There was a mound of lake-weed on the pebbly shore of the Black Lake...

Heliotrope LeJean emerged from the water, another bunch of slimy weeds in her hands. This last venture had taken her five minutes. She could handle swimming underwater for five minutes with ease. Heliotrope was a part merperson, half Selkie. Her hands dropped the bundle of weeds, revealing the extra skin between her fingers stretched from half way up her knuckles. Her feet had similar webbing. Water cascaded from her stringy hair down her black one piece suit.

Besides her distinguishing features, the aforementioned webbing and gills and whatnot, Heliotrope was covered in nasty scraps and burns, odd injuries to get from a swim. A pattern of sucker marks helixed around her left arm. Heliotrope didn't bother with the injuries, the stinging had died down. This seemed to be the right amount of lake-weed. She sent to work separating the clusters. She knelt on the shoreline, stretching out the green fibers in a row end to end.

The weather was improving, though it certainly wasn't exactly what Tynan would call good. Cloudy, raining, muddy; he found himself missing the snow a bit, but the mucky weather was more like the Hebrides islands, so he found himself at ease despite it.

Tulojow's chores were done, and after hanging out with the horses a bit, he'd headed off across the grounds - heading back to the castle, but not in much of a hurry. Werewolves or no, Tynan was still more comfortable outside and found it hard to imagine himself in danger from a wolf. Dragons, oh yes; his own missing eye and scarring attested to that. But a oversized dog? Pah.

Splashing in the nearby lake drew his attention, and he wandered over - at first thinking it to be the squid again. Instead, it turned out out be Heliotrope, apparently trying to clean out the lake.

"If you're tryin' tae clean it out, you're a bit out of your leage," he said gruffly in his thick accent, squatting casually a few feet from her with his elbows resting on his knees.

Heliotrope looked up at the sound. It was the one eyed Gryffindor. She contemplated his words. The weeds beneath her were covered with slime and sand, but that didn't matter yet. The she turned to gaze across the lake, inviting but not polluted. That must be what he meant.

"The lake needs no cleaning," she replied, returning to her task. She twisted and folded the weeds together, gradually combining them into one length.

He sighed. Heliotrope was always difficult to talk to; Tynan himself might not fully understand all the intricacies of conversation, but the Hufflepuff made him look like some sort of genius of social relationships.

She returned to whatever she was doing, and he rose to his feet to head back to the castle with a grunt, absently running his hand through his hair. As far as he was concerned, if she didn't want to talk, then so be it.

Though the splashing of her going about her task made him pause. It wasn't as if he had anything else to do today. Well, he had homework, but that was something to be avoided. Between trying to talk to LeJean and trying to puzzle out why Mars wasn't covered in plant life he'd rather swim with the fishes, so to speak.

He returned to the lakeside, fingers casually hooked in his belt. "What are ye doin' that for, then?"

Finishing her current knot, Heliotrope gathered the so far five feet of lakeweed rope. She held it up for him to see.

"Fishing. Patches of weed that house grindylows are the best to harvest from." This explained the wounds along her body. Each of her excavations grew longer as she had to fight grindylows, tooth and tentacle. The ones here seemed less aggressive then the ones back home, actually, so Heliotrope wasn't bothered.

His eyes narrowed. Tynan had been fishing, plenty - it was one of his major jobs back home - and in his experience, you didn't need to dredge up the sea floor or lake bottom to do it, nor did you need to fight off grindylows. Unless you'd lost a bet or something.

"You're fishing," he said, tone the steady one of someone gathering facts, "Right. With...a weed rope?" He eyed her creation sceptically, lips pressed together. It wasn't as if it appeared like a bad rope or anything, but it seemed like an awful lot of fuss for something readily available at the castle.

His gaze shifted back to her, tone and expression still the one of stoic exploration. "Why are ye fishin', exactly?" He asked, doubtfully.

Dilly had another year to go before she would be allowed to enroll at Hogwarts, but she did live with Madame Nagde; and if she behaved she was allowed to roam the grounds outside the castle. As long as she didn't go into the forest, which after the werewolf attack she wasn't about to do...

She walked up to the beach, kicking pebbles as she went. Then her attention was drawn to a girl with long greenish hair...the sort a blonde got if she swam in a pool with too much chlorine. This girl was pulling long stands of lakeweed out of the lake and then stretching them out on the shore, sorting through them as if looking for something. The one-eyed boy...Dilly had seen him around but so far hadn't met him...seemed to be just as curious about this behavior as Dilly was. He walked right up to the girl, so Dilly followed a few steps behind. She wanted to meet some kids her age, and this seemed like as good a time as any.

