Gellert woke slowly, his eyes cracking open as if they'd been glued shut. He brought a hand up to rub at them, noticing how stiff and sore he felt.

'You're awake!' Berg breathed from across the room.

'Huh, uh.' Gellert managed. His throat was agonisingly dry and a moment later hands were pulling him up to sit against a mound of pillows and a cool cup was pressed into his fingers. He only noticed his hands were shaking when water spilled over the rim and splashed over the sheet that covered his legs, soaking through in seconds.

'You've been asleep for a week.' Berg supplied helpfully as Gellert concentrated on bringing the cup to his lips.

'Why?' Gellert croaked after he'd drained the entire cup. Berg poured him another form the jug on the table.

'I don't know. Your mother won't tell me.' Berg huffed.

'Where's Hermione?'

'Not here yet. It's only just past six in the morning. She's been going mad with worry - convinced it was her fault.'

Gellert liked that Hermione was worried about him. Sometimes he felt like he did all the worrying whilst she swanned around putting herself in danger. He drained the second cup and an elf in a nightcap popped in with a bowl of broth. It fussed over him for several minutes; straightening sheets and balancing the tray with the soup on his lap. Finally, the elf disappeared again.

'What happened?' He asked. He felt better after the water and he felt he could eat a hippogriff, but the broth looked very unappetising.

'You remember how we used to say the solstice ritual was the pointless one because it never did anything. Well, turns out it does but we've all forgotten how to tap into the real magic of the solstice. You remember that part, right? Bright, hot magic everywhere and nowhere?'

Gellert nodded. Now that Berg mentioned it, he did remember. Hermione put the power in the ritual, and they all drank from the chalice. That was only a little unusual though.

'So we all drank, and at first it just hurt like normal. I felt a bit better because I'd atoned for my evils and all that but then that solstice magic... its like it exploded inside me. It burned, like my magic was on fire, then it stopped and I was lying on the floor. You and Frau Hassel were unconscious, Anneken and your mother were crying really tears and Hermione was just sitting there like she was under the imperius.' Berg paused.

'Of course, we all thought it had gone wrong until we all woke up the next morning. Try your magic.'

Gellert did, and almost recoiled in shock. He hadn't even realised how unsettled his magic had been. It had been chaotic and claggy and it had flowed like mud but now it spilled down his arms and ghosted across his skin. Berg's danced in reply, like earth and trees and warmth.

'Wow.' Gellert sighed.

'Yeah. Anyway, so the ritual actually worked. Mordred seemed to think it was all rather amusing when I asked him, so I don't know why you got it so much worse than the rest of us.'

There was a moment of silence as Gellert swallowed a couple of mouthfuls of broth. It tasted odd, and he was certain that it contained some kind of potion because he found himself feeling much better very quickly.

Unlike Berg, Gellert could make a pretty good guess at why he'd fallen unconscious. If the pain was the magic exacting justice, then he had had significantly more to repent than anyone else in the circle. Even his mother hadn't actually killed someone. But, he decided, it was worth a week of missed summer holidays to have his magic cleansed and it was worth the damage to his magic to have killed Livius Lucan. He did not regret it.

The door slammed open, crashing against the wall and making both boys jump about a foot in the air. Gellert instinctively tried to grab his broth as it tipped on the tray, and ended up sending it flying instead. He hissed as scalding liquid soaked through his sheets as Berg cursed Hermione - he must have been spending time with the muggles, because they were the only ones that Gellert had heard using language like that.

She flew across the room and wrapped her arms around him, clutching him against her and burying her head into his shoulder.

'I'm so glad that you're awake!' Hermione mumbled and Gellert cautiously wrapped his arms around her too.

'I feel fine. Amazing actually.' He informed her, and her wild hair took the opportunity to invade his mouth. Spluttering, he pushed her away, but she was laughing and Berg quickly joined her as Gellert spat and curled his tongue. 'You know what? We should do that ship today.'

