Bound in secrets - YouDrew_Stars - Harry Potter (2024)

Chapter 1: Mako

Chapter Text

Lily Evans did not like the sea. She didn’t like uncertainty of it nor its seemingly bottomless depth. 95 percent was undiscovered for a reason and as far as she was concerned it could stay that way. So natrually she was not thrilled when she became stuck in the middle of it.

Of course it started with James Potter. Oh, how she hated the arrogant, obnoxiously wealthy prick. But when he and equally his arrogant and obnoxiously wealthy friend Sirius’s boat broke down, and they asked for help, Mary Macdonald insisted. She had had a crush on Sirius for as long as Lily had known her, much to her dismay, and that is how the girls ended up on a boat in the harbor.

She hadn’t noticed the boys stepping out, or James untying the rope that kept its dock until it was too late. And by then they were drifting.

“What the hell, James?” She cried, narrowing her green eyes.

Mary looked up from where she was crouched over the engine. “Damnit. Sirius, grab the rope, this isn’t funny.”

“Oh, but it is,” he laughed. “If you fix it, you can keep it!”

“Think it’s too late to jump for it?” Mary asked. The thought made Lily cringe.

“Definitely not.”

At that moment, someone landed in the boat beside them, dropping to her knees which the inpact and rocking the boat to the side.

The girl stood up, pushing light blonde hair away from her brown eyes and grinning at them.

“Marlene?” Mary asked, recognizing her first. She was the new girl at their high school, having stayed at the beginning of the school year a couple weeks back.

“Mary, right? And the redhead.”

“Lily,” the redhead in question corrected angrily. “What are you doing here? Did you want to get stuck with us?”

“I know a thing or two about boat’s, and I felt like being a hero. My dad’s a mechanic. Move, let me see.”

She shuffled to crouch down at the engine beside Mary. The boat, a little red thing, was barely big enough for the three of them, and Lily felt claustrophobic. She looked out at the water surrounding them at all sides as they got farther from the dock and swallowed nervously.

The engine came back to life with a roar, startling Lily out of her thoughts. Marlene whooped with triumph and Mary clapped.

“Told you,” Marlene bragged. “Can’t believe those posh boys couldn’t figure it out, the morons.”

Lily glance back to the boys, growing smaller and smaller behind them.

“Yeah, great, can we head back now? It getting dark and I should get home.”

“No way.” Mary scoffed. “We have their boat to ourselves. We can go wherever we want.”

“That’s the spirit!” Marlene nodded.

“Guys…” Lily pleaded.

“Come on, Lils,” Mary offered. “It’ll be fun, and we’ll get back before it get’s too late.”

Lily sighed and the other girls took that as agreement, speeding off. They road along the shore of the Gold Coast for the next half and Lily could safely say it was not fun. Sea spray splashed her eyes, her hair whipped in her face and water lapped and her feet through her sandals.

Soon Marlee and Mary decided they should go father out, much to Lily’s dismay.

“We can look for dolphins,” Mary coaxed, her arm around Lily’s shoulder.

“We can see dolphins at the Marine park. I need to get home to study for the bio test. Did you two forget about that?”

“That’s not for a week. I wouldn’t worry about it.” Marlene said from the front of the boat. Despite third wheeling the two friends, she didn’t seem at all awkward or uncomfortable, talking to them like she’d known them for years. Lily supposed she should be grateful to the one who saved them, but right now all she could feel was annoyance that they wouldn’t turn around.

She had just started to convince them to turn back when the hum of the engine stopped. A second later so did the boat. Marlene cursed under her breath, messing with the engine.

“We’re stranded,” she announced finally.

“It’s fine. We can call someone to come out here and help us.”

“The water police?” Lily asked.

Marlene shook her head. “What if Sirius and his friend say we stole it or something? No, I’ll call my dad. He has a fishing boat.”

They waited in silence as Marlene attempted to call her dad. “No service,” she announced after a pause.

“Okay, I’m calling the police. It’ll be fine, we can tell them what happened.”

“Bette not to get involved with Sirius's family. They’re pretty powerful and apparently crazy or something,” said Mary.

Lily called anyway but found she didn’t get any service either. Mary tried next but had no more success than the others.

“Great. Now what?” Lily groaned. It was their fault they were in this mess.

