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Beneath the Surface


Beneath the surface of the lake, James found instantly what the purpose of the marsupium dolor had been. The mirage that had surrounded his head above the water was now holding a bubble around his mouth so that he could breathe underneath the water - a pocket of oxygen. A few feet away, Sirius Black was suspended in the water, staring back at him and waving him to come along, pointing ahead. Dumbledore was swimming straight down with skilled strokes, his brightly patterned shirt easy to spot. It occurred to James that perhaps that was the intention of the headmaster’s odd wardrobe choice.

He felt funny, kicking his legs and upending himself so that he was moving away from the safety of the surface, the green tinge of the lake getting thicker and darker the further down he swam. Sirius waited up for him, and they swam through the murky water after Dumbledore together. “This is incredible,” James tried saying, but he could tell that the words were warbled and twisted and Sirius couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, so they swam in silence after that, heading further down, down, keeping their eyes carefully trained on the bright splotch of color that was Dumbledore’s shirt.

There were loads of plants, dancing about in the water, waving, stretching toward the sun that filtered dimly from the surface. They had long tentacle like branches that willowed about and James pointed when he spotted a long water snake weaving its way among the branches. Sirius swam clear of it, making a repulsed face.

Dumbledore paused near to the bottom of the lake, hovering there, waiting for them to catch up. When they had, they moved together through the waving weeds, Dumbledore leading the way, his wand drawn. Sirius reached into his jeans waistband to pull out his wand as well and James realized that, once again, he’d forgotten his wand in the dormitory in his robes pocket. Sirius looked over and gestured to his wand, asking where James’s was. James held up his palms and Sirius shook his head, clearly understanding what James was getting at.

The plants were getting thicker and thicker the further they went and Dumbledore kept an eye behind him to make sure they were staying close. They came to the edge of a great trench rather suddenly that seemed to descend into an unending darkness. Dumbledore held out his arms to be sure the two boys came to a stop before they went over the open water. He motioned for them to wait one moment, then swam out a ways himself, raising his wand and there was a funny sound that echoed through the water, like a low groan emitting from Dumbledore’s wand. Sirius peered over the trench’s edge into the dark.

Suddenly, there was a shape in the dark far below, emerging out of the void. His eyes widened as he stared down as the huge, bulbous head of the giant squid. James kicked a few strokes back from the edge. Dumbledore reached up, gripping the end of the bubble on his face, lifting it so that it only covered his nose and he could use his mouth more easily, and suddenly he started speaking in a strange, groaning language that Sirius and James couldn’t understand, but they could hear quite clearly.

The squid rose and fell in the water as he waved his long legs about, his huge eyes blinking in the murky green light. When Dumbledore finished speaking to him, the Squid made some similar noises to what Dumbledore had done, then sank back into the darkness, disappearing once more.

Dumbledore waved for the boys to come, and they swam quickly toward him, Sirius clutching his wand tight in his fist, afraid the squid might pop back up from the dark, but he seemed to be completely gone and Dumbledore beckoned them on. “The squid said there was some funny things falling from the north drain last night, and he closed off the pipe to keep them polluting the lake,” Dumbledore informed them, his voice worbly in the water, but clear enough to hear them, “Follow me.” He reached up and pulled the bubble back down over his mouth.

They moved on through the water, rising above a thick field of lake reeds that lined the floor. Sirius stared down into the thick black and blue plants, like a little forest that stretched off in all directions with huge leaves. Suddenly a face peered around one of the leaves - a grindylow. Sirius pointed it out to James so he would beware and aimed his wand, prepared to use the tactics of escape that Professor Veigler had taught them earlier in the year, but the grindylow didn’t make a move, his eyes following Dumbledore’s form ahead of the two boys with wide, glowing lime-green eyes.

They moved on and on, so long that James felt as though they might getting lost and wondered how Dumbledore knew where they needed to go. Then he saw a large shape before them in the water and there was what looked like a village, like spokes of a wheel sticking out from the center, where a large castle stretched up into the water, spires of coral and glinting shell bits sticking out of it. James’s eyes widened -- this was a mermish village.

