"You lot need to think about more than just diving underwater."
Hermione had already mastered the Banishing Charm, so she gave up on the random "Cushion Collision Match" happening in the classroom and made her way over to the table where Harry and Cohen were sitting. She offered them a concerned warning:
"There are all sorts of underwater creatures—merpeople train things like grindylows, hippocampi, lobalugs… You need to be ready for them."
"Good thing Professor Lupin already taught us how to deal with grindylows—ow!" Harry had just fished a choking water vole out of a tank, only to be bitten in retaliation.
Wincing in pain, Harry dropped the wet, angry vole, which immediately bolted off the table.
"Earl will probably finish it off," Cohen sighed. "It's a shame. It could've walked away after helping Harry with the experiment…"
"But what exactly is a hippocampus?" Harry asked as he rubbed the red mark where the vole had bitten him, turning to Hermione and Cohen.
"It's a water creature—front half horse, back half fish. They're quite common in Scotland," Hermione replied with concern. "I'm not sure if they're in the Black Lake, but I found several books about them in the common room. I can show you after class."
"No idea how strong it is, but I bet it's no match for my basilisk," Cohen said in the tone of a seasoned Pokémon trainer.
"I'm starting to regret this a bit…" Harry muttered to Cohen under his breath.
If he hadn't "broken up" with the little basilisk, maybe he could've borrowed it from Cohen to help out with all the underwater dangers…
——
Time flew by, and before they knew it, it was the day before the second task.
The champions' families had also arrived early. When Edward and the others heard from Cohen that the next task involved retrieving something underwater, they were relieved—it sounded at least a little safer than dragons.
"Figured out how you're going to breathe underwater yet?" Edward asked. "If not, I know a spell—"
"I don't even need to breathe…" Cohen said calmly. "So that's nothing to worry about. Is the Loyalty Charm at home still working properly?"
"Of course it is. Why are you asking that all of a sudden?" Edward looked confused.
"Because…" Cohen was about to mention the future he had glimpsed, but when he saw Edward's face, he swallowed the words. "Just worried you might run into trouble—you know your situation isn't exactly safe."
"Don't treat us like we're that fragile," Edward said with a chuckle, ruffling Cohen's hair. "If things get messy, your mum and I can still handle ourselves."
"That's what we call raising a flag—don't tempt fate. Just look at what happened to France," Cohen warned. "Keep an eye out and avoid shady people. It's not a 'coincidence' that Harry and I both got selected for the Triwizard Tournament…"
Cohen asked about how things were going at home. Edward assured him everything was normal—they hadn't interacted with anyone besides Muggles lately.
And no one had tried to pluck their hair, either.
"So… who did you invite to the Yule Ball?" Edward finally asked the dreaded question. "The paper said your date had silver hair… How old is she? Which house is she in? What's her name? Are you planning to—"
"Stop, stop, stop!" Cohen quickly cut him off, having anticipated this moment. "It's not like that—she's just a unicorn who temporarily turned into a human."
"What?!" Edward stared at him, stunned and utterly baffled. "I thought—but then—wait… what?!"
There was a five-second silence.
"Well… if you do like unicorns," Edward began cautiously, "your mum and I wouldn't—"
"Don't twist it!" Cohen groaned, clutching his forehead. "She's just a partner to fulfill the school's requirement, not someone I'm marrying—I knew you'd freak out, that's why I didn't just pick a random girl at school."
"Phew…" Edward visibly relaxed. "For a second there, I thought my grandkids were going to be a whole different species…"
"They probably won't be human anyway," Cohen said flatly. "So maybe don't get your hopes up."
Every relative except Rose seemed overly invested in this topic—even Herbert, who acted like Cohen was forty-one instead of fourteen.
"I'm still three years from being of age," Cohen reminded them wearily.
Back at the castle, Cohen found Harry looking anxious.
Harry had actually learned the Bubble-Head Charm, which would let him breathe underwater for a whole hour—but in the end, he decided to take Cohen's "fish tank helmet" with him, just in case.
"I'll pretend I used the Bubble-Head Charm," Harry mumbled nervously. He had a feeling his nerves might mess things up when he dove into the lake for the first time. "Hey Cohen, can I borrow your little pouch—the one that holds loads of stuff?"
"Take it. I won't be needing it then anyway," Cohen replied with a wave of his hand.
Dumbledore still hadn't come to Cohen with any news about removing a certain creature from his magical box, which meant Cohen already had a good guess who was going to be taken underwater as "Cohen's treasure."
And the next day's task confirmed it.
——
The morning of the second task, Cohen and Harry arrived at the lake. Seating had been set up all around, looking like it had been cobbled together from the arena used in the first challenge.
Ten minutes before the start, the place was already packed. The judges sat at a long table closest to the lake, draped in a gold cloth.
Cedric, Krum, and Fleur were already standing in front of it.
Umbridge, who had temporarily replaced Fudge during the first task, was gone. This time, Fudge himself had shown up—probably because Umbridge's ridiculously low score had alerted him to the risk Cohen posed. Now Fudge was stuck in a state of not wanting to antagonize Cohen, but also wanting to get rid of him.
Just like Karkaroff, Fudge kept avoiding eye contact with Cohen.
"Everyone's here—excellent," Mr. Crouch announced, touching his throat with his wand and casting a Sonorus charm.
"Our champions are ready," he told the audience. "Once the whistle blows, the second task will begin. They'll have exactly one hour to retrieve the item that was taken from them. On the count of three—one… two…"
But Cohen wasn't paying attention to Crouch. He was scanning the crowd.
Rose and Herbert were there—but Edward was missing.
So it really was Edward who got taken…
"Three!"
With Crouch's final word, Hagrid—clearly part of the "hype team"—blew a loud whistle.
The second task had begun.