The second task.
It was the day after the Yule ball and the seven Slayers and the Hogwarts quartet were having their breakfast in the Hogwarts great hall at the Ravenclaw table, the Saxton triplets were all reading a book together, the Weasley twins were planning pranks while doing their best to include Ginny, and the Black twins and rest of the quartet were talking about various subjects while they ate. There was a screech as hundreds of owls flew into the great hall and delivered the morning post, Ginny gasped when she saw her family owl fly towards her with a red envelope clutched in its talons. But as the owl dropped the howler in front of her the envelop suddenly burst into flames, Ginny looked around and saw Vida pointing her weapon in wand form at the ashes while not looking up from her book, with a swish of her wand the ashes disappeared and she put it away as if noting ever happened.
"Thanks." Ginny said.
Vida looked up from the book briefly to give a smile before returning to reading.
"I'm guessing mum found out about you going to the ball with Vida and disobeying her." Harry stated the obvious.
"Well, what can she do." Ginny said boldly. "Dad's the head of the house so she can't do any drastic decisions without his consent."
"Good on you, Gin." Fred and George said as the patted her on the back.
"Oh no, trouble." Aria said, turning her head.
Everyone turned to where she was looking to see Dumbledore heading their way.
"He's coming for me." Ginny panicked. "What do I do? I'll have to go with him, he'll do something to me."
"Ginny, my girl." Dumbledore said as he reached them. "Would you like to come with me to my office?"
"That was a question." Vida whispered to Ginny as she took hold of her hand under the table.
With all of the courage she could muster and her friends backing her up Ginny tightly held Vida's hand and answered. "No thank you, sir."
Dumbledore looked taken aback by the rejection. "That wasn't a request, Ginny."
Ginny's brothers and the Saxton triplets all joined hands under the table and sent their power down the line to Ginny, giving her the power and confidence she needed to say what she wanted.
"You asked me if I would like to come to your office, not that I should come to your office." she said.
Dumbledore looked a little annoyed.
"Fine then, you are to come with me to my office."
Ginny looked back to her friends and brothers, all of them giving her reassuring looks.
"My answer is still no." she said boldly. "I don't feel comfortable anywhere near you, and it is my right as a student to not go to your office unless it is for a serious offence, anything that you should need to say to me can be told to me by my head of house."
My Hogwarts students around heard what she said and gasped at what she said and her tone.
"Ginny," Dumbledore was loosing his patience. "What would your mother say about your behaviour?"
"First off, your should be addressing me as Miss Weasley as we are not on any personal level and I have not given permission for your to use my first name so casually. Secondly, I don't care what my mother has to say about my behaviour as she is racist and is stuck in too many old traditions, neither of which I respect."
"Miss Weasley, detention!" Dumbledore raised his voice.
"For what, speaking my mind? Find, I'll serve the detention, but if it's with anyone other than my head of house I'm not going."
With that Ginny sat down and proceeded to ignore Dumbledore while her friends patted her on her back. The seven Slayers and Hogwarts quartet then left the Great hall. When they all reached the Vagabond lair Ginny collapsed on one of the chairs.
"Ahh!" she freaked out. "I was so scared on the inside, I've probably gone and made it worse, what compelled me to say those things!"
"It wasn't anything you didn't want to say already, we just gave you the confidence to say it." Vida said with her arms crossed.
"Though, you might want to ask Maria for transfer papers before Dumbledore really does try something." Aria said, who then received a smack on her arm from Layla for saying it at the wrong time.
Ginny let out another moan as she pulled the cushion from the chair she was on and pushed it into her face.
It was the day of the second task and all of the champions were standing on a barge waiting for it to start, the Black twins wore diving gear with over an hours worth of oxygen in their tanks, at the judges table the other judges were leaning away from an angry Maria who hadn't managed to change the objective from a human hostage to something else and wasn't happy about it, though she had managed to make it only one hostage between the twins. After checking all of their friends the twins had concluded that their hostage was Hermione since none of their other friends were missing.
The whistle started and the champions cast the spells to allow them to breath underwater and the twins pulled on their breathing masks before diving into the cold water. As soon as Harry and Matilda were in the water they took a few seconds to get used to the cold before they were swimming toward where they thought the hostages were, along the way they encountered many creatures of the lake that attacked them only to be fended off by their magic, they also caught sight of their fellow champions, including Fleur being too overwhelmed by the creatures of the lake and having to head back to the surface because her bubble-head spell broke. Eventually the twins reached where the hostages were, they saw Hermione, Fleur's sister, Cho Chang, and Jaqueline.
"How did they get their hands on Jaqueline?" Matilda asked through her mask, her question was muffled but Harry heard it.
"They probably caught her while she was sneaking around Hogwarts, No wonder Maria was so angry if one of her own was taken." Harry replied.
As they swam closer they were surprised when Viktor suddenly shot out from near them with the head of a shark and raced towards Jaqueline, he bit through the seaweed holding her down and the started swimming with her to the surface.
"We better hurry too." Harry said.
The twins swam forward and reached Hermione with no problem, Harry cut the seaweed holding her down and began to swim to the surface, but then he quickly saw that Matilda wasn't following.
"What are you doing?" Harry shouted to his sister.
"Fleur had to pull out, meaning she can't come and get her sister." Matilda explained.
Matilda reached Fleur's sister and cut the seaweed, the twins noticed many Mer hidden around the place looking uneasy but they didn't attack, they guessed that since there were two of them that they could take two hostages. Each with a hostage in their arms they swam to the surface, once they broke the surface Fleur's sister and Hermione began breathing again, the twins swam them to the waiting barge , once there all four of them were helped out of the water and wrapped inn towels and handed hot drinks.
Fleur burst through the crowd and hugged her sister while sobbing, happy that she was safe, they then went over to the twins and gave a quick hug to Matilda.
"Thank you for saving my sister." she cried before going back to said sister.
The other Slayers and rest of the Hogwarts quartet quickly made their way over to their friends as they were being looked over by Poppy.
"Are you three alright?" Vida asked.
"A few scratches but that's all." Harry answered.
"Rescuing two hostages is bound to be worth more points." Aria said.
"We don't care about the points, Aria, just surviving the tournament." Matilda said.
Hermione shivered in her wet clothes. "Who's idea was it to have a water based task at this time of year?" she groaned.
In response she was wrapped in more blankets.
After the points were given out with the Black twin in the lead the Hogwarts quartet followed the seven Slayers and Maria back to the sky-ship to get warmed up and for Hermione and the Black twins to have hot baths.