Light Nimbus pt 2

You dashed out the door but then stopped and hesitated as you stood in the dungeon corridor. You still weren’t sure where to begin your quest of finding Blaise Zabini.

Professor Snape said Zabini and Yaxley were last slighted on the grounds by the Black Lake… and then they vanished. That meant they weren’t by the lake anymore. The Hogwarts castle and the surrounding grounds was a large area to cover… It didn’t make much sense to begin your search in the one place Professor Snape specifically said they weren’t. You had a small twenty minute window to find Blaise… you didn’t have time to spare retreading familiar ground.

But then your petty, vindictive Head of House Severus Snape decided to BE Snape and Snapeily Snaped at you from behind through the still open door. “If you’re going to stand there and waste your precious time… perhaps you would be better suited to run to the library and learn the Four Point Charm. It normally causes a witch or wizard’s wand to act as a compass and point north. But there’s an advanced version where you add a name of a person to the ‘Point Me’ incantation and it will cause your wand to point towards them. Of course, considering that’s an O.W.L. level spell… you are much more likely to cost Slytherin all of its House Points by the time you finally learn it.”

That sounded like Snape-anese for “Get a move on, Gaunt!”

But you continued to hesitate as you concentrated on the mean-spirited advice mixed in with the Potions Master’s signature Snape snark. A Locator Spell. That would be useful in determining what direction you should start running. You couldn’t afford to go the wrong way. Unfortunately, you didn’t know one and, as Professor Snape nastily noted, taking the time to learn it would cost you all the emeralds in the Slytherin hourglass.

You glanced at the vial of Topical Bruise Remover you retrieved from your school bag. A bag that was transported from the Great Hall to the Potions classroom by the Hogwarts house elves.

ASKING.

That worked once. Maybe it would work again?

But as you stared at the stone wall in front of you a grin crossed your face when you thought of who built it. You were standing in the dungeon of a castle built and designed by your ancestor Salazar Slytherin. These same dungeons housed the Slytherin common room where, instead of saying a password, all you had to do to enter was hiss at the wall in Parseltongue.

Hogwarts was a MAGICAL castle. The staircases moved, the portraits talked, the suits of armor’s helmets turned to watch you, and THOUSANDS of students over the centuries learned to wield their magic within these very walls. The school was FLOODED with generations of ambient magic.

No. Don’t ask the house elves this time. Ask the school.

You drew your horned serpent horn core wand and pressed the tip against the stone wall.

What was the incantation of the Four Point spell? ‘Point Me’? That didn’t sound like Latin. Must have been recently designed by a muggleborn. Also, that wouldn’t translate to Parseltongue. Snakes didn’t have fingers or hands to point with.

INTENT was the key to most magic. You thought of who you were asking the castle to help you find and clearly pictured Blaise Zabini in your mind’s eye. The tip of your wand glowed with silver sparkles against the solid grey stone as you channeled your magic and hissed your request in Parseltongue. §Lead Me…§ “Blaise Zabini!”

Ask and ye shall receive!

Your aspen wood horned serpent wand hissed as your magic was cast into the dungeon wall and before your eyes THE WALL BEGAN TO GLOW GREEN!

You blinked as you processed what you were seeing. The green glow was in the shape of a horizontal cylindrical tube. THE PIPE buried inside the wall was GLOWING through the stone. And the glow continued to the right the rest of the way down the dungeon corridor.

“Looks like Salazar Slytherin designed the castle’s plumbing!” you remarked. You pulled your wand back and were pleased to see that the wall’s emerald glow persisted even after its removal. You turned around and committed Professor Snape’s gobsmacked expression to memory. That’s what he got for doubting you! “A Locator Spell! Great idea, professor!”

Malfoy and Crabbe, who remained in their usual places in the front row after Professor Snape relocated Goyle, were peering out of the classroom around the stunned Potions professor and were gaping in shock. It was a look that was mirrored by Granger and Weasley who were at the front table across the aisle.

You turned back to the wall and noted the direction the emerald glow of the pipe was leading you, “It looks like he’s deeper in the dungeons! Must’ve snuck him back into the castle somehow!” You thought of the passage you and your fellow first years had taken up to the castle after crossing the Black Lake on your first night. There could also be other secret passageways that would allow two students previously sighted out at the lake to slip back into the castle dungeons. “Glad I stopped to think rather than recklessly running right out to search the grounds. That would’ve been a massive waste of my limited time!” You turned right and ran down the corridor. “Back in a jiffy, professor!”

“Happy hunting!” Lavender Brown shouted after you. You remembered your threat to hunt down and publicly crucify the person responsible for poisoning someone high on your Vaunted Gaunted list. Was she implying that Blaise was high on your list?

Professor Snape was still in such a state of shock that he didn’t even chide her for the comment. It seemed as an unintended side-effect of your custom castle-spanning Locator Spell… you successfully dispelled your Head of House’s sour mood.

You noted that the pipe stopped glowing behind you and was very clearly leading you towards wherever Blaise Zabini was. Just as you asked.

“I’ll take a walk on the grounds with you… SO I CAN FIND A SPOT TO BURY YOU!”

You remembered Yaxley’s threats from breakfast. And while you were still confident that she wouldn’t kill Blaise, you were nervous that his disappearance might be some form of revenge.

“If you and I go for a walk on the grounds… only one of us is coming back!”

Maybe you pushed her to the point where she was willing to carry out her threats on your friend?

Deeper and deeper you delved into the dungeons. Past the Student Potions Labs. Past the Slytherin common room. Whenever you reached a doorway the emerald glow would briefly stop and then start up again on the other side. Among those openings you passed were the familiar stairways leading back UP towards the rest of the castle and so you were surprised when you reached the end of a long dungeon corridor and the glowing green pipe curved DOWN before the opening of a large, wide stone staircase.

Midway down the curving staircase that seemed to be taking you on a full u-turn… the glowing green pipe stopped. Of course. The stairs continued past the end of the upstairs corridor and so the very tail end of the pipe was through the stone wall on your left side. You continued down the curved stairway and grew nervous that you might have lost your glowing guide as you delved EVEN DEEPER into Hogwarts’ dungeon underbelly.

The familiar had been left far behind as you now found yourself standing at the end of a new corridor facing the opposite direction of the one upstairs. You had no idea which part of the castle you were under. The rounded semi-circle shape of the curved staircase made you think that maybe it was within the base of one of the castle’s cylindrical towers. The only light came from dim torches that were mounted on brackets high on the walls. No sign of your green pipe guide. But there WERE numerous doorways. Maybe that meant Blaise was in there?

You gave your wand a flick, “Tempus!” Green numbers spelled the time. 9:01

Potions class had officially started. It took six minutes to get to this point. And now you had to search for Blaise the old fashioned way.

On the left side of the new sub-level dungeon were four heavy oak single doors spaced widely enough apart to line the entire side of the spacious corridor. On the right side, midway down, was a grand double door. And all the way at the far end of the corridor a smaller single door.

You went to the closest door on the left and stuffed your bruise potion in your pocket so you had ahand free to pull on the door handle. Locked. Your wand was already out in yourother hand so you cast the Unlocking Charm. “Alohomora!” There was a click as the door came unlocked. You pulled the heavy oak door open and peered inside.

Well, this WAS a dungeon… and you just found one of the holding cells. Maybe it was a detention room? There were shackles hanging from the ceiling, a cot was against the wall, and there was a faucet with a bucket against the wall. No sign of Blaise Zabini.

But there were two small diffrently sized emerald green cylindrical tubes glowing through the floor running from the left side of the room to the right. You spotted a simple toilet against the right wall next to the faucet. The bigger floor pipe was a sewage pipe and the thinner one was the water pipe. Behind you was only a solid wall and a staircase going back up so you continued down the corridor to the next ‘detention cell’.

Same as the first one. Still no Blaise. But the pair of green pipes were glowing as they continued under the floor of the second stone holding cell.

Your mind flashed back to the bathroom on Halloween and you suddenly realised that one of the four holding cells had likely been converted into a Troll Storeroom. This was probably where the mountain troll was being kept before it broke loose. Or rather… was set loose.

You were midway down the left side of the corridor, so for a change of pace, you ran across the hallway and pushed in the double doors on the right side which were NOT locked.

“Is that… a ballroom?” You wondered as you stared over the raised balcony at the dance floor within the large spacious hall. You weren’t an especially skilled or trained dancer but since you couldn’t go to Hogsmeade until third year… maybe you could sneak a witch down here for a castlebound date? You spotted a gramophone and a large (non-glowing) pipe organ against the wall on the far side of the dance floor. But there didn’t appear to be any way down from the balcony to the dance floor. Unless you could fly. Perhaps this was a ballroom meant for ghosts? Didn’t they celebrate deathdays instead of birthdays? Maybe this was where the castle ghosts hosted their parties? All the living human ceremonies were conducted upstairs in the Great Hall.

No sign of a glowing pipe in the ballroom. But then again, ghosts didn’t need water for anything. They could neither drink nor bathe.

You briefly thought of bypassing the third detention cell and continuing straight to the fourth one but, for the sake of being thorough, you unlocked that door too. But once again you were greeted by two glowing green pipes in the floor running from left to right. It was the same case in the fourth and final door.

If the troll WAS being kept in one of the detention cells… none of them showed any sign - or smell - of it. That once again spoke of the efficiency of the Hogwarts house elves. Then again, that was back in October. It was now February. Plenty of time for the efficient little elves to wash away that troll stench.

