"Horrible news..."
Eda slumped weakly into an armchair. She had just been forced to relive everything she had done the previous night, and now she had to go see Professor McGonagall.
No matter how she looked at it, this felt like a one-way trip.
The news Clark had brought was nothing short of a bolt from the blue.
Now that her sense of shame had returned, Eda could already picture her fate a few minutes from now.
It was definitely going to be miserable.
Under everyone's "farewell" gazes, Eda, who was receiving "end-of-life care," trudged out of the common room with heavy steps.
She couldn't help asking herself over and over again, why was the distance between Gryffindor Tower and Professor McGonagall's office so unbelievably short?
Standing outside the office, Eda smoothed the wrinkles from her robes and tidied her hair before finally knocking on the wooden door.
She absolutely couldn't leave Professor McGonagall with any excuse to criticize her.
Over the years, Eda had suffered plenty from Professor McGonagall's remarkable talent for making an issue out of the smallest details.
It wasn't anything like, "Why aren't you wearing a hat?" or "Who told you to wear a hat?"
But Professor McGonagall's eyes were just as skilled at spotting problems...
Forget it.
No point bringing it up.
It's all tears...
"Come in."
Professor McGonagall's voice came from inside the office. She sounded perfectly calm.
Eda silently prayed that she'd been summoned for official business and not because of last night's outrageous behavior.
Pushing open the door, she saw Professor McGonagall writing at her desk.
"Professor, Clark said you were looking for me."
"Who told you to sit down? Stand up!" Professor McGonagall said.
She looked up at Eda. If she hadn't witnessed it herself the previous night, she never would have believed that the girl standing before her was the same madwoman who had been tearing up the dance floor.
The moment she entered, Eda was greeted with a show of authority.
She immediately sprang up from the little stool, her mind racing as she tried to figure out what to do and how she might defend herself later.
"Notify all the prefects and have them tell the students in their respective Houses to show a little restraint. They don't need to be quite so enthusiastic about expressing their feelings. This is a school. They should know where to draw the line."
Young romance wasn't a problem. At Hogwarts, it wasn't treated as one.
But this was still a school. There was no need for anyone to engage in... overly in-depth exchanges.
It was obvious that Professor McGonagall didn't want the students taking things too far.
"Understood. I'll pass the message on to all the prefects as soon as I get back," Eda answered seriously.
Looks like I got a little too carried away last night.
I missed quite a lot.
Professor McGonagall then issued several more instructions, such as paying attention to student misconduct, keeping an eye on the mood among the students, and watching for things like jealousy and romantic disputes.
It was all official business.
Although everything Professor McGonagall mentioned was work-related, Eda didn't relax in the slightest.
Professor McGonagall had always been someone who kept business and personal matters separate.
Once the official matters were finished...
The personal reckoning would begin.
But things didn't develop the way Eda had expected.
After finishing the arrangements for the work that would resume after the holiday, Professor McGonagall didn't settle scores over what had happened the previous night.
Indeed, Professor McGonagall was a very serious person, but she wasn't a stubborn old traditionalist.
She had never objected to Eda relaxing appropriately.
It was just that Eda had relaxed a little too much the previous evening.
"The second task begins on February twenty-fourth," Professor McGonagall said. "How are your preparations coming along?"
Ever since Harry had opened the golden egg in the common room that night, Eda had tossed her own golden egg into a corner to gather dust.
An entire month had passed.
Not once had Eda even glanced at it.
The golden egg itself wasn't the key to the second task.
That shrill, piercing sound was the real clue.
Opening the egg along its seam only assaulted her eardrums.
It was obvious that wasn't the correct way to open it.
Or rather, it wasn't the correct place to open it.
Until she figured out the proper method, Eda had absolutely no interest in that golden egg.
She had no hobby of torturing her own ears.
"I still haven't solved the golden egg's riddle," Eda replied. "So I haven't made any preparations at all."
Hearing that, Professor McGonagall immediately became annoyed.
"The first task ended a month ago. You've had that golden egg for an entire month, and now you're telling me you haven't prepared at all?"
Eda didn't make any excuses for herself.
