Fate Set Right

Chapter 26

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January 16, 1995

"When is the next task again?" Draco asked as he shifted the golden egg in his grip.

"About a month from now," Harry replied, rubbing his hands together to ward off the chill. "I haven't made any headway with it. All it does is screech when I open it."

"May I hear it?" Luna asked.

"No!" Aurora, Ginny, and Ron all shouted, having had enough of hearing the cursed thing already.

"It may help to get a fresh perspective," she said with a light smile, and while she had a point, Aurora just couldn't imagine listening to the screech one more time.

"Think Krum's morning swim is related?" Draco asked, glancing toward the Black Lake from where they all sat near the castle.

"Dunno, but he's bloody mad for diving in, ain't he?" Ron commented, looking at Draco as if he forgot for a moment he was supposed to hate him.

"It's way colder where he's from," Ginny said with a shrug.

"Chatting him up?" Draco teased, and Ginny's cheeks went nearly as red as her hair.

"Shut it," she mumbled, though Aurora shot the redhead a knowing smirk.

While Ginny had yet to truly tease her about what she'd seen at the ball, Aurora had heard her fair share of jabs. Ginny had taken to pointing out every sprig of mistletoe around the common room and anywhere in the castle as they passed. The teasing doubled if Fred was around, though he seemed to think it was all a laugh. However, there were plenty of times when Ginny was nowhere to be found, and Aurora was now coming to understand exactly where her friend had been disappearing to.

"Have you tried putting it underwater?" Luna said thoughtfully, breaking up what could have very well been another argument between the Weasley siblings.

Everyone turned to look at her, and she grinned slyly. "Well, it does seem a bit odd that Viktor is taking a chilly dip every day, even if Bulgaria is much colder. And one of the prefects said that Cedric has been visiting the prefects' bathroom very frequently lately. If it's as horrid as you all say it, it could be Mermish."

"A bath sounds better than diving into the lake," Harry mused. "But the tubs in the tower aren't deep enough to hold the egg."

"Which is probably why Diggory used the prefects' bathroom," Draco pointed out.

"But I'm not a prefect," Harry reminded him. "None of us are, and the bathroom has a password."

"Leave it to me, then."

—————S—————

January 22, 1995

A bloody awful racket threw Severus' mind a good nine years in the past in his half-awake state; he immediately had his wand in hand, charging to his children's rooms. They, of course, were not infants, let alone in their beds, and the noise he heard was not an alarm.

His relief was short-lived; the sound still meant that there was something going on not far from his rooms. Quickly grabbing a pair of lounge pants and a robe from his room, he dressed as he moved to see what was going on in the hall.

He headed toward what sounded suspiciously like a banshee. Determined as he was, he nearly missed the fact that there was light in his office. He paused, staring suspiciously at the crack under the door. He didn't set strong wards on it, the entrance to his rooms only accessible to his wife and children, and while his private stores were accessible through it, it was also accessible via the corridor a floor above.