One door remained and you were soon standing in front of the lone single door at he far end of the hall. You cast your fifth - and hopefully final - Unlocking Charm.

But this time it didn’t work.

Perhaps there was a more advanced Locking Charm on it? Or maybe opening the door required a password? Yaxley could have learned it during her four previous years at Hogwarts. You began studying the door for clues. The pipes wouldn’t have led you here if you couldn’t get in, right? The locked door wasn’t as heavy and as thick as the detention cell doors. But when you focused on the ornate handle you noticed the custom design that was much different than the knob on the four cell doors… it had a snake curled around it.

It turned out, you wouldn’t need the password. It seemed Parseltongue was the key to unlocking the hidden secrets Salazar Slytherin built into the castle. §Open!§

Click! The snake door came unlocked. You pulled open the magically locked door and found… nothing. The stone walled room inside was the size of a broom closet. The only notable feature was the hole in the floor and the ladder mounted against the wall.

“Great…” you grumbled aloud, “I’m about to go from Hogwarts’ underbelly to its bowels. Never thought I’d get to know the school this intimately.”

You stepped around the edge of the hole onto the ladder and began climbing down.

But then you stopped.

Parseltongue led you to this doorway. Parseltongue magically unlocked the door. You didn’t know how far down this ladder went but you just wasted your precious time searching all of the other rooms in the last corridor. Time was of the essence. You needed to speed things along.

You firmly planted your feet on the ladder rung below you and gripped the one in front of you with both hands… then hissed in Parseltongue. §Down!§

“YAAAH!!” Your stomach shot up into your chest as the ladder rungs plummeted down like a way faster version of a Ministry of Magic lift. You saw a flash of green as you whizzed straight down through one room - which you didn’t even get to see since you were facing the far wall - and plunged all the way down into the one below it and finally jerked to a stop as you found yourself one rung above a stone floor at the very bottom of the ladder.

Your stomach settled but then immediately twisted again when you stepped off of the ladder and turned around to find yourself… in a sewer.

There was a ten foot wide ravine filled with rushing water cutting through the middle of the room with a raised portion on each side. And overhead was a MASSIVE pipe big enough for Hagrid to climb into. On the floor behind the humungous overhead pipe was a metal grate that went over the ravine so you could cross from one side to the other. A steady flow of water came out of a much smaller pipe in the wall and was being pumped underneath the metal grate to run the full length of the ravine.

And as you followed the water and walked alongside the sewer-like ravine you found yourself staring out at the familiar sight of the dark murky depths of the Black Lake THROUGH the thick stone castle wall which had been charmed transparent.

“The bowels of the castle, indeed,” you remarked when you reached the end and watched the water pump out into the lake. “I’ve just found Hogwarts’ arsehole!”

Speaking of arseholes… despite being in a ‘sewer’ it didn’t smell like one. A fact which your stomach was immensely grateful for. You turned around and stared at the large overhead ‘exit’ pipe which spewed out all of the castle’s… waste.

That was when you noticed the magical net going over the end. It shimmered multiple colors and resembled the soapy fluid inside a bubble wand. Someone somewhere in the castle flushed a toilet… maybe the Headmaster since everyone else was supposed to be in class… because you got to watch in real time as watery brown liquid rushed down the pipe… went through the bubble net… and came out as crystal clear clean water… which was then propelled along the sewer line and sprayed out into the lake.

“Oh Merlin!” you gasped, “They said Salazar Slytherin wanted to purge the school of filth. Everyone assumed he was referring to muggleborns. And maybe he was. But it looks like he also meant that literally.”

But it was then, while standing at the far end of the sewer, that you noticed the outer sides of the humungous exit pipe coming out of the ceiling… were glowing green.

“Ah, I must’ve gotten off the ladder lift on the wrong floor,” you realised, “Blaise is one floor up. Don’t need to tell me twice to leave Hogwarts’ arsehole.” You hurried back the way you came and climbed on the bottom-most rungs of the ladder. You decided to give the lift another go since you actually knew your intended stopping point. §Up one level.§

The key was being specific. The ladder rungs carried you up towards the ceiling at a slower, much more reasonable lift pace that matched the ones at the Ministry. You rose up through the hole in the ceiling and found yourself bathed in a constant green glow.

The ladder lift stopped and you stretched your leg out off the side and onto the edge of the hole around it then climbed off onto the solid ground.

And then you turned around.

“WHOA!” Instead of torches, there were glowing green crystals mounted on the ceiling overhead which bathed the room in a continuous emerald green light. Some might find the green glow of the room uncomfortable but, as a Slytherin, the emerald glow felt soothing and welcoming.

Dominating the room was another humungous pipe similar in size to the one below. Only this one was spelled transparent and you could see that it was filled with lake water that was being gently pushed from the right side of the room to the left. So if downstairs was the output pipe… this one must be the water intake pipe. Halfway down the massive clear pipe and at the central point of the large spacious green glowing room was another pipe going upward through the ceiling and you spotted another ‘bubble net’ above the opening.

You stood watching as the vertical pipe slowly sucked in water going through the horizontal pipe, cleaned and purified it as it passed through the bubble net, and then pumped it up to the rest of the school.

Much like the pipe downstairs, the left end of the pipe sprayed the water back out into the Black Lake through the castle’s outer wall. If downstairs was Hogwarts’ arsehole… then that meant this massive horizontal cylinder was Hogwarts’... big hog. Didn’t animal phalluses retract inside them when not in use? UGH. DISTURBING MENTAL IMAGE! It was probably best to stop the ‘body part’ analogy before you made yourself uncomfortable. Thinking of the clear pipe as a giant transparent water-spraying pig penis took away from the splendor of the magical plumbing.

“This looks like modern plumbing,” you observed and appreciated the feat of advanced magical engineering before you for what it truly was, “And to think that Salazar Slytherin came up with this in the tenth century. He was a mind ahead of his time.”

Everyone focused on Slytherin’s stance on blood purity. With modern politics there was no avoiding it. But seeing innovative work like this proved that Salazar really was one of the most brilliant wizards of his time. This was CENTURIES ahead of muggle plumbing. And if the other three of Hogwarts’ Founders were considered his equals… you could only wonder what magical marvels they contributed when they built the magical school.

Considering the entire room was being bathed in an emerald green light, you couldn’t tell if the pipe in front of you was glowing or not. But you were reasonably confident that pipes that led you through the dungeons meant for you to come here.

You turned your gaze lower as you approached the massive transparent intake pipe… and noticed for the first time that there was someone inside it!!

No, it wasn’t Blaise Zabini… or Lysandra Yaxley… it was a mermaid.

You stowed your wand up your sleeve in order to look unthreatening as you drew closer. She was floating on her back in the middle of the pipe and seemed to be enjoying how the water current going sideways through the horizontal pipe and being sucked up the vertical pipe were washing over her in two different directions. To someone completely submerged in water it must have felt like some form of aquatic massage.

She noticed you when you were twenty feet away. Which meant the sides of the clear pipe were two-way transparent. With a single flick of her tail, the mermaid twisted herself back upright and floated against the far side of the massive clear pipe.

You couldn’t speak Mermish but that hardly mattered since she probably wouldn’t be able to hear you from inside the pipe. So instead you raised your empty hands in a peaceful non-threatening gesture. She remained against the back of the transparent pipe as you continued your slow and steady approach. Eventually you were standing right in front of it.

The mermaid had short seaweed green hair and pebble grey skin. A raised ridge ran across her brow which, combined with her pronounced cheekbones, made the sunken sockets around her big yellow eyes look extra large. Her nose by comparison didn’t protrude much from her already pointed fish-like face, the most noticeable part of her nose was the bottom which featured a pair of slit-like nostrils. And then there was her mouth, it was large, fish-like, and took up the majority of the bottom of her face.

Her harsh fishy features might not fit a traditional human standard of beauty but why would a human standard matter to merpeople? For all you knew, the mermaid in front of you was the most attractive and sought after of her kind and came up here to the school to hide from her numerous pursuers.

…and you just intruded upon her solitude. Oops.

Thankfully, she didn’t seem angry at your intrusion. You quickly got the impression that she didn’t have many (or possibly any) dealings with humans as her head was tilted to the side while she eyed you just as curiously as you were eying her.

There were two other prominent things about the mermaid’s appearance that caught your eye and inspired you to stay. Because it turned out… merpeople didn’t wear clothing.

The only ‘article’ on the mermaid’s body was a rope necklace of pointy shells that almost resembled teeth. The fact that her wild seaweed green hair only fell to the bottom of her neck meant you were staring at a COMPLETELY TOPLESS MERMAID! Her large and fully formed breasts proudly stood out from her chest and told you she was no mere girl but a young woman. This was supported by the fact that she was up here enjoying herself in the Hogwarts intake pipe ALONE as opposed to down at the bottom of the lake with the rest of her colony.

The mermaid’s breasts were large, round, and full. Bigger than Yaxley’s in her bathrobe. But you noted with a small hint of pride that they were not quite as big as Gemma’s in her Wasps t-shirt. There was probably a shell bra size in between the two witches that would fit the mermaid.

Below her breasts was a toned stomach and the mermaid further proved she was a young mer-woman with the way her hips flared out at the top of her tail that was the length of long human legs before it tapered off to a pair of fishy fins. You instantly knew that this young aquatic woman was already a much stronger swimmer than you could ever hope to be.

