So he had swum down to the bottom of the lake and reached his feathered friend. Hermione was asleep in a bubble next to Hedwig. Next to her was a delicate looking little girl who could have been no older than ten and at the end of the row was Cho Chang, a Chinese immigrant student who was dating Cedric Diggory. Harry quickly identified who was meant for the other two girls as he freed his owl from her bonds while making sure the stasis bubble around her would stay intact. He didn't trust Dumbledore not to have it burst as soon as she was freed from the ropes holding her underwater.
He turned to go just as a mortally wounded Victor Krum showed up in a partial transformation. He was leaving a heavy trail of blood in the water that showed he was mortally wounded and in need of immediate medical care. Harry hit him with a stasis spell that would bind his wound until he could reach the surface as Victor bit through the ropes holding Hermione before gathering her to his chest and trying to propel himself to the surface of the lake. But blood loss had him feeling weak and tired and he was having a hard time of it. Feeling his compassion swell, Harry drew his wand again and cast a propulsion spell on the wounded boy to send him to the surface as quick as was safe while he waited for Diggory and Delacour to show up for their victims. The propulsion spell partially tore apart the stasis spell and his wounds were bleeding again though only sluggishly. As he swam towards the surface, Victor gave him a nod to show he understood what Harry had done for him and appreciated the effort. Diggory showed within minutes and seeing Harry already there holding Hedwig in her bubble, motioned for him to head up indicating that Fleur, the French student, wouldn't be coming.
Sometimes Harry honestly hated his nature and this was one of those times. He cut the ropes binding the little girl and sent both her and Hedwig surface bound after making certain the little girl had Hedwig securely in her arms, while he stayed to fight the merpeople for having freed more than his own surety. He was trusting the child to keep his owl safe and knew that was a risk he really had no reason to take. Honestly he didn't want to take either. But he couldn't let a little girl die just because she'd been selected as surety for one of the other contenders. And he had to fight the merpeople over his decision to free her.
Eventually he managed to get free of them and swam to the surface himself only to discover the judges arguing over whether or not to kill Hedwig for his breaking of the rules of the challenge. Hedwig, who was being ignored by the little girl he had trusted to keep her safe. Hedwig, who'd been tossed aside as soon as the girl had breeched the water's surface. Dumbledore was actually leading the charge to kill Hedwig while the two foreign Heads of School were arguing to leave her be.
Fleur, though heavily bandaged showing she had suffered some major injuries, was ignoring Hedwig while babbling away in French and hanging onto to her little sister. She had her wrapped firmly in her embrace, crying all over the smaller girl who was doing her best to comfort the older girl while reaching for the endangered owl. She at least seemed to care about the owl's welfare and was trying to go to her. Cedric, too, was ignoring the judges to fawn over Cho Chang, his own surety, completely uncaring of the fate of Harry's surety in the event.
And Krum was gone. Despite Harry's best efforts, he'd lived just long enough to get Hermione to the surface before he'd died from his wounds. It seems the merpeople saw him as a threat just as the grindlylows had seen Fleur as a threat. The two creature races had attacked the contenders with intent and it was only luck that had Cedric swim by in time to realize Fleur was in grave danger. He'd swum back to help her and she had immediately quit the lake.
Harry saw red when he realized what the judges were saying and grabbed his pet before they could even think of killing her. His magic finished the process of bringing her to full awareness and drying out her feathers as someone had drenched her before placing her under the stasis spell. That told Harry the judges, at least the British ones, had fully intended for her to die as there was no reason for her feathers to be wet otherwise. As soon as she was awake enough, he bade her to fly away and not return until he called for her as he wouldn't lose her, too. He hadn't even realized he talked to her in hoots, whistles, barks and clicks just as she often talked to him. But the audience certainly did. Awe and surprise was the dominant expression on their faces as they listened to him talking to the smartest owl in the Castle. As Hedwig took to the air Harry's glare kept all the judges wands aimed at the ground rather than her. But for the audience and judges, Harry had finally shown them a talent other witches and wizards didn't have. Not that it mattered. Said talent wasn't useful to Dumbledore and his plans for Harry.
Needless to say, Harry received no points in the lake challenge since the judges couldn't agree on any other way to punish him for breaking their rules. But he didn't care. None of the victims Dumbledore had been willing to sacrifice to test Harry's mettle had died. Though Krum had died, even Harry acknowledged it was his choice of transformation that had gotten him killed more than any maliciousness on the part of the merpeople. Sharks were the traditional enemies of any fish or fish person and the merpeople were more fish than people. Racial memory told them Krum had been a threat to them and their village. So they had reacted. And Harry had tried to save his life. Something that even Victor had acknowledged. So for the first time since one of these yearly games had begun, Harry felt no guilt gnawing at his soul.
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