Hidden Wings - Part I

Cedric's tip

"He told you to...take a bath?"

Mioha looked at Harry with disbelief, who nodded vigorously, shifting the egg from one hand to another.

"He said he felt grateful for the tip with the dragons, so he wanted to return the favor."

"That means, he must have solved the egg-problem already", Hermione mused.

The four of them were taking a short walk outside, wrapped in thick scarfs and wearing mittens to withstand the cold.

"And how will a bath help?", Ron muttered, raising his shoulders to cover his red ears from the wind.

He and Mioha hadn't talked about the night at the Yule Ball, they sort of came to an unspoken agreement that helping Harry was more important.
Which didn't mean that Ron stopped glaring every time Viktor and Mioha walked together.

"Can I hear the sound it makes?", Mioha asked curiously.

Ron and Hermione both shot her a weird look.

"Why?", Harry wondered, trying to hold the heavy golden egg with his frozen hands.

"I just want to hear it."
Mioha shot him a look that was supposed to resemble puppy eyes, but she wasn't sure if it actually looked like she had bit into a lemon.

Harry shrugged and bent down, setting the golden egg into the snow.

"No, mate", Ron pleaded, already covering his ears with his hands.
"Do you want to scare those large horses down there?"

He pointed down the hill at the Abraxans, who were standing still in the cold.

"They'll be fine", said Mioha confidently.
She was sure the winged horses wouldn't even blink.

Harry had a doubting look in his eyes, but then he slowly opened the egg.
The egg was hollow, Mioha noticed, until suddenly, a loud, piercing scream filled the air.
The Gryffindors all bent over with contorted faces, trying to block out the noise by pressing their hands to their ears.
Mioha scrunched her face up as the voice pierced her head, but unlike her friends, she didn't hear just a scream.

She heard words.

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.

Harry stepped forward and closed the egg with a snap, the scream echoing across the grounds and fading away.

The Abraxans weren't even looking at them, just as Mioha had predicted.

"Why the heck did you want to hear that?", Ron asked weakly, his face twisted with pain.

Hermione looked a little pale and kept rubbing her ears as if her eardrums had burst.

"Because it's Mermish", Mioha explained.

All three Gryffindors gaped at her.

"Mermish?", Harry repeated surprised.

Mioha nodded.
"Mermish is a language spoken by Merpeople. Some live in the black lake." She pointed at the water below them, ice shimmering on its surface, before continuing: "Underwater, it sounds more like English, but above the ground it just sounds like a lot of screaming."