Fleur's Distress

"Greetings!" said Oleandra brightly to a particularly ugly Mermaid. "I come in peace."

This time, she had come with her magical Translation Earrings, which meant that she did not need to rely on Viviane's help to talk the Merpeople. Not that she'd be of much help, since she could only speak an archaic form of Mermish that had already gone out of fashion even a thousand years ago.

The Mermaid's eyes widened in astonishment, and she flashed Oleandra a toothy smile.

"If you'll please follow me, your hostage is right this way," she said. "Your Mermish is flawless, by the way. Where did you learn? I thought most surface dwellers didn't care much for us."

Oleandra only smiled thinly; anything she would say in response could only be a lie, since the premise of the Mermaid's question was incorrect: Oleandra didn't know a single word of Mermish! In any case, the Mermaid continued babbling about surface dweller fashion, and the jewellery that would sometimes be accidentally flushed down the pipes, which would end up in the lake for Mermaids to find.

The Mermaid led Oleandra to the village square, where four people had been crucified— or rather, bound to the tail of a stone statue of a Merperson. Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, a little girl, and one other person she couldn't see from her position…

"So, they took the champions' dance partners," murmured Oleandra. "But this child looks an awful lot like Fleur, and I don't see Roger Davies…"

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me! Oleandra had got confused by the sudden appearance of a sword at the very moment she'd been thinking hard about stolen treasures in the lake. Better safe than sorry, and check whom the fourth person was… and of course, the last person was Daphne.

Daphne's emerald-tinted hair was undulating gently in the underwater current passing through the Merpeople's village; Oleandra hadn't seen it at first, since it blended in perfectly with the greenish water. Daphne had to be her missing treasure; none of the other champions were particularly attached to her.

Now, to free Daphne: if Oleandra hadn't left her wand in her clothes, she would have used a Severing Charm, so instead, she had to make do by creating a fine jet of pressurized water to cut the ropes binding her sister. The ropes snapped, and Oleandra gently caught her sister as she slowly began floating down.

Holding Daphne tight against her, Oleandra summoned a water current to take them back to the surface. She was certain that she was on world-record pace; and to top it off, none of the other hostages had been taken. This was almost too easy!

On the way up, a series of unique vibrations reached Oleandra's ear, which she recognized as someone screaming underwater. And all of a sudden, all was quiet again; whoever had been screaming had been silenced. Oleandra was conflicted; on one hand, she wanted to be done with this task already; help was surely already on the way.

Even so, Oleandra didn't trust Professor Dumbledore's security measures even in the slightest; how many times had she almost died in the man's school? She might also be able to score some brownie points with the distressed person's headmaster if she saved them, and it wouldn't cost her much time…

Oleandra altered the water current carrying her, sending her rocketing off to the side, towards the source of the scream. There, she found Fleur Delacour wrestling with a swarm of Grindylows, their long fingers grabbing at her. They kept trying to bite at her, but they were too weak to endure her furious blows. However, they wouldn't let up, and Fleur was weakening…

Oleandra pulled the Grindylows away from her by summoning an underwater rip current before they accidentally poked her in the eye with their pointy fingers.

"Are you okay?" Oleandra asked her. "Do you want me to bring you up to the surface?"

Delacour shook her head in a panic and pointed down, issuing a series of bubbles in an attempt to speak. Oleandra frowned; how had she managed to scream underwater? She certainly couldn't speak right now.

"You're going to drown," Oleandra told her. "You can tell me all about it on the surface."

Defeated, Delacour nodded dumbly, which was for the best. If Oleandra took her against her will, then the judges would probably rule her actions as interference against a fellow champion; they weren't allowed to fight each other, or directly hinder their opponents.

"Going up!" Oleandra said cheerfully.

She summoned a great underwater current, propelling all three of them upwards. Soon enough, they had breached the lake's surface, a water spout sending them flying a few feet into the air!

"Why am I flying!?" screeched Daphne in terror, instantly awakening upon contact with the air.

Oleandra landed back on her feet on the lake's surface, catching Daphne in her arms and allowing Delacour to fall back into the water with a loud splash. Not a drop of water remained on Oleandra's person, as if she were as waterproof as a duck.

"And it looks like the first champion is back!" shouted Mr. Bagman, as cheers erupted from the crowd in the stands. "Once again, Oleandra Greengrass is the first to return, but this time, she's at least got the real prize! And it looks like she's also brought back Fleur Delacour, her fellow champion! Just what is going on here!"

Meanwhile, Madam Pomfrey had rushed to the bank and had begun examining Fleur, who was covered in bruises and lacerations, from which copious amounts of blood were oozing.

"Please," cried Fleur Delacour weakly, "I beg of you, let me go back! My Gabrielle is still—!"

"Hush, now," Madam Pomfrey chided her. "You're in no state to be going anywhere; you're hurt, and you're suffering from hypoxia, hypothermia, anaemia…"

"Here, let me help," Oleandra said, snapping her fingers.

Fleur and Daphne were both drenched to the bone; but affected by Oleandra's magic, the water covering them slid off to the ground and coalesced into a ball, which Oleandra kicked back into the Black Lake.

"Show off," Daphne muttered. "You're just using the lake rune to manipulate water…"

By snapping her fingers, Oleandra's thumb and forefinger ended up in the right spots to form Laukaz's hand sign, making it look as if she had wandlessly and silently cast a variation of the Drought Charm!