Luna retreated to sit next to the tank rather than in it, shivering lightly from the wet, lips tinted blue in the dark. She shouldn't have gotten herself soaked. Harry appreciated being able to move, but he was trapped in the tank with or without the netting, and now Luna seemed likely to catch a cold, and he couldn't help but feel guilty.
Then there was that scream he'd heard out in the halls. He was sure it had been Hermione, but he hadn't heard a thing since he'd been left down here.
Why had the death eaters gone through the trouble of a ritual to mess with him, then let him be, only to torture his friends? To what end? What did they want, and why hadn't they just chained him up to wait for death by Voldemort's wand? Why were Hermione and Ron being tormented while he was left alone down here?
The longer they were gone, the longer they suffered, and the greater his worry became.
Examining his changed body became an almost welcome distraction. He could convince himself it was only temporary, and so the panic of it was diminished compared to his fears that his friends wouldn't survive.
He even tried to lever himself out of the water, just to make absolutely sure he hadn't been in shock after the ritual or… something. Unsurprisingly, as soon as his gills were above the surface he'd begun feeling light-headed from lack of oxygen. Not to mention that it hurt. Air in his gills was a raw sting that made him clench his teeth.
Luna had lightly chided him for his efforts with a teasing, "Silly, did you forget you breathe water?"
So, despite the maddening itch to get up and probe the shadows of the cellar for a way out, Harry remained stuck in the tank, waiting.
He had to change back.
After an indeterminate, agonizing wait, the door finally screamed open.
Harry poked his head up from the water and saw two bloodied figures being shoved into the room. Ron, recognizable in the dark by the red glint of his hair, stumbled and fell.
"Ron!" Harry shouted, the cry coming out a course, unintelligible shriek.
Luna was climbing up to her feet as the door slammed shut. "I'll check on them, Harry," she said calmly, before moving towards where Hermione was now kneeling on the ground next to Ron's crumpled form. Hermione had blood in her hair and on the sleeve of her jumper, and her skin glistened with sweat, but her hands were quick and sure as she gingerly felt Ron's arm. Harry remained hanging anxiously on the edge of the tank, just low enough to keep his gills under the water. Luna joined Hermione and murmured a question, but their low voices and the several dozens of feet between them and Harry made the words indistinct.
"Arm… broken. "
"Nargles… angry? They… time… you?"
"… scratch. Do…bandages? There's a … blood."
"… wipe it…."
Then Ron, rasping so quietly that Harry barely caught that he'd even spoken: "…okay…dy bitch."
Harry wanted to help so badly that it felt like a physical ache in his chest. He gripped the edge of the tank tightly enough that the dull edges cut into his palms painfully and bit his lip, forcing himself to stay quiet. Hermione needed to focus on whatever medical measures could be taken, not Harry's circumstances. After a few more moments, Harry sunk back into the hazy water as quietly as he could manage, hoping the clouded tank and the shadows around it would keep him out of sight until Hermione could afford the distraction his appearance would undoubtedly be.
She had changed out of her shirt so that she wore just her jumper, and was now tearing the shirt into strips. She went back to her knees so she could wipe the excess blood away from Ron's face, then started on binding his arm to his chest in lieu of a splint. She didn't seem concerned with her own injuries. Harry hoped it was because they weren't severe, and not because she was ignoring them.
Once Hermione had finished with his arm and had started to pull Ron's shirt up, Ron reached up with a shaking hand and weakly swatted Hermione's away with a groan.
"… crucios," he rasped. "I'm… ay, H'mione. Jus…ace."
Hermione slumped, then lifted her face to Luna. "… Harry…yet, then?"
Harry grimaced, and kicked his tail carefully to push himself back up to the surface. It was a little easier to make out their words when he wasn't underwater.
"Oh yes," Luna was saying. "…in his tank…course."
Hermione straightened, her eyes darting around the room with a little furrow between her brows that meant she was confused. It must have been darker than Harry had thought, or else her eyes were adjusted to the brighter light nearer the torch down here, because she completely missed Harry and the tank sitting at the back of the cellar.
"Here," Harry tried, then winced at the dinosaur-like screech that came out of his mouth.
"What the bloody hell was that?" Ron yelped, struggling to sit up.
At least it had gotten their attention.
"…just Harry. …think…English, yet," Luna's soft voice was saying.