Sirius had always found the mermish fascinating. When he was young, he’d had a storybook that had stories from mermish legend and he’d dreamed of one day meeting a mermaid. A thrill went through him at the thought that the dream might come true.

Dumbledore motioned for the boys to stay close to him and they swam up nearer, hovering over him, keeping him between them and the village below. Mermish folks were hovering near the doors of their houses, peering up at the three wizards as they moved through the water. A mermish mother reached out and grabbed onto the fin of a small child, tugging them back to the little hut she hovered near, looking up at them with a wary expression.

They came to a wide square with a large statue in the center of it in the shape of a huge merman holding a sharp spear. Sirius looked ‘round to check on where James was - afraid as they neared the statue and Dumbledore lowered their heighth in the water until they’d arrived in the midst of the square. A merman appeared from behind the statue, holding a similar spear to the one the statue held and for a moment he held the tip to Dumbledore’s chest, then lowered it as he recognized the Hogwarts headmaster. Dumbledore reached for his bubble once again, raising it to speak with the merman. Sirius couldn’t help but wonder how many myriad language Albus Dumbledore knew - he’d heard two different ones already just on this one adventure, and he suddenly felt a swelling respect for Dumbledore rise up in him. He felt profusely sorry that he’d said those terrible things to him earlier in his office.

The merman listened to Dumbledore’s story patiently, then waved his spear for Dumbledore to move forward and Dumbledore motioned to the two boys behind him and the merman nodded and waved them on through as well.

They moved into the shadow of the huge underwater palace that just seemed to loom higher and higher the closer they got, seeming never to arrive to the front doors of the castle. Finally they did, though, and they gleamed turquoise and purple, like a dark mother of pearl shell. James stared up at the spires as Dumbledore led the way into the castle, waved on by guards that stood sentinel and opened the doors before them as they approached. Sirius felt nervous and excited at exactly the same time.

They moved through the long passage until suddenly the tunnel opened wide into a huge hollow center of the castle, the ceiling rising up as high as the spires had from outside, all dark green-blue stone. In the center of the room stood a large throne made entirely of cream-colored freshwater pearl.

Sirius had never seen anything so magnificent in all of his life.

On the throne sat a merman, lounging across the seat, who sat up when he spied Dumbledore. His mouth opened wide and spiky, sharp teeth showed. The expression was evidently a smile, though it looked quite a lot more terrifying than gleeful to James. “Dumbledore!” the merman said.

Sirius looked around the room as Dumbledore once again held a conversation with the merman entirely in mermish, taking in the ornate decorations, built from stones from the waterbed. It was all eerie and beautiful at once.

They were apparently appealing for the right to pass through the mermish village to the north side of the lake to fix the clog that the giant squid had caused. Dumbledore was gesturing, and from that Sirius was able to make out the story of the firecrackers and the two remorseful boys behind him whose mistake had caused a great problem at Hogwarts when the squid had clogged the pipes. The merman stared up at the two boys and said something that sounded quite stern, pointing at them hotly. Dumbledore talked quickly, nodding, and finally the merman calmed and settled back to his throne. He waved his fingers and another merman came from the line of sentinels and Dumbledore seemed to thank the mermish king and nodded for Sirius and James to follow him once more.

The mermish soldier took on the role of their guide, and Dumbledore followed after him through another tunnel passing through the castle, emerging on the opposite side, and they struck off once more into the dark. Sirius kept a close eye on James, making sure he was sticking close and they moved on through the dark water. Far above, the surface was getting darker and darker and it seemed that evening had arrived. They could see the pale reflection of the moon rippling on the water.

Sirius had a funny thought, then. What would happen if Remus Lupin happened to be under the water in the mermish village at the time of the full moon? Would he still turn to a werewolf? Would he be a mermish werewolf? What would a mermish werewolf look like? He looked at James, wishing he knew how to do the cool bubble-lift thing that Dumbledore did so that he could ask James what he thought on this theory, but of course he couldn’t, so he made a mental note to raise the question later, when they were safely above water again.

The mermish soldier had led them into a dark alcove in the lake, they were surrounded on three sides by stone that stretched off into the night above and all along the wall were little pipes poking out into the water, hung with thick silt and underwater moss. Tiny fish and crabs pecked at the muck on the pipes. Then there, before them, about midway up the wall, was a thick pipe, blocked by a huge stone and below was what looked like a nest made from torn up weed and silt, where the giant squid must have laid the night before.

