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Cold February air hit Harry Potter on both sides as he stood on the edge of the Black Lake, staring at the expanse of water in front of him. The Black Lake, while neither as beautiful as Hogwarts nor as striking as the mountain range behind it, was a beauty in its own right: fifteen kilometers squared of freshwater, reaching a daunting one hundred meters deep, and brimming with dangerous creatures. Merpeople (last known death by mermaids in 1883), grindylows (poisonous venom), and the giant squid (last attempted student suffocation in 1976), were likely not the worst in its waters, as no one had ever been curious enough to find out what lurked in its depths. (Not to mention, a young girl around Harry's age had once gone swimming in the lake, and never returned to the world of the living. Neither her ghost not her body had ever been found.) Until the Triwizard Tournament, when four champions had been commanded to breach the waters to find something lost to them.
What that object would be, Harry wasn't yet certain, but he hoped desperately that it would be floating on the side of the lake on the day of the second task instead of resting at the bottom of the lake. Or better yet, that the task itself would be canceled in favor of having a broomstick race. First person to catch the Snitch wins the Triwizard Tournament and the previously scheduled Quidditch resumes as planned. But deep down, Harry knew he would be forced to participate in this task, as in the previous one, so he decided to prepare for this one better than the last, since he didn't want to become Merperson food, a fact he knew had happened often in the sixteenth century, the fact courtesy of Hermione. His best friend had been trying to help, he knew, but it didn't comfort him in the slightest.
Bumps had already formed all over his body, even under layers of Muggle clothing and thick winter robes. Deciding he had dawdled enough, Harry sprang into action. He had consulted Hermione last night for the best kind of warming charm he could use. She had been delighted to help him with his task ("Anything to make sure you don't die, Harry!") and he waved his wand over his head, his wrist bent at an uncomfortable angle so that his wand faced directly down, and said, "Envigorm."
Mean to be used on victims of hypothermia, but not high-powered enough to cause him to become overheated, they had decided it was the perfect spell. Harry stripped off his robes and underclothes, standing on the sand and rocks in nothing but his pants. Harry grinned; the charm worked well enough. He'd have to thank Hermione later that day. Ron had tried helping, too, but Harry tried to avoid thinking about Ron. He had forgiven him, but Ron's betrayal hurt him a lot, and he still wasn't over losing his first friend because of a bloody stupid thing Ron should've already known: Harry hated fame.
He was glad that no one was outside so early in the morning, and doubly glad that Colin Creevey, with his camera and never-ending roll of film, was asleep in the Gryffindor Tower. The windows of the third year boys' dormitory faced north, away from the lake and therefore away from Harry's partially naked form.
When he began to feel uncomfortably warm, Harry knew his charm had activated. Still, he carefully waded into the water, unsure that the charm would hold against the freezing February waters. It didn't.
Teeth chattering, hands rubbing his arms, Harry waded one toe into the freezing waters. He pulled out quickly, feeling ten times colder that he had a moment ago. Realizing he was going to get nowhere like this, Harry walked onto the wooden boat dock he'd last been on his first year, counting each of the twenty pillars, ten on each side of the wooden walkway, like a man going to his own hanging. He had last been here his first year, going the opposite way, to the castle. Oddly enough, he'd been more nervous beginning school than jumping into a dangerous lake. He really was a Gryffindor, he thought with an inward grin, so he yelled, "I'm going to win!" across the lake, and took a running jump into the Black Lake.
He jumped up and down a few times to get his blood flowing more quickly, attempted a few half-hearted jumping jacks, and looked backward toward the castle. He thought he saw something moving to his right in the Forbidden Forest for a moment, then shook his head. It was gone by the time he looked back, so Harry assumed it was an animal or just his imagination. He was clearly visible, but it was early enough that he was sure no one would see him. No one except maybe the teachers got up at five on a Saturday, and they shouldn't care that he was practicing for the second task. He stripped to his pants, reluctantly leaving his glasses as well, and, in true Gryffindor fashion, took a running leap into the lake.
Freezing water rammed against his eardrums, prodded his skin in pinpricks of pain. Harry opened his eyes and slammed them shut against the water. It was neither as uncomfortable as Polyjuice Potion, nor as agonizingly painful as the Basilisk's fang piercing his arm, but it was bearable. He waded up to the surface, took a deep breath once he was up there, and then dipped his head down again. The water felt marginally warmer than the air.
