Swimming!

Shelby ran down to the lake excitedly. She had finally finished all her homework and wanted to simply relax. She remembered that Indiana had found an octopus in the lake the day before but it had sounded like it was pretty far down, so it wouldn't bother her. Shelby planned on staying near the surface, so she could still feel the sunshine.

She kicked off her shoes and socks while she pulled off her robe to reveal that she was wearing an old t-shirt and pair of shorts, as she tended to do on the weekend. Underneath the t-shirt and shorts, she was wearing her favorite bathing suit- a tasteful pink one piece with silver accents. She took off the last layer of clothing, leaving her in just her swimsuit, and jumped into the cool water, welcoming the refreshing feeling it brought.

Theresa skipped to the lake after recieving an owl from Shelby. A nice swim was just what she needed to relax. "Hi Shelby" she called as she stopped near the edge of the water. She quickly took off her robes and shirt so she was left in her favourite purple swimsuit. "This is a great idea for after everything that has been happening" she said as she walked a few small feet into the water. She jumped in and swam to where Sheby was. She was already forgeting all of the stress.

"Hey," Shelby grinned when she saw her friend. "I'm glad you came. I figured we could both use a break from the stress and drama that never quite seem to go away," she said.

She kicked a little further out into the lake and leaned backwards to float on her back. "You have to admit, swimming in the lake beats sitting by it any day," she laughed.

Theresa nodded as she swam further into the lake "yea it does, even if there is suppose to be evil creatures in here" she said. "What if that octopus comes out of nowhere and tried to eat you?" she asked as she splashed the water around, pretending to be some creature from the lake.

Shelby splashed Resa back, laughing. "Don't eat me! Don't eat me!" she shreiked playfully.

"I'm not afraid of the octopus," she said bravely. The description that Indiana had given of the creature that lived in the lake had frightened her a little, but some research in the library reassured her. "It will stay hidden as long as we don't try to get near him," she was confident that the octopus wouldn't be a problem for them.

Theresa laughed "if it doesn't scare you then you are very strange, it scared me and I only heard the description from you and Hilary" she said as she splashed her again. "I hope it does stay down there, the squid I like, some freaky demon eyed octopus is just creepy" she said before she swam in a few circles.

"Well, I went to the library yesterday to do some research and it turns out that while every octopus is venemous, only one kind is lethal to humans and it didn't match the description that Indiana gave me," Shelby explained. "I couldn't figure out what kind of octopus lives in the lake, but the book said that they tend to stay away from the surface of the water, so we're safe as long as we don't go too deep."

As she spoke, she realized just how many things seemed to go wrong around the lone male Hufflepuff. "I think Indiana is some sort of magnet for trouble," she said.

Theresa nodded as she kicked at the water "well that's good then, only problem is that now you said that, I want to go as deep into the water as I can" she said. It had always been a problem with her, someone mentions somthing dangerous or something that no one should do and she automatically wanted to do it.

"I know, me too."

The temptation to go a little deeper into the water was strong, too strong for Shelby to resist. "Let's just go a little bit deeper," she said with a sly grin before taking a deep breath and diving under the surface. She kicked until she was further under the surface and then turned around to see if Resa was coming.

Theresa grinned "hey, wait for me" she said as she quickly took a deep breath and dived under the water. She swam closer to where Shelby was and looked around. It was a lot nicer now that it wasnt as dark, maybe they could actually see something.

Shelby kicked even deeper and motioned for Resa to follow. Despite the lake being fresh water, it looked rather tropical down there. She could see a few fish swimming around but nowhere near as many as the last time she'd swam in the lake, but she supposed that was thanks to Raven Drake and Dixie Evans and their antics involving a deck of Exploding Snap cards. She didn't see anything that remotely resembled either the giant squid or the octopus that Indiana had seen.

Theresa followed Shelby as she looked at the ocupents of the lake, or lack of.
So much for a relaxing swim she mused as she kicked her legs, trying to catch up with her friend.
She looked below her and wondered how deep the lake actually was, she knew that it had to be deep otherwise how would there be so many creatures there but she still didn't know how deep.

