OK, so as a preliminary disclaimer, I found myself unable to figure out whether in the beginning of the fifth book Harry would be fifteen or sixteen. I had thought fifteen, but if I'm confused and he's a year older I apologize. ^_^;; In any case, since he's pretty fixated on Cho and pretty damn good in his fight against Voldemort in Book Four, I submit that as Book Five begins Harry is most definitely not too young to think about ::cough:: physical matters or scary, serious subjects of a Dark nature. He's a kid, sure, but expecting a kid his age never to think about sex and doom is sort of unrealistic, IMO. . . .
Yes, I will be slashing Harry. In other words, he may well be caught snogging another boy in the course of this fic. ^_~
No, I do not own Harry (JK Rowling does, as I think you all well know). I do not, in fact, own any of this, except for Connie Cupplewicket's Tummy-loosening Tea, and I can't even quite bring myself to swear I didn't get that from somewhere else.
Many Waters
Harry knew the moment Hagrid said "squid" that something awful was going to happen. The large half-giant's fondness for strange animals had gotten them into trouble before, and there was no reason to be believe that today's Care of Magical Creatures squid-watching trip to the lake was going to be any different.
Although he wasn't sure he could see why anyone would want to "care for" Hogwarts' resident giant squid anyway--even Hagrid.
Then again, little Dennis Creevy had seemed fond of the creature. . .and it had very nicely put Dennis back in the boat when he'd fallen overboard as a first-year. So maybe--
"Harry! This way! You don' want ter get too close to that bit o' the lake. That's the deep bit, that is," Hagrid boomed, interrupting his thoughts. "Now, we'll be waiting fer the squid ter get active, like--shouldn' be too long. Yeh've all got yer food with you, right?"
Various Slytherins and Gryffindors murmured assent. Well, various Gryffindors murmured assent, and a certain pale, cruel-mouthed Slytherin continued to grumble to his cronies and not-quite-quietly wonder why they had to come all the way out here in the autumn cold just to watch a slimy sea creature eat.
Harry was privately wondering the same thing, but he'd rather cut out his own tongue than admit to agreeing with Draco Malfoy. Besides, Hagrid was Harry's friend.
"I can't believe he's still harping on Hagrid!" steamed Ron Weasley, coming to stand by Harry. "I'd like to--"
"Shhh, Ron," hissed Hermione from behind him. I wonder if it's not a coincidence that they both just happened to catch up at the same time, coming from the same direction, mused Harry to himself. His two best friends had gotten awfully close of late. "We need to be able to hear the lecture!"
"Herm, it's a lecture on *squid.* No one in Hogwarts is going to put *squid* on our O.W.L.s."
"You never know what could get put on those tests!"
Harry sighed.
Seeing that Ron and Hermione were about to embark on another of their infamous (and interminable) squabbles, he decided to go find someplace to sit. Someplace quiet where he could tune them and Malfoy's gang out for awhile. Harry had just returned to Hogwarts for his fifth year, and already in the first week of classes the Slytherins were getting on his nerves. Crabbe and Goyle had gotten bigger and thicker, Malfoy had gotten meaner (if that was possible), and Millicent Bulstrode, Pansy Parkinson, and the other girls were even more hard-faced and unpleasant than before.
At least, that's what it seemed like to Harry. But maybe, just maybe, he was just letting them get on his nerves more, because it took his mind off. . .other things he didn't want to think about.
Harry had been worried ever since the Triwizard Tournament. His own fifteenth birthday hadn't cheered him up, not even with the meat pies and Canary Creams and other treats his friends had sent him. In truth, when he'd left one of the Canary Creams out to watch Dudley find it and eat it, and even that hadn't made him crack more than half a smile, he'd known something was wrong.
Voldemort was back, and getting stronger by the day. Even though war had not yet broken out, the mere thought of it all made Harry's stomach tie up into little knots that wouldn't come undone, even with the Connie Cupplewicket's Tummy-loosening Tea that Mrs. Weasley had given him over the summer.
So in a way, concentrating on how much he hated the Slytherins was sort of comforting.
Harry was so caught up in these thoughts that not only did he completely miss Hagrid's lecture, but he also failed to realize that he had wandered very close to the "deep bit" of the lake before sitting down. And he further didn't notice what his classmates were just then remarking on: the lake seemed to be. . .growing, somehow. He just wasn't paying attention.
