Chapter 15: Water Trials
What if we were made for each other, born to become best friends and lovers, I want to stay right here in this moment with you -Colbie Callait "What If"
"Lily! Hang on!" James yelled at the top of his voice.
"Do you think I want to let go?!" I screamed back, trying to swing my body back to the left to grab the rung three handles back-but it was useless.
My fingers slipped down-now I was hanging merely by the uppermost parts of the fingers on my right hand.
"Lily, just wait, just wait-" James dug in his pocket, frantically pulling out his wand-"Wingardium Leviosa-Wingardium Leviosa- WINGARDUIM FRICKING LEVIOSA!" He screamed, now hanging by one hand as well, the other busy trying to magic both of us.
"James, I'm going to fall!" my pinky slipped off. I struggled to fling my other hand up to have them both on the same rung, but the momentum caused me to lose my grip-
"Jaaaaameessssss!" I shrieked, falling backwards. "Ahhhhh!" I flipped myself around, and suddenly I wasn't alone.
James and I linked arms, lacing our fingers-adrenaline coursed through my body as we fell, the ground speeding up at us-slowing down now-I was prolonging my death. But it looked like we were flying through syrup. It got slower and slower, and our screams died down-was this how it always was? It slowed down dramatically and I buried my face in between James's shoulder-suddenly, we were floating in midair. I opened one eye-we weren't falling. We were floating, an arm's length above-
"Ooof!" We dropped, surprised, the last foot onto a floating chunk of rock.
We both lay in shock for what could have been hours, unable to move. James finally sat up-"Check the locket-Lily, check it-I think that was supposed to happen! See, Lily, we aren't even burning to death-I-I think it was just a test to see if we were brave enough to try- we were going to land on this wrong all along-look, I bet this isn't even lava!" James scrambled to the edge of the rock excitedly, shaking the small rocky platform.
"James, stop! What are you-"
He stuck his hand in the lava. Instead of screaming in agony and pulling a blackened stump back up instead of an arm, the whole river of lava shuddered. Out from his hand it rippled, slowly becoming...water.
"Water!" James shouted with joy.
"It must have been an illusion!" I crawled over to the other edge to balance us out. We were now steadily floating downstream. Remembering James's words I checked my locket-sure enough, we were on the right track.
"We're headed in the right direction," I announced grimly.
James whooped. "That's good, isn't it?"
"Well, yes. For now. But..." I paused, looking intently at the locket. "It's also bad. It means the map is getting harder to follow," I explained.
"What do you mean?"
"Well-for a while, it didn't show us where to go. We assumed that, maybe, there was more than one way of crossing. But instead, I think we had to figure it out ourselves, even if it was by accident. D'you see? We're going to have to do more strategizing, and less following blindly."
"Are you sure that it just couldn't show the direction of "down?" James asked doubtfully, crawling back to the center of the rock platform as it trembled slightly.
"Maybe. I hope so."
"You still have the tent and things, don't you?" He asked suddenly, and a moment of panic engulfs me-I pat around my waist, and only feel my wand-"Oh, here it is," I sighed with relief, pulling at the bag.
"We may be on this rock for a while," James realizes. "Won't we?"
"Well, we walked for quite a ways-it's probably just as long in the other direction, isn't it?" I squint at the locket, which was showing...a turn up ahead. Not far enough to be an immediate danger, but-"James, we've got a turn coming that we've got to figure out how to get around," I alerted him.
"Okay-hey, what do you think is in this water?"
"Nothing worth being pulled under for," I firmly stopped him before he had the chance to hang over the edge.
"Turn's coming!" James announced after a few minutes, craning his neck to see ahead of us.
"Okay-the water's beginning to pick up, so I'm thinking we shouldn't stand, should we?" I said a bit nervously, looking at the grey, churning water around us. For some odd reason, it was light enough to see clearly...but there were no visible light sources, I realized with a start. I shrugged it off-it was far from the strangest thing we've encountered recently.
"Maybe let's kneel, and if we get too close to the wall on either sides we can just push off," James suggested.
"Good idea."
We both took opposite ends of the rocky platform, preparing to push off-I was on the side of the inside turn.
"We're getting close-James, hold on-I'm going to push in three-two-one!" I leaned forward, throwing my weight in a dangerously risky way against the rock side and push off with my palms, falling back onto the platform. Our "boat" of sorts pushed through the waves to the left, careening into James's wall. I threw a look behind me and James was leaning forward toward his wall, arms out.
"I'm going to push right now!" He returned and I gripped the edges of the platform with both of my hands, struggling to keep my balance as the rock dipped both ways-with James's final push, we'd made it to straight waters again. I looked at the locket-so far, no impending doom.
