Rose Weasley and The Beast of the Black Lake, year 2

Duck Prints in the Sand

"Scorpius, I'm telling you!" Al said on the way toward Transfiguration after breakfast. Al had decided not to tell Rose about the other night. She took every small thing and had a habit of blowing it out of proportion. And since the strange happenings from last year and Rose's near death experience, she thought that every odd little thing was a threat to her or Max's life. "I was by the lake, whatever it was, scribbled my name into the sand, then it screamed, then it left a hand print that I scribbled on your essay!" Al waved the traced over writing in from of Scor's face. "And the shadow!"

"Al..." said Scorpius patiently, with a stack of book pressed against his chest, his bag having been torn days ago.

"I'm not crazy!" Al interrupted.

"I'm not saying you are," said Scorpius. "Just, maybe you didn't see what you think you saw."

"But I had to!"

"Have you stopped to think that you may just be inventing this whole thing to make an adventure for yourself?"

Al stopped walking and looked at him. "Why would I do that?"

Scor grabbed Al by the arm and pulled him to continue walking. "I know you were a little disappointed to have missed the whole shebang with Belladonna Drury. I know you would have wanted to go, and you would have jumped in that fire too if I hadn't held you back."

"That's not true!" Al protested, now walking up the stairs.

Scorpius raised an eyebrow at Al. "I was a little disappointed too, but you can't take something small and blow it out of proportion."

"But look at this!" Al thrust the parchment into Scorpius' face again; he would have shown him the real thing if it hadn't been washed away during the night. "Does this not look real? Do you think I made it up?"

"It looks like a duck foot, Al," said Scorpius, pushing the paper down and lowering his voice as they entered the classroom and took their usual seats on the second row. "And I told you, I don't think you're crazy. I believe everything you've said to me; you've never made anything up before. I'll go to the lake with you during lunch, and we can investigate there. But right now," Scor grinned broadly and sat up straight with his wand in hand. "I'm going to learn how to turn a rat into a hat!"

Al laid on his desk and burnt his name into the wood. He would have been interested in the lesson, but his mind was on other things. Al was happy to have a friend like Scor, someone who would listen to you say something utterly bizarre and promises to investigate anyway. Al was just anticipating the end of class, he had History of Magic after this, a chance to get some well-needed sleep, then they can go by the lake in the half hour that was lunch.

Scorpius, as usual, was the first in the class that had mastered the spell and was awarded ten points. With several 'pop's' he was turning the rat into a hat, and back again. He settled with wearing it on his head, waiting for Al to succeed. Unfortunately, Al had never been superb at Transfiguration, much better than Max of course, but still, sitting next to the Transfiguration king himself wasn't making him look any better. Worse for him was that Olivia Merik was watching him with a furry hat in front of her. He didn't know whether she was teasing him with her finished work or trying to make him feel nervous and sweaty. She always threw her shiny black hair behind her and turned around in her seat to watch his progress with her bright blue eyes after she finished; he almost never succeeded when she was watching. Poppy, on the other hand, was having just as much difficulty. Al would watch with glee as she became more and more frustrated and it always prompts him to work harder, swearing to himself that she wasn't going to succeed before he did, and it generally worked.

After dropping the hats, rats, and deformed cap with eyes and whiskers into the floating basket, they were dismissed with a heaping pile of homework to do. Al left the classroom, trying to fix his hair from where the rat had attacked his head half way through class. He felt a soft hand brush against his arm and turned to see Olivia walk pass.