(Y/N)'s POV

The day after the Ball was not pretty. As I had predicted there was a wave of new couple drama, dates that hadn't gone well were all anyone talked about and the halls were full of lovesick new partners.

Of course, Ron and Hermione weren't speaking, until they were, same as always, the second I saw Hermione that morning a million scenarios ran through my head, "Would she slap me? Would she be happy? Would she never speak to me again?"

I quickly darted away from that situation. Instead catnapping Crookshanks and setting him on my bed in the boy's dorm. "So. Had fun at the ball did we?" I said, frowning at his squished up face.

He meowed at me, his tail thrashing back and forth. "Yes, I bet you did," Then he meowed again, "How dare you. She would never-" Meow. "No I'm not going to go ask her if it was her idea." I picked his up and got in his face.

"My princess would never be seen dead with the likes of you. You try anything with her and I'll turn you into a tea cosy and chuck you in the black lake I swear to-" "Bloody hell. The stress has finally gotten to him." Said a familiar voice.

I turned to see two people staring at me with a mixture of pity and confusion. "I always knew he was a loon." Seamus said to Dean as they came into the room, I turned to frown at them, "You. Tell. Nobody." I warned, they both burst into laughter and scrambled downstairs.

I turned back to the cat, "Now listen here you little ginger git. I still haven't forgiven you for last year. I remember all the scratches. You are on very thin ice my bow legged friend, and I assure you that if you ever so much as-"

"(Y/N)!" I froze up, "Y...yes?" I said timidly as Hermione shouted up the stairs. "What are you doing with Crookshanks?" She called up, I was worried she'd come in the dorm, so I responded. "...Playing?"

I took my wand out from my pocket and pointed it under the cat's chin, frowning at him as his eyes stared at me blankly. "You have been warned." I dropped him down as he turned to me almost smirking and rushed down the stairs.

After I had a chat with Crookshanks, I went down to find that Hermione was holding him in her arms, the ginger fur ball was obviously feeling protected, little did he know I would end him if I had to.

I finally caught Hermione's eye, we seemed to have an entire conversation in the space of one glance, I could tell just by her look, she didn't know how to deal with this, and honestly I didn't either, so until we did, we would just try to be normal. It was kind of disappointing, but I was fine with it for now.

We both had feelings, we just didn't know what to do with them yet. So, we both seemed to come to a silent agreement that we would just get on with it, if not a little more awkwardly then before. Harry apologised to Parvati but that wasn't all, apparently, I had gotten myself dragged into a feud of my own.

Lavender had somehow gotten the idea that I had ditched her at the Ball because I didn't want to go with her and made secret plans to go with Hermione. Once I finally got her to talk to me, I tried to explain that she was wrong

"I promise you; we didn't have some sort of secret squirrel plan to go together, I asked her to save me a dance and she did" I tried to explain calmly, "why are girls so confusing?" I thought as Lavender glared at me "Don't lie! I saw the two of you-"

I stopped her there, putting my hand over her mouth "Listen, that was spur of the moment, and its none of your business, I'm sorry I didn't see you after but I couldn't find you, that was all it was, I promise."

"Lavender I had a great time with you." I said, wiping the beginnings of tears from her eyes she seemed genuinely upset so I asked if there was anything I could do to make it up to her, on the condition that she tell nobody what she saw.

And that is the story of how I ended up buying Lavender Brown a month's supply of Sleekeazy's Hair Potion. When everything was smoothed over, no pun intended, and back to normal I sat down in the common room and complained about my lack of money again. 

Hermione was still talking to me, but only occasionally, and there was still a weird awkwardness to it, of course had to make a comment. I think she was trying to act as if we were still mad at each other to quell the tension, so I played along.

"How did you afford all that hair stuff anyway? I thought you didn't have any money?" "Well if you must know, I didn't, but I had some bets placed with Fred and George on Harry and the dragons, and the portion of the Ministry pay-out, so I was back to square one." 

"I managed to scrape back all the money Bagman has lost me, the filthy scumbag" I glared, "Which I have now spent on hair products, Lockhart would be so proud" she just turned away.

It wasn't until classes resumed and care of magical creatures came round that another issue reared its head, I was busy comparing Malfoy to a real unicorn that our cover teacher had brought out when he sneered and showed us a scathing article about Hagrid.

