In the end, Sherlock never did manage to kidnap Madam Norris.
The scrawny cat, the one that always prowled the castle with that insufferably haughty gait had never been part of his plan to begin with. When all was said and done, it was still a cat he'd helped raise on kibble. And Filch, its owner, had been perfectly decent to him over the years. Both of them had been, actually.
Harry, for his part, hadn't summoned Colin either, that boy who continuously chased him around with a camera, ready to snap a photo at a moment's notice.
Watching both of his suggestions fall through, Ron refused to give up. One scheme foiled; another was already taking shape.
He called in reinforcements: Ginny.
As Ron had pointed out, Colin would do absolutely anything for Harry if Harry only asked. But Ginny?
In that regard, she had Colin thoroughly beat. This red-haired girl was willing to give almost everything for Harry's sake. When she heard Ron's suggestion, she threw her arms around her sixth brother for the very first time, planting a kiss on his cheek.
"Well done, brother!" she declared. It was, she privately thought, the first truly useful thing that particular brother had ever done.
In some sense, Ginny served as a kind of "premium upgrade" over Colin and besides, as they say, boys and girls make the best team. Even when she was knocked flat by a Stunner again and again, she never breathed a word of complaint. If anything, she'd pick herself up and look at Harry with shining, admiring eyes.
"Harry, you're amazing!"
"That was absolutely brilliant!"
In short: her enthusiasm for boosting morale was unmatched.
Seeing this, Gemma wasted no time in pulling Luna into the fold as well. Luna, curiosity burning as brightly as ever, accepted without a second thought. And just like that, the full team was collected.
"So what exactly was the basis for that reading list you put together at the library?"
The question came from Ron, who had been watching Gemma patiently coach Sherlock through the Impediment Jinx a silvery flash shooting from Sherlock's wand tip and solidifying into a translucent barrier in midair.
Ever since Ginny had joined the training sessions, Ron's mood had improved considerably. He only needed to step in when both Ginny and Cho Chang were too exhausted to keep going. The rest of the time, he worked as Cedric's practice partner which, honestly, wasn't bad at all.
As top student of Hufflepuff and the house's leading scorer, Cedric's magical ability was beyond question. His spellwork was precise and measured, always perfectly calibrated in force, which made Ron's role as sparring partner far less taxing. No more stumbling around half-dazed from a jinx gone too strong.
"I compiled it myself," Hermione answered without looking up, still tidying her charm notes spread across the stone table. "Though I did quietly ask Professor Lupin to look it over, it checks out."
"Professor Lupin?" Ron's eyes went wide. He turned to stare at her, voice dropping in disbelief. "The rules say teachers can't help us—"
He genuinely could not picture Hermione, of all people, willingly bending the rules.
"Oh, give it a rest," Hermione said, lifting her head and arching an eyebrow, a hint of mischief in her tone.
"Strictly speaking, the only people allowed to be standing here right now are Sherlock and the other two champions. And besides, I found all those spells myself in the library, I only asked Professor Lupin to tweak a few details. And I never told him it was for the Third Task."
Ron stared at her for a moment, then gave a slow, impressed thumbs-up.
"Fair enough. Respect."
"There's something else," Hermione went on, her gaze drifting toward Sherlock, who had just finished a practice round and was wiping down his wand. "I heard from Hagrid that Madame Maxime has been paying him visits again lately, dropping hints, trying to find out what obstacles will be in the maze."
"Entirely predictable," Sherlock said, a knowing smile at the corner of his mouth. "The creatures in the maze are all Hagrid's responsibility to place. If you could find out their species and habits in advance, it would be an enormous advantage. Honestly, I'd have been more surprised if Madame Maxime hadn't tried."
"But Hagrid kept the secret this time," Hermione said with a note of genuine surprise. "That can't have been easy."
"Only because Madame Maxime doesn't quite understand how Hagrid works." Gemma let out a soft laugh, setting down her wand and joining the conversation. "If she tried a few different approaches, got him talking about magical creatures, he'd tell her everything eventually, I'm sure of it."
A brief silence settled over the group. Nobody argued. They all knew perfectly well just how much Hagrid loved magical creatures, and just how little he was able to hold back once the topic came up.
"So... should we go ask Hagrid too?" Ron ventured, his tone cautious, a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes.
