A/N: Hey, I'm back… again. Sorry for the delay, I got sidetracked with writing on Deaths Child, then after discussion my wonderful Alpha/Beta Kaystar742 a massive rewrite on it. Never fear though, I have this written through the beginning of fifth year, so there is much more to come.
With the world going insane, I hope this helps you deal with it and gives you a bit of warm fuzzy.
24 Negotiations
The rest of the break passed far too quickly for either teen. While both George and Anne were happy to spend time with the children, they still found odd moments to themselves, and true to their pledge, they did work on being more physical in their expressions. This was, of course, hindered by the presence of Hermione's parents, but what teen doesn't figure out ways to be around their loved one?
It was a dreary January morning as they boarded the Express to return to Hogwarts. The platform was again much less crowded due to the ball and the short break, but they still arrived half an hour early and found a compartment.
"Hermione?"
"Yes Harry?" She looked up from her book.
"Have you had much luck lately finding your inner animal?"
"Not really." She sighed, marking her page and setting the book down.
"Trouble concentrating?" He grinned. "Or trouble getting your head to stop going 5000 kilometers an hour?"
"Prat." She smacked his arm, then curled into it. "A bit of both actually."
"Well, I had a thought on that."
"Oh? What is this breakthrough you've discovered?"
"Not sure it's a breakthrough, but it might help," he sighed. "It's two things actually. The first is maybe we should try our exercises together."
"We do, usually."
"I mean touching each other. The bond has created a connection between us, so it stands to reason that we should embrace that aspect while trying to center our whole being. If we try and sync our meditation, while in physical contact, wouldn't we be reinforcing each other?"
"I hadn't thought of that," Hermione frowned, "but won't we be affecting each other as well? I mean if we're using the bond when we meditate, won't that skew our meditation, as we have a part of our being that isn't ours?"
"That's my point, the bond is part of who we are, and thus, it's important to the attempt. By denying it, we're denying a part of ourselves."
Hermione rocked back, eyes wide. Harry sat back and watched Hermione think. It was rather brilliant to watch. The quick flitting of her eyes as she mentally recalled information, the slight chewing of her lower lip as she went through scenarios in her head. It really drove him wild watching her like this, but he knew interrupting her was tantamount to suicide so he waited.
"I think you might be onto something there Harry. Our issues started to appear after the first task, and if you're right about how the bond is a part of us, and who we are now, you'd be right that trying to remove or suppress that part would inhibit our progress. I think we should ask Professor McGonagall on Saturday when we see her for our class."
"I agree."
"What was your second idea?"
"Well, this exercise is supposed to get us closer to our animal side, right?"
"Yes…" her voice slightly suspicious of where this was going.
"Well, why not get a boost towards that by trying it during the full moon?"
"But we're not…" she broke off, and Harry grinned as she put the pieces together, "Oh my god Harry, that's brilliant."
"So you agree?"
"Of course, if we are already in a more animalistic state during the full moon, we'd start that much closer. If we weren't both likely to be feline it may not work as well, but even if we're not, we're still more in tune to the natural world during the full moon."
"So we take this to McGonagall?"
"Definitely. In fact..." she grinned, then flicked her wand to the door to the compartment and with a couple flicks and a couple mumbled spells, the doors latched and locked, the shutters closed, and the noise from the hall disappeared. "I think this brilliance deserves a bit of a reward…"
Harry had no objections as his wife began to kiss him.
"Gerald O'Connor, at your service Ladies and Gentlemen," the tall brown haired man greeted them as they approached the shore of the Black Lake.
"Mr. O'Connor," Cedric greeted him in return, "I am Cedric Diggory, this is Viktor Krum, Harry Potter, Fleur Delacour, Cho Chang, and Hermione Granger."
"Pleasure to meet you all, I understand you wish to speak to the merpeople?"
"Yes, we understand they will be involved in a particular event and wish to negotiate with them," Cedric explained. "But before we continue, I believe you were informed we would need a confidentiality oath before we continue too far."
"Yes, though I would like to know the oath before agreeing to more," Gerrald agreed. "Blind oaths are very unwise."
