A Christmas holiday without homework should have been a very pleasant one. Yet Harry and Ron had not been very happy these past two days.
They were not the only unhappy ones. All the Champions from the various schools looked visibly unhappy, and the reason was simple: so far, none of them had made any headway with the clues to the Second Task.
Ever since they had acquired them, Harry, Ron, and their friends had spent days taking turns tinkering with the two Golden Eggs. They burned them, soaked them in water, and Ginny even tried to damage them with magic such as the Blasting Curse, but the Golden Eggs remained completely unscathed.
It was absurd.
Ludo Bagman had said the clues to the Second Task were hidden inside the Golden Eggs, but Harry and the others could not open them at all. What were they supposed to do?
Harry and Ron considered asking a few professors for advice, but after some hesitation, they decided against it.
Both were somewhat conscious of their status as Champions, after all. They had only come up with a solution for the First Task thanks to Professor Lupin and Professor Moody's help.
Getting the professors' help again for the Second Task... was not out of the question. But that should at least wait until they knew what the task involved and discovered that it was beyond their abilities.
Going to the professors before they even knew what the Second Task was would have been rather too embarrassing.
Unexpectedly, most of their friends supported Harry and Ron's decision. However, a chance remark from Dean revealed to Harry and Ron the real reason for that support.
Almost everyone hoped to come up with a way to open the Golden Eggs themselves and do their bit for