After a while we began to get drowsy, and James took over the job of watching the locket while I curled up, glad to rest my fatigued body and heavy eyelids.
"Promise to wake me up soon, and we'll switch," I made him swear after he forces the first nap for me.
"Marauder's honor," he held up his right hand, the other with the locket. I close my eyes and curled up in the middle with James sitting next to me, keeping watch. I let the gentle rocking lead me further into drowsiness.
"We're going faster, aren't we?" I opened an eye.
"Just a bit, maybe. Don't worry about it," James disregarded the obvious fact, but there was worry in his voice.
"Alright," I said skeptically, letting my head fall back onto my arms.
It seemed to be only a blink later that I woke up-"James, how long did you let me sleep?" I asked, startled.
"Not very long," he assured me.
"Liar," I rolled my eyes, sitting up. "Your turn-try to fall asleep and I'll make dinner."
"If you insist," he yawned, curling up where I had been moments ago.
"I do," I told him just before he closed his hazel eyes. I dug through my bag for a while, remembering that I couldn't just magically summon food. Daivat Frobisher sure had been thorough in his tests. I finally managed to find two sandwiches, compacted magically. Fortunately, I didn't need magic to make them normal-size. I shook James awake and we ate, speculating about what could possibly be in the water.
"Mermaids?" James took a huge bite.
"Maybe nothing," I hoped.
"That wouldn't sound like Frobisher so far. Likely there's something nasty and big that feeds on redheads," James smirked, pushing up his glasses.
"And men with glasses," I shoved his muscular chest, laughing a bit at the fact that I hadn't even managed to move him. Then I did a double take at what I had just said-James was a man. We weren't teenagers anymore-we were twenty. I looked him over, baffled-he was taller, his shoulders broader, and more muscular-he didn't look too terribly different from summer after sixth year when we were seventeen, but his face looked a bit older as well.
"What are you staring at, Flower?" He asked softly, and I blushed, realizing I had been staring.
But he had been doing the same.
"Nothing!" I protested, turning my attention back to my sandwich. James laughed, closing the locket back in my hand.
"What was that?" My head snapped down toward the water where I had heard some sort of odd noise.
"What was what?" I looked down in horror at the water-bubbles were issuing up, and ripples were spreading out-
"James-James, look at that-" I scooted as fast as I could back into the center of the rock, gripping James's arm tightly-
"We've stopped moving," James noticed. We had-we had been gradually slowing down over the past few minutes, though neither James or I had acknowledged it aloud-and now we were almost completely at a standstill-the water was still enough to see the ripples that were steadily increasing. With a sudden, jerking movement, the surface began to rock.
"What-James, what's going on?" I tightened my grip on his arm.
"I don't-" SPLASH!
With a final shove by unseen hands our rock completely flipped over, dumping us unceremoniously into the lake. My grip on James was wrenched away and I spluttered with the unexpectedness of being underwater.
I lifted my hands above my head automatically, feeling for the rock before I crashed my skull on it. I used the form to guide myself to the edge of it so I could re-surface before all of my air supply completely disappeared.
I took in a heaving half-gasp, half-cough as I broke the surface, looking around wildly as I began to tread water. James popped up next to me half a second later, water dripping down his face and glasses.
"Mortals," a clear tone of disgust sounded from behind us. I turned around to face a woman-female. She wasn't human, and could never pass for one...but she was close. I tried not to stare too blatantly at her blue hair, green skin, abnormally large (completely black, with no irises) eyes, and large, pointed ears. My eyes travelled down slowly, a hunch growing what I would find when I looked where her legs would be-
"Are you a mermaid?" James blurted before I had the chance to close my dropping jaw after I laid eyes upon the coppery, glittering scales of her tail.
"No, I most certainly am not!" She said indignantly, crossing her arms. She was wearing clothes that draped over her skin strategically, made from a seaweed-looking material. "I am half mermaid. Half mermaid, half naiad. Duh," she rolled her eyes, surprisingly reminiscent of a teenage girl. I wondered where she'd picked that up-maybe she was a teenager. If she was, I couldn't tell. Her face had a timeless quality-did half-mermaids age?
"Well...we would appreciate if you'd let us get back on our platform and be on our way," James flashed her an easy grin-even though I knew he was just trying to convince her, I rolled my eyes at the technique, a spark of annoyance flickering from within me. Shaking it off, I nodded furiously.