“We can paddle to that island,” suggested Marlene, gesturing to the silhouette of an island not to far from their boat.

“No. That’s Mako. There’s a shark attack, like, a month there. Not to mention reefs and sharp rocks.” Lily shuddered at the thought.

“What else are we gonna do?” Mary sighed. “We’ll be fine, I promise.” She squeezed Lily’s hand.

“Well, that’s sweet, but we should get going before it’s too dark to see. No one has a torch, by any chance?” They shook their head.

Half an hour later they had paddled to the island. They pulled the boat onto the shore and Lily sat down on the sand in exhaustion. Mary lay down next to her.

“Come on, we should get to the top of that mountain, see if we can get any service.” She gestured to the giant hill rising from the middle of the island, surrounded by dense trees that looked almost like a jungle. Lily would rather do anything else in that moment.

Mary got to her feet and extended a hand to Lily. Marlene, who seemed like the athletic type, was unaffected by theirlong journey by paddle.

The three girls headed through the thick trees, making slow progress up the mountain and getting no more service than they had in the boat. As the last of the sunlight faded, they could see only by the light of the moon, which was full that night.

Up towards the top, the reached a deep looking crevice in the rocks they were climbing across. Marlene went first, easily making the long jump. Mary hesitated, the braced herself and leapt across.
Lily stalled in front of the hole, looking around for any easier way.

“You can do it, Lils!” Mary encouraged, reaching out a hand to help her. Lily, shut her eyes then jumped. Her feet missed the ledge.

She was falling.

She felt herself go weightless for a second, then collide with the earth. It wasn’t flat, however, but a downward slide. She opened her eyes and slid down helplessly, colliding with the hard floor with a loud “Oof!”

“Are you okay?”!” Mary called down, panic in her voice.

“Yeah, just a little bruised,” Lily called back.

“Thank God,” Mary’s voice echoed down the tunnel. “Hang on, I’m coming down.”

“What? No!” Lily just had time to scramble out of the way before Mary came tumbling down, landing behind her.

Marlene slid right behind her, much to Lily’s exasperation.

“What the hell? Now we’re all stuck down here!”

Mary turned on Marlene. “You were supposed to stay up there and find a way out!”

“How was I supposed to know that?!”

“Hey, there’s nothing we can do about it now,” Lily interjected, standing up. Wherever they had landed was tall enough that she could. “Where is this?”

Her eyes were quickly adjusting to the darkness, lit only by the moonlight. She reached out and touched the wall and felt smooth, cold stone beneath her fingers.

“This island used to be a volcanic, right?” Mary asked. “Maybe we’re inside it.”

“Please tell me it’s dormant,” Marlene’s voice came from the darkness behind them.

“It has been for a couple thousand years,” Lily said absently, the story coming back to her. “Let’s look for a way out.”

The cavern they were in didn’t look big at first, but soon the girls found a narrow passageway leading father inside. Lily was the first to reach the end. She looked around in astonishment.

She was in another cave, slightly bigger than where they had landed. In the middle was a pool of water, carved deep into the floor and surrounded by sand. The strange thing was the blue glow of the water, illuminating the cave.

The other girls shuffled in behind her, each registering the oddness of the pool. The whole place seemed sort of ethereal.

“Woah,” Mary breathed. “Look up.”

Directly above the pool was a circular opening, far above their heads, revealing the star speckled sky. It really did look like a volcano.

“Right, so how are we getting out of here?” Lily asked. Marlene crouched down by the edge of the pool. “Look, tide rings. It probably connects to the ocean.”

“So can we swim out?” Mary asked.

“I’ll go check.” Marlene had already pulled off her shoes and started climbing down into the water. “It’s warm,” She noted, her blonde hair floating around her. “Be right back.”

As Marlene disappeared under the water, Lily and Mary exchanged nervous looks. “Do you think we’ll get out of here?” Lily asked. “I know we will,” Mary comforted. “We’ll be fine.” But then she had to add, “Sirius knows we’re gone. He might come to help.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Enough about Sirius. The spoiled brat doesn’t care about anyone but himself. He definetly wouldn’t care that we’re stranded out here.”

At that Mary looked hurt, her dark brows furrowing. Lily felt bad but she didn’t take it back. Sirius and James were assholes. She didn’t know why Mary would like someone like Sirius, especially after what he had just done.

