{Season 1|EP. 9}

It was Felicity's job to figure out the message in the egg. For it would reveal the details for the final test. She figured out earlier that night that it shrieks if you opened it wrong. So Felicity decided to try a different approach. Since she wasn't allowed in the White Swan Corps just yet she was staying at a hotel nearby.

Felicity had no idea how long a bath she would need at the sauna near the hotel to work out the secret of the golden egg, she decided to do it at night, when she would be able to take as much time as she wanted. Reluctant though she was to accept more favors from Charles, she also decided to use the prefects' bathroom; far fewer people were allowed in there, so it was much less likely that she would be disturbed.

Felicity planned her excursion carefully, because she had been caught out of bed and out-of-bounds by Fawkes the caretaker in the middle of the night once before, and had no desire to repeat the experience. The Invisibility Cloak would, of course, be essential, and as an added precaution, Felicity thought she would take the Tackers Map, which, next to the cloak, was the most useful aid to rule-breaking Felicity owned. The map showed the whole of , including its many shortcuts and secret passageways and, most important of all, it revealed the people inside the castle as minuscule, labeled dots, moving around the corridors, so that Felicity would be forewarned if somebody was approaching the bathroom.

On Thursday night, Felicity sneaked up to bed, put on the cloak, crept back downstairs, and, just as he had done on the night when Hagrid had shown him the dragons, waited for the portrait hole to open. This time it was Alice who waited outside to give the Fat Lady the password ("banana fritters"), "Good luck," Alice muttered, climbing into the room as Felicity crept out past him.

It was awkward moving under the cloak tonight, because Felicity had the heavy egg under one arm and the map held in front of his nose with the other. However, the moonlit corridors were empty and silent, and by checking the map at strategic intervals, Felicity was able to ensure that he wouldn't run into anyone he wanted to avoid. When he reached the statue of Boris the Bewildered, a lost-looking wizard with his gloves on the wrong hands, he located the right door, leaned close to it, and muttered the password, "Pine fresh," just as Charles had told him.

The door creaked open. Felicity slipped inside, bolted the door behind him, and pulled off the Invisibility Cloak, looking around.

His immediate reaction was that it would be worth becoming a prefect just to be able to use this bathroom. It was softly lit by a splendid candle-filled chandelier, and everything was made of white marble, including what looked like an empty, rectangular swimming pool sunk into the middle of the floor. About a hundred golden taps stood all around the pools edges, each with a differently colored Jewel set into its handle. There was also a diving board. Long white linen curtains hung at the windows; a large pile of fluffy white towels sat in a corner, and there was a single golden-framed painting on the wall. It featured a blonde mermaid who was fast asleep on a rock, her long hair over her face. It fluttered every time she snored.

Felicity moved forward, looking around, his footsteps echoing off the walls. Magnificent though the bathroom was - and quite keen though he was to try out a few of those taps - now he was here he couldn't quite suppress the feeling that Charles might have been having him on. How on earth was this supposed to help solve the mystery of the egg? Nevertheless, he put one of the Huffy towels, the cloak, the map, and the egg at the side of the swimming-pool-sized bath, then knelt down and turned on a few of the taps.

He could tell at once that they carried different sorts of bubble bath mixed with the water, though it wasn't bubble bath as Felicity had ever experienced it. One tap gushed pink and blue bubbles the size of footballs; another poured ice-white foam so thick that Felicity thought it would have supported his weight if he'd cared to test it; a third sent heavily perfumed purple clouds hovering over the surface of the water. Felicity amused himself for awhile turning the taps on and off, particularly enjoying the effect of one whose jet bounced off the surface of the water in large arcs. Then, when the deep pool was full of hot water, foam, and bubbles, which took a very short time considering its size, Felicity turned off all the taps, pulled off his pajamas, slippers, and dressing gown, and slid into the water.

It was so deep that his feet barely touched the bottom, and he actually did a couple of lengths before swimming back to the side and treading water, staring at the egg. Highly enjoyable though it was to swim in hot and foamy water with clouds of different-colored steam wafting all around him, no stroke of brilliance came to him, no sudden burst of understanding.

Felicity stretched out his arms, lifted the egg in his wet hands, and opened it. The wailing, screeching sound filled the bathroom, echoing and reverberating off the marble walls, but it sounded just as incomprehensible as ever, if not more so with all the echoes. He snapped it shut again, worried that the sound would attract Fawkes, wondering whether that hadn't been Charles's plan - and then, making him jump so badly that he dropped the egg, which clattered away across the bathroom floor, someone spoke.

