Harry slowed down a little, slipped his wand back inside his robes and looked around, listening again. He turned full circle in the water, the silence pressing harder than ever against his eardrums. He knew he must be even deeper in the lake now, but nothing was moving except the rippling weed.
‘How are you getting on?’
Harry thought he was having a heart attack. He whipped around, and saw Moaning Myrtle floating hazily in front of him, gazing at him through her thick pearly glasses.
‘Myrtle!’ Harry tried to shout – but, once again, nothing came out of his mouth but a very large bubble. Moaning Myrtle actually giggled.
‘You want to try over there!’ she said, pointing. ‘I won’t come with you … I don’t like them much, they always chase me when I get too close …’
Harry gave her the thumbs-up to show his thanks, and set off once more, careful to swim a bit higher over the weed, to avoid any more Grindylows that might be lurking there.
He swam on for what felt like at least twenty minutes. He was passing over vast expanses of black mud now, which swirled murkily as he disturbed the water. Then, at long last, he heard a snatch of haunting mer-song.
‘An hour long you’ll have to look,
And to recover what we took …’
Harry swam faster, and soon saw a large rock emerge out of the muddy water ahead. It had paintings of merpeople on it; they were carrying spears, and chasing what looked like the giant squid. Harry swam on past the rock, following the mer-song.
‘… your time’s half-gone, so tarry not
Lest what you seek stays here to rot …’
A cluster of crude stone dwellings stained with algae loomed suddenly out of the gloom on all sides. Here and there at the dark windows, Harry saw faces … faces that bore no resemblance at all to the painting of the mermaid in the Prefects’ bathroom …
The merpeople had greyish skins and long, wild, dark green hair. Their eyes were yellow, as were their broken teeth, and they wore thick ropes of pebbles around their necks. They leered at Harry as he swam past; one or two of them emerged from their caves to watch him better, their powerful, silver fishtails beating the water, spears clutched in their hands.
Harry sped on, staring around, and soon the dwellings became more numerous; there were gardens of weed around some of them, and he even saw a pet Grindylow tied to a stake outside one door. Merpeople were emerging on all sides now, watching him eagerly, pointing at his webbed hands and gills, talking behind their hands to each other. Harry sped around a corner, and a very strange sight met his eyes.
A whole crowd of merpeople were floating in front of the houses that lined what looked like a mer-version of a village square. A choir of merpeople were singing in the middle, calling the champions towards them, and behind them rose a crude sort of statue; a gigantic merperson hewn from a boulder. Four people were bound tightly to the tail of the stone merperson.
Ron was tied between Hermione and Cho Chang. There was also a girl who looked no older than eight, whose clouds of silvery hair made Harry feel sure that she was Fleur Delacour’s sister. All four of them appeared to be in a very deep sleep. Their heads were lolling onto their shoulders, and fine streams of bubbles kept issuing from their mouths.
Harry sped towards the hostages, half expecting the merpeople to lower their spears and charge at him, but they did nothing. The ropes of weed tying the hostages to the statue were thick, slimy and very strong. For a fleeting second he thought of the knife Sirius had brought him for Christmas – locked in his trunk in the castle a quarter of a mile away, no use to him whatsoever.
He looked around. Many of the merpeople surrounding them were carrying spears. He swam swiftly towards a seven-foot-tall merman with a long green beard and a choker of shark fangs, and tried to mime a request to borrow the spear. The merman laughed and shook his head.
‘We do not help,’ he said in a harsh, croaky voice.
‘Come ON!’ Harry said fiercely (but only bubbles issued from his mouth), and he tried to pull the spear away from the merman, but the merman yanked it back, still shaking his head and laughing.
Harry swirled around, staring about. Something sharp … anything …
There were rocks littering the lake bottom. He dived and snatched up a particularly jagged one, and returned to the statue. He began to hack at the ropes binding Ron, and after several minutes’ hard work, they broke apart. Ron floated, unconscious, a few inches above the lake bottom, drifting a little in the ebb of the water.
