When Orli woke up, she immediately realized something was terribly wrong.
According to the original story, shouldn't she have only awakened when she broke the surface of the water?
But now, the moment she opened her eyes, she instinctively tried to breathe—only to choke violently on a massive gulp of water. She nearly suffocated from the water flooding her lungs, desperately wanting to cough but forcing herself to hold it back. Tiny bubbles surrounded her everywhere, making it impossible to see anything clearly. Something seemed to be tugging at her hand while another thing patted her shoulder, but none of it helped.
In those brief, disoriented moments, the only thing she knew for certain was that she was still at the bottom of the lake. She immediately exchanged another piece of gillyweed from the system and swallowed it down. Merlin's beard, thank goodness she still had enough points.
As the tough, slimy gillyweed went down, Orli felt a burning, searing pain shoot through her legs and feet, as if an invisible pillow were smothering her mouth and nose. Her lungs emptied, forcing out the water she'd inhaled. Suddenly, knife-sharp pain sliced through both sides of her neck. She reached up to clutch her throat and discovered two long, narrow slits beneath her ears, opening and closing rhythmically with the water's flow.
She had gills! Orli could finally breathe properly again. She took a deep gulp of lake water, feeling it flow smoothly through her new gills, delivering oxygen to her brain and clearing her consciousness.
Only then could she spare a moment to look around.
The lake bottom was pitch black, with only a dim, hazy light illuminating roughly ten feet in any direction. Crude stone dwellings dotted the area, their surfaces mottled with patches of algae. At the center of these stone huts lay a small plaza, dominated by an enormous merperson statue. She was currently tied to the statue's tail, floating gently in the water with a rope secured around her waist.
Beside her floated Cho Chang, and beyond Cho were Hermione and Gabrielle. They were all still unconscious, heads drooping limply against their shoulders, thin streams of bubbles escaping from their mouths.
"Glub-glub-glub..."
A chaotic stream of bubbles erupted behind her. Orli turned to see Harry. Like her, he now had gills split open behind his ears, with webbing stretched between his exposed fingers and toes. He was frantically gesturing at her, trying to communicate, but every word that left his mouth transformed into large bubbles.
"Why am I awake?" Orli mouthed silently, pointing to herself and tracing a question mark in the water.
Harry pointed at himself, then at the sharp stone in his hand, then gestured toward the area around them. A whole group of merpeople were swimming in circles around the statue, some brandishing long spears.
Harry then pointed at his wand.
"Did your spell miss and accidentally hit me?" Orli pointed at his wand, then at herself. Harry nodded vigorously.
He picked up another sharp stone and handed it to her. Together they began sawing at the rope around her waist. With both of them working, progress was much faster. Within minutes, the rope snapped. But as soon as Harry freed Orli from her bonds, he immediately swam toward Hermione.
Several strong, gray hands seized him at once. Six or seven merpeople dragged him away from Hermione, shaking their green-haired heads as if to say this wouldn't do.
Harry pointed at Hermione and shouted something, but only a large, silvery bubble emerged silently from his lips. Just then, the merpeople around them suddenly grew excited, pointing upward toward the lake's surface. Orli looked up and saw Cedric swimming down toward them, his head encased in a giant air bubble.
His expression was tense with urgency. When he spotted the two of them, he gestured behind himself, then held up two fingers. Orli understood—he meant Fleur and Krum were also on their way.
After his signal, Cedric pulled a small knife from his pocket and sliced through the rope, freeing Cho Chang. He grabbed Cho and began swimming upward, quickly vanishing from sight.
~~~~❃❃~~~~~~~~❃❃~~~~
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