Chapter 694: A Terrible Attack
Now the water was over Ron’s knees, and his rapidly numbing feet were slipping over silt and flat, slimy stones. He was chewing the Gillyweed as hard and fast as he could; it felt unpleasantly slimy and rubbery, like octopus tentacles.
Waist-deep in the freezing water he stopped, swallowed, and waited for the miracle to happen.
Ron could hear laughter in the crowd and knew he must look stupid, walking into the lake without showing any sign of magical power.
He couldn’t help worrying. What if the Gillyweed didn’t work?!!
Over the past two months, he had learned many spells he didn’t master before, such as Reducio, Stupefy, Impedimenta, and so on.
But none of them could help him breathe underwater, and he clenched his wand nervously.
Ron’s lower body was immersed in the icy water of the lake, and a cruel breeze was lifting his hair relentlessly.
He started to shiver violently, and the part of him that was still dry was all in goose pimples.
He avoided looking at the stands; the laughter was becoming louder, and there were catcalls and jeering from the Slytherins…
“How stupid …” He looked around helplessly.
Then, quite suddenly, Ron felt as though an invisible pillow had been pressed over his mouth and nose.
As soon as he tried to draw breath, he felt his head spinning. Ron’s lungs were empty, and there was a sudden piercing pain on either side of his neck…
He clapped his hands around his throat and felt two large slits just below his ears, flapping in the cold air.
Ron realized he had gills!
He flung himself forward into the water, and the first gulp of icy lake water felt like the breath of life.
His head had stopped spinning; he took another great gulp of water and felt it pass smoothly through his gills, sending oxygen back to his brain.
He stretched out his hands in front of him and stared at them. They looked a little green and ghostly under the water, and they had become webbed. He twisted around and looked at his bare feet … they had become elongated and the toes were webbed too. It looked as though he had sprouted flippers
The water didn’t feel icy anymore either… on the contrary, he felt pleasantly cool and very light…
He was overjoyed. Although he had heard Evan describe it before, it was amazing.
Ron continued moving forward, and his two flipper-like feet propelled him far and fast through the water.
He also noticed how clearly he could see, and how he no longer seemed to need to blink.
He had soon swum so far into the lake that he could no longer see the bottom. He flipped over and dived into its depths.
There was a strange, dark, foggy scene in front of him, and silence pressed upon his ears.
Ron could only see ten feet around him, so that as he sped through the water new scenes seemed to loom suddenly out of the oncoming darkness: forests of rippling, tangled black weed, wide plains of mud littered with dull, glimmering stones.
The Gillyweed worked, and Ron was ecstatic for a while. Now he just needed to go to the Merpeople Village and bring Harry back.
Everything was too simple, and as expected, he would be the first champion to complete the task.
Ron swam forward for a while, and then stopped suddenly, his eyes wide, staring through the eerily gray-lit water around him to the shadows beyond, where the water became opaque. There seemed to be something hidden in it.
“Probably a fish!” He thought, clenching his wand, “is it the giant squid?!”
Ron didn’t dare to move, as though he had seen something big moving in front of him, getting closer and closer…
The next second, something monstrous emerged from the shadow and appeared in front of Ron … a shark!
How could there be sharks in the lake?! That was ridiculous!
Ron was terrified, raising his wand before he could see it clearly. It was Krum with a human body in swimming trunks and the head of a shark…
He appeared to have transfigured himself… but badly.
Ron relaxed, lowered his wand and swam to the shark-man Krum to say hello.
Perhaps, they could go to the Merpeople village together, and the dark surroundings worried Ron a little.
“Come with me!” Krum made a gesture, and his voice sounded weird in the water.
It turned out that a shark could also speak, but the pronunciation seemed to be different from that of a normal person, sounding very strange.
His head wobbled incoherently in the water, in sharp contrast to his body.
In fact, Ron wanted to laugh a little when he saw Krum’s funny look.
The shark’s head of an internationally renowned Quidditch Seeker… unfortunately, he could not take a picture of it…
They swam over light green weeds that were two feet deep and really looked like a meadow of overgrown grass.
Ron remembered Evan saying that this was the territory of Grindylow, a horned water demon.
That kind of water demon’s attack power was not very high. He learned how to deal with them with Professor Lupin last year, but it was different from what he had been exposed to in class. Ron wanted to warn Krum to be careful, swim higher and stay away from those weeds, so as not to be surprised by Grindylows.
Ahead of him, Krum stopped abruptly, and he turned to look at Ron, his huge shark mouth full of fangs and sharp teeth.
“Crucio!” Krum’s voice sounded abruptly, and his wand was aimed at Ron.
The next second, before Ron knew what was going on, a jet of boiling water hit him.
Heartbreaking pain rose in Ron’s body. He opened his mouth and felt like every nerve in his body was on fire.
His body was curled up tightly; his limbs were strangely twisted and swayed meaninglessly.
He wanted to yell out because of severe pain, but couldn’t make a sound, and bubbles kept coming out of his mouth.
“Unforgivable Curse, why did Krum do it, he …”
But soon, Ron couldn’t think about it anymore. The pain spread in his body and made him lose his ability to think.
Perhaps passing out was a relief, but Ron remained awake.
That was the terrible place to use the Cruciatus Curse, which could torture people to madness.
If one could choose, it would be easier to die than to suffer excruciating pain of that Torture Curse.
Ron’s wand fell, fear rose in the shadow, and a terrible crime was taking place in the dark.
Krum stared coldly at Ron, who was incapacitated, and a Stunning Spell followed.
Ron lost his consciousness and fell down into the dense weed…
A green Grindylow quickly reached out and gripped Ron’s ankle, dragging him deep into the weed.
Delicious food, it creaked excitedly.
A few seconds later, the surroundings returned to calm, as though nothing had happened.
Krum lowered his wand, and his body gradually disappeared into the shadow of the lake…
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