"I'd try putting it in the water, if I were you. "

Felicity had swallowed a considerable amount of bubbles in shock. He stood up, sputtering, and saw the ghost of a very glum-looking girl sitting cross-legged on top of one of the taps. It was Moaning Karisma, who was usually to be heard sobbing in the S-bend of a toilet three floors below.

"Karisma!" Felicity said in outrage, "I'm - I'm not wearing anything!"

The foam was so dense that this hardly mattered, but he had a nasty feeling that Karisma had been spying on him from out of one of the taps ever since he had arrived.

"I closed my eyes when you got in," she said, blinking at him through her thick spectacles. "You haven't been to see me for ages. "

"Yeah. . . well. . . " said Felicity, bending his knees slightly, just to make absolutely sure Karisma couldn't see anything but his head, "I'm not supposed to come into your bathroom, am I? It's a girls' one. "

"You didn't used to care," said Karisma miserably. "You used to be in there all the time. "

This was true, though only because Felicity, Alice, and Musa had found Karisma's out-of-order toilets a convenient place to brew Polyjuice Potion in secret - a forbidden potion that had turned him and Alice into living replicas of Crabbe and Goyle for an hour, so that they could sneak into the Slytherin common room.

"I got told off for going in there. " said Felicity, which was half-true; Gin had once caught him coming out of Karismas bathroom. "I thought I'd better not come back after that. "

"Oh. . . I see. . . " said Karisma, picking at a spot on her chin in a morose sort of way. "Well. . . anyway. . . I'd try the egg in the water. That's what Charles Charles did. "

"Have you been spying on him too?" said Felicity indignantly. "What d'you do, sneak up here in the evenings to watch the prefects take baths?"

"Sometimes," said Karisma, rather slyly, "but I've never come out to speak to anyone before. "

"I'm honored," said Felicity darkly. "You keep your eyes shut!"

He made sure Karisma had her glasses well covered before hoisting himself out of the bath, wrapping the towel firmly around his waist, and going to retrieve the egg. Once he was back in the water, Karisma peered through her fingers and said, "Go on, then. . . open it under the water!"

Felicity lowered the egg beneath the foamy surface and opened it. . . and this time, it did not wail. A gurgling song was coming out of it, a song whose words he couldnt distinguish through the water.

"You need to put your head under too," said Karisma, who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying bossing him around. "Go on!"

Felicity took a great breath and slid under the surface - and now, sitting on the marble bottom of the bubble-filled bath, he heard a chorus of eerie voices singing to him from the open egg in his hands:

"Come seek us where our voices sound,

We cannot sing above the ground,

And while you re searching, ponder this:

Wove 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"

Felicity let himself float back upward and broke the bubbly surface, shaking his hair out of his eyes.

"Hear it?" said Karisma.

"Yeah. . . 'Come seek us where our voices sound. . . ' and if I need persuading. . . hang on, I need to listen again. . . . "

He sank back beneath the water. It took three more underwater renditions of the egg's song before Felicity had it memorized; then he trod water for a while, thinking hard, while Karisma sat and watched him.

"I've got to go and look for people who can't use their voices above the ground. . . . " he said slowly. "Er. . . who could that be?"

"Slow, aren't you?"

He had never seen Karisma so cheerful, apart from the day when a dose of PolyJuice Potion had given Musa the hairy face and tail of a cat. Felicity stared around the bathroom, thinking. . . if the voices could only be heard underwater, then it made sense for them to belong to underwater creatures. He ran this theory past Karisma, who smirked at him.

"Well, that's what Charles thought," she said. "He lay there talking to himself for ages about it. Ages and ages. . . nearly all the bubbles had gone. . . . "

"Underwater. . . " Felicity said slowly. "Karisma. . . what lives in the lake, apart from the giant squid?"

"Oh all sorts," she said. "I sometimes go down there. . . sometimes don't have any choice, if someone flushes my toilet when I'm not expecting it. . . . "

Trying not to think about Moaning Karisma zooming down a pipe to the lake with the contents of a toilet. Felicity said, "Well, does anything in there have a human voice? Hang on -"

Felicity's eyes had fallen on the picture of the snoozing mermaid on the wall.

"Karisma, there aren't merpeople in there, are there?"

