Going Under

The Black Lake was a common fixture in Harry Potter's life ever since that first day he climbed in a boat and stared slack jawed in awe at the truly magical sight that is Hogwarts. Despite seeing the body of water everyday, walking past it often and saving his godfather from a horde of Dementors along its edge he'd never really considered it much. Swimming hadn't ever been something he'd ever been allowed to do while living at the Dursley's and he'd never wanted to try, not doubting that Dudley would prioritise trying to drown him over enjoying a dip.

It wasn't until Hermione helped him in researching it that he learned of the true depths of the lake, it was filled with history and magic as everything in the school seemed to be. Normally he wouldn't be bothered by that, perhaps he would even have an exciting lesson in Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures class later, but everything changed when his name spat out of the Goblet of Fire in gout of unexpected flames and became an unwilling participant of the Triwizard Tournament.

Hermione had assured him that the Merpeople that lived at the bottom of the lake weren't nearly as dangerous as the Hungarian Horntail had been and that made sense, couldn't be much more hazardous to a wizard's health than a massive, mean, fire-breathing dragon.

However, due to the helpful advice of Professor Moody, Harry had taken that challenge into his own comfort zone. Perhaps to others, trying to outfly a dragon would be insanity but Harry was sure that almost no other option would have resulted in his victory. He felt far more at home on a broom than he did with his feet on the ground.

With the Merpeople everything was being flipped on its head. He would be in their world and that lack of control over the situation disturbed him a lot more than he was willing to admit to anyone but himself, so when he'd been standing next to his fellow champions staring into the dark waters, clutching a handful of gillyweed that he'd never even gotten a chance to test after Dobby had delivered it to him that morning, he'd felt just as nervous as he'd been while sitting in a tent listening to the roar of dragons waiting to start the first task.

Fortunately the gillyweed had worked perfectly and outside of a run in with a pack of Grindylows things had gone over smoothly and Harry had made his way to the location of their objective, what looked to him like an entirely underwater village, the layout of which vaguely reminded him of Hogsmeade. In the centre of the sunken settlement there was a large plaza where a tall stone statue of a Merperson had been erected and floating above it, anchored by rope to the base of the statue were the objectives of this task.

His first reaction upon seeing his two best friends floating lifelessly in the water along with Cho Chang and another girl that he was completely unfamiliar with had been a small panic attack followed by a wave of anger until finally settling into a familiar steely determination that had seen him through more than his fair share of life threatening situations in the past. When Dobby had woken him this morning and told him that Ron had been the

Was this truly necessary? There were legitimate dangers in this lake even if the Merpeople had not been the threat that he'd anticipated them to be. He assumed that the organisers of the tournament wouldn't have harmed uninvolved students for some stupid challenge so they were probably spelled into some sort of stasis. But what if something went wrong and the magic failed for one reason or another? Someone had entered Harry into this tournament with nefarious intentions, who's to say they wouldn't act again? Why risk the health of more people than necessary? Regardless he decided he'd floated around staring for long enough and got to work.

Ron was the closest so he started with the redhead, pulling out his wand he cast a very carefully aimed Diffindo at the rope connecting the bit binding the boy's arms to his midsection to the length keeping him anchored to the floor of the lake. Wrapping his non-wand arm around the boy he kicked his webbed feet and started towards Hermione. The other hostages were certainly there to be saved by the other champions but at this point he didn't care, there was no way he was leaving someone at the bottom of the lake.

Before he even got close to helping the others a silver trident was thrusted through the water just a hair's breadth from his chest cutting off his path. His heart now thudding rapidly against his ribs, Harry followed the length of the weapon back to Merman wielding it who shook his head at him before removing his trident and swimming back to the edge of the ruins, eyes locked on Harry.

Even without verbal communication the message had been delivered loud and clear that he wasn't allowed to help the others. Harry tightened his grip on his wand as well as he could with his newly webbed hands causing the creature to narrow its eyes as if daring him to try something and he decided it wasn't worth it to make enemies out of them.

Then Cedric emerged from a tall patch of seaweed, a bubble around his head providing him with air and swiftly made his way to Cho, freeing her before turning to Harry with an uncertain look on his face. Harry pointed to Hermione and the other girl who must be the hostage Fleur was intended to retrieve. The Hufflepuff boy followed his gesture and stared at the girl for a long moment before looking down at his girlfriend in his arms, turning back to Harry now obviously conflicted.

Harry shook his head at the boy and pointed towards the surface. There was a very good chance that Fleur and Krum would show up and rescue them and Cedric had actually entered this tournament on purpose with the intention of winning. Better for him to just get Cho to the surface and get a good score for Hogwarts.

Cedric seemed to understand and did just that.

