When James had signed up for the tournament, he had expected it to be a challenge. He'd expected things like the first task, where they'd faced off with their boggarts. What he hadn't expected was that his challenge would involve rescuing his son from the bottom of a lake, or that there would be other people he cared about down there as well.
He had a strong stomach and an iron will, and this admittedly wasn't anywhere near the worst thing he had ever been through, but he was undeniably on edge even after the task was over. He hadn't wanted to let go of Harry at all. That was less about Harry having been in more danger than the others, but simply because Harry had been his main tie to relative sanity for so many years. Eventually he'd had to let his son go, though, because Harry wasn't nearly as bothered by it as James was, and he didn't need to worry him by clinging. Not for the first time, he thought of the nine-year-old he'd been with in the last moments before showing up here, and wished he could hold him, too. Maybe that age difference, between the Harry back home and the Harry here on the compound, still made it more difficult to worry less, even though he knew that Harry was older and more capable of looking out for himself.
And seeing the others hadn't helped, either. He was immensely grateful that his Sirius and Lily had been among the rescuers rather than the hostages, but their hostages had been people he worried for too; not to mention Hannah, and the other versions of his friends who had ended up down there. He simply just hadn't needed to add the mental image of them tied up underwater to his memories, especially because his imagination had already had years of imagining worst case scenarios for his loved ones. He had plenty of practice with that without actually seeing anything happen to them.
But he had signed up for the tournament willingly, and from the sound of it, this was a fairly normal task to occur in it. Didn't mean he liked it any better, but it spared him the need to be outraged about it, which he just didn't have the energy for. He hadn't managed to feel truly angry about a lot of things these days, which was mainly because he just wanted to concentrate on the good things, but possibly also because of reasons that he hadn't fully examined.
Either way, all he really wanted right now was to be in good company; he didn't want to be alone in his own head with the way his mind was going at the moment. When Abigail invited him to tea, he'd immediately said yes; tea sounded amazing, and so did the idea of spending time with his daughter. He'd gotten to know her and gotten attached to her just in time to see her in danger, and that was unsettling, too.
He had charmed his clothes dry, but still felt cold; when he entered the kitchen, he could see that Abigail was still soaked from the lake, despite the towels. "C'mere," he said, by way of greeting. "Let's get you dried off properly."