As Harry swam by, they smiled at him with malice.
A couple of them even ran out of their caves to get a better look, holding spears and slapping the lake water with their sturdy silver tails.
Harry walked forward, glancing around.
To be fair, it wasn't much different from a hundred years ago. It was clear that the progress of merfolk society was far behind that of humans.
Soon enough, there were more and more stone dwellings, some with gardens around them, and one had a little Greenloody tied up in front.
Merfolk emerged from all directions, curiously watching him, pointing at him, whispering to each other with hands covering their mouths.
Harry quickly turned a corner, encountering a very peculiar scene.
The place seemed to be the square of the merfolk village, surrounded by houses, in front of which floated a large crowd of merfolk.
Among them, some merfolk were singing in unison, calling for the warrior to come over.
Behind them stood a rough statue: a large merfolk carved from a giant stone.
Three people were tightly bound to the tail of the merfolk statue.
Around the hostages stood many merfolk holding spears.
Harry quickly focused on the leader of the merfolk. He had a green beard and wore a short necklace made of shark teeth, looking nearly seven feet tall.
"You can only take one, human!" the merfolk said.
"Oh, I didn't plan on taking anyone else." Harry shrugged and said to the merfolk, "Help me untie the red-haired one and send him out of Black Lake."
The merfolk laughed uproariously, clutching its belly as if it heard a joke.
The surrounding merfolk laughed too, and the leading merfolk, after laughing a bit, raised its head and said, "We won't help you, young human—you'll have to figure out how to bring people back yourself."
"So, there's no room for negotiation?" Harry drew out his magic wand.
"You are the first wizard to dare hold a magic wand underwater, young human." The leading merfolk straightened up and waved its hand.
Other spear-wielding merfolk immediately crowded around, visibly on high alert.
"Not really, before me... Oh, it doesn't matter, the last wizard to dare pull out a magic wand underwater was also me."
Harry said as he aimed the magic wand at the leader.
Just as tensions reached a tipping point, an elderly merfolk swam out from a nearby small house.
"Wait!" the elder merfolk shouted, "We promised Dumbledore not to have conflict with the warriors, Cleo!"
"But it's obvious the warrior wants to have conflict with us now!" Cleo stared at Harry intently, "Carmen, look—I haven't seen such a brave wizard before…"
Carmen?
The name sounded familiar...
Harry felt like he heard it somewhere.
"Oh, he isn't the first one." Carmen stroked his beard and said, "A hundred years ago, two young wizards came to the lake bottom and also pulled out their magic wands against us…"
Oh…
Harry remembered.
This Carmen...
He and Vivi indeed had a conflict with the merfolk in Black Lake back then, but later they turned foes into friends, thanks to the clan leader Vieri's flexibility.
There's an old saying among the merfolk—those who can see the situation clearly are true heroes.
The clan leader had a young son back then, named Carmen.
"Carmen?" Harry greeted, "Are you really Carmen? I held you when you were little..."
Hearing Harry's cheeky words, Cleo gripped his spear, ready to rebuke, but was stopped by Carmen.
The elder merfolk swam slowly, disregarding the clan's objections, and stopped next to Harry, taking a closer look.
"Mr. Potter?" he asked joyfully.
"Seems you remember me, Carmen." Harry laughed, putting away his magic wand, "A hundred years is a long time, I thought you had forgotten me."
"Even if I forgot someone, I wouldn't forget you and Miss Grindelwald." Carmen said wistfully, "By the way, how come Miss Grindelwald isn't here?"
"She didn't participate in the competition." Harry shrugged.
Carmen discreetly sighed in relief.
Ah, it's good she didn't participate...
He couldn't imagine what might happen if Miss Grindelwald participated and Mr. Potter was the hostage.
After a brief chat, Carmen instructed Cleo: "Since we are old friends, prepare to send Mr. Potter's friend back to shore... Dumbledore will understand."
"Alright." Cleo frowned, looking at Harry then Carmen, puzzled why Harry's cheeky words didn't upset his grandfather.
Of course, he usually didn't like to talk too much, one of his few virtues.
"Thank you, Carmen." Harry said to him, "It's great seeing you here, I should be heading back, or the judges might dock my points for being late."
Then he added, "Oh, if the time is up and the other two haven't returned, just send the other hostages back."
"Rest assured, Mr. Potter." Carmen reassuringly replied, "We won't harm them."
Cleo went to Ron, cut the ropes binding him, and swam up with two merfolk.
Harry followed leisurely, showing no signs of tension.
At this moment, a fish-headed person swam over—below was a human body, wearing swim trunks, with a shark head... it was Victor.
Harry recalled Victor's pre-dive spell, a not-too-successful transformation spell, but still quite useful.
Half-human, half-shark Victor swam straight to his hostage, tearing and biting at the ropes, but due to Krum's strange new teeth structure, anything smaller than a dolphin was awkward to bite, and Harry was sure Krum's actions were careless, as if he would tear the hostage into two halves.
"Let's go." Harry didn't care what Victor was doing, only instructing Cleo and others to ascend.
Victor turned around and saw the merfolk carrying Ron in front of Harry, with a bizarre expression, as if seeing a ghost.
They continued upward, the sunlight grew brighter, and finally broke the surface where Harry firmly stood.
Though he had been submerged for quite a while, his clothes remained dry, and even his hair was perfectly dry.
Just his glasses... his glasses got wet.
Seeing Harry's silhouette, the surrounding students erupted in cheers.
They knew Harry must have succeeded; otherwise, he wouldn't appear now.
Soon, an even stranger event occurred.
Following Harry were three merfolk holding Ron, swimming behind.
"Let's go." Harry told the merfolk, "Just place him on the shore, thank you greatly."
"You're welcome." Cleo said, his expression incredibly odd.
He still pondered, if it weren't for his grandfather's words, he wouldn't bother bringing Ron up.
Walking to the shore, Harry noticed Dumbledore was there, looking very serious, seemingly waiting for someone.
Sure enough, after placing Ron down, ignoring his coughing, Dumbledore asked, "Cleo, what is the meaning of this?"