22nd March 1995 - Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Glencoe Highlands, Scotland.
When Ludo Bagman gave a swish of his wand to throw up a whiz bang of sparkling fireworks into the air - and nearly hit Harry with them - the dragon-king didn't so much as dive into the lake with the rest of the champions as use his magic to rapidly drop and push his body down past the lake's surface, sending a huge splash up onto the pier.
Thoroughly soaking the head of the magical games and sports department while he was at it.
It seemed a fair trade to Harry, for the man almost taking off one of his horns.
Beneath the surface once the water had stopped frothing to and fro, the animagus took a moment to check beneath the pier for any sneakily hidden markings before twisting to head deeper into the lake.
He had only been swimming in his animagus form a few times since he had achieved it, each time when another of Skyfall achieved their own form that turned out to be aquatic in nature, which was to say twice. So far their "fish" were a pink dolphin - which Harry hadn't realised were an actual thing prior to the transformation -, a clownfish, and a tortoise - courtesy of Mr. Bolder, which amused them all to no end because though tortoise weren't actually swimmers he had thrown his arms up and told them to lump him with the rest of the fish - and had struck home the necessity for anyone attempting their first transformation to do so under observation. Specifically by someone who could quickly cast water charms and help them relocate to a proper body of water.
While Harry and one of the other actually aquatic animagi - ignoring Mr. Bolder's grumbled complaints about being a rocky fish creature and not the marvellously tusked boar he had secretly been hoping for - was also capable of breathing air, one of their number could not. Which had led to a little initial panic while her colleagues leapt to action with a flurry of charms to make sure the poor woman didn't asphyxiate.
On the upside the community had come together to remodel her home to feature a large aquarium and stock it with other tropical fish so she could swim about without having to worry about possible predators lurking about looking for lunch. The idea being to try and make sure she wouldn't feel poorly for having a form that had a more limited use than many of the other citizens.
It had made Harry rather proud - and maybe a little teary, though he didn't plan on admitting that - to see everyone rallying to support and lift the spirits of one of their neighbours.
In the here and now Harry was particularly glad for the additional underwater practice since it meant less time floundering trying to acclimatise past the slightly startling murkiness of the water compared to the bright waters of Volstar's beaches.
It wasn't quite natural yet, the action of movement through water with this newer form which worked so totally differently to his human one. His arms and legs for one were of little use to propel him forward through the dark water, instead his body slithered side to side in serpentine fashion. Which was different again from the up and down wave that propelled his body through the air.
It was a little maddening, to be honest, but both Remus and Sirius had assured him that he was essentially taking his first 'steps' as it were, something he had done years ago as a human but was only now doing as a dragon. It required patience and repeated efforts for the muscle memory of the actions to become so deeply ingrained that they were unthinking and instinctual.
Until the shifting of muscle became as natural as breathing.
Pushing downward through the murky water he idle made note of some of the flora he passed along with the odd fish or eel in the event he might need them in the future.
The water is surprisingly warmer than he had thought it would feel, at least based on everything he had heard about the lake. He honestly wasn't sure if it was just the natural temperature of the lake itself or if it was a side effect of his slightly cooler body temperature in his animagus form or some combination of the two.
It's not long before he finds the first rune, carved into a stone tablet and partially hidden by lazy wavering clumps of gillyweed. It's so innocuous that he almost swam right past it. As it was he only caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye he turned his head to peer off to the right as the lake began to widen.
It took him some maneuvering to circle around but he managed to get close enough to peer intently at it in the dim light, enough to recognise it as Ehwaz which symbolised several different things - as all runes did, regardless of their cultural origins - dependant on positioning and the other runes that were positioned alongside it. But the one that would help Harry in this particular instance was Harmony.
The basic array was one that promoted a feeling of peace for people in its area of effect. It was used heavily in hospitals and asylums, though there were very few of the latter in the magical side of the world.
Also prominently placed were Wunjo for comfort and to enforce harmony, Sowilo that symbolised - among other things - power and success. Two things that the infirm were typically in short supply of.
These three formed a tri-point of focus around a heart of Hagalaz in a positive setting. Controlled crisis and inner harmony.
The positioning of Hagalaz was rather critical, since any other position would instead invoke uncontrolled force, the wrath of nature at its most intense.
As far as runic arrays for the elder futhark were concerned, it really only ranked a low-to-mid level of difficulty and it was only Hagalaz that notched up its complexity.
