AN: Ok, on request of MermaidWant2Be, I'm going to put a list of their powers that I've added to the girls. Don't bother with this if you already know. Usually I'd send it with a PM but she doesn't have an account so just bare with me.
Cleo:
The ability to turn parts of herself or all of herself into water. She can also turn other things into water, but only if it doesn't have a heart beat.
The ability to reduce water. (Before she was only able to make more water or control it)
Telekinesis. (The ability to move anything physical with your mind)
The ability to enchant someone, typically men, with a song. (I revealed in one of the recent chapters that she either starts acting drunk and high or becomes a blood lusting psycho mermaid that wants to eat human flesh-like a real siren when she uses this power.)
Rikki had gained the following:
The ability to turn parts of herself or all of her self into fire. She can also turn other things into fire, but only if it doesn't have a heart beat.
The ability to actually control fire. (formerly, she could only set fire to things, now she can make shapes in mid-air and things like that)
The ability to make something disappear and reappear somewhere else.
The ability to send out an invisible 'jab'. (like something that forces you back but you can't see it)
Emma had gained the following:
The ability to change parts of herself or all of herself into ice. She can also turn other things into ice, but only if it doesn't have a heart beat.
The ability to actually control ice and cool down water slowly. (formerly, she could only freeze things, now she can move the ice around mid-air, chip bits off the ice, things like that)
The ability to freeze something where it is but not move it.
The ability to send out an invisible force field.
Bella had gained the following:
Te ability to change parts of herself or all of herself into jelly (Both the hardened form and the jelly-jelly form). She can also turn other things into jelly, but only if it doesn't have a heart beat.
The ability to actually control jelly. (formerly, she could only turn things into jelly, now she can make shapes in mid-air and things like that)
The ability to phase things through things. (that means to go through things, like walls)
The ability to slow something down to half it's current moving speed.
Here are the powers I added in the last chapter as a result of being in the moon pool during two full moons so close together:
Cleo: The ability to turn (phase) into air as well as produce it, similar to her water power.
Rikki: The ability to turn (phase) into lightening as well as produce it, similar to her fire power.
Emma: When she breathes in water, gills open up on her neck automatically-conscious or unconscious.
Bella: The ability to control humidity in the air around her.
Harry POV
He woke up earlier than he would've liked, despite the face that he had slept so late. His mind was sluggish and he glanced at the watch, squinting through the blurry haze of his eyes. He could make out a six and two zeroes. He groaned and rolled over, intending to get more shut-eye, only to be jolted awake by the sensation of falling and landing on cold, hard floor.
"Ow!" He hissed, fully awake now. He heard Ron snort in his sleep and roll over, not even near the edge of his bed. He heard a snigger and noticed Malfoy holding a glass bottle of what looked like a branded mouth washing potion. He was thankful for the fact that the school provided a standard bottle and seemed to be replaced by the house elves once a student ran out.
Wizards didn't brush their teeth. Good thing too. The one thing that Harry had funnily enough forgotten, was his toothbrush. He didn't realize it in his first year until he had gone to brush his teeth on his first night at Hogwarts. There, in the bathroom on the counter top, had been four bottles of clear liquid. He had been quite confused until Ron walked in. He had gone on about how glad he was that Hogwarts provided mouth washing potion. ("It makes sense I s'pose. The muggle-borns wouldn't have any. Besides, I don't think mum could afford to buy all of us a year's worth of mouth washing potion.") He had watched as Ron chose the yellow bottle and tipped a mouthful into his mouth, rinsing it around before spitting it back out. Harry had selected the green bottle and found that it was the weirdest sensation he had ever felt. The taste was minty like tooth paste, but it was as though various people were brushing your teeth at the same time. Even though his mouth was closed, he could feel the invisible brushes scrubbing in between his teeth.
As soon as he spat it out, he had felt as though he hadn't brushed his teeth until then. He wondered how witches and wizards still got yellow teeth with a potion like this in their possession.
"I should've brought a camera with me." He snickered as he walked past his bed.
"Haha." He grumbled, still too sluggish to think of a come back. He noticed that Malfoy seemed to have lost that particularly malicious glint in his eye whenever he spoke with him. He felt sorry for Malfoy when he remembered that his father had been administered the Dementor's Kiss. While the purebloods had all lost their good standings within the wizarding society, they hadn't lost a knut of their wealth and Malfoy was currently living with his mother, Narcissa, in the Malfoy estate.
