I stood next to Fleur in front of the judges' table waiting with a hammering heart for the beginning of the task. The air was still crisp and cold and the water was sure to be like ice. Its murky depths unknown to me and the creatures inside it even more unknown.
The crowd was yelling and cheering as the time grew near for us to began. The only problem was that that Harry kid hadn't shown up yet.
"He's pulling a Sasuke isn't he?" I whispered under my breath.
Suddenly I heard heavy footfalls and turned to see Harry sprinting down the slopping lawn, evidently out of breath as he skidded to a stop, splattering Fleur's robes and my legs.
"I'm. . . here. . ." he panted, out of breath.
" Where have you been?" came a bossy voice from behind me. It was the replacement for Mr. Crouch, with his firry red hair and glasses pushed up the bridge of his nose.
" Now, now, Percy!" Bagman said jovially, obviously relived that Harry had made it in time. "Let him catch his breath!"
Dumbledore smiled down at him as he leaned forward to catch his breath. Krarkaroff and Madame Maxime, however, didn't look at all pleased to see him. . . . It was very obvious from the looks on their faces that they had hoped that he wouldn't show.
There was no time to hear why Harry was late as Bagman began to space all the champions about ten feet apart. The lake seemed to churn and swirl in anticipation to swallow us up.
After Bagman spaced Krum and Harry apart and a quick whispered word to Harry, Bagman pointed his wand at his throat, standing at the judges' table, said "Sonorous!" and his voice boomed out over the dark water and into the excitable stands.
" 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!"
The whistle was shrill in the cold air and the crowd cheered as Krum, Fleur, and Cedric jumped into the lakes frozen depts. Without a look back I ran onto the surface of the dark water and strait to the center.
The crowd was positively screaming as I neared the center. Things like "blimey, that one's STANDING on the water!" and "Look! She aint' fallen in!" were shouted out and carried over the lake. I sat, cross legged, on the water, with even more amazed calls from the stands, and tapped my chin. What would be the easiest thing to become and the one that would excite the crowd the most?
Making up my mind, I stretched out my legs and pulled out my wand. I had to make it seem as if I was doing this with my wand, so with as much speed as I could possibly muster, I preformed a series of hand signs before shouting, " Hinge!"
A cloud of smoke engulfed my body and shouts of shock erupted from the stands. I could feel my legs disappearing and being replaced with a long, glissaning, teal fin and my lungs changing to breath under water. I could feel my midriff being exposed, and a necklace of light blue pearls rap around my neck. Bangles appeared on my arm and tail and my hair tie disappeared, letting the rest of my hair free.
The boys did cat calls and the girls "ood" and "awed" in the stands at my new body. Obviously they hadn't expected me to transform into a mermaid with only a shell bra and a long teal tail from my waist down.
I winked before jumping up and braking the surface of the water. It was as if I had dived into a melting glacier. Goosebumps erupted up and down my body and I fought to keep moving downward. My tail beat the water in strong, easy motions. My hair flowed in waves of blond as I pushed forward. My eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness of the water. Slowly, I straitened out and moved forward instead of strait at the lake floor.
Even when my eyes became accustom to the darkness of the lake, I could still only see a good five meters in every direction, making new scenes appear out of the gloom. Sand stretched and curved as I swam three meters from the bottom, just high enough to swim over the tangling seaweed.
Small fish swam by as did creatures I had only seen in books here at the school. The water now seemed to become cool and comforting as I swam though the bottom of the lake and threw the thickets of seaweed, passing by angry little eyes.
All at once, about fifty little clawed hands grabbed at any part of my body they could. I let out a startled cry and jets of bubbles escaped my mouth and flouted upward. One of the water demands let out a screeching cry and yanked my hair backward. Then, in a burst of warm water, the Hinge was released and I felt the water close in around me.
I couldn't breath, I couldn't think, I couldn't even see what was going on. The little demons had let go when I had changed back, but know they were back, tugging and pulling with their little clawed hands.
The water seemed to get darker and darker as did my vision. They where dragging me down further into the seaweed and away from air. I was slowly dieing as they held fast onto my arms and legs. I let out the last of my breath and streams of bubbles flouted away and my mouth and lungs filled with water.
Suddenly they let go of my body and someone or something grabbed my wrist and pulled me upward. My head burst into warm air and I could feel steady breaths on my face. Coughing up the water in my longs, I opened my eyes to see Cedric's face only inches away from my own and a large bubble around our heads.
"T-thanks," I chocked out. My throat burned and my eyes stung.
" No problem," He said, sounding as if he was blaming it on me.
" Alright," I said, know doing my handsighns again, with my wand in hand," Hinge!" I shouted before pulling out of his space.
I once again was the long haired mermaid with the long teal colored tail. I smiled and waved a farewell to Cedric and swam away.
It must have been well over a half hour ago that the task had started and I was still swimming around trying to find the Mer-people in the lake. I hadn't seen any of the other champions other then Cedric and I was beginning to worry. Where were those damn merpeople!?
