moon-struck....harry james potter

4.16| the second task

4.16| the second task

Alex walked out into the lawn and saw that the seats that had encircled the dragons’ enclosure in November were now ranged along the opposite bank, rising in stands that were packed to the bursting point and reflected in the lake below. Cedric, Fleur, and Krum were beside the judges’ table and Alex too joined them.

"Where is Harry?" Asked Percy, who was in Mr Crouch's place.

"He'll be here soon" Alex shrugged. And she was right, he was sprinting towards their direction in no time.

“I’m— here!—" Harry panted, skidding to a halt in the mud and accidentally splattering Fleur’s robes.

“Where have you been?” Percy said, disapprovingly.

“Now, now, Percy!” said Ludo Bagman, who was looking intensely relieved to see Harry. “Let him catch his breath!”

Ludo Bagman was now moving among the champions, spacing them along the bank at intervals of ten feet. Alex was beside Fluer and Cedric. She removed her shoes and her socks and saw Harry do the same.

“Sonorus!” Bagman said, his voice boomed out across the dark water toward the stands. “Well, all our champions are ready for the second task, which will start on my whistle. They have precisely an hour to recover what has been taken from them. On the count of three, then. One… two—" Alex took the little bit of gillyweed out and swallowed it— "three!”

The whistle echoed shrilly in the cold, still air; the stands erupted with cheers and applause and Alex could hear Cedric wish her best of Luck as she dived into the ocean— greeted by freezing cold water—so cold that for a second it felt like she was on fire. For a second she thought nothing happened—a sudden feeling in her guts that she would drown. She took her head out of the water to breathe. And for a moment she panted before she stopped— she felt like she was being choked and so she touched her neck and felt gills—flapping in the cold air. She dived back inside. The water didn't feel icy anymore. She took a great gulp of water and felt it pass smoothly through her gills, sending oxygen back to her brain. Her hands looked green and ghostly underwater, they also became webbed. She didn't even need to blink, and she could see clearly. As she swam deeper she could see forests of rippling, tangled black weed, wide plains of mud littered with dull, glimmering stones. She stared through the eerily grey lit water that became opaque, as small fishes flickered past her.

She swam as fast as she could, not knowing how long the Gillyweed would last. She was passing over vast expanses of black mud now, which swirled murkily as he disturbed the water. Then, at long last, she heard a snatch of haunting mersong. She 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. Alex swam past the rock, following the mersong.

Then she saw them, the Merpeople. The merpeople had grayish skin 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. 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 her eagerly, pointing at her webbed hands and gills, talking behind their hands to one another. A whole crowd of merpeople was floating in front of the houses that lined what looked like a mer-version of a village square. A choir of merpeople was singing in the middle, calling the champions toward them, and behind them rose a crude sort of statue; a gigantic merperson hewn from a boulder. Five people were bound tightly to the tail of the stone merperson.

There was Ron, Hermione, Cho, Cepheus and a little girl around eight—whose silver hair indicated that she was Fleur's sister. Alex sped toward the hostages, half expecting the merpeople to lower their spears and charge at her, but they did nothing. The ropes of weed tying the hostages to the statue were thick, slimy, and very strong. Alex took out the Dagger Sirius had given her (and a similar one to Harry) for Christmas from her pocket. She began cutting the thick ropes tying Cepheus, feeling scared that the effect of her gillyweed would fade soon.