What a nice vacation! I went to Ottawa and Victoria and visited my family. My little cousins were so cute I died. This is my ghost writing. I'm writing this with a headache so if it doesn't make sense, sorry. Anyways, here's the rest of the second task!

Soon after Professor McGonagall took Ron, Hermione, and Lucy away, I fell asleep in the library (Natsu had already gone back to the common room, saying he needed energy more than some spell to make him breathe under water).

I dreamed I had to go to the Second Task, and I had to tell the judges I couldn't do the task. Fleur Delacour and Clementine Blanchett said they knew I wouldn't be able to do it. My face burned, even in the dream, and Malfoy flashed his POTTER STINKS badge.

The dream changed. The mermaid from the painting in the Prefect's bathroom was laughing. I was bobbing like a cork in bubbly water next to her rock, while holding my Firebolt over my head.

"Come and get it! She giggled maliciously. "Come on, jump!"

"I can't!" I panted, trying to get it, struggling not to sink. "Give it to me!"

Then she just poked me in the side with the end of the broom, laughing at me.

"That hurts - get off - ouch!"

"Harry Potter must wake up, sir!"

"Stop poking me-"

Dobby must poke Harry Potter, sir, he must wake up!"

I opened my eyes. I was still in the library, my head resting on the pages of Where There's a Wand, There's a Way. I sat up, straightening my glasses, squinting in the bright light.

"Harry Potter needs to hurry!" Dobby squeaked. "The task starts in ten minutes, and Harry Potter-"

"Ten minutes?" I croaked. "Ten minutes?!" I looked at my watch, and sure enough, it was twenty past nine. A large, dead weight seemed to fall through my chest and into my stomach.

"Hurry, Harry Potter!" Dobby said, pulling at my sleeve. "You is supposed to be down by the lake with the other champions, sir!"

"It's too late, Dobby." I said hopelessly. "I'm not doing the task, I don't know how-"

"It is okay, Harry Potter, sir!" Dobby cut me off. "Dobby overheard Miss Juvia say she has a way for Harry Potter to do it!"

"What? Okay - but-" I stuttered.

"Harry Potter has to save his Wheezy-"

"Save my what?"

"His Wheezy!"

"What's a Wheezy?"

"Your Wheezy, sir, your Wheezy! Wheezy, who is being Harry Potter's friend!"

"What?" I gasped. "They've got Ron?"

"The thing Harry Potter will miss most, sir!" Dobby squeaked. "And past an hour-"

"The prospects black," I recited from the song from the egg. "Too late, it's gone, it won't come back..." I trailed off, before jumping up and ran toward the door. "Thanks, Dobby!"

"Harry Potter is most welcome, sir!" Dobby called after me.

I ran through the corridors, down the steps, and toward the Great Lake. "I'm... here..." I panted, skidding to a stop by where the judges were standing.

At the same time, someone in dark blue robes with bright blue hair curled at the bottom.

"Juvia!" I exclaimed.

"Harry!" she exclaimed back at me. "I was just going to look for you! Here, take this!" She pushed a wet, slimy something into my hand. "Good luck!" And with that, she ran off.

I walked over to where the other champions were standing, and took my place in between Natsu and Cedric in the lake, which was so cold I felt like it was fire, not icy water.

Natsu grinned at me impishly, showing off his weirdly pointed incisors. "You finally decided to come?"

"Ah, shut up, you." I gasped, elbowing him in the ribs.

"Sonorus!" I heard Bagman say behind me, and then his voice boomed over 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!" And he blew the whistle.

As I pulled off my shoes, I saw Natsu do the same, and Cedric doing some kind of charm towards his head out of my peripheral vision. I stuffed the whatever-it-was into my mouth, almost spitting it out, but chewed it as fast as I could. Somehow Natsu had gotten it down faster, and suddenly clutched his neck. I finally swallowed it, and felt a strong pain my neck as I tried to breathe. I clutched my throat, my head spun, and I fell over.

