"and you've got the charm all worked out?"
"yes, draco" i groan
"you're sure you can do it?"
"i'm positive, alright?" i say, tired of him asking. the task is tomorrow morning, at 9:30. it's around 21:00 right now, we're leaving the library to go down to the common room.
"it'll last the whole-"
"yes it will last the whole hour!" i cut him off, stopping at turning to face him "will you leave it alone-!"
"hello" i hear the familiar, low drawl of professor snape from behind me. i clear my throat awkwardly and turn around to face him, feeling my cheeks go red.
"hello, professor" i say timidly, seeing draco smirk beside me. i nudge him slightly to get him to stop chuckling to himself, as snape looks between us.
"i've come to collect mr. malfoy" snape says, his gaze landing on draco
"why?" he says shortly, furrowing his brow
"i will explain on the way" he starts to walk past us, "follow me" draco looks at me worriedly and i shrug, encouraging him to follow snape. he says goodbye and walks down the corridor after our professor. i sigh a little, wondering what that could be about and then heading down to the dungeons by myself.
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"where is he?" i whine, looking around the great hall frantically at breakfast the next morning
"i'm sure he'll turn up soon" daphne says comfortingly
"he should be down by now" i look over at the clock, "we're leaving for the task in ten minutes"
"he'll catch up" pansy says, finishing her breakfast plate, "he wouldn't miss it"
i take a deep breath, looking back at the entranceway praying draco will be standing there. but to no avail. i nervously finish my breakfast until we're all dismissed to head to the boats that will be bringing us across the lake.
"morning" cedric says, running up to catch me, "feeling good?"
"feeling awful" i mutter, looking back over my shoulder
"why's that?" he follows my gaze, seeing my group of friends up the hill behind us, "oh.. no draco?" i nod, "y'know harry hasn't seen ron or hermione, fleur's sisters gone. i've not seen cho"
"cho?"
"chang, from ravenclaw" he says calmly, "we've been..."
"seeing each other?" i raise my eyebrows
"you could say that" he smirks a little, looking down at his feet. this must've been what draco was talking about.
"you don't think they're....?" i look out into the lake, thinking of all our missing friends
"i'm afraid that might be the case" cedric answers solemnly, hopping onto a boat with me and the other champions (except harry, we haven't seen him). all of us look between each other nervously, not truly ready for what's to come.
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we're brought out to the middle of the lake, where large stands for the crowd rise up. they're absolutely packed, and stand so tall i can't see the faces of the audience up top. i look nervously at cedric as we all take off our school robes, under which we all have bathing suits on. on the bottom platform, we all stand by the edge, by the judges table.
"i'm... here.." we hear harry say from behind us, out of breath as he hops off a boat. the judges scold him for being late, but as he takes his place next to me i give him a concerned look
"you alright?"
"thought i wasn't going to make it" he breathes heavily, "i didn't know what i was going to do to breath underwater"
"did cedric not tell you the charm?" i say, looking to my other side at cedric. he avoids my eyes, turning to talk to fleur
"no... he just said to take the egg in the bath" harry furrows his brow
"unbelievable" i roll my eyes, "well you worked it out then, right? know what you're going to do?"
"yeah" harry nods, pulling an clump of ugly green seaweed out of his pocket. i stare at him skeptically as he stuff it into his mouth, just as mr. bagman shouts the countdown.
"... two... three!" a whistle echoes through the air and the crowd cheers loudly. i look at cedric, and we each give each other confident nod, reciting the spell we've been practicing for the past two months. a bubble of air forms around our mouths, and we dive in.
the water's ice cold, but i can't take the time to process how numb all my limbs feel as i swim quickly towards the bottom of the lake. i see harry sprinting ahead of me, his feet now turned to flippers and his hands webbed. on my right is cedric, swimming only slightly ahead of me. i completely lost sight of fleur and krum.
