Disclaimer: I own none of the things you already know of.
Harry Potter and the Smallest Change.
Chapter 29. Second Task. 1995.
The rest of the Christmas break, Harry and Fleur spent the entire time in the Room of Requirement, except for when Fleur had to return to the Beauxbatons carriage, for meals and at Fleur's insistence, spending time with their friends.
They worked on preparing Fleur for the Tournament and duelling primarily, with the rest of their time spent catching Harry up with Fleur in Wards and Healing.
Harry progressed with his work on Fleur's charm to nullify the Allure and was getting close to a working prototype, basing it off Fleur's Allure, who was almost always nearby.
The first day of the new term came, and with it, Dumbledore stood at his throne-like chair in the Great Hall, which now held the students who had gone home for the Christmas holidays.
'It is with great shame that I must announce that over the break, a handful of students acted deplorably and have since been expelled from Hogwarts.' Dumbledore began, and the Hall fell to silence.
'Such was their conduct that they are being held in Ministry of Magic holding cells awaiting trial for assault and several other crimes.' He paused; his sharp eyes moved throughout the assembled students.
'I must ask all students to please treat each other with kindness and respect. Hogwarts will not and cannot turn a blind eye to this sort of behaviour, lest all our hard work during this Tournament to foster closer relations be in vain.' The Headmaster urged and sat down, leaving the assembled students in shock.
A month and a half passed by quickly for Harry as he spent much of their free time in the Room of Requirement and the rest with their friends.
But finally, the day of the Second Task arrived.
Harry sat beside Fleur at the Black Lake and watched as the sun rose over distant mountains. They held each other's hand and watched in silence as darkness gave way to a new day.
Fleur turned to Harry, and he met her gaze.
'You'll make sure that Gabrielle is safe. Should the worst happen?' she whispered.
Harry leant forward, touching his brow to hers.
'I will. But it won't come to that.' He murmured and kissed the top of her head.
'You'll win this Task.' He said and turned to look at the stands created on the lake to watch the Task.
'I trust you 'Arry.' She said, and he raised her hand to his lips, kissing it while he met her gaze.
'I will protect you from outside influences. All you need to do is focus on winning the Task.' He said, and she gave a small nod.
Harry sighed.
'Shall we head up for breakfast?' he asked.
She nodded and accepted the hand he offered as he stood.
Together, they walked up to the Great Hall and were joined over the next hour by their friends.
Dumbledore stood in front of the assembled students with a wide smile on his aged face.
'Good morning, it is my great pleasure this morning to announce that the Second Task of the Triwizard Cup is going to be held in only a few hours down at the Black Lake. So, once you are done with your breakfast, please make your way down to support your chosen Champions.' The Headmaster announced in a booming voice.
Harry met Fleur's gaze, and she nodded.
Together, they walked down to the Black Lake along with their friends.
Once they arrived at the lake, Madame Maxime stood alongside the other judges by the lake and gestured for Fleur to join her.
Fleur turned to Harry.
'Fleur, you're going to do great. We've covered this a million times.' He whispered and gave her a final kiss.
She took a deep breath and gave a determined nod, then turned to join the judges.
Harry smiled at her retreating back and nodded before turning away from her and to his friends.
'I'm going to be sitting with Fleur's family for this one, guys.' He said.
They rolled their eyes at him or smirked, none more so than Holly, who did both.
With a wave, Harry watched his friends go to find their seats, leaving him standing alone outside of the stands.
Harry gave one last look at Holly's retreating back as she laughed with Luna and Daphne about something. He turned away and sighed.
Twenty metres away stood an otherwise non-descript seventh year Hufflepuff girl he'd never seen before with pink hair. Harry rolled his eyes and circled around the girl, using the crowd to stay out of sight.
He stopped behind the pink haired Hufflepuff and leant in beside her ear.
'Nym, if you want to fit into the crowd, lose the pink hair.' Harry whispered.
She jumped, drawing her wand at him before dropping it to her side.
She pouted.
'But no one has noticed me yet?' Nym whined and Harry quirked an eyebrow.
'Every Hufflepuff has noticed they'd gained a new member with crazy hair, and any of them in my year or above would remember the hair at least.' Harry said, and she huffed.
'How about taking the form of a random adult, pretend to be a parent or something?' He suggested, and she rolled her eyes.
Tonks smirked at him, her form changed to be a little taller, her curves more pronounced, even under her robes and her hair became a messy black, like his, and hung down to her shoulders.
'I'm not much older than you. I could be your hot older sister?' she winked.