After watching him leave Harry's eyes drifted to the unknown girl once again. She looked younger than him, but not by much. Perhaps Ginny's age? Underneath the murky water of the Black Lake, he couldn't make out any finer details but the way her hair was the same unique silvery blonde colour as Fleur, indicating that they were related somehow.

To his shock something sped into the square through the water toward Hermione and snapped its large jaws onto the long length of rope beneath her tearing it to pieces. He almost fired a spell at the creature before his mind fully understood what he was seeing.

It was Victor Krum, but it looked like he'd transfigured his head into that of a hammerhead shark. The Durmstrang champion was quick to gather Hermione up in his arms and swam off towards the surface without even a glance at the others. Harry didn't mind much, as long as Hermione was escorted safely out of the lake.

Several minutes passed and Harry noticed that more Merpeople were getting annoyed with him not leaving and were slowly getting closer to him making shooing motions with their tridents. Sweeping his eyes around the immediate area he saw no sign of the Beauxbatons champion and cursed in his head. He had no clue exactly how long had passed since the task had started but his best guess was that they were mere minutes away from the hour long time limit having passed.

Making a snap decision Harry swam as fast as he could with Ron under arm towards the girl and firing a second, preemptive severing charm at her bindings. Arriving at her side he glanced back only to see the terrifying image of all the Merpeople surging towards him tridents raised.

"Depulso!" He cried out, whipping his wand toward them.

Even though it had escaped his mouth as nothing more than a stream of bubbles the spell worked flawlessly and was the strongest banishing charm he'd ever managed to cast, leaving his entire arm tingling with the magic that had passed through it.

The between him and the creatures surged towards the Merpeople in an incredible burst of speed, looking almost as if a bomb had gone off but the shockwave was channeled entirely in one direction.

Though they desperately tried to move out of the way, almost all of the Merpeople were thrown back dozens of feet and those that had managed to dodge appeared to be totally dumbfounded at the spell and had stopped their approach entirely.

Harry was also shocked at the power behind the spell but was fortunately far too filled with adrenaline to be as stunned as his adversaries. Scooping up the girl in his free arm, Harry started swimming with all the strength he had in his body and he undeniably needed it all. Even after just a few feet he felt his legs aching with the effort needed to drag two teens along with him through heavy water.

As if he didn't have enough problems he felt a harsh burning sensation in his gills now finding it very difficult to breathe, clear evidence that the gillyweed was wearing off and he doubted he could make it to the surface without its magical enhancement. Knowing he needed to make as much use of his transformation as he could before it completely dissipated he began kicking his webbed feet with renewed vigour.

Lungs burning from a lack of oxygen, he broke the surface of the lake just in time as his gills faded entirely back into smooth skin and he began coughing and sputtering roughly as his natural respiratory system began functioning normally once again.

He was immediately assaulted with noise as he heard the cheering of the crowd along with two loud gasps for air on either side of him. He decided to check on his friend first who was swivelling his head back and forth in confusion.

"Hey, mate. You alright?" Harry asked.

"Harry?" Ron finally focused on him but still sounded disoriented. He took a moment to gather himself before continuing. "I think so. Is the task over?"

Harry nodded to the shore where all the onlookers were waiting. Ron took notice and raised an arm out of the water to wave at them.

"Qui es-tu? Où est ma soeur?" A light yet panicked voice spoke in a language that he believed to be French on his opposite side. Turning to check on her as well, he felt his breath catch for a moment. She was unquestionably Fleur's sister now that he saw her outside of the water and awake, as she not only had the same hair, but shared her sister's striking dark blue eyes. Having emerged from the water just moments ago her face was pink from the frigid Scottish wind blowing across the surface of the lake.

The two of them simply stared at one another for a few very long moments, Harry unable to say a word as if he'd been hit by a silencing charm somehow and he felt some odd tightness in his chest that felt vaguely familiar yet more intense than he'd ever experienced. The girl had a sudden look of realisation across her features and though she was already flushed from the cold her neck and the tips of her ears started burning a bright red.

"Harry Potter?" She gasped, her accent causing her to pronounce his first name without the H. The sound of his name snapped him out of whatever trance had come over him and he rushed to respond.

"Er…yeah. Sorry I don't speak any French. I figure you must've expected to see Fleur instead of me, right?" The girl gawked at him for a bit reminding him of when he first met Ginny a couple years back in the Burrow. Fortunately she too seemed to snap out of it after hearing his sister's name.

"Yes. She is m-my sist-ter." Her French accent was noticeably thicker than Fleur's, her English was easily understandable, although mid-sentence her teeth had begun chattering and she was now shaking in his hold.

"Cold?" Harry asked and she nodded. "Then let's get you out of here. Think you're good to swim on your own, Ron?" Silence was his only response and when he looked, the boy was as tongue tied as Harry had been seconds ago. Releasing him, Harry pulled his hand from the water and snapped a few times just in front of Ron's freckled nose.

