"What does Professor Sprout want with Cedric, and at this time?"
After Cedric's figure disappeared with Hannah Abbott into the entrance leading to the dungeons, Harry couldn't help but frown.
The torches in the corridor crackled, orange-red light casting fragmented shadows on his face, even his signature tuft of black hair seeming to twist into knots.
"Maybe it's for tomorrow's competition?" Neville clutched the book "Mediterranean Magical Water Plants and Their Properties" in his arms.
His knuckles were slightly white, his voice carrying uncertain hesitation. "She... perhaps she wants to give Cedric some special guidance?"
"Impossible." Harry immediately shook his head, his tone unusually firm. "Champions must complete the competition tasks independently. They can't even ask classmates for help, let alone teachers."
It was precisely considering this point that they hadn't sought out Professor Lupin this time.
After all, consulting Lupin about the first task had already been testing the boundaries of the rules—going further might cause trouble.
Fortunately, compared to their helplessness when facing the dragon, they had made considerable preparations for the second task and felt somewhat confident.
Even without seeking outside help, it didn't seem to be a big deal.
"Sherlock, what do you think... where did he go?" Harry habitually turned to ask Sherlock's opinion, only to find that the figure who had been standing beside him was long gone, leaving only an empty corridor.
He froze for a moment, then sighed helplessly. "Gone again?!"
Although he was long accustomed to Sherlock's habit of leaving without a word, Harry still couldn't help feeling somewhat helpless each time this happened.
Couldn't he at least say something before leaving?
If this continued, one day when Sherlock actually went missing, they probably wouldn't realize it for ages.
Sherlock had indeed slipped away silently.
When Hannah Abbott had found Cedric earlier, saying that Professor Sprout wanted Hannah to immediately bring Cedric to the Hufflepuff Head of House's office, a bold hypothesis had gradually formed in Sherlock's mind. Now was the perfect opportunity to verify this hypothesis.
As for not saying goodbye to Harry and Neville...
There was no need—Harry was surely accustomed to this by now.
After leaving the castle, Sherlock's footsteps didn't pause for a moment as he headed straight toward the Forbidden Forest.
The cold wind swept up fallen leaves, rustling at his feet, while the outline of the distant Forbidden Forest blurred into deep indigo in the twilight.
Beauxbatons' carriage, like a giant pumpkin, still stood alone in the clearing among the trees, its silver body gleaming coldly in the dimness.
Hagrid stood beside the carriage, conversing with Madame Maxime.
Both had similar postures—tall figures standing stiffly upright, hands on hips, brows furrowed into knots.
Madame Maxime's hem swept across the dead grass on the ground, her face carrying an unnatural stiffness.
The atmosphere between them couldn't be called harmonious, but compared to their previous tension, it had clearly eased considerably.
However, there was still a long way to go before true reconciliation.
Sherlock's gaze rested on them briefly before shifting away.
Romantic relationships had always been Harry's area of expertise and had nothing to do with him.
Moreover, at this moment, his mind was occupied solely with that unverified hypothesis.
He quickly noticed that although Madame Maxime maintained vigilance, being on Hogwarts' grounds with a powerful wizard like Dumbledore nearby, her guard had inevitably relaxed somewhat.
Sherlock seized this opportunity and, taking advantage of a group of Beauxbatons students gathered around the carriage organizing luggage, slipped in unobtrusively.
He kept his eyes lowered, but his ears remained alert to the surrounding conversations.
It didn't take long before he captured the information he wanted from a few fragmented exchanges.
Having succeeded, Sherlock felt no attachment and immediately headed toward the Black Lake.
This operation had gone more smoothly than he'd anticipated.
Since he'd started winter swimming in the Black Lake some time ago, his appearances by the lake had become routine.
Even if someone saw him standing by the lake, they would only assume he was going swimming again and wouldn't think twice about it.
No one would imagine that in the next second, Sherlock would use the cover of the reeds by the lake to silently make his way to Durmstrang's large ship moored at the water's edge.
