Creator's Notes: Here it is! Chapter One.
Draco Malfoy had awoken with a start that fateful morning. He had fallen asleep at the ancient desk that sat calmly in the Slytherin Common Room as he studied for a test that he was silently dreading. What had woken him so abruptly? Usually his mornings were easier than this. He startled when a tapping sound echoed in the Common Room mimicking the noise that had woken him. It didn't take him long to settle on where the noise was coming from and he stood to approach the window that looked out into the Black Lake.
Draco nearly screamed when a hand burst from the murky depths and pressed itself flat against the window. It balled into a fist and tapped a little more roughly. Draco approached the window slowly as the fist continued its tapping. Suddenly a face appeared to which Draco Malfoy did let out a surprisingly feminine screech.
The events that happened over the next few hours were some that Hogwarts had never seen. Something strange was in that lake, something that hadn't happened at the school for witches and wizards before. After confirming Miss Hermione Granger's absence from the castle, along with Harry Potter and Ron Weasley's apparent concern it suddenly became clear that the strange thing in the lake might actually be a student. A crowd gathered to watch as bewitched boats carrying Hogwarts staff searched for the missing Granger over the surface of the unyielding waters. Any anonymous face in the crowd would've seen a figure pulled from the tides with tremendous difficulty. Best friends Harry and Ron, who had both adorned brooms to scan the surface from a bird's eye view, were now hovering anxiously above the boat that held Miss Granger.
The anonymous faces in the crowd backed away in horror as the boat came close to shore. There sudden curiosity was stifled when they saw what had indeed happened to their peer. She looked more fish than girl, something that had crawled right out of a Muggle fairy tale. Replacing her usually slender legs was a muscular fish tail, scales that were a deep mahogany red matching her hair seemed to speckle her skin from her torso up. Her chest was bare but the patron in the boat with her – groundskeeper Hagrid and dear friend to Hermione – had covered her with a prepared towel. A Bubble-Head Charm was covering her throat and mouth, hiding the sight of her newfound gills from her classmates. She was thrashing wildly as a caught fish would do and struggled when Hagrid lifted her out of the boat.
Three Gryffindor faces watched from the safety of the school walls as a mutated Hermione Granger was rushed to safety and privacy. Sharing a glance they went about their separate ways, probably never to speak of this again.
Something peculiar had happened to Hermione Granger while she slept. Now Hogwarts was usually the place for oddities but this was stranger than the rest. The school of Witchcraft and Wizards now housed a student confined to a bewitched Prefect bathtub. Miss Granger sat, refusing to look down at her own newfound body. Harry and Ronald, who had finally gotten over their hesitation of being in a girl's bathroom sat with their bare toes in the water.
"It's terrible." Hermione's soft whisper seemed to echo louder than she meant it to.
"It's not...terrible 'Mione." Ron tried to gently comfort her, to no avail. The young girl was clearly distressed and chose to keep her eye trained on the Professors standing at the doorway of the bathroom, chatting to one another.
"Cure her Severus." Dumbledore couldn't take his eye of his former student. He had bewitched a bathtub to hold her comfortably while they scrambled desperately for a solution.
"Of course." Sometimes Severus' drawl was quite irritating and this Albus found to be one of those times.
"Harry. Ronald." The two boys snapped to attention and followed Dumbledore's beckon to leave with promises they will return to their friends after classes. The only alone time Miss Granger had spent with her Potions teacher had been after class when she feebly attested a grade she had received.
Now, standing in his commanding presence Hermione shrank back still trying to adjust to the feeling of the one long muscle below her torso. Professor Snape walked forward slowly, hands folded behind his back and his long cape flowing although Hermione didn't feel a wind. Coming to a stop at the edge of the bathtub he emitted an uncharacteristic sigh.
"It seems that we have some work to do Miss Granger."
The next few hours were quite agitating and painful. Hermione was poked and prodded by every Magical Adult within the Hogwarts walls who thought they could lend a helpful hand. From bewitching herbs to pokes in the forehead via wand point Hermione was thoroughly examined. During the coming and going a desk was subtly levitated into place beside the tub. Hermione was able to see through the madness she could see a small workplace coming together. When the crowd dispersed it left two people in its wake. Hermione who still refused to look down upon herself and Professor Snape, who sat at a brilliant desk with piles of books and pens scribbling away on their own.
Without a word Snape stood. He laid out a book on a towel where she could reach it and returned to his desk.
"Your absence from my class for the time being will be accepted only because you will be researching alongside me." Severus settled himself at his desk as his voice echoed in the small space. So the two sat in silence, the student grateful for a small sense of normality while the Professor dove into the tedious task of pretending.
Creator's Notes: What is Severus lying about? What will happen to our precious Hermione? And that was chapter one. More to come I promise cats and kittens!