Homonculous |Marauders Era

Chapter Forty-Five

[Chapter Forty-Five]

Finding a compartment, Elspeth joined a group of first years that stared at her in awe of having an older student sit with them. They seemed to be even more grateful for the idea of her being willing to share stories and her experiences at the school to ease them into it all. As she warned them of Filch and some of the professors to beware getting on the bad side, they seemed to move in closer and closer to gather around her. Alice and Frank had been older students that took her under their wings when she needed them most, she figured she could do somewhat of the same thing for the younger students. Hogwarts was a great place to be but it was relatively confusion and a lot to take in all at once. There were some days where even she felt overwhelmed in the castle.

But rather than just filling them in on the bad, she decided to change the topic a bit and focus on all the things that she had found to be fascinating.

"So, if you want the Giant Squid to surface, you'll have to splash at the water a bit to get his attention. Although on sunny days, you can normally catch him at the surface sunbathing," she said. "If you want him to come close, have a piece of toast on you."

"Toast?" A little girl questioned, her face seemed to hold disbelief, wondering if Elspeth was attempting to trick all of them.

"Yes, toast with lots of butter on it, I swear it's a favourite of his. Throw a slice or two into the water and then hold out another piece in your hand, he'll take it from you. But don't try to fool him by taking it away at the last second, he doesn't like that. Trust me."

She could remember back to her second year where she thought she would be funny to pull the toast away from the Giant Squid at the last second, only to end up in the lake a couple of seconds later as he took a swipe at her. She never forgot that day, thinking that the Giant Squid was going to actually drown her, but instead, he collected his piece of toast and carried on about his business, just leaving her there at the edge of the lake. From that point on, she learned her lesson and just tossed the pieces in without any sort of hesitation.

"Will he hurt us?" One of the boys asked with a fretful look. "I don't want to get hurt. My mother said that we have to cross the lake in a boat. What if it grabs us?! Drags us under?"

"He won't," Elspeth reassured him, " he's really a gentle giant. You don't have to worry about him or even the merfolk that live in the waters-"

"There are merfolk?!"

The children that were unaware, suddenly jumped at the idea of the merfolk, all of them looking wildly excited. But before Elspeth could confirm what she had said, the compartment door slid open bringing everyone inside to glance over. The younger students were confused by the appearance of the girl, but Elspeth also found herself confused by Lily's presence. She could only assume that she was probably about to get in trouble for probably pulling her wand on Severus.