Idiosyncrasy |Harry Potter

Chapter Thirty Two

No matter how hard Zakari tried, it seemed his shining moment of wandless magic had occurred and then vanished so rapidly. No matter how many times he tried to reenact even a partial part of what he had did, which included knocking back Draco with a chair, he couldn't do it again. He wondered what had been different that allowed him to perform the magic and all he could think about was how upset Draco and his friends had made him. They made him sad and angry with their taunting and while Zakari had no intentions of hurting the boys, it seemed like he was able to channel plenty of magic while angry.

But he didn't want to be upset or angry to channel his use of magic. It seemed pointless, because Zakari would rather be happy than have the use of magic. He knew there had to be something he could do, but just thinking about it gave him a headache.

Rather than wasting all of his time, thinking about his situation, Zakari decided to relax in the Slytherin Common room. Since the incident with Draco, plenty of the other Slytherin students were acting so much kinder to Zakari, or at least avoiding him. He didn't seem to care or notice as he sat in one of the armchairs with Duncan resting on the arm of the chair and partially in his lap. 

He was just opening his book to the marked page, when he was distracted by movement in the corner of his eye. Duncan perked his ears and lifted his head up in the direction of the noise that followed what Zakari had caught a glimpse of.

Zakari set his book aside and looked over to something moving about in the darkness of the water. He moved some of the lighting of the room, closer before climbing to sit in the window. Duncan whined and whined for his owner to lift him up so he could join in and sit beside the boy. However, Zakari was too intrigued by his new discovery to pay the dog any mind in that moment. The boy's eyes widened drastically as he came face to face with a mermaid on the other side of the window.

It was one of the merpeople from the Black Lake, a young one, whether it was male or female, Zakari couldn't tell, but he didn't care either. He had heard about them being in the lake, but never being the fortunate one to see or catch a glimpse of one. Completely entranced by the appearance of one, Zakai moved as close to the window as possible, pressing his hands against the cold glass.

Almost instantly the merperson moved closer to the glass and proceeded to press it's own hand against the glass where's his was. He could see the webbed fingers and scales that covered the merperson's body, suddenly filling the child with excitement.

Without realizing that his excitement had gotten the best of him, he began to sign to the merperson, introducing himself.

"Hello, my name is Zakari." He managed to sign before stopping. He realized that the merpeople had spent their entire time below the water and probably had no knowledge of sign language. They probably had their own form of language below the water, which made him feel quite foolish in that moment.

Turning a bright red, Zakari went to apologize when suddenly the merperson lifted up their hands.

"Hello Zakari."

Glancing around the common room in complete wonder, Zakari noticed that he was alone with the exception of Duncan, who was now trying to jump up to his owner's side. He quickly reached down and lifted the corgi to rest beside him before turning his attention back to the merperson. Seeing the look of surprise on the boy's face, proved to be a form of entertainment as the merperson wore a look of amusement on their face.

"You can understand me?" Zakari questioned.

There was a nod of a head before Zakari let out a happy cry. He wouldn't have dreamed that something so amazing was taking place in the comfort of the common room. He wanted to run around and tell someone, Eve or Franklin, perhaps Jeanie. 

Someone.

But in the meantime, he was happy with his aquatic companion to have a nice conversation with.

"Can you believe it?" Draco scoffed to Crabbe and Goyle as they entered the common room later and witnessed Zakari sitting in the window. 

By that time there were plenty of other merpeople that joined to converse with the boy through the glass.

 "Potter's talking to snakes and this one is talking to fish!"

"I wonder what they are talking about." Crabbe asked looking to Goyle.

Goyle shrugged but Crabbe's question was answered as the merfolk were looking in their direction all of a sudden, pointing.

It was quite obvious who they were pointing too, especially since their pointing was accompanied by laughing.