— "DO YOU FINALLY GET IT, HERMiONE?"
The girl sighed, shutting her book as her eyes trailed towards her friend in annoyance. Nicole wasn't making any sense at all; why couldn't she just tell Harry herself instead of making her go tell him?
"So, I'm supposed to tell Harry that Cedric was told by Viktor told Aurora who told me to tell him that he needs to go to the Prefects Bathroom and place his egg underwater?"
"Yes." Nicole confirmed, grinning proudly. "But! Tell him not to go tonight since I'm in there. Tell him that the password is Pine-fresh too."
Hermoine wasn't sure how she could hold all this information in, but she nodded nonetheless. She and Ron weren't really in speaking terms, and Nicole couldn't tell Harry herself since she was still pissed about the map incident.
Nevertheless, she nodded.
"Perfect!" Nicole exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "I need to go practice something with Ellis, I'll see you later."
Before Hermione could say anything, the girl was bouncing and running outside. Hermione found herself smiling; her friend had been way more happy and bubbly ever since the Yule Ball, unlike her. Seeing Nicole happy made her feel a lot less crappier.
—
The door creaked open. Nicole slipped inside and bolted the door behind her.
Her immediate reaction was that it would be worth becoming a prefect just to be able to use this bathroom. It was softly lit by a splendid candle-filled chandelier, and everything was made of white marble, including what looked like an empty, rectangular swimming pool sunk into the middle of the floor. About a hundred golden taps stood all around the pool's edges, each with a differently colored jewel set into its handle. There was also a diving board. Long white linen curtains hung at the windows; a large pile of fluffy white towels sat in a corner, and there was a single golden framed painting on the wall. It featured a blonde mermaid who was fast asleep on a rock, her long hair over her face. It fluttered every time she snored.
Maybe I should stay out of trouble for the time being. Be a prefect for Gryffindor next year, or something.
Nicole put one of the fluffy towels and the egg at the side of the swimming-pool- sized bath, then knelt down and turned on a few of the taps.
One tap gushed pink and blue bubbles the size of footballs; another poured ice-white foam so thick that Nicole thought it would have supported her weight if she'd cared to test it; a third sent heavily perfumed purple clouds hovering over the surface of the water.
Nicole amused herself for a while turning the taps on and off, particularly enjoying the effect of one whose jet bounced off the surface of the water in large arcs.
Then, when the deep pool was full of hot water, foam, and bubbles, which took a very short time considering its size, Nicole turned off all the taps, pulled off her pajamas, slippers, and dressing gown, and slid into the water.
It was so deep that her feet barely touched the bottom, and she actually did a couple of lengths before swimming back to the side and treading water, staring at the egg. Highly enjoyable though it was to swim in hot and foamy water with clouds of different-colored steam wafting all around her, she needed to dunk the egg in the water. The task was in two days.
Nicole took a great breath and slid under the surface — and now, sitting on the marble bottom of the bubble-filled bath, she heard a chorus of eerie voices singing to her from the open egg in her hands.
"Come seek us where our voices sound, We cannot sing above the ground,
And while you're searching ponder this: We've taken what you'll sorely miss,
An hour long you'll have to look,
And to recover what we took,
But past an hour — the prospect's black, Too late, it's gone, it won't come back."
When Nicole let herself float back upwards, she let out a loud scream at the sight infront of her. Harry was near the edge of the water, golden egg in hand.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" Nicole screamed, placing a few bubbles infront of her so her friend wouldn't see her. The girl was only in her underwear, luckily for her the bubbles were thick enough to cover her body.
"H-hermoine said—"
"GET OUT!" Nicole shouted in anger. The boy hurriedly put his shirt back on and grabbed the egg, running out of the prefects bathroom.
—
"Hermoine, I told you! You were supposed to tell him to not go in there yesterday!" Nicole hissed, dropping her charms book with a loud thud. The Librarian shushed her, but Nicole just rolled her eyes and stared at her friend, expecting an answer from her.
To her displeasure, Hermoine wasn't alone. Harry and Ron were with her.
"I'm leaving—"
"No." Hermoine said sternly, looking behind her and showing Harry a look, her eyes darting over to Nicole.
