𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐏𝐄𝐑 𝐋𝐘𝐑𝐀 𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊, born to Lyra Potter and Regulus Black, is Harry's older cousin, 1/3 of the Prankers Trio and niece to mass murderer Sirius Black.
Life at Hogwarts was fun, relaxing and normal. That's until her younger cousin sho...
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chapter twenty-six : the second task
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Juniper was waiting anxiously with Fleur and Viktor beside the judges' table. It was the day of the second task and to say she was nervous would be an understatement.
"Where is he?" she muttered, glancing around for Harry. Her cousin had yet to show up.
"I'm . . . here . . ." Harry panted, skidding to a halt in the mud and accidentally splattering Fleur's robes.
"Where have you been?" a bossy, disappointingly voice said. "The task's about to start!"
"Now, now, Percy!" Ludo Bagman said, who was looking intensely relieved to see Harry. "Let him catch his breath!"
Harry bent over, hands in his knees, gasping for breath. June placed her hand on his back.
"All right there, cousin?"
Harry nodded, unable to say something as Bagman addressed the rest of the students.
"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, and the stands errupted with cheers and applause. June pulled off her shoes and socks before putting the Bubble-Head charm over her mouth. Then, she waded into the water, not bothering to see what the other champions were doing.
The lake was so cold she felt the skin on her legs searing as though this was fire, not icy water. Her sodden robes weighed her down as she walked in deeper; now the water was over her knees, and her rapidly numbing feet were slipping over silt and flat, slimy stones.
Juniper dived into the cold water and started swimming towards the dark depths of the lake. Silence pressed upon her ears as she swam over a strange, dark, foggy landscape. She could only see ten feet around her, so that as she swam 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. She swam deeper and deeper, out towards the middle of the lake, her eyes wide, staring through the eerily grey-lit water around her to the shadows beyond, where the water became opaque.
Small fish flickered past her like silver darts. Once or twice she thought she saw something moving ahead of her, but when she got nearer, she discovered it to be nothing but a large, blackened log, or a dense clump of weed. There was no sign of any of the other champions.
Light-green weed stretched ahead of her as far as she could see, two feet deep, like a meadow of very overgrown grass. Juniper was staring unblinkingly ahead of her, trying to discern shapes through the gloom . . . and then, without warning, somethinh grabbed hold of her ankle.
