The dolphin swam faster and faster, and Harry was gaining an uneasy feeling. He didn't know much about dolphins, but he didn't think fifty miles an hour and counting was an average speed. He'd once tried to voice his opinion to Ron, but almost choked; the water had rushed into his mouth and he had had trouble closing it again.
Harry patted the dolphin on the side, not sure why. He either wanted it to know he was still on there or for it to know it should stop. What he didn't want was another hundred reasons why he shouldn't be on the back of this dolphin.
The dolphin turned its head toward him and opened its mouth playfully, thanking him for the pat.
The dolphin had a bulrush for a tongue.
Harry squeezed the part of Ron he was holding as hard as he could. Harry lessened his grip for a moment, then grabbed Ron tightly again and purposely fell off, making sure not to lose Ron. They fell for a moment before the density of the water stopped them, and only when he was sure Ron had an even footing did he release him. Harry wasn't sure what was wrong with that dolphin, but it was bad.
Ron gave Harry a very inquiring look. Harry didn't see how Ron could have missed the bulrush, but somehow he had. Harry ignored Ron and looked around at the dolphin. It was staring at them inquiringly several feet away.
Harry stared at the dolphin. "What's wrong with it?" he murmured, though only bubbles erupted from his mouth.
The dolphin swam a couple cautious feet further.
Harry didn't want to be anywhere near that dolphin. He turned to Ron and the scene that met his eyes made him scream, though only bubbles came out of his mouth in a long series of circles. The last thing Harry needed had just occurred--Ron was gone.
"Ron?" Bubbles. "RON?" Harry bubbled.
Harry looked at the dolphin, half-ready to accept its help… but it had disappeared, too.
"Anybody?" Harry bubbled quietly, desperately, as he turned around.
He didn't even have time to scream.
Before the unexplainable jerk upwards, Harry saw a creature that he could only remember seeing in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. A horse with bulrushes for a mane, Harry suddenly understood what was wrong with the dolphin: it hadn't been a dolphin at all, but a Kelpie.
The sudden jerk upwards Harry didn't understand for several moments. He heard a snap below him--the Kelpie had tried to bite him, or swallow him whole; which, he couldn't tell, nor did he care; both were bad.
Bubbles that were not his own, as well as a murmuring he recognized sounded below him.
"GO!" Ron seemed to yell, though Harry couldn't tell for sure.
A hand let go of Harry's robes--the reason for the jerk, he knew--and he saw Kelly swim toward the Kelpie, somehow holding her wand in her webbed hand.
Ron grabbed Harry and had to drag him away. It wasn't that Harry didn't like his head where it was, but he didn't want Kelly to have to fight the Kelpie on her own. Her opinion on the subject was different; when she saw Harry struggling against Ron, she glared at him with such a demand for control that Harry quickly turned around and sat behind a rock. Kelly almost got bitten when she saw him struggling, so he made no further attempts against this unsaid order.
He didn't disobey for another two minutes.
A piercing scream sounded, even through the water. Harry spun around, and saw a horrible sight.
There was a cloud of blood surrounding something. Through the blood-cloud, Harry made out Kelly, her arm stuck in the mouth of the Kelpie, unable to lurch herself free.
Harry jumped out from behind the rock, this time Ron following him instead of trying to stop him, as they headed toward the Kelpie and Kelly. They stopped very quickly, however, as something very unexpected occurred.
It started small, and the fright could be seen on both the Kelpie and Kelly's faces. A golden glow seemed to be coming from inside the Kelpie's mouth--from Kelly's immobile arm. It was light, then it started to grow as the Kelpie refused to let go. It grew so bright that Harry shielded his eyes in an attempt to not go blind.
Finally, after several moments where Harry was sure not even heaven was this bright, there was a non-human shriek and something exploded. Harry looked up, though he couldn't see anything from a mass of blood.
Oh no… he silently pleaded. Not Kelly, no…
The blood didn't clear. He and Ron would have to go through it.
Harry nudged Ron and nodded toward the storm of blood that Harry prayed was not Kelly's. Ron looked horrified, turned to look at the blood, but then looked back at Harry and slowly nodded. They swam cautiously forward.
