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Chapter II

A very annoying Monday lunch.

Mark Goldstein had had to apologise to Hugo, in front of Professor McGonagall, and he would have to do that again to Lily as soon as she was able to understand English again. To Hugo, the boy's apologies hadn't felt sincere at all though. Proof of that was that he was laughing with his mates at the Ravenclaw table, right at this moment, surely talking about what had happened the day before to Lily.

Hugo was glaring at him over his glass of pumpkin juice. He felt an almost wild desire to haul Mark into Lily's tank, and let her drown him for what he did to her. Only, he didn't want him, or any other male of any species, anywhere near her.

He placed his glass back on the table and furrowed his brow. Any other male of any species? What was he even saying? What was wrong with him? Damn it! He hated that mating thing already! He had slept like crap; dreaming about Lily, water, mermaids, and dead bodies abandoned on beaches, waking up every few hours wanting more than anything to go back to the Prefects' Bathroom.

And he had been distracted for the whole morning, partly because he still couldn't focus on anything but his cousin, and partly because every second people were whispering to him to ask more information about what had happened to Lily. He had taken a very meagre amount of notes, and he knew that Lily would be extremely disappointed the moment she was able to reason again, and he presented her with three measly lines about the Second Wizarding War.

Luckily, she already knew everything about it, and about Harry Potter.

He sighed, and started when a colourful bracelet dangled in front of his eyes.

"I made this for Lily," said Alice seriously, "but Professor McGonagall wouldn't let me give it to her. She said that only the staff and the Head Boy are allowed to see her."

Hugo raised his eyes on the girl. "I… yeah, she's right."

"Well, can you give it to her?" she asked curtly. "It's a friendship bracelet, I want her to know that I think about her, and I miss her."

Hugo looked at the piece of jewellery. He doubted that a bracelet could convey all those feelings, and he seriously didn't think that Lily would understand what a bracelet was to begin with, let alone that it was from Alice and that it meant all those things.

"I… maybe in a week?" he asked diplomatically. "She doesn't understand much now."

Alice darkened. "No, give it to her now," she insisted. "She needs to know that her friends are thinking about her."

"She doesn't even know who you are," replied Hugo calmly. "In a week, Alice."

Alice's bottom lip started to tremble as her eyes filled with tears. "You're horrible!" she exclaimed unexpectedly, running away and leaving a flabbergasted Hugo behind.

A group of first years down the table looked at him as if he was a troll, at which point he glared at them until they flinched and turned away.

"Great, Weasley," sighed the Head Girl, as she walked towards his table, "you fight with a student, turn your beloved cousin into a mermaid, and now you make a girl cry while simultaneously scaring off the first years. What's next? Are you going to punch someone who wears glasses?"

Hugo glared at her too, but then he hid his head in his hands and sighed. "It's all Goldstein's fault," he lamented.

"I told you not to start fighting with him," she reminded him, "he's slimy. He should have ended up in Slytherin."

Hugo looked at her. "You're in Slytherin," he reminded her.

"Which means I know what I'm talking about," she grinned.

He chuckled softly, before glancing at his watch. "Listen, I have to go," he told her as he picked up his books and notes. "And I'm not sure I'll make it to the meeting tonight."

"I can imagine that," said Mary, "Professor McGonagall told me you might be otherwise engaged for a couple of weeks. I've asked Todd to act as a substitute Head Boy while you're busy with your cousin."

Hugo looked at her a bit taken aback. "Oh," he replied, "and he said yes." Of course he had said yes, he was her boyfriend after all, why wouldn't he say yes to that?

She nodded. "Do you mind?"

He did mind, she could have asked him first. "Not at all," he tried to sound calm, he didn't have time to start another quarrel now, "I'm sure he'll do a great job."

"Great," she replied with a smile. "Say hi to Lily from me, okay?" She stopped before adding, "Shouldn't you bring her something to eat?"

He shook his head, looking around himself not to let anybody hear him. "For a few days, Madam Pomfrey said that she's going to get all the food she needs from her tank… hem, I mean the tub…"

"Eww," said Mary, looking disgusted, "she eats where she swims?"

Hugo shrugged a shoulder. "That's what mermaids do," he told her matter-of-factly. "I'll see you later, Mary, okay?" He stood up, and made his way towards the big door that led out of the Great Hall.

Professor McGonagall smiled and nodded at him as he passed by the teachers' table.

oOoOo

A short visit on Monday afternoon.

When he pushed the door of the Prefects' Bathroom open, the first thing that Hugo noticed was that everything was quiet. There were no high-pitched noises, nor was there water sloshing around in the tub.

The bathroom was perfectly tidy, no shards of whatever had shattered the day before could be found on the floor. Similarly, the tiles all seemed dry; as if Lily hadn't splashed around in the tub at all that day, or as if someone had cleaned before he came in.

He imagined her curled on the bottom of the tub, maybe crying silently as she waited for him to come back. He sighed in delight at the thought of seeing her beautiful face brighten up as she saw him.

He left his bag near the door and made his way to the tub, his steps echoing in the room. He stopped a few inches from the tub and peered inside, with a smile upon his face.

He was startled when he was splashed from head to toe. He gasped and stepped back, spluttering salty water and rubbing his eyes vigorously.

