lomonaaeren

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Chapter Sixty-Seven—A Cold Day’s Morning

“Are you ready?”

Harry glances at Steel as the last of his water creatures collapses to the floor of their clearing. “Yes. I think so.”

“Aradia told you that they will likely take Blaise.”

Harry swallows and nods. It’s so alien to think that Blaise won’t be on the shore wishing him well and waiting for him to come back. But he knows that he has to bear it. “Yes. When she found out what the Tasks consisted of, she told me. But I don’t know that anyone else knows she knows.”

Steel chuckles abruptly, lifting a hard-clawed hand to cover their mouth.

“What?”

“I can imagine all sorts of fun ways for her to use that. For example, if she pretends that she didn’t know that Blaise is going to be the one taken, and waits for them to tell her. Or not tell her.”

Harry laughs now, too. Of course, Aradia would be furious if she didn’t know and they took Blaise, but there’s no reason that she can’t use the pretense of fury to good effect. And she will, if Harry knows her. “Well, they should have informed her right away. Or at least once they knew that I had the golden egg.”

“Do you think they’ve informed the parents of the other hostages?”

Harry pauses, thinking about it, then shrugs. “I suppose they might have. I don’t know that all of them are going to be children, though.”

“There is that.” Steel leans back and thinks inscrutable thoughts for a moment, while Harry waits patiently. Then the vampire shrugs, too, and focuses on Harry again. “In the end, it doesn’t matter. You’re there to compete in the Tournament because you must and retrieve Blaise. And disguise the true nature of your participation.”

Harry nods, content, and goes back to weaving water around the already watery shapes that he’s creating, ignoring the critiques that Artemis is offering. They’re mostly based on whether she would want to eat any of the things he’s creating, which Harry thinks misses the point.

“It should have a longer neck. No, a shorter one. It looks too thick for me to get my jaws around…”

*

“I don’t suppose I have a choice about this.”

Blaise keeps his voice low and dull, his eyes focused on the floor. The Headmaster’s a good enough Legilimens that there’s every chance he could look into Blaise’s mind otherwise and see that he expected this.

And besides, glaring at the floor removes the temptation to laugh.

“Of course you do, my dear boy. You could refuse to go. But then I’m not sure who else we would choose for Mr. Potter. He’s not as close to Mr. Longbottom as he used to be…”

And you managed to completely miss that he has friends in Ravenclaw, too? And Theo? Not that Theo’s father would be likely to give his permission.

But Blaise lets himself twitch and act as if he’s going to get upset. “Not Longbottom, of course not. He’s a traitor.”

“In what sense, my dear boy?”

Blaise just shrugs and lifts his head as if he’s going to look Dumbledore and the other Headmistress and Headmaster in the eye. Then he slumps again. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll do it. I don’t want Harry to rescue anyone else.”

Both Maxime and Karkaroff are twittering something about young love, or sneering about it, in the case of Karkaroff. It doesn’t matter. Blaise keeps an eye on Dumbledore as he casts the charm, and is relieved to recognize the wand movement. It will just put him to sleep and keep him safe in any conditions that might surround him; it would work against smoke as well as water.

He almost wishes, as the blackness takes hold of his mind, that Dumbledore was using something else, so that he could get in trouble with Mother.

Then again, she’ll have more than enough excuse for a scene.

And then he falls asleep, and knows no more.

*

“Where’s Blaise?”

Theo’s voice is low as he comes up to Harry. Harry seems unconcerned, but Theo doesn’t intend to let them reassure him. He went to see Ginny this morning, and then he noticed Blaise was missing, and he’s—

Well, of course he’s glad that Harry doesn’t seem to be worried. But Theo has three friends, counting Sidus, thank you very much, and he doesn’t intend to be deprived of even one of them.

“It’s all right,” Harry says under his breath, as the crowd around them begins to surge towards the doors. “He’s part of the Second Task. He’s under the lake, and I have to go and get him back.”

Theo catches his breath. “And you agreed to this? His mother agreed to this?”

“She knew what the Tasks were before they began. She told me. It’s all right, Theo. We’re going to take the opportunity to wear down some political opposition in the meantime.”

