Chapter 20: Swimming With The Fishies

Harry woke up feeling very drowsy. He dragged himself over to get dressed, slapping on his usual uniform. He looked over towards Ron's bed and noticed he wasn't there. Peculiar.

Harry made his way to the common room and found that there were only a couple people here and there. Harry scratched his head. Was he forgetting something important?

While he was in his thoughts, Captain jumped onto his shoulder. Harry wasn't ready for it and ended up sprawled on the ground. "Hey Captain... Where is everybody?"

"Wait, are you serious?"

"No I'm Harr-"

A very dark look from Captain cut Harry short. Harry scratched the back of his head, "My bad. So where is everybody?"

"Today is the day of the second task!"

Harry froze. He sort of forgot about that. Harry quickly started sprinting towards the Great Lake, before remembering he hadn't eaten yet. Harry quickly ran back up, grabbed several bars of chocolate, and dashed over to the lake.

After a quick sprint at top speed, Harry arrived as everybody was heading out to the lake. By chance, Neville was the one to greet him again.

"Harry! You made it. We were thinking you might have forgotten!" Said Neville with a smile, thinking he was making a funny joke. Harry chuckled nervously as he headed out to the lake. Captain leapt off and started walking, definitely not intending to get wet anytime soon.

"Champions, on your ready, get set, go!"

Harry dived into the water and casted the bubble head charm that Cedric had previously used. He then transfigured his hands and feet so they were webbed, and quickly enough, he had pulled ahead of Krum and Flue in the race.

Harry descended down until he neared the ocean floor. There was plenty of exotic and magical wildlife. Harry could have sworn he heard some chipper tune from a crab along the lines of " under the sea..." But maybe it was just his imagination.

Harry was swimming along just fine till... WHAM!

Something swimming quickly over to the right smacked into Harry. Harry recoiled before looking to see what had hit him, and it was... a dolphin.

"Weird... I didn't know there dolphins in this lake" thought Harry.

"Of course you didn't, that's why your human" replied a voice in Harry's head. Harry looked around before realizing that it was the dolphin.

"Magical dolphin?"

"Depends in your definition of magical!" replied the dolphin telepathically before speeding off. That was fine and dandy, but Harry's cloak was caught with its fin.

Before Harry knew what was happening, he was whisked away by the dolphin a good bit of distance. Soon enough, the dolphin halted suddenly, in front of another dolphin, that was wearing a strange hat.

"Alright, I finalized those plans, and we should be good to go-"

"What is that you brought along?!" questioned the dolphin with the hat.

The first dolphin seemed to go wide eyed as it noticed that Harry was still there. But it's eyes were not as wide as Harry's, who was trying to take in the scene before him.

There was a giant structure, akin to a rocket ship, protruding from a synthetic cave built into the rocks on the ocean floor. Along with that, there were a lot of dolphins busily swimming around.

This made Harry remember something that Captain had told him before, "Humans are the third most intelligent beings in earth. Above you are dolphins, and then me."

Harry had thought this was a joke and had written it off as such, but apparently, that ridiculous cat knew what it was talking about.

A strange phrase woke Harry from his thoughts.

"Well, I guess we'll just have to kill him."

"Wait, what!?"

"Oh? It talks?"

"What do you mean kill me? I didn't even do anything."

"Not yet."

"Yes, not ye- Wait what. I'm not even planning anything."

"We'll, you know our secret so we have to get rid of you"

"What secret?" answered Harry.

" You know how we're getting out of here and leaving to our home pla- Ouch what was that for?" Said the one that dragged Harry here as he got smack by the one in a hat.

"Well, you should let me go, cause I might be able to help you, you know, with a cover story. I am Harry Potter, you know?"

"Hmm... Alright, but what if you tell someone?"

"Uhh, well you know how... dumb humans are. They'll never believe me!"

The one in the hat chuckled, " I like this kid. Alright your free to go. Hey you, escort this kid out of here."

A couple seconds later, Harry was racing through the water at high speed again, wondering what the heck happened. To his surprise, Harry was there first, and found Ron floating there. Knowing better than last time, Harry quickly undid Ron's binds and jetted upwards. The dolphin left him near the surface and left with a dolphin screech. Harry shivered, he would never be able to look at sea mammals the same ever again.

When Harry emerged with Ron in tow, he heard everybody start cheering. Someone helped him out of the water and gave him a towel while he waited for Krum and Fleur. The whole affair proceeded the same as past time, and soon enough, they were awarding points.
This time, Harry came in first, followed by Krum, and finally Fleur. This helped him out quite a bit in the final standings going into the third task. He was tied for first overall, which meant he would get to enter the maze first again. Harry sighed, there was one major problem left. The dark lord.