CVII. MORAL FIBER

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Harry was tied between Hermione and Cho Chang. There was also a girl who looked no older than eight, whose clouds of silvery hair made Mia 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.

Mia 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. She furrowed her eyebrows as she looked around. 

Mia swirled around, her large tail flapping in the water as she stared 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. She began to hack at the ropes binding Harry, and after several minutes' hard work, they broke apart. Harry floated, unconscious, a few inches above the lake bottom, drifting a little in the ebb of the water.

Mia looked around. There was no sign of any of the other champions. What were they playing at? Why didn't they hurry up? She 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 her. Half a dozen mermen were pulling her away from Hermione, shaking their green-haired heads, and laughing. Mia groaned in frustration before grabbing her brother around the chest and swimming upwards towards the surface. As she swam upwards, she saw Cedric swimming towards her. There was an enormous bubble around his head, which made his features look oddly wide and stretched.

"Hurry," he said. Mia nodded in thanks before swimming back up to the surface. 

And then she felt her head break the surface of the lake; wonderful, cold, clear air was making her wet face sting. She gulped it down, feeling as though she had never breathed properly before. She looked up at the crowd and furrowed her eyebrows when she saw Fleur looking horrified.

"Pleeze!" she begged, "save my sister!" 

Mia looked at her brother, then back in the water and saw she still had her tail.

"Mia, you can't be serious?" Harry said, "going back?"

"I'd want her to do the same if it was you," she said before diving back under the water, ignoring all the yells from the crowd. The ginger girl swam back to the bottom where she saw Fleur's little sister being the only hostage. She grabbed the rock, but the mermen now closed in around the little girl, shaking their heads at him. Mia flashed her eyes red.

"Get out of the way!"

Their yellowish eyes were fixed upon Mia, and they looked scared. There might be a lot more of them than there were of her, but Mia could tell, by the looks on their faces, that they knew no more magic than the giant squid did.

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