Author's Note - This website is so quiet compared to AO3... not sure if anyone's still reading on here, but if you are out there. Enjoy :)

The truth of what Harry was? What was Sparrow talking about?

Whatever it was had Harry looking like he might actually be sick. His face had lost all color and he was listing to one side like a sinking ship.

The scrape of steel as Sparrow unsheathed Triton's sword pulled a shiver from Melody because she knew he intended to use it this time. He pointed the blade at Harry's throat, the tip aiming straight at his Adam's apple.

"If I cut you here, you wouldn't be a threat at all anymore, would you?" he asked.

Melody toyed with several last-ditch ideas, realizing that time may be running out and she might never get a good opportunity to try to save him. She could walk over, play the pretty princess role, and make a trade with the fake locket around her neck. Or she could fly in and use those sword skills Harry had taught her and forget about bartering.

She weighed her options, neither of them very promising at all, before settling on a third choice – she'd walk in, pretend to be the pretty princess until she got close enough to slash Harry's bindings, then she'd sprinkle her pixie dust on him and fight with everything she had.

Slipping her hand into her jacket pocket, she uncorked her vial and gave herself another dusting just in case. She was getting dangerously low on it now. There was maybe enough for two more flights, if that.

She was gathering breath for the last-ditch effort when Sparrow's voice took on a different tone. A tone she somehow knew was directed at her and not Harry at all.

"I know you and the mermaid are inseparable lately," Sparrow said, pitching his voice to be heard everywhere on the dock. "I also know that her mother hates pirates. Triton and his family haven't exactly hidden their loathing for us over the centuries."

Zach Sparrow slashed his sword across Harry's chest, missing him by an inch at most, catching in his jacket and ripping a hole through the lower breast pocket. But that was only a teasing strike and Sparrow narrowed his eyes wickedly.

His arm drew back again before stabbing at Harry's flank. Harry was able to hop aside just in time, but with bound feet there was no way this game could last for long.

This brought a deranged smile to Sparrow's face as he studied Harry.

"So, Harry Hook, tell us. How did you convince the daughter of Queen Ariel to fall for you, the son of the most sinister pirate that ever lived? I hope you didn't have to use your siren song on the poor princess just so you could get what you wanted. Eh?"

Harry's shoulders slumped and he collapsed in on himself like he'd been kicked.

"Pirates talk, Harry," Sparrow said. "We all know your mum was a Neverland mermaid, and a siren at that."

A siren? Harry's mother was a Neverland mermaid?

Then that meant Harry was…

She looked down at the ring on her finger. An ocean blue gem surrounded by a band embossed with scales. Her vision tunneled and she was now gulping air like a fish out of water.

It took Melody a moment to recognize that the wheezing sound grating in her ears was coming from her own throat.

"Did he ever sing to you, Melody?" Sparrow twisted her name, as if amused by the play on words. He was searching the dock now, looking for her. He knew she was near, but Melody couldn't even think straight to hide properly. She should tuck her legs back under her, crawl back behind her crate. But her heart was wrenching painfully in her chest and she still couldn't suck in a breath. "I bet he did, I bet he sang to you to get at that locket didn't he?"

Then, flashes of the truth hit her like bricks, one after another. His song that first night on the beach. Despite her repulsion for him, she remembered that sudden, overwhelming desire to feel his touch. To hold his hand. She remembered the low drone of a song, his song, that had pulled her from the mermaids in the lagoon. And just now, the sea shanty that had filled her with inexplicable joy. Each realization was a burden she wasn't prepared to carry and she was now crouching on her hands and knees under the weight.

"I'm sure your boyfriend likes to pretend he's better than me. But he used everything he had to get at that locket, to find a way to raise the Jolly Roger. At least I asked nicely first."

With that, he turned his darkened eyes back toward Harry. "Once a villain always a villain, eh Hooky?"

Sparrow raised his sword again, this time dragging the blade suggestively across Harry's chest, then down, lower, across his stomach and lower still to the waist of his breeches. Once there, Sparrow flicked his wrist, slicing through Harry's belt and curling his lip in disgust.

