Chapter 138: Merpeople Pt.1

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The Hogwarts staff, demonstrating a continued desire to impress their visitors from the other schools, seemed determined to show the castle at its best this Christmas. When the decorations went up, Harry noticed that they were the most stunning he had yet seen inside the school.

Everlasting icicles had been attached to the banisters of the marble staircase; the usual twelve Christmas trees in the Great Hall were bedecked with everything from luminous holly berries to real, hooting, golden owls, and the suits of armor had all been bewitched to sing carols whenever anyone passed them.

It was quite something to hear "O Come, All Ye Faithful" sung by an empty helmet that only knew half the words. Several times, Filch the caretaker had to extract Peeves from inside the armor, where he had taken to hiding, filling in the gaps in the songs with lyrics of his own invention, all of which were very rude.

Poor Nevile was getting very nervous now as he couldn't form up the courage to ask someone yet. Terry was brave enough to ask a fellow Ravenclaw to the ball who accepted to his relief.

"I suppose there's always Moaning Myrtle," he said gloomily, referring to the ghost who haunted the girls' toilets on the second floor.

"You just got to grit our teeth and do it," Harry comforted his friend. "When we get back to the common room tonight, I will ask for a partner for you, if you can't do it yourself," Harry grinned.

"You wouldn't... would you," Neville said disbelievingly.

"Then you better ask someone you like," Harry said, "or else I will pick a random one for you! Can't have a mate go alone!"

"It's not that hard really, Neville," George called as he and Fred sat down at the table with them.

"You'd better hurry up, mate, or all the good ones will be gone," Fred messed around with Neville's hair.

"Who're you going with, then?" Neville asked.

"Angelina Johnson," Fred said promptly, without a trace of embarrassment.

"Alicia Spinnet," George answered as well.

"What?" Neville said, taken aback. "You've already asked them? I could have sworn you don't... "

"Good point," George and Fred said as they nodded their head at each other. He turned his head and called across the common room, "Oi! Angelina!" Angelina, who had been chatting with Alicia, looked over at him.

"What?" she called back.

"Want to come to the ball with me?" Angelina gave Fred an appraising sort of look. "All right, then," she said, she said with a shrug.

"What about you, Alicia," George called out.

"Why not," brown haired Chaser smiled. "But you boys must not think about playing any pranks, or else it's the side lines with you two."

"Wouldn't dream about it," George shouted back as the two of them got back to their discussions.

"There you go," Fred said to Neville who had his mouth hanging wide open and his eyes nearly popping out, "piece of cake." He got to his feet, yawning, and said, "We'd better start coming up with some good pranks for the ball, couples do need something to remember that night for!"

"You are so right, dear brother of mine," George chuckled. "What would they all do without us, huh?"

"They would surely be lost and empty, that's what they would be," Fred answered.

They left, leaving Neville sitting there like a stone statue.

"Well, you should get a move on, ask someone. They are right. We don't want to end up with a pair of trolls," Harry patted his friend on the shoulder as he too got up and left.

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For Harry getting a date for the ball was no longer a problem, he already had plenty of girls he would need to take, so there was no reason to add to it.

What he had to focus on was the second trial, once the Yule Ball was over and the holidays came to an end, there wouldn't be that much time left before the second task was going to take place. So since his dates were all set and ready to go, he had been putting all his focus on the upcoming trial.

Already he tried the egg out in the water, of course after he had multiple dates at the prefect bathroom with a special someone where they got up to all sorts of things.

It seem like there was a message encoded into the egg. In the end, was just some horrible loud noise near to screechy wailing, but the disembodied voices of some unearthly beings.

It had taken him a while after spending countless nights in the school library doing a whole bunch of research and even heading to his own family library, before he figured out what the egg was trying to tell him.

It would seem the message was in Mermish, the language of the Merpeople, something he was no expert in, but after looking around for some specialists it turned out the headmaster was quite fluent in the language. The old man was happy to translate for him, and if Harry knew him well, the old fart must have been dancing with joy seeing him come to him for help.

Harry was finally able to translate what the encoded message in the egg said;

'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 had no idea what it meant, however what he did know was that Merpeople did live in the Black Lake located to the south of Hogwarts Castle. Connecting the dots, they must have something to do with the upcoming trial.

Taking his findings to Sirius, the older wizard also couldn't make heads or tails on what the Merpeople were going on about in their little song. The only option left now was to follow it through with it and find out from the Merpeople in the Lake what the second trial entitled.

That meant taking a trip under the waters, deep into the lake, where the Merpeople lived.

That had its own problems he needed to figure out, humans were built to last in the waters, so he needed a magical solution to the problem at hand.

And that meant hitting the books tacks again, the one thing he noted was that Hermione was so proud of him there every day. There was nothing that could wipe the smile off her face, when she say him so studious just like her.

Seeing what mood she was in, he was able to talk her into rewarding him for being such a bookworm like her. And man were those nice little treats so worth the many hours he spent in the stacks.

He wondered to himself if he should be spending even more time here if there was many bountiful rewards waiting for him.

Anyways there was countless solutions to his problem, in magic there are so many paths to take to do something. Want to levitate; well then there is a spell for that, a potion you can take, a magical item you can forge, and so much more.

It allowed to path to solve something to be numerous and rich, but they each came with a specific advantage. So that could leave someone stuck on which one to pick.

From him research alone he found there was 52 different work around his problems, from air bubbles that worked like scuba mask to so many others. The two he honed on was a transfiguration spells and a rare magical plant.

