Chapter 1: The second quest

Disclaimer: noop, not mine and the majority of this chapter belongs to J.K. Rowling and her 4th Harry Potter Book.

Harry POV

"An hour long you'll have to look,

And to recover what we took…

…your time's half gone, so tarry not

Lest what you seek stays here to rot…"

There was nothing to be done except…

I snatched up the stone, which Krum had dropped, but the mermen now closed in around Ron and the little girl, shaking their heads at him. I pulled out my wand.

"Get out of the way!"

Only bubbles flew out of my mouth, but I had the distinct impression that the mermen had understood me, because they suddenly stopped laughing. Their yellowish eyes were fixed upon my wand, and they looked scared. There might be a lot more of them than there were of me, but I could tell, by the looks on their faces, that they knew no more magic than the giant squid did.

"You've got until three!"

I shouted; a great stream of bubbles burst from my lips, but I held up three fingers to make sure they got the message.

"One…"

"two…"

They scattered. I darted forward and began to hack at the ropes binding the small girl to the statue, and at last she was free. I seized the little girl around the waist, grabbed the neck of Ron's robes, and kicked off from the bottom. It was very slow work. I could no longer use his webbed hands to propel myself forward; I worked my flippers furiously, but Ron and Fleur's sister were like potato-filled sacks dragging me back down...

I fixed his eyes skyward, though I knew we must still be very deep, the water above us was so dark... Merpeople were rising with us. I could see them swirling around me with ease, watching me struggle through the water...Would they pull us back down to the depths when the time was up? Did they perhaps eat humans?

My legs were seizing up with the effort to keep swimming; my shoulders were aching horribly with the effort of dragging Ron and the girl… I was drawing breath with extreme difficulty and could feel pain on the sides of my neck again... I was becoming very aware of how wet the water was in my mouth, yet the darkness was definitely thinning now I could see daylight above me.

I kicked hard with my flippers and discovered that they were nothing more than feet, water was flooding through my mouth into my lungs, I was starting to feel dizzy, but I knew light and air were only ten feet above him. I had to get there... I had to…

"Come on Harry, you can do it"

A female voice was heard urging me to keep swimming like she had done so many years ago when she was teaching him to swim underwater. Images starting flashing in front of my eyes. Sirius, Ron, Hermione, my parents, my foster dad and my sister. She didn't know I was a wizard nor she knew of my quest. I would die and she wouldn't know why. The last image I saw before succumbing to the darkness was her face as she read to me before bed when they were little.

"I love you baby brother"

"Goodbye Bella"