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ღ chapter forty one ( to breathe underwater )
"YOU SAID YOU'D already worked out that egg clue!" Hermione insisted.
"Keep your voice down!" Harry fired back crossly. "I just need to— sort of fine-tune it, all right?"
He, Jules, Ron, and Hermione were sitting at the very back of the Charms class with a table to themselves. It had been a strange couple of weeks since the start of the term and they were beginning to creep closer to the ominously looming second task. They'd run into Ludo Bagman at Hogsmeade and talked to Hagrid with Dumbledore to convince him to stay. Hermione had even gotten into an amusing altercation with Rita Skeeter at the Three Broomsticks.
Theoretically, they were supposed to be practicing the opposite of the Summoning Charm today — the Banishing Charm — but they seemed to like talking to one another more. Owing to the potential for nasty accidents when objects kept flying across the room, Professor Flitwick had given each student a stack of cushions on which to practice, the theory being that these wouldn't hurt anyone if they went off target. It was a good theory, but it wasn't working very well.
Neville's aim was so poor that he kept accidentally sending much heavier things flying across the room — Professor Flitwick, for instance.
"Just forget the egg for a minute, all right?" Harry hissed as Professor Flitwick went whizzing resignedly past them, landing on top of a large cabinet. "I'm trying to tell you about Snape and Moody..."
This class was an ideal cover for a private conversation, as everyone was having far too much fun to pay them any attention. Harry had been recounting his adventures of the previous night in whispered installments for the last half hour. "Snape said Moody's searched his office as well?" Ron whispered, his eyes alight with interest as he Banished a cushion with a sweep of his wand (it soared into the air and knocked Parvati's hat off).
"What... d'you reckon Moody's here to keep an eye on Snape as well as Karkaroff?" Jules questioned, her head twinging ever so slightly.
"Well, I dunno if that's what Dumbledore asked him to do, but he's definitely doing it," Harry nodded, waving his wand without paying much attention, so that his cushion did an odd sort of belly flop off the desk. "Moody said Dumbledore only lets Snape stay here because he's giving him a second chance or something..."
