Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 
 
 
The Second Task 
“You said you’d already worked out that egg clue!” said Hermione indignantly. 
“Keep your voice down!” said Harry crossly. “I just need to - sort of fine-tune it, all right?” 
He, Ron, and Hermione were sitting at the very back of the Charms class with a table to 
themselves. They were supposed to be practicing the opposite of the Summoning Charm today - 
the Banishing Charm. Owing to the potential for nasty accidents when objects kept flying across 
the room. Professor Flitwick had given each student a stack of cushions on which to practice, the 
theory being that these wouldn’t hurt anyone if they went off target. It was a good theory, but it 
wasn’t working very well. Neville’s aim was so poor that he kept accidentally sending much 
heavier things flying across the room - Professor Flitwick, for instance.
“Just forget the egg for a minute, all right?” Harry hissed as Professor Flitwick went whizzing 
resignedly past them, landing on top of a large cabinet. “I’m trying to tell you about Snape and 
Moody…” 
This class was an ideal cover for a private conversation, as everyone was having far too much 
fun to pay them any attention. Harry had been recounting his adventures of the previous night in 
whispered installments for the last half hour. 
“Snape said Moodys searched his office as well?” Ron whispered, his eyes alight with interest as 
he Banished a cushion with a sweep of his wand (it soared into the air and knocked Parvati’s hat 
off). “What… d’you reckon Moody’s here to keep an eye on Snape as well as Karkaroff?” 
“Well, I dunno if that’s what Dumbledore asked him to do, but he’s definitely doing it,” said 
Harry, waving his wand without paying much attention, so that his cushion did an odd sort of 
belly flop off the desk. “Moody said Dumbledore only lets Snape stay here because he’s giving 
him a second chance or something…” 
“What?” said Ron, his eyes widening, his next cushion spinning high into the air, ricocheting off 
the chandelier, and dropping heavily onto Flitwick’s desk. “Harry… maybe Moody thinks Snape 
put your name in the Goblet of Fire!” 
“Oh Ron,” said Hermione, shaking her head sceptically, “we thought Snape was trying to kill 
Harry before, and it turned out he was saving Harry’s life, remember?” 
She Banished a cushion and it flew across the room and landed in the box they were all supposed 
to be aiming at. Harry looked at Hermione, thinking… it was true that Snape had saved his life 
once, but the odd thing was, Snape definitely loathed him, just as he’d loathed Harry’s father 
when they had been at school together. Snape loved taking points from Harry, and had certainly 

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never missed an opportunity to give him punishments, or even to suggest that he should be 
suspended from the school. 
“I don’t care what Moody says,” Hermione went on. “Dumbledore’s not stupid. He was right to 
trust Hagrid and Professor Lupin, even though loads of people wouldn’t have given them jobs, so 
why shouldn’t he be right about Snape, even if Snape is a bit -” 
“- evil,” said Ron promptly. “Come on, Hermione, why are all these Dark wizard catchers 
searching his office, then?” 
“Why has Mr. Crouch been pretending to be ill?” said Hermione, ignoring Ron. “Its a bit funny, 
isn’t it, that he can’t manage to come to the Yule Ball, but he can get up here in the middle of the 
night when he wants to?” 
“You just don’t like Crouch because of that elf, Winky,” said Ron, sending a cushion soaring 
into the window. 
“You just want to think Snapes up to something,” said Hermione, sending her cushion zooming 
neatly into the box. 
“I just want to know what Snape did with his first chance, if he’s on his second one,” said Harry 
grimly, and his cushion, to his very great surprise, flew straight across the room and landed 
neatly on top of Hermione’s.
Obedient to Sirius’s wish of hearing about anything odd at Hogwarts, Harry sent him a letter by 
brown owl that night, explaining all about Mr. Crouch breaking into Snape s office, and Moody 
and Snape’s conversation. Then Harry turned his attention in earnest to the most urgent problem 
facing him: how to survive underwater for an hour on the twenty-fourth of February. 
Ron quite liked the idea of using the Summoning Charm again - Harry had explained about 
Aqua-Lungs, and Ron couldn’t see why Harry shouldn’t Summon one from the nearest Muggle 
town. Hermione squashed this plan by pointing out that, in the unlikely event that Harry 
managed to learn how to operate an Aqua- Lung within the set limit of an hour, he was sure to be 
disqualified for breaking the International Code of Wizarding Secrecy - it was too much to hope 
that no Muggles would spot an Aqua-Lung zooming across the countryside to Hogwarts. 
“Of course, the ideal solution would be for you to Transfigure yourself into a submarine or 
something,” Hermione said. “If only we’d done human Transfiguration already! But I don’t think 
we start that until sixth year, and it can go badly wrong if you don’t know what you’re doing…” 
“Yeah, I don’t fancy walking around with a periscope sticking out of my head,” said Harry. “I 
s’pose I could always attack someone in front of Moody; he might do it for me…” 
“I don’t think he’d let you choose what you wanted to be turned into, though,” said Hermione 
seriously. “No, I think your best chance is some sort of charm.”

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So Harry, thinking that he would soon have had enough of the library to last him a lifetime, 
buried himself once more among the dusty volumes, looking for any spell that might enable a 
human to survive without oxygen. However, though he, Ron, and Hermione searched through 
their lunchtimes, evenings, and whole weekends - though Harry asked Professor McGonagall for 
a note of permission to use the Restricted Section, and even asked the irritable, vulture-like 
librarian Madam Pince, for help - they found nothing whatsoever that would enable Harry to 
spend an hour underwater and live to tell the tale. 
Familiar flutterings of panic were starting to disturb Harry now, and he was finding it difficult to 
concentrate in class again. The lake, which Harry had always taken for granted as just another 
feature of the grounds, drew his eyes whenever he was near a classroom window, a great, iron-
gray mass of chilly water, whose dark and icy depths were starting to seem as distant as the 
moon. 
Just as it had before he faced the Horntail, time was slipping away as though somebody had 
bewitched the clocks to go extra-fast. There was a week to go before February the twenty-fourth 
(there was still time)… there were five days to go (he was bound to find something soon)… three 
days to go (please let me find something… please)… With two days left. Harry started to go off 
food again. The only good thing about breakfast on Monday was the return of the brown owl he 
had sent to Sirius. He pulled off the parchment, unrolled it, and saw the shortest letter Sirius had 
ever written to him.