It was apparently the reason he was absent from lessons today, which had of course been written by Skeeter and featured some entirely untrue and slanderous interviews from both Malfoy and Crabbe. Which amused them greatly.

Dean, Seamus and Ron all had to hold me back, so I didn't strangle Malfoy or Crabbe, eventually I gave up and directed my anger elsewhere "I'll kill her!" I yelled, storming off despite the teachers protests.

I went straight to Dumbledore's office. When I arrived, I found the password written on the entrance and him sitting at his desk, seemingly waiting for someone. "Ah, Mr. (L/N), you are two minutes early, I suppose you must have been in a hurry" said Dumbledore, looking at his pocket watch

It had twelve different hands and planets on it instead of numbers. I have no idea how he could read the time with that thing. For a brief second my anger left me and was replaced by both confusion and amazement, which came out as "How..." he smiled and explained. 

"Well, you are a smart boy, I was willing to bet that you would be the first to realise that there is really no reason for you to attend classes if you don't want to because you aren't taking the end of year exams" I was dumbfounded. "Although I would not recommend any further truancy."

"I was also willing to bet upon seeing the unfortunate article in the daily prophet, paired with Hagrid's absence, and your distaste for its author, you would immediately rush to defend your friend to the highest possible authority you can find, namely. Myself" he smiled again, and I sat down.

I explained that the article was rubbish and that Hagrid hadn't done any of the stuff that it said and that I thought Dumbledore should write the prophet and tell them, and that while he was at it he should ban Rita Skeeter from entering the castle.

He reassured me he had already expressed his displeasure with the prophet in a strongly worded letter in which he even stopped so low to call them 'nincompoops' and that even though he already banned Skeeter from the castle this would only spur her on and would do little to stop her.

He changed the subject "How are your preparations for the second task coming along?" I sighed and decided to answer honestly "Slowly and painfully, the only thing I've figured out is that it has something to do with water." 

He nodded, pointed to his watch and said "Well, time is ticking, the hours pass by whether we want them to or not, maybe you should keep a closer eye on the clock." I nodded, mostly to avoid a lecture and said, "I'll keep that in mind" 

He smiled at me "Perhaps you should keep a watch?" He offered, holding up his own, I smirked "l would do Professor but the last one I had set on fire" he gave me a puzzled look and excused me

With my new free period I decided to be productive, by wandering the castle aimlessly. It wasn't until a dreamy voice behind me said "Hello (Y/N)" that I was finally snapped out of my thoughts, I turned to see Luna beaming at me, a smile that I returned.

"How was your Christmas?" She asked, getting over my shock I answered, "Oh, it was... eventful. I was looking for you, but I couldn't find you anywhere." She nodded as if it was obvious. "Yes, I often spend Christmas time at home with my father" 

I'm such an idiot, that's why I couldn't find her. "I would have thought you would have stayed for the Yule Ball" she shook her head, "No, I was fairly certain that I wouldn't be attending, being a third year" she clarified.

I decided it was best to just tell her, hopefully cheer her up a bit "Well, that was why I was looking for you" I said, trying to hide my blush, she smiled widely, "Well, next time there is a dance, I would be happy to join you."

We spent the next hour chatting about our holidays, she told me about her and her father tracking down several magical creatures in their village to invite over for Christmas and I shared my experiences with the Yule Ball.

The topic eventually changed to the tournament and my struggles with the egg, she was very helpful in taking my mind off of things, but eventually she had to hurry off to class as I tracked down the others, we said our goodbyes and parted ways.

I spent the next Hogsmeade trip in the castle, hoping to research the egg, with no luck, as the others returned, I was dragged into more drama. Despite the fact that she had been reluctant to talk to me.

Hermione insisted that I went to Hagrid's with them, of course I did, for Hagrid's sake, Harry filled me in, apparently everything kicked off again, Skeeter and Hermione got into a very heated argument, and just like that Hermione was on the warpath, again. "Oh, Is it Thursday already?"

We trudged down to Hagrid's to reassure him that we didn't believe a word of the article and wanted him back as our teacher, and to our pleasant surprise we weren't the only ones, Professor Dumbledore was way ahead of us.

"Hagrid!" Hermione shouted, pounding on his front door. "Hagrid, that's enough! We know you're in there! Nobody cares if your mum was a giantess, Hagrid! You can't let that foul Skeeter woman do this to you! Hagrid get out here, you're just being —" The door opened.