"Oooh, very good," she said, her thick glasses twinkling, "it took Charles much longer than that! And that was with her awake too" - Karisma jerked her head toward the mermaid with an expression of great dislike on her glum face - "giggling and showing off and flashing her fins. . . . "

"Thats it, isn't it?" said Felicity excitedly. "The second task's to go and find the merpeople in the lake and. . . and. . . "

But he suddenly realized what he was saying, and he felt the excitement drain out of him as though someone had just pulled a plug in his stomach. He wasn't a very good swimmer; he'd never had much practice. Dudley had had lessons in his youth, but Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, no doubt hoping that Felicity would drown one day, hadn't bothered to give him any. A couple of lengths of this bath were all very well, but that lake was very large, and very deep. . . and merpeople would surely live right at the bottom. . . .

"Karisma," Felicity said slowly, "how am I supposed to breathe?"

At this, Karisma's eyes filled with sudden tears again.

"Tactless!" she muttered, groping in her robes for a handkerchief.

"What's tactless?" said Felicity, bewildered.

"Talking about breathing in front of me!" she said shrilly, and her voice echoed loudly around the bathroom. "When I can't. . . when I haven't. . . not for ages. . . "

She buried her face in her handkerchief and sniffed loudly. Felicity remembered how touchy Karisma had always been about being dead, but none of the other ghosts he knew made such a fuss about it.

"Sorry," he said impatiently. "I didn't mean - I just forgot. . . "

"Oh yes, very easy to forget Karisma's dead," said Karisma, gulping, looking at him out of swollen eyes. "Nobody missed me even when I was alive. Took them hours and hours to find my body - I know, I was sitting there waiting for them. Olive Hornby came into the bathroom - Are you in here again, sulking, Karisma?' she said, 'because Professor Dippet asked me to look for you -' And then she saw my body. . . ooooh, she didn't forget it until her dying day, I made sure of that. . . followed her around and reminded her, I did. I remember at her brother's wedding -"

But Felicity wasn't listening; he was thinking about the merpeople song again. "We've taken what you II sorely miss. " That sounded as though they were going to steal something of his, something he had to get back. What were they going to take?

"-and then, of course, she went to the Ministry of Magic to stop me stalking her, so I had to come back here and live in my toilet. "

"Good," said Felicity vaguely. "Well, I'm a lot further on than I was. . . . Shut your eyes again, will you? I'm getting out. "

He retrieved the egg from the bottom of the bath, climbed out, dried himself, and pulled on his pajamas and dressing gown again.

"Will you come and visit me in my bathroom again sometime?" Moaning Karisma asked mournfully as Felicity picked up the Invisibility Cloak.

"Er. . . I'll try," Felicity said, though privately thinking the only way he'd be visiting Karisma's bathroom again was if every other toilet in the castle got blocked. "See you. Karisma. . . thanks for your help. "

"Bye, 'bye," she said gloomily, and as Felicity put on the Invisibility Cloak he saw her zoom back up the tap.

~&~

The entrance hall contained a few last-minute stragglers, all leaving the Great Hall after breakfast and heading through the double oak doors to watch the second task. They stared as Felicity flashed past, sending Colin and Dennis Creevey flying as he leapt down the stone steps and out onto the bright, chilly grounds.

As he pounded down the lawn he saw that the seats that had encircled the dragons' enclosure in November were now ranged along the opposite bank, rising in stands that were packed to the bursting point and reflected in the lake below. The excited babble of the crowd echoed strangely across the water as Felicity ran flat-out around the other side of the lake toward the judges, who were sitting at another gold-draped table at the water's edge. Charles, Faith, and Holden were beside the judges' table, watching Felicity sprint toward them.

"I'm. . . here. . . " Felicity panted, skidding to a halt in the mud and accidentally splattering Faith's robes.

"Where have you been?" said a bossy, disapproving voice. "The task's about to start!"

Felicity looked around. Gin Weasley was sitting at the judges' table - Mr. Crouch had failed to turn up again.

"Now, now, Gin!" said Ludo Bagman, who was looking intensely relieved to see Felicity. "Let him catch his breath!"

Miss P smiled at Felicity, but Karkaroff and Madame Maxime didn't look at all pleased to see him. . . . It was obvious from the looks on their faces that they had thought he wasn't going to turn up.

Felicity bent over, hands on his knees, gasping for breath; he had a stitch in his side that felt as though he had a knife between his ribs, but there was no time to get rid of it; Ludo Bagman was now moving among the champions, spacing them along the bank at intervals of ten feet. Felicity was on the very end of the line, next to Holden, who was wearing swimming trunks and was holding his wand ready.

