The Houses Competition
Ravenclaw
Charms
Standard
Theme: Travel
Prompt: [Image] Woman in a lake under mountains
Word Count 1243
AN This is an AU with AU pairing.
Tommy Keen sighed happily as the cries of his little sisters finally subsided. He'd told Mum that he was just going to the loo, but the prospect of returning to their train compartment with whiny babies was not a fun one, to say the least. Maybe he could find somewhere to hide away for a few minutes' peace.
The first room had some old ladies playing cards, but their perfume stunk, and Tommy made a quick getaway before they could try to pinch his cheeks. His second try was filled with teenagers kissing, and that was almost as gross as changing a dirty diaper. After several more compartments were found to be either locked or not interested in letting a little boy come in, Tommy was just about ready to give up.
A loud wail from the twins convinced him to not give up yet. There were two more spots to try on their part of the train. One had loud music playing. The other was quiet. Hoping to find the compartment empty, he tried the door.
It opened. Tommy snuck in quietly to find a man reading a magazine whose pictures moved kinda like the GIFs on Mum's phone. Actually, they sorta reminded him of his dad's old comic books. The ones with the shiny moving covers.
Tommy moved closer to get a better look. A flying something waved at him from the front. He looked at the magazine's title: The Quibbler.
That was a funny name. It made him think of when his teacher would yell at them to "Stop quibbling!" in the school yard.
"That's a Dorphenheim Doxy, not to be confused with the Lochenheim Doxy, mind you." The man behind the magazine spoke up.
"Huh?"
"The creature on the cover. Dorphenheims are much nicer than Lochenheim Doxys. My wife did a study on the differences a few months ago." He closed the magazine and lowered it so that Tommy could get a better look at the creature. "See the pinkish stripes on those wings? They're the easiest way to tell the difference."
"Cool! So they're a kind of bug? I did a project in school once about bugs, but I don't remember seeing anything like that. When'd bugs grow hands?"
The man laughed. "It does look kinda like a bug, doesn't it? But no, for all that they drive most people up the wall, those little menaces aren't anything like a grasshopper or mosquito."
Tommy had to know more. "What makes them different, mister?"
Green eyes stared at Tommy. He felt like he was being judged. He wondered if Doxies were some sort of government secret. The man sorta looked like he could belong to some top-secret spy organization.
Finally, he smiled. "Why, they're magical, of course."
"Really?"
"The name's Harry. If you'd like, we can look through this magazine together. There are a lot more creatures where that comes from."
"Sure! I'm Tommy. This is way better than listening to my sisters cry. They're babies," Tommy explained. If Mr Harry really was a super secret agent, he probably already knew his name, but introducing himself was just polite.
"Careful who you tell your name to, Tommy. Names are special things." Mr Harry warned him. That just served as proof though that he was a good guy, and Tommy looked meaningfully at the magazine wanting to know more about the magical creatures inside.
As the train rumbled down the tracks, Mr Harry showed him pictures of redcaps and bluecaps, kelpies and snelkies, and even some snore thingy that sounded like Papa when he cleared his throat. When they got to the end of the magazine, Mr Harry (who was totally a spy) pulled out his wallet and showed even more cool pictures. The best one, however, was the picture that stood still.
"That lake holds an entire colony of merfolk, Tommy," Mr Harry said while softly stroking the hair of the lady swimming in it. "In fact, the chieftain's daughter is a good friend of my family's. We met when my youngest, Lily, fell in a few years ago."
Tommy looked closer at the picture. The lady must be a mermaid! It was too bad that he could only see the back of her head though. She was probably really cool. Outside the window, he saw that they were passing a river.
"Do mermaids live in rivers too, Mr Harry?" he asked curiously.
Mr Harry scratched his chin. "Most of the merpeople I've heard of live in either oceans or lakes, but I suppose as long as a fresh-water type didn't get too close to salt water or vice versa, they could technically live there. It would also depend on the magical energies in the water, of course."
Tommy nodded. It only made sense that magical creatures would need access to magical energies, after all.
Over the next few hours, Mr Harry told Tommy all about his family's adventures at their house beside the magical lake with the mermaid community. Apparently, they would spend the whole summer swimming alongside their neighbors and eating something called Billyweed that would allow them to speak underwater. Everytime the train took them past a body of water, Tommy would ask if mermaids could live there, and whenever there was a lull in the conversation, Tommy would look through Mr Harry's wallet of pictures, always stopping at the picture of the mermaid princess who had saved Mr Harry's daughter.
Alas, all things must come to an end, and eventually, Mum came looking for him.
"I'm so sorry, sir. I hope my son hasn't been bothering you for long," Mum said as though he was just a little kid. He and Mr Harry had been having important discussions!
"Not at all, ma'am. Your son's been quite the conversationalist. You must be proud." Mr Harry defended him. "He'll go far someday if he keeps thinking outside the box."
Did Mr Harry wink? He definitely winked. Tommy must have made a good enough impression that Mr Harry was planning on recommending him to his secret spy club!
This had been the best train ride ever!
Several hours later, Harry Potter entered the lakehouse. Work had made him miss the family's first week there, and Luna was emphatic that he not mess with the house's magical energies by apparating in.
"Have a nice trip, Daffodil?" Speaking of Luna…
"Better than expected, Moon." Shortly after they married, Luna had insisted that they have private names that only each other knew. He was her Daffodil, and she was his Moon.
"Where's our princess?" he asked.
"She's playing with Saaahasssknath." While Harry was dependent on Billyweed to correctly pronounce the names of the residents of the mercolony, Luna had no such issues. That reminded him…
"I had an interested conversation on the train today. A little Muggleborn boy saw me reading The Quibbler and wanted to know all about the magical creatures in it," he began.
"Oooh, did you teach him how to avoid Bluecaps?"
Harry chuckled. "Yes, Moon. Bluecaps and Redcaps. But what he was most interested in was my picture and stories about our neighbors."
"When did you take a picture of them?" she asked, rightfully concerned. It was well known that no merperson would willingly allow their picture to be taken.
"I didn't." Harry held out the photo that had so enraptured the little boy. He watched as her eyes recognized the form. "It's a picture of you."