Just as the thought of turning around and searching that way came into my mind, I heard the faintest sounds of someone singing. I beat my tail faster and I could hear the song clearly as buildings came into view.
Come seek us where our voices sound,
We cannot sing above the ground,
Clusters of crewed rock buildings loomed into view with black mudded lawns and patches of seaweed hear and there. One of the water demons who had attacked me was changed to the front of one of the dwellings.
And while you're searching, ponder this:
An hour long you'll have to look,
And to recover what wee took,
The merpeole looked deferent then what I had thought they would look like, with long knotted, dark green hair and pail gray skin. They had yellow eyes and yellow, cracking teeth. They had many thick, pebbled ropes around their necks. Their tails where thick and silver and each one seemed to be carrying a thick pointed spear.
But past an hour- the prospect's black,
Too late, its gone, it won't come back
As I approached the middle of the village, a cluster of mer-people where gathered in what seemed to be like the town squire. There was a large group singing in the middle of the crowd, calling me towards them. Behind them was a crude statue of a merperson hewn from a boulder.
In front of the stone was Harry with flippered feet and his robes swirling in the moving water. He had spotted me and looked intensely relived at the sight of me swimming towards him.
Just then, I saw what was behind him. A cloud of long black hair was flouting calmly in the water. Ropes of weed bound her tan skin to the others. On one side was a girl with long silvery blond hair and on the other was Hermione. Over to the side floated an unbound Ron. Their heads where lolled onto each others shoulders and streams of bubbles kept issuing from their mouths and noses.
I didn't spend much time in looking at the merpersons around them and instead looked at Harry. He was gesturing to the seaweed ropes that bound them to the stone statue and was holding up a sharp stone.
" Sorry Harry, but I have something that will work much better," I said to him, a small stream of bubbles issuing from my mouth.
He looked shocked that I could speak underwater. I did more hand signs and changed only slightly threw the teckneek. The only change made was that I now had my Shurican holster around my tail, containing many sharp Kunni.
I pulled out one of the knives and twirled it in my hand before swimming up next to Harry. His eyes where wide and his mouth was agape. I laughed, more bubbles slowly streaming from my mouth, and came to a stop in front of the black haired girl. Slow but steady streams of bubbles were coming from her slightly agar mouth and her tan skin seemed to have turned slightly white.
In one quick swipe, I brought the knife down and cut through the seaweed ropes and put the tool away. Grabbing Reinna around the middle and taking a quick glace at Harry, I pushed off with my tail and swam upward. My tail beat the water desperately as I inched to the surface. I could feel my body weakening as the water stretched on.
Then, my head crashed threw the surface as my face hit the winery air. The sound of the crowd was dulled by the water that slowly leaked out of my ears. My blond hair stuck to my body and face as if it were glue and my eyes burned in the crisp air.
Suddenly an idea struck my waterlogged brain and I turned to look at Reinna under my arm. Only the very top of her back was sticking out of the water. Quickly, I pulled her out and placed her on the waters surface before crawling out myself to sit next to her.
After a moment, her ice blue eyes opened and looked over at my face. Her skin was quickly regaining its tan-ish color as she took steady breaths of fresh air.
She looked around before saying, smartly, "well aren't we going back to the shore anytime soon?"
I narrowed my eyes at her before saying stubbornly, "Well I was waiting for your lazy little ass."
I quickly did a few hand signs before being engulfed in a cloud of smoke. As it cleared, I stood on my newly brought back legs and draped my sawden arm around Reinna's cold and thin shoulders.
"So how about it sleeping beauty, feel like moving your royal bum to the commoners shore?" I joked, pointing to the shore and sweeping my arm to the side.
She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. "At least I wasn't the one flaunting my chest to everyone here."
I could feel my face grow hot and I started to stomp off toward the shore. " I wasn't flaunting anything, damn it!"
I heard a small snort and then quit foot falls as Reinna fallowed behind me towards the shore. In the distance I could see Neji standing next to Sasuke, both as still as statues. Nejis arms were crossed over his chest and his head was slightly turned toward the Judges table. Sasuke was slightly leaning to one side with his hands in his shorts' pockets and had that usual bored look on his face.
Close behind, the figures of an excited Lee and a happily blushing Hinata came into focus.
I waved enthusiastically at the group finally coming to shallows of the lakes edge. The teachers were all smiling at the pair of us as we stepped onto the mud. A frantic looking Madam Pomfrey bustled over to us and rapped us in our own thick blankets and ran off, muttering to her self something that sounded like "To young" and "what next".
" Oh my wonderful friends!" shouted Lee as he bounded up to the two of us. "How wonderful it is that you made it out second!"
" That was gr-great, Sara-Chan," said Hinata, smiling.
"thanks guys!" I shouted in a hoers tone.
"Here you go dears, drink this," said Madam Pomfrey, clambering through the small crowed of people and handing me and Reinna steaming goblets of some hot potion. Soon after, she ran off to help Fleur calm down and Krum, who had just emerged from the lake with Harmony, his head slowly changing from that of a shark back into his normal brooding face.
