"A-A-A-A-A-A!" the girl's squeal from the living room woke Harry from his morning. Potter, quickly grabbing the essentials needed in such a situation, bulleted out of the bedroom. In his left hand was a knife with a reverse grip, and in his right hand was a wand, on which was already glowing, ready to break off the spell. Wearing only his pajama pants.

Two pairs of eyes stared at him.

It turned out the two veelas were just dousing each other with water. Gabrielle just didn't want to wake up in the morning, so Fleur went to extreme measures. Waterboarding. Gabby got her revenge. They were playing around, and at one point one of them yelled.

Fleur's robe was wet too, and only a waking Harry had yet to get his thoughts in check. Anyway, his gaze lingered on her breasts, which were clung to by the wet fabric. The body's natural reaction followed faster than Harry had time to even realize where he was looking. When he did, he quickly grabbed his robe from the rack next to the bedroom door and silently went to make coffee, throwing a knife at the smiley face on the wall to express his displeasure. He was followed by all the knives he had unwittingly levitated behind him. He always keeps a couple knives on his nightstand (next to his bed).

"Not an apartment, but a museum of edged weapons," Fleur kept saying.

Harry silently made himself a coffee, walked out looking in front of him, sat down in his chair and only then did he shift his gaze to the frozen veela.

"Today is the bloody day of the second test. And you decided to wake me up at seven in the morning today exactly?" Fleur and Gabrielle began apologizing in more French.

"Stop," Harry interrupted them slightly red-faced, "go both change, please."

Gabrielle immediately ran into the bedroom to the closet. Fleur on the other hand, swaying her hips, walked over to him and leaned over so that their eyes were on the same level.

"Do I... really need to change, mon amour?"

Of course she was underwear-less. Sure enough, the robe, by gravity, revealed her seductive breasts to Harry's gaze. Fleur saw the difficulty with which he lifted his head and stared into her eyes: the veins in his neck strained to keep his head from drooping involuntarily; his eyebrows were furrowed.

"Yes, I'm sure of it. Go on, Fleur."

She bet almost everything and lost.

After a while, they both came out in their Charmbaton uniforms.

" 'Arry, I'm going to take Gabrielle to Madame Maxime, she asked for something."

"Yes. Okay."

As the door closed behind the sisters, Harry began to reason. Something has to be done about his body's reaction. He wants Fleur. He wants her so badly. But... what can be thought of? Temporary measures. A cold shower, perhaps.

Harry felt something. Something on the edge of his consciousness, itching, demanding attention. It had happened to him a couple times before. Before his encounter with the basilisk, for example. Listening to himself, he realized abruptly that it wasn't something that was going to happen to him.

Fleur. Something with Fleur.

Grabbing his wand, he ran in the direction the feeling told him to go. As he ran up to his destination, he saw his Fleur being clamped by someone on the windowsill and tearing at her clothes.

Grabbing his knife from the holster on his forearm, Potter stabbed one arm through his attacker, immediately wrapping it behind his back and ramming his knee into his face. There was a crunching sound. When Roger Davies, who was Roger Davies, fell, holding his nose but still conscious, Harry added a kick to his jaw, knocking him out.

Fleur immediately slid into his arms, shuddering...

Fleur was calmly walking back from the Headmaster's office. Madame Maxime had let her go, saying that she had something to talk to Gabrielle about and that she could go. Fleur was a little upset by Harry's reaction this morning. She had hoped for something a little less cold and detached...

"Hey, why is such a pretty girl walking alone?" some guy asked cheekily, smirking, looking at her oily.

Ignoring him, Fleur walked on. She knew it was only worth it to answer them in any voice at all with anything, then they'd think it was a chance.

"It's not nice to ignore when someone's talking to you, babe.

"Just keep walking, Fleur, just keep walking," the veela coaxed herself, quickening her step.

But she was abruptly grabbed by the arm and pressed with her whole body against the windowsill.