"Yes, we weren't causing anyone harm, see-actually, we're sort of-"
"Oh, I know what you're after," she smiled, strangely calm. "And these are the waters of the sea-women. Non discriminatory, of course, not just one species of water people are here, but many-"
"And will you let us by?" I blurted hopefully, continuing to tread water, looking to James who was pushing his streaming-wet hair out of his face. I ducked my head under for a moment, pushing my own red hair back and out of the way.
"Of course," she smiled toothily.
"Great, tha-"
"After you answer my riddles."
"Riddles?" James asked warily.
"Yes!" She beamed with delight. "Are you ready for the first? It's new!" She grinned proudly.
"Alright-I think I can get this, my dad used to ask my sister and I riddles all the time when we were younger...I think I can do it..."
"Oh, don't bother," her grin widened. "You'll both have to answer one. If you get them both wrong, we'll eat both of you. If you get one wrong, only one will be eaten."
Suddenly, her smile looked a lot less friendly.
"You're cannibals?" James and I asked incredulously at the same time, moving away slowly, glad the current had disappeared. It would be easier to see if any more of her kind surfaced, looking for a snack.
"Humans are not our species. The word "cannibal" refers to eating one of one's own species," she said knowingly.
"Great," James panted a bit. I looked at him, startled.
"James, how long can you tread?"
"Not-not an amazingly long time," he managed, tilting his head to keep it above the water.
"Let's speed this up," I suggested, looking quickly to the mermaid-naiad.
"My pleasure. Now...to the girl. And you, boy," she wagged her finger at James. "No helping, or-"
"You'll eat me, I know," he managed.
"Quick learner. Now...
"What does man love more than life?
Fear more than death or mortal strife?
What do the poor have, what the rich require,
And what contented men desire?
What does the miser spend, the spendthrift save,
And all men carry to their graves?"
I thought, furrowing my brow and biting my lip. The line that stood out to me the most...fear more than death or mortal strife. It reminded me of Voldemort. He feared nothing over that. A tiny spark flared up, my brain struggled to grasp something-but just as I looked at the wisp of the thought head on, it vanished. I closed my eyes, trying to think.
What does man love...more than life... love? I wondered. But would a man fear love more than death? Possibly...something wasn't right. What else would he fear-nothing! My brain screamed.
"Is this a trick question?" I asked.
"No trick question," she shook her head. I realized with a start she wasn't moving her arms to stay afloat, nor her tail-she was just-floating, almost.
Stay on task! I scolded my brain, bringing it back to the task. I couldn't have been on the right mind track. What was it my dad used to say?
Riddles are easier than you think...you only must get out of the normal way of thinking. A riddle is a complicated knot...the harder you pull, the tighter it becomes...but find one loop, if it's the right one-and one small yank will undo the whole thing.
That's what my father had said.
One loop...
Nothing.
"It's nothing!" I proclaimed loudly-James looked at me like I had suddenly sprouted wings and horns.
"Correct," the mermaid sighed, clearly disappointed. "And now you." I felt a stab of genuine fear that I hadn't felt when it had been me. Now it was James.
"I can be cracked, I can be made.
I can be told, I can be played.
What am I?"
James floundered a bit and I moved to his side, pulling him-
"He's got to hang onto a wall!" I called over my shoulder as both of us approached the rocky wall. I was started to feel tired myself, like my legs were slowly filling with cement instead of blood.
"Thanks," he began to breath more normally. The mermaid floated closer to us as we both took a grip on the jagged outcropping. I suddenly realized the water was slightly cold-I pulled my legs into each other, trying to hold in body heat.
"A joke!" James's face broke into a smile. "I'm in expert in that department."
"Goody for you," the mermaid said drily. "No flesh for me tonight." With a snap of her fingers the rocky platform righted itself, and the water began to churn again. James quickly lost his grip as the waves began to spray and crash against the rock. I quickly followed, painfully skinning my elbows as I sank back into the water.
"I'd get back on, if I were you," the mermaid smirked dangerously. "Or your ride may leave without you." James and I looked at each other in confusion, and then back to where the rocky platform had been moments before-the space was empty, now our rock had floated just far enough to be out of reach.
"Come on!" I yelled, pushing myself and trying to encourage James. We swam furiously down to our platform which was steadily moving out of view-and when we finally did make it, we had to get on-
"You get on first-go-"
"No, Lily! Get on!"
"James, I'm a better swimmer! Go!" I gave him such a shove up the platform that instead of protesting, he used the momentum to pull himself onto the platform, his upper body safe, his lower body still in the water.
With a grunt of effort he swung one leg up, and then the next, spinning himself so he was lying facedown on the rocky platform, towards me.
