"Yes," but it's still something I should have ensured you all knew when we invited you," said Harry.
"No harm dun," said Krum.
The afternoon was spent by the nine talking about their lives before the Tournament, and about the Tournament. "When did you figure out the egg, Cedric?" asked Harry.
"Ummm... it took me about... actually it was just before Christmas," the Hufflepuff replied.
"I zink... no, it was... during Chreestmas," replied Fleur. It was ze only time I 'ad time to... devote to eet."
"About Christmas," replied Krum. "It took me quite a while haffter zat to work out a plan."
"And, you? 'Arry?" asked Fleur.
"Before Christmas," he replied.
Fleur told them about life as the daughter of a person high up in the French Ministry, although her father, Antoine, wasn't always that high. Diggory described what it was like growing up as just an ordinary kid in Ottery St Catchpole. He had both the Weasleys and Lovegoods as nearby neighbours; but, after meeting the Weasley kids, didn't really want much to do with them.
"Too noisy!" he said.
And the Lovegoods mainly stuck to themselves. However, he did see Luna, occasionally, down in the village. He also proved to be an aficionado of muggle movies, and would go see a movie, when he could, in the local 'movie house'.
That then led to a discussion on what a 'movie' was as the others had little idea. And Harry, Hermione and Diggory gave some fine examples. Krum then spoke about his home in south eastern Romania near the city of Constanta on the coast of the Black Sea.
"I thought you were Bulgarian," said Diggory.
"No, play for National team there," said the young man. "Romanian team even worse than Bulgarian team. Bulgarian team pay better, too."
Then it was Harry's turn. He only gave a quick overview of his supposed home-life to the previous summer; but, assured them he no longer had to return there. He spoke about the search for what was behind the door on the third floor corridor, getting past the traps and Quirrell.
Then he covered the whole heir of Slytherin and students getting petrified thing. And an overview of the battle with the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets.
He only lightly brushed on the whole Sirius escaping from Azkaban and believing to be coming after Harry to kill him part, and only to find it was to come and protect him and capture Pettigrew. They also explained about how they found out Ron Weasley's pet rat was actually Pettigrew in his animagus form. And discovering Sirius was innocent.
Finally, he gave the story they had for 'public' consumption about forming their bond, the two youngest Weasleys trying to potion them with love and loyalty potions, their being re-sorted and their apartment for the purposes of strengthening the bond.
That led to a quick tour of the apartment.
When everyone recharged their glasses Daphne said, "I hope you realise knowing that we do sleep together is something we don't want bandied about the castle." She specifically looked at Cho and Megan and said, "Harry has enough problems with being the so-called Boy-Who-Lived. He doesn't need everyone gossiping about his... sleeping arrangements. And, neither do Hermione or I."
Jones looked a little sad not being able to talk about it, but they could see she wouldn't. Chang, on the other hand, was likely to spill everything first chance she got.
However, Diggory saw from her expression that she wasn't being entirely honest when she said she wouldn't. So, he said to her, "They're right, Cho. Don't go spreading it around."
Then the girl looked like she'd probably keep it to herself. Probably. However, if anything happened to derail her relationship with Diggory, the relationship between Harry and his two ladies would very soon after that become public.
As for the tasks, the other champions asked him how he came upon the ideas he had. So, he told them how he felt a lot of witches and wizards were idiots because they couldn't get past the idea of attacking a target directly.
"I don't understand it," he said. "Everyone knows you can't attack a dragon through its magically-protected hide, so why try? No. That's why I decided that the fast way to take it down was through cutting off its air supply.
"My problem was it was a risk that I was going to kill the dragon. I know Humans can go up to three minutes without air. However, I had no idea about dragons. It turns out, it was a great deal less than three minutes." "People have been worried about coming across a dragon in the wild for years," said Chang. "Now you've shown them all how easy it is to take one down."
With a shrug he smiled and said, "Happy to be of service. However, even happier to be able to claim the carcass as the slayer of the beast, just as I did with the carcass of the basilisk. Both added quite a substantial amount of galleons in the Potter vaults."
"I notice you use gillyweed for second task," said Krum. "But, how you go so fast in water?"
"I pointed my wand backwards and maintained an Aguamenti charm," explained Harry. "The strong water stream flowing out of my wand was used as a water jet to push me along." "Clever," said Delacour. "We could have done the same things with our bubblehead charms."
"No, not really," disagreed Diggory. "We were already using a lot of magical power maintaining the Bubblehead charms." Turning to Harry he asked, "Was that the reason you opted for the gillyweed? So you wouldn't have to maintain a Bubblehead charm?"
"Only a small part," replied Harry. "I just knew the body alterations from gillyweed would make it easier for me to swim. Webbed feet and hands, you see.
"The downside is I had to really work hard at silent, incantless, casting for the weeks leading up to the task." "Zat is no easy feat," said Delacour. "Silent casting is very difficult, and not usually taught until your sixth year."
"I've found, ending up in the Tournament has required a drastic need to self-teach advanced magic," Harry grinned back.
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