Chapter 370
Cassandra clearly hadn’t expected Harry to ask that question. She forced a strained smile.
"You’re asking when you already know the answer."
"I don’t know anything." Harry spread his hands, looking every inch the shameless rogue.
Cassandra let out a soft breath and flipped back Harry’s covers.
"Time to get up, my master."
As she spoke, she hauled Harry upright with all the mercy one shows a Mandrake.
Harry clearly hadn’t expected Cassandra to move so fast. By the time he came to his senses, he was already dressed in the clothes she had put on him.
"Go eat," Cassandra said. "I’ve already told Kreacher to prepare dinner."
Yawning, Harry slipped on his slippers and shuffled out of the bedroom.
He reached the dining room downstairs, and the instant he stepped inside, a lavish dinner materialised on the table.
No wonder everyone wanted a house-elf. At this level of professionalism, they were the undisputed kings of domestic service.
Dinner was a very traditional British affair—Yorkshire puddings, liver pie, the works. Only a native Brit like Harry could stomach this stuff; anyone else would lose their appetite on sight.
Who in their right mind actually enjoys British food?
"Aren’t you eating?" Harry asked as he sat down, glancing back at Cassandra standing dutifully beside him.
"I already ate," Cassandra replied with a reserved smile, every bit the perfect head maid. "Back at Hogwarts."
"What did you have?"
Harry forked up a piece of Yorkshire pudding.
"Beef tripe stew, cream of mushroom soup, smoked salmon, and some garlic-butter baguette with beef curry," Cassandra answered.
"And to drink?"
Harry took a deep breath—like a man marching to the gallows—and shoved the Yorkshire pudding into his mouth.
Yorkshire pudding isn’t the dessert most people imagine. It’s more of a savoury bread, soft on the inside, crisp outside, shaped like a coffee cup with a sunken, fluffy centre. If you had to compare it to something, it looks a bit like an egg tart with the egg scooped out.
Because it soaks up gravy so well, it’s usually served with roast beef.
Truth be told, Yorkshire pudding isn’t bad. In fact, it’s pretty good.
But for a Brit like Harry, it was a menu staple.
In other words, he was utterly sick of it.
"A butterbeer," Cassandra said. "With Sweeting."
Harry glanced at the table. No butterbeer in sight—just a single glass of red wine.
He flashed Cassandra a bloodthirsty grin.
"Don’t look at me like that. I know exactly what you’re thinking, Potter," Cassandra said with disgust. "Fine... If you really don’t want to eat this, I’ll have Kreacher make something else instead of letting you take it out on me."
"No, no, I like it," Harry said with a laugh, and kept eating his "nutrients."
Honestly, what does dear old Blighty even have going for it? Even eating feels like punishment...
After dinner, Harry rubbed his slightly bloated stomach.
Even if the food wasn’t delicious, you still had to eat properly.
Waste not—his life motto.
"Time for your bath," Cassandra reminded him expressionlessly. "Your egg needs to be opened underwater. Remember the siren legend I told you about?"
Oh. Right. The siren.
If she hadn’t mentioned it, Harry would have forgotten—the bath was the whole point.
The bathroom in the old Black house was huge—at least Harry thought so.
Probably thanks to an Undetectable Extension Charm; it looked bigger than the Great Hall at Hogwarts.
Harry stripped off his clothes in three quick moves and was about to dive in when a startled yelp came from behind him.
He turned to see Cassandra with both hands clapped over her eyes.
"What are you doing?" Harry asked.
"...Pervert," Cassandra finally managed after a long pause.
Pervert?
"What’s wrong with a man being a pervert?" Harry asked, genuinely puzzled. "Besides, helping the master bathe is part of a maid’s duties, Cassandra—"
"Fine, I get it."
The proud Miss Malfoy forced herself forward, trying very hard not to look where she shouldn’t.
"Here’s your towel." She placed it neatly folded on the side. "And your egg—oh, the golden egg."
"I really need to put you on a leash," Harry muttered through gritted teeth.
He took the golden egg, turned, and cannonballed into the pool.
"Remember—open it underwater," Cassandra called. "I’d rather not have that shrieking pierce my eardrums again, all right?"
Harry nodded, submerged the egg beneath the foam-covered surface, and opened it...
This time it didn’t scream.
A bubbling song poured out instead. He couldn’t make out the words from above the water.
Jackpot!
Joy surged through him—this had to be the right way.
"Put your head under!" Cassandra shouted. "You can’t hear properly from up here. Go fully underwater."
Harry didn’t reply. He took a deep breath and ducked under.
Now fully submerged, he could hear strange voices singing in chorus from the open egg:
"Come seek us where our voices sound, We cannot sing above the ground. While searching, think, and ponder well: We’ve taken what you love most dear. You have but one short hour to find And reclaim what we have taken away. Once the hour has passed, hope is gone— It will be lost forevermore."
Harry surfaced, shaking water from his hair and flicking it out of his eyes.
"Did you hear it?" Cassandra called loudly. "That must be the right way, right, Harry?"
"I heard it," Harry answered, then repeated, "’Come seek us where our voices sound...’ Wait, I forgot the rest. I need to hear it again."
He ducked under once more.
He looped the song several times until he had the lyrics memorised perfectly.
Leaning against the pool’s edge, he pondered every possibility while Cassandra watched from the side.
"I have to find creatures who can’t make their voices heard on land..." Harry murmured. "Hmm... who could that be?"
