Half-Blood Princess Book Four

Chapter 14 - Second Trial

Third-Person POV

24th February 1995

Tilly slowly stirs the next morning expecting to find Draco sleeping peacefully next to her, his arms around her protectively and his warm body pressed against hers, but no, she wakes up to cold air in an empty bed. Panicking about what happened since she fell asleep, quickly gets dressed and runs to her Dad's office. Bursting through the door find Severus half asleep, making some tea.

"Morning Pumpkin, would you like some tea?"

"No, thanks. Do you know where Draco is? I can't find him, and I'm worried." As his daughter paces back and forth, Snape shakes his head, thinking of where her best friend could be.

"Till, we have to get to the Black Lake soon. I'm sure we'll find him there." Snape reasons, trying to calm his daughter. Tilly nods as the two walks to the lake, where Tilly will have to fight to save people's lives.

Tilly steadies her breathing as she passes the Weasley twins making bets on who will win, and if anyone will die. By the sounds of it, she's the favourite to win, right now. As Tilly stands still wrapped in her jumper, Draco nowhere to be seen, she knows he's under the water, and she needs to save him.

"Welcome to the second task," Albus says over the speaker. "Last night something was stolen from each of our champions. A treasure of sorts. These four treasure, one for each champion, lie on the bottom of the Black Lake. To win, the champions need only find their treasure and return to the surface." Tilly centres her breath and heart rate, knowing what she's about to do might kill her if down wrong.

The cannon goes off, and three of the fives jump in the water, then followed but Harry, who surfaces doing a flip. Tilly laughs at his show-off nature but focuses again.

"Tilly, what are you doing?"

"I'm not getting wet unless vital Dad. I know what I'm doing, but just in case, if I die, look after my animals and save Draco if I can't. Thanks." Tilly lifts herself in the air before Severus can respond. The crowd watch and a black ring of light flows out of Tilly, over the lake, and turns white at one spot. Where the most human blood can we found. Tilly floats over to where the white ball is and pushes it underwater, making a column of water twist until Tilly could see Draco at the bottom, suspended in the air, as Tilly mover the water away from him. The breaks the change holding Draco attached to the ground and lifts him and herself over to the crowd, all in minutes of the trail starts.

Tilly Draco's Draco down and he wakes up, spitting out some water, as Tilly collapses next to him. "Draco, you ok?" Draco nods as he's given a towel, still shaking slightly, Tilly wraps her arms around Draco holding him close.

"Thanks for the save." Draco and Tilly chuckle.

"Matilda Snape has resecured her treasure in only 10 minutes, without going underwater! She is the first to finish." Dumbledore roars. The two friends sit on the edge of the stands, quietly for 15 minutes not talking about anything, just sitting in each other company. Until Fleur comes out of the water, but without her little sister. Tilly stands up helping Fleur out of the water. Fleur starts to cry into Tilly's arms, about how her sister is now dead because she can't save her. Tilly looks back to the crowd and then to Fleur, letting her sit down. Tilly takes out and little black bottle, that had a potion she'd made just in case.

Tilly throws her head back, swallowing the liquid, ignoring the protest from every person.

"Till, what are you doing?" Draco asks before Tilly jumps in the water.

"Saving peoples lives; like always." Tilly jumps in the water, as her body changes. Her hair turns lighter and floats in the water, her skin even paler, with no legs, but a tail. Tilly doesn't look like normal merpeople; she looks much prettier. Her tail as beautiful shinnying scales, as does around her chest. Tilly can swim much faster than anyone else and halfway comes across Cedrick struggling to carry Cho while fighting off many merpeople. Tilly calls to the merpeople and they back away, seeing her as some kind of Queen. Cedrick nods to Tilly thanking her for freeing him, and the two carry on their way. Tilly finds Krum trying to free Hermione but forgot to break the chain holding her down, so Tilly blasts it, and the two swim away. Tilly helps Harry save Ron and then Fleur's sister. Harry take Ron and Tilly holds Gabrielle.