Ten Questions (Harry Potter x Slytherin reader)

Chapter 25

The Black lake.

Harry had only been underwater for approximately three minutes, and he already hated it. It didn't seem to help that he had already been off to a disastrous start after it took an embarrassing amount of time to cast the bubble head charm around his head. Even though he was completely submerged several feet under water, he could still hear the distant ring of laughter from the stands and the awful feeling of nearly being dragged down by a swarm of Grindylows. Although, he was fairly certain it was all in his head. He shook the thought away. He needed to focus. He only had one thing on his mind at the moment- only one particular thing was important to him.

Y/n. He needed to get Y/n.

Harry swore that after he got her back up, he would strangle Dumbledore for ever taking her and Hermione from him. He desperately wished he didn't feel that way- after all, it wasn't Dumbledores idea (or at least, that's what he thought, anyway), and he knew for a fact that once Y/n resurfaced, once she found out she was his hostage, he was in for a very awkward and uncomfortable conversation. He had already rehearsed it in his head a thousand times after Dobby had told him that she had been taken for the Triwizard tournament.

Hey, Y/n. Oh, you're wondering why you were underwater instead of Ron? Well, it turns out that you're the person I care about the most out of everyone here. I know. Shocked me, too. Anyway, want to get a butterbeer, or something?

Yes. That was going to be pleasant.

Harry slowed down a little, slipping his wand back inside his robes, and looked around, listening again. He turned full circle in the water, the silence pressing harder than ever against his eardrums. He knew he must be deeper in the lake now, but nothing was moving but the rippling weed. After what felt like twenty minutes, he was passing over dark expanses of black mud now, which swirled murkily as he disturbed the water. Then, at long last, he heard a snatch of haunting mersong.

"An hour long you'll have to look,
And to recover what we took..."

Y/n. Harry felt his fists clench at the thought of her, but pushed it aside and began to swim faster. He soon saw a large rock emerge out of the muddy water ahead. It had paintings of merpeople on it; they were carrying spears and chasing what looked like the giant squid. Harry swam past the rock, following the mersong.

"... your time's half gone, so tarry not
Lest what you seek stays here to rot..."

A cluster of stone dwellings stained with algae looked suddenly out of the gloom on all sides. Here and there at the dark windows, Harry saw faces... faces that bore no resemblance at all to the painting of the mermaid in the prefects bathroom...

The merpeople had grayish skin with long, wild, dark green hair. Their eyes were yellow, as were their broken teeth, and they wore thick thick ropes of pebbles around their necks. They leered as Harry swam past; one or two of them emerged from their caves to get a better look at him, their powerful, silver tails beating the water, spears clutched in their hands.

Harry sped on, staring around, and soon the dwellings became more numerous; there were gardens of weed around some of them, and he even saw a pet grindylow tied to a stake outside one door. Merpeople were emerging on all sides now, watching him eagerly, pointing at the bubble wrapped around his head, talking behind their hands to one another. Harry sped around a corner and a very strange sight met his eyes.

A whole crowd of merpeople were floating in front of the houses that lined what looked like a mer-version of a village square. A choir of merpeople were singing in the middle, calling the champions towards them. Growing anxious, Harry began to accelerate, and as he swam closer, he could begin to make out four figures.

And there she was.

Even underwater where her (y/e/c) eyes were closed shut, she was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. It took Harry about five seconds to realize how long he had been staring. Shaking his head and clearing his thoughts, he sped towards Y/n and came to a sudden halt when he reached her. He took a moment to admire her once more, lost in thought as easily as the last time. Suddenly remembering the task at hand, Harry scolded himself once more, then wrapped one arm around Y/N's waist, then used the other to propel them upward as he watched Cedric speed past him from the corner of his eye. He didn't even notice that Fleur hadn't even gone down yet to receive her hostage, or the fact that Viktor Krum's head was currently in the form of a shark, because the only thing that seemed to occupy his mind was getting Y/n to safety. That was all that mattered. That was all he cared about.

Harry quickened his pace, then glanced below him. Still no Fleur. He stopped rather abruptly, staring down at the girl who was still with the merpeople. She looked rather small and shocking similar looking to Fleur, looking no older than ten. Harry's eyebrows furrowed. Had something happened to Felur? Had she also been attacked by Grindylows?

Hesitating, Harry glanced at the girl, then back at Y/n, torn between playing the hero once again, or saving what mattered most to him. It was as if his mind was playing against the other side in an intense match of ping pong, one side screaming at him to go back for the little girl, and the other, much louder side telling him to save Y/n. One was right, and the other was wrong, and he knew deep down which one was.

But today, he was choosing wrong.

Heaving a sigh, he continued to propel himself upwards with Y/n. Even after making his decision, his brain seemed to be screaming at him, telling him that Fleur would never forgive him if something happened, that he wasn't the hero everyone thought him to be, because even Gryffindors could be cowards sometimes. Maybe more so than others. He sure didn't feel like a hero at the moment, and he sure as hell didn't feel like a Gryffindor. But then, he looked once more at Y/n, and everything suddenly seemed to go quiet in his mind. No, he had made the right decision, as cowardly as it was. He was sure of it.

And before he even had time to think about it, Harry's head crashed through the surface.

A/N: Sorry for the short chapter! Hope you liked the Harold Pov. Anyways, here's your question of the day: If you could choose two fictional characters to be in your friend group, who would they be?