"I bet he used that siren song to get at more than just your locket. I hear he's a whore just like his mother. Wouldn't surprise me if he used that song to get you to meet his needs." His voice had taken on a syrupy tone of mock-empathy, "Oh you poor thing. Hard to know if those feelings you have for him are real now, eh Melody?"

His tone went from sweet to bitter in a heartbeat as his eyes flicked back to Harry. "Well, Hooky, no wonder you're such a disappointment to dear old Da' when you're just like your mother."

Venom dripped from that last word as it hung in the air, but Melody couldn't bear to look at Harry for his reaction anymore, she couldn't look at anything anymore. She felt her world collapse in on itself with the truth of what Sparrow had revealed.

Harry Hook was a siren.

He was a siren and he'd sung for her. He'd reeled Melody in like a fish on a hook. And she'd loved every minute of it.

And Sparrow was right. How could she know if her own feelings were real if it had all started with a siren song?

The weight of more lies, more hidden truths were a crushing pressure against her chest. She'd given Harry so much of herself, opened herself up to him.

Why didn't he tell her?

An unbearable prickling pressure behind her eyes melted into tears and she struggled to breathe. She was only vaguely aware that she was still on her hands and knees as she strained to free herself from the twisting heat that had taken over her body.

No, no, no.

She couldn't fall apart here. She had to leave. She had to get back to Auradon.

She managed a single, centering breath toward that purpose before someone wrenched her up by her stolen coat.

"Found me somethin' delicious, Cap'n," a voice said with a puff of rotten meat stench against her face.

She thought back to her training, where to strike to get him to drop her and she jabbed a well-placed elbow into the soft tissue of his side, a kidney shot. Rotten Meat reeled back, catching himself on a barrel, but a second crewman was already there to grab her other wrist.

She twisted away, driving her hand down low, fumbling for the dagger strapped to her thigh. But Rotten Meat had recovered, reacting to the movement and cinching his icy grip around her arm. She struggled, wrenching her wrist at the angle that should have released her from his grasp. It had always worked in practice with Harry, but she wasn't focused, she was too distracted and tears were clouding her vision.

Rotten Meat and the other crewman who'd joined him had her completely restrained. Together, they stripped off her disguise and clasped her hands behind her back as she continued to struggle hopelessly.

Stupid Melody.

Stupid gullible Melody.

Falling for a siren's song and now, she'd deliver the third sapphire straight into the hands of the enemy.

She struggled to see behind tear-blurred eyes as the crewman carried her like a sack of potatoes toward the Captain.

Rotten Meat set her down on deck and Sparrow's dark gaze settled on her then. "Oi, she's a beautiful thing isn't she?"

Harry was biting his gag, every muscle tense. She tried to avoid his eyes, but even knowing what he was, she wasn't strong enough to look away. And Melody could see the deep sorrow that had settled in those pale-blue depths. She wrenched her gaze away, knowing she needed to get herself under control if they were going to get out of this.

Turning back to the Captain of the Black Pearl, she breathed deeply to try to focus, but Rotten Meat was gripping her so tightly she couldn't think. She couldn't feel anything except the bruises forming on her arms underneath those thick fingers.

She stomped hard on his foot, earning her a thump on the back of the head in response. Lights exploded across her vision and she stumbled. Rotten Meat grabbed hold of her arm, his grip now even tighter than it had been before.

"Feisty too, eh?" Sparrow was raising an eyebrow in Harry's direction now.

Rotten Meat's friend joined him to help hold her in place, forcing her to face their Captain, whose stare drifted from her head to her feet, lingering on places in between with a penetrating gaze that made her want to gouge his eyes out with her dagger.

"Hello, darling," he said, voice vacillating between seduction and threat. "You've been somewhat difficult to procure, you know that?"

He stepped closer, close enough to smell the rum on his breath and the sweat on his skin and he reached a hand out, wiping a tear from her cheek with the back of his knuckles.

"Don't cry, lass." And Harry's nickname for her on Sparrow's lips was like Triton's Sword straight through her heart. "Manipulation is in a siren's nature. Nothin' to be done for it."

