Inseparable

CHAPTER TEN

Harry woke up with his duvet wrapped around him like a self-made nest. He sleepily lifted his head from the pillow and looked around the room. Tom was stirring lightly and looked like he was about to wake up in a couple of minutes. Harry noticed the purebloods still fast asleep. On second look he swore he could see a bit of drool spilling from Abraxas' lightly open mouth. Harry climbed out of the extremely comfortable bed, definitely much better than the ones at the orphanage, he decided. Harry quickly and more importantly quietly, so not to wake up the purebloods, got dressed and left the dorm room with a book in his hands. Harry couldn't help but notice that there weren't any academic classes on his timetable, was he ever going to get another maths lesson again. Luckily he brought a number of books with him to Hogwarts, including maths. Though Harry liked maths, he always prefered the practical side of chemistry and biology. Maths and physics was more of a Tom thing anyway. He sat down on one of the comfy beanbags in the corner and began to read. Not long later, Tom came up to the common room, since the dorms were slightly lower, deeper in the lake. The two left the common room together; they all had a couple of days they had to explore. They looked at the map which was given to them yesterday, so they could have at least some way of knowing which way they went.

They navigated through the narrow halls of the dungeons. They made a plan to go through every one of those corridors so that they could quickly remember which way was which. Tom was determined to memorise the entire castle as soon as possible. He was not going to look like an insecure first year by looking at his map every two seconds.

Harry smiled and took Tom's arm in his, "Come on let's go this way," Harry said, tugging Tom gently towards a, more narrower than usual, dark corridor. The corridor was slanted in a downwards, and the further they walked they deeper they were going.

Tom was curious to where they were going, who knew what they would find and judging by the layer of dust and other stuff on the floor, the path Harry had chosen wasn't an often used one. There was a dull green snake painted on the wall, age and dust, dulling the colour from a more vibrant green to what it was now. The hall they were in go darker as they walked deeper down.

"What do you think we will find," Harry's voice said, cutting thought his line of thought.

"Don't know. Mabey some sort of secret room," Tom replied.

After a couple of twists and turns, they finally made it to the end. The hall ended with a dirty glass window. Harry took a step forwards and was about to use his hand to wipe away some of the gunk, which was on the window.

"Harry, don't touch that, you don't know-" Harry wiped away a patch of the gunk and looked through the glass.

"Wow," he softly murmured. "Tom, look at this," Harry then said. Tom grimaced and took the corner of his sleeve and wiped another spot from where he could look out of. Outside there was a sparkly blue lake. The sun was shining through the water, making everything look a bit sparkly. There were plants growing from even deeper down the lake, bits of pinkish and purplish coral could be seen peeking through the dark forest green plants. Further away there was a small city like place, with mermaids swimming around.

Tom would have to look into this and probably ask professor Slughorn if he what sort of creatures were living in the lake.

After a few minutes of just staring into the lake, a small mermaid must have noticed them as she swam closer to the window they were currently looking out of. She swam up to the glass and Tom and Harry could see her better. She had golden blond hair flowing down past he shoulders floating in the water. Her large blue eyes stared at them in interest. Harry lifted up an arm and slowly waved at her. The mermaid smiled and waved back. After a moment she left, and Tom and Harry went for breakfast.