#gofp12

Harry was sitting in the common room waiting for Blaise to get ready so they could head to Transfiguration when he felt someone tap him on the shoulder. But when he looked back there was no one there.

           “Do try to keep up, Potter,” Ely McGovern said, not standing in front of Harry.

Ely shoved something in his hands.

           “What’s this?”

“Information, Potter, you can read can’t you?”

           Harry nodded dumbly.

“Good then, I had my doubts, but Cass seems to think more highly of your abilities than I do. He was always one to favor lost causes and abandoned pets.”

           “I’m not a….”

“Of course you’re not a pet, Potter, you’re clearly a boy,” Ely puffed some of his long blonde bangs out of his face looking handsomely candid as he did so. Harry probably would have just ended up with a mouth full of his messy locks if he attempted to do any such thing.

           “I’ve noticed that you’ve been getting a lot of attention, Potter, from a particular judge in this tournament.”

           “Bagman?” Harry asked.

Ely waved his hand in a “come on” gesture, urging Harry to continue speaking.

           “What about him? He’s a prat?”

Ely stared at him intensely.

           “And are you or are you not attempting to cheat in this tournament?”

“What?” Harry exclaimed. “Of course not, I never wanted anything to do with this tournament in the first place, and I certainly don’t want anything to do with Bagman now.”

           “Then why were you talking with him in Hogsmeade a while back?”

Harry huffed, feeling all sorts of wobbly as Ely showed him the other side of his politician’s persona, the one who gets the information they want at any cost.

“That was nothing. He was just talking to me about Barty Crouch.”

“Yes,” said Ely. “And just how much do you know about Mr. Crouch?”

               “He’s been sick. I mean, my mate Ron’s brother works for him, but that’s it.”

“Ah, but I meant how well do you know, Mr. Crouch?”

                      “I just answered you?” Harry said, uncertain of his certain answer.

“Did you?” Ely asked before turning to walk away. “Perhaps you should read that Potter before you go thinking that you know anything.”

                    Ely left him then, and Harry stared down at the parchment in his hands.

When Harry got a chance the first thing he did was read what was in the parchment, and lucky for him and Madam Pince he moved the letter off the table he had it on in the library as soon as it caught on fire after he was finished with it. For someone with a Pureblood upbringing Ely sure did seem to like to reference Muggle movies.

                Harry got out his quill and started a letter to Remus. If he wanted to know what happened right after the first war then Remus would be the one to know. Everything that Ely or whomever had written about Crouch couldn’t be true, could it?

Harry received a reply back that next morning at breakfast.

“Dear Harry,

Sirius says hello. He is currently out at the shops. The ministry has allowed him that much leave to stray from our residence. We are working on attaining license for a visit to see you very soon. Having a Hogwarts champion for the school looks quite good on the Ministry and a happy one looks even better. I did quite enjoy what you said about SPEW at the first task, that was wonderfully put. Should I think Ms. Granger or Ms. Bulstrode for the lovely outfit you were photographed as wearing? All joking aside, I am glad that you are well. Sirius has been in a tizzy, and I confess that I am not that much better. But using what skills you have and what tools are available is a wonderful lesson for dealing with the Dark Arts and I’m glad that you remembered that. You always were one of the best DADA students. Please also tell Ms. Granger that I still have her last essay with extended notes and commentary if she would like me to owl it to you for her. She has been quite insistent on its status.

          Please tell me that you are being careful. I have no idea how you came by the information that you did, but I have to tell you that everything that you wrote to me is right. Barty Crouch did serve as the sentencing agent in many of the cases regarding rouge death eaters. Karkaroff was one of them. He eagerly gave up the names to several others. Crabbe, Goyle, Malfoy. I am sure that none of these names will come as a surprise to you Harry. Everything you read in that harrowing account was real, even the part about Crouch sentencing his own son. He was involved in the rather gruesome torture of the Longbottoms alongside the Lestranges. We were rather good friends with the Longbottoms. They were fierce aurors and they loved each other and their son very much. I was glad to see that Neville is so much like them as you are your father. Barty Crouch Jr. was sentenced to a life sentence in Azkaban. His poor mother was devastated, but it turned his father into the man that he is today, strict, unrelenting.

We have no information about Crouch yet, but we will check into things on this side. No one can seem to get a hold of him. Until then, please take care. Sirius sends his love as always. Also, Sirius and I would like to know what color you would like your room to be painted?

Love,

Remus                                                                                                                                                                         Harry tried to think about all of the things that he had just learned about Crouch and his son, but all he could really think about was what Remus had said. His own room? What color? The tournament would be coming to an end soon, and then the year and he would have to go back to the Dursleys, but then would he? Would he finally have a home like so many of his friends and housemates had? Would he finally be able to feel like he belonged somewhere, where the people were happy to see him instead of anxious for him to leave? Would he finally have what Malfoy had? Not the summers spent in luxurious places, but the time that the boy seems to spend with his parents. Would he finally have something that most people seem to take for granted? A family?