The mermaid seemed to decide you weren’t a threat, which was probably aided by the fact that you were an unarmed first year who stood at the unintimidating height of five foot three. She flicked her tail and floated forward so she was hovering in front of you with only the transparent ‘wall’ of the pipe between you. She didn’t appear to notice your ogling and instead seemed just as curious about your clothing as you were by her lack of it.

“Hello!” you greeted her. You placed your hand on the pipe. It looked like glass… but still felt like metal. The mermaid gave no verbal response but reached and placed her slightly larger hand over yours on the other side of the pipe. You noted that her fingers were webbed then snuck another peak at her chest now that it was up close. She didn’t have any sort of areola and instead her dark grey nipples stuck out from the paler grey globes beneath them and resembled a pair of pebbles.

But then you remembered your mission and finally tore your eyes away from the mermaid’s chest. There was no one else here. No sign of Blaise or Yaxley. Just the mermaid. This was where the castle led you. If the pipe was still glowing, you couldn’t tell due to the green tint of the room. Maybe you could ask the room’s lone occupant if she’d seen them? But you weren’t sure how much of your conversation would carry through the pipe.

You glanced around and, now that you were standing in front of the pipe, noticed a set of silver ladder rungs coming out of the side ahead of the opening of the vertical pipe. You looked up and spotted a circular hatch on top of the pipe with a round silver wheel-like knob on both sides.

The mermaid followed you as you went over to the ladder and then rose alongside you as you climbed the ladder to the top of the pipe. She floated below you as you slithered over to the hatch then grabbed the wheel with both hands and turned it. There was a click and you grunted as you lifted the heavy METAL hatch up out of the circular hole in the top of the pipe.

You looked down to see the mermaid’s short green hair break the surface as she poked her head through the opening and stared up at you curiously.

“Hello!” you greeted her again, “I’m Marvolo.”

Her large yellow eyes showed no comprehension. She wore a blank look like you were speaking a foreign language. Blast! This mermaid didn’t understand English.

But then you studied her large yellow eyes, her slit-like nostrils, her large mouth… her fishy features seemed sort of reptilian… almost snake-like… Parseltongue got you this far. Might as well try it again.

§Hello! I’m Marvolo§

It was like night and day. Her yellow eyes went wide as your voice registered and her large fish mouth curved upward into a (only slightly menacing) grin to show she understood.

But then she tried to talk back. In Mermish. Which came out as a wailing SCREECH. “SHRKEEE-EEEEE-EEEIIIII!!”

“YAAH!” you yelped as the mermaid’s loud shriek invaded your ears and caused you to rock back away from her and nearly fall off the pipe.

The pronounced ridge of her brow furrowed in thought while you rubbed your sore ears. Then suddenly she surged up out of the hole, exposing those large naked breasts to fresh air, and grabbed you by the face with both of her very wet webbed hands… and then she plunged down and took your top half with her. You were yanked onto your belly and the rest of your body was left lying on the pipe. You had a split second to hold your breath before your head was dunked into the open pipe hatch and submerged.

You now found yourself face-to-face with the mermaid who spoke with a raspy voice that wavered like she swallowed a bunch of bubbles. ഩI called Sharp Shell.ഩ

You glanced down at her necklace of long sharp shells and nodded to show that you understood then smiled your most charming opened-lipped but closed mouth smile. She stared intently at your teeth then returned your smile with one of her own. Only it was a smile full of long shark-like teeth in a mouth big enough to bite your face off. But… she seemed friendly. And while she continued to stare at your mouth and eye your eye teeth… you snuck another quick peek down at those naked water balloons that were now floating less than a foot from your face.

“There you go,” you reassured yourself. “Think of her as less of a sharp-toothed flesh-eating monster and focus on her being a topless woman with nice baps.” You pulled your head back up above the surface and took a long second to catch your breath then continued to smile your charming open-lipped, closed mouth smile when the mermaid followed you up.

§Can I call you Chell?§ if she understood Parseltongue, she would notice that the different pronunciation of Shell as Chell made it sound like more of an intentional cutesy nickname and less like you were too lazy and didn’t respect her enough to save her full name.

She nodded and gave you another one of those tooth-filled smiles which reminded you of Yaxley… except this mermaid could do some actual damage with her long shark teeth.

Yaxley. BLAISE! Your quest!

§Chell, I’m looking for my friend. He was last seen on the lake shore. A male my age with the same second skin as me.§ You motioned to your uniform and grabbed your Slytherin tie. Parseltongue didn’t have a translation for ‘clothes’ since snakes didn’t wear them. §His face skin is darker than mine and his crown fur is shorter.§ You motioned to your face and hair. Mermish probably had a word for hair but Parseltongue didn’t. §Have you seen him? He was in the company of an older, longer female with long black crown fur and pale face skin.§

Chell shook her head but you dunked your head back in the water-filled pipe so you could actually hear her.

ഩI relax in under passage since first light,ഩ she informed you, ഩYou first I see.ഩ

And you continued your conversational dance as you drew back to the surface and she followed you up so that you could respond in a tongue she understood.

§Can you look? He’s missing and the older humans are worried. I asked the school to lead me to him… and it led me here. To you. He might be close. Maybe he’s in another part of the school under passage?§

Sharp Shell gave you a very clear nod then sank back down into the pipe and, with one powerful kick of her tail, surged under you and disappeared into the portion of the pipe buried inside the wall. And even though the mermaid was swimming against the intake pipe’s current… it didn’t slow her down at all.

You decided to use your time alone to get a better look at your surroundings. Your position lying on top of the pipe allowed you to see the rest of the way down it. The room you decided to call The Water Intake Room was actually at the very END of the intake pipe. Looking down through the humungous transparent pipe allowed you to see through the outer castle wall and watch the water spray out into the depths of the Black Lake.

As you pushed yourself up so you were straddling the pipe instead of lying on it, you noted that the main focus of the green-tinted room was the water intake pipe as such there was barely anything else in the large spacious chamber. Although, when you glanced back over your shoulder you spotted a broom closet against the wall. Considering there was a pipe with a man-sized hatch in the top of it… there were probably an assortment of mops and buckets in there to clean up any errant puddles.

A few seconds later, Sharp Shell came out of the wall behind you and swam underneath you. You once again flattened yourself on top of the pipe and dunked your head back in the water so you could hear if the mermaid scout had found anything.

ഩThey come with bubbles on. I go.ഩ So Blaise and Yaxley WERE in the pipe. You didn’t actually know how long it was but it would explain why no one could find them. They went IN the lake and must have swam around the castle to reach the opening for the intake pipe.

“That crazy kelpie,” you mused then made sure to give the helpful mermaid a grateful smile.

ഩYou call me ‘Chell’. I call you… Snake Fang.ഩ You had been officially dubbed with a Mermish name. There were worse nicknames and this one seemed fitting. You spoke snake and the long sharp-toothed mermaid seemed to have a fascination with your normal-sized human teeth and slightly elongated eye teeth. ഩSnake Fang visit Chell?ഩ Chell’s prominent yellow eyes seemed to grow extra wide and hopeful. The naked mermaid wanted you to come and see her again? SURE! Who could say ‘no’ to that? She didn’t have to twist your arm about it. She followed you to the surface as you pulled your head out of the water and thought about your schedule. You had a very busy weekend and with enough time you could possible find a way to breathe underwater so could have a proper extended conversation wihtout having to repeatedly dunk and raise your head.

§I’ll return in seven sunrises at first light.§ And like that you had a date with a mermaid next Friday at dawn. Your agreement for another meeting overjoyed Chell and you watched through the clear pipe as her bare breasts heaved while she excitedly flicked her tail and did an underwater backflip then popped back up to the surface. For an aquatic being with such harsh facial features… it was actually kind of cute.

Acting on complete impulse to convey your gratitude, you reached down and cupped the helpful mermaid’s wet chin and pecked her with a quick kiss on her pronounced cheekbone.

The mermaid stared at you in confusion. Her expression clearly said: “What this?”

§That was a kiss.§ You explained, §A human sign of affection, admiration, and gratitude.§

Her big yellow eyes got even bigger then she kicked her tail and launched herself upward and latched her mouth onto yours. Or rather, her large fish mouth completely consumed your comparatively much smaller human lips. Her lips spanned from cheek to cheek with the upper lip pressed into the bottom of your nose and the bottom lip against your chin. And then she started SUCKING on your face.

Was she showing you how merpeople kiss?

The force of her sucking caused your lips to pucker outward like fish lips… and then your tongue was sucked out of your mouth through the open lip-ring! But when you expected it to collide with a wall of long sharp, shark-like teeth… you found none. You wiggled your extended tongue around in the open grotto that was the mermaid’s mouth as she continued to suck your face and eventually made contact with the soft fleshy skin of what you recognised as a large flat tongue and gave it a quick playful flick with yours.

The intense sucking abruptly stopped as Chell yanked back and stared up at you with wide eyes while you sucked your extended tongue and still puckered lips back into place and wiggled them around to work some feeling back into them. Her grey face took on a purple tint which stood out in stark contrast to the green light filling the room.

“Yup, I just frenched a mermaid,” you realised, “AND I made her blush.”