Hermione said, "About t — !" and then stopped, very suddenly, because she had found herself face-to-face, not with Hagrid, but with Albus Dumbledore. "Good afternoon," he said pleasantly, smiling. 

"Hello" I replied "We — er — we wanted to see Hagrid," said Hermione in a rather small voice. "Yes, I surmised as much," said Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling. "Why don't you come in?" "Oh . . . um . . . okay," said Hermione.

We spent the next short while explaining that Hagrid being Half Giant didn't bother us in the slightest, "Yeah Hagrid, we could be distant relatives" I smiled, explaining my discovery earlier in the year.

The subject quickly moved on to the tournament, as it always did, Harry quickly explained that he had figured out the egg, but with that sorted, Hagrid's resignation was declined and the problem was solved.

My next concern was the egg, I had still gotten nowhere with it, so had Harry, despite what he told Hagrid and Hermione, so I took Fleur's advice, every day I took the egg into the shower with me and opened it.

Every day, still nothing, the screams that came from the egg were a bit different, now they sounded closer to really loud static, as if there was a message there, but the screaming made it impossible to decipher, not that it got me anywhere.

Water was my only clue, so I ran with it, every day I was in the library looking up water-based spells, spells that make your head a bubble or something, spells that worked well in water, spells to counter water, but I still felt like I was getting nowhere. 

So out of frustration, one day I took the egg and threw it as hard as I could into the black lake, then I quickly realised how stupid that was and dove in after it, as I did I saw the egg shimmering and realised I wasn't hearing screams, instead it was a song, I collected the egg, with the help of the giant squid, and ran back to the common room.

Hermione POV

Suddenly (Y/N) burst into the common room with a wide smile, egg in hand and soaking wet, of course everyone turned to look at him, he raced over to me, "Where's Harry?" I shrugged, trying to resist the urge to talk to him "Why?" 

"Water!" He said happily as if this was meant to be a great revelation, "We need to put the egg in water! That's when it tells you about the second task!" I jumped to my feet, "What did it tell you?" I asked, keen to get to work.

"Absolutely nothing" he smiled, "But now we know how to find out" he said excitedly. As I asked him why he didn't listen to the eggs song he explained to me that he was in the black lake and didn't want to drown.

So, when Harry got back, he also explained what he had found, he had memorised the clue. "Come seek us where our voices sound, We cannot sing above the ground, And while you're searching ponder this: , An hour long you'll have to look, And to recover what we took, But past an hour — the prospect's black"

 There was just one problem, we have no idea what they would take, so the four of us quickly went to the library as I spoke aloud after searching a few books. "an hour, not impossible, but potentially problematic-" 

"Potentially Problematic! When was the last time you held your breath under water for an hour Hermione?" Harry said out of frustration "Well I don't know about her, but I did last Thursday" (Y/N) joked, not the time, god does he have to fill every little gap in conversation with a joke?

"Don't worry Harry, you're up on the scores, even if you don't do the best, you'll be fine" (Y/N) said, then realised that wasn't very helpful so added, "I'm the one in real trouble" "But don't worry, ever heard of Rocky Balboa?" he said, boxing on the spot.

"Just means my comeback is more dramatic" Ron looked incredibly confused, but Harry and me both smiled. Ron seemed to give up. "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." 

"There's a way of doing it!" I insisted. "There just has to be!" "A charm or something!" (Y/N) shot to his feet, "A CHARM!" he shook me, a wide smile on his face "I read about it the other day; I'll be back!" then he ran off.

(Y/N)'s POV

I went to the one man I trusted to teach me any spell I could find. Hell, I would have gone to him last time, but I wasn't allowed, not that it's encouraged this time, but if Harry could have Moody's help it set a president and they couldn't stop me. 

I quickly knocked on Professor Flitwick's office door and opened it quickly, not wanting to waste time, I had a few days to learn how to breathe underwater, so forgive me for not using my manners.

"Professor, I need you to teach me a charm to make me breathe underwater... the bubblehead charm! That was it" I got to the point, he looked at me scandalised, "Mr. (L/N), this is highly irregular, I am teaching!"

I looked around the room to see a group of first years staring at me wide eyed, "Right..." I turned to address them. Noticing the feathers on their desks. The first years looked at me, terrified. "It's Wing- gar -dium Levi- o -sa, make the 'gar' nice and long" I said, making the motion.

