AN: Again my heartfelt thanks to my Beta Philosophize, without his my works wouldn't be half way readable or entertaining.Now I am sorry that this update took me so long but real life had been rather busy killing my muse. Anyhow next chapter is already finished and is being beta read so next update might be here sooner than later. By the way I am quite surprised that no one called me on the Max Payne reference in chapter 12.
Sam was undeniably nervous. The second task was planned for the next day, and Sam had no illusions about safety of those who'd be involved. She had no faith that Dumbledore would keep anyone safe.
He'd shown in the last years that he was incapable or unwilling to keep anyone safe. She believed that the judges would pick someone rather than something for the task, And there were only two persons in the whole castle who were especially close to her heart: Hermione and Luna. Sam had always been a very loyal person to all of those she loved and given enough incentive, she would kill without hesitation for them.
Sam firmly believed in not taunting Murphy, so Jerry-Lee was guarding Luna from under her bed in Ravenclaw Tower while Hedwig sat inconspicuously on Sam's bed, closely watching Hermione's bed from her hiding place. Sam cast about a dozen tracking spells on both girls, but she was quite sure it wouldn't be enough. She briefly considered hiding them both somewhere, but she had only two options: the Room of Requirement and the Chamber of Secrets. The first she didn't want to lose as an asset, and the second was not very accessible with the collapsed ceiling in the access shaft. She made a mental note to check it on a later date.
But she was quite sure that if the judges really tried, she would be powerless in stopping them. She got slips from both Luna and Hermione parents forbidding their involvement, but Sam had suspicions that Hermione's slip would be ignored since Dumbledore could overrule Hermione's parent's decision - after all they were lowly muggles.
Sam's thoughts turned to the talk she'd had with Hermione and Luna few days ago. Sam had once again talked about the second task, asking if they would be willing to go into hiding even though realistically she knew that wouldn't work, and even going as far as to suggest that they try to convince both Hermione's parents and Luna's father to fake some kind of family emergency to get them out of the castle for a few days so they wouldn't be anywhere near during the the second task.
But that idea was shot down.
It became clear that while Sam had already corrupted Hermione's view on authority figures in small measures, Hermione was still convinced that there will be all kinds of precautions taken. It was international event after all, and she thought that Sam was getting bit paranoid because there were no mention of taking live hostages for any task from previous tournaments. She had no doubt that, if she were taken, she'd be all right.
Luna, after listening to Sam's desperate rant, serenely said that she had faith in her that she would keep her safe, should she be chosen as a hostage. Sam was heartened by the sentiment, but didn't find it calming in the slightest She worried that Luna idolised her so much that when she messed up - and she would mess up sooner or later - it would hurt Luna even more.
The one thing remained true was that while Sam currently had Jerry-Lee with her, she was still feeling very alone here. In her old life Sam was more or less alone for quite few years, even when her parents were still alive. She had a largish, extended family with a number of cousins once removed, but she wasn't very much liked due to many factors like her sexual orientation, her hush-hush job, the military nature of said job, her parents left for America rather than stay in their birth country, and so on. After her parents' deaths, she was informed that they didn't like her, and it would be best if she never showed up again.
Her last years were even lonelier - finding your girlfriend of four years in arms of a man hurt a lot, but having that girlfriend turn most of Sam's friends against her after their messy break up had hurt even more.
So when there was an opportunity to start again, Sam took it. Unfortunately, she hadn't seen all of the consequence when she'd chosen to brave this new world.
That was one of the reasons why she clung to Hermione and Luna. Luna's innocence was soothing to her aching soul and brought a bright smile to her life, while Hermione was a selfless, intelligent, loyal girl who brought back Sam's ability to believe in others. Maybe these were part the memories of the original Harriet, but Sam had a feeling that Hermione was her rock for her sanity.
With these gloomy thoughts, Sam had to force herself to sleep, and when the morning came she was woken by mournful looking Hedwig, who with a gentle shoves of a wing alerted her that Hermione was gone. When Sam looked at her avian friend, she could tell that the owl looked groggy, as if she were recovering from a deep sleep. If she had to guess, she would say that there had been some kind of spell used on the whole room to keep anybody from interfering. Her noiseless opening and closing beak also pointed to the use of a silencing charm.
