EVoNet Forward

Chapter 23

Rosette's Aquatic Adventure

Rosette Evans was spending a little time relaxing in a huge – what probably could have been a ball hall if she could see the far walls or ceiling. It was huge, and supposedly had a ceiling, and more walls, but you could not see them unless you were up close. The door was open into a hall a hundred metres from her as the 'room' was just huge. You could not see the walls or ceiling because of the illusions of the bright blue sky, and endless distance with a huge artificial 'beach'. The sand was thankfully kind of not real since you could feel it but that was another trick, so she wasn't going to get sand everywhere, and where she sat was a huge fresh water pool that was clear and perfect, and seemed to flow off for ever, and for all she knew it could have, and with Harry's magic tech, who knew? – it didn't even need chemicals because it used the ZPE system built in to keep it fresh and clean.

She had recently returned back from the hospital division within Nergal HQ London visiting with her mentally unbalance mother while she was being deep flushed of potions and having to take new medications created from potions, (that Rose never knew existed) to clear her mother's mind of everything that was done to her – in essence, to reset her emotions to expel the lies.

It was horrible seeing her mother looking so unwell, but that was the potions fighting each other, and her mother trying to regain her sanity – her own mind – her own thoughts, and it would take a fairly long road to fully recovery and Rose knew she would be there for her mother. Rose couldn't stand seeing her mother like that – she couldn't stand the thought of what her father had done to her – what Dumbledore allowed – what they might have tried to do to her if Harry hadn't had spies in their ranks to defend her.

That was why Rose needed to get away, and the pool seemed like a good choice of location, she had her tablet computer so that she could get some homework done. She didn't have much homework to finish as her tutor had the philosophy of get it all done then you can play and not have to worry. The ladies father had instilled that into her and Rose had to agree it was a good idea in principle, and her tutor had laughed and agreed that she didn't always practice that as things happened, and you could get distracted, but to try your best anyway because if you put your best into your work then you can stand proud. Though, Rose was sure Harry did quite a bit more than his best, so Rose was working as hard as she could when she could to make Harry proud, and once her mother was better, her too.

Rose was at the shallow end with a large beach towel to lie on because the sand effect could be off-putting like lying in actual sand could be. She was lying back with another towel folded for her head like a pillow and her bare feet were happily in the cool water, and just about brushing the non-slip bottom of the pool with her toes. She was wearing a cute white swim suit two-piece with a silky wrap tied around her waist, but other than that she was not wearing much, which would be embarrassing if she were to be on a public beach, but here she was alone, and the only person she had to concern herself with would be Daphne since Harry was out working, and the only thing embarrassing about Daphne seeing her in her bikini would be that Rosette wasn't very big in the boob department, and goddess, if Daphne had on a bikini.

She almost laughed as she thought, she should have invited Ginny and Luna to join her as they were small – or normal sized in the boob department too, and then if Daphne joined them, they would all have to pout in disappointment.

The weather inside the chamber was so delightful and there was even a breeze coming from somewhere that it was making Rose feel a little sleepy. She figured a little nap couldn't hurt as she placed down her tablet and closed her eyes.

"Hey!"

Rose was startled as she heard a voice and sat up, eyes flickering open, and span to look behind her, as she didn't know whether she had fallen asleep or not. It had not sounded like Daphne, but there was no one there anyway. She frowned as she could have sworn, she heard someone speak.

"Erm, over here," the voice said with a soft snicker and Rosette slowly turned to the water. "Hey – you're Rose, right, Harry's sister?" she asked while Rose could only stare dumbly.

