Author's Note: This pirate AU started off as a joke to use the parrot prompt, but I made it real and now I like it, uh oh. So yes, be warned, this is a Pirate/Creature AU. I tried to map the song you'll read below onto Great Big Sea's "Fast as I Can." They're a Newfoundlander band that I highly recommend, and they do a lot of sailor/boat/folksy music. Anyways, enjoy these idiots marauding but on water!
Disclaimer: The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.
Warnings: NA
House: Hufflepuff
Role: Head Girl
Category: Round 6, Standard
Prompt: [Animal] Parrot
Word Count: 1986
Stacked with: Hogwarts House Cup; MC4A; Ship Wars; Snicket Fence; By Any Other Name
Individual Challenge(s): Gryffindor MC (x4); Bow Before the Blacks; Seeds; Yellow Ribbon; Yellow Ribbon Redux; Short Jog; Creature People
Representation: Misfit Marauders' brotherhood; Hen mother James Potter
Bonus challenge(s): Second Verse (Not a Lamp); Found Family; Fizzy Lemonade; Chorus (Odd Feathers)
Tertiary bonus challenge(s): NA
Shipping War
Ship (Team): Lily Evans and James Potter (Patronus Pair)
List (Prompt): Creature AU
The Sunken Siren
Chapter 1: I Followed Your Voice
"Sirius, if you want to keep the bird, you need to shut it up," Remus said categorically.
"You absolute monster! You'd have me send this beauty away when we're so far from land?" Sirius said, aghast.
"A harbor can be found quite easily," Remus warned, unspooling more rope to lower the bucket into the sea.
Sirius leaned against the carrack's railing and ran a hand along the bird's colourful back feathers. "Don't listen to him, Lady Valentina. I won't let the bad man send you away…"
"It's not Valentina," Peter chimed in.
"What? You'd call her 'Dumbass' like Moony?"
"Her name is Lucy, she told me in a dream."
"More like she told you when you'd finished that supply of rum that was supposed to last us a month."
"First off, James helped. Secondly, if Sirius gets to have a damned parrot, I don't understand why I can't engage in perfectly acceptable pirate-like behavior without being taunted," Peter said. "Also, I fixed that leak in the stern. You're welcome, everyone."
"Lovely," Sirius said. "Now, did someone fix that leak in James' mind, or is he still insisting we have to stay on that sperm whale migration course he plotted out?" Sirius asked.
"I'm telling you, that migration course is wrong," Remus said, hauling his bucket back on deck. "Every book we've got below-deck tracks entirely different routes. I don't know what James is following, but it's not sperm whales. Can someone talk to him, please?"
"He won't let me get anywhere close to him while I've got Valentina."
"Lucy."
"Dumbass," Remus said. "Sirius, drop the bird. You can always get to him, and this is on the urgent side. Remember last time James had an idea and none of us stopped it?"
"Yes. We ran away from Hogwarts and magically adapted a Muggle carrack to become pirates, and it's going swimmingly," Sirius said. "I have an earring now."
"I was thinking of that time when he decided that we should actively follow some Royal Navy ships into harbor, trap them in their home turfs, and pillage their ships," Remus said.
"That also went well, all the loot's in the hull…" Peter started.
Below deck, James was in the captain's quarters. The desk was absolutely littered—a map of the world, maps of the winds, maps of the current, star charts, last year's ship's log, three other books opened face-down… Last night, a spilled ink bottle had proved near catastrophic, but most of the splotches had been soaked up.
"Oye," Sirius said. "You're not captain, get out of the captain's quarters."
"You're not captain either, don't tell me to get out of the quarters," James said. "Also get that bird away from me, she smells as if hell woke up from a hundred-year nap and took a deep breath."
"Then you should be familiar with the odour, though unlike you, my fair lady here lacks the opposable thumbs for better hygiene." Sirius walked into the room. "You know, Remus is seeing right through your little sperm whale diversion."
"Me?" James said, a hand on his chest. "Create a diversion?"
"Yes, I believe that is exactly his implication," Sirius said. "Look, he'll figure it out sooner or later, you know. Just be straight with us."
"What a thing for you out of all people to request."
"Take a long walk off the shortest plank," Sirius said. He sat down on the captain's bed and leaned back. Valentina squawed in protest and hopped off of him.
"James?" Sirius said.
James looked up. His hair was messier than usual; he wore breeches and a loose white shirt that emphasized how sleepless and disheveled he looked.
"James, you're like a brother to me," Sirius said.
James had forged those bonds by saving all of them, in some way or another. He had been the one to take charge when the world had closed in around Remus and his secret, when Sirius' parents had begun speaking of arranged marriages, and when Peter's father had lost the family fortune and he'd nearly had to leave school... Their world, the world they'd built, had been threatened. James had seen fate's hand approaching with the pin that would burst it all, so he swept them all away and into the high seas. They'd turned their backs to the world before it did it to them.
It had taken them weeks to figure out how to fix up and enchant the broken-down carrack they'd found so that the sails would raise and lower themselves. Getting the anchors to cooperate had been a different story altogether. The Sunken Siren came by her name very honestly. But they'd survived all of their bad decisions thus far and were planning on continuing to do so, because together they could. Together they could do anything.
"I'd trust you with my life," James told him.
"We'd follow you to the end of the world. Perhaps we geographically already have. So just tell us where we're going," Sirius said.
"Sperm whales—"
"Enough with the whales," Sirius snapped.