Which of course meant it wouldn't take too much effort on his part to expand upon it, since realistically speaking the arrays in Skyfall's hospital and various infirmaries were much more complex. The weaved together space and time to expand on the room and dampen feelings of claustrophobia while promoting a sense of peace and safety and encouraging faster healing within their area of effect.
They also had protective measures layered in to protect them from possible vandals, because they agreed the last thing any sick person needed was for some ill-wisher to come along and warp the array for their room and force it to do the opposite. To force it to sap a patients' strength, to make them feel a failure, to force them to exist in a constant state of panic.
And worse, to slow or altogether prevent the healing of wounds.
Turning away from the tablet Harry used his somewhat side-on position to swim his way to the opposite bank, on the off chance someone had decided to arrange them in a mirror pattern.
Sure enough he found Wunjo carved into a wooden rowboat that had sunken to rest in the lake bed. Not particularly hidden.
As he pressed on, opting to loop the edge of the lake before moving deeper, he idly wondered if these two with their closer to the surface position had been intentionally left in relatively easy view of anyone that happened to swim nearby. If they were less hidden because they were a very basic starting point.
He sincerely hoped that was indeed the case, as it meant that as he made his way further down the more complexly symbolic runes would be better hidden and perhaps even guarded.
Everyone knew odd and dangerous creatures and beings lived in the Great Lake, in an loch mòr.
It was after all one of the largest magically hidden lakes in the world, shrouded in its entirety especially for the protection of magical aquatic lifeforms. Where a number of creatures from other rivers and lakes had been relocated to over the years, creatures that had necessitated some creative intervention with the local muggle population.
Wizard interference was just one of the ways a rogue kelpie could become a fictitious sea monster in a lake that no one could prove was real.
Which people were still debating on both sides, magical and mundane.
He found two additional runes from his quick swim around the edge of the lake, pushing himself to move faster than he was truly comfortable with at the present in order to cover the distance that represented. It was enough that he felt his muscles starting to ache under the strain.
A very unfamiliar sort of strain from equally unfamiliar muscle groups.
But he pushed on, uncertain what his fellow champions had managed to discover by pushing deeper while he had lingered closer to the surface. He had no way of knowing just how many runes had in fact been put into position or what orientation they had been placed in, since one of the last two he had found closer to the surface had clear markings etched beside it to show it was aligned in the orientation they were meant to use, a negative in that particular case.
He also didn't know if there would be any surprise creatures, any transplanted magical flora that could poison, maim or otherwise impede his progress.
Honestly he had been rather spoiled over the last year aside from the mystery of the Tri-Wizard Tournament tasks, most of his days were spent with either all the information he needed to make just about any of the decisions that needed to be made. Or he had the means to acquire the information he was lacking with very little effort.
Being able to absorb the information stored in books as quickly as he could meant that he could cross reference different sources and theories much faster than the average student or researcher. It had given him more time to work through the physical experiments he sometimes needed to test or confirm those theories which in turn strengthened his knowledge base and gave him more to work with on his many projects.
Things like this, the events whether actively competing against the other champions or just in trying to navigate around the public relations spectacle or having to talk down his security team because something had been proposed for one of the events that they had taken an intense exception to.
It added what was frequently referred to as the 'human element', the chaotic unknown that he was pretty hit-and-miss at predicting.
Like the choice to 'stand' ground and engage in an underwater battle with one of the kelpies he had been thinking on earlier.
Further in front of him and just a bit deeper than he was currently Harry could sense the familiar presence of Cedric and Viktor from the slightly wild bursts of spells they were throwing at a large equine figure that seemed intent on trying to charge at the two young men.
Or charge past them to the cave behind them.
As he drew closer the kelpie managed to catch sight of him and reared back with a shriek that managed to travel surprisingly well through the water before it seemed to fold into itself becoming a writhing mass of shrieking flesh that looked, Harry thought, horrible uncomfortable.
He shifted his gaze just enough to study Cedric and Viktor and found neither looked too worse for wear. Or at least he didn't think Viktor looked too bad considering he was in fact part shark at present and Harry had not as yet learned how to judge a sharks mood by the look of their faces.
If such a thing were even remotely possible.
The rest of the Bulgarian team seeker's body language was, Harry thought, a bit tense but he didn't think the older teen was holding a position like he was injured and trying to shield that spot from further damage. So with little else to go on, Harry decided that would have to be enough.