Harry looked around. There was no sign of any of the other champions. What were they playing at? Why didn’t they hurry up? He turned back to Hermione, raised the jagged rock and began to hack at her bindings, too –
At once, several pairs of strong grey hands seized him. Half-a-dozen mermen were pulling him away from Hermione, shaking their green-haired heads and laughing.
‘You take your own hostage,’ one of them said to him. ‘Leave the others …’
‘No way!’ said Harry furiously – but only two large bubbles came out.
‘Your task is to retrieve your own friend … leave the others …’
‘She’s my friend, too!’ Harry yelled, gesturing towards Hermione, an enormous silver bubble emerging soundlessly from his lips. ‘And I don’t want them to die, either!’
Cho’s head was on Hermione’s shoulder; the small silver-haired girl was ghostly green and pale. Harry struggled to fight off the mermen, but they laughed harder than ever, holding him back. Harry looked wildly around. Where were the other champions? Would he have time to take Ron to the surface, and come back down for Hermione and the others? Would he be able to find them again? He looked down at his watch to see how much time was left – it had stopped working.
But then the merpeople around him started pointing excitedly over his head. Harry looked up and saw Cedric swimming towards them. There was an enormous bubble around his head, which made his features look oddly wide and stretched.
‘Got lost!’ he mouthed, looking panic-stricken. ‘Fleur and Krum’re coming now!’
Feeling enormously relieved, Harry watched Cedric pull a knife out of his pocket and cut Cho free. He pulled her upwards and out of sight.
Harry looked around, waiting. Where were Fleur and Krum? Time was getting short and, according to the song, the hostages would be lost after an hour …
The merpeople started screeching excitedly. Those holding Harry loosened their grip, staring behind them. Harry turned, and saw something monstrous cutting through the water towards them: a human body in swimming trunks with the head of a shark … it was Krum. He appeared to have Transfigured himself – but badly.
The shark-man swam straight to Hermione and began snapping and biting at her ropes: the trouble was that Krum’s new teeth were positioned very awkwardly for biting anything smaller than a dolphin, and Harry was quite sure that if Krum wasn’t careful, he was going to rip Hermione in half. Darting forwards, Harry hit Krum hard on the shoulder, and held up the jagged stone. Krum seized it, and began to cut Hermione free. Within seconds, he had done it; he grabbed Hermione around the waist and, without a backward glance, began to rise rapidly with her towards the surface.
Now what? Harry thought desperately. If he could be sure that Fleur was coming … But still no sign. There was nothing for it …
He snatched up the stone, which Krum had dropped, but the mermen now closed in around Ron and the little girl, shaking their heads at him.
Harry pulled out his wand. ‘Get out of the way!’
Only bubbles flew out of his mouth, but he had the distinct impression that the mermen had understood him, because they suddenly stopped laughing. Their yellowish eyes were fixed upon Harry’s wand, and they looked scared. There might be a lot more of them than there were of him, but Harry could tell, by the looks on their faces, that they knew no more magic than the giant squid did.
‘You’ve got until three!’ Harry shouted; a great stream of bubbles burst from him, but he
held up three fingers to make sure they got the message. ‘One …’ (he put down a finger) – ‘two …’ (he put down a second) –
They scattered. Harry darted forwards and began to hack at the robes binding the small girl to the statue; and at last she was free. He seized the little girl around the waist, grabbed the neck of Ron’s robes, and kicked off from the bottom.
