𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐚¹- hp.

𝐱𝐥𝐢. a breath of life, a breath of death.

꧁—— ❦ ——꧂

"I'm... here..." Harry panted, skidding to a halt in the mud and accidentally splattering Fleur's robes when he arrived.

"Where have you been?" said a bossy, disapproving voice. "The tasks about to start!"

Harry looked around. Percy Weasley was sitting at the judges table — Mr. Crouch had failed to turn up again.

"Now, now, Percy!" Ludo Bagman said, who was looking intensely relieved to see Harry. "Let him catch his breath!"

Dumbledore smiled at Harry, but Karkaroff and Madame Maxime didn't look at all pleased to see him. It was obvious from the looks on their faces that they had thought he wasn't going to turn up. Harry bent over, hands on his knees, gasping for breath. His lungs were on fire, but in a different sense than they had been the other night. He preferred when they felt like this more. He also had a stitch in his side that felt as though he had a knife between his ribs, but there was no time to get rid of it, Ludo Bagman was now moving among the champions, spacing them along the bank at intervals of ten feet. Harry was on the very end of the line, next to Krum, who was wearing swimming trunks and was holding his wand ready.

"All right, Harry?" Bagman whispered as he moved Harry a few feet farther away from Krum. "Know what you're going to do?"

"Yeah," Harry panted, massaging his ribs.

Bagman gave Harry's shoulder a quick squeeze and returned to the judges' table; he pointed his wand at his throat as he had done at the World Cup, said, "Sonorus!" and his voice boomed out across the dark water toward the stands.

"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; the stands erupted with cheers and applause; without looking to see what the other champions were doing, Harry pulled off his shoes and socks, pulled the handful of gillyweed out of his pocket, stuffed it into his mouth, and waded out into the lake. It was so cold he felt the skin on his legs searing as though this were fire, not icy water. His sodden robes weighed him down as he walked in deeper; now the water was over his knees, and his rapidly numbing feet were slipping over silt and flat, slimy stones. He was chewing the gillyweed as hard and fast as he could; it felt unpleasantly slimy and rubbery, like octopus tentacles. Waist-deep in the freezing water he stopped, swallowed, and waited for something to happen. He could hear laughter in the crowd and knew he must look stupid, walking into the lake without showing any sign of magical power.

The part of him that was still dry was covered in goose pimples; half immersed in the icy water, a cruel breeze lifting his hair, Harry started to shiver violently. He avoided looking at the stands; the laughter was becoming louder, and there were catcalls and jeering from the Slytherins. Then, quite suddenly, Harry felt as though an invisible hand had been pressed over his mouth and nose. He tried to draw breath, but it made his head spin; his lungs were empty, and he suddenly felt a piercing pain on either side of his neck — Harry clapped his hands around his throat and felt two large slits just below his ears, flapping in the cold air. He had gills. Without pausing to think, he did the only thing that made sense — he flung himself forward into the water.