Deciding that he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep after that, he felt around for his glasses. He quickly dressed in a set of his school robes before walking slowly down to the common room, wondering if any one else was awake.
He wasn't sure whether or not to be surprised when he spotted Hermione reading in one of the white arm chairs in front of the fire.
"Morning." He sleepily called down to her.
"Harry." She greeted. He sat down in the arm chair opposite to her when he caught sight of the title of the book she was holding: The Elemental Beasts
"You already went to the library?" He asked incredulously.
"Hush Harry, listen to this." She cleared her throat. " The last sighting of an Elemental Beast since 1992, was in 1853. As far as history has recorded, there have only been seven sightings of these mysterious creatures. While they seem to take any form they please, there seem to only be one of each element. There have been two sightings of the fire beast, two of the water beast and one of the earth beast. They are gentle creatures, not taking pleasure in anything in particular. Wizards studying the elemental beasts theorize that each element has an elemental beast, even going far enough to include sub elements, such ice and wood."
"So what does this have to do with us?" Asked Harry.
"This means I was right! Elemental Beasts are gentle, they don't attack randomly, even fire, which was seen twice. I think, those beasts we encountered weren't elemental beasts. They might've been the result of an elemental sprite."
"A what?" He asked. All this elemental business was doing his head in.
"Here." She flipped over about a hundred pages. "Elemental sprites, such as dryads and water sprites are often confused with elemental beasts, since they too are an element. Dryads are wood sprites and are bonded to a tree, them being the soul of the tree, the only type of soul with a physical form. Dryads can take the form of a maiden when leaving their trees; however, since they are only the soul of the tree, if the tree dies, so does the dryad. Water sprites are sometimes referred to as Nyads or Water Nymphs in Greek mythology and often live in groups in rivers and are rarely seen in large masses of water like the ocean. Unlike dryads, however, water sprites cannot take the form of a maiden or any sort of human. They may control the water in their river just as the dryads and their trees, but do not take the appearance of a human. They are made purely of water and spirit, they are not to be confused with creatures such as mermaids."
"So, your saying that whatever they call a fire sprite, lightning sprite, air sprite, water sprite and ice sprite banded together and attacked Hogwarts last night?"
"Sort of, that's what's got me stumped; I was so sure that that ice sculpture was that ice girl's and that ice girl and all her friends were elemental sprites. Only problem is, it says here, that ice sprites don't exist since ice is a sub-element created by putting wind and water together. I figured as much but I had to check anyway." She looked completely hopeless. "Then I thought, maybe the brunette was a water sprite, but then I realised she had a human form. Then I thought that she might be half human but since water sprites have no real human form and are only ever females, they can't reproduce like dryads to form half human half sprites. Mind you, it's been over two centuries since that last happened. Heaps of the sprites died because they decided they didn't want to be around wizards and their wars, so they moved to the muggle world where at the time, people weren't cutting down trees every day. But when they did, there wasn't much they could do about it, it takes a lot of time for a dryad to move her tree."
Hermione was giving him a bit too much information and he tried to process her rapid talking while figuring out where she was going with this. "So basically, your saying that you have no idea what those girls are because there is no record whatsoever of anything remotely similar to them in the whole of Hogwarts library?"
"Hogwarts has the largest collection of wizarding books in the whole of the wizarding world." She cried out. "There was a whole shelf on elemental beasts!" She took out her book bag and spilled out a dozen books. "I've skimmed through all of them and nothing is even remotely similar to what they were."
"Were you up all night reading?" He spluttered.
"It doesn't matter, I used a potion I brewed over the summer. Five minutes sleep restores your body and mind functioning to as if you had three hours. I just drank it and set my wand to emit chirping sounds in twenty minutes."
"And you never thought to drink a potion like that all these years in Hogwarts when you were so busy studying you were barely awake for lessons?"
"I dealt with it fine, besides, I only recently discovered it and it's not good for long term use, becomes addicting and your body starts to build up an immune system to it. You didn't think such a potion wouldn't have a downfall did you?" At that moment, a circular section in the wall opened up and Professor McGonagall strode in. He vaguely remembered as the entrance to the common room.
She was carrying two scrolls and upon entering, pinned one up on the notice board. She nodded to them. "Mr Potter, Ms Granger."