"I know your kind, don't worry, I'll pay, just tell me how much Potter usually pays, I'll pay double..." he whispered in Fleur's ear as his hands ripped her clothes off. She had (stupidly!) left her wand at home because she was already weaned on the idea of being in danger with Harry so close by. Fleur was beginning to feel desperate.

But then someone abruptly pulled the nasty man away from her and knocked him out. It was her Harry. She quickly slid into his warm, safe embrace. He hugged her back and began stroking her back lightly. They stood like that for a few minutes. Veela pulled herself together.

"It's now or never," Fleur realized. It was time to go to Va-bank, there was no other way. She raised her head sharply and said, looking him in the eye:

" 'Arry, I love you," and covered his lips with hers. Sensing that he didn't respond but just froze, she dropped her gaze into his icy eyes and, disentangling herself from the embrace, cowardly fled.

"Stupid, I've ruined everything! Everything was going so well!" thought Fleur, swallowing her tears. After reaching the apartment, the veela plopped down on the bed and just roared into her pillow. She had ruined everything.

Harry was standing there. His glassy gaze was directed straight ahead of him. If his thoughts could be described in two words, they would be, "Error 404"

He didn't know what to do or how to react. Harry sat down on the windowsill, next to the knocked out Roger on the floor. The same windowsill where his Fleur was just nearly raped just now. His...

Smoked.

Took a drag... exhaled.

No thoughts came into his head. Empty. He just couldn't formulate anything coherent. Just bits and pieces. Emptiness.

A frightening emptiness.

Heavy. Exhaling.

That was how they spent the few hours they had before their second mission.

Fleur sobbed at first, then just lay there and thought.

Harry was smoking. Smoked the whole pack. His mind was still blank.

Potter was a little late for his second assignment. Staring glassy eyed at the road, he stopped at the judge's table without looking at Fleur. Which almost caused the veela to have another bout of tears.

"Where have you been?" someone asked importantly and reproachfully. "The trial is about to begin."

Harry saw Percy Weasley at the judge's table. Crouch still hadn't recovered.

"Well, well, well, Percy," Ludo intervened, sighing in relief at Harry's appearance. "At least let him look around."

Bagman arranged the contestants along the shore of the lake ten feet apart. Harry stood at the edge, his gaze still straight ahead. Fleur looked only in his direction. She waited for him to at least wish her luck with a look.

"Everything all right, Harry?" asked Bagman quietly, keeping him a few more feet away from Kram. "You know what to do?"

Potter just threw a fleeting glance at false Bagman and nodded faintly.

"Well, our contestants are ready for the second test. We will begin on my whistle. In one hour, they must find what was taken from them. All right, on the count of three! One... two... three!"

While all the contestants were already underwater, Harry only chewed the gillyweed and swam, waiting for them to work. About a minute passed.

Harry looked at his hands. They seemed ghostly in the green lake water, webbing had grown between his fingers. He bent down and looked at his feet: the bare feet had stretched out and become webbed, too, and the flippers had grown out.

The icy water was suddenly cool, pleasant and surprisingly light. Harry stretched out his arms, swung them out to the sides along his body with a strong stroke, worked his flipper legs, and marveled at how fast he was swimming. And now he could see clearly and far away, even without blinking. Soon Harry swam so deep that he could no longer recognize the surface of the lake and headed straight for the bottom.

Already near the bottom, he turned his whole body toward the surface. The light barely penetrated where Harry was. There was an unnatural silence. He was under a huge column of water. It was as if he was outside of all the hustle and bustle and all the excitement. An inexpressible feeling.

Suddenly a thought shot into his head, had Fleur prepared for this competition? I doubt she knows about all the wildlife in the lake. The thought almost made him rush to find her, but he stopped himself, albeit with an effort. She could handle it.

Him. In her. Believed.

Suddenly, in the distance, he heard a scrap of mermaid song from the egg.

"An hour long you'll have to look,

And to recover what we took. . . "

Harry sped up.