Hermione was on her feet and coming closer now, her fingers twitching as if she missed her wand. Harry pulled himself up and crossed his arms over the tank edge to peer out, and let the water splash around a bit as he moved.
It only took a few paces before Hermione's eyes steadied on the shape of the tank, and she squinted.
"…Harry?"
Harry tried to hum in agreement, but even that came out like the scratching of wet chalk on a chalkboard.
Hermione stepped closer, the furrow in her brow deepening. Finally, she seemed to see him, and she hurried forward a few paces before stopping abruptly. Her hands flew up to her mouth in shock.
"Harry?!"
Harry grimaced and nodded.
"What? What?" Ron called. Luna was trying to help him up, but she was small and weak from cold and Ron had a broken arm. They were making clumsy progress.
Hermione came to the edge of the tank and reached out a hand to touch Harry's face. Her fingertip was strangely warm against his cold, damp skin. Her eyes shifted to take in the fins adorning his arms, the transparent scales visible on his exposed shoulders, and then the dark shape of his tail partially obscured by the dirt clouding the water.
"You're mer?" she asked, her voice rasping. "Of course you are, what else looks like a man with a tail… You're a saltwater variety, though I'm not sure which species, they all tend to look a little more human than the freshwater species, which you've seen, of course."
She was in shock.
"They did this? They did this. Why? I thought they were taking you straight to… straight to… well, at least they didn't, and… you're not hurt, aside from… aside from…?"
She ended up gesturing helplessly at him, which he took to mean "everything else."
He shook his head slightly in answer.
"Merlin, Harry," Ron breathed. He'd finally limped up next to Hermione, his good arm over Luna's shoulders for support. His legs were shaking underneath him, and his face was frighteningly pale. "How'd that happen?"
"Right, you need to tell us what they did; how they did it," Hermione said, seizing onto the question like a lifeline. "If we know what they did we can figure out how to reverse it."
Harry gestured vaguely to his mouth, but when they both still looked confused he let out as quiet of a shriek as he could manage to illustrate the point.
"Oh, yes, of course, mer can't be heard properly above water," Hermione muttered.
"Like the egg, Harry?" Ron asked.
Harry had no sooner nodded than Hermione was hanging over the edge of the tank, dipping her head inside. Harry let go of the edge and sunk back under to speak.
"Hermione, I'm alright. Are you okay?" he asked, trying to inject calm he didn't truly feel into his strange new voice. "You're bleeding."
Hermione shook her head, the movement a little bit more measured than before. "That's not important. Tell us what they did, Harry, everything you remember."
"It was a ritual," he admitted as soon as her ears were submerged again. He twisted, trying to face her better without feeling as if he were drifting in the tank, but maneuvering with his tail was clumsy at best. Hopefully, Hermione was about to figure out a way to make sure that wasn't a problem for long. "They made me strip down and chained me in the middle of a ritual circle. Then they force-fed me a potion. It was shimmery and green and it tasted like seaweed. After that, they started chanting, and I changed, and they brought me here."
Hermione lifted her head, thick hair dripping like a sodden sponge, her eyes distant. "Nudity is standard for ritual magic to prevent anything from accidentally altering the intended outcome. You're…. Of course you're sure." She looked haunted.
"I'll change back," Harry said from under the surface, even knowing by now that they wouldn't understand the words. "I'll change back, Hermione."
"Hm? Oh." Hermione hesitantly lowered her head back into the water.
"Right, Hermione? I'll change back. Right?"
She withdrew more slowly this time, eyes staring blankly into the wall behind the tank.
Harry's stomach sank like a stone.
"What is it?" Ron asked, glancing between her and Harry quickly.
"I've never heard of a ritual that can cause someone to change species so completely," Hermione whispered. "Human transfiguration is considered highly advanced, and even that only causes temporary anatomical changes. What's happened to your voice is proof that the change has affected your magical core. This is beyond human transfiguration; your magic itself has changed. This… this is insanely advanced magic, beyond anything I've heard of."
Hermione paused, taking in a shaking breath. No one else dared to speak.
