Jupiter | Harry James Potter

liv ; disturbed and dangerous

May 31st, 1995

The mood in the castle as May came to an end became excited and tense again. Everyone was looking forward to the third task, which would take place at the end of the month, or in simpler words, tomorrow. Tired of walking in on them helping Harry practice for the task all over the school, Professor McGonagall had given them permission to use the empty Transfiguration classroom at lunchtimes.

Thanks to Hermione and Jupiter, Harry had soon mastered the Impediment Curse, a spell to slow down and obstruct attackers; the Reductor Curse, which would enable him to blast solid objects out of his way; and the Four-Point Spell, a useful discovery of Hermione's that would make his wand point due north, therefore enabling him to check whether he was going in the right direction within the maze.

He was still having trouble with the Shield Charm, though. This was supposed to cast a temporary, invisible wall around himself that deflected minor curses. Jupiter had obviously volunteered to hex him, and she easily managed to shatter it with a well-placed Jelly-Legs Jinx. Harry wobbled around the room for ten minutes afterward before Hermione had found the counter-jinx. Jupiter knew it, of course, but found it too funny to free him so quickly.

"You're still doing really well, though," Hermione said encouragingly, looking down her list and crossing off those spells he had already learned as Harry shook out his sore legs while glaring at Jupiter. "Some of these are bound to come in handy."

"Come and look at this," Ron said, standing by the window. He was staring down onto the grounds. "What's Malfoy doing?"

Harry tried to stand up from his chair and nearly fell to the ground again. He gripped onto Jupiter's arm as she started to walk towards Ron.

"Was your shield really that bad?" she joked as he put most of his weight on her.

"Shove off," he scoffed, failing to hide his smirk.

"Okay," she shrugged, then pushed him off her arm. He stumbled around, then fell to the ground again.

"You're dead, Black," Harry said, using the chair next to him to pull himself up.

"Yeah, whenever you get off the ground—"

"Will you two please come over here?" Ron yelled from the window as Hermione peered out of it. Jupiter grabbed Harry by his wrist and pulled him over to the window.

On the other side of the glass, Malfoy, Nott, Zabini, Crabbe, and Goyle were standing in the shadow of a tree below. Crabbe and Goyle seemed to be keeping a lookout; both smirking while Nott and Zabini looked rather bored. Malfoy was holding his hand up to his mouth and speaking into it.

"He looks like he's using a walkie-talkie," Harry said.

"A what?" Ron and Jupiter both asked.

"Those things don't work," Hermione sighed as she turned away from the window. "Come on, Harry. Let's try that Shield Charm again."

"Mione, he's holding something small and talking to it. What if it's Skeeter?" Jupiter asked, not taking her eyes from Draco's mischievous grin as he spoke.

"Oh, it is. But trying to get information out of Malfoy isn't ever going to work, you know this. We already tried in second year and it got me a few hairballs and you three nowhere." Hermione shrugged, rolling up her sleeves as Harry begrudgingly slumped over to the center of the room again, his legs still shaking slightly as he stomped. "Right now, I'm more concerned about making sure Harry doesn't die in this task."

-

"Black, where've you been lately?"

Naomi fell onto the couch next to Jupiter as she sat in the common room with her Divination book propped open in front of her. She was sure she didn't need to study, because in all fairness, it was just simply Divination, but she needed to find something to do get her mind off of the sinking feeling in her stomach from the idea of the third task.