A/N: This was another insanely fun chapter to write with my lovely beta, E. Chapter Warning: Blood and gore. If that didn't get you excited I don't know what will. Reminder: My plot has deviated from Rowling's. Your toes, I want to keep you on them. Happy Reading.

North Sea, South

The icy waves rose to meet us like an old friend scorned but we returned its wet embrace with teeth clenched in spite.

I couldn't speak much for Hermione but I felt like I was choking and drowning, a combination that caught me off guard even though it wasn't my first romp with gillyweed. Salt water danced on my taste buds and burned the lining of my nose whilst I worked my quickly webbing hands and feet through the currents, trying to get my bearings. I drifted blindly at first, feeling the water prickle against my quickly warming skin, until my eyesight sharpened enough for me to see the light of the dying winter sun glimmer sunshine seemingly just an arm's reach away. It wasn't long before my lungs stopped aching and I took the first inhale of sea through my gills.

Hermione was farther behind me and even through the polyjuice I could see her determination bubbling just beneath her skin. Her shimmering hair furled and unfurled with her movements. Each stroke of her arms became surer and surer and each push of her legs became firmer and firmer until soon enough she was swimming with the gillyweed as if she had been doing it her entire life.

All at once she darted ahead, making a show of bumping into my shoulder on her way. Muscle memory I didn't know I had rose from the depths of me with a rush of something electrifying that made the oncoming adventure all the more exciting. I raced after her with adrenaline blooming in my chest. We whirled through a school of zooplankton, grabbing each other's slippery limbs in playful attempts to get the upper hand. We dipped and dived, shifting and whirling, laughing and if only you could hear us you would hear the jingling mirth in our reveling as we kicked and shoved, pulled and touched and kissing, we were kissing and it was glorious and we didn't need to come up for air.

I could feel Hermione grinning just before she nudged my face away. Water quickly filled the space between our lips and she swam ahead, leaving me in her after waves. Polyjuice be damned. I could see her, all of her, and she was beautiful.

She dove closer to the seafloor and I caught up to her easily. This far down, we were shielded from any prying eyes in the sky and with immeasurable tons of water above us it was easy to let go of any lingering feeling of being followed. We fell into a rhythm of our own. It was a steady tempo, determined. I felt it in my lightened bones and let it guide me forward.

There was something about being in a body of water that made you feel smaller than small. Even smaller than a wizard sitting in a bottomless beaded bag. At that thought, a smile crept to my face despite myself. For months I'd been watching her shove everything but the kitchen sink in there and then it was finally my turn. Finally, like I had seen it coming and it was just a matter of time. Once I got over the insane sensation of being surrounded by a bunch of screaming giants that could so easily squish me with their tasseled shoes, I became honoured to join the likes of our clothes and books and potions and plants.

Bloody hell, Hermione. Just, bloody hell.

The day was turning out much more wild than we ever expected. I honestly should've seen it coming, since no matter how much we (Hermione, mostly) thought about something, somehow, anyhow, the plans always turn out more like sketch drawings done with Vanishing Ink. When it came down to it, there were really only two objectives: 1. Get to the coast; 2. Get to the horcrux. Simple enough, you'd say. You'd figure it was too easy to mess up but lo and behold, we even managed to get involved in someone else's plan and royally muck that up too. It had to be a new record. Though, in our defense, that circus was mucked up before we even got there.

My anger boiled and I fought to keep my hands from curling into fists. What sort of sick bastards steal and imprison so many creatures for their own twisted pleasure? I'd been to a zoo once, on Dudley's birthday, but what I saw in that place with Hermione was less like a zoo and more like a prison camp. It wasn't like throwing peanuts at elephants since you could at least confirm that the elephants were being fed. And I'd be stoned if I grouped centaurs with muggle animals like elephants since they're practically human!

I couldn't fathom how such a thing came about without people, good people, noticing and doing something. Well… I suppose I could imagine, it if I tried. And maybe that's that sick part about it. Old Daily Prophets were hardly enough to get a solid grasp at what was going on in the war but they were enough for someone to see that the good people had too much on their hands to uncover an out-of-hand exhibition into the sordid world of black market creature hunting.

