TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT 30 страница

“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, Harry pulled off his shoes and socks, pulled the handful of gillyweed out of his pocket, stuffed it into his mouth, and waded out into the lake.

It was so cold he felt the skin on his legs searing as though this were fire, not icy water. His sodden robes weighed him down as he walked in deeper; now the water was over his knees, and his rapidly

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numbing feet were slipping over silt and flat, slimy stones. He was chewing the gillyweed as hard and fast as he could; it felt unpleas- antly slimy and rubbery, like octopus tentacles. Waist-deep in the freezing water he stopped, swallowed, and waited for something to happen.

He could hear laughter in the crowd and knew he must look stu- pid, walking into the lake without showing any sign of magical power. The part of him that was still dry was covered in goose pim- ples; half immersed in the icy water, a cruel breeze lifting his hair, Harry started to shiver violently. He avoided looking at the stands; the laughter was becoming louder, and there were catcalls and jeer- ing from the Slytherins. . . .

Then, quite suddenly, Harry felt as though an invisible pillow had been pressed over his mouth and nose. He tried to draw breath, but it made his head spin; his lungs were empty, and he suddenly felt a piercing pain on either side of his neck —

Harry clapped his hands around his throat and felt two large slits

just below his ears, flapping in the cold air. . . . He had gills. With-

out pausing to think, he did the only thing that made sense — he flung himself forward into the water.

The first gulp of icy lake water felt like the breath of life. His head had stopped spinning; he took another great gulp of water and felt it pass smoothly through his gills, sending oxygen back to his brain. He stretched out his hands in front of him and stared at them. They looked green and ghostly under the water, and they had become webbed. He twisted around and looked at his bare feet — they had become elongated and the toes were webbed too: It looked as though he had sprouted flippers.

The water didn’t feel icy anymore either. . . on the contrary, he

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felt pleasantly cool and very light. . . . Harry struck out once more, marveling at how far and fast his flipper-like feet propelled him through the water, and noticing how clearly he could see, and how he no longer seemed to need to blink. He had soon swum so far into the lake that he could no longer see the bottom. He flipped over and dived into its depths.

Silence pressed upon his ears as he soared over a strange, dark, foggy landscape. He could only see ten feet around him, so that as he sped through the water new scenes seemed to loom suddenly out of the oncoming darkness: forests of rippling, tangled black weed, wide plains of mud littered with dull, glimmering stones. He swam deeper and deeper, out toward the middle of the lake, his eyes wide, staring through the eerily gray-lit water around him to the shadows beyond, where the water became opaque.

Small fish flickered past him like silver darts. Once or twice he thought he saw something larger moving ahead of him, but when he got nearer, he 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, Ron — nor, thankfully, the giant squid.

Light green weed stretched ahead of him as far as he could see, two feet deep, like a meadow of very overgrown grass. Harry was staring unblinkingly ahead of him, trying to discern shapes through the gloom. . . and then, without warning, something grabbed hold of his ankle.

Harry twisted his body around and saw a grindylow, a small, horned water demon, poking out of the weed, its long fingers clutched tightly around Harry’s leg, its pointed fangs bared — Harry stuck his webbed hand quickly inside his robes and fumbled

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for his wand. By the time he had grasped it, two more grindylows had risen out of the weed, had seized handfuls of Harry’s robes, and were attempting to drag him down.

“ Relashio! ” Harry shouted, except that no sound came out. . . . A

large bubble issued from his mouth, and his wand, instead of send- ing sparks at the grindylows, pelted them with what seemed to be a jet of boiling water, for where it struck them, angry red patches appeared on their green skin. Harry pulled his ankle out of the grindylows grip and swam, as fast as he could, occasionally sending more jets of hot water over his shoulder at random; every now and then he felt one of the grindylows snatch at his foot again, and he kicked out, hard; finally, he felt his foot connect with a horned skull, and looking back, saw the dazed grindylow floating away, cross-eyed, while its fellows shook their fists at Harry and sank back into the weed.

Harry slowed down a little, slipped his wand back inside his robes, and looked around, listening again. He turned full circle in the water, the silence pressing harder than ever against his eardrums. He knew he must be even deeper in the lake now, but nothing was moving but the rippling weed.

