[Andrea Carter]

Blissfully unaware of her surroundings, Andrea sat propped up against a tree near the lake, bent over a piece of parchment and a potions book to lean on, writing a letter home to her older sister. As well as growing closer over the Christmas holidays, Andrea was searching for an antique necklace for Ellis for her upcoming birthday and knowing that this was Sasha's area of expertise, she had decided to reach out to her.

It was a lukewarm April morning, the sun was watery where it broke through the clouds and the canopy of the trees, and Andrea found herself shivering slightly into her robes. Placing her quill down for just a second, she pulled a scarf from her bag and wrapped it around her neck tightly, before resuming her writing.

[Luella Green]

Lulu Green spent a lot of her free time outside, and one of her favourite places to come was the lake. This was because she had been reading, researching and asking a lot of people about it, and she was fascinated by all the creatures living in there - especially the Giant Squid - and she was desperate to see some of them for herself one day.

Though it seemed that this morning she was not the only one who had come down here.

"Andrea, hello," Lulu grinned at her classmate as she stopped walking - after all, she did like Andrea when they sat near each other in class, and she didn't see her as often since she was all the way over in the Ravenclaw tower.

[Andrea Carter]

So wrapped up in her writing as she was, Andrea did not hear her classmate approach until she spoke to her. She lifted her head as she heard her name and smiled widely. It was nice to see a different face to the usual crowds in the Ravenclaw tower, and that was just one of the reasons she was grateful that the weather was starting to get a bit warmer. "Hey Lulu!"

Andrea placed her quill down gently beside her. "What brings you to the lake?" She thought she'd heard Lulu asking their classmates about different creatures before, but she couldn't be sure.

[Luella Green]

"It's finally nice out," Lulu shrugged with a small smile, as it was not a secret that Scotland's weather was very unpredictable, and often cold, windy, rainy or all three at once.

"And, I actually came down to see if I could spot the Giant Squid again," Lulu admitted, "or anything else that lives in the lake."

[Andrea Carter]

Andrea nodded. "It makes a change to come outside than be stuck in the tower. I enjoy the company of the other Ravenclaws, but..." She trailed off with a shrug, sure that Lulu would know what she meant.

This time when Lulu spoke, Andrea tucked her parchment underneath her bag so it wouldn't blow away and stood up, before moving slowly towards the water's edge. "I've been reading about merpeople in our Fantastic Beasts textbook recently. Apparently selkies live in these waters. They're native to Scotland, but I've never seen one."

[Luella Green]

"Ah, yes," Lulu nodded, knowingly. She knew where Andrea was coming from, though, it was also sometimes nice to have a break from the other Gryffindors. She wasn't as loud and rowdy as some of them were.

"That is so awesome," Lulu said, "remember from two years ago, too, during the tournament?" They had been very young and new to Hogwarts when the Triwizard Tournament had taken place, but she still remembered the second task well. "There were all kinds of creatures down there."

[Andrea Carter]

Andrea nodded, remembering also. "I wonder if any of the others saw any selkies?" She went quiet for a moment, suddenly recalling Diggory's death. He'd never be able to tell them.

Suddenly wanting to switch conversation, Andrea conveniently remembered that she'd got some snacks in her bag. She turned away for a second to find the bar of chocolate, and then brought it back to Lulu. "Want some?"

[Luella Green]

Lulu remembered exactly what Andrea remembered, but didn't want to talk about it. "I could ask Harry, but we're not exactly best friends," she smiled, lightening the mood a bit. In fact, Harry Potter definitely did not know she existed.

"Yeah sure, thanks," Lulu said, taking some chocolate, "you came prepared."

[Andrea Carter]

Andrea giggled. She didn't think many sixth years knew of the existence of third years, let alone ones as famous as Harry Potter.

The Ravenclaw nodded. Her organisation skills were ones she took pride in... especially when it came to food. Andrea placed a piece of chocolate on her tongue and allowed it to melt. "Okay, if you could choose only one, which creature from the lake that you've heard about, would you most want to see?"

[Luella Green]

"The Giant Squid, for sure," Lulu said, without even having to think about it. Someone had told her about it in passing, and it was one of her main goals to meet it before she left Hogwarts.

"Or actually, meeting the Merfolk would be awesome too, but I'd have to learn some phrases in Mermish first, I bet they have books for that in the library."

Lulu was the kind of kid who didn't ever stand out in lessons, and wasn't overenthused about homework or studying, until it came to either plants or creatures. Then, her inner potential Ravenclaw traits came out.

[Andrea Carter]

Andrea nodded along, agreeing. She'd heard once that the Giant Squid had lifted one of the first years back onto the boat after it had fallen into the water, but she wasn't so sure if that had simply been a rumour.

"I'm sure we could find something in the library," Andrea agreed, then suddenly went red as she realised she'd invited herself along to Lulu's plans. "I mean, if you wanted to work together on it."

[Luella Green]

"Yeah, of course," Lulu happily accepted Andrea's offer of company. It was always reassuring when others wanted to spend time with her, and didn't mock her for being so obsessed with magical creatures. And plants, don't even get her started on them.

"Maybe if we learn some Mermish greetings or something, we could call into the lake and they'd hear us and come up," Lulu suggested.

[Andrea Carter]

Andrea's heart rate quickly slowed as she realised that Lulu was quite happy for her to accompany her on a trip to the library. She smiled softly to herself, feeling reassured that the other girl wanted to spend time with her. Despite being in Ravenclaw house, Andrea's enthusiasm for learning and what others deemed to be quite weird often separated her from her peers. It was nice to have a friend.

The Ravenclaw's eyes lit up. "Oh that's a wonderful idea! I bet they'd be really impressed that we'd bothered to learn some greetings too!" In her head, Andrea was already cataloguing the books that she thought might be of use to them. "Maybe we could start after Potions on Tuesday?" she suggested.

[Luella Green]

Lulu grinned, equally pleased that her classmate thought her idea was good. Learning and finding new creatures was exactly her idea of fun. "Sounds good, it'll be nice to do something more interesting after Potions anyway," Lulu said.

She didn't like Potions, she hadn't since she started at Hogwarts.

"I always feel bad for the spiders and other creatures that are dead, and we use them to make Potions with."

Lulu hadn't changed much from being a seven-year-old child who was crying because a bird had flown into their window and got hurt. She had so much empathy for all creatures.

[Andrea Carter]

Andrea cocked her head to the side and considered her classmate. "You don't like Potions?" It made sense, given that Lulu enjoyed learning about magical creatures and taking care of them, but Andrea had never thought of it like. She pursed her lips, thinking.

"I guess I've never really thought about it like that, but I like to think the creatures have passed away peacefully after a long life before they're made into Potions ingredients." She didn't know if that was just naive, though.