"Actually, the mermaids that Muggles imagine do exist..."
Dracula glanced at the sad Justin Finch-Fletchley and said casually, "It is very likely that they saw mermaids in warm waters and recorded the images of those mermaids."
"Are the mermaids in warm waters different from those in the Black Lake?" Justin's eyes showed a glimmer of hope again. "Are there any beautiful mermaids with long hair?"
"Of course, that kind of mermaid is more pleasing to the eye." Dracula smiled calmly, "Including the temper, appearance and character, they are much better than the mermaids in the cold water areas."
At this point, Dracula couldn't help but raise a mocking arc at the corner of his mouth.
He had had considerable conflicts with the mermaid community, and had even personally transformed a mermaid leader into the lowest blood servant of a vampire, causing that large mermaid community to fall into serious civil strife.
The thing is, in 1811, the then Minister of Magic, Grogan Stump, set a new definition of "human", and the magic community reached a consensus to define "beast" together with it -
Humans, meaning wizards and muggles, are classified into this category, along with goblins, vampires, hags, giants, house-elves, veela, and werewolves in human form.
However, the centaurs and mermen did not want to share the name of "human" with vampires and hags, so they refused to be called "human" and voluntarily allowed themselves to be classified as "beasts".
At that time, Dracula was very angry at these two groups who had no ability but were very arrogant.
He directly picked out the two most lively groups of mermaids and centaurs, and easily transformed the leaders of the two groups into blood servants. Then he stood aside and admired what those races that thought they were noble would become like after their leaders turned into the vampires they looked down upon.
Dracula did not disappoint him. The two leaders could not control their desire to suck blood and were soon exposed to the eyes of their tribesmen.
After the two communities of mermen and centaurs found out that their leaders had turned into lowly vampires, they quickly fell into civil strife. Countless lower-class centaurs and mermen wanted to overthrow the rule of their leaders and maintain the purity of their tribes...
"It's ridiculous that the most arrogant and self-conceited merman group is not those pleasing warm water mermen, but these cold water monsters." Dracula sneered, "I really don't understand what they have to be proud of."
Justin, Ernie MacMillan, and Susan Bones shuddered simultaneously.
They felt that the temperature around them, which was not very warm to begin with, suddenly dropped by several degrees and became extremely cold.
Justin glanced tremblingly at the picture on the Hogwarts title deed, and saw those ugly mermaids surrounding Fleur Delacour, whose ankles were entangled by water plants. He silently gave them a look of pity.
Sure enough, just before the mermaid's fork was about to touch Fleur, Dracula suddenly flew up from the Hufflepuff audience seats.
He appeared above the Black Lake in an instant, with a faint sneer on his lips, and waved his wand violently.
The next moment, under the horrified gaze of everyone, the lake began to surge into huge waves, and a huge column of water shot into the sky, almost swallowing up half of the sky.
A huge wall of water stood high above the lake, with clouds rising, light swaying and snow spraying. The entire Black Lake seemed to be suddenly split into two halves!
One half is a huge wall of water, and the other half is an unbottomed abyss.
The Hogwarts title deed, which had been magnified countless times, now looked like a small building in front of the Skylon Tower compared to the water wall of the lake. It stood there tremblingly, no longer having its previous momentum.
In the picture on the deed, you can see Fleur Delacour, who is entangled in water plants and wrapped by a mermaid. Suddenly, a beam of sunlight shines on her, illuminating her long silver hair and also lighting up the already dim light in her eyes.
Then, a water tornado quietly formed at the bottom of the lake, cutting the water plants in half, and then lifted Furong's body to the surface of the lake.
I don't know when a group of mermaids were sucked into the waterspout, and it was like a washing machine, swinging those ugly mermaids and their pet Grindylows around, making them dizzy and many of them lost consciousness.
Justin, who had stood with Dracula not long ago, swallowed.
"Professor Dracula must have done this on purpose, right?" he whispered to Susan and Ernie beside him.
Susan and Ernie nodded silently, agreeing with him.
"Ahem... Professor Dracula, please stop your magic for a moment."
Dumbledore stood up from the judges' seat and coughed twice. "In fact, I have reached an agreement with the mermaid. They are just pretending and will not really hurt Miss Delacour."
"You dare to believe what these guys say?" Dracula turned his head and raised his eyebrows to look at Dumbledore. "They have done many things that backstabbed others. If it were me, I would definitely not make any agreement with them."
"Don't worry, we have signed an unbreakable contract, and they cannot violate it." Dumbledore said helplessly, "Theoretically speaking, these mermaids can also be regarded as staff members of the Four Finals Tournament..."
"So that's how it is!" Dracula blinked and looked as if he had suddenly realized something, but the waterspout on the water surface showed no sign of stopping.
But Dracula's expression was too innocent. Justin and the other three Hufflepuff wizards could not tell that the petty-minded professor was thinking about the conflict between him and the mermaids in the past and wanted to teach them a lesson.
Seeing that Dracula didn't want to take back his magic, Dumbledore had no choice but to take action himself and waved his wand to pull the mermaids out of the waterspout.
Poor mermaids, they were still unconscious when Dumbledore stuffed them back into the water. I'm afraid they won't wake up for a while.
Watching the mermaids return to the water, Dracula curled his lips in boredom, waved his hand, and smashed the wall of water on the lake back into the water, making a deafening "boom" sound.
Dumbledore shook his head helplessly again and waved his wand again to calm the lake.
At this time, the rescued Fleur was also released from the waterspout by Dracula, and Madam Pomfrey was running over in a hurry, ready to check the warrior's physical condition.
"Professor, could you please save my sister? She's not even ten years old yet!" Fleur shouted anxiously to Dracula before Madam Pomfrey came to check.