"Good morning Professor." Despite her being Headmistress, he didn't think he could ever call her anything but professor. She didn't seem to mind though.
"All classes have been canceled for today. We need to have repairs to the school done and I suspect many students did not sleep well. Poppy insisted on keeping all the students who were injured over night and the hospital wing is over crowded."
Hermione groaned. "So much for first day back to school. Wait Professor, will you still be teaching transfiguration?" She asked.
A small smile curved at McGonagall's lips. "Indeed I will. Since the war is over, there is not much for me to do at the moment but repair and manage the school, unlike Albus, who had to constantly keep up with the politics going on around the ministry. I'm not sure I'm willing to part with my job yet, no I think not." Hermione immediately brightened at this.
"I'll see you in class tomorrow then." She chirped was about to leave when something suddenly struck Harry.
"Sorry to hold you back again, Professor, I'm sure you need to hang that other notice in Gryffindor tower, but what did the mermaid say happened to her?" Hermione listened eagerly, hoping for an answer. McGonagall, on the other hand frowned.
"It seems you were right when you told us the trio had escaped into the lake, only said that they invaded their territory-I'm sure it was an accident-so she attacked them. The only problem was, no human trespassed. What she attacked, were mermaids but she said they were not mers. They had gleaming tails of gold that changed colours and they were completely human from the waist up."
"It sounds like a mermaid from muggle stories." Hermione muttered. Harry couldn't help but agree.
"She also said they attacked with no weapons. But what confuses me, is the fact that she had never seen anything like it before. She asked if it was one of ours and of course I denied it, but she seemed suspicious after that and wouldn't say another word."
"So they're mermaids?" Asked Hermione. "That doesn't make sense. There has been no account for mermaids ever being anything but fierce and crude. They girls we saw were quite beautiful." She admitted. "Not to mention, no creature that is not an elemental creature can control an element. Mermaids are certainly not elemental creatures."
"I agree with you Miss Granger. I thought perhaps they had found a way to become only half animagus and because of this, their potion might've caused their tails to switch colours, but as I'm sure you know, there is a limit to what we wizards can do. We cannot turn into elements. Even our spells can only produce elements and some are even hard to control as I'm sure you remember with the fiendfyre."
Hermione nodded. "Thank you professor."
"Good day." She left and they sat in a comfortable silence.
"Hey, Hermione," He began.
"Hmm?" She hummed.
"The sixth floor. I don't really remember coming up here much but I swear there weren't crystals everywhere." She laughed.
"Ginny told me about that. Apparently she was up here when one of the death eaters came up here. He was either obsessed with the crystals or he spent so much time on that one spell he couldn't do any other. I have to say, it was quite an ingenious spell." Harry raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue. "It was a curse."
"A curse that curses things not humans?"
She huffed crossly. "A curse can curse anything. I can't believe you scored higher than me in defense against the dark arts." He rolled his eyes at this. The only reason he got an 'O' was because he could perform a patronus charm. "Anyway, this curse was a crystallizing curse. It literally crystallizes everything it touches. This death eater was crystallising people, that's why there were so many reports in the daily prophet on missing bodies and people. He had crystallised them then smashed through the poor things. You see, the curse was a curse for a reason. The curse was designed to keep it so you could keep moving, but imagine trying to run like that. So basically, he just blasted through the people he had crystallised."
"That is sick." Harry muttered. "I don't understand how people can get so sadistic."
Hermione nodded, "Ginny was the one that took him down. She got me a belated birthday present over the Summer-a pensieve and she put her memory of that scene in it. It was quite spectacular. She got into close quarters with the man and just as he shot the spell at her, she slipped to the side, grabbed his wrist and turned the spell on him, crystallising his wand as well. Then she smashed him into a million pieces."
"My sister did what?" Asked Ron at the top of the staircase. "I don't think I even need to warn Harry about not hurting her." He mumbled. His eyes went to the pile of scattered books dumped unceremoniously on the crystal table. "Seriously Hermione? You've already been to the library?"
"What about the mermaid? I don't think I've seen any sort of mermaid anywhere except the prefect's bathroom." Hermione frowned.
"The mermaid's always been there, though it seems that this common room was built during the repairing of Hogwarts. As for it moving, the crystallising curse brought it to life after prettying it up. Since the curse was designed solely to crystallise and keep the victim moving, it seems to have brought life to the statue."
