I've created and posted a Hylian conlang! ...On Ao3, but still. It started out as a little side-project so I'd have a few filler-words for signs and occasional untranslated dialogue, but then I leaned into it way harder than I had to because, well...not much to do in quarantine. If you're interested in using my made-up language for your own story or you want an idea of where to start your own, I'd suggest checking out the "sequel" to this fic over on Ao3. I've added a link to the Tumblr navigation post I keep mentioning, too. I wish FFNet would let me code tables and stuff, otherwise I'd just cross-post it here :/

FFNet also won't let me code my translations in, so instead, I'm going to number them in the text and post translations in the endnote.

Content warning for Harry getting mildly stabbed and Draco's spiteful misgendering of someone he considers lesser. It's more like calling a person an "it" to be a fantasy-racist arse, but I'd say that still counts as misgendering. This is probably the worst Draco's going to get before he starts figuring out that other people are, in fact, people.

FRIDAY NOV 6

Draco stood on at the edge of the swollen lake, dressed in his swimsuit and yet hesitant to swim. The water didn't exactly look inviting, per se—the Black Lake was ominous even on the best of days—but he could certainly feel its draw. Though he'd given into the urge to immerse himself in it on Thursday (only briefly, with most of his clothes on), it was still his automatic inclination to resist such an unnatural impulse.

He turned his back to the water. Were all Malfoys like this, to some lesser degree? Did his father also feel the pull of the water and disguise his indulgence of his instincts in the form of lavish seaside vacations? Were his distant cousins also infected by this half-breed strangeness? How far back did the impurity run, anyway? Just how far gone was he going to become by the end of the year?

A harsh shout interrupted his brooding and made Draco nearly jump out of his skin: "Bonndia!"(1)

Draco whipped around, one hand going for a wand that wasn't there. He cursed, glancing over his shoulder at the magically water-proofed back sitting on the grass beyond the water.

"Ey, mi culpann por haben yi e pavat esh-dia," the raspy, reptilian voice went on. "Todemal nai sor e minat fachar, promissa."(2)

He reluctantly faced forward. The freakish mer-creature that Potter had led out of the woods yesterday (the creature Draco somewhat resembled, Merlin save him) was strolling out of the Black Lake with terrifying, toothy grin. Draco was horrified by the sight of so many yellowish fangs. The thing had tusks! Was Draco going to grow tusks?!

He silently vowed to pay any amount of money to have any trace of incoming beast-teeth vanished as soon as possible. Should he still have access to his family's funds once all this was over, he was going straight to St. Mungos to be transfigured back to normal.

The approaching freak had the gall to tilt his head to the side and look at Draco like he was the strange one. "Yi benn, kodama?"(3)

Even if Draco couldn't understand the language, he could guess what the creature had asked by its skeptical tone. "Of course I'm not alright! You're some otherworldly freak gabbling at me in another language!" he snapped. He switched to French, since it sounded closer to this thing's Hylian babble. "Qu'est-ce que tu veux? Si tu n'a rien à faire ici, laisse-moi tranquille!"(4)

The Zora's yellow eyes went wide, though not with offense. Instead, it looked impressed. "Ooh, lokas linguas dun? Habes tama benn, ari ne?"(5) Its grin grew even wider.

It was incredibly frustrating that Draco could almost, kind of understand what it was saying. Since he'd been a small child, he had been tutored in Latin and French, and vacations to the Swiss Alps had given him a certain familiarity with German. There was some influence on the Hylian merman's language that was totally unknown to him, though, throwing off his comprehension.

"Laisse-moi tranquille,"(6) Draco repeated forcefully. He started walking into the lake, determined not to let this stupid beast get the better of him. He refused to be sent scurrying back to his dorm by some stupid, chatty flying merman. This creature certainly didn't scare him!

He felt the Zora's curious eyes on him as he entered water deeper than he could stand in, but he studiously ignored the prickling on the back of his neck. As simple as the creature's mind probably was, it was sure to lose interest in him quickly. Draco kicked up, folded his torso down, and dove.

Instantly, the roar of rain on the surface of the lake became a dull and distant sound. The relative silence was comforting; he hadn't noticed the volume of the rain until it was suddenly muted. The way the dappled surface of the lake cast droplet patterns on the pale sand below was mesmerizing. He hovered there for a while, a couple of meters under the surface, watching the light play across the sand.

