─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
'Harry needs to save you in order to complete his task, Sara.'
'It won't happen anything to you, I promise. The spell we will use is too powerful, you won't feel anything.'
'You'll be unconscious until air will enter your lungs again.'
'Relax, Mr. Weasley can live a night without you.'
'You will spend the night in the Hospital Wing.'
'Everything will be fine, I promise.'
#
Water. It was black and then blue again, just a bit of light reaching her eyes. Sara was the only one who could feel what was happening around her, but she didn't dare to open her eyes.
'He'll come,' she thought.
And then she felt a pair of hands on her cheeks.
Harry.
He was there, but the idiot was doing nothing so far and then Sara decided to get in his head.
Hermione, I can't let her there.
'You are not the only champion who needs to save someone!' Sara yelled in his head.
She felt some bubbles breaking on her face. What the hell?
Sara entered Harry's thoughts again, going deeper.
Gillyweed.
Of course! Why didn't she think of that?
Then she heard another voice.
'Take your hostage only!' one of the merpeople said.
'But she is my friend too!' Sara heard Harry saying in his thoughts.
Then someone came, it was Cedric Diggory. He told Harry that it's okay and the others are coming. Krum did but Fleur didn't.
What are you waiting for, you idiot?
And then she felt Harry taking her to the surface, but there was someone else.
Fleur's sister.
But where was Fleur?
Sara didn't feel Harry's hands on her arm anymore, but she was going up.
Air.
She took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
The girl Harry saved didn't know how to swim, so Sara held her.
Someone jumped in the water, she looked in the direction where some feet disappeared under water.
'You're a git Ronald Weasley, did you know that?' Sara threw some water at the redheaded boy who suddenly appeared next to the girls.
'Harry would kill me if I let you there,' Ron said, wiping away the water that got into his eyes.
'I know how to swim you idiot, help her!'
'Okay,' Ron muttered.
They pulled Fleur's sister through the water, back toward the bank where the judges stood watching, twenty merpeople accompanying them like a guard of honor, singing their horrible screechy songs.
Sara could see Madam Pomfrey fussing over Hermione, Krum, Cedric, and Cho, all of whom were wrapped in thick blankets.
Dumbledore and Ludo Bagman stood beaming at Sara and Ron from the bank as they swam nearer, meanwhile Madame Maxime was trying to restrain Fleur Delacour, who was quite hysterical, fighting tooth and nail to return to the water.
'Gabrielle! Gabrielle! Is she alive? Is she 'urt?'
'She's fine!' Sara yelled.
Sara then saw Nico running down the stairs.
Percy seized Ron and was dragging him back to the bank ('Gerroff, Percy, I'm all right!'); Dumbledore and Bagman were pulling Sara upright; Fleur had broken free of Madame Maxime and was hugging her sister.
'It was ze grindylows. . . zey attacked me. . . oh Gabrielle, I thought. . . I thought. . . '
'Professor Dumbledore! Harry!' Sara sighed.
'Miss Potter calm down, your brother will be fine,' Dumbledore said, with the same warmth filling his eyes.
"But-," but she couldn't finish that a blanket and two hands wrapped around her.
And then Sara heard his soft voice and she felt safe again.
"Don't you dare scare me like that ever again!" Nico whisper-yelled in her ear while Sara buried her face into his shoulder.
'I didn't have a choice,' she sighed .
Nico hugged her thighter, because Sara was trembling. He ran his fingers through her wet dark-red hair, happy that she was safe again.
'I would of jumped myself into the water to take you to the surface but Ron made sure you would be safe when I get down to see you,' Nico said in one breath, putting some hair behind her ear.
'Ron?' Sara asked, getting up to look Nico in the eyes.
'He was quite worried as well.'
Sara's hazel eyes grew bigger. Hermione's yells made her look to the lake.
'Harry!' she hugged him tight, putting a blanket around him to warm Harry up.
Nico put an arm around Sara's shoulders, holding her tight.
'Come on, your rescuer is right there and he needs a big hug from his favourite sister,' Nico smirked.
'Sara...' Harry looked up to met his sister's eyes.
'Are you okay?' Sara desperately said, falling on her knees to hug him. 'When I didn't feel your touch anymore, I thought---'
'I'm okay, don't worry. How are you?'
'I'm okay, now I'm okay,' she said smiling.
She got him into a bone breaking hug.
'I hate this, Harry if you scare me like that ever again--"
'I'm fine, Sara. Just some merpeople...'
'Come here, you,' Madam Pomfrey said. She seized Sara and Harry and pulled them over to Hermione and the others, wrapped them so tightly into some new dry blankets that Sara felt as though she was in a straitjacket, and forced a measure of very hot potion down her throat. Steam gushed out of her ears.
'Harry, well done!' Hermione cried. 'You did it, you found out how all by yourself!'
'I can't believe it either,' Nico said, sitting next to Sara.
She let herself fall into his open arms; her best friend was all that she needed in those moments.
Dumbledore was crouching at the water's edge, deep in conversation with what seemed to be the chief merperson, a particularly wild and ferocious-looking female. He was making the same sort of screechy noises that the merpeople made when they were above water; clearly, Dumbledore could speak Mermish. Finally he straightened up, turned to his fellow judges, and said, 'A conference before we give the marks, I think.'
The judges went into a huddle. Madam Pomfrey had gone to rescue Ron from Percy's clutches; she led him over to Sara and the others, gave him a blanket and some Pepperup Potion, then went to fetch Fleur and her sister. Fleur had many cuts on her face and arms and her robes were torn, but she didn't seem to care, nor would she allow Madam Pomfrey to clean them.
'Look after Gabrielle,' Fleur told her, and then she turned to Harry. 'You saved 'er,' she said breathlessly. 'Even though she was not your 'ostage.'
'Yeah,' Harry said, who was now heartily wishing he'd left all three girls tied to the statue.
Fleur bent down, kissed Harry twice on each cheek, then said to Ron, "And you too-you 'elped -"
"Yeah," Ron said, looking extremely hopeful, "yeah, a bit -"
Fleur swooped down on him too and kissed him.
"Thank you, too, Sara!"
'Anytime,' Sara said smiling.
#
They stayed awake, on the red sofa that was in front of the fire, in the now silent Gryffindor Common Room. Sara still felt cold after those hours spent in the lake, until Harry finally saved her.
She was wearing a confy and warm dark-blue sweater Nico gave to her, holding tight the blanket he brought for her.
Sara's head was resting in his lap with her eyes closed; she was not too far from falling asleep.
'Still cold?' Nico broke the silence.
'I'm starting to warm up, but yeah, I'm still a bit cold,' Sara smiled.
'I got scared as hell when I didn't see you this morning, the worst things that could of happen to you ran through my mind, until I saw your head above the water again,' he silently said, blushing.
"Well now I'm there, alive and okay."
"And I'm glad you are, and as long as you are happy, alive and okay, I'm gonna be happy too," he said softly.
She almost fell asleep when she felt a pair of warm lips connect with hers and she gave in fully, kissing back.
And he was gone as quickly as Sara let the world of dreams take her fully.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───