POV Victor Crum
Victor swore at everything in the world. He was extremely angry and unhappy with the way things had turned out. According to their plan, an amulet with a little-known spell, swallowed beforehand, then removed from his stomach and activated at the right moment, was supposed to take the French bitch out of the game.
He shouldn't be a threat himself: the partial transformation should have scared off the underwater creatures and solved several problems at once. But everything went wrong the moment he set sail after activating the amulet.
He wasn't worried about the traces, because the mechanism of such amulets is simple and effective: a spell is embedded in the blank, and the stronger the spell and the better the material of the blank, the longer the amulet will last.
Once activated, the embedded spell instantly unfolds and triggers, completely drying out and destroying the amulet, leaving no evidence. And all would have been well, he would have been ahead of the other two guys who started after them with the Frenchwoman, but he was attacked by strange creatures that looked like dogs, only with flippers instead of legs, and they delayed him badly. And it was impossible to deal with them quickly until they decided to attack him directly instead of dancing around him.
Only then was he able to twist and tear the first creature with his shark's mouth, then the second, while the rest of them turned their attention to their bleeding brethren, forgetting him, which Victor took advantage of by swimming away. He was already approaching the underwater settlement, even beginning to hear the sounds of some songs, when out of nowhere two blue glowing jellyfish appeared beside him and stung him.
Not that it hurt much, but the Durmstrang champion could feel his muscles twisting, his body aching, and Kram could only curse to himself as he worked hard with his legs to resurface.
He was about five meters from the surface when he was fully back to his normal human form. Waving his wand and saying "Tempus", Victor swore so foully that experienced sailors would have mistaken him for a fellow sailor: there were only fifteen minutes left, and even if he conjured up a "head bubble" right now and swam to his destination, he wouldn't make it in time. Blaming everything and everyone, the guy rushed to the shore, not thinking that Svetlana Zalitskaya, his date at the last ball, was still under water.
***
POV Fleur Delacour
The girl was rattled by the creatures' latest attack, confused by Sora's show of strength, and angry at his unwillingness to answer a few simple questions. Was it that hard for him? And then there's the strange feeling of approaching the center of the underwater village, where the "hostages" await them.
Veils, like other children of nature, are sensitive to various manifestations of magic, sensitive to changes in the magical background, so Fleur could not help but notice the vortex of power they were approaching, and the multicolored illumination was only proof that something unusual was happening there. The girl looked back at her companion and future husband.
The mask hid most of the man's face, but Fleur was somehow sure that Sora was smiling mysteriously now. And so she was filled with new questions, but somehow she knew again that Sora would answer them with a slightly wider, but still the same enigmatic smile.
Like any young girl, Fleur's curiosity was innate, and she wanted to grab the obnoxious boy, pin him against a wall, and squeeze all the answers out of him, but then they turned behind some two-story houses that blocked the view of the underwater settlement, and those desires vanished. Just gone.
If Fleur hadn't been at her fiancé's Samhain party, she could have said with certainty that the view she now had was the most amazing thing she'd ever seen. No, she certainly wouldn't have minded seeing the snow dragon her Japanese husband had created in Butterfly Alley at Christmas, which had been in the papers, but what was unfolding before her was definitely something quite inhuman.
Have you ever seen the famous giant Black Lake squid in person? What, you've seen its tentacles? Haven't you? Well, Fleur had just seen it with her own eyes, in all its terrifying majesty.
Maybe someone else had seen it before, but I don't think so. The waters of the lake are very cold and deep indeed, making it almost impossible to see anything at that depth... well, usually it is. Now, a strange, ghostly glow spread over the area of the underwater settlement, revealing what had previously been hidden by mystery and shadow. A giant invertebrate nestled next to the ongoing... mmm... festivities?
That's probably the best word to describe what was going on. So the giant squid settled aside, not interfering, but standing in full view, slowly moving its tentacles or shifting its position slightly. Around the square was a wide circle of large fish of various kinds, and when the girl said "large" she meant it, for the smallest specimens she saw were no smaller than the girl's size.
Most of the fish had glowing crests and fins, long pulsing whiskers, or bright eyes. Several large turtles, with many growths on their shells, and one turtle, brighter in color and glowing with an inner light, with a small coral reef and colorful fish circling around it. Some large water dragons, and even a water dragon. And lots of other obviously magical things, like big crabs or lobsters, seahorses, and lots of jellyfish glowing like carnival lights.
To say that Fleur was shocked by what she saw would be an understatement. She was literally enjoying this strange feast, with a familiar blonde woman with a dreamy look at the center of the action. And Vayla could clearly feel that the young Lovegood was somehow different than usual, as if the girl herself had become a representative of some hitherto unknown magical people, open and friendly.
Fleur even managed to see a slight ghostly glow around the girl, as if a quiet flame carefully enveloped her friend and student Sora. Who on earth was she? The girl shifted her gaze to the boy and her eyes widened in surprise... for the umpteenth time today. Hoshino's eyes shone brightly, filled with magical light, and the pupil dilated, becoming beastly.
The hood of the suit seemed to drop, and her gaze fell on the boy's silver-blonde hair, which swayed slowly, as if unprotected by a head bubble. But what surprised her most was that there were bright blue sparks of electricity running through the boy's hair, underwater! He was smiling openly and broadly, and since the mask was no longer on his face, the girl could see that toothy smile full of sharp animal teeth.
— That's why most of the Chosen don't even make it to adulthood. — The boy spoke, his voice sounding as if they were not underwater at all, and his voice had a snarl to it that gave it a kind of attractive brutality. The boy shook his head at Lovegood. — They just can't contain their nature when the world itself speaks and sings to them. We just can't help but respond and support this song. .....
Fleur did not immediately grasp the meaning of what was being said, but gradually her eyebrows rose higher and higher, especially when she heard the strange low growl or purr of a large animal. In disbelief, the girl looked more closely at Sora and noticed that he was indeed quietly singing along to this common song that seemed to shake her very soul. It was a song that seemed to penetrate deep inside her, washing away all fears and doubts, cleansing her heart and mind of darkness and shadows.
— Many people do not like the fact that there is someone who can simply speak to the world and its children. And some are jealous and try to steal this miracle for themselves. — This time Fleur listened very carefully, trying to catch every sound, every shade of intonation. -But the miracle cannot belong to the people — it was not born for them, and only the world and its older children have the right to speak to the chosen ones.
— So Mademoiselle Lovegood... — Fleur whispered only with her lips, not believing that she had met one of those whom the Muggles had nicknamed 'Tuatha de Danaan' in the ancient myths.
— If Krum had seen all this and managed to inform anyone, — Sora circled the story with her hand. — I would have had to bleed for years...
Not even a certainty, no, just a simple statement of fact, made Fleur literally go cold: she understood now why Sora cared for this girl. Granted, she'd suspected that she was just another contender for her fiancé's attention, but there was something much more important here, and the boy had taken full responsibility for her.
Why? The girl couldn't answer that, but judging by the myths and legends, people like Luna Lovegood are always surrounded by miracles, and there are always people — Muggles and non-Muggles alike — who come to them and protect them, simply because "it's the way it's supposed to be.
Yes, if someone finds out about the nature of this girl, they will not have a quiet life, because her future husband decided to protect this girl, so if someone is tempted by this living miracle, Sora will stand in her defense and will stand until all threats will not disappear. Yes, it's worth keeping quiet about. Not even to mention it. But that doesn't mean she won't show these memories to her children — after all, she has the right to share this miracle with them...