"What are they going to do with this room after this year?" Ron asked. "It'll be like an empty classroom."
Hermione's eyes took on a mischievous glint. "Professor McGonagall hasn't said anything about it yet and she told me something, perhaps I shouldn't say..." She giggled as Ron leaned forward in anticipation. "All students from this year's second year to seventh years have to stay for an extra year at Hogwarts!" She let out excitedly. "This'll be the common room for the next seven years worth of eight years."
Ron's eyes widened. "You're kidding me! So, we're not the only ones!"
Hermione giggled. "McGonagall hasn't told anyone yet, she's going to make an announcement at the end of the year. See, since no one had a proper education last year because of Voldemort, " Ron didn't even flinch at the name, "The ministry of magic also decided that the people missed out a year, so they'll all be doing what they should've done last year."
Ron snickered. "I'm rubbing this in Ginny's face for the whole of Summer break."
"But wouldn't McGonagall and some of the staff have had taught them properly? What if some students, especially Ravenclaw, figure out that they're redoing a year?" He asked.
"No, since they Carrows were so sadistic, at least half the class every lesson was missing. Not to mention most of the students were hiding out in the room of requirement."
Ron suddenly jumped up. "Blimey! It's eight o'clock, breakfast has started. We need to eat before class starts."
"Class has been canceled for today." Hermione grumbled.
Ron whooped loudly and an expensive looking leather shoe promptly hit him in the back of the head, followed by a "Shut up Weasley!"
Three guesses who.
Cleo POV
We had strung the curtain of 'vines' to the sides of the cave like entrance. We held them in place with the help of Bella's crystallised jelly in the form of two brackets placed on the edge of the rock and wrapped around the ropes of leaves. She had then proceeded to turn her platform creation back into water and throw my precious garment onto the shoreline which was quickly followed by hers.
After I'd dried off and jammed the silky thing over my head, I was determined to never part with it again.
We were all standing on the shore line of the moon pool, wondering what to do with the food. "How are we going to cook the chicken?" I asked. "Boiled? Or should we try a 'Rikki special'?"
"I vote Rikki special." Smirked Rikki. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea.
"I have a better idea. I've always wanted to try it out but I never was a camping type girl." Said Emma.
"What about that time we went with my family?" I asked.
"I was a bit preoccupied at the time." She reminded me. Right. Charlotte and the full moon. "Anyway, we need wood and rocks. A lot of rocks." We stared at her. "What are you waiting for Cleo?"
"What?"
"We can't leave this border." She grumbled. Right. "By the way Bella, how heat proof is your hardened jelly?"
"Never actually tried it. Should be pretty heat resistant, why?" She asked.
"Later." Emma replied. I scanned the forest and decided to just bring down the branch I had flown into the trees for wood. It landed outside the border with the sound of a few branches snapping.
"How the hell am I supposed to find rocks?" I asked Emma exasperatedly.
"Just look for a really big one then smash it into smaller rocks and bring it over here." Helpful.
I peered around the edge of the cave mouth and spotted a large boulder just behind the tree line. I lifted my hand and levitated the large boulder, summoning it to me. It zoomed over to us and as it arrived I closed my fist and it exploded into jagged fist sized rocks. I summoned a bit of wind to blow away some of the dust and lay the pile of stone on the grass outside the border; I didn't want to take up any of the space we had.
Emma appeared satisfied and began ordering us like a chef would to his apprentices. "Bella, make a large pot and something to hold it over the fire with. Rikki, start the fire, make it big, about a meter wide and toss fifty or so of those rocks in there. Cleo, wash the chicken and fill the pot with water, not from the moon pool."
"Yes chef." Rikki jeered, saluting and scampering off to the large tree branch.
Emma rolled her eyes. "Wait Cleo, before you do that, could you suck all the water from that tree, otherwise it'll smoke too much when we're burning it, not to mention it won't light as easily as I would like."
"Sure." I answered. I felt around the tree for any water and pulled the liquid out. I turned away as Rikki shot me a look of thanks as she snapped off a thicker branch she had been struggling with previously. I surrounded one of the chickens with water and yanked at it, snapping the rope it was tied with. I turned the inside of the sphere of water into a whirlpool, making sure the chicken stayed still. I was pretty sure it was clean. Bella's pot was ready and I pushed out a floating river. I landed in her pot and she looked up. She held the pot up under the end of the river, amusement dancing in her eyes. The wonders of mermaid magic.