Despite his ability to breathe underwater, that didn't make the Black Lake any less frightening to swim in. The water was cloudier than what he was used to at the seashore, tinted a foggy green that deepened to terrifying black if one peered over the steep drop-off to its considerable depths. There was something within Draco that quavered at the thought of exploring such fathomless water, especially when it was so difficult to see through and definitely full of things like Grindylows and merpeople. It was one of the few things his humanity and creature instincts could agree on: deep-diving was Bad.

"Ey, quori natas komme Hylian? Ari bizarre, be?"(7)

A muscle under Draco's eye twitched. Of course the bloody merman could keep babbling underwater. Draco turned to scowl at the Zora floating behind him with an amused look on its face. What did it look so pleased for?

'How else am I supposed to swim?' he would have demanded if he could speak. It had sounded like the Zora was criticizing his swimming, anyway. Something about it being odd that he swam like a Hylian. Draco sneered at it. Did this thing expect him to squirm like a merperson? Swing around the tail he didn't have?

The Zora raised its hands inoffensively and patted at the water. "Shaa, shaa, calmes," the creature said with the air of soothing a small child. Draco puffed up indignantly. He was not a baby and this thing certainly wasn't better than him! "Mi pova yi apprendar duu natar."(8)

'Excuse you! I know how to swim!' Draco tried to channel through his flaming glare.

The Zora just laughed at his expression. "Malfoy, miras!"(9) It threw its body into a smooth undulating motion, all of its red fins working to add to its propulsion, and swiftly shot out of sight. A stream of bubbles followed in the creature's wake.

Draco eyes widened in shock. Surely that speed wasn't possible. It had to be magic-aided, right? How else could a human-sized, roughly human-shaped being move so fast underwater?

The Zora reappeared in a cloud of bubbles. Its fins snapped out like a multitude of sails, catching the water and letting it pull to a precise stop. "Atam, hoshas apprendar imman?"(10) it asked smugly.

There was no way Draco could reach such a ridiculous speed. Even assuming the Zora wasn't using some form of water-magic, it was still covered in a plethora of fins that Draco lacked. What could it teach that he had to learn? He was perfectly good at the normal, human swimming strokes. He turned away with a huff. Like this fish could teach a proper person anything.

"Kumaaas, Malfoy!" the creature wheedled, swimming around him. Draco fought down a spark of jealousy at the way it slid so naturally through the water. "Yi arei a bonn!"(11)

Draco glared at the Zora. He didn't like that it knew his name. Potter had probably been the one to tell it. "Will you stop bothering me? Je ne veux pas apprendre à nager de toi (12), so go find somebody else to bother!" he said, waving his arm at the pest.

The Zora pouted. "Mat yi natas alle falche. Ari bizarre."(13) It stuck its tongue out in distaste.

Oh, so his swimming was just too weird for the fish-man to handle, was it? Well, good!

Draco struck out toward a somewhat deeper area of the lake in a very human breaststroke. The Zora followed after him, whining about his form the whole way.

Harry walked down toward the castle's side exit on stiff legs, feeling the eyes and expectations of Professor and Professor McGonagall on his back. He knew Ruka really existed, and that he was most likely still in the lake—because where else did he have to go?—and yet he still felt like a liar on his way to be proven wrong. Maybe it was the mild skepticism he'd been met with when he'd told his Head of House what he'd seen, and the one-day delay in being believed enough for the Headmaster to ask him to show them the school's new visitor.

It had been difficult to convince the teachers that Ruka wasn't a monster to blast on sight. Because of the Deku Scrub Incident that had landed Red in the Hospital Wing, they were inclined to see every strange being from Hyrule as a monster, no matter how friendly they turned out to be. Harry was sure that his Head of House still thought he'd foolishly made a pet of something on the same level as an Octorok. There was a particular pinch of doubt to her lips as she followed him and the Headmaster to the castle exit.

Harry summoned the Lenses of Truth, added a few quick Impervius Charms to his clothing and umbrella, and prepared to step out first.

