The Girl Who Was A Secret - George Weasley

Chapter 18

Harry's POV

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 me as I swam past, one or two of them emerged from their caves to watch me better, their powerfuls, silver fishtails beating the water, spears clutched in their hands.

I sped on, staring around, and soon the dwelling became more numerous, there were gardens of weed around some of them, and i even saw a pet Grindylow tied to a stake outside one door. Merpeople were emerging on all sides now, watching me eagerly, pointing at my webbed hands and gills, talking behind their hands to each other. I sped around the corner, and a very strange sight met my 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 the,. 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 me feel sure that she was Fleur Delacour's sister. All four of them appeared to be in a very deep sleep. Their heads were rolling onto their shoulders, and fine streams of bubbles kept issuing from their mouths.

I sped towards the hostages, half expecting the merpeople to lower their spears and charge at me, but they did nothing. The ropes of weed tying the hostages to the statue were thick, slimy and very strong. For a fleeting second I thought of the knife Sirius sent me for Christmas, locked in my trunk in the castle a quarter of a mile away, no use to me whatsoever.

I looked around. Many of the merpeople surrounding us were carrying spears. I 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!" I said fiercely but only bubbles issued from my mouth, and I tried to pull the spear away from the merman, but the merman yanked it back, still shaking his head and laughing.

I swirled around, staring about. Something sharp... anything...

There were rocks littering the lake bottom. I dived and snatched up a particularly jagged one, and returned to the statue. I began to hack at the ropes binding Ron, and after several minutes' hard work, they broke apart. Ron floated, unconscious, a few inches about the lake bottom, drifting a little in the ebb of the water.

I looked around. There was no sign of any of the other champions. What were they playing at? Why didn't they hurry up? I 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 me. Half a dozen mermen were pulling me away from Hermione, shaking their green-haired heads and laughing.

"You take your own hostage," one of them said to me. "Leave the others..."

"No way!" I said furiously but only to large bubbles came out.

"Your task is to retrieve your own friend... leave the other..."

"She's my friend, too!" I yelled, gesturing towards Hermione, an enormous silver bubble emerging soundlessly from my 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. I struggled to fight off the mermen but they laughed harder than ever, holding me back. I looked wildly around. Where were the other champions? Would I have time to take Ron to the surface, and come back down for Hermione and the others? Would I be able to find them again? I looked down at my watch to see how much time was left, it had stopped working.