The time after Astronomy class on a Friday meant one thing. Heliotrope was in the mindset to go down to the lake. She had gotten better at returning to her common room first to drop off her school materials. On all of her notes that mapped the path from the classroom of that subject, they ended in the Hufflepuff common room where her assignments were written so she would remember to do them in the common room.

She could drop off her things and retrieve the Lobalug and her Kelp Whip from the pitcher of water by her bed. Her path was taking her past the Transfiguration quarter of the castle. She passed Professor Sandusky's office.

And Howler jumped on her head. Heliotrope completed three more steps before realizing there was a monkey on her head, screeching and spewing cookie crumbs.

"Howler, come back here you little miscreant!"  There was no anger in Leopold's tone as he burst out of his office, his hat askew and his face and robes dropping tea.  He stopped in his tracks seeing his fleeing pet perched on Heliotrope's head.  A smile spread across his face and a chuckle spilled from his lips.  "Don't worry, Miss LeJean.  He won't hurt you.   He's just trying to escape his well deserved chastisement for using my teacup as a stepping stone to the biscuit tin."  He tried to look stern and failed.  "Let me get that little vandal out of your hair."

"Don't worry, Miss LeJean. He won't hurt you." Heliotrope was never afraid of the monkey, even if it was crawling over her head. Grindylows were less fuzzy and more mischievous than a monkey excited from tea and cookies. Her webbed right hand found the scruff of Howler's neck, pulling him off her face as he clung to the seaweed strands of her hair.

"He is very fuzzy," Heliotrope stated, squeezing slightly with her finger tips to feel Howler's fur. The effect seemed to calm the monkey . It slipped from her grip to curl around her arm. Heliotrope's other hand went to pet his tail. The pairing of somewhat Selkie student and Howler named monkey was not a common one but Heliotrope had occasionally found Howler for a snuggle in the Hufflepuff common room.[1]

1.	Greeting the Newcomers

"He is very fuzzy and he seems to like you,"  Leopold said, casting a quick spell to clean the tea that the monkey had splashed all over him.  "I think the feeling may be mutual."  The old professor paused, looking back at his office.  "Do you have a moment, Miss LeJean?  I haven't had a chance to arrange our little chat.  Would it be possible to take care of it now?"

Howler shimmied up Heliotrope's arm and settled on her shoulder.  He looked at Leopold and then ducked his head behind the mermaid's head, obviously thinking that if he couldn't see the wizard, the wizard couldn't see him.

Heliotrope followed Professor Sandusky inside. She was comparing Howler to a grindylow, the closest analog she knew to a monkey. Grindylows could get much more nasty than the monkey. Howler had calmed down well from a neck pinch. Usually to get a grindylow to leave you alone you had to break its fingers. Then it was incapacitated until it had heeled rapidly.

Inside Sandusky's little office, Heliotrope was not sure what to do. She stared at his desk and the seats, Howler fit to tangle into her hair in a continual effort to avoid his owner's gaze.

"Do you drink tea, Miss Lejean?" Leopold asked as he cleaned up the mess left by Howler's misadventures.  " I'm afraid I'm not entirely familiar with merfolk beverages.  I've read your file of course but there is precious little on culture.  I'll brew a fresh pot if you're interested."  He settled behind his desk and indicated the chair across from him. 

"Please, sit.  Take a load off your feet.  This won't take long.  I've been trying to get the time to have a chat will all of the students in my house, one at a time.  It's just to allow us to get to know each other better, so you know what I expect of you and what you expect of me."

Heliotrope followed dutifully. "Beverages. The liquid in cups, correct?" Merfolk beverages were summed up in one word: lakewater. Seawater if in the ocean. Other concoctions could be drunk or eaten but a different term was used.

"Brew the pot," she repeated, sitting, hands doing from Howler's fur to the crevices of the cushion. With her feet off the group they began to rock slightly. Much of the rest of Professor Sandusky's reasoning went over her head.

"Yes, I suppose drinking from a cup underwater would be rather pointless,"  Leopold said.  "You must find many things that we do in this school to be rather odd.  Beds, I suppose, would be something else you'd need to adjust to."  He stroked his beard.  "Why don't you tell me what things you find confusing and I'll do my best to help sort them out.  Would you like a biscuit before we begin?"

Heliotrope was going to be one of his most demanding students, Leopold was certain and not because she didn't apply herself or because she lacked intelligence.  She came from a totally alien culture, even more so than the Muggleborn.  Merfolk had deliberately chosen to be considered beasts, separating them from humanity.  it was up to him to figure out how to relate to her, so he could help her relate to others.