"I was hoping that they'd used a spell, or maybe a potion," Hermione admitted tremulously. "Most forms of magic cause temporary change, you see, which means most magic eventually loses power and the affected person or object reverts back to its natural state. Even 'permanent' spells can usually be countered relatively simply since there are only one or two elements involved in the casting. But… if you're right and they used a ritual, you aren't going to just… 'change back.' Rituals are complex because they use every tool at a wizard's disposal to create permanent change. Countering one is just as complicated as performing one, because every single element of the ritual must be taken into consideration and countered: the runes and the way they're laid out, the substances used to draw the circle, the words used in the incantation, as well as any potions or other elements used such as candles or crystals. Even the time of day and year, or the weather, can play a part in it."
Hermione took a deep, measured breath, then swallowed. It was as if she didn't want to speak, but she was also unable to stop.
"The use of a potion in ritual casting is somewhat rare, and it seriously complicates constructing a counter-ritual. I'd need the potion recipe in addition to everything else I mentioned. Now, if they used a published ritual, all that information can be looked up, but…"
She finally trailed off, eyes distant. Harry met Ron's eyes and saw his own fear reflected back at him.
Hermione cleared her throat. "The likelihood of this being something they just found in a book is… well, it's not exactly… judging from the use of a potion, as well as the fact that it meddled in Harry's magic, his soul… What I'm trying to say is that this ritual required a master's grasp of human transfiguration, potions, runes, spell creation, and soul magic. Only a handful of wizards in history would be able to pull that off successfully, and if had ever been written down, it was certainly banned by the Ministry centuries ago. You-Know-Who himself probably created it. Without detailed information on how it was done, it… the ritual, it's practically impossible to counter. I'm… I'm sorry."
Hermione finally stopped talking, her face ashen and eyes wide and dark. Ron's jaw was slack with shock, and he stared at Harry, his eyes filled with horror. Harry shook his head mutely.
It wasn't true.
It couldn't be true.
Because if it were, Harry was trappedin whichever tank of water the death eaters provided. He would never walk again. He'd never take a breath of air again. He'd never be able to say the incantation for a spell again.
He couldn't hunt Horcruxes from a fish tank!
And what about the prophecy? What was he supposed to do, hope Voldemort was stupid enough to get too close so Harry could drown him?!
"What are we going to do?" Ron asked hoarsely.
"I think you should both sit down," Luna said serenely. "You both are very pale."
Ron collapsed to sit against a column nearby, trembling. Luna sat next to him and tucked herself back under his arm, shivering and frighteningly pale. Ron only glanced at her before he looked back to Hermione, seemingly lost.
Hermione stayed on her feet, the furrow back in between her brows, her knees trembling slightly even while she paced.
"First thing is we need a wand," she said. "Ideally, our own, of course. I think I saw Draco take them from the snatchers. Then… well, theoretically, we could cast a reversed bubble charm localized over Harry's gills… wait, Harry - there's a chance you're amphibious! Selkies and Undines can both breathe above water and even change their tails back into legs."
"Oh, Harry isn't either of those," Luna said innocently. "He already tried to breathe air again, even though it hurts him. I think it's wrackspurts. This place is full of them."
Hermione completely ignored Luna's opinion and raised a questioning eyebrow in Harry's direction.
It couldn't hurt to try again.
Well, any more than it had previously.
Wrackspurts.
Harry grimaced, pulled himself up by the tank edge, and pushed until his arms had lifted his entire torso from the water. Then he swung his hips over the edge and balanced there, carefully sitting with his hands clenched on the glass and the weight of his tail trailing into the water. He instantly felt heavier; clumsier.
Hermione shifted closer to him, her eyes round as saucers while she looked over his exposed body. He hunched his shoulders, keeping steady with some difficulty and bracing himself against the scratch of the air on his skin. His transparent eyelids slid closed, eliciting a small gasp from Hermione. Harry shot her a wry glance, gripping the edge overly tightly to fight the urge to slide straight back into the relief of the water.
"Blimey," Ron croaked, eyes fastened on Harry's scaled tail and then on his gills. Harry didn't think he'd noticed the eyelids.
Harry nodded stiffly, clenching his jaw. He could feel water draining away down his throat and then out through his gills to trickle down his sides. He hadn't even realized they were… open to each other until now. It was distinctly disconcerting, especially as the flow slowed to a trickle and the air began reaching through the wide slits of his gills like burning claws.
Ow, it hurt.
"You're not breathing," Hermione said softly, bringing her hand to hover over Harry's pale chest.
