect's black,'" Harry and Mikayla recited, Harry stared, horror-struck, at Dobby. "'Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.' Dobby—what've I got to do?"  "You has to eat this, sir!" Dobby said and he put his hand in the pocket of his shorts and drew out a ball of what looked like slimy, grayish-green rat tails. "Right before you go into the lake, sir—gillyweed!"  "What's it do?" Harry asked, staring at the gillyweed. "Gillyweed! Of course. Why did I think of that?" Mikayla face palmed at her idiocy. "It will make Harry Potter breathe underwater, sir!"  "Dobby," Harry started frantically, "listen—are you sure about this?" No one had forgotten about the time that Dobby had tried to help him before and it ended up with him in the hospital wing with no bones in his arm.  "Dobby is quite sure, sir!" Dobby said earnestly. "Dobby hears things, sir, he is a house-elf, he goes all over the castle as he lights the fires and mops the floors. Dobby heard Professor McGonagall and Professor Moody in the staffroom, talking about the next task... Dobby cannot let Harry Potter lose his Wheezy!" Harry pulled off the Invisibility Cloak off the table and stuffed it in his bag before grabbing the gillyweed and putting it in his pocket.

Then Harry tore out of the library with Dobby and Mikayla at his heels. "Dobby is supposed to be in the kitchens, sir!" Dobby squealed as they burst into the corridor. "Dobby will be missed—good luck, Harry Potter, sir, good luck!"  "See you later, Dobby!" Harry shouted they sprinted along the corridor and down the stairs, three at a time. The entrance hall contained a few last-minute stragglers, all leaving the Great Hall after breakfast and heading through the double oak doors to watch the second task. They stared as Harry flashed past, sending Colin and Dennis Creevey flying as he leapt down the stone steps and out onto the bright, chilly grounds. As Harry pounded down the lawn, Mikayla saw that the seats that had encircled the dragons' enclosure in November were now ranged along the opposite bank, rising in stands that were packed to the bursting point and reflected in the lake below.

The excited babble of the crowd echoed strangely across the water as Harry ran flat-out around the other side of the lake toward the judges, who were sitting at another gold-draped table at the water's edge. Cedric, Fleur, and Krum were beside the judges' table, watching me sprint toward them. "I'm...here..." He panted, skidding to a halt in the mud and accidentally splattering Fleur's robes. "Where have you been?" said a bossy, familiar, and disapproving voice. "The task's about to start!" Mikayla and Harry both looked around for the source of the voice. Percy—Ron's brother—was sitting at the judges' table—Mr. Crouch had failed to turn up again. "Now, now, Percy!" Ludo Bagman, who was looking intensely relieved to see Harry, spoke up. "Let him catch his breath!" Dumbledore smiled at Mikayla, who spun around and saw no one near her that may be in Dumbledore's eye line. "Professor, Can you see me?" Dumbledore nods before looking at Harry smiling, but Karkaroff and Madame Maxime didn't look at all pleased to see that Harry was there... It was obvious from the looks on their faces that they had thought he wasn't going to turn up. Harry bent over, hands on his knees, gasping for breath; He had a stitch in his side, Mikayla groaned, as felt Harry pain it felt as though had a knife between their ribs, but there was no time to get rid of it; Ludo Bagman was now moving among the champions, spacing them along the bank at intervals of ten feet. Harry was on the very end of the line, next to Cedric, who was wearing swimming trunks and was holding his wand ready. "Where's Mikayla?" Cedric questioned, Harry looked at him confused before the dawned on him, "She's the thing that was taken from you. You have to get her back off the merpeople." Cedric gulps, clearly worrying about his girlfriend, who in spirit stood a foot away from him. "All right, Harry?" Bagman whispered as he moved Harry a few feet farther away from Cedric . "Know what you're going to do?" "Yeah," Harry panted, massaging his ribs.