Eyes of Blue
Chapter 5
Gone.
That was what she was to her, she could just feel it. Ever since that incident that happened at the Yule Ball, Cho had not spoken to her at all. The blanket of silence that descended upon their dormitory every night had destroyed her mind from the inside out.
Fleur twisted and squirmed in her bed with unrest as she attempted to calm her screaming nerves. Ever since she had come to this dreadful school, the only thing she had taken a liking to was that girl. The beautiful Asian had her mesmerized. She had no veela blood, yet she gave off this atmosphere that demanded constant attention and admiration. Fascinating in every way, it was impossible not to be enthralled by her.
The kiss with Roger…was probably the most horrid thing that had ever had the chance to defile her lips. He had drank probably one too many alcoholic drinks, how he got a hold of them, she didn't know, but she was sure that there was a stinging smell to his heavy breath.
It was an accident. She didn't want it to happen. In fact, she never even wanted to go with him in the first place. Cho was her first person, then Cedric since he was closest to Cho, then whoever else had asked after that.
It was a disaster. Cho had stumbled in at the most inopportune moment. Roger had forcefully pushed her against the wall, and tried to smother her against her will. In fact, if the black-haired Ravenclaw had not shown up at that time…no, she didn't want to think about what could have happened.
It was her worst nightmare. Ever since that night, they had not spoken. The last thing she wanted was for them to be separated, but that's what she had inadvertently done, or rather, it was what Roger had done.
Now, the desolate nights haunted her, they plagued her like a vile disease that wouldn't go away. The silence was deafening, as cliché as that saying goes, but it was true. Without any type of conversation going on, Fleur's mind was just utterly imploding within itself. She had probably ruined their friendship, but then again, there was always that other part of her mind that whispered back to her.
Why did the kiss hurt Cho so much? She seemed to like Cedric so much, but what Fleur couldn't understand was, why did the girl act so upset?
All of this was just so… complicated.
But it had to wait.
The Second Task had arrived.
Fleur was standing near the water's edge watching the wind and the giant squid stir up ripples in the nearly placid lake. She was tapping her foot anxiously in the mud as everyone was waiting patiently for Harry to arrive. Of course he was late, which made her angry, but what's worse was when he arrived, he splattered her robes with the sludge from the ground.
"Where have you been? The task's about to start!" Percy Weasley gave him an earful as all of the champions lined up near Fleur in intervals of ten feet between. Bagman whispered something to Harry, but it was inaudible to anyone else, then he cast the Sonorous charm on his voice.
"Well, all our champions are ready for the second task, which will start on my whistle. They have precisely an hour to recover what has been taken from them. On the count of three, then. One…two… three!"
All four champions eyed the water mysteriously, as if it held some secrets within its depths, but then after a few seconds of no action, all four burst out into sudden movement.
Krum thrust his wand in front of his face and uttered a transfiguration charm, which turned out quite badly. His head had twisted into a disheveled shark head with jagged teeth pointing out at every direction but ahead of him. Cedric cast the bubble-head charm and around his head appeared the bubble. They both dove into the water at once causing two large but separate splashes.
Fleur stared at Harry with wary eyes. He was standing there looking as if he was transfixed by something, but his hand was fiddling in his pocket. Pulling out a mass of what looked like moldy spaghetti, he popped it in his mouth and began chewing furiously as he discarded his clothes.
Casting the bubble-head charm on herself, Fleur jumped into the water nimbly without so much as a splash or noise.
The jagged water was as icy as her stare as she swam deeper and deeper into the dark depths. Penetrating her robes like frozen daggers, the unmerciful fluid pummeled her skin as she kept swimming down. Silver fishes were darting back and forth before her eyes as she kept looking left and right for the place which held the hostages.
As she went further down into the deepening abyss, those lines from the egg kept buzzing in her mind.
We've taken what you'll sorely miss,
An hour long you'll have to look,
And to recover what we took,
But past an hour – the prospect's black,
Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.
The only thing that stood in her mind as what she might sorely miss was the one thing she couldn't live without.