Shelby was running out of air, so she resurfaced, took a breath and dove back under, kicking even deeper this time. She could see pretty far down, but not quite to the bottom, where she supposed the octopus lived. As she looked to the side, she saw something big swimming towards her.

As it got closer, her adrenaline kicked in and she realized it was the giant squid. She gestured excitedly to Resa, pointing at the squid, then kicked back to the surface.

Theresa looked at what had Shelby so excited, her eyes widened, it was the giant squid. She tried to swim closer to it before she had to surface. "That is briliant, this was only suppose to be a little swim annd we actually saw the squid finally" she said happily. "We arent the only ones who havent seen the squid now" she said excitedly.

"I know!" Shelby said as she she pulled a few stray strands of wet hair out of her face. "When I saw something swimming towards me, I thought it was going to be the octopus, but it was the squid! It was Christopher!" Even though that Slytherin boy, Lawrence, had told them that Hagrid named the squid Sebastian, Shelby refused to call him anything other than Christopher. In her opinion, Sebastian was a name for a a crab, not a squid.

Theresa laughed "yep, we finaly saw Christopher!" she said excitedly. "I wonder what he thinks of the Giant octopus, do you think they are friends or something?" she asked. She smiled as she thought of how funny it would be if the giant squid and giant octopus were friends and talked to each other.

"I don't know," Shelby said. "The squid seems friendly but that octopus attacked Indiana. I don't think it will attack us up here, but I'm not entirely certain that he's friendly. I hope that he and the squid aren't friends, the octopus could be a bad influence on Christopher," she thought for a moment. "Do you think that we should name the octopus too?"

Theresa nodded "good point, if Christopher spent too much time with that octopus then he might become as mean" she said. "Sounds good, what could we call that evil thing though?" she asked. She knew that it diserved a name but she didn't know what kind of name such a horrible, mean octopus could suit.

"I don't know. He should definitely have an evil sounding name though, since he's clearly not a nice octopus," Shelby said. "We could name him after a movie villain," she suggested. Shelby loved muggle movies more than anything and she had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of characters and actors. "Like Hannibal Lector or Norman Bates," she suggested the names of characters from two of her favorite scary movies. "I'm leaning towards Hannibal," she said truthfully.

Theresa didn't really understand what she meant by movie villians but she did like those names. "I like that Hannibal Lector name, it seems like it would suit him" she said. "It sounds dark and evil and would match the octopus and it's scary red eyes" she said, pretending to make an evil sound which completely failed.

"It is dark and evil," she said. "Hannibal Lector was a character in a movie called Silence of the Lambs, which is really good but really creepy. I watched it with my dad. Hannibal wasn't actually the bad guy that the police were trying to catch in the movie, but he was still a very bad man," Shelby got a little queasy when she thought about his role. She hoped Resa wouldn't ask any questions about him. "But yeah, it's a good name for the octopus. Very fitting," she said.

'Even more than you know, Resa,' Shelby thought.

"Silence of the Lambs? that doesnt sound like something scary, it sounds like a farm or something" Theresa said, thinking about a field of cute, white little lambs. She wondered why it was very fitting but desided not to ask. She hated anything scary and didn't mind continuing to think of cute little lambs. "Christopher the squid and Hannibal the octopus, sounds great" she said as she began to swim in short circles.

Shelby closed her mouth when Resa said that Silence of the Lambs didn't sound very scary. She would just let Resa think that and not tell her how Shelby had nightmares every night for two weeks after watching that movie with her dad. "Is there anything else that we should name?" she laughed, splashing around the water happily. "We seem to be pretty good at naming things," she joked.

Theresa laughed "it seems so, I don't think there is anything else to name" she said. She thought it was very funny that they had to name everything in sight but couldn't think of hwat else needed naming. "We could nameour mascots" she suggested as she purposely kicked some water over to Shelby. She quickly turned around and looked as innocent as possible as she swam away from her.

Shelby swam after Theresa and splashed her back, giggling the whole time. "We could name our mascots," she agreed. She tried to think of the perfect name for her white tiger. "I think mine will be named Raja," she rememberd the name of the tiger from a Disney movie that her mother showed her when she was younger. It had been her mother's favorite movie when she was young and she had almost named Shelby after the princess in the story.