You flashed her a toothy smile and cast her a quick wink then watched as Sharp Shell’s shark teeth descended from her jaws. “THEY RETRACT!?” She gave you her own tooth-filled smile then dove back down into the water and gave one powerful kick of her tail that caused her to shoot out the end of the intake pipe like a spell from a wand. You watched the mermaid FLY off through the depths of the lake like you hoped to do at lunch on the new Nimbus Two Thousand.

While you waited, you drew your wand and checked the time. “Tempus!” 9:05 You had no way of knowing how long the school under passage was but it must’ve been longer than you thought because it took a full minute for them to emerge from the wall and enter the transparent portion of the pipe. That said something for Chell’s swimming speed because she made a round trip while they were further away in half that time. And they were swimming with the current while the first half of the mermaid’s journey was against it.

As Chell described, Yaxley and Zabini wore large bubbles over their heads to allow them to breathe underwater and were swimming comfortably through the pipe filled with cold Scottish lake water… so Yaxley no doubt cast a Warming Charm on their soaked robes and uniforms to keep them from freezing. Blaise appeared to be in good health… so it was clear that he’d gone swimming with Slytherin’s resident kelpie willingly and that said kelpie took good care of her new pet Zabby.

Both of them were shocked to see you perched on top of the transparent pipe.

Yaxley kicked hard and launched herself up out of the open hatch and popped the bubble over her head, “How in the bloody hell did you get down here?”

“Professor Snape sent me to find his missing first year,” you gave a non-answer as you aimed your wand at the wet fifth year’s forehead, “He’s late for Potions and I’m being held accountable. So I’m gonna need you to hand him over, you crazy kelpie.”

Yaxley cackled as Blaise rose up out of the water in front of her with the two of them now pressed close together in the open hatch, “Hear that, Zabby? It worked! Not a puppy anymore! I’m a KELPIE again!!” So Blaise’s abduction off the lake shore was planned?

You noted that Blaise was positioning himself between Yaxley and your wand. Other than a black blemish that stood out from the rest of the lighter brown skin of his on his neck… he appeared to be completely unharmed. If the situation was reversed and it was Blaise who caught you coming back from a swim with Gemma… you’d probably do the same thing. “Alright there, Blaise?”

“She said… if I followed her to her secret underwater grotto… that she’d let me meet Clawdia.”

Yup. Definitely planned. Luring the young wizard into the water to eat him… classic kelpie. She no doubt wanted to bolster her precious ‘scary’ reputation as a terrifying man-eater.

“And did she?” you inquired.

His eyes grew wide as he nodded, “Back at the pipe entrance. It actually has teeth!”

“IT DOES!?” you exclaimed. You were about eighty percent sure she and Gemma were having you on about ‘Clawdia’ at breakfast and you decided to become part of the joke when your yearmates arrived.

Yaxley let out a pleased cackle, “Who’s all bark now! Ol’ Gigi made it poisonously clear at breakfast that she wasn’t willing to share her favorite firstie. But I wanted a cute, adorable first year who would worship me and let me nibble on him whenever I wanted. You stepped back and Zabby stepped up. So now he’s my new favorite. And I’ve decided that seeing Clawdia is a special privilege reserved only for my brave little favourite.” She craned her neck and pecked Blaise on the forehead… your normally cool and aloof friend preened… and probably looked a lot like you did when Gemma hugged you from behind.

Welp, one door closes another door opens. You French kissed a naked mermaid with nice baps who seemed completely unconcerned about showing them off. And that was only the second-most amazing kiss you had today.

“If you’re both happy with your… arrangement… then I’m in no position to stand in your way,” you conceded, ”BUT! I will step in when you abduct your favorite firstie and make him late for class. Especially when our Head of House blames me for it and tasks me with tracking him down. If Blaise and I aren’t back in Potions by a quarter after… we’re going to lose two points for every extra minute we’re late. Let’s get a move on.”

“Remember, Zabby,” Yaxley addressed her pet, “I expect you to put more effort into your studies and earn points during lessons! I want to be able to brag about my pet firstie to my friends!”

You slipped over to the silver ladder rungs and began climbing down off the pipe. Blaise grabbed the edge of the hatch and climbed out.

“And what class are you skiving off from?” you asked once you reached the ground. The fifth year was slowly climbing out of the hole in the pipe and seemed to be in no major rush to make it to her own class which had presumably started at the same time as yours.

“Divination,” Yaxley stated, “But Trelawney told me earlier in the week that I would be late today. Now I finally know why!” The fifth year drew her wand and cast the Drought Charm on Blaise and then herself to dry them both off so they could climb down from the pipe without slipping.

“Is that spell hard to learn?” you inquired. You recently made a new friend who you might want to swim with. Knowing a spell to dry yourself off afterwards would be useful.

“It’s O.W.L. and N.E.W.T level,” she answered, “You’re vanishing the water. Can’t do that until you’re able to conjure properly first. And as you know from the Colour Change Charm… casting spells on liquids is more challenging than solids.”

Blast! Foiled by Transfiguration. Your worst subject. It seemed that if you wanted to swim with a mermaid you’d have to bring a towel and dry yourself the old fashioned way.

You sided-eyed Blaise as he came to stand beside then cast a pointed glance at Yaxley’s ankle-length skirt which had definitely been only knee-length on the way to breakfast. Obviously, she lengthened it to have more coverage when she cast the Warming Charm on her skirt.

“She really showed you? Skirt seems kind of long to hike up. Especially underwater.”

“She pulled the top down,” Blasie stated, “The teeth were shivering from the cold.”

You gave an involuntary shiver. Freezing your bits off in a freezing cold lake sounded unpleasant. You needed to purchase a full body swim costume with a Warming Charm woven into it before you could even survive swimming with Chell.

“Are there really teeth… or are you two having me on?” you pressed him.

“Ah-ah-ah!” Yaxley objected as she dropped off the ladder. “You dodged my question first.” So she noticed. “If you want to know Clawdia’s origin then you have to tell me how you got in here. This is the rarest broom closet I’ve managed to find. No one knows the password to the magically locked door upstairs. It only lets people out. The only way to get into this room is to dive in the lake and swim in through the pipe.”

“Broom closet?” you repeated as you turned and eyed the innocuous broom closet tucked against the wall. It didn’t seem overly special.

Yaxley smirked and pulled Blaise closer so she could whisper into his ear. All you were able to overhear was the whispered name ‘Gigi’ at the beginning which you gathered from previous context was a nickname for Gemma. When she pulled away, the first year’s expression told you the fifth year just made him an enticing offer and, even if Lysandra already told him the answer, his silence had been bought.

“You want answers, so do I, Gaunt!” Yaxley declared. “An answer for an answer. Fair trade. But you first.”

“How’d I get in here?” you reiterated her asked question, “Same way I get in the Slytherin common room. Parseltongue. I don’t actually know the new password. Never needed to learn it.” You motioned to the green crystals shining emerald light down on you. “Salazar Slytherin designed the school’s dungeons and plumbing system. It seems the magic key to accessing the areas of the castle he built is being a Parselmouth.”

“That’s bollocks!” Yaxley complained, “You’re the only Parselmouth in the school!”

“I don’t make the rules,” you said with a small sly smirk, “I just exploit them when they’re in my favor. Be glad I was sorted into Slytherin.”

“As if a sneaky little shit like you could be sorted anywhere else,” Yaxley scoffed.

“Well?” you prompted, “I gave my answer. Are you going to live up to your end and tell me yours? Or do I have to kneel down ask Clawdia?”

“You don’t get to see,” she insisted, “But I’ll tell you. As agreed. It’s an obscure spell called the Maiden’s Defense. It lets a witch grow a set of retractable shark teeth in her gash.”

“More like mermaid teeth,” you mentally mused.

“It’s meant to serve as a witch’s last line of defense against… unwanted… sexual penetration,” she explained. “But some wizards got their willies bitten off and the spell became classified as Dark. Probably had it coming, if you ask me.” You silently agreed. Any man who was daft or depraved enough to force himself on a witch deserved that kind of pain. “But all it takes is one Dark Witch luring in unsuspecting wizards or muggles and biting their todgers off to ruin it for everybody.”

You tried to imagine Yaxley with a tooth-filled mouth like Chell’s between her legs but you were missing some vital pieces to complete the strange mental picture.

“What time have you got?” Yaxley asked.

“Tempus!” 9:08

“Enough time for a quick bite,” she decided. “Come, Zabby.”

Zabini willingly followed the fifth year to the closet.

“I mean it!” you called after them, annoyed by her lack of concern for your looming deadline, “Professor Snape’s going to take points if we’re not back at the classroom in seven minutes!”

“You’ll make it if you leg it,” Yaxley brushed off your urgency. “Unless you’re willing to unlock the door for us… we’ve gotta do this while we’re here. Otherwise, we can’t get back in without taking another swim.”

And so you watched as Lysandra Yaxley dragged Blasie Zabini into the broom closet,

Considering how eagerly he’d gone in, you were sure Blaise was enjoying whatever Yaxley was doing to him in there. And as his friend… it would be in poor form for you to interfere. The key to empathy was putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. And if Blaise barged in and interrupted you when Gemma gave you that snog in the Potions classroom… you would’ve beamed him in the face with a Stinging Hex.

A dazed Blaise staggered out of the closet, thankfully, less than a minute later. You noted that he was now sporting a second black mouth-shaped bruise on the other side of his neck.

“That’ll hold me over,” Yaxley stated as she followed him out. “Get a move on. I thought you were in a hurry.”