"All right. Felicity?" Bagman whispered as he moved Felicity a few feet farther away from Holden. "Know what you're going to do?"

"Yeah," Felicity panted, massaging his ribs.

Bagman gave Felicity's shoulder a quick squeeze and returned to the judges' table; he pointed his wand at his throat as he had done at the World Cup, said, "Sonorus!" and his voice boomed out across the dark water toward the stands.

"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, Felicity 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 numbing feet were slipping over silt and flat, slimy stones. He was chewing the gillyweed as hard and fast as he could; it felt unpleasantly 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 stupid, walking into the lake without showing any sign of magical power. 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, Felicity started to shiver violently. He avoided looking at the stands; the laughter was becoming louder, and there were catcalls and jeering from the Slytherins. . . .

Then, quite suddenly, Felicity 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 -

Felicity 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 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 felt pleasantly cool and very light. . . . Felicity struck out once more, marveling at how far and fast his flipper-like feet propelled him through the vater, 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 throuugh the water new scenes seemed to loom suddenly out of the incoming 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 shadow 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, Alice - 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. Felicity was staring unblinkingly ahead of him, trying to discern shapes through the gloom. . . and then, without warning, something grabbed hold of his ankle.

Felicity twisted his body around and saw a grindylow, a small, horned water demon, poking out of the weed, its long fingers clutched tightly around Felicity's leg, its pointed fangs bared - Felicity stuck his webbed hand quickly inside his robes and fumbled for his wand. By the time he had grasped it, two more grindylows had risen out of the weed, had seized handfuls of Felicity's robes, and were attempting to drag him down.

"Relashio!" Felicity shouted, except that no sound came out. . . . A large bubble issued from his mouth, and his wand, instead of sending 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. Felicity 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 Felicity and sank back into the weed.

Felicity 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?"

Felicity 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!" Felicity 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 with you. . . . I don't like them much, they always chase me when I get too close. . . . "

Felicity 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 murkily 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. . . "

Felicity 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. Felicity 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, Felicity 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 Felicity as 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.

Felicity 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. Felicity 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 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.

Alice was tied between Musa and Cho Chang. There was also a girl who looked no older than eight, whose clouds of silvery hair made Felicity feel sure that she was Faith 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 issuing from their mouths.

Felicity 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 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!" Felicity 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.

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

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 Alice, and after several minutes' hard work, they broke apart. Alice floated, unconscious, a few inches above the lake bottom, drifting a little in the ebb of the water.

Felicity 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 Musa, 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 Musa, shaking their green-haired heads, and laughing.

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

"No way!" said Felicity furiously - but only two large bubbles came out.

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

She's my friend too!" Felicity yelled, gesturing toward Musa, an enormous silver bubble emerging soundlessly from his lips. "And I don't want them to die either!"

Cho's head was on Musa's shoulder; the small silver-haired girl was ghostly green and pale. Felicity struggled to fight off the mermen, but they laughed harder than ever, holding him back. Felicity looked wildly around. Where were the other champions? Would he have time to take Alice to the surface and come back down for Musa 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. Felicity looked up and saw Charles 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. "Faith and Holden're coming now!"

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

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

The merpeople started screeching animatedly. Those holding Felicity loosened their grip, staring behind them. Felicity 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 Holden. He appeared to have transfigured himself - but badly.

The shark-man swam straight to Musa and began snapping and biting at her ropes; the trouble was that Holden's new teeth were positioned very awkwardly for biting anything smaller than a dolphin, and Felicity was quite sure that if Holden wasn't careful, he was going to rip Musa in half. Darting forward. Felicity hit Holden hard on the shoulder and held up the jagged stone. Holden seized it and began to cut Musa free. Within seconds, he had done it; he grabbed Musa around the waist, and without a backward glance, began to rise rapidly with her toward the surface.

Now what? Felicity thought desperately. If he could be sure that Faith was coming. . . . But still no sign. There was nothing to be done except. . .

He snatched up the stone, which Holden had dropped, but the mermen now closed in around Alice and the little girl, shaking their heads at him. Felicity 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 Felicity's wand, and they looked scared. There might be a lot more of them than there were of him, but Felicity could tell, by the looks on their faces, that they knew no more magic than the giant squid did.

"You've got until three!" Felicity shouted; a great stream of bubbles 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. Felicity 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 Alice's robes, and kicked off from the bottom.