A tutting from behind made him freeze on the threshold. "Mister Potter! Why must you wear those abominable things?" Professor McGonagall demanded. "I've done everything I could to test them, and they resisted every time. There's no guaranteeing they aren't cursed!"

"If they were cursed, Professor, then Red's nose would've surely come off by now. He wears them every day, except in your class," Harry said. "I just have them on because they make it easier to see in the rain. I don't know if you've been out in it yet, but it's as thick as fog."

She didn't look pleased by that. Harry hoped he hadn't just thrown his brother into her crosshairs.

They all stepped out, Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall staying dry under a set of matching red parasols that hovered in step with them. Harry hiked up his robe and cloak, then led them slip-sliding down the glistening lawn. The morning chill still hadn't lifted, or perhaps this was just the temperature of the day. Harry shivered violently and almost tripped over his feet.

The lake was as inky and fathomless as ever. Well, perhaps a tad less inky because of all the droplet-patterns graying its surface. Harry grimaced at the sight of its current shores. The lake just kept getting bigger and bigger, didn't it? There was a distressing amount of surface area for the rain to hit and add to.

His eyes snagged on something sitting on the lakeshore that wasn't grass—it was dark gray leather. A leather bag he could feel the price of from even this far off.

Harry groaned under the sound of the rain. He'd forgotten to warn Malfoy that he'd be out here with the teachers! Hopefully the paranoid Slytherin wouldn't take this as a betrayal, or something.

Walking farther ahead of the teachers, Harry made a beeline for the bag and tapped his wand on its molded leather. Being expensive, the bag obediently shrank to a more convenient size. Harry shoved it in his pocket as the professors caught up. "Thought I saw a monster, but it was just a big toad," Harry explained to them with a sheepish look. The teachers hadn't seen the dark bag on the dark grass through the dark storm, right?

"You already have an owl, remember," Professor McGonagall reminded him.

Harry breathed an internal sigh of relief. "Ah, right. Yeah, I'll leave the toads alone."

"Have you any way to summon this aquatic friend of yours, Harry, or shall I assist you?" Professor Dumbledore asked.

"Er, I figure this'll work well enough." Harry lit his wand with a Lumos and waved it over his head. "HEY, RUKA!" he hollered over the lake.

A few seconds later, a light teal head with a bright red comb poked out of the water. "Oh, hey, Harry!" Ruka greeted cheerily. He ducked back under the surface and shot toward land.

"I've brought the headmaster of my school and one of my teachers to meet you, if that's alright," Harry explained when the Zora surfaced again. "Would've done it yesterday, but I don't think they believed me."

Ruka slogged up onto the shore. "I mean, if the Hylians here are used to Zoras like the ones in your lake, I definitely get it," he said. "I've never seen anythin' like that squirmy hair before." He wiggled his fingers by his face, making swirly motions. "They were sittin' around under us, watchin' me give that friend of yours—Malfoy—some swimmin' lessons. Dunno if he saw 'em; I don't think his eyesight underwater's all that great compared to mine."

"Malfoy let you teach him?" Harry asked in surprise. It didn't shock him that Ruka would want to show Malfoy the ropes—he seemed like a friendly enough sort to do that—but he couldn't imagine the blood-purist acknowledging any non-human person as being worthy of instructing him.

Ruka smirked mischievously. "After a while. He's got an ego the size of Mount Lanayru, but I've have a grandma who's just like that. The best way to break those types is to act cute and annoy the hell outta them."

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat to get Harry's attention. "Mr. Potter, if you would be willing to translate?" she prompted.

"Oh! Right." Harry looked at Ruka. "So, the teachers want to talk to you and I'm going to translate, alright? Nobody around here can understand Hylian but me."

"Your friend kinda can, actually. He even cycled through a couple of languages closer to Hylian to tell me to screw off," Ruka said. He looked up at Professor Dumbledore. "Hey, Mr. Headmaster! You look like a guy who's been in a few libraries. Can you understand me?"

Harry looked up at the man, whose head was inclined toward the Zora with curiosity. "He said you look like someone who might know multiple languages, so he's wondering if you can understand him at all," Harry passed along.

"Indeed, it sounds as though Hylian bears a resemblance to some of the languages I've learned," Professor Dumbledore said. "That is only one of the many reasons why I would like to hold a proper meeting with him at the castle. Through you, he could provide a cipher for written Hylian and I could get to work properly translating the Hylian Bestiary. He might also be able to fill in some of the gaps concerning our knowledge of Hyrule."