And Harry squeezes Theo’s arm and strides towards the doors of the entrance hall. Goldstein runs to catch up with him, casting a wary glance back at Theo as he does so. Patil’s nowhere in evidence, probably already having caught up with Delacour to drool over her.

Theo takes a deep breath and shakes his head when Millicent glances sideways at him. “Nothing,” he murmurs, and walks away when she opens her mouth, probably to ask him where Blaise is.

If Harry’s confident, and Blaise’s mother is confident, then…

Then Theo has no reason to worry.

But it still pounds away beneath his breastbone like a second heart as he trails after the rest of everyone to the lake.

*

Aradia’s waiting not far from the lakeshore. She doesn’t think that she can go up to Harry in front of everyone, not when people will be watching him, but she manages to catch his eye and give him a slight smile. Harry dips his head back, and then turns to face the lake. The other two Champions are there already, their faces pale and strained.

“Now,” Ludo Bagman announces, “our Champions will be going underwater! Someone precious has been stolen from them, and they have an hour to rescue their dear darlings. Otherwise, well, I wouldn’t presume to guess at what might happen.”

Aradia lets her lip curl. She wonders how in the world this man has a career in the Ministry. Then again, as she’s been aware for many years, the Ministry will hire almost anyone for almost anything.

And he was a Quidditch player first. She has to remember that.

“When this whistle blows, our Champions will enter the water!”

Aradia cocks her head. Harry looks so calm that it’s amazing he’s only fourteen years old. Then again, perhaps he’s the only one who’s been training as intensively for this as Aradia suspects he has.

“And go!”

As the whistle blows, both Delacour and Krum dive into the water. Harry begins weaving what look like illusions around himself, his eyes closed. Aradia is the only one who knows that the “illusions” are true water.

Well, unless Steel is in the crowd as well, of course. Aradia wishes to look and see if she can see them, but she also doesn’t wish to glance away from her foster son.

“Does he really think that illusions are going to help him here?” asks someone from the crowd, probably from Beauxbatons if the accent is anything to go by. The voice is thick with contempt.

Aradia idly notes the voice and thinks that she might try to find them later. Then she lifts her eyebrows as a kelpie seems to lunge out of the water and drag Harry beneath the surface.

“Well, that’s certainly an unexpected event for our young Champion!”

It’s just as well that Aradia doesn’t live in the same country as Ludo Bagman, or the Tri-Wizard Tournament would have to find itself a new announcer. Aradia settles back in the stands with a stoic expression, as if she’s only monitoring the charm attached to Harry’s heartbeat and not both his and Blaise’s. She’s not supposed to know yet that Blaise is under the water.

It’ll be wonderful to pretend to find out.

*

Harry grins to himself as he “gets dragged” by the creature of water that a second layer of water has made look like a kelpie under the lake. This particular creature is smooth and sharp on the true inside, and it has a thick tail of gathered water that can swat troublesome things like grindylows away.

And there’s a thick swirl of air around his head, contained within a very thin swirl of water, that ought to keep him breathing. Harry’s sure that he can pull air from the water if not.

Still, it’ll be best to get Blaise and return to the surface as soon as possible.

Down they dive, and down, into the dark. Harry does light his wand, but it only creates a tiny gleam that travels with them, not enough to really pierce the darkness. As such, he’s almost taken by surprise as they pass a clump of weeds and a grindylow comes sliding out.

The “kelpie” carrying him reaches out and swats its tail against the grindylow, breaking a few fingers from the squeal the grindylow gives. Harry smiles and holds his breath for a moment, the better to conserve the air around him, while releasing the second skin of water that makes his mount look like a kelpie. He doesn’t really need it right now.

Unless the merfolk tell Dumbledore or someone else about this…

Harry shakes his head. In the end, he can always claim that he managed a bout of accidental magic and got free of the kelpie’s grip, and then used some spells to enchant the water around him into a current. It’s something he and Blaise considered before they realized that Harry wouldn’t be able to manage that kind of magic with his wand.

Down and down, down and down and down.

*

In the end, Harry gets to the merfolk’s village before either Krum or Delacour. There are stone buildings arched in smooth, strange shapes, recalling shells and the sides of huge fish. There are also glowing clumps of weeds squatting on platforms that look as if they might be made of stone or glass. Harry gratefully lets his own Lumos go, and swims over to where he can see Blaise tied to the base of a huge statute.

