Close Study Session No. 1: Herman

@Simon Kincaid

Della ate quickly. It was hard to feel hungry, even after her second long day of classes, when she had an even of squid spotting to look forward to. She inhaled a few clumps of mashed potatoes along with a few bites of chicken. She scanned the table. Even with hundreds of gluttonous students, the magical spreads always looked full. She didn't feel bad when she grabbed a few lemon tarts, a couple of chicken wings, and a few sausages. She imagined desserts would be for her and Simon, so she wrapped them carefully and carried them in her hand. The other things might be good treats for Herman, but she didn't know much about Simon's tastes. She wrapped the wings and bangers in a few layers of napkin and put them at the top of her bag, hoping no grease would leak out onto her books.

She nearly sprinted out to the lake. The sun hadn't set yet, and there was a warmth still covering the castle grounds. Della spotted a figure under a tree that had a great view of the lake. She beelined toward him, the weight of her library books and other school books in her bag pulling heavily at the strap on her shoulder. It probably made her gait look a bit wobbly.

"Hi, Simon!" she called, waving. Della was relieved to see it was actually him. Last night, in the moments before she fell asleep, she had the sudden thought that maybe the older student's kindness was a ruse for Hogwarts hazing ritual. Of course, she had no basis to think there were any hazing rituals at Hogwarts, but she had probably been exposed to too much fraternity and sorority television.

"I brought you a lemon tart." she said breathlessly when she finally arrived at the tree. She carefully unwrapped the tarts, holding them out so the Hufflepuff could take one.

He looked down at the tarts in her hand and took one, bringing it to his mouth for a bite. Normally, if it was any other sort of pastry he would have passed without hesitation but being lemon flavored, he'd give it a try. "Thanks, Del. Sweet of you," he said, motioning for her to follow him just over a bit more.

In a stack near his bag were books from the school Library. "I started leafing through these last night," and he read a good amount. Sure, their study sessions were supposed to be researching TOGETHER and that's why he didn't do them all, but his dhampir nature made sleeping difficult most nights. "The best resource I have that specifically mentions Herman - well, not by name - but him directly - would be this one," he grabbed the second from the top and handed it out to her.

"Hogwarts: A History." Sadly even so though, there wasn't all that much information. "Seems like he's described as docile," which was good, especially considering that Hogwarts let students SWIM in that Lake during Summer Camp. Simon himself had. "And that he's usually red or purple in color, but can change it perhaps."

"You know it's rather weird researching Herman. It reminded me of trying to research vampires - very little information and what you found was rather obscure." What were vampires REALLY like? He wanted to know. He needed to know.

Simon glanced over to Della. Maybe he shouldn't have mentioned he was researching vampires.

Della followed Simon over to his belongings. His stack of books was just as large as the stack currently weighing down her shoulder. She dropped the heavy bag to the ground.

Simon explained that Hogwarts, A History discussed Herman. To that Della added, "I don't know if any of my books have stuff about Herman in particular, but I did find this book about nonmagical creatures. It does talk about giant squids being elusive. A lot of muggles are afraid of them, but they live at the very bottom of the ocean. As a muggleborn myself, I wasn't sure if they were even real, nonmagically speaking. I think Herman has to be a bit magical, but I wonder if he gets lonely in the lake, or if he'd like it to be a bit deeper? How'd he even get in there?"

Della stared deeply at the lake, hoping that Herman would bring them an answer. But the water was pleasant and still. Simon mentioned that finding information on Herman was difficult and obscure, and Della nodded in agreement. He said it was like researching vampires. Vampires again. Simon seemed to always have them on the mind. She tentatively glanced at him, "Maybe we should research vampires next?"

Simon opened up his notebook as the two spent their time out there on the Great Lake. He sketched out what he saw in the books about what the Giant Squid was to look at and he sketched out what they saw - mostly calm waters on the lake. This was to be scientific research after all and he couldn't just make up results! If they didn't see Herman, than they unfortunately didn't see Herman. Maybe someday their findings would lead them back to him someday. Simon didn't mind, he got to see a friend of his and spend time with her.

He then wrote some of what they knew also occupied the lake with Herman, projected what he might eat. Also wondered if he got lonely. "He probably likes being by himself or he'd come to the surface more to visit," Simon said. I mean, at least with people - when they want to be around others they flocked to them; such was Simon Kincaid.

"For all we know, he could have an entire family down there. For all we know, every report someone has of seeing Herman could really be a different squid but they all just resemble each other so much."

He began to round out his page on Herman in his 'scientific notebook' labeling it STUDY SESSION No. 1: HERMAN and then glanced over to Della. "Vampires? You uh, you think vampires would be good to study?"

Della found a blank page in her sketchbook and began to try to get the lake, the shadows from the castle, and the surrounding shrubbery just right with her quill. She was leaving the middle of the lake blank in case Herman did decide to make an appearance. Glancing over at Simon, she saw that he was doing the same. "Oh, do you like drawing, too?"

Simon then proposed that Herman could have a whole family down there. The thought entranced Della, who was imagining a dance of squid tentacles as they all choreographed which one would get to come to the surface that day. She sketched a tiny square with the imagery as a reminder of what could be a full-page work later. "That might explain why he's described as both red and purple. There might be at least two. I hope that's the case—if there's just one of him, it can be difficult to not who you are or where you come from." Her voice sounded oddly grave with the last few syllables; her thoughts were drifting toward her family—as they often had in this strange new magical world. She tried to distract herself by looking intently at her sketch. She wrote on her page a phrase that came to mind, all the permutations of Herman, the Hermutations?

When the topic switched to vampires, the hesitation was clear in Simon's voice. Unsure how to handle the change of tone from the normally confident boy, Della plunged ahead, "Yeah, I think studying vampires would be great. I doubt we'll run into any real ones to study—I mean we are getting by without seeing Herman—but I probably have so many Muggle misconceptions about vampires, it might be good to separate fact from fiction."

Della thought of asking what vampires meant to Simon—maybe he needed a direct question to feel free to open up—but she was interrupted by a disturbance in the water. It was unclear, but was something breaking still surface? "Look!"

Simon was rather impressed by Della's thoughts and figured she would have made a good Ravenclaw if not placed in Gryffindor. She was a good artist too, and that sort of creativity sort of lent itself most times to the Ravenclaw house as well.

His eyes looked over her sketch as he thought about that possible next topic. Was it a good one or a risky one? If Della was so smart as he suspected, and he was pretty certain that she was, would she pick up on things? Still....having someone else's insight such as hers wasn't a bad thing when researching such an important topic. Yes, it should be a topic they study at some point - even if it wasn't their immediate next one.

She then said look and he saw the water begin to build as it got closer and created small waves there at the edge of the lake. He too zeroed in on that area, hoping to catch some sort of sign from Herman. This was fun, even if they didn't see a single tentacle.

Simon would surely keep up with these study sessions, and he only wished that they had begun them sooner. Still, as the years continued they could too.



[Word count: 207
OOC Note: I'm closing up this one, hope that's okay with you. It was my fault for drawing it out so long with lack of replies. HOWEVER, I do wish to still write with you and if you should also like to continue, I'll get up Study Session No: 2: Vampires and put them into the new school year with it and get us back up to current times!]