Marlene resurfaced, her eyeliner smudged across her cheek. “There’s a way out into the ocean, maybe twenty feet across. We can all make it.”

“Great,” Mary smiled at Lily. “See, I told you we would get out of here.”

“I don’t know if this is a good idea. Maybe we could try climbing out?” Lily suggested.

Marlene scoffed. “What’s wrong? We have a way out.”

“I just- God, this is embarrassing, but I can’t swim.” She felt her face flush.

“That okay, Lily. I didn’t learn until I was twelve,” Mary said.

“You live, like right next to the sea, and you’ve never swam?” Marlene asked Lily.

Chapter 2: Mermaids

Chapter Text

It was a Saturday, the day Marlene had moved to the Gold Coast. It had been exactly four weeks now, and she still wanted to be home.

Her dad had said to give it a month. “You’ll have settled in by then,” he said. “Made some friends.” But Marlene hadn’t accomplished either of those.

It was hard starting a new school in year eleven. Everyone knew each other, friend groups and cliques had formed. Marlene was an outsider, completely alone.

The upside about the move was living by the beach. Marlene loved the ocean. She loved the freedom of swimming out as far as she could. She had gone down to the stretch of sand nearest to her house every Saturday morning since moving and today wasn’t an exception.

It was deserted today and she was alone. She dropped her towel and her flip flops on the sand and stepped into the cool water. It was early enough in the school year that it was still blazingly hot and the water felt perfect.

She was up to her midriff when she suddenly fell and lurched forward. She resurfaced with a curse. Something felt off. She looked down at her legs to find they were completely gone.

“What the..”

Where her legs had been a moment before was an orange gold fishtail. She reached a hand down to touch it then recoiled at the feeling.

She touched it again, tracing the scales al the way down to the wide fin. What had happened to her?

What was this? She had to be still dreaming. Or maybe she hit her head or something and was imagining things. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be real. Things like that didn’t happen.

—Lily—

Lily was in the bathtub when it happened. A few seconds after getting in a tail appeared in place of her legs. She almost screamed in shock.

Now she was sitting there staring, trying to process what the hell had happened. She had a tail. A scaly orange fish tail. That didn’t make sense.

A sharp knock on the door startled her from her spiraling thoughts.

“Lily? We’re leaving in five minutes. Mum says to get downstairs.”

“Oh, er.. Tell her I don’t feel well, Pet. I’m throwing up.”

“Ew,” her sister muttered, before her footsteps receded down the hall.

Lily sighed and rubbed her forehead. How was she going to explain this to her family. ‘Hey, mum, I grew a damn fish tail?’

A few minutes later she had managed to pull herself out of the tub, tail in tow. She grabbed a towel and began to dry herself off, praying the tail would disappear.

This had to have something to do with the night before. That strange pool and the full moon overhead. She should call Mary, see if the same thing happened to her.

As soon as she was dry, the tail disappeared. Lily breathed a sigh of relief. She had never been so glad to see her own two legs. As soon as she was dressed, she went into her room and called Mary.

“Lily! Thank God. I need to talk to you about something.” Mary’s voice sounded on the edge of hysterics.

“Yeah, me too. Is it about last night?”

“Uh-huh. I’ll cut to the chase. Did you turn into a fish from the waist down after touched water?”

“Yeah,” Lily breathed, quiet enough she wasn’t sure if Mary heard.

“Good. Otherwise you would have thought I went insane.”

Lily was just glad to have confirmed she, herself wasn’t insane.

“Do you want to meet up? It feels wrong to talk about it over the phone,” Mary suggested.

“Yeah. Can you come over to my place? My family’s just leaving and some privacy would be nice.”

“Sounds good.”

Twenty minutes later and the girls were sitting in Lily’s living room.

“It happened to me when I was washing my hands,” said Mary. “A few seconds later I was on the floor with a tail. Scared the hell out of me.”

“I was in the bath. Do you think it will happen again? Will we be like this for the rest of our lives?”

“We should test it.”

“No, I-“ Lily was cut off by the doorbell ringing. She stood to get it, Mary on her heels.

Marlene stood in the doorway, looking nervous and shy in contrast to the confident girl they had met yesterday.

