Harry didn't stop to think, his wand snapped up and he shouted "Argenti Incarnum."
The silver javelin shot forward from his wand and shattered the stone before it could hit the little girl. "The next person to move gets one of those through the heart!" Harry bellowed at the top of his voice.
All the merpeople turned to look at him. Anger and fear rippled through the crowd but Harry held his ground, wand ready to cause some serious damage. These savages were attacking a little girl, as far as he was concerned they had lost their right to be treated as anything more than scum.
"You dare to order us around in our own village, wizard!" one angry voice from the crowd shouted.
"I don't care where I am, or who the fuck I'm talking to. If you are attacking a helpless little girl I'm gonna stop you." The anger was rolling off of Harry now.
"All by yourself?" Another voice jeered at him.
Harry's eyes scanned the crowd looking for the one who had shouted but couldn't pick them out, so he aimed his comment at the whole crowd. "I'm not exactly afraid of anyone who needs to be in a mob to attack an unconscious little girl."
"That's no girl, that's a Veela. You have no idea what their kind has done to us!" This time it was one of the merpeople in the front and he saw who it was that spoke.
Harry pointed his wand right at the merman's chest. "You're right, I have no idea what her race may have done to yours. But I do know she is too young to have done anything to you or your kind. Now, I see what you have done to her. Should I follow your example? Visit the sins of the father on the children? Should I act like you are and go find your kids and make them suffer for your crimes? That's fair, right? That's how you view justice?" Harry paused for a moment, and when the merman said nothing just floating there looking uncomfortable he shouted. "Well, answer me!"
The merman remained silent, just staring at the wand pointed at his chest. A few of the merpeople started to swim away, either in fear or in shame Harry had no idea. He was just thinking that the mob would disperse when a stone came flying at him. Stones moved slower in water than in air, so he had the time to raise his wand and send another silver javelin to shatter the rock mid-water. Unfortunately for the merman who had thrown the rock, Harry saw who it was and, on a reflex honed by Sirius's training, sent a silver javelin at that man as well. Luckily for the merman, Harry was able to twist just enough at the last moment that the javelin buried itself in the ground right in front of the would-be assailant.
Harry pinned the merman with a look that said he was lucky to still be alive and turned back to the crowd. "Next time I won't miss. Get out of here." For the most part they did, and after about two minutes of Harry floating there looking menacing there were only about ten merpeople left. He cautiously swam over to the hostages, keeping one eye on the ten merpeople who had stayed. They did nothing, so Harry started to consider how he was going to take all the hostages. There was no way he was going to leave even one hostage here when, for all he knew, the merpeople would attack them like they had the little girl.
Getting them out of the kelp rope would be easy enough, he had a diving knife for exactly that type of thing. The problem was pulling everyone along as he swam to the service. Pulling along one person would be difficult enough, but four was almost impossible. What he really needed was for one of the other champions to turn up and help, but as he looked around he couldn't see them.
Then Harry had an idea. He pulled out his knife and cut the bonds holding his grandfather. Once the older man was free, Harry put the tip of his wand just under the old man's chin and cast. "Sanuspirantes." Instantly a bubble of fresh, clean, breathable air bubbled out of the end of his wand and settled over the nose and mouth of his grandfather, who woke up a few seconds later.
Charlus was confused at first, not that Harry could blame him. He had woken up unable to see as well as cold and wet at the bottom of a lake in February. Harry quickly told him what was going on as Charlus pulled his wand out of its holster and started applying warming charms to himself.
"So let me get this straight, the merpeople - instead of looking after the hostages as they were obliged to do - were torturing a little girl and you need my help to get the other three hostages out of here," Charlus recapped. Harry agreed, and Charlus nodded. "You did the right thing son. Come on then, cut the other ones out. I'll take the little girl and you can bring the others. You're younger than me, you can pull the heavier load. Actually, we should wake another up to help. Which of the other two do you want to wake up?"