Keeping the form shifting kelpie in his periphery, Harry turned his face more directly toward Cedric. "Is there a particular reason you two were playing squash with the poor kelpie?"
The Hufflepuff jerked, surprised to hear him speak so casually underwater. "Fleur is checking the cave for runes for us while we keep it away!" Cedric shouted back, though his voice was slightly muffled by the water between them in a way Harry's had not been.
"Fair enough." Harry replied before turning his attention more fully on the beast as its form began to stretch, and stretch, and stretch. "Well, that can't be good."
They watched as its form seemed to settle, the skeleton ceasing to stretch and the flesh ceasing to writhe on its bones and it bore the somewhat familiar form of a sea serpent that stretched even longer than Harry's animagus shape.
And had a truly wicked array of needle sharp teeth.
There was something to be said about being confronted by a known devourer of humans wearing the form of a creature large enough to do so in one gulp.
"Cedric, be a dear and help Fleur. I think this is about to turn quite messy. Viktor if you can get a clear shot your strongest stunners won't knock it out but they should slow it down." Harry instructed quickly before he quickly reared back to bring his arms and claws up to grapple with the transformed creature as it charged them.
He felt the wind knocked out of him as it slammed into him then again when their twisting mass of scaled flesh slammed into the rocky outcropping next to the cave entrance but he had no time to recover as the creature reared its head back before making another lunch for his neck, needle teeth at the ready.
Harry jerked his long neck and head to the side, narrowly avoiding the lunge and he could feel the rest of the long body trying to coil further around his own in a stranglehold.
Quickly he brought his hind claws up to kick at the winding serpent body, tearing an enraged shriek out of it when one of his claws managed to get enough purchase to cut into its softer underbelly scales.
The dragon-king tried to twist their bodies around, to drag them further away from the mouth of the cave so Cedric could get past them and get to Fleur so they could both - hopefully very soon - get out and away but was only marginally successful.
For all the Ministry of Magic had classed Sea Serpents as a XXX creature, they only had that rating because they were rather docile creatures when all's said and done. They were however immensely strong, which was why some particularly powerful or rich magical individuals used to utilise sea serpents to pull their ships in calm weather when the winds were low.
As powerful as Harry knew his animagus form was, most of that was magic orientated rather than raw physical strength. Much better than a human was capable of certainly, but still a bad matchup when pit against something as physically mighty as a sea serpent. Which said quite a lot about the kelpie if this was the form it knew to take for a serious fight.
Just faintly in the struggle Harry felt something brush against his tail before the sensation was gone.
He decided to hope that it had been Cedric struggling past them since he could not take his attention away from the transformed kelpie, even for the brief moment it would take to check.
It lunged again, teeth first at his face and he jerked back to avoid it before attempting a retaliatory snap of his own swordlike teeth and was momentarily vindicated in the way it lurched to the side to avoid it.
A flash of red from somewhere behind it let him know that Viktor was trying to help, though honestly it didn't feel much like it was helping as their bodies roiled and his back was slammed into the side of the outcropping again.
He quickly kicked out again to keep the transformed kelpie from wrapping around more of his body and one clawed hand had to move away from its neck to try and deal with the coil that had managed to wrap around his ribs. The coil that was beginning to squeeze awfully tight.
With one hand still pressed against the creature's neck to try and control its head a little and minimise its chances of snapping at his own face and neck, Harry kept periodically kicking out with his legs while he used his other hand to claw at the coil around his chest.
Another surge from the serpent shaped creature slammed his lower back into the rocks and Harry felt the air being driven out of him by the sudden sharp pain, enough awareness of mind to know that some of the blood clouding the water was now his own.
Flashes of spell-light continued to periodically light up the murky water though it was slightly dimmed for Harry as he closed the nictitating membrane of his eyes to protect them from the dust and debris that was being kicked up into the water around them in the struggle. It was a slight risk, but his senses were strong enough to still easily make out each savage lunge of the hissing, snapping maw in front of him.
He heard a muffled shout from somewhere off to his left at the same time he felt the creature suddenly jerk, spinning them a little on the spot as it tried to shake off the claws he had managed to dig into its underbelly.
All at once Harry felt an intense wave of vertigo as a spell he didn't recognise collided with his exposed, rock shredded back and he felt the strength in his arms and legs momentarily slacken.
He had a brief moment to think that there were probably quite a few people that were going to have their very best angry-worried faces on before his mind cleared enough for the pain of the dagger like teeth lodged in his neck to break through the fuzz.