"If you're tryin' tae clean it out, you're a bit out of your league."

"The lake needs no cleaning," said the strange girl, twisting and folded the weeds together into what looked to Dilly like a sort of rope.

"What are ye doin' that for, then?"

Good question, thought Dilly. She was no expert, but it seemed like there were a lot better things than lakeweed to make ropes from. And the girl was getting some nasty sores on her hands and forearms, so what she was doing coudn't be that much fun...

"Fishing. Patches of weed that house grindylows are the best to harvest from."

Harvest? Harvest what? And what were grindlylows? Was that what gave this girl those...were they bites? Maybe that was why Madame Nagde always told her not to wade where there were weeds...

"Why are ye fishin', exactly?"

"Yeah," said Dilly, who couldn't keep quiet any longer. In her curiosity she had already forgotten that Tynan had only one eye, he already just looked normal to her. And so did the girl...though the bites or whatever did look painful.

"Aren't those bites?" she asked bluntly. "And...don't they, um, hurt?"

Heliotrope paused before replying. "Got to stay in practice. Fish is better when its fresh." She thought of bitting down on a fish head and sucking out the chewy, salty eyes.

She noticed a little girl, younger then her, march along the shore to them. She had a curious look on her face.


Heliotrope blinked once, her translucent film of eyelids making her gaze seem fuzzy for a moment. She ran her right, webbed hand along the mark on her left arm. "I'm used to it. The sting doesn't last long."

She stretched out the length of weed, like a strip of wet leather, thick yet moist. It was too short yet, but maybe...

"Keep an eye out for fish," she said to them. "Or anything else."

She wadded out until the water was at her chest, the length of weed drifting along behind her. She scanned the lake for movement.

Tynan's gaze slid to Dilly as Heliotrope headed back out into the water, his expression saying everything; LeJean was rather mental, in his opinion.

Still, he couldn't really fault her logic on fresh fish, though the food the house elves had was pretty damn fresh. Watching her wade out to fish, though, he couldn't help but quirk an eyebrow. "Does this a lot, does she?" he asked Dilly suspiciously. LeJean certainly stuck out in contrast to her other classmates. "...and it works?" he added, revealing his doubt. Nets seemed to work better. Or bait.

Part of him was entertained, however; he knelt down to watch, his eye scanning the water's surface. Most of the merpeople he'd seen hunted with spears or tridents, but they'd been out at sea.

Dilly glanced over at Tynan and shrugged, her gaze saying much the same as his. Still...it would be interesting to see what this very odd girl might catch with that rope. Since Dilly hadn't really got to know any of the First Years except Pax Wintergreen, she of course had no idea that Heliotrope was half mermaid. Nor that she might suck the eyes out of her catch raw...

"My name's Dilly," she told Tynan. "What's yours?" She did notice his scars a bit more up close, but she didn't say anything. She didn't want to drive away a possible new friend by being too nosy, too soon.

"Hey," she said, tugging at his sleeve and pointing at the water, which was rippling near where the green-haired girl was wading. "What is that?"

That was a pair of eyes, peering just above the water as it moved closer and closer to Heliotrope. It had small pointy ears and a mane like a horse, but Dilly couldn't see anything else...

Something reared up in Heliotrope’s side vision. A dark blue creature almost inky, like the night sky. She recognized it straight away; the points of the ears, the mane of kelp like the weed in her hand.

Kelpie. A young one, no older than a colt. The briefest of thoughts flashed through her head. Over the year she had explored every counter of the lake, the merfolk showing her the smaller nooks. There were no signs of kelpies living in the lake.

Her moves were lightning quick. She ran towards the kelpie and lashed out with the length of weed, whiplike. The odd rope struck like a diving sea serpent. The end wrapped around one of the ears. She tugged, pulling its head to one side.

The kelpie whinnied, not like a horse but in a low, murderous growl. It bucked, standing to its full height. It lunged for the shore, charging at the other children. The weed whip fell slack.

Heliotrope leapt from the water herself. She landed on the kelpie’s back, straddling it, the length of weed around its neck a makeshift rein. The powerful muscles of the kelpie started to convulse. The water demon was trying to shape shift out of the leash. Taking the weed in her mouth she gripped its neck, searching for pressure points. It was pointless, the kelpie in too much a fury. It thrashed for shore again. It could still reach one of the kids.

Heliotrope tightened her legs, reaching behind her neck with a free hand. The weed was still tight in her teeth but starting to slip. She reached for a thin bulge on her back: her wand clung to her skin by the wet swimsuit. She pulled it out and began firing spells.