Which is the only explanation for how, at the very moment when Hagrid called out "She's coming," Harry could possibly have slipped into the dark water.
He would tell people later, in a very heated tone of voice, that he had certainly done no such thing. "'Slipped into'?! Hah! More like, I looked down, and the lake was reaching up around me! That bloody squid started to move, and the whole lake lurched, you said so yourself, and all of a sudden I felt all this cold water sort of slip up over me, and then I, er. . .didn't know which way was up," he would be heard to say, finishing in a flustered mumble.
But at the time, his impressions were not so clear. All that he could think was, "Wha--how did I--I'm all wet! Am I in the lake. . .?!"
Which would not have sounded very good as a dinnertime story at the Gryffindor table, and it is perhaps not surprising that Harry edited it later.
But at the time, in the lake. . . .
Cold, cold water was pressing in all around him suddenly, and it jolted him out of his daze and stupefied him all at once, and some dim part of him remembered that there was something in the water, and that this kind of cold wasn't good, was dangerous--
But by this time he was deep enough in the water that he couldn't touch either surface or ground--
His legs were kicking out and his arms were flailing wildly--
He reflexively started to gasp and felt water trickle through his lips before he aborted the action and clapped a hand over his mouth--
Harry couldn't seem to get his limbs to cooperate and move him, and he remembered that he wasn't a good swimmer. The freezing liquid was swirling around him, and this time he didn't have the gillyweed and the instincts it produced to help him. With only normal, human limbs weighed down awfully by his clothes, he was awkward and heavy. If only someone would help him. . .he knew he was far across the lake from the mermaid settlement. . .the lake-water was almost like a wall of blackness pushing in at him from all sides. . . cold. . . . His mind was heavy, and he wasn't sure how long he'd been underwater, and everything was starting to get very comfortably grey around the edges--
--and then for one short moment his mad flailing and spinning stilled, and Harry recognized clearly that he had to get out, or he was going to die.
Do you want to go like this?! he screamed at himself. With Voldemort and the Death Eaters and a whole army of powerful wizards you've never even seen out for your blood, are you such a pathetic git that you're going to die here, in some stupid lake within sight of Hogwarts? Get moving!!!
With considerable effort, Harry pulled himself together and concentrated. He had to kick his legs and then pull himself with his arms, and get himself out of the water. Now, he would just start moving toward the surface--wait. Should the water above him look this dark?
Maybe he'd gotten turned around, Harry thought. He sort of spun around a bit until he thought he was upside down from his previous position, lungs burning. The water above him now seemed just as black as before. With a horrible lurch in his stomach, Harry realized that he didn't know which way was up.
And his whole body was crying out for oxygen, and he wasn't sure he could stay conscious much longer. . . .
The phrase "a sinking feeling" was beginning to take on a whole new meaning.
Well, better to just pick a direction and start going than stay here. Harry didn't even know if the rest of the class knew he was gone. He started reaching toward where he thought the water looked the lightest, feeling his body and mind start to grow heavier and heavier.
Soon he was going to have to try to breathe. He knew he couldn't do that, but his body was insisting that he couldn't just keep his mouth closed forever like this.
Just as Harry was about ready to give it up and call himself squid food, something that felt like a hand brushed against his shoulder. What. . .a mermaid. . .? he thought, fuzzily.
It was definitely a hand; it came back after a second to reach around him from behind and brush against his chest. He started thrashing weakly, trying to break free so he could keep swimming, when he could almost swear he heard somebody sigh. And then, suddenly, the hand was moving and two strong arms hooked under his armpits and jerked him (up? down?) hard.
If this is Hagrid or Ron come to rescue me, I swear I'll buy them butterbeers every Hogsmeade weekend for a year. . .as many as they want. . .butterbeer for two years. . .every year. . .my firstborn child. . . .
And then, after how much time he couldn't tell, Harry was breaking the surface, coughing and taking in great gulps of oxygen as his rescuer dumped him on the shore. He continued to cough, so hard that his throat hurt. As he came back to himself, he gradually became aware that the rescuer was cursing, and wondered if he should try to get his eyes to focus and figure out who it was before he vomited up his lungs and his breakfast.
Nope, he immediately found out, vomiting came first.
