Harry Potter and the Altered Destinies

Chapter 19: The Black Lake

I do not own Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets or the Percy Jackson series/characters.

Underlines - Quotes from the book

Italicized Bolded - Grindylow/Selkie Speak (màthair = mother in Scottish Gaelic)

After getting a semi-schedule around his now hectic life, Harry finally found the time to test his new ability of breathing underwater.

So, one crisp, slightly cold morning, he grabbed his swim-shorts and shirt before making his way down toward the lake. Eclipse was swinging between his legs, his tail moving side to side in a way to always brush up against his moving legs.

He ignored his pet for the moment, more focused on putting warming-charms all his swim-clothes, especially knowing that the lake might be cold and he didn't know if he got his father's ability to survive any water temperature right now.

After the charms were set, he set one around the a small portion of the lake to not draw attention to the particular area. He didn't want a teacher coming over and spotting his towel, glasses, wand, robes, and his cat there and assume he might be drowning or going against school rules.

He wanted to be undisturbed for the most part. So, he set a heating charm on his robes for Eclipse to lay down on, set his other items next to his cat. He slowly wadded into the lake. Noting that despite the cold weather outside, the lake was actually pretty heated, and he could tell because his hands should've been cold (as he didn't have heating charms on his skin) but they weren't.

Taking a breath and getting the courage to duck his head under the water, he kept to the shallow end, ready to burst out of the water, and cautiously opened his mouth under the water.

Not blowing air out or getting any in. He noted that no air bubbles actually left his mouth, or any water enter his mouth. So he opened his eyes (noting that his eyesight was actually better underwater than out of it) and quickly took a breath in, ready for any coughing that may occur.

But, instead of water entering his lungs, it was indeed air. Swallowing at the knowledge that apparently his magic did in fact give him his father's water powers, he started to move toward the bottom of the lake.

But he kept floating off the sandy ground, and got so annoyed he used the limited (at least for now) wandless magic he knew and stuck his feet to the ground.

While not heavily stuck, it did make it easier to move through the lake. With this, he started to look around the lake, ready for any possible dangers (there wasn't really any book out there describing what really was in the lake. Sure you had your Giant Squid, Grindylow, and Selkie. But there had to be more to the lake than just those creatures).

The book barely described any of the fish that were swimming all around him, some he noted to be the toothpick sized, and then others almost ,medium-dog sized.

He blinked a few times at seeing the Giant Squid which was currently slightly blending itself into the wall that he knew had the Slytherin dorm in it.

He was almost so lost in thought, he hadn't seen a lone, small Grindylow come closer to him. Until it wrapped it's tentacles around his arm and started using small pricks along its tentacles to dig into the skin.

It hurt, and if there were more of them Harry probably would've used magic to get him off. But he couldn't help but look at the small, horned, pale-green water demon who was sticking its tongue out him and just think "cute".

Honestly, he should really learn better than thinking certain creatures were cute, he was starting to turn into Hagrid or Newt Scamander.

So, he slowly just use to the prickling of his skin from the slightly sharp tentacles that seemed to have small teeth in them for gripping items or for a weapon, and reached a hand out in front of the Grindylow, slowly he put it on the babies (assuming from the small size and it's barely grown in teeth) and slowly rubbed it's stomach.