"Beds are comfortable," Heliotrope said. Having pillows, blankets and sheets to bundle in was cozier and drier than a grotto. Though when Heliotrope wanted a tighter nook to sleep in she would drag the sheets under the bed. "My sleep mask helps me fall asleep."

Professor Sandusky then asked her if there were any confusions she had about land dweller living. Truthfully there where thousands of questions born of the outsider curiosity coming to contemplate humanity, though none readily surfaced in her mind.

Then one did, after a pause. Part of the big questions Alvis Norling had helped her ask. "How do you feel?"

"I'm feeling quite well, thank you,"  Leopold answered.  "I've had a chance to relax after finishing my classes for the day, so I am quite content.  And you, Miss LeJean?  How do you feel?"

Leopold hoped that was the answer she was looking for.  There were so many different ways the question could be interpreted, some more literally than others.  Even translation from one language into another could affect the meaning of the question.  It was all dependent on what exactly it was that Heliotrope meant.

"With my fingers." Heliotrope held a raised hand to demonstrate. "And sometimes the bottoms of my feet."

After a lengthy silence Heliotrope determined that the question had not gotten back a response she was looking for. Her thumb was stroking Howler's tail as it draped down her chest, tracing the line of fur.

"There are times others ask how I feel but they do not mean in that way. They do not mean what I am touching but a different feel. And I do not know what they mean."

"It is a question as to the state of your health," Leopold explained.  "Asking how you feel is the same as asking how you are doing.  It is a way of expressing polite concern for you.  It can also be a question of your emotional state.  If you suffered an emotional blow, such as losing a family member, asking how you are feeling is a roundabout way of offering sympathy and support, rather than actually inquiring as to your emotional state.  Most people would assume you were grieving."

Leopold smiled.  "Social etiquette can be a difficult thing to master.  There are so many little questions that sound like they are asking one thing when they are really asking another.  How do you feel? Oddly enough, no one really wants to know the answer.  The expected response is 'fine, thank you' or something similar.  It would be impolite to answer with the information that the fish you had with dinner isn't sitting well and you might need to make a quick trip to one of the bathrooms.  If you are feeling unwell, it is quite acceptable to say so but not quite so acceptable to go into exact details."

Health. Heliotrope knew she was well by mermish standards even if she had a strange larynx that led to her Altered Voice. Though compared to many of her peers few would be as fit from a life of marathon swimming and simple proteins.

Though she was not understanding all of Professor Sandusky's comments. "We can not loose members of the colony in a secluded loch." A pause. "If they go through the Trench they may be out of the range of Siren Song."

She took the 'fine, thank you' to match some of her common greetings, like 'Hello, my name is Heliotrope LeJean.' "You can not make a fish sit like that. They have no legs and their spines do not bend that way."

Heliotrope contorted into a tighter cross-legged position on the chair.

"And there we have another example of the difficulty in communication,"  Leopold said.  "I suspect you take things quite literally, which may be part of the problem.  When I said 'lose', I meant it in the sense that they were permanently gone from your life."  Leopold paused, frowning.  "To put it in terms that cannot be misunderstood, to lose someone in your family means that they have died.  If you just don't know where they are, they've just gotten lost.  The two are very different even though they sound quite similar.   English a very difficult language to learn and use because of things like that."

The old professor chuckled.  "When I said the fish wasn't sitting well, I meant that it was giving you an upset stomach.  Something doesn't have to be able to use a chair in order to sit.  The teapot, for example is sitting on my desk.  Are you comfortable in that chair, Miss LeJean?  You seem to be squirming."

Heliotrope could understand that, when Professor Sandusky explained. "Oh. You can say die then. There have been many times someone in the colony has died and we bury their shell in the lake bed before the other fish start to nibble on them."

There was no change of pitch to her voice as she said it because Heliotrope was used to it. The dead merperson had passed on to swim in the waters that could not be touched. Their shell would leave you with no other hints of what those waters were like until you passed there.

That was a mystery, how the teapot could sit without having legs. Though if it didn't have legs it must have a bum to sit with. "I am comfortable. I like the feel of the chair."

She paused again. Her mother had taught her how to speak as the land dwellers did and then when she left Loch Lomond the half Selkie (freshwater) had found that land dwellers spoke in many different languages.

"Should I listen in a bowl of water to hear the right communication?" Mermish didn't have quite the same level of complexity. When passed through the medium of liquid water, the listener could understand the mermish tongue no matter their language. And mermish was the only way to effectively communicate under water. Though above the water it was just screeches and you needed to know what the screeches meant to communicate.