Oceans Away Chapter 1
It was a sunny afternoon at Hogwarts as 17 year old best friends Nelli, Missy, Chloe and Mila headed down into the fields around the castle.
Chloe and Mila were going to pick flowers and do flower crafts out in the fields while Nelli and Missy tended to Nelli's peculiar needs.
Unlike her friends, Nelli had been born as a magical siren who could transform from her human form into her creature form anytime she wanted to go for a swim.
She also had the unfortunate ability to lure the boys and men of Hogwarts to her because of her siren abilities.
Usually it wasn't much of a problem, but lately she felt a strong urge to release her siren song and lure the boy that was meant for her.
Her mate.
All siren's had mates and usually their mates were human boys or men whom they had to travel on land to find.
It was very rare that a siren had another siren as a mate.
Technically only the females were called sirens.
The males were called mermen.
And Nelli was lucky enough that an entire kingdom of her kind lived at the bottom of the black lake right outside her school.
So, that was where Nelli and her best friend Missy were headed as they made their way through the tall grass and down onto the sandy shores.
They always hung out under the massive oak tree that was growing on the side of one of the sand dunes casting shade on the beach below.
Nelli and Missy had met each other for the first time underneath its branches in first year when Missy had accidentally caught Nelli swimming in the lake.
But instead of being frightened of the beautiful blonde with blue eyes and a sleek royal blue tail, she accepted her and the two had been best friends ever since.
Later on when Dumbledore had told her entire Hufflepuff House about her heritage, they all were sworn to secrecy for the sake of her privacy and she had made a whole ton of new friends because of it.
She was thankful that her fellow Hufflepuff's accepted her without hesitation and sometime they even threw parties late at night down on the beach where the humans and merpeople would mingle together in harmony.
But for the moment Nelli was just going for a swim while Missy was her lookout.
"It's beautiful out today." Missy exclaimed as she threw her school bag next to the tree's trunk and began taking off her outer robes.
"It's a perfect day for a swim." Nelli said as she began to remove all of her clothes.
Missy made a face before flicking her long blonde hair over her shoulder.
"You're lucky no one's down here today. Last week I heard that Cedric got a peek of you when the Qudditch team came down here to cool off after the game. He's been boasting about it all week."
She said as she took off her shoes and socks and watched as Nelli quickly transformed and dove under the water's surface.
Nelli stretched out her tail and lazily drifted through the currents while adjusting her bikini top that always appeared whenever she transformed.
'Great. Now Cedric's finally got a story tell about us.' She thought to herself as she rolled her eyes and headed back up to the surface.
It was no secret that she and Cedric had been a hot item for three years.
But their relationship ended when Nelli refused to do anything more than kiss him.
She wasn't a prude. Not by a long shot.
But she had an overwhelming need to wait until she found her mate before she lost her virginity.
Cedric had been less than understanding and had spread several nasty rumors about it not only around their House but the others as well.
She was lucky that the Hufflepuff's except for a few, knew her well enough to know that the rumors weren't true.
Her friends had become her rock and she would've never made it through the breakup without their love and support.
She considered herself truly lucky to have a group of girls that despite her siren heritage, still loved her no matter what.
And as she broke through the surface of the water, she couldn't help but do a backflip because of how happy she was.
"Honestly Nell, you're going to be seen if you keep that up." Missy yelled from the shoreline making Nelli swim over and perch on a log before sticking her tongue out at her best friend.
"What's good about being a siren if I can't have a little fun?" She teased as Missy rolled her eyes.
"So what do you have planned for the evening?" Missy asked as she pulled out a piece of parchment, a quill and her school textbooks to start working on homework.
"Well I thought maybe we could all hang out in the library after I go see Severus for my potion refill." She said as Missy looked up in surprise.
For years the only people who had known of her heritage had been Dumbledore and Severus Snape.
Severus figured out how to brew a potion that would temporarily render her siren song incapable of attracting any unwanted attention and needless to say she'd been taking it for years.
"Potion refill? Don't you usually get it refilled once a month? Why are needing another so soon?" Missy asked as Nelli's smile turned into a grimace.
"We had to up the dose ever since my birthday last week. Technically I've reached the age where I should be finding my mate and my song has increased greatly because of it. I've been having trouble keeping the boys of the school away." She said as Missy regarded her carefully.
"Does this mean that your mate is at Hogwarts?" She asked as Nelli nodded.
"Yes, that was originally why I was sent here after my parents died. Grandmother suspected that he was here and I was immediately enrolled. My body however has been reacting to whoever he is making me think that he's someone I've had close contact with."
Missy's eyebrows furrowed as she took in this new piece of information.
Missy was the most intelligent witch in Hufflepuff and even rivaled for top marks with the great Hermione Granger.
If you needed a problem solve, Missy was always the one you wanted to go to.
"So he may be in our house?" She asked as Nelli shrugged and ran a hand down her iridescent scales.
"Or a House that we interact with frequently. We won't know until my siren song and my body indicates who he is when he's in my presence. Before now I could be in a room with him and my body reacted only slightly. Now that I've come of age my song will lose control the next time he comes into close contact with me."
"Alright so Cedric and his friends obviously can't be your mate because you sat next to them at dinner last night and nothing happened. So at least you're not going to be stuck forever with those slimey gits." Missy mused as Nelli nodded in agreement.
It was a blessing from the merpeople Gods that she hadn't been paired with any of them.
