The Hagrid's son

Barnaby had a theory that Harry and Cedric had solved the clue of the golden egg, especially after he happened to see Harry running out of the prefects' bathroom with said egg under his arm, while Moaning Myrtle chased after him with an excited look on her face.

"Yeah, I really should put something up to block voyeuristic ghosts," Barnaby thought.

Myrtle was getting worse every year. She said she locked herself in the bathroom to cry just before her sudden death, but Barnaby had always suspected that it wasn't to shed tears that she sought out a remote, seldom-used bathroom, even in her time...

He pushed this thought to the back of his mind, reflecting on the words Tonks had told him before returning to Hogwarts.

"Moody was acting strange," she had said, "but strange in a different way. Although he's always been a weird guy… just be careful, something feels off!"

Tonks suspected that, yes, maybe Moody was doing Dumbledore a favor by teaching that year, but at the same time, maybe he was gathering information for the Ministry of Magic!

Fortunately, Barnaby had been careful to keep minimal contact with Moody, for obvious reasons. Other than meals, you could say that Moody never managed to catch him alone.

Even when February arrived, the time for the second task.

"You know, Alduin was disappointed he didn't get to join in the last event," commented Mimir, the bright-eyed hanging head that swung from his waist. "Ilulu hasn't stopped bragging about it, and they've fought several times over it."

"Alduin should learn that not everything revolves around him," Barnaby rolled his eyes as he approached the Black Lake. "Is everything ready on that end?"

"Yeah, the moogles have prepared the rings you asked for," Mimir nodded.

Or was it just the sway of his head?

"Let's get started then. The rings will take a night to function, and people will get too curious if I take too long putting up the barriers."

"Whatever you say. Did you talk to the giant squid to make sure he doesn't cause any trouble?" asked Mimir. "The rings are strong, but they're still on loan."

"I gave him a large supply of Lembas bread. Not only will he stay out of the way, but he'll make sure everyone else in the Black Lake behaves during the second task."

Once everything was confirmed, Barnaby raised a one-way dome of darkness over the Black Lake, then took Mimir's head and held it up. Mimir's eyes lit up and projected a portal from which emerged three rings of different sizes, all of them enormous.

Moved by Barnaby's magic, the rings locked into their assigned places and began spinning on their own while draining part of the water from the Black Lake. Barnaby quickly reattached Mimir to his belt and pulled out a scroll, which he tore apart to create a magical screen where the waterline rose.

The screen had only one purpose: to act as a filter.

It would clean the dirt from the water, prevent small creatures like grindylows from being sucked up, and other similar effects. The resulting water was so clean that even warm-water mermaids would fight to get in.

There was no point in going through the trouble of making a giant sphere of water with the blitzball rings so that everyone could see the second task clearly, if the water used was dirty, cloudy, and full of unwanted creatures.

Besides, his invited helpers wouldn't enter if the water quality didn't meet a minimum standard.

They had standards!

"I'm going to need some eye drops after this," Mimir blinked, feeling his eyes a bit hot after the feat.

"Do you want to stay and watch the task?" Barnaby asked as he pulled out a potion that the niffler he saved, Rada, had given him as thanks.

He didn't know the name of the potion, but it worked wonders for tired eyes!

"As much as I'd love to, I still have some unfinished business to attend to," Mimir politely declined.

As Barnaby dropped a few of the potion's drops into the eyes of the horned severed head, he noticed several attempts to breach the barrier.

"Not even five minutes have passed…" Barnaby frowned at the speed and audacity with which people were already trying to bypass the barrier he had set.

He stepped outside the barrier and saw… a bunch of Gryffindors, some Durmstrang students, and a couple from Beauxbatons trying to look casual.

"Dumbledore was clear during this morning's lunch, nobody can come in!" Barnaby said firmly.

"We just wanted to take a peek…" a fourth-year Gryffindor weakly protested, tucking his wand away not as discreetly as he thought.

Naturally, once they were told to stay away from the Black Lake, everyone went to take a look and see if they could find out something.

But no one expected Barnaby to put up a barrier to block the inside.

Much less one this big!

"I suggest you don't get any more ideas and wait for the task to take place. Otherwise…" Barnaby warned them that he wouldn't take the matter lightly.

This was serious. If people managed to find something out, he would be the one to suffer the consequences, due to the magical contract he had made, for not keeping the promised "neutrality." Even if it was a twisted way to find loopholes, magic worked as it did, in its own way.

"What?" a Durmstrang student asked.

He wasn't even asking rudely, he was just curious for the answer!

"You'll have a few words with my friends," Barnaby said, pointing to the barrier that, from the outside, appeared completely black. "The big ones."

"If they're like the creatures we saw in the greenhouse or the corridors, they won't be a problem. We've got to find any advantage we can for our champion…" the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students naively thought.

They didn't notice how the Hogwarts students' expressions changed and how they had stepped back decisively the moment Barnaby emphasized the word "big."

"Yeah, I suppose for beginners, a demonstration is always more practical than an explanation," Barnaby concluded.

The ground trembled as his words fell, followed by another tremor and yet another. The conclusion was simple: something big was approaching them!

The students instinctively turned their heads to where Barnaby had pointed earlier and saw one silhouette after another slowly emerging from the darkness of the barrier, bursting into flames and roaring toward them.

"Allow me to introduce my friend, Balrog…" Barnaby said in a casual tone, "…and his family, who came to visit. Say hello!"

The students' mouths went dry. They could count at least a dozen identical creatures, all staring at them as if eagerly waiting for them to try and breach the barrier so they could do as they pleased with them.

The weapons they held, literal fire-forged swords, didn't exactly help to calm anyone.

"So… anyone still curious?"

Heads had never turned so sharply from side to side, accompanied by some cracking sounds that led to a visit to the infirmary.

If those guys were the guards…

Should they light a candle for their champions?