Harry thought about it for a second before swimming towards his Gryffindor Quidditch teammate, but before he could reach her one or the merpeople swam up and placed himself in front of Harry holding a trident that he was pointing at him. He shouted, "You may only take your own hostage!"
Harry didn't even stop to think if it was possible, he just flicked his wrist holding his wand and called out "Diffindo". The head of the merman's trident slowly fell to the ground, useless. Harry snarled at what he thought was a guard, one who hadn't bothered to stop the mob from attacking a little girl. "Get out of my way."
The merman looked at the end of his weapon that until recently had a trident head, then to the tip of Harry's wand still glowing with power as it was pointed at his chest. The merman showed why he would never be sorted into Gryffindor as he turned and swam away.
Alicia was harder to calm down than Charlus when Harry woke her up, but once he explained the situation to her she was onboard. However, she didn't have her wand on her, opting to leave her wand with the headmaster as she wouldn't have had the opportunity to use it if the task had gone the way it was supposed to and she hadn't wanted to risk losing or damaging it. So it was quickly decided that Alicia would carry Cho, Charlus would carry the little girl, and Harry would swim with them, keeping his wand out and covering them.
The three of them swam directly up, going straight for the surface, with the two awakened hostages each pulling an unconscious one with them. To Harry's surprise they were allowed to swim away with the hostages without any more merpeople trying to stop them, but he did have his wand out the whole time carefully watching. Swimming up to the surface took a lot longer than he would have assumed. Either thanks to the rock he had sunk faster through the water than he had thought, or pulling two unconscious dead weights up through the lake was harder than he had anticipated. After some time they broke the surface, and almost immediately cho and the little girl woke up. Cho was a little surprised at first but it didn't take more than a few seconds for her to remember what was going on. And while she was definitely giving Harry a few questioning looks, her priority was to get out of the Scottish February water first.
The little girl, however, was clearly scared and was calling for Fleur. Harry could understand, the small girl was a Veela, waking up and finding herself somewhere she doesn't know being held by a strange man. It was probably a nightmare scenario for the poor girl. Add in that she was cold, wet, most likely hurting from the abuses she had suffered at the hands of the merpeople, and nobody around her spoke more than a few words of French. Grandfather Charlus may have visited the country a few times, but he had taken a book of common phrases he would need and had long since forgotten them in the few decades since he had last visited.
Harry looked around and saw the boat he had used earlier floating on the lake quite a ways off. Thinking it was better to get everyone out of the lake quickly, he pointed his wand at the boat and used a summoning charm. The boat started to come towards them at a fairly fast pace, and Harry was watching carefully when to end his spell. The last thing he needed was for something the size of the boat to hit one of them in the head. As he was casting, the little girl who was currently fighting with Grandfather Charlus spotted the scar on Harry's head. She started babbling in French that was mostly unintelligible to them, but she did say the name 'arry Potter and she was now struggling to get to him.
Harry guessed that his 'legend' had spread to Britain's closest neighbours, and the little girl probably saw him as a hero. He briefly even wondered If those Adventures of Harry Potter books had been translated into French. He held out an arm to the girl so she could grab it and told his grandfather to let her go. The girl jumped into his arms and pressed herself against him, crying and jabbering in French. Harry was really starting to wish he spoke a little French so that he could calm the girl.
The boat arrived, and after stopping it Harry floated the girl up into the boat. Grandfather Charlus, seeing that climbing into the boat would be a problem (especially as the boats were not really sized to fit five people), floated Cho up into the boat the same way while Harry flouted Alicia. The three girls and Grandfather Charlus were all shivering at this point, the warming charms they had used only meant to ward off chill winds, not ice cold lakes. Harry, having worked with Hermione to put warming charms on an insulated wetsuit, was the only one who was rather comfortable with the temperature.
Harry levitated his grandfather next, and then Charlus floated him up and into the boat while the girl looked afraid. Harry immediately started casting drying and warming charms on the child. She may be acting a bit bad to his grandfather, but a child is a child and he wasn't going to let her freeze because of what she did while scared. While Harry was doing that for her and himself, Charlus was doing the same for Alicia, Cho, and himself.