"Why?" Nicole crossed her arms.
"Harry doesn't know how he'll hold his breath underwater for a whole hour. He needs your help."
"Easy, Harry. The Bubble Head charm." Nicole said as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. "I've practiced it with Ellis this morning. It's really not that hard to master."
"I'm not as good as you in charms, Nic." Harry deadpanned, deciding that their feud from weeks ago was less important than the fact that he might get something important from him stolen. "And how exactly am I going to practice it? It's not like I can walk to the lake and dunk my head in."
"Easy." Nicole said, taking a seat beside Hermoine. "The prefects bathroom. That's where I practiced."
"Hold on." Ron, who was silent the moment Nicole came spoke up. "You said you practiced it in the Prefects bathroom... and you said that Ellis helped you... does that mean—"
Nicole turned bright red, trying her best to deny whatever Ron had in mind. Her friends knew she was lying, though. The girl was stuttering over her words, which she never did before.
"Hate to break up the skull session." the voice of Mad Eye Moody came beside Harry. "Professor McGonagall wants you in her office."
Harry, assuming it was him, stood up.
"Not you, Potter, just Weasley and Granger."
"But, sir, the second task is only hours away, and..." Harry's eyes darted over to Nicole's, who just shrugged at Harry.
"Exactly. Presumably Potter and Hwang are well prepared by now and could do with a good night's sleep."
"Sir, I need to help Harry—"
"Go to bed now, Miss Hwang. It's an order. You'll need it for tomorrow."
Nicole sighed, looking at Harry. "The Bubble-Head Charm." she mouthed, hoping that Harry would man up and use the charm as she walked back to her dormitories without Hermoine, feeling awfully nervous for the second task that would occur the next day.
—
Nicole was panicking.
First of all, she couldn't find Hermoine and Ron. Even though she was still quite annoyed at Ron, she assumed that they would be okay by now. Hermoine was supposed to be there in the morning to help her practice the charm one last time, but she wasn't.
Ellis was missing as well. The two of them were supposed to meet up in the morning for one last training session but she waited at the Prefects bathroom for a few minutes, and he never came out.
The whole waiting for Ellis made her really late, and Nicole had realized it only after she spotted the giant clock.
As she pounded down the lawn he saw that the seats that had encircled the dragons' enclosure in November were now ranged along the opposite bank, rising in stands that were packed to the bursting point and reflected in the lake below. The excited babble of the crowd echoed strangely across the water as Nicole ran flat-out around the other side of the lake toward the judges, who were sitting at another gold-draped table at the water's edge. Cedric, Fleur, Harry, and Krum were beside the judges' table, watching Nicole sprint toward them.
"I'm . . . here . . ." Nicole panted, skidding to a halt in the mud and accidentally splattering Fleur's robes.
"Our last champion, Miss Hwang has arrived!" Dumbledore announced with a smile. The girl struggled to take her robes off and leave herself in the swimming suit that was given to her; while the cheers from Hogwarts seemed to be way louder than they were before.
"Welcome to the second task. Last night, something was stolen from each of our champions. A treasure of sorts." Dumbledore explained, and from the corner from her eyes, Nicole could see Mad-eye Moody whispering something to Harry.
"These four treasures, one for each champion now lie on the bottom of the Black Lake. In order to win each champion need only find their treasure and return to the surface."
Nicole smiled. That sounded pretty easy.
"Simple enough, except for this, They will have but one hour to do so, and one hour only. After that, they'll be on their own. No magic will save them. You may begin at the sound of the cannon."
Nicole focused, her wand in hand. She shot Harry one last reassuring smile, hoping that he had managed to make something up before the task.
Once the canon boomed, the crowd erupted with cheers and applause; without looking to see what the other champions were doing, Nicole jumped into the water and quickly recited the incantations for the bubble headed charm.
For a moment, Nicole had thought that she had failed everything. All of a sudden, the charm created a bubble around her mouth and nose, similar to an oxygen mask, not the entire head.
The cold was still fresh on her skin, but the girl quickly swam towards where the other champions were going.
