When it became apparent that Clemente was not going to resurface anytime soon, Hermione made herself a little more comfortable by Transfiguring her left shoe into a pillow and her right shoe into a wide brimmed hat. She settled down into the bottom of the boat, feet propped on the opposite bench seat, and opened her wedding planning notebook which never really seemed to leave her side recently. She supposed she ought to have been watching Clemente's every move because she wasn't quite sure she trusted him to not anatomically rearrange the squid, but for once, she decided to take a hands-off approach and not intercede unless she noticed a large amount of blood in the water.

Flipping to an empty page, Hermione began making a list of out of town guests, grouping them by family. Despite the saccharine wedding organizers on display at Flourish and Botts, writing longhand in a Muggle notebook seemed more organized. Though she had lived with magic for almost a decade, Hermione believed some things just needed to be done the hard way, and hence, the notebook. It was an attitude her future mother-in-law couldn't understand and wouldn't support, and so a few uninterrupted moments of doing things her way was a blessing.

Her official joining of the Weasley family wasn't for another four months, which felt like both tomorrow and sometime next millennium. Hermione doodled a little box around Neville and Luna whom had said they would provide their own tent to stay in, but added a tiny question mark next to the box when she remembered that Neville had quietly pulled her aside and told her he would confirm their arrangements only after he'd had a look at the tent Luna had promised would be suitable. It was an undoubtedly wise move on Neville's part; any interior of a tent belonging to Luna Lovegood was likely to resemble a treehouse or ice palace or some other fantastic accommodation.

Hermione had tallied up the number of tents she and Ron would need to rent for their guests and had moved on to planning a luncheon for the wedding party when her thoughts turned to Gregory Clemente once more.

I wonder if he ever married? Doubtful. What girl would have him? It would not only be social suicide (who would want to marry a former Death Eater?) but probably lead to a real suicide as well. Merlin only knows what type of husband he would be.

Stretching both arms overhead and arching her back, Hermione decided to take a little break from wedding planning. A lot of her decisions couldn't be made entirely on her own, which made Hermione feel uncomfortably out of control. All she could do was come up with ideas and send owls.

Putting the notebook aside, she was faced with a pleasant problem. Right now, there was absolutely nothing she could get done. She was in a rowboat in the middle of a lake, she had no paperwork with her, no one could contact her, and she would be alone for probably another hour. Excepting her companion, this was pure serendipity. Placing her notebook back in her bag, Hermione exchanged it for a dog eared Muggle paperback, and after one quick check across the placid surface of the lake, settled back to enjoy her unexpected miniature holiday.

Gregory had the uncomfortably distinct feeling of being watched. He had been swimming far below the surface, only about 10 meters or so from the lake bed, so that he could easily scan the spread of empty water above him, faintly illuminated by the sun. So far, he hadn't seen much of anything else swimming along, not squid, not merpeople, and strangely enough, not even very many fish. Gregory paused, treading water, as he considered this last observation. Something was very wrong down here, and he was unsure if the squid's behavior was causing it or if the squid's behavior was being caused by it.

A gentle brush against the back of his calf caused him to whip around and raise his wand, but nothing was there. His back felt prickly, almost as if the gaze of whatever was stalking him, and he was sure now that something was, was physically touching him. Then like the stroke of a whip, something struck him between the shoulder blades and propelled him forward. He whipped around again, but there was nothing.

Gregory illuminated his wand and held it out in front of him. His range of vision narrowed and he could no longer see clearly past the edge of his wandlight, but in the murky waters, he was sure he saw a tentacle flicker out of sight. Gregory swam hard after it, but another blow across his back stunned him. He spun again, and the squid was no more than two meters away from him. A tentacle ventured towards him, and he shot a Stinging Hex at it, protocol be damned. The squid recoiled and shot off.

Something glided past the corner of his eye. Gregory, wand clutched in a death grip in his hand, turned and saw the squid. Or was it the same squid? The one he had just seen had shot off the other direction, but now it was directly behind him. He glanced over his shoulder, and it felt as if his heart had jumped into his throat. There were two more squids behind him.