"Wingardium Leviosa" all the feathers lifted off the tables, much to their amazement, "See? Easy peasy" I said, then another thought came to mind "And don't be the bloke with the buffalo." I added.

"There, done. Now can you teach me" I said quickly "Whether I am able is beside the point, I cannot, I have other obligations" "To help your students learn, and you are hindering my learning by denying me, they can learn this spell at any time, I need to learn this ASAP." 

He let out a heavy sigh and nodded, "After" he sighed again, then almost smirked "However, I would ask for your assistance" I nodded, "How hard could it be, I had to help Neville, these lot can't be that bad" I said, much to his hidden amusement.

And so, with a few flaming feathers, some blood, when one of the students managed to panic and launch his wand across the room into my nose, and tears, when Dennis Creevey thought I was shouting at him. We successfully managed to teach the first years the levitation charm.

And true to his word, Flitwick taught me the secrets of the bubblehead charm in record time, so I had enough time to practice, I went down to the black lake and met up with Luna, who was kind enough to help me.

I ended up taking Dumbledore's advice she used a watch to time how long I was able to keep the charm up, by the end of the day, I was up to fifty five minutes, good enough. I met up with Harry and Hermione to measure our progress, Harry was still struggling. 

"I could try teaching you?" I offered after telling them about the spell, Hermione shook her head, "No time, If Flitwick took a day to teach you, no telling how long it would take you to teach Harry, you learn spells a lot faster than anyone else, we have to find another way." 

I was oddly flattered by this comment, but didn't show it. Then Fred and George strolled up, "What're you two doing here?" Ron asked. "Looking for you," said George. "McGonagall wants you, Ron. And you, Hermione." 

"Why?" said Hermione, looking surprised. "Dunno . . . she was looking a bit grim, though," said Fred. "We're supposed to take you down to her office," said George. Ron and Hermione stared at Harry and me.

"We'll meet you back in the common room," Hermione told us as she got up to go with Ron both of them looked very anxious. "Bring as many of these books as you can, okay?" "Right," said Harry uneasily.

But they never met us back at the common room, Harry disappeared soon after. The next day everything was rushed, I felt like I was moving twice the speed I should have been, I woke up ridiculously early because of nerves.

I decided to take a walk around the black lake while everything was relatively quiet, only to find three large platforms in the middle of it, I was amazed, "have those always been there?" I said to nobody in particular.

It wasn't until minutes before the second task that I saw Harry again. He barely arrived in time to get the boat, looking very nervous. We took boats over to the platform while discussing the absence of the others, who nobody had seen since McGonagall called them away earlier.

Then I realised. "Harry, we've taken what you'll sorely miss" he nodded and explained Dobby telling him about his missing "Wheezy" "Hermione too, for you" he said, I had hoped I was wrong. But another pressing concern made its way to the front of my mind, something I had forgotten about.

"How are you breathing? Please tell me you found something" he nodded "Bubblehead Charm?" I asked, he shook his head "Gillyweed" he said, presenting me with a lump of green plant that resembled kelp.

"What the bloody hell is that?" "Dobby said It makes you breathe underwater for an hour, Neville found me some" "You sure?" He nodded but didn't seem very confident, I took a second look, "I think I'd prefer to drown."

We made our way to the platform and I took off my clothes, only in swimming trunks now, because why not. I handed my clothes to Dean, "Dean, make sure they don't nick my clothes, they're jealous of my fashion sense" I said to calm my own nerves.

If I took it too seriously I would panic and use up more oxygen, and more time with my Charm. A lesson learned the hard way. As Crouch explained the rules I piped up, "Would I get a free pass if I said I couldn't swim?" he gave me a look, "I'll take that as a no." 

He continued, explaining that I would start on their school's platform, apart from me who would go to the Durmstrang Platform, but everyone would take their treasures back to the main platform. "What I didn't even get my own platform? This is rubbish." 

Bagman nodded but Crouch said "Three schools, three platforms" As we were about to dive off, I cast my charm giving me fifty five minutes, hopefully, to psyche myself up I turned to my left, looking at the other competitor. 

"KRUM" I shouted to him, he turned looking befuddled, "Look-" I said, making my way to my diving off point, he raised an eyebrow "Try not to cry if you lose too bad" I said as the starting cannon sounded, screaming "CANNONBALL!" and jumping off the start board, the last thing I saw before I submerged was Viktor Krum staring at me confused.