Chapter Summaries

Harry won the first task by killing the Hungarian Horntail, then celebrated with his friends at Harry's Cottage. The second task was scheduled for February 24, and the Golden Eggs held clues to it.

• Harry sliced the Hungarian Horntail in half, took the Golden Egg, and received a score of ten from Bagman and McGonagall, eight from Madame Maxime, and seven from Karkaroff after the crowd protested his initial six.
• Fleur watched Harry approach but was hurt when he passed her without speaking, while Madam Pomfrey confirmed that Harry was unharmed and treated the injured Champions.
• Bagman announced that the second task would begin at nine-thirty on February 24 and told the Champions to open their Golden Eggs for clues.
• Harry returned to Harry's Cottage, where Astoria, Cho Chang, Hermione, and Helena had arranged a celebration for his victory.
• Harry scolded Helena for organizing the surprise, then called himself Master and joined the celebration while Hermione and Cho Chang suspected he had wanted an excuse to tease Helena.

In December 1994, Hermione brought Harry to Hogwarts’s kitchen to show him the house-elves’ working conditions and promote her campaign for their rights. There, Harry reunited with Dobby and met Winky, whose tears stopped when Harry threatened to punish her.

• Hagrid assigned the students to care for the dangerous Blast-Ended Skrewts, of which only ten remained alive.
• Hermione dragged Harry from dinner to a hidden entrance that led to Hogwarts’s kitchen.
• Harry and Hermione entered the kitchen, where more than a hundred house-elves prepared food for the school.
• Harry reunited with Dobby, while Hermione explained that she wanted to photograph the house-elves and recruit support for her society.
• Dobby led Hermione and Harry to Winky, who sobbed until Harry threatened to make her hold her arm in the fireplace.

Hermione tried to persuade Winky and Hogwarts’s house-elves to accept freedom, but their loyalty to wizarding masters remained deeply rooted. She left with Harry planning to use Dobby’s example to gradually influence them before Christmas.

• Dobby explained that Dumbledore had sent Winky to Hogwarts after Barty Crouch dismissed her, and Winky insisted that Crouch had been right to dismiss her.
• Hermione asked Dobby about his wages, prompting the Hogwarts house-elves to take away her refreshments and shun Dobby for wanting pay and freedom.
• Dobby told Hermione that he had bargained Dumbledore down to one Galleon a week and one day off each month, while Winky called his freedom humiliating.
• Winky defended Crouch and covered her ears when Hermione criticized him, and Dobby explained that Winky had not adjusted to their separation.
• As Harry and Hermione left, Hermione proposed having Dobby do temporary work for wizarding families to influence other house-elves before Christmas.

Hermione arranged paid household work for Dobby, while Professor McGonagall announced the Yule Ball and told Harry that Champions had to attend with dance partners. The chapter left Harry facing the need to choose a partner and dance at the ball.

• Hermione advertised Dobby’s one-hour household services, and Hogwarts students began booking him for jobs.
• Hermione organized Dobby’s schedule and advised him to manage future bookings with a sign-up sheet.
• During Transfiguration, Professor McGonagall announced the Yule Ball and explained that students in fourth year and above could attend with younger partners.
• After class, Professor McGonagall told Harry that Champions had to bring dance partners and open the ball with a dance.
• Harry asked whether he could skip the ball, but Professor McGonagall insisted that he attend and dance.

Harry prepared for the Christmas ball by learning the waltz with Astoria, then helped Hermione and Cho Chang practice. The chapter ended with Harry secretly photographing the two girls embracing and fleeing before they could take the camera.

• Harry worried that he could not dance, so Astoria offered to teach him the waltz in his dance studio.
• Harry pretended he still needed lessons for three days, though he had mastered the dance within minutes, and Astoria eventually declared him graduated.
• Several younger and older girls invited Harry to the Christmas ball, but he turned them down while undecided between Cho Chang and Hermione.
• When Hermione and Cho Chang asked Astoria for lessons, Harry took over and made both girls practice with him.
• Harry posed Hermione and Cho Chang close together, photographed them, and escaped when Hermione tried to grab his camera.
• Cho Chang asked Hermione to bathe with her, and Hermione agreed, blaming Harry for the situation.