It was very slow work. He could no longer use his webbed hands to propel himself forward; he worked his flippers furiously, but Alice and Faith'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 water. . . . Would they pull him back down to the depths when the time was up? Did they perhaps eat humans? Felicity's legs were seizing up with the effort to keep swimming; his shoulders were aching horribly with the effort of dragging Alice 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. . .

Felicity kicked his legs so hard and fast it felt as though his muscles 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; wonderful, cold, clear air was making his wet face sting; he gulped it down, feeling as though he had never breathed properly before, and, panting, pulled Alice and the little girl up with him. All around him, 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; shouting and screaming, they all seemed to be on their feet; Felicity had the impression they thought that Alice 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 Alice merely expelled a great spout of water, blinked in the bright light, turned to Felicity, and said, "Wet, this, isn't it?" Then he spotted Faith's sister. "What did you bring her for?"

"Faith didn't turn up, I couldn't leave her," Felicity panted.

"Felicity, you prat," said Alice, "you didn't take that song thing seriously, did you? Miss P 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 Alice. "I hope you didn't waste time down there acting the hero!"

Felicity felt both stupid and annoyed. It was all very well for Alice; 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," Felicity said shortly, "help me with her, I don't think she can swim very well. "

They pulled Faith'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.

Felicity could see Madam Pomfrey fussing over Musa, Holden, Charles, and Cho, all of whom were wrapped in thick blankets.

Miss P and Ludo Bagman stood beaming at Felicity and Alice from the bank as they swam nearer, but Gin, who looked very white and somehow much younger than usual, came splashing out to meet them. Meanwhile Madame Maxime was trying to restrain Faith 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!" Felicity tried to tell her, but he was so exhausted he could hardly talk, let alone shout.

Gin seized Alice and was dragging him back to the bank ("Gerroff, Gin, I'm all right!"); Miss P and Bagman were pulling Felicity upright; Faith 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 Felicity and pulled him over to Musa 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.

"Felicity, well done!" Musa cried. "You did it, you found out how all by yourself!"

"Well -" said Felicity. 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 Felicity, Alice, and Faith's sister had got back safely. "Yeah, that's right," said Felicity, raising his voice slightly so that Karkaroff could hear him.

"You haff a water beetle in your hair, Herm-own-ninny," said Holden. Felicity had the impression that Holden was drawing her attention back onto himself; perhaps to remind her that he had just rescued her from the lake, but Musa brushed away the beetle impatiently and said, "You're well outside the time limit, though, Felicity. . . . Did it take you ages to find us?"

"No. . . I found you okay. . . . "

Felicity's feeling of stupidity was growing. Now he was out of the water, it seemed perfectly clear that Miss Ps safety precautions wouldn't have permitted the death of a hostage just because their champion hadn't turned up. Why hadn't he just grabbed Alice and gone? He would have been first back. . . . Charles and Holden hadn't wasted time worrying about anyone else; they hadn't taken the mersong seriously. . . .

Miss P was crouching at the water's edge, deep in conversation 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 water; clearly, Miss P could speak Mermish. Finally he straightened 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 Alice from Gin's clutches; she led him over to Felicity and the others, gave him a blanket and some Pepperup Potion, then went to fetch Faith and her sister. Faith 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 Felicity. "You saved 'er," she said breathlessly. "Even though she was not your 'ostage. "

"Yeah," said Felicity, who was now heartily wishing he'd left all three girls tied to the statue.

Faith bent down, kissed Felicity 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 Alice, "And you too-you 'elped -"

"Yeah," said Alice, looking extremely hopeful, "yeah, a bit -"

Faith swooped down on him too and kissed him. Musa 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. Merchieftainess 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. . . .

"Faith Delacour, though she demonstrated excellent use of the Bubble-Head Charm, was attacked by grindylows as she approached her goal, and failed to retrieve her hostage. We award her twenty-five points. "

Applause from the stands.

"I deserved zero," said Faith throatily, shaking her magnificent head.

"Charles, 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 Hufflepuffs in the crowd; Felicity saw Cho give Charles a glowing look. "We therefore award him forty-seven points. "

Felicity's heart sank. If Charles had been outside the time limit, he most certainly had been.

"Holden 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.

"Felicity used gillyweed to great effect," Bagman continued. "He returned last, and well outside the time limit of an hour. However, the Merchieftainess informs us that Miss Felicity 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. "

Alice and Musa both gave Felicity 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. Which was the actual purpose of this test. So we are rewarding the final spot to Felicity!"