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xXx Harry Potter and the Depths of Atlantis xXx
xXx Ch. 01: The Kiss That Changed Everything xXx

xXx The Depths of the Black Lake xXx
xXx Hogwarts, Scotland, Great Britain xXx
xXx February 24th, 2010 xXx

A young man with dark brown hair and vivid green eyes that were for once in his life, not hidden behind badly prescribed glasses that he wore more as a defense mechanism than out of any actual need for the glasses, shot a worried glance back at a young girl who was tied to a large statue that was carved to resemble one of the fish-like men floating in front of him.

His worry would not be so bad, if it hadn't for the fact that the girl was awake in spite of the charm that she should have been under, or the fact that five of the merfolk were now closing the distance between them with very sharp looking tridents pointed in the girl's direction. The only thing to protect her, being Harry himself.

It did not take a genius to know that the girl was a Veela, as she bore a close resemblance to the Beauxbatons Champion. While Harry had no idea why these merfolk were trying to attack the girl, he could easily surmise it had something to do politics.

Turning his attention back to the aggressors, Harry placed himself between them and the girl, and was quickly rewarded as the nearest of them proceeded to launch an attack at him. Fortunately Harry was quick enough to twist out of the way and avoided any injury he might have otherwise sustained.

Surprising himself, Harry raised a hand in the direction of that merfolk and without even thinking about it, caused a jet of pure electricity to arc forward in it's direction. The merfolk was struck dead center in the chest and began spasming as his body convulsed under the massive amount of electricity that had just flooded his system. He would not be reentering the battle.

Another of the merfolk made a jab at Harry, and unlike it's compatriot, this one actually managed to score a successful hit against Harry. However, for some reason the trident didn't even come close to succeeding in piercing Harry's flesh.

Again one of the merfolk tried to strike at Harry, but his blow was so wide that it passed through the water a good two feet to the side of Harry. The next of the merfolk managed to actually hit the correct area, but Harry again managed to twist at just the right moment as to avoid being stabbed. The last of the merfolk, like the first in the last three, failed to come anywhere close to Harry's location.

Harry, deciding to try again what he did moments before, raised his hand at another of the merfolk and concentrated on what he wanted to have happen, and yet again a blast of raw electricity was released from his hand and jumped straight into the chest of one of the unfortunate merfolk. Just as had happened previously, that merfolk found himself incapable of continuing the battle.

Of the remaining three merfolk, the one nearest Harry was the first to attempt another stab at Harry, but Harry simply raised a hand and deflected the blow with his wrist of all things. The second to attempt it, found himself being deflected with a kick to the stomach. And the third, simply whiffed at nothing but air.

Firing off his signature spell, or what quickly seemed to be becoming such at any rate, rather than attempting the lightning spell on one so close to Fleur's sister, Harry watched as the disarming charm hit the merfolk in the chest and grinned with satisfaction as the merfolk's trident was sent sailing through the water and landed with a clatter that echoed oddly in the water on the ground at Harry's feet. Knowing that it had no chance of continuing the fight, that particular merfolk turned tail and 'ran.'

The next attempt by the two remaining merfolk started with a straight lunge by the one in the lead, at Harry. However Harry simply grabbed the trident and used the forward momentum of the shaft and merfolk to send them slamming into the ground with just a slight twist of his wrist. There was a sickening crunch as the merfolk's spine was snapped.

The last remaining merfolk, surprise of all surprises, actually managed to score a successful hit. More amazingly, the trident bit into Harry's flesh and do a bit of damage to the lad, not that Harry wouldn't be able to ignore the pain, but it was still a problem all the same. With that injury in mind, Harry raised one of his hands and grabbed the merfolk whose trident was still punctured into Harry's flash around the neck. Then, with barely a modicum of effort, he began pumping that merfolk's body full of electricity. The poor creature stood absolutely no chance.

With a grunt of effort, Harry pulled the trident from his gut, and then swam over to where the young Veela was staring at him with wide eyes, while also trying desperately not to drown. With a pained grin, Harry covered her mouth with his own, and hoped she understood what it was he was offering her.

The girl stiffened for just a moment, before opening her mouth and breathing the air he was offering her in sharp and greedy gulps. After a few seconds, Harry pulled away and cast a silent Bubblet on her, allowing her to continue breathing without his assistance.

With that done, he floated a few feet away, and looked around. From what he could see, the only champion that had not made it down here was the Beauxbatons one. The other two must have collected their hostages while he was in the middle of defending this girl. "Gits."

After cutting Ron free, and shoving him towards the surface, while hoping that the boy made it on his own, Harry turned back to the girl, and frowned a moment, before cutting her free. He noticed that the merfolk now seemed to be giving him considerable leeway, although he had no idea why.