'I'm not sure...' Berg began uncertainly, but Hermione was already agreeing. 'But, he's only just woken, his magic...'

'Is at it's best now.' Hermione finished for him. She danced out of the room, her magic already brimming with anticipation. 'Get dressed, and we'll meet on the cliffs to get started.'

Berg muttered and grumbled for the whole time it took Gellert to get up and get dressed. His muscles still felt weak and shaky, but he suspected that was mostly lost muscle mass and his magic did feel fantastic.

Hermione was already waiting, Mordred at her side and both were once again unnervingly close to the sheer drop. Katana was bridled behind her and Mordred held Kelpie's reins, although neither beast was saddled. Gellert joined them, and peered down into the cove.

The wreck of the ship was near the entrance and only the mast still protruded above the waves. The scraps of canvas that had still hung from the skeletal yard at the beginning of the holidays had blown away and it looked like the mast had developed more of a lean.

'We'll fly down and land on that rock; the one that looks like a niffler.' Hermione decided, pointing towards a cluster of jagged rocks near the ship. 'You swim around with Kelpie, and scout out the ship. Do you remember the bubble head charm?'

Gellert did. He'd practiced it hundreds of times and even tested it in the bath and it had been a while since he accidentally let it drop. Even if he did, Kelpie would be there to pull him up to the surface. He mounted up and cantered down the steep track, then hung a right to follow a narrow sandy path between dewy gorse bushed in full golden bloom to the closest beach to the cliffs.

It was still early, so an eerie mist hung across the water which was only fractionally warmer than the fjord below Durmstrang. Kelpie was excited, and he pranced in the shallows as Gellert performed the charm on himself. The splashed were freezing, and after only a moment of consideration he decided that his loose cotton shirt would only be an encumbrance, so he left it on the beach.

Then, he nudged Kelpie with his heels and the beast eagerly waded into the water. Gellert floated off as they became fully submerged, and quickly it was only his head and Kelpie's nostrils and ears above the water. The beast snorted twice, then Gellert plunged his head below the freezing waves and a moment later he felt the sharp tug of Kelpie's mane, tangled in his fingers and dragging him through the water.

It was cloudy, and he could only see a couple of meters ahead. Kelpie's mane, usually hanging in dripping tendrils over his shoulders now swirled around Gellert's face like serpents and towering seaweeds swayed in the currents of Kelpie's legs. Fish darted away in flashes of silver, and eventually they reached the foot of the cliffs which plunged down to the sandy bottom beside them. This wall was alive with creatures - large crabs in different shades of umber, schools of baby fish and a salad of weeds, interspersed with blue-purple mussels. They followed the cliff around as the golden sand became more and more rocky. Jagged black stones reared up from the seabed, and Kelpie swum up a little higher so that they could pass over the top of the shorter ones.

The ship loomed, dark and unexpected. It was remarkably intact, resting against one stone spear. Sails and ropes trailed like snares from the rigging, and Gellert untangled himself to proceed alone so that Kelpie wouldn't tangle his larger and less agile body in the web. There must have originally been two masts - a second was a splintered mess of wood that jutted out above the deck and finished just above his head. Already, small shellfish were growing on the wood and small drifts of sand had washed up against every corner.

Mordred tapped his shoulder, the only one of them that wouldn't need a bubble head charm and who could speak. Hermione floated behind him, her gauzy, Grecian dress knotted at her thighs and her face shielded by a silvery bubble of air. He supposed he must look similar, but he couldn't see his own bubble.

She beckoned to him and swum over to the doorway near the taller deck at the back. He followed, wriggling through the door before cracking his head painfully against the wooden ceiling inside. He cursed, which came out as a particularly large bubble, then snapped his fingers and ignited a witchlight at their tip.

