Chapter 11 – Mermaids Are Real
Founder's Day, marked with a grand feast and the wizarding art of storytelling which Iris found absolutely captivating, came and went. Days swiftly turned into weeks and then to months with surprising speed. Between their classes, homework, socialising and slipping off to the secret cove as often as they could manage – they always seemed to be busy.
March was fast coming to a close when students soon had a new topic to discuss that drove all thoughts of Pandora's Box out of everyone's minds. At first, there were the occasional murmur and a couple of extra delivery owls. Within a few days floods of letters were being delivered to the students and staff – all about the same topic.
Iris received one herself, from her parents. A new illness was flooding the world and each evening the news reports became more and more dire. Iris felt her heart drop into her stomach like a brick when she read that her father was considering bringing her home, to keep her 'safe'.
Uneasy gossip went around the school like wildfire, and it was almost impossible to go anywhere without hearing everyone discussing the same thing.
"Covid – 19…"
"…really sick if…"
"Coronavirus, Dad said. Nanna and Grandpa are…"
"…complete lockdown! Nobody is allowed to leave their houses…"
At dinner one evening, the Headmistress stood and called for everyone's attention.
"Students, I understand that most of you are concerned about the news we are receiving from friends, family and the media about this Coronavirus spreading across the world." She began. The Hall was so silent, you could have heard a fairy flap its wings.
"Rest assured that we are safe here at Nyambi, until we know more about this disease the school will not be allowing any outside visitors in to protect you from any risk of infection. Letters are going out to your guardians tonight and we will continue classes as usual." She told them. Once she sat, a sea of discussion once more rose in the room.
"I heard Mr Sefu predicted this!" somebody further up her table blurted out, "He said before the end of last year that this year would bring uncertainty and unprecedented impact on the world."
"Unprecedented? May I remind you that the Spanish Flu was a thing? The Black Plague?" somebody else argued back.
"It's just a muggo's disease." Somebody else said with an air of indifference, "It won't bother us."
"Not necessarily, don't forget that…"
The snippets of conversation were getting lost amongst the noise. Iris kept quiet and poked at her dinner listlessly. Even if this new sickness was proven to not affect witches and wizards, she had a horrible feeling that her Dad would use it as an excuse to make her leave Nyambi anyway. Him allowing her to come at all was still such a fragile decision, one that could be shattered at a moment's notice.
"Come on Iris." Arin elbowed her gently and she looked up to see she had been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn't noticed that dinner was finished and everyone was getting up to leave the Hall for the evening. Her friends gave her sympathetic glances all the way back the Common Room.
Excusing herself for the night, Iris went and had an early shower, got into her pajamas and went to bed – definitively closing the heavy drapes around her bed. She wanted to be left alone to mope for a while. She heard the others come in, speaking in low voices later in the evening and didn't even respond when Iluka popped in to say her routine goodnight to them all. Eventually, she fell asleep.
Iris managed to push away most of her worry during classes the following day. In History, they had all completed their family trees and unrolled them ready for Mr Corbin to teach them the final step he had promised.
"Now, don't worry if you struggle with this one. This charm is fairly advanced for Year 7 and it is quite uncommon for anyone to get it right away. If you are having trouble with it, I will assist you. Now first, the incantation. Everyone, repeat after me; ostende magicae."
"Ostende magicae." The class repeated.
"Very good, now listen carefully to my pronunciation, ostende magicae. Emphasis on the mag-IC-ae."
The class tried again. Mr Corbin then showed them the wand movement, and finally allowed them to try it for themselves.
"Now, cast this on your own Family Tree that you've completed." He instructed them.
To everyone's disappointment but nobody's surprise – not a single student could perform the spell immediately. Mr Corbin moved along the desks, asking students to show him then gently correcting their pronunciation or their wand movements. Some were swishing too hard, some too little. Some students had added in a dramatic flair that wasn't working. Iris was struggling to move her wand correctly without accidentally adding a jab at the end.
