James was nervous. There was no way of hiding it, Ellie decided, even if you were James Potter.
Which meant that she probably looked more than just a bit petrified.
This was a wholly new experience.
Bottom of the lake. Possible attack by the giant squid. Grindylows, mermaids, kelpies, you name it, it could be there.
And the gillyweed that they were supposed to be swallowing...
It did not look appetizing, to say the least.
Ellie and James had trudged through the snow to the lake with Peter, and he now stood a ways away, at the end of the dock, keeping their clothes dry. Also tied to the dock was a small floating dinghy, which was completely full of frozen water, although the lake had not quite glossed over yet.
Ellie took the gillyweed out of the small pouch on her waist that they would use to hold the scales.
"Bloody hell," James chattered, shivering in his swim trunks, donned particularly for this occasion. "Is this what we're supposed to be eating?!"
"Yes." Ellie replied, simply.
She pulled out one strand for James and handed it to him, then took one for herself, leaving two strands still in the jar for in case they ran out of time while still swimming, and needed more.
"Bottoms up," she toasted, tucking the jar back into the pouch, where her wand also waited. James had his tucked in a pocket, along with his glasses.
"If you say so." He replied dubiously, eyeing the plant doubtfully.
Together, they put the gillyweed into their mouths and chewed.
Ellie tried hard not to gag. It tasted and felt as though she had just eaten a mass of wriggling worms.
For a moment nothing happened.
And then they started dying.
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Rose secretly loved the forest. She loved all forests, and this, although a particularly dark and dangerous one, was no exception.
One thing that Rose did not love at all were spiders. In fact, she hated them. When she saw a swarm of them headed a line through the trees, she immediately pointed them out to Remus.
"Good lord, where do you think they're going?" She asked, stepping an extra few feet away.
"I don't know. I've never seen that many. Let's steer clear for now," he advised, looking at the crudely drawn map that was estimating where the horses were. He decided that they should be heading a little bit farther in the opposite direction. He was not overly fond of spiders, either.
They continued in what could have been twilight, although it was, in fact, mid-afternoon, the trees shutting out a majority of the sun.
Finally, they found a path, lined by delicate black flowers of all types, some small and delicate, others large and ornate.
It was covered with what might have been bone, that crunched a little bit under their feet.
The darkness was deeper here, pressing into them from all around, making the silence that they had spent nearly the rest of the journey in suddenly dangerous. It felt as though if they didn't speak, something else would. At least, to Remus it did.
"I heard about what you did for James in the infirmary. That was awfully smart of you," he began, getting the thoughts off of his mind, and keeping the silence at bay.
"Well, leave it to me to always do the smart thing. He was panicking. Everyone else was too busy to stop him, so I had to try something," she replied.
"Still, it meant a lot to him. He really likes Ellie, even if he doesn't like to show it," Remus explained.
"It was just hard for me to understand why he doesn't show it. To her, I mean. I can understand wanting some privacy, but to leave her in doubt like that..."
Rose had, in fact, realized that she had gotten close to the reason why James had been so cautious around Ellie, just as Sirius had, and was secretly hoping for more details.
"He never meant to, I don't think. But he's actually very scared of the future, and the fact that he likes her so much frightens him." Remus justified, repeating something that Peter had said about what James had confessed while he had been away after the ball.
Rose climbed over the large log that was between them and their destination, and helped Remus over too, offering a hand. Only another mile of trail, now.
"Well, that's funny," she mused. "I didn't think James Potter could be scared of anything."
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James was terrified.
When he found he couldn't breathe, he immediately resorted to assuming that he had been poisoned.
His arms went to his throat instinctively while he gasped for air, and he realized that his skin felt strange.
Suddenly, his whole body became sore and started burning, especially his hands and feet. He stopped gasping for long enough to watch his hands elongate, and membranes to grow between his fingers, forming... Fins? His feet started wobbling underneath him, as he felt them changing too- he stopped for the first time since his panic started, and looked at Ellie. At first, he thought that she was convulsing, she was shaking so hard. Then he realized that it was laughter. Her hands were only beginning to change, and as they did, she pushed him backwards, into the icy lake, following by jumping in by herself after him.
Immediately, he felt better.
He could breathe, and he felt freed in the water.
He noticed Ellie, a few feet away, still laughing, but in a strange, underwater, sort of way. She didn't stop when he swam over, and she couldn't.
"You should have seen your face!" She laughed.
"I thought I was dying!" James replied, checking on his voice. It was bizarre. Probably just as strange as the fins and gills, but he had already adjusted well to those. He was a natural swimmer. His family had had a vacation home by the sea, and he had spent long days in the ocean as a child.
"I thought the same thing the first time I tried it too. Rose didn't tell me last summer when we were out at a lake in the countryside. I was ready to kill her," Ellie replied, understandingly. "Shall we be on our way?" She asked.
"Yes. I don't think that we have much time," James replied, knowingly, checking on his watch. "Only about an hour with what we have now, and another with what you have in the jar."
"That way, then," Ellie pointed, aligning with the surface features of the lake to find the direction they should go to best avoid creatures, then angling downward, as the lakebed sloped even deeper.
They swam in silence for awhile, very close to each other, as the visibility was very poor. They could only see five meters at best, even with the gillyweed having improved their underwater vision, and it was especially hard for James without his glasses.
After about a half an hour, they came to a mass of rocks, covered by old weeds. According to the Gryffindor ghost, Nearly Headless Nick, they were somewhere near an old mermaid settlement that would give them plenty of the ingredients that they needed.
Why the mermaids no longer lived there, he had not said.
Ellie checked the map drawn neatly on her hand for directions.
While she re-oriented herself, James looked around.
They were at the deepest part of the lake now, with black mud covering the bottom only in places where no plants grew. The light was dim, and eerie, casting a strange, greenish glow around everything.
Shadows crept around everywhere, and the landscape was constantly moving, plants and silt swaying with the slightest movements of the water.
They proceeded along the bottom as quickly as possible, attempting to get to the abandoned settlement soon, mindful that their time underwater was down to only a half an hour.
The mermaid settlement was eerie.
Death had visited there.
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Wow guys, almost a hundred views! I know that it might not be much, but considering that I never assumed anyone would ever read this, that's pretty good! Thanks for reading and reviewing! Don't let the muggles get you down!
post edit: why did i title this chapter what it used to be? what was wrong with me? AHHHHHHH MUST EDIT THAT AGH.