✔️ 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐆𝐎 → ℎ. 𝑝𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑡𝑤𝑖𝑛 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦

22 | B E L O W

   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. Four people were bound tightly to the tail of the stone merperson.

   Ron was tied between Hermione and 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 three 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. But it was the fourth person that caught his full attention.

   A cloud of raven black hair framing a unnaturally pale face, eyes tight shut, she was floating next to Hermione. For a moment Harry forgot why he was here; because why he was here was what was causing his mind to spin faster. He should get Ron. That was what Dobby had said. It was Ron. Ron was his hostage. But nevertheless it was his sister, it was Ember, floating in the water, looking more dead than alive. Of course, Ron was his best friend. But this was it? If he had to decide who was meaning the most to him, shouldn't it be her, Ember, the last bit of a family he had, his sister?

   Shaking his head to get rid of these Harry sped toward his sister, 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.

   Harry swirled around, staring about. Something sharp ... anything ...

   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 minutes' 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 Ember, 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 his sister, 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 sister!", Harry yelled, gesturing toward Ember, an enormous silver bubble emerging soundlessly from his lips. "And I don't want them to die either!"

   Suddenly 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 Ember free. He pulled her upward and out of sight, leaving Harry himself with the most devastating feeling he'd ever felt his whole life.

·

   Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. Ember didn't know what she noticed first; was it the burning in her eyes, as they flung open, was it the burning in her lungs, as she tried to catch a breath, was it the pressure in her ears, feeling like hot needles were digging into her tympanum, she couldn't tell. Instinctively, Ember tried to catch a breath, but it was water filling her mouth and nostrils, and quickly she realized that it wasn't just the darkness surrounding her that she was drowning in.

   The water was ice cold against her skin, but when she swallowed, it burnt like a blazing roar of fire pit. It coursed down her throat and into her lungs, but her water-strangled scream only made the icy flames lick into her mouth faster.

   A glint of yellow appeared in front of her eyes, before grey glittered across her vision and her legs started kicking in panic, a grip tightened around her waist, like the Giant Squid had wrapped one of his tentacles around her. She struggled against it, her eyes feeling like exploding, but the grip just got tighter.

   When you die your whole live is replaying in front of your eyes, they say. So maybe she wasn't dying, because there was nothing but the fear of dying per se.

   Her legs slowed and eventually stopped. The heat in her chest disappeared and blackness drifted over her. She glanced at the light shining through the surface one last time. Time trickled away into a slow, infinite expanse. If it hadn't been for the heat in her lung it would have been calming. Flashes of light shot through the darkness, but Ember didn't know if it wasn't just her imagination letting her drift away in a firework. Something slithered past her side, as the grey dotting her vision turned black her body was yanked, hard. Then passed passed out, feeling the impossible sensation of hands gripping her.

   And then, there was nothing.

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