Most of the time has passed, and the current situation on the field is that one warrior has been eliminated, and one warrior has successfully rescued his partner.
The game still goes on.
There are still three warriors in the Black Lake swimming hard, looking for the "treasure" hinted by the golden egg.
Finally, with only a dozen minutes left before the one-hour deadline, Harry wiggled his webbed fingers, breathed with the gill pouches on the outside of his neck, and swam to the mermaid village that John had visited before.
He swam past the mermaids cautiously, fearing that these guys who raised Grindylows would suddenly stop him, and quickly bypassed the mermaids singing in the small square and swam to the rough stone statue.
Of the five people who were originally tied tightly to the tail of the giant mermaid carved out of a huge stone, one has been rescued, and now four are still left.
"Ginny!"
Harry saw the little witch with fiery red hair at first sight.
He swam hard towards where the hostages were, and was careful to beware of the schools of mermaids nearby.
Harry thought the mermaids would attack him with steel forks, but fortunately, the mermaids kept their agreement with Dumbledore and did not do so.
The ropes used to tie the hostages to the statues were made of seaweed, thick, slippery, and very strong. Moreover, these ropes were tied with countless strange knots, which could not be untied in a short time.
However, after the test just now, Harry did not have the ability to use spells smoothly in the water, and could not cut the rope with the Cutting Charm. After all, he could not even cast a silent spell... Now he just wished he had brought a knife with him.
Harry looked around and saw that many of the mermaids around the hostages were holding sharp steel forks in their hands.
So he swam quickly toward a seven-foot-tall merman with a long green beard and a short necklace made of shark teeth, and gestured to borrow its spear.
The mermaid laughed and shook her head.
"We can't help," he said in a hoarse, low voice over the water.
"Give it to me!" said Harry fiercely.
But only some bubbles came out of his mouth and no sound came out at all.
He swam quickly forward a few feet, grabbed the steel spear in the merman's hand, and tried to wrench it from him.
But even though Harry took the Gillsweed, which allowed him to adapt to the aquatic environment, his strength was obviously not as great as that of mermaids who swam in the water all year round.
The mermaid pulled the fork back easily, then threw Harry aside and laughed, as if mocking the weakness of this so-called "warrior".
But Harry had no time to get angry. He turned eagerly in the water and looked around, trying to find a sharp object... anything...
Fortunately, there are some broken pieces of stone scattered on the bottom of the lake, some of which are quite sharp.
Harry swooped down, grabbed a particularly sharp piece, and returned to the statue.
He used a stone to smash the ropes that bound Ginny, but it took him several minutes until his arms were sore before he finally broke the ropes.
Ginny floated deliriously, eyes closed, a few inches above the lake bottom, bobbing with the waves.
Harry took a few breaths using the cheek pouches on the side of his neck and looked around blankly.
John is supposed to have rescued one hostage, but the other warriors are still missing.
Harry hesitated.
He heard a voice in his heart saying that as long as Ginny was rescued, the other hostages were the task of other warriors and had nothing to do with him.
Besides, according to the current situation that there are four people left, John must have only taken one person away... John, who has such a powerful helper, only took one person away, so why should I care about those trivial matters
Harry took Ginny's arm and prepared to lead her back to shore.
At this moment, he caught a glimpse of a strand of smooth black hair still tied to the stone statue.
Autumn Zhang.
Harry's memory suddenly went back to his second year, the time when he was obsessed with this girl.
Even though he had let go of the emotions of his youth, it was not so easy to completely let go of them as if they were strangers... Moreover, he was able to get to this point thanks to Cedric.
Harry paused in his swimming motion with his paddles.
His eyes moved, and he suddenly thought, of course there was no need for John to rescue the others—
When John arrived here, it was still early in the one-hour time limit. All he wanted was to finish the game as quickly as possible, not to doubt that the other warriors could not save their "treasure"...
If there weren't only ten minutes left before the hour, Harry wouldn't have doubted whether the other warriors could reach this position.
However, if it was true as the mermaid's song said, that if the hostages exceeded the one-hour deadline they would "rot here", then he could not just sit back and watch!
Harry gritted his teeth, suddenly turned around and swam back to the statue, picked up the sharp stone and hit the rope on Qiu Zhang.
The next moment, several pairs of thick, gray-brown hands grabbed him.
Six or seven mermen pulled him away from Qiu Zhang, shaking their green-haired heads and pulling him viciously.
"You can only take your own hostages," one of the mermen said to him, "Don't worry about the others..."
"No!" Harry shouted angrily, but only two bubbles came out of his mouth.
"Your project is to rescue your own friends, don't worry about others!" said the mermaid.
"She's my friend too!" Harry shouted, pointing at Cho Chang, a large silver bubble silently emerging from between his lips, "and I don't want anyone else to die!"
Qiu Zhang's face was pale, and his long hair fluttered gently in the water. The little girl with silver hair had blue cheeks and looked lifeless.
Harry struggled to free himself from the merman, but they pulled harder and pulled him back.
His chest heaved violently and he looked around in despair.
Where were the other warriors? If he got Ginny to the surface and came back to rescue Cho Chang and the others, would he still be in time? Would he still be able to find them
He looked down at his watch, wondering how much time was left... but his watch had long been damaged by the water, and the hands didn't move.
At this moment, the mermaids around suddenly pointed excitedly above Harry's head and made sharp cries.
Harry looked up and saw Cedric swimming towards them.
There was a huge bubble around Cedric's head, which made his features look elongated and widened, making him look very funny.
"Sorry, I just got lost!" He mouthed, looking equally nervous, "Fleur and Krum should be here soon."
