Hello all! This is a slightly AU story in which Harry skips that whole awkward and very tearful Cho Chang period and goes strait to simultaneously oggling over Ginny and hiding from Ron. Sorry if the timing is a bit confusing. It was hard to move from the summer to February, especially since this is a one-shot.

Well, enough of my whining. You probably haven't even bothered to read this, and have skipped strait to the story (that's what I do). Enjoy!

-Blue (a.k.a. the author)

Disclaimer : I am not the genius behind the Harry Potter characters. That is Ms. Rowling. I am not a multi-million dollar film company. That is warner bros. Since I am neither of these people, I am not rolling about in ridiculous amounts of money, and I don't own Harry Potter. Sometimes you just want to punch the person who said that life is never fair.

Harry Potter's Weazy

Harry was at the Burrow for the summer, and was very grateful. Not just because that meant he got to get away from the Dursleys (though that was a pretty big factor). No, the main reason Harry liked visiting the Burrow was because being with the Weasleys allowed Harry to stare at a certain beautiful redhead. Of course, Harry would never actually admit that he was crushing on Ginny.

Harry wouldn't admit his infatuation for two reasons. First, this was Ginny Weasley. A friend. His best friend's little sister. Which brought him to the second point. If Ron ever found out that Harry had anything other that platonic feelings toward his sister, Ron would murder him. Slowly. And very painfully.

Luckily, the situation was not as awkward as it could have been. Ginny didn't notice Harry staring, and though Mrs. Weasley noticed, her attempts to pair them up weren't anything out of the common way.

Soon it was time to go back to school, and Harry's secret was still under wraps. September turned into October, October to November, November to December, which gave way to January, and everything was going great, except for the fact that some mysterious entity had entered him into a deadly tournament designed to rigorously test the magical abilities of people who had three more years of experience than he did, but that didn't have to do anything with Ginny.

oOoOoOoOoOo

The Fates definitely loved to prove him wrong, Harry decided as he raced down to the lake, trying to get there on time. They would take the one fact he was completely sure of, such as the fact that Ginny and Harry's involvement in the tournament had were in no way related, and blatantly prove him wrong. As he was running, he let his mind wander back to the conversation he had with Dobby in the library not ten minutes previously.

'A mermaid version of Ginny Weasley (who looked incredibly hot in a bikini top, Harry decided) had taken the spot of the mermaid from the prefect's bathroom, and was laughing. Harry was bobbing like a cork in bubbly water next to her rock, while she held his Firebolt over his head.

"Come and get it" She giggled flirtatiously "Come on, jump!"

"I can't" Harry panted, snatching at the Firebolt, and struggling not to sink. "Please, Ginny, give it to me."

But she just poked him painfully in the side with the end of the broomstick, laughing at him.

"That hurts- get off - ouch -"

"Harry Potter must wake up, sir!"

"Stop poking me-"

"Dobby must poke Harry Potter, sir, he must wake up."

Harry opened his eyes. He was still in the library; the Invisibility Cloak had slipped off his head as he slept, ans the side of his face was stuck to the pages of Where There's A Wand, There's a Way. He sat up, straightening his glasses, blinking in the bright daylight.

"Harry Potter needs to hurry!" squeaked Dobby. "The second task starts in ten minutes, and Harry Potter-"

"Ten minutes?" Harry croaked. "Ten - ten minutes?

He looked down at his watch. Dobby was right. It was twenty past nine. A large, dead weight seemed to fall through Harry's chest into his stomach.

"Hurry Harry Potter!" Squeaked Dobby, plucking at Harry's sleeve. "You is supposed to be down by the lake with the other champions, sir!"

"It's too late, Dobby" Harry said hopelessly. 'I'm not doing the task, I don't know how-"

"Harry Potter will do the task" squeaked the elf. "Dobby knew harry had not found the right book so Dobby did it for him!"

"What?" said Harry. "But you don't know what the second task is-"

"Dobby knows sir! Harry Potter has to go into the lake and find his Wheezy-"

"Find my what?"

"-And take his Wheezy back from the merpeople"

"What's a Wheezy?"

"Your Wheezy, sir, your Wheezy - Wheezy who you is always staring at."

"What?" Harry gasped. "They've got . . . they've got Ginny?"

After finding out that Ginny was in danger, he had trouble concentrating on the conversation, and only really remembered the part where Dobby handing him Gillyweed. After a couple more minutes of running Harry found himself at the lake.

