As June arrived, the atmosphere in the castle grew tense and excited again, not only because of the final task of the Triwizard Tournament, but also because the holidays were drawing near.
For most students, thanks to the Yule Ball, it had already been a whole year since they last left the castle.
Because of that, their anticipation for this year's holiday was far greater than any other time.
Kael had received another big pile of books, and this time, even Cedric, Cho and Conna joined in as well.
They wrote out a long list of possibly useful Charms on Parchment, then handed it over to Kael.
"The Four-Point Spell will definitely be useful, I guarantee it."
Cedric said, "It makes the Wand always point due north, and since the Quidditch Pitch is just to the north, that means as long as you follow the Wand, you'll definitely find where the Cup is."
"Are you sure the directions in the maze will work as you expect?"
Cho retorted, "Don't forget—the scenes the Champions experienced in the first task were completely different from what we saw."
"Still, it's got to be helpful, doesn't it?" Cedric said. "Knowing the direction is better than knowing nothing at all."
"You're not wrong." Cho glanced at him. "But if you could find the way out with just a Four-Point Spell, this task would be way too simple. I don't think Professor Dumbledore would overlook such an obvious problem.
"So the Reductor Curse is still more important. When the time comes, as long as you blast apart the hedges, the maze can't stop you, you can just keep walking forward."
"I don't believe that one Reductor Curse can destroy those maze hedges," Cedric muttered under his breath.
This wasn't the first time they argued about which Charm was more useful, and everyone had plenty of reasons, as if it were a competition—whoever Kael agreed with would win,
and the victorious side would usually be smug for a whole day before starting all over the next day, never getting bored of it.
Just so he could have some peace, Kael always chose both.
Anyway, it was the same for him—after all, he'd already looked at pretty much all the Charms they recommended.
Conna was different; she brought Magic Potions.
Bafe Awakening Potion, Awakening Potion, all kinds of antidotes, healing and stamina potions, dangerous Corrosive Potion, and even the Fireproof Potion Snape once used to protect the Philosopher's Stone—she handed all of them to Kael bottle by bottle.
In the end, she even brought over a sparkling golden bottle of Felix Felici... though Kael confiscated it.
One of the reasons was fear of being hunted down by Snape. Given Conna's current ability, she clearly couldn't brew Felix Felici herself, so it was obvious where this potion came from.
He could accept the ordinary potions—if Snape found out, at most he'd get a bit grumpy and dock some points, and that would be the end of it.
But Felix Felici was different. Even Snape couldn't brew that easily; it was basically labeled "For Conna's use only."
If Kael kept it, not even Dumbledore might be able to save him when the time came.
Besides, he actually already had a bottle of Conna's Felix Felici in his trunk.
He'd gotten it back in first year, a Christmas gift from Snape to her. Since Conna used to lose things all the time, Kael had offered to help her look after it.
But later, when he tried to give it back, Conna refused no matter what, insisting it was a present for Kael... not that Snape knew about it.
Another reason was, in a major event like the Triwizard Tournament, Felix Felici was definitely banned...
The judges didn't just give scores; they could pretty much tell at a glance if any Champion had taken Felix Felici.
After Kael explained it, Conna finally, though reluctantly, put the Felix Felici away.
Soon, there was less than a week before the task began.
Fred and George had been observing Ludo Bagman for over half a month.
But for some reason—maybe he'd noticed them, maybe not—he never met up with Karkaroff again, right up to the eve of the third task.
One was on the ship, one at the Quidditch Pitch, and that's how it went every day.
Though Fred and George were disappointed, they had no choice but to put their plan on hold.
Because exam season had arrived.
No matter how much they didn't care about grades, if they wanted to survive the holidays, they had to at least get something halfway decent.
Along with it came the O.W.L.s.
For fifth years, at least for this week, not even the upcoming Triwizard Tournament could drag their minds away from their textbooks—their only choice was to force themselves to focus.
...
The Great Hall was as lively as ever at the lunch tables the day before the task.
Conna wasn't paying attention to the noisy chatter around her, hugging a thick book as she searched for something inside.
Cho sat right next to her, a thick book open on the table as well.
"I didn't think O.W.L.s would be so much harder than our regular final exams… I made all sorts of mistakes in yesterday's Transfiguration test.
"Oh, right, there are three key points to watch for in multiple Transfigurations, but I only remembered two—and if I can't make the advanced class next year because of that, then…"
"Don't get so tense, Cho, just relax." Cedric handed her a glass of pumpkin juice.
"That's what O.W.L.s are like, the difficulty can really throw you off.
"I felt the same way—thought I'd screwed up everywhere, I was so nervous I couldn't even sleep… But when the results came out, it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd imagined.
I heard the Wizard Examination Board has a unique scoring system for O.W.L.s—it's not the same as our regular finals."
"But I really did write the wrong answers," Cho still looked worried. She didn't even feel like eating, convinced she still hadn't memorized everything, wanting to cram in a bit more reading before the next exam began.
Conna was in the same mood—even as she ate, her eyes never left the page.
As for Mikel and Ryan… those two had already sunk into complete silence, sitting there like lost souls, trying to stuff steak up their nostrils.
Kael, meanwhile, had no such troubles. This morning, when he and Conna went to class, they were told that as one of the Triwizard Tournament Champions, he didn't need to take the O.W.L.s.
"They were going to wait till the Tournament was over and make you take a special exam, but I don't think that's necessary.
Professor Marchbank, who was well over a hundred, stood in the doorway and said, "I've seen your past results… and at least while I'm in charge, not a single person has ever scored higher, not even Dumbledore.
"And that article you wrote for Today's Transfiguration Technique—honestly, you'd get a perfect mark on the N.E.W.T.s, let alone O.W.L.s.
"So do what you want. Go prepare for the third task, or relax and enjoy the scenery—no need to waste time on Parchment."
So with Professor Marchbank's special permission, Kael just spent the morning by himself in the empty common room.
To be honest, it was pretty boring.