In a panic, I tried to draw a breath, and somehow, it worked. I had gills. I realized, and began to breath normally. I stretched my hands out in front of me, which looked green and ghostly under the water, and were now webbed. I twisted around in the now not freezing water, to see my bare feet were elongated and webbed. I looked back around, to see all the other champions ahead of me, Natsu with similarly webbed feet. He was swimming very fast, in a single direction, so I tried to follow him, which didn't last very long, as he was much faster than me.

I lost sight of his bright pink hair in the murk right at the edge of a kind of cliff. I was about to swim down to the bottom of the lake, when something grabbed my ankle. I twisted around to see a Grindylow with its long fingers wrapped around my leg, with its pointed teeth bared. I put my webbed hand in my pocket and pulled out my wand.

"Relashio!" I shouted, except no sound came out, just a stream of bubbles. Instead of sparks, the spell seemed to shoot a jet of boiling water at the creature, which caused it to get angry red patches on its otherwise green skin. This only seemed to make it angrier. It snatched at me again, and I kicked my legs. My foot made contact with the horned skull, and the creature floated away, dazed.

In the now pressing silence, I heard a faint noise. I swam toward it, and then I realized the mer-folk were singing a song.

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

I swam faster, and soon saw a large rock come into view. It had a painting of merpeople carrying spears, chasing the giant squid. (A/N: Nooooo not the giant squid!) I swam past the rock, following the song.

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

I swam through the little village, and came to where the song was coming from - a choir around a huge statue of a gargantuan merperson.

Six people were tied around the tail of the merperson. Ron, Hermione, Cho Chang, a girl who looked like a miniature of Fleur Delacour, a girl that looked exactly Clementine Blanchett, and petite, pretty girl who bore a slight resemblance to Andrei Minkov. Had Lucy been Natsu's hostage, and he'd already come? Quite possibly.

I swam up to where they were, and started desperately to untie the hostages, but the seaweed keeping them there was thick, slimy, too strong.

I looked at the ground to find it was littered with stones. I picked up a sharp looking one, and used it to saw through Ron's bindings. He floated, unconscious, a few inches above the lake bottom, and drifted a little with the ebb of the water.

I looked around. There was no sign of the other champions. I turned back to Hermione, raised the jagged knife to hack at the ropes keeping her tied to the statue-

A pair of strong grey hands seized me. A merman was pulling me away from Hermione.

"You take your own hostage." One of them said. "Leave the others."

"No way!" I said furiously - but only bubbles can out. "Your yaks is to retrieve your own friend... leave the others..."

"She's my friend too!" I yelled, gesturing towards Hermione. "And I don't want them to die either!"

Cho's head was on Hermione's shoulder; both small children looked ghostly green and pale. I could barely see the last hostage's dark skin in the dim. I struggled to fight off the now half dozen mermen, who were laughing at me. I looked wildly around. Where were the others? Would I have time to bring Ron to the surface, and come back for Hermione and the others? Would I be able to find them again? I looked at my watch to see how much time was left - it had stopped working.

I looked up and saw Cedric swimming towards me. There was an enormous bubble around his head, which made his face look oddly wide and stretched.

"Get lost!" He mouthed, looking panick-stricken. "The others are coming now!"

Feeling hugely relieved, I watched Cedric pull a knife out of his pocket and cut Cho free. He pulled her upwards and out of sight.

Within a few minutes, someone else came. I couldn't tell who it was, but a big silver dolphin was racing towards me. A few feet from the statue, they transfigured back to normal form, and pulled his wand out and cut the small boy out of his bindings with a spell.

With a confused glance in my direction, Minkov swam to the surface. Just as he disappeared, another champion appeared out of the gloom.

Another transfiguration, this time not complete. Krum had turned his head into a shark's, and was swimming to his hostage. Once he reached it, he kicked closer to Hermione, but then seemed to realize he couldn't get her out without snapping her in half if he used his teeth. I offered the stone I was holding, which he took, and cut Hermione out with. He he threw the stone back to the ground, and pulled Hermione to the surface.

Only three hostages left - Ron, the silver haired miniature of Fleur Delacour, and the carbon copy of Clementine Blanchett. Where were they?

