The successful end of the first task was on everyone's mind for quite a while. It had power, beauty, daring and skill as each champion approached the challenge in different ways.
The most obvious change which came from the event was how people viewed Harry's participation. He faced the most dangerous beast and came out second, only behind me and securing the 1st and 2nd spots for Hogwarts as a result. So now people are at least not harassing the poor kid and his house is finally backing him up, even if a good amount of girls are still fangirling over me. The only problem is that he's kind of becoming lazy after the win and does not seem to be trying to really figure out the egg or prepare for the next task properly.
Fleur was getting even more attention from the boys after her display with the dragon. Her aura had so much influence on them I had to break its hold during the morning after, basically sobering them right up through sheer aura. This helped snap most people out of their daydreams, but many of the weak minded and cockheaded guys were still drooling over her every motion. I was thankful Ron wasn't in this faction, made me feel better about him being one of my club successors. To counteract this, James actually volunteered to basically be her escort/tutor since he was already spending a good amount of time with her. And since she was able to get a proper feel for her Veela quarter, Fleur has been pretty determined to get over her rejection of it, letting her have sizable progress in that area.
Viktor's situation was the one which stayed the most constant. He continued to train himself everyday, spar with Christian regularly and tried to approach Hermione on multiple occasions. He still had a group of fans trying to follow him everywhere, resulting in him completely ignoring them.
On the egg situation, well it's not very hard for someone who already knows the solution to figure it out. It was also very easy for me to recognize anything that has to do with merpeople for a few reasons: Christian and I have a pretty good relationship with the clan in the Black Lake since First year, we are both fluent in Mermish, and with all the interactions Natural Cultivation has with them due to the aquatic farmstead project, I have an enormous amount of recorded data on them.
So I just went to the pretty swanky prefect bathroom, which is honestly more of a heated pool instead of a bath, but it is great to soak in.
'It does have its perks to be the Head Boy' I thought as I relaxed my tense body in the warm water.
After soaking for a bit, I decided to open the egg and experience the clue to be 100% sure of the task. So I simply submerged it into the warm water, opened it and went under. I could then immediately hear the eerie chorus coming from the egg.
"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 com back."
I closed the egg up and put it away after I finished up with my actual bath.
'It looks like it will remain the same as before for this task as well. Not a big surprise since they planned these in advance and won't just change them all because of one student. But the clan members involved in this egg were really dramatic when they made it. I wonder who it was, because now I feel like teasing them.' I thought with a little smile as I dressed myself and left the bathroom.
Since it was the same task, I was more than prepared for it as well. Now I just needed to wait for a while before mentioning any type of clues to the other three.
Having the egg and task figured out, I then decided to dive into my own research. It had been a while since i completely did so, letting Cedric run the exchange for a bit and having Christian and Viktor cover for me in the club.
During this time, I was finally able to properly crack the proper spell system to combine my new fire with magic. This meant I could systematically categorize my abilities and recreate some versions of it for normal wizards to use. It would also let me deepen my understanding of my original spell Protego Sanctum.
So I might have gone on a rampage of developing new spells which may or may not be classifiable as holy. I know it is kind of cringe, but I swear that's the best way I can describe these new spells of mine. They are basically either originals or preexisting spells I enhanced to fit this system of mine.
Most of the new 'Holy' spells I could come up with were healing related, or more accurately they were closer to the term purification than healing. This was basically different levels of power for the erasure of curses and their effects on the human body. This meant that one didn't need to have a complex understanding of each and every curse to hopefully figure out the cure for them. Healers would be able learn the different levels of this spell to do the job. The invocation involved a person making a downward stroke and then an S motion back up, then saying the invocation of 'mundet'.
The spell itself simply means cleanse, and to use the strengthened versions, one simply needs to fill the proper criteria like my other original. You need a pure core which has at least gone through a proper first maturation for the basic levels of the spells like 'mundet' and 'mundet fortis', which are capable of getting rid of minor and some standard curses. This is actually a basic healer spell, mostly because you still need to know about the human body to properly restore the wound after it had been cleansed. The next levels simply need an untainted core at the second maturation, which should be capable of removing even a strong curses effect using 'mundet magna', and the last step needs at least a peak second maturation core to unleash 'mundet suprema' which is capable of cleansing pretty much any curse I could think of.
But like I said, the spell does not actually heal. What it does is remove the dark magic from a person or objects without damaging them. So after they are cleansed, they need an actual healer to fix the damages done.