I was at a lost at what to do but when Hermione lost it, or gained it, whatever it was, and freed that fairy girl, I was both elated and terribly, terribly alarmed. We were outnumbered by a factor of a million and we needed to get out in one piece. Two, if you counted us separately though by that point we'd been together so long we ought to be considered one decently-oiled machine. But blimey, we messed up. I think we really did. How many people got hurt? How many creatures? They won't even get out of that space if those runes were worth their weight in salt. Just like before, I didn't know how screwed we were. Maybe a lot screwed, maybe a little, or maybe not at all.

Nothing made sense. Nothing.

Logan and Olivia especially, and even Murray in his own odd way. They were there investigating, but how? Or why? I'm not sure whether "how" or "why" should take precedent over the other but I wanted both answers as soon as possible. The Ministry, it had fallen. The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures had fallen with it, I'd think. How and why would they risk their lives like that? And, er, was anyone ever going to get those two out of the alley we left them in? I mean the real Logan and Olivia, or whoever they were. I reckoned it was too dangerous for us to go back and do it ourselves.

So much guilt washed over me but I tried to shake it off for the time being, just like I shook it off when we snatched their bodies and clothes and even one of their wands. Some things you just couldn't avoid though. Fault was one of them.

I saw movement to my right and followed it quickly but my tension lessened a little when I saw that it was only Hermione, dragging her hand through the sand, uncovering prawns and lobsters hiding under the grains. I didn't look back to see what became of them but I could imagine their little legs scuttling away and shifting back under their safety blanket.

If only life was that easy for the rest of us.

We went on like that for a while, quiet, just swimming and swimming and swimming. It sounds like dull work when I put it like that but there was quite a bit to see. We found squirming schools of cod fish, and shivering fields of herring. We ran into chirping seals that approach us curiously, and playful dolphins that prodded us as we swam pass. For what felt like hours we went on, seeing the wonders hidden within the North Sea but curiously enough, we soon saw nothing at all but wide, empty blue.

I noticed it, the way no other animals came out that far. Up to that point it was almost as if we had friends to see us on the road ahead. Fair-weather friends, the lot of them.

Hermione and I, we were together, but our suddenly barren sea made us utterly, and undoubtedly alone. We kept swimming though, and I kept watching the oceanscape of trenches and ridges dip and rise, dip and rise. Soon the seabed seemed to drift away from us altogether like it wanted to leave as well. Good riddance. We didn't chase it, figuring we were deep enough already.

Some time later long after the polyjuice wore out, we ate our last palmful of gillyweed. Despite our sharpened eyesight, it got harder to see anything more than blue-green silhouettes. So, we got our wands out and casted a Lumos to light the way. The monotony of it nearly possessed me but a tickle along my spine and Hermione's slimy grip on my wrist both brought me to a jarring halt.

The pair of us shared a look, but nothing more, seeing as we couldn't use our vocal cords. The water felt different from before, fundamentally different, magically different, and I knew that she felt it as well.

Here we go, I thought. Unless fish suddenly learned to cast charms, we were in enemy territory.

Hermione pointed ahead almost on cue. I squinted and could make out a roughly circular shape covered with thorns that looked sharp enough to convince me to never try them out for myself. If I had to compare it to anything I'd say it looked sort of like a water mine. Once I noticed one of them, I noticed all of them. They were everywhere, dotting the water evenly and deliberately. Large, menacing. And there were floating, I realized. There were no links, no chains. They were sitting in place and doing it all on their own, not moving in response to even the most substantial changes in current. Some stretched up until they were right beneath the surface whilst others…

Something cold settled in the pit of stomach as I looked downwards. The mines, they trickled down farther than my eyes could see. I wanted a better look, but I also didn't want a better look in the spirit of "if I can't see it then it's not there." Fortunately for everyone I wasn't a child and I knew that a Lumos Maxima was compulsory if we valued our lives any. Still, I wasn't particularly jumping at the chance.

