"I'm . . . here . . ." Kirrapanted, skidding to a halt in the mud and accidentally splattering Fleur's robes, Harry appeared next to her, even more out of breath than she was, he skidded on the mud and somehow managed to do the same thing that his sister had, earning a glare from Fleur.
"I'm here," Harry choked out as he struggled to catch his breath, leaning on his sister slightly for support. She looked over at him and saw the deep, dark patches under his eyes, he had clearly been up the whole night, and she could only guess that he was trying to figure out how he would pass this task
"Where have you been?" said a bossy, disapproving voice. "The task's about to start!" Kirra and Harry looked around. Percy Weasley was sitting at the judges' table — Mr. Crouch had failed to turn up again.
"Why don't you ask your mum, she will fill you in on all the fun we had las-" Kirra joked sarcastically but was cut off by Harry jabbing her softly in the side of the ribs, causing her to turn and glare at her brother, but not before noticing Percy's cheeks going even more red than his hair
"You watch your mouth P-" Percy began to growl at the girl but was cut off
"Now, now, Percy!" said Ludo Bagman, who was looking intensely relieved to see Kirra and Harry. "Let them catch their breath!" Dumbledore smiled at Harry and Kirra (Kirra sneered back at him), but Karkaroff and Madame Maxime didn't look at all pleased to see them... especially not the girl. . . . It was obvious from the looks on their faces that they had thought that the twins weren't going to turn up.
Kirra and Harry both simultaneously bent over, hands on their knees, gasping for breath; Kirra had a stitch in her side that felt as though she had a knife between her ribs, but there was no time to get rid of it; Ludo Bagman was now moving among the champions, spacing them along the bank at intervals of ten feet.
Harry was on the very end of the line, next to Kirra who was wearing Huffepuff shorts and a singlet. Kirra gave her brother a small thumbs up, both of them trying to hide the immense fear that they were feeling right about now. Kirra turned to look at the other side of her, Krum, who was wearing swimming trunks and was holding his wand ready.
"All right, Kirra?" Bagman whispered as he moved Kirra a few feet farther away from Krum. "Know what you're going to do?"
"Yeah," Kirra panted, massaging her ribs. Bagman gave Kirra's shoulder a quick squeeze and then went over to Harry and did the same before he returned to the judges' table; he pointed his wand at his throat as he had doneat the World Cup, said, "Sonorus!" and 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 . . . three!" The whistle echoed shrilly in the cold, still air; the stands erupted with cheers and applause; without looking to see what the other champions were doing, Kirra pulled off her shoes and socks, pulled her potion out of her pocket, stuffed it into her mouth, and waded out into the lake.
It was so cold she felt the skin on her legs searing as though this were fire, not icy water. She felt herself freeze up in fear but she tried to keep herself calm, reminding herself that she needed to go and find Mattheo. Finally, the potion she had made began to take effect.Suddenly, Kirra felt as though an invisible pillow had been pressed over her mouth and nose.
She tried to draw breath, but it made her head spin; her lungs were empty, and she suddenly felt a piercing pain on either side of her neck — Kirra clapped her hands around her throat and felt two large slits just below her ears, flapping in the cold air. . . . She had gills.
Without pausing to think, she did the only thing that made sense — she flung herself forward into the water. The first gulp of icy lake water felt like the breath of life. Her head had stopped spinning; she took another great gulp of water and felt it pass smoothly through her gills, sending oxygen back to her brain.
She stretched out her hands in front of her and stared at them. They looked green and ghostly under the water, and they had become webbed. She twisted around and looked rather legs, though they weren't legs anymore, instead she had a long tail. She had done it, the potion had worked, she had turned herself into a half mermaid for the next hour.
The water didn't feel icy anymore either . . . on the contrary, she felt pleasantly cool and very light. . . . Kirra struck out once more, marveling at how far and fast her tail propelled her through the water, and noticing how clearly she could see, and how she no longer seemed to need to blink.
She had soon swum so far into the lake that she could no longer see the bottom. She flipped over and dived into its depths. Silence pressed upon her ears as she soared over a strange, dark, foggy landscape. She could only see ten feet around her, so that as she sped through the water new scenes seemed to loom suddenly out of the oncoming darkness: forests of rippling, tangled blackweed, wide plains of mud littered with dull, glimmering stones.