Sam grabbed the Marauder's Map and quickly zoomed into Ravenclaw Tower, finding Luna safely tucked in her bed. Sam quickly scanned the map, but she found no traces of Hermione anywhere in the castle. Her tracking charms on Hermione had been dispelled, too. She idly noted that B. Crouch was pacing in front of Moody in his quarters.
Probably something to do with the tournament, Sam thought before discarding it as unimportant.
With a weary sigh, Sam rolled from her bed and headed to the showers. It was still early morning, and most of the dorm occupants were asleep. Sam grumbled quietly under her breath as she returned and looked around, opening her trunk and pulling out her gear.
Once she had it spread over her bed, she gave it cursory look to check she had everything before stripping naked and slipping into the undersuit and then wriggling into the wetsuit.
She was feeling that she was flying in blind into a hostage situation, since she only knew the approximate location of mermish village. The feeling she had could be only described as if she was driving a car in the middle of the night without headlights on highway hundreds miles long, trying to reach a place of hope while wearing sunglasses and having only half pack of cigarettes to keep her going.
She looked up and said solemnly to Hedwig, "I have a bad feeling about this day."
Hedwig hooted in agreement as Sam started to wriggle herself into the neoprene wetsuit. She then used the gear harnesses to clip on sealed pouches with gear, a large knife to her thigh, and a wand into the holster on her arm. She checked her custom handmade harness on her palm and it didn't restrict her movement if she strapped her wand into it. Once finished, she grabbed her fins and threw them over her shoulder before carefully checking all of the gear in a mokeskin bag, including making sure the pistol was loaded.
Most of the room's occupants were awake by now, and some of the girls were openly staring at Sam's attire. She ignored them as she fastened the swimming goggles to her head, leaving the lenses on her forehead for now, and patted Jerry who'd come in and given a single bark that more or less said, "Luna is okay."
"Yeah, I know, buddy, at least one less thing to worry about," Sam muttered as she pinched the bridge of her nose lifting her normal glasses little.
With another grumble Sam grabbed threw a robe over herself and slipped ON pair of sandals as she walked from her dorm into the common room.
She briefly stopped and looked at the window in the Gryffindor common room. It seemed that Neville had forgotten the pot with his latest herbology project there. It was some kind of a magical tree hybrid.
The plant-like stick figure might even have had some kind of sentience, for all Sam knew, as it had eyes and it reacted to Sam's stare, waving merrily at her. Hermione said the other day that it reminded her of small offspring of Ent from The Lord of the Rings. If it could be planted in small pot, that is.
Sam shook her head at the boy's forgetfulness, but she had to admit that he was brilliant with plants. Or perhaps he was a good old mad scientist in the making?
She wasn't sure, but at least it wasn't talking. What vocab could tree a have? Probably I and AM Followed by its name, (if it had a name, as Neville still hadn't named it), exclusively in that order.
Still, it was one of the funkiest things she had ever seen, but even that didn't raise her spirits much. She gave it a wave, but it was more like a dismissive wave of her hand than actually waving back, and the tree thing gave something that looked like whoop. Sam, not paying attention to generally anyone, went through the portrait and headed to the Great Hall.
She ignored the strange looks she was receiving as she chugged down her coffee and dug into a large BLT, fried eggs, and cheese sandwich that appeared in front of her. She'd asked Dobby to make sure she had a good, hearty breakfast today. The little fella was running his socks ragged because she'd also "loaned" him to Sirius to help out in cleaning up his place.
If she understood it right, the Black family elf was more nuisance than help in cleaning.
She felt as someone slipped next to her. "Morning, Little Moon," Sam greeted and passed orange marmalade to Luna.
The blonde girl gave a worried glance. "Are you okay?" Luna tentatively asked.
"No, but I will be once Hermione is safe again," Sam replied honestly
"It will be okay, I believe that you will not let anything to happen to Mia," Luna replied.
"Thanks, Little Moon," Sam said, trying to sound grateful, biting back what she really wanted to say: "Wish I had so much confidence in myself," while in the back of her mind her imagination played more and more darker scenarios
They sat in companionable silence, though Sam was giving off the vibe that she should be approached only at one's own risk.