Finally, after nearly half the lesson of trying, Arin succeeded
"Oh!" they cried in delight, "Look!"
Iris leaned over to look at Arin's meticulously drawn and labelled family tree and her mouth dropped open as most names on their mother's side changed colour and began to gleam in metallic shades.
"Well done Arin!" Mr Corbin applauded, "Ten points to Uluru! Excellent work." Arin blushed with pleasure. Iris couldn't help notice the calculating frown on Kendra's face out of the corner of her eye.
By the end of the lesson, everyone had managed the spell. Iris was thrilled when hers worked and her aunt Lily Potter's (neè Evans) name glowed brightly, as did her only child's name – Harry Potter.
Iris was amazed to discover that even further back she had other magical names in her family tree including her great-great grandmother Daniella Khan (neè Lambert). Iris traced Daniella's name and that of her muggo husband Awani Khan. Iris wondered if they had been alive when her mother was born, if her mother had any memories at all of her great-grandparents. If she had any idea at all that her great grandmother had been a witch.
Even more surprising was her great-great grandfather on her father's side of the family tree, Herschel Evans. The magical names were all shimmering brightly in hues of blue, aqua, turquoise and violet. A couple of names including Herschel's four children had changed to a plain dark blue from her original black ink and this puzzled her.
"Sir, why are some of mine dark blue but not shimmering?" Iris raised her hand to ask. Several nearby students turned to look and both Calix and Fae leaned in to see.
"Ah! Squibs!" Mr Corvin responded brightly, coming over to look at her family tree. "The bright shimmering names are of course witches and wizards, but a plain dark blue means that person was a squib. Born of magical parents, with no magical ability despite having a magical core. Squib children were traditionally treated very poorly by magical parents." He explained. "Many were discreetly adopted out to muggles or simply abandoned and never spoken of again."
"That's so sad." Iris said, staring down at the names of her squib great grandfather Wilfred Evans, and her squib great-great grandmother Dahlia Dursley (neè Black).
"Of course," Kendra was speaking to her friend whom Iris still hadn't learned the name of, her voice increasing in volume, "Everyone knows of course that the Gaunt line traces back to Salazaar Slytherin himself. However Mama discovered that we are direct maternal descendants of Morgana Le Fay herself!" Her voice carrying. She smirked as Mr Corvin bounded over enthusiastically to check out her very lengthy family tree which when unrolled, reached the floor.
"Merlin what a discovery!" Mr Corvin enthused. "And your dedication to this assignment has been exemplary, Kendra." The girl preened and flashed a sideways glance at Iris, who scowled.
"Yes, sir! We were very excited when Mama discovered a heap of family research in the attic and sent me some of it. I was able to use the archives in the Library to fill in a lot of blanks, and I even wrote to Mistress McGonagall at Hogwarts for more information on past students whom I was able to contact to gather more information."
"Excellent work! Twenty points to Arnhem for your diligence and extra effort, Kendra." Mr Corvin praised. Kendra beamed.
"I noticed that Voldemort doesn't feature anywhere on her tree." Calix leaned in and whispered so that only Iris, Fae and Arin heard. Iris held back a snort of amusement. No surprises there.
After their final lesson of the day, where they learned to levitate small cushions in Charms seeing as the class had all successfully levitated feathers in a previous lesson, Iris and her friends got changed and hurried down to the Potions Cellar. They waited impatiently just outside for a couple of Year 12 students to finish talking to Mr Daku about an upcoming assignment and once they had all finally left and Mr Daku was safely back inside the lab, they crept to the bottom of the stairs and opened their secret passage.
The sun had heated the rocky cliff faces throughout the day and though at this time of day the only bit of direct sunlight that actually reached the cove was shining through the hole that led out to the open ocean, it was still quite hot in the cove. The four of them threw off their shirts and shorts and rushed into the invitingly cold water to splash and swim around.