“Hi. Can I come in? I wanted to talk to you. Oh, Mary’s here, perfect.”

“Yeah, come in. I think we know what you want to talk about.” Marlene nodded and Lily led her to the living room.

“So, did you turn into a fish too?”

“Basically, yeah.”

Lily wished Mary wouldn’t be so blunt about it. It made here feel uncomfortable and oddly embarrassed.

“I think we’re mermaids,” Marlene said.

“That’s ridiculous. Mermaids don’t exist.” Lily crossed her arms.

“How else do you explain what happened?”

“I think she right,” Mary interjected, putting a hand on Lily’s.

“Okay, yeah. I guess that does make the most sense.”

“I think we should test it,” announced Marlene.

“What’s there to test? We’re magical fish people now, that’s all there is too it.” Lily didn’t like the idea of touching water again, not any time soon.

“I’ll do it,” Mary volunteered. “It’s been driving me crazy all morning. I need to know if its real.”

Lily didn’t want to know whether or not it would happen again. She didn’t want to get rid of her last hope of being normal. But she knew better than to try and talk Mary out of something once she had made up here mind.

“Alright then. Let’s try it.” Mary and Marlene got up and Lily reluctantly followed.

They decided on using the kitchen sink. Mary switched on the faucet and put her hand under the water, other hand tapping on the counter with nervous energy.

“One, two..” she counted under her breath. “Three, four-“

Mary fell backwards, but Marlene had been standing behind her to catch her. She lowered her to the floor.

Mary’s legs were replaced by the same orange gold tail that Lily had seen on herself earlier that morning. She cringed. Is that what she had looked like? It seemed so impossible, inhuman.

Mary touched the scales, down to her fin “It’s so-“

The doorbell rang again, and all three girls heads jerked up at the sound.

“Were you expecting someone?” Mary asked from the floor.

“I don’t think so,” Lily said, walking to the door. “Stay down there until you dry off.”

When she opened the door, her friend Remus was standing there, holding a couple of textbooks.

“Hey. Sorry I’m late.”

Of course she had forgotten about tutoring. They had recently moved it from Wednesday to Saturday. Remus, who lived down the street, came over to tutor her in math ever since freshman year.

He walked inside and set the books on the living room table. “So I was thinking we could start with-“

“Remus.”

“Yeah?”

Something came up. Um, can we reschedule?”

“Oh, sure. Are you okay, Lils? You look.. worried.”

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

Marlene and Mary popped up from behind the kitchen counter.

“Hiya, Remus!” Mary waved, human once again, her hair flat on one side from her fall. She was friends with him too, but mostly just because Lily was. “Odd, in an endearing way,” she would call him.

“Hey Mary,” Remus said, looking confused. “And.. McKinnon, right?”

“Yeah, Marlene.” She nodded.

“Okay, yeah, we can do this some other time. But is something going on?”

Lily realized they were all were acting pretty odd, fake smiles and nervous demeanors.

“Remus, what do you know about mermaids?” She blurted before she could think better of it.

“Not much. Why?”

“No reason. Sorry, we’re in the middle of something. Can we do this next Thursday?”

“Sounds good. See you.”

“That was close,” Mary sighed as he closed the door. “How embarrassing would it be for a boy to see me lying on the floor half fish?”

“Forget embarrassing. It’s dangerous,” Lily said. “We could be studied or experimented on. Sold to the circus. We have to keep this a secret.”

“No one else can know,” Marlene confirmed.

Mary nodded. “Just us then. Our secret.”

Chapter 3: Power

Chapter Text

It had been Remus’s idea to interview for a job at the marine park. He, like Lily, needed to save up money to attend college. There families were both firmly middle class and they knew their help wouldn’t go very far.

“It will be fun,” he had said. “The two of us working together.”

Lily was completely aware of the danger working so close to the water posed, but that just made it a better idea. She refused to let her new secret run her life, wouldn’t let it limit her. This was her way of proving to herself that nothing had changed.

Now, as they walked home, she wondered what Mary would think of it. She, unlike Lily, had fully embraced her new identity. She saw it as a blessing rather than a hindrance.