You raced for the ladder and jumped onto it then scrambled upward. Once Blaise and Lysandra were both on the ladder below you, you hissed in Parseltongue to hasten things along. §UP!§

“WAAH!” Yaxley yelped as the ladder rungs rapidly rose all the way up to the top and you quickly found yourself back in that simple ‘broom closet’ sized room with the hole in the floor. You slipped off the ladder and pushed open the snake door that - as far as you knew - would only open for a Parselmouth.

Dazed Blaise staggered out after you when Yaxley gave him a helpful shove. Despite his rapid rise to the top of the ladder, he still seemed out of it following his close quarters closet encounter with the kelpie.

“Oi! Zabby!” Yaxley snapped her fingers in front of her pet first year’s face, “On the left over there is the Ghost Ballroom. If you manage to earn some House Points this week… that’s where we’ll attend the Bloody Baron’s Deathday Party.”

Dazed Blaise’s glazed gaze immediately cleared and then his dark eyes narrowed with a look of determination like you’d never seen cross his face before.

“Great Godric,” you remarked to yourself, “Lysandra Yaxley really is Blaise Zabini’s dream girl.”

“Come on!” you urged him as you grabbed his wrist, “We’ll LOSE points if we’re late!” Lysandra was left behind as you sprinted the full length of the hallway with Blaise behind you and were soon rounding the curved staircase back up to the more familiar dungeon level. You let go of Blaise’s wrist and trusted him to follow you now that you had released him from the kelpie’s clutches.

Peeves came flying down one of the staircases and floated in front of you barring your path with a wide manic grin on his face. “Students out of class! Students out of class! Students-YAAAH!!”

He cut off as you lowered your shoulder and felt a cold chill wash over you as you RAN STRAIGHT THROUGH HIM! You had NO TIME to deal with the Poltergeist’s shit!!

Peeves’ swearing echoed in your ears as you and Blaise ran on and left him behind.

Soon you were running past the Slytherin common room, past the Student Potions labs, and you eventually skidded to a stop outside the closed door of the Potion’s classroom.

Regular Quidditch practice and your end-of-practice lap around the pitch meant you were in better condition. Blaise looked like he was about to keel over.

Moment of truth, you flicked your wand and cast the Time Telling Charm. “Tempus!” 9:13 “YES!!”

MADE IT WITH TWO MINUTES TO SPARE!

You reached into your pocket and pulled out your vial of Topical Bruise Remover and wordlessly offered it to Blaise as you both fought to catch your breath.

But he shook his head and declined, “She said… if I kept them… all day… she’d tell me about… the school’s… secret snog society…”

Fair enough. His choice. Also… secret snog society? Is that what they did inside the broom closet? Good for Blaise. You tucked the vial back in your pocket and took some extra seconds to straighten your still damp hair… then opened the door and led Blaise back into the classroom.

Everyone looked up from their brewing as the two of you walked in.

“Found him, professor!” you announced to your Head of House as he stalked up from one of his most frequent haunts at the back of the room. “I’m afraid there are some pieces missing. I had to rescue him from the clutches of a very clingy kelpie.”

He definitely wanted a better explanation than that and the dark tunnels of his eyes were soon boring into yours. You accommodated by skimming through your recent adventure. You thought of how you followed the glowing green pipe through the dungeons, ran down the staircase to the sub-level dungeon, your search of the detention cells and the ghost ballroom, and your usage of Parseltongue to unlock the door at the end of the corridor.

As a faculty member and as the Slytherin Head of House there was a strong chance that Professor Snape actually knew the passphrase to open the door which Yaxley claimed no student could open but you doubted he would ever tell you. You didn’t actually need it anyway. You weren’t sure if the Water Intake Room was normally off limits to students but, since Professor Snape explicitly told you to find Blaise Zabini and since the school itself led you to that room, you decided to operate under the pretense that you had permission to be there.

You continued with your discovery of Hogwarts’ arsehole and your initial inspection of the green-tinted Water Intake Room but made sure to skip over meeting Chell. You didn’t want him to know about meeting the naked mermaid or else he might intervene and make you stop. So you jumped ahead to you crouching on top of the transparent pipe with the hatch pulled open as Yaxley and Zabini swam out from the wall with bubbles on their heads. You concluded your ‘report’ with you and Blaise sprinting out of the dungeon sub-level, running right through Peeves, and skidding to a stop outside the Potions classroom.

The entire silent mental exchange took less than four seconds.

Professor Snape pointed his wand at your face… and cast the Drought Charm to dry your hair then gave his wand a flick and silently cast the Time Telling Charm. The black numbers spelled out the final verdict: 9:14

“Gaunt… five points to Slytherin for completing an extra credit assignment within the required time limit.”

“Thank you, sir,” you replied. The Great Gaunt Gamble paid off and instead of losing all your points you ended up gaining some. That one hundred point threshold was creeping ever closer!

“Today you are brewing Burn-Healing Paste in pairs,” the Potions professor announced, “The process takes one hour which, if you and Zabini work competently, the two of you should still be able to complete in time to receive credit for the day.”

Blaise didn’t have his school bag with him so the two of you would have to use your supplies.

“Gaunt!” Professor Snape barked at you as soon as you reached your station. “What is the active ingredient in Burn-Healing Paste?”

You glanced down at your textbook which was still open where you left it from when you spent a half an hour reading up on Burn-Healing Paste before Potter, Weasley, and Longbottom’s arrival.

“The potion works in two stages so there are two, sir,” you confidently replied. “The first is ashwinder skin which is the catalyst that allows the first stage to seer off the burned skin. The second is aloe vera which guides the second stage in soothing and healing the damaged skin.”

“Five points to Slytherin for reading ahead and being prepared for class.”

Ninety plus five plus an additional five equals…

“Thank you, sir,” you replied then flashed the opened-lipped teeth-baring smile you practiced with Chell across the aisle at Granger. “I do believe that brings me to one hundred.”

One hundred point threshold reached!

Granger huffed but knew better at this point than to complain about how Professor Snape awarded House Points. Besides, even she couldn’t deny that you rightfully earned these.

Working on a potion with Blaise Zabini was much different than working with Gregory Goyle. Blaise knew what he was doing and when you divided the work you felt confident that you could leave him to competently perform his share without needing to watch him like a hawk like you would with your previous partner… who a silent Theodore Nott was having a bit of trouble guiding through the potion process. Goyle was actually very good at following orders but someone actually needed to tell him what to do. And since Nott was refusing to speak… there was instead a lot of aggravated pointing and confused staring going on.

Soon you were caught up with the rest of the class on the first brewing stage and Professor Snape returned to the back of the room where he was once again engaged in his favorite pastime - tormenting the duo of Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom. At this point you suspected that Potter chose to work with Longbottom both out of spite for his least favorite professor but also because with the Potions professor’s two most tempting targets working together, the Boy-Who-Lived and the Boy-Who-Melted-Cauldrons acted as a lightning rod of Snape hate which drew the unprofessional, biased, and vindictive processor’s attention away from the rest of their housemates.

With Professor Snape occupied, you cast a sideways glance across the aisle where Hermione Granger was diligently working with Ron Weasley. Your competitive spirit started to rise again.

“Hey Granger,” you called out in a quiet whisper, “I just reached the one hundred point threshold. I don’t know how many you have. But you’d best watch your back. Because I’m coming for you.”

You heard a gasp. But it wasn’t from the girl you were taunting. You looked back behind you to see Pansy Parkinson staring at you in wide eyed horror. Gemma’s comments about Granger at breakfast were clearly echoing through her mind.

And then Lavender Brown, who was across the aisle from Pansy, decided to unknowingly twist the knife further and whispered, “Sounds like Hermione is rather high on Gaunt’s list.”

Parvati Patil chimed in with her own whisper from beside her, “I think Blaise might be too.” You saw her gaze flick to the blemishes on Blaise’s throat.

“Wot!?” Millicent sputtered in shock and dropped a cup of powdered snake fangs.

Blaise spared you a brief look of confusion before you hissed back, “Those aren’t from me! Yaxley was the one who tried to eat him!” You kissed two older women today! You definitely weren’t gay as both Patil and Brown were implying. “You both just went up a spot on my list!”

The two Gryffindor girls actually seemed pleased to hear this while the two Slytherin girls looked rather annoyed. The third Gryffindor girl was staring in confusion having missed the previous conversation.

“What list?” Hermione Granger, the infamous know-it-all, had been drawn into the hushed conversation by someone speaking of something she didn’t know.

Much to your shock, Ron Weasley proved to be on a similar wavelength as you, “Trust me, Hermione, that’s something you don’t wanna know.”

Granger’s mouth became a thin line but then her sharp eyes darted across the aisle to sneak a glance at you, “You’re still thirty points behind… silver Slytherin.”

She shouldn’t have done that. You now knew Granger was at one hundred thirty points. That meant you had a number and a proper target to strive for. But then the rest of the comment registered. Did she just taunt you BACK!? And also, that ‘silver Slytherin’ bit sounded familiar… did she eavesdrop on your conversation with Farley, Yaxley, and Rowle!?!? You remembered that concerned backwards glance she sent.

“Really, Granger, eavesdropping?” you returned, “I thought that beneath you.” It wasn’t beneath you. You did it all the time. And it clearly wasn’t beneath Patil, Brown, Parkinson, or Bulstrode either. Which proved that Hermione Granger, much like those other four aforementioned witches, was indeed a girl.