She didn't mention helping decorate the castle.
She didn't mention preparing for the opening dance at the ball.
Neglect was neglect.
She truly hadn't devoted enough attention to the Triwizard Tournament.
"You spend no time researching what you should be researching, yet waste all your effort researching what you shouldn't!" Professor McGonagall scolded. "If you'd spent the time you used figuring out dance moves on studying the golden egg, you would have uncovered the clue to the second task by now!"
Professor McGonagall was genuinely angry with Eda's attitude.
Even a lion uses its full strength when hunting a rabbit.
No matter how much stronger Eda was than the other three champions, she should still have treated the competition seriously instead of approaching it as carelessly as she had.
"I was wrong."
Eda immediately admitted her mistake, and she did so with complete sincerity.
"Don't give me that!" Professor McGonagall snapped. "You've been like this since you were little. The moment someone criticizes you, you put on this act of eagerly admitting your mistakes while never actually changing. Stop making that face at me!"
"I'll definitely change this time. Really." Eda patted her chest as she promised. "I've already realized how serious my mistake was. I shouldn't have been so careless, and I shouldn't have underestimated my opponents..."
One thousand five hundred words of self-reflection omitted...
The trick didn't have to be new. It just had to work.
As long as she admitted her mistakes enthusiastically and sincerely enough, Professor McGonagall usually wouldn't continue lecturing her.
Of course, if Professor McGonagall ever caught her making the exact same mistake again...
She might as well prepare her own funeral.
Professor McGonagall didn't continue criticizing her.
The child had grown up.
She wasn't so easy to discipline anymore.
If she spoke too harshly, she worried about hurting Eda's pride.
If she spoke too gently, she worried it wouldn't have any effect.
That concern was somewhat unnecessary.
When it came to people she considered her own, Eda's skin was as thick as a castle wall.
After a long silence, Professor McGonagall sighed.
"Forget it. You've heard these words enough times already, and I'm tired of saying them. Think carefully about the tournament yourself."
With that, she dismissed Eda.
However, despite her stern words, Professor McGonagall had a soft heart after all.
Still worried, she called out just as Eda was about to leave the office.
"Do you know what media sound can travel through?"
"I do," Eda answered. "Air..."
Professor McGonagall raised a hand to stop her.
"Go on. Go back and think carefully about what I just said."
Although cheating was practically a Triwizard Tournament tradition, Professor McGonagall disliked that tradition immensely.
That was also why, before the first task, she had neither helped Eda nor Harry.
Since Eda hadn't solved the riddle, Harry almost certainly hadn't either.
Given the relationship between the two of them, as soon as one of them discovered the clue, the other would know it soon afterward.
Now there were less than two months left before the second task.
They still had to uncover the clue, determine what the second task actually was, and come up with a way to deal with it.
Time was becoming rather tight.
With no other choice, Professor McGonagall reluctantly went against her own principles.
She could have simply told Eda the answer outright.
Instead, she chose not to.
On the way back to Gryffindor Tower, Eda kept thinking about Professor McGonagall's question.
The question had seemed completely unrelated to the rest of their conversation.
Even someone with poor reasoning skills could understand what Professor McGonagall was trying to imply.
The medium through which sound traveled was the key to solving the riddle.
It was Professor McGonagall's hint.
Sound is produced by vibrations that create sound waves, which travel through a medium before being perceived by the hearing organs of humans or animals.
There are many media through which sound can travel, generally divided into solids, liquids, and gases.
On the night the first task ended, Harry had opened the golden egg.
Its ghostly wailing had filled everyone's ears, yet no one could understand what the sound meant.
Now Professor McGonagall had asked about the transmission of sound.
Clearly, she was hinting that if Eda wanted to understand what the golden egg was "saying," she needed to find the proper medium for the sound to travel through.
Gas was obviously out of the question.
That had already been proven to be the wrong way to open it.
Did she need to imitate the deaf Beethoven, bite down on a tuning fork, and use bone conduction?
Eda imagined herself clamping one end of a tuning fork between her teeth while pressing the other end against the golden egg.
What a magnificent image that would be.
...
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