The Weasley blinked rapidly, rather eloquently responding with, "Huh?"

"Can you swim, Ron?" Harry repeated amusedly.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, I'm good to go." Flustered, the boy began swimming towards the crowd and Harry followed, not feeling the urge to ask if the girl was capable of making the trek as well. The short journey was short and no one spoke the whole way, eventually they reached the edge of the water and Harry hauled the both of them from its grasp. Ron was immediately fallen upon by Percy checking on his health, much to the younger redheads mortification.

"Gabrielle!"

Before he could do anything Fleur crashed into them and threw her arms around her sister, pulling her from Harry's arm and planting multiple kisses onto the girl's forehead. The girl, Gabrielle, returned the hug though she appeared confused at her sister's hysterics.

"Fleur? What's wrong I thought you were supposed to come get me?" Gabrielle asked. Fleur's face then changed from relieved to furious like a particularly snappy casting of Lumos.

"I had no idea you were even down there! I searched for you all morning up to the start of the task and then when I realised what happened I was so panicked I ended up blindsided by a pack of gridylows before I knew it." Fleur glared over at the judges for the event; the three headmasters of the participating schools, Bagman and since Crouch had failed to show up, Percy for some reason. "They should have never put you in danger."

"They said the Merpeople would protect us and Madame Maxime said the organisers were in complete control." Gabrielle responded, stepping out of her sister's embrace. Harry coughed into his hand to avoid snorting in amusement. Both girls looked at him and he realised that he'd perhaps not masked his humour well enough.

"Well…whether you believe me or not, someone entered my name into the goblet of fire against my will and from my past few years at this school that probably means something bad is going on. So from the very beginning they haven't been in complete control of this, take that however you like." Merlin, he'd really had to push to get that full sentence from his mouth. He was truly exhausted after swimming for a full half an hour and dragging two people all the way to the surface, magical assistance or not.

Before either Delacour girl could respond, McGonagall approached them. "Mr. Potter, each champion is required to be examined by Madam Pomfrey once completing the task. Come along."

With a nod Harry followed his professor to where the other two champions and hostages were standing, all four of them wrapped tightly in thick blankets. Pomfrey then did the same to him - the blanket was unnaturally warm, certainly spelled to be so - and held a bright red potion to his lips.

"Pepperup potion. Down the hatch, Potter." In one large gulp that made his throat burn and his ears fire out steam like a teapot he downed the liquid and immediately felt ten times better than before. Between the blanket and the potion, the cold that had nearly creeped all the way to his bones was receding and the sluggishness that had taken him faded as well.

"Thanks, Madam Pomfrey." Without giving it much thought he made a suggestion, "You might want to do the same for Ron and Fleur's sister too, she was shaking badly." Pomfrey nodded, gathered up three sets of blankets and potions in hand - she must not have attended to Fleur yet - and headed towards what was now a collection of Beauxbatons students fussing over the two sisters.

"Harry, you did it!" Hermione exclaimed, beaming at him. Harry nodded and walked closer to them. "But you finished after the time limit, did you have trouble finding us?"

"He was there before me." Krum stated. Hermione jumped, as if she'd forgotten the large Durmstrang boy had been standing next to her since before he'd approached them and gave him a look that translated loudly in his ears to 'Explain, Harry.'

"I wanted to be sure everyone got rescued before I left." Harry said. Obviously everything had worked out and likely would have done so even if he'd just pulled Ron out of the water immediately, but his conscience and his shoddy track records for the safety of his adventures had caused him to linger, not that he really regretted it.

"Honestly, Harry? Surely the Headmaster-"

"Basilisk and Dementors." He cut her off bluntly. For a moment the bushy haired girl just looked angry that he'd cut her off but then begrudgingly sighed in acceptance of his caution. Even Cedric and Cho, who had been quietly listening, nodded at each other in agreement with his words. Krum stayed silent but glanced between the four of them curiously.

He decided to take a look around the crowd before conversation started again and saw that the judges were now huddled together, speaking softly so no one around could listen in. He also saw Ron, now just as bundled up as himself, being pulled towards his group where she eventually deposited him at Harry's side.

"Think you did alright? In points, I mean?" Ron asked. Harry shrugged in response.

"Not too good, probably. I finished third and well after the time was up."

Ron's shoulders sagged in disappointment at that before he brightened up again. "Well, at least you're not last, mate. Fleur didn't even finish so you scored better than her!"

"Ronald!" Hermione hissed, gaining both of their attention and then pointing over their shoulders. They turned and saw the Delacour sisters standing right behind them, now wrapped in blankets of their own. Ron paled significantly and immediately tried to backpedal once he saw the slightly annoyed look on Fleur's face. She let him sputter for a moment before rolling her eyes and smiling at Harry.