Harry would have scoffed if he still had the lungs to produce the sound. As it was, he was starting to feel a little light-headed again. He concentrated on his chest, trying to flex muscles there in an effort to breathe as he had done just a couple of hours ago. He was moderately aware of his mouth gaping open and closed as he tried, but nothing could draw air into a space that seemed to simply not be there anymore. His chest was still heavy and solid and unmoving.
He hadn't developed some other strange form of breathing, either, because a moment later dizziness made him lose his grip on the tank edge and fall backwards towards the dry ground. He would have fallen completely if Hermione hadn't stepped in and caught him against her own body, hooking her arms under his and then pushing him back over the tank's edge with a soft groan.
Harry slid back into the water with a splash. He hacked up several large bubbles and rubbed his sore sides, air whizzing out of his gills in a hissing swarm of bubbles.
"Okay, so you're not amphibious," Hermione muttered. "But we know you're a saltwater species, so that leaves the Merrow and the Sirens, both of which are entirely aquatic…That wasn't even very long before you started to pass out, either." She gnawed on her fingernails, a bad habit Harry hadn't seen her indulge in years.
Surprisingly, Ron seemed to be coping better.
"Okay, so we get wands back. Then what?" Ron said, stopping Hermione from rambling again. "You mentioned a … a reverse bubble charm? That would keep Harry from dying?"
Hermione went still and crossed her arms tightly over her chest. "Yes, well, it's more theoretical than anything," she admitted. "I've only read a little on spell alteration. I'm sure it's possible, but we'd have to reverse the effects of the spell so that it trapped water instead of air, and we'd have to target the gills rather than the head. It's experimental at best. I'd need time… probably more than we have… to make it work. There's aguamenti of course, but… no, even if that produced enough water to keep him breathing, that summons fresh water and Harry needs saltwater. Exposing aquatic life to the wrong kind of water can make their cells swell and kill them almost as quickly as exposure to air. I did a lot of research into fish care for my parents' fish tank in their practice."
"Okay, so we take the tank with us," Ron said, his eyes shadowed. "We can levitate it."
Harry let himself sink to the bottom of the tank as Hermione launched into all the reasons that that plan wasn't as simple as it sounded. Even three levitation charms likely wouldn't be enough magical power to lift the multiple hundreds of pounds Harry and the full tank would weigh. They could empty part of the water to lighten it, but it would likely still require all of their effort to get it up and moving. Even if they were able to move it, the tank was too long to handle the sharp angle of the staircase right on the other side of the doorway to the cellar. It would jam on the top of the door. Even if that could be overcome by altering the dimensions of the tank (which, Hermione pointed out, could very well have been spelled unchangeable as well as adhered to the cellar floor with permanent sticking charms) the low ceiling in the stairwell would force the tank at so steep an angle that it would lose most of its remaining water, leading them back to the suffocating-Harry problem.
Harry listened to his friends argue it in circles over and over again. These issues seemed insurmountable, and he hadn't even voiced his own concerns. All of these doomed plans required all three of them to focus their magic on him, whether to keep him breathing or keep the tank moving. They wouldn't have anyone left to defend and fight, which was going to be vital in any escape attempt.
Even if they found a way to move him without the tank, they'd still be down a wand in order to keep him breathing, and none of them looked healthy enough to drag him through the halls at a run. Hermione was barely staying on her feet, wincing with every other movement, energized by panic alone. Ron's eyes were glassy, his breaths uneven with pain, and he had a broken arm. Luna had curled against Ron's side, eyes closed, looking an inch away from hypothermia, and had spent a month growing weak from imprisonment. These plans would have been incredibly difficult even with the three of them in good health. They would be suicidal with the shape they were all in now.
Harry was the only one who seemed to realize that they only had one option.
They kept on about it for a while longer, getting nowhere, arguing their plans into the ground. The longer Harry listened, the more and more certain he became. Hermione, Ron, and Luna would have to escape without him. Any other plan was destined to fail.
"Hermione," he called, keeping his head under the water.
She paused mid-way through her ramble about the likelihood that Harry was one of the rare aquatic species that could survive in both salt and fresh water, and turned to look at him. He jerked his head, indicating she should come so he could speak.
Something in his face must have given his thoughts away because her face became stubborn.
"No, Harry!"