"Grab my hand-one-"
The waters were picking up. I had a grip on the platform and was kicking my legs frantically behind it in case I fell of, which was likely-each time the steadily increasing waves pounded against the platform, my grip weakened.
"Two, three!" In a quick maneuver I moved my right hand from the rock into James's hand, and the fingers of my left hand slipped off of their own accord. I dangled in the water, holding onto James with one slippery hand.
"Come on-grab on-" he grunted, beginning to pull me up. I kicked up at the waters, scrabbling at the rocky platform to try to be easier to pull up-I could see the muscles in both of our arms working to counteract the slipperiness of the grip-
With one final heave we managed to get my upper body on the rocks. For a moment I just lay there, panting and marvelling at the teamwork.
"I think getting on was harder than answering the riddle," he said after we caught our breaths, both of us laying on our backs, feet facing opposite directions but heads side by side.
"Thank you," I turned to look at him.
"No problem," he said softly. "For the record, I think we make a pretty good team."
"You know it," I was close enough to see the individual water droplets glistening in his hair, the way his glasses were slipping down his nose from the combination of sweat and water.
He looked away, breaking the spell. Something inside me began to hurt.
"Oh great and powerful locket, was does thee say now?" I heard James's voice speak from my right. I rolled my eyes, continuing to scrutinize the locket.
"It says we're not too far away-hopefully it's not another mermaid-look, the water's slowing down."
"Good. Can I see?" I handed over the locket-one more turn, and then it looked like there was some sort of tunnel we had to enter-that could be tough.
"Right up ahead?" James said after a while.
"We should be able to see it now."
"So-by tunnel-d'you mean that tiny thing up there, close to the ceiling?"
I looked up, mouth dropping open-there was no way we could stand up in that tiny hole-it looked like more of a crawl space. Upon closer inspection, there were crudely carved hand-and-footholds leading up to it, starting at the water level.
"I guess we crawl," I guessed, kneeling slowly and then standing.
"At least it's lit though, right?" James called from in front of me as we both crawled into the faintly lit tunnel. There were no room for torches-we would set ourselves on fire-but from the floor, a gently glowing trail of light showed the way. Just enough so we wouldn't run ourselves into the wall.
"I guess," I consented, looking up at the ceiling that was inches above my head. I wasn't claustrophobic, but this tunnel would make anyone antsy to get out.
After a while of crawling in silence and trying to avoid spiders and other beetles, James came to a stop.
"Why'd you stop?" I halted abruptly behind him, and he craned his neck back to look at me.
"There's a key right here."
"Take it!" I sat back excitedly, hunching over on my knees and looking at the locket. "Wait-it doesn't show a dead end on the map-maybe we're supposed to unlock something with the key?"
"Hopefully something above ground," James grumbled. "I'm going to take off the key now, it's on this raised thing..."
"Wait-" too late. James had already taken it off, and suddenly, for the second time in the last forty-eight hours, the floor dropped out from under us.
"Ahhh!" Our mingled scream was short-lived-I landed on my stomach on the ground, the breath knocked out of me. I sat there for a moment, heaving in gasps from my chest that seemed to have turned to stone. We had fallen through into a much wider and taller tunnel-and we had landed right at the foot of a huge flight of stairs-
"You alright?" James wheezed, sitting up and massaging his chest.
"Yeah-you? Can I see the key?" He handed it back, jumping to his feet. The key was small-it would fit in my palm. It was extremely old-fashioned, the same shade of bronze as my locket. I turned it over slowly in my hands, the rubies set into the metal glinting with the torchlight. Daivat seemed fond of torchlight.
"It's beautiful," I said, fingering the red ribbon tied around the part that didn't go into the lock.
"It is," James agreed softly, locking eyes with me. Something in his tone made me blush and lower my eyes. When I looked up, he was slowly reaching out a hand. I stood perfectly still. He gently moved a strand of my red hair from sticking, still wet, under my chin, to behind my ear.
"Thanks," I murmured as he stepped closer.
"Yeah," he murmured, tilting my chin up to look at him. My heart began to pound, and suddenly I was very aware of how I was standing-
Both of us jumped away, startled, as a rock hit the floor-it was just a tiny pebble, but James and I looked to each other in horror, both of us thinking the same thing-was the ceiling going to cave in?
Within three seconds after the first rock, another shower of rocks fell, hitting the floor until it was a pile of yellowish-brown rocks.
"Never makes it easy, does he?" James touched my arm and we began to run as the tunnel began to rumble. "Has to cave in, too!"
We raced up the stairs, fighting exhaustion.
"Watch out!" James yanked my arm out of the way of a head sized rock that had fallen just where I had been resting moments before.
