Chapter 31-A Cucumber!
Patricia blew her hair out of her face and looked at her watch.
"They told us to wait a half hour before we sent anyone else," she said. "Time's passed. Let's head in."
"Fantastic," Dallen said. "You all go in. We'll just wait here."
Patricia frowned. "You're not coming? Jagobin might be the key to finding out what happened to Dallen Ruby and saving your reputation among the dwarves."
"Did you forget we're bein' hunted, lass?" Dallen asked.
"He's right," Sloane told her. "If you don't succeed in getting the Ministry involved, you'll have to scramble out of there with Carina, leaving Jagobin in nothing but a temper. If we're seen, Jagobin will just have two more things to try and capture. It's dangerous enough for us to be out in the open this way. If these gangsters discover we're here, we could be tortured into revealing the location of our clan or any number of dwarf secrets."
"Then why did you bother coming?"
"To see that bastard taken down!" Darius shouted.
George smirked. "And we will take him down."
"I'll go in the back way, you the front," Patricia told George, Lysander, and Nathan.
"Yourself?" Nathan asked.
"No one should be that far into the prison," she reasoned. "I'm only going to scope out the area and make sure Carina isn't there. You two should stay at the higher levels since that's probably where she is."
"Good luck," Luna Scamander told them. She was too weak to fight and Mr. Wespurt had returned to his formerly owl wife to make sure she didn't do anything rash. Or so he claimed.
Patricia ran along the side of the building and into a wooded area where the trees above her were nearly bare so every tree was a skeleton, bark bones she ran past until she reached a little stream. According to the blueprint notes, there was a lake that functioned as an emergency exit for prison staff in case of a mass breakout. The pond here connected to the bottom floor magically. Anyone trapped in the very last layers of the prison could go through the water tunnel and quickly end up outside.
She hurried along the tiny creek until she came to it. A little pond really no wider than your average front yard, complete with little dead reeds sticking up around the edges. She kicked off her trainers and stepped into the water, but immediately pulled her foot back out. Merlin, it was freezing! She couldn't do this slowly. She was cold, but she knew she couldn't have all these layers on and still swim. She stripped her woolen cloak and let it drop to the ground. She clutched her wand firmly in her hand and waved it over her face, casting a bubblehead charm. She took a few steps back, took a deep breath, feeling the freezing air join with her lungs, and dived into the water.
It was like someone had slathered a layer of paint down around her. It was colder than paint, but she felt the thickness press down over her eyes and leach a blue color into her skin so she could barely move her joints. Frozen. She pushed past it. She had to. She forced her arm forward and felt a tentacle of warmth wrap around her shoulder. Next arm. Pump. Next arm. Pump, pump, pumping her arms in a circle, moving barely anywhere. She kicked behind her and sunk further and further into the shallow lake. She warmed slowly, but by the time she reached the bottom, she had more control. She wrapped a creaky claw around a root in the ground and pulled herself forward. She grabbed another and another and another and another, pulling, pulling, pulling.
If this thing is impossible to find…she thought, but just as she did, a dark hole appeared in the misty blue waters. She paddled and pulled herself towards it, eventually gripping the edges of the hole and pulling herself through. She was in. From there, she just needed to grab the rocky interior of the prison's tunnel and make two rights and a left like in the plans.
She swam as fast as she could, kicking and yanking herself forward and pushing off the walls of the tunnel. After maybe five minutes of walking herself along the floor of the narrow channel, she turned the last corner and saw a glowing blue light. She pushed off and propelled towards it until she flipped out of the tunnel, water rushing into her ears. Light was all around her and she smiled, swimming to the surface where her bubblehead charm popped on contact with the air.
Like a frog's tongue darting to catch a fly, something snatched her ankle and pulled her back down into the mouth of the lake. It was so unexpected; water went into her mouth and nose. She looked down. A scaly hand was gripping her ankle. She yanked and yanked at it, but each time she pulled away, it gripped tighter. She took her wand and slashed down at the arm. It let go only to grab her other ankle with the opposite arm. This time circular, glowing fish eyes opened their translucent films to stare up at her. A face smiled. She kicked it with her other foot and swam to the surface to gulp down more air. She threw herself over the side of the pool of water, on the edge of a rocky ledge. It climbed up her legs and over onto her back, digging its claws into the fabric of her wet robes and the skin beneath.
"Incendio!"
The beast flew from her back, screaming, and Patricia looked up, confused. A boy with pale blonde hair and a rigid stance stood over her.
"Scorpius!" she exclaimed as he lent her a hand. She grabbed it and he hauled her out of the water. She shivered madly, looking him over and stepped back with her arms outstretched. "Help me, will you?"
He nodded and held his wand still before him so a tunnel of warm air blew her clothes dry. She tamed her puffed-out locks with a hair tie and nodded her thanks.
"This should be a freshwater pond," she said. "Why does it taste salty?"
"I don't know. Magic," Scorpius reasoned, paying the futile matter no mind.
She nodded, hating the burning in her lungs from the unexpected pull under. "So, what are you doing all the way down here?"
"We think they're keeping Carina in the lower layers of the prison."
A screeching sound filled the rocky room and they looked to see what looked like a monkey covered in scales standing dripping before them. He barred his razor teeth and sat back on his haunches, revealing a strange hollow at the top of his head where water splashed about.
Patricia smiled. "Amazing."
"What? What is it?"
"A kappa. I never thought I'd see one. Especially since they live in Japan. He's a water demon."
"A friendly water demon?"
"Depends on whether or not you like your blood to stay in your body. They feed on it."
"So we kill it."