When he could open them again, he found Lily's pretty face staring at him with shiny eyes and an amused smile over her lips. She had fastened a strand of seaweed in her hair, somehow managing to tie it up in a nice bow without breaking it, and she was making her dolphin-like noises at him. She clapped her hands as she emerged to her shoulders from the tub.

"Hey, that was not nice, Lily," he told her seriously. "I'm all wet now!"

She smiled at him and let out some of her cute mewls.

Hugo sighed and smiled back at her. Then he stared as she grabbed a scorpion shell, from a nearby rock, and started to use it to comb through her long locks, looking supremely cute even as she did that. Honestly, had she always been that cute? Or was her Mating Magic trying to confuse him? He didn't seem able to find an answer to that. He had always thought that she was pretty, but that was most guys anyway… she was really pretty.

She started to hum her melody and fluttered her eyelashes at him. Then, she emerged a little more from the water and stretched a hand towards Hugo, moving her fingers in a gesture to come closer.

He looked at her and shook his head, grinning. "I'd love that, Lily," he told her, "but I'd rather wait until you don't feel the urge to drown me, okay?"

She blinked at him, not understanding a word, probably. Then, she pushed herself a bit more over the edge, and Hugo's lips parted in surprise.

His Chudley Cannons tee-shirt was gone, and Lily was naked in front of him. He swallowed loudly. He knew that he should tear his eyes away from her pale chest, but he couldn't. He told himself that it was because he wanted to look closer at the pretty little scales near her collarbone and around her navel, but he wasn't really looking at her scales as much as he was staring at her breasts. They were little and perky and pale, and had dainty, beautiful nipples on top.

Hugo wasn't really an expert on breasts, but he had seen a couple in real life and many photographed ones from Teddy and James' secret-stash-of-erotic-magazines-which-were-not-that-secret-after-all. And Lily's breasts were really quite cute indeed. Small, yes, but they seemed flawless, and he was sure that they would fit her mate's hands perfectly well.

"Damn it," he muttered under his breath. He shook his head, and then looked at her face, seriously. "Lily, where's your tee-shirt?" he asked sternly.

She cocked her head, looking at him as if she was trying really hard to make out what he was saying.

"Your tee—well, my tee—where is it?"

She let out a noise and blinked at him.

Hugo swore under his breath. He brought his hands to his shoulders and ran them up and down his chest. "Your tee-shirt," he repeated more insistently.

Lily emerged a bit more and ran her hands on her chest too, copying him as she slowly caressed her breasts and smiled at him, probably thinking it was a weird mating ritual.

"No…" said Hugo feebly, as he stared, open-mouthed at the way her fingers ran over her nipples. "Tee… tee…" But he himself wasn't even sure of what he was saying anymore.

She mewled a bit and fluttered her eyelashes, her pink tongue darted out as she puckered her lips as if waiting for a kiss from him.

Hugo groaned. "No," he told her in a murmur, "tee…"

She smiled and closed her eyes, puckering her lips again. Maybe "tee" sounded like "kiss" in her mermish language. Perhaps that was why many sailors ended up in the water. They asked the mermaids if they wanted a tee, upon which time the Sirens kissed them and dragged them into the sea.

He blinked as he tried to understand where those idiotic thoughts even came from, and noticed that he was standing much closer to the tub than before; too close, if Lily's eyes had been open she might have probably already tried to grab his arm and pull him inside.

He stepped back, his head was suddenly very light. "No," he repeated, "no tee or kiss or whatever."

She opened her eyes again and looked at him with an abashed expression. Then she dove suddenly into the water, until only her eyes and the top of her head were above the surface.

He tentatively took a step towards the tub to look down at her. "I'm sorry," he told her with a sigh, "I really want to kiss you too, but I don't think…" His voice trailed away and he blushed. "I mean, it's not like I really, really want to kiss you… it's more like I wouldn't mind pressing my lips against yours. But it's all your fault, you know, it's the Mating Magic. So when you regain your human mind, you are not allowed to scream at me because I wanted to kiss you. Because I'd never feel like that, like… like I could die if I didn't kiss you… if it wasn't for you." He furrowed his brow and added in a whisper, "Alright, maybe I once thought about kissing you, but I was like fourteen and I thought about kissing all girls! I thought about kissing Dominique too once! Of course, I've never felt like I wanted to smash something when Dominique went to the Three Broomsticks with another guy… but she never went with an idiot like Mark Goldstein... and I probably never stared at her in class… but that's because she'd already left Hogwarts when we started! And I don't stare at you, I just glance at you every now and then… I like when you bite your bottom lip and look all focused on something… and when you tug your hair behind your ear and smile at me when I help you out with a potion…" He let out an awkward chuckle. "You're not going to remember any of this, right?" he asked hopefully. "Because that would be very embarrassing… Long story short, though, no kisses. Not now at least, okay?"

She stared at him without understanding, but then darkened and dove completely, giving a small splash with her tail as she disappeared into the depths of the tub. Hugo followed her with his eyes and saw that she curled at the bottom, squeezing his Chudley Cannons tee-shirt to her chest as she drew some circles in the sand. Then she pushed her face into the tee and seemed to start crying, even though he couldn't hear anything from the surface.

She didn't emerge for the rest of the afternoon, and when Hugo left the bathroom to go to dinner he felt an irrational sadness filling his heart.