He jerked his head again. "Hear me out, at least," he said, the words trilling out in a sharp set of notes. She wouldn't understand, but she seemed to understand his annoyance at not being able to simply speak. Perhaps that's what made her sigh before she came over to put her head in the tank.
"All this is useless," Harry said, twisting as much as he could to face her. "Someone has to get out to finish the job, and it clearly isn't going to be me. You've got to leave me behind."
Hermione pushed up into the air again, her face flushed. "No, we won't, Harry! How can you even suggest that? We'll figure something out!"
Harry gritted his teeth and gestured with a finger for her to put her ears back in. She complied only reluctantly.
"Hermione, think. They did this to keep me here and it's working. The only thing you'll accomplish by trying to take me with you is getting all three of you killed, and then no one will even know how to kill You-Know-Who! I'm stuck, Hermione. If I survive an escape attempt it will be because you three died and the death eaters dragged me back here again. But you all can still make it, so long as you aren't expending all your magic and energy on trying to levitate a thousand-pound tank with a suffocating bloody fish through the halls when you should be focused on surviving spellfire!"
Hermione withdrew, shaking her head. "I refuse to believe that it's impossible. What about the prophecy?!"
Harry waited for her to dip her ear back in, and now, his voice was positively thrumming with calm determination to make her understand. "I don't know. Maybe I'm only meant to deal the final blow, or maybe you were right and Trelawney was full of hot air. All I know is that we will never even have an opportunity to find out if no one gets out of this cellar to find the rest of those Horcruxes. That has to come first. Then we can worry about who kills the last bit."
Hermione withdrew more slowly, her eyes glazed and misty, nodding slightly.
"Hermione? What did he say?" Ron asked anxiously.
She blinked, shivering lightly. "That was lovely, Harry." She blinked again, more rapidly, her lips pursing into a slight frown but her eyes still unfocused. "I… I think you're a Siren. Your voice is very… compelling." Her frown grew deeper, and her eyes hardened as they finally seemed to refocus on him. "Don't try to charm me into abandoning you!"
Harry gaped at her, utterly confused. They stayed in a silent lock for a few moments, Hermione crackling with indignation, Harry trying to understand what she was accusing him of.
He hadn't done anything!
She finally softened, her brow crinkling.
"I suppose from the look on your face you didn't know what you were doing."
"He tried to charm you?" Ron squeaked.
Harry shook his head quickly, and Hermione sighed, sitting down.
"Inadvertently, yes. I think he might have succeeded if you hadn't drawn my attention." She turned her attention back to Harry and continued, lecturing in her "professor" voice, but her eyes kept sliding away from his. "Wizards know very little about the saltwater merpeople, especially about Sirens. Most of what we know comes from legends and from one or two ancient studies performed centuries ago when magical explorers managed to capture a Siren. One of those instances led to the development of the imperious curse. What I mean, Harry, is that Sirens are infamous for the strong compulsion magic which permeates their voices. From what we know about magical creatures in general, that ability is going to come very naturally, so much so that it may be possible for you to use it without realizing it. Creature magic is different from the magic you're used to; it's a connection that is deep and instinctive and unstructured. You need to be careful. It would be very easy for you to accidentally hurt someone."
Harry shook his head slightly, feeling like the worst scum of the earth. He hadn't meant to imperio Hermione. He was just trying to make her see!
"Selkies steal your heart. Merrow drown your children. Sirens sink ships," Ron whispered, eyes downcast now. "Everyone knows that. There's a reason wizards aren't big into going swimming and sailing."
Harry shrunk into the bottom corner of the tank, a massive lump in his throat. Hermione gave Ron a slight nudge with her foot, and he winced, dragging his eyes up to see Harry again.
"Not that… not that I think you'd do those things," Ron said awkwardly, glancing at Hermione and then shuddering. "But… you could."
Monster.
Harry curled as much as he could at the bottom of the tank. The conversation died; Hermione leaned back with an exhausted sigh against a column, and Ron winced before doing the same. Luna seemed to have fallen asleep, her breaths deep and even.
The entire conversation had given Harry a sick feeling in his gut, but he knew what had to be done.
And if his friends wouldn't listen? Well, thanks to Hermione… he knew he had the power to make sure it happened. Even if they hated him for it, at least they'd be safe.
15
