Written for the IWSC

Hogwarts Year 4

Theme: Write about an innocent being turned into a scapegoat.

Special rule: Story must take place within the same setting.

Mandatory Prompt: [Character] OC (Limitation: Name has to be Verity Grahams)
Additional Prompt: [Genre] Romance

Additional Info: This is an AU based on Lake Superior lore. Lake Superior is known as the lake that never gives up her dead, which leads to a lot of fascinating legends about the supernatural forces of the lake.

WC: 2087

The Black Lake Never Gives Up Her Dead

My waters are impossibly cold. It's only by a certain type of magic that I don't freeze over each winter, the details of which I'll never tell. Witches and wizards have been trying to understand the ancient wonders I hold for centuries, but they've never had any luck. It's a hopeless quest because I never give up my secrets.

Nor do I ever give up my dead.

When I'm angry, I roar. My temper is well known and widely feared. I am as large as a small sea, and it's my size that gives me violent undercurrents and my very own tides. Although I require extra caution from voyageurs, they still underestimate me. Since I'm just a lake, they tend to shrug off tales of the countless vessels that have succumbed to my tumultuous waves, bolstered by fierce and frigid winds from the north. At times, capsizing a boat takes no more effort than flipping a coin. I'll flick a ship against the sharp, rocky cliffs that surround me and watch as its unassuming passengers surrender to hypothermia, frantically casting warming charms that will never, ever work on me. I then pull my victims to my depths, and there they remain, their bodies forever preserved by my bone-chilling water.

But when I'm calm, I'm peaceful. I reflect the sunrise across the horizon, my surface smooths over like glass, and my cold water becomes a refreshing escape on a hot summer day. At the start of the school year, when the late summer sun casts its sultry glow, students will trek from the castle to my shore for a picnic, a study break, or even a snogging session. Just like those young, naive couples that sneak off into my rocky caves at dusk, I can be pretty convincing when I say I'll never hurt you.

I never meant to harm Verity Grahams. It was early evening when she wandered down to my rocky shoreline, tugging along her friend — a tall man with shoulder-length black hair by the name of Severus Snape. The man had come here before, alone, to practice making his potions by the water. He always wore a slight frown, and his eyebrows furrowed to confirm his loneliness. I was surprised to see he had a companion now, and I almost didn't recognize his newfound grin and sparkling eyes.

I observed the pair for hours. Their interactions were playful yet tentative, and I could tell they were exploring a new dimension of their relationship. They watched each other skip rocks with competitive smirks and sat along the shoreline, only inches away from each other as though contemplating moving even closer. I saw them laugh and joke and eventually interlock their fingers. Verity let her head drop to Severus' shoulder as they took in the sunset. The golden light illuminated their relaxed, hopeful smiles as they snuggled closer, grinning like fools into the setting sun. I have to admit I enjoyed seeing them together — I'm a romantic at heart.

Then, Verity raised an eyebrow at Severus and nodded toward the water. He squinted at me as if trying to determine my depth — a pointless endeavor, really. Maybe in an attempt to impress her, he shrugged and slipped out of his shoes. She followed suit, and their cheeks matched a delicate shade of pink as they continued to strip down to their undergarments.

The wind howled through surrounding trees, creating ripples along my surface, which gave me the appearance of a bird ruffling its feathers. Autumn hadn't arrived yet, but it was well on its way — a fact that students tended to forget when the warm breeze filtered through, enticing them into taking off their clothes and wading into my water. They'd always challenge themselves to go deeper, and in the case of Verity Grahams and Severus Snape, to swim out past the drop-off where my current was deceptively strong.

Under my glassy surface, my waters were churning, and it didn't take long for the undertow to take hold and tug on the poor girl, eventually pulling her under. She bobbed up and down a few times, each intermittent breath providing just enough air to prolong the inevitable. Then, I brought her to the very bottom, where I could taste her salty flesh forever.

The thing about drowning is that it doesn't happen dramatically, nor all at once. It's easy to assume someone's just playfully splashing about before it's too late. I've seen many carefree smiles turn to expressions of horror when panic sets in, and Severus was no different. It was too bad that they had left their wands on the shore, bundled up inside their clothing. His attempts to pull her up to the surface were useless when relying on non-magical rescue methods, and before he knew it, Verity was gone.

I'm not privy to what happens inside the castle, but I could tell that within those mysterious corridors, a bond had formed. Maybe it was safe to say that Severus loved the girl. I hadn't heard the words, but I'd seen the look in his eyes, the hopeful one that imagined a future that hadn't been there before. Then, when her cold, wet fingers slipped from his grip as I pulled her deeper, I saw a different yet familiar expression flash across his face. If you think I can't read human emotion because I'm just a lake, you're mistaken. Something about me brings out every side of humanity, and I see it all. People come to me to celebrate their exam scores, party, play games, and make love. They also come to grieve, cry, mourn, and fight. Humans have been showing me their true colors for centuries, so I recognized the longing in his eyes as he floated back to the shore. His gaze reflected his intense desire to wake up from a nightmare as clearly as I reflected the moon.

