Harry Potter and the Thunderstruck Muggles(01) - Sahits

A moment later though, Harry knew why. When the witch said, "Hundred and thirty-twogalleons, Mr. Potter."He gasped. That expensive? So with ten, he'd scored as the customer of the month, probablydid even so. He offered his GALA card."Oh, that's nice ... I heard of them, but you're the first customer who comes with such a thing."The witch spoke with the Goblin, who promised to honour the bill, while Harry was musingabout old habits and new fortunes. Even with two diving tours a day, all year long, he wouldspend less than the return of investement per year.At Hogwarts, he asked Samantha whether she was interested to join him in a diving tour. Heshowed the Gillyweed; then had to explain how it worked and that gill-breathing would lastfor about three quarters of an hour. But Samantha waved him off. "Naw, thanks ... Water'sdangerous, Harry - look what it does to a good bourbon, then you know."The water felt wonderful - less at the sun-heated surface, where Harry found it difficult tobreathe sufficiently through his gills, more so at deeper levels where his eyesight quicklynarrowed down to twenty feet, fifteen, ten. Nevertheless, his getsumai no michi provided himwith a clear sight of this underwater landscape.He was floating over a forest, stretching ahead, gently sloping downhill, a soft wave of darkgreen with no discernible end. It was only weed, but from his position six feet above, Harrycould imagine a fantastic jungle of bizarre trees, hiding all kinds of creatures, up to the size offull-grown dragons.For the small-form life underwater, it was probably a jungle. From Harry's own perspective,Grindylows were the only creatures in the weed he had to be careful about. He was swimmingwithout his wand; however, it should be simple enough to keep them at bay with spells fromhis webbed hands, used only to balance out or to change direction - with his elongated feetalone, he was making sufficient speed for this idle journey beyond any particular task.The green wave sloped deeper. Harry kept his level, letting it disappear below, out ofeyesight. This was his first exploration, a waterspace patrol - he had no intention to meetmerpeople today, was only interested in an effortless, weightless space travel.The giant squid came to his mind. Would he sense it with his haragei? From its intellectuallevel, the answer was probably no, but then, haragei was an early-warning system for mindsas much as for dangers. Anyway, the only presences he felt were deep below - greyish-greenfigures with shark-like teeth in their faces and spears in their hands. One of the followingdays, he would visit them, knew already what to talk about, if there was an opportunity. Hewould ask them whether there was any trace left of four dragon cadavers, and if so, he wouldinspect their skeletons, to save the image and to record it onto a spector cassette.The air seemed thinner ... This was of course nonsense - just the first sign of the fading effect.Harry sped up, climbing rapidly toward daylight. When his head broke through the surface, hewas already back to lung-breathing, had spent the last half minute without breathing - simpleenough for him, who could keep his breath for almost two minutes.The only nuisance - he found himself in the middle of the lake.18