They soon found themselves crouched in the shallows close to the beach simply enjoying the water and discussing their irritation of the day.
"Sooo… how about Kendra leaving Voldemort off her family tree?" Calix grinned. "Merope Gaunt was there but not her infamous son."
"She probably thinks it'd ruin her perfect image. Wouldn't surprise me if she pretended he didn't exist. But still, to leave him out completely… Seriously. Her family tree's full of grandiose names, and then it's like, poof, Voldemort never happened." Fae rolled her eyes.
"It's so… typical of her, though. Always trying to make everyone believe she's this untouchable royalty. 'Oh, look at my rich, pure-blood roots!' Just forget the small detail of the Dark Lord, no big deal. "Iris sniggered.
"I'll bet her parents told her to leave him off, daddy dearest has worked so hard to bring honour back to the family name and all. But I'd love to see her squirm if anyone pointed it out in front of everyone." Arin agreed.
Calix laughed. "Oh, that would be brilliant. Kendra, trying to be all prim and perfect, and then someone asks about Voldemort and she has to explain her family's connection to him."
"Hey, what was that?" Arin suddenly called out, voice startled and shrill. They all turned to look into the deeper waters of the cove.
"What?" Calix asked.
"Something's in here." Something about Arin's face had them all scrambling out of the water to the safety of the sand immediately. They all turned to look, hearts beating fast.
"Look! A shadow, something's there." Arin pointed. Iris saw something move through the water but lost sight of it again in the lengthening shadows cast by the walls of the hidden cove.
"Whatever it is, its pretty big." Fae wavered.
"It's probably a dolphin." Calix tried to sound unbothered but Iris heard the uncertainty in his voice. Emboldened by her friends, Iris decided to use the couple of rocks close to the beach as stepping stones up to the big flat rock to get a better view of the deeper end of the cove. The others followed her in a rush and the four of them stood almost huddled together as they stared hard into the water.
Then, as though summoned by their gaze, the top of a head followed by a face emerged from the depths. It was a woman's face, and a woman's hands as she gripped the rock she peered around. Her webbed hands.
The woman's skin however was a dark grey-blue and her blue-black hair was coarse and braided in parts with decorative shells adoring each braid. Her most noticeable features were her overly large eyes which were a molten golden-brown and the startling bright blue markings all over her face and shoulders. Tattoos of some kind, Iris supposed. She peered at them intently, barely lifting her chin from the water.
The four of them stood in shocked silence for a few moments. The woman stared solemnly back at them.
Finally, Arin smiled tentatively at her. "Hello." they said softly. "Who are you?"
The woman blinked, and a shadow of a frown crossed her face but she did not respond.
"We won't hurt you." Fae called. Again, no response.
Iris lifted her hand to wave. The woman adjusted her gaze and locked onto Iris' hand so fast it almost seemed predatory. Iris lowered her hand, uncertain and a little afraid.
Slowly, very slowly, the woman raised her own hand in imitation of Iris' greeting before lowering it again to grip the rock. She eased forward and swam fluidly toward them before stopping the moment the four students took an automatic step back.
They watched one another for a long moment. A distant whoop and a flash of shadow crossing the lone sunlit patch by the rocky hole that led to the ocean beyond as somebody shot past the hidden cove on broomstick, completely unaware of its existence.
Instantly the woman vanished below the surface with barely a ripple. A fin flashed out of view and she was gone.
"That was…" Fae breathed, eyes shining as she turned to the others.
"Incredible!" Calix finished.
"Magical!" Arin chimed in.
"Oh my god… mermaids are real!" Iris squealed in delight. "They're real and we met one!"
"Do you have any idea how insanely rare this is?" Fae asked them.
The four of them babbled in excitement, interrupting one another, finishing each other's thoughts and jumping from thought to thought.
Finally, on their way back up the secret passage their conversation had slowed to a sensible pace, partially helped by the steep climb that robbed them of their breath.
"She seemed kinda scared of us." Calix observed.