"Seeds is eating some string off the floor, you probably shouldn't let her do that…"
"Her name isn't Seeds, it's Lady Valentina Maria Roquelle di Birdie," Sirius cut in. He got up to wrestle the scraps away. The parrot tried to bite him in protest, seemingly not at all thankful for the gift of life Sirius had given it.
James got up, tucked a notebook into the waistband of his pants, and left the room.
"Don't think you got yourself out of this conversation," Sirius called out to him.
"Wouldn't dream of it, love," James hollered back—walking away without realizing that he was humming her song under his breath.
That night, he lowered a rowboat down from The Sunken Siren into the sea. He was thankful for the calm night—the bright stars that made getting his bearings easy, the gentleness of the waves, the smell of salt that heightened his senses…
He sat on his rowboat, with only the moon, a lantern, and his hope that he was right. That he'd understood correctly, read the stars right… Merlin, perhaps another year of Astronomy wouldn't have hurt after all. Then a splash and a gentle dip of the rowboat drew his attention to… her.
He wished he could see her better—that he had a thousand lanterns and maybe the sun to discern her features, but it was definitely her. The bright red hair with seashell beads, the pale white skin, narrow eyes (he remembered the green the night hid), the full lips teasingly raised at the corners…
"You found me," the mermaid said, elbows resting on the edge of the boat.
"I… I hoped I would, but I wasn't sure," James admitted. Her taunting grin broke into a smile and James felt his heart burst, and for a while it was just them, rocked whichever way the waves saw fit.
"You know, it is quite brave of you to come meet a mermaid alone... or quite foolish." she said coyly.
"Believe me, I've heard enough mariners' songs and stories to know. But I don't think you'd hurt me," James said. "You saved my life."
Her lips fell. "I shouldn't have done that."
"My name is James."
"Lily."
"That's a flower, on land," he said.
"In my peoples' language, it means surface wave or ripple," she said. "I like the surface."
"Is that how you learned English?" James asked.
"How do you know this isn't Mermish?"
"Because I only speak the dialect spoken in Scottish lochs, and I'd imagine it would be different for merfolk in the Atlantic."
"Clever man," she smiled. "Yes, that is how I learned English."
"I thought I should give this back," James said, reaching into his coat and passing the sand dollar her way.
When James had washed ashore, after a particularly bad experiment aboard The Sunken Siren, he'd had the sand dollar in his hand. The sand dollar and vague memories—glimpses only, really—of the mermaid, as well as a song. The song he remembered best.
"Keep it," Lily said. "A gift from the sea should not be scorned, for they are—"
"—Few and far between," James finished the saying. Lily smiled, and her eyes seemed to shine. James' heart twisted.
"Maybe your voice did cast a spell on me," James mused.
"How much of my song do you remember?" Lily asked.
James knew it well enough to sing it.
"From the sea floor to the sky above, my treasure's nowhere to be found
Sailors armed with maps may try, but they'll look until they're drowned
So forgive me if you can't hold, the bounty which I swear is yours
I'll be under the stars, that bring men to their shores
I may see you there one day
I'll be where the currents meet to then fly away
And we'll see about saying "I love you" then
And the sea may just say "I love you" then."
"Did you come for your treasure, then?"
"I came for you," James said. He felt himself blushing. "I had to thank you. And I had to ask about the sea. I know she has power beyond my understanding. Power they never taught us about where I learned magic."
"The sea's power isn't taught, it is felt," Lily said.
"Tell me more," James said.
Lily smiled, but it looked sad now. "How many accidents has that misfit vessel of yours had since we met?"
James searched his mind. "None." Shockingly.
Lily smiled. "Do you know how mermaids survive in a place as harsh as the sea? So well and so beautifully?"
The word suddenly reminded James of how beautiful the girl in front of him was and he blushed, hard.
"Because the sea loves us," Lily continued. She cocked her head to the side. "When I rescued you, I… I had a good feeling about you, James." She tested his name in her mouth, like a wine—one that he'd like her to drink forever. "And I heard your friends—your friends who were looking for you frantically, who would do anything to save you, who would give anything to have you back. So, I asked the sea to love you too."
James swallowed hard. "And did it?"
Lily nodded her head.
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know," Lily said. "But I think it means that the sea's made me love you a little bit in turn. Maybe it's done the same for you. I'm not quite sure how humans feel love, you see."
"Strongly," James blurted.
Lily smiled.
"But you do know that I'm a mermaid and you're a man, yes?" Lily said. "The sea is powerful, but it is not foolishly so."
James swallowed. "I… I understand."
Lily nodded.
"Can I meet you here again?" James blurted. "Sometime… in the future…"
Lily smiled. "Why don't you wait for the sea to give us another song, James?"
And with that, she let go of the boat and flipped backwards into the sea. He caught the glimpse of an emerald green tail.
They were waiting for him on the deck. They didn't know much—there was no way that they had heard or seen anything much from their vantage point on the deck, but they'd found his missing bed, seen the missing boat, and saw their friend looking… well. Like this.
Sirius clapped a hand on James' shoulder. "We'll call the bird Seeds if it'll make you feel better."
The parrot cawed in protest. "Fuck you, Dumbass!"
"You fucking traitor!" Sirius barked, looking at the bird as it flew off and landed on Remus' shoulder.
"I don't want this thing," he said, trying to shrug the parrot off. James laughed at that and clasped his hands on his friends' shoulders.
"Let's go below deck," James said. "I need… a drink. With my friends."
"Should I change our course first?" Peter asked.
"Leave it," James said. "We'll just keep marauding."