Second task
February 24th, 1995
Sixth Year
"You're sure you want to do this?" Harry hadn't shown up for breakfast so the girls couldn't ply him with Liquid Luck and as such had to fall on 'plan b'.
"Yes, I'm sure I want to do this. Even if I didn't, we don't have much choice if we want to see him through this task alive."
"Alright. I'll meet you back here when the task is over. Please be careful, don't get eaten by the giant squid or anything." Leili half-joked as she took Jo's wand and prepared to watch her best friend disappear into the depths of the black lake.
To an outside eye it would appear that Leilani was talking to a grindylow and, strictly speaking, it was true; however the grindylow was in fact none other than Jocelyn Montgomery. True to the rules, most of the students had not known what to expect for the second task, technically they still didn't, but they knew that it had to do with the lake. Jo had been practicing human Transfiguration for weeks, just in case.
The four champions were lined up on the pier, they jumped in and Leilani watched from the stands anxiously. Jo watched and followed Harry after he had jumped off the pier ready to rescue should he need it. They didn't interfere with the task itself; it wasn't their place.
As Jo moved quickly through the water, she was spotted by a lavender-haired selkie child who decided Jo would make absolutely the cutest pet grindylow on the block. Most of the hour wasted trying to escape the child that held her captive, who pleaded with her stony faced parents to let her keep the little water-devil. Jo finally made it out—the young selkie had let her go reluctantly on orders of her parents—and set off to find Harry. When she found him, he was being swarmed by actual grindylows and having trouble breathing due to his gills having merged with his neck once again.
"Oh, no you don't!" Jo grumbled before swimming headlong at the grindylows forcing a collision that would leave her with a very persistent headache. But it did the trick, when she bowled over one or two the rest let go of Harry to converge on this foreign attacker. Harry quickly made his way to the surface while Jo played the "Who me? I'm just another grindylow, same as you. Nothin' special card" to avoid getting attacked.
It didn't work.
The crowd cheered wildly when Harry, Ron and Gabrielle made it to the surface and Jo watched as the group of grindylows retreated to the waving lake-weed. Slowly she made her way back to the surface, dodging encounters with grindylows and merchildren.
After the scores had been totaled and announced Leilani slipped away to the edge of the lake and awaited Jo's timely arrival. Only the timely arrival never came. After a good 20 minutes had passed Leilani began to strip down to her bathing suit, donned that morning in case of emergency. She stepped out of her skirt and recited the bubble-head charm before diving into the water. She swam for what felt like ages when she spotted a throng of grindylows. One particular grindylow with a length of lake-weed tied into a bow around its head came barreling towards her. She stopped in front of Leilani and held out a clawed little hand as if waiting for something.
"Jo?" Leilani asked.
Jo nodded frantically and made "gimmee gimmee gimmee" motions with her clawed hands. Leili handed over a transfiguration reversal potion she'd spent a solid month working on. The grindylow took it and knocked it back with a disgruntled mutter and began to transfigure back into Jo. "Jo!" Leili cried, relieved. "Where have you been? It's been half an hour since the scores were posted!"
There was no time for explanations as the swarm of grindylows came charging at their quarry once more. Shocked into stillness, Leilani watched as they surrounded Jo, sharp teeth snapping and dark eyes flashing. Eventually, Leili remembered herself and began to yank back on their long, spindly fingers, Jo's hand shot up through the new opening and began to flail around searching for Leili's. Leilani wrapped her fingers around Jo's wrist and heaved. Jo came shooting out of the writhing mass of tiny bodies and swam like her life depended on it—because it did, she could no longer breathe under water—pulling Leilani along behind her.
Their heads broke the surface as Jo ran out of her stored air. Leili's bubblehead charm burst on contact with the surface air. Jo coughed and gasped and spluttered as she allowed Leili to tow her to shore.
Feet once again on solid ground, Jo pulled the bow from her hair and with a jab of her finger and a dark look in her eyes said, "We are never to speak of this ever again," she threw the bow away from her in utter disgust.
"What happened? What took you so long?" Leili persisted, handing Jo a towel and some dry clothes as she wrung out her own hair.
"Nothing, forget it."
"No, I won't forget it 'till you tell me."
"Well, I'm never gonna tell you."
"Well then, I guess I'll never forget it," the banter ended with Leili looking stubbornly back at Jo who glared at her through dripping strands of hair.
"Ugh!" Jo said, throwing her hands in the air and stomping away. Leilani looked between her friend's back and the bow on the ground. As she went to catch up, she scooped up the bow, hardly missing a beat.
"You got him back, he tied for first place with Cedric despite coming up last."
"My head is killing me…" Jo whimpered, pressing a hand to her temple.
"What'd you do? Head-butt something?"
"Yeah, actually. That's exactly what I did."