Dawn had been breaking as they'd made their tired way down to the lake. The organising committee had insisted that they get down there as early as possible so as to ensure that nobody saw them leaving the castle, but they hadn't wagered for children's propensity for morning inertia. They had all been groggy throughout the short trek across the grounds, and Gabrielle had still been yawning intermittently when they'd reached their destination. Yet, despite her tiredness, she had still felt excited at the prospect of – as Bagman had so indelicately put it – helping her sister.
That had swiftly changed; she'd realised she'd made the wrong decision as soon as they reached the water's edge and Maxime held out the vial to her, its liquid contents a stark, sickly white with pale grey streaks that just radiated an aura of putridity. It had reminded her of the most disgusting kinds of medicine, except without the health benefits. When she had taken the potion, she'd caught scent of a disgusting odour that made her want to tip it out or vomit or even do both. She knew that one should never judge something by its appearance; in her opinion, however, it was always prudent to judge things by their smell. Bad food might look appetising, and good food might look horrid, but rotten food tended to smell like rotten food. A small contingent of merpeople had floated in the water nearby, ready to take the students-in-stasis to the holding point.
As she'd stared at the proffered vial, well aware that Maxime and at least one of the merpeople were staring at her, exactly what she'd agreed to had finally hit her like a well-timed jump scare. It hadn't seemed like a big deal when they had first told her about it; while swimming didn't sit well with Veelas, part-Veelas suffered no lasting ill effects from brief jaunts in the water, and Gabrielle and Fleur had both learned how to swim in case they ever needed it. Furthermore, she had known she'd be unconscious the whole time, and so wouldn't even feel any temporary nausea or faint-headedness. If Fleur could stay down there long enough to fight her way down to get her, she could certainly stay down there long enough to be gotten. She had been so determined to help her sister, however, that she hadn't bothered to register exactly how long she was supposed to stay underwater for.
An hour was hardly a brief jaunt.
Still, even as the nerves had rushed in like the water lapping at the grass not ten feet away from her, she hadn't known how to say no, not after she'd already agreed. Reneging just hadn't seemed acceptable at such a late stage in the game, not when they were all gathered there like friends readying themselves for an early morning adventure, not when the other hostages were downing their potions with disgusted expressions on their faces, and certainly not when the judges were all watching her expectedly as they waited for her to do the same. Gabrielle had wished there were a way to just slip away unnoticed, but no such option had presented itself to her. Her choices had been to drink the potion or to admit to these highly esteemed personalities, these people she wanted to like and respect her back, that she was too cowardly to finish what she'd started and that they'd have to hurriedly find a replacement for her before sending the rest of the group down with the merguards.
So she too had drunk the potion. The foul taste had almost overwhelmed her, and she had wondered whether the idea was to knock them out by that alone. It had certainly seemed, in that moment, as if it could have done the job. Sadly, it hadn't, and she'd had to wait as the bulk of the taste died away like foliage in autumn, leaving her mouth clear except for the few solitary leaves that persevered into winter. The others had gradually drifted off around her. Then, without her knowing, her consciousness had slipped away slowly, leaving her like the proverbial frog who didn't know the water was heating up until it was too late to get out.
The awakening wasn't anywhere near as gradual. It came upon her like a flash of lightning striking in the dead of night; one moment she was floating in darkness, feeling the chilly water against her skin but unable to interact with it with any of her other senses, and the next her world was lit up and she was gasping in air. Her mind was so focused on the welcome sensation that it didn't spare a thought for keeping her body afloat. Fortunately for her, somebody else was doing that for her; one arm sat securely around her waist, holding her head up above the water. A loud voice announced something, but her mind couldn't make out the words; it sounded like an awful lot of noise for an awful lack of meaning. She was vaguely aware that they were still moving and that the arm around her didn't feel like her sister's – it felt too bulky, too firm – but she didn't really care. All she cared about was the sweet taste of the fresh air and the fact that they should soon be leaving the lake behind. One thing she was sure of was that nothing would be able to induce her to go back in there again; everything felt uncomfortable and just off, like every part of her body felt queasy.
"You're okay?" The distinctly male voice was heavily accented, but it wasn't British like those she'd been surrounded with lately. She instantly realised that he had to be Viktor Krum, the only non-British champion apart from her sister. "Can you swim? I'll be here, but we'd be faster."
"I'm fine. And yes." He let her go, and she shakily started to swim alongside him. After a few strokes, however, she realised that her limbs were too weak and her stomach too woozy for her to be able to sustain the motions. "I don't think I can," she soon admitted, gratefully gripping his arm as he returned her to his hold. "Do you know where my sister is?"
"I don't – look, there she is; she's waiting on the docks."
Gabrielle looked in the direction his finger was pointing. Sure enough, her parents and sister were all gathered at the edge of the wooden dock, watching her with a strange amalgam of relief and concern. "I'm sorry I can't swim," she said. "I can usually, but after being underwater for so long…"
"You shouldn't have been taken down there."