It was almost not even a surprise to find ourselves at the jagged edges of an abyss, with relatively pleasant safety behind us and oppressive darkness gaping at the front. My heart raced all the same. I looked left, then right, then left again, but the chasm was all-consuming and absolute. It looked septic and dirty without meaning to. The inherent fear of looking at a thing like that was only heightened by the deadly mines nestled in its throat.

I couldn't see the bottom of the gorge or the end of the minefield so maybe, just maybe, it ended at some point one way or the other but I didn't need Hermione to tell me what a waste of precious time it would be to go looking.

Without much of a choice otherwise, we pressed on, slowly manoeuvering our way around each mine, being careful to not disturb the water more than necessary. The only silver lining to any of it was that we must have been close to the horcrux if crap like that started appearing.

Minutes upon minutes ticked on and we still had ten fingers and ten toes, all webbed together and intact. We were making a respectable amount of progress, abet slow progress, when I felt Hermione grip my wrist again. The shock of it nearly sent my foot careening into certain destruction. When the rest of me twisted in the water to face her, it wasn't Hermione's face at all.

I pulled my hand away in terror but my fingers were nearly crushed for my trouble. My mind was racing but the fear of blowing myself to bits kept me from moving much else and I…I…what was I saying again? Uh, I think… I think?

That unfamiliar face, it was inches from my nose, entirely too close for comfort, but it was starting to seem rather soft and nice and I could look at it for days without getting bored. The way she stared without blinking, the way I stared back without blinking either. I… eye. Eyes. Her eyes. Something was…

She smiled a warm smile, and her halo of greenish hair framed it all like a portrait of a place I've never been but never left. Those eyes flickered downwards and I absently followed her gaze like it was a suggestion, a gentle nudge. By the time I saw that her lower half was a serpentine fish tail she already had all four arms locked around me.

Shit! No! Panicked, I thought of Hermione, but I was sinking like a stone. Everything was happening way too fast and it was clear that if the creature was going down, I was going with her. The tail folded around my kicking legs with a speed unknown to man and her scales gouged into my flesh as I struggled and call me a liar if I said it didn't remind me of Nagini at Bagshot's and I was anything besides terrified. If I could've screamed I would've, I swear.

Then, the darkness flared with bright light and for a moment I thought a spell was carving out a new hole in my chest, because that was exactly what I needed right then, but instead it was cutting right through the creature's elbows. The she-beast let me go almost immediately with a hiss and a waggle of her forked tongue. She dashed back into the deep but the two left arms she lost still floated in front of me in a mess of blood. The severed limbs were the stars of the show for all but two seconds before I saw a horde of merserpents wriggling up from the abyss beneath us like worms, arms outstretched in hunger.

Hermione and I spun around like someone lit a fire under our skins and we made a mad dash, moving as fast as our fins could carry us. The fire was hotter than sin. Fuck being careful around the bloody mines. I'd rather take my chances with them than with the sea devils snapping at my feet. We flailed our webbed appendages as hard as we dared but whilst we weren't made for the water, our pursuers were born and raised in it, and it showed. Hermione and I were only ever a few strokes ahead of them and damn it my muscles hurt like hell but the not-so-distant memory of being captured pushed me beyond the brink.

Hermione was right to my left, and right to her left I could see one of those things moving through the obstacles with ease. Their tails were startlingly long but instead of being a hazard to them as I so sincerely hoped, I looked back with eyes widened in horror witnessing their tails arcing and curving around the explosives, maintaining their shape until they ran out of fins as the creature glided onward.

Have I mentioned that I hated being chased by things that wanted to kill me? I feel like it's something I would've mentioned.

Hermione started zipping in what looked like a haphazard and random manner around the mines, engaging the merserpent closest to her. It was hot on her trail and so consumed in the pursuit that it didn't notice the way its tail was looping and folding in and around itself. It was hard not to appreciate Hermione's handiwork when the creature's face contorted in pain with slitted eyes bulging from their sockets. It tied itself in a knot. Brilliant.

