章 153: A Morning Swim
Hogwarts, Black Lake, Feb. 24th
Nathan never knew why the Great Lake was sometimes called the Black Lake - mind you he had never gone for a swim or even flew over it when it was winter, which was why, as he stared into the lake he couldn't help but shiver while trying to see into the black abyss.
While neither Hermione or Harry were there, Ron was trying to cheer him up as Nathan wished he put more thought into the whole 'sorely missed' gimmick.
Nearby he could hear Calypso talking circles around Percy Weasley who was standing in place of Mr Couch as he tried to justify the location, it was pretty funny that everyone was just going to be looking at the lake for the next hour not being able to do anything but twiddle their thumbs.
Once Fleur got there Professor Dumbledore gathered the four champions around him and said "Welcome champions. I believe you all have realized what you will be looking for in the lake and hope you are ready because Ludo is about to start"
Nathan himself couldn't help but grab the potion in his pocket, he hadn't learnt the bubblehead charm Hermione had found as Harry thought it was stupid to risk it getting pop which he agreed with but did learn a similar version that protected the eyes. Other than a couple of other spells that should work better in the water like the scolding curse.
Looking around him Nathan could tell each champion was just as apprehensive as himself, Krum was mindlessly practicing a wand movement, Cedric was looking around at the crowd likely trying to find someone and Fleur was tugging on a veil-like-scarf she had around her neck.
"All right, Nathan?" Bagman whispered as he moved Nathan a few feet farther away from Krum. "Know what you're going to do?"
"He'll be fine, Bagman," Krum said, following the pair.
"Yeah, I'm good," Nathan said, trying to be a little polite.
As Bagman returned to the judges' table, knowing he wasn't wanted, Viktor said "You alright Nathan?"
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure he was just trying to give me some advice, he's got a bit of a gambling problem apparently, thanks for the help though"
"Of course, you're Harry's brother" Krum said, leaving Nathan without noticing the shock and contemplation on Nathan's face.
Behind him he heard "Sonorus!" and Bagman's voice then boomed out across the dark water toward the stands, breaking him out of his thoughts.
"Well, all our champions are ready for the second task, which will start on my whistle. They have precisely an hour to recover what has been taken from them. On the count of three, then. One . . . two . . . three!"
A whistle echoed shrilly in the cold, still, morning air as the stands erupted with cheers and applause. Nathan, having already pulled off his shoes and socks, pulled the potion out of his pocket, popped the cork and put it in his mouth, feeling his throat thicken as if he had to cough something up and waded out into the lake.
It was so cold he felt the skin on his legs searing as though this were fire, not icy water. The further he went in the more slippery the rocks he was standing on got, almost slipping over, Nathan managed to steady himself.
Once Nathan got far enough and the water was up to his waist he casted the bubble protection spell and a heating charm on himself and dived in, almost immediately as he took his first gulp of the icy lake water his throat felt like it was on fire.
Panicking, Nathan tried to surface but accidently swallowed more water, each gulp now soothing it until the pain became a weird numb sensation.
Kicking off, he knew he had to hurry, he wasn't a great swimmer by any means and he only had an hour to find Harry.
As Nathan made his way through the lake, occasionally having to stop to make sure that the large thing he saw something ahead of him was a large, blackened log, or a dense clump of weed. There was no sign of any of the other champions, merpeople, Hermione — nor, thankfully, the giant squid.
Suddenly something grabs Nathan's ankle, a grindylow, a small horned water demon, poking out of the weed, its long finger clenched tightly around his leg, its pointed fangs bared.
"Ulcus" Nathan yelled and a jet of heat bursted from his wand as it passed his leg. It only warmed Nathan but the grindylow wasn't so lucky. Hit straight in the face and it was pushed off him back into the weeds with a loud cry. Swimming as fast as he could Nathan hurried off away from the grindylow.
After a while Nathan finally found the merfolks dwellings. It was eerily quiet but there, in the middle of the town were third figures tied down with rope. Another champion must have already got there before him.
Racing over as fast as he could, Nathan saw that it was Harry who was already gone, which meant that Viktor was beating him. Not that it mattered when someone was trying to kill you, he wasn't trying to win, he was trying to survive.
The closer Nathan got to the three figures which he now could identify was Hermione, Cho Chang and a little blonde girl that looked like Fleur.
He hesitated for a second before using Diffindo on the rope holding Hermione down, before he could grab her there was a low growl sound behind him.
There, not even two metres away from him were three merpeople. However, unlike their songs they weren't beautiful, with grey skin and green hair that looked more like seaweed than anything else, their beady eyes were yellow, as were their broken teeth still which managed to look incredibly sharp.
Each one of them was holding a spear and immediately started to attack Nathan, screaming high pitch war cries, knocking Nathan out of his surprise.
Finally grabbing Hermione, he kicked off to the surface to be able to see the judges tower and where he had to get too.
Looking below him for a second Nathan could tell it was only a matter of moments before they caught him. Pointing his wand down Nathan shouted "CAECUS".
The light suraged from his wand looking as if it illuminated the entire lake to Nathan for an bref second before he continued swimming to the surface.
The closer he got the more Nathan realised something was wrong, there, above him was a large sheet of ice with long noises coming from it… most of them screams.
Despite having to go around Nathan was able to reach the surface safely, Hermione was still asleep but ultimately fine, but what he saw took away his newfound relief instantly.
There on top of the ice was Harry, surrounded by nearly 50 merpeople, all of which looked as if they wanted to rip him limb from limb. But more terrifying than that was the smile.
The smile on his brother's face while he slowly, but surely, beat the merpeople, not caring about the bodies laying near his feet as he took step after step towards the remaining attackers.
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