#especially since Draco has been unconscious this entire time xD

[themanwhoran-archive]

Blues & Greens | Harry & Draco

@hawthorneandunicornhair | LAKE THING for the Beyond Black & White verse!  I don’t remember exactly how this challenge went in the books, so I’m kinda wingin’ it here, but let me know if something doesn’t work xD

The details of the challenge were infuriatingly vague, even after he’d decoded the merpeople’s message within the Ornate Egg.  Sure, he had enough information and time to acquire some gillyweed for the trial, and he was still trying to wrap his head around the new revelation that there were actual mermaids in the Great Lake, but none of the contestants knew what they were looking for.  Only that something precious had been taken, and they only had an hour to get it back.

As he stood on the appointed precipice, anxiously awaiting the crack of noise that would launch the Champions into the water, he wondered -- not for the first time -- if color was some kind of unfair advantage.  He’d asked Dumbledore, right after he’d been chosen, in his frantic attempts to find some reason he wouldn’t have to compete in the Tournament, but the headmaster had assured him that there was nothing in the rules that would disqualify him for it, and it was up to the Tournament organizers to make sure that it would not affect the tasks.  And while Harry couldn’t deny that it had not given him any special edge -- knowing the dragons from the first task were red, green, bronze, and black wasn’t actually important, and all the eggs in the nests had been gold -- he stared down at the water and tried to wrap his head around the idea that everyone else actually saw a black lake rather than the deep greenish blue that he saw shining on its opaque surface.

In a much more conscious way than he wanted to realize, he knew that it was unusual that even he was able to see the subtle hues on the water.  He cast a glance around to the spectator seating along the shore, but it was too far away to make out any individual faces.  With so much distance between himself and his soulmate (he refused to think of him by name in such a context), he should only be able to see the brightest of--

When the crack and the cheers cut the air, Harry startled before he jumped into the lake.  His fall was clumsy, and the water was cold!  So cold that he wondered if it wouldn’t take much less than an hour for him to succumb to hypothermia.  He quickly lost track of the other contestants and focused on following the ethereal, chant-like singing that filled the water around him.

To his increasing bewilderment, that wasn’t the only guide he had.  While he had been momentarily distracted by the grindylows, he couldn’t help but notice, as the voices got louder, that the colors got brighter, too.  The blues and greens on the rocks, the plants, the lakebed, took on more layers and shades as Harry swam closer to a mysterious source of light in the colder depths.

It didn’t make sense.  Maybe he was getting closer to the spectator seating -- though he was positive he was swimming further from the shore rather than towards it -- but then--

Then he was face to face with an actual mermaid, and a lot more wary than he would be if they were anything like they looked in the murals.  They let him pass, though, and a burst of adrenaline had him swimming quickly through the path the villagers cleared for him, towards a huge pillar in the center of their gathering.  What could they possibly have stolen from him that he’d have to drag back to the surface?  His invisibility cloak?  His Firebolt?  Surely they wouldn’t have dragged Hedwig down--

But nothing would’ve prepared him for what he actually found tethered to the pillar in the middle of the merpeople’s village.  Not something at all, Harry thought angrily as he swam even faster towards the floating forms of four people, drifting slightly in the mild current.

He saw Cho first, and knew that Cedric was her intended hero.  Knowing that didn’t make his anxiety go away, or the instinct to cut her free and take her to safety.  More urgent than that, though, he frantically swam closer to the other hostages.  If Cho was here, someone even more important to him would be, too...

His heart raced with panic and fury when he reached the next damsel:  Hermione.  He’d barely registered her face before he was diving down to find something sharp to cut the rope with.  His webbed fingers would be no use trying to undo it, and cutting it would be much faster.  As soon as his hands found a sharp enough rock, he shoved off the ground to launch himself back up to the hostages.

But as he started for the rope at Hermione’s ankle, a mermaid soldier was suddenly hissing in his face, forcing him back with the shaft of her spear.  Confused and angry, Harry tried and failed to yell at her, gesturing to Hermione with the rock instead.  With a stern scowl, the guard shook her head and pointed with the end of her weapon to the other two floating hostages that Harry hadn’t identified yet.  He hesitated, but when the mermaid didn’t waver, he set his jaw and turned to swim to them.

Once he knew who the next hostage was, though, he understood why the colors kept getting richer.  A completely different kind of panic raced through Harry’s veins, hot and charged with fear, as he swam to his soulmate. Draco Malfoy was almost hard to recognize at first, wisps of platinum blonde hair drifting around his relaxed face.  Harry had never seen it without ten pounds of product, had never seen his rival’s face look so soft, and he was uncomfortably sure that even if he could breathe, he wouldn’t be.

When he glanced at the soldier guarding Hermione -- irrationally hoping Malfoy was somehow someone else’s prisoner to release -- she gave him a nod, and Harry felt like he’d swallowed a cold stone.  This would certainly be a fun confrontation when Malfoy woke.  He wondered if he could find some more gillyweed and just stay down here forever.

The last hostage was a small blonde girl that Harry didn’t recognize, and he swept his eyes through the water, looking for the other Champions as he worked on the rope on Malfoy’s ankle with the sharp rock.  Cedric came first, and Harry felt little relief when he freed Cho and headed straight for the surface.  At least half the weight of the world lifted off his shoulders when Krum arrived, his head transfigured into that of a shark, to free Hermione.  He still felt angry -- Hermione definitely meant more to him than she did to Krum -- but he didn’t have time to be mad anymore.  Surely their hour was almost up.

He only waited a few minutes for Fleur before he decided to take the little girl with him as well.  The mermaid that had guarded Hermione from him moved to keep him from the last hostage as well, but Harry ducked under the spear and grabbed the girl’s rope anyway.  It was harder, with Draco draped over one of his shoulders, but he quickly realized the the mermaid wouldn’t actually hurt him, so he winced through the screeching hisses and freed the hostage anyway.

He swam frantically towards the blindingly white surface, feeling the sides of his neck itch as the gills shrank.  It seemed so far away, and the weights on his shoulders felt like they would drag him right back down, and then the gills were gone and his lungs burned.  He closed his eyes tight against the sunlight, water pried open his mouth, and he was sure he was about to drown when he finally broke the surface.

There were cheers, and he could hardly hear them through the water in his ears, but he thought they sounded mild and polite.  Of course he hadn’t won the contest, but he wasn’t really bothered by that while he was still trying to catch his breath.  All his muscles felt like jelly, but he turned Malfoy and the little blonde girl over so their heads rose above water, too.  He got no reprieve from his panic when they didn’t immediately rouse.

Somehow, he dragged the hostages to the platform, immediately surrounded by professors and judges and students and a screaming Fleur Delacour.  People were helping him out of the water, trying to talk to him as he panted  harshly and shook the water out of his ears  But his attention was split between Malfoy’s limp body and Dumbledore’s frown.

“Malfoy!” he managed to croak, his voice hoarse from misuse.  He sat up on his knees next to the Slytherin and leaned over to give a few taps to his face with an open palm.  “C’mon, Malfoy, wake up,” he murmured uselessly as his stomach rolled horribly.  He could see color and his soulmate shouldn’t be so pale.