Кассандра Клэр - Draco Sinister

Ron nodded, a little reluctantly. "Very practical. You sure you´re not a Muggle?"

"Very funny." Draco got to his feet. Hang in there, Potter. We´re going to try to lower a rope down to you.

Okay.

Draco grabbed the side of a tapestry depicting a herd of unicorns prancing in a summery meadow filled with brightly colored and clean scented flowers. It was terrifically incongruous amid the portraits and battle scenes that hung in the corridor, but nonetheless, he tugged at it; Ron joined him on the other side of the tapestry and tugged pulled there, too. A choking cloud of dust rose from the tapestry as they yanked at it, and Draco doubled over, coughing. When he straightened up again, he blinked the dust out of his eyes. Then froze, staring.

Advancing towards them from the far end of the hall were, three tall, slightly stooped, gray-swathed figures whose scabbed and rotting hands protruded from the sleeves of their robes. Before them rolled a wave of intense and glacial cold.

Dementors, he thought wildly.

And Harry heard him. Get out of there, he said. Run.

But you -

RUN! yelled Harry, with such force it nearly split Dracoś head open.

They ran.

* * * * *

"Dementors." Harry swore. "They got chased away by dementors.

We´re on our own, Hermione."

There was a long silence while Hermione absorbed this information.

"So what have we fallen into exactly?" she said in a small voice, after what seemed like a great deal of time splashing around silently in the dark, but was probably less than a minute.

"Water," said Harry, and the sound of his voice was very comforting.

"Just…ordinary water."

"Itś so dark," she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

She felt Harryś hand bump against hers underwater, and he squeezed it tightly. "Lumos," she heard him say, and the space they were in was suddenly flooded with dim light.

"Harry! No magic!" she cried, trying to find a way to reverse his light spell. "Slytherin will know!"

"We´re not in the castle right now. And how could he come after us down here anyway?"

At this moment, with the water chilling her body, Hermione wondered if being discovered by Slytherin would be the worst thing for them. How long could they survive down here anyway? And where, exactly, was 'here´, she wondered, turning around. Hermione could just make out that they were floating in a sort of underground lake, with a rocky beach far to their left.

“We’d better swim towards that,” Hermione said, hoping she sounded more optimistic than she felt.

There was a silence. Hermione was fairly sure they were both picturing some sort of lurking underwater monster ready to drag them down by their feet.

“All right,” said Harry. “Let’s go.”

They splash-paddled towards the rocky beach — they were both perfectly decent swimmers, but the water was very cold, and they were already tired. With a sinking heart, Hermione began to wonder whether they would make it after all. It was made worse by the fact that they were dragging heavy objects with them, like the scabbard and the Lycanthe, but they couldn’t just drop them to the bottom of the lake — they’d never be found again. On the other hand, if drowning was the only other option —

“H-Harry,” she began, with chattering teeth.

He started to turn — and the water between them erupted.

Hermione cried out as two shapes rose from the lake’s surface, shedding water. She gasped — and then realized what they were.

Mermaids. Three very pretty mermaids with long fairish green hair, gills, and green-blue fish tails shimmering underneath the water.

They looked from Harry to Hermione and dissolved into a fit of giggles.

The leftmost one recovered first. “Hello!” she said cheerfully.

Hermione was reminded, rather bizarrely, of Parvati and Lavender, had they been part-haddock, although the speaking one bore a strange resemblance to Pansy Parkinson.

"Who are you?" Harry asked, sounding more amazed than anything else. "And how can we understand you?"

"We're merveela," said the one on the right, looking affronted, "so of course we speak English. Not that it matters, since we're going to drown you anyway."

Harry blinked at them, and then at Hermione. She shifted nervously in the water. Up close she could see that the merveela had rather sharp teeth and long greenish nails. "I'd really rather you didn't,"

Harry said.

"Oh, dear, I'm afraid we must," said the merveela. "Terrible nuisance of course — especially from your perspective — but we were set here to guard the castle, and guard it we must. We're not meant to let anyone past, unless it's the Heir of Gryffindor, but it's not like he's coming."

"But I am the Heir of Gryffindor," Harry protested, spitting water.

The merveela looked unconvinced. "Everyone says that, but nobody ever is."

"He really is," Hermione said. "Show them the scabbard, Harry."

Holding onto the rock behind him with one hand, Harry fumbled the sword out of its scabbard and held it up in front of him.

The merveela both gaped. The left one seized the other and shook her with excitement. "Heś the one! The one from the prophecy, about the Heir! We can tell him the Secret!"

"Wait, what about her?´ the second demanded, looking doubtfully at Hermione.

"Sheś nobody."

"I am not nobody," Hermione snapped. "I´m the Heir of Ravenclaw."

"Well, the prophecy doesn´t mention you," said the first mermaid in a superior tone.

"Sexist piece of claptrap," said Hermione firmly.

"Any secrets that can be told to me," said Harry loudly, "can be told to Hermione."

The mermaids raised their delicate green eyebrows. "Well, all right," said the first. “I’ll be right back,” and she dived. She returned a moment later with a circular glass orb in her hand, and offered it to Harry. "This is for you," she said.

"Whatś that?" he asked dubiously.

"Not sure exactly," said the mermaid cheerfully. "I do know that itś very powerful, and that itś very old. It’s what we’re supposed to guard. It came from the body of a wizard that was thrown down here hundreds of years ago. Itś meant to be given to the Heir of Gryffindor." She held it up to Harry.

Harry shook his head. "I can't take it," he said.

The merveela looked vexed. "Why not?"

"Because I'm about to drown," he said.

"Oh." The merveela had the grace to blush. "All right, we’ll tow you to the beach,” and that is exactly what they did. Harry and Hermione soon found that the water had become shallow, shallow enough to walk in, and they blundered after the merveelas through the water, feeling cold and miserable, but no longer in danger of drowning.

Finally they came to the rocky beach. Above the beach a set of stone stairs led up into darkness. Harry and Hermione dripped miserably while the merveela located her orb, and held it out to Harry again.

He took it, and to the merveelas' great annoyance, handed it immediately to Hermione, who examined it curiously. It looked dark from the outside, but an animated little flame still danced inside it.

Actually, when she looked more closely, she could see that it was three small separate flames, flickering apart and then together. A band of silver ran around the middle of the Orb, and it was chased with a barely-legible inscription in Latin. Hermione could make out only one word: Adunatio.

"What does that mean?" Harry asked, his hair tickling her cheek as he leaned over her shoulder.

"It means a unity, or joining," said Hermione, handing the little globe back to him. "It could be a love amulet, or…"

"Be careful with it," the right merveela interrupted severely. "Itś dangerous. Don´t break it. Itś not to be broken. Terrible things might happen."