"Merpeople script? What's that?" Hermione looked at Hagrid with a baffled expression. Clearly, this was something she had never heard of before.
"It's the writing the Fish-Folk use! But only one kind of it. Hmm, the Fish-Folk in Europe's lakes and inland seas seem to use this script. Oh, right, the Fish-Folk in the Black Lake use it."
"Ah!" Hermione suddenly shrieked, making Harry and Ron jump. Ron had been munching on the super-mega-sized ice cream Hagrid had made, and his hand shook, planting it on his nose. He then gave Hermione a resentful look.
Hermione paid no attention whatsoever. Instead, she said excitedly, "I remember where I saw this writing. It was on the platform underneath the Giant Squid."
"The Giant Squid?"
Harry and Ron were startled at first, but then they understood.
Hermione meant the final part of the Second Task, when they had ridden that Magical Automaton underwater and the Giant Squid had handed Seashells to the Champions one by one.
But had there been a platform down there?
A few words had to be said about this.
Afterward, the clue for the Triwizard Tournament's third task was rated the most fiendish clue in history. In particular, using Merpeople script, a form of writing so obscure that it was practically off the map even for wizards, meant it really lacked the qualities a clue ought to have.
Yet afterward, the Tournament Committee felt extremely wronged by this assessment.
This was originally supposed to have been a very simple clue that was easy to discover.
After all, according to the original plan, after spending an entire task on the surface, the Champions would pilot their Magical Automata down into the depths. Everything they saw ought to have seemed new, and they should have wanted to look at everything.