It was then that something rammed into Harry's stomach. His mouth opened in shock and pain, his breath leaving his lungs. Desperately, he tried to breathe more air in, but he only breathed water. He covered his mouth to keep himself from gagging. His eyes opened with his mouth, and before him he saw the terrifying image of the giant squid. Long, fat, tentacles stretched out before him, a beam of light, the sun, breaking from behind. Harry tried to yell, and remembered he couldn't, and tried to wade upwards with his too-skinny arms. But something stuck to his foot—a tentacle!—no, a weed, a strong one that refused to let him go. Water, its push, hurt his eyes and he closed them until he swam into a wooden pole—the pool deck—and Harry couldn't think, couldn't breathe, chest burning, all he knew was he needed air. He was going to die, so close to the school—it wasn't even the second task yet—when something grabbed him from behind and pulled him upwards, breaking his leg free of the weeds and taking him up to the surface. He crawled to his hands and knees, coughing out water while his savior hit his back repeatedly to help. Harry fell to his side, boneless, his vision swimming, and felt himself being thrown over someone's back, his stomach resting against the other's back. He heaved, but nothing left his mouth, and finally sound reached his brain through the pounding in his head.
"—what is wrong with bloody idiotic teenagers who should goddamn know better than to jump into the Black Lake in fucking February without a Bubble-Headed Charm and a knife, or even a single watcher to make sure he doesn't drown?" Moody's rough voice seethed with anger and he didn't even bother trying to steady Harry's body, which swung from side to side with his uneven stride. Harry guessed Moody thought it was the least he deserved, and winced, realizing he might be right. It had been stupid of him, not that he was admitting it to Moody any time soon.
"I didn't mean to!" Harry coughed out. "I was trying to learn to swim, and no one told me the weeds and the giant squid were out to get me! It's not like it's called the Forbidden Lake or something. I didn't think it would be that bad!"
"The water isn't black, you stupid kid, so why do you think it's called the Black Lake? Maybe because of the dangerous creatures there? Those dried carnivorous weeds you use in Potions, you never asked where they come from?" Moody slammed open the door to the entrance hall and took the route to the Hospital Wing. Luckily for Harry's back, which ached from the lack of oxygen and the constant bumping (he felt like he was knocking against something hard—did Moody wear armor under his robes?—somehow, Harry didn't doubt it).
Moody knocked on Madam Pomfrey's door once, loudly, and unloaded Harry onto an empty cot.
"Who's there—oh, Mr. Potter," Madam Pomfrey said, her hands akimbo, wand in one hand. Her pale pink nightrobe ruined her angry stance somewhat, but she still looked intimidating enough for Harry to cringe. "Did you perhaps face off against another dragon, or a Basilisk, or a werewolf? For Merlin's sake…" She muttered a detection charm under her breath while Moody told her exactly where he found Harry and in what shape he'd pulled him out of the lake.
"I was hoping I wouldn't see you again this year." She cast a few charms, and Harry immediately felt dryer. "What happened?"
"I got stuck in the Black Lake," Harry said. Voicing it aloud made him realize he had no idea how to do the second task, now.
"Lift up your robe," Moody ordered, and Harry reluctantly did. The place where the vine—seaweed, he'd thought—had grabbed him was bloodied and bruised. Now that Madam Pomfrey had rushed a potion down his throat to raise his body temperature (The potion he took raised his body temperature only at one point, not kept in continuously raised, the Dumbledore is temporarily raising the heat of the lake for the task) and stave off hypothermia, his body noticed his wounded leg and sent a constant stream of pain to his head.
Madam Pomfrey gave him a gauze pad and told him to hold it against his ankle after cleaning his wound with a few quick spells. His skin slowly stitched together, looking better than ever. It fascinated Harry that magic could heal him so thoroughly and quickly, when healing the Muggle way would take ages.
But with all its potions and charms, magic still couldn't bring back the dead—not in any way that mattered to Harry.
When he looked up again after shifting the pad around his leg, Professor Moody was gone. Harry decided to thank him the next time he saw him. Without Moody, he would have drowned for sure.
A few minutes and a stern lecture from Madam Pomfrey later, Harry walked back to the Gryffindor Tower with nary a limp. It was close to noon, and he'd missed breakfast for sure, so Harry decided to take a quick nap and head off to lunch later. Hermione and Ron were probably worried about him.
As he thought back on what had occurred, he decided that next time, he was trying gillyweed. And learning a few good blasting curses.