Harry felt relieved. He looked at Cedric with some envy as he took out his wand from his pocket and used a silent spell to turn a stone into a knife. He quickly cut the rope and rescued Qiu Zhang.
After cutting the rope, Cedric turned around and nodded to Harry, then pulled Qiu Zhang upstream and soon disappeared.
Harry looked around and waited.
He had to make sure that Fleur and Krum rescued their companions in time, to prevent the hostages from getting into trouble by taking more than an hour...
…
On the shore, outside the medical tent, Fleur looked at the scene on the Hogwarts title deed standing in the distance with red eyes.
"Is this the friend Rolf made at Hogwarts?" John also came to the medical tent and stood beside Fleur, sighing softly, "He is indeed a silly boy, but one cannot help but admire him."
He came here after rescuing Rolf and handed Rolf over to Madam Pomfrey for a physical examination.
"Am I right? There will be a fool to save your sister." Dracula chuckled, "I may be able to guess why Dumbledore likes him so much."
In the judges' seat, Professor Hicks turned his head to look at Dumbledore and smiled softly.
"Albus, your Hogwarts warrior gave up the second place, but why do you seem so happy?" she asked.
"Oh, nothing, I just suddenly thought of something happy." Dumbledore said, unable to hide the smile on his face.
…
Deep in the Black Lake, another warrior came to the square where the hostages were.
Harry turned and saw a huge creature swimming towards them, with a human body in swimming trunks and a shark's head above... It was Krum.
It looked like he was trying to do a human transformation on himself, but wasn't quite successful... or at least only half successful.
Even so, being able to deform half of a human body is quite impressive.
Half-man, half-shark Krum swam straight towards his Bulgarian national team teammate, Hilmar Dennison.
Harry had a feeling that Krum seemed a little disappointed when he saw that his "treasure" was Hilma, as if he had thought the hostage here should be someone else.
After Krum arrived next to Hilmar, he was at a loss as to where to start, so he used his shark's mouth to pull and bite the ropes on Hilmar's body... The problem was that Krum's new teeth had a strange structure, and he had a hard time biting anything smaller than a dolphin.
And Harry was sure that Krum's actions were not careful, he was about to tear Hilmar in half... Harry rushed forward, patted Krum's shoulder hard, and raised the sharp stone.
Krum grabbed it and started hacking at the ropes on Hilmar.
Krum proved to be much stronger than Harry, and within seconds he succeeded.
He grabbed his teammate's waist and without looking back, quickly brought him to the surface.
Now there is only one hostage left, the little girl with silver hair.
Fleur hasn't come yet, what should I do? Harry thought anxiously.
He was not sure when the game time would reach one hour. It seemed that Furong must have encountered some trouble... There was no other way now, only...
Outside the medical tent, Fleur looked at the picture on the title deed nervously. Harry grabbed the stone that Krum had thrown and came to Gabrielle Delacour.
But the mermaids gathered around Ginny and Gabrielle, shaking their heads at Harry.
Harry drew his wand viciously.
"Get out of the way!" A string of bubbles came out of his mouth.
But he was clearly aware that the mermaids understood what he meant, because their expressions suddenly changed, and their cloudy yellow eyes stared at Harry's wand, looking very scared.
They were outnumbered and Harry was alone.
But Harry could tell from the panicked looks on their faces that they seemed to be afraid of magic... something that hadn't happened to the merman he was facing just twenty minutes ago.
Bagman in the commentary booth had a strange expression on his face as he looked at Dracula standing on the shore.
"Obviously, these mermaids are afraid of the wand in Mr. Potter's hand..." he said, "If I'm guessing correctly, it should be that the spell used by Professor Dracula to rescue Fleur not long ago left a great shock to the mermaids underwater, making them have an unprecedented awe of magic..."
Deep in the Black Lake, Harry raised his wand high above his head.
"I'll count to three!" he shouted, a string of bubbles blowing out of his mouth.
Harry held up three fingers to make sure they understood what he meant.
"One!" He put down a finger, and the mermaids looked at him blankly, but hesitated and did not move.
"Two..." He put down the second finger.
The mermaid finally couldn't suppress the fear in her heart and scattered in all directions, looking back at the wand in Harry's hand from time to time, fearing that he would suddenly attack.
Harry rushed forward and hacked at the ropes holding Gabrielle in the same way he had done when he had freed Ginny.
Finally, Gabrielle was free.
Harry picked up the two little witches, Ginny and Gabrielle, one in each hand, kicked off and left the bottom of the lake.
Even with the effect of the Gillweed, it was still very difficult for Harry to swim towards the surface of the lake with two people, especially when both hands could not paddle smoothly.
Fortunately, the two little girls were very light, so he could barely support himself.
Harry flapped his webbed feet desperately, but after a few minutes, he found that his feet had turned back into ordinary human feet...
His heart sank as he realized that an hour was up.
The mermen had come up with him, and Harry saw them swimming around him with ease, watching him struggle in the water... would they pull him back under now, when the time came? Would they eat people
Harry was getting more and more out of breath, and all kinds of terrible speculations kept emerging in his mind...
He began to realize very clearly how damp and cold the lake water in his mouth was... His consciousness gradually faded, and the two skinny little witches in his hands seemed to have turned into two heavy lead balls...
"Professor, Potter seems to have no strength..." Fleur's eyes were red, she stood up from her seat and said to Dracula anxiously, "Please save them!"
Dracula frowned, seemingly dissatisfied with the result, but he finally nodded and took a step forward.
At this moment, John suddenly stopped Dracula's action.
He picked up a leaf that he had been holding in his hand for a long time and played a melodious tune.
…
…