The transition from biting wind to muffled silence was abrupt. The Bubble-Head Charm held firm, giving Arthur clear air and slightly distorted vision in the murky green depths.
The Giant Squid, Hogwarts’s most enigmatic resident, held Arthur gently in its massive tentacles, its colossal eye regarding him with what seemed like intelligent curiosity. It brought him closer, its beak-like mouth opening slightly, as if expecting something.
"Right on time, my friend," Arthur said, his voice slightly warped by the Bubble-Head Charm but still audible underwater. With a casual wave of his hand, dozens of fish appeared out of nowhere—a colourful mix of species chosen specially for the squid’s taste.
The Giant Squid’s tentacles rippled with obvious pleasure as it swept the treats into its beak-like mouth.
This exchange complete, the squid gently positioned Arthur atop its massive, dome-shaped head, just behind its enormous eyes. Arthur gripped the slippery surface with practiced ease, and without warning, the squid shot forward. It pushed itself through the murky waters with tremendous force, using its natural jet propulsion to cut through the lake at amazing speed.
If the spectators above had been shocked by Arthur’s unusual entry into the task, they would have been utterly gobsmacked by the sight of him essentially riding the Giant Squid like a living submarine. The squid wasn’t just carrying him; it was actively helping, responding to gentle taps of Arthur’s hand to change direction when needed.
This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment arrangement. Being perpetually isolated at Hogwarts had its advantages—it gave him time to explore the castle grounds and make unusual friends. The Giant Squid had first met him during early morning exercises by the lake in his third year. After the initial meeting, it kind of became regular. The Giant Squid was curious why a tiny human was running around the lake so early in the morning all alone.
Over time, through regular offerings of tasty treats, Arthur had built a sort of friendship with the ancient creature. The squid was far cleverer than most wizards gave it credit for, able to understand basic instructions and even recognise patterns in human speech.
Today’s deal was simple: the squid would take Arthur directly to the merpeople’s village and back in exchange for the special treats that Arthur had spent weeks preparing.
As they went deeper into the lake, the water grew darker and colder. Arthur could feel the pressure increasing, but his Bubble-Head Charm held strong, and the squid’s speed made the journey surprisingly quick. They passed through forests of swaying weeds, past groups of grindylows that scattered when the squid approached, and over vast, empty stretches of lake bed.
Within minutes, they neared the merpeople’s village. Rough stone dwellings rose from the lake bed, decorated with paintings of merpeople hunting and gathering. Strands of glowing weed lit up the underwater settlement, casting an eerie, shifting light across the scene. Merpeople with greyish skin and wild, green hair floated at the village’s edge, holding spears and eyeing the approaching squid with suspicious yellow eyes.
In the village center stood a large stone statue of a merperson, its tail curled around a thick post to which four figures were tied with thick ropes of weed. A choir of merpeople hovered nearby, their haunting song now clear and understandable:
"An hour long you’ll have to look,
And to recover what we took,
Your time’s half gone, so tarry not,
Lest what you seek stays here to rot..."
Arthur’s attention, however, was fixed on the hostages. Three were immediately recognisable—Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and a small, silvery-haired girl he knew was Fleur Delacour’s younger sister, Gabrielle.
But the fourth hostage, supposedly Arthur’s most treasured person, defied all expectations.
He stared. It wasn’t a person. It wasn’t an object he owned. Tied securely to the statue, looking completely out of place and slightly waterlogged, was the patched, frayed, undeniably ancient Sorting Hat. Of all the possibilities Arthur had considered, the Sorting Hat hadn’t even made the list.
He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or feel insulted. For a brief, rebellious moment, Arthur thought about ignoring the Hat entirely and taking Gabrielle Delacour instead. Appearing on the surface in front of the audience with the sorting hat would be dead embarrassing and Arthur couldn’t help but cringe thinking about it.
But in the end, his competitive nature won out. He wanted to win this task properly, ridiculous as his "hostage" might be.
The merpeople shifted uneasily as the giant squid approached, raising their spears in a defensive formation. Arthur raised his hand in a gesture of peace and, to the merpeople’s obvious surprise, addressed them in Mermish.
"Greetings," he said, the guttural, screeching sounds flowing fluently from his lips despite the Bubble-Head Charm. "I’m a Triwizard champion, here for my hostage. We mean no harm."
Learning Mermish had been a side project during his fourth year. With the help of Ravenclaw’s diadem boosting his thinking abilities, mastering the complex underwater language had taken only a few weeks. He’d hoped to make friends with the Great Lake’s merpeople, but they had turned down his previous attempts at contact, being notoriously isolationist even by magical standards.
The mermish chieftain, distinguished by a fancy necklace of shark teeth, approached cautiously. "The squid is not welcome in our territory," she rasped in mermish.
"The giant squid is here as my helper," Arthur replied, "We’ll take my hostage and scarper quickly."
The merchieftainess stared at him suspiciously before nodding once, sharply. "Take only what is yours, surface-dweller," she warned, "and clear off sharpish."
Arthur swam to the statue, giving a wide berth to the merpeople guards, and examined the weeds binding the Sorting Hat. A quick severing charm later, the hat floated free. Arthur grabbed it, tucking it securely into an inside pocket of his robes before returning to the squid’s head.
"Thanks for your hospitality," he said to the merpeople with a formal bow, then signalled to the squid.
With a powerful surge, the squid propelled them upward, accelerating rapidly toward the surface with such force that Arthur had to grip tightly to avoid being left behind. They rose through the water like a torpedo, the pressure changing so quickly that Arthur’s ears popped painfully despite his protective charm.
In what seemed like seconds, they broke through the surface of the lake, water cascading around them in a dramatic splash as the giant squid’s tentacles rose majestically into the air, holding Arthur aloft for all to see—the Sorting Hat clutched triumphantly in his hand.