His movements were as light as a cat's, his fingertips hooking into the cracks in the ship's hull, using the shadows to move quickly, soon gaining a clear picture of the activity aboard.
When he left, he even deliberately waved leisurely at several Durmstrang students who were organizing the sails.
Those students froze, their faces full of bewilderment, clearly not understanding why this Hogwarts student would appear here.
By the time Sherlock returned to the castle, he arrived just in time for dinner.
Harry and Hermione sat in the middle of the Gryffindor table, and as soon as they saw him enter the Great Hall, they immediately waved frantically at him. Harry even nearly knocked over his pumpkin juice.
"Sherlock, where did you just go?" As soon as Sherlock sat down, Harry asked eagerly.
"Gathering intelligence," Sherlock said with a smile. "I think I already know what we'll be facing in tomorrow's task."
As soon as he said this, not only Harry, who had been talking to Sherlock, and Hermione, who had been watching him closely, but even Ron, who had been eating heartily, couldn't help but look up.
"What did you say!" His mouth was still full of food, making his words somewhat muffled.
"Let's wait until after dinner. This time the organizers actually gave me a surprise." Sherlock picked up his spoon and stirred the soup in his bowl methodically, appearing to wait for dinner to end.
Seeing that Sherlock was unwilling to say more, the three could only suppress their curiosity and temporarily focus on dinner.
After finishing dinner, the four finally sat down in a relatively quiet corner of the Gryffindor common room.
As the firelight danced on their faces, Harry could no longer contain himself. "All right, Sherlock, you can tell us now, can't you? What did you find out? What's tomorrow's task?"
Hermione leaned forward, her eyes fixed intently on Sherlock, fully focused and ready to receive information.
Ron nervously swallowed.
Sherlock habitually placed his hands together under his chin, his gaze resting on the dancing flames for a moment, as if organizing his thoughts.
When he spoke again, his low, clear voice immediately stunned Harry. "Dear Harry, I think we'll need to work as a team of two for tomorrow's task."
"What?" Harry was immediately stunned.
Hermione's brow furrowed. "Has something happened to Diggory?"
Ron: "Bloody hell!"
"You could say that." Sherlock turned to Hermione. "Do you remember the key verse the golden egg sang underwater?"
Hermione immediately began reciting:
Come seek us where our voices sound,
We cannot sing above the ground,
And while you're searching, ponder this:
We've taken what you'll sorely miss,
An hour long you'll have to look,
And to recover what we took.
But past an hour — the prospect's black
Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.
"Very accurate, Hermione," Sherlock nodded approvingly. "Word perfect."
"Hermione, did you swallow that golden egg?" Ron stared at Hermione in shock. "How do you remember it so clearly?"
Hermione didn't bother responding to him and continued asking Sherlock, "So you now know what your most precious treasure is?"
Sherlock didn't answer immediately but smiled slightly. "Let's start from the most basic facts and logic. The answer is actually already emerging—we just need to piece together those seemingly unrelated fragments."
"First point: the golden egg's song, this is the core clue, which I'll address later."
"Second point: the timing anomaly, Professor Sprout urgently wants to see Cedric at this time. Harry was quite right; she couldn't possibly give Cedric guidance regarding the Triwizard Tournament, especially less than twelve hours before the second task begins.
Given that professors were prohibited from helping champions in the first task, at this tense moment right before the second task, a Head of House specifically summons her house's champion with such seriousness.
This is by no means ordinary academic guidance or encouragement. The reasonable inference is that she's playing some mandatory role related to the competition rules."
"Third point: my investigation and corroboration, just now, I went to Beauxbatons' carriage and Durmstrang's ship."
"What!" Hermione gasped. "You infiltrated Durmstrang's ship? Sherlock, that was too dangerous!"
"Observation, Hermione, merely observation and information gathering." Sherlock said dismissively. "Just as I suspected, not long ago, both teams' champions, Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum were taken away by their respective headmasters."
"What?" This time it was Harry's turn to be surprised.
"Combining these three points, I believe the truth has surfaced." The firelight cast dancing shadows on Sherlock's face as he spoke in a summarizing tone. "In tomorrow's second task, the two champions from each of the three schools will separately dive into the Black Lake within one hour to rescue their most precious treasures—their respective team captains."