As Hogwarts prepared for the Yule Ball, students worried about Snape’s exams while Harry admired a photograph and Hermione studied. Ron gathered the courage to ask Fleur Delacour to the ball, and Fleur left him waiting as she considered his invitation.

• Students buzzed with rumors about the Yule Ball, while Flitwick let his distracted class play and Binns continued his lecture.
• Snape warned students about their antidote exam and the increasingly dangerous Defense Against the Dark Arts tests planned for next term.
• Hermione studied for exams as Harry admired a photograph, and Cho told her about the Grindylows her class would face.
• Hogwarts decorated the castle for Christmas, and Harry silenced a suit of armor singing a badly performed birthday song.
• Ron forgot to add a bezoar during his Potions exam, then hurried to find Fleur Delacour and ask her to be his Yule Ball dance partner.
• Fleur asked Ron to repeat himself, then said she would think about his invitation.

Students sought dance partners for the Christmas ball, leading to rejections, awkward invitations, and a fight between two boys from rival schools. At Harry's Cottage, Harry defended McGonagall's strict punishment and told Hermione how the Water Splitting Magic School collapsed after shielding a student accused of sexual assault.

• Fleur rejected Ron's invitation, told him she planned to attend the ball with Harry, and left Ron to ask Parvati instead; Parvati declined and suggested her sister Padma.
• Harry rejected Fleur's invitation, told Viktor Krum that he was Hermione's boyfriend, and watched Krum leave after giving up his hopes of dancing with Hermione.
• Fred invited Angelina to the ball and she accepted, while Fleur turned down Polyakov Braun and Vincent Piquequy after Harry rejected her.
• A Hogwarts Slytherin boy and a Durmstrang boy fought over a Slytherin girl and were injured; McGonagall and Karkaroff punished them with major demerits and a year's probation.
• Hermione questioned McGonagall's punishment, and Harry supported it before explaining how the Water Splitting Magic School collapsed after protecting a student accused of trying to rape a half-blood girl.

Harry spent the holiday teasing Hogwarts students about their homework, while Fleur grew unsettled by her own reaction to him. On Christmas morning, Astoria started a snowball fight, and Harry accidentally pulled Cho Chang onto his bed when he mistook her for Astoria.

• Harry finished his holiday homework with the others, then mocked Fred, George, Seamus, Angelina, Colin, and other students by asking whether they had finished theirs.
• Cho Chang stopped Harry from pestering more students, and he said he had found enough sources of happiness.
• Fleur Delacour complained about Hogwarts's food, then wondered why she had spoken badly of it when Harry was nearby.
• Astoria woke Harry with a snowball on Christmas morning, and Harry retaliated with enchanted snow before agreeing to a snowball fight.
• Astoria went to get Helena, Cho Chang, and Hermione for breakfast while Harry returned to bed with Little Cutie.
• Harry mistook Cho Chang for Astoria, pulled her onto the bed, and got up after Cho told him it was almost eight.

Harry celebrated Christmas with Cho, Hermione, and Astoria, sharing gifts, a snowball fight, and an afternoon of snowman-building. After the girls dressed for the evening ball, they arrived at the Great Hall as its doors opened and students gathered to meet their dance partners.

• Helena served dumplings for breakfast, and the group exchanged Christmas gifts before Harry gave the girls kisses as their presents.
• Harry used magic to bombard Cho, Hermione, and Astoria with snowballs until the exhausted girls called the fight to a stop.
• After lunch, Hermione, Cho, and Astoria held a snowman-building contest and teased Harry with sculptures they said resembled him.
• Harry admired the three girls in their formal clothes, and they reached the Great Hall at eight o’clock as the doors opened for the ball.

At the Yule Ball, Harry attended with Astoria while Fleur arrived with Roger Davies and became jealous watching Harry and Astoria together. Harry secretly tormented Fleur until she ran from the Great Hall, leaving Roger to explain her departure.

