Ah, Fir knew Erik would see the light. Why wouldn't he, with Fir's incredible persuasive power? So now Fir was in as the mastermind lovely assistant to this fiendish yet brilliant plot.

And his sidekick Erik was all for dosing up the entire school. Well, why shouldn't he? It was a brilliant idea, as Erik said himself.

"There's a lot of students at Hogwarts and such a thing as mail-order," Fir told Erik. "Getting the more standard stuff shouldn't be a problem, especially for all those above age, which, oh wait, I am. Lucky you. Getting it too teh whole school will be easy too. We just head down to the kitchen that morning and distract or trick the house elves, put it in all the food and go our merry way. That'll be easy, house elves aren't too bright and eager to please, bless their hearts."

One day, Fir would get a house elf, if nor nothing else than to have a member of his family to tell him how gorgeous and amazing he was whenever Fir needed it (which was about every 5 minutes).

The mermaid song was another issue, though. Hmmm

"Well there's a couple different options we could do for that," Fir said slowly, trying to drudge up some Potions notes from memory, as well as overheard conversations about COMC class. "It'd be tricky, but since we got our own mermaid population, it's doable. Biggest problem will be that the lake's frozen over this time of year."

   
Erik dropped the jars back into his backpack, “The morning? How early in the morning?” he scratched his head, “House-elves always cook… uh—long cooked stuff, and tons of it. When do we get them when they get started or at a good time?” Erik never really snuck into the kitchen in the morning, just at night, for a little snack when he was sneak—having trouble going to sleep.  Yeah. That’s it.

He then directed is attention to the whole mermaid in a lake thing, something Erik knew nothing about. He didn’t take Care of Magical Creatures, stealing a song just seemed easier, but a swim in the lake did sound like more fun. “Um… we can just make the lake warmer right and get some gillyweed or one of those other charms the champions used in the Triwizard Tournament?” Erik was such a fan of that thing, he hoped that it might happen again soon. Maybe he’d be old enough for it next time it came around. “Maybe we boat could go underwater. Durmstrang’s ship went underwater right?”

The short Gryffindor then bobbed his head from side to side, and then recalled the other details about the second task, “Actually, they put mermaid songs in golden eggs too, didn’t they?” Could a golden egg even catch a song somehow, “Were they being fancy? Or do we HAVE to use an egg?”

"Well we can always hit the pumpkin juice," Fir said. "Everyone drinks pumpkin juice. And we can even stop by the night before. Fake a prefect badge or grab a real prefect with a sense of fun and say we are under special orders from the Headmistress or whatever. House elves aren't really that hard to fool."

They weren't. In fact, once Fir had made this discovery, he made it a point to see hat he could get the house elves to cook or do for his own amusement. Sometimes, when he was having a rough day, he would go see his pointy eared friends just so they could tell him how wonderful he was. Bless their little eager-to-please hearts.

"Gillyweed is pretty rare," Fir told the kid. He had a pretty good knowledge for a first year, but still there were a few mistakes that would need an older, wiser and more magically able student to help with. Oh look, Fir fulfilled all of that while still looking fabulous.

"We might be able to nick some from our lovely potions professor, or use some other method. Like transfiguration or bubble-head charm. Might be able to use something to warm the lake water, but we need a good swimmer and some damn good spellcasters. Durmstrang's ship also popped up from Durmstrang into the isolated Hogwarts Lake. Some pretty freaking powerful magic there. We'll find a way."

Oh yeah, Fir actually did do his homework. Kinda. Sorta. He looked up what interested him and learned it. That whole thing called 'lesson plans' were just a mildly interesting side to fill the days.

"They did indeed," Fir assured the kid. "And it was he Triwizard Tournament. They HAVE to be fancy. It's like a rule or something."