It can be said that you could always figure out where Heliotrope LeJean was on Saturday afternoons. The weekends were her time to spend the longest dips in the lake. What occurred during these visits varied; getting tickled by the Giant Squid, fending off Grindylows, lying in the small patches of color provided by Magenta Kelp and Gummits, helping the merfolk colony as they hunted.

Very similar to what she did in her home lake of Loch Lomond, minus the giant squid. The Black Lake was peaceful, as it was so secluded, separate from most human and certainly not muggle interaction. Heliotrope could surface without risking injury by motorboats.

Heliotrope had developed a routine over the year. She knew instinctively how long she had been in the lake and when to return to the castle for obligations. She emerged from the water by her common patch of shoreline, a long length of aquatic greens trailed behind her gripped in one hand. A lone fish was in her mouth, flopping feebly. It was some minutes until the start of dinner but Heliotrope had still caught the fish. She had grown up eating them fresh.

The eyeballs were shucked and the head bitten off, the fish no longer moving. She laid that aside on some of her clothes. Heliotrope wiggled back into uniform. The clothes were cast away right at the water's edge three hours ago so they were already damp from the seepage of water. Over her skin sticking lycra suit she put on skirt, then shirt, then house tie (that had been in a petrified knot for the term) then school jumper with the Hogwarts emblem. She had other, casual clothes to wear on off days like the weekend but those were made out of materials to maintain her body temperature over the changing seasons. The weather today hinted at what was to come over summer, so her school uniform had been efficient dress for the daily meals.

Her legs were bare. Shoes were uncomfortable and socks were an enigma. They were so texturized to have on her feet. But Heliotrope had trouble getting them on and once on the soles of her feet could only feel "sock." Why deny her feet the environment that provided all manner of architectural and natural ground cover.

Heliotrope resumed the eating of her fish, spitting out bones after the raw flesh was stripped away and swallowed.

Saturdays were not a day of relaxation for Henry. He spent his entire day reading, writing and revising. It had been this way since year 4, when he was preparing for his O.W.L.S, and now that his N.E.W.T.S were around the corner he was working his fingers to the bone. However Henry had found himself in a rather strange situation on the morning of May 2nd; he had nothing to do. No homework or spells to practise. He had decided a brisk walk around the grounds would be a good way to spend a portion of the day.

As the 7th year reached the lake he saw a young girl. At first it appeared that she was a normal first year enjoying the lake. But as he got closer his assumption changed. The first thing he saw was a fish in her mouth. Not a piece of fish that she had smuggled out of the great hall, but a full fresh fish. Being a vegetarian Henry was saddened at the fish's death but he had seen this before, it also gave away the girls identity.

Heliotrope was her name, and she was not your typical 1st year. First and foremost she was not fully human. The young girl was part meremaid and her appearance was rather odd to say the least. But Henry didn't care for all that and he had shared a few passing words with her here and there. He was still uncomfortable around her, as he was with most people, but he decided to see if she was ok.

"Hi Heliotrope, errmm how are you?" He asked politely.

As he stood behind her he could not move his eyes from the dead fish. It was bad enough being surrounded by dead chickens at the dinner table but at least they had been cooked and no longer resembled the chickens the lived freely on his family farm.

He sat down, not to far from her to seem uninterested but not to close to weird either of them out, and took out his wand. He began to clean it as he waited for her to respond.

"Hi Heliotrope, errmm how are you?" said an older boy as Heliotrope munched her way down to the tail fin of the fish. She recognized his face but that was it. It hadn't taken long into the school year before the buzz of there being some kind of "fish freak" first year in Hufflepuff house...but the effect was lost on Heliotrope. She spent about half of her days out of doors and she was oblivious to the chatter as she walked through the halls. Some knew, some couldn't comprehend, others thought there was something else wrong with her entirely...and Heliotrope knew nothing about this. Not out of naivety, in the sense of refusing to find out, but she had no context to understand why people considered her so different.

"I swam in the lake this afternoon and met Muroach and Gerbog," she replied in monotone, betrayed by a hint of screechy Mermish when saying the true names of some of the merpeople down in the colony, "who were tending to a newborn Tadfoal." The young Hippocampus looked very much like a salt water sea horse, until it's fore legs developed.

She joined Henry where he sat, polishing his wand with a square of cloth. After a moment she pulled out her wand from where it was gripped snug by the clinginess of her swimsuit under the back of her neck. She stared at it; the wand was made from knobby wood and from the moisture had a sheen to it from accumulated pond scum.

OOC: I'm really sorry for the late reply blame it on school work
 
Henry averted his eyes as she ate the now dead fish he was rather uncomfortable but he didn't want the young Hufflepuff to think his was a reflection of her. She was rather fascinating and Henry would be interested to get a first eye account of what the depths of the lake was like. To his knowledge no students since those who took part in the Triwizard Cup had seen the lairs of the Mere people. 
 
Henry examined the lake. It was huge compared to the smaller lake at the farm, he had read it was around half a mile in diameter though he was not sure where he had read it. If Heliotrope had been a teacher he would not worry about asking questions about her underwater world but she was a young girl and Henry was unsure how she would react.
 