"Huh? What happened to your sister?" Dracula descended from the sky and asked casually.
He snapped his fingers, and Furong's wet body immediately became dry as if she had never been in the water.
"My sister, Gabrielle Delacour, must have been captured by the mermaid." Fleur said anxiously, "I found that Gabrielle had disappeared early this morning. Considering the clue given by the golden egg, I have guessed that she is my 'treasure' mentioned in the clue."
"But I've lost my qualification to continue the competition, and there's no way I can save Gabrielle... If she's not rescued in an hour, the lake will drown her!"
Dracula looked at Fleur, who was extremely anxious and pale, with great interest. He was curious whether this half-Veela would transform into a pointed bird's beak when she was extremely anxious.
"Ahem..." Dumbledore's cough interrupted Dracula's thoughts.
Dracula looked up and saw that Dumbledore was being questioned by Beauxbatons' headmistress, Madam Maxime, on the judging panel. He was getting very anxious.
He finally put aside his thoughts of watching the show and said to Furong:
"Well, actually your sister will be fine. It's just a game. There's no need to risk someone's life."
"But many people have died in the previous semi-finals!" Furong was still anxious, pacing back and forth, as if she wanted to jump into the Black Lake again at any time.
"How about this," Dracula saw that Furong was still worried, so he had to add, "If your sister hasn't been rescued after an hour, I will rescue her myself, how about that?"
Fleur then breathed a sigh of relief and allowed Madam Pomfrey, who had just arrived, to take her away for examination.
Dracula's strength has been verified by everyone. If this powerful security guard agrees to rescue Gabrielle, then Gabrielle's safety should be guaranteed... This is what Furong thought.
Even if one warrior was eliminated, the game still went on.
The mermaid's song, announcing the time of the game, sounded from beneath the Black Lake—
"You have only one hour to find and recover what we have taken... Do not delay any longer, half the time has already passed, lest what you seek rot here..."
Half of the game time had passed, and the first warrior who discovered the "treasure" finally appeared.
As expected, it was John Kowalski riding a horse-shaped water monster.
At this time, from the deed of Hogwarts, which had become the tallest building on site again after the water wall disappeared, it could be seen that John had swam to a place that looked like a village.
While looking around, he drove the horse-shaped water monster to swim quickly.
There are many stone dwellings around, and the number is increasing. Gradually, the shapes of the dwellings are becoming more and more exquisite, and some of them have gardens around them - some spaces where water plants and lotus pods are planted.
Some small Green Roddys are tied in front of the doors of some small houses, like guard dogs.
Mermaids emerged from all directions, looking at John curiously. When they saw the horse-shaped water monster under John, a look of vigilance appeared in their eyes. Some mermaids took out steel forks from the house, while others covered their mouths with their hands and whispered.
John turned a corner quickly and arrived at a very strange scene.
That place seemed to be the square of a small mermaid village, with some houses surrounded by it and a large group of mermaids floating in front of the houses.
Some mermaids were singing in unison, calling the warriors to come over. Behind them stood a crude statue: a large mermaid carved from a huge stone. Five people were tied tightly to the tail of the mermaid.
Most of these people were familiar faces, including Qiu Zhang, Ginny, Rolf, and a little girl with cloud-like silver hair.
The audience compared the silver hair to Fleur's and soon realized that the little girl, who was no more than eight years old, was her sister, Gabrielle Delacour, whom Fleur had just mentioned.
In addition to these four young wizards, there was an older wizard wearing the uniform of the Bulgarian National Quidditch team.
All five of them looked like they were sleeping soundly, their heads drooping limply on their shoulders, and a string of tiny bubbles constantly coming out of their mouths.
"Ginny! Why is she there?" Ron exclaimed in the audience. "And isn't that Hilma Dennison? She seems to be Krum's best friend in the Bulgarian national team."
He turned his head to look at Hermione, only to find that Hermione's face was a little red.
"What's wrong with you, Hermione?" Ron asked curiously.
"Nothing..." Hermione covered her face with her hands and shook her head heavily.
What she didn't tell Ron was that the original Final Four Tournament staff had intended to find her as Krum's "treasure".
However, because of the conflict with Ron some time ago, and Harry's dilemma of not being able to find a way to deal with the game, Hermione deeply realized that her two friends might need her more than Krum.
So she rejected the staff's invitation and chose to stay in the library with Harry and Ron to find a way to deal with the second game.
The staff of the semi-finals had no choice but to settle for the next best thing and found Krum's best friend on the Bulgarian National Quidditch Team... or rather his only friend, and placed him in the deep waters of the lake as Krum's "treasure".
At this moment, in the picture on the deed, John was keenly aware of what he should do.
So he took out his wand from his pocket, put it close to the rope wrapped around Rolf, and said silently:
"Diffindo."
As an experienced adult wizard, he was obviously much more effective at using spells in water than Harry.
Although this cutting spell was not as powerful as the one on the ground, it was enough to cut the rope on Rolf's body.
After rescuing Rolf, John drove the Kelpie to hover above the water without hesitation, causing violent waves.
"Well, our first warrior has succeeded!" Bagman shouted from the commentary booth, "Mr. John Kowalski, he rescued his companion in less than forty minutes!"
When John surfaced, the whole audience burst into cheers.
He smiled tiredly, put Rolf on the shore, and waved to the kobold.
This 4X-rated magical animal turned in a circle and then disappeared into the deep lake.
However, unlike the excited and cheering audience, Furong, who was sitting in the medical tent, looked a little lost.
She thought the other warriors would help her rescue her sister.
"There's no need to look so sad." Dracula chuckled and said to her.
"Even if other warriors don't save your sister, there will still be a fool in this game who will save those who have nothing to do with him despite the advice of others."
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