Gossip {Sherlock Holmes/Harry Potter}

Chapter Thirty Six

Pierce searched all over the castle in hopes of finding his dear friend, but it seemed no matter where he looked Julius was nowhere to be found. It was the worst time for the boy to go missing as well as the Second Task would be starting soon and all Pierce wanted to hear was Julius' attempt at comforting words.

"Come on, mate, where are you?" Pierce mumbled under his breath.

"Lose someone?" 

Pierce nearly jumped a foot in the air when he heard someone speak to him. He clutched the front of his shirt over his chest and saw Nancy sitting in one of the window seats, a book propped up in her lap and one of her best friends, Bess sitting beside her.

Seeing the distressed look on the boy's face, the girls' smiles immediately faded as they looked at him with concern.

"Pierce, what's wrong?" Nancy asked him.

"I have searched all around this bloody castle...twice! I still can't find Julius, have you two seen him?" he asked them in desperation.

"No, I'm sorry." Nancy frowned.

"Where do you think he could be?" Bess asked.

Pierce's eyes widened in annoyance at the daft question asked by the plump blonde. "If I knew that, do you think I would be standing around here asking you?" he snapped. "If you would kindly just breathe through your nose and keep your mouth shut-"

"Pierce!" Nancy cut him off in a stern tone. "I get that you're upset, but there's no reason to be rude."

"Also, I am not a mouth-breather!" Bess sneered in his direction with a hurt expression. " Am I?" she whispered to Nancy. 

"No, not at all. Pierce is just upset right now, don't listen to him."Nancy patted the girl's shoulder reassuringly.

Receiving no help from the girls, Pierce didn't wait around long as he continued his search, but time worked against him and soon, without Julius by his side before the final minutes of the beginning of the second task, Pierce found himself alone.

He could hear John calling out his name as he stood out on the docks with the Champions preparing to enter the water. He glanced over his shoulder to see the man giving him thumbs up as he stood beside Sherlock. As Pierce's eyes fell on his father, he was able to finally see somewhat of a warm smile on the man's features as he looked back at Pierce and gave him a curt nod.

Pierce's face though, was full of worry as he wasn't able to locate his best friend and he was certainly worried over him. However, standing among the other competitors, Pierce glanced over at Harry and quickly noticed that his entourage of Ron and Hermione were not close behind them as they normally were. He looked to Cedric and saw that Cho was nowhere to be seen, while she had one to practically scream her head off in support of Cedric during the first task. He looked at Fleur last, who was glancing over her shoulder looking over at the Beauxbaton crowd.

The song from the golden egg, replayed in Pierce's head once more.

 Come seek us where our voices sound,

We cannot sing above the ground,And while you're searching, ponder this;
We've taken what you'll sorely miss,
An hour long you'll have to look,
And recover what we took,
But past an hour — the prospect's black,
Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.

Pierce's eyes widened in sudden realization as he turned around again as Dumbledore spoke announcing the basics of the task for the crowd. Instead of locking eyes with his dad, he caught Nancy's eyes. She looked quite perplexed as she made eye contact with him, his face washed over with a million different emotions at once with his new discovery.

Whipping back around, Pierce looked down at the dark water of the Black Lake and nodded his head as he kept a firm grip on his wand.

"Don't worry, Jules, I'm coming for you."

Waiting for the sound of the start, Pierce readied himself knowing what he had to do once he entered the water. When they were finally permitted into the water, the clock began and Pierce leaped in. The water was freezing to his body as he went under and performed the Bubble-Head Charm as his father had instructed him to. He figured all other efforts would be far too time consuming, the bubble-head charm would be the easiest. Pierce noticed he wasn't the only one to know about it either as he saw Fleur and Cedric proceed to do the same. He wasn't able to see what Harry had done in the darkness of the water, but of course, Viktor had to put on a show and transfigure his head into a shark.

Pierce rolled his eyes before venturing deeper into the water, his task was to find his friend above all things and get him to safety. He didn't have much if any experience with the merfolk of the Black Lake and he certainly didn't want the first experience to be bad.

He swam along, trying to ignore the coldness of the water, when a dark shadow quickly shot passed him in the distance. Pierce paused in his swimming and glanced around.

Moments later, something wrapped around his leg and proceeded to drag him down towards the bottom of the lake.

It was not a mermaid.