Gulping down the potion, after burning my tongue and throat, I lessoned to my friends chatter, demanding what happened in the lake. Reinna wasn't helping much, just looking over at me wail sipping at her potion and looking as expectant as they were. Just as they were getting mad at my lack of response, the crowed erupted in cheers and screams.
Turning around, thankful for the distraction, I looked out over the lake. There were three heads slowly making their way towards us. One was Ron's firry red head next to the little girl with the silvery blond hair and beside her was the black head of Harry.
Fleur was ecstatic to see the little blond girl. She kept on yelling "Gabrielle! Gabrielle! Is she alive? Is she 'urt?" as she struggled to break away from Madam Maxime, looking hysterical, fighting as hard as she could against her iron grasp.
Most of the judges were beaming as Harry and Ron made their way onto the banks. Percy, however, was as white as a sheet and looked younger then usual, went splashing out to meet them.
"She's fine!" Harry croaked, trying to shout and failing miserably.
Percy had seized Ron and was proceeding to drag him back to the bank, Ron grumbling a," Gerrof, Percy, I'm all right!". Dumbledore and Bagman were pulling Harry upright, Fleur had broken free of Madame Maxime and was hugging her sister tightly to her.
"It was ze grindylows. . .zey attacked me. . .oh Gabrielle, I thought. . . I thought. . ." cried Fleur into her sisters hair.
"Come here, you," said Madam Pomfrey as she seized Harry and pulled him over to the rest of us.
"guys," I said, not looking away from the frantic little Madam Pomfrey, "I got to go over with the rest of them, key?"
They all murmured an "ok" before I walked to the crowed of champions and their 'most important things'. I could hear Reinna's light footsteps behind me and her calm breathing. Hermione was talking with Harry and Ron, Krum standing close by looking sour.
Dumbledore was crouching at the water's edge, talking with what appeared to be the chief merperson , a particularly wild and ferocious-looking female; nothing like I had changed into. The same sort of screechy noises that the merperson's made when above water were coming from the headmasters lips. Apparently, Dumbledore could converse in Mermish.
Finally he straightened up, turned to his fellow judges, and said," A conference before we give the marks, I think."
All the judges clustered together, talking in low whispers. Fleur had somehow managed to escape the grumpy looking Madam Pomfrey, swooping down on Harry and Ron, speaking in a French accent.
Just as I was looking back over at the judges, they nodded their heads and stood up strait. They seemed to have finished their business. Just then, Bagman's magically magnified voice boomed out next to then, making them all jump, and causing the crowd in the stands to go very quit.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our decision. Merchieftainess Murcus has told us exactly what happened at the bottom of the lake, and we have therefore decided to award marks out of sixty for each of the champions, as follows…
" Fleur Delacour, though she demonstrated excellent use of the Bubble-Head Charm, was attacked by grind lows as she approached her goal, and failed to retrieve her hostage. We award her thirty points."
I applauded politely as I heard Fleur say, Throatily and shaking her silver head, "I deserved zero."
"Cedric Diggory, who also used the Bubble-head Charm, was First to return with his hostage, though he returned one minute outside the time limit of an hour." Cheers louder then at the Chunking exams. "We therefore award him fifty-five points.
" Sara Rouji used a complete form of Transfiguration and was second to return with her hostage. We therefore award her forty-nine points."
All the Genin cheered so laud that I wondered if they to could magically magnify their voices too.
"Viktor Krum used an incomplete form of Transfiguration, which was nevertheless affective, and returned just after Mrs. Rouji with his hostage. We award him forty-seven points."
Karkaroff clapped particularly hard, looking very superior.
"Harry Potter used gillyweed to great effect," Bagman continued. "He returned last, and well outside the time limit of an hour. However, the Merchieftainess informs us that Mr. Potter was first to reach the hostages, and that the delay in his return was due to his determination to return all hostages to safety not merely his own. Most of the judges," and here, Bagman gave Karkaroff a very a very nasty look," feel that this shows moral fiber and merits full marks. However…. Mr. Potter's score is fifty-two points."
Everyone clapped very hard, including all ninja in the stands and on the shore. Everyone was clapping and laughing, giving Harry very apprising looks. All, that is, except for Krum who looked very unhappy. He tried to engage Hermione in conversation but she was to busy applauding Harry to even notice.
"The third and final task will take place at dusk on the twenty-fourth of June," continued Bagman. " The champions will be notified of what is coming precisely one month beforehand. Thank you all for your support of the champions."
'It was all over' was all I could think of as Madam Pomfrey jostled us all up the castle to change out of our wet cloths and to warm up. I didn't have to worry in the slightest about anything for another four months.
I couldn't help but grin as Reinna and Neji walked beside me in the cool morning air.
Fin.
I may write a whole story for this, but I don't know. This was something that popped into my head and wrote down for my bestest buddy Soft.Silhouette! Hope you liked it there buddy!