"Of course Mr. O'Connor," Hermione said, pulling out the piece of parchment they'd written the oath on and handing it to him.
"This seems reasonable enough," O'Connor said after reading it, pulling out his wand, he began, "I, Gerald O'Connor, do hereby agree to keep all discussions between myself, the triwizard champions and their companions here today, and the merpeople of the Black Lake confidential to all except the Department of Magical Law Enforcement acting in an official capacity. This confidentiality may be breached only if lives are in danger, all parties agree, or once the First of March, Nineteen Ninety-four arrives. So mote it be." There was a brief flash as the path was accepted, and he lowered his wand. "Now that that is over, what's this really about?"
"Well Mr. O'Connor, we're trying to prevent a war," Harry said with a grin.
"You're not paying me to joke with me," he pointed out.
"We're not joking," Hermione informed him. "The triwizard organizers, in their infinite wisdom, have decided the second task will involve rescuing hostages from the Black Lake. We suspect rather confidently, based on the way the clue was presented, that it will be from the Merfolk Village."
"Ok, I'm with you so far but how will this cause a war?" Gerald asked skeptically.
"It'll cause a war, Mr. O'Connor, because Fleur is a Veela," Harry informed him.
"That would do it," O'Connor agreed after a moment of stunned silence. "So what are we trying to accomplish, exactly?"
"The biggest issue is that if Fleur doesn't give it a legitimate effort, and isn't that a wonderfully vague qualifier?" Hermione quipped. "If she doesn't give legitimate effort, she loses her magic, which means she dies. We also suspect, but cannot and will not be able to confirm until the day of the task, that they may use her sister, also a Veela, as a Hostage. We're trying to get someone else selected, but it's going to be difficult since we have no say in that matter."
"So you're looking for, at the very least, an exception to the treaty?"
"We're looking for a solution," Cedric clarified. "We have ideas, including them moving the holding area for the Hostages outside their territory, but we don't know what their territory actually is. If it's the entire lake, then we'd have to have at least one exception for Fleur."
"I see," Gerald considered. "They may want something in return you know. I'm not sure what, but if you're asking for a boon from them, they may want one in return."
"That's negotiable," Harry said, "There's not a lot we personally can do, but what we can we will try." He glanced around at his companions, "We do have one other issue to discuss. One that requires another, more restrictive oath I'm afraid."
"How much more restrictive?" Gerald asked suspiciously.
"Basically the same except the only ones that can release you are myself and Hermione. And you must retain the secret until it is publicly announced," Harry told him levelly. "It's important that no one else knows it. So important, not even my fellow champions know it. Because of this, I'm offering an additional fifty Galleons to your fee."
"Also," Hermione added, "we're serious enough about it that if you see the oath and change your mind, we will stun and obliviate you, as part of the secret is in the oath."
That rocked the translator back. On the one hand he felt slightly insulted that they required an additional oath despite the agreements in the retainer and contract documents. On the other, this was Harry Potter he was talking about. He weighed the pros and cons, and eventually agreed. He watched as Hermione cast a privacy charm, then handed him the oath.
"What the…." Gerald exclaimed, "Mrs. Hermione Potter?"
"Oath, then we explain," Harry said coldly, then raised his wand, "or we can just stun you now."
"Fine, the oath." O'Connor said, holding his hands up. "Sorry, it's just a rather large shock." He slowly pulled his wand back out and took the oath.
"Ok, now that we have your oath: we are bonded," Hermione explained. "A bond that made us married by the will of magic and that still requires close physical contact to settle." She turned to smile at her husband. "While we are both happy with this, it presents a problem as we expect that Harry's hostage will be me."
"And since they'll take the hostages long before the start of the task, the lack of contact could make you ill," Gerald guessed. "Do the organizers know?"
"We've told them, but whether they will listen…" Harry sighed, "We don't know. So we're making plans just in case. You are to negotiate with the Merfolk, on our behest, to find a way to minimize the time we must be separated. You are allowed to tell them we are a golden heart bonded couple who just recently bonded. If there is a way to help them, we will, but we are concerned for our lives over this."
"I can understand that," O'Connor agreed, then shook his head. "A golden heart bond? Damn Mr. Potter, you can't do anything normal can you?"