She and Marlene had been trying to convince Lily to go out into the ocean with them since they discovered their predicament three days before. The three had been talking on the phone every night since, recounting near misses with water and observations they’d made. Mary and Marlene would gush about how it felt to swim out so far, to hold their breaths for so long and go so fast. The thought rattled Lily to her core.

“Lily?” Remus asked.

“Sorry. Lost in thought, I guess.”

They walked in comfortable silence a little while longer until Remus stopped.

“Is that…” Lily followed Remus’s eyes until she saw it. Two red motorcycles, ones she had seen just that morning parked outside school were heading towards them. They were unmistakable. It was James and Sirius.

“I don’t think they see us.” Lily grabbed Remus’s arm. “Come on.”

“Oi, mate!” The one in the blue helmet called to the other. James. The motorcycle turned to a quick stop. “Look who it is.”

“Evans!” Sirius stopped beside him, tugging off his black helmet and tucking it under his arm. “Theres the little thief. My parents weren’t happy about having the water police show up at our door.”

“Piss off, Black. If you can fix it you can have it, that’s what you said, right?”

Sirius grinned at her, longish black hair framing his sharp features. Most other girls in her year were obsessed with him, Mary included, but Lily had only ever seen him as a stuck up bully.

“I didn’t appreciate you and your friend taking my zodiac for a little joyride. And getting the police called on you, no less.”

“Should’ve taken better care of your things then, Black. Sitting there and whingeing at us isn’t going to make you feel better.”

Remus surprised Lily by joining in with so little context to the situation. She hadn’t told him about getting stuck at Mako, and he would undoubtedly have questions afterwards.

“Tell your boyfriend to stay out of it,” James drawled, his warm brown eyes meeting Lily’s for a second.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Lily said, her face flushing in annoyance. “And what do you want, anyway?”

“Im promising revenge,” said Sirius. “To show you I’m not the type you want to f around with.”

Who did this rich kid think he was, Lily wondered. He couldnt just ‘promise revenge’ for messing with her and Mary. The arrogant prick. Lily was the one who was actually somebody special, given her newfound mermaidness.

It was a stupid thought, opposing all her ideas about her secret. But still, she imagined water from the beach dousing over their heads, the ocean at her disposal. She felt the power of it, surging through her blood and down to her hands, a throbbing in her fingertips.

Without warning, a fire hydrant on the edge of a sidewalk nearby exploded with a steam of water, pointing directly at where Sirius and James sat on their motorbikes. Lily watched in horrified fascination.

“sh*t, what the hell?!” Sirius spluttered. James nearly toppled of his bike. He righted himself, shaking his fluffy brown hair, now soaked, from his face.

“Come on,” said Remus hushed, taking advantage of their confusion. He glanced back at Sirius. “Let’s get out of here before they pin whatever that was on us.”

But it was her. Lily did it. She knew that with unexplainable certainty, that whatever strange force that was belonged to her.

It felt powerful.

—Mary—

Mary looked over her painting, blue splattered on her hands and a paintbrush behind her ear. She’d done that since she was a kid, when she wasn’t using them.

It was bad, mediocre at best. It was of the ocean, with a violet sky and jagged rocks. She’d been working on it since the day she became a mermaid, as a sort of tribute. And now she’d have to start over.

Mary almost broke a brush in two, gripping it tight in frustration. She dropped it in her cup of paint water with the others. The paint inside had turned dark and she grabbed it to refill it.

But when her fingers touched it it was freezing. She dropped it in surprise then yelped as it crashed at her feet. After retrieving a handful of paper towels to clean the water, she picked up the shards of glass and found they were cold to the touch. The water was icy too despite being a normal temperature before. Was the AC acting up, she wondered.

That’s when the doorbell rang. Her room, which was basically just a painting studio at this point, was near the frontdoor, so she could always her it. She wiped the paint off her hands and answered it.

Lily stood in the doorway, Marlene in tow. “Oh, hi, it’s you.” Mary said, gesturing for them to come in. Her face lit up. “Are you finally coming to swimming with us, Lily?”

“No, it’s not that. I think I just discovered something. Something big.”

“She won’t tell me what it is,” Marlene explained. “Just said we need an ‘emergency meeting’.”

“Ooh, fun, a mystery. And our second official mermaid meeting.”

She saw Lily cringe at the word mermaid as she knew she would. Mary knew her friend, knew she would have trouble adjusting and seeing the world an entirely different way.