It was a mergirl. She had extremely pale skin with some sparkling pale pink scales on her shoulders. She had extreme white hair, short and ruffled and pixy-like with some extremely light pink dashing her roots. Then she had pink scale like ear-thin things on the sides of her head. She had pale pink eyes and a small human nose and a cute smile as she floated or bobbed or crawled the floor with her hands in the water where Rose could see her pinkie-white tail that went whiter as it went long down into the water to the two tips, as she lay on the shallow floor of the pool looking up with her head and shoulders poking out, as she bent athletically up at the waist. She had a small tummy with a light dusting of pink scales around her little belly button, and a white belt around her 'hips' with some stiffened pockets likely to carry her necessities. She had another dusting of pink over the back of her hands with webbing between her fingers, and a gentle trail of pink scales down her spine. She was wearing a white bikini top over her boobs, and Rose took solace that the mergirls boobs were not bigger than hers, but they had a light sheen of scales on her small cleavage, and along the centre of her ribs. The mergirl looked young – probably around Rose's age, seventeen or eighteen, so that was great.

The mergirl was cute and slim and smiling brightly. "Hello – Mary to the cute human girl. You've just been staring at me like I should probably be stripping and swimming around a poll for you or something?!" she said as she swam closer to where Rose's knees bent her feet into the pool and leaned her arms on the illusionary sand beside her and looked up as Rose startled as she was sat up while her cheeks darkened.

"Oh, um… sorry," Rose quickly said. "I-I – do you live in the pool?"

The mergirl laughed and shook her head. "No, silly," she said while shaking her head. "There's an underwater corridor – well – a few, some lead to other areas of the house, and one leads to the artificial lake outside and my house is at the bottom where I live with my little sister and my… other… sisters, and its magic or something that stops the dirt and fish and stuff from getting in here before you ask something silly. Anyway, I'm Marine – well – that's just a rough translation from mermish, so it tried to stick, kind of, but Harry called me Mary for short, which is cute, so luckily everyone else just started calling me Mary now though, so that was lucky – it's like this… girl I know called, Aquaria… kind of on the nose, right, for a water spirit… or mer-cutie like me, right?"

"Umm sure," Rose said with a sheepish smile. "I'm Rosette, erm, Rose for short, but I guess since you know that?" she said after a few extra moments while shyly shaking the mergirls offered webbed hand, and Mary nodded while grinning. "Sorry, I didn't know the pool was connected out there, it's nice to meet you."

"You too," she replied with a grin. "I've wanted to meet you for ages, but our schedules must have conflicted, and Big Brother, Harry was a little busy with this quidditch thing, so he couldn't arrange nothing, but here you are in my wonderful domain," she said dramatically and causing them both to laugh out right. "I've not got no one my age to hang out with," Mary continued as if she hadn't been silly. "You want to come over and play video games, or I suppose we could just swim around and then get a bite to eat… eating dry food is still kind of strange but I do like barbeque."

"Err… you have computers?" Rose asked in surprise.

Mary nodded eagerly. "Yeah, I even have a Switch, and I watched the quidditch on TV at home, which was fun. Things like TV's and games and computers and technology are heavily modified by Nergal though, because," she gestured down at the water sheepishly. "They don't think about poor little mermaids that might want to play video games or watch TV or surf the net. But Big Brother, Harry is great; he's been like a cool big brother to me and the other girls, brought us home and even got a couple of older mergirls to come here and look after us and teach us and everything, I love them; they're great, like big sisters. So, you want to come over?" she asked hopefully.

"I -," Rose looked down at the water and blushed brightly as she knew Harry would have ways for her to breathe and whatnot underwater, but that wasn't what worried her. "I erm. I can't swim," she said sheepishly embarrassed with Mary's eyes widening in shock.

"Oh… I know, I can teach you," Mary suggested helpfully. "Humans are capable of swimming, so they should all learn as I hear that humans enjoy it."

"Well… it isn't very deep, so I guess," Rose said shyly as she was now sitting on the edge of the pool and her feet were flat to the floor and it barely came up to her knees.

Mary giggled. "Silly, you can't learn in water so shallow I could take a nap and still barely be under the water, I'll take you out deeper."

"But-."