Dumbledore swam through the water with the sentinel, holding up his palm for the boys to stop and wait where they were. They watched as the headmaster and the mermish soldier worked together, levying the soldier’s spear to wrench the boulder from the pipe, letting it fall gracefully to the floor of the lake. Falling behind it, like confetti, came the seventeen firecrackers and a flow of thick, gruesome-looking liquid that made James want to gag at the thought of what it was. Dumbledore waved his wand and the seventeen firecrackers seemed to bundle together and rise to the surface of the water. He turned to the sentinel and said something in mermish that must’ve been a thank you for the assistance in passing through the waters, for the merman waved his spear and swam off into the dark water, back toward the mermish village they’d left behind.

“Come along, Marauders,” Dumbledore called wobbily through the water, and replaced his bubble over his mouth, and began the ascent through the water to the surface of the lake.

They broke through the water into the dark night with three splashes and the bubble charms shattered as they gasped into the natural oxygen. “Blimey that was brilliant!” James called as soon as he’d sucked in enough air to refill his lungs properly.

“I didn’t know you spoke mermish!” Sirius exclaimed in excitement to Dumbledore.

The headmaster’s eyes glittered mysteriously, “I imagine there are quite a lot of things that you do not know about me, Mr. Black,” he replied. “Come, let us swim ‘round to the docks beneath the castle and we’ll report the good news to Mr. Filch that the drain pipe has been repaired.

They swam through the water, sticking close to the stone walls that turned out to be part of the outer walls of the castle, and came around until they were entering the little cave where they tethered the tiny boats the first years arrived to the castle in. Dumbledore waved his wand to leviosa the two boys up out of the water and onto the docks and they grabbed onto his shoulders to help him out of the water as well.

He leviosaed the bundle of Filibuster’s out of the water behind them.

“I think a drying spell is in order,” Dumbledore said, and he waved his wand, “Caloroso.” Instantly, their clothes and hair went from dripping wet to dry. James’s hair stuck up nearly straight as though he’d been shot through with static electricity and Sirius laughed.

“Well what do you think your hair’s doing?” James snickered, and Sirius frantically reached to feel - but it wasn’t anywhere near as pouffy as James’s.

Dumbledore escorted the boys up the stairs and into the Entrance Hall. The stairs were a mess of students, rushing down to the Great Hall for dinner. “We have been gone quite a long time,” he said, watching them go, “I recommend going to get yourselves back into your presentable forms and coming down to nourish yourself. You’ll find you’ll be quite famished after all the exercise we’ve just endured beneath the water.”

“Yes sir,” Sirius and James said at the same time. They started up the stairs, eager to catch up with Remus and Peter to tell them everything they’d seen in the lake.

“And boys?” Dumbledore called.

“Yes sir?” they stopped and looked back.

“The mermish king said that if you pollute his lake again, he’ll see to it that you feed the grindylows. I recommend desisting from flushing anymore firecrackers - or anything else for that matter.” Dumbledore looked quite serious. “Offending the mermish is not a good idea.”

“Yes sir,” they agreed.

“Go,” he said, with a knowing smile, “And do be sure to exaggerate the details to your friends.”

They ran up the stairs quickly.

“Can you believe we didn’t get a detention for this?” James exclaimed, looking over at Sirius as they bolted along, jumping over trick steps.

“Not at all!” Sirius said, “That was so far from a proper punishment! Taking us on a ruddy adventure! Blimey!”

“I KNOW!” James yelled, and they high-fived as they reached the floor that led to the Gryffindor common room. “We’re gods of this castle, mate!”

“Invincible,” Sirius nodded.

They reached the portrait of the Fat Lady and James shouted the password - “Gillyweed, you old hen!” - and she swung open indignantly, letting them through with a huff of disapproval. They ran up the stairs into the dormitory and burst in to find Remus alone.

“Well where’s Pete then?” Sirius asked.

Remus looked up, his eyes sad.

“Something terrible’s happened,” he said thickly.