“Is anyone else home?” Lily asked.

Mary shook her head. “They’re all at my brother’s soccer game. So what’s the big surprise?”

Lily didn’t say anything, but instead went to the kitchen and filled a glass of water. She had been coming to Mary’s house regularly since they met freshman year, and she knew her way around the kitchen.

She set the glass on the kitchen island in front of her. She stared at it, raising an outstretched hand. Mary and Marlene moved to stand on either side of her, sharing a look.

The water began to rise up from the glass, slowly and shakily. Marlene gasped and Mary’s eyebrows shot up.

“That’s… Your doing magic?” Marlene asked in awe.

“Mmm,” Lily muttered, eyes still focused on the glass.

And idea popped into Mary’s head, one that would seem absurd in any other context.

“Lily, can I see that glass for a sec?”

Lily nodded, breaking her gaze away from the cup and back to Mary, still looking a bit shocked by herself.

Mary slid the glass on the counter towards her. She pressed her hand flat against her hand, squeezing her eyes shut. When she felt the glass turn cold, she opened them.

Inside the cup, where water had been before, was a block of ice. She drew a startled breath, picking up the glass and turning it over.

“You did it too!” Lily said in the closest thing to a squeal Mary had ever heard her make. She threw her arms around her neck.

“I did, didn’t I?”

Lily smiled.

“My turn!” Marlene announced, bouncing on her toes like a little kid. Mary knew how she felt. This was the best thing to ever happen to her. She was magic.

Marlene pointing her hand towards the glass like Lily had done, watching the glass to see if it changed. When that didn’t work she slowly curled her fingers into a fist, aiming it towards the water.

Nothing happened.

“It’s no use,” she sighed, slumping into a chair. “I’ve failed as a mermaid.”

Mary laughed. “It’s okay. Im sure you can do…whatever this is too.”

“I hope. That’s so badass.”

Mary looked over and saw Lily moving the water through the air, apparently trying to mold it into an orb. It kept dipping down or losing shape.

“It’s okay,” Mary said to Lily, sliding an arm around her shoulder. “We can’t all be perfect on immediately.

Lily dropped the ball of water over her head.

Chapter 4: Comfort Zone

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The midday sun shone down on the ocean as Lily walked to the Juicenet cafe, and for once she wanted to jump in. The idea had been plaguing her for days. Mary and Marlene had stopped asking her to join them on swims, but even so, Lily wanted to see what it was like to go in the ocean again.

Sure, it scared her. The whole mermaid thing did. But it was like an itch in the back of her head, and she needed to do it.

In the week since the incident took place, she was barely able to bring herself to step in the bath. When she did she shut her eyes and tried to pretend that the big orange tail was not there at all. Somehow she felt that going in the ocean would clear away the scariness of it all.

Her steps faltered as she walked and she hesitated at the edge of the water. She could just jump in now and get rid of the feeling. She wanted to. So, so much.

Lily snapped back into her senses. She kept walking, trying not to look at the ocean.

When she arrived at the cafe, it was crowded for after school. She and Remus had agreed to meet up and study, which she normally would look forward to. But since the Mako incident she couldn’t bring herself to focus on any of her school work.

The Juicenet was a popular place for teenagers to hang out, as there wasn’t much else to do in there down once you got tired of the beach. Lily liked the surfing theme and the atmosphere, and found it a nice place to study despite the noise. The employees knew her order with the amount of time she spent there.

She found Remus sitting at one of the cafe’s computers, smoothie in hand, the sun shining through his mousy brown hair. She came up behind him and peered over his shoulder.

“Hey, Remus. What are you working on?”

His fingers paused on the keyboard but he kept looking at the screen. “Remember how you asked about mermaids the other day? I decided to look into it for you, while I waited.”

Lily felt her pale face flush at the mention of mermaids. It made her want to crawl out of her skin.

“That’s sweet, but you didn’t have to. I was just curious.”

He shrugged. “It’s kind of interesting. A lot of cultures had them, apparently, but there were really different variations.”

Lily liked that Remus was a nerd like her. It made her feel less weird, and she didn’t know any other boys that would research mermaids for her. But this was one subject she didn’t want to learn about. She really wished she hadn’t brought it up.

