The Heiress of Slytherin

You Didn't Have to be that Dramatic??

Swallowing a scream, Ivy froze completely. There was no doubt that the thing was alive and staring at her, as it blinked languidly every now and then, while never removing its gaze from her face. Gripping the icy surface of the stone beneath her as tightly as she could, Ivy was just about to slowly push herself further up the rock when thin grey fingers clamped tightly around her shoulder from behind. This time, Ivy made no effort to hold in her scream.

The creature below the surface widened its eyes ever so slightly as Ivy's shrill scream sliced through the cold air. For a moment she thought that it might have started towards her, but then it slunk further down below the surface, blue eyes soon eclipsed by darkness.

The hand that had so frightened her began to shake her roughly and she heard a thin, raspy voice behind her shushing her as though she were the most inconvenient creature that had ever disgraced that land.

Her voice trickled off to a heavy, frightened sort of breathing and she glanced behind her to see William's black, glittering eyes staring at her fiercely and disdainfully.

"What on earth are you going on about, screaming like that? Screaming never helped anyone, only causes a disturbance, doesn't it." Ivy cocked her head a little at his words. She was fairly sure screaming had, in fact, helped people upon occasion, but William didn't seem the type to entertain constructive criticism, so she kept her mouth firmly shut.

This was evidently the correct tact to take as William's gaze relented ever so slightly and he turned towards the lake. "You saw it. Didn't you? Damned beast. Hasn't shown its face for nearly 240 years, but the second you show up, it comes swimming up from its hidey-hole."

He looked at Ivy accusingly, as though she had intentionally summoned whatever that creature was. Brushing aside this offence, Ivy timidly regained enough of her voice to ask, "what is, that thing, exactly?"

William harumphed heartily, his gaze forming a glare so intense it could've melted through the ice it was fixed on. (Ivy was quickly forming the opinion that no arrows could possibly be as formidable as the venom held in a Pukwudgies eye).

"That thing is a horned water serpent. They live for 'round a thousand years. This one's been here since before the school was founded, and it'll be here long after I'm gone." He scowled and paused for a moment, then turned his gaze to Ivy.

"This one was a friend of Isolt's. She said she could talk to it. That it could talk to her. The nasty beast was rather fond of her. Helped her out of a sticky predicament once." Ivy didn't quite like the way he was looking at her, as though he wanted to peel open her mind and read every single thought that had ever passed through it, but she met his gaze evenly and held it through the discomfort.

"If that things back and taken an interest in her, then she really must be related to Isolt." He muttered these words, quiet and begrudging under his breath so that Ivy could barely catch them.

After they had left his mouth the pair stayed still for an uncomfortably long time, the silence stretching between them thin and brittle.

Just when Ivy could barely stand it any longer, William reached behind him and rustled around in some sort of sack that hung around his back. He pulled a worn leather notebook out of his bag and passed it very slowly over to Ivy, who let her ice-cold fingers snake from beneath her cloak to grasp it around the binding.

It took William a few seconds longer to release his hold on the book, but when he did Ivy took it and gently cracked it open. Her eyes widened when she took in the smooth, slanted script that filled each page from top to bottom. Each page had a date written in the top right corner.