Opting to jump back into the water and take one more lap around the lake, she glided through the underwater waves before she transformed back to her human form and stepped out onto the sandy beach.
She shook her head desperately trying to rid her hair of all the seaweed that had been caught in it as Missy laughed and conjured up a towel that she used to dry herself off with.
Right when she was about to redress herself, the sound of loud laughter reached the two girls.
Recognizing the laughter as male voices, the girls hurried up and collected their things before hiding behind the massive tree.
They watched as Draco Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle sat down on the Hogwarts dock and brandished several bottles of alcohol.
Missy gasped as Nelli held onto her towel for dear life.
The next thing she knew her body was being rocked from an unseen magical force that made her drop her towel and fall to the ground as millions of different things overwhelmed her senses.
She let out a gasp as the scent of fresh baked bread, old parchment and rain washed over her in waves.
That was when she knew.
Letting out a scream of her native merlanguage, her body began to glow as her siren song lost control.
Missy fell to her knees beside her as she shook violently with the waves of pleasure that recognizing her mate for the first time gave her.
"What is it, Nelli? What's wrong?" She whispered to the girl whose body started to shimmer a pale gold in the fading afternoon sunlight.
"It's him. One of them is my mate." She croaked as they both watched as the three notorious Slytherin's knocked back bottle after bottle.
The sun was beginning to set and Nelli turned to Missy with the most serious look she could muster.
"You need to go back to the castle and tell Dumbledore and Severus what happened. There's going to be many preparations that need to be done."
Missy's eyes shone with worry for her friend as she took Nelli's hand in her own and gave it a gentle squeeze and grimaced when the other girl let out another scream.
"Are you sure? You could be seen. I don't like the idea of leaving you like this." Missy said nervously as Nelli forced herself up into a sitting position and leaned against the tree while her breaths came out in pants.
"You need to go, Missy. I can't leave him. I need to know who he is." She said with her words ending in a sense of finality.
Missy froze for a few moments before she reluctantly nodded and grabbed her things as she started trudging her way back to the castle.
As soon as the sun set, Nelli staggered down onto the beach and dove into the water while transforming for a second time that day.
She weighed her options and decided to risk everything as she swam silently towards where the boy's feet were hanging off the dock.
Hiding herself under the docks wooden planks, she listened to their drunken chatter.
"Oy! You blokes bring any more liquor? I'm not even bloody drunk yet." She heard Draco say as she mentally groaned.
'Oh yes you are.' She thought as she peered through the slits in the planks and watched Crabbe and Goyle shake their heads.
"Nah, mate. This is the last bloody bottle." Crabbe hiccupped as he took another drink of the bottle of fire whiskey that was clutched between his chubby palms.
She stuck her head under water and let out an actual groan as she watched Draco's eyes narrow and his hand reach out trying to grab the bottle.
Crabbe put up a good fight that was for sure.
Soon Draco and Crabbe started to come to blows as Goyle tried to separate them.
Draco was no match for Crabbe and when Crabbe's fist hit Draco's face, she watched as Draco's eyes rolled into his head and he fell off the dock and into the murky waters below.
"Shit!" Goyle exclaimed as they both stood there too stupid and drunk to realize what they had done.
"Uh, he can't swim." Crabbe said as Goyle's eyes grew wide.
"Fuck we'll be charged with murder!" He said as Crabbe glanced over the side of the dock where Draco's lithe form had already disappeared down too far for them to reach.
"No we won't. We'll just tell everyone that Draco went home for the weekend." He said as Goyle stared blankly at him and then at the water before finally nodding in agreement.
"Fine. Let's get out of here." He said as the two quickly tossed all of the empty liquor bottles in the lake and ran all the way back to the castle.
Little did anyone know that the moment Draco hit the water and began to sink, Nelli had dove in and began searching for his body in the darkness of the lake.
It was dark out now, making the water in the lake murky and pitch black.
Nelli had enhanced eyesight with being a siren, but even she was having trouble seeing through the layers and layers of seaweed.
The moment that Draco's body hit the water she knew he was her mate.
And right now he was unconscious and drowning somewhere.
She could feel his heart rate increase and a painful ache formed in her chest letting her know that her mate was dying and time was running out.
She swam frantically through the water hoping and praying that Draco would still be alive when she found him.
Suddenly blue shockwaves of electrifying magical shot out through the water leading her over to where a very blue and cold Draco lay dying on the sand.
The blue shockwaves struck her and she winced at the powerful magic that was leaving her mate's body.
Without hesitating she grabbed him and raced to the surface where she quickly transformed and dragged her mate's lifeless body onto the shore.
Her whole body shook with heavy sobs as she felt his heartbeat cease in his chest.
She immediately started to recite resuscitation incantations as she desperately tried to bring him back to life.
She knew that resuscitation magic could only work if it had been less than a minute since the heart stopped beating.
She placed her hands on his chest and sent powerful pulses of magic to his heart, praying that she would hear its lovely sound once more.
And as if it had heard her cries, it started beating slowly at first and then faster as Draco began to seize and throw up water violently for several minutes before opening his eyes and blinking at her with a daze look.
Nelli quickly pressed a soft kiss to his lips before getting to her feet.
"I'll see you soon, my mate." She said loud enough for him to hear and then disappeared off into the darkness.
Draco slowly sat up and looked down at his wet clothes and then all around him as he tried to find the beautiful girl who had apparently saved his life.
But as soon as he stood and looked around him, he shivered only finding the whispers of the wind and no sign of the girl that was his mate.