Heart of Stone: HPHM Year 6

The Underwater Village

The dark, frigid water seemed to squeeze in on Sarah as she watched the merpeople, who gazed at her with their unblinking eyes. She wanted to hold her hands up in surrender, but her arms were having to fight her body's natural urge to float toward the surface. She needed to conjure some kind of weight to help her stay under, but she didn't dare use her wand wand now. 

The mermaid at the center of the group hissed at her, then spoke. It's voice was unlike anything she'd ever heard before. Beautiful and echoing, it was almost as if she were singing. Sarah didn't understand a word, but she tried to explain herself with the mermish she'd studied in the library. 

"I end curse," she hoped she said. As her mouth was surrounded by air, her mermish was the horrid screeching kind, but she did her best to form the screeches into words. 

The other mermaids hissed as the first spoke again, more rapidly than before. She held her trident out, dangerously close to Sarah's throat. 

"Please," she said in panicked English, before regaining her composure and trying again in calm, albeit broken, mermish.

"I help. Dumbledore send I." She point to herself. "My work...end curses."

The mermaid kept her trident up, but she tilted her head back in recognition at Dumbledore's name. The mermaid next to her, the one with the held harp at her hip by a bit of rope over her shoulder, touched the other's arm. The first mermaid glared at her, but let her speak. Again Sarah couldn't quite understand it, but she thought she'd heard her acquaintance use the words "music," "Dumbledore," and "help."

The first mermaid hissed again, but lowered her trident. She spoke again. Again, Sarah was ignorant, but the mermaids spun quick and gracefully around, and at her friend's nod, Sarah understood she was meant to follow. 

She swam behind them for a bit. When it appeared none of them were watching her, she used her wand to conjur a boulder the size of a dinner plate and a bit of rope. She tied one end of the rope around her waist and connected the other end to the boulder with a sticking charm. Now she was weighed down enough that swimming so near the bottom of the lake wasn't a problem, but her forward motion wasn't slowed much. Satisfied with her handiwork, she swam after her aquatic guard. 

They journeyed for a long time. Sarah's bubble charm still held, but she hadn't considered what would happen if she became exhausted from swimming. She wondered if the mermaids would help her, or if they would leave her behind for the grindylows to find. She shuddered, chastising herself for not practicing her swimming with Barnaby more often, and hoping dearly she'd have enough stamina for the entire trip. 

The mermaids swam on, deeper and deeper into the chilly water. With each meter Sarah grew colder, and the water grew darker. She had to be sure to stay close behind the last merman, or she'd lose sight of its silvery tail. Thankfully, the merpeople seemed to understand that humans were not as skilled at swimming, and they moved slowly for her benefit. 

They entered a forest of seaweed. It was so tall and so thick Sarah felt she was swimming in the algae alone rather than in water. The strands slid across her arms and legs, her neck. Sarah fought to control her panic; she'd become so disoriented, she wouldn't have been able to tell up from down if not for her homemade anchor. It kept getting caught by the seaweed, and once, after she'd doubled back to free it, she spun around, her long hair trailing around her, to find only green ribbons surrounding her. Not the tip of a single trident, not the gleam of a silver-scaled tail. 

Terror gripped her, tighter than the strands of seaweed that wrapped around her legs as she kicked about in her panic. She forced herself to take deep, shaky breaths. She wondered if she'd be able to send up red sparks that could rise above the surface of the lake. Would anyone see them? Even if they did, how could they possibly get to her in time?