Nicole twisted her body around and saw a grindylow, a small, horned water demon, poking out of the weed, its long fingers clutched tightly around Nicole's leg, its pointed fangs bared — Nicole stuck her hand quickly inside her robes and fumbled for her wand. By the time she had grasped it, two more grindylows had risen out of the weed, had seized Nicole's feet, and were attempting to drag her down.
"Relashio!" Nicole shouted, except that no sound came out. . . . A large bubble issued from her mouth, and her wand, instead of sending sparks at the grindylows, pelted them with what seemed to be a jet of boiling water, for where it struck them, angry red patches appeared on their green skin. Nicole pulled her ankle out of the grindylows grip and swam, as fast as she could, occasionally sending more jets of hot water over her shoulder at random; every now and then he felt one of the grindylows snatch at her foot again, and she kicked out, hard; finally, she felt her foot connect with a horned skull, and looking back, saw the dazed grindylow floating away, cross-eyed, while its fellows shook their fists at Nicole and sank back into the weed.
She swam on for what felt like at least twenty minutes. Nicole was passing over vast expanses of black mud now, which swirled murkily as she disturbed the water. Then, at long last, and what felt like 20 minutes, she heard the song start to sing again.
"An hour long you'll have to look, And to recover what we took . . ."
Nicole swam faster and soon saw a large rock emerge out of the muddy water ahead. It had paintings of merpeople on it; they were carrying spears and chasing what looked like the giant squid. Nicole swam on past the rock, following the mersong.
". . . your time's half gone, so tarry not Lest what you seek stays here to rot. . . ."
A cluster of crude stone dwellings stained with algae loomed suddenly out of the gloom on all sides. Here and there at the dark windows, Nicole saw faces . . . faces that bore no resemblance at all to the painting of the mermaid in the prefects' bathroom. It was scary, to say the least.
The merpeople had grayish skin and long, wild, dark green hair. Their eyes were yellow, as were their broken teeth, and they wore thick ropes of pebbles around their necks. They leered at Nicole as she swam past; one or two of them emerged from their caves to watch her better, their powerful, silver fish tails beating the water, spears clutched in their hands.
Nicole sped on, staring around, and soon the dwellings became more numerous; there were gardens of weed around some of them, and she even saw a pet grindylow tied to a stake outside one door.
Merpeople were emerging on all sides now, watching her eagerly, pointing at her, talking behind their hands to one another. Nicole ignored everything and sped around a corner and a very strange sight met her eyes.
A whole crowd of merpeople was floating in front of the houses that lined what looked like a mer-version of a village square. A choir of merpeople was singing in the middle, calling the champions toward them, and behind them rose a crude sort of statue; a gigantic merperson hewn from a boulder. Five people were bound tightly to the tail of the stone merperson.
Ron... Hermoine.. Her sister... Fleur's sister... and Ellis?
Wasting no time, Nicole realized what was happening. She had no idea who her hostage was supposed to be— it might be Hermoine, or Ron, or Ellis, or her sister.
Then, she started patching up two and two together. Out of all the other champions, she was the only one who befriended Ellis so he was obviously her hostage.
Nicole swam towards the boy. He seemed really handsome with his hair covering his face, but she needed to focus and finish the task.
"Bombarda!" she exclaimed, freeing him from the vines. Nicole then tried to swim upwards with all her might as she saw Cedric Diggory getting nearer, and she'd managed to swim out first and cast the levitating charm to make him float up in the water.
Ellis woke just as his head came up from the water, and the boy took a gulp of air while pushing the air out of his face. He looked around quickly to see if Nicole was nearby, and a smile made it's way onto his face as the girl dragged him over to the stands.
"Miss Hwang has emerged out of the lake first and finishes in first place!" Dumbledore exclaims proudly, with the few Beauxbatons students helping Ellis climb up while Nicole was helped by Dean and Seamus, who both instantly put a towel around her to keep herself from freezing.
Letting out a cough, Nicole felt a pair of arms wrap around her stomach. Turning around, the girl let out a grin as she turned around and saw Ellis.
Ignoring the cold that was numbing her body, she hugged him back.