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For some context, Giant squid have ten limbs, eight arms and two tentacles.
“‘Ave any of you solved ze egg yet?” Fleur asked. All four champions shook their heads, this relieved Harry a bit, his egg had been stuffed in the bottom of his trunk and buried since the day he made the mistake of opening in the Gryfindor Common Room
“I said I wouldn’t worry about it until after Christmas, mainly to save my own ears” Cedric commented, the other champions nodding their approval. “Forget about the egg for now anyway, it’s Christmas, brooding over a golden egg isn’t what Christmas is for anyway.”
“Mhm, that’s Easter” Harry quickly replied. “Spread the Christmas Cheer and all that”
“Zat man over there needs some ‘Christmas Cheer’” Krum responded
“Which one?” Cedric asked.
“Ze one zat looks like a bat and hasn’t showered in 18 months”
“That’s Snape, there’s been a rumour for years that he’s a vampire. He’s also got a problem with me, something to do with my father” Harry answered.
“Vell zis garlic bread’s very nice, I’m sure he vould like some.” Krum commented.
They all started pitching in ideas on what to do to Snape. Fleur had suggested turning his hair green, whilst Krum suggested transfiguring his food into bats that would swarm around him. They collectively decided that Fleur and Krum’s plans had less to do with Christmas Cheer as it did plain bullying the man, so instead went with Cedric’s plan to charm his cutlery to sing Christmas songs whenever he picked them up.
“On the condition you don’t ask me why I know how, I can charm them to sing here, as long as you don’t touch them with skin they should be silent, so one of you just needs to go up and swap round the sets.” Harry said.
“If you do ze magic i’ll go up virst” Krum said, pulling a pair of seeking gloves out of his pocket.
Harry drew out his wand, charming the cutlery with a version of the ‘cantis’ charm combined with an adapted version of ‘Homenum Revelio’ making it so that if someone was to directly touch the object its other charms would come into effect. Harry then let Krum pick up the cutlery with his gloved hand, and watched as he made his way up to the front table.
Only 15 pixie lengths away from the table, Karkaroff greeted his champion, guiding him away from the table into a separate room, most likely to talk about the golden egg that he had neglected for the best part of two months.
“Well that’s not ideal.” Cedric stated, “I’ll go up next if you don’t mind charming another set Harry.”
Slightly annoyed, Harry charmed another set, which Cedric promptly wrapped in a napkin and tucked up his sleeve. Only half the height of a quidditch goal post away from where he’d been sat, Cedric was intercepted by a group of giggling girls who led him away from the great hall to try and secure a last minute date to the ball.
"Merde,” Fleur said, “I guess zat it is me up next, non?”
Harry begrudgingly charmed another cutlery set which Fleur picked up with her gloves. Once Fleur had travelled roughly the length of 19 stone gargoyles when Rita Skeeter swooped out of nowhere, dragging Fleur away with her lips forming the motions of “Yule Ball” and “Interview”.
Harry had seemingly run out of options. All three of the older champions who had gone up hadn’t even made it within 5 wand lengths of the teachers’ table.
“Where have the other champions gone? Is Krum off spending more time with the Giant Squid?” Fred chimed in
“Mmmmm Squiddy, I love your ten limbs” George added helpfully.
“Better ten than 23” Harry commented, “Anyway, you can be replacements, substitute champions if you want; I need you two to replace Snape’s cutlery with a charmed pair that sing Christmas songs whenever he holds them”
“But no spoons? Spoons are excellent. Sort of like forks, but not as stabby.” But before he had a chance to finish his instructions the twins had disappeared, although as if being hit by the confundus charm had both ran in the opposite direction out of the hall.
This reminded Harry that he did in fact have other friends, moving over to the Gryfindor Table to find his next subjects. “Ron, how would you fancy pranking Snape? All I need you to do is switch this cutlery set with his without him noticing, nothing too hard.”
“I’m down, sounds simple. What will happen to him, will his hair fall out? Will the fork start throwing his food all over him? Will they multiply into 15 different cutlery sets? Sounds bloody spectacular.”