Harry shook his head with a grin.
'Much better, you'll fit in looking like that.' He laughed.
His expression darkened a moment later.
'You'll be careful today, right?' he asked, his voice little more than a whisper.
Tonks nodded; her face wore an uncharacteristically solemn expression on her normally bubbly face.
'I will kiddo, see you after.' She said, all business.
Harry nodded and moved away from the crowd. He pulled out his map and cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself.
As he peered at the map, there were far too many names bunching together in the area to get a good look at any single name.
He noted Bartemius Crouch along the edge of the Forbidden Forest, with Bertha Jorkins next to him. Harry wondered why they were near the forest but shrugged it off before his gaze fell on another name he recognised, Elizabeth Creevey, on the far side of the lake, hidden from view.
He'd asked Colin a few weeks earlier if he'd had a sister and he'd said no.
Harry pulled out his Potter mirror.
'James Potter.' He whispered.
A moment later, a disillusioned face of James Potter appeared in Harry's mirror, looking more like a blur than anything else.
'I've found a suspicious name on the map, Elizabeth Creevey. I'm going to go check it out. If it turns out to be something, I'll call you back.' Harry whispered into the mirror and James' blur nodded.
'Be careful Harry. I'll stay here and search for one or both of your mysterious women.' James' hushed voice came through Harry's mirror.
Then it went black.
Harry tucked away the mirror in his pocket.
He made his way around the lake's edge, one eye on the map and the other on his surroundings. The name of Elizabeth Creevey didn't move as he approached.
The lake shone in the sun's light as it struggled through the thin clouds.
Harry heard the voice of Ludo Bagman, ex-quidditch player and judge for the Tournament, echo over the lake to him.
'Good morning, everyone to the Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament.' Bagman called.
'In this Task, the four Champions will enter the Black Lake to retrieve something that was taken from them, a hostage.' The judge continued, and Harry heard the crowd's excitement grow.
'They have one hour to retrieve their hostage or failing the Task will be the least of their worries.' The crowd gasped.
Harry tried to ignore it as he drew near to the solitary name. He looked up from the map and couldn't see anybody there. He looked back down at the map and saw the name had moved into the forest a few metres out of view.
Harry froze as he stepped on a twig, snapping it.
He waved his wand and placed a Silencing Charm on his feet.
'-and at the sound of the cannon, the Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament will begin.' Bagman called, followed by cheering and the sound of a cannon being fired.
Harry moved toward the name.
Whatever was going to happen, would happen soon.
On silenced feet, he ran toward the name, and he checked the map one last time to see the name still in the same spot. Harry nodded to himself and tucked the map into his robes and ran harder.
He froze as he saw a woman standing beside a tree. The second woman from the First Task. She wore the same outfit, lavish dragonhide armour underneath a deep, black, luxurious robe. Her hood was up, but she turned to face him.
Harry's eyes widened as he realised she knew he was there, even through the Disillusionment and Silencing Charms.
With a negligent wave of her wand, both charms were ripped from him.
'I had wondered if you would come to interrupt me again.' She woman mused; her voice was powerful, full of confidence.
He could almost feel her eyes boring into his.
'Why are you targeting Fleur?' Harry demanded; his wand held tight in his hand.
The woman laughed. It was cruel and bitter.
'The death of the half-breed will pave the way for my master's eventual success.' The woman crowed and Harry's lip curled.
'You'll have to get through me first.' Harry snarled.
She laughed again.
'Tell me, boy. What makes you think I haven't already won?' she asked and looked behind him.
Harry's eyes widened, and he spun around to face the lake. On the shore lay a half dozen cauldrons, all tipped over and a fluorescent blue liquid stained the murky water of the lake an unnatural shade of blue.
A voice called to him from behind and Harry spun to see the first mysterious woman, the one who had cried the last time they'd met.
'Harry, you must hurry, go into the lake and save them.' Called the woman.
Harry hesitated.
The woman's outfit was just as battered and faded as it was the last time he saw her, and a flash of silver hair showed from beneath her hood.
The woman fired a stream of spells at Elizabeth and the two women begun a vicious duel.
'What are you waiting for? And don't drink any of the water.' The woman called.
Harry watched their duel for a moment longer.
The two women fought as though they had done so before. Both dodged and weaved around the other's attacks, almost before they cast them.
'Who are you?' Harry called, and the woman battered away another from Elizabeth.
'Call me Crocus, now move.' She screamed as she struggled to deflect a stream of Cutting and Piercing Hexes.
