The Christmas break passed quickly, and on the first day of the new semester, Lawrence seemed very laid-back compared to the twins who were carrying heavy textbooks and preparing to go to class.

The twins on the side were snoring and drinking cereal, while vibrating the pen to the long parchment roll, while Lawrence was stirring his own cereal, and spread out the "Daily Prophet" that he had just gotten in his hand, and he let out a disapproving sip after turning a few pages.

"'Dumbledore's great mistake,'" Fred put down the empty bowl, rubbed his right hand, which was sore from writing too fast, and read as he looked at the headline of the newspaper, "What is this?"

"You're talking about the 'Mad Eye' attacking people – I think that's partly true? And Hagrid—Merlin's beard," Lawrence commented, quickly watching the report, "The blood of a half-giant—how slow does it have to be to think that Hagrid is a normal person?"

"Gee," Fred laughed, "maybe someone thinks Hagrid only got so tall when he drank a whole bottle of raw bone water as a child?"

"'Hagrid crippled several students in a row in a series of lessons that most students would admit to being very scary'—" George leaned over, "How come I haven't seen a single student missing a hand or a leg?"

"I think it must be those Slytherin idiots, George," Fred said earnestly, "'being bitten hard by a Flober armyworm' is really—thought-provoking and precious document, which proves that their heads are indeed somewhat crippled—"

"'This newspaper's special correspondent Rita. 'Skeeter reports,' and I said," George sighed, "and her reports are rubbish."

"Leave it all this stuff she wrote," Fred said with some pessimism, "and we're going to try to make Professor McGonagall think that our report isn't rubbish—"

"Don't talk about it," George said sadly, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Lawrence, who didn't have to go to class, "I'm almost crying."

"Bring it." Lawrence slowly folded the newspaper under the expectant gaze of the twins, and then casually tossed it aside, reaching out to the twins.

"Hooray!" The twins cheered and quickly handed the metamorphosis report to Lawrence,

"Can't you show it to me a few days earlier?" Lawrence picked up the quill that George had placed on the dining table and began to scribble on the two men's reports.

"Didn't we just remember it last night, did we report it?" George smiled brightly and said something that made Lawrence roll his eyes,

"Twenty minutes to go, Lawrence," Fred reminded as he looked at the students who were leaving the hall one after another, and reminded him with some anxiety,

"Don't worry—it's yours, George," Lawrence said as he pushed George's report to him, without looking up, "the spell-casting gestures you describe here are not precise, and the incomplete transfiguration spell is a bit wrong here."

"Thank you very much." George pulled out a new piece of parchment and began to revise his report.

"Fred, this is yours," another minute later, Lawrence reported to Fred, who said, "You've confused the artifact activation spell with the stone statue activation spell, and the narrative is a bit confusing."

"I just think something weird." Fred said in annoyance, looking down to rewrite his report, Lawrence looked at the busy twins, tapped his fingers on the table with some boredom, and then began to eat the cereal porridge that was already a little cold.

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"If Hagrid doesn't go to class, how are we going to get the shell of the snail?" At dinner that day, upon learning that Professor Grapeland was substitute for Professor Grapeland in Magical Creature Conservation, George frowned and asked,

"Hagrid wouldn't care about that report, would he?" Lawrence asked uncertainly, "Everybody knows, Rita. What Skeeter writes about is a pile of garbage."

"It's hard to say—being tall and having a heart are two different things." Fred shrugged and said,

"I think there's someone who cares more about this than we do." George said that he pointed to Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who were leaving the restaurant, and after leaving the restaurant, they left in the direction of the castle gates, apparently to leave the castle and go to Hagrid's cabin next to the Forbidden Forest,

"Okay, I don't want to mention that yet, are you going to Hogsmeade this weekend?" Fred asked, "There's a school poster."

"I'm going to go to the Black Lagoon over the weekend," Lawrence said, "you know, the preparation of the mission."

"It's more than five weeks before the second mission, Lawrence," said George, in astonishment, "how could you be—"

"Be cautious." Fred took George's words,

"The hint for the golden egg is a song," Lawrence explained, "and I don't think it means good."

"Like?" Fred then asked,

"'We have taken away your most reluctant treasures, and you must search for an hour to take back what we have taken,'" said Lawrence, "and after an hour the future will be bleak, and when it will be too late, it will become a thing of the past, and it will never return to you.'" (Note 1)

Fred and George glanced at each other, and their expressions were disapproving,

"Whatever that treasure remains," said Fred, "I will say that your first task took less than a minute—"

"If the hour-long limit is a level, it will take you more than that," George said in a relaxed tone, "and I suspect there are a few warriors who can complete this mission."