The only other notable event was that at the moment when Ron stepped into the great hall, a rake appeared in front of him and he stepped on it. The following crack and dull thud echoed through the hall as Ron fell on his behind, holding his flattened nose as it began to swell and bleed.
Sam smirked into her cup of coffee, her mind coming from the dark place it had been falling into. It had taken her ages to figure out the correct rune sequence to make the rakes appear in just the right place and time.
And of course she had another dozen stored in a totally inconspicuous broom closet that had been covered with dozens of Notice-Me-Not-Charms. Hagrid and Sprout were still wondering where all rakes had disappeared.
While everyone were looking and laughing at Ron's misfortune, Sam quickly and inconspicuously pulled her wand and fired a spell at the Slytherin table. The spell caused Crabbe's left shoelace to become tied to the table and his right shoelace to Goyle's leg.
Then she fired a second spell, switching Marietta's tea with a tea from a second cup she'd been "cultivating" for about month and half under her bed.
And finally, at the Hufflepuff table, she cancelled a spell that she'd placed on a large soup tureen, which Dobby had set at the table earlier. This cancelled a spell that was holding a bar of soap and potassium chloride over larger amount hydrogen peroxide inside of the tureen.
Satisfied with the small bouts of chaos she had just sewn, Sam tucked her wand away and finished her coffee. It had been a welcome distraction, setting up those pranks.
When Sam looked up from her cup again, she spied McGonagall walking towards to her. With a sigh Sam stood up waited for the professor to reach her and wordlessly turned on her heel to march in front, pointedly ignoring the McGonagall.
She was about to say something to Miss Potter, but the look of cold fury she received from her young charge stopped her. She was taken aback by the anger. She saw as the Lovegood girl quickly catch up with Miss Potter. It seemed that every time she made step forward in gaining her lost trust, she did something that sent her two steps backwards.
She wasn't surprised though.
The permission slip that she'd been handed by Miss Granger contained her parents' very exactly worded instructions forbidding Hermione's involvement in second task. She'd delivered it to Dumbledore who said that he would look into it.
Obviously he'd ignored it.
Their exit from the hall was accompanied with crash as part of the Slytherin table was overturned by the lumbering duo who went down with a great display of hand waving. Draco was knocked to the ground, holding his nose because one of the flying hands had caught him across his face.
This was followed by a screech and sounds of vomiting from Raven's table as Marietta took a drink from her cup. She immediately spit it right into her friend's face before she promptly relieved herself of her breakfast.
The hall hadn't even had have time to react to the new development when the tureen went critical and detonated in foamy explosion right into Anthony's face, covering good portion of table with thick yellow foam.
"I did protest against using hostages and even expressly pointed out Miss Granger's parents wishes against her participation." McGonagall said quietly.
Sam slowed her march. She knew she was behaving childishly and forced herself to become more rational.
With a tired sigh Sam pinched the bridge of her nose, lifting her glasses a little and rubbing there where the nose pads normally touched. "I know, thank you. I am sorry I'm behaving like brat. It's just…" Sam shrugged eloquently. "I can deal when it is just me, but there are others caught in and I didn't prevent it."
"I am sure that all hostages will be alright." McGonagall was surprised by the openness of the confession she'd just heard and tried to reassure the young woman, but even to her ears the platitude sounded hollow.
Sam shrugged again and mumbled quietly, "Can't say I share your optimism. And it doesn't stop me from worrying. The last years have proven that nothing is simple when I am around."
McGonagall took her turn in sighing. The young woman was right and to her great shame, she even participated in such events - the detention from iss Potter's first year came to her mind, and she wondered not for the first time what had possessed her to assign four first years to night detention in the Forbidden forest when something was hunting unicorns.
"That is unfortunately very true, miss Potter."
They trekked to the lake in silence and once they reached the pier McGonagall said her goodbyes, wishing Sam luck as she left her to her own devices. Sam started to play with her glasses case, flipping it up and down as the champions slowly joined her and the spectators started to fill in.
The dullness of the moment was only interrupted when Draco and Ron accidentally got too close to each other and started to insult each other, which quickly turned into a slap fight.
What neither realised that they were doing it right in front of a professor so McGonagall dragged them away by their ears, and they weren't seen for the rest of the task.
(Later they were found standing in and facing opposite corners of the Great Hall while wearing white hats. Many said that they were turning an amusing shade of red.)