He blinks when he sees that the other two people are Granger and Padma. He would have thought someone else for Delacour.

But it seems Padma’s charmed her. Well, good for Padma.

Harry approaches with the water creature circling him invisibly, ready to defend him if necessary. But the merfolk don’t try to interfere. They just watch, several of them holding large tridents or spears, as Harry cuts through the seaweed holding Blaise still with a slice of his wand. Then he offers a polite nod to the merfolk and streams back towards the surface, easily guided by the light of it and the pull of his magic.

In the end, that was easy.

*

Delacour’s returned to the shore and seems upset. She’s also involved in a low-voiced discussion with her Headmistress that Aradia would give some good bottles of wine to overhear. But it’s not much of a loss, given that she’s looking at the lakeshore and not the pair of them when Harry pops up with Blaise.

Part of her relaxes with a long hiss, and Aradia wants to roll her eyes. So I didn’t really trust that they would be safe, but I still allowed this farce to proceed? I’m annoyed at myself.

For now, though, she has a part to play, and amusement squirms through her at the thought of it.

“Blaise!” she cries, standing up. The people near her flinch away from the volume of the cry. Aradia pretends to ignore them as she leaps down from the stands and uses magic to let herself drift to a stop on the grass. “Oh, Merlin, Blaise! Harry! He was under the lake?”

“Yes, he was, Aradia.”

Harry’s hair is flat for the first time since Aradia met him, it’s so wet. He’s carefully supporting Blaise against himself while the mediwitch bustles about with blankets and Pepper-Up Potions and warming charms. Aradia steps past her with a nod that other people can think is grateful if they want, while placing a careful hand on Blaise’s cheek. The coldness of his skin does make her narrow her eyes.

“I’m all right,” he tells her in a soft voice. “I just remember going to sleep, and the next thing I knew, I was at the surface with Harry.”

“I didn’t—” Aradia lets her voice break, her head droop, while keeping her eyes on the ground. If she looks at Harry and Blaise and the way their eyes are sparkling, she’ll probably laugh. “I didn’t think that Harry would be retrieving you from the water, even when they announced the challenge. I’m so sorry, Blaise.” She leans down and kisses his cheek, then Harry’s. “For the both of you.”

“It’s all right, Mother. It’s not like you could know.”

“You mean no one contacted you?”

Harry’s voice is just the right side of high and nervous, his eyebrows rising up as he stares at Aradia and then at Blaise with a little shake of his head, as though he’s trying to shake off the water. Aradia nods to him, deciding that she’s enough in control of herself to meet his eyes. “No. They didn’t contact me.”

“But I thought they contacted everyone’s parents!”

“Were all the other hostages children, then?” Aradia makes herself move so that the mediwitch can wrap both her boys in heated blankets, but comes back immediately. She also lets her voice rise. “Were all of them asked?”

“I don’t know. Professor Flitwick said something about giving me permission to participate.” Harry shifts a little so that Blaise can lean back on his shoulder. Her son probably doesn’t need it, not when he didn’t really have to swim to the surface, but Aradia appreciates his consideration in any case. “I thought Professor Snape asked Blaise.”

“No.”

“That’s outrageous,” Aradia says, and allows some of her magic to trouble the air around her, as if she’s standing in a cocoon of heat. “I will certainly be speaking with the Hogwarts Headmaster about this.”

“Speaking with me about what?”

Aradia spins around, and smiles at Dumbledore, who’s been closer to her back than she’s comfortable with. Then again, they’re in public, and it would be harder for him to cast a spell on her without being noticed. Not impossible, but harder.

She sinks a snarl into her voice. “That you took Blaise and put him underwater without consulting with me.”

“My dear girl, the hostages were perfectly well.” He nods over Aradia’s shoulder, where one of the other Champions is presumably coming out of the lake with their rescued hostage. Aradia doesn’t bother looking. The other Champions don’t matter to her. “Your son is safe and would have been even if Harry hadn’t rescued him.”

“You didn’t consult me.”

Dumbledore blinks. Apparently, he thought his weak words would soothe her and remove the need for any further conversation. He strokes his beard. “Well, the Task is over. I’m not sure what you want me to do given that.”