I faced forward and was just gaining momentum when a massive shockwave of energy nearly blasted me head-on into a mine. Automatically I looked back, and gagged. The knotted merserpent was completely shredded, and pieces of her were setting off a domino effect of explosions. Nausea quickly turned into holy fuck you have got to be kidding me when I saw the rest of them squirming out from the blood clouds.

Just as we crossed over the chasm I felt a familiar slippery hold around one of my ankles and my mouth opened in silent terror. I clawed frantically for my stolen wand and pointed it at what looked like the same bitch that got me the last time. The sight of her mangled torso lurching towards me was the stuff of nightmares and I was ready to blast her back to Hades but something beat me to the punch. It knocked solidly into her front and latched on, sending her twisting away in a roll. She stopped swirling when she hit the seabed but remained contorted in that strange position, fingers crooked as if she still held on to me.

The rest of her species were suspended like a wall of malice, glowering at us right at the edge of their abyss. The one who made the mistake of swimming out too far was motionless but for the throbbing mass on her belly. Her friends didn't seem too sad to leave her when they slithered back to their cursed depths.

I had seconds to recover from the previous ordeal before more of the very things that saved me decided that my death would be more satisfying. I didn't know where they were coming from or what they were but they were coming towards us and they didn't look like they would stop.

Almost without thinking I pulled Hermione close and threw the strongest shield charm I could muster. It wasn't until I opened my eyes that I realized that I was muttering prayers to all the gods I could think of. At some point I understood that we weren't dying and I looked out in astonishment. They were pink, translucent orbs that undulated like jellyfish. The barrage of them coming at us right beyond the envelope of the shield disintegrated on contact.

We floated there for Merlin only knew how long in our cocoon of pink, feeling the water move into the slits in our necks, feeling the oxygen fill us, feeling the water leave us and return to the expanse. When the curses or objects or whatever they were splattered like scattered raindrops and then stopped all together, I cautiously lowered the shield and casted another Lumos Maxima instead.

Looking behind me through the bubbles and sand and blood I could just make out one of those wretched merserpents peeking up from their lair, smirking. The mischief in her eyes let me know that we ought not to cross paths again.

When the water settled enough to see ahead, I made out what seemed to be an old shipwreck nuzzled in a deep trench. I felt drawn to it even before snippets of my dream, or should I say Voldemort's dream, came back to me. That was where we needed to go.

The nearer we got, the easier I could make out the algae that hung off the broken posts and the moss clinging to its sides. It must have been there for ages, if the rotting wood was anything to go by. The lost vessel was pointing upwards, facing the surface. Hermione and I slipped inside through a hole in the hull.

If it was a trap, then the ambush should be happening pretty soon. I was waiting for it, I realized. My body was anxious, wand hand at the ready. I couldn't tell if my heartbeat was being louder than the sound of rushing water in my ears but I could tell that every fibre of my being was daring anything else to happen to us before we got to the goddamn horcrux. A death wish, perhaps. But it was one of the few wishes I had absolute faith in coming true.

I advanced with a sort of reckless abandon that masqueraded as bravery. My eyes adjusted to the new darkness without much fanfare to reveal the ship's corroded insides. When seconds passed without anything jumping at us and biting our heads off, I gathered my composure and made quick work of scoping the mouldering room. Besides a shit ton of crumbling cargo crates, it was empty.

Hermione drifted nearby, making her own assumptions about our destination. One look at each other and I could see that she was thinking what I was thinking, that spitting up to cover double the area wasn't worth the risk.

Or maybe she was scared too. Too much had happened. Much too much. It would take several miracles to get me to leave her side for the sake of the mission then. Every second together was another reminder that we were still alive and that she was safe, and that maybe we'd both be okay after all.

Going deeper into the ship felt like being swallowed by a whale, a large wooden one with innards so tender they fell apart at the suggestion of a touch. The water tasted staler in the belly of the beast. Everything was staler. Of course I couldn't say how long the wreck had been laying around but everything in it was practically falling apart.