"No buts," Mary said cheekily looking down towards Rose's little butt, "except that one, out in the water," she said while snickering while Rose pout blushed. "Don't worry, I am capable of holding you above the water. I'm a lot stronger than a normal human while under water. I'll have you swimming around like a pro in no time. I have watched some Olympics swimming on TV so I know lots of different ways humans can swim. Then you can grab a swim-talk set any time you want and gill up with some gill-gear attachments, and pressure skin, though I think they have other names I've never had to use them, I think that's what they're called, anyway, you could just use magic or whatever, and you'll be able to come over whenever you like. Humans find it easier being in the water than we do out, if you use magic to give us 'legs' – it's weird and I couldn't get the hang of walking and – it was weird, and I need to keep my legs moist all the time, and they feel strange. You don't need to grow flippers or anything to swim, so that's easier, walking is really difficult, and you have to wear shorts or-." She pointed to Rose's bikini bottoms.

"Umm… well, okay," Rose said as she sighed and pulled off her wrap from her waist and left it with her towels and tablet as she stood in the cool water and then slid down onto her knees where the water came to her chest.

Mary pushed back from the beach and they both crawled deeper into the water until Mary saw some panic on her new friends face and slid around her, gently holding her by the waist while she was gently moving her tail, swimming to glide them over the surface of the water. Mary slid around under Rose so they were facing each other as Mary could breathe under water, holding Rose's soft waist and grinning as she moved them slowly and Rose felt quite exhilarated with this.

Rose enjoyed the sensation of being held up by her new friend, and she and Mary were having quite a bit of fun, and Rose did find it quite easy to talk to the mergirl once they both had heads above the water and Mary started teaching Rose properly rather than propping her up – it was like they had been friends for years – she wished they had been friends for years – maybe then Rose wouldn't have been so embarrassed to be eighteen and unable to do something as simple as swimming, but she was finding with Mary's help it wasn't that difficult as Mary knew what she was talking about. It was probably best to be taught to swim by someone who had gills lining her neck with that pink scaly sparkle that Rose hadn't noticed before as they had been closed before as Mary – well merpeople could breathe above and below the surface of water.

Mary was great fun, and touching her was strange, Rose didn't know how to describe the texture of Mary's scales, but they were soft and smooth, and pretty, and Rose made sure not to even think about placing her hands in certain tail areas as she knew down there were – naughty bits hidden away within her tail, and that would be embarrassing and extremely rude. She wouldn't want Mary to just go groping her fanny or anything humiliating like that.

Rose knew she said she would fall in love with a mermaid over being forced to marry that arsehole, but that was just to wined him up. However, love didn't have to be romantic, she reminded herself, and since Harry was Mary's big brother that made Mary, Rose's sister, so that was how Rose was going to think of things.

The mergirl liked to talk, and she had told Rose that she was the oldest of her sisters at seventeen, and they were all looked after by the older girls. Harry hadn't told Rose much about why they were there as he didn't feel it was his place, but Mary had no qualms against telling her. Humans. Wizards. Slave traders. Her underwater village was discovered, and then slaughtered just to capture some of the youngest females for – well – apparently the younger, the easier to break and train – Rose quivered, and Mary could only nod in agreement as she must have been terrified.

It was lucky for the girls that Harry had been sponsoring some (ironically) marine exploration for a potential location of an ancient Greek ship that was said to have been magical world related and sunk in the area. Goblins from Gringotts had been running the show (as they also invested in the expedition) with a few muggle-born's who knew how to sail, and the Goblins saw the other ship for what it was and they had ventured close enough to see what was going on, and therefore, the Goblins chose to contact Harry while the two ships squared off against each other.

Harry told them to not let the ship go. He told them to commence a rescue mission, as he knew the Goblins were always prepared for a fight. There were only five girls left alive, Mary being the oldest. That was three years ago, and Mary had learnt English since then – Mary was quite smart, but she did have a strange accent Rose didn't notice before because it seemed to come out when she was exerting herself.