“Accompany me to your office.”

“Mama?”

Oh, Blaise is playing his part to perfection. Aradia turns around to smooth her hand down over Blaise’s cheek. “I promise that I’ll come back right away, Blaise,” she promises, and her face turns fierce. Ludo Bagman, who was approaching with his mouth open, takes a cautious step back. “I’ll be here before you have to leave the hospital wing.”

“Surely there’s no reason—”

Aradia fixes Bagman with some of the real emotion she feels in her eyes, and he freezes in mid-word. Aradia says softly, “My son spent hours underwater, in a cold lake, not protected from that cold, even if he was protected from the merfolk and the water itself. You’re not going to prevent him from going to the hospital wing.”

“Of course he shan’t! I only wish that all parents were as sensible as you, Mrs. Zabini.”

Madam Pomfrey pounces on Blaise and sweeps him away. Aradia turns to Dumbledore and Bagman, nodding a little. “Shall we proceed to your office, Headmaster Dumbledore?”

*

Harry tags along with Aradia, Dumbledore, Bagman, and for some reason Madame Maxime to Dumbledore’s office. No one says he can’t, and Dumbledore seems too wary of Aradia to forbid him.

But not the Beauxbatons Headmistress. She looks at him like he has a bad smell. When Harry looks back, she sniffs and turns away.

Harry considers asking if half-giants have a keener sense of smell than other witches, but that probably wouldn’t go over well.

They settle into chairs in front of Dumbledore’s desk, the number of chairs exactly the right one for the number of guests. Harry wonders idly if the castle conjures them, or maybe if Dumbledore has a spell on his office that creatures enough furniture. If it’s a spell, it’s one he’d like to learn in the future.

He sighs a little when he thinks of how the meeting is keeping him away from Artemis, whom Anthony is holding for him. Harry would have given him to Theo, but Theo stomped off before he could.

Hopefully he’s at least all right now that he knows Blaise is all right.

And besides, this meeting should be interesting to attend.

“Should the child be here, Dumblydoor?” Madame Maxime asks right away, when Dumbledore is trying to offer people tea and lemon drops. “He might be hearing secrets that would affect the Tournament, non?”

“He is my foster son,” Aradia says softly.

No matter how long it’s been, hearing her claim him that way will always send a warm glow through Harry.

“That doesn’t matter.”

Aradia turns her head and stares at Madame Maxime. After long moments, a slow flush makes its way down Maxime’s face. She looks down at where her robe crosses her lap and begins to fiddle with it.

Aradia turns to face Dumbledore. “Did you notify the parents of the other hostages?”

“Well, not Miss Granger’s. She’s a Muggleborn, you see, and her parents are Muggles. There’s no way that we could have got an owl there and back in time. But her Head of House gave permission for her to be in the lake.”

“And did Severus Snape tell you I would do the same?”

Dumbledore hesitates for a long moment. Harry struggles to keep a neutral expression on his face, but he wants to cackle.

“In fact,” Dumbledore says at last, with the air of someone surrendering to his fate, “he did think that you’d be upset about it.”

“Then why not contact me?”

“It—didn’t seem—important.”

Dumbledore stumbles to a stop on the last words, maybe realizing how stupid that sounds. Bagman looks anxiously back and forth between Dumbledore and Aradia, and then tries a stupid joke at exactly the wrong time, in exactly the wrong tone. “Why does it matter? We’re all here, and fine! Young Harry did a great job, in fact, for someone who was pulled into the lake by a kelpie—”

Aradia looks at him, too. He collapses back, his face white.

Harry wants to cheer. He wrestles his facial expression back under control before the sound can escape.

“Why not, Dumbledore?”

“Well, we do have a friendship, Aradia.” Dumbledore tries out a smile that withers the minute Aradia looks at him. He clears his throat. “I thought that you wouldn’t be—that angry, not when of course it was perfectly safe—”

“You could still have informed me.”

Dumbledore stares at the desk for a moment, then looks up again with a weary sigh. “Yes, I could have. I’m sorry. But I don’t know what we can do about it now. The Task is past and done with, and you have to admit that Blaise is all right.”’