Sam gave the arriving champions an unconcerned wave of her hand in greeting, as she quickly looked them over.
The boys were in Victorian-style swimwear under open robes, although Victor had foregone the top, leaving swooning fan girls in his trail. Fleur was in a conservative, silvery one-piece. Their faces were a different matter entirely. Victor's face was badly held mask, and Sam could plainly see he was nervous. She gave him a nod, which he returned, then he added to the silence. "It seems that you were rechts."
Fleur nodded to her as well, and Sam gave them both a sad, resigned look. "I wish I wasn't, believe me, I wish I wasn't." Fleur was white as a sheet, even blind one would plainly see the fear rolling from the girl. She was clearly at the verge of panic.
Sam briefly remembered a passage from a book she had read. It said that Veela magic was elemental in nature, fire and air. If the task was happening underwater, Fleur might be in serious trouble because her magic might be considerably weakened.
Cedric ignored her. He hadn't even spared her a glance during the ball after a brief exchange, the first words they'd exchanged since she'd given him her warning about the dragons. He was still maintaining his high and mighty attitude, refusing to talk with "cheaters" like Sam, despite owning her for the warning. His face told its story, though, as it held air of worry combined with his usual measure of confidence.
The judges came and announced the start of task. Sam briefly thought about the selection of hostages, Chang for Cedric, Vasiliy Krum, Victor's cousin, Hermione for Sam and Fleurs little sisters Gabriele. Sam bitterly thought that the foreigners' hostages held much more closer value to their champions.
With a shake of her head to get rid of such dark thoughts, Sam placed her normal glasses into the case and dropped that into her pouch before putting on the swimming ones.
She saw Luna giving her a bright smile and a wave with her fingers crossed. She was surrounded by the Gryffindor Quidditch team, which Sam dubbed them in the corner of her mind her very own true fan club, and she gave them a confident nod. She was surprised as she saw Susan Bones joining them instead of the large Hufflepuff contingent, and in the group and she also saw Michelle giving her a wave.
Her thoughts turned to Michelle and the letter the French witch had received from her parents shortly after she'd sent them a photo of her opening the Yule ball with Sam. They had surprisingly not protested the fact that Michelle attended the ball with a girl. In fact, they even congratulated Mish on being one of the pairs that opened the ball. Their main complaint was that Michelle hadn't pick some nice French girl, but rather had insisted on picking an English girl - and known English troublemaker at that.
Then another random thought assaulted Sam, "I didn't see any screens or magical versions of them here. Omnioculars will be no help when the all action is happening under water, so most of the people came here to just stare at the calm lake water? Talk about viewer-friendly task." She gave a snort to that.
When the rest of champions looked at her, she repeated her thought out loud and received weird looks from them.
The cannon went off, announcing the beginning of the task. She sorely disappointed the onlookers when she dropped her robe and let it pool around her feet, revealing her neoprene suit, as she kicked off her flip-flops. The other champions jumped into water from the pier while Sam sat at the edge and pulled on her flippers instead of immediately following, She then reached into one of her many pockets and ate Gillyweed before slipping into water rather unhurriedly and unpretentiously.
The water was cold, and the sensation of growing gills was as unpleasant as it had been every time before.
Sam quickly pulled her knife, cutting the unwanted webbings between her fingers healing it quickly, before casting the Point Me spell. Once she had a good sense of where she needed to go, she started swimming in the direction the wand was pointing
The water, while quite cold, was surprisingly clear. Sam hadn't even swum a few hundred yards when she passed by Jeffrey the giant squid. Luna had informed her that he was named Jeffrey, and Sam had nothing to dispute that claim.
When Sam just was a safe distance from him, she saw flashes of light. Growing curious when the flashes started to weaken, she swam towards them like a moth flying towards a light in the night.
What she saw was a group of Grindylows attacking Fleur furiously while Fleur's spells were rapidly growing weaker. She was losing the battle right in front of Sam's eyes.
Sam didn't hesitate as she started to cast piercing and cutting charms while pulling the gun and firing one round into nearby Grindylow that was trying to sneak up on her. The water demon caught the round right, its skull caving in rather messily.