I looked over at Rikki just as she set fire to a large pile of branches. I decided to help out and I levitated a pile of stones into the fire. "You do know I could've just heated them by myself right?" She asked Emma.
"It's funner this way." Emma replied, staring into the fire. I followed her line of sight and watched as the rocks slowly turned from orange to a bright, cherry red.
"Shouldn't we take them out now?" I asked.
"No, they have to turn white, especially since we want it to cook fast." At this point I was slightly scared they would explode.
"Shouldn't we put vegetables with it, I mean plain chicken's pretty boring." Bella suggested.
"Oh! I forgot!" Emma explained, slapping a hand to her forehead. I smiled and wandering off to choose a selection of vegetables. I kneeled down near the wooden bowl and peered inside. There were an assortment of herbs and I could recognize rosemary, parsley, mint and thyme. There were a few unknown herbs but I figured I'd ask Emma later. I could see two limes and a lemon as well as a small pile of apples and two cloves of garlic. There were also half a dozen potatoes, brown onions and carrots, accompanied by a few tomatoes. At first I thought that apples were the only fruits they had given us, but under the unruly leaves of a hastily thrown in whole lettuce, I could see a dozen strawberries and a bunch of grapes. There was also a large pile of oranges and a bunch of bananas.
"Emma!" I yelled. We were going to need a fridge, maybe even a freezer. I never really realized how big the bowl was until I was close up. The whole thing looked to be about a meter across.
"What?" She asked, coming to a stop beside me.
"Think you can make a freezer?" I asked.
"Bella!" She yelled.
"What?" She yelled back.
"We need your help!"
I heard Rikki say something about feeling left out and snickered quietly. "Need my help with what?" She asked.
"Can you make the shape of a fridge. A big one. No fruit box just shelves."
She nodded in understanding. I lifted my hand and water flowed out of my palm. I shaped a large rectangle box a head taller than me with shelves in the interior. I added hinges with empty holes and purposely left out a door. Bella hardened it, palm out. I shaped a door with fitting the hinges and fitted it into the fridge. That was hardened too.
"Thanks." Emma told her. She nodded before heading back to the campfire. Emma and I sorted through the produce, placing fruits on one shelf, chicken on another. "I wonder how they grow all this, that forest looks pretty dark." She pondered aloud. I nodded my head and pointed to a few herbs, asking what they were. Emma was only able to identify three as lemon grass, sage and basil. There were bound to be some herbs we didn't know she had concluded.
After we had sorted the produce, we agreed that fruits were only to be eaten in the mornings for breakfast. If there was any left over chicken from the night before, that too. I was glad we had Emma with us, I honestly didn't think we would've survived as well as we did without her.
I selected a few sprigs of rosemary, thyme and a lime. held the lime out to Emma who promptly created a sharpened blade of ice, slicing the green fruit in half easily. I placed on half back to its place in the not-so-cold fridge besides the other lime and lemon. Next, I grabbed a dozen lettuce leaves followed by a potato and a carrot. Emma held her palm out and froze the rest of the produce, layering everything with a thin sheet of frosty ice. I closed the door to the fridge and Emma coated the whole thing in ice.
I raised an eyebrow at her questioningly. "We don't know what kind of animals are here. The scent of food will attract any animal, I''m going to ask Rikki to light the border of our 'territory' with fire for extra measure." Was her answer to my silent question as we walked back to the campfire, the fridge bobbing along behind Emma. "Bella, could make a mini platform under the moon pool roof, right at the very back? We need to put the fridge there." Emma gestured to the giant block of ice behind her.
"Why?"
"Animals might come. We also don't want certain people to be pigging out on necessities." She said pointedly. Rikki huffed.
Soon the fridge had landed somewhere on the water in the moon pool and I was washing the herbs and veggies in a sphere of floating water.
"I don't want vegetables." Rikki whined. Emma glared.
"I'm going to force feed you if you don't eat willingly. We're only cooking two chickens per day, baked vegetables are quite filling."
"What about breakfast!" Cried Rikki indignantly.
"Fruits and any leftovers from the night before."
Rikki grumbled but consented, seeming to understand the situation. "I don't think I've actually ever gone a day without a fruit juice since I got to the Gold Coast." She said.
"Yeah, me too." Bella said after a moment's thought. I suddenly felt homesick as I dissipated the water into nothing, leaving the vegetables floating in mid air.