"It has a XXXX rating on the Ministry of Magic danger classification. That's second highest."
"I know what the danger classifications are, Patricia. How do we defeat it?"
"Er…"
"Don't tell me you don't know?"
The monkey screeched and ran for Scorpius, jumping directly for his face before Patricia waved her wand and shouted, "Incendio!"
The kappa's scales were hardly even warmed by the fire spell. Why had it just worked when Scorpius did it? She tried another and another, but none of them took effect. Finally, she just ran over to Scorpius, still struggling to keep the thing off of him, and grabbed the kappa, yanking its tail as hard as she could. It screeched in pain and unhooked its claws from Scorpius's cloak to grab at her, but she swung the surprisingly heavy beast back into the pond and went to Scopius on the ground.
"Why is it attacking me?" Scorpius asked, grabbing his wand for the next assault.
"I don't know. You attacked it. You proved to be a bigger threat than I was."
"Fantastic," he said, getting to his feet.
"Whoever ran the prison must've put it there to guard the lake. It couldn't have gotten there itself. Kappas are from Japan. That's why the lake is saltwater. That's the only kind they live in. It must've been done on purpose."
The kappa jumped from the pond again, running predictably with full speed, on all fours, towards the older boy. Scorpius and Patricia shot dozens of offensive spells and curses at the creature, rainbow light flashing and lighting the dim room, but they did nothing. The Kappa was impossible. It was magically resistant.
It flew through the air and latched onto Scorpius's leg when he tried to kick it away.
"Patricia, I could really use some help here!" He clamped one hand around the head of the kappa and held it back while the other beat the creature as hard as it could from the strange angle it was at.
"I'm thinking! I'm think‑-Oh! I know! We need to give it a cucumber."
He looked at her incredulously "DO I LOOK LIKE I HAVE A CUCUMBER?!"
"I was just trying to be helpful!"
"Well, be helpful with less stupid ideas."
She looked at the kappa and saw the water in the hollow bowl of its head splashing about as Scorpius beat the thing. Her eyes widened.
"Scorpius, the hollow!"
"What?" The monkey-like creature suddenly broke the boy's grip, the scales along its head sliding out from under Scorpius's fingers. Its head flew forward unhindered and the creature sunk its teeth into Scorpius's ankle.
"Scorpius!" she shouted. She ran to the kappa and grabbed it, pulling, yanking at its tail again, anything to make it let go. But the thing grew stronger by the minute and ignored everything she did. She lifted her hand and splashed it into his head hollow. A claw unlatched itself, slashed her across the chest, her nearest bit of skin, and reattached itself to Scorpius's leg before she could blink but once. She dropped back and crawled away. Bloody claw marks ran across her chest. Deep. She breathed, feeling the warm blood beat out of her chest and along the sides of her body, drenching her robes. She wanted to scream or faint, but she just breathed and tried to fight back the intense burning at the edge of her skin.
That's when she heard a splash behind her. She turned around to see two flying in mid-air over the pool before splashing back into it. Of all people, Rose and Carina were there, splashing about in the water. They quickly climbed out.
"What's happened?!" Rose asked as Patricia stood up. At least she could stand.
"There's a hollow in the kappa's head," Patricia said, foregoing the explanation of her chest. "When Scorpius first cast a fire charm over the kappa, he vaporized the water inside and it was powerless. We need to get the water out of it. That's it's only weakness. I'm sure of it."
"Do another fire charm or scoop it out."
"I tried. It won't let me get near it. We can't do the fire charm from afar either. You have to be right about its head or the fire won't be hot enough to vaporize it all."
Rose nodded and reached for her satchel of potions.
"Sorry about this Scorpius," she said.
Scorpius's already pale skin was now drained of all color. He groaned, lying on the ground.
Rose held a crimson potion bottle the size of her hand, stepped forward, and smashed it against the kappa's back. Surprisingly, it broke. Patricia watched as the liquid drained into the creature's scales and ran contrary to gravity, up its back. The kappa released its fangs from Scorpius's leg and the boy winced. Slowly, it let go of Scorp's leg and stumbled back towards the pond.
"Don't let it get into the water!" Patricia told them.
"Levicorpus." The kappa swung upside down and was lifted into the air, screaming angrily. The water in its head splashed to the ground uselessly and the creature soon calmed down. Scorpius was propped up on one elbow, holding his wand out towards the creature to keep it in the air.
"You can release him, Scorpius," Patricia said, holding her wand up. "I've got him."
Rose ran to Scorpius, but he waved her away. "I'm fine, woman. Give me some sugar and I'll be fine."
Patricia felt blood run down her stomach. She suddenly felt very hot. She wanted to take off her robes, but that would be horribly painful.
"Oh, Patricia!" Rose exclaimed. "I don't know any spells to slow the bleeding. Jump in the pond to clean it."
"Don't jump in the pond," Carina said instantly. "It isn't clean water. It won't clean your cut."
"What else do we do?" Rose asked.
"The next room over. What is it?"
"What next room over?" Scorpius asked, sitting himself up against the wall.
They watched as she walked slowly towards the wall, grabbed a seam in the rock and pulled until a crack formed and the rock door slid aside. She pointed.
"This one."
AN: Now, if you're wondering why Patricia didn't use Albus's guiding spell like Rose, remember she's only ever seen the spell used the way Albus did it which makes the spell out to merely point the wizard in the right direction. Patricia already knows the way, so this spell isn't necessary for her. Rose's wand functions (or shall we say malfunctions) differently as we have seen. Yes, she has realized what's causing this, but for the sake of efficiency in retreating from a dragon, she's reverting to her old ways.