Harry sent the boat back towards the docks with a tap of his wand, and when he sat down he once more had the girl attach herself to his side like a limpet. Hermione had told Harry after her trip to France that a lot of French and English words were the same or similar, so he started tiring to explain to the girl who Charlus was.
He pointed at his grandfather then back at himself and said to the girl, "grandfather." The French girl looked confused, so Harry tried again using more words for grandfather. "Grandad? Grampa?" Then he remembered a coffee advert from the TV, with a French woman in that ad calling her father "papa". Harry had no idea what a French woman calling her father papa and him calling her Nicole had to do with selling coffee, but maybe papa was French for dad, so he tried, "grandpapa?" At this the girl seemed to understand
"Grandpère?" She asked curiously.
It sounded right-ish to Harry so he guessed she finally understood, and he used one of maybe five French words he knew to say. "Oui. Grandpère? Charlus Potter." He tried to copy her pronunciation, although judging by the look on her face he didn't get it quite right but she seemed to understand, as she stopped giving Grandfather Charlus as many dirty looks. Harry also pointed at the dock in the distance towards which they were heading. "Madame Maxime is there and I hope your parents are as well."
Harry didn't know how this girl was related to Fleur, he guessed sister but it could be her cousin. He just hoped that however they were related the girl would know Fleur well enough to recognise the name of her headmistress, and would know he was taking her to someone she could trust or in the very least could speak French.
The girl seemed to understand a little more, however, as she stood up on her seat and started excitedly looking at the dock, trying to see what she was calling "maman" and "papa". It was still too far away to really make out any individuals on the dock though.
"So, Potter, you're not the one I expected to pull me out of the lake," Cho half-accused, half-asked for an explanation.
Harry gave a significant look towards the little girl before turning back to Cho and saying, "The merpeople weren't playing nice. I decided it was best to get you all out if there." Cho looked at the girl, and seeing the forming bruises on her exposed skin just nodded, though Harry was sure she would want more details later.
They were getting closer to the docks now, and Harry could see there was some sort of commotion going on. They were still too far away to make out any details, but there were people rushing around, so something had definitely happened. Pretty quickly, the activity on the shore by the dock had the attention of everyone in the boat. Harry was wondering if there had been an emergency with the other champions?
Suddenly, the boat lurched to one side as if it was hit by something under the water, and Harry thought it must be the merpeople. The boat was hit again, this time on the other side, and Harry tried to look over the side to see if he could see how many were down there. However, Harry didn't see any merpeople. He couldn't tell what it was, it was as long as a merman but it was the wrong shape. He couldn't see it clearly through the light reflecting on the surface of the water, but it was too stocky and thick to be a merman. And it wasn't big enough to be the giant squid, so Harry had no clue what it was. Did they add something to the lake for the tournament?
Before Harry could think what to do, the boat was hit again, and the little girl who had been standing on her seat and hadn't understood Charlus and Alicia when they told her to sit down, was knocked off the boat. Harry didn't have time to think, he dove into the water after the girl. Unfortunately he hadn't had the time to use the bubble head charm, and his goggles were around his neck rather than on his eyes. So when he looked around under the water, not only did it sting his eyes, but when he saw the shark and let out a manly shriek of terror, he couldn't just breathe in again. Harry whipped his wand out of its holster and did the only spell he thought he had a chance of pulling off non-verbally: a Lumos charm.
Sharks are predators, predators that have survived since the age of the dinosaurs relatively unchanged. Evolution had gifted sharks with some pretty good reflexes to deal with anything they were likely to encounter. However, those reflexes were never meant to deal with a sudden blinding flash of light. The shark's instincts quickly came up with, "I don't know. Might be dangerous. Abandon attack and circle back." So, instead of biting Harry's wand arm off, the shark turned and swam away.