She flinched and he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear sweetly. Sparrow smirked at Harry, knowing full well that this was a torture beyond anything he could do physically.

"This was all I wanted." Melody recognized the greedy glint in the pirate's shadowed eyes as he reached out to toy with the fake locket hanging from her neck, his fingers brushing against her skin much longer than was necessary. "If you would have come to me earlier like I asked, we could have avoided all of this."

He leaned closer, whispering suggestively against her ear. "Maybe, we could have even been friends."

She swallowed as the silence grew strained, sensing this was the eye of the storm and any minute, the hurricane was going to consume her.

"Give it to me, Melody."

She lifted her chin, prepared to use the only bargaining chip she had.

"Let Harry and I go. Let us walk off this ship and go back home."

The Captain's eyebrows raised, in a look of utter disbelief. "You want me to let him go, too?" He flicked his gaze back and forth between she and Harry, as though looking for some kind of trick. "He's a siren, darling. Weren't you listening? And you want me to just let him go?"

And maybe a pirate couldn't understand why she didn't just leave Harry there. Yes, he had hurt her. In fact, at this moment, it felt like her heart had been carved out and thrown into the depths of the sea. She felt hollow and used. Harry had lied and covered it up again and again and hidden who he really was, even as she practically bared her soul for him to see.

But that didn't mean she wanted him dead.

"That's my deal," she said, gathering what little poise she had left.

Harry lifted his eyes to her, that worry line etched between his brows, and it was obvious he'd thought she should leave him there, too.

"You're really in no place to bargain at the moment." Sparrow crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at her. Yes, he had to actually angle his neck to look down at her. But she was used to feeling physically small.

And here, she was surrounded by an undead crew of men twice her size who had no regard for human life whatsoever. Her arms were held behind her back, pixie dust inaccessible in her pocket at the moment, and Harry, bound and gagged, would be close to useless if she chose to fight.

Sparrow was right, she had pretty much nothing to bargain with. They could take what they wanted. Kill her and Harry and take the locket.

Except…

"Do you really want to start a war over this?" she asked.

Sparrow's brows drew together as he considered her words.

"The seas have been left to pirates for centuries," Melody continued. "But do you think my family, my grandfather would keep it that way if they knew you murdered me?"

Zach Sparrow reached for her, dragging cold, calloused fingers against the side of her face until he reached her chin and locked it tight between thumb and forefinger. He bent close, whispering his response with hot breath against her cheek. "When I have all three sapphires, your grandfather will no longer be a concern to me, darling."

And with that, he ripped the locket off her neck. She stumbled back, and now that Sparrow had the necklace, the crew seemed much more concerned with what their Captain was going to do with the locket than what he was going to do with her.

It was the opening she needed.

She tried once more to break Rotten Meat's grip on her. This time, she twisted her wrists at the right angle and focused her mind enough to follow through with the action. She wrenched free of him and side-stepped to clear herself of other grabbing hands. Then, attempting to wrap herself in a happy thought, she pushed off hard with her feet to propel her…

Nothing happened. Her happy thought had fizzled after what Sparrow had just revealed, and flight was not an option at the moment.

Her stomach lurched with the disappointment, her limbs growing dangerously heavy.

No.

No. No. No.

The only thing left was what she'd learned from Harry. So, she pulled her sword from its sheath and rushed to try to free him.

Growly blocked her path, flashing what was left of his smile, and she knew better than to engage if she didn't have to. Harry had pounded that lesson into her at least a dozen times. So, she darted to the side, out of range of his weapon and circled around him with her speed.

But Rotten Meat was right behind her.

Along with two of his friends.

"Get her!" The voice of Captain Sparrow had every crewman who'd been watching idly, moving again.

At this point the crew of The Black Pearl had forgotten about Harry completely, so as she led them on a chase over the deck, she leaped close enough to slice through the rope anchoring him to the mast, before jumping away again and bounding up to the bow of the ship.

With Harry's arms and legs still tied and no weapon, the crew continued to ignore him. He didn't pose a threat. And that was fine, he would need to go unnoticed if he was going to hop overboard. That was really all she needed him to do.

