Closed Lurking Down Below

[Chloe Thompson]

If there was one thing Chloë hadn't been able to let go over the break it was what happened when she had been skipping stones shortly before the exams. One of the stones had managed to find its way back out of the water towards her and had landed at her feet. She knew the school was magic and all, but stones didn't just fly out of water. It had to have been thrown. Something had thrown it. There was something in that lake and it had thrown the stone back at her. She was sure of it. As soon as she had found some time the gryffindor had made her way outside, making way straight towards the lake. Luckily, classes didn't start till next week so she had all the time in the world, or well the week really, to figure it out. She knew there was supposed to be something like a squid in the lake but she had never seen it so she couldn't be sure and if there was then what was to say there weren't other weird creatures in there? The water looked calm as she reached it and it almost seemed hard to believe there might be multiple creatures living below the surface, but she wasn't going to let that distract her. Chloë picked up a couple of pebbles and turned them around in her hand, putting her other hand on her hip as she stared out across the lake. Right. All she needed to do know was to think of a way to get the creature to show itself, if there even was a creature. Which there definitely was! She had been thinking of throwing stones into the lake again, as far as she could this time, but that approach hadn't worked last time and she doubted it would work this time. There had to another way, another idea. She just didn't know what yet.

 

[Lysander Summers]

The lake had always been Lysanders favourite place in the whole school, but after he'd almost-definitely-maybe seen something that was either a sea monster or a very, very big mermaid, it had become a spot he found himself frequenting even more often, in the hopes of catching another glimpse of whatever it had been. Now that Care of Magical Creatures was a subject he was taking, he hoped to ask Professor Ateara if she knew anything about what kind of creatures lurked in the lake, and if she could provide any more insight. There were a lot of rumours circulating about what could be beneath the water, from sharks to squids, but his brief glimpse hadn't looked like either of those and he knew he had to see it for himself. So there Sander sat, his legs hanging from the lake's pier, toes dipped into the water as if almost daring something to come up and try to grab them. Unfortunately, or fortunately? Nothing stirred. Even a merperson would have sufficed, but they seemed to be really antisocial. He exhaled dramatically and looked back to the shore, where he spotted someone he knew also looking out in the lake. "Chloë!" He shouted, cupping a hand around his mouth while he waved to get her attention with the other. He scrambled to his feet and sprinted back down the length of the pier, coming breathlessly to a halt when he finally reached her. "Hey! What are you up to?" He asked curiously, turning to see if there was anything in particular she'd been staring at from the shore. He'd been too busy looking down to look anywhere else while he'd been sitting, and now he was worried he'd missed another sighting right in front of him. It had been just a flash last time, one Rowan had completely missed. It had been enough to make him question it for a while. "Have you...seen anything?" He whispered ominously, as if the monster could leap out at any moment just by the mere mention of it. Which admittedly was what he wanted to see, as long as it didn't eat them. He was still half convinced it was what had gotten Avie.​

 

[Chloe Thompson]

The wheels in Chloë's head had been spinning like crazy, trying to come up with theories of what kind of creature she didn't know of could be in the lake and how she could lure it out. Her thoughts were brutally interrupted thoug, when she could suddenly hear someone calling her. Or rather shouting her name. She looked around and eventually spotted Lysander, letting out a chuckle when he came running towards her and seemed to be fully out of breath once he reached her. "Just.. investigating." She replied in all seriousness when he asked her what she was doing. At least that was what she was trying to do. She hadn't been rather good at it so far. Chloë's brows shot up in surprise when the boy asked her if she had seen anything. Perhaps it wasn't so much that he asked, but the way he asked. As if he knew something that she didn't. "Nah, that's sort of the problem." She shrugged, glancing back sideways towards the lake for a second when she thought she heard water splashing. It was nothing. "Why? Did you see anything?" She asked him, cocking her head ever so slightly out of curiousity. What if he had actually seen something? The only thing she had seen was the rock that had come flying out of the water. She hadn't even seen the smallest bit of the creature she was looking for, which was also why she had absolutely no idea what she was even looking for. Was it something that was known to live in the lake or was it a creature people didn't know was in there? "Because it might sound crazy, but there's something weird in that lake." Chloë stated, wondering if he had come across anything and might be looking for the same thing as she was. "I'm sure of it."

 

[Lysander Summers]

Lysander gave Chloë a coy smile, shoving his hands casually into his pockets and turning to look back out across the lake. "Maybe I have. Maybe I haven't." He teased cryptically, though his face did little to hide the fact that he did genuinely believe he'd seen something. He couldn't help but grin from ear to ear. If she knew anything about it, then he wanted to know. He wasn't having any luck trying to find out on his own, and he was sure their two brains could solve it. "Okay, so. I definitely saw something." He continued quickly, unable to keep up trying to keep it secret for too long. "It was too big to be a mermaid, and it was sort of yellow, or gold?" He said, unsure of exactly what was the right word for it. He'd been holding a yellow flower at the time, and it hadn't been quite the same, but to him, both colours were still what he considered to be "yellow". He just thought it may have been a little closer to the gold on his uniform. "But I only saw it for like, a second. I don't really know what it looked like. Just that it was big." He shrugged. It had gone as quickly as it had come, and he hadn't seen it since. "I think it's a sea monster. Like uh, a kelpie." He couldn't think of any other magical creature that lived in the water and looked as big, but they weren't native to New Zealand, as far as he knew. "How do you know there's something in the lake?" He questioned, since she'd so far claimed not to have seen anything. He was sure she'd had to have glimpsed something that could help to determine what exactly it had been.​

 

[Chloe Thompson]

