Harry Potter and the Boy Who Lived

Chapter 18

The Arrival
Somewhere in the Norwegian Sea, Oct 3oth

"Fucking ancient enchantments!" Harry spat angrily. "I could cast a better water repelling charm as a second year!"

While the trip to Hogwarts had begun with a great deal of enthusiasm, four hours into the journey tempers were starting to flare. The Highmaster and his aide had left the 'best and brightest of Durmstrang' to steer the ship and maintain the protective spells that kept the water from crushing them as they traveled beneath the waves.

Whoever had originally created the Durmstrang ship was either far ahead of his time, or a complete fucking lunatic. The ship acted like a gigantic, slow-moving, Portkey. Once activated, the ship would generate a massive whirlpool that would allow the vessel to be transported anywhere there was a sizable amount of water for it to emerge. Unfortunately, the manner in which it did so made Portkey travel seem like a casual trip through the floo.

"Harry!" Viktor shouted from the steering wheel. "Another enchantment has failed on the lower deck! Can you patch it up?"

"How much longer till we get to Hogwarts, Viktor?" Harry demanded, his entire body drenched from head to toe. "This piece of shit is falling apart all around us!"

Viktor glanced at an instrument near the wheel before saying, "Either twenty minutes or twenty-two thousand seconds. The counter keeps flipping between the two numbers."

As he was in the best physical shape, Viktor had been unanimously named the ship's captain. Since some magic could interfere with the very old instruments, and the ship needed to be kept on a very tight course, there were few who were up to the physical challenge to man the wheel except Viktor.

Harry could tell his friend was strained, but he could hardly sympathize. As one of the best at enchanting, he had been placed on a team that was responsible for plugging any breaks in the ship's enchantments. The old boat was held together by magic and a cascading failure of the enchantments was as good as a death sentence for everyone. There was no telling where the whirlpool would deposit them if the boat broke apart.

"Calypso, Esmeralda!" Viktor snapped. "I need you to go vanish the water in the lower cabins so Harry can fix the enchantments."

Scowling, the two girls followed Harry down into the lower deck of the Durmstrang ship. All around them students waved their wands, sticking charms keeping their feet firmly attached to the ship's floor as it twisted around the whirlpool. Reaching the hatch to the lower deck, Harry waved his wand unlocking it, only to be met with a flood of water.

"It's already flooded!" he exclaimed angrily. "Someone needs to correct the enchantments on that warning device."

"We're taking on too much water, we need you to fix patch the enchantment," Calypso said, trying in vain to hold back the rising water. "You need to go down there, hurry!"

Casting the bubblehead charm, Harry dove into the lower level. Without a sticking charm to keep him in place, his body was rocked back and forth with the ship.

Fortunately, finding the broken enchantment was fairly easy; all he had to do was focus on where the water was pushing against him the strongest. Eventually, he found one of the unbreakable charms on a porthole had failed. Swimming close to the wall, he rapidly fixed the enchantment before beginning to vanish the excess water around him.

Ten minutes later, a soaked Harry Potter walked back onto the deck.

Before he could so much as say anything, Viktor said, "We'll be there soon. The numbers have begun rapidly decreasing, maybe two to three minutes. Do me a favor and alert the Highmaster, Harry."