After what happened with the girls earlier Malfoy, Crabbe, Weasley, Finnigan, and Thomas all seemed to think it was for the best if they avoided paying attention. Zabini didn’t know what happened earlier but after flirting with danger in the form of a crazy fifth year... he seemed inclined to mind his own business.

But then Granger unintentionally drew their attention with her response and further admission of her eavesdropping. “And I don’t think preventing other houses from earning points in a Quidditch match should be recognised in terms of the House Cup. But trust a Slytherin to want credit for sabotaging other students.”

“What!?” Draco hissed.

You waved him off, “I’ve got this,” you assured him. The house divide meant she wouldn’t care what Malfoy or any other Slytherin pureblood thought on the matter. But thankfully, you knew a Gryffindor who you could turn against her. “Since we clearly have a difference of opinion on the matter… perhaps we should get a separate third party to weigh in and show you how wrong you are?” You called out Granger’s friend and partner, “Weasley, when a Keeper makes a save in a Quidditch match… isn’t that an officially recognised statistic? Just like which Seeker catches the Snitch and the amount of goals each Chaser scores.”

“Yes,” the aspiring Keeper agreed with your point but also couldn’t resist taking a swipe at the Slytherin team, “Right along with the number of fouls committed.”

“And didn’t the fifteen points Potter earned from swallowing that Snitch back in November count toward the House Cup?” you prodded.

To deny Potter those fifteen points would mean denying his best mate’s greatest achievement on the Quidditch pitch. So, naturally, Ron agreed, “Yes.”

And you quickly pounced on the admission, “Then by that same logic, the points Johnson, Spinnet, Flint, Pucey, Applebee, Macavoy, and Mateo all earned back in November for scoring goals should also be acknowledged and count toward the House Cup.”

“...yeah,” Ron reluctantly admitted. He couldn’t acknowledge the points earned by a Seeker and deny the ones earned by the Chasers. The expression on his face told you he knew where you were going with this.

“So then…” you gave Granger your toothy grin as you brought your argument around to its conclusion, “since saves made by a Keeper during a match are an officially recognised statistic then they should also count as points they’ve prevented the players from an opposing house from earning in the House Cup. Prefects are permitted to take points away from their own house. They’re not sabotaging themselves, are they? Those deductions are recognised right along the points taken by the professors. Just because only four select students have the opportunity to play Keeper during each Quidditch month… doesn’t mean you can disregard their officially recorded feats simply because they’re in an athletic capacity which you don’t excel in. The school administrators have already watered down how much Quidditch points count towards the House Cup by making them worth only one-tenth of their value in a match. Do you really want to rob your houses’s star athletes of any sort of contribution to the House Cup? Just because someone else’s talents lie in a non-academic field doesn’t mean their achievements are worthless.”

The look on Granger’s face told you that you argued your case perfectly and she knew she’d lost on the matter. But she didn’t want to admit it in front of Malfoy, Parkinson and the others.

“Sorry, Hermione,” apologised the friend you’d turned against her by exploiting his love of Quidditch and the fact that playing Keeper and preventing other houses from earning house points by making saves during Hogwarts Quidditch matches was something he hoped to one day do. “Gaunt’s right this time.”

“And if I’m right then that you mean the great Hermione Granger is…” you trailed off, “What’s the word… Crabbe, what’s the opposite of right?”

“Wrong?”

“There’s a good man!” you praised him while secretly pleased that he hadn’t said ‘left’.

Granger’s flinch told you that Crabbe’s proclamation of her being ‘wrong’ bothered her more than if you let Draco go ahead and call her a ‘stupid mudblood’ like he probably was intending. There was something of an art form to pushing Hermione Granger’s buttons… Draco and Pansy lacked the required subtlety and weren’t willing to engage enough to pull it off properly.

Professor Snape’s timing was impeccable. Either he was subtly listening in from the back of the room or his ‘teacher senses’ told him there was a lengthy discussion taking place that wasn’t related to Potions. Because no sooner than you finished one upping Granger in a Quidditch debate while roping in Vincent to deliver the victory blow, the Potions professor chose that moment to glide to the front of the room and cut off any potential response from the Gryffindors. He spent the next twenty minutes swooping around the front two rows like the great bat he was. This deterred all further discussion that wasn’t Potion-related between brewing partners.

You made a point to handle the ashwinder skin and later the aloe vera to ensure the two active ingredients were perfectly prepared. You and Blaise weren’t the first pair done, that distinct honor went to the Granger and Weasley with their ‘prize’ was an angry glower from Professor Snape. Draco and his usual partner Crabbe managed to take silver. Parkinson, Bulstrode, Brown, and Patil seemed distracted by something and as such you were able to bypass the four of them thanks to your practiced efficiency. But not Greengrass and Davis who were removed from the drama at the very back of the Slytherin side of the classroom and managed a third place bronze finish which left you and Blaise to finish in fourth place. Not bad for the pair who started fifteen minutes behind everyone else. With the full time, you probably could have stolen the gold from Granger.

Professor Snape seemed to agree, “Gaunt, a further five points to Slytherin for preparing a perfect Burn-Healing Paste in a reduced time.” The fact that Draco hadn’t earned points for being the first of the Slytherins to finish told you that his potion wasn’t perfect.

“I appreciate that, sir,” you said but eyed your competent partner and remembered the ‘reward’ Yaxley promised him if he earned points this week, “But I wouldn’t have been able to catch up without Blaise’s help. I believe he deserves his share of the points.”

It didn’t look like your Head of House wanted to reward Blaise when he was the one who was late for class. But then he gave you a nasty sneer as he came up with a perfect ‘Slytherin’ solution. “I already awarded five points for a perfect potion. If you believe those five points should be split between you… then you may divide them as you see fit.”

This sounded like another test. The professor wanted to see how much credit you’d give your partner for the achievement. And with five being an odd number that meant the points couldn’t be split evenly between you.

“I already earned ten points,” you reasoned, “Blaise, you take three and I’ll take two.”

Blaise BEAMED. You’d never seen someone so happy to attend a deathday party before. Professor Snape actually looked slightly unnerved to have contributed to such a happy reaction from a student.

You and Blaise set about cleaning up your area and you waited until Professor Snape was occupied chastising Seamus Finnigan for the Burn-Healing Paste he turned in, claiming it would be more likely to cause burns than cure them, before you decided to Gaunt-Taunt Granger again.

“See that, Granger? Your thirty point lead is down to twenty-eight. That pillow of yours isn’t as comfortable as you might believe because it’s going to rapidly begin shrinking. I may have been caught in a heap of unexpected drama… but I earned a nice even thirty points in the last two days. A third of which were awarded by your own Head of House. Best keep checking over your shoulder… because I’ll be nipping at your heels before long.”

You knew full well that simply keeping pace with Granger was going to be a challenge given how many points she earned in other classes led by less biased professors. But you were an over-achieving ambitious Slytherin and you hoped your taunting would allow you to rent some space in the brainy girl’s head.

“Don’t worry, Hermione,” Patil quietly reassured her housemate and flashed an impish grin as she walked by with her completed potion. “If that snake does bite you… he’s vowed that anyone high on his list will get preferential bezoar treatment and a personal escort to the Hospital Wing. Though, I doubt he’ll hunt down and publicly crucify himself because in this case he will be the one responsible for the poisoning.”

A rare look of confusion crossed Granger’s face as she was still missing some context. But behind her, Brown had to cover her mouth to stifle her giggling in order to avoid invoking Professor Snape’s ire. That didn’t stop the Potions professor from giving Patil a withering glare as she handed him the vial of orange paste she and Brown brewed.

It sounded like Patil and Brown had made up their minds that you hadn’t poisoned Bletchley and, as a direct result of that and your grand Quidditch announcement, decided that you were now free game for teasing. Yay!?

In the end, Potter and Longbottom beat out Nott and Goyle to avoid a last place finish. Harry and Neville were used to working together and struggling their way through Potions under the intense scrutiny of Severus Snape. They had experience on their side. Meanwhile, the odd couple pairing of the thin and studious Theodore Nott and the stuuuu…pendously thick Gregory Goyle didn’t have anything close to resembling a working team dynamic.

Nott gave you a weary eye roll when he finally slumped to the front of the classroom to turn in his potion right before the end of class.

“Yeah… he works best when you can give him clear, concise instructions,” you supplied. Working with Goyle probably made Nott appreciate his regular pairing with Blaise Zabini more.

Professor Snape eyed you, who were done cleaning up, and Blaise, who had nothing to pack up. “Gaunt, help Goyle and Nott clean up!” he ordered. “Zabini, go find your things.” The Potions professor gathered up the nine Burn-Healing Pastes and brought them to his office.

You turned to Zabini, “It seems I’ve been detained. You’d best do some backtracking.”

“I think I left my bag out by the boathouse…”

“Draco, maybe you and Crabbe should escort him to ensure that nobody else tries to eat him.”

Draco eyed the dark marks on Blaise’s neck, “Looks like Yaxley already tried.”

“Here,” you said as you offered Draco the vial of Topical Bruise Remover, “If you think you can convince him to get rid of them… be my guest. But I doubt you’ll have much better luck than I did. So when he declines, feel free to hold onto that and use it after Quidditch practice tonight.”

Malfoy, Crabbe, and Zabini made use of their front row seats to slip out the nearby door. You slithered over to the empty space they left behind and faced backwards so you could help Nott clean and pack his Potions supplies.