"Where have you been?" Said a bossy, disapproving voice. "The tasks about to start!"

Harry looked around. Percy Weasley was sitting at the judges' table - Mr. Crouch had failed to turn up again.

"Now, now Percy!" said Ludo Bagman, who was looking intensely relieved to see Harry. "Let him catch his breath!"

Dumbledore smiled at Harry, but Karkaroff and Madame Maxime didn't look at all pleased to see him . . . . It was obvious from the looks on their faces that they had thought he wasn't going to show up.

Harry bent over, hands on his knees, gasping for breath; he had a stitch in his side that felt as though he had a knife between his ribs, but there was no time to get rid of it; Ludo Bagman was now moving among the Champions spacing them along the bank at intervals of ten feet. Harry was on the very end of the line, next to Krum, who was wearing swimming trunks and holding his wand ready.

"All right Harry?" Bagman wispered as he moved Harry a few feet farther away from Krum. "Know what you're going to do?"

"Yeah" Harry panted, messaging his ribs.

Bagman gave Harry's shoulder a quick squeeze and returned to the judges' table; he pointed his wand at his throat as he had done at the world cup, and said, "Sonorous!" and his voice boomed out across the dark water toward the stands.

"Well our champions are ready for the second task, which will start on my whistle. The have precisely an hour to recover what has been taken from them. On the count of three then. One. . .two. . .three!"

The whistle echoed shrilly in the cold still air; the stands erupted with cheers and applause; without looking to see what the other champions were doing, Harry pulled off his shoes and socks, pulled the handful of Gillyweed from his pocket, stuffed it into his mouth, and waded into the lake.

As he waded deeper and deeper Harry, started to panic. Why wasn't the plant working. Terror gripped him as he realised that he wouldn't be able to save Ginny. She would die at the bottom of the lake. The panic escalated, making it hard to breathe. He was choking now, desperately trying to get air into his lungs, until his writing caused him to fall into the icy water-

Where he could breathe. He felt a strange sensation at the side of his neck, and reached up to investigate, discovering his now webbed hands in the process. Concluding that the things on the side of his neck were gills, and that he was wasting to much time just sitting here marveling over the change in his anatomy, he sped off in search of Ginny.

After about twenty uneventful minutes, broken only by the occasional encounter with another champion, a grindylow, and once with Moaning Myrtle, Harry heard the faint sounds of singing. As he swam closer he was able to catch brief snatches of the song.

"An hour long you'll have to look, and recover what we took. . . . "

" . . . .your time's half gone so tarry not, lest what you seek lays here to rot."

At this last line, Harry swam faster. Half an hour gone! And he only had thirty minutes left to find Ginny and get her back to the surface, or she would die.

Harry was broken out of his frantic musings by the sight of algae covered stone houses, around which were clustered the strangest (and ugliest) merpeople Harry had ever seen. In the center of the eerie town stood a clearing, a sort of plaza, in which an enormous (and very ugly) statue stood, surrounded by singing merpeople. To the statue was tied Cho Chang, Hermione, and Ginny. He immediately swam over to her, cut her loose was about to leave, when he remembered that Hermione and Cho were still bound to the statue. He cared about Hermione just as much as he did about Ginny (Platonicly of course) and it wouldn't be right to leave her or Cho to die just because he wanted to win some stupid tournament. His deliberation was cut short however by the sight Cedric and Krum approaching, and once he had made sure both Hermione and Cho were safe, he sped off with Ginny.

oOoOoOoOoOo

As Harry sped toward the surface, dragging Ginny alongside him, he felt himself begin to change. He swam as fast as he could to the surface, Ginny's weight slowly dragging him down. He broke the water flailing, gasping for air. He felt Ginny stir beside him, and was about to swin back to shore with her, when something suddenly pulled her under.

As he lokked into the water, he realised what had done it. It was a grindylow (sp?). Actually it was a lot of grindylows. In his desperation to get to the surface foe air, Harry hadn't noticed that they were surrounded.

Harry considered his options. He was too far away to call for help, and the gillyweed had worn off, he didn't know what, if any, spells would work underwater, and there were far too many grindylows for him to fight. There wasn't anything he could do to help Ginny, but he had to help her all the same. Knowing that his deliberation had cost him several precious seconds, he dove hastily into the water.

