firecracker ???

4-11

Harry stared.

"Where would I get that?"

Neville looked uncertain. "Well, it's rare. But maybe—"

The answer came in the form of Dobby.

The next morning, Harry found a small bundle wrapped in seaweed on his nightstand. The elf had delivered it in silence, eyes wide with pride.

Gillyweed.

And with that—he had a chance.

-

The lakeshore was packed.

Students clustered together in scarves and cloaks, breath blooming in the air. Professors stood along the edge, murmuring spells into the water. The champions lined up beside Ludo Bagman, who beamed with far too much excitement.

Harry glanced at the water. His palms were damp.

Bagman's voice rang out over the crowd. "Champions, on my whistle! Three... two... one!"

Harry shoved the Gillyweed into his mouth and dived.

It was like being slammed in the chest with cold iron.

His lungs burned, limbs flailed—and then, transformation. Gills opened at his neck. Webs stretched between his fingers. He moved through the water like he was made for it.

The lake wrapped around him, vast and dark.

He swam past swaying weeds and cold stones. Past grindylows and shadows. The eerie song rang in his ears, leading him deeper.

Then—he saw them.

Four figures.

Tied to a carved stone.

Cho. Hermione. Gabrielle.

And—

Elestara.

Not Lyra. Not the girl he bantered with in corridors or danced with at the Ball.

This was Elestara Black.

Her white-gold hair floated around her like a halo, rippling in the dark water. Her skin glowed pale beneath the surface. She looked fragile in a way she never did above—unmoving, unreachable, suspended in magic.

Harry's heart stopped.

She was his treasure.

Not Ron. Not Hermione.

Her.

He stared, throat thick with panic. The ropes shimmered faintly. Protective magic. He knew the others would be arriving soon - each racing to retrieve their own.

Fleur couldn't reach Gabrielle.

He reached for Elestara.

The moment his fingers touched her wrist, her eyes fluttered.

The spell broke.

She stirred in his arms, not fully awake but no longer still.

He grabbed her, sliced through the enchanted ropes, and kicked upward, the pressure in his chest mounting.

The surface broke with a roar.

Cheers rose from the stands.

Harry gasped, hauling her up as hands pulled them from the water. Someone cast drying charms. Someone else clapped him on the back.

The cold was blinding. The cheers deafening. Light fractured off the lake surface in a thousand diamond shards. For one long, gasping moment, Harry couldn't hear anything but the roar of his own pulse and the frantic wheezing of gills shrinking against his neck.

He coughed and gasped again, water and lakeweed tangled in his collar, his arms aching from where they still clung around the body in his arms—Elestara Black, eyes adjusting to the sunlight.

The second they breached the surface, her eyes had fluttered open. Not slowly. Not dazed. But with immediate awareness.

Madam Pomfrey and a team of assistants descended like hawks, tugging him and Elestara to the dock, wrapping blankets around them. But Elestara shoved them off.

Her hair clung wet and shimmering against her skin. Her chest rose and fell, breath ragged, eyes too sharp for someone who'd been unconscious a moment ago. There was a coldness about her that had nothing to do with the lake.

"Don't touch me," she snapped when Madam Pomfrey reached for her again.

"Miss Black—"

"I said don't."

The matron stepped back, startled.

Elestara turned. Her gaze locked on Harry, who had just now managed to sit up on the dock, chest heaving.

Her face twisted.

"You," she hissed.

He froze.

She stood, soaking and furious, trembling in the cold but too proud to wrap the blanket tighter. Water dripped from the ends of her white-gold hair, darkening the dock beneath her feet.

"Did you enjoy it?"

Harry blinked. "What?"

"Playing hero. Did you like dragging me up like some fallen maiden in need of saving? Did it make you feel noble, Potter?"

His breath hitched. "I was—"

"You were performing," she spat. Her voice was steel. Her eyes, wildfire. "Of course it was me. Of course they chose me. Because that's the story, isn't it? Saint Potter and the prize he wins."

She stepped closer, voice dropping to something that burned. "I knew it. Saint Potter will always be Saint Potter. Dying for attention. Swimming through peril for applause."

"Elestara—"

"Don't say my name like you know me," she snarled. "You don't. You know nothing. You don't know what it means to be used like this. To wake up from whatever charm they placed on us and realise the entire school was watching you be dragged out of the lake. Pathetic."

Harry's lips parted. Nothing came out.

"I don't want your rescue," she continued. "I never needed it. And I certainly didn't want to be your treasure."

And with that, she turned and stormed off the dock, bare feet slapping against stone, trailing water and rage like a cloak behind her.

Harry didn't move. He had cracked a small smile when they announced he came first, but he couldn't bring himself to care,

He sat on the edge of the dock long after the crowd dispersed, watching ripples fade into stillness. His clothes stuck cold and clammy to his skin, and the gills had faded from his throat. But the ache she'd left in his chest had only sharpened.

He had thought—foolishly, maybe—that something between them had shifted after the Yule Ball. She had laughed. She had said he could call her Lyra, just for the night. She had let him in, a little.

Since then, he'd thought about her. A lot.

He had wondered what she thought of him. If she remembered that dance. What if meant as she stood her ground against Draco simply because she was with him. He had wondered if she also the feeling he got, as though a fire burned from within his chest.

But now?

She had looked at him like she couldn't stand him. Like he'd humiliated her. Like it pained to see his face.

Like he had taken something from her.

The words kept replaying. Saint Potter will always be Saint Potter.

Dying for attention.

It shouldn't have hurt. Not that much. But it did.

He hadn't flirted since. Hadn't cracked a joke or planned a convenient stroll past the Slytherin table. Something had shuttered closed. He didn't want to perform. 

Not if that's all she thought it was.

Not if that's all he was.