Chloë crossed her arms and lightly frowned at Lysander when he decided to act all mysterious about whether he had actually seen something or not. She was pretty sure he had, otherwise why would he wouldn't have asked her the question. Yes, he had definitely noticed something was up with the lake as well. She didn't have to wait too long to find out though, as he quickly gave up the act and told her he had seen something. Listening carefully to what he had to say, she tried to make mental notes of everything he mentioned. Chloë nodded along when he reckoned it could be some kind of sea monster. "I feel like it's definitely something weird or like.. unusual." She stated, sounding pretty certain of her case for someone who hadn't seen as much of a glimpse of whatever it was that resides in the lake. "Okay so I didn't really see anything," She started her answer to his question, remaining confident in what she thought despite that 'minor' detail. "But," She continued, holding her finger up to indicate that she was going somewhere with her answer. "I was skipping stones, which I have done plenty of times, and one of them came flying back at me. Like, literally flying straight out of the water and landing right in front of my feet and that has never happened before." She almost rambled, emphasizing the parts which she felt made it strange. "So I know I didn't see anything, but I want to know what did that and I feel like it might be some weird creature." She finished with a little shrug, hoping that he'd find her explanation somewhat acceptable. She knew she didn't see anything but she now knew Lysander did, so maybe they would be able to figure it out together. It could be fun. It could be a disaster. Either way, Chloë was fixed on finding out what was in the lake.

 

[Lysander Summers]

Lysander raised his brows, giving Chloë a confused look when she admitted she hadn't actually seen anything. "Oh, right, okay." He said. That didn't help narrow things down at all, but he kept his lips sealed when she raised her finger and continued. It wasn't quite what he'd hoped, but he was happy to grab onto any thread of evidence he could find, and he gasped in genuine shock as she told her story. "That's never happened to me either!" He admitted. He hadn't thrown many rocks into the lake, but when he had, they'd never flown back out at him. Unless it was possessed by Avie's ghost, since he was the boy that died and loved rocks, but the sea monster throwing it back totally made more sense to him. He kicked idly at a rock on the shore, toeing it into the water as if it would pop back out. It didn't. "That means it must have hands, if it can throw rocks." He nodded seriously, trying to construct a mental image of the creature in his head. "So it's yellow and it has hands, and it lives in the water." He continued after a moment, already deciding that they had a solid idea of its anatomy. "I don't know anything like that at all. I bet it could be an undiscovered monster. Maybe it's really ancient, and it just woke up after being frozen at the bottom of the lake for thousands of years. Or it could be new, like a magical experiment someone did." He theorised. The possibilities were endless, and his mind was racing with all the potentials. "Or maybe it's a student who tried to transfigure themselves, and now they're stuck as some sort of lake creature." Like how that one witch on one of his chocolate frog cards had apparently tried to turn Merlin into a tree. It could've been a curse they needed to break, or it could have just been a monster. It sounded more and more like a quest the more he talked about it, and he needed to know. "We're gonna figure it out. If its a new creature, then it'll make us famous for discovering it. We need a plan." He nodded decisively and put his hands on his hips, looking out across the lake with a determined smile. "If we had a really long rope, we could tie it to a tree or have someone pull it, and swim out into the water to see whats out there. I won the dueling tournament." Lysander blurted out, turning around to check if Chloë was impressed. "So that means I can handle any kind of monster, no problem."​

so sorry aah

 

[Chloe Thompson]

Chloë might have been the slightest bit nervous that Lysander wasn't going to take her seriously when she explained that she hadn't actually seen anything weird. Her lips curled into a smile though when he seemed to agree that the stone flying back had been strange and never happened to him before either. Something had to have thrown it, it wasn't as if the lake itself just enjoyed spitting out stones every now and then. At least she didn't think it did.. It had never happened to her, and Lysander as well, before so that much was clear. "Does it though?" She questioned the boy's claim that the thing they were after had to have hands or it couldn't have thrown out the stone. "What if it just used like.. it's mouth or maybe it's just really strong and swept the stone out with it's tail or something?" Chloë tried to slowly come up with other ways the beast, thing, monster could have done it. What to even call it was another thing she asked herself. Lysander seemed set on it being some kind of sea or water monster but what if it was just some creature. A monster didn't specifically sound like it would be a lot of fun. It would be interesting to say the least and a cool discovery to add to that but still it had a huge negative intonation to it. "That would be cool." She responded at his mention of some sort of ancient monster, although the other two ideas he brought to the table sounded slightly uncomfortable. "What if it's just some sort of weird creature who happens to dislike stones?" She reasoned before clapping her hands together. "Maybe it's even friendly! Imagine if it's an unknown creature, or monster, and we befriended it." Chloë got a little excited about the idea and it only made her want to find out what was in the lake even more. "Oh definitely." She nodded in agreement with Lysander when he stated they were going to figure it out. They had to figure it out. That was why she had come down to the lake in the first place anyways and she was determined not to leave untill they at least had some sort of clue of what was in the lake. "But what if it's a monster that could swallow you whole?" Chloë questioned. She had to admit winning the duelling tournament was cool, but swimming out into the lake to see if there was a monster down there didn't seem like a solid plan. Moreover, if he swam out and got swallowed by a monster that would leave her in a very, very bad situation. "Maybe we could like hoover over the lake and see if anything's visible." She offered, wondering if they would even be able to see something down below if they flew very close to the water's surface. "That way we can go all the way to the centre of the lake without actually being in the water." She continued. It wasn't like she was scared, because she wasn't, but Lysander's talk of monsters had made part of her wonder if it could be something big with possibly a lot of teeth. If it was, she'd prefer not to get eaten alive.