“How are you getting on? ”

Harry thought he was having a heart attack. He whipped around and saw Moaning Myrtle floating hazily in front of him, gazing at him through her thick, pearly glasses.

“Myrtle! ” Harry tried to shout — but once again, nothing came out of his mouth but a very large bubble. Moaning Myrtle actually giggled.

“You want to try over there! ” she said, pointing. “I won’t come

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with you. . . . I don’t like them much, they always chase me when I get too close. . . . ”

Harry gave her the thumbs-up to show his thanks and set off once more, careful to swim a bit higher over the weed to avoid any more grindylows that might be lurking there.

He swam on for what felt like at least twenty minutes. He was passing over vast expanses of black mud now, which swirled murk- ily as he disturbed the water. Then, at long last, he heard a snatch of haunting mersong.

“ An hour long you’ll have to look,

And to recover what we took . . . ”

Harry 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. Harry swam on past the rock, following the mersong.

“. . . your time’s half 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, Harry 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. Their eyes were yellow, as were their broken teeth, and they wore thick ropes of pebbles around their necks. They leered at Harry as

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he swam past; one or two of them emerged from their caves to watch him better, their powerful, silver fish tails beating the water, spears clutched in their hands.

Harry sped on, staring around, and soon the dwellings became more numerous; 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 him eagerly, pointing at his webbed hands and gills, talking behind their hands to one another. Harry sped around a corner and a very strange sight met his 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 cham- pions toward them, 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 Harry 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 issu- ing from their mouths.

Harry sped toward the hostages, half expecting the merpeople to lower their spears and charge at him, but they did nothing. The ropes of weed tying the hostages to the statue were thick, slimy, and very strong. For a fleeting second he thought of the knife Sirius had bought him for Christmas — locked in his trunk in the castle a quarter of a mile away, no use to him whatsoever.

He looked around. Many of the merpeople surrounding them

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were carrying spears. He swam swiftly toward 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! ” Harry said fiercely (but only bubbles issued from

his mouth), and he tried to pull the spear away from the merman, but the merman yanked it back, still shaking his head and laughing. Harry swirled around, staring about. Something sharp. . . any- thing. . .

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

Harry looked around. There was no sign of any of the other champions. What were they playing at? Why didn’t they hurry up? He turned back to Hermione, raised the jagged rock, and began to hack at her bindings too —

At once, several pairs of strong gray hands seized him. Half a dozen mermen were pulling him away from Hermione, shaking their green-haired heads, and laughing.

“You take your own hostage, ” one of them said to him. “Leave the others. . . ”

“No way! ” said Harry furiously — but only two large bubbles came out.

“Your task is to retrieve your own friend. . . leave the others. . . ”

“ She’s my friend too! ” Harry yelled, gesturing toward Hermione,

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an enormous silver bubble emerging soundlessly from his 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. Harry struggled to fight off the mermen, but they laughed harder than ever, holding him back. Harry looked wildly around. Where were the other champions? Would he have time to take Ron to the surface and come back down for Hermione and the others? Would he be able to find them again? He looked down at his watch to see how much time was left — it had stopped working.

But then the merpeople around him pointed excitedly over his head. Harry looked up and saw Cedric swimming toward them. There was an enormous bubble around his head, which made his features look oddly wide and stretched.

“Got lost! ” he mouthed, looking panic-stricken. “Fleur and Krum’re coming now! ”

Feeling enormously relieved, Harry watched Cedric pull a knife out of his pocket and cut Cho free. He pulled her upward and out of sight.

Harry looked around, waiting. Where were Fleur and Krum? Time was getting short, and according to the song, the hostages would be lost after an hour. . . .

The merpeople started screeching animatedly. Those holding Harry loosened their grip, staring behind them. Harry turned and saw something monstrous cutting through the water toward them: a human body in swimming trunks with the head of a shark. . . . It was Krum. He appeared to have transfigured himself — but badly. The shark-man swam straight to Hermione and began snapping and biting at her ropes; the trouble was that Krum’s new teeth were

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positioned very awkwardly for biting anything smaller than a dol- phin, and Harry was quite sure that if Krum wasn’t careful, he was going to rip Hermione in half. Darting forward, Harry hit Krum hard on the shoulder and held up the jagged stone. Krum seized it and began to cut Hermione free. Within seconds, he had done it; he grabbed Hermione around the waist, and without a backward glance, began to rise rapidly with her toward the surface.