Harry brought the mergirls home, and built them all of the pools, the lake, and their home at the bottom, and brought in two young, but older mermaids to look after them, and even got them all classes that they had to take online as said before it was difficult for them on land, but Mary showed Rose the bracelet on her left wrist (which housed a notice-me-not cloak, which was quite difficult magic circuitry combined with its main functions) that would give her the legs if she needed; it also apparently smartly scanned the top she was wearing and made a matching bottoms, and was supposed to keep her skin damp but she still felt a little dry when it was too warm, which was uncomfortable for her.

Mary had only laughed when Rose tried to be a darling and comfort her about what Rose learnt, but she had shrugged it off. It happened over three years ago, and Mary liked to be strong, probably for the younger girls – they were taken from what was going to be a terrible life after the horrors of the attack on their village to the 'lap' of luxury, and Rose couldn't have been prouder of her big brother for taking them in and kind of in a way adopting them, so they were her little sisters too.

Rose and Mary found themselves at a depth where Rose could stand up to her chest in the water and Rose was spinning as she laughed while trying to keep up with Mary as the mergirl swam circles around her laughing along when out of nowhere an adorable little mergirl of about ten popped up next to Rose, stopping her continued spin the new mergirl wore a little blue waterproof tank top with some cartoon characters on it, and her skin was quite a bit darker than Mary's (which wasn't a hard feat) with deep purple hair and dark blue scaly bits, and like Mary she wore a belt with pockets for her things, so Rose figured they all would, and she would be proven right once she met the rest of the family.

"Hello!" the little mergirl said with a megawatt smile, and she had the strangest accent. It seemed the little mermaid had no qualms against keeping her regional accent. "You must be Miss. Rose! I'm Qarm," she said happily shaking Rose's hand while Mary stopped swimming around them and tilted her head at her little sister. "Hey Mar-ry," the cute little thing whined. "Why didn't you say you were up here playing - we want to play too!"

"We?" Rose asked, confused.

"Yeah," Mary replied sadly.

"Boo!" Rose almost jumped out of the water as the two little mergirls giggled as a near identical girl popped up behind her. However, this one had her hair cut to her shoulders while the other had hers to her waist, and her hair seemed a little lighter too, but they both had amazingly expressive and mischievous purple eyes.

"There's two of them. This is, Laurey," Mary said while shaking her head. "Qarm's twin sister."

"Come on, play with us, Miss. Rose!" the girls chimed together as they wrapped their small arms around her, and they squealed in delight as she couldn't resist cuddling them where they buried their faces into her chest.

Mary pouted. "I found her first, she's playing with me," she whined childishly while they stuck out their little tongues as they turned their faces to her.

"We can get a ball and play catch!" Laurey suggested hopefully.

"Be careful," Mary reprimanded as she helped keep them from over balancing Rose. "Rose isn't that great at swimming yet; you don't want to hurt her, do you?"

"No!" they both quickly agreed as they slid from Rose's arms.

"We can play over there," Qarm said eagerly pointing towards the shallow end.

"Well, I was getting tired," Rose said. "Swimming lessons are pretty hard, so I probably shouldn't push myself too soon or I'll sink."

Mary smiled and took her hand. "Okay, it looks like its three against one," she said while laughing as she obviously didn't mind, and instead of continuing to complain, she led the way slowly as Rose walked back into water that came up to her upper thighs, and Rose didn't know where they got it, but the twins swum in after them with a huge colourful beach ball between them, grinning smugly.

They were battering the ball around for a little while, giggling and having fun with the mergirls out towards the deeper side so Rose could stay in the shallow end when Qarm flew up out of the water and battered the ball towards Rose before splashing back in. The ball was only made out of light plastic and air, so it wasn't going to hurt but Rose squealed and flinched anyway as she closed her eyes. However, the ball didn't hit.

"Nice catch!"

Rose slowly opened her eyes where she saw the huge ball being held by a large male hand and following the hand to the arm it had a high-tech black-grey wand holster attached to the muscular forearm. She continued on and looked over her brothers powerful body as he towered over her. He was wearing some black swim shorts that hung down to his knees, and he was in the water with them while smirking at the little mermaid while she pouted as he tossed the ball back her way and she dived under the water before launching out and punting the ball back over Harry's head with her tail before she landed with a splash.