• Parvati introduced Padma to Ron, who ignored her while watching the crowd and then felt jealous when he saw Fleur with Roger Davies.
• Malfoy arrived at the ball with Pansy and privately admitted he had to resist mocking Ron's dress robes.
• Harry, Astoria, Cho Chang, and Hermione joined the Champions and their partners at the judges' table as the Great Hall's decorations and unusual menu drew attention.
• Fleur watched Astoria feed Harry lobster, criticized the ball, and received little attention from the infatuated Roger Davies.
• Harry secretly tormented Fleur until she teared up and fled the Great Hall, and Roger told the professors that she had gone outside for air.

At the Yule Ball, Harry danced with Astoria, then left the Great Hall with her, Hermione, and Cho Chang. After catching several couples behaving intimately in the rose grove, Harry took Hermione’s hand and the group returned to their little nest before the ball ended.

• Harry danced with Astoria while Fleur refused Roger Davies’s invitation and Hermione danced with Cho Chang.
• Astoria rested with Harry, while Padma left Ron after he ignored her and kept watching Fleur.
• Harry declined Bagman’s offer to accompany him and went outside with Astoria, Hermione, and Cho Chang.
• Roger Davies tried to kiss Fleur in the rose garden, and Fleur slapped him and walked away.
• Harry called out that McGonagall was there, making several couples leap from the rose bushes and hurry back inside.
• Harry took Hermione’s hand, and they returned to their little nest less than an hour after the Yule Ball began.

Harry secretly visited Hermione and Cho Chang during the night, and his actions led to both girls becoming intimate with him. The chapter ended with Hermione waking briefly, biting Harry, and falling asleep again.

• Harry put Astoria to sleep after she asked about people hiding in the rose bushes.
• Harry entered Hermione and Cho Chang's bedroom and told Hermione he had used a Sleeping Charm on Cho Chang.
• Harry and Hermione became intimate while Cho Chang listened, believing she was supposed to be asleep.
• Harry revealed that he had not put Cho Chang to sleep, and Cho Chang confronted him before agreeing to be intimate with him.
• Hermione woke to the sounds, bit Harry's arm, and then fell asleep again.

Harry discovered the meaning of the Golden Egg clue, then remembered he possessed all three Deathly Hallows and tried to uncover their secret. His experiment failed, and he left the Invisibility Cloak and Resurrection Stone beneath his bed while taking the Elder Wand with him.

• Astoria searched for Harry, then found him asleep between Cho and Hermione and wondered why he treated them differently from her.
• Harry showed Cho, Hermione, and Astoria that the Golden Egg’s shriek became a mermaid song underwater, and Hermione inferred that the second task involved retrieving something from the merpeople within an hour.
• Harry remembered the Invisibility Cloak, found it beneath his bed, and gathered it with the Resurrection Stone and Elder Wand to test the Deathly Hallows.
• After the Hallows did nothing, Harry tried placing drops of his blood on them, but the blood slid off without effect.
• Harry angrily kicked the Invisibility Cloak and Resurrection Stone under the bed and left with the Elder Wand.

Hagrid introduced the students to a unicorn, while Gabrielle later sneaked into the Forbidden Forest to find one and was rescued from a werewolf by Harry. Harry brought Gabrielle back to his cottage, where Hermione accused him of abducting a little girl.

• Hagrid took the students to see a unicorn and explained that unicorns preferred the touch of females.
• Gabrielle slipped out of the Beauxbatons carriage and entered the Forbidden Forest to search for a unicorn.
• Gabrielle found Little Snow, chased after her, and became lost in the dark forest.
• A werewolf attacked Gabrielle, but Harry killed it and saved her.
• Gabrielle thanked Harry by kissing him and declaring they were engaged, then asked him to take her back with him.
• Harry brought Gabrielle to his cottage, where Hermione screamed and accused him of abducting a little girl.

Gabrielle reunited with Fleur after spending the night with Harry, who had saved her from a Werewolf in the Forbidden Forest. Later, Harry met Gabrielle secretly at Hogsmeade while Fleur watched their closeness with anger.

• Fleur rushed into the Great Hall and told McGonagall that Gabrielle had gone missing, but Gabrielle appeared beside Harry.
• Fleur feared Harry had harmed Gabrielle until Gabrielle clarified that he had given her yogurt and saved her from a Werewolf.
• Gabrielle told Fleur she planned to marry Harry, kissed him goodbye, and left with her sister.
• On the way to Hogsmeade, Harry rescued Viktor Krum after something dragged him underwater in the Black Lake.
• Gabrielle secretly met Harry by the carriage, and Fleur later glared at Harry as he deliberately acted close to Gabrielle.