I sat down and we sat in a comfortable silence. "The rocks are almost ready, look." Emma pointed to the fire and sure enough, a pile of white stones were shining brightly back at us. "Shape this, Bella." Ice appeared out of thin air and morphed into the shape of a large, half a hollow oval. Bella morphed the same shape with her unique substance. "Thicker, make it twice as thick." She obeyed as Emma's ice demonstration disappeared and she pointed at the rocks in the fire. "Place half the rocks in it." She told me. I lifted the white-hot stones carefully into large bowl like shape. "Place them around the edges, as bowl like as you can." Emma added anxiously.
"How're we going to put the food in? It'll burn straight away if we just dump it in." Bella said. Emma walked over to my front where the vegetables and chicken were hovering. She re-arranged them, squeezing lime inside the chicken before rubbing the rest over it. She quickly peeling the skin off the carrots and potatoes. She proceeded to cut the carrots into small circles, discarding the ends somewhere into the forest. She cut the potato in quarters and placed one at the each corner of the chicken. Carrots were then lain in between the potatoes and two sprigs of rosemary were soaked in some of the remaining lime, each being placed on each side of the chicken. The third was stuffed in the hole where the lime had been originally squeezed in. She repeated the process with the thyme before turning to Bella.
"Coat everything in one go. Make it as thin as a sheet of paper." Bella furrowed her eyebrows in concentration. Soon, the thinnest layer of hardened jelly I had ever seen was spreading over the recently prepared chicken. It was thinner than a piece of paper and if it wasn't for the shine, I wouldn't know it was there. It was so thin, I could see it bending slightly as Bella lifted it over the the white coloured rocks. She placed it inside and I could see as the film like substance bent and nestled itself onto the rocks.
Not needing to be told what to do next, I lifted the rest of the rocks from the fire and arranged them over and around the meat and veggies. I held them in place as Bella covered the rocks with another hollow ellipsoid and melded the two halves together. I lifted a large chunk out of the large pile of rocks I had smashed earlier on and Bella placed it in the hollow I had created.
"Rikki, just keep the rocks around that thing heated for the next twenty to thirty minutes while it cooks."
"I was starting to feel useless." Rikki mumbled, setting her watch.
We sat down on one of the logs that had been placed in a rough circle around the campfire that I hadn't noticed before. "Usually it would take forty minutes to an hour to cook, but we don't have to put it under ground, we can heat rocks so it's faster." Emma told us absentmindedly.
"Where are we going to sleep?' I asked. "I don't know about you guys, but my neck is still sore from those last two nights. Bella nodded in agreement.
"If you weren't such a prude, we'd have perfect pillows." Bella snickered playfully. I grumbled at her and hugged my precious nighty around myself.
"I'm never taking you off until I reach a proper shower again." I promised it. Emma and Rikki laughed.
"Oh crap!" Rikki jumped up suddenly.
"What?" Bella asked, startled.
"My jacket. It's got my phone in it. Where is it?" She turned around in circles. Despite the campfire giving off quite a bit of light, the garment was no where in sight, not to mention it was practically nightfall, I'd say about six o'clock.
"You must've dropped when we were in that castle." Emma sighed.
I nodded in agreement. "Probably when we were with that annoying not-ghost guy or when we were running."
"You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that thing we met was a poltergeist." Emma pondered, tapping her chin thoughtfully.
"A what?" Asked Rikki, checking her watch.
"Poltergeist. It's basically a spirit that can become a physical or non-physical entity at will. They usually 'haunt' a certain location and aren't really any harm, just annoying."
"Sounds like a myth." Rikki snorted.
"It is, but hey, we just met centa-don't heat the rocks up so high!" She cut herself off.
The rocks were cherry red. Rikki glanced back and snapped her hand back to her side. "Sorry." She apologized. "Only ten minutes left, I think we can leave it like this and it'll cook by itself fine now."
We lapsed back into silence. "I really wish we had marshmallows right about now." I voiced my opinion out loud.
"That reminds me of pillows." Bella murmured. She jumped up excitedly. "I found something in the forest before when we were cutting up grass for Rikki." She closed her eyes, her arms out. Out of the trees, a large almost transparent bowl came whizzing towards them, a few birds flying out of it, squawking in protest. It landed in front of us and I peered inside to see what looked like furry grass on steroids.