"You’re as thick as ever, Potter..."
Cassandra lifted her chin and looked down at him imperiously.
"Remember the story I told you before?"
"You mean..." Realisation dawned on Harry. "You mean sirens? Dumbledore and the others got sirens for the second task? Like the dragons for the first task—another trial with sirens?"
Cassandra rolled her eyes. She’d truly had enough of Potter’s stupidity.
No idea how Grindelwald ever put up with this level of dimness.
"Not sirens," Cassandra said. "Besides sirens, plenty of magical creatures live underwater—grindylows, merpeople..."
"You think it might be merpeople?" Harry scratched his head. "That... could make sense."
"I already told you," Cassandra said softly, walking to the pool’s edge. "How much longer are you going to bathe, Potter?"
"Won’t you join me?" Harry asked. "Remember what you promised?"
Cassandra froze. She really had forgotten about that earlier "compensation" request for sharing a bath.
She hadn’t exactly agreed at the time, but her presence here meant she had tacitly accepted it.
She closed her eyes, sighed, lifted her skirt hem, and slowly descended the steps beside Harry.
Harry, being the little devil he was, suddenly stood up and yanked her forward. Cassandra stumbled—splash!—and fell straight into the water.
"Potter!" Cassandra flushed with anger.
"You promised," Harry raised an eyebrow. "Or are you going back on your word?"
With that, his mischievous hands slid toward her waist.
Cassandra’s thin lips trembled. After a long moment she said, "Potter! This is the last time!"
Whether it was really the last time, Harry didn’t know—but he knew it was the first.
And once there was a first, the second and third would follow easily enough.
After thoroughly "discussing life ideals" with Cassandra, a very satisfied Harry finally left the bath. He didn’t leave her staring blankly at the bathroom ceiling either; instead he gently carried her back to the bedroom.
Evidently the old saying "first time’s awkward, second time’s smooth" held true. After tonight, Cassandra really did become much gentler—at least she no longer picked faults with everything Harry did.
At the very least, she no longer showed obvious resistance when she saw him.
While the other students were still savouring the last dregs of holiday spirit, the new term sneaked up on them. Christmas break, after all, wasn’t forever.
The school calendar didn’t care about anyone’s dreams of an eternal romance with vacation; it simply crushed every would-be slacker beneath its wheels.
Of course, "slacker" here specifically meant anyone who hadn’t finished Snape’s holiday homework.
Normally no one was suicidal enough to try it—everyone knew what happened when you angered Snape.
Yet there were always one or two rare souls who thought they could challenge Snape’s authority... and were promptly cut down.
"Idiots," Ron gloated as he and Hermione critiqued the victims. "See? I knew better than to skip Snape’s homework."
"Oh, shut up, Ronald!" Hermione rolled her eyes. "If you’ve forgotten exactly how your homework got finished, I’d be happy to remind you."
Ron shrugged and said nothing.
He was afraid that if he opened his mouth, Snape would materialise behind him and dock points on the spot.
Even after Christmas break, thick snow still blanketed the grounds. The greenhouse windows were frosted with tiny beads of condensation; during Herbology you couldn’t see a thing outside.
In weather like this, nobody wanted Care of Magical Creatures—though Ron insisted Blast-Ended Skrewts might warm things up, either by chasing students around or exploding in showers of sparks and setting Newt’s tent on fire.
"Class, this is a necessary pain," Newt said, trying to calm both the Skrewts and the students alongside Hagrid.
No one believed him. Those Skrewts looked anything but friendly, especially with the loud crackling sparks shooting out of their backsides.
"Have you figured out the egg yet?" Hermione asked worriedly. "I heard Beauxbatons’ champion already solved theirs..."
Harry recited the song he’d memorised. He knew Hermione was brilliant at this sort of thing.
"Hard to say," Hermione said, wrinkling her nose. "The problem is... ’what you love most dear.’ What’s the most precious thing to you?"
"My Firebolt?" Harry ventured. "You know how much I love Quidditch. The Firebolt really is my favourite thing."
"Maybe," Hermione said, shaking her head. "But it should be something that’s always with you. First we rule out your wand—they’d let you bring that into the task... Hmm... Love? No way... They’re hiding a ’treasure,’ but I refuse to believe anyone could sneak into the Greater German Ministry of Magic, stun Veratia, and dump her in the lake... Though if someone managed that, I’d crown them the strongest carbon-based lifeform of the twentieth century..."
"But right now," Hermione continued, "what you really need to worry about is surviving underwater for an hour. That’s the key—don’t you think?"
"Oh, easy. Bubble-Head Charm," Harry shrugged. "It lasts over two hours, and if you cast it strong enough, it can hold for weeks."
"In that case, no problem," Hermione said cheerfully. "I believe in you, Harry. As long as you can stay underwater for an hour, nothing will stop you—whatever that ’most precious thing’ turns out to be. It’s just a question of how fast you finish, right?"
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Harry thought to himself—truth be told, he wasn’t particularly worried about the second task.
"So..."
Hermione suddenly leaned in close, glanced at Cassandra quietly eating beside Harry, and whispered, "What’s going on with Miss Malfoy? I thought she hated your guts and looked down on you. Why is she so... well, docile now?"
"Because she’s been thoroughly conquered," Harry said, spreading his hands.
Conquered?
Hermione looked Harry up and down, thought for a moment, and decided not to voice the hurtful comment on the tip of her tongue.
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