Harry took full advantage and quickly got to the girl and got their heads out of the water where they could breath. As Harry struggled for air, he shouted at the people in the boat. "Shark! It's a shark!" Then, after breathing in another lung full of air, he shouted. "Summon the girl!" Harry pointed his own wand at his face and cast a Bubble-head charm on himself, then he dove back under the water.
His eyes were still being enhanced by the potion he had taken, so he could still see, but the dirty ice water was stinging his eyes terribly. He could see the shark circling, definitely going to attack soon. Harry saw the girl's lower half disappear as she was lifted magically from the water and was able to relax a bit now. Sure, he was in a freshwater lake with a saltwater shark, which was enough to tell Harry that this wasn't some lost shark swimming upstream. There was magic involved here somewhere, if there wasn't the shark would have died if not for some magic helping it "breathe".
It swam closer, and Harry raised his wand and shot a few silver javelins at it. It was towards the extreme range of the spell, but one caught the shark in its side. Unfortunately, the shark took the hit barely even noticing that a few feet of metal had just poked a hole in its side, but it did turn and start swimming directly at Harry. He started firing silver javelins as fast as he could, which were a lot more effective than the one that had hit the shark in its side. Not only was it closer now, meaning the javelins hadn't lost most of their power, the shark was also swimming towards him, making the javelins hit harder and leaving deep gashes in its nose.
Then something Harry didn't expect happened: the shark turned and swam away. He didn't know much about sharks, he had seen a little of the Jaws film when his uncle had been watching it on TV and Harry was cleaning the room with the TV. That movie had told him sharks were monsters. However, the reality of sharks didn't make a movie as exciting, so Harry had no idea that if a shark thought what it was hunting was too much hassle it would just go hunt something else.
The next thing Harry knew, he was before being levitated out of the water and back into the boat by Grandfather Charlus, with Alicia and Cho holding onto the little girl. Neither student had their wands on them, but they had the little girl wrapped up in a hug between them, offering the small girl both comfort after being knocked out the boat. None of them but Harry had any idea what the word "requin" she kept saying meant, but it was obvious it was something that terrified the girl.
Grandfather Charlus turned to the girl as soon as Harry was in the boat and started to once again cast drying and warming charms. Harry, who had a wand was more than capable of casting his own charms, but before he could even think about it Alicia demanded answers from him. "Harry, what the hell was that?"
"A bloody great big shark is what it is." Harry said, and everyone in the boat save for him and the girl froze and turned to look at him in horror. "I think I hurt it enough to scare it away for now, but let's get back to dry land and get out of this boat as quickly as we can." Everyone agreed with that and they rushed back to the dock as quickly as they could. Luckily, the shark didn't bother them again, but that hadn't stopped Harry and the rest from watching the water like hawks for the entire trip.
Back on the docks, there was a crowd waiting for them when they arrived. There were the heads Dumbledore and Maxime, Ludo Bagman, Ron, Hermione, and a man and a woman whom Harry had never seen before but who looked incredibly relieved when they saw the girl in the boat with them. As the girl immediately threw herself into the arms of the two mystery adults while all three excitedly spoke in French, it was easy to guess that the adults were the girls' parents.
Everyone was quickly hurried out of the boat and into a tent that was set up as an emergency room to deal with any injuries. Worryingly, Madam Pomfrey had come out from behind a curtained-off bed and after doing a few quick diagnostic charms had told them all to wait before she disappeared behind the curtain again. Apparently whoever she was treating behind there was hurt enough that everyone who wasn't dying had to wait.
Hermione, who along with Ron had followed them into the hospital tent, handed Harry a bag she was carrying. He looked inside and not only were his shoes and robes in there but a pair of his jeans, a t-shirt, a jumper, and a pair of boxers. Harry gave her a quick kiss for being so thoughtful and drew the curtain around one over the beds to change into the fresh clothes. As he changed, he discovered he would still need to shower and change once he got back up to the common room; drying charms may get rid of the water, but everything that was in that water was left behind, so Harry was still covered with a thin layer of lake muck.
