Chapters 21-26, The Second Task

In Chapter 21, Hermione leads Harry and Ron to the kitchens after dinner, where they discover more than a hundred elves cooking. To Harry’s great surprise, he finds Dobby there, too, a house elf he met before his second year at Hogwarts. Not only that, but Winky, Mr. Crouch’s old house elf, was also there, although she was extremely miserable because Mr. Crouch had fired her. Dobby explains all about how he had found himself and Winky a job at Hogwarts. In Chapter 22, everyone at Hogwarts is informed about the Yule Ball taking place at Hogwarts. Harry and Ron both struggle to find a dance partner but eventually are successful in the end.

In Chapter 23, the Yule Ball takes place at Hogwarts at Christmas. Many surprises have waited for Harry; one, Percy Weasley is substituting for Mr. Crouch, claiming that Mr. Crouch isn’t feeling well, due to large amounts of overwork. Still, Harry is suspicious– Mr. Crouch loves work so much that he has never missed a day of it in his life. A second surprise is that Hermione went with Krum, much to both Ron’s surprise and displeasure. In Chapter 24, Harry goes to his Care of Magical Creatures class, taught by Hagrid, only to find that he was absent, due to an article published in the newspaper. The article portrayed Hagrid as a dangerous and wild man, declaring him one of the vicious half-giants. Naturally, this made Hagrid very upset and embarrassed, causing him to not want to teach anymore. Harry and his friends eventually manage to convince him to teach still, along with the help of Dumbledore.

In Chapter 25, Harry figures out what the clue to the Second Task meant, by opening the egg underwater. On his way back to his dormitory, he notices on his magical map of Hogwarts that a dot in Professor Snape’s office said, Bartemius Crouch, leading Harry to think that Mr. Crouch was at Hogwarts in the middle of the night, which was extremely odd - Mr. Crouch was supposedly sick and didn’t come to judge the tournament, so why was he here tonight? Harry makes his way over there only to be stuck in one of the steps on the staircase, and very nearly misses getting in a lot of trouble. Professor Moody asked Harry if he saw anyone on the map in Professor Snape’s office. Harry explained how he saw Mr. Crouch on the map, which led Professor Moody to suddenly strangely become worried, claiming that he was nothing compared to Mr. Crouch, even though Professor Moody used to be one of the best dark-wizard catchers. This strange information becomes extremely important later.

In Chapter 26, Harry participates in the second task: rescuing people from the bottom of the lake, supposedly captured by the merpeople. Harry did not only save his hostage but also the one whom Fleur was supposed to find, had she been able to make it. He also gave a considerable amount of help to the other champions, doing everything because he took the song that was within the clue seriously– thinking that the champions truly would be taken hostage for the rest of their lives. Because of this, even though he returned last, he was given a very good score on the task.