Once the girl was free, Harry grabbed her about her waist, which got a bit of a blush from the girl, and he began swimming them towards the surface, while stopping long enough to grab hold of the length of rope (or was it seaweed?) at the bottom of Ron's leg. With that done, he swam the two of them to the surface without even noticing that he had spent so much time in that fight that his gillyweed had worn off before he even managed to cut either of them free.

When they surfaced, Harry's face developed a massive scowl due to the fact that Ron promptly began trying to proposition the young Veela. The fact that the girl had seemingly fixated on Harry, and would only sparingly glance at Ron, usually with what seemed to be a confused look on her face, indicated for Harry that she had not yet actually managed to learn how to speak English. That and the complete lack of any noticeable pressure on Harry's mind from what should have been her allure, indicated to Harry that she was a very young Veela, and would likely not be able to appreciate Ron's advances even if she understood what he was saying.

"Ron, would you shut it. She doesn't understand English, so you are wasting your breath!" Harry yelled as he easily propelled the three of them towards the docks some distance away.

The girl gave Harry a thankful expression, even if she didn't know the language as a whole, she probably would have recognized the word 'English,' and could extrapolate Harry's meaning from that and his tone. When they finally reached the docs, the girl was quickly pulled from the water by her older sister who proceeded to hug her and cry over her while they were wrapped in a blanket by one of the attending mediwtiches.

Ron was quick to get out of the water too, and then when Harry did not make any moves to get out, he and just about everyone slowed down what they were doing, and turned to regard him. That included the two Veela, the younger of whom leaned into her sister and said something in French at a whisper. This statement drew a gasp from Fleur, as she narrowed her eyes at Harry, before saying, "Why?"

Harry tilted his head to the side, "Huh?"

Dumbledore, who had been talking with one of the merfolk for pretty much the entire time Harry had been back at the dock, suddenly approached and said, "I think it would be best if you got out of the water, Mister Potter. It seems everyone has had a stressful day, the merfolk most of all, and they aren't particularly pleased by your continued presence in their waters."

Harry considered that, before nodding his head and climbing out of the water. As soon as his legs breached the surface, there were hundreds of gasps, as people saw first hand, something that no-one in Magical Britain, save for those who knew Harry's mother intimately, had seen in over nine-thousand six-hundred years!

On the back of Harry's calves were a pair of collapsable fins, one fin per leg, both of which were currently distended due to having been exposed to water and thus being in active use. Furthermore, if one looked exceedingly carefully, they would discover that Harry had small gills behind each of his ears. These gills would become active in place of his lungs, when he was submerged beneath the water, however while above the water, he breathed through his lungs as per normal for a human.

Harry, noticing the gasps, looked around with some confusion, before looking down at himself due to all the wide-eyed stares people were directing at his legs. What he saw there caused him to exclaim, "What the bloody hell?!"

That was the only thing Fleur Delacour needed to hear. She placed her sister down, then grabbed Harry's hand and said, "Come wiz moi!"

Harry sighed and allowed himself to be dragged off by the elder Veela, while the younger followed on their heels. He failed to notice any of the yells for them to come back or stop or what not, because frankly he simply didn't want to hear them.

Several minutes and a lot of walking later, Fleur pushed Harry up the steps into the Beauxbatons carriage, with her sister having gone in ahead of him. Once they were all three inside, she called out, "Third floor door of the hall, right hand side."

Harry shook his head in bemusement, "I trust you will tell me why you suddenly lack an accent?"

"Perhaps, but only if you do as you are told," Fleur replied with a cat-like grin.

Harry sighed and followed the corridor to the room she had indicated. Once he was there, he only casually noticed that he had lost track of the younger Veela. "Huh." He then entered the room.

Fleur entered the room behind him, and walked over to the closet and opened it while looking at the interior. She idly called back at him, "If I were any other Veela, you would be dead right now, Mister Potter."

Harry's eyes widened to the size of saucers, "What?! Why?"

"That is primarily why you are not dead, because you do not know what it is you have done," Fleur commented. "And I can work with that, I think."

Harry frowned massively, "What exactly is it I have done?"

Fleur pulled a bathrobe, a large fluffy lavender affair, from her closet and wrapped it around herself, while vanishing her swimsuit from beneath it with a single wave of one of her hands. She smirked to herself over the knowledge that she was now completely naked beneath her robe, and in a room with the most famous young wizard in the entire world.

Once she was certain her robe was cinched shut, she turned and walked over to a cushioned chair which she daintily sat herself in. "What you have done it seems, is to save the life of my little sister at a risk to your own life, and more importantly in this instance, it was an incident in which you actually suffered some injury… speaking of which…"

Fleur waved a hand in Harry's direction, and proved once and for all that she was capable of wandless magic, as she sent a pulse of healing magic at his side, causing the wound to knit itself shut easily enough. With a nod of her head to show satisfaction, Fleur continued, "Now under normal circumstances, what you did was sufficient to enact what is referred to as a Life Debt. This would in essence, prevent my sister from ever doing anything to harm you or one of your descendents directly. However, that would have been the case only if it had been two humans who were involved in the exchange."