The second holiest spell i made during my fervor was 'lux', a lumos variant basically. It has the same general conditions as 'mundet' when it comes to core requirements, but the wand motion is a simple circle as the wand points upward. The effect is basically what happens to what happens to movie vampires when they are exposed to the sun, but for tainted and dark beings/creatures. I made a holy light spell so to speak. But just to be clear, exposed people or creatures won't just turn to ash, but it will burn them and cause great amounts of pain depending on the level of corruption and the strength of the spell. This is considered to be an offensive spell if you want to be technical about it, mostly because of its effects. The only difference is that 'lux' is for 1st stage cores and the stronger version, 'lux sancta', is for 2nd and above, with the power you put into the spell corresponding with the effect. The more magic you stuff it with, the more powerful. Pretty straightforward. And it has the added benefit of having a similar effect as the Patronus on Dementors from what I theorized.
Those were my two originals in the category of 'holy' spells, which now counted three official spells. The rest of my results were mostly me enhancing standard healing spells with the properties of Phoenix flames, boosting their level to near Parselmagic strength. And I made a few new fire spells which are pretty useless for me since I can do it naturally, but I plan on teaching them to my friends.
After I came out of my isolation, I believe you can call it, I found out that the Yule Ball was officially announced by the judges panel and that all champions had to find dates since they would be opening the Ball. They also scheduled proper dance lessons for everyone, in the hopes of not (in the words of our Deputy-Headmistress) looking like a bunch of babbling bumbling band of baboons.
Lucky for me however, was that mother had my tutors hammer every lesson a noble might need in his life deep into me. So even though I had not actually danced in a long time, I was able to shake the rust off with ease and even add grace to my steps after a while.
But there was the problem of girls everywhere looking at me with almost predatory eyes. They also kept sending weird hints, love potion infused chocolate, enchanted items and some of them were straight trying to chase me. Too bad for them I already knew who I wanted and nothing was going to stop me from getting her.
And I am not above a little romance to ask. So what I did was bring her to the Black Lake one night and form a frozen platform the two of us could ride on as I controlled it. I pushed us far enough away from the shore and waved my hand a bit to calm the water around us, then form some gentle silver lights and make the float. I know that even if Victoria is a proud young woman, she still hopes to be able to have romantic acts done for her, so I don't hesitate to do so.
As the moon shined down on us and we looked at the stars, I turned and looked at her shining black hair, her beautiful face and striking eyes.
"Tory, will you be my date for the Yule Ball?" I asked her in a warm voice.
"Didn't you want to keep it a secret for a bit longer?" She asked a little worried about our future plans.
"I honestly can't see myself dancing with anyone else. And your own project has been getting closer and closer to completion. All you need is the permission of St. Mungo's to start the trial on the Longbottom's. Plus I kind of want people to know you're mine and that I'm yours." I answered as I was trying to explain my actions.
All I get was a small giggle which makes me stop talking for a moment before she answers.
"Well even the dragon subduing Aedan Bones can act like a nervous boy, that's adorable." She said with a little teasing. "But i would love to be able to dance with you."
"Well that's good, because my dress robe was basically made to match your usual style." I say with a sigh of relief.
"Wait, you knew this was going to happen?" She asked with a slight surprise.
"I thought it would be obvious that we would have a ball for some reason this year. Wizards don't really wear dress robes for any other occasions. So I planned ahead and made sure I could match any green dress you would wear." I answered with a half-lie, but with solid enough reasoning.
"Well then, I guess you really weren't planning on going with anyone else." She said with a low sultry voice.
"There was never another option in my mind." I replied with no hesitation and while looking straight into her emerald eyes.
"And what were you planing to do if I wasn't available anymore?" She whispered into my ears as she wrapped her arms around my neck.
"Sweep your off your feet no matter the opponent." I answered with a burning gaze.
"Oh yeah? And how would you do that?" She asked with her own eyes started to warm up.
"Like this." I simply said as I took her into my arms and started to gently kiss her.
The kiss quickly got more intense as we enjoyed each other's passion so openly and on such an occasion. Only separating so that she can catch her breath. (Being super-human does have many perks.)
"I don't know if that would convince me." She said as she looked at me with lustful eyes.
"Then maybe this will." Was my answer as I conjured blankets and pushed her down to keep our passionate exchange going.
And for the next half hour we enjoyed ourselves under the clear moonlight, alone in our own little world above the lake. With me using my flames to keep us warm, not that we needed much help with that as things heated up. It was actually harder to keep the ice cold at that point.
We broke apart after that 30 minutes and she looked at me with eyes full of love, lust and passion before saying one last thing.
"You really wouldn't have taken no for a answer my Raven." She gently said as we laid next to each other.
"I told you it wasn't even an option for me not to dance with you during this ball." I answered while moving a stray strand of her black hair away from her beautiful face.
We ended up enjoying ourselves nearly until the sun began to rise that night, giving us a memory to last a lifetime.