With that, he picked up the napkin wrapped utensils and started out his voyage towards the front table. However, he had only got the distance of 15 owl cages away when he got distracted by a plate of 4 different types of potatoes, which he then tried to stab with the fork Harry gave him, shrieking when the first sound of “Jingle Bells” was heard.
“Hermione, how would you like to go prove yourself more capable at a simple task than Ron” Harry asked, handing her the fifth set of cutlery of the day. Hermione had managed to get all the way to where Snape was sat, but was caught in conversation by the bat-like man
“The forks are looking very shiny today aren’t they, Professor?" She said
“I agree, the house elves have done an excellent job cleaning them haven’t they”
This spelled the end for Hermione, as she went AWOL, abandoning her mission to return unsuccessful to Harry.
“Destroy them Harry! I am not being part of a scheme that forces house elves to do MORE work than they already do, and I am quite frankly ashamed you’d be a part of it either!” Hermione said, before leaving the hall, leaving the enchanted cutlery with Harry.
Harry had had enough. Everyone that had tried was unsuccessful for one reason or another, had failed. It left the only option that he would have to do it himself.
He picked up the cutlery that Hermione had left, walking past where Cedric, then Fleur, Then Ron, Then Krum, before reaching where Hermione had been stood only the length of time it took to run across the 1st floor corridor past charms 14 times. As he made his first move to pick up Snape’s cutlery, he saw it briefly shimmer and disappear, before reappearing.
Suddenly, every fork and knife along the table stood up and started running up and down the length of the table. After the length of time it took to grow 4 micrometres of hair, the cutlery all began to unharmoniously sing along to ‘Jingle Bells’ with each fork being at a slightly different frequency, whilst its knife counterpart sang along and marginally different paces, creating a cacophony of noise that could only be compared to 22 push lawnmower engines running simultaneously.
Snape looked up in anger at Harry, ready to accuse him of the crime that he failed to commit. Harry took this as his queue to leave, turning around and bolting it towards the castle exit. On his way out, he ran directly into Fleur, causing them to topple into a candy-cane wielding suit of armour. The suit promptly challenged them to a duel, which Harry denied, stating that he “had somewhere to be” causing the armour to prod him with the candy-cane. He quickly regained his composure, dragging himself and fleur up, before they both carried on running out of the hall 5 times the speed of a greenland shark.
Once outside, they spotted Cedric and Krum, who had reconvened at some point, and were now knee deep in snow holding their brooms. Harry quickly re-enacted his first task feat, summoning his own broom. The group turned around, just in time to see the sets of cutlery excavating their way through the white powdered substance like they were students on a night out in Essex. The champions decided that now was a better time that any to make their leave, as Fleur climbed onto the back of Harry’s broom, and they sped off away from the castle.
Harry was tailing behind Cedric who was behind Krum as they raced the length of 5 paper clips above the lake, when the Giant Squid suddenly whipped one of its 12 limbs (Fred and George had each attached 1 prosthetic limb, independently of each other) out of the surface of the water. Krum used his quick reactions to just about loop upside down over the top of the tentacle. Cedric however had had his vision obscured by Krum’s figure, causing him to crash directly into one of the 8 arms of the squid. Harry was able to dive under the tentacle, momentarily dipping into the ice-cold water, leaving him and Fleur drenched and frozen as they emerged out the water.
“I thought that you were the 1 the Squid was going after Victor” Harry said
“Vot, how do you. Nevermind, ve need to get Cedric, I’d imagine he is quite cold” Victor replied
“I ag-gre-gree. It’s qui-ite co-old” Fleur managed, her teeth chattering as she spoke.
Krum had gone down, as the only one not to have been in the lake. When he emerged, Cedric had been covered in so much sea weed he looked more like a walrus in a coat than a human; the 9 fish that had come up with him hadn't helped. Harry quickly got his wand out, casting warming charms over the four of them, whilst taking great care in uncarefully taking all 18 pieces of seaweed off of Cedric.