Closed No One Knows the Truth

[Weston Stirling]

It was no secret that Weston was obsessed with the man-eating eels. Unfortunately, there were very few people who believed in an eel, much less multiple man-eating ones. He had Indi, of course, but she had to believe in them because she'd seen one herself. It was much harder to convince others of his theory even though it made perfect sense to Weston. Why else was there so much variation in the eel rumors? What else could explain the aggressive nature of the one that had attacked him?

When he'd heard that another student had been attacked, Weston knew immediately that he had to talk to her. She could have valuable information about the creatures that lurked below. His own eel encounter had been very brief, and despite his and Indi's best efforts, they hadn't see any since that fateful day. It had taken Weston some time to track down the other eel victim, but after asking around, he was pretty sure he'd found the right person. "Hi, are you Aine?" he asked, taking a seat opposite the Hufflepuff. "I'm Weston. I heard you were attacked by one of the eels in the lake."

 

[Aine Thompson]

Aine was idly chewing on a slice of apple when she was approached by an older Ravenclaw boy. She had meant to patiently chew the apple before responding, but what he said made het stumble, coughing and spluttering and grabbing her glass of water to rapidly swallow so she could actually respond. "Ack, sorry, sorry, but yes!" She took a couple of breaths, wheezing a little and gulping down water until she could speak properly. "Hi, Weston, its, um, nice to meet you," she awkwardly added, knowing she'd made a terrible impression. "I went swimming early in the year - really wish we had a pool or something - and I saw it. Golden scales!" She nodded frantically as she spoke. "I think it tried to drown me."

 

[Weston Stirling]

Weston was so intent on figuring out if this girl was another eel victim that he barely noticed her spluttering. He waited impatiently for Aine to finish, and when she finally choked out a "Yes," his eyes widened. "It tried to drown me too!" he exclaimed. "Or, one of the eels tried to drown me. I think there's a whole bunch of them in there, but the one I saw had golden scales too. I wasn't even in that deep when it tried to knock me over and drag me down," he rambled as he started to dig around in his bag for a quill and the notebook where he kept all his eel notes. "Do you remember what the weather was like? And where exactly in the lake were you when it tried to kill you?" Weston held his quill above the paper, ready to take notes.

 

[Aine Thompson]

"A whole bunch of them?" Aine couldn't help but ask, thinking about it. She'd been told there were mermaids, which she hadn't seen, but finding out there was a whole lot of eels made her shudder. "Jeez. We really do need a pool." It was hard to do any sort of exercise that didn't involve flying, as Aine would have rather died than gone on a broom. Though if the eels were any indication, maybe she could've died. "Or anything, other than Quidditch." She shook her head. She could go on a rant, but she figured it wasn't the right time. "Um, well, it was earlier in the year, and I think I was pretty close to the shore," she explained, trying to think through the situation. "It was a sunny day...and I was talking to someone, um, Rosie," she continued. "And there was golden scales...and it made waves crash over me to try and bring me down." It was like one, and barely a splash, but now she felt like there had to be more of a story.

 

[Weston Stirling]

"Of course," Weston said a little impatiently. "The eel that tried to kill you had to have come from somewhere, right? Plus, no one can seem to agree on how big the eel is or what it looks like, so it only makes sense that there's more than one." It was the most logical theory. The alternative was that there was a freak shapeshifting eel that had just spontaneously appeared in a landlocked lake. "Quidditch...?" he repeated, wondering if he had missed something. Thankfully the conversation turned back to Aine's near-death encounter, and Weston took notes as she spoke. "Who's Rosie? Was she in the water with you?" It seemed his list of eel witnesses had just gotten longer. The rest of Aine's story sounded familiar. "I think we saw the same eel. Did your eel also rise above the water right before it attacked you?" The sight of the eel emerging from the depths of the lake had been one of the most terrifying things Weston had ever seen, and he wondered if it was a tactic the eel used to intimidate its victims before going in for the kill.