“Do people still believe in them?” She asked.

“I haven’t seen anything about that yet, but I’d assume not. Here, I got you this.” Remus handed her a smoothie. Her usual order, strawberry and banana.
“Let’s find a table.”

They sat themselves in a booth out of reach of the glaring sun and pulled out their textbooks. As Lily opened her’s, her hand brushed her pencil off of the table and onto the floor. Before she could grab it, a waitress came by, holding a tray of waters.

The waitress only stumbled over the fallen pencil but that was enough to knock a glass of water off the tray and onto the table, right in front of Lily. It landed on its side, and water spilled down into her lap.

She panicked and froze, like her life was flashing before her eyes

Oh, sh*t.

She was going to turn into a fish in front of the entire cafe.

“I’m so sorry, miss!” The girl apologized.

“No worries!” Lily squeaked as she leapt up onto her feet.

The water had soaked into her clothes and there was no way to wipe it all off, so she did the only thing left to do. She bolted from the cafe, almost knocking the poor waitress over in the process.

She should have run to the bathrooms, she figured, but by the time she realized that she was out the door. Thankfully, the water front where boats where docked was close to by the cafe. She leapt into the ocean right as her legs disappeared.

It was terrifying at first, the extra weight of her tail pulling her down. She could barely swim without it. She felt like she was going to drown. But after a moment she realized she didn’t have to breath.

It didn’t feel as wrong as it had before, her in the ocean. The water felt cool against her skin and light shone from above her. She reached a hand out to touch the scales of her tail, but didn’t recoil. They glimmered in the muted sunlight. Her waist seamlessly faded into them. It was unbelievable, unworldly.

Her fascination came to a halt when she realized people might have seen her jump out into the water. She must have looked deranged. Thankfully, there was hardly anyone outside of the cafe, but surely people noticed her running. And even worse, what if they didn’t see her resurface and thought she drowned?

And what about Remus? Did he see her? He must be so confused, she thought. She doubted he would be angry at her. He knew she always had her reasons for things. But then he would be concerned for her and that was even worse.

Resurfacing was out of the question, at least not until she found somewhere more secluded. Seeing a soaking wet girl with a fish tail dragging herself out of the water would raise some eyebrows.

Lily decided she would find a secluded place to wait and dry off. It took her a second of flailing to start swimming, but after that she found swimming with her tail came easier to her than she would have thought. It was fast and strong, and she soared through the water with ease. It was like flying.

She gave up on tracing the shoreline and just swam, without a clear direction in mind. Her vision was blurred by the speed, but the water didn’t sting her eyes. She realized that she couldn’t feel any water pressure, despite how deep she must be.

The reefs were under her, she noticed as she looked down. She slowed, her red hair floating around her head wildly. She have been farther out than she realized.

Swimming upwards, her head resurfaced above the water. Behind her, the shore was a blur in the distance. She shouldn’t have been able to swim that far in such a short amount of time, yet here she was.

Turning back, Lily saw Mako. She had made it to the island where it had all started. It stood in all its mysterious glory just a few dozen yards in front of her.

It stirred up unpleasant memories of her last visit, yet she felt strangely drawn to it. She wanted to go investigate, to explore the place that had changed her life.

Slipping back under the cool blanket of water, she headed towards the island, watching her pace so she didn’t swim headfirst into the rocks. Swimming really was thrilling, and the reefs under her were beautiful.

It took two laps around the island to find the entrance to the cave, but she spotted in eventually, nestled into the rocks. Swimming through brought her back to the week before, back before her entire worldview was turned on it’s head.

She hesitated at the end of the short tunnel. It felt important, this moment. Every thing had changed here. She closed her eyes and swam up into the pool.

—Mary—

Mary and Marlene both jumped as Lily entered the cave. It took Mary several seconds to process who it was in the first place. She seemed so out of place.

The two girls had been meeting in what they had dubbed the ‘moon pool’ almost every day for the past week. They talked about all their new discoveries and problems. Neither was much into researching but together they compared notes. What kind of moisturizer and face wash they could use without turning (almost none) and which articles of clothing could turn with them (everything except headbands, glasses, and some jewelry.)

Mostly they tested their powers.

