Chapter 384: Planting an Informant, Only One Can Be Saved
Deep within the Black Lake, as Aaron descended, the light gradually dimmed.
He was in a hazy, gray lake, and even with his vision, he could only see about ten meters around him. There was almost no sound, a terrifying silence.
"Lumos."
A white light emitted from the tip of his wand, but the next moment, Aaron immediately dispelled the spell and quickly left his spot.
He had heard countless tiny water sounds, and in the dim lake, many underwater creatures could see that bright light. There was no more obvious signal than that.
Sure enough, a group of pale green, horned water monsters soon gathered where Aaron had been.
They extended their slender claws, their green teeth constantly chattering, and after a brief communication, they scattered in all directions.
"Grindylows," Aaron muttered to himself, then looked at the impossibly dense waterweeds around him, his mouth twitching, his face turning green.
At this moment, he had to thank Lupin, who had taught about Grindylows during his substitute teaching.
They usually liked to hide in waterweeds, feeding on small fish, but they wouldn't pass up Muggles and Wizards either.
And the waterweeds here stretched as far as the eye could see, clearly a Grindylow habitat.
"Fight through, or go around?"
Aaron pondered for a moment, then sighed helplessly, drew his wand, and accelerated the transparent barrier forward.
Normally, he would definitely choose to go around, but now he needed to find two hostages, and going around would waste too much time.
The transparent barrier had not even advanced a third of the way when a Grindylow emerged from the waterweeds, opened its mouth, and its green fangs lunged straight at Aaron.
Bang!
The Grindylow slammed into the barrier, shattering a small portion of its green teeth. It was in excruciating pain, letting out continuous cries of agony.
"Too bad, this barrier also has some defensive capability," Aaron quipped, but he quickly stopped smiling, as at least dozens of Grindylows emerged from the waterweeds.
Aaron forced a smile and immediately sped up, intending to rush out of this cluster of waterweeds.
Dozens of water monsters chased behind him, and Aaron continuously cast spells backward to stop them, but even so, his barrier was constantly being hit.
After seven or eight minutes, Aaron stumbled out of the waterweeds.
The Grindylows dared not leave their territory to continue the chase, only hissing at Aaron incessantly, venting their displeasure.
"How arrogant!" Aaron disdainfully gave them the middle finger. "If you have the guts, come out, and see if I dare to kill you."
A few Grindylows immediately couldn't stand it. After all, they bore the name of water monsters, and even if their opponent was a Wizard, they couldn't let themselves be underestimated.
This time, Aaron decisively waved his wand, and several streams of water simultaneously struck the Grindylows, knocking them back into the waterweeds.
"Goodbye, no, never again."
Aaron waved triumphantly and turned to accelerate his descent towards the center of the lake.
He deliberately avoided the waterweeds during his descent. By the time his feet firmly touched the black mud at the bottom of the lake, twenty minutes of the competition time had already passed.
"Almost there," Aaron thought to himself, about to take out Captain Jack's compass, but at that moment, the voice of the thought-form reached his mind.
"Don't rush yet. Big Sister has transmitted images of the five champions' performance in the Black Lake to above the lake. Now everyone can see what you're doing?"
"What the f*ck! She really isn't giving me any chances!" Aaron cursed inwardly. "But now I can only use this magicitem."
"I didn't say you couldn't use it, just reminding you that people are watching."
"I know what to do," Aaron responded. "You also need to be careful not to expose yourself."
"Understood."
The two disconnected their link. Aaron put on an expression of struggle and heartache, his hands even trembling involuntarily, before raising his wand and pointing it at his left hand.
A small white magic circle flashed and disappeared, and a black compass appeared in his hand.
"I can still use it twice, but I didn't expect to use it for finding people," Aaron said bitterly, his voice transmitted through the light screen to every audience member's ear.
Many people began to whisper, discussing what kind of magic item the compass in Aaron's hand was.
In the judges' box, Bagman looked bewildered. He had never seen or heard of this compass and didn't know how to comment on it.
But some people had already guessed the compass's function. Adrian's lips curved into a mysterious smile, Dumbledore's eyes gleamed slightly, and Mad-Eye Moody's magical eye spun wildly...
"Miss Klein, does this count as cheating?" Karkaroff asked with an unfriendly expression.
"Of course not," Adrian said righteously. "Harry Potter used his wand to summon his Firebolt in the first task. What Gaius is doing now is essentially no different from him."
"But... this kind of magic item is really..."
