Every time Harry opened that bloody golden egg, it just screamed at him. It was getting incredibly frustrating, both for him and the other residents of Gryffindor Tower. The only good thing to come of it was the improvement of Harry's Silencing charm, once Seamus had threatened to throw both Harry and the egg out the dorm window if he didn't stop opening it indoors.
"Does yours just screech the whole time?" Harry asked wearily, sliding onto the bench of the Hufflepuff table next to Cedric. They had only sat together a handful of times since the day after the champions had been announced, but Harry was somewhat starting to get used to it. Cho offered him a wave from Cedric's other side.
"Yes," Cedric groaned, running a hand through his hair. "It's the worst, isn't it? We even tried throwing it in the fire to see if that would do anything, but I think it just made it worse."
"What he means is, Patrick got so pissed off at the noise it was making, he threw it in the fire in the hopes it would stop," Cho supplied, grinning. Harry snickered.
"I tried 'exing my egg," Fleur declared, gracefully stepping over the bench and dropping down opposite them. "Eet did not 'elp." Alongside Fleur were two other Beauxbatons students, and a couple of Ravenclaws. Harry recognised one of them as Roger Davies, the quidditch captain.
"What spells did you use? Maybe we can compare lists," Cedric said thoughtfully.
"It has got to be some sort of creature," Viktor insisted, sitting much less gracefully on Fleur's open side. He brought with him a Durmstrang boy, and Cassius Warrington. Cassius caught Harry's eye, and winked.
"We already faced a creature in the first task, though," Harry pointed out. "Surely they wouldn't just make us face a different one? That's not very imaginative."
"What if the creature is part of the clue itself?" Cedric suggested. "Like, we don't have to fight it, but knowing what it is will give us an idea of where it comes from, and that might have something to do with it."
"Or ze 'ole thing is just to waste our time, and eet will be anuzzer surprise." Fleur scowled into her soup as she spoke, clearly fed up with the egg already. Harry could definitely relate.
He saw Neville walk into the hall and do a double-take at Harry's position, and he beckoned him over, patting the bench beside him. Neville complied, though he looked a little confused at being invited into the odd group.
Neville wasn't the only extra addition, though. Like a chain reaction, people began to join them; Roger invited a Slytherin girl over, and she brought her Ravenclaw friend. One of the Beauxbatons boys with Fleur managed to flirt enough with Katie Bell to bring her to the table, which of course brought Angelina and Alicia, which naturally brought the twins and Lee Jordan. Cassius swapped places with the Durmstrang boy to sit and talk to his fellow Slytherin, and the next thing Harry knew there were four more Slytherins at the table, striking up a conversation with the Durmstrang boy in what sounded like German. Before lunch was even halfway through, the entire end third of the Hufflepuff table was taken up by students from other houses and other schools. The Hufflepuffs had just spaced themselves between them, happily joining in whichever conversation was closest.
"What if we try making all four eggs scream at the same time? To see if there's any differences?"
"NO!" was the immediate response to Cedric's casual suggestion, from everyone in the vicinity who had heard the eggs.
"I'll be so glad when you lot figure it all out," Cho declared vehemently. "I swear, I can hear that thing in my sleep these days." Neville nodded in agreement.
A hush fell over the table, and it took Harry a minute to realise it was because Dumbledore was approaching. He didn't look amused. "Mr Potter," he greeted, his voice cheerful enough. "You and several of your friends here seem to have lost your way to your house tables."
Harry wasn't sure how the headmaster could pin this one on him, or how he could declare forty-odd people, half of whom Harry had never spoken to, 'his friends'.
"There's no rules about having to sit at our tables every meal, sir," Cedric piped up innocently. "Only during formal feasts."
"We're just trying to make the other schools feel welcome," Angelina agreed. She was sat beside a Beauxbaton girl with hair down to her waist, and was fixing it in several tiny braids down her back.
Dumbledore stared at them all for a long minute, then smiled. Harry was sure he wasn't the only one who could see the angry fire hiding in those twinkling blue eyes. "Excellent, excellent." He said nothing more, continuing on his way to the head table, and slowly the chatter started back up. Harry looked up at Susan Bones, who was sat with Parvati and Lavender, discussing dress robes. Susan caught his eye and grinned.
It was beginning.
That one lunchtime seemed to have sparked a trend. Now it wasn't uncommon to go into the Great Hall and lose yourself in a group of mixed-colour robes. Of course, it didn't all change overnight — there were still large clusters of same-colour robes crowded together, looking quite disturbed by all the intermingling. But it was a start. Watching Dumbledore grit his teeth and pretend to be delighted about the development was becoming the highlight of Harry's week.
So of course, something had to bring him down.
"The Yule Ball is a tradition of the Triwizard Tournament," Professor McGonagall declared at the end of their Transfiguration lesson on Thursday, interrupting Harry's rather diligent clock-watching. The sooner she let them go, the sooner he could have a nap before dinner, because after dinner he'd be meeting with the heirs for study group. A study group that would no doubt turn into laughing about Dumbledore's anger and plotting the next step in their slow and careful uniting of the Hogwarts houses.
Well, that explained the dress robes, at any rate. The reactions of the class were a mixture from excited to downright horrified — Harry didn't think it would be so bad, really. It might actually be sort of fun. He'd never been to any sort of formal party before; or, really, any kind of party full stop. There had been one school dance in his last year of muggle primary school, but the Dursleys hadn't let him go. They ended up having to go pick up Dudley early after he pushed a boy into the snack table.
"Potter, a word, please," McGonagall called once she finally released the class, and Harry resisted the urge to swear. He was so tired. Between trying to figure out the egg, meeting with Draco, studying with the heirs and keeping up with his Arithmancy and Runes for Sirius and Remus, he wasn't getting nearly as much sleep as he probably should.
"If this is about the essay, I know I went off-topic, but I got a bit distracted," Harry started, sure that McGonagall was entirely unimpressed with the eight inch long tangent about the difference between transfigured material and conjured material — in an essay supposed to be about the practical uses of Switching spells. Harry hadn't meant to, but he'd found it fascinating, and the words just sort of spilled out. He couldn't even blame it on spending too much time with Remus in the summer; he'd been turning into a bookworm ever since the Compulsion charm had been removed.
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