Harry was admittedly skeptical. Not that he thought the Zora was an idiot, but the bloke didn't strike him as an academic sort. "Professor Dumbledore wants to you to help us translate this Hylian book we found and ask about what your country is like," Harry said in Hylian.

"Uh, well, you might have to tell him he's got the wrong guy," Ruka said a little sheepishly. "I've only been to the mainland once, ages ago. Island culture is pretty different from whatever they're doing all the way up there. And when it comes to Hylian, do you know what era of script he wants translated or which Hyrulean people wrote it? Because everyone changes letters like every three centuries and I only know five Hylian alphabets, three Gerudo scripts, two sets of Sheikah kanji, and a few different styles of musical notation."

Harry gave him a slow blink. Clearly, Ruka was less of an average bloke than he'd assumed. "Er, the letters are really narrow and drawn with a lot of straight lines?" he said uncertainly. "The book we've got is from before the Great Flood."

Ruka grimaced. "Old Kingdom runes? Nope, no way I can read those. Only lore-keepers from Outset Isle and rich library-crawlers on the mainland bother learnin' that alphabet anymore." After a short pause, he amended, "Well, some of the spirits can probably read it, too, but it's not like Jabu-Jabu or Lanuatu are gonna rise out of that lake." He jerked his thumb at it over his shoulder.

Harry passed all of this along, to which Professor Dumbledore responded with a remark of, "It appears Hyrule is a larger and more diverse place than I initially assumed." He looked down at Ruka and motioned toward the castle. "Still, any information he can provide will be immensely useful. Please tell him to accompany us to the castle. If he requires any special accommodations, we can provide them."

"Yeah, yeah, he wants me to go to the big fancy building," Ruka said before Harry could translate. "Tell him to have some a few fish—not cooked—brought up and a couple glasses of water, and I'll be good to go."

After a quick translation, they were on their way up the muddy hill to the castle. Harry waited until the professors were a handful of meters away before quickly taking Malfoy's bag out of his pocket, setting it on the lakeshore, and resizing it. Then he hurried to catch up with the adults.

He didn't see the Slytherin's pale face pop out of the lake, wearing an expression of absolute disbelief that Harry Potter, of all people, had decided to cover for him.

SATURDAY NOV 7

Harry stuck his head into an unused classroom, then scrambled away from the door when he saw the withered blue skin and bright white teeth of two ReDeads.

This cold, dreary Saturday afternoon, Harry had been searching for an indoor area to do sword practice in, since doing it out in the current weather wasn't much of an option and he hated the idea of losing what skills he'd managed to gain through a lack of keeping up his hard work. The problem was, most of Hogwarts's lesser-used classrooms were either full of furniture he didn't want to damage or haunted by extra-creepy monsters. Seriously, these were the third and fourth ReDeads he'd seen today. Was Vaati in a weird mood?

Harry considered the softly moaning monsters crouched on the floor for a minute, then closed the door. No, he didn't feel like fighting two ReDeads on his own today. They were a little too tough-skinned and potentially able to crack open his skull for him to feel confident fighting them without one of his brothers at his back.

'Maybe I should have woken one of them up?' Harry thought, then shook his head. Blue and Red weren't early risers, and while Yellow had been awake in the common room when Harry had set out at around sunrise, Harry would have felt bad dragging him along. Yellow wasn't all that interested in swordplay, but he was also someone to agree to go along with something if it would make someone else happy.

Harry checked one more classroom, only to have a cloud of Fire Keese fly out and singe his hair (courtesy of a giggling yellow Wizzrobe). At that point, he set out to find something more less irritating to do with his morning.

'What about exploring? I never went back to check out that area Ruka popped up in, after all,' he mused. Honestly, it should have occurred to him earlier to investigate whatever space/time weirdness might be going on there. Good thing he'd brought his umbrella just in case he felt like going out!

Harry twisted around to get his clothes all waterproofed up, switched out his glasses, and dashed off to find an exit. He wasn't excited to face the weather, but the idea of venturing into the Forbidden Forest to examine a chunk of a different world filled him with an odd sense of energy. He was itching to throw himself into the unknown in a way that didn't seem quite…him.