When he emerged wearing real clothes, he saw that the judges except for Karkaroff and Crouch were all standing there waiting for him. As soon as they saw him, Dumbledore asked what had happened in the lake. "Harry, the merpeople are saying you threatened them and took all the hostages. We need to know your side of the story."
So Harry told them of how he found a mob of merpeople all hyping themselves up to attack an unconscious little girl, how he had already seen a number of cuts and bruises on the girl, then a merperson had thrown a rock at the poor girl. He told Dumbledore how he had made a judgement that it was unsafe to leave the hostages in the care of those merpeople and had done what he considered necessary to bring them all back.
Harry hadn't noticed the French parents, as they were sitting on the bed next to the one he had drawn a curtain around while they waited for Madam Pomfrey to finish helping whoever it was she was helping behind the curtain so she could give the little girl a check up. They, however, had seen Harry, and when he was asked what happened in the lake they had listened out of curiosity. They had assumed all the bumps and scratches on their youngest family member were from when they had seen her fall out of the boat. However, when he painted a picture of the cruelty the merpeople had inflicted on a child, they weren't happy.
The woman, who was assuredly also a Veela as she was starting to sprout feathers on her arms, strode around the corner and grabbed Professor Dumbledore by his robes collar and shouted "'ou put my daughter in a siren village! Are 'ou insane?! We are lucky zey didn't didn't murder her on sight! What kind of death trap are you running here?" She was so angry at this point she lost her grasp of English and fell back into yelling at the headmaster in French, but what had been said in English was enough to understand that the girls' parents hadn't been informed that there were merpeople in the lake when they had agreed to let their youngest be a hostage.
Dumbledore and the other judges, seeing that they weren't going to calm the adult Veela down any time soon, took her and her husband out of the hospital wing with the excuse that they didn't want to disturb patients. Harry thought it was more likely Dumbledore wanted to retreat to his office where there wouldn't be any witnesses to him being yelled at. Once they were gone, Harry turned to Ron and Hermione and asked, "So, who is Madam Pomfrey still working on? It must have been pretty big for her to still be working on them."
Hermione and Ron immediately looked a little sick. They looked at each other for a second as if trying to see who was more willing to tell him what had happened. In the end it was Ron who spoke first. "It was the shark, mate. Apparently Crouch had added it to the lake without telling any of the other judges. When you took the boat you went right over it without knowing. The other three champions though…" Ron trailed off, leaving Harry with some pretty gruesome images in his head.
Hermione piped up for a second. "It was bad, Harry. A few minutes after you jumped into the water the other champions started to climb back out of the lake. We don't know the specifics, but all three of them were covered in blood and…and…." Hermione developed a greenish tinge to her complexion and couldn't say any more. It was clear that whatever state the champions were in at least part of it was making feel nauseous
Ron took over again. "Harry…Krum, he, he… the shark bit off his arm. Fred and George said they think the shark ate it, because when Madam Pomfrey tried to summon the arm to reattach it nothing happened. Without it, well, Krum's Quidditch career is over." That last part had Ron pretty upset.
Harry understood, Ron was a big fan of Krum's Quidditch and the idea that one of the world's best Seekers would never be able to play like that again was devastating to any Quidditch fan. No matter how good you were, one of the core things you needed to do as a Seeker was control your broom with one hand while catching the snitch with the other, and if Krum couldn't do that any more his chances of playing high level Quidditch were basically zero.
"Krum must be devastated," Harry said sadly, looking over at the curtains. "What about Diggory and Delacour?"
"Beaten up and a few bite marks, but nothing permanent. They were lucky it was just a normal non-magical animal, since there is no magical contamination in the wounds there won't even be any scars once Madam Pomfrey is finished. What about you, Harry?" Hermione asked.
Harry just grinned slightly at her, trying to lighten the mood, and said "Oh you know me, I'm fine." Both of Harry's friends groaned at him for that one