Undeniable
Chapter 2
Pulling himself over the last rung of the ladder and landing with a flourish, Harry saw that all the schools telescopes were still focused on whichever star was last viewed by the last class to leave the Astronomy Tower. No two were trained in the direction. Mentally picturing the star chart that decorated the ceiling of his dorm room (another one of Hermione's brilliant ideas) Harry made a game of trying to guess which heavenly body had been observed by all the different lenses scattered across the open air Observation Deck.
For no obvious reason, his concentration was shattered. Something was different. Something had changed. He could feel it. But what was 'it'?
He knew that nothing had yet to move in the castle. The 'it' had something to do with the very air itself. It felt… charged. Not to the extent that aroused any feelings of anxiety. If he had to grope for the correct phrase, it would be that he felt his senses were in a slightly more heightened state. Several metaphors crossed Harry's mind before he put his mental fingers on the description that seem the most… appropriate. It reminded him of someone who had been holding their breath and was feeling the first licks of panic knowing that shortly they would either be forced to exhale or pass out.
A slow movement caught the corner of his eye. That's odd - one of the telescopes is no longer pointing at the stars. Harry moved to the errant piece of equipment and crouched down. Aligning his line of sight with the new angle of the lens, Harry tried to make out what he was now looking towards. Not seeing anything but the lake, Harry fitted his left eye to the barrel of the scope and adjusted the focus. What he saw was a nook along the lake's edge that he hadn't noticed before - not in all the years that he had been at Hogwarts. Why had it been revealed to him this night?
Heat lightening flashed over the distant mountains that flanked the valley. Harry's night vision was unaffected because it was too far off to do anything but make its presence known. Or was it? He could have sworn that in the instant that followed the flash, he saw something glint in the water along the far side of the quiet nook. Something that glinted silvery.
Wanting to eliminate the possibility that somehow the glare of his glass was what he saw, Harry slipped them off his nose and carefully placed the folded frames into his short's pocket. Readjusting the focus, he waited. Nothing. Disappointed, he was a heartbeat away from disengaging himself when another distant flash went off. That is when he saw that shimmering silver gleam for a second time. Wanting to be absolutely sure that it wasn't the glare of the lake refracting off of his glasses, he waited for the next unhurried burst of light. His patience was rewarded with not one but two pulses of cloud-to-cloud light where that latter flash was more pronounced than the first. The second flash illuminated the silvery ripple that marred the lake's glass like surface.
Stealthily following the paths that would lead him to that discreet area of the lake, it became more apparent that it was more than curiosity that drew him across the school grounds.
The grass was dry against his house slippers. The summers' heat had prevented rain but the lake leached enough moisture into the soil to keep the grass supple and silent.
Deciding that a full frontal approach may not be the wisest course of action - after all who knows I might encounter - he altered his track slightly as he come up on the shrub and tree formation that he had spied from the Tower. Inspecting the area much more closely, Harry could see why this part of the lakeshore was so unfamiliar. It was so well concealed that it gave credence to his speculation that someone would have to be invited into the sanctuary that the nook provided rather than the glen allowing itself to be discovered by deliberate exploration.
Stepping through the thick shrubs, underbrush and intertwining tree boughs, the screen like foliage offered almost no resistance to the hark-haired boy's questing hands.
Another round of heat lightening afforded Harry a better look at the shimmering, silvery unknown that had beckoned to the seventeen year old boy all the way from the Observation Deck. This time, the lightening pulsed three times and Harry's un-bespectacled gaze never left what he caught sight of in the water.
What ever it was, it was something that he had never seen before. Beautiful was the first word that Harry's mind used to describe what was in front of him. Mini waves of silver lapped at one another. And where the ripples met was where the shimmering, silvery light had the greatest concentration. His eyes followed on particular series of ripples as they journeyed across the surface of the lake and attached themselves in an ever-thickening ribbon of beauty on the moss-covered bank. Harry could just make out the silvery beech trees that only served to compliment the sight before him. Taking in a deep breath, he also knew that if he stayed a-bed, he would truly regret not experiencing this. He couldn't help but think that if his mates heard his thoughts they would not hesitate to rib him for weeks!