Although his barbed statement, dripping with disdain and disapproval for whoever had agreed to or arranged her involvement, wasn't directed at her, she still felt its sharp sting. Well, she would just have to get used to it; Gabrielle was sure she was going to get a lot of that from her family over the next few days. She should never have been so stupid as to agree to it; Fleur had had neither warning nor choice, but she'd had both and had still gone through with it. "I agreed to it."
Krum glanced at her, his gaze brief but assessing, before focusing on awkwardly swimming once more. He looked somewhat like a graceless toad trying to swim with one arm. She felt a flash of guilt rush through her; if it had been someone else, someone who could swim independently, rather than her, he wouldn't have to be working to keep two people afloat right now. "You are how old? Eleven?"
"Twelve, actually." Even though she knew it was probably better to feign younger so that he blamed her less, she couldn't help the indignation behind her reply. There was a whole world of difference between eleven-year-olds and twelve-year-olds, after all.
"They shouldn't have asked; you're too young to say yes. They should have asked one of your sister's friends to do it instead."
"Thank you." Her reply was quiet, so much so that he barely heard it above the rush of water near his ears and the chatter of the crowd as they neared the docks. "For saying that, and also for saving me."
"It wasn't heroic," he replied, scoffing at the idea of it. He was too used to having people fawn over him and jump at the chance to make his deeds out to be better than they actually were. They built up pretty pictures of him in their minds and then expected him to smile and pose and act them out as if he were a model rather than an athlete. The idea of this girl thinking he'd gone out on a limb to save her, joining the ranks of people who saw him only as a famous sports personality, was repugnant to him. She could have her childish dreams and fancies, but he didn't want to be a part of them, especially not for this. "Someone else already brought Herm-own-ninny out. I chose you, but it wasn't a sacrifice. And you would have been safe either way."
"Oh. I knew I wasn't going to die. I just meant… Well, I just meant that I'm grateful you helped me. And are still helping me."
A nod was her only acknowledgement, and the rest of the swim was passed in silence. When they reached the ladder, he helped her out, and she was immediately pulled into her family's waiting arms. Fleur whispered a string of apologies in her ear; apologies for not knowing, apologies for turning back, apologies for not being there for her. Gabrielle reassured her – Fleur had no way of knowing; she was glad that Fleur had turned back, because her sister might have died otherwise; she had done all she could have been expected to do under the circumstances – and answered their questions about how she was feeling, but her mind was still on Viktor Krum. No censure came her way, but, then again, she supposed that they would wait until the shock and relief had worn off for that. Curious about him, the boy who helped her but didn't want her gratitude, she extricated her head from the huddle and watched him as Karkaroff and some of his friends surrounded him. As he turned to leave, Fleur pulled herself from her sister and went over to thank him profusely, kissing him on each cheek and chatting rapidly. If Gabrielle hadn't been watching Krum so intently, she might not have noticed that the look on his face soured ever so slightly at Fleur's attentions.
Strange, Gabrielle thought as she too stepped away from her parents, fascinated by it. Not many people can resist her allure – or liking me, either, as a matter of fact.
"I'll be back," she murmured to them.
"Now we know they're safe, I'm going to talk to the Education Minister," she heard her father tell her mother in rapid French as she walked away. "I want her dismissal finalised by nightfall. They won't put it in effect until the end of the school year, but it'll be better if I push for it now rather than waiting for the urgency to die down. I'll be back for the announcements."
"Fleur," Gabrielle said when she reached them. She considered speaking in French for the sake of privacy and ease, but quickly decided against it; it would be discourteous to exclude the Bulgarians from the conversation, and, deep down, part of her wanted Krum to know what she was saying, to know that she understood. "Come for a walk with me? I think Krum would rather, euh, debrief with his own friends at the moment."
Fleur took the unsubtle hint and, after one last heartfelt thank you, bid him goodbye. Looping her arm through her younger sister's still-cold one, she started chatting happily with her. "The school matron is wanting to see everyone anyway. She'll be looking for you in particular as you are so young."
As Gabrielle followed her sister away, she glanced back at Viktor Krum, and she caught the hint of a grateful smile on his face before he went off in search of Hermione.
A/N: Thanks again to everyone who as followed, favourited or reviewed this, and to my lovely brother for beta reading this.
To the first guest reviewer: Where did you think it was going? It's just that I didn't see that chapter as having any sort of significant plot twist.
To the second guest reviewer: Thanks! Yeah, I think I developed a bit of a crush on him just writing that part. I'm still trying to get the Ron reaction scene right so, while I have a good idea of how I want it to end up, it could go either way at the moment.
To Jay Salvatore: Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I think that it's fair enough for canon!Olympe not to want to get publicly involved in discussions regarding discrimination so as to avoid bringing more scrutiny down upon herself, but it does seem strange to knowingly perpetuate the situation through her own actions and attitudes. On the Fleur issue, she doesn't have any reason to think otherwise; she's coming in as an outsider who knows nothing about Harry except what the papers (and the students at the Ravenclaw table) tell her about him. And as, as much as I love Harry, he would seem fairly self-centred and ill-behaved to people who didn't know him, what she's hearing wouldn't do anything to dispel the idea that he thinks he's better than everyone else and is willing to skirt the rules to compete.