The first being a spell that could transform him into a merman, and a second being a plant called Gillyweed which when eaten by a human, it gave them fish-like attributes, including gills to process oxygen from water, webbing between the fingers and toes for easier swimming, removing the need for blinking, and adapting to cold temperatures in water.

They were both very useful in their own rights, but he had to pick the former for one reason. The Merpeople were a hostile race of magical beings who wanted nothing to do with wizards and witches.

There was a long history between them one of bloodshed and strife that went back for centuries. Thus he needed to fit in, and to do that it was the first option he picked.

Nevertheless that meant putting himself through countless hours of training to get this right. Self transfiguration was pretty advance spellwork which was not covered in 4th year courses in Transfiguration class or even 5th, but in 6th and 7th years. The reason being self transfiguration was very dangerous, one small little mistake and you were in a whole lot of trouble.

Once he finally had the spell down, the Yule Ball was just right around the corner. So on the next day when class where out, Harry found himself at the edge of the Lake.

Not many people were out as it was cold out with small sheet of snow covering the dead grass. Most people were indoors where it was warm inside and the fireplace was close by to keep warms and toasty.

Only idiots would be out right now where they might catch a cold.

And it would seem he wasn't the only idiot out at the moment, coming to the Lake Harry saw a few champions at the edge of the pool looking at the dark waters.

James Turner was at the lake's edge testing the water with some strange device. Tang Zhou was meditating by the lake side under a tree even as the chilly winds breezed through. Viktor Krum came and left after he had a look at the pool. Sinopa Zuni was chanting something out loud at the far edge while she tossed in a ceremonial dance as well.

Besides them, he didn't know who else already came by the lake, but he didn't let that bother him. Each person had their own plan and so did he.

Harry pulled off his shoes and socks, followed by his robes leaving him with only his undergarments as he could feel the cold air seeping into him. Without a word, he 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 undergarments weighed him down as he walked in deeper; now the water was over his knees, and his rapidly numbing feet were slipping over silt and flat, slimy stones.

Waist deep in the freezing water he stopped, floating in the water while the other champions turned to look at him weirdly. The part of him that was still dry was covered in goose pimples; half immersed in the icy water, a cruel breeze lifting his hair, Harry started to shiver violently.

It was now or never, pulling out his wand he muttered the spell the words flowing out of him as he must have uttered them hundreds of times over and over, practicing for this very moment for days on end.

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.

Without pausing to think, he did the only thing that made sense — he flung off his last remaining clothes that were shredded, leaving him all but naked, and swam 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 where his normal white skin, but then he noticed they had become webbed.

He twisted around and looked at his bare feet — no longer did he had any legs anymore, but now he had fish fins that came from his legs all the way to his waist. The water didn't feel icy anymore either. On the contrary, he ‘felt pleasantly cool and very light. . . .

Harry struck out once more, marveling at how far and fast his fins carried him as they easily 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.

Swimming under the lake Harry never knew it would feel so free. It was like taking to a broom for the first time as he swore high up above in the sky.

Harry slowed down a little after a while, having more than enough fun for now. He looked around, trying to locate where the Merpeople were, if only he had a map, now that would have come in handy. 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.

"What are you doing here?"

Harry thought he was having a heart attack. He whipped around and saw a mermaid swimming lazily in front of him, gazing at him. She was of his age or maybe a year or two older, and she could have passed off as a regular girl if not for the fin from her waist all the way down.

He was also drawn to the fact that she was scantly dressed with only sea clams covering her breasts tied by seaweed, and a necklace of sea shells around her neck.

Harry was able to understand her even though he didn't know anything of Mermish was because of a certain magic item he had on. On his arm was a certain bracelet he had Dobby bring out of his family vault, a translator of sorts.

He knew if he wanted to speak with the Merpeople he would need this item.

There was no potion for Mermish, you had to learn it the old fashion way, just as he did Latin.

Languages were just like that, very iffy at best. There were potions out there you could drink that could make you understand and be able to speak a language in a day, but that only worked on new languages.

Old languages however like Latin, Sanskrit, Hieroglyphics, Hebrew, Runes, and so forth needed to be learned. They had power thanks to their history, and didn't have work arounds like English, or French.

Mermish fit right into those lists of old language.

"Nothing," Harry quickly answered, "just trying to find my way to the village."

"Did you come from a village beyond in the sea," the mermaid girl perked up.

Harry remembered that yes, the Great Lake did connect to a river that lead out into the sea, where there were more Merpeople villages and other sea races and creatures in the North Sea and beyond.

"Yes, that is it," Harry nodded his head. "I am new in these parts, looking for a new village to settle!"

Harry did lots of reading on Merpeople before he came, and one thing that stood out was their mating patterns. The males of the Merpeople tribe when they reach adolescence start migrating from their villages looking for a new one to settle in, and start a family.

Harry guessed it was a way to keep the gene pool fresh or else you would have the same problems that plagued medical villages where the only options you had were your cousin next door or your cousin two houses down.

"Really, which one?" the mermaid asked him.

"Ahhh..." Harry said, he really hadn't thought that far ahead.

"Coral... Blue... Sea...Village," Harry uttered, and as soon as he did, he felt like smacking himself on the forehead.

"Really," the mermaid said excitedly, "that's pretty far away, but I heard it's almost as big as a town!"

"Yeah, yeah," Harry nodded his head, feeling relieved that lie actually worked. Though he couldn't believe there was such a generic sounding village around.

"Come on," the mermaid said as she held out her hand, "I will lead you to our village."

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