It was very slow work. He could no longer use his webbed hands to propel himself forwards; he worked his flippers furiously, but Ron and Fleur’s sister were like potato-filled sacks dragging him back down … he fixed his eyes skywards, though he knew he must still be very deep, the water above him was so dark …
Merpeople were rising with him. He could see them swirling around him with ease, watching him struggle through the water … would they pull him back down to the depths when the time was up? Did they perhaps eat humans? Harry’s legs were seizing up with the effort to keep swimming; his shoulders were aching horribly with the effort of dragging Ron and the girl …
He was drawing breath with extreme difficulty. He could feel pain on the sides of his neck again … he was becoming very aware of how wet the water was in his mouth … yet the darkness was definitely thinning now … he could see daylight above him …
He kicked hard with his flippers and discovered that they were nothing more than feet … water was flooding through his mouth into his lungs … he was starting to feel dizzy, but he knew light and air were only ten feet above him … he had to get there … he had to…
Harry kicked his legs so hard and fast it felt as though his muscles were screaming in protest; his very brain felt waterlogged, he couldn’t breathe, he needed oxygen, he had to keep going, he could not stop –
And then he felt his head break the surface of the lake; wonderful, cold, clear air was making his wet face sting; he gulped it down, feeling as though he had never breathed properly before, and, panting, pulled Ron and the little girl up with him. All around him, wild, green-haired heads were emerging out of the water with him, but they were smiling at him.
The crowd in the stands was making a great deal of noise; shouting and screaming, everybody seemed to be on their feet; Harry had the impression they thought that Ron and the little girl might be dead, but they were wrong … both of them had opened their eyes; the girl looked scared and confused, but Ron merely expelled a great spout of water, blinked in the bright light, turned to Harry and said, ‘Wet, this, isn’t it?’ Then he spotted Fleur’s sister. ‘What did you bring her for?’
‘Fleur didn’t turn up. I couldn’t leave her,’ Harry panted.
‘Harry, you prat,’ said Ron, ‘you didn’t take that song thing seriously, did you? Dumbledore wouldn’t have let any of us drown!’
‘But the song said –’
‘Only to make sure you got back inside the time limit!’ said Ron. ‘I hope you didn’t waste time down there acting the hero!’
Harry felt both stupid and annoyed. It was all very well for Ron; he’d been asleep, he hadn’t felt how eerie it was down in the lake, surrounded by spear-carrying merpeople who’d looked more than capable of murder.
‘C’mon,’ Harry said shortly, ‘help me with her, I don’t think she can swim very well.’
They pulled Fleur’s sister through the water, back towards the bank where the judges stood watching, twenty merpeople accompanying them like a guard of honour, singing their horrible screechy songs.
Harry could see Madam Pomfrey fussing over Hermione, Krum, Cedric and Cho, all of whom were wrapped in thick blankets. Dumbledore and Ludo Bagman stood beaming at Harry and Ron from the bank as they swam nearer, but Percy, who looked very white and somehow much younger than usual, came splashing out to meet them. Meanwhile Madame Maxime was trying to restrain Fleur Delacour, who was quite hysterical, fighting tooth and nail to return to the water.
‘Gabrielle! Gabrielle! Is she alive? Is she ’urt?’
‘She’s fine!’ Harry tried to tell her, but he was so exhausted he could hardly talk, let alone shout.
Percy seized Ron and was dragging him back to the bank (‘Gerroff, Percy, I’m all right!’); Dumbledore and Bagman were pulling Harry upright; Fleur had broken free of Madame Maxime and was hugging her sister.
‘It was ze Grindylows … zey attacked me … oh, Gabrielle, I thought … I thought …’
‘Come here, you,’ said Madam Pomfrey’s voice; she seized Harry and pulled him over to Hermione and the others, wrapped him so tightly in a blanket that he felt as though he was in a straitjacket, and forced a measure of very hot potion down his throat. Steam gushed out of his ears.
‘Harry, well done!’ Hermione cried. ‘You did it, you found out how, all by yourself!’
‘Well –’ said Harry. He would have told her about Dobby, but he had just noticed Karkaroff watching him. He was the only judge who had not left the table; the only judge not showing signs of pleasure and relief that Harry, Ron and Fleur’s sister had got back safely. ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said Harry, raising his voice slightly so that Karkaroff could hear him.
‘You haff a water-beetle in your hair, Herm-own-ninny,’ said Krum.
Harry had the impression that Krum was drawing her attention back onto himself; perhaps to remind her that he had just rescued her from the lake, but Hermione brushed the beetle away impatiently and said, ‘You’re well outside the time limit, though, Harry … Did it take you ages to find us?’