He frowned and considered that. The Four Sword really was making him more reckless, wasn't it? Or maybe not reckless, but…curious? Harry had always had a certain level of curiosity, as all kids did, but a healthy sense of knowing when not to poke the metaphorical bear had normally kept him from going too far to indulge it.

Was his personality, like those of his brothers, an exaggerated section of who the original Harry had been? Had he stopped being Harry and become Green when he'd been multiplied? Or was his mind just being altered by his magic sword to make him a better substitute for the boy that should have found it?

Harry shook his head. Existential questions were never a good line of thinking for him. They tended to lead to even more dangerous questions, like "Why do I have to be related to these people?" and "What if I just ran away and lived in the woods? Would anyone miss me?"

The grounds were, as expected, a gray and miserable mess and slightly worse than they'd been the day before. With as much water that fell each day, one could track the rising tide with ease. Right now, it was…well, not looking good. Harry made a mental note to check the library for something related to the effects of a storm like this. Blue or Hermione would probably know whatever subject of study that fell under.

Harry trooped down to the Forbidden Forest with heavy footsteps that planted his heels in the mud and gave him a somewhat surer foothold. He could feel the mud turning to soup; the grass was holding it together enough for it to retain some substance, but he couldn't imagine it maintaining any sense of stability for much longer.

The light of Hagrid's cabin was a guiding beacon for Harry as he made his way back to Ruka's landing site. Like before, Harry passed the little house by. Even if Harry's current plan of action was technically safer than fighting a pair of ReDeads on his own to clear out a classroom, Hagrid definitely still wouldn't approve.

Harry stopped at the edge of the woods and sucked a breath through his teeth. The last time he'd checked this place had been a couple of days ago, and the ground had been a mixture of puddles and ponds. Now the water looked deep enough to reach above his knees. Sure, part of that was because it was catching runoff from the rest of the grounds, but the fact that the water level had shot up like this was still incredibly alarming.

He needed a book on rain, or ecology, or whatever science this fell under, ASAP. This was not normal, and it was going to wreak absolute havoc if he didn't find a way to stop it.

Struck by a lightning bolt of dread, Harry whipped around to face in the direction of the Black Lake. Anyone with eyes could tell the shoreline of the lake was climbing day by day. Harry hadn't thought too much of it before, beyond general worry. After seeing the Forbidden Forest turned into the beginnings of a shallow sea, though, he realized something: water settles flat along any sufficiently even section of ground. Therefore, if the Black Lake overflowed its natural basin and joined the water pooling around the rest of the campus, it would swallow the entirety of the grounds. Hell, it would spread even farther than that if it managed to overflow the walls around the school or spill into the Forbidden Forest! The whole surrounding area would become one big lake!

Harry shuddered and turned back to the forest. He needed to find out what was going on and how to send this unnatural storm back to where it had come from. Setting his jaw, he waded into the frigid water.

That was a very bad idea.

"Fffuuuaaargh," Harry said in a strangled whine as every muscle in his body tensed to its limit. He had literally never experienced water of this temperature before, except for maybe the coldest tap water in winter. As terrible as his relatives were, they'd been concerned enough about him keeping clean that they'd always let him take hot showers.

He took a shaky breath through chattering teeth and thanked his lucky stars that his knees hadn't given out and dropped all of him in the water. If that happened, maybe he would have to pay Hagrid a visit; there was a chance he'd die of hypothermia, otherwise.

"This sucks, this sucks, this sucks," Harry chanted to himself as he forced himself to start walking despite the cold numbness consuming his lower legs. Step one, step two, just keep on—if he could reach through a thorny rosebush to retrieve a dropped set of clippers, this was nothing. Step one, step two.

Through the power of chanting, pain tolerance, and bullheaded stubbornness, Harry slogged steadily toward the copse of trees that Ruka had brought with him. That morning he'd woken up energetic and soreness-free, but now it felt like all his healing progress from the last temple had been undone. His body shook so hard that he was probably working his muscles harder than he did practicing sword forms. Oh Merlin, he wanted to sit down so badly…

Harry trudged onto pale yellow sand, then short, scrubby grass. Then he sat down hard enough his brothers had to have felt it. "Ow," he muttered, rubbing where his bones had probably bruised his bum from the inside. Apparently there was stone under that thin layer of grass and sand.