              But Harry wouldn’t. No, he would cherish it if he got the opportunity. He would, he promised himself.

                     Now, all he had left to do was act on the last piece of information that was in the letter. After the location, it had said, “Time to take a bath.”

***

The prefect bathroom was magnificent and large. It was the size of a swimming pool with different taps for bubbles and different colored water. He placed his things by the side and got in. It was so deep that his feet barely touched the bottom, but even as he swam a few laps around the pool no sudden streak of brilliance came upon him. No more understanding seemed forthcoming as he donned a bubble beard either.

           Finally, Harry decided to just try opening the egg while he was in the water. The wailing, screeching sound filled the bathroom and he quickly closed it so as not to attract Filch. Wouldn’t that be awkward?

           “I’d try putting it in the water, if I were you.”

Harry had swallowed a considerable amount of bubbles in shock. He stood up, spluttering, and saw the ghost of a very glum looking girl sitting cross-legged on top of one of the taps.

           “Myrtle!” Harry said in outrage. “I’m…I’m not wearing anything.”

The foam was so dense that it hardly mattered but it was still eerie.

           “I closed my eyes when you got in,” she said innocently blinking at him through her thick spectacles.

           “You haven’t been to see me in ages unlike that rather nice George Weasley,” she said nice like Hermione says library. Harry tried not to think about that.

           “Sorry, Myrtle, but see I got in trouble for being in there the last time. Didn’t want to risk it. If I got caught then I couldn’t visit you at all and that would have been horrible.”

           Myrtle seemed slightly appeased by this.

“Well, anyway….I’d try putting the egg in the water. That’s what Cassius Warrington did. Not too handsome in the face that one, but actually quite fit. His boyfriend wasn’t that bad either.”

           Harry tampered back the question of whether she had watched them take a bath too, and instead lowered the egg into the water. When he opened it….it didn’t wail. A gurgling song was coming out of it.

           “You need to put your head under too,” said Myrtle.

Harry nodded, took a breath and then dived under the water.

“Come seek us where our voices sound. We cannot sing above the ground. And while you’re searching ponder this. We’ve taken what you’ll never miss, An hour long you’ll have to look, And to recover what we took, But past an hour, the prospects black, too late it’s gone it won’t come back.”

Harry popped back up above the water.

           “What on Earth does that mean?”

Harry swam around in the tub for what felt like an eternity before he had to get back to the dormitory. Snape always had the head girl and boy do nightly checks to make sure that everyone was where they should be. It involved nothing more than a quick charm cast on the outside of the room that monitored body heat, but if anything was amiss, Snape was notified immediately. And Triwizard champion or not Snape would have Harry in detention for the rest of the year if he caught him out this late after hours.

           After getting dressed and heading back to the common room, Harry was almost there when he felt someone pull on his collar.

           “And just where do you think you’re going?” Draco Malfoy said from the alcove he had just pulled Harry into.

           “The dorm,” Harry answered succinctly, wondering where Crabbe and Goyle had gotten themselves off to.

           “Did you get caught in a rain storm, Potter, or perhaps a poorly cast aguamenti?”

Harry shook his head no, and moved to leave when Malfoy noticed the egg.

           Harry was walking away, going to the door, ready to go back to the dorm and try to solve the riddle when Draco said, “I can help you solve that thing you know.”

           Harry stopped walking.

Draco met him down the hall.

           “It’s obvious to everyone that you need a bit of help, and since this is now the battle between the upper and lower years, it only stands to reason that I should help you.”

           “And what do you want out of it?” Harry asked, knowing that nothing with Draco Malfoy came without a cost.

           “A favor to be named later,”

“Absolutely not,” Harry replied.

           Malfoy laughed. “Then let’s just say that I get to be in charge of your campaign. Harry, the true Hogwarts champion.”

           “I won’t bash Warrington,” Harry said plainly.

Draco scoffed.

           “And you think I would. I do have eyes Potter, there’s no way I would ever want to get on Warrington’s bad side. I’d even less like to get on Ely McGovern’s bad side.”

           “What’s Ely have to do with Warrington?” Harry looked on confused.

“They’re together,” Draco clarified. “Ely and Warrington, Warrington and Ely, they’re together, boyfriend and boyfriend til Warrington’s father has Ely murdered and then marries Cass off to a lovely Slytherin Pureblood with a vagina. Until then McGovern pulls that leash though I haven’t heard Warrington complaining.”

           “Okay, okay,” said Harry. “I get it. Then what will you do then as the head of my campaign?”

           Draco approached Harry who had basically all ready given his assent to this proposal and said, “First, you’re going to take me back to wherever you just were and I’m going to solve this puzzle for you, and then after that, I’m just going to….support you. Having a Triwizard champion from Slytherin and one as young as you are will only do good things for the House and thus by extension, me.”