The other Grindylows quickly sensed that their prey wasn't worth the risk of being killed, and so retreated, choosing instead to attack their own, feeding on them. Soon the place was clear of Grindylows.
Fleur was panting and gave Sam weak thumbs up. She tried to swim forward and Sam scowled at the older champion, thinking, "She must have tired herself out with that fight. At that speed, she can't possibly make it; or worse yet, she'll get herself killed." Sam swam up next to Fleur and gestured to her if she wanted send up red sparks.
The French champion wildly shook her head and continued swimming. Sam sighed and muttered something about "Damsel in distress, I am such a man."
Well she would have muttered it, but one of the side effects of gillyweed was loss of power of speech since no air reached her voice box.
Sam was impressed by Fleur's display stubbornness as she worked desperately to keep swimming forward.
With a one strong and resolute stroke Sam caught up to Fleur and tapped her on her arm. When Fleur looked at Sam, she gestured to the bubble around Fleurs head gesturing if she could hold it. When Sam received a nod Sam with another move was under Fleur and caught Fleurs arms wrapping them around her own neck and started swimming, once she was sure that fleur understood her she let Fleur to get a better grasp and let her arms go and started to gain speed.
Fleur was at first confused why was the English girl so willing to help her. When the Grindylows attacked, she saw herself being dragged down to depths of the lake, ending as fish-demon food. And her little sister… she didn't even want to finish that thought. Then the English un-champion, as she preferred to be called, appeared and not only drove the Grindylows away, but was now also giving her a free ride.
She felt little more secure now, since her magical reserves weren't that great underwater - they were good enough for keeping the bubble head charm on with some small reserves, but that was it. To make herself bit more useful, she lit a cone version of Lumos charm, providing a flashlight for Sam.
Sam swam hard and fast, and after another fifteen gruelling minutes they reached the village. Except for a brief sighting of a kelpie that had been heading their way for a few moments, the rest of their journey had proceeded without further interruption. Luckily, the demon had changed direction and headed deeper into the lake, away from the direction they had been headed.
Nevertheless, it left both girls uneasy because Kelpies were not only dangerous, but weren't supposed to be here in the first place. Had some smeghead at the Ministry gotten the bright idea to bring in some Kelpies to "spice up" the task? Sam decided to not dwell on that thought, as it was more than probable, and instead she focused on the task at hand.
Once they reached to the underwater village, they headed directly towards its centre. Along the way they passed a choir of the singing merfolk, their voices sounding like nails on blackboard. As far as Sam could determine, it was all total gibberish.
Sam couldn't help the random thought that Hans Christian Andersen and Disney were way off with their description of mermaids. Way, way off. All fins and scales, faces more like some kind of deep-sea fish monster, mouths full of needle-sharp teeth, and no hair. All in all, butt ugly rather than the charming little princesses with beautiful voices.
"Well you can't have everything," Sam thought as they headed to a monument in the centre where four poles had been erected. On each of them was a figure who had been tied to it.
Sam had nearly a mild heart attack when she saw a big-ass shark head seemingly grafted to a human body, but then she recognised Victor's shorts, because she just totally started to look for an air tank.
"Fuck, no more Jaws for me," Sam thought grimly. She felt as Fleur let go and swim straight to the youngest hostage. That's when Sam understood her panic. "That girl couldn't be more than ten for goodness sake! Bastards!"
With that, Sam pulled her wand and cast a quick cutting charms to free Hermione from her confinement. She then checked on Fleur, who was struggling to cut the last of the ropes on her own hostage, and cast another cutting spell, thus freeing the little girl.
While Fleur checked on her sister, Sam proceeded with her back-up plan. Originally, she had intended hightail it outta there as fast as she could, with Hermione tied to her in a manner not dissimilar to how parachute instructor is tied to a pupil in tandem jumps, but with four of them now, that plan went right out of the window.
Sam rummaged in her mokeskin bag for a bit, eventually pulling out piece of rope tied to flat balloon and metal flask with a valve connected to it. She gestured to Fleur to use the rope. Fleur didn't understand but did as Sam demonstrated. And then Sam looked at Hermione.
And Sam's heart stopped, because she was staring into Hermione's opened eyes.
Hermione tried to take a breath when the ice-cold water filled her mouth and invaded her lungs, the icy pressure crushing her. She saw pair of green eyes just as she started to panic and black out.