There was a buzz in the back of his mind. Harry started and put his hand to his head. There were a few feelings he'd gotten used to since finding the Four Sword—namely, the "alone too long" migraine (which was already making its feelings known due to his current distance) and the general sense of alarm that many monsters and traps inspired. This was a new feeling.

The buzz happened again, a sensation that seemed to say "Look!" Harry scanned the area. Tropical trees, sand, grass, pond…

Harry stared intently into the pond. The buzz became a sense of certainty. There was something in that pool—something important. It was like catching the glimmer of a treasure that wasn't quite there. Something sparkled tantalizingly in his mind's eye even as the water—curiously free of torrential rain—sat innocently clear and placid.

If it wasn't a monster or a spell scroll, what was it? While Harry could tell there was something important there, he didn't know how to interact with it. Unless swimming in the pond might give him a clue?

Harry considered that for all of three seconds before shaking his head vehemently. Bad enough he was going to have to slog back through the water to return to the castle!

He ran through a mental wheel of options. His Hylian weapons weren't going to work, he already had the Lenses of Truth on and they weren't showing him anything special, and he doubted the Sunburst Spell would have an effect. He tried it anyway; the burst of white fire sizzled on the surface of the water.

Something weird that he could kind of see, a tiny chunk of land from another place, and a random bloke who was sent here with that chunk of land…hmm…

Oh! He could use that Moon Pearl! It was worth a shot, right? If it didn't work, Yellow would get to keep his pretty rock and there'd be no harm done. If it did work, he'd be one step closer to sorting out this mess!

Invigorated at having made progress, Harry prepared to step out of the copse of trees to start the frigid trek back to the castle. He halted as he was battered by a sudden sense of alarm. His eyes snapped back and forth. Danger! There was danger somewhere! Where was it?

He heard the sound of splashing water. Though his first thought was that it might be Hagrid slogging through the forest to see what Harry was up to, he didn't dare step out of the trees. Hagrid wouldn't be setting off his danger sense like this.

The creature creating the sound soon appeared at the wide opening in the circle of trees. Harry only caught a glimpse of it as it walked by. All he could really pick up on was lots of green, which puzzled him. Green? He'd never fought a monster that color before.

Harry got a better look when the creature circled back, having noticed him. It stood in the opening of the transplanted trees, cocking its head this way and that as its bizarre eyes twitched in his direction.

"What?" Harry asked, staring gobsmacked at the man-sized chameleon staring him down. He'd only ever seen a chameleon in books, and yet here one was, wearing armor on its back and wielding a sweet Jesus—

Harry swallowed hard and backed away. He'd thought that Moblins had scary spears! Those were nothing. This thing's spear was tipped by a pair of serrated steel blades that stuck out like prongs. One jab of that, and all of Harry's organs were toast. Even with the odd force that kept the monsters' weapons from being deadly, he couldn't imagine how well it would work on something as vicious as that.

Luckily for Harry, the lizard-man appeared reluctant to walk into the circle of trees. Unluckily, it was planted at the only exit to those trees, staring intently at him. If he wanted to leave, he'd have to fight this, er…

His sword gave him a mental nudge. This thing was a Lizalfos. Uncommon, deadly, and comparable to human swordsmen in terms of skill, unlike the comparatively slower and clumsier Moblins.

"Oh, thanks for that. Very reassuring," Harry muttered over his shoulder. He eyed the Lizalfos's weapon. The way he and his brothers usually fought Moblins was by having one Harry draw its attention while the other(s) attacked it from behind or its undefended side. Hitting fast and not letting the Moblin hit back were key.

Harry freed up his hands, unsheathed his sword, and ran forward. The Lizalfos made a gurgling sound in its throat. Then it spat, and something like a wet punch caused Harry to stagger.

"No, no, no!" Harry shrilled in a panic as the creature pulled back its spear for a jab. He brought his sword in front of him with his wrist crooked down, pointing the flat of the blade toward the enemy's weapon. As the Lizalfos went to stab him, he shoved the spear aside, causing its wide head to just barely scratch his leg. Harry took the opportunity to slash the Lizalfos in the belly, causing the monster to leap back with shocking agility. Then he ran.