Each blade of grass was about a meter long, as thick as my thumb and the width of three of my fingers side my side. But that wasn't the weirdest bit. No, what was the weirdest, was the fact that each blade of grass was white. And I'm not talking creamy white, I mean pure, bright, printing paper coloured white. I reached down into the bowl and picked up a piece. I was right when I thought it looked furry. There were the smallest of hairs on them, just enough to give you sensation of touching a thin layer of velvet, though not quite as rich. It was also squishy. Not floppy, squishy. Yes, it was obviously pliable, but it felt like you could lay your head in it and it would sink down like a sponge and come back up when you got back up.
"What type of grass is this? It's not some form of poison ivy is it?" Emma asked. I quickly snatched my hand back, waiting for a rash or boils to appear on my skin. Nothing.
"I have no idea. I saw it growing on a tree. It was all over the trunk and branches. Some of it had even dropped off, all over the ground around it. I thought it was going to attack me or something, but when I pulled it off, it was just like pulling off a leaf from an ordinary tree. I'm not even sure if it is grass."
"This place is getting weirder and weirder." Rikki shook her head.
"Doesn't matter," Bella shook her head. "Don't you get it? We can weave pillow cases and blankets with this stuff, even if it's just for something to do."
Emma inspected the strange plants and nodded. "Bella, your amazing. We definitely have enough of it." So we got to work.
I had just finished weaving the top of my pillowcase when Rikki's watch beeped. "Food!" She crowed, jumping up. I put my white rectangle down and followed her, Bella on my heals. I lifted a few of the now dull-red rocks off the top, looking for the package of food. It didn't take long and soon Bella had made large bowls and plates, accompanied by a table. We sat beside the fire, sitting on a few moved logs, our sides facing the roaring heat. Her utensils had been surprisingly delicate though she didn't seem to be able to sharpen anything so we ended up with only forks and spoons. It didn't matter much though, we were starving and didn't bother much with them. I had placed a number of lettuce leaves in a bowl and even Rikki had reached for them, wrapping on around a large chunk of chicken.
Rikki had called dibs on the drumstick and I quickly followed. Emma wasn't too fussy and served Bella as well as herself a chicken breast each. I was halfway through tearing my chicken apart when Rikki finished, left with only her veggies. She was already reaching for a chicken wing when Emma stopped her.
"Eat your veggies."
"I already ate half the lettuce you guys bought. I want more chicken." She whined.
"I'll freeze the next bit of chicken you touch unless you eat them." She threatened. Rikki grumbled and wolfed down her few pieces of carrot and potato.
"Gabby?" She asked with her mouth stuffed. Emma rolled her eyes but went back to eating. Rikki eagerly reached for the chicken wing, this time succeeding in landing it on her plate. I laughed along with Bella as she struggled to swallow her current mouth, too impatient to think to chew first.
"This is really good, considering it's not properly marinated or anything." Bella commented. I agreed. The lime had soaked into the chicken, inside and out. The faint taste of rosemary and thyme lingered in my mouth. The lettuce I wrapped around made it more refreshing without taking away the warming flavor of the chicken. The potato and carrots really weren't anything to complain about and I felt my tortured stomach slowly filling up as I began on a chicken wing.
What would have normally fed eight people was finished by us. Rikki ate the most and was still eating after we had all had our fill. I supplied water into a jug Bella made and we washed the meal down. It was no fruit juice but hey, maybe in a weeks time, if we had any left over, we could make ourselves some.
We talked and laughed for sometime, forgetting about our worries of being stuck while we weaving our pillows and Rikki finished off the chicken. She didn't even ask for dessert. Emma was the fastest weaver by far and she moved onto Rikki's who had slipped to the floor, slumping against the log in contentment.
It didn't take too long to finish weaving our pillow cases. When we were left with only the side opening, Bella made exact replicas of her earlier pillows and slipped them inside. I finished mine happily and placed it on the table where my plate had been previously. Everything had been cleared off said table by by Bella and Rikki was as hyper as ever, despite having eaten so much.
Bella had suggested we make full sets of bed sheets to place over soft jelly so we could sleep comfortably. It probably would've been faster to use our abilities but it was much funner this way. Emma had started it off and she had reached a small square when we joined her, each taking a side and working our way out. Emma told us that it would be easier to make just one big cover the size of two king size beds side by side.
