Hermione laughed when George immediately left her sight, a grin on his face to go explore.
She guessed it would be a brighter idea that she stood and kept guard in case said-shark appeared, considering the two were only now getting used to the tails.
It made Hermione think back to the movie she had watched. The shark had appeared in the large window of the sunken ship and that's the chase had begun, but she didn't see anything in the large window behind her. Surely, she'd have heard if a shark of that size was swimming around somewhere. Her hearing had gotten remarkably better to the point she could hear small fish swimming nearby, a shark would certainly make her head turn.
One more look out the window and seeing nothing, she left her post and went to the deck above.
Meanwhile, George was having the time of his life exploring the captain's cabin on the middle floor. There was a small pile of scattered jewels and other priceless objects that he'd found all over the rotten, wodden floor, somethings he hadn't ever seen before but he thought back to the muggles that did some things so differently than wizards and witches did.
Taking his chances, he picked up a few rusted gold ornaments and looked at them closely, smiling at the delicate carvings and details he could find after washing the algae off with his hands.
It was only after leaving the room that his hand hooked on a nail sticking out from the door. He pulled his hand back and watched the cut drip a small drop of blood and evaporate around him.
Hearing a heaving breath behind him, he felt his blood run cold as he turned around and caught a large, ginormous dark shark hiding only a few meters away, blood lust in its eyes. The heaving noise had only begun after he'd cut his finger. "Sharks can smell blood up to 5 kilometers away" He remembered his dad telling him once when he was little after he'd found a picture book on muggle sea creatures. "And this blood is... 5 meters away" George muttered under his breath as he tried to back away slowly, making his way closer to the stairs that led down to the lower level, or the basement.
As he was about to get to the staircase, he yelped when he came into contact with something —Hermione being that something — and abruptly turned. As he was about to tell her about the shark, it had quickly moved out of its hiding spot and dashed for the two, Hermione acting quickly and diving back down the stairs, George right behind her, as pale as can be.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" She shouted as they attempted to evade the shark at every corner.
"IT WAS JUST THERE!" He shouted back as they head back up to the middle floor. The shark had been blocking their only exit — the one that George had opened a bit more — and had to get back to it, the only way being that they had to lure it away and into a chase.
Hermione didn't understand why it had been looking straight at George and why it was strictly following him, but she would ask him later when the situation wasn't as heart-pounding as of that moment.
It took the joint effort of swimming between the four levels of the ship and confusing the shark as much as possible in order to have them both swim back down to the lower level as quickly as possible. They'd led the shark to bashing its head into multiple walls and door frames and had managed to trap it on one of the higher floors thanks to creaky loose floorboards falling over the exit, leaving just enough space for them to escape.
Reaching the lowest floor, she pushed George towards the porthole that he'd dug while the shark could still be heard two levels above trying to smash its way through the boat.
"Go!" He pushed Hermione through the hole and out into the open ocean. Just as he began pushing into the hole to escape, he heard the shark bash through the floor and George was forced to retreat back into the ship and re-trap the shark elsewhere in order to buy himself some time. Fitting through that hole had taken many minutes and there was no way he was pushing through that jagged, moldy, wooden hole to slice himself into a million pieces just to escape a shark that would no doubt chew him up into a million pieces either way.
Hermione watched anxiously from the outside of the porthole and watched George disappear, along with the shark through the stairs entrance. She retreated and looked around for anything to use as a weapon, her eyes landed on a long wooden board. "Maybe it's solid" She mumbled, swimming down and picking it up from beneath the rubble. Knocking on it and bending it, she quickly swam back up to the porthole and called out: "George! I've got something!"
It didn't take long for him to speed down in a rush and soon found that she had come back into the ship and was holding a wooden plank in her hands. "What am I supposed to do with this?" He raised a brow as she gave it to him.
"Hit it in the nose!" she told him. "They say to hit a shark in the nose if one circles you and it'll go away." George nodded slowly. "I figure this should work even better than a fist." Their conversation was broken when the shark returned and made a straight dash for George, who now held the plank like a baseball bat and swung as hard as he could the moment the shark was barely three feet away from his head, sending it off course from its initial target.