"Wish I could," Harry sighed as Hermione lowered the privacy ward.
"Ok, I'll go talk to them today," Gerald informed them. "Are any of you coming with me or will this be a back and forth from the village to the shore thing?"
"Ve Vill go," Viktor told him, as he and Cedric stepped forward.
"Harry? Hermione?"
"I guess I will," Harry sighed, then muttered "Cats hate water."
O'Connor turned out to have thought ahead and brought a trio of magical boards that would write what the person it was paired with thought at it. Since they were charmed waterproof, it would allow the four to communicate underwater. A quick trip back to the castle for their swimwear they'd readied for the task and they were ready to go.
Each of the boys had used the break to acquire a suit they thought would best suit them for the task. Both Cedric and Viktor had settled on long swim trunks and tank tops to allow for freedom of movement. Cedric had a set in yellow and black, while Viktor's was black with red accents. Harry had gone a slightly different way, due to his Muggle upbringing. What he had acquired, then modified with some help, was a muggle dry suit. Covering him from neck to ankle and wrist, with a long obviously modified tail sleeve behind, it would not only keep him dry, but warm as well. He silently thanked Hermione's foresight in bringing the other champions and their companions in on Harry's secret. Hiding his much smaller ears with his hair and curling his tail under his clothes kept it unnoticed normally, but there was no way he'd be able to hide it once he was wet. The day of the task they'd disillusion both, but for now it wasn't worth it.
It took 2 days to finish their negotiations. At first, the hardest part was getting the Merfolk to even open a dialogue. But once the Merfolk realized that their friend Dumbledore had failed to mention a condition that would require them to go to war, they began in earnest. The end result was they would refuse to accept a Veela as a hostage, forcing the organizers to pick another. They would, however, allow Fleur a one-time invitation to enter as part of the task only. The four friends, Hermione, Neville, Luna, and Cho, would volunteer to be the hostages, with the proviso that they would not be taken to the village until 10 minutes before the start of the task, rather than the night before. This served 2 purposes; first it relieved the Merfolk of babysitting the hostages overnight, and secondly it allowed Harry and Hermione to maintain the contact their bond demanded as long as possible.
The discussions with the Headmaster and the organizers went less well.
"What do you mean you are changing the task?" Bagman asked incredulously.
"We didn't say we're changing the task Mr. Bagman," Hermione explained. "We said we negotiated with the Merfolk and altered some of the conditions."
They were meeting in the Anteroom of the Great Hall, the same room they'd entered after their names had come out of the cup. The champions had requested a meeting with the judges, to discuss the conditions of the task, and had entered after the evening meal a week later. Now Dumbledore, Maxime, Karkaroff, Bagman and Percy were facing all eight students with dumbfounded looks on their faces. Professor McGonagall had joined them as part advocate, part stand-in for Harry's headmaster as he wasn't competing for Hogwarts.
"We know the task, we know the stakes, and we know where you screwed up royally," Harry continued, "and we set out to fix it."
"Harry my boy," Dumbledore said in a grandfatherly tone, "I assure you, every detail has been carefully reviewed. There was nothing of concern and I guarantee that there is no need for your interference, however well-intentioned it was."
"So war was 'nothing of concern', Headmaster?" Hermione asked in disbelief.
"War?" Bagman snorted. "There was nothing in the task that would start a war."
"Ok, see if you can follow me here," Hermione said slowly, as if explaining to a 3 year old, or Ron. "Hostages would be in the Merfolk Village, correct?"
"Yes," Percy said definitively. "Though now that you know that, that will have to change."
"No it won't," Hermione said, "They were supposed to know that, remember? Anyway, what is Fleur?"
"The Beauxbaton Champion of course," Dumbledore said with obvious impatience. "What does that have to do with it?"
"I asked what she was, Headmaster, not who," Hermione corrected him.
"Mon Due," Maxime gasped. "This is… that would be a disaster."
"Care to share with your less educated fellows Madame?" Harry asked politely.
"Now see here," Percy began, only to be cut off.
"You almost started a war, Mr. Weasley," Harry injected. "Why don't you sit back and find out why."