Once most of the Slytherin boys were gone, Granger decided it was a good time to cross the aisle and finally confront you. You could see in her chocolate brown eyes that she had a great number of things she wanted to say to you… but her natural curiosity won out and she asked: “What list?”

Behind her, Pansy gave an annoyed huff. You ignored her because you knew paying more attention to Granger would nettle her more than anything you could actually say.

“If you’re so curious, why don’t you ask Brown and Patil?” you suggested, “We had a lengthy discussion regarding the matter before you came running in ahead of class.”

“Come on, Hermione!” Lavender Brown suddenly appeared at Granger’s side, grabbed her arm, and started tugging her along. Patil grabbed Granger’s bag and pushed her from behind. Granger’s shocked expression told you that this was NOT a normal occurrence between her and the other two Gryffindor girls.

Parkinson decided she needed to be part of this conversation and gave a faint growl as she rushed out after them. And now that she wasn’t distracted by something as trivial as brewing a potion during Potions class Daphne Greengrass quickly realised something was afoot and grabbed Tracey Davis so they could run out after Pansy.

Millicent notably didn’t leave with the rest of the girls and hung back to help you in helping the two Slytherin stragglers get their things packed away.

Thomas shook his head as he and Finnigan walked by you on the way out, “I get the feeling we’re going to be hearing about this list of yours all day.”

“I’m not the one who keeps bringing it up,” you defended yourself. Between the six witches who just left… they could probably compose an accurate written record of your Vaunted Gaunted list. But with the house divide looming over them, you doubted they’d agree to work together to do so. “I should try and warn Megan about the list so she’s not caught unawares.”

“Ye’re still the one who started the fire,” Finnigan added, “And now it’s spreadin’ outta control.”

You had a retort on the tip of your tongue about how he once set a cup of water on fire. But you decided not to voice it when your eyes fell on Ron Weasley who had gone to the back row to help Harry and Neville clean up without being prompted. His mentality was likely along the lines of… the faster they’re packed away the faster they could leave. You set him (and a mountain troll) on fire last term. That bit of reflection made you decide that the topic of setting fires probably wouldn’t help your tentative truce with the Gryffindors… so you let Finnigan have his fiery quip.

Besides, you recently developed a newfound appreciation for water. There was likely a whole spectrum of less destructive water spells you could learn.

“Am I really at the top of your list?” Millicent spoke up. The fact that she hung back to help with the cleanup instead of rushing out with the other girls was half the reason why she had the top spot …of a completely hypothetical list that didn’t really exist.

Nott rolled his eyes as if to silently say, “Here we go again.”

“You’re the one I spend all day with,” you pointed out, “Who else would be above you?”

“Gemma,” Millicent stated. “I remember you saying last night that she was at the top.”

“Entirely separate list,” you insisted. “But we actually discussed it yesterday on the way to the Owlery and she’s effectively removed herself from it. She’s made it perfectly clear that nothing’s going to happen while we’re both at Hogwarts. She’s a Slytherin with grand career aspirations… and she can’t afford to have those ‘cradle robber’ rumors actually gain traction. Yaxley and Zabini can get away with it… they’re both purebloods and I’m confident that she wouldn’t be messing with him if they hadn’t already discussed a way to prevent Blaise’s mother from orchestrating her murder. But for the vaunted list… Gemma’s a fifth year. She can take care of herself. So in the event that she’s poisoned… all I’d have to do is figure out who did it and point her in their direction. Anything she’d do to her poisoner would be way worse than what I could manage.”

Millicent averted her eyes and quietly mumbled, “In her case… I think she might do the poisoning.”

“Easy, Millie,” you warned her as there were others still in the room who might misinterpret a dangerous claim like that, “We saw from Professor McGonagall yesterday what happens when people make blind accusations with no evidence to back it up.” You cast a glance over at Potter who helped you out of the particular pickle. “Let’s try to hold ourselves to a better standard, shall we?” And then you turned the subject away from Gemma and back to Millicent. “And besides, you’re a first year and you don’t cause drama. Maybe it’s just my ego talking but… I do cause drama… and I can’t help but think that if anyone were to actually poison you… it’d be either because you accidentally drank poison that was meant for me… or the person specifically targeted you to get to me. In either case, you’d better bloody believe I’d hunt them down and away make them pay for it. And that’s not the idle threat of a posturing first year. I just learned a way to track people through the school. I’ll make it happen.” You reached out and placed your hand on her broad shoulder and stared up into her eyes with a look of complete seriousness and conviction, “By Grabthar’s hammer… you shall be avenged.”

Professor Snape’s office door slammed shut, “Gaunt, don’t swear by Grabthar’s hammer unless you mean it. Otherwise the vow loses all value.”

“I do mean it, sir,” you insisted as you turned around to face him, “Anyone who would have the audacity to poison my best friend would have to answer to me. I might not be able to do all that much yet as a first year but until then I’ll settle for telling you who was responsible and then take enthusiastic notes while I watch whatever you end up doing to the person who poisoned one of your Slytherins.”

There was enough flattery mixed in there that he didn’t press you on the issue any further.

“Who’s Grabthar?” Millicent asked.

“Famous goblin blacksmith,” Goyle answered after he finished packing up the last of his supplies. “He used his hammer to forge a number of legendary weapons. When someone comes after ya with a goblin steel weapon forged by Grabthar’s hammer… it gets the job done.”

Potter, Weasley, Longbottom - who had been trying to slip out of the room without Professor Snape finding an excuse to take points - all stopped in their tracks and turned to gape at the unexpected oddity of Goyle saying something intelligent. You smirked. That’s the impression they’d have since Gryffindor and Slytherin only shared two of your seven classes. But Goyle’s notes were the reason you were passing History of Magic. In fact, you read about Grabthar and his legendary hammer in Goyle’s notes.

It was really too bad Professor Binns never deviated from his boring monotone lectures to ask questions that he could award points for. But awarding House Points would actually involve knowing your names. No one earned points from Professor Binns which was why he didn’t count in your personal game of House Point Bingo.

Your Head of House seemed to share your sentiment about rubbish Binns’ lack of point awards and decided to compensate for the ghost professor, “Goyle, five points to Slytherin for accurate knowledge of goblin history.”

“What?” Goyle was stunned. The three Gryffindors had all they could handle over the course of the bizarre Potions lesson and quickly hurried out and left. But Goyle was still so stunned that he nearly walked out of the room without his school bag which you quickly grabbed along with yours and ferried over to him.

“Don’t forget this,” you advised as you stuffed it into his hands then punched him in the shoulder, “Those are your first House Points. Good on ya, mate. Treat yourself to an extra large lunch.”

Gregory was still in a daze as he walked out into the corridor a half dozen steps behind the rapidly departing trio of Potter, Weasley, and Longbottom.

“It appears we’ve been left behind,” you remarked as you eyed the otherwise empty corridor. You trusted that Goyle would still be able to make his way to the Great Hall - his favorite room in the castle - for lunch on his own. But there was no sign of the girls. You wondered how fast the rumors of your Vaunted List of Gaunt would spread now that Brown and Patil were on the loose. You really needed to hurry and track down… or rather… find… a certain Hufflepuff.

“I’m still waiting to hear what happened when Snape sent you to fetch Blaise,” Millicent said.

Nott, who had been in the process of slipping by you, abruptly turned around. The look on his face plainly said, “After what I just endured for the last ninety minutes… I at least want to get a good story out of it.”

“Alright,” you agreed, “I suppose I can tell the tale of how I discovered Hogwarts’ arsehole.”

“Hogwarts’ what!?” Bulstrode blurted while beside her Nott’s eyes had practically bugged out.

You didn’t want anyone else to overhear about your mermaid encounter so you led them further into the dungeons in the opposite direction everyone else had gone and slipped into your favorite Student Potions Lab.

And so you began detailing how you used Hogwarts as a catalyst for a custom Locator spell and discovering that Salazar Slytherin designed the school’s plumbing network and recounted how the glowing pipe led you down to the sub-level dungeon.

“I reckon Professor Quirrell was using one of those detention cells as a Troll Storeroom,” you added for Millicent’s benefit since she had actually seen the mountain troll on Halloween, “And that’s where it came from when it got loose. The fact that I couldn’t tell which of the four cells it had been stored it shows the talent of the Hogwarts house elves.”

You then moved on to the door at the end of the hall with the snake handle, how you used Parseltongue to open it, and operate the ladder, and that how that led to your discovery of the school’s Water Intake and Outtake Pipes and Salazar Slytherin’s special method of ‘purifying’ the water flowing in and out of the school.

“Yaxley told me later that no student knows the password to open that snake door,” you informed them, “The only way to get into the room is to swim in through the pipe which is what they did and how I eventually found them. And that’s how the mermaid who was there relaxing in the pipe when I arrived got in too.”

“You met a mermaid!?” Millicent exclaimed.

You knew Millicent liked creatures so you did your best to provide a proper description. “If you’re imagining the muggle depiction of a mermaid where it’s the face and body of a beautiful woman with a fish tail… those are not accurate. Her facial features were fish-like. Big yellow eyes with large sunken eye sockets, slit-like nostrils, large fish lips, and long sharp shark-like teeth. I quickly got the impression that she didn’t have much interaction with humans because once she noticed me she started eying me with the same level of curiosity as me.”

