I Want to be Your First Choice, Harry Potter

Chapter Fourteen

"Ok let's go." I say standing up. He looks at me like I'm crazy, "Come on, you got all dressed up and ready, I'm not letting it go to waste." I say. All I want to do is make him happy so I hope this will cheer him up.

We walk outside and it's freezing. Harry still looks upset. This was probably a stupid idea, it takes a while to get down to the lake. I start to shiver on the way because I didn't bring a jacket or anything. Harry is wearing a sweatshirt and a jacket over it. He takes off his jacket and hands it to me. He says that I look ridiculous just wearing a sweater out here. I probably did. His jacket smells good, like how he smelled the night after the party up in my room. Before we even get down to the lake he stops walking. I ask him what he's doing.

"I feel bad, making you do this. I'm sort of miserable right now and it's cold and you probably would rather be by the fire." He says, he starts to turn back around but I grab his arm.

"Harry, it's not about me. You're the one who got stood up tonight not me." I say.

"Now you make me sound pathetic." He says laughing at himself a little. "I don't know about you but I sort of want to go back by the fire." He says. I agree that it's too cold for this so we start to walk back. Going back kind of defeats the purpose of him getting dressed up but it's what he wanted to do. I look up at him the whole walk, I think he saw me a few times maybe but I don't really care. My fingers start to go numb so I rub my hands together, he grabs my hands and rubs them between his.

"There, did that warm them up?" He asks. I nod, he is always warm. I don't know how though, he's just always warm. When we walk into the common room a group of people had gathered since we left.

"Come play!" Ginny says excitedly.

"Play what?" I ask.

"We are playing truth or dare of course" Ron says. I really don't want to play but I don't want to sound lame so I agree and sit down on the couch with Harry. It's now Dean's turn to go and he asks Ginny. She probably wants to sound brave or impress him so she says dare. He dares her to go out on the balcony that was recently snowed on and eat the snow off of the railing. She does it carelessly and tries to play it off like it's nothing to impress everyone. Once she sits back down she asks me of course. I say dare because I'm not a wimp. She laughs a little to herself while coming up with something.

"I dare you to jump in the Black Lake with your clothes on." She says. At this point in the year the lake is probably less than 20℉, it's really not safe to go swimming in water that cold. And especially in the Black Lake, not many people really know what's in the Black Lake but we do know that there are merpeople at least.

"Ginny are you crazy?" I ask.

"No, are you scared?" She asks back. The answer is yes, I am terrified but I don't want to look like a baby in front of everyone. After some convincing I finally agree to doing it. It can't be that bad, I'll just jump in then get out as fast as I can, and Harry says he will have a towel for me. Everyone walks down to the lake and I get ready to jump in. At this moment I regret agreeing to this.

"Go Gabriella, it's cold out here!" Ginny says. She's right and it's best to just get it over with. I take off Harry's jacket and hand it to him. I go up to the edge and try to see if there are any lake monsters but I can't see anything since it's pitch black outside.

I take a deep breath and jump in. As soon as the water hits my skin I want to get out. I start to swim back up to the surface as fast as I can. Once I get up I gasp for air. I swim over to the edge and start to pull myself up when I feel something like a hand wrap around my leg. I start to panic because I can remember back to the Triwizard tournament when merpeople attacked Harry, he barely made it out himself and he had his wand. I don't have my wand. I start to struggle to get the thing to let go of me. Everyone looks at me weird, then it pulls me back under. It pulls me far down quickly.

I open my eyes under the water but I still can't see anything; it's too dark. I brush past lots of slimy seaweed. I can feel my clothes cling to my body and the nails of whatever's got me start to pierce my skin. I can feel someone else in the water with me, I assume it's more merpeople but my hand bumps a pair of glasses.

It's Harry.
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