In the greenish light, the inside of the boat was absolute carnage. The cargo, which seemed to have been letters and parcels was strewn everywhere. Anything made of paper had turned to mush, and some things had floated up to the roof, whilst others had broken open and spilled their contents across the room. There was a ladder at one end and Hermione had already started pulling herself down it.

The second deck was the cause of the sinking - two holes. The first had already been hastily repaired with boards, a tabletop and wads of canvas sneered with a thick black paint and the second was long, like someone had taken a blunt knife and hacked through the side right where the wall curved down and joined the floor.

Berg waved at them through the gap, then pulled out his wand. Hermione did the same and began casting the fixing charm that they'd all learned. Gellert went to the smaller hole and with Mordred's help he blasted the first repair away and began doing it properly. Everywhere he dragged his wand, dark wood formed. The splinters stuck themselves back together and the two edged reached together, edges glowing with golden magic until, with one final flash they joined. He swum back over to Hermione.

Berg had managed to get through the hole, and he was finishing up his part whilst Hermione checked her own casting. It must have been solid, because she shrugged and made her way over to them. A string of bubbles escaped her charm, perhaps an attempt at speaking because her eyebrows pulled together and she held up her hand, thumb stuck up for a moment, then flipped it so that her thumb pointed down.

'Hermione wants to know if everything is okay.' Mordred translated and Gellert nodded. Berg had come up beside him and he nodded too. Hermione held up two fingers. 'She says to move of to stage 2.'

Gellert nodded again and swum over to the opposite side of the ship. He ran his wand around the frame of each window, casting a bubble head charm as Berg vanished upstairs to do the same. Hermione took charge of the doors and cargo hatches and Mordred turned incorporeal enough to stick his head into the bilges and ballast compartments to check for any more damage.

Gellert's fingers were well past wrinkly by the time they regathered on the first floor. Hermione recreated her odd gesture with the thumbs and both boys nodded without need for translation. When she held up three fingers, they all placed their hands on Gellert's shoulders. This part worked best with a wand and Gellert was the best at using his to channel their combined power.

Conjuring air was easy; there was a simple spell for it and like they had with their first pieces of magic as children, they had used the incantations to study the exact workings of the enchantment and to educate their magic into how to perform it to make it easier for Gellert of cast and control. Now, all they had to do was weave the same enchantment on a larger scale. They'd practiced that part too - casting bubble head charms on the windows of Hermione's living room and filing it with smoke before trying to conjure themselves new air.

It worked flawlessly. The air exploded from the end of Gellert's wand with a roar that was audible under water. And they all watched with glee as the air began to bubble and gather at the ceiling in a silvery skin.

They were exhausted before the top deck was even half full. Conjuring was tricky, intensive magic and exactly what they tried to avoid on any other occasion.

They swum back up to the surface, bursting through the bubble charms and gladly allowing a bored Kelpie tow them to the niffler rock where they scrambled up and lay sprawled across the sun warmed rock. It was late morning and the day was spectacular. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the sun beat down and warmed them despite their soaking clothes.

Katana was draped over the uneven summit of the rock, coiled like a dragon except for his tufted tail which he kept soaking in the sea, then lifting it over his body to allow the water to run over his scales. He glittered with trails of salt.

Kelpie returned below the waves quickly - the water demon was not a fan of the sun, but Gellert wasn't worried that he'd swim off.

'That isn't going to work.' Berg voiced what they had all been thinking.

'What if, instead of making air, we try to bring air from the surface down to the ship.' Gellert suggested. 'Could we summon air with a summoning charm?'

'You'd kill yourselves.' Mordred answered shortly. He was dry of course, and he lounged slightly further down the rock where there was space. Waves kept lapping through his incorporeal body, which Gellert was sure must be annoying but with Katana taking up most of the space with his wings and tail there wasn't much room left.

'I think the summoning charm is too vague. We'd literally summon all the air in the world. But we could push air down from the surface.'