"Yeah, almost as scared as we were of her." Arin agreed. There was a pause as they made it up the last of the steep steps and onto the gentler slope marking the last section of the passage.
"I wonder why she came to the cove." Fae pondered aloud. "It's almost unheard of for merfolk to come to the coast let alone actually show themselves to people."
Nobody had anything to say about that, especially as none of them knew anything much about mermaids at all.
"Library? After dinner?" Iris suggested.
"Library." The others agreed.
They sat through the evening meal with difficulty. It went without saying that this secret had to be hidden from everyone else just as much as their secret cove. There were a lot of meaningful glances between the four of them and they all figeted restlessly.
Once they made it to the Library, Iris hurried straight over to Uncle Reggie who looked pleased to see them.
"What are you kids lookin' for tonight then?" he asked.
"I just found out that mermaids are actually real!" Iris said, the others nodding. "I mean, I heard somebody at dinner talking about them…"
"We want to find out more about them." Arin cut in, "The muggo stories my Dad told me seem pretty far-fetched to me."
"You bet." Uncle Reggie grinned, I know just the book for you." He hurried off toward the back of the library and soon returned with a heavy tome which made an audible thud when he placed it on the desk.
The four friends leaned in to read the title; Extraordinary Sapients by Drusilla Fairchild. Calix reverentially opened the hard cover as Uncle Reggie sauntered away to help another group of students that had just entered the Library. The title page read; Extraordinary Sapients; A comprehensive exploration of intelligent magical beings, their cultures, languages and rights within the wizarding world.
It was a matter of moments before they found the index. Merfolk was between Merlion and Merrow on page 364. They flipped to the start of the Merfolk chapter eagerly and began reading the overview.
Chapter XXIII
Merfolk have long captivated both wizard and muggle alike, their hidden societies as mysterious as the deep waters they inhabit. This chapter examines the diverse lineages of merfolk—each adapted to its unique aquatic environment and cultural heritage. From the mist-shrouded lochs of Scotland to the sun-warmed reefs of northern Australia and the shadowed depths of polar seas, we find a complex mosaic of sentient beings whose lore challenges our simplistic notions of "mermaids" and "mermen." In this chapter, we explore six distinct merfolk species.
The Cailleach Loch merfolk are steeped in ancient Celtic legend. Residing in secluded Scottish lochs, they are cloaked in myth and mystery. Their name—derived from the Gaelic term for "old woman" or "hag"—hints at a deep connection with nature's cyclical transformations and the primordial forces of water and time. These Scottish merfolk known from the accounts in wizarding chronicles—most notably those encountered in the Hogwarts Black Lake—present a structured and communal society. These merfolk are robust and dark-featured, their skin bearing an almost iridescent quality in the ambient light of their underwater domain. Their society is hierarchically organized, with ancient customs dictating interactions both within the community and with the wizarding world. Although reticent to engage with humans, they have been known to negotiate terms of passage and safeguard ancient underwater relics. Their language, a melodic series of clicks and resonant hums, remains largely undeciphered by even the most accomplished magical linguists.
Venturing to the tropical shores of northern Australia, we encounter the Gundah—a lineage of merfolk thriving in warmer, shallower waters. The Gundah are renowned for their dark skin varying from shades of blue-grey to blue-black, vibrant body markings and the small dorsal fin on their lower backs. Their society is less formal than that of their Scottish cousins, characterized instead by a dynamic, almost improvisational social structure. Celebrations of life and the sea are frequent, with festivals drawing different tribes for hundreds of kilometers that include naming or coming of age ceremonies and the exchanging of gifts. Despite their playful nature, the Gundah are very wary of humans and are famous for their unyielding commitment to the preservation of their fragile marine ecosystem. They are known to be skilled warriors and will defend their families with deadly force.