‘No … I found you OK …’
Harry’s feeling of stupidity was growing. Now he was out of the water, it seemed perfectly clear that Dumbledore’s safety precautions wouldn’t have permitted the death of a hostage just because their champion hadn’t turned up. Why hadn’t he just grabbed Ron and gone? He would have been first back … Cedric and Krum hadn’t wasted time worrying about anyone else; they hadn’t taken the mer-song seriously …
Dumbledore was crouching at the water’s edge, deep in conversation with what seemed to be the chief merperson, a particularly wild- and ferocious-looking female. He was making the same sort of screechy noises that the merpeople made when they were above water; clearly, Dumbledore could speak Mermish. Finally he straightened up, turned to his fellow judges and said, ‘A conference before we give the marks, I think.’
The judges went into a huddle. Madam Pomfrey had gone to rescue Ron from Percy’s clutches; she led him over to Harry and the others, gave him a blanket and some Pepper-Up Potion, then went to fetch Fleur and her sister. Fleur had many cuts on her face and arms, and her robes were torn, but she didn’t seem to care, nor would she allow Madam Pomfrey to clean them.
‘Look after Gabrielle,’ she told her, and then she turned to Harry. ‘You saved ’er,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Even though she was not your ’ostage.’
‘Yeah,’ said Harry, who was now heartily wishing he’d left all three girls tied to the statue.
Fleur bent down, kissed Harry twice on each cheek (he felt his face burn and wouldn’t have been surprised if steam was coming out of his ears again), then said to Ron, ‘And you, too – you ’elped –’
‘Yeah,’ said Ron, looking extremely hopeful, ‘yeah, a bit –’
Fleur swooped down on him, too, and kissed him. Hermione looked simply furious, but just then, Ludo Bagman’s magically magnified voice boomed out beside them, making them all jump, and causing the crowd in the stands to go very quiet.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our decision. Mer-chieftainess Murcus has told us exactly what happened at the bottom of the lake, and we have therefore decided to award marks out of fifty for each of the champions, as follows …
‘Miss Fleur Delacour, though she demonstrated excellent use of the Bubble-Head Charm, was attacked by Grindylows as she approached her goal, and failed to retrieve her hostage. We award her twenty-five points.’
Applause from the stands.
‘I deserved zero,’ said Fleur throatily, shaking her magnificent head.
‘Mr Cedric Diggory, who also used the Bubble-Hea
d Charm, was first to return with his hostage, though he returned one minute outside the time limit of an hour.’ Enormous cheers from the Hufflepuffs in the crowd; Harry saw Cho give Cedric a glowing look. ‘We therefore award him forty-seven points.’
Harry’s heart sank. If Cedric had been outside the time limit, he most certainly had been.
‘Mr Viktor Krum used an incomplete form of Transfiguration, which was nevertheless effective, and was second to return with his hostage. We award him forty points.’
Karkaroff clapped particularly hard, looking very superior.
‘Mr Harry Potter used Gillyweed to great effect,’ Bagman continued. ‘He returned last, and well outside the time limit of an hour. However, the Merchieftainess informs us that Mr Potter was first to reach the hostages, and that the delay in his return was due to his determination to return all hostages to safety, not merely his own.’
Ron and Hermione both gave Harry half-exasperated, half-commiserating looks.
‘Most of the judges’ – and here, Bagman gave Karkaroff a very nasty look – ‘feel that this shows moral fibre and merits full marks. However … Mr Potter’s score is forty-five points.’
Harry’s stomach leapt – he was now tying for first place with Cedric. Ron and Hermione, caught by surprise, stared at Harry, then laughed and started applauding hard with the rest of the crowd.
‘There you go, Harry!’ Ron shouted over the noise. ‘You weren’t being thick after all – you were showing moral fibre!’
Fleur was clapping very hard, too, but Krum didn’t look very happy at all. He attempted to engage Hermione in conversation again, but she was too busy cheering Harry to listen.
The Goblet of Fire Page 43