She hissed her directions to Harry in between quick slashes to Growly's side to keep him away. "Plan A."

She hoped Harry remembered the discussion they'd had outside of the library, when they'd reviewed their options for confronting Sparrow. Plan A – steal the sword and jump into the water with the locket and escape. They might not get to the sword part of the plan today, but at least they could try to escape and live to confront Sparrow another time.

Rotten Meat had made his way to the forecastle now, slashing violently in an arc over her head. She parried and feinted, sending him backward and giving her an opening to jab at his side.

Over her own panting breaths, she heard the amused voice of Sparrow. "She can swordfight, too? No wonder Hooky wants a piece of her."

Melody leaped six feet down, back onto the main deck. And she heard Harry's voice in her head then 'whatever happens, dinnae allow yerself to be cornered.' Harry had drilled that lesson into her, too. 'Quickness doesnae matter if yeh find yer back against a wall,' he would tell her.

She looked up to find Zach Sparrow standing mid-ship with his hands on his hips, watching all of this unfold as if it were just a R.O.A.R. tournament. "This is just too much fun for one evening."

He had the fake locket in his hand and obviously hadn't figured out the clasp was phony, and the thing didn't even open. Sparrow thought it was real, so what did he care if Melody took out a few of his crew for the sake of entertainment? He thought he had all three sapphires, he could raise a new group of undead sailors in the blink of an eye. He was sure he'd already won so he didn't even bother to lift his sword against her.

The crew though, they had something to lose. Lucky for her, a woman with a sword was a new experience for this group of pirates and it was taking them a while to see that maybe she could pose a threat after all. But Melody knew, it was only a matter of time before the novelty of a sword-fighting princess would wear off.

She slashed quickly across Growly's sword arm as he charged for her. He roared, clutching his wrist and his weapon clattered to the ground.

Melody was pretty sure that would be the end of the novelty.

"Cover the gangplank, do not let her off this ship!" Sparrow bellowed.

But something struck her just then. If Sparrow thought he had the locket, then why did he care so much if she got away? She was supposed to be useless now, wasn't she?

The crew adjusted to block any exit over the dock side of the ship, thinking she had no other way to escape than on dry land.

"She's under five feet tall and weighs as much as my breakfast this morning!" Sparrow was livid, snarling at the dozen bumbling crewman. "Catch her or I'll hang you up for the birds."

Now, she was sure. Sparrow needed her for some reason and she knew it had something to do with the locket.

But Harry had used the necklace just fine to repair the Lost Revenge for Uma. Which meant anyone could use it.

Then again, she'd always been told the locket could only be used by her, since she was of mer blood.

Half-mer.

Understanding washed over her. Of course, Harry had been able to use the locket. His mother was a mermaid.

She heard a splash.

"Hook's tryin' to kill himself!" Rotten Meat said, looking over the side of the ship.

Jumping off a ship with arms and legs bound was definitely suicide. Unless you knew a mermaid.

Or were of mer-blood yourself.

And could use a locket designed for someone who was half-mer.

Stormy seas, this could really work.

Melody looked over her shoulder, making sure the path across the deck and into the water was clear. The entire crew was approaching her now, but from the gangplank side of the ship, thinking they were blocking her escape.

Melody sheathed her sword and dashed to the railing.

She pulled the real locket from her inner pocket and opened it as she launched herself overboard. Nothing had ever felt as wonderful as the heat of that magic swathing her in its comfortable cocoon as she slipped into the ocean.

She reached Harry just as she heard the crew behind her coming in after them. With hands and feet tied together he'd turned onto his back, trying his best to float.

"Use it," she said, and shoved the locket behind him into his bound hands.

The thrashing of frantic swimmers grew louder, their heavy breathing and grunts of effort drawing closer, telling her she and Harry were running out of time.

A blue glow radiated from Harry's hands and tendrils of energy snaked across his body. The glow of tightening power completely encircled him before something surged in a white-hot flash.

When the magic faded, Harry Hook had a tail fin.