Alexandra Dursley {Golden Trio}

Chapter 44 - The Mermaids' Clue

Thank you so so much for reading! I'm really enjoying writing this fic :)

 The sound from the common room when Al arrived back was deafening. Everywhere she looked people were cheering and clapping and shouting. Banners were being waved and she was wrapped in a Slytherin one. The music started and she dragged her friends over to where all the food was - she was starving. She'd hardly eaten anything at lunch.

 Al danced along with everyone else, this time making sure to keep her friends close and slow down her drinking - she wasn't getting caught out again. Then, the music cut off abruptly and one of the seventh years shouted, "Open it!"

 "Yeah, open it!" someone else shouted.

 "What's the clue?" another voice called.

 "Okay, okay!" she said, grabbing the egg from the table it sat on near the fireplace. The room went so quiet you could hear a pin drop; a stark contrast between the racket from before.

 She dug her fingernails into the groove and flipped it open on it's hinge. A loud screeching noise filled the room and people clamped their hands over their ears. "SHUT IT UP!" one person bellowed.

 But Al was listening intently - yeah it sounded like a cat being tortured - but the screeches had patterns of volume, emphasis and pitch. She looked over at Theo and Daphne, who also had a small amount of recognition on their faces. And then the sounds began to repeat in the same order. This was a clue, no doubt. But it was in some sort of weird language.

 She snapped the egg closed, and the people around her hesitantly released their hands from their ears. "What the hell was that?" someone shouted from the other side of the room.

 "You're going to have to face a banshee!" Higgins shouted from across the room.

 "No that was a language!" one of the sixth year prefects shouted from the other side. Al looked at Theo and Daphne, who did Ancient Runes with her. You had to spot patterns and repetitions there - a bit like code breaking. They nodded slowly. "Play it again!" the prefect shouted.

 "No!" a dozen or so people said at once.

 "Well, she needs to figure out what it is!" the prefect said to no one in particular.

 "I've got a book on magical languages," a fifth year said from the sofa near her, "I'll go and get it."

 There were a few scattered calls of, "Me too!" and half an hour later there was a study group of about thirty where the dancing had been. Bowls of crisps and cakes were scattered around and the music was still playing but much quieter, so people could focus.

 Someone snapped a book shut, "It could be troll?" they suggested, but they didn't sound like they believed it.

 "Don't be an idiot - trolls just grunt," someone else said.

"Well what do you suggest?"

 "Mermish?"

 "I thought mermaids spoke English!"

 "Yeah - underwater!"

 "Let's listen to it again!"

 "No!" A seventh year prefect was stood by the door in their dressing gown, "It's half past five and you all have lessons in three and a half hours. Go to bed or I'll start taking points!" Al didn't need telling twice - she was exhausted. She was fast asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

*****

 Al spent the next few weeks holed up in the library, trying to figure out what language it was. Harry spent a lot of time up there too, but he had even less of an idea as to what wizarding languages there were. Every now and then, Al's three friends would come up and help her search and sometimes Granger and the Weasel would come up. Rarely, but sometimes, their paths would cross and everyone would do some silent research until someone made a comment (usually the Weasel or Draco) and they'd bicker amongst themselves until Madame Pince kicked everyone out except her and Harry. It was one such occasion that Al found herself close to giving up.

 "I think Mermish would be a good shout," she confessed, having told Harry about the study session.

 "How the hell are we supposed to translate Mermish?" Harry hissed at her. He too was growing increasingly frustrated.

 "Well, it sounds like English underwater," she explained.

 "And have you held it underwater?" he asked her patronisingly.

 Al felt her face grow hot, "Well, no," she confessed, "But I don't even know if that's true - and how would you get them in Scotland?"

 "Everyone knows there's mermaids in Scotland!" Harry scolded her, receiving a glare from the librarian, "It's in Fantastic Beasts!" He got up and returned a minute later with a very battered copy of said book. "Look at the introduction - given beast status because they can't speak English above water. And it says about them being in the Scottish highlands later on." Al felt her face grow hotter and hotter - how had she forgotten about that? It was three years ago when I read it, she reasoned.

 "So, mermaids!" Al said. Harry just sat there, resuming his usual blank look, "Well come on! Let's put the eggs underwater!"

 The pair grabbed their eggs off the desk and packed their things up, before sprinting out the library and down the corridors to the nearest respective bathrooms. "Stop running!" A Professor called after them, but was ignored as they neared the bathrooms.

 "See you in a bit," Al said as she walked into the girls. Harry grinned at her. She went over to a sink - which was grimy as usual - and cleaned it a bit with magic before plugging the whole and running the tap. Once the basin was full, she placed the egg in, and put as much of her head in as she could.

 Then she opened it and braced herself for the screeching, but it didn't come. Instead a beautiful harmony of voices drifted into her ear.

 "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 to recover what we took, But past an hour the prospect's black, Too late it's gone it won't come back." (1)

 Al went over it in her head once more, checking that she'd understood it. Then she dried her hair with her wand and waited outside for Harry, who took a little while longer, but emerged soon after, looking confused and bewildered. "What was that about?" he asked her.

 "Didn't you understand it?" she asked, as they headed down to dinner together.

 "'We cannot sing above the ground'? What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, screwing his face up.

 "Mermaids, idiot!" she told him and realisation dawned on his face.

 "Like, in the Black Lake?" he asked and Al nodded. "How are we supposed to hold our breath for an hour?"

 Al hadn't thought of that, "I don't know," she confessed as they reached the Great Hall, "But there'll be a charm or something," she reassured him, "We'll figure it out."

 "You're early," Draco commented as she sat down and helped herself to chicken pie, "The library doesn't close for another half an hour."

 "Wait a second," Daphne said, her eyes lighting up, "Have you solved it?"

 Al nodded and Daphne clapped her hand over her mouth, "What is it?" Theo asked, but Al only shook her head, pointing down the table where two Durmstrang girls were listening in.

(1) J.K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire