Squishy

by Of Questionable Veracity

The giant squid has a small problem.

Yeah I don't know, man, it's just kind of a silly story.

Hogwarts! School of witchcraft and wizardry! Big fucking castle!

And what a lovely, clear, crisp morning it was for the castle, too - sun just peeking up above the horizon, ready to push up into a wide open blue sky. Lovely indeed!

Night wilting before the onset of day, the light sparkled gaily across the surface of the lake and it sparkled slightly less gaily on the stark-bollock naked body of the person lying on its shores.

As the sun rose further and the light grew brighter, this naked person stirred and groaned, flopping over onto their back in a manner which suggested doing this was not something they had a whole lot of experience with. There was further groaning and further flopping, all of which served to drive home the point that this was someone most certainly not comfortable in their body.

For they were not, for it was not the body they were used to having.

Nothing was working the way it was meant to. She just felt wrong. Everything was wrong. And why was it so bright? And dry? And why was it dry and she not dying? Nothing made sense!

Opening her eyes, this naked person found a world they were aware of, but knew they shouldn't be in. This wasn't a great sign.

Another groan, this one less distressed more annoyed. They flopped a bit more then - with obvious, considerable effort - forced themselves into a sitting position. This lasted maybe a second before they flopped right back again, and decided to just stay like that.

This wasn't normal. Breathing air for one, not normal. Eyes facing the wrong way, also not normal. Skin felt weird. Limbs felt weirder. And also there appeared to be less of them than there should have been. Experimentally she gave each a flex in turn, to count and see what she had to work with.

One, two, three, four. Just four, definitely just four. And no tentacles, just arms, and not the good kind. And also legs now, with feet and everything, complete with those little wriggly bits on the end. None of this was right or proper.

Clumsily swinging about one of these weird new, inflexible 'arms' and feeling around with a 'hand' she discovered that she didn't even have a beak anymore either. Not anywhere that she could find at least.

And letting her 'head' roll to the side she could see that there was the lake, next to her, rather than her being in it. Would explain all that air she was surrounded by, instead of water.

Add all of this together and the conclusion was obvious.

Living in the (otherwise placid and delightful) lake next to the magical castle full of oftentimes less-than-careful magical humans had caused her to turn human herself. Somehow. Magically, presumably. Magic was involved somewhere, this seemed a safe bet.

Something like this was bound to have happened sooner or later.

"Great," she said, then she froze.

She could speak, too. That was also new. And she knew what she'd said, too, and what it meant. She knew a lot she likely shouldn't and was only just realising this, and realising that there wasn't a whole lot she could do about it.

"Great," she said again, somewhat more experimentally, tensing up as though doing this might attract some sort of unwanted attention. It didn't, so the tension melted. Vexation remained however.

She stared at the sky. Seeing it through air was just uncomfortable looking. Far too blue and far too clear. That settled it for her.

"Right!" She declared too loudly, forcing herself to sit again with supreme force of will. "This needs sorting out!"

Sitting up had been hard. Standing was much, much harder. Balance was elusive and she wobbled alarmingly, teetering one way then the other. Stayed upright though - a triumph!

Now, to the castle. This required walking.

She'd seen how the humans did it. Seen them strolling along the shores from time to time. They'd always made it look rather simple (certainly simple than their adorable efforts at swimming in the lake) but now that she was having to do it herself she found there was a lot to concentrate on.

Even a single step was an effort that very nearly saw her toppling over sideways.

Everything was just wrong! In the wrong place! Working wrong!

Was this what being human was like?! How did they live like this? How did they ever get anything done?

"Poor blighters," she said through gritted teeth as she took another wobbling step. No wonder they seemed to have such a rough time of things if this was what they had to deal with every day.

Still, as hard as it was she stuck with it. One foot in front of the other, step by step, each steadier than the last, each one making the castle loom that bit larger and that bit closer. Gritting her teeth, she allowed herself a moment of triumph when one of those awkward, clumsy feet she was now burdened with finally settled on a stone step leading upward.

What progress! She was a natural!

Fortunately (and inexplicably) the big doors were wide open by the time she finally managed to climb all the way up and so she was able to just wander right on in, feet continuing to slap upon stone. Once in and still adjusting to the comparative dimness of being inside - inside! What a concept! - she looked around for someone to ask. And she spotted someone, too.

An older human woman with square-rimmed glass things on her face who was not paying explicit attention to the world around her, instead checking some sort of list. The nude arrival approached and raised an arm in what she assumed would be a greeting, though she did raise it rather more enthusiastically than was strictly required.

"Hello. Couldn't have a word with you, could I?" She asked.

The woman - who was Professor McGonagall, not that the interloper knew this - glanced over and did a neck-snapping double-take.

"Merlin's beard! You're naked!" The woman sputtered.

"What? Oh, right, that's a thing. Whoops."

She'd vaguely been aware that this was something humans cared about but in all the excitement it had quite slipped her mind. It just wasn't something that she personally had ever had to worry about. Honestly, she wasn't sure what the big issue was.

Further, now-wordless sputtering from the woman who quickly produced a magical stick.

Using the same sort of nebulously-defined type of spell that would allow someone to, say, draw a chair out of thin air McGonagall hurriedly produced a baggy black robe and thrust it towards the girl.

"Put this on at once!" She commanded.

"Ah. Yes. I know how to do that," said the girl, who was lying.

A struggle followed, and while there were a few false starts where limbs went into the wrong holes, it all ended well and the girl was soon swamped in a robe that was far, far, far too big for her. Sleeves dangled and the bottom of the robes pooled about her feet. She seemed delighted though.

"Clothes! Wow!" She said, waving her arms about a bit. McGongall watched this with a certain level of bemused alarm. Even by Hogwarts standards this was unusual behaviour.

The identity of the girl was not springing immediately to mind - McGonagall blamed shock for this. At the least she could be confident that she was not a Gryffindor.

"Who is your head of house?" McGonagall asked, as a lead-in towards finding them and trying to work out who this was and why they would just show up starkers so early in the morning and what should be done about that.

The girl looked perplexed and stopped enjoying herself with her new robes quite so much.

"House?" She asked, head cocking to one side.

"Your school house!"

The girl blinked, then squinted.

"My what?" She asked.

At this point it seemed that the girl was just trying to push McGonagall's patience.

"The house into which you were sorted! Do you not remember?"

"Oh that's a - that's a human thing, isn't it? Castle thing?" The girl said, cautiously, in case she was misreading the situation completely. McGonagall's patience strained further still, almost to the point of snapping.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I'm a squid. I'm the squid. The giant squid? I was in the lake, see? Then I wasn't in the lake anymore and now I look like this. And that's kind of a problem. And I figure one of you lot could probably fix things, right?"

McGonagall's patience was bypassed completely. This was a statement so outlandish she couldn't actually muster the energy to feel annoyed about it. It came so out of nowhere that all her attentions were elsewhere, and she was blindsided.

She had not seen it coming.

"...the giant squid?" She asked.

The girl nodded but nodded with the head-flapping enthusiasm of someone who had only just learnt about nodding and what it meant. Because, really, she had, and didn't fully understand how, either.

"Yes. Well, usually. Something happened, I think. Magic. It wouldn't be too much bother to speak to the head, uh, person would it? In-charge person? Long, uh, furry thing. On his face. Like this, down like this."

She was unfamiliar with the word, but knew what they looked like.

"A beard? Dumbledore?" McGonagall asked, continuing to be utterly baffled by the situation unfolding. The girl beamed.

"Yes! That sounds about right. Him."

No idea if it was actually right, but it sounded around right.

"You, the giant squid, know Dumbledore?" McGonagall asked as a pure hypothetical, not believing a word of what she was saying and not really believing that she was having to say it in the first place.

"'Know' is kind of strong. We've met once or twice," said the girl.

Dumbledore had a passing familiarity with just about everyone and everything. It was an open question of where he found the time to fit it into his hectic schedule of being whimsical and eccentric.

Professor McGonagall was, at this point, going through something of a journey of internal strife, reflected externally by minute twitches of her face, occasional sharp intakes of breath and several abortive attempts to start a sentence, none of which so much as started, let alone went anywhere. She was at a loss, and this was a rare enough event that it happening was putting her at a further loss still.

She'd seen worse, obviously, and stranger, and nuder, but somehow never all at once, or so early in the morning. And the squid angle was admittedly one that had never come up before, so there was no precedent for that.

And she wanted to see Dumbledore?

Given the circumstances it seemed prudent to go to Dumbledore anyway, this being the sort of early-morning eccentricity that could turn out to be nothing or could turn out to be something. With Hogwarts and wizarding life in general you could never be too careful.

"Well then," McGonagall said at length, drawing herself up. "Come along then, miss…?"

"Oh, I don't have a name. Not one you could pronounce, anyway. Just the giant squid if you need a name."

"...I see. Come along."

A brisk walk to Dumbledore's office would have followed, had the girl been capable of a brisk walk. As it turned out she wasn't, really, and walked like someone who'd only just started doing it that very day. As a result McGonagall kept having to slow down and let her catch up and the girl kept apologising.

"This walking malarky's tough, isn't it? I don't know how you manage it!" She would say, or something like that, occasionally following it up with something like: "These arms are pretty great though! And the wiggly bits on the end! So bony…" and McGonagall would narrow her eyes and blow air through her nose and very pointedly refuse to comment.

At length, they arrived. A password was spoken, an entrance revealed, off they went to the office proper, wherein which Dumbledore was sitting around.

They found him as he was doing a crossword. He'd already filled in all the spaces, now he was happily altering the clues to better reflect the words he'd chosen. This way of doing it, he had discovered, was far more relaxing and far less restrictive.

On seeing McGonagall enter he looked up and smiled brightly.

"Ah! Minerva! Perfect timing. What's a good clue for the word 'dirigible'? I - oh, hello, who's this?"

The girl following behind McGonagall was familiar in a distant, nagging sort of a way, but beyond that nothing leapt to mind. That he could not immediately put a name to her face was alarming in a way he hadn't felt for some time, but he hid it well.

"Stand here," McGonagall said firmly to the girl, pointing to the spot she was standing in. The girl looked happy enough to do as she was told and, after pausing only briefly to check that she wasn't being followed, McGonagall hustled over to Dumbledore's desk. And leaned over it.

"This girl is claiming to be the giant squid," She hissed. Dumbledore steepled his fingers but beyond that didn't really react at all. Just kept smiling, more quietly now, and largely to himself.

"Is she now?"

"I found her wandering in the entrance hall, naked!" Professor McGonagall said, whispering the last part so low it was only barely audible, as though it was liable to incite misbehaviour in anyone who might happen to be eavesdropping. Dumbledore actually smiled a little more widely at this.

"Well squid are hardly known for wearing clothes, Minerva," he said.

She straightened, dancing on the edge of being appalled.

"You can't be taking this seriously!"

"Oh, I'd hardly like to think so. In my life I've learnt that most everything shouldn't be taken too seriously - especially the serious things. This, however, is at least important - at least to the giant squid, whether or not that is her," Dumbledore said.

This was a little tricky to follow, and his twinkling eyes (twinkling at seemingly random points in his sentence, emphasising odd phrases you couldn't work out were meaningful or not) didn't help.

"...I see," said Professor McGonagall at length. It was rapidly becoming her go-to for today.

Despite her many years of familiarity there still came moments when she couldn't fully work out whether he was pulling her leg or not. Not so much a man having a parallel conversation with you or two moves ahead, more someone playing an entirely different game and mostly with himself, you just happened to be lucky enough to be standing nearby.

And sometimes not even that.

"Consider, Minerva, whether you recognise her as a pupil," Dumbledore said, pointing his steepled fingers at the girl who didn't seem to mind being talked about as though she wasn't there, still just rocking on her heels and waving her arms about, plainly delighted with them.

Professor McGonagall gave her an appraising look, scouring her mind and her encyclopedic knowledge of each and every pupil. As before, nothing and no-one leapt out to her.

"I can't say I do," she said, unhappily.

"And would a Muggle even have thought to approach the castle?" Dumbledore asked by way of followup. Professor McGonagall frowned as though she was trying to smuggle half a dozen lemons in her mouth. Which is to say, uncomfortably.

"No."

It was conceivable a Muggle might, maybe, possibly, one day, in extremely unusual circumstances enter the castle despite its many charms and wards, but they certainly wouldn't just wander blithely in - naked! - and ask to see whoever was in charge. As much as it galled her to admit, McGonagall had to concede this point.

Further twinkling from Dumbledore. Did he even know he was doing it?

"So then," he said.

"I am the giant squid," said the girl - or the giant squid - helpfully, waving. Dumbledore looked past McGonagall to the girl (squid?) and spoke to her directly:

"As you say. And you woke up like this?" He asked.

She stopped rocking on her heels and stopped waving her arms, the question tripping her up.

"I...yes?"

They weren't sure. It was kind of a blur, that part. One moment happily in the water, the next confusedly out of it. In the middle of this was a gap. The important part, the part with the details, was in that gap.

"You seem to be adapting remarkably well," Dumbledore said, more of an observation than a compliment. The girl shrugged, annoying herself by knowing what a shrug was, how to do one and what it meant but at the same also not knowing any of these things.

"Magic, probably. That's how it works, right? Magic. Human stuff. This is horrendous. All this - air. The fingers are interesting, but it's still not right. This stuff on my head. Head beard? Hair? Knowing all this stuff. It's just awful. So - and I hate to impose - but if you wouldn't mind waving around your magic stick and fixing it I'd very much appreciate it, thank you."

Dumbledore stared at her hard for a few moments, all trace of twinkling gone. This was the appraising stare, the stare that was peeling back the station layer by layer in seconds, revealing the core issues. Then the twinkling came back and normal service resumed.

"I'm sorry to say it isn't quite as simple as that," he said, adjusting his glasses, frowning, giving them a brief polish and then replacing them and continuing to twinkle gently. The girl blinked. She was perplexed. Her limited understanding of the magic sticks was that they could do just about anything you needed them to.

"It isn't?" She asked.

"No, sadly. To undo what has been done we must first learn what it was that was done," he said.

Put like that she could understand it.

"That does make sense," the girl said, nodding, stroking her chin.

By now McGonagall had stopped feeling internally outraged at this and had decided that what was being assumed to have happened was what had happened, that there wasn't anything she could do about it right that second and that being annoyed about it wouldn't help her. So she just pulled a mental sheet over all that, took a steadying breath, and carried on.

"Even allowing for...magic...you still show a remarkable level of awareness of your surroundings," she said to the girl - or squid, she supposed, given that was how they handling this. Again the girl blinked.

"I do?"

"You knew to go to the castle, and you knew to ask for Dumbledore," McGonagall pointed out.

"Well, yes. I'm not a giant squid, I'm the giant squid," said the girl with definite emphasis.

"And that explains it?"

Was this a trick question?

"Yes? Why wouldn't it?"

Why indeed.

Baffled at the odd questions from the humans, the girl (squid) plunged onward, feeling that since she was able to talk now she might as well keep doing it:

"So this'll take, what? Better part of an evening? Or less than that? Should I go wait by the lake? She asked. Dumbledore and McGonagall exchanged looks.

"To avoid disappointment shall we say that it is likely to take five minutes longer than we'd like it to, and that in the meantime it would be best you stayed in the castle where we can find you and tell you when a solution has been put together?" Dumbledore suggested.

"Huh, that makes sense. You're good at this! Can see why you're in charge," the girl said.

Squids - or the giant squid, at least - had a vague and fuzzy conception of authority and the chain of command. It just wasn't something that came up all that much in the normal course of her normal days. She was aware humans had it, had people they had to listen to sometimes, but that was about as far as her awareness went. Seeing it in action was quite novel!

Always happy when people (or squids) went in the direction he preferred they did, Dumbledore again looked up at McGonagall.

"I believe breakfast is being served? Perhaps our formerly-cephalopodic guest is hungry? Are you hungry?"

He split his questions between the two of them, finishing off by directing some gently benevolent attention the squid's way. The girl again nodded so vigorously her head was in danger of snapping off.

"I'm always hungry, me! That's a virtue in a squid. Will there be toast? I am aware of toast and also aware that I quite like it. And eating it with a 'mouth' and not a beak? Wow! What an experience that'll be!"

More novelty still! What a day.

"One can only imagine," Dumbledore said, attention then moving to McGonagall. "Minerva, if you wouldn't mind taking our guest to some toast and then returning?"

"Of course, Headmaster," McGonagall said in tones of crisp, professional resignation, thoroughly given over to the fact that this was how her day was going to go and this was what she was going to be doing.

She did take a steadying breath before turning back to the happily humming and arm-swinging girl, however - she was only human. Unlike the girl. Who was a squid. A giant squid.

The giant squid.

"Follow me," McGonagall said, leading the way back down and out of the office and into the greater castle once more, thence to the hall wherein which breakfast was occurring.

Professor McGonagall sat the girl right at the largely-deserted end of the closest table, away from the questioning glances of pupils, and brought over the nearest stack of toast. The moment the stack had been set before the girl she was upon it, grabbing slices and devouring them.

She ate them dry first, then spotted the butter. She would have applied it by hand but McGonagall at this point was canny enough to see this coming and stopped her, so there was a very brief lesson in how to hold a knife (which end, etcetera) and then the girl was away, applying butter with wanton abandon.

"You will remain here until called for, do you understand?" McGonagall asked, standing ramrod straight.

"Will the toast stop?" The girl asked, cheeks bulging, scattering crumbs everywhere and still reaching for more. McGonagall took a second to silently absorb this particular visual.

"...it may run out at some point," she said.

The girl swallowed. It took some effort.

"That's a shame."

Toast consumption then resumed.

"...quite. Wait here," McGonagall said, pointing to the spot where the girl was sitting and giving her a firm, meaningful look before hustling back off to Dumbledore. The girl, munching toast, watched her until she was out of sight and then returned her full and undivided attention to the toast.

"This is pretty great," she said, oblivious to the odd looks she was getting from the pupils all around her.

Most had no idea who she was, had never seen her before (understandably) and were burning with curiosity as to why Professor McGonagall might have appeared with this mystery girl in tow, sat her down, given her toast and then just left her on her own.

What did it mean? What did it mean?!

Speculation flowed like water about the hall, frothing and pooling, most of it absolute balderdash. But amidst the balderdash there wound one clear, shining strand of the actual truth of the matter - that this mystery girl was, in fact, the giant squid in human form.

How did anyone know this?

Hot gossip being a force subject to entirely separate rules that magic or, indeed, greater reality had to obey, it was the work of next to no time at all before rumours of the nature of the mysterious, toast-devouring girl spread throughout every corner of the school, the hall being no exception. That was how.

Physically speaking how this was even possible was open to debate. After all, who could have said anything about it? The knowledge was limited to two people, surely! And yet - and yet! - it had spread, almost as though the castle itself had, spongelike, sucked up the gossip and then leaked it all over the student body.

Strange how things like that happen. Probably best not to think about it too hard.

Anyway.

The girl (squid) continued merrily eating toast, thoroughly unconcerned with the glances and whispers surrounding her, until one brave pupil - overcome with curiosity - finally took it upon himself to be the first to go and actually have a talk with this mysterious new arrival.

So off he went and down he sat nearby to her, just a little along the same bench she was on.

Let's call him George Lazenby.

"Hello," said George Lazenby, sliding up the bench towards her. She looked his way and waved and he waved back, a trifle puzzled but still game. "I'm George Lazenby. What's your name?"

Seemed as good an opener as any.

The girl, midway through one piece of toast and midway through bringing in the next, paused long enough between crunching chews to say:

"Don't have one."

Not what George had expected to hear. He blinked.

"Don't have what?" He asked.

Seeing now that a longer answer was required the girl paused and lay down her latest piece of toast, unconcerned with the crumbs she had managed to get all over herself and all over her immediate area.

"Name. Squid don't got names, not really. Well, kind of, but not like you humans do. Don't worry about it," she said.

It was a whole thing, really not worth getting into. You'd need a beak and to be underwater to even get started, and she didn't have the energy to explain that. Thankfully, George felt no need to pursue the matter, far too excited at what he took to be confirmation of the weightiest rumour presently flying around.

"So you are a squid?" He asked as an immediate followup, schooching in even closer and speaking in awed, hushed tones. The girl shrugged, was momentarily delighted at being able to shrug, and then nodded. Her nods were more restrained now, as she was getting the hang of them.

"The giant squid. And yeah, right? It's weird isn't it?" She asked in turn.

George had to think about this one for a second.

Pretty weird, sure, but then again this was Hogwarts and weird was kind of relative. Even in his limited time at the school, the things he'd seen? The things that had happened? Just the day-to-day operation of the place?

All that taken into account having a squid inexplicably turned into a human ranked, ooh, maybe in the middle, he supposed. For this year at least. Certainly it could have been worse.

"Pretty weird," he conceded, eventually.

A pause followed because the girl clearly felt no need to say anything to this and George wasn't sure what he should say. He glanced about, keenly aware that all the attention the girl had been getting was now also getting directed his way, too.

Probably should have seen that coming.

Oh well, too late now. He schooched in a bit closer, just to avoid being overheard.

"So, tentacles?" He asked, somewhat conspiratorially. Too conspiratorially for her liking, certainly. She dropped her toast and twisted in place.

"I'm going to stop you right there," she said. This was something else she had a vague, unusual awareness of and, again, it didn't make her especially comfortable. "I'm not actually human so none of this," she said, demonstratively waving a hand over both them and herself. "Is doing anything for me. Sorry."

A puzzled look from George, followed by the look of awkward horror one gets when realising what you've said has been taken in completely the wrong way.

"No no no, you misunderstand! I mean - what I am asking - is what is it like having tentacles?"

That changed everything! The girl beamed.

"Oh - oh! Oh it's great! They're long, they're strong. They got suckers with these ridged bits. You can do all sorts! And by all sorts I mean use them to hunt for food. Which is kind of the main thing. But that's a great main thing!"

They really were fantastic. She'd never really had much cause (or means) to articulate how fantastic they were, but that didn't alter how fantastic they were.

"I mainly use the arms when I'm fishing kids out of the lake. The tentacles could cut the poor sods up - can't be having that!"

"Wow…" George breathed.

He was easily impressed.

"Yeah!" The girl said happily.

"So what's it like being a squid, then? Beyond, uh, arms and tentacles?" George asked, on a trip now and unable to stop himself. The girl (squid), for her part, was finding the direction the conversation was taking pleasantly delightful. How often did one get the chance to (in this case quite literally! Assuming one is liberal with literally) step outside oneself and explain things about one's own fundamental nature?

To a captive and interested audience, no less!

"Oh I couldn't really speak to what it's like being a giant squid, but I can certainly tell you that being the giant squid is wonderful! Life is good for the giant squid - that is to say, me. Sometimes I am tickled, sometimes I am thrown toast, sometimes I rescue poor, sodden children from the lake. And sometimes when I dive deeply into the deep depths I wind up somewhere refreshing and salty and new. And sometimes I just find the bottom of the lake. Every day is an adventure!"

So energetic was she in saying this that she nearly fell backwards off the bench, catching herself at the last moment even as George moved to do the same. She appreciated the effort.

"Nice of you, much obliged," she said, resettling herself a little more firmly and reaching for the toast (which had still yet to run out, somehow). She paused though and then winced, bringing both hands back to her belly.

"Are you okay?" George Lazenby asked.

"I feel terrible!" The girl said with surprising cheer.

George cast his eye over the horrendous mess she'd made in eating so much bloody toast.

"Think you might have had a bit too much toast," he said. No pulling the wool over George's eyes. The girl groaned and nodded.

"Think you might be right, George Lazenby. We never know how far too is too far until we get there, do we?" She said.

Old squid saying, that. Or so she liked to think, she was the only one she knew who said it, but still. She was a squid and she was an age, so technically that made it a squid saying, didn't it?

She then lay down on the floor. It didn't help a whole lot, but the sheer novelty did a lot to take her mind off how ill she suddenly felt.

"This is wonderful! Look at me! Lying down!"

George's head appeared over her, peering with concern.

"Um, do you need anything?" He asked. She waved him off.

"No no, quite alright. Just going to wait here until they come and tell me they've cooked up a solution! Don't worry about me! Oh, my insides - that's awful!"

With some clumsiness she tucked her hands - for she had hands! Still couldn't get over that - behind her head and stared up at the enchanted ceiling, reflecting the picture-perfect blue sky right at that moment.

"The sky!" She declared, more to herself than to George, who was feeling a little awkward now. "Without water in the way! You know, this is going to be something I'm going to remember for years, let me tell you! My my."

All in all, she had had worse days.