Turning, Rose was surprised as Tracey Davis was in the pool wearing a dark blue one-piece swimsuit, and she caught the ball while grinning brightly. Rose felt good that yes, Tracey was really sexy, and her dark skin looked really good, but her boobs weren't as impressive as Daphne's, smaller than hers even, so she was happy with that. However, looking to Daphne next to Tracey in the shallows wearing a white one-piece made Rose feel pouty again.

"Wow," Mary whispered in Rose's ear, shocking her as she snuck up on her, sliding her arms around Rose's waist as she peaked over her shoulder. "Miss. Daphne has some big boobs even though she's so small, and she's kind of intimidatingly beautiful. But who's that other girl?" she asked the last part louder while Rose had only been able to nod in agreement. Though, Daphne looked like she was uncomfortable with so many eyes on her, Tracey seemed to like the attention.

"Hey, I'm Tracey," she said with a grin and a wave of her free hand. "Is it okay if we play too?" she asked hopefully.

However, Rose had almost missed him. Kalam. He was wearing some red shorts and looked highly embarrassed and like he would have been happy staying in his room figuring out how to watch all the animé Blu-ray boxsets Harry had conveniently left in his room, just because he had shown an interest in some animé shirts from the store when they picked up some 'muggle' clothes for him. Rose had butted in and told Harry that Kalam liked drawing little comic sketches, so he had a pile of old comics and several series of manga to his new collection, and several books on drawing comic characters or manga characters as well as plenty of new arts supplies – and some shelving units and desks when Kalam complained that he had nowhere to put it all.

That was why, Rose believed that Kalam would rather be in his room playing and pretending to sulk when he had to see someone, and why someone, likely Harry forced him into some shorts and likely carried the fourteen-year-old boy over his shoulder. Kalam had mused rusty coloured hair and green eyes to match Rose and Harry's, and Kalam was hugging himself as he was on the skinny side and it was probably intimidating for him to see Harry with such a ripped body – or he was embarrassed getting to be around so many pretty girls in their swimsuits.

"What about him? Is that your little brother?" Mary asked as she looked the boy over while he was staring into the clear water as if he was debating with himself whether to at least sit down on the edge with his feet in the water as he eyed Rose's towels by the edge – or just stand there looking stupid.

"Yay!" little Laurey chimed as she had somehow snuck up on Tracey and Daphne and grabbed their hands, and they smiled at the cute little girl and pulled her to deeper water while everyone laughed at her silly antics – minus Kalam as he was still debating his next move, probably hoping someone would give him a suggestion he could follow.

"Yeah," Rose said. "That's Kalam – he's still a little pissed off that Harry had mum and dad taken away and gained custody of him, and I couldn't take him to visit mum in the hospital – she barely recognised me. Though, on the bright side, I'm surprised he doesn't seem to be annoyed that he's not going back to Hogwarts. He's still dealing since everything went down. We found him by himself in the private box at the stadium after everything, and he was… a little bit too meh about it to be honest."

"Poor guy," Mary said sadly before brightening. "Should I go and find Éclair?" she asked thoughtfully. "Éclair is fourteen – but she is kind of lazy sometimes. She likes these Dungeons and Dragons games and things like those card games with the monsters you can play online, and can laze for hours playing them, you know? I like playing games too, but I love shooting stuff and epic stories and stuff, so she is a bit of a dork. Éclair is actually paler than me on her human skin if you can believe that," she said while giggling.

Rose looked surprised as she looked her friend over. "Wow, you're like pink and white so she must be a totally stereotypical nerd?"

"Well, she doesn't need glasses," she replied with a helpless gesture.

"Hey, Kal, come on, don't you want to play?!" Harry called out from where he stood up to his chest in the water.