Opening his eyes underwater, Harry saw a thrashing black shape that had to be Ginny. He quickly moved toward her, only to have a Grindylow block his path. he raised his wand, prepared to utter a spell . . . . . . . and the grindylow snatched it away from him, and darted away, leaving it's companions to fill up the space it had left. Harry looked desperately after it, but knew that he didn't have anytime to go after it. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Ginny open her mouth for air, and have water rush into he lungs instead. Harry knew that if she didn't get air soon, she would drown.

His fear was suddenly replaced by determination. 'No' he thought. 'I'm not going to die down here. Ginnyis not going to die down here.' And, fulled by his will to keep Ginny alive, he raised his hand and shouted the first thing that came to his mind.

"STUPEFY"

Though water rushed into his mouth, all the grindylows surrounding him were knocked out and Ginny floated toward the surface.

'I've just done wandless magic!' was Harry's last thought before he blacked out.,

oOoOoOoOoOo

The first thing Harry saw when he woke up was the concerned face of the Hogwarts medi-witch.

"He's awake" She called, and two figures rushed toward him.

"Harry, mate you scared us!" came Ron's voice as he moved into Harry's line of vision. "You passed out, and Ginny had to drag you back to shore."

Harry blushed in embarrassment.

"Ron!" admonished a soaking wet Hermione. "He has a good excuse!" She turned excitedly to Harry. "From what Ginny told us you did wandless magic!"

Harry nodded slowly, a bit-tacken aback by Hermoine's enthusiasm.

"Which is why you're so exhausted." Madame Pomfrey bustled over with a ('doubtlessly foul tasting' Harry thought glumly.) potion. "It takes a lot of effort to ward off more than twenty grindylows without a wand. You will need to take this potion to help replenish your magical stores."

Harry was correct in his assumption that the potion was foul tasting (it tasted rather like the window cleaner that Dudley had forced him to when he was five). After she had made sure that he had taken all of it, she went off to hover over, Cho, Cedric, Fleur, and Gabrielle, all of which had just emerged from the lake.

Harry was talking animatedly to Ron and Hermione when Ginny came up and requested a word. Harry agreed immediately despite Ron's protests ("But they're going to announce the scores!").

They sat in a slightly awkward silence for a little while, until Harry decided to try and break the ice.

"Thanks you for saving me from drowning." He managed to blurt out while staring at his hands.

" I could say the same to you." Ginny replied, smiling slightly, but looking distracted.

The silence continued for a little while until Ginny suddenly asked, "Am I really what you'd miss the most?"

Harry blushed and nodded, still looking at his hands. "I've kind of had a crush on you for a while." He admitted, his face turning whole new shades of red.

Harry's stomach knotted up. What had he done? Now she would surely tell him that she was over him now, that the feelings that she had harboured for him were just a childish obsession with The-Boy-Who-Lived, and that she was really very sorry, but she would just have to say no. She was going to...

Kiss him?

Since he was so concentrated on thinking about what Ginny would do, he had failed to pay attention to what she was actually doing, which was leaning closer and closer to him, her lips eventually making contact with his.

Once Harry's brain had finally registered that the event which he had dreamed so much about was actually happening, he returned the kiss wholeheartedly. And was oblivious to everything around him; oblivious to the stares and cheers of his classmates (wolf-whistling, in the case of the Weasley twins), oblivious to the fact that he was just awarded first place, even though he had arrived after Krum (for what Dumbledore had deemed "A display of extreme magical talent in the face of danger."), oblivious to the fact that Ron had also discovered new shades of red and was storming over in their direction in a way so menacing it would have put Snape to shame, ready to rip out Harry's vital organs, oblivious to everything but himself and Ginny.

Finally after what seemed to the both of them to short a time, they had to break apart for air, and Harry took this as a opportunity to voice his concerns.

"So I guess you're not going to tell me that you've gotten over me, and that you only ever liked me because I was the boy who lived, and that when I ask you to be my girlfriend, you're sorry, but you're just going to have to tell me no. Right?"

She leaned in to kiss him again, and he took that as a yes.

Yay!! Finally finished!! There you are folks! My twisted version of the second task. Next I'm going to do one about what would happen if Sirius had told Dumbledore about the fact that they were switching secret keepers. That should probably be here in a couple of days. I would put it on sooner, but tomorrow and the next day are my last two exams, science and social studies, so I won't have lots of time for fan-fiction : (

Reviews are the bright spot in this dark tunnel I call my life (which is kind of pathetic, but hey...), so please leave a review!

Thanks for reading,

Blue.