Harry clenched his jaw before he nodded.
'Good luck Crocus.' He called as he ran toward the lake, tearing off his clothes with every step.
Harry transfigured his pants into a pair of swimming trunks as he ran and cast a dozen Warming Charms across his body, knowing that the water was going to be freezing cold in February. He tucked his mirror into his pocket before he dropped his robes on the shore.
As he leapt into the lake from the shore, he cast a Bubblehead Charm and it grew around his head just as he broke the surface.
The fluorescent blue of the potion gave the Black Lake an odd illumination as he swam deeper.
Despite the situation, he smirked to himself as he used the same tactic he and Fleur had agreed she would use. Harry held his wand out behind him and used the Aqua Eructo Charm, firing a great jet of water out of his wand, propelling him forward like a torpedo.
After a minute, Harry sped past a collection of body parts, which floated together in a cloud of gore and ichor, slowly dissipating in the water. He paused and noticed the head of a Grindylow drifting past in the weak current.
Harry stared in morbid fascination at the macabre sight before he shook his head. He didn't have time to figure out what happened. But he suspected it had something to do with the fluorescent blue potion Elizabeth Creevey had poured into the lake.
He sped off again toward the settlement of Merpeople he and Fleur had scouted out in the weeks after Christmas.
After a few minutes and a few more clouds of dismembered inhabitants of the lake. Harry approached the Merpeople's village, or Selkies, as some of their texts referred to them.
Harry gasped in his bubble as he saw something he'd never expected to.
The fluorescent blue had reached this deep into the lake and it was as if the underwater apocalypse had occurred, the homes and other buildings of the Selkies were torn apart, bodies drifted in the water around them as great tentacles reached into the village to pluck the motionless bodies of the Merpeople and drag them away into the inky blackness.
Harry knew of the Giant Squid from talk between the students, and he'd seen the Weasley twins poke its tentacles with a stick. But down in the lake, in its territory, it was another matter entirely.
This far down in the lake, there was almost no natural light, not that it was a sunny day in the first place. The fluorescent blue fluid gave off enough light to see by, but Harry needed more.
He fired a Lumos Maxima into the water above him, illuminating the entire Selkie village and the sight took his breath away.
The Giant Squid was truly titanic, far larger than he'd thought possible. It dwarfed the Basilisk in size and brought the words of its Chocolate Frog card to mind.
'Bane of ancient mariners.'
Harry gaped as the creature above him was silhouetted by the light from his Lumos, the creature's tentacles whipped out to attack the ball of light and passed through it, disrupting the light and creating a nightmarish strobe like effect as the spell struggled to maintain its coherency.
The creature was like something from a nightmare, a story he'd read in one of his mother's novels about an old god, Cthulhu.
Around him, lit by the strobe light of his Lumos Charm, he took in the extent of the destructive power of the Giant Squid, affected as it was by whatever this fluorescent blue liquid was.
The clouds of Grindylow parts he'd flown past earlier should have prepared him, but they hadn't.
Harry stared at the ruins of the village, it was gone and the villagers were spread across the area in an orgy of greenish gore and hunks of flesh; the Giant Squid had torn them apart.
In the centre of the ruined village were four stakes buried into the lake floor. Attached to each stake was a hostage.
Fleur floated beside Gabrielle, a dozen Selkie spears floated around her along with the remains of the ones who had wielded them.
The other Champions were nowhere to be seen.
Tied on stakes along with Gabrielle were Ginny, Cho Chang and a seventh year Slytherin girl who Harry didn't recognise.
Harry propelled himself down to Fleur and saw her eyes widen in horror as he drew near.
Only then did he realise the light from his Lumos had faded, leaving only the illumination from the fluorescent blue liquid.
Harry spun around and put up his strongest shield, Protego Maxima, it formed a sphere around him.
A massive tentacle crashed into him, pushing him through the water toward the hostages and Fleur. A moment later, another massive tentacle appeared from the gloom and wrapped around his shield, squeezing it.
He turned to look over at Fleur and motioned with his free hand to get the others and escape.
She shook her head, screaming at him, but their Bubblehead Charms and the water between them stole away her words.
Another tentacle wrapped around his shield, and a surge of terror shot down his spine as his shield cracked.
He turned back to Fleur.
'Leave, take the others and go.' He shouted, gesturing for her to go.
Blurry tears flowed down her cheeks as she shook her head weakly.
Harry turned away and took a deep breath before transferring the shield to his wandless hand.