Now what? Harry thought desperately. If he could be sure that

Fleur was coming. . . . But still no sign. There was nothing to be done except. . .

He snatched up the stone, which Krum had dropped, but the mermen now closed in around Ron and the little girl, shaking their heads at him. Harry pulled out his wand.

“Get out of the way! ”

Only bubbles flew out of his mouth, but he had the distinct impression that the mermen had understood him, because they suddenly stopped laughing. Their yellowish eyes were fixed upon Harry’s wand, and they looked scared. There might be a lot more of them than there were of him, but Harry could tell, by the looks on their faces, that they knew no more magic than the giant squid did.

“You’ve got until three! ” Harry shouted; a great stream of bub- bles burst from him, but he held up three fingers to make sure they got the message. “One. . . ” (he put down a finger) “two. . . ” (he put down a second one) —

They scattered. Harry darted forward and began to hack at the ropes binding the small girl to the statue, and at last she was free. He seized the little girl around the waist, grabbed the neck of Ron’s robes, and kicked off from the bottom.

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It was very slow work. He could no longer use his webbed hands to propel himself forward; he worked his flippers furiously, but Ron and Fleur’s sister were like potato-filled sacks dragging him back down. . . . He fixed his eyes skyward, though he knew he must still be very deep, the water above him was so dark. . . . Merpeople were rising with him. He could see them swirling around him with ease, watching him struggle through the wa- ter. . . . Would they pull him back down to the depths when the time was up? Did they perhaps eat humans? Harry’s legs were seiz- ing up with the effort to keep swimming; his shoulders were aching horribly with the effort of dragging Ron and the girl. . . .

He was drawing breath with extreme difficulty. He could feel pain on the sides of his neck again. . . he was becoming very aware of how wet the water was in his mouth. . . yet the darkness was definitely thinning now. . . he could see daylight above him. . . . He kicked hard with his flippers and discovered that they were nothing more than feet. . . water was flooding through his mouth into his lungs. . . he was starting to feel dizzy, but he knew light and air were only ten feet above him. . . he had to get there. . . he had to. . .

Harry kicked his legs so hard and fast it felt as though his mus- cles were screaming in protest; his very brain felt waterlogged, he couldn’t breathe, he needed oxygen, he had to keep going, he could not stop —

And then he felt his head break the surface of the lake; wonder- ful, cold, clear air was making his wet face sting; he gulped it down, feeling as though he had never breathed properly before, and, pant- ing, pulled Ron and the little girl up with him. All around him,

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wild, green-haired heads were emerging out of the water with him, but they were smiling at him.

The crowd in the stands was making a great deal of noise; shout- ing and screaming, they all seemed to be on their feet; Harry had the impression they thought that Ron and the little girl might be dead, but they were wrong. . . both of them had opened their eyes; the girl looked scared and confused, but Ron merely expelled a great spout of water, blinked in the bright light, turned to Harry, and said, “Wet, this, isn’t it? ” Then he spotted Fleur’s sister. “What did you bring her for? ”

“Fleur didn’t turn up, I couldn’t leave her, ” Harry panted. “Harry, you prat, ” said Ron, “you didn’t take that song thing se- riously, did you? Dumbledore wouldn’t have let any of us drown! ” “The song said —”

“It was only to make sure you got back inside the time limit! ” said Ron. “I hope you didn’t waste time down there acting the hero! ”

Harry felt both stupid and annoyed. It was all very well for Ron;

he’d been asleep, he hadn’t felt how eerie it was down in the lake,

surrounded by spear-carrying merpeople who’d looked more than capable of murder.

“C’mon, ” Harry said shortly, “help me with her, I don’t think she can swim very well. ”

They pulled Fleur’s sister through the water, back toward the bank where the judges stood watching, twenty merpeople accompanying them like a guard of honor, singing their horrible screechy songs. Harry could see Madam Pomfrey fussing over Hermione, Krum, Cedric, and Cho, all of whom were wrapped in thick blankets.