'You're crazy.' Berg informed her, but Gellert was thinking now. He understood how Hermione's spectacular storm summoning worked and she could create storms, gales, rain and lightning for miles even on a calm day. Surely, creating a whirlpool in fifteen meters of water wouldn't be out of the realms of possibility and that would get air down that deep.

Hermione had pulled out her wand and was focusing intently. Nothing happened, even after several minutes and she huffed, giving up.

'No, that won't work. I just don't understand how they work well enough to conjure one.'

'If we made a pipe going up to the surface, we could just pump the water out using the bilge pumps that are already on the ship.' Berg finally suggested and Hermione shot upright.

'Berg, you're brilliant.' She declared. 'I don't even have to conjure it - I bet it would be really easy to transfigured the mast into a pipe.'

'You're right, it would be. I bet we could charm the pumps to pump themselves too.' Berg agreed enthusiastically.

Hermione dove from the rock with incredible grace, slicing into the water. As she started out towards the ship, a dark head surfaced next to her and she stopped swimming, allowing Kelpie to swim her the not insignificant distance. Berg followed her quickly, but he recast his bubble charm and disappeared beneath the waves, presumably to charm the pumps.

'You know...' Mordred told the sky, 'that ship is going to drift as it starts to float and it will just end up stuck somewhere else.'

'Are you suggesting I find a way to anchor it?' Gellert asked. Mordred cracked one eye open.

'I'm suggesting you use one of the anchors, yes. There were four on the ship.'

'Want to help.' Gellert asked, hoping that he hadn't betrayed that he had no idea how to actually use one of the anchors on the ship. Mordred might not be a sailor, but he'd been a king of muggles. He must know stuff like that if he'd even noticed the anchors in the first place.

Thankfully, Mordred nodded and Gellert followed the others off the rock, grabbing Mordred's sword as he went. Kelpie came for him as soon as he'd cast his bubble charm and he allowed himself to be dragged down to the depths.

The pump was already charmed. He could hear it working as soon as he squeezed through one of the open, bubble charmed windows. Mordred reappeared and Gellert swam after him to the front of the ship where a tiny, cramped room was full of massive chain links. Between them, they managed to force the rusty levers until one of the anchors was free to run, and careful manoeuvring with levitating charms soon had it hooked beneath a rocky outcrop. They weren't done a moment too soon - the chains were already taught by the time they were satisfied.

When he got inside, Hermione and Berg were wading through waist deep water and plugging leaks. Water poured from everything - the ceiling, the supplies hung from the walls, down the stairs and it squelched out from drifts of paper that had sucked onto stacks of crates. It stank too - creatures that were never intended to see air were exposed, and most were draining bodily fluids to mix with the remaining water.

'Mordred and I have wedged an anchor to stop the ship drifting when it comes afloat.' He informed them. Hermione called her thanks over the running of water, crunching and grinding of the pump and the whistle of air coming out of the transfigured mast.

The ship shifted. Water sloshed and the trio were washed sideways into the wall.

'It's going to keep doing that.' Berg gasped, clutching at his side. 'It's got no stability when it's full of water.'

'Sticking charms on our hands. Make sure you're always holding onto something.' Hermione ordered, brandishing her hands before pressing one against the closest wall. Gellert hastily followed as the ship shifted again, rolling alarmingly to the right. Then it jerked sharply, bounced once against something hard enough to send them all flying again, along with most of the loose cargo. The ship rolled the other way, rolled, rolled, then suddenly sunlight streamed through one of the portholes.

'We're up!' Berg exclaimed.

'And sideways.' Gellert grumbled, following Berg as he used the massive wooden framed that ringed the hull to haul himself up to the porthole. One last heave against slick wood and then Berg was hauling him out by the arm and he was lying, panting, on a small but rapidly growing island of wood.

Katana was screeching in alarm from the rocks, his wings flapping in distress. Hermione emerged a moment later and stood, hands on hips, surveying the seascape.

'We did it. Or, we did the hard part. Now we just wait for it to finish.'