Fleur watched as the polite girl that was Miss Potter's hostage opened eyes and started to drown, frantically kicking around. She saw as the English champion froze for a second, dropping her wand, before she reacted and like flash was on her hostage, fighting her frenetic movements while trying to grab her wand that was dangling from string, but which was escaping with every desperate grab as if it was guided by a malevolent spirit. Eventually Miss Potter gave up and wrenched something from her pouch and violently fed it to her hostage.
Sam cursed as she lost her grip on her wand and tried to hold on to a girl who was fighting for her dear life. At first she tried to catch her wand, but after few seconds without success, she force-fed Hermione with a fifteen-minute dose of Gillyweed.
Hermione calmed when she suddenly found that she could breath again. The pressure lowered, and only the frigid coldness remained. She felt Ri was holding her close and not letting her go.
Not letting her friend go, Sam helped her to a more vertical position. Sam finally managed to grab her wand and cast a warming spell on Hermione, and as an afterthought she cast two more on Fleur and her little sister.
With that done, Sam grabbed the rope and helped Hermione to secure herself as she opened the valve. Helium filled the balloon and they rocketed up.
Sam wasn't bothered with decompression sickness due to effects of gillyweed on her and Hermione, while Fleur and her sister could cope because of the Bubblehead and stasis spells that were on them.
Just as they broke the surface, Sam cut the rope and the spectators received their first excitement as large, bright-yellow balloon broke the surface and flew away. They didn't notice four heads poking from the water.
Sam reached into her moleskin pouch again and awkwardly pulled out another yellow thing, this time large rolled-up thing and pulled a cord on it, causing it to It quickly expand into emergency inflatable life raft.
Sam then helped Fleur in it before they handed over Fleur's sister who had woken up after they reached the surface.
Sam reached into the second pouch on the belt and removed small vial of Gillyweed reversal potion before giving it to Hermione, gesturing to her to drink it.
Hermione did so, grimacing at the taste, and Sam helped her into the boat.
Being the last, Sam pulled out a second vial and knocked back it into herself. Its taste reminded her of the time she had been moving through old sewers and how the air had tasted then. Sam gulped down the potion with a shudder. The gills receded and she pulled herself into the boat, sitting at the back
Once in the boat Fleur, felt better because her magic was returning her. She didn't know what to say to the un-champion, so she settled with casting another round of warming and drying charms on everybody, receiving grateful nods from the English witches.
"Everyone in?" Sam asked in French. "Everyone warm enough?"
After receiving nods, Sam tapped the side of the boat, muttering a spell, which caused the small craft to lurch and start to moving, gaining speed as it zoomed towards the shore.
Once they were near enough, Sam stopped casting and let the boat to gently ride up on the shore. They disembarked slowly and headed to the infirmary tent. Sam could see that Fleur. Being out of water and her magical powers restored, had managed to conjure four thick blankets which everyone wrapped themselves in.
Madame Pomfrey ushered them inside and started to fuss over them. With the speed of ascent to the surface and the speed they zoomed over the lake in the boat, the quartet was first to arrive, so they had Madame Pomfrey's full attention pouring vile tasting potions down their throats before anyone could protest. The taste of said potions made the potion Sam had drunk earlier seem like an exquisite drink.
When she finished fussing around Sam and her companions, Madame Pomfrey moved to other patients who had arrived in the meantime.
As she understood it, Bumblebeeman was conversing with a chieftain of the merpeople clan now that all champions had returned,discussing the events that occurred underwater.
The champions were called out to be told the scores once they had been reasonably attended to by the school nurse.
"Madame Pomfrey?" Sam called. Once she had the mediwitch's attention, she continued, "As always, I must express my heartfelt gratitude for your exquisite care. I just wish I didn't need it so often."
"You are welcome, I too wish that we hadn't seen each other so often," Madame Pomfrey remarked with a kind smile. "Now was there anything else?"
Sam nodded. "Yes could you perhaps tell me who charmed the hostages?"
The question alone sounded innocent, but Madame Pomfrey had her suspicions and asked in a wary tone, "I'm sorry, but I do not know, why do you ask?"