we swim deeper and deeper, all of us slowly separating until i can't find anyone anymore. i make my way through the reeds, narrowly avoiding a grindylow as i search for any signs of merpeople. i feel as though i've been underwater for hours, and i get more anxious every second. finally, i burst through a particularly plentiful bush of reeds, and begin to hear the faintest mersong in the distance. i swim faster now, gaining a new burst of energy as i see a large rock covering in paintings appear over a hill. over the hill, stone buildings covered in seaweed and algae make up the landscape. merpeople poke their heads out of windows as i approach, and a few wait further down the valley, guarding our friends.
i dive further down into the depths of the lake, seeing draco floating lifeless, tied down to lake floor. next to him is ron, cho, hermione, and fleur's sister; gabrielle. the merpeople move out of my way as i swim to draco, grabbing onto the rope tying him down and pulling myself up toward him. i examine his face, paler than usual, his eyes closed and his mouth open slightly. i take a deep breath and dive back down, looking at the rope secured tightly around his ankle. i look around at my surroundings again. where is everyone else?
i try and pull at the rope, but it has no give. i swim to the base to see if i can untie it, and then back away to try and break it with a spell. i'm having no luck. i begin to search for any sharp objects i can use to cut it, when harry appears from the over the ridge in front of me. i sigh in relief as he swims over, starting to look for rocks as well.
then cedric appears, i can see him mouth that he got lost, but that krum and fleur are on their way. he points at his watch frantically and i swim over to him, reading the clock quickly. only 15 minutes left.
"i can't break the rope" i say, making sure to enunciate. cedric nods, pulling out his wand. he zaps cho's rope first, and it instantly snaps in half. she floats up slightly, now released from the rocks below. he then points to draco's rope, breaking his bond as well. i smile as a thank you and swim over to draco, wrapping my arm through his. below us, harry is able to saw through ron's rope with a rock, but he doesn't seem like he's leaving. cedric has already begun to swim up when krum arrives, transfigured halfway to a shark. he bites off hermione's rope and starts up to the surface. i look worriedly down at harry, whos holding ron, but staring at gabrielle.
"leave her" i mouth, pointing up to the surface. time's running out. i see no sign of fleur, but despite the ominous clue i'm sure they wouldn't leave a little girl down here to die. besides, the merpeople have been yelling at us that we can only take up one person. still uncertain, harry tries to swim back down toward her. i look back up, seeing the light far above me, and then back down at harry, who's being swarmed by merpeople. i send one spell down to break some of them off of harry, before swimming rapidly up to the surface.
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just as i get to the top, my charm starts to wear off. push draco up ahead of me, seeing his head break the surface of the water. i gather up my last bit of my energy to pull myself to the top of the lake, gasping for air as i come up.
"y/n!" i feel arms grab my sides and look in front of me, blinking water out of my eyes, "are you okay?"
i shake my head and get my eyes to focus, seeing draco staring back at me, his head bobbing among the waves. i nod quickly back at him and he sighs in relief, wrapping his arm across my back.
"c'mon" he says quietly, swimming across with me towards the platform
"harry's still down there" i whisper, looking down into the water below
"he'll be fine" draco says, tightening his arm around me to help lift me out of the water. cedric stands on the platform, reaching and grabbing my hand to pull me up. they share a small glance, giving eachother a nod as they get me onto the platform.
"harry's still down there" i say louder now, looking at the judges, "the merpeople were attacking him when i left, he was trying to get-"
"y/n look" cedric says, i look back over my shoulder, seeing ron and gabrielle swimming towards us. i search the water behind them, looking for harry. i feel a towel wrap around me, and an arm across my shoulders wrapping it tighter, but i don't look back. suddenly, harry comes shooting up to the top of the water, gasping for air. i think we all collectively exhale as he swims towards us, myself relaxing against whoever's standing behind me.
"told you he'd be fine" draco whispers in my ear, dropping his arm from around my shoulder to go get himself a towel. i look back at him and he smiles, drying his platinum hair roughly with the towel and then wrapping it around his shoulders, his hair falling flat over his forehead as he does. he notices me staring and smirks, wiping his hair off of his face and then walking away to talk to krum.
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today's chapters a bit longer bc i didn't wanna cut off in the middle lol. tmrw's chap should b out around noon :) maybe a little later since i haven't started it yet and i have a physics test first period haha
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p.s. thank u for 56k reads!