"Absolutely not."
Harry, who had just helped Cho Chang prop up a freshly Stunned Ginny, spun around at the words with a firmness that left no room for debate.
Seeing how strongly Harry objected, Ron sensibly shrugged and let it drop.
"Besides," Cedric said, smoothly stepping in to ease the tension, "there's really no need."
He gave Harry a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Sherlock and Harry are improving at a remarkable pace, I'd wager some of the older students couldn't hold their own against them. We still have two weeks of preparation, and by the time the Third Task starts, we'll be stronger than we are now. And let's not forget as the first pair to enter the maze, we already have a significant advantage."
"Cedric's right," Harry agreed quickly, his eyes rekindling with determination. "We get to go in early. We have no reason to do anything like that."
Over these two weeks of training, Harry had grown increasingly close to both Cho Chang and Ginny. He'd come to love the feeling of fighting side by side with people, and whenever he saw them take a jinx without a single murmur of protest, he felt a deep, quiet gratitude.
As Cedric had said, barring any unexpected developments, the trio of Sherlock, Harry, and Cedric were all but certain to claim victory in the Third Task. Hogwarts would then take home the championship of the first Triwizard Tournament to be held in over a century.
And then, naturally, the unexpected happened.
The unexpected came from Harry.
The day that Divination and Arithmancy were scheduled at the same time again, Sherlock made his choice almost without hesitation, he went with Hermione to Arithmancy. Clear, logical numbers held far more appeal for him than murky star charts.
Harry had also wanted to attend Arithmancy.
True, experience had shown that Professor Trelawney was occasionally capable of a startlingly accurate prophecy. But such moments only seemed to arise when she slipped into a half-dreaming, trancelike state.
In her normal, fully-conscious hours, what she said was mostly theatrical nonsense, veiled "ill omens" and "encroaching shadows" designed to unsettle her students, and somehow, it always seemed to be aimed at Harry in particular.
Only devoted followers like Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, who believed in Divination with their whole hearts, would still sit faithfully around her, treating her every vague utterance as sacred truth.
But Ron refused to go alone. He attached himself to Harry like a barnacle, insisting with considerable stubbornness on dragging him all the way up to the Divination classroom in the North Tower.
"Haven't you been spending a lot of time with Lavender lately?" Hermione asked, arms crossed, looking at Ron with puzzled eyes. "Why not go with her? Why do you have to drag Harry along?"
At the sudden mention of Lavender, a flush crept up Ron's cheeks and his gaze slid sideways, his expression was becoming noticeably shifty.
"How…. how do you know about that?"
His voice had gone a little tight. He'd clearly assumed the whole thing was safely under wraps, and hadn't expected Hermione to have known all along.
"Lavender is my dormmate," Hermione said flatly, with the particular exasperated patience of someone stating the obvious.
"She can't keep a secret to save her life. Every evening, she comes back to the dormitory and relives every little thing the two of you did, you picked up a quill she dropped, you said an extra few words to her and she'll stay awake half the night buzzing about it."
Ron opened his mouth, closed it again, and said absolutely nothing. He settled for scratching the back of his head, the tips of his ears going red.
"And besides," Hermione added, her gaze sliding pointedly toward Sherlock, who was watching Ron with a faintly amused, unreadable expression, "even if Lavender didn't say a word, do you honestly think you could hide anything from Sherlock?"
Ron deflated completely. There was simply nothing left to say. He already knew better than anyone just how sharp Sherlock's powers of observation were. Whatever small tricks he'd been trying to play were, to Sherlock, essentially transparent.
"Right then, out with it," Hermione said briskly. "Why do you need Harry? Stop dancing around it."
"It's Professor Trelawney!" Ron burst out, exasperated. "If Harry isn't there, she puts all her attention on me! Last time Harry was absent, she spent the whole lesson declaring that the stars foretold some great misfortune heading my way, I ask you, is that not completely ridiculous?"
He grabbed Harry by the arm, eyes beseeching.
"Mate, I've taken Stunner after Stunner for you these past weeks. I'm basically held together with wishful thinking at this point. You owe me one, don't you? And you don't want your best friend getting harassed by that batty old woman, do you?"
Harry: (lll￢ω￢)
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