'I'm not dying out here if I can help it!' Harry mentally screamed as he forced his legs through the shallow sea covering the forest. Fighting a Moblin on his own in the school halls was a risk he was sometimes willing to take; someone would surely see him lying unconscious in the hall if he lost and drag him to the school nurse. Out here, though? In the middle of the Forbidden Forest with a once-in-a-century storm turning it into a lake? He'd bleed out, drown, or die of hypothermia before anyone found him, period.

The water sucked at his freezing, burning legs like honey. Harry screamed out loud in frustration, cursing whatever branch of physics was keeping him from getting away faster.

Danger!

Harry jerked to the side.

The wicked head of the Lizalfos's spear grazed his side, then cut more deeply as the monster yanked it back. Harry hissed a pained curse and whirled around. This thing just wouldn't leave! He summoned his Vine Whip and cracked it at the Lizalfos, hoping to either stun or disarm the damn thing.

To Harry's relief, his whip snatched the spear from the chameleon's hands and brought it back to him. The wooden haft felt strange—much too light and too smooth to match its rough-looking texture. He didn't have long to think about it, though, before his brain screamed at him to move.

Harry threw himself backwards in time to have another spear slice through the edge of his shoe and clip the inside of his foot. The second Lizalfos wielding it immediately set about working the weapon's embedded head free from the thick tree root it had lodged itself in.

If fighting one Lizalfos in knee-deep freezing water was risky, fighting two on his own with an injury to his foot and a bleeding gash in his side was a death sentence. Harry moved on instinct: fight, then flight. He sheathed his sword, snapped his whip at the second Lizalfos to steal its spear, jabbed both Lizalfoses with his stolen weapons, and then legged it as best he could with both spears propped up against one shoulder.

The Lizalfoses gurgled behind him as he fled. Harry ducked, but didn't manage to dodge the water bullets that pelted him with bruising force. One smacked into his injured side, making him cry out and stumble. If his brothers weren't all awake and panicked yet, now they definitely were!

Harry ran out of the woods and kept on running despite the hot pain biting at his right foot and injured flank. He only slowed down when the too-light-to-be-real weight of the spears vanished from his shoulder. Monsters' weapons always disappeared with the monsters themselves, so he assumed they were tied to whatever magic was conjuring the creatures. Hopefully that meant the Lizalfoses were gone, but it was more likely that Harry had just overstretched the magic keeping their weapons real.

"Bloody hell," Harry breathed. He bent over with his hands braced on his knees, panting. As his heart rate slowed down, he realized he didn't know when or where he'd lost his umbrella. Rain drummed mercilessly on his skull.

Harry pulled his cloak over his head. The Impervius Charm on it made the dreadful hammering stop, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He looked over his shoulder, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Tomorrow, he'd get his umbrella back and see whether the Moon Pearl worked. Now that he knew what to expect, he wasn't going to get caught off guard by those monsters again.

After using a few Mending Charms to repair his shoe and clothing, he limped back to the castle. Merlin help him if his brothers were at the door; he'd meant to keep this recon mission to himself. He didn't need to bring all of his siblings in on his dumb ideas. Although, he supposed he should probably ask Yellow to borrow his Moon Pearl instead of just taking it. That would be the polite thing to do.

Harry didn't run into his brothers—they must have been searching another area of the castle for him—but he did stagger over Dog while he was busy staring at his shuffling toes. Between the exhaustion of that morning and his injured foot, Harry didn't have much of a chance to catch himself before he sprawled on the ground.

A painfully firm grip on his upper arm saved his precarious balance. Harry looked up. "Hullo, Malfoy. Ow, you're strong."

Malfoy released Harry like he'd put his hand on a hot stove. "My…apologies," he said, clearly unused to the words.

"It's fine. Definitely better than cracking my chin on the ground," Harry said, briskly rubbing his sore arm. It was so numb from the cold that he hardly felt it.

"Where have you been for the last hour? Red fetched me from the lake in a panic, saying you were getting your arse kicked," Malfoy said, raising one nearly-invisible blond eyebrow. "From the state of you, it doesn't seem like we was…" Malfoy trailed off as his once-over of Harry ended in the bloodstain marring his worn gray trainers. "Potter, you're bleeding."