". . . your time's half gone, so tarry not

Lest what you seek stays here to rot. . . . "

As he approached the city of mermaids, he was surprised. Not only by the fact that it was actually a full-fledged civilization, but also by the fact that it had not been touched. The latter fact Harry couldn't explain. They kept popping out of their homes, whispering, pointing to the webbing on his arms and legs.

In the main square, Potter saw the captives: Ron, that curly-haired girl (he'd forgotten her name again), Cho Chang, and Gabrielle.

"That's why Madame Maxime needed her this morning!" - Harry realized with sudden anger.

He was already planning to cut Ron off and drag him to the surface, but...

Gabrielle, she's Fleur's sister. Fleur would be upset if anything happened to Gabby, and he himself... probably.

He stopped and froze, head cocked back. After standing like that for a couple of minutes, he began to make sense of everything that had happened to him during the day: Fleur, her behavior, her flirting, her confession, her resentment at his stupor.

It was here, away from all the "fish," surrounded by real fish, that he realized. It was here, beneath the water column where the light barely reached. It was here, in the crushing silence, that he realized.

He loved her too.

He loves her very damn well and critically. He just can't imagine himself without her. He'd give his life for her.

He doesn't care about anything: the Tournament, Ron, anyone. He won't leave her sister here. He would wait for Fleur and they would get out of here together.

When Harry realized that, it was as if a huge stale stone had fallen from his soul.

Everything would be... better now.

Just better.

But Fleur was still not coming. Here was Krum with the shark's head taking Hermione, here was Cedric with the head bubble taking Chang, but still no Fleur.

Oh well...

He pulled the knife out sharply and cut Ron and Gabrielle's restraining ropes in one fell swoop. And before the mermaids around him could regain their senses, Harry burrowed to the surface as quickly as possible.

He'd been down there too long.

It was still a long way to the surface, and Potter felt the effects of the gillyweed were wearing off.

It was getting hard to breathe. His neck ached where the gills were. The water no longer felt so pleasant. The light was getting closer and closer.

Harry struggled to row with his legs, against all odds. He couldn't breathe anymore. Need to swim... swim... eyelids... so... heavy.

No! Not now, when he'd just figured it all out.

When he'd figured it out.

That thought opened a second breath, Harry opened his eyes and kicked his legs with redoubled vigor. Out! He gulped in air and savored it, as if he was breathing full-breath for the first time in his life, keeping Gabrielle and the redhead afloat with him.

Ron and Gabrielle woke up at that very moment. Weasley, spitting out the water, blinked in the bright daylight and turned to Harry.

"What did you pull that one out for?"

For which he immediately received a Legendary Forehead Reflecting Avada in the nose and passed out.

Of course, he realized the error of that decision at once: neither he could swim without gills, nor Gabrielle, nor Ron, who had been knocked out. But by some miracle they made it to the shore.

Madam Pomfrey was on the shore with Hermione, Cram, Cedric, and Cho, wrapping them in thick woolen blankets. Dumbledore and Ludo Bagman smiled happily at Harry. Fleur rushed over and dropped to her knees and hugged Gabrielle, whispering something to her in French.

Then she rose and clung tightly to Harry, seeking comfort and saying something unintelligible, constantly faltering in thought, jumping from him to Gabrielle and back again from time to time.

"There's grindylows... they attacked... Harry, I'm so sorry... I shouldn't have said that... que je t'aime tellement... mais c'est l'enfer vraiment (translation: that I love you so much, but it's the damn truth)... and Gabby... I... couldn't..." and she burst into tears. Harry just lifted her face up by her chin, looking straight into her eyes.

"Back there at the bottom, I realized something. Something very important," he then smiled uncertainly and crookedly, but genuinely. "Je suis malade d'amour pour toi, (translation: I'm sick with love for you)" and kissed her. Fleur stiffened at first, but then hesitantly responded. And then more confidently, and more confidently.

Wait. He knows French...?

I think there was applause somewhere.

Unfortunately, I have to say that the break between chapters will be longer now, simply because the billets have run out. If you want me to be able to devote more time to the fanfic, there's a link in my profile. I'm a student, so basically I have to live on something :D