Merfolk would like the kidnappers handed over, please.

...that is not these humans's prerogative but they have been made to regret their behavior.

Have they.

Yes.

If they venture into the water again they will be held responsible for their choices.

Are they in fact good at telling humans apart.

Are humans good at telling merpeople apart?

No, not really, or at least Miranda is not, but it would be bad if the merfolk mistook other humans for the ones who kidnapped somebody.

Perhaps she and Minor could provide detailed descriptions for them.

Unfortunately a lot of humans meet the descriptions that could be easily translated; humans mostly recognize subtle facial features that don't see much verbalizing.

Then maybe humans in general should stay away from the water.

Well that seems like an invitation to end this conversation doesn't it yikes.

Little bit. "Ugh."

"Ugh!" she agrees. "I guess we should warn the professors to warn everybody to not swim."

"Yeah. It's good it was Timothy who handled it, I'd have been tempted to throw them all into the lake."

"I'm not even clear on what the merfolk want to do to them - keep them under till they're good and scared, or maim them or just kill them -"

"- yeah, don't know. I bet they learned their lesson."

"Hope so."

"Are you okay?"

"I just really hope it doesn't escalate."

"Yeah." And they go warn their professors to announce no one should go swimming.

Which the professors do, and they take additional points from the culprits for good measure.

Palatua Crouch, who Timothy owes a favor, informs him that he's taking her to the Halloween ball. She gives him plenty of notice so he can decide how to ask her.

Well.

He's not going to ask Michael for suggestions.

He drops a vial full of firebeetles and spends two hours instructing the beetles to crawl back into the vial, one at a time.

This is just a special case of giving people presents and being charming at them; he's good at giving people presents and being charming at them. He acquires some catalogues and then mail-orders an exotic array of magical candies and enchanted baubles and flowers from distant corners of the world and so on, which can be delivered, unsigned, periodically by an attention-grabbing giant silver owl who does not stay to accept a return note.  And then two weeks before Halloween he can arrange to be sitting across from her when the owl arrives, and instead of delivering a package it can land on his shoulder and he can ask her to the dance. 

Palatua smiles brilliantly at him and accepts. She is the envy of every girl in Hogwarts.