"Thanks," I murmured, thinking about our almost-kiss earlier. Had he been about to kiss me? Or was I just being paranoid? Did I actually want him to kiss me?
"We'd better run," I surprised myself for blurting that thought aloud.
"Let's go." We began to run again, legs burning and shaking with exertion. I looked behind me once to see a pile of rocks taller than both of us filling the tunnel from one side to the other-the message was clear-no turning back now.
"How far-does the locket say-we-have-to-run?" James gasped haltingly. I tried to unclasp the bouncing locket from around my neck with shaking, clumsy fingers-I gripped it tightly in front of my face-
"Not-much further!" I wheezed. "Just-up ahead-" I took a diving leap to push James out of the way as I saw the ceiling tremble beneath his head, and both of us landed in a painful heap on the other side of the tunnel while a particularly large pile of rocks continued to fall down-and it didn't stop. For almost a minute, the ceiling trembled and rocks fell, dust coating us and the floor of the tunnel. When it was done, where we had run up was completely blocked-there was only one way, now-forward.
"Ouch," I moaned, rolling off of James's torso and massaging my back, where there were sure to be bruises later.
"Thanks," James groaned, sitting up and rubbing his elbow. "But I'm going to have bruises later."
"Me too," I stood up on shaky legs, almost falling over. The muscles in my legs were screaming, I had stitches in both of my sides, and I was beginning to feel light-headed.
"The ceilings stopped caving in-let's rest and-get some water," James said, scooting backwards and resting his back on the wall behind him. He wasn't as out of breath as me, but he still looked exhausted.
"I agree," I lowered myself down on the floor, stretching my legs out in front of me and taking out my bag. "Let's see if our wands work-Accio water!" Nothing happened.
"Accio water," James repeated to no avail. "Somehow, I'm not that fond of this Daivat guy so far."
"James, he might be listening to us right now!" I hissed while manually digging out the water.
"How the hell would he be able to do that?!" He cried.
"Let's see-he's transfigured a giant river of water to look like lava, made the timing just right so we would land on a rock that we could float on-all the while without killing ourselves, mind you-"
"Alright, alright," James grumbled. "I was joking. I actually love you, oh great Daivat Frobisher. Your dazzling powers that you so obviously use for good-"
"James!" I shoved him, laughing.
"Lily!" He mimicked back, taking his water and chugging half of it down with one gulp, it seemed. It felt so good to finally drink water-the cool liquid slid down my dry throat, cooling my stomach and my face, which was flaming red from the run.
"How long do you think we've been here?" James asked seriously, removing food.
"Over a day, maybe two," I tried to think. "We both need sleep. As soon as we reach somewhere safe-we'll sleep."
"Safe enough where we don't have to sleep in shifts," James nodded, taking a huge bite. "So Lily...you told me about living with...the Death Eaters," he said timidly, looking at me with innocent eyes. "But you didn't tell me how it made you feel. How did you cope with it?"
I closed my eyes briefly. "It was really bad," I admitted. "I-I had to do small tasks, like keeping track or organizing things-things I would have done as Lily-to keep myself sane. Like keeping track of the moon cycles, keeping my room impeccably neat, standing up to the Death Eaters in my head when I couldn't any other way." James shuddered.
"I wish I could have been there with you."
"No you don't. It was horrible. Later, when I was hiding things, like the spells I was practicing, things like that-every creak, every sound outside my door, scared me so bad. I got so paranoid I think my mind even began to make up noises. And the food was terrible, way worse than Hogwarts," I cracked a smile. Every time I talked or thought about the Death Eaters, a black hole opened up inside of me, sucking out my happy emotions like a Dementor. If I ever saw one of those, no doubt I would re-live my time with Voldemort.
"Well, it was to your advantage he tried to kill you slowly, and not just with the-the Avada Kedavra," James winced at the name.
"Yeah, it was. I'm glad I'm alive," I smiled at him.
"Me too, Lily." How glad are you? I thought about asking him. I shook the thought away-but another thought came back, in it's place. And more, and more, and more. They drove away the black hole, made me forget about Voldemort and think only of happiness, only of the black-haired man sitting in front of me, looking at me with only my best interest at heart-
I was falling for James. I could no longer deny myself that fact anymore. I had feelings for him.
But I was sure that he only saw me as a friend.
A\N Finally she admits it! Sorry for the errors in this guys, I'm on vacation and no time to proofread! Hope you all are having a great summer, Happy slightly belated Canada day to all you Canadians and Happy 4th to the Americans...leave a review and I'll send up a firework for you:)
-Cassia4u