The Goblet of Fire | Hermione Granger x Male Reader (Book Four)

22. The Second Task

Y/N's POV

Waking up the next morning, I felt someone buried in my chest, I had forgotten what had happened the night before, but then it all came back to me. I opened my eyes and found Hermione snuggled close to me, it caused me to blush slightly. My sudden movement caused her to stir and she woke up, momentarily dazed before realising where she was and going a bright red.

"Y-Y/N...what am I doing here?" she asked.

I explained to her. "You fell asleep so I took you back to the Common Room and I couldn't go up to your dorm so I thought the logical solution was to take you to my dorm. I was going to go sleep in the Common Room downstairs but I fell asleep, sorry for that."

She looked at me, speechless. The girl who always had something to say was speechless. Turns out we had woken up later than everyone else and Harry and Ron had gone down for breakfast. I got out of bed and started changing into my weekend clothes. What I didn't realise was that Hermione had her eyes fixed on my torso. I smirked slightly. "Like what you see?"

She snapped out of it and shook her head violently. "N-no."

As soon as I had finished getting changed I waited for her to get changed in her own dorm. When she came back she told me that she ran into Ginny and that she questioned about why her bed was empty that night.

The two of us left the Common Room together and the main focus of the day was to sort the egg out. The screeching I had heard sounded oddly familiar and the two of us were in the library when I figured out what it was. "Merpeople..." I whispered.

"Hermione, follow me." I said before rushing out the library, sprinting towards the common room to collect the egg before going to the lake. When I got there, Hermione was panting. "What's happening?"

"I need to test something out." I said before frantically taking off my clothes, leaving me only in my underwear. Hermione was staring and when I jumped into the lake with the egg. I was ignoring the freezing cold and forced my eyes open and started trying to pry the egg open.

I could feel myself running out of air but I had managed to open the egg, soon enough I could hear voices:

"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 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 won't come back."

Once it had ended I shot up from underwater and started swimming towards land again. Hermione was concerned and once I told her about what the egg said, she started coming up with strategies straight away. When we got back to the Common Room, I quickly informed Harry and we were figuring out plans, Harry with Ron and me with Hermione.

The day of the second task, I was quite confident about my plan. Sure it had taken a lot of practice but I had got there. I woke up ready to go, I almost forgot about Harry, he was still asleep. I shook him awake and told him to get ready for the second task. We were meeting by the Black Lake.

"What's your plan?" I asked Harry.

He shrugged. "Neville said he had something but he never told me what it was."

I raised an eyebrow, he didn't have a solid plan. "Well, best of luck then."

The two of us made our way to the lake, we were looking for Ron and Hermione but they didn't seem to be around. We stood by where Krum and Fleur were and before Bagman signalled the start, Neville came rushing over to Harry and handed him something. We were told that we had an hour to rescue a hostage from the bottom of the lake, all of us nodded to show we understood.

Then Bagman spoke. "Well, all our champions are ready for the second task, which will start on my whistle. They have precisely an hour to recover what has been taken from them. On the count of three, then. One...two...three!"

The whistle echoed shrilly and I took a deep breath and cast the charm that I was practicing, the bubble-head charm to be precise and dived into the water, quickly trying to get to the bottom.

Silence pressed upon my ears as I soared over a strange, dark, foggy landscape. I could only see ten feet around me, so that as I sped through the water new scenes seemed to loom suddenly out of the oncoming darkness. I swam deeper and deeper, trying to get to the bottom.

When I reached the bottom, I was greeted with a strange sight, a whole crowd of merpeople were floating in front of the houses that lined what looked like a mer-version of a village square. A choir of merpeople was singing in the middle, calling the champions toward them, and behind them rose a crude sort of statue; a gigantic merperson made from a boulder. Four people were bound tightly to the tail of the stone merperson. Ron was tied between Hermione and a girl who looked no older than eight, whose clouds of silvery hair made me feel sure that she was Fleur Delacour's sister and then there was another girl whom I didn't recognise, she would be Krum's hostage.

I swam towards Hermione and use a sharp rock to cut her from the rope, without any issues from the merpeople, I grabbed her by her arm and started swimming upwards. It seemed to be quite problem-free and I was positive I was the first one out. When I emerged from the water, Hermione gave a splutter and woke up. She looked confused at first but she just held onto me tightly as I swam to where all the judges was. When I got there, Madam Pomfrey immediately gave me and Hermione towels. I was the first out.

"You ok?" I asked Hermione.

She nodded, just then Rita Skeeter decided to come over and ask for some words. Even though I tried to be nice with her the first interview, she didn't prove herself to be a pleasant person. I ended up just giving her a few words and then turning to watch the lake. I just then noticed that Fleur was already here yet her sister was still at the bottom. It turned out that she was attacked and had to forfeit. She seemed to be sobbing since she wouldn't be able to save her sister.

Just after the bell rang signifying the end of the hour and not long after, Krum emerged, carrying his hostage. He made his way over, got a towel and went off somewhere. Now we were just waiting for Harry. It was a good quarter of an hour before we saw any action in the water, at first we saw Ron emerge from the water, followed by Fleur's sister. Then Harry emerged, panting and spluttering. Everyone's attention seemed to be on Harry as Fleur rushed herself over to thank him.

After a while, the attention on Harry died out since Bagman was announcing the scores.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our decision. Merchieftainess Murcus has told us exactly what happened at the bottom of the lake, and we have therefore decided to award marks out of fifty for each of the champions, as follows. "Fleur Delacour, though she demonstrated excellent use of the Bubble-Head Charm, was attacked by Grindylows as she approached her goal, and failed to retrieve her hostage. We award her twenty-five points. Y/N L/N, who also used the Bubble-Head Charm, was first to return with his hostage and was within the time limit. We therefore award him forty-seven points."

Applause for me as I bowed and smiled to the crowd.

"Viktor Krum used an incomplete form of Transfiguration,which was nevertheless effective, and was second to return with his hostage. We award him forty points. Finally, Harry Potter used gillyweed to great effect," Bagman continued, "he returned last, and well outside the time limit of an hour. However, the Merchieftainess informed us that Mr Potter was second to reach the hostages, and that the delay in his return was due to his determination to return all hostages to safety, not merely his own. We therefore award Mr Potter fourty five points for his moral fibre."

Everyone cheered, me and Harry were now first and second in the tournament with me just leading by a few points.

"Congratulations Harry," I smiled and then added with a chuckle, "moral fibre..."