Bringing his attention to the waters' edge, he squinted in to the darkness. There is something about those ripples. They were coming ashore in regular intervals. Not that there were the same amount of waves to each set - but there was a definite rhythm. An unexplained tension began to grip him. The waves were travelling much more closely together and their silent lapping was increasingly more insistent. Then, inexplicably - they stopped all together.
A thousand cries of dismay echoed in Harry's head. He knew that he hadn't been seen - at least not yet. The trunk of the tree he was leaning against was an ideal shield. What happened? He didn't dare breathe lest that was the cause. Was it simply over? Was what he saw all there was? What…
The flurry of questions that crowded his mind came to a screeching halt. He saw what he had been waiting for - without knowing WHAT he was waiting for. He silently considered that he was becoming down right nutters… Until…
Lightening was flashing in pulses of two and three. For the first time Harry heard the distant growl of thunder echo quietly through the valley. And then he saw it.
It was a female.
She was beautiful.
A beautiful (again that was the only adjective that came to his hormone befuddled mind) female form arose from the depths of the lake and broke the water's surface. From his vantage point, Harry could not see her face but the merest of profiles she presented left him with a loss for words. He watched with bated breath as her curved form emerged from the lake swathed in shimmering, living silver.
He realized that she had deliberately angled her head when she broke the surface to prevent her hair from becoming hopelessly entangled. Instead, her long hair was pulled flush against the sides and back of her head and laid flat against her back. He was captivated by the silver that tripped over her fingers as she moved her hands over her hair to squeeze off the excess water. He watched the play of her muscles as she swung her arms to stabilize her self as her perfectly tapered legs gained purchase on the root re-enforced bank. Without breaking her gait, she gathered her hair one more time and gave it another twist. Harry's imagination did not have to stretch far to envision the flow of silver that would have travelled down the groove of her spine. Perfect silver footprints traced her path from the water's edge to where she paused before a woven blanket that had been smoothed evenly over the softly aromatic, springy, cushioning moss.
Her long fingers moved as one as she brought one hand and then the other down her arms. Harry's breathing hitched as he watched the same hands move to the top most slopes of her breasts, over the tightly budded tips and chase increasingly thickening streams of silver down her midriff. Over the slight concave of her stomach only to witness the silver develop into full fledged rivers complete with the rapids that were where her hips joined her thighs and cascade the length of those wonderfully formed legs.
A moment of honesty flared behind Harry's eyes. He was glad that he could not see all of her, what ever she may be. He rather liked the fact that he only saw the profile of her face, neck, breast, stomach, buttocks and leg. The least of which would make the conversation he would have with Hagrid on the morrow as to what she might be just short of him stammering for words and blushing to the roots of his hair.
The movement of her bending forward erased any thoughts of his friend fm his mind. The gentle swaying of her breasts in the pulsing lightening as she turned her attention to her legs forced Harry to remember that he had to first to exhale the air he drew into his body before he could inhale his next breath. Her hands wrapped themselves around her thighs, down to the tender indentations behind her knees only to press the remaining silvered water off her calves that flowed over her ankles.
Thunder growled more loudly but he doubted that she heard it. She was now completely bent in half and was finger combing her long hair. Without warning, she straightened her body and flipped her hair back. Waves of wet tresses flowed down her back and rested on her shoulders. She was highlighted in living shimmering silver. Even the gentle waves of her hair glinted with silver at every crest and trough. And where she had made the effort to 'dry' herself, there was a sheen left on her skin that actually lead Harry to think that the way her body glimmered had to a result of silver flowing in her veins and illuminating her from the inside out.
