It was a warm day in September and the sun shined brightly through the trees as a young boy and girl made their way through the forest. The boy moved quickly and silently as though he had taken the rout often and the girl stumbled behind him, panting and frustrated.
“Where are we going?” the red-haired girl called to her friend to stopped abruptly
“I told you, I have something special to show you!” the boys dark eyes seemed to glimmer with excitement as he turned and continued traipsing through the woodland.
“Severus!” the girl cried as part of her uniform got stuck on a twig. They shouldn’t even be out here; The forest was forbidden for a reason.
“Lily, please. I promise it’ll be worth it.” Severus pleaded but didn’t stop causing Lily to huff and quicken her pace.
They continued their journey for the next half-hour before they came to a small clearing through the trees. The sound of falling water and giggling reached their ears as they approached. Severus smiled as he peered through the trees and Lily’s eyes widened as she took in the scene before her.
“Wow” she whispered, Severus nodded in agreement with her and the duo moved towards the riverbank.
The clearing was quite small and filled with water from the large waterfall above head. The water was a lagoon blue colour and the sun rays made the water sparkle; lily-pads and other water floral was dotted about the surface.
Small birds tweeted as they fought playfully amongst each other and there were a few small deer drinking from the river. The river had a few large rocks inside it and up on those rocks were the owners of the giggling.
Two beautiful people sat atop the grey rocks, one was female with shoulder length brunette hair that fell in loose curls and the other was male with waist length platinum blond hair that lay straight down his back. As Lily looked closer, she realised that the two people had no legs, in fact in their place were shining, glittery tails.
“Mermaids!” she gasped loudly disrupting the mer-people from the conversation.
Two sets of eyes, one honey brown and the other silver, swivelled to face her. The eyes widened and a large smile graced the face of the blond who immediately dived from his position into the water as the female friend wiggled her fingers at them. The male rushed through the water to the riverbank were Severus and Lily stood, he popped out the waters and crossed his arms over the bank and lay his head on them.
“Severus!” he gasped happily “Your back!” the blonde’s slivery-blue tail flicked in and out of the water like an excited puppy wagging its tail.
“Lucius, it’s good to see you.” Severus smiled and kneeled towards his friend. A small flush of pink dusted Lucius’ cheeks as his grin got larger as the two stared into each-others eyes.
“Mhmm” the sound of someone clearing their throat broke them from their trance
“It’s good to see you too Cissa!” Severus called to the brunette who had crossed her arms
“I suppose I could say the same, Sevvy darling” Narcissa smirked at him. “Girls, Severus is here and he brought a friend!” she called causing Lucius to glare at her.
Lily watched entranced as three more mermaids (all women) swam out from behind the waterfall. The first had a pixie-cut hair style that was black in colour with emerald green eyes and a black tail, the second had long hair with red colouring and matching gold eyes and tail and the third girl had ash coloured tight curls that poofed out around her shoulders, she had ocean blue eyes with a teal colour tail. All 3 girls looked to be between 17-20 in their ages. In fact the youngest looking one seemed to be Lucius who was still glaring at his friend.
“Hi Severus!” all three girls called, batting their long eyelashes at the schoolboy.
“Girls” he nodded back feeling embarrassed of how they were looking at him. “Lily this is,” he pointed to the pixie haired mermaid who winked “Magda”, the red-haired mermaid “Selene” and lastly the ash-coloured mermaid “and Yvette. Everyone this is Lily; My best friend.” Severus smiled happy that he was sharing his secret with his close friend.
“Best friend?” Lucius’s smiled became rather fixed as he glanced at the rather plain-looking redhead who was still gawping at the beauties in front of her. He wondered what the girl had done to draw his Severus’ attention; after all she wasn’t just his friend – she was his best friend. The words left a bad taste in in Lucius’ mouth.
“We’ve been friends since we were 10,” Lily said brightly to the blonde who stared back disinterested.
“Severus!” Narcissa called, her voice echoing through the clearing, “Some Nirnroot started to grow near the riverbank,” she jerked her head behind her to the riverbank on the far side of the lake.
“Excellent!” Severus exclaimed, “I’ll be back in a few,” he told Lily and carefully made his way to the opposite side using rocks in the lake to get across. The lake wasn’t that big so it took him less than a few minutes to get to the other side.
Lily looked after her friend and cautiously placed a foot on one of the rocks leading into the lake. The mer-people watched her with careful eyes as she got to the middle of the lake and stumbled; she manged to catch herself in time, but Lucius shared a smirk with Narcissa.
“lily, do you like to swim?” Narcissa asked as she swam near the redhead.
“Not reall- Hey! Cut it out!” she cried as Magda splashed her with water.
“Come on, join us for a swim!” Lucius smirked and started to pull on Lily’s robes along with Narcissa as the other girls kept splashing her.
“Severus!” Lily cried urgently as her feet kept slipping on the rock as she struggled to stay upright, but the male teenager just laughed, watching his friends play.
By now Lily was completely soaked. Her uniform was drenched with water and her hair was in complete disarray, but that didn’t stop Lucius and the girls from splashing her and tried to pull/push her into the lake.
“That’s it!” Lily yelled, now completely irritated with the creatures in front of her. Weren’t mermaids supposed to be nice? Watching Disney’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ with Petunia when she was younger made her love the undersea people, but it was clear they weren’t as polite as Arial was.
Severus started hop along the rocks back to Lily when he saw her draw her wand on his water friends.
“Lily, stop!” he shouted and quickened his pace to the panting girl.
His arrival caused the mer-people to scatter; Lucius lay reclined between two rocks while the girls took up several others. Lucius watched Severus fuss over the redhead and rolled his eyes. He didn’t need that girl when he had Lucius. Although, Lucius glanced between his tail and Lily’s legs, he couldn’t leave the water like she could.
Severus took Lily’s wand form the angry girl who glared fiercely at Lucius. She knew the boy was jealous, she saw it in his eyes when Severus called her his best friend.
“They were just having a little fun,” Severus soothed her, “Weren’t you?” Severus called over Lucius and the girls who nodded innocently.
“Of course!” Magda shrugged, batting her eyelashes
“We were only trying to drown her,” Lucius called back carelessly, flicking his tail up and down.
“See,” Severus turned back to his friend, “Just playing,”
“But-!” Lily scoffed. Was Severus really that thick? The blonde has just admitted to trying to drown her.
“We should head back before it gets dark.” Severus turned back to Lucius, “I’ll come back soon, promise!” and he herded Lily back over the rocks and the clearing entrance
“Bye Severus!” several female voice’s called out
“See you soon!” Lucius called, his stomach fluttering, when Severus turned and smiled back at him.
Lucius watched until the humans were gone before he was pounced upon by the girls,
“He likes you!” “Did you see that he didn’t even care what you did to her!?” “Someone’s in love!”
The girls giggled and cooed as they petted Lucius’ blonde hair, the blonde giggled with them as he thought of Severus. Yes, he supposed this is what love feels like.