SMILE » n. longbottom

xvii

"THE SECOND TASK, PART TWO"

Harry swam through the seaweed slowly until a figure swam quickly past him, for he paused and looked to where the figure with a tail of a shark swam to. He shortly followed the figure up the underwater hill that had multiple upstanding pillars. In the middle of the area were four people tied down by ropes that restrained them from floating to the surface.

The figure that Harry Potter had seen earlier was no where in sight, but there were figures that had the same appearance of the tail, but it appeared to have some strands of unnatural hair or seaweed coming from its head. Their heads had unusual features, but to Harry they did not cause him to swim away in fear.

He swam to the one figure he recognized the most: Ronald Weasley who looked rather pale. He undid the rope that restrained him, and in the distance he saw a yellow uniform, Cedric Diggory with an air bubble covering his lower face. Cedric cast a spell that cut off the rope that held down Cho Chang another figure who also was there. Harry watched Cedric carry the Ravenclaw girl to the surface in front of the towers.

Harry saw that Hermione was there beside Ron, so he decided to pull out his wand. But what restrained him from casting a spell were sharp objects held against his neck. The Merpeople held these objects somewhat resembling torches with sharpened ends, he spoke under the water, trying to communicate with the species, "But she's my friend too!"

The species had no trouble in speaking with the boy, for the one infront of Harry wailed and hissed what could only be heard as, "Only one." As suddenly as they had threatened him, they had ran away from the scene. Harry looked around and saw that a shark was heading straight for him.

The boy-who-lived rushes our of the way as he realized that the shark was not a shark, but Viktor Krum. As the Durmstrang student swam past the boy, he grabbed the rope that held onto Hermione Granger. The couple were shortly out of Harry's view.

Then he was the only conscious one, he was ready to depart with his friend, Ron, when he realized that there was another body being restrained to float up to the surface. And there was no one in sight. If there was no one would save the last person, then she would die surely. Where was the other champion, Fleur Delacour?

Above the surface of the Black Lake, all of the champions and their treasures were safely on the towers, expect Harry and his own treasure. Surrounding Fleur Delacour, were her fellow Beauxbatons students who tried to comfort her. As far as the girls knew, Fleur had not returned with what was taken from her.

But below the surface of the Black Lake, in the green murky waters Harry Potter struggled to carry both his friend and the last person to be tied down to the lake's floor. He was being pulled down back towards the bottom of the lake by creatures that inhabitant it. He knew that this was not a obstacle, Harry knew that the creatures were angry at him for trying to escape to the surface with two people.

At first there were a couple that surrounded him, then in a blink of an eye: more creatures swam from the depths of the lake. Harry was being attacked by the creatures that swam at him and attacked him like birds attacking an intruder. Harry pushed the two upwards towards the surface where he had intended to go along with them.

But everything that the-boy-who-lived had been through ever since the uprising of a certain darklord. He had the proof of an unforgivable curse on his forehead, he had to deal constantly with the Dursleys until Hagrid had found him and rescued him from that sad-excuse of a house on a rock. Once he had been introduced magic he was no longer Harry Potter, an unknown boy in the closet underneath the staircase, but once he found magic — he was the-boy-who-lived, he was respected, more than he had before. He was now somebody, not a nobody like he had been told by his aunt and uncle.

As the spell that had been casted by his wand took place, in an instant the creatures were off of him as fast as they had appeared. But Harry Potter was not safe from death just yet — the object that he had consumed before the task started's affect on him was slowly fading away. In other words: he was drowning.

"Ascendio," Harry stated as he lifted his wand upward, the spell caused him to practically fly out of the lake and then land out the hard surface of the lowest level of the tower. He was greeted by Dumbledore and a towel that wrapped around Harry.