The shark swam into the wall beside them and seemed to have difficulty orienting itself after the blow to the face. "Let's get out of here" George muttered, fitting through the hole with more haste than when he'd first gone through, not caring about getting scratched up, and Hermione soon followed afterwards.
"Hey, if you get out of here with Selachophobia, I won't tease you for it at all." Hermione muttered as they swam away from the ship and up to the surface.
"Same goes to you." George agreed with her. "Never swimming in the ocean ever again after this movie." The two finally broke the surface and squinted at the bright light that was the sun.
"MY EYES!" George exclaimed dramatically, putting his hands over his eyes and dipping back momentarily underwater.
Being underwater for so long had to have done something to their eyes, because they squinted for almost 10 minutes before even one of them was fine to open their eyes. Not that there was much to see anyway,
"Stop being a drama Queen." She muttered as he came back up with a grin.
"I wouldn't dare take the crown from Sirius; you know that." George joked. "I could never be as fabulous as he is." He then turned to the rock where they had surface and looked quizzically to Hermione. "Now, where are we?"
"The middle of the ocean." She answered.
"Very funny. Where specifically?"
"We're a short way off from the shoreline."
"Ah yes, it certainly explains this random rock sticking out of nowhere."
"This rock is your very destiny George~ Remember this rock forever." she said wistfully, imitating their divination teacher with her hands and her dreamy expression. "All of your answers lay within this stone!" George started off by snickering silently to himself, before he was bellowing with Hermione about the ridiculousness that was Professor Trelawny and Divination class.
"Oh no, don't let Fred hear you using sarcasm, he'll fall in love with you for real." He stated, trying to catch his breath. With those words, he earned himself a smack behind the head as he continued to snicker. Once he was finally able to take a breath, he noticed how Hermione kept looking around, as if expecting someone. "Is-Is someone supposed to appear?"
"No, I'm looking for a bird."
"A... A bird?" George wanted to hit head against this rock, maybe he could send himself back to a reality that made some sense if he hit it hard enough. Maybe he was still sleeping... Or maybe Seamus had knocked him unconscious... "Like an actual bird?" She nodded and he just didn't know how else to react.
They waited a few more minutes before diving back under, no sign of the bird that Hermione had mentioned and began heading back to the city. On their way back, George's eyes kept darting down to the sea floor. For a long ten minutes, Hermione noticed her kept averting his eyes down and shaking his head just a bit, as if to rid himself of a thought.
"Hey... Have you noticed two eels following us?" He finally spoke up, Hermione responded by nodding. "And you don't find that even a bit creepy?" She shook her head. He seemed to hesitate before continuing. "I take they're important to the plotline then?" She nodded.
"Oh, look we're almost there." She finally said. The golden city soon came into view and George finally lost sight of the two eels that were trying to follow them, though he wouldn't let the subject go so easily.
"They won't be causing too many problems, right?"
"Just a few but nothing major."
"Oh yeah, don't worry! They won't cause too much of a problem !" He repeated, imitating what was supposed to be Hermione's voice but resembled more a five-year-old on helium. "Hermione, you're going to have to explain the entire plot to me soon, not just bits."
"Yes, yes, in due time, but right now, I think you should hide." Hermione told him, now trying to push him away.
"Wait why-" He was cut off by a girl swimming up to Hermione and roughly pulling her away.
"Father's looking for you and he's not happy!" the girl exclaimed before pulling her away from George.
He didn't even know what to think after that. He was alone now, at the gates of the city, no idea if he had to do anything plot wise or just go and wander around. He hadn't seen this movie; he didn't even know what those two eels were supposed to do.
His thought process was interrupted when his stomach growled. 'I haven't eaten today... What do merfolk even eat?' He wondered, swimming the way he knew back to his so-called home. As he remembered seeing a merman earlier eating when he left his home, he scrunched up his nose in disgust at the thought of eating seafood. 'Of course, I have to eat shrimp and stuff...' he gagged at the thought and entered his small home.
