After the second task ended, several peaceful days passed. No one stirred up trouble, and everyone returned to their usual routine of studying at Hogwarts.
For Ron, however, the recent "underwater treasure hunt" had provided an excellent outlet for his literary talents-or rather, his tall tales. He had been very happy lately.
With Lavender Brown, who treated him like a hero, playing his enthusiastic audience, Ron was even happier.
For the first time since making it through the giant Wizard's Chess board Professor McGonagall had set up in his first year, he was once again the center of attention. Everyone was eager to know what had happened at the bottom of the lake, because the water screen had only shown the four of them chained up, with no other scenes.
At first, Ron told the story exactly as it had happened, without any artistic embellishment, but he found that no one was interested in the utterly unremarkable magical hypnosis.
Oh, except Lavender Brown, of course. The girl went overboard with her enthusiastic reactions every time Ron told the story.
So, rather than lose this wonderful opportunity to attract attention, Ron had no choice but to give his story a thorough reworking. He knew what sort of story everyone wanted to hear. Simply put, he needed to add a few twists and turns to an uneventful tale.
For instance, the merpeople had charged onto land with forks and stormed the Castle. Ron had displayed formidable magical prowess, but had been forced to submit because there were so many merpeople.
The story was full of holes, but the young witches and wizards loved that sort of tale.
It had to be said that Ron's talent for making up stories was absolutely second to none at Hogwarts.
Did this count as his second