“I can’t believe you actually saw a mermaid. And in a pipe. I look out the common room window into the lake whenever I go through… but I’ve never seen a mermaid. Not through my dorm room window either.”

“Her name’s Sharp Shell," you stated, "I can introduce you if you want..."

“Wait… you spoke to her?” Millicent asked. “You know Mermish?”

“Yes, I spoke to her,” you confirmed for your wide eyed audience, “She agreed I could call her ‘Chell’ and gave me a Mermish nickname in return. But no I don’t actually know Mermish. There was a language barrier at first. When I climbed on top of the pipe and opened the hatch so we could speak face-to-face, we discovered she couldn’t understand English and out of the water her Mermish only came out as a wailing shriek that hurt my ears. But her fish-like features looked vaguely snake-like enough that I decided to try speaking to her in Parseltongue. That she understood. And she figured out that if my head was in the water I could understand her Mermish. She named me ‘Snake Fang’.”

Theodore’s eyes had gone extra wide and you translated his intense expression to: “Say. More. Words. Now!” Which was ironic coming from him but showed his clear interest in how Parseltongue translated to Mermish. Linguistics was a strange fascination for someone who rarely spoke.

“It wasn’t a perfect translation,” you elaborated, “There were dropped articles and her speech patterns were broken. I’m sure I sounded similarly disjointed to her. Also my snake vocabulary is somewhat limited. Parseltongue terminology is restricted to things that snakes can understand. They don’t have a word for ‘point’ because they lack hands and fingers to do it with, there’s no word for ‘clothes’ because they don’t wear any, they don’t have a word for ‘hair’ but there is a word for ‘fur’ because snakes often eat animals that are covered in it. So we were at least able to roughly understand each other’s meaning.”

Nott now wore a thoughtful expression but seemed satisfied with your detailed description of Parseltongue. Perhaps it was something he wanted to ask you but never came up in your always one-sided conversations.

“Anyways,” you concluded your story, “Chell scouted ahead and swam upstream against the current along the intake pipe and confirmed that Blaise and Lysandra were swimming down it from the other direction. I agreed to meet up with her again before she swam off. Do either of you know some kind of magic that would allow me to breathe underwater? That way I could stay submerged and wouldn’t have to dunk and raise my head throughout the conversation. Yaxley used a charm that made air bubbles around her and Blaise’s heads… I assume it’s called the Bubble-Head Charm but I got the impression it was an advanced O.W.L. level spell. I’m looking for something simpler that a first year could use.”

Theodore looked stumped but Millicent had a helpful suggestion. “You could try Gillyweed.”

“What does it do?” you inquired.

“Gives you gills… and webbed hands and feet,” she explained. “Bulstrode Manor is on a marsh. We have a bunch of it there so we can go swimming. I haven’t gotten to try it yet myself. The adults insist that we start Hogwarts and have our own wands for safety before we use it. I’m looking forward to trying it out this summer.”

“Is it rare? Or expensive?” you prodded.

“Not really,” she said, “It comes from the Mediterranean. But it’s fairly common. It’s used in potions and is the main ingredient in Gillywater. There could be some of it in the Student Stores.”

The Student Stores were conveniently and efficiently located near the Student Potion Labs and contained large quantities of the more common potion ingredients so students could restock their kits without leaving the castle.

“There it is,” Millicent pointed out the jar that was two shelves above your head. You slid the provided ladder into place and climbed up it to inspect the jar of Gillyweed. The top half was a long green stalk that looked similar to a scallion or a chive. The bottom half, the root portion, looked like a wriggling green rat tail. “The bottom half is the part you eat.”

“Thanks, Millie,” you said, it didn’t look overly appetising but you’d gladly swallow it if it did what Millicent described. “Suddenly, I’m really glad we have Herbology this afternoon. I’ll make a point to pick Professor Sprout’s brain and do some research before I dare eating it. Only a reckless, desperate Gryffindor would eat something they don’t fully understand.”

You put the Gillyweed back in the jar and began climbing down from the ladder but stopped when you spotted a jar of snake fangs. You grinned as you reached in and grabbed a nice even dozen.

“Chell had a necklace of sharp shells around her neck,” you said in response to their looks as you tucked the twelve snake fangs into your potion supplies. “I could probably turn these into a nice snake fang necklace by the time I return next week.”

“Are you coming to lunch?” Millicent asked after you shut the Student Stores door.

“Actually, no,” you answered. “I made plans.”

“What plans?”

“Plans that involve not being in close proximity with Flint until tonight’s practice,” you stated.

“...” Theodore nodded and seemed to approve your self-preservation plan.

“Probably best that I don’t tell you where I’m going so he can’t coax the information out of you,” you reasoned, “You won’t have a flock of owls to defend you this time. I’ll see you both in History of Magic.”

You parted ways with them heading up towards the Great Hall while you went the other way and plunged further into the dungeons heading more in the direction of the Slytherin common room.

But there was still that Vaunted Gaunted rumor you needed to get ahead of. Only you didn’t know the Hufflepuffs’ class schedule. If they had two single classes instead of a double then they would still be in the second one due to the fifteen minute break meant to allow students to get from one forty-five minute lesson to the next. You started to use process of elimination... the Hufflepuffs had Charms with you as their first class after lunch on Mondays and Tuesday, and then ended their Monday with Double Potions with the Ravenclaws so it couldn’t be either of those. Unlike you and the Ravenclaws who had Double Herbology on Monday mornings and ended the week with single Herbology on Friday afternoon, the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs had Herbology for three single periods during the week. But since the Gryffindors just left your company... it couldn’t be that class either. Astronomy was at midnight on Wednesdays (technically Thursdays) which left Transfiguration, History of Magic, and Defense Against the Dark Arts.

You grinned and saw this as an opportunity to further test the capabilities of your castle catalyst Locator Spell. Would it be limited to the dungeons or would the range extend to the upper floors? Would it still work if you weren’t in a high stakes situation?

You drew your wand and pressed it against the wall in a spot you remembered seeing a glowing emerald pipe during your last run through. You thought of the Hufflepuff with the frizzy dark hair and the cute dimple you were looking to… find.

§Lead Me…§ “Megan Jones!”

The wall in front of you lit up and glowed emerald green and you watched as the glowing tube extended down the dungeon corridor and then stopped at the opening of a stairwell. You ran to it and smiled when you saw the upward angled green pipe glowing through the wall on your left.

“I love this school!”

---

Marvolo Gaunt House Point Ledger

Severus Snape: +5

Severus Snape: +5

Severus Snape: +2

New Total: +102

Points awarded by: SS, RH, QQ, MM, FF, + AD

---

Appendix: Merpeople

This is the description of merpeople from the wikiapedia page which is taken from the Goblet of Fire book. Although, we know Harry is prone to heavily exaggerate certain features on most characters.

Here and there at the dark windows, Harry saw faces...faces that bore no resemblance at all to the painting of the mermaid in the prefects' bathroom... The merpeople had greyish skin and long, wild, dark green hair. Their eyes were yellow, as were their broken teeth, and they wore thick ropes of pebbles around their necks.

Then we have this charming green creature from the Goblet of Fire film. At least they got the yellow eyes right.

And finally we have a merman and the merqueen from the Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery mobile game. Bet you can’t guess who inspired Chell’s topless look!

I tend to pick and choose what lore, descriptions, or dialogue I use depending on what makes sense or helps the story. I still use the castle map from the Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 game as my default Hogwarts map. So my description of ‘Chell’/Sharp Shell the mermaid was a combination of all three - book, film, and game.

As for using §Parseltongue§ to loosely understand ഩMermishഩ...

Let’s compare Gaunt’s abilities as a Parselmouth to Harry Potter’s. Gaunt is a natural born Parselmouth who inherited the ability through his father’s line that goes all the way back to Salazar Slytherin. He knows when he’s speaking Parseltongue. He’s been speaking the snake langauge since he was moved to the Gaunt Shack at age seven and heard the snakes guarding the ring hissing death threats through the floorboards. He has had enough conversations with other snakes since then to actually learn the vocabulary and mechanics of the language. Gaunt is fluent in Parseltongue.

Harry became a Parselmouth because of his scar. And it’s an ongoing thing throughout the series that Harry rarely actually knows when he’s speaking or hearing Parseltongue. From the first book where he talks to the python at the zoo, to the second where he hears the basilisk in the pipes and ‘sets’ Draco’s snake on Justin, and it continues on all the way to the seventh where he unknowingly talks to and understands Nagini while she’s posing as Bathilda Bagshot.

The mermaid’s song from the Egg Clue was in perfect English because it draws on the merpeople’s natural magic and their Siren heritage and is meant to be enticing and easily understood... so that’s heard clearly and understood by all four Tri-Wizard Champions. In the books and games they actually make a distinction about being able to SPEAK Mermish which implies that it’s supposed to be an entirely different language. But what’s to say the merpeople in the lake WEREN’T speaking to Harry in Mermish when they hissed at him ‘Only one!’ and he was arguing about which hostage to take down at bottom of the lake? Maybe Harry understood and spoke it and didn’t notice it was strange because he’s an accidental Parselmouth and doesn’t know the difference (like always)?

It’s confirmed that there ARE merpeople in the Hogwarts colony who do speak English... but Sharp Shell is not one of them. And thus, Parseltongue was used to breach the language barrier and form an unlikely (light branch exclusive) friendship!