"So I can kill them slowly and painfully," Sam replied evenly, as if it was perfectly normal. With that Sam followed the rest of the champions to the judges' stands.
Sam ignored most of their speech. There was something strange going on - Crouch was missing again and Percy "Weatherby" was covering for him. Just that very morning, though Crouch had been in the castle with Moody, if Sam's memory served her well.
When it came to Fleur and her difficulties, the judges took it badly and heavily penalised her. The only exception was Madame Maxime, who gave Fleur solid eight for just trying despite being in severe disadvantage.
The judges didn't approve Sam's actions and her pursuit of international cooperation by helping another champion to complete the task With the exception of Madame Maxime and Bagman, they gave Sam full scores. Sam didn't give a rat's ass, but she was surprise that she got an full score of ten points for being selfless by Madame Maxine and Bagman.
Immediately when the scores were finished, Sam asked how it was possible that the charm on Hermione failed and whose sloppy work it was.
But all she got was inane bluster from Dumbledore while "Weatherby" Weasley and Karkaroff had practically called her a liar. Bagman knew nothing, probably because the repeated bludgers to his head had scrambled his brains, so he was as useful as an ejection seat in helicopter. Madame Maxime pulled Sam aside promised to try to find out, which was the only thing preventing Sam from blowing up on them. Sam had to agree, though, that making a scene wouldn't help her case anyway. She didn't need witnesses for such confrontation. No, witnesses were definitely not needed
What surprised her, though, was that Fleur said that she owned her if not life debt than at least debt of honour. While not as serious as life debt, it seemed that Fleur took it like that. It was funny, despite of the antagonism the two female champions shared at the beginning, their relationship had become at least amicable. Moreover, thanks to Sam's friendship with Michelle, quite few Beauxbatons students started to look differently at her. They all saw how the physically older girl had been flourishing under Sam's wing and approved.
Sam pondered the debt for a second before she named her terms: one favour in the future and an attempt at friendship. Fleur agreed without complain. Truth to be told, the stipulations could have been much worse.
The evening after the task found Sam sitting in the common room in front of fireplace staring into the fire. Luna had left for her dorm earlier, though not after saying that she was very proud of Sam.
It left Sam bit warm and fuzzy inside. Hermione, on the other hand, was shaken to her very core. Not only she had been kidnapped from her bed, but she had woken up at the bottom of a lake.
Sam still had no answers about what had happened, and was more than a little grumpy over the situation as she forced her gaze back to a small notebook with her notes, reviewing everything about the past year.
The problem was that her investigation into the annual plot on her life had turned up a surprising lack of evidence, and she couldn't properly interrogate any suspects.
Yes, she could always pin it on the DADA teacher - he was showing somewhat odd behaviour for old copper - but Crouch was behaving suspiciously lately, too. Even so, she couldn't properly interrogate either or do deep background checks. And had to make do with data she had available.
She knew that those two were old colleagues, and that Crouch's political ambitions had gone down the drain when his son had been revealed to be a death eater - and what's more that son had been arrested by none other than Moody.
It made very little sense that Crouch was hanging out in Moody's office so often. His motivation didn't sit right with Sam - what he could gain? More prestige for the tournament, perhaps with having the Girl Who Lived participating, but she had damaged that with her statement about not being a champion. Making her life hell in response would be expected, but only after the tournament ended. So why now?
She struggled to come up with a better motive for either of her prime suspects, but Sam's train of thought was derailed when Hermione's head shifted on Sam's shoulder a bit, and she let out a cute little snore. Sam gave her a cautious glance fearing that she'd woken her friend.
The girl in question had been clinging to Sam ever since they'd left the lake and hadn't moved more than two feet from her. But who could blame her? After that near brush of death, the bushy-haired girl needed all comfort she could get, and Sam was resolute in not wanting to let her out of her sight. The moment she saw Hermione's eyes open while they were still under water had broken something Sam. She sure she would end up seeing that moment replayed over and over in her nightmares for years to come.
With glance to her watch, Sam decided that she could continue her research tomorrow. She gently lifted Hermione and carried her to her bed, but then she ran into the problem that the girl started to softly whimper when she left her side. With a sigh, Sam decided to lay down next to her and let Hermione curl into her side. Her last thought was that at least this fucked-up day is over, before she too fell asleep.