PROPHECY CHILD

14

"Yup," She reassured the gambler as she took deep breaths so that she would stop hearing her heartbeat in her ears.

Bagman gave her shoulder a quick squeeze and returned to the judges' table; he pointed his wand at his throat as he had done at the World Cup, said, "Sonorus!" and his voice boomed out across the dark water toward the stands.

"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!"

The whistle echoed shrilly in the cold, still air; the stands erupted with cheers and applause; without looking to see what the other champions were doing, I pulled off my shoes and socks, pulled the gillyweed potion that was in my hand and drank it quickly before setting aside the bottle and diving into the lake.

It was so cold, even after the heating charms I had casted on myself it felt chilly, like my muscles were freezing but after a moment it  felt the skin on my legs searing as though this were fire, not icy water.

I took out my wand and started swimming deeper into the lake not paying any attention to the laughter of the crowd or the squeals of girls at.

Then, quite suddenly, I felt the familiar pressure as though an invisible pillow had been pressed over my mouth and nose. I instinctively despite the practice with the potion tried to draw breath, but it made my head spin and I cursed myself for my stupidity as I felt my lungs were empty, and I felt the piercing pain on either side of my neck and felt the gills had developed.

The first gulp of icy lake water felt like the breath of life. My head had thankfully stopped spinning; I took another great gulp of water and felt it pass smoothly through my gills, sending oxygen back to my brain.

After a moment the water didn't feel that icy anymore rather cool and light. I concentrated on swimming into the darkness of the lake I casted  lumos silently to give light of where I was going as I could no longer see the bottom.

Silence pressed upon my ears as I soared over a strange, dark, foggy landscape. I could only see ten feet around me due to the spell I casted, so as I sped through the water new scenes seemed to loom suddenly out of the oncoming darkness: forests of rippling, tangled black weed, wide plains of mud littered with dull, glimmering stones.

I swam deeper and deeper, out toward the middle of the lake, staring through the eerily gray-lit water around me to the shadows beyond, where the water became opaque which made me cringe in disgust.

Small fish flickered past me like silver darts and thankfully due to my skills as a Seeker I was able to move out of the way having too much experience with bludgers.

There was no sign of any of the other champions, merpeople, the person I had to rescue which apparently is Ron as if I cared him but thankfully, the giant squid was not present either.

I stopped for a second to catch a breath and was staring unblinkingly ahead of me, trying to discern shapes through the gloom . . . and then, without warning, something grabbed hold of my ankle.

Instinctively I twisted his body around and saw a grindylow, a small, horned water demon, poking out of the weed, its long fingers clutched tightly around my leg, its pointed fangs bared, two more grindylows had risen out of the weed, had seized handfuls of my leg and stomach , and were attempting to drag me down.

"Relashio!" I whispered, except that no sound came out. . . . A large bubble issued from my mouth, and my wand, instead of sending sparks at the grindylows, pelted them with what seemed to be a jet of boiling water, for where it struck them, angry red patches appeared on their green skin. Must be some sort of charm applied for the tournament.