Again, the rumble of thunder echoed in the valley. This time it was even closer to where this enthralling creature stood and the tree that provided such an effective blind for Harry. Heat lightening pulsed erratically and with more intensity. And because her she was standing perpendicular to him, Harry was left to his own devices as to whether or not her nether curls glinted like the hair on her head.
Displaying an evident, inherent grace, the arrestingly ethereal creature stepped on to and lowered her body onto the prepared blanket. In settling herself, her volumes of hair obscured her face in the fraction of a moment that Harry thought her countenance was going to be revealed. Instead, he appreciated the way she crooked her knees and rested her bottom and the small of her back on the woven covered moss. Her feet were pressed flat to the ground and she supported her remaining weight on her forearms.
Another growl of thunder sounded and lightening preceded it's mate by seconds. Silvered water glinted brightly in the darkness and the subtle glow of her body emanated only added more layers of mystery for Harry to ponder as to who she was and what she was doing on a night such as this. He could only stand and speculate what she would do next. He was not kept waiting long as she lifted her head expectantly to the sky. He could tell that the powerful forces of nature contributed to the quivering that fluttered along the long lines of her body.
More thunder - it was now coming in peals. The lightening that had been pre-empting the booming now vibrated the very leaves of the tree where he sheltered was now hard pressed to keep ahead of it's spouse. The air temperature change - it had cooled ever so slightly. Somewhere beyond the tallest trees in the Dark Forest, the merest whisper of a wind began to chase the clouds that cloaked the sky. The first few fat raindrops fell from those clouds.
Stillness had enveloped the valley, the school, it's inhabitants for hours. Harry was absolutely positive that she - whomever, whatever - she was the FIRST to break the silence that all the thundering could not. She laughed. She laughed with pure, joyful abandon as each drop struck her body.
This was HER time. THIS was what she had been awaiting. THIS was a part of who and what she was.
The longer she laughed, the more she enjoyed the rain. As her enjoyment escalated, the rain seemed to pick up in intensity and tempo. His eyes followed the one breast that rose and bounced every time she drew breath and how her laughter travelled down the length of her body, caused her thighs to tremble and how her mirth reached the very bottoms of her feet. Her silver skin complimented rather than competed with the pearly gleam of her smile. She was… as part of her surroundings and she was unique unto herself.
The first few drops stayed on her body exactly where they landed. As the rain steadily increased, Harry was shocked to see her silver skin peel away. No, that wasn't right, he thought. It is melting off her. Reprimanding himself for not having the right words to covey what was happening just a few yards away, Harry concentrated on the creature on her blanket. He saw silver-rich drops detail something akin to a comet's tail as they raced down the planes of her body. Then, the skies really opened up and the deluge began.
Raising herself off of her forearms, Harry thought that she was going to flee for the shelter. He could not have been more wrong. She lifted her arms high and spread them beyond the width of her shoulders as she turned her palms to the treetops. Water wound it's way around her body like a river surging down stream. It flowed over he curves and sped across her stomach pushing the living silver into and out of her navel before coming to rest - like an eddy - on her blanket. Fingers were once again raked through her hair - but this time she used the rain like a rinse to rid her locks of their silvering.
What was she? Was she some sort of lake-maid? A naiad who had somehow found herself in Scotland? Perhaps she was the only remaining half of some tragic love that could not bring herself to leave the very place where her heart met its demise. Who else, what else, could swim naked in a lake inhabited with territorial mer-people and a giant squid in the darkest part of the night?
To find abandon in a storm…
To have her silver skin fall away to reveal…
Did she only come out at night? Was he the only person to have watched her emerge from the water? Ever? Or, was he the thousandth? Resting his forehead against the wet tree trunk, time lost all meaning. He could have been out of bed for five minutes or for five hours. She filled his senses and his mind and he had just begun to take in all that she presented - let alone what remained to be discovered. It did occur to him that the rain had slackened and that the thunderstorm had moved further down the valley.
A grumble sounded in the distance - there would be more than one storm breaking on this night…