She swam deeper and deeper, out toward the middle of the lake, her eyes wide, staring through the eerily gray-lit water around her to the shadows beyond, where the water became opaque.
Small fish flickered past her like silver darts. Once or twice she thought she saw something larger moving ahead of her, but when she got nearer, she discovered it to be nothing but a large, blackened log, or a dense clump of weed.
There was no sign of any of the other champions, merpeople, Mattheo — nor, thankfully, the giant squid, though she hadn't been down there for long. Light green weed stretched ahead of her as far as she could see, two feet deep, like a meadow of very overgrown grass.
Kirra was staring unblinkingly ahead of her, trying to discern shapes through the gloom . . . and then, without warning, something grabbed hold of her tail. Kirra twisted her body around and saw a grindylow, a small, horned water demon, poking out of the weed, its long fingers clutched tightly around Kirra's tail, its pointed fangs bared — Kirra stuck her webbed hand quickly inside her bra and grabbed her wand, "Relashio!" Kirra shouted, except that no sound came out. . . .
A large bubble issued from her mouth, and her wand, instead of sending sparks at the grindylow, pelted it with what seemed to be a jet of boiling water, for where it struck it, angry red patches appeared on its green skin.
Kirra pulled her tail out of the grindylows grip and swam, as fast as she could, occasionally sending more jets of hot water over his shoulder at random; every now and then she felt one of the grindylows snatch at her tail again, and she kicked out, hard; finally, she felt her tail connect with a horned skull, and looking back, saw the dazed grindylow floating away, cross-eyed, while its fellows shook their fists at Kirra and sank back into the weed.
Kirra slowed down a little, slipped her wand back inside her bra, and looked around, listening again. She turned full circle in the water, the silence pressing harder than ever against her eardrums. She knew she must be even deeper in the lake now, but nothing was moving but the rippling weed.
"How are you getting on?" Kirra thought she was having a heart attack. She whipped around and saw Moaning Myrtle floating hazily in front of her, gazing at her through her thick, pearly glasses.
Kirra wasn't dumb enough to try and talk again, so she waved at the ghost and offered a kind smile.
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. . . ." Kirra gave her the thumbs-up to show her thanks and set off once more, careful to swim a bit higher over the weed to avoid anymore grindylows that might be lurking there.
He swam on for what felt like a few minutes. She was passing over vast expanses of black mud now, which swirled murkily as she disturbed the water. Then, at long last, she heard a snatch of haunting mersong. "An hour long you'll have to look,And to recover what we took . . ." Kirra 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. Kirra swam on past the rock, following the mersong .". . . your time's a quarter 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, Kirra saw faces . . . faces that bore no resemblance at all to the painting of the mermaid in the prefects' bathroom. . . .
The merpeople had grayish skin and long, wild, dark green hair, just like she had remembered. Their eyes were yellow, as were their broken teeth, and they wore thick ropes of pebbles around their necks. They leered at Kirra as she swam past; one or two of them emerged from their caves to watch her better, their powerful, silver fish tails beating the water, spears clutched in their hands.
Kirra sped on, staring around, and soon the dwellings became more numerous; there were gardens of weed around some of them, and she 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, tail and gills, talking behind their hands to one another. Kirra sped around a corner and a very strange sight met her eyes. 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. Mattheo was next to Hermione on the edge, and 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 Kirra feel sure that she was Fleur Delacour's sister. All five 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.
Kirra 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 looked around. Many of the merpeople surrounding themwere carrying spears, but Kirra knew they wouldn't lend it to her so she focused on the vines after grabbing her wand 'Diffindo' she muttered in her head, and sure enough the vine attached to Mattheo broke.
An amazed laugh fell from her lips as she wrapped her arms around the boy, peering down at his face for a few moments, happy that she had been able to rescue him then she pulled her wand out of her bra strap once again, raising it into the air 'Ascendio' she muttered out and then the two of them flew straight out of the water, soaring through the air over in the direction of the crowd.
"Oh shit!" Kirra muttered as they began to gain speed on the way down to the platform, "Arresto Momentum," she exclaimed and before the two of them hit the ground, they stopped floating mid air for a few seconds before falling back down on the wood. "Well thank the gods that is over," she muttered out and grabbed a vile out of her pocket, drinking it and groaning in pain as her tail, gills and webbed fingers disappeared