Lunar Connections

xli.

The first game of the quidditch season was this weekend and I was insanely anxious.

It was a game with Hufflepuff, I believe.

I didn't know their team at all and I didn't like the way that disadvantage sat with me.

"You're worried you don't know their team well enough, but you're a new seeker. Nobody's seen you play either. That's one of the biggest advantages you can have." Sirius reminded me as I relayed all my stress onto him in the library.

"I guess you're right." I sighed, coming to sit next to him.

"I literally always am." He said, and I straight up just ignored that dumb ass comment.

"Show me what you won." I commanded, watching him pull his watch from his pocket.

"They took this and somehow its supposed to be my next clue." He explained, holding it out to me. I took it and fiddled around with it in my hand. Nothing was super odd about it.

"Ok so something time related?" I threw out there, a simple deduction but honestly further from what I thought the real clue was.

"It doesn't align with the items stolen from the other champions." He remarked. I looked up at him in question.

"It was a glove and hairbrush." He revealed, and I opened my mouth to comment on how crazy it was that the important item stolen from the female champion was a hairbrush. Though, Sirius spoke quickly over me.

"The hairbrush was Christensen's." He said, causing me to silence.

"Oh." I chuckled after a short moment. Sirius smiled as well, trying to hold back his laughter.

"I mean you act like men cannot brush their hair." I pointed out giving a quick glance to his neatly styled hair. He frowned.

"Well I comb my hair. I use a comb." He defended.

"How is that different?" I asked, raising my brow at him.

"Shh." He hushed.

I turned away from him and started thinking to how we could extract a clue from this object. Then, it all hit me like a Hogwarts Express train.

"We are so dumb, you know?" I said, taking my wand out and holding it over the watch. I saw Sirius deflate the second he realised what I was doing.

"Revelio." I casted. I turned the watch over and in bright golden words, a message was written.

'In depths deep, my secrets reside,
Where currents dance and waves collide.
Through liquid paths, you must trace,
To find the passage and win the race.'

"Oh great, water." Sirius grumbled.

"We should break this down." I said, taking the parchment and quill Sirius and I shared. I copied down what the clue said and began to annotate it.

"It says depths deep. This could be deep waters like the lake, or maybe like a cave." I explained, jotting down those thoughts onto the parchment. "But currents aren't in water pockets like in caves, aren't they? So it would have to be the lake?"

Sirius nodded along following my every word.

"Liquid paths, could just mean water or maybe some underwater obstacles?" I read over the clue once more. "It says the end is a passage to the next clue." I said, then kind of groaning to myself because it was so vague it could mean anything.

"Don't worry too much about it." Sirius tried to calm me. "Us knowing that it's water-based allows me to prepare the spells I need. We can search for a charm to help me breath underwater." He explained, and I nodded, pushing the paper to the side with one last little note: water-breathing charm needed.