Gabrielle.
Her beloved sister meant the world to her, and losing her would mean losing her soul. Family was all she had, and so she couldn't afford lose that.
Kicking furiously in order to propel herself forward faster, Fleur could make out a large rocky den with merpeople painted along the walls chasing a giant squid. A haunting voice blared through the chilled silence of the lake.
"An hour long you'll have to look,
And to recover what we took,
Your time's half gone, so tarry not
Lest what you seek stays here to rot."
Distracted by the mersong, Fleur let her guard down. With the strength of a constrictor, a grindylow with long scaly fingers grabbed hold of her leg. It bared pointed fangs as it jabbed her leg with the horn that rested atop its small head. Although the horn itself was no more than five inches, it was not smooth. It had serrated edges as it burst through the skin on her leg. A silent scream emitted from her mouth as she kicked the grindylow forcefully with her other free foot. Red was seeping and dissipating into the omnipresent water.
As she turned back around, four more grindylows with crooked yellow grins and extended fingers greeted her. She struggled to reach for her wand in her pocket as they lashed out at her face and arms, causing both skin and robes to tear under the claws. The lake's water stung even more as more lacerations were made with each slash.
Ignoring the searing pain that was surging throughout her whole body, Fleur managed to yank the wand out from her pocket as she shot relashio spells out left and right. Hot jets of steaming water shot out in all directions, causing all of the grindylows to scatter like enraged hornets. One managed to bite her arm as she swam away amidst the confused grindylows.
Its fangs sank into her skin as it held on as she sped towards the merpeople's village. Blood was escaping from each cut and gash as she finally spotted something that appeared to be the place.
A large, enormous statue of a merperson made from a boulder was resting on the bottom. A chorus of merpeople was singing out the song as Fleur drew closer. On the statue's tail, two hostages were remaining, meaning two champions had already come and gone.
Fleur scowled as she ripped the clinging grindylow from her arm, and also because of who was waiting at the tail. Harry Potter was cutting free the bindings from the other hostage who did not belong to him. He had already rescued his incompetent friend…Ron Weasley was it? The brazen boy who had the gall to ask her to the Yule Ball. It was her hostage that he was trying to free, so she swam up from behind and smacked him hard on the shoulders.
"Do not touch my sister!" she mouthed as he rubbed the place where she hit. He gave her a weird look, and she repeated herself. He continued to look at her strangely until Fleur turned to grab her hostage.
A mess of black silk-looking hair was swaying around the person's face as her head leaned to one side unconscious.
This must be a mistake.
She stared hard into the face of Cho Chang as she cut the rest of her bindings and grabbing her firmly. Where was her sister? Why was this girl her hostage, and not her beloved sibling? Harry was still giving her a dumb look as he grabbed Ron with his arm. Doing something completely contrary to her normal standards, Fleur stuck out her tongue at him and smirked. Cho was his crush after all, so he must have been jealous to see her being the most treasured person of someone else.
Grinning with momentary contentment, Fleur wrapped her right arm around Cho's slender waist as she madly swam to the surface. It still made no sense as to why this Ravenclaw was her hostage…
The moon and stars began to get increasingly clearer as they both approached the surface. Harry was not too far behind them, but they breached after them.
Both Fleur and Cho's heads popped up out of the water. The crowd erupted into a rowdy applause as both champions, Harry and Fleur, emerged with their hostages. Sure, they were well out of the time range, but they had come back nonetheless.
Swimming back to shore, Cho began to reawaken. She coughed as water spurted out of her mouth with each hack. Suddenly aware of where she was, she became surprised again to see who was holding her.
"Fleur? What are you doing? Why are you my champion?" she choked out the words harshly as she spit up more water. Her eyes were not yet fully open, as they rolled around in their sockets for a few moments. For a second, it seemed like she was almost going to struggle out of her grasp, but due to exhaustion, and the cold, she decided to just wait to be carried back to shore.
She apparently was still mad about the Yule Ball.