He leaned back slightly, his gray eyes sweeping over the three stunned faces as he added, "As for the surprise I mentioned earlier, it's because the organizers made the choice for me. I originally wasn't certain what my most precious thing would be, but they directly designated Cedric as our team's treasure. This saved me the trouble of guessing—a kind of logical simplification, if you will."
After a moment of silence, Hermione was the first to react.
She said with sudden realization,
"You're absolutely right, Sherlock! Rescuing the captain perfectly fits the team nature of this Triwizard Tournament. Each school's champions are carefully selected elites, and the captain is even more of a soul figure.
For each school's champions, the captain can indeed be called their most precious treasure! All three schools' captains were called away at this time, your deduction can't be wrong! Sherlock, you're simply brilliant! Absolutely remarkable!"
Harry and Ron finally reacted as well.
"It looks like we'll need to use both the Bubble-Head Charm and the diving equipment," Harry said with some relief. "Good thing we have your contingency plan, Sherlock."
Sherlock's lips curved slightly up, but he said nothing.
Although Harry was still somewhat worried about Cedric being taken to the bottom of the Black Lake, on second thought, they had made thorough preparations.
They had practiced the Bubble-Head Charm until they knew it perfectly, and the diving equipment had been checked multiple times.
Now they even knew what they would encounter underwater—when the time came, they just needed to cooperate with Sherlock to rescue Cedric.
Thinking this way, he actually felt less nervous than he had before the first task.
That night, Harry had a rare good sleep.
No nightmares, no worries. It wasn't until the next morning's sunlight streamed through the window onto his face that he slowly opened his eyes.
After breakfast, the time quickly approached nine o'clock.
The atmosphere in the castle's Great Hall gradually became tense as students gathered in small groups, quietly discussing the second task about to begin.
Because just this morning, the organizers had finally officially announced the content of the second task.
More precisely, they had recited word for word the song the golden egg sang when placed in water.
They had also explained in detail what the champions needed to do.
The three team captains from Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang participating in the Triwizard Tournament had been captured by the merpeople and taken to the bottom of the Black Lake.
The remaining two competitors' task was to rescue them within one hour.
If they exceeded one hour, just as the song said:
But past an hour, the prospect's black,
Too late, it's gone, it won't come back
After learning the specific content of the second task, the students were all greatly shocked.
They finally understood why the Triwizard Tournament had been discontinued for over a century.
The risk of the first task was already high enough—the second task was even worse.
Conducting it this recklessly, how could casualties not be high?
Regardless, at this moment the Hogwarts students united as never before, clustering around Sherlock and Harry as they walked toward the Black Lake.
"Holmes, Potter, you must rescue our prefect!"
Here the Hufflepuff badgers were shouting loudly.
"The Lion King will conquer! The Boy Who Lived will succeed!"
These were the Gryffindor lions cheering them on.
Hermione gripped Sherlock's hand tightly. Her palm was slightly sweaty, yet she still held on firmly, her eyes full of trust and encouragement. "Sherlock, I believe in you. You can definitely complete this task."
Cho Chang also walked to Harry's side, gently taking his hand.
Her hand was somewhat cold, her body trembling slightly.
She was supposedly telling Harry not to be nervous, yet she herself was more nervous than anyone.
Looking into Harry's eyes, she said earnestly, "Harry, don't be nervous. You can do this—I'll be here waiting for you to return."
After them, Luna and Ginny also expressed their blessings for Sherlock and Harry.
Next, Sherlock and Harry, surrounded by the crowd, crossed the lawn toward the Black Lake.
Stands had already been erected on the far side of the Black Lake—the very seats that had surrounded the dragon enclosure last November.
Here the spectators officially separated from the Triwizard Tournament champions.
Hogwarts' teachers and students were all heading toward the seats, holding binoculars and blankets, their faces full of anticipation and worry.
As for Sherlock and Harry, they naturally circled the lake and walked toward the judges' panel.
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