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Dumbledore and Ludo Bagman stood beaming at Harry and Ron from the bank as they swam nearer, but Percy, who looked very white and somehow much younger than usual, came splashing out to meet them. Meanwhile Madame Maxime was trying to restrain Fleur Delacour, who was quite hysterical, fighting tooth and nail to return to the water.

“Gabrielle! Gabrielle! Is she alive? Is she ’urt? ”

“She’s fine! ” Harry tried to tell her, but he was so exhausted he could hardly talk, let alone shout.

Percy seized Ron and was dragging him back to the bank (“Ger- roff, Percy, I’m all right! ”); Dumbledore and Bagman were pulling Harry upright; Fleur had broken free of Madame Maxime and was hugging her sister.

“It was ze grindylows. . . zey attacked me. . . oh Gabrielle, I thought. . . I thought. . . ”

“Come here, you, ” said Madam Pomfrey. She seized Harry and pulled him over to Hermione and the others, wrapped him so tightly in a blanket that he felt as though he were in a straitjacket, and forced a measure of very hot potion down his throat. Steam gushed out of his ears.

“Harry, well done! ” Hermione cried. “You did it, you found out how all by yourself! ”

“Well —” said Harry. He would have told her about Dobby, but he had just noticed Karkaroff watching him. He was the only judge who had not left the table; the only judge not showing signs of pleasure and relief that Harry, Ron, and Fleur’s sister had got back safely. “Yeah, that’s right, ” said Harry, raising his voice slightly so that Karkaroff could hear him.

“You haff a water beetle in your hair, Herm-own-ninny, ” said

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Krum. Harry had the impression that Krum was drawing her at- tention back onto himself; perhaps to remind her that he had just rescued her from the lake, but Hermione brushed away the beetle impatiently and said, “You’re well outside the time limit, though, Harry. . . . Did it take you ages to find us? ”

“No. . . I found you okay. . . . ”

Harry’s feeling of stupidity was growing. Now he was out of the water, it seemed perfectly clear that Dumbledore’s safety precau- tions wouldn’t have permitted the death of a hostage just because their champion hadn’t turned up. Why hadn’t he just grabbed Ron and gone? He would have been first back. . . . Cedric and Krum hadn’t wasted time worrying about anyone else; they hadn’t taken the mersong seriously. . . .

Dumbledore was crouching at the water’s edge, deep in conver- sation with what seemed to be the chief merperson, a particularly wild and ferocious-looking female. He was making the same sort of screechy noises that the merpeople made when they were above wa- ter; clearly, Dumbledore could speak Mermish. Finally he straight- ened up, turned to his fellow judges, and said, “A conference before we give the marks, I think. ”

The judges went into a huddle. Madam Pomfrey had gone to rescue Ron from Percy’s clutches; she led him over to Harry and the others, gave him a blanket and some Pepperup Potion, then went to fetch Fleur and her sister. Fleur had many cuts on her face and arms and her robes were torn, but she didn’t seem to care, nor would she allow Madam Pomfrey to clean them.

“Look after Gabrielle, ” she told her, and then she turned to Harry. “You saved ’er, ” she said breathlessly. “Even though she was not your ’ostage. ”

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“Yeah, ” said Harry, who was now heartily wishing he’d left all three girls tied to the statue.

Fleur bent down, kissed Harry twice on each cheek (he felt his face burn and wouldn’t have been surprised if steam was coming out of his ears again), then said to Ron, “And you too — you ’elped —”

“Yeah, ” said Ron, looking extremely hopeful, “yeah, a bit —” Fleur swooped down on him too and kissed him. Hermione looked simply furious, but just then, Ludo Bagman’s magically magnified voice boomed out beside them, making them all jump, and causing the crowd in the stands to go very quiet.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our decision. Merchief- tainess Murcus has told us exactly what happened at the bottom of the lake, and we have therefore decided to award marks out of fifty for each of the champions, as follows. . . .

“Fleur Delacour, though she demonstrated excellent use of the Bubble-Head Charm, was attacked by grindylows as she ap- proached her goal, and failed to retrieve her hostage. We award her twenty-five points. ”

Applause from the stands.

“I deserved zero, ” said Fleur throatily, shaking her magnificent head.