Marlene had discovered hers a few days prior. They had been arguing who they could let in on their secret (Mary wanted to tell her sister about being a mermaid, but Marlene thought it was a horrible idea.) Marlene had gotten upset, and suddenly the water started heating up, slowly at first until it stung. Mary had freaked out and jumped out of the water.

By now they had figured on the boundaries. Mary could freeze almost the entire pool if she started from the bottom, but not much more than that. Marlene had evaporated all of the water once, and the steam was so bad that they had to leave the cave.

They learned that each of them now had a resistance to extreme temperatures, Mary to the cold and Marlene to warmth. Marlene bragged that hers would be much more useful, given the Australian heat, but Mary thought it was impossibly cool either way.

This was the first time they had company in the moon pool. Mary never would have imagined Lily would have ventured out on her own, but her she was.

“Lily!” She cried, surprised. “You’re here!”

Lily obviously hadn’t anticipated their presence and looked equally shocked to find others in the cave.

“God, you two scared me. Hi!” She laughed.

“You swam all the way out here? I thought Mary would have to drag you,” Marlene commented from Mary’s side.

“I didn’t have much of a choice. Though this is all… It’s amazing. The swimming thing, I mean.” Lily’s pale cheeks flushed, probably expecting an ‘I told you so.’

She explained to how she got water spilled o her in the Juicenet, and how she had to leave Remus there.

“Ugh, I forgot about Remus. He must be so worried for me.”

“You could have just hid out in the bathroom,” Marlene pointed out.

“It would’ve taken an hour for my clothes to dry. And it’s not like I can do anything about it now.”

“I had a close call with my sister the other day,” Mary offered. “Had to run to my room. It happens.”

“Is this what are lives are going to be like now?” Lily asked. “How are we going to keep this a secret?”

Marlene shrugged. “Im not complaining. We basically have superpowers!”

“Yes, because that's better than being able to keep a job as adults.” Lily rolled her eyes.

“We could be mermaid actors. You know, for like parties and aquariums?”

That seemed to make Lily more worried. Mary didn’t know how to comfort her. She could see why she would be nervous about keeping their secret. It would be difficult. But she should have come to terms with it by now. It was more a good thing than bad, in Mary’s opinion.

“Come on, Lils. We can make it work together, you know that. Besides, it’s so cool”

Mary slid across the pool to sit by Lily, putting an arm around her shoulder.

Lily glanced up at her, and the crease faded between her eyebrows.

“You should try it,” suggested Marlene. “You’re power.”

“Have you practiced since the other day?” Mary asked.

“Practiced? For what?” Lily looked down at her hands.

“Well, we’re like the only people in the world who could do this things. We should figure out how to use them. Besides, it could be useful. I can’t get mugged or kidnapped if I freeze their feet in place.”

Lily nodded. “Okay, yeah. I guess I could…”

She trailed off as she stared at the water. She pointed a hand towards it, fingers splayed, and a trail of clear water began to rise from the surface. It’s twirled in the air, shaking and dipping down for moments, then snapping back up as Lily got the hang of it.

“Woah,” Marlene exclaimed. “I wish I could do that.”

“Don’t be jealous, Marls. I thought you said yours was the best?”

“You have a power, Marlene?” Lily asked, genuine interest in the eyes. She dropped her string of water back into the pool.

Marlene nodded, her mouth quirking up at the corner in what Mary recognized as in attempt to conceal a smile.

“Yeah, I figured it out the other day. Scared the sh*t out of Mary. Watch.”

She raised a hand, and curled her fingers into a fist. As she did so, the water began to heat up. Lily gave a little gasp, her red eyebrows raising.

“Wow, that’s really cool. You can heat water?”

Marlene nodded.

“Don’t boil us alive,” Mary squirmed, the scales of her tail warm under her fingers. The water dropped a few degrees.

“As cool as this is,” Lily began, “Remus won’t be able to get ahold of me, and I really need to get back before he gets worried.”

“We’ll go with you,” Mary offered.

“Yeah. I’m getting tired of beating Mary back,” Marlene chimed in.

“Oh, shut up, it was twice.”

Marlene smiled. “Race you back.”

Notes:

Hi, sorry about the short chapters! The next few will have more action/characters. As for the powers, I’m trying to stay accurate to h20 cannon but some things may be kind of different.