Harley Potter and her world famous twin

A day, a girl and a lot of books

When Harry slipped her a note asking her to meet him on the day before the second task, Harley had a feeling that it wasn't going to be anything good. And her feeling was confirmed .

"Harley do you know a way to spend an hour underwater? "
"Why? " Harley asked narrowing her eyes as she did.

"It's the second task you see" Harry rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly "I've got to go under the lake"

"The task is tomorrow. Why don't you ask me tomorrow morning, hmm? "
"That I...."

"And pray tell me what were you doing these past days if not working on this "
"I did work out the clue. The merfolk would have something I treasure and I have to get it back under an hour. I figured out that much, I just don't have a way to do it "

Harley shut her mouth firmly to keep in the choice of unprintable words that first came to her mind from spilling out. She then took a deep breath.

"So you are asking me now, when there's less than twenty four hours left ?"
"Well yeah... Do you know of a way or not? "

"I actually do. But.. "
"You do?!?! "Harry's eyes were sparkling.

"Yes but hear me out, there's a potion that allows you to breathe underwater, or even live underwater if you wish but it takes a week or so to make. If you had come to me a little earlier, perhaps.... "

At her words Harry visibly deflated and Harley felt a little bad even though she had done nothing wrong.

"Wait, give me a little time. I think there's an ingredient for the potion that can make you breathe underwater for a little while by itself."
"And you don't know this thing's name? "

"I don't have entire books commited to my memory . I need to check with my book. It won't take very long though. So just give me a little time "

With that Harley went to join the other Slytherins for lunch. As she sat, she noticed that Draco was looking at her quizzically. Harley raised an eyebrow at him.

‘What were you doing with Potter? ’He mouthed
‘Just wished him luck for the next task’ She mouthed back.

‘Why? Cedric's our champion’
‘Hogwarts has two champions’
‘Oh come on ’
‘You come on’

Harley looked away before Draco could tell her anything else. Looking to her side, she saw that Pansy was watching her and Draco with a weird smile . Harley looked at Ana just beside her for a sense of normalcy, but she was staring off into space with an idiotically happy expression.
Harley decided to ignore all the idiots around her and just focus on her food for the time being.

•••••••••••••••••••••••

"Gillyweed "
"What?! " Harry looked up from the pile of books surrounding him. His sister was standing a couple of feet away, catching her breath.

"The thing I told you about, that single ingredient which let's you breathe underwater. It's called Gillyweed "
Harry felt his hopes rising. He had been searching through books for a long time, along with his two friends but they were called by Mcgonagal a little while ago.

"And where can we get this?" He asked her
"That's the problem! No one seems to have it. I had asked pretty much every slytherin. I was thinking that perhaps you could ask the gryffindors"

Harry slumped back into his chair, he didn't think that anyone would just keep some random plant with them.

"Well do you know anything else that works ? "
"Besides transfiguration, you could use charms like bubble head or body switching ,the former is something I never tried while the later, I only knew about today. So.... I'm not much help here.."

Harry was disappointed but not at her. He had sprung the question on her at the last moment and yet she had found out this much, while all three of them working together couldn't find anything.

The longer Harry stayed quiet, the more anxious Harley became. She truly wanted to help him and failing to do that didn't sit well with her.

Harry noticed that his usually well composed twin was twisting and fiddling with her fingers. While her expression was calm as ever, her mannerism betrayed her nerves.

"You know that is actually much better than what my friends came up with. Ron was even of the opinion that I should just ask the merpeople to give back whatever they took ‘politely’." Harry snorted at the end of the sentence.

Harley placed a palm on her face.
"Are you an idiot or are you pretending to be an idiot? Harry, there's like twelve hours left till the task starts!!! Just what in the name of Merlin are you going to do? "

"I don't know, if I still don't find anything by then I'd just go with the flow I guess " Harry shrugs pretending to be unbothered when in reality he was anything but.

Harley ran a hand through her hair and squeezed her eyes shut . She stayed that way for a few moments before she sighed and pulled out a book.

It was a smaller than average book, with leather cover with red and gold designs on it.
"That looks way too gryffindory for the slytherin princess "

"Don't you dare start calling me that now..." Harley looked almost angry for a moment before her lips quirked up and she added "....Gryffindor prince"

"Ewww, no just no"
"Now you get my feeling, golden boy? "

"I'm sorry, just "
"As you should be ,Harry James Potter , you of all people should know how annoying titles are"

"Okay, okay but we have a little something else that needs your attention if you are forgetting "
"Right well ,this book? It's sort of sentinent "

"Please don't tell me it's Tom Riddle's diary version 2.0"
" It's not.... Well probably not...  Even if it's dear old Voldy's it's not his diary, because this is not a dairy but maybe it could be his notebook or something, I don't know . Anyway this thing answers pretty much any question you might have but it often tends to show the darkest possible answer"

"So this is dark magic? "
"Most likely. But very useful if you don't go overboard."

"And why are you showing this to me now? "
"To learn ballet! What do you think it's for? You can check through this with different specifically worded questions while I scour the library books for something "

Harry didn't know what to say and it appeared that he needed to say nothing as Harley left to look for books without any further preamble.

•••••••••••••••••••••••

The two siblings spent the night in the library, searching through books until exhaustion overcame them one after another.

The girl took the book on which her brother had fallen asleep and then conjured a blanket to cover him before continuing to read.
Then she too was conquered by sleep

•••••••••••••••••••••••