As the second task approached, Hermione searched for a way for Harry to breathe underwater, but Harry said he had a solution and kept it secret. On the morning of February 24, 1994, Harry arrived at the lake for the task, where Astoria and several other students had been taken as the Champions’ loved ones to rescue.

• Hermione searched through books for a way to help Harry breathe underwater, but Harry said he would simply walk down into the lake.
• Harry and Hermione saw Professor McGonagall summon Astoria and several other students, and Hermione realized they were likely the people the Champions had to rescue.
• Harry entered Hermione and Cho Chang’s room that night after Astoria was taken away, and the girls cried out as he pounced on them.
• On the morning of February 24, 1994, Harry reassured Hermione and Cho Chang that he had cast protective spells on Astoria before getting ready for the task.
• Harry walked to the lake at nine twenty and joined Viktor Krum, Fleur Delacour, Cedric Diggory, Polyakov Braun, and Vincent Piquequy beside the judges.

The second Triwizard Tournament task began, with the Champions entering the lake to recover their stolen treasures. Harry watched their preparations as Fleur hurried underwater to save Gabrielle, while Polyakov Braun withdrew from the task.

• Fleur anxiously waited by the lake, knowing Gabrielle was the treasure she had to find before the hour ran out.
• Harry mocked Professor Karkaroff by repeatedly demanding that he explain what “about to begin” meant.
• Bagman started the task, and Harry stayed on shore to observe the other Champions.
• Cedric Diggory swallowed Gillyweed and developed gills after the spectators' jeers angered him.
• Viktor Krum used a Transfiguration Charm, Fleur jumped into the lake, and Vincent Piquequy cast a bubble-head spell.
• Polyakov Braun told the judges he could not complete the task.

Harry descended into Black Lake using a magical barrier, explored its vast depths, and destroyed a group of Grindylows before meeting Fleur in mermaid form as she fled through the water.

• Polyakov Braun refused to compete because he had not mastered a way to breathe underwater, and Professor McGonagall sent him aside while Karkaroff angrily protested.
• Harry created a magical barrier that pushed the lakewater away and descended into Black Lake.
• Harry used a guiding spell to travel toward the lake’s depths and encountered and destroyed several attacking Grindylows.
• Harry met Fleur swimming away from danger, saw that she had become a mermaid, and offered to help her.

Harry rescued Astoria from the lake and waited with her for the other Champions, while Fleur escaped the Grindylows without finding Gabrielle. Fleur surfaced alone, leaving Gabrielle still at the lakebed.

• Harry cut the ropes binding Astoria, accidentally split the merfolk statue, then repaired it with Reparo.
• Harry drew Astoria into his magic circle, and she woke after leaving the water.
• Harry and Astoria stayed on the lakebed to watch for the other Champions, while a merman warned Harry not to take another hostage.
• Fleur used the Banshee's Curse to become a mermaid, but Grindylows chased her before she could find Gabrielle.
• Fleur's transformation wore off as she swam upward, but she reached the surface and emerged without Gabrielle.

Harry rescued Gabrielle from the merpeople by taking Kongkongyi hostage, then used Apparition to return to the lake’s surface with Gabrielle and Astoria. Fleur remained waiting after conceding, while the other Champions retrieved their hostages.

• Fleur admitted defeat and begged Madame Maxime to rescue Gabrielle, but Madame Maxime ordered her to wait.
• Cedric Diggory arrived, cut his friend’s ropes with a dagger, and swam away; Krum later freed his friend after struggling with the ropes.
• Vincent Piquequy arrived after encountering a giant squid, untied a witch, and left two hostages behind: Gabrielle and Polyakov Braun’s companion.
• Harry freed Gabrielle, but when the merpeople blocked him, he used Apparition to draw Kongkongyi into his magical circle and learned she was the village chief’s daughter.
• Harry persuaded the merpeople to let him take Gabrielle, pushed Kongkongyi back to them, and Apparitioned to the lake’s surface with Gabrielle and Astoria.