Emma and I were working on the longer sides, so Rikki and Bella finished first and began working on a large blanket. We joined them soon after, this one taking longer. We made the blanket three layers thick, I could already feel how cold this place would be at night.
Once we were done, we tucked the first sheet onto a mattress the size of two king size beds side by side. This mattress was on top of an equally large bed frame. All four of us through our pillows down and threw the make-shift duvet over the top. We threw ourselves onto the bed and starred up at the starry sky.
Emma had set Rikki's watch to London's time when she decided we were somewhere in Britain and it seemed fairly accurate according to the sky, now showing eight o'clock. "I never thought we'd be using our mermaid powers to make ourselves a bed." Rikki mused. I laughed in agreement.
We were going to sleep when Bella spoke up. "What if there really are dangerous animals out there?"
"What if they're not scared of fire?" I asked as well.
"What if the centaurs don't keep their deal?" Rikki asked. This lead to a series of events that ended up with us lying on the bed with a fire and a house under the ten meter deep moon pool. Literally.
It started off with Bella and I deciding to create a small cottage like house around the camp fire. It was just a simple room with a large interior. The bed was placed at the back wall, taking up nearly the whole thing and the fire was in the center. The fridge had been fortified with Bella's hardened jelly and was placed in the coolest place possible. It basically looked like a demented not-so-transparent block of glass sitting in the corner like a failed piece of abstract art.
This had lead to letting air in and carbon dioxide from the fire out. Bella and I formed a dome with a large tube leading out of the ceiling and a chimney was added to the house, ironically not needing a fire to serve it's purpose. The fire still emanated warmth from behind it's new barrier but it wasn't warm enough for our liking, so we placed a layer of rocks under the bed and decided that Rikki would heat them up before we went to bed. Then we had realized that the door hinges were so flimsy that some one could break it down with a single blow, so Bella sealed off the door.
That lead to the conclusion that they could lift the house up and make like they would to a tent without a flooring, so I lifted up everything that wasn't made of Bella's jelly while she made a floor and secured everything made of jelly to the floor, including the fridge.
Then Emma had pointed out, that if someone were to find our clearing, they would think it odd that a house was sitting in the middle of a forest, not to mention it had no door and was made out of a substance not known to man. So Bella had made a window above the bed and yelled at me to keep the water away from her. I had realised why later on when the house lifted itself up and began to sink slowly in the moon pool.
I succeeded in keeping water out of the house through chimneys as well as Bella's face, which she had stuck out of her window. The moon pool's magic never ceased to amaze me. As the house sank lower and lower, I could see that the water wasn't over flowing, it constantly kept the same level as we sank.
When we landed on the sandy bottom, Bella had lengthened the two chimneys until the reached the surface. She assured Emma that the cave mouth wouldn't be filled with fumes when we surfaced later on-the fire place chimney was sitting just above the water outside the curtain of vines. I had seen her let the vines cover the cave mouth as we sunk lower and lower. The chimney letting air in was behind the vines, hiding us more effectively.
Bella had sealed the windows shut and we had just been about read to sleep when Rikki realized that we wouldn't be able to get out without Bella and I awake.
A new door was made, this time on the wall to the right of the bed. There was a tube leading up towards the surface about 2 meters wide. It had rungs like a ladder and it went up halfway to the surface where it had a small platform. After that platform was the same tunnel, only it was filled with water and had only three rungs, two of which were underwater. It was on a steep angle going down, allowing us to swim out, reaching the end of the tunnel near the bottom of the moon pool. It was quite ingenious if I do say so myself.
That was how we got a house under water at nine o'clock, ready to sleep. I snuggled myself under the surprisingly warm blanket. Rikki had heated the rocks under the bed. Emma had admitted she had taken the idea from warming pans that were used in the 18th century she had read about.
Rikki slept on the left and Bella on the right, Emma and I snuggled under the covers between them. Emma was beside Bella, leaving me with Rikki.
As I drifted off to sleep, I thought, 'maybe now we can take our time finding a way out of here.'
AN: Ok, I know that last line sucks, but I really didn't know how to end it. If you guys are satisfied with it, I'll leave it, but any suggestions would be great. I hope that house thing wasn't too far off.
Next chappie involves the girls and Hagrid meeting c:
By the way, if there's no line break between he ending of Harry's POV and the start of Cleo, I have no idea why, but it's not letting me keep it there. It just disappears all of a sudden so please don't be mad.