We checked in the nooks and corners. We kicked away enough rubble and junk that our rubble-and-junk quota for the year was filled several times over. Loose boards peeled off like dried skin on a sunburn and stray bottom-feeding critters stayed out of our way.

It was clever. It was so stupid it was clever. Who would've thought to look for Voldemort's soul near Azkaban? Who would've thought to look near Azkaban for anything, anything at all? Was there something romantic about taunting the Ministry, or did he just find amusement in dangling it in front of their unknowing faces?

I wanted the horcrux. I wanted it even if I could only look at it. I wanted it even if it meant I had to stand another piece of him being so close. I wanted it. And I wanted him to feel it when I destroyed it. I wanted him to feel all of it.

A tug on my neck called my attention. When I looked down I saw the locket pulled taut ahead of me. It was jerking forward, trying to pull me along.

What…Ah!

It cut into the back of my neck with the force of a sudden yank. Reflex had me holding on to the chain to pull it over my head and lessen the skin-splitting tightness, but it snapped. That wasn't enough to stop the locket from going wherever it was going though. Bloody thing nearly killed me.

By the time Hermione reacted to the situation, the horcrux had already lodged itself into the soggy wood of the wall ahead of us. I watched it jiggle, the way a key jiggles in a lock right before it opens.

This is the last time I help you with anything, I thought as I watched it. It needed me right then, and as much as I would enjoy denying an almost-inanimate object its sincerest wish, I needed it too.

After I stripped the boards away from the spot it was trying to dig through, the locket wasted no time attaching itself to something else. I already knew it was a leech but seeing it in action still gave me the willies.

The metal chest's gleaming exterior contrasted so harshly with the fecund brown I'd been graced with those past few minutes that it didn't take a Hermione to see that it was not of this ship. Its otherness was even more accentuated by the different-sized jewels pocking the surface. I would've touched them, but they were not a thing of beauty. Instead, they reminded me of eyes, dozens of eyes. Eyes all surrounding a message etched into the front of the chest.

"MARKS THE SPOT," it read. Once I got pass the fact that I was actually looking at lines making letters, I was immediately baffled.

What marks the spot? What? What spot? Why is there a riddle? Of course there's a riddle.

After everything that happened so far, words were beyond me. Attempts to wrap my mind around the incomplete sentence stalled when Hermione pointed to two large strips of long pointy barbs, intersected over each other like crossbones.

An X. X marks the spot.

Okay I got it. X marks the spot, like a treasure hunt. We were at the end of the treasure hunt and now we found the treasure. I got it, all right? But I couldn't for the life of me see a lock on the blasted chest. Just the eyes, watching. Watching us. I thought the whole thing must have been some kind of a joke and would've said as much if I could.

I wasn't nearly as excited to be in the ship as before. I wanted so dearly to leave, figuring we could taking the damn thing and open it later, when it wasn't taking the piss out of us.

We stayed though. We stayed because of course we couldn't just take the chest with us. The tight space of the cranny we were hunched in was no cave but I remembered what happened the last time I had seen a horcrux being retrieved. How could I forget, when that exact cursed thing was still trying its best to burrow its way to its brother to make two halves a whole? It needed Dumbledore to drink poison. What did it need now? What would it take from us?

Something told me that the eyes were waiting for us to do something. Maybe it was the sparkle of the gems but it looked like they were gleaming with unfettered delight. They must have been waiting for a very long time for this gratification. A very long time.

I looked for it. Instead of covering my face in frustration the way I wanted to, I looked for it. Because it had to be there. A clue, a hint, a sacrifice. Under the watchful gaze of the eyes, I went back to the only set of words on the chest. When I thought about the spikes and turned to the Smartest Witch of Her Age to indicate them again, I saw her poised to do something not so smart at all.

She was glaring at the X with her forearms already crossed one on top the other. I rushed to push her out of the way but she must have seen it coming and slammed her arms so hard into the spikes that they tore straight through and poked out the other side, impaling her.

I didn't know what popped open first, the chest or my mouth.

A/N: Ouch, that's going to cost her! How much? You tell me. Leave a review?