Luckily, his glasses were still there when he felt for them some minutes later, having been bound to his face by a clump of what felt like seaweed. He removed it, wincing at the horrible bile taste in his mouth, and dried the glasses off as best he could with a Soaking Spell. When he was finished with this procedure, Harry returned them to his face and blinked curiously.
Standing above him, usual faintly-sneering expression on his face, was Draco Malfoy.
Hell, thought Harry.
It was probably for the best that his much-abused body chose that moment to pass out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Draco Malfoy was not the kind of boy prone to bouts of introspection when action was called for. Oh, that wasn't to say he didn't think things through; Malfoys were crafty, and he had always been taught to carefully evaluate his plans before he carried them out.
No, it was just that Draco had also learned to trust his instincts. Any animal needed good instincts to survive in a crisis; even Muggles knew that. Some of Draco's best adventures had come of spontaneity.
Also, though he would never admit it, even in his own mind (indeed, what fifteen-year-old boy would?), Draco was still a child, and children are impulsive.
So when he saw his nemesis, Harry Potter, fall into the lake, he took a quick stock of the situation. Harry was a little ways away from the rest of the class, and it seemed that nobody but Draco had seen what had happened. That meant whatever action he took was of critical importance, and it had to be taken (or not taken) right away. He could choose to let Harry fend for himself, to call for Hagrid, to do something on his own. Time was of the essence.
Draco let his instincts take over.
He walked over to the edge of the lake where Harry had gone in, used a Locating Spell to find him, rolled up his sleeves, plunged into the water underneath the green sparkles that marked Harry's location, and hauled the other boy out.
Harry was heavy, and he was coughing up water all over Draco's shirt and in general being more than usually disgusting. Therefore, Draco thought, he was fully justified in dropping Mr. He-Who-Lived unceremoniously to the ground. He'd already gone above and beyond the call of duty saving the little toad.
Predictably, Harry landed face-down, which meant Draco had to kick at him, muttering a steady stream of curses, until Harry rolled to one side. Damned if he'd have the git up and choke when he'd just gone to all the trouble of rescuing him.
He continued to stand over Harry, watching impassively, as the other boy coughed and vomited onto the grass. Repulsive, he thought, lip curling faintly.
That was the moment when Draco wondered for the first time why he'd bothered to save The Boy Who Lived.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
And that's a wrap for the first chapter! There will be more (probably many more), I assure you. So, review and let me know how you liked it or didn't like it? Thoughtful reviews a better author make. . . .
~~Cutter
Yes, I will be slashing Harry. In other words, he may well be caught snogging another boy in the course of this fic. ^_~
No, I do not own Harry (JK Rowling does, as I think you all well know). I do not, in fact, own any of this, except for Connie Cupplewicket's Tummy-loosening Tea, and I can't even quite bring myself to swear I didn't get that from somewhere else.
Many Waters
Harry knew the moment Hagrid said "squid" that something awful was going to happen. The large half-giant's fondness for strange animals had gotten them into trouble before, and there was no reason to be believe that today's Care of Magical Creatures squid-watching trip to the lake was going to be any different.
Although he wasn't sure he could see why anyone would want to "care for" Hogwarts' resident giant squid anyway--even Hagrid.
Then again, little Dennis Creevy had seemed fond of the creature. . .and it had very nicely put Dennis back in the boat when he'd fallen overboard as a first-year. So maybe--
"Harry! This way! You don' want ter get too close to that bit o' the lake. That's the deep bit, that is," Hagrid boomed, interrupting his thoughts. "Now, we'll be waiting fer the squid ter get active, like--shouldn' be too long. Yeh've all got yer food with you, right?"
Various Slytherins and Gryffindors murmured assent. Well, various Gryffindors murmured assent, and a certain pale, cruel-mouthed Slytherin continued to grumble to his cronies and not-quite-quietly wonder why they had to come all the way out here in the autumn cold just to watch a slimy sea creature eat.
Harry was privately wondering the same thing, but he'd rather cut out his own tongue than admit to agreeing with Draco Malfoy. Besides, Hagrid was Harry's friend.
"I can't believe he's still harping on Hagrid!" steamed Ron Weasley, coming to stand by Harry. "I'd like to--"
"Shhh, Ron," hissed Hermione from behind him. I wonder if it's not a coincidence that they both just happened to catch up at the same time, coming from the same direction, mused Harry to himself. His two best friends had gotten awfully close of late. "We need to be able to hear the lecture!"