“Flippendo. Flippendo. Flippendo.”

The Knockback Jinx lacked power. If this was a full-grown kelpie it wouldn’t work but the repetition was enough to confuse it. The kelpie fell, stunned, and Heliotrope fell sideways into the water. She reached to feel for a pulse. Low. Still alive but not down for long.

Underwater, she noticed a frightened trout swimming away. Actually in range. Heliotrope whipped the weed again. It struck true, wrapping around the trout a few times. She yanked it back.

Heliotrope walked towards shore, looking to see if the others were all right. The trout squirmed in her grip.
“Fishing,” she explained, holding the ensnarled trout. She turned to look at the unconscious kelpie. “We should move.”

"Tynan," he told Dilly with a nod. He'd opened his mouth to ask if she was Tulojow's granddaughter, which had been his assumption - when she tugged at his sleeve and he followed her pointing finger out to the approaching kelpie.

A bloody kelpie! They weren't supposed to be in the lake, not from what he'd read. His warning to Heliotrope was lost on his breath as the Hufflepuff turned and began to fight the creature, even as it surged towards the shore, trying to reach the two of them. Apparently you could use the lake weed as a whip; the calm part of his mind that wasn't yelling in barely suppressed panic made a note of this.

Tynan hesitated a moment, wanting to help - stepping forward, reaching up his sleeve for his belt knife and wand. Then the kelpie came at the shore again, and he turned, grabbing Dilly and scooping her up by the waist, wand drawn and pointed at the creature as he held Dilly against is chest and put his body between her and the kelpie, relaxing his grip only slightly as the creature fell.

He looked at Heliotrope in unmasked disbelief as she stepped off the unconscious creature without a care. Then he scowled, setting Dilly down with a muttered apology.

"Ye just gain tae leave it?" He asked Heliotrope, striding forward. He was removing his long wrap belt, quickly fashioning it into a halter of sorts and trying to remember the incantation for the Placement Charm.

Heliotrope blinked agin, the film crossing her eyes. At least Tynan had scooped up the younger girl. "You're right. It might come to soon."

Returning to her cluster of unused lake weed, Heliotrope selected the thickest swathes. She walked to the half submerged kelpie, tying its mouth shut and legs together with strong knots. As she worked she looked to Tynan.

"Should we tell anybody?"

"We could tell Madame Nagde," said Dilly. "She's cool, she won't snitch." Having spent several months living by her wits until Archer Radley more or less yanked her out of Knockturn Alley and set her up as Tulo's ward, Dilly still tended to think in the Us-vs-Coppers mode. So far as she knew, nobody was breaking any rules being out and about by the Lake on a Saturday. But ever since the recent werewolf attack, the Hogwarts teachers were a bit...tetchy. And besides...Dilly wasn't old enough to be a student, so she was never quite sure what her privileges were. Yes...Tulo had told her so long as she kept her nose clean she might wander around the Hut and the Lake. But most likely keeping her nose clean did not include getting herself almost eaten by a...

"Erm," she said, feeling a bit foolish to be asking. After all both the others seemed to know what it was they were dealing with here, and judging by the way they were acting, Dilly wasn't sure she wanted to know more. But from the moment she had entered the magical world things just kept happening around her, and she guessed she had better learn as much as she could.

"What is that thing, anyway? I mean...it looks like a baby horse, but if that's all it was you wouldn't need to truss it up like that..."

"Yeah, Nadge," Tynan agreed, not taking his eyes off the struggling animal for a moment as he worked his belt into a semi-workable halter, using his wand to glue it into the long loop needed.

"s'a Kelpie," he told Dilly as he inched forward. "Shapeshifter. They eat people, if ye let 'em. Dinnae want that..."

He looked sidelong at Heliotrope. "If this dinnae work, we kill it," he said with deadly seriousness, and he meant it. Conservationist his family might be, but any animal that threatened their own lives - or those of others - was fair game.Then he lunged forward as the horse's shape began to change - its legs thinning and shortening, the bonds Heliotrope had placed slipping away -

The belt wrapped around its head and Tynan pulled it tight, one foot on the beast's neck, re-threading the leather through the buckle faster than he'd ever done it before. The kelpie made a strangled sound - halfway between rage and fear - and its shape reverted to fully water-horse, its manner almost instantly becoming docile. Its large eyes rolled, however - its intention clear. The moment it managed to break loose, the three children were first on its list.

"Dilly, run an' get Nadge," Tynan said, backing off a bit with the end of his belt firmly in his hand.  "Quickly."