Evening of the second task

I AM BACK BABY MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

ENJOY

/—/

A ripple broke the surface of the lake, shattering the near perfect reflection of the sky.

Arth emerged from the lake and took a deep breath.

The after Christmas weather was no way near warm and still made his breath visible each time he exhaled. However, it was nothing new to Arth.

Arth floated on the surface of the lake pondering about everything.

From life, to the secrets of the universe, to the ball and dance with Scarlett, to the stupid golden egg that spoke in riddles.

When he opened the first time, he was met with a surprisingly loud screech.

Although it was quite painful to the ears, Arth had spent enough time with Mr. Crouch to recognize a majority of the languages.

It was the language of the mermaids.

"Come seek us where our voices sound,

We cannot sing above the ground,

And while you researching, ponder this:

We've taken what you'll sorely miss,

An hour long you'll have to look,

And to recover what we took,

But past an hour- the prospect's black,

Too late, it's gone, it wont come back"

The first part was very simple.

Come seek us where our voices sound, We cannot sing above the ground.

It was an obvious reference to mermaids and how they couldn't speak above water. Thus, the second task was to meet up with the mermaids at the bottom of the lake.

The second part was a bit tricky.

And while you researching, ponder this: We've taken what you'll sorely miss,

This was a knight saving princess scenario. They would lose something they care about which would their there desire to win. But what would it be? An object? A person?

the last part was the most straightforward out of all of them.

But past an hour- the prospect's black,

Too late, it's gone, it wont come back"

They had an hour limit. That was all. Nothing more, nothing less.

The main problem was on how to breathe underwater for an hour, which again, wasn't that much of a deal.

He could use the bubble head charm or transfigured himself into a fish.

He only needed to understand what he was going to lose.

After getting out of the lake and showering, Arthur made his way to breakfast.

Hermione and Arthur had apologized to each other after the ball had ended. Hermione realized that she was being headstrong while Arth admitted that he went overboard.

It seems that the magic of the Yule ball had calmed them down a lot.

Arth and Hermione has even recovered their relationship to the point where Arth teased her about Krum.

Apparently, they were not dating and krum had asked her out in the library.

Pretty interesting, Arth had to say.

After eating breakfast, they made their way down to Hagrid's for Care of Magic's creatures.

Today he had managed to capture two unicorn foals. Unlike full-grown unicorns, they were pure gold. Parvati and Lavender went into transports of delight at the sight of them, and even Pansy Parkinson had to work hard to conceal how much she liked them.

Although, the unicorns expressed a great deal less of enjoyment at being petted by the girls. In fact, Arth was the only one that the Unicorns actively tried to interact with.

By the evening before the second task, Arthur was ready.

He had his plan and even made a back up plan. He was a hundred percent fool proof.

He was going to win.