"Come on in!" the twins squealed out happily waving their hands in the air while splashing about as they couldn't touch the bottom they didn't need to.

Kalam bit his lower lip and looked into the water. He took a deep breath as he shuffled closer and placed his left foot in the cool water. It felt nice. Then something caught his attention and his breath caught in his throat. She burst up through the surface of the water up to her waist. She had midnight blue hair long passed her waist and tied towards the end as she brushed stray strands from her eyes. She had her nicely sized breasts cupped in a blue bikini top keeping them in place. Her skin was like milk and the scaly parts of her fin-ears and cheeks were deep blue like her tail, and she had a blue pocket-belt around her hips, and she smiled radiantly with deep blue eyes that sparkled brightly.

It was only for a moment, but Kalam felt his heart stop and before he knew what was going on, he was drowning in the shallows of the pool, and was plucked upright seconds later and panting for breathe he wasn't sure how to receive.

"You said she was a dork?" he heard Rose say as he tried blinking water from his eyes.

"Yeah, a bit of a dork… a really gorgeous dork," Mary replied sheepishly.

"You can't swim either?" Rose asked Kalam while shaking her head amused with her friend while Kalam looked confused. He thought Rose had saved him for a moment, but she was in front of him and he turned to see the new mergirl smiling at him.

"Sorry," she said sheepishly. "I didn't mean to distract you – or everyone else too. That was close, huh? I was kind of doing the little mermaid thing – you know, the Disney cartoon film where she splashes out of the water? I thought it was funny. Sorry. Forgive me?" she asked and Kalam could only nod slowly as he felt the heat in his cheeks as he could feel her soft body holding him in the shallows as her tail was curled under her and she held him sitting on the floor of the pool holding him around the waist, and he could feel 'them' pushed into his back.

"Yep," Kalam wanted to die as that squeaked out and no matter how he replayed that in his mind it was as unmanly as he could get.

"I'm Éclair by the way," she introduced herself seemingly oblivious while everyone else pretended they weren't silently teasing them with the looks they shared, except the twins as they looked befuddled.

"I-I'm Kalam," he said quickly as he cleared his throat. "Kalam Pot-," he paused there as he didn't want her to think he was racist against mermaids or anything like his dad and brother – well, his dad at least as Hermione would probably put Terry in his place for being stupid again, and he knew his mum was in hospital – that – he couldn't think of that, so turned to Éclair with a dopy smile. "Kalam Evans…" He had to glare at his sister to keep her quiet, but she and Mary were in a fit of silent snickers together.

"You know he would have gotten up himself once he remembered to stop being an idiot," Tracey said with a teasing grin as she leered at Kalam and Éclair jokingly. "Do all boys have a stupid attack when they see a pretty girl for the first time?" she asked, which made Éclair blush as much as Kalam as they embarrassedly moved apart with Kalam kneeling next to her.

"Yeah," Harry remarked as he pulled a face. "See, right now I'm surrounded by stupid makers. You may have gotten my younger brother," Harry declared pointing in mock fury at Éclair. "But you shall never make me act like such!" he declared pointing to them each in turn, which caused Kalam and Éclair more embarrassment, but the others were giggling.

"Big Brother!" the twins chimed as they grabbed one of his arms each and he lifted them up in a weight trainers pose. "What about us?" Qarm finished while they both pouted at him while swinging from his powerful arms.

Harry laughed. "Adorability is my greatest weakness, nooooooo!" he mock cried as he sunk backwards into the water while they giggled and scurried over him for cuddles and affection as he pretended to fight them off, and even Kalam found he had to laugh too, but he caught Éclair's eye and she gave him a sweet smile while everyone else was busy laughing at Harry's antics with the twins, and Kalam had one of the greatest afternoons of his life as Éclair was kind enough to begin his swimming lessons, but he wasn't the only one who couldn't swim as neither could Rose, and neither Daphne nor Tracey were strong swimmers as there wasn't exactly any public pools in the magical world from where they could learn.

To Be Continued…