Struggling to stay above water as she carried the weight of the soaked Cho, Fleur just glared at her, "Shut up. I am in no mood to talk with you right now, let alone argue. I do not know why you are my hostage, so just… stop talking, please."
Cho's mouth was open, mostly because she was ready to talk back, but also because of the sheer look of fatigue that overwhelmed Fleur's eyes. She shut it and complied.
Finally, after about a minute of sink and float struggle swimming, the pair eventually reached the muddy shores that touched the lake. Madame Pomfrey came rushing up to them both. Harry and Ron couldn't help themselves from staring at them, even under the odd circumstances, because it was a sight to see, almost hilarious.
The two most popular girls in school, dripping wet, tired, and looking utterly miserable. And now that they had regained some strength from the warming potion that they had been given, they were willingly ready to start another fight.
"Where is my sister? You couldn't have been what I would 'sorely miss,' that's just impossible. How could I miss someone like you!" Fleur pointed angrily at Cho as she kept swatting at Madame Pomfrey who was trying to get near the champion for medical inspection.
"How should I know where your sister is? And it's your problem that I was chosen as the thing you'd miss most, not mine! So get off it!" she rung out her robes and watched in disgust as lake water came rushing down. Words were suddenly bandied back and forth as both girls had reverted back to the childhood way of hurting someone; insults.
Fleur took a step forward, her icy blue eyes suddenly on fire, "Brat!"
Cho matched her step and with an equally intense gaze, "Fragile!"
"Ungrateful!"
"Spoiled!"
"Callous!"
"Superficial!"
Finally fed up with the immature word brawl, Fleur vigorously brushed stray wet strands of blonde locks out of her face, glowering all the while.
"I admit, I may be pampered quite a lot, but that does not give you the reason to call me superficial! As if! You hardly know me."
Cho pressed her pointed finger into Fleur's chest crushingly as she narrowed her eyes, "What do I need to know about you anyways? Just from the way you act I can get a sense of how you really are."
"Oh, how DARE you! You think you can just…ohhh, you. What gives you the idea that you can speak to me with such disrespect?"
Leaning in closer, Cho wiped the last of the leftover lake water from her face, glaring as much animosity towards the blonde as she could, "Because, I know you. The way you go about, the way you talk, I can just tell! You're shallow, obsessed about your stupid looks, and the way you use your veela blood to your advantage makes you nothing but a lowdown whore!"
Fleur took a step back, her mouth slightly opened.
The judges, and almost the whole school was watching and listening to the whole fight. They were supposed to give the scores out, but from the looks of things, it didn't seem as if it were a good time to. Even Bagman was standing off to the side hesitantly. Madame Maxime looked absolutely embarrassed by Fleur's behavior.
Cho wanted to laugh at the dumbfounded look on the face of her enemy, knowing that she had won, but the only feeling that swept through her system was that of guilt. Fleur's normally cold blue eyes were completely chipped away. They looked so sad, so vulnerable, so… injured. The multiple walls that she had built around her heart and feelings were torn down and crumbled in an instant.
And then tears slid down her eyes. She couldn't hide them, she didn't even try to hide them. Nothing could even conceal the pain in the depths of her heart. She didn't know why, but those words tore so deep that it struck her core.
Suddenly Cho realized how tired and in pain Fleur must be. She had just gone through a freezing lake, fought grindylows, and pulled up her body from the bottom, how could she be bickering so idiotically like this? So many scratches on her arms and face, too many for her to count… and her robes were torn, those robes she loved so much. Oh, yes, she had made a mistake.
Dead silence.
All eyes were on Fleur as she let the tears sting down her mortified cheeks. In front of all the schools, it was something that could not be easily put off and masked. Everyone tensed as she began to speak unsteadily.
"It is a curse to be a veela. Not that you would know. You're not me, thus you can never truly understand."
She started to walk backwards, slowly at first, and then faster and faster. Keeping her eyes locked with Cho, her defenseless azure eyes betrayed more than she wanted.
"To think I once cared…"
Fleur whisked around and ran to the castle, the sound of crying tainting the tranquil air.