"I think you're thinking too much," Fred said, "it's just a task like a search, just swimming."

"I think you're to be bothered," George suggested, "isn't the water in the Black Lagoon too cold?"

Lawrence shrugged, kind of accepting what the two men had to say.

Early Saturday morning, after Lawrence and the twins had breakfast, they left the castle with the crowd, the weather in mid-January, still cold and wet, they separated near the shore of the Black Lake, the twins continued to walk with the crowd towards the school gates, they promised Lawrence that they would return with a hot and creamy beer,

Lawrence stood on the edge of the black lake with a backpack on his back, looking at the Durmstrong boat moored on the lake, and Krum, who was only wearing a swim trunk, happened to jump from the deck into the icy black lake at this time, Lawrence shivered,

He walked along the Black Lagoon to the small harbor where the Hogwarts boats were moored, except for the ones he had used when he was in his first year, Lawrence didn't think he would have the chance to use them again, he slid the boat off the shore, untied his prefect badge from his robes, and threw it into the Black Lake, and the silver light of the badge disappeared into the dark waters.

"I really don't want to touch this lake." Lawrence stared at the lake and struggled a little, but still took off his robe, revealing that he had changed into swimming trunks first, and dipped his feet in the cold and biting water, and finally, he slipped into the lake.

Lawrence soaked in the lake, he tried to calm down, focused his attention on the black lake, hoping to be like the first task, the feeling of being in control of the entire playing field, but at this time he could only feel some vague shadows at the bottom of the lake, swaying not far around him, as if observing himself as an uninvited guest,

Lawrence burrowed into the water, this time the feeling was much clearer, but compared to on land, obviously the range was small and the feeling was not so clear, he opened his eyes, looked at the bottom of the dark lake, searched carefully, he swung his arms awkwardly, swimming aimlessly, only swimming for a while, he quickly paddled up until he surfaced,

"Whew—" Lawrence dived into the water again, this time in a direction at the bottom of the lake, swam with great difficulty, then reached out, and in the jungle of aquatic plants swaying in the water, grabbed the prefect badge he had dropped the lake, and swam to the surface,

"I'm more tired than I thought ......," Lawrence muttered, as he swam toward the boat not far away, holding on to the edge of the boat, and tumbling out of the water, his body and hair were dry, and he didn't even pick up a drop of water when he got up from the water.

Lawrence lay on the boat panting, feeling that if he closed his eyes, he would definitely fall asleep, and after resting for a long time, he struggled to brace himself, and then he turned his head to look at the calm lake not far away,

A head suddenly popped out of the lake, and it was Victor. Krum, too, saw Lawrence and the boat, and he slowly rowed here,

"Can you give me a ride?" Krum asked in a somewhat stiff English, and he pointed to the Durmstrang ship a little farther away,

"Come up." Lawrence said as he grabbed the robe he had thrown aside to keep it from splashing as Krum got up.

Holding on to the edge of the boat, Crum rolled over into the boat, Lawrence opened his backpack, took out a towel that he didn't have a chance to use, and handed it to Krum,

"Thank you." Krum took the towel, and the two of them tacitly agreed not to ask each other why they were here, nor to talk about the mission, Lawrence steered the boat and rowed towards Durmstrand's big boat.

"I like you here," Krum said, a little clueless, "and the people here are nice."

"Uh, thank you." Lawrence thought about it and felt that he could only answer like this, and neither of them said anything more, so they came to the side of the big ship, and Krum took out his wand and knocked on the hull of the boat, and a rope flew down the deck, and Krum grabbed the rope,

"Goodbye, then." As Crum said this, Lawrence waved at him, and the rope flew back, and Krum grabbed the rope back to the deck.

Lawrence rowed the boat, returned to the shore and set it up, and with his head in pain, he walked in the direction of the castle, five weeks before the first task, and all that remained was to practice and use all his strength.

───────

Author's words: I'm a little tired and a little busy, the next one should be the second task, right?

Note 1: I have made some slight changes based on the traditional translation.

Woo, I didn't find it before, thanks to the tips of [Shadow in the Light], [Wakafeng Autumn Leaves], and [Kcastle].

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