FOR ILVERMORNY SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Title: riddles in the loch

House: Wampus

Class/Task number: Care for magical creatures/ Task #5 - Sphinx

Bonus prompts: 1) [character] Luna Lovegood; 9) [creature] Grindylow; 13) [word] Curious

Summary: Let's just say that looking for grindylows in the middle of a freezing loch, under the rain, with a confusing blonde is often more enjoyable than one might think.

Word count: 1,252

"So, let me get this right. We're looking for grindylows so that you can write an article named 'Curiosities?"

"Oh no!" she laughed, "It's just 'Curious'. They say there is power in five, but not quite as much as in three, and really, there is no good and evil, only Power."

"But what's it going to be about?"

"The meaning of the universe."

"What?"

"42."

"I'm confused."

"Oh sorry, what you said made me think of one of the riddles we used to have to enter to get into the common room. But, clearly, 42 has some significance I believe. After all, 7 is one of the most stable numbers. Oh, and 'Curious' has seven letters too."

"But covering the whole meaning of the universe in 'Curious'?"

"Yes, there will be 42 articles in total. That is the way it must be. And it will exclusively talk of discoveries on the biodiversity of the wizarding universe."

"And you picked me for this."

"Well, the scroll of your life was pretty good."

"You mean, my résumé?"

"I know, I know. I probably shouldn't trust it. Parchement is so easy to lie to, but the nargles assured me that all the words were true. I must agree with you that one should never trust anything written."

"No, no. It's just that I'm very young, and don't have all that experience, surely there must've been someone who had a better CV?"

"Age is like a cloud of nargles, they obstruct your thinking passages. Speaking of clouds, do you think it's going to rain?"

They were both waist deep into one of the most obscure lochs, lost in the highlands of Scotland, in the middle of March. It was 3 PM and they had been this way for the past 5 hours. Needless to say, the water was absolutely freezing, and he was pretty sure one of his toes had frozen and fallen off in the one place in his boots he had forgotten to renew the warming charm. The clouds above them were a calm neutral grey; not the type that threatened to belch a storm upon you, but rather offer the solace of a spray of drizzle.

"Maybe? But if it does, we'll have more luck in seeing the grindylows."

"Yes, I was hoping I had picked the right day. Though I must say, I often enjoy swimming with sharks."

Of course, there were no sharks in the loch.

He observed the pale blonde girl who was busy writing down something in her notebook with a quill that seemed to be made of a peacock's feather. Mathematically, the weight from the end of the quill should have made it very difficult to write anything, but she seemed to be manoeuvering it without any difficulty; and he was pretty sure that if he were to peer over her shoulder to read what she had written, he would be incapable of reading any word of it as she had confided in him that she liked to write all of her discoveries in a coded language.

"Chenille, c'est une fille. Papillon, deux garçons," she muttered to herself as he leaned down and started to replicate the intricate movements with hands in the water that were said to attract grindylows.

He had met her precisely five days ago. After graduating from Ilvermorny, then completing a degree in Care of Magical Creatures, he had set off on a trip around the world to pursue his research on the different creatures of the world. Unfortunately, his trip had been stalled in London after his meager supplies of money had come to an end, not daring to write to Mom even though she had promised to supply him with more money if ever needed. He had seen the advertisement in one of the magazines he had discovered during his stay, 'the Quibbler', applied and barely three days afterwards, he had been commissioned to meet up with the owner at King's Cross Station at 8:23 AM sharp.

He had definitely not been expecting a petite blonde with hair that drifted to her waist, 'courgette' earrings (which he had apparently wrongly identified as 'zucchini' to which she had presented an hour-long explanation to the symbolical differences between the two, and why, essentially, 'courgette' was the only viable plant of that family to be able to wear for successfully warding off nargles) and the most peculiar set of glasses, with one lens tinted periwinkle blue and the other bubble-gum pink which were either perched on the end of her nose or pushed upwards through her long locks.

In the short five days they had been together, she had dragged him in a rather unpleasant train ride, because apparating was going to trouble the wrackspurts for days and they would never be able to concentrate on anything otherwise; made him sleep in a goat's skin quilt and pushed him through marshes and mud for 12 miles during what locals called 'one of the bleakest springs in Scotland'. But, he had loved every single moment of it.

And in the short five days they had been together, he was having a lot of trouble understanding just exactly who she was. What she said always seemed dreamy and far-fetched, but he often realised afterwards that it was just her way of seeing the world. And her way of seeing the world was far more precise and open-minded than his own. Her speech just translated her vision and the complicated riddles were often astonishingly eye-opening if you could interpret them the right way. Besides, what was the fun in understanding all the first time round? That woman had mystery wrapped around her like a thick coat.

Truthfully, it had been the most interesting last couple of days he had ever spent and everyday he was learning something new.

"But did you know who I was before you read my résumé?" he asked her.

"Not quite. But, the name Scamander preceded you."

"Shouldn't that be present tense?"

"You mean, 'precedes' you?"

"Quite."

"No, no. Your name came before you. I'm actually curious to know how it became separated from you. I've heard of the shadow being separated but never the name. You really must tell me how it felt to be separated from it."

"I wasn't even aware it had done that."

"A lot of things happen without us being aware of them happening."

She smiled at him. "Has the name reattached itself to you? You should be careful or it might attach itself to someone else."

"What do you mean? I would just be 'Rolf Blank' and someone else, like you for example, would be 'Luna Lovegood-Scamander'?"

A pause, a smile, then: "I'd be willing to share, if you wanted" The mischievous look in her eye told him that she was being serious.

The rain began to drizzle down on them. Bumps appeared further up in the lake and Luna squealed with delight (which, to the simple observer, might've been worrying, as grindylows were generally considered fierce and possibly dangerous creatures).

"Hey, Luna."

"Yes, Rolf?"

"I've just had a really curious idea. Do you want to… come with me on my trip around the world? I'm planning on studying different magical Beasts and Beings for research, and… you could probably still be able to work on 'Curious' from there?"

She grinned. "Well, as Alice once said, 'curiouser and curiouser'." And to the simple listener, that may have been unclear, but Rolf knew it was definitely a yes.

*Chenille c'est une fille. Papillon deux garçons translates into Caterpillar it's a girl. Butterfly, two boys.