In stark contrast to the sleek Gundah, the Gréigeall dwell in the colder, deeper waters that extend south of Australia toward the frigid margins of Antarctica. These colossal, war-like merfolk are imposing in both stature and spirit. With dark, thick skin, layers of blubber to protect from from the cold and tails that resemble that of an Orca, the Gréigeall are warriors of the deep. Their culture is steeped in martial tradition, and their society is organized around clans that prize strength, honour, and tactical prowess. Gréigeall lore recounts epic battles against invasive sea creatures and rival clans, with each scar and tattoo on their massive bodies serving as a chronicle of valor. Despite their formidable reputation, they maintain a strict code of ethics and are known to engage in diplomatic talks when the balance of the marine realms is threatened.
Not all merfolk are bound by the solemnities of war or ancient ritual. The Fizzlefins represent the more effervescent, playful side of merfolk society. These diminutive beings—barely larger than a human toddler when full grown—are renowned for their buoyant spirits and irrepressible sense of humour. Dwelling in shallow coastal coves and hidden tidal pools, Fizzlefins are adept at weaving through kelp forests and coral mazes. Their society is marked by a loose, communal structure in which creativity and fun are highly prized. Stories tell of their mischievous pranks on both sea and surface creatures, and their gatherings are filled with laughter, song, and spontaneous displays of aquatic acrobatics. To the untrained eye, the Fizzlefins may appear as nothing more than enchanted sprites of the sea—but their role as cultural ambassadors is vital in maintaining the light-hearted side of merfolk heritage.
In the crystalline waters of the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, the Nerevalis evoke the ethereal beauty that has given rise to the muggle myth of the mermaid—and the more ominous legend of the siren. Possessing a luminous, almost translucent quality, these merfolk are often adorned with shimmering fins and delicate, intricate markings that seem to glow beneath the water's surface. The Nerevalis are deeply connected to the magical energies of their environment; their haunting songs, capable of both luring and healing, are considered one of nature's purest expressions of enchantment. Their society is both mystical and democratic, where wisdom is transmitted through oral poetry and ritual dance. Although their appearances in muggle folklore are often tinged with both awe and trepidation, within the merfolk community the Nerevalis are celebrated as the keepers of ancient secrets and as mediators between the worlds above and below the water.
"She must be one of the Gundah." Fae whispered, drawing her finger down the page before flipping to the more detailed section about the Gundah merfolk. The group continued reading quietly to themselves, amazed to learn so much about such an elusive species. "She's a long way from home." She murmured.
"It says here that gift giving is an integral part of Gundah culture. We should offer the one we saw a gift if we see her again, to show her we are friendly." Arin suggested in a hushed voice.
"Great idea." Calix agreed. "But what should we give her? I mean, she can get any shell she wants from the ocean. A lot of stuff we would use would be useless under the water."
The four of them brainstormed for a while, coming up with a multitude of ideas yet nothing seemed right.
"A coral necklace?" Iris suggested.
"We can't give her something that people have taken from the ocean, she will think its stolen." Fae shook her head. "How about something human made? Like a compass?"
"Wouldn't it rust pretty quick?" Arin asked.
"OK, what about some food to try? Chocolate?" Calix asked.
"We have no idea if it might be toxic to her. Merfolk diets are hugely different from ours."
They continued on this vein for quite some time until Fae came up with a suggestion, they all agreed was perfect.
"I know! A moleskin pouch, one of those enchanted ones that only the owner can get anything out of it. It would be a piece of cake to charm it waterproof I'll bet and it would be real useful to her." Her eyes lit up as she shared her idea.
"Yes! Yes perfect. I can get Mum to order one for me, I'll tell her its for a friend's birthday." Arin agreed readily.
"We could ask Ms Teale to teach us the charm to waterproof it." Arin suggested.
"I don't know, I would rather we kept this secret. Surely we can learn it ourselves? I don't think it's a particularly hard spell." Iris pondered.
"Yes!" Fae agreed, "Let's go find a book on charms." The four of them hurried to find a book on waterproofing charms, brimming with enthusiasm and excitement.