Harry didn't know how he managed to keep his eyes open through the mass of blood, but he did. He and Ron reached the center after several moments of not knowing what would happen next. The "center" was an area of water that had no blood in it; rather, the blood was circling this one area.
Kelly was looking at her arm, which was slowly loosing it's golden glow. Harry breathed a sigh of relief. She was all right.
Harry and Ron stared at Kelly, speechless with relief, aside from the fact that they couldn't have spoken even if they wanted to. Kelly stared at her arm until the glow was completely gone before looking up at them. She just shook her head, unable to explain. She kept shaking her head as she started to swim off, not believing what had just happened. Harry and Ron exchanged utterly confused looks, then followed her.
They had traveled in aimless directions for several minutes before Kelly spoke.
"Oh!" she said in perfectly regular tones. "I forgot! Here," she held out two small, orange pills. "Take these. They allow you to talk regularly underwater, like I am now."
Harry and Ron nodded, taking one from her and swallowing it, trying not to get too much lake water in their mouths in the process. They looked at each other a few moments later, after nothing had happened. There had been no special feeling--nothing.
"Harry, you're a git," Ron said. He suddenly looked horrified and clapped his hand over his mouth. "I didn't mean that! I didn't think I could really speak!"
Harry narrowed his eyes and nodded sarcastically. "Sure…."
"Come on, you lot," Kelly said. "We've got to keep going."
"Okay," Harry and Ron said together.
But immediately Harry and Ron stopped. Kelly turned. "What is it?"
Harry put his hand to his neck, where his gills were slowly receding. His vision was slowly becoming obscured, and his lungs were going empty. "Breathe…"
"Oh!" Kelly exclaimed. She reached into her pocket and pulled out two pieces of gillyweed. "Here…"
They immediately took it from her, on the point of suffocation, and swallowed them without a second thought. Harry blinked. He could see all right again, after a few more blinks.
"Where did you get that?" Ron asked as soon as he had enough oxygen in his lungs.
Kelly smirked mischievously. "Let's just say Snape won't be happy when he next goes to his storeroom."
She winked and started swimming away. Harry and Ron grinned at what horrible examples they must have been to her, and followed behind her.
They swam farther and farther into the water, the water getting darker as they went deeper. The marine life was none, as far as they could tell. Since the incident with the Kelpie, they hadn't even encountered a Grindylow. Kelly quickly swallowed another gillyweed some time later; Harry had been really scared for a few moments. Ron kept looking around spectacularly; he had never been down here before while conscious. Kelly seemed to have her sights set, and rarely looked away from straight ahead, which at that point in time was down.
"Ooh! Ooh, Harry, look at this!" Ron had once said, pointing to a piece of ordinary coral.
"Oh, Harry, it's seaween!" Ron said, pointing toward the seaweed. Harry didn't bother to correct him; Ron seemed to be having too much fun.
"Oh, FISH!" Ron had yelled joyously at one point, swimming excitedly toward a school of fish, the first living things they had seen since the Kelpie.
"Neato! Eggs, Harry, eggs!" Ron had just said. "I WANNA CHICKEN!"
Harry reluctantly turned around, expecting another simple creature, but didn't find such a thing. They'd been traveling for nearly a quarter of an hour with no further inquiries, and Harry rather hoped it stayed that way. The eggs Ron was pointing at were semitransparent. The creature, whatever it was, could be seen inside, squirming around, impatient to get out of its cage.
"That… that's weird," Harry admitted, backtracking to take a closer look at them; Ron had been lagging behind. "No chickens, Ron."
"Aw…" Ron suddenly brightened. "Kelly! Look at the weird eggs!"
Kelly sighed and turned back around. "I don't know how you guys expect to find Hermione before nightfall at this rate."
She stopped as she looked at the eggs. "Hold on… I've seen those before… where…?"
She pondered for several moments, trying to think. Harry and Ron tried to imagine what kind of creature would lay this type of egg, desperately trying to remember everything in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
"Oh, I remember!" Kelly said at last. She suddenly turned grave. "C'mon. We need to get out of here. These belong to a--"
She flew forward with no warning, crashing into Harry. Harry looked back up at the beast responsible for her fall just as Kelly whispered, "Hippocampus…."