           Now, that made sense to Harry. He was sure that Malfoy wasn’t telling him the whole truth, but he figured that it was good enough.

           “Deal,” said Harry, sticking out his hand.

Draco merely smirked then trotted off in the direction Harry had come from not even waiting for him to catch up.

***

           Draco was apparently very aware of the prefect’s bathroom. He flicked his wand at the nozzles to turn on the hot water and what seemed to be a very specific series of bubbles and green balm that tinted the water.

           Draco turned to look at Harry.

“I have to know how to work these for next year. It’s practically guaranteed that I’m going to be a prefect.”

           “Sorry to tell you this Malfoy, but you don’t need any practice on how to be a pompous git. You don’t need a prefect badge to teach you how to be bossy.”

           “The air of authority is a natural trait, Potter, that’s true,” Malfoy dismissed.

Then after making sure that the door was locked, and that no one could hear them from the outside, Draco started unbuttoning his robes.

           “What are you doing? I already told you the riddle,” said Harry.

“I’m aware,” said Draco as he slipped out of his shirt.

           “But I am also painfully aware of your memory and complete lack of detail when describing anything remotely important to anyone. So, forgive me if I’m not going to take your word for it.”

           Harry turned away as the sound of a zipper filled the air, and he heard Malfoy slipping his pants off. Harry thought he waited long enough for Malfoy to get in the pool, but when he turned back around, Draco was still standing there naked as the day he was born.

           Nobody in the dorm was particularly shy about their bodies, but it was also quick changes or Blaise walking around without a shirt, and that was when they were all bumbling first and second years trying to make it to class on time in the mornings, but this was different. Harry might spend most of his time at the Dursleys alternatively starving and working his body to exhaustion, but even he had grown taller and filled out with age.

           Draco, it turned out, had done the same thing.

He was still skinny, but now it was more like lean. The sharp lines of his face were starting to soften, his legs were long, and his limbs were no longer gangly. Harry was starkly reminded of how Malfoy had looked at the Yule Ball, and how he had felt in his arms. The image of Flint and Wood’s passionate display also played out in Harry’s mind. Harry’s eyes were traveling a bit oo low when Malfoy huffed in annoyance.

           “The egg, Potter,” Draco said, hurriedly.

“Oh, right,” Harry said, reaching down and then handing Malfoy the egg.

           He wasted no more time after that, jumping into the water then diving under. He stayed under for so long that Harry thought that he might have to dive in after him, at least to get his egg back. But just as Harry was about to do just that. Draco popped back up. But didn’t say anything.

           “Did you hear it?” asked Harry. “What do you think?”

Still, Draco remained silent.

           Then Harry looked to the stained glass behind Draco. Then the words clicked.

“The Black Lake,” they said at the same time.

           “What?” said Draco.

“The Black Lake, that makes perfect sense, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before.”

           “Right,” said Draco. “But Potter, do you know what kind of creatures live in the Black Lake? Do you know what haunts those waters? What the flicker of shadow is that blocks the light for only moments in the dorm?”

           Harry shook his head no, as Draco got out and wrapped a towel around himself.

“Come on, Potter,” he said, dressing quickly. “There’s a lot I have to tell you.”

***

By the evening before the second task, Harry left as if he were trapped in a nightmare. He was fully aware that even if he found a spell that would help him hold his breath for an hour that he’d unlikely be able to master it before tomorrow. Draco had been as much help as he possibly could be, but not even all the gold in the Malfoy vaults could help him now. He sat with Hermione, Ron (Romione, as Millicent had taken to calling them), the girl herself, and Draco’s representative Crabbe in the library, tearing feverishly through one book after the other, trying to find anything that could help him.

“There must be something,” Hermione muttered. “They’d never have set a task that was undoable.” Ron looked like he wanted to disagree, but kept his mouth shut as Hermione shouted, “There has to be a way. There just has to be!”

Crabbe kept silent, dutifully flipping through book after book. But when Draco walked into the room, Crabbe breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thank Salazar,” said Crabbe rising to leave with his master, commander, and owner. But Draco simply raised the letter in his hands.

“You and I have a date with Snape.”

Great, Harry thought, rising despite the bricks in his shoes.

           “Not you, Potter. Snape wants to see me and Mil.”

Millicent seemed surprised by this, but said, “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” then lower to Ron, “Keep Granger on the rails or we’re all doomed.”

           Ron nodded solemnly accepting the duty. Crabbe moved to go with them, too, following Millicent.

           “Oh,” said Draco in mock surprise. “Have you solved it already, Vince? If that’s the case, you should have said and then we all would leave.”

Crabbe looked down at his hands. “No,” he muttered, sitting back down looking like a kicked puppy.  

Millicent was gone for longer than Harry thought and even Hermione had to leave.

“I have a meeting with Professor McGonagall, but it shouldn’t take too long.”