"Herm, it's a lecture on *squid.* No one in Hogwarts is going to put *squid* on our O.W.L.s."
"You never know what could get put on those tests!"
Harry sighed.
Seeing that Ron and Hermione were about to embark on another of their infamous (and interminable) squabbles, he decided to go find someplace to sit. Someplace quiet where he could tune them and Malfoy's gang out for awhile. Harry had just returned to Hogwarts for his fifth year, and already in the first week of classes the Slytherins were getting on his nerves. Crabbe and Goyle had gotten bigger and thicker, Malfoy had gotten meaner (if that was possible), and Millicent Bulstrode, Pansy Parkinson, and the other girls were even more hard-faced and unpleasant than before.
At least, that's what it seemed like to Harry. But maybe, just maybe, he was just letting them get on his nerves more, because it took his mind off. . .other things he didn't want to think about.
Harry had been worried ever since the Triwizard Tournament. His own fifteenth birthday hadn't cheered him up, not even with the meat pies and Canary Creams and other treats his friends had sent him. In truth, when he'd left one of the Canary Creams out to watch Dudley find it and eat it, and even that hadn't made him crack more than half a smile, he'd known something was wrong.
Voldemort was back, and getting stronger by the day. Even though war had not yet broken out, the mere thought of it all made Harry's stomach tie up into little knots that wouldn't come undone, even with the Connie Cupplewicket's Tummy-loosening Tea that Mrs. Weasley had given him over the summer.
So in a way, concentrating on how much he hated the Slytherins was sort of comforting.
Harry was so caught up in these thoughts that not only did he completely miss Hagrid's lecture, but he also failed to realize that he had wandered very close to the "deep bit" of the lake before sitting down. And he further didn't notice what his classmates were just then remarking on: the lake seemed to be. . .growing, somehow. He just wasn't paying attention.
Which is the only explanation for how, at the very moment when Hagrid called out "She's coming," Harry could possibly have slipped into the dark water.
He would tell people later, in a very heated tone of voice, that he had certainly done no such thing. "'Slipped into'?! Hah! More like, I looked down, and the lake was reaching up around me! That bloody squid started to move, and the whole lake lurched, you said so yourself, and all of a sudden I felt all this cold water sort of slip up over me, and then I, er. . .didn't know which way was up," he would be heard to say, finishing in a flustered mumble.
But at the time, his impressions were not so clear. All that he could think was, "Wha--how did I--I'm all wet! Am I in the lake. . .?!"
Which would not have sounded very good as a dinnertime story at the Gryffindor table, and it is perhaps not surprising that Harry edited it later.
But at the time, in the lake. . . .
Cold, cold water was pressing in all around him suddenly, and it jolted him out of his daze and stupefied him all at once, and some dim part of him remembered that there was something in the water, and that this kind of cold wasn't good, was dangerous--
But by this time he was deep enough in the water that he couldn't touch either surface or ground--
His legs were kicking out and his arms were flailing wildly--
He reflexively started to gasp and felt water trickle through his lips before he aborted the action and clapped a hand over his mouth--
Harry couldn't seem to get his limbs to cooperate and move him, and he remembered that he wasn't a good swimmer. The freezing liquid was swirling around him, and this time he didn't have the gillyweed and the instincts it produced to help him. With only normal, human limbs weighed down awfully by his clothes, he was awkward and heavy. If only someone would help him. . .he knew he was far across the lake from the mermaid settlement. . .the lake-water was almost like a wall of blackness pushing in at him from all sides. . . cold. . . . His mind was heavy, and he wasn't sure how long he'd been underwater, and everything was starting to get very comfortably grey around the edges--
--and then for one short moment his mad flailing and spinning stilled, and Harry recognized clearly that he had to get out, or he was going to die.
Do you want to go like this?! he screamed at himself. With Voldemort and the Death Eaters and a whole army of powerful wizards you've never even seen out for your blood, are you such a pathetic git that you're going to die here, in some stupid lake within sight of Hogwarts? Get moving!!!
With considerable effort, Harry pulled himself together and concentrated. He had to kick his legs and then pull himself with his arms, and get himself out of the water. Now, he would just start moving toward the surface--wait. Should the water above him look this dark?
