Author note: Welp, really short chapter this time around... I really should have combined the first part with the last chapter and the last two with the next. I think it would have been a better balance. Well, live and learn. Need to plot out my chapters a couple of chapters ahead from now on to get a better sense of the good break points. Poor Juvia. Promise this school year gets better for her. Eventually.

CHAPTER SIX

Drowning in the Song

The first time Juvia Lockser was ever grateful for the rain that followed her everywhere came during the first flying lesson of the year. In spite of Gray's assurances back when they first met in Ollivander's shop that flying was a simple matter, Juvia's stomach had twisted itself into knots by the time the Slytherins and Gryffindors first stepped onto the field, rows of brooms waiting for them. Her rain, in response, had whipped into a frenzied storm.

Mister Erigor, their flight instructor, had decided that trying to teach a bunch of first years how to fly for the first time in a gale was not going to be the wisest course of action, so he had Juvia sit out the first few weeks. She learned how to call a broom to her hand, but beyond that, she was left firmly on the ground and her rain, in her relief, relented enough for the other first years to get a series of safe practices in, hampered only by a slight drizzle.

By the sixth week, however, Mister Erigor had determined that rain or no rain, she had to get on a broom. While he had the rest of the class performing basic maneuvers and used the storm that manifested as an opportunity to teach them to navigate obstacles, he instructed Juvia to hover high over the field.

"Yer okay, Raindrop," Gajeel, who had been excused from maneuvers to assist the blunette, tried to reassure her. Juvia, however, was well beyond the comfort of any kind words. She trembled, head to toe, the broom she was sitting on shaking violently beneath her grip.

"Juvia wants to be on the ground now." She blinked back tears, desperate not to cry. Not in front of Orland and the others. She wouldn't let them see her like that, not that it was likely anyone could see her crying through the storm. If only she could stop shaking.

"I know, Raindrop. Just a few more minutes, okay?" he said, his voice far more gentle than she was used to hearing, devoid of the gruff irritation it typically carried. He hadn't once called her an idiot while they were on their brooms, which meant she must have truly looked pathetic. "Erigor just wants us to stay in the air a few more minutes more, okay?"

She nodded. Or tried to. She was shaking too hard for any gesture to be clear.

"You okay?" she heard another voice ask her. She didn't need to look to recognize it. She didn't acknowledge Gray, too worried that any word that came out would only end up as a sob.

"She's fine," Gajeel snapped. "Go play with yer idiot classmates."

"What's your problem, Redfox?"

"Right now, having to deal with you. Piss off."

"I just wanted to check on her."

The broom went still beneath her.

"Gajeel?" her voice quaked, her breath coming out in shallow gasps of air. "Juvia thinks —," whatever else she might have said ended in her scream as the broom bucked forwards and then lurched to the side, shooting off like an arrow unbidden.

"Juvia!" She heard Gajeel and Gray call out as she leaned in as close to the broom as she could, holding on for dear life. The broom had other ideas. It bucked and bolted, flipped one way then the other until she wasn't sure which way was up or down any further, her eyes shut tight. She felt fingers brush against her arm for just a second, but the broom darted forward again. She thought she heard Gray curse just beside her. She opened her eyes, looking for him or Gajeel, but all she could see was the swelling dark surface of the Black Lake below her. The broom turned even more violent then and her hands lost their already precarious grip. She felt a momentary sensation of weightlessness where she was neither moving up or down, but all too soon she felt the pull of the world on her and she fell, screaming as the lake called her home.

She only caught a glimpse of Gajeel and Gray diving for her before she hit the lake. Her breath fled her lungs as she hit the surface, and her vision darkened for a moment. Her body screamed under the force of the impact, every bone and muscle crying in agony, but she had to swim up. She had to. She tried. She did. But she couldn't seem to get her body to move. It wouldn't listen. She just kept sinking downward while the lake sang.

-Sink with me, my love.

Down with me, my love.

To the sea, the loving sea.-

She felt hands pulling her deeper into the dark.

-There's no more pain, my love.

No more rain, my love.

Trust the sea, the loving sea.-

She felt her lungs fill.

-Drown with me, my love.

Die with me, my love.

Join the sea, the loving sea.-

Everything started to go dark, but the last thing she saw as her eyes began to close was a great white light, reaching for her.

Hurt.

That wasn't fair.

Being dead shouldn't hurt. And yet it did. It felt like her chest was being punched from the inside. Like her lungs were being turned inside out. She started to cough.

Sound returned slowly. It started with a ringing buzz in her ears, but slowly the buzzing faded as voices rose to overtake it. So many voices. Most of them screaming at one another. They hurt. She struggled to make sense of them.

"Mister Redfox, be silent or I will use a Petrification Curse on you myself."

Professor Precht? Why was he dead?

"Come on, girl." Another voice this time. Serious but gentle. Madame Porlyusica? "Everything out. Get it all out."

The pain in her chest returned, and she hacked again, tasting a mix of lake water and bile as it rose through her throat and out her lips.

"That's a girl." A hand rubbed her back in gentle circles as she gagged on more lake water.

"Juvia!" Gajeel was calling to her. "Juvia, say something!" She tried to open her eyes, but she was tired. So tired.

"All this drama because she fell off her stupid broom," she heard Minerva scoff. Fell off? That's right. The broom. And the lake. Singing. She was so tired.

"It wasn't like that!" Gray now. "She didn't fall — someone jinxed the broom!"

"Orland, I fucking swear if it was you —," she didn't get to hear the rest of Gajeel's threat as the boy fell silent, interrupted by a Silencio from Professor Precht.

She wanted to speak. She wanted to tell Gajeel she was okay, but it hurt. It all hurt. And she was cold. So cold. She slipped back into the dark.

She faded in and out of consciousness, not sure of how long, like she clawed her way to the shore only to be pulled back to sea again. The loving sea. She remembered flashes — Gajeel sleeping in a chair against the wall, Madame Porlyusica hovering over her with some tonic in her hand. There were others, faces and forms that passed by like shadows. She couldn't be sure if they were real or just fragments of dreams floating by.

She first woke fully to a gentle touch on her forehead, warmth spreading from that touch and pulling her from the drowning sea. Her eyes, struggling, managed to open but they felt weighted and keeping them open was exhausting. Professor Makarov seemed to know that.

"Just a few minutes, my girl. Then you can sleep again." She tried to nod, but she felt so heavy. "Do you remember anything before the broom started to bolt around?"

"It went still," she said. Her voice sounded even. Clear. Even as the rest of her body struggled to remain awake. "Then it started to move."

"Before that. Did you see anything? Hear anything?"

"Juvia wasn't paying attention. She was too afraid of falling. She just heard Gajeel and Gray. They were arguing again."

"What about when you were in the water?" he asked. "Did the selkies speak to you?"

"The selkies?"

"The selkies in the lake. They were pulling you down when I arrived. Did they say anything?"

"No. Just the lake."

"The lake?"

"It sang," she replied, her words starting to slur, sleep returning. "Drown with me, my love. Die with me, my love. Join the sea, the loving sea." He didn't say anything further. "Join the sea," she sang as she slipped away, pulled back to the sea again. "The loving sea."