"I swam in the lake this afternoon and met Muroach and Gerbog, who were tending to a newborn Tadfoal.'' she replied. Her voice betrayed her murky deep origins. Henry had no idea who the two peopleshe mentioned. He assumed they were Merepeople and he though their voices had a rather masculine quality to them- but he was no expert on the naming traditions of Merepeople. 
 
"I'm Henry," he said neutrally. He would usually shake the hand of a stranger but he doubted she would of wanted that. "That's a nice wand. What core does it have?" Henry asked, attempting to make pleasant conversation.

[[OOC There will always be even later holdups from you or others. 2 days is nothing ]]

"I'm Henry." "My name is Heliotrope LeJean," she said although he had already recognized her. She'd been conditioned to give that introduction whenever someone offered their name.

"That's a nice wand. What core does it have?"

"Kelpie hair," Heliotrope said, referring to the bullrush like hairs one saw on the mane of kelpies. "My spawn chief gave us some, after our tribe tangled with a very bad kelpie. My mother and I found an old man in a wagon who could make a wand for me from it. I could not get a wand at the wizard shops." She said the story simply, for that is what occurred.

Her name seemed to add to the fact she was, for the lack of a politically correct term, a half breed. Heliotrope LeJean. Her first name seemed alien to Henry, though he knew it was some sort of mineral, and he thought it must have more to do with her Merepeople heritage than her Human side. While LeJean seemed to be rather French to Henry and he assumed some where in her family tree there had been a frog. He noticed that her hair seemed to have a green sheen to it, and that her hands were webbed. He felt rather envious at how easy it must be for her to swim.

Henry found himself at a weird state of ease with Heliotrope. Usually he would feel incredibly uncomfortable talking to someone he had only seen come and go from the Black Lake but as he talked the feeling soon dissipated. Henry assumed that was down to his natural curiosity; afterall how often is it that even a Wizard gets to meet someone with Mermaid blood pumping through their body. Someone who could stay under water for as long as she pleased and spent time with underwater creatures that Henry considered fascinating in their own right.

Henry listened as she explained the origins of her wand, he also took note that it was Kelpie Hair and decided to find out if it had any special properties from a teacher or one of the many books that were about wand lore in the library. He shifted and crossed his legs. It was a common thing for Henry as he had been taught to sit that way in Muggle primary school as a way to save space on the class room floor. He noticed that the lower half of his uniform was beginning to become scruffy, though the top half was as pristine as ever. The Ravenclaw badge proudly and clearly on his breast.

"You must have some skilled hunters if your tribe was able to ''tangle'' with a Kelpie," he said, "I've never seen a Kelpie Core wand, does it work as well as the normal cores?" He asked. There was really no such thing as a normal core. What he meant was the everyday cores, and as must Hogwarts students get their wands from Olivanders he generally considered those to be Phoenix Feather, Unicorn Hair and Dragon Heartstring.

"You must have some skilled hunters if your tribe was able to ''tangle'' with a Kelpie," Henry said.

"Yes," Heliotrope replied. "If the kelpie is bad we stake it to the bottom of the lake. If it has killed some of our own we kill it."

"I've never seen a Kelpie Core wand, does it work as well as the normal cores?" This confused her but then Heliotrope had an outsider's view of what normal was. Given how she was soon denied the chance to buy a wand in a wizard shop she didn't know of the most popular core types.

Instead, she took this as a question of what she could do with her wand. She listed off the spells she knew. "I can cast Flipendo, Lumos, Nox, Carpe Retractum, Wingardium Leviosa..."

"I've heard that Kelpie are usually quite aggressive animals, creatures, demons or whatever you want to call them. Do you know if your people have ever lived in relative peace with a docile specimen?" Henry wanted to know anything she could tell him, but in his curiosity he realised many people don't like questions asked about their past, family or in Heliotrope's case, species. He looked at his feet as he spoke, "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable with all the questions. I just find...well...anything that I don't fully...understand to be fascinating." As he spoke the nervousness was clear in his voice as he thought he may of upset her.

He glanced at her wand and although it was just a guess he believed his own was slightly longer. He once more examined his own wand; it was made from a very straight wood. It had no visible handle and although many would call it plain he had become quite attached to it over the years. "Some of those spells are considered quite advanced, well for first years," there was a hint of condescension in his voice. It was a rather unconscious thing for Henry and his intelligence and magical skill was the only thing he could be rather uptight and snooty about. He didn't mean anything by it, but he had upset more than a few people by it.

"Mine is Unicorn Hair, common compared to yours." As if to make some sort of point he pointed his wand toward the first year in a non threatening manner. "The spells you listed, their charms, well except Flipendo. Do you like that class?" He asked as he placed his wand back within his robes.

"If the kelpie leaves us alone, we leave it alone," Heliotrope said. You did not harm another creature unless you needed a resource or it became a threat against you.

"Hippocampus are tamer water horses." Since 1949, the Hippocampus had become domesticated by Scottish merpeople.

Of the spells Heliotrope had listed, Carpe Retractum was the most advanced for the first year average. She had found it easy to cast since the intent and wand motions were nearly identical to using her kelp whip to catch fish. She ran the length of lake weed through her hands.

"I do what the professor tells me in Charms class." This was true for all her classes.