“I don’t know that at all. I won’t until I go to the hospital wing and get the report from Madam Pomfrey.”

“Of course he’s fine,” Dumbledore says with a touch of impatience. “You sound as though you’re making up an excuse to get angry.”

Harry feels his eyes widen.

He did not just say that.

Aradia looks as if she doesn’t believe it, either. She sits so still that Harry almost wants to go up and touch her to make sure she’s still alive. At last she speaks, when her magic’s had the chance to fill the room with a silent shroud of threat. “Excuse me?”

“I just said…”

Dumbledore’s wilting under the way Aradia stares at him. Aradia gives a sharp shake of her head and stands, glancing at Harry. “I assume that you’ll want to come with me and make sure Blaise is all right.”

Harry rises to his feet. “Of course.”

“Perhaps when you’ve had some time to think, Albus, you might reach out to me by owl,” Aradia says. She marches towards the door. Harry promptly scrambles to follow, thinking that after he sees Blaise, he’ll go and see about Padma. He’s not sure that Delacour ever pulled her from under the lake.

“Dumblydoor!”

There’s a long moment when Harry glances at Madame Maxime and thinks that Dumbledore isn’t going to say anything, but finally the Headmaster gives a long sigh and opens his mouth. “Madame Maxime is concerned that Miss Patil is your friend, Harry.”

“Huh?”

“You encouraged her to date my Fleur to win secrets from her, non?”

Harry stares at the Headmistress, then at Aradia. Aradia coughs slightly, lifting one hand to cover her mouth. But her lips are twitching, and Harry knows he’s got to handle this on his own.

“No?” he tries, turning to Madame Maxime.

“You did! My Fleur, she would never date an English woman, and this Patil is your friend! She dated her, and then she was at the bottom of the lake, and you did it on purpose to make sure that Fleur would lose the Task!”

Harry can feel his mouth falling open. Of all the things that he expected to be accused of by paranoid people, this wasn’t one of them.

He manages, though, to answer in a calm tone. “No, Madame Maxime. Padma told me that she wanted to date someone, but I didn’t know it was Delacour until they showed up to the Yule Ball together. And I didn’t even know that they were spending a lot of time together until now.”

Padma did mention wanting to go to the library by herself fairly often in the last few weeks. But Harry took that as just her deciding that studying alone was better than with him and Anthony sometimes.

Maybe she didn’t want to invite bad luck by telling anyone she was still dating Delacour. Maybe she thought that it would end any moment. Either way, Harry’s hardly going to blame her for trying to protect her secret. He and Blaise might have dated in secret if circumstances were different for them.

“I had nothing to do with this,” Harry adds, when Madame Maxime continues to squint at him with a doubtful look on her face.

“I am not certain of that.”

Her voice is stiff, but she’s turning away from Harry and leaning towards Dumbledore as if she wants to speak with him, while Bagman tries to listen in. Harry shrugs. He glances at Aradia and receives a flick of her eyes before she sniffs and straightens.

“I will be back to speak with you, Albus, when I’ve seen to Blaise.”

Harry looks over his shoulder in time to see the Headmaster hunch a little at his desk. He hides a laugh. At least it looks like Aradia’s plan is going to work, and they’ll be able to get all the concessions from the Headmaster that they want while she’s playing the part of an outraged mother. He probably would have given them up already if Madame Maxime weren’t here and interfering in the situation.

They ride down the moving staircase and walk most of the way to the hospital wing before Aradia nods at him. Harry smiles. She’ll have spells up that monitor the presence of ghosts and magical portraits, so that nod means they’re free to speak to each other.

“That was something, wasn’t it?” he asks softly.

“It was. I’m still irritated that he didn’t contact me. But you did wonderfully, Harry.” Aradia stops and bends down to hug him.

Harry leans against her. Even though he’s used to being considered part of a family now, he’ll probably still never get over someone loving him like a mother.

Aradia sighs and straightens up. “We should think about what we most want or need from Albus in the near future.”

“I thought you knew?”

“I have some ideas. But you were affected, too. It’s only right that you get to use his guilt to extract some concessions.”

Harry laughs and walks towards the hospital wing at her side, more than a little spring in his step. They survived. They played their parts, and convinced Dumbledore.

They’ve won.