Just as I was beginning to give up hope, I saw a dark, slender figure in a silver swimsuit paddling toward the little village. As it got closer, I realized it was Clementine, her bright blue eyes a stark contrast to her dark skin. She didn't seem to have anything like the transfiguration or the bubble.

When she arrived at the statue, I realized Clementine had gills on her neck, although her hands and feet were normal, unlike mine. She pulled up to her hostage (maybe a twin sister?) and unsheathed a knife strapped to her upper leg. Within a minute, the third last hostage was gone, and Fleur and I were the only ones remaining who hadn't gotten our hostages.

There was no sign of Fleur. She had to come, she just had to! There was surely very little time left to save the hostages. There was was nothing to lose.

I pulled out my wand. "Get out of the way!"

Only bubbles came out, but the mermen seemed to get the message, because they all stopped laughing. Their yellow eyes were fixed on my wand, and looked scared. There was a lot more of them than me, but I could tell, by the looks on their faces, they didn't know any magic.

"You've got until three!" I shouted, and held up three fingers. "One..." I put down the first finger. "two..." I put down the second-

The scattered. I darted forwards and began to hack at the ropes binding the small girl to the statue; and at last she was free. I seized the little girl around the waist, grabbed Ron, and kicked off from the bottom.

It was very slow work. I kicked my flippers as hard as I could, but Ron and Fleur's sister were like potato filled sacks dragging me back down. I fixed my eyes skywards, though I knew I was still very deep, the water above me was so dark...

My legs were seizing up with the effort to keep swimming. My shoulders ached...

Breathing was getting difficult. There was pain in my neck again... But the daylight was getting closer...

I kicked hard with my flippers and realized they were nothing more than feet... Water was flooding into my lungs... I was starting to get dizzy, but light and air were only ten feet above me... I had to get there... I had to...

I kicked my legs so hard and fast it felt like my muscles were screaming; my brain felt waterlogged, I couldn't breathe, I needed oxygen, I had to keep going, I couldn't stop -

And then I felt my head break the surface of the lake; wonderful, cold, clear air was making my wet face sting; I gulped it down, feeling like I'd never breathed right before, and, painting, pulled Ron and the little girl up with me.

The crowd in the stands was making a huge amount of noise; shouting and screaming, everyone seemed to be on their feet. Ron and the little girl opened their eyes; the latter looked scared and confused, but Ron merely spat out great deal of water, blinked in the bright light, turned to me and said "why'd you bring her up?"

"Flume ur didn't turn up. I couldn't l leave her." I panted.

"Harry, you prat," said Ron, jokingly slapping me on the head, "come on, I don't think she can swim very well." He gestured to the small girl, who we were supporting in the water as she flailed about.

Once we got back to shore, Percy, looking very pale and somehow younger than usual, came splashing out to meet us. Meanwhile Madame Maxime was doing her best to restrain Fleur, who was fighting tooth and nail to the attack her sister with hugs.

"Gabrielle! Gabrielle! Is she alive? Is she 'urt?"

"Come here, you." Said Madame Pomfrey's voice; she seized me and pulled me over to Hermione and the others, wrapped me so tightly in a blanket I felt as though I was in a straightjacket, and forced a ladle full of very hot potion down my throat.

"Harry, well done!" Hermione cried. "You did it, you saved Ron and Fleur's sister!"

"You haff a water-beetle in your hair, Herm-own-ninny" said Krum.

"Amazing job, Harry!" Lucy cried, having finally made it over to where I was standing, and suffocating me with a hug.

"Knew you could do it, ya little punk." Natsu said, smirking and joining us.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Andrei Minkov and Clementine Blanchett talking to their siblings animatedly.

They announced the points, and Natsu was in first place out of the whole tournament. Cedric and I were right behind him (apparently I showed moral fibre so I scored 47), and then Krum, Clementine, Minkov, and Fleur.

Now, I didn't have to worry about anything but school until June.

Woohoo! Yay for Harry and Natsu! Anyways, see you soon! We're doing a super update today so you'll be reading from Layla next chapter.

Lindsay out!