Harry roared in pain and his limbs quickly kicked up to redouble their efforts, to retake the ground he had lost. Both clawed hands rose to tear at the creatures exposed neck to force it to release him, even though he felt one or more of his ribs crack or break with his off hand no longer there to keep the coils from utilising their full crushing strength on his ribcage.
Eventually it reared back, shrieking and Harry kept at it, pressing what little advantage it had given him. He managed to reverse their positions, clamping his own jaw around its impressively thick neck, or at least enough of it to maintain a decent hold and used his magic to propel himself upward, dragging the serpent shaped creature with him.
Upward and upward he pushed himself, up past the surface of the lake and high into the air, dragging the sea serpent kelpie up behind him, dangling from tooth and claw before he arched in the air and propelled them to drop headfirst through the air.
Back towards the lakes churning surface.
Down and down they sped, hissing and shrieking, writhing in the air as the plummeted, spiralling back towards the water.
They crashed through it with an enormous splash, their weight and momentum keeping them falling until they slammed into the rocky outcropping that housed the underwater cave the others had been investigating, the kelpie maneuvered to impact first. Despite not being the one to take the full brunt of the hit, Harry still felt the shock of it rip through his body, up his arms and legs where he had been latched onto the kelpie holding it in place and through the length of his spine.
With the creature momentarily stunned, Harry carefully pulled away and as quickly as he could whipped around and caught sight of the three other champions, wide eyed and shocked looking as they were and launched himself toward them. He scooped all three up mid motion and kept swimming, using his magic to propel himself faster in hopes they'd get a safe distance before it came to its senses.
When he chanced a glance back at it, he caught sight of the giant squid, the most famous - or infamous - denizen of the lake and came to the conclusion that it was keeping the transformed kelpie from chasing them. With that in mind he allowed himself to slow.
"Harry, you are bleeding." Fleur told him one they finally came to a stop in a relatively clear spot and he had let go of them.
He inclined his head. "Quite a bit, I imagine." He said and carefully twisted his body so he could get a look at his back as he spoke. He grimaced at the raw patches of ripped up scale and fur and the jagged wound that was steadily oozing blood.
"Will you be alright?" Cedric asked anxiously from beside the Beauxbaton champion.
Conjuring a mirror in the water in front of him Harry carefully scrutinized the mess the transformed kelpie made of his neck and relaxed minutely as he noted a lack of missing flesh that would have meant it had managed to take chunks of flesh out of him, and a lack of spurting or rapid pulsing from the blood that was making the water around the wound a hazy red.
"Yes. Though wounds to the neck tend to be far more dangerous this one appears to have missed nerves and vessels entirely, it's just a flesh wound. Painful, but not not imminently life threatening. The wound in my back is the more worrisome, it will have to be carefully cleaned since there's no telling how much filth managed to get into it in the struggle. For now I'll have to focus on stopping the bleeding so we can get this task finished, then it can be properly examined and treated." He assured them calmly as he very carefully prodded at his neck wound.
"Maybe you should get a medi-wix to look?" Fleur suggested, frowning a little at the sluggish growing smoky rivers of red in the water.
"That would be a little redundant. Didn't I tell you I passed my medi-wizard certification last month?" Harry asked as he carefully directed spells at himself to staunch the flow of blood and carefully wrap both wounds so more mess wouldn't get into them.
"No, congratulations!"
Cedric gave him a lopsided smile, though he still looked a little shaken. "Nicely done, Harry."
"Thank you." Harry replied and lightly bumped his much larger fist against Viktor when the elder teen held his own out. "Right, this should hold well enough for me to hunt down the rest of the runes I need to finish this task. After that I can submit myself to the tender mercies of my Healer for a closer inspection and treatment."
"Harry, inside the cave. We found Fehu and inverse Thurisaz." Fleur told him as he was starting to turn. "You helped so you should share in the reward."
He inclined his head in thanks and drifted back a bit so he could turn his large body without bumping into any of them, before putting some distance between them to continue his search of the lake, grimacing a little to himself as each forward propelling sway of his body pulled at his painful wounds.
Maybe if he was really, really lucky, they'd decide the last task had to be a knitting competition or something else relatively safe.
Then again, Ruknukle had done quite a thorough job illustrating the effectiveness of quite a few improvised weapons, knitting needles included.
So maybe not.
Bloody hell, Sirius was going to ground him for forever for this. He just knew it.