Under the Stars

|Chapter 13|

Et Aquam in Urbem was gorgeous, though it was completely destroyed and sitting at the bottom of the ocean for the past couple hundred years. There was a beauty to it that only destruction could be the cause of. Cobble stones were still stuck in the ground, a path way for mermaids. Remnants of huge logs, covered in barnacles, stuck out from the ocean floor and were lined up as if there were houses that rose above the surface. Hermione could remember some of the descriptions of the mermaid city that there were houses that floated above the water to fool mortals into thinking they were a normal city. Beneath the water, though, a whole other city lay.

Hermione and her mother floated next to each other as their eyes scoped the area around them. Her father was scuba diving behind them, staying close to the boat in case they had unwanted visitors or if she and her mother needed a quick getaway.

"So, Hermione," she heard her mother's sonar noises, "Have you met any nice, young men at school?"

Hermione froze and turned to glare at her mother to her left, her mind though thinking about a certain blonde, human, wizard, "Mother," she didn't like it when she and her mother talked about guys.

Minthe looked at her daughter with a knowing look, a smile on her face, "I can see you were thinking about him."

Hermione turned away and continued to swim through the water, enjoying the warm, Mediterranean water rushing over her scales. It felt so different than the cold lake water around Hogwarts, "I'm not thinking about anyone."

"But you were, Hermione. I'm your mother, I've always known what you're thinking," Hermione turned to look at her mother who simply shrugged, "Okay, almost always."

"I'm not thinking about anyone," she repeated.

"You can tell me, you know, Hermione. I enjoy hearing your stories from Hogwarts," Minthe tried to get her daughter to talk. Clearly, something was up.

Hermione sighed and came to a stop in the water, her eyes connecting with a light blue piece of glass in the water. Et Aquam in Urbem used glass to decorate their villages above, but that was not the reason why she stopped. The color reminded Hermione of the necklace she had given him and seen him wear on several occasion in her human form, "There is a man," Minthe came up next to her daughter, a smile of success on her face, but it quickly faded when she saw her daughter's own sorrowful face, "But it could never work out, mother," her daughter's brown-blue eyes were like muddy water and Minthe couldn't believe that this man could make her daughter cry.

Minthe touched her daughter's shoulder, "Why couldn' it work?"

"I'm a mermaid, mother!" Hermione screamed, her mouth letting loose thousands of bubbles in the water, "He's a wizard! His family is connected with the Dark Lord! He thinks I'm a Mudblood! That's why it can't work, mother!" then she began to cry, diamond tear drops falling from her eyes and her mother stared at them with a look of utter confusion, "I love him! He's my mate and I hate when I can't be near him in my human form!" the look of shock on Hermione's face hinted that she could hardly believe what she was saying, "I can touch him in my mermaid form, but not the way I want to! I don't know what to do, mother!" she collapsed into her mother's arms.

Minthe sighed, feeling her daughter's sadness, and hugged her daughter close to her body. Her mind whirled as she thought about Hermione's situation, "Does he love you?"

"I don't know," Hermione murmured in between her sobs, "I can't tell if he loves the mermaid that I am. All I know is that he doesn't love me in my human form."