"She is Veela," Madame Maxime explained. "If she were to enter a Merfolk village, it would be breaking an ancient treaty. It would be as they say: War."
"I'm sure one person entering some village would not create this war you speak of." Dumbledore waved the explanation off. "No one goes to war over someone going into a village."
"Apparently you had the same history teacher we do, Headmaster," Harry quipped. "Only ever going on about Goblin rebellions. If you had read the book, or asked someone, like my beautiful Hermione, you'd know that the Merfolk/Veela war was what sank Atlantis. It was a Global catastrophe."
"And that catastrophe is why it's such a big deal for a member of one species to enter the territory of the other without invitation," Hermione finished. "Thankfully, I do pay attention. We were able to acquire a copy of the original treaty. It does specify an uninvited entry. To that end, we negotiated with the Merfolk Chieftainess, and arranged for Fleur to be invited to the village on the day of the Task."
"Then there's no issue." Dumbledore clapped. "That clears everything up and all is good. Now-"
Not quite Headmaster," Cedric cut him off, "with all due respect, there were some conditions from the Merfolk."
"Conditions?" Percy asked, "They are dictating to us?"
"We are getting their assistance in our event, sir," Harry pointed out. "And they aren't very onerous either."
"What Condeetions?" Maxime asked.
"First, only Fleur is invited. No other Veela," Hermione stated. "This prevents the use of any of her family as her hostage."
"That is unacceptable," Percy informed them. "The hostages have already been chosen."
"And I'm guessing you already asked them for their cooperation?" Hermione asked sweetly. "Or at least their guardians? Cause if not, and you took them anyway, that would be kidnapping."
"Well…" Bagman started looking abashed, then trailed off.
"We have a way around that, we have four volunteer hostages. They are informed and ready to be our hostages, provided the rest of the conditions are met."
"I assume you four are volunteering?" Maxime asked of the four non champion students.
"Provided the rest of the Merfolk conditions are met, yes," Cho answered for them, "but only if they are met."
"What are the rest of these creatures' demands?" Karkaroff asked in an imperious voice.
"The volunteers will be taken to the Merfolk Village only ten minutes before the task begins." Hermione continued.
"That's too soon, the champions would be able to follow the Merfolk straight to the village." Dumbledore denied, "It would invalidate the challenge."
"Professor, when you visit the village, how long does it take you to get there?" Hermione asked.
"About 30 minutes," Dumbledore answered, confused by the question.
"And that is from the shore, correct?" she pressed on.
"Of course."
"And how long does it take them to come to you at the shore?"
"It takes… You know, I've never asked," Dumbledore pondered, "I always thought it was the same as it took me to get to them."
"We actually asked them," Hermione informed them. "It takes about ten minutes."
"Oh."
"So each volunteer will be taken to the village, and wait for their 'rescue'." Cedric explained, "And be in the village by the time we begin."
"On Zat note, zer is one ozzer zing zat will be changed," Fleur spoke for the first time, the anger in her voice evident. "The 'ostages will be awake and unbound. Zat you would tie unconscious victeems to rocks at the bottom, under spells that would expire at ze end of ze task is beyond idiotic!"
"No see here young lady-" Weasley started angrily.
"No, you need to THINK." Cedric cut him off, pounding a fist into the table. "We have one hour to complete the task. In effect, the task ends after an hour. What would happen to a hostage who hadn't been rescued or hadn't made it to the surface at that time?"
"Dumblydore," Maxime said, standing to her full impressive height. "Ze current condeetions of zis task are unacceptable. I move that the condeetions put forth by ze champions be accepted."
"As Mr. Potters' de facto teacher representative," McGonagall voiced for the first time in the meeting, "I second this and question why no actions were taken when previous questions were raised."
"Well…" Dumbledore looked around at the confused looks on Percy and Bagmans face, along with the disinterested one of Karkaroff's and the furious one on Madame Maxime's. "It seems some changes to the conditions of the task may be in order…"
"Albus…" McGonagall growled warningly.
"Very well, the changes are hereby adopted. The date for the 2nd task is still the twenty-fourth of February. We shall see everyone again then? Yes? Then this meeting is adjourned."