More than one? There's never been any word that the giant squid was really a damned family of the things!

Gregory decided now was a good time to get out of the lake.

Hermione was bored. She'd given up on her book after she'd realized she'd been reading the same paragraph over and over without really reading it. Now she sat with her head propped on her hand and sighed.

"Will you please hurry up, Gregory Goyle?" She rolled her eyes, "Clemente."

At that moment, she saw something break the surface of the lake. It was Clemente, and he looked wildly about him until he spotted the rowboat then submerged again. Hermione shaded her eyes with her hand and frowned a little. He broke the surface again, closer this time, and yelled out to her.

"Granger! The boat! Come to me!"

Without hesitation, she pointed her wand at the boat and the anchor came zipping up through the water to coil neatly on the boards at her feet as the boat shot forward toward him, waves slapping at it with bone jarring force as it bluntly cut through the swell. He had gone under the surface again, presumably swimming faster under the water. What was going on? What had happened?

When he surfaced again, he was only a few feet from the boat. Hermione let the boat stop, and he swam towards her, awkwardly holding his wand in his fist. Clemente struggled to climb over the high sides, then abruptly went under water again. He reappeared after a second with great vertical leap out of the water and flopped his upper body into the boat and managed to bring his legs in after him. Hermione saw his feet and hands were still webbed, and he was struggling to breathe air through his gills.

"Are you alright? I think you should get back in the water until the gillyweed wears off."

Clemente ignored her and pawed through his bag. The horrible gasping noises were getting worse, and he frantically dumped the bag's contents onto the bottom of the boat and seized a small vial of purple liquid. He fumbled to open it, but his webbed hands were too awkward, and Hermione grabbed the vial from him and popped the cork out. After quickly swallowing it, the effects on him were immediate. His gills closed and his fins rapidly shrank back into normal human appendages.

Clemente was taking huge gulps of air, leaning forward with his arms resting on his kness. There was a red line down his back, slightly swollen.

"Granger, we need to get out of here. Get us back to the shore as fast as you can."

Bouncing over the lake on the way back to the boathouse, neither of them spoke. Once he had regained his breath, Clemente had concentrated intensely on the water around them, wand clutched tightly. A few times, he had leaned forward into a half-crouch and raised his wand, but no lake monsters bothered them. Hermione coaxed as much speed out of the boat as she could. The way Clemente was acting, something had really spooked him down there.

He stayed on high alert, not even putting his clothes back on, despite the fact she could tell he was cold, until they were back in the boathouse. Hermione bent to repack the gear he'd dumped out of his bag.

"What happened out there?"

Clemente had gotten out of the boat to redress, and he shook his head as he pulled his pants on.

"I'm not sure. I didn't see anything, not the squid, nor merpeople, nor even any damn fish for probably an hour. I was just thinking how odd that was, when something slapped me across the back. Turns out there's not a squid problem. There's a squids problem."

"Squids? As in more than one?"

"At least four more. Didn't seem as big as I expected."

"Well, maybe they weren't full grown?" Hermione handed him his pack.

"Huh. Maybe not."

"Well, what are you thinking you're going to do?"

"I'm not sure. I'm going to have to talk to my boss and the Headmistress about this. Now we know it's more than one squid causing the problems, but we still don't know why. They'll just have to keep the everyone away from the lake for a little longer."

Clemente buckled his watch around his wrist and raked his hair back from his forehead as he looked back at Hermione.

"Is there anything you need to know?"

"Well, I just need to confirm that the squids weren't harmed."

"They weren't."

"Then that's all I need to know."

They walked back up to the castle in silence. Once inside the doors, Hermione stopped.

"Are you going back up the Headmistress's office now?"

"Yeah."

"I actually have plans to meet someone else, but since you'll have to come out here again, I'm sure I'll see you then."

"Yeah, probably be next week some time."

"Well, good to see you! Take care!"

Hermione hurried off, glad he couldn't see her reddening face. Good to see you? Take care? Merlin, Hermione. Might as well have given him a kiss on the cheek and said "Give my love to the family!"