"I, er…" Harry sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "Something unexpected came up. Do you know what a Lizalfos is?"

"I presume you do?"

"Yeah, they're these big lizards with scary-looking weapons. A couple of them caught me when I was out in the Forbidden Forest—"

Malfoy and Dog fixed him with matching looks of befuddlement. "Why were you out in the Forbidden Forest for an hour?" Malfoy asked. "It's so miserable out there, Dog can hardly stand it for more than twenty minutes. What on earth were you doing?"

Harry shrugged. "Figuring things out. I think I have an idea, but I want to see how stupid it is before I drag anyone in with me. It really does suck out there, after all." He tugged his cloak down from his head. "Well, I'm off to the Hospital Wing. See you later, Malfoy." He resumed his limp toward Madame Pomfrey's domain. Maybe that slice in his foot was a little deeper than he'd initially thought…

"Erm."

Harry glanced over his shoulder. Malfoy stood behind him, looking like he'd bitten into a lemon. "Yes?"

"Dog will accompany you," Malfoy said sharply. "I won't have you roaming the halls looking like easy prey."

Harry tilted his head, parsing through Malfoy's harsh tone. It sounded like he was trying to be nice. Right? Well, if Harry was wrong, there was no harm in playing along. Having a bodyguard while he was shakier on his feet would be nice. "Oh, thanks! That's nice of you, Malfoy."

The Slytherin's cheeks were instantly alight. "Y-you did a favor for me yesterday. I don't let favors go unpaid," he said stiffly. "Now go get patched up, Potter. You're useless to me as you currently are."

Harry rolled his eyes at Malfoy's villain-speak and patted his leg to call Dog over. "You wanna go with me to the Hospital Wing with me, boy?"

Dog trotted over and worriedly sniffed his foot before presenting his head for pets. Harry ruffled him fondly behind the ears, and then the two of them set off to brave the monster- and trap-riddled journey to the school nurse's office.

Translations:

1. Bonndia! ⇒ Hello!

2. Ey, mi culpann por haben yi e pavat esh-dia. Todemal nai sor e minat fachar, promissa. ⇒ Hey, I'm sorry for freaking you out yesterday. Totally didn't mean to do that, I swear.

3. Yi benn, kodama? ⇒ You okay, kid?

4. Qu'est-ce que tu veux? Si tu n'a rien à faire ici, laisse-moi tranquille! ⇒ What do you want? If you've got nothing to do here, leave me alone!

5. Ooh, lokas linguas dun? Habes tama benn, ari ne? ⇒ Ooh, you speak two languages? You're pretty smart, aren't you? (he literally says "you've got a good head", Japanese phrasing for "you're smart", and "ari ne" is basically like the Japanese "desu ne", or perhaps "innit" in English)

6. Laisse-moi tranquille. ⇒ Leave me alone.

7. Ey, quori natas komme Hylian? Ari bizarre, ne? ⇒ Hey, why do you swim like a Hylian? That's weird, isn't it?

8. Shaa, shaa, calmes. Mi pova yi apprendar duu natar. ⇒ Shh, shh, calm down. I can teach you how to swim.

9. Malfoy, miras! ⇒ Malfoy, watch!

10. Atam, hoshas apprendar imman? ⇒ So, d'you want to learn now?

11. Kumaaas, Malfoy! Yi arei a bonn! ⇒ C'mooon, Malfoy! You'd be good at it!

12. Je ne veux pas apprendre à nager de toi ⇒ I don't want to learn how to swim from you

13. Mat yi natas alle falche. Ari bizarre. ⇒ But you swim all wrong. It's weird.

Notes:

-The influence on Hylian that Draco can't figure out is Japanese (or, in Hyrule, the Sheikah language).

-Ruka speaks informal Hylian, relying on verb conjugations to imply who he's referring to instead of using pronouns (including ones like "I", "you", "we", the plural "they", etc.) That's a thing you can do in some languages!

-The sword told Harry that Lizalfoses are uncommon because its information is out-of-date and it thinks they're mini-boss monsters. The Four Sword has been out of the loop since the destruction of the Old Kingdom, so it doesn't know what's been going on in New Hyrule.