Harry blinked in surprise as he immediately recalled two instances where he had saved someone's life and his own had been in danger during the event in question. If what he suspected was the next thing Fleur was about to tell him, ended up being the case, then it threw into question his entire friendship with the House of Weasley and Hermione Granger.

Fleur, seeming to sense his fears, immediately raised a hand and said, "Rest assured, Mister Potter, what I am about to say largely applies to these sorts of situations only if one of the two parties happens to be a Veela…" Harry immediately sagged in some relief as he had been quite worried that he would have to stop being friends with his longest lasting friends.

Fleur smiled and started again, "Now as I was saying, if someone were to save the life of a Veela, ordinarily nothing beyond the standard life debt is incurred. However it was the fact that your blood was spilled and the fact that you kissed my sister immediately after vanquishing the last foe, even if it wasn't intended as a kiss, that has changed the name of the game."

"How did you know all that?" Harry wondered in some amazement.

"Gabi, my sister, is a very fast talker," Fleur remarked with a slight smirk on her face, "That and she knows to convey important information first, and then to gush about her first kiss later."

Harry promptly blushed in embarrassment, that had also been his first kiss now that he really thought about it. "So… what exactly did kissing your sister do?"

Fleur frowned, "It enacted a forced and unbreakable betrothal bond between the House of Delacour and the House of Potter. However that is where the situation gets really complicated. You see, the Veela and the species that it turns out you are an unknowing member of, happen to be in a state of war with one another. We have been for centuries."

Harry gulped, "And… that is also ignoring the fact that your sister is pre-pubescent, I imagine."

"Good, you understood the other problem," Fleur remarked. "Now this is what we shall do. As the betrothal is between our houses, and not between you and my sister specifically, it means that I can take her place in the agreement. Understand, Harry, that you would not have been my first choice in a mate, but I am doing this because I wish to allow my sister the freedom to choose her own mate of her own free will, rather than to have the choice taken from her before it was ever even really a choice to begin with."

Harry frowned massively, "I wouldn't want to force you into an unhappy marriage, Fleur."

"And that, that I think is why I can work with this," Fleur commented, "Because you did not cause this with any malicious intent. You didn't even know this was a possibility, therefore I can quite happily say we might one day be able to find love with each other… though I will not be living my entire married life on a seashell under the waves, Harry. I'm no mermaid."

Harry chuckled at that, and a few minutes later, he asked, "So what am I exactly? I don't exactly look like a merman, do I?"

Fleur nodded and said, "What you saw today are a subspecies of a people known more accurately as the Tritonians. Tritonians are characterized as having a humanoid upper body, while a fishlike tail, or in other words they are your stereotypical merfolk."

"Okay, so I take it there are other types?" Harry wondered.

"Two others that I am aware of, one of which is extremely reclusive and known by the name of the Idylists. I don't actually know what they look like, and doubt very much that you are one of them. The other however, is known as the Poseidonians, and they are almost entirely indistinguishable from a baseline human being in terms of their appearance, except for those fins on the backs of their legs that pop up when exposed to water of a certain depth."

Harry nodded, "So, I am some sort of fishman, huh?"

Fleur's expressing became pained, as she considered that, "Yes and no. Atlanteans, as that is where your people live for the most part, are largely mammalian, even the Tritonians. The thing is that they tend to have some characteristics in common with ichthyoid's, or other aquatic life forms that aid in their ability to survive at such depths. Don't ask me to explain to you how that happened, as I haven't got the foggiest idea."

Gabrielle, Fleur's sister, opened the door, and started babbling in French. Apparently she had been somewhere else within the carriage until now. Fleur listened to what was being said, before turning to Harry and saying, "Harry, who are you that you rate a personal meet and greet with the Queen of Atlantis?"

Harry's eyes widened in shock, before he stood and quickly began walking towards the exit of the carriage. Fleur and Gabrielle followed behind at a bit more distance, just to be safe.

As soon as he opened the door, Harry was struck speechless. There in front of his very eyes stood a woman in a green halter-neck top with an exposed midriff and matching pareo around her waist. She had a very ornate golden crow-like crown upon her head, and a green usekh-style collar around her neck. She was also wearing a substantial number of veils, that gave a sense of mystique to her presence. The most stunning thing about the woman, was that she looked virtually identical in almost every respect, to Harry's mother.

"Mum?" Harry questioned.