His expression morphed to anger when he made it to the shoreline, exacerbated by the way he grabbed any rock he could find and hurled it into my waves under the naïve assumption that he could harm me. He grabbed his wand from his clothes and sent jets of lights toward the surrounding cliffs, not caring if any of the jagged stone scraped him as the pieces plummeted through the air. He pointed his wand at my water, shouting Summoning Spells to no avail, and his words eventually turned to screams of frustration after every unsuccessful attempt. Then, when he ran out of energy and plunked down onto the rocks, I saw something else: guilt. His face was red and puffy, and his eyes were wide as if replaying every single event that might have led to her death. I wondered what questions he was asking himself. Could I have prevented this? Why didn't I recognize she was drowning?

Was it my fault?

Severus wasn't the only one questioning his innocence. A lot happened over the following days, including a candlelight vigil for Verity that illuminated many of the other bonds that presumably happened within the castle's walls. It's funny how close people want to be to the dead — once they're gone, it's tempting to believe they were your best friend. Apparently, Verity was a top-notch Gobstones player, brilliant at predicting the final scores of the Quidditch World Cup, and made a fierce cocktail with Firewhiskey and Peppermint Schnapps. I learned she was the go-to Defense Against The Dark Arts tutor for her fellow students, she gave fantastic relationship advice, and she was always willing to offer a shoulder to cry on after a break-up or a poor O.W.L. score.

Snape loomed in the background of her vigil, and in the few days since she'd passed, the lines had deepened on his face, and his eyes seemed to glaze over as if he were pulling his soul inward to escape his sadness. His guilt. It wasn't his fault, but he still didn't seem to believe that. Unlucky for him, his quiet lurking made him look more suspicious than grief-ridden.

The questions came — Where was she? How did she drown? Who was she with? — and eventually, the other students pieced it all together.

Verity was with Severus.

That's when I learned what they really thought of poor Severus Snape. According to his drunken classmates, he had no friends, and someone like Verity would never have gone out with him. She was too pretty, too popular, too kind for the man who spent his evenings alone, creating dark spells and brewing illicit potions in abandoned cobweb-infested classrooms. She could have had whoever she wanted, and there was no way she'd pick Snape.

Instead of understanding that love works in mysterious ways, they concluded that there had to be some form of trickery that led to Verity and Severus' relationship, and ultimately, her demise. I knew their quick conclusions could be chalked up to jealousy, playing out as denial as Verity's star-crossed suitors learned that she'd been seeing someone else. It was their sick way of expressing regret that they'd missed their chance with her, and now she was gone.

Put simply, they just wanted someone to blame. Funny how they didn't blame me. I guess it pays to be just a lake.

Once the mob had made up its mind, it would have been impossible to convince them of Snape's innocence. To avenge Verity, they vandalized my cliff faces with fiery words suggesting Severus' role in her death. They yelled their slurred conspiracy theories from my shorelines as Butterbeer bottles rolled into my waters from their feet, with absolutely no respect for my preservation. I listened when they gathered around, their wild faces illuminated by light from a raging bonfire as they told stories of what they thought had happened. As the air grew smoky from the ongoing flames, their theories grew murkier — but they only seemed more confident with each passing drink. Maybe he pushed her into the water. Maybe he held her under. Maybe this was what he'd been planning all this time, as he scribbled notes into his ratty old potions notebook.

If only they could have seen him when he returned to my rocky beach, day after day, his grief lines growing deeper, his face sunken, his heart broken. Maybe they'd understand how wrong they were if they'd heard him speak to her, sending desperate pleas for forgiveness into the abyss below my surface. He told her he was sorry he hadn't been able to save her. He apologized for suggesting they go to the lake in the first place, and they should never have gone swimming. He said he'd do anything to be with her again.

I watched Severus come to the shore every day, stare into my waters, and torture himself with guilt, as though he were starting to believe it was his fault, just like his classmates. How awful would it be to continue to live knowing you played a hand in your lover's death? I knew he wished I'd just give her back so they could be reunited. I wanted them to be together too — as I've said before, I truly am a romantic at heart.

So I did what I thought was best, and I took him too.

On an evening when he wandered down to the rocks and let my water wash over his feet, I enticed him for a swim. I reflected the vast moonlight, a glimmering streak of silver on my glassy surface, and reminded him of that final night with Verity. I let him recall the magic of sharing the same space in the same waters and of the closeness he had felt with her back then. I convinced him he could feel it one more time and that Verity Grahams was just a short swim away.

It was easy, and it felt right. As he submerged himself, he tasted deliciously bitter and left me satiated, at least for now. Just like Verity, he was no match for my cold, numbing water, the kind that sucks the strength from your legs so you can't tread fast enough to stay afloat. He gasped for air a few times before an accidental gulp of water sealed the deal, and he sank slowly to the bottom, eventually rejoining his lost lover, her body frozen in time as if awaiting her partner.

And to this day, they remain, never to part again — because I am the Black Lake, and I never give up my dead.