“Cedric Diggory, who also used the Bubble-Head Charm, was first to return with his hostage, though he returned one minute outside the time limit of an hour. ” Enormous cheers from the Huf- flepuffs in the crowd; Harry saw Cho give Cedric a glowing look. “We therefore award him forty-seven points. ”

Harry’s heart sank. If Cedric had been outside the time limit, he most certainly had been.

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“Viktor Krum used an incomplete form of Transfiguration, which was nevertheless effective, and was second to return with his hostage. We award him forty points. ”

Karkaroff clapped particularly hard, looking very superior. “Harry Potter used gillyweed to great effect, ” Bagman contin- ued. “He returned last, and well outside the time limit of an hour. However, the Merchieftainess informs us that Mr. Potter was first to reach the hostages, and that the delay in his return was due to his determination to return all hostages to safety, not merely his own. ”

Ron and Hermione both gave Harry half-exasperated, half- commiserating looks.

“Most of the judges, ” and here, Bagman gave Karkaroff a very nasty look, “feel that this shows moral fiber and merits full marks. However. . . Mr. Potter’s score is forty-five points. ”

Harry’s stomach leapt — he was now tying for first place with

Cedric. Ron and Hermione, caught by surprise, stared at Harry, then

laughed and started applauding hard with the rest of the crowd. “There you go, Harry! ” Ron shouted over the noise. “You weren’t being thick after all — you were showing moral fiber! ” Fleur was clapping very hard too, but Krum didn’t look happy at all. He attempted to engage Hermione in conversation again, but she was too busy cheering Harry to listen.

“The third and final task will take place at dusk on the twenty- fourth of June, ” continued Bagman. “The champions will be noti- fied of what is coming precisely one month beforehand. Thank you all for your support of the champions. ”

It was over, Harry thought dazedly, as Madam Pomfrey began herding the champions and hostages back to the castle to get into

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dry clothes. . . it was over, he had got through. . . he didn’t have to worry about anything now until June the twenty-fourth. . . . Next time he was in Hogsmeade, Harry decided as he walked back up the stone steps into the castle, he was going to buy Dobby a pair of socks for every day of the year.

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PADFOOT RETURNS

ne of the best things about the aftermath of the second task

was that everybody was very keen to hear details of what had happened down in the lake, which meant that Ron was getting to share Harry’s limelight for once. Harry noticed that Ron’s ver- sion of events changed subtly with every retelling. At first, he gave what seemed to be the truth; it tallied with Hermione’s story, any- way — Dumbledore had put all the hostages into a bewitched sleep in Professor McGonagall’s office, first assuring them that they would be quite safe, and would awake when they were back above the water. One week later, however, Ron was telling a thrilling tale of kidnap in which he struggled single-handedly against fifty heav- ily armed merpeople who had to beat him into submission before tying him up.

“But I had my wand hidden up my sleeve, ” he assured Padma Patil, who seemed to be a lot keener on Ron now that he was get- ting so much attention and was making a point of talking to him

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every time they passed in the corridors. “I could’ve taken those mer-idiots any time I wanted. ”

“What were you going to do, snore at them? ” said Hermione waspishly. People had been teasing her so much about being the thing that Viktor Krum would most miss that she was in a rather tetchy mood.

Ron’s ears went red, and thereafter, he reverted to the bewitched sleep version of events.

As they entered March the weather became drier, but cruel winds skinned their hands and faces every time they went out onto the grounds. There were delays in the post because the owls kept being blown off course. The brown owl that Harry had sent to Sir- ius with the dates of the Hogsmeade weekend turned up at break- fast on Friday morning with half its feathers sticking up the wrong way; Harry had no sooner torn off Sirius’s reply than it took flight, clearly afraid it was going to be sent outside again.

Sirius’s letter was almost as short as the previous one.

Be at stile at end of road out of Hogsmeade (past Dervish and Banges) at two o’clock on Saturday afternoon. Bring as much food as you can.

“He hasn’t come back to Hogsmeade? ” said Ron incredulously. “It looks like it, doesn’t it? ” said Hermione.

“I can’t believe him, ” said Harry tensely, “if he’s caught. . . ” “Made it so far, though, hasn’t he? ” said Ron. “And it’s not like the place is swarming with dementors anymore. ”

Harry folded up the letter, thinking. If he was honest with him- self, he really wanted to see Sirius again. He therefore approached