The woman giggled at him, it was a tinkling joy filled sound, "Not quite. It would appear that I'm your aunt. It is pure happenstance that I was on the surface today, and able to grab a Zeta-Beam over here. I should also probably thank Zatanna and her father for adding the coordinates of this school to our index and providing a bypass to the wards for our sensor network, otherwise I wouldn't have even known what it was you have just done, or that you survived the night my sister died… in fact I didn't know that last bit until you started drawing upon Xebelian magic instead of the local variety."

Harry blinked in surprise, "Sister?"

"Oh yes, my older sister and the Crown Princess of Xebel until her demise, was your mother," the woman in front of Harry explained for him. "My name is Mera. I am the Queen Consort of Atlantis, apparently the Queen Regent of Xebel, Headmistress to the Atlantean Conservatory, and an Associate Member of the Justice League."

Mera then glanced behind Harry and asked, "Pardon me, which of you two young ladies was it that my nephew pulled from the lake?"

Fleur glanced down at her younger sister who had just hidden behind her, and then looked back up at Mera while narrowing her eyes. Mera raised her hands in a pacifying gesture and said, "I perhaps should explain something. Xebel was isolated from the rest of Atlantis far enough back into history that the schism actually predated the much later conflict that would come to exist between Atlantis and the Veela. As Harry and I are first and foremost Xebelians, not Atlanteans, we have no reason to be in conflict with your people, even if the majority of Veela do not understand that. I was merely asking due to the fact that I am technically the Head of House for my nephew, at least until such time as he ascends to the throne of Xebel himself."

It was a considerably relieved Fleur who sagged slightly and said, "My sister, Gabi here, she was the one who was rescued, but I would like to believe my conversation with Harry earlier was productive and he agrees with me that she is much to young to be locked into a betrothal in such a manner."

Mera smiled at the girl brightly, before turning to Harry and asking, "Is she right in her belief?"

"Yes, Auntie," Harry replied with a huge blush of his own at actually having an aunt that he can feel good about using the affectionate form of the word with.

Mera nodded and then frowned before turning around. This drew the attention of the three youngsters to the man in bumblebee colored robes that was legging it in their direction. Harry blinked in surprise, "Huh, would they have really forced everyone to stay in their seats when we disappeared?"

"Do you really need me to answer that, Harry?" Fleur wondered.

The man quickly reached them, and said, "Mister Potter, Miss Delacour, you really must return so that we can give the champions their scores!"

Harry looked at his aunt and said, "Auntie, did you say you were the Headmistress of a school?"

Fleur grinned broadly as she quickly deduced what Harry was about to inquire. Mera nodded her head, "Yes I did, Harry. Why do you ask?"

"How difficult would it be to have me retroactively transferred to your school effective the evening of 31 October, 2009?"

"As I am your Head of House, Harry, consider it done," Mera replied with a broad grin, J'onn had just informed her what her nephew was doing.

"Mister Potter?" Ludo Bagman questioned, not really understanding what was going on.

"Headmistress Mera, I was forced to compete against my will in an extremely dangerous tournament where each of the other three contestants had been allowed to have their Headmaster or mistress acting as one of the members of the judges panel. I was denied any form of representation due to the fact that I was entered under an anonymous school, and thus was forced to be represented by the Headmaster of the Host School," Harry explained, "Clearly this is a breach of my rights."

Mera nodded, even as she saw Ludo begin to sweat, "I concur. I shall of course be making a formal protest on behalf of my student with your Ministry, Mister Bagman."

With that said, Mera grinned at Ludo and said, "Until this matter is resolved, I am afraid the champions as a whole will need to remain unscored, as it would be inappropriate to allow three of them to be scored while refusing the remaining member. I simply shan't be able to provide an accurate score for them until I have reviewed each of their performances in a pensieve, which I know Hogwarts has one of."

"My dear madame…" Ludo began to say, only to be cut off.

"Do not insult me," Mera bit out. "I am the Queen of two separate nations, you will address me with the respect my station entitles me to."

That had a gulp being drawn as the man scampered back towards the docks as quickly as he could move. Turning to look at the children behind her, and in an amused tone of voice, Mera asked, "Was that too far over the top?"

"If you weren't actually related to me and I didn't just get betrothed," Harry remarked, "I'd kiss you. That was awesome!"

"I agree," Fleur admitted as she leaned down and translated what just happened for her sister.

Gabrielle suddenly had huge puppy dog eyes and declared "Impressionnant!"

"Right, so I suspect that before too much longer, someone with more political savvy is going to want to talk to me, and presumably the two of you as well," Mera remarked indicating Harry and Fleur. "I advise that the little one be nowhere close to us when that conversation ends up happening, as while I am good, I cannot guarantee my ability to protect all three of you at the same time, Harry is still on training wheels when it comes to Xebelian magic after all."

"Training wheels?" Fleur questioned with her head cocking to the side, "What are those?"

xXx Chapter Concluded xXx

Author's Note: Well, that is one way to kick over a hornet's nest, isn't it?