Maybe he'd gotten turned around, Harry thought. He sort of spun around a bit until he thought he was upside down from his previous position, lungs burning. The water above him now seemed just as black as before. With a horrible lurch in his stomach, Harry realized that he didn't know which way was up.
And his whole body was crying out for oxygen, and he wasn't sure he could stay conscious much longer. . . .
The phrase "a sinking feeling" was beginning to take on a whole new meaning.
Well, better to just pick a direction and start going than stay here. Harry didn't even know if the rest of the class knew he was gone. He started reaching toward where he thought the water looked the lightest, feeling his body and mind start to grow heavier and heavier.
Soon he was going to have to try to breathe. He knew he couldn't do that, but his body was insisting that he couldn't just keep his mouth closed forever like this.
Just as Harry was about ready to give it up and call himself squid food, something that felt like a hand brushed against his shoulder. What. . .a mermaid. . .? he thought, fuzzily.
It was definitely a hand; it came back after a second to reach around him from behind and brush against his chest. He started thrashing weakly, trying to break free so he could keep swimming, when he could almost swear he heard somebody sigh. And then, suddenly, the hand was moving and two strong arms hooked under his armpits and jerked him (up? down?) hard.
If this is Hagrid or Ron come to rescue me, I swear I'll buy them butterbeers every Hogsmeade weekend for a year. . .as many as they want. . .butterbeer for two years. . .every year. . .my firstborn child. . . .
And then, after how much time he couldn't tell, Harry was breaking the surface, coughing and taking in great gulps of oxygen as his rescuer dumped him on the shore. He continued to cough, so hard that his throat hurt. As he came back to himself, he gradually became aware that the rescuer was cursing, and wondered if he should try to get his eyes to focus and figure out who it was before he vomited up his lungs and his breakfast.
Nope, he immediately found out, vomiting came first.
Luckily, his glasses were still there when he felt for them some minutes later, having been bound to his face by a clump of what felt like seaweed. He removed it, wincing at the horrible bile taste in his mouth, and dried the glasses off as best he could with a Soaking Spell. When he was finished with this procedure, Harry returned them to his face and blinked curiously.
Standing above him, usual faintly-sneering expression on his face, was Draco Malfoy.
Hell, thought Harry.
It was probably for the best that his much-abused body chose that moment to pass out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Draco Malfoy was not the kind of boy prone to bouts of introspection when action was called for. Oh, that wasn't to say he didn't think things through; Malfoys were crafty, and he had always been taught to carefully evaluate his plans before he carried them out.
No, it was just that Draco had also learned to trust his instincts. Any animal needed good instincts to survive in a crisis; even Muggles knew that. Some of Draco's best adventures had come of spontaneity.
Also, though he would never admit it, even in his own mind (indeed, what fifteen-year-old boy would?), Draco was still a child, and children are impulsive.
So when he saw his nemesis, Harry Potter, fall into the lake, he took a quick stock of the situation. Harry was a little ways away from the rest of the class, and it seemed that nobody but Draco had seen what had happened. That meant whatever action he took was of critical importance, and it had to be taken (or not taken) right away. He could choose to let Harry fend for himself, to call for Hagrid, to do something on his own. Time was of the essence.
Draco let his instincts take over.
He walked over to the edge of the lake where Harry had gone in, used a Locating Spell to find him, rolled up his sleeves, plunged into the water underneath the green sparkles that marked Harry's location, and hauled the other boy out.
Harry was heavy, and he was coughing up water all over Draco's shirt and in general being more than usually disgusting. Therefore, Draco thought, he was fully justified in dropping Mr. He-Who-Lived unceremoniously to the ground. He'd already gone above and beyond the call of duty saving the little toad.
Predictably, Harry landed face-down, which meant Draco had to kick at him, muttering a steady stream of curses, until Harry rolled to one side. Damned if he'd have the git up and choke when he'd just gone to all the trouble of rescuing him.
He continued to stand over Harry, watching impassively, as the other boy coughed and vomited onto the grass. Repulsive, he thought, lip curling faintly.
That was the moment when Draco wondered for the first time why he'd bothered to save The Boy Who Lived.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
And that's a wrap for the first chapter! There will be more (probably many more), I assure you. So, review and let me know how you liked it or didn't like it? Thoughtful reviews a better author make. . . .
~~Cutter