An instant later, the drain on his magic grew exponentially, and he knew he didn't have long.
With his wand hand, he conjured an overpowered Flame Whip which boiled away the surrounding water. The whip sent a stream of bubbles up toward the surface. He flicked the whip through the water toward the Squid and it wrapped around the two tentacles squeezing his shield.
Sweat poured down his brow as he poured more magic into the Flame Whip and forced it to grow. Its length crept up the Squid's tentacles toward its body.
Harry turned to Fleur again and motioned with his head to escape.
With tears in her eyes, she nodded and turned to the four hostages. She tied them together and anchored them to herself.
Harry forced ever more magic into the whip and felt his vision waver. He was almost at his limit and the whip hadn't even reached the Squid's body.
Then the pressure on his shield stopped.
He blinked and stared in horror as the Giant Squid yanked hard enough that the Fire Whip burnt through the two tentacles, severing them from its body.
Leaving Harry's Fire Whip to devour the two severed limbs.
Harry cut the flow of magic to his Fire Whip and released the spell, but it was too late. The titanic Squid was upon him, wrapped around his shield. Its beak cracking through his weakened shield.
Everything was blackness.
The Squid entirely covered Harry's shield as it feverishly crushed his shield with six massive tentacles and its beak tore through the shield as it tried to reach him.
Harry's magic, already fading from his fight, was running on empty.
He transferred his shield back to his wand, and the drain on his magic lessened.
Harry pulled his mirror out from his pocket and shoved it through the Bubblehead Charm, he hoped it wouldn't break the bubble.
It didn't.
'James Potter.' Harry called; his voice carried a strong note of panic.
The mirror lit up, showing a blurred face of his father.
'Dad, I'm being attacked by the Giant Squid in the Merpeople's village. The woman from the First Task introduced a potion into the lake that turned the Giant Squid mad, and it has destroyed the village and all the Merpeople in it.' He screamed, not giving James an opportunity to speak.
James flickered in the mirror before he became a blur again.
'What about the hostages and Champions?' he asked.
Harry screamed in pain from the magical backlash as his shield buckled, cracks webbed across it.
The failing shield drew even more energy from him to compensate for the increased pressure.
'Last I saw, Fleur was taking the hostages away, but now the Squid is trying to crush my shield. I can't see anything but its beak trying to eat me.' Harry growled, staring into the fleshy abyss within the creature's beaky maw.
'The Aurors are on their way.' James called.
Harry screamed as his magic dug ever deeper into his reserves, tapping into his life force from sheer will.
'I don't have much time; my magic is spent.' Harry sobbed as tears of despair pooled in his eyes.
'Hold on Harry, I'm on my way.' James called before his mirror went dark.
Harry sniffed and tucked the mirror away into his pocket before he took a deep, steadying breath. He shook the tears from his eyes and glared at the titanic beast's beak.
Harry transferred the failing shield to his wandless hand again and the draw on his magic felt like he was holding on to a cliff with one hand while holding a struggling elephant in the other. But he only needed to hold the shield for a few more seconds.
He pointed his wand up at the thrashing beak and vocalised one of the few he'd cast since learning how to cast soundlessly during the summer. He needed the extra power that vocalising a spell granted.
Harry dropped his shield.
'GLACIUS.'
In an instant, the Giant Squids tentacles wrapped around him, squeezing him in thier fleshy grip. The suckers on each tentacle tore his flesh with tiny rings of serrated chitin around the edge of each sucker.
The tentacles crushed him in their writhing grip while Harry's wand bucked at the last dregs of magic he could grasp.
From the tip of his wand, the water of the lake froze, then in a horrifying chain reaction, the ice spread up and away from Harry. The water froze as the overpowered spell cascaded through the water.
As the water inside and surrounding the monstrous creature froze, the Giant Squid spasmed, its tentacles shredded his skin. With every second that passed, Harry felt the tiny chitin teeth surrounding the suckers tore his skin apart, and he screamed, as he was both crushed and shredded at once.
The creature spasmed one final time before its tentacles released him.
Harry, lightheaded from magical exhaustion, struggled free of the drifting limbs and struggled to wade away with his savaged arms. Blood poured from his entire body, and he watched the tentacles disappear into the gloom.
Harry floated amidst a thick cloud of Selkie's body parts and ichor.
His vision faded as his air bubble retracted, his charm shrunk to compensate as he ran out of magic to power it.
He sighed.
'I wish that the last time I saw Fleur, she was smiling.' He muttered to himself.
Then the world faded to black.