"Thank you for rescuing Gabrielle, even though she wasn't yours to save."

With the older witch's eyes and smile focused solely on himself Harry felt his face start to warm even further past the influence of the pepperup potion and remembered that this girl and her sister were both veela, at least partly according to Fleur. That explained why he'd been so tongue tied in the water just from looking at Gabrielle.

"Yeah, er…no problem." He muttered and averted his gaze to just above her head to avoid becoming even more embarrassed, though he still noticed when Fleur nudged her sister forward a bit. Gabrielle, who'd been staring at her feet looked up at Harry through her lashes with a cute pink tinge to her cheeks and that same tightness in his chest he'd felt in the lake returned. He wondered if it was her natural veela allure affecting him, but wasn't certain since he'd felt their allure multiple times now between the World Cup and Fleur's arrival at Hogwarts and had never felt this before.

She took a step forward, now a bit closer than he was generally comfortable with people being and Harry noticed a lot of things he'd been unable to while she was in the lake. She was almost as tall as him, shy a few centimetres and he couldn't help but look into her blue eyes, several shades darker than her sisters. Where Fleur's face was slightly angular in a regal way, Gabrielle's was a bit rounded with more delicate facial features one of which were her very pink lips which he now couldn't stop staring at.

Veela magic or not, now that she was standing just a hair's breadth away from him, Harry was certain she was one of the prettiest girls he'd ever seen. Then she leaned forward and Harry's heart began to beat out of his chest and he closed his eyes in panic, which only served to make him focus on the feel of her lips pressing into left cheek.

After what seemed like an eternity but must have been only a second or two, she pulled away and Harry opened his eyes to see her hiding her face behind her blanket.

"Thank you!" She squeaked and grabbed Fleur's arm - who looked thoroughly amused and intrigued - and dragged her sister back towards the Beauxbatons students.

Harry raised a hand to his cheek and stood stock still in shock. Had that just happened? Knowing he must be blushing like a fool he risked a look around. Hermione was attempting to hide a grin behind her hand rather poorly and Ron's jaw dropped as if the flying car they'd trashed in second year had just fallen out of the sky and crushed Harry right in front of him.

"Attention!" He'd never been happier to hear Ludo Bagman's voice echoing around the crowd distracting Harry from his own flustered thoughts and his friends' reactions. "After deliberating with the Merfolk in the lake, we've come to a decision on the champions performances and will now dole out points."

"Fleur Delacour intelligently used the Bubble-Head Charm to navigate the lake but her attempt was cut short by an attack by Gridylows and thus she failed to retrieve her hostage. She's awarded 25 points!"

Harry was surprised that she got even that many without completing the task, it gave him a bit more hope for his own score.

Cedric was awarded 47 points for being the first and only contestant to arrive within the time limit to grand applause from his housemates in the stands and a giddy congratulations from Cho. Krum was then awarded 40 points to the very clear approval of Karkaroff.

"Finally, Harry Potter used gillyweed to great effect and despite arriving last, well outside of the time limit, we've been informed by the Merpeople that he actually arrived at the location first and waited to see after the safety of all the hostages before rescuing his own. For this show of sportsmanship we award him 45 points!"

Both Hermione and Ron were cheering loudly, shaking his shoulders in their excitement which mixed in with the cheers of the Gryffindors in the crowd along with, to his surprise, the group of Beauxbatons students that Fleur and Gabrielle had returned to across the way. Harry rested a hand on his chest and vowed to do something very nice for Dobby in the near future.

Bagman went on to inform them of the date of the third task, the twenty-fourth of June, just four months from now but Harry couldn't care about that right now in his current elation. He'd survived the second task, was now tied in points with Cedric and had been kissed - on the cheek - by a very cute girl.

Despite everything, today was a good day to be Harry Potter.

Hello, this is my first attempt at Harry Potter fanfiction and really my first go at writing in quite a while. This is just a short something I threw together after thinking it would be fun to write a Harry x Aged-up Gabrielle. She is, as I wrote above, a year younger than Harry in this story.

I'm not from the UK so my word choice and speech patterns might not sync up entirely, feel free to shore me up on that if you feel the desire. Also I figure you readers are talented enough to add characters like the Delacour's and Viktor's accents in your heads, writing them out just feels odd. Additionally feel free to criticise as you see fit, I'm pretty thick skinned and especially value constructive feedback so if you feel the need to leave a negative review please tell me why you disliked something and what I can do better.

I'm not really dedicating myself to continuing this yet, I'd have to do some thinking on actual story differences and an extended plot, not to mention altered character development for Harry due to having an interested part Veela girl around.

So let me know if you want to see more and I'll try to deliver. See ya.

- Waid h