"Professor Karkaroff, if we're talking about unfairness, Gaius probably has more right to speak than anyone else, doesn't he?
Don't forget, everyone else only needs to rescue one hostage, but he needs to rescue two."
Karkaroff was immediately speechless, lacking the confidence to nitpick.
"Ahem! Miss Klein," Percy said awkwardly but politely, "Gaius's magic item is truly amazing. If possible..."
"What? Hand it over to the Ministry of Magic?" Adrian asked playfully.
"Of course not," Percy quickly waved his hand. "I mean to register it with the Ministry of Magic."
"Go talk to him!" Adrian said indifferently. "Although I am his sister, I have never forced him to do anything he didn't want to do.
Also, Mr. Weasley, I'll pretend I didn't hear what you just said.
Even the Minister for Magic shouldn't act as if they're entitled to something, should they!"
Percy:...
In the Slytherin stands, a raven's eyes flashed with human-like intelligence. It was Aaron's thought-form clone, entrusted by Aaron to Draco's care.
Adrian's arrangements for Aaron in the second task were a series of traps. To be safe, he had planned to leave an informant on the shore to relay important information to him at any time.
And Animagus was the best method; even Dumbledorewouldn't be able to tell.
Sure enough, he was right. Those light screens vividly displayed the five champions' performances underwater. If he had thought no one could see and recklessly used a few trump cards, the thought alone sent shivers down his spine.
At the bottom of the Black Lake, Aaron received what the thought-form had heard and seen, and he breathed a sigh of relief, feeling a weight lifted off his mind.
Everyone's reactions were pretty much as he expected, so he didn't have to worry too much about using Captain Jack's compass.
He looked at the compass in his hand, thinking of his two dance partners: Hermione Granger, a fourth-year Gryffindor, and Luna Lovegood, a third-year Ravenclaw.
The compass needle spun rapidly and soon stopped, pointing steadily straight ahead.
Aaron was slightly surprised. The situation seemed a bit different from what he had imagined. The two of them seemed to have been placed in the same spot, not in two completely opposite directions.
However, this was also good news for him, so he immediately controlled the barrier to move straight ahead.
Not long after, he heard a familiar song.
"Only an hour, to find and retrieve what we took..."
Following the guidance of the compass and the song, Aaron found a ruin covered in moss and algae.
Although it was the bottom of the lake, the light here was much brighter than elsewhere.
Dense, gigantic stone pillars and arches stood here, with many rough, algae-covered dwellings below.
This was clearly the Merpeople's dwelling, but their appearance was somewhat different from what Aaron had imagined, even significantly so.
Their skin was iron-gray, their hair incredibly disheveled, their eyes were brass-colored, and even their teeth were chipped and broken.
"It instantly shattered all my beautiful fantasies about mermaids," Aaron secretly clicked his tongue, and when he thought of the Merperson among the blind date candidates his mother had introduced to him, he couldn't help but shiver.
However, on second thought, the blind date candidates his mother introduced seemed completely different from these ugly Merpeople; they were true mermaids.
Just as he was thinking this, Merpeople surrounded him from all directions. They held spears and pointed at the transparent barrier enveloping Aaron.
Aaron ignored them and followed the compass needle to a giant Merperson sculpture. Six people were firmly tied to its tail:
Ron, Harry's best friend; Cho Chang, Cedric's dance partner; a Durmstrang girl in a red Wizard robe, undoubtedly Krum's dance partner; a girl who looked eight or nine years old, most likely Fleur's unlucky sister.
Besides them, there were his dance partners, Hermione Granger and Luna Lovegood.
They all looked as if they had been hit by the Petrificus Totalus, with only small bubbles occasionally emerging from their noses and mouths.
"It seems I'm the first one here," Aaron said, looking at his watch. "There are still more than twenty minutes left, barely enough.
No, if both people are here, it's definitely enough."
"You can only save one," a Merperson said hoarsely.
"One, one?"
Aaron's eyes widened in surprise. He turned to look at his two dance partners and immediately understood his Big Sister's sinister intentions.
It seemed he had been wrong from the start. The second task's test for him was not a race against time, but a difficult choice.
One was an innocent and naive girl who was caught up in this, and the other was a good friend with four years of friendship. Choosing one meant the other might have to stay at the bottom of the lake.
Perhaps the judges were just playing a joke on them, but he dared not gamble with a matter of life and death like this.
In the judges' box, Adrian watched Aaron in the light screen with great interest. "This is what I'm looking forward to most. You can only save one of the two. How will you choose?"