Chapter 6

A/N: Hello readers! I was going to make you wait until Sunday for the new chapter, because new chapters are always good to soften the blow of Monday, but I have an announcement!

So, ChloeDracoMalfoy has brought a wonderful charity to my attention. It's called Fandom for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (google it, you'll find it). How it works is ff authors (me included) are going to upload stories, outtakes, etc. that you can't find anywhere else, and for a donation of $10 or more, you guys get access to said stories AND you get to feel good for helping out! Check it out. Even if you don't want to write something for them or donate, go anyway. Tell people about it.

As always, thanks so much to everyone who reviewed and to irianaceleste for betaing!

To summerful21: The giant squid at Hogwarts may be friends, but not the ones in the ocean. Luna does have another appearance, don't worry. I like her too! I have no idea where my ideas come from. My mind is just a strange place. Thanks for the review!

~Frosty

Draco disliked oceans in general, the one in which he was currently submerged in particular. Anything that numbed his extremities to the point of sluggish movement despite a liberal and exhausting application of warming spells was bound to put him in a horrible mood.

They had gone far out of their way on a whim based on the words of a terrified and probably addled child and a definitely addled former schoolmate. The octopus was almost no help at all, which didn't help his foul mood.

Even worse, he couldn't make his displeasure known to his partner because they had bubble head charms and no spare energy for communication. Sure, he could make disgusted faces in her general direction, but that would only work if she would properly look at him. Besides the occasional cursory glance to make sure that Draco was still behind her, Granger wasn't paying attention to him.

Like usual, she was foraging ahead while counting on him to guard their rear.

He squinted around them at the murky water. Visibility wasn't ideal. In fact, it was so bad that they were essentially flailing around in the dark, headed towards the bright spot above them that they were assuming was the sun and hoping that nothing in the area suddenly felt inclined to attack them.

Swimming ahead and pretending not to notice the waves of displeasure stemming from her partner, Hermione had no warming when a huge expanse of grey suddenly exploded out of the gloom.

She froze, startled by the sperm whale that very nearly bowled her right over. She knew that the whale wasn't interested in her as a food source, but it was still quite startling to see something so large just appear out of nowhere. While the whale may not want to eat her, it could still do her severe damage just by bumping her with its powerful body.

Behind her, Draco wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her back against him, and they both watched the whale pass. Even without the ability to communicate, Hermione knew what Draco was thinking. He was wishing he had his sword with him while wondering where would be best to stab a sperm whale and if it was possible to behead one.

When the whale was gone, Hermione slowly continued her swim towards the surface, watching for anything else that could launch itself at her without warning. There was an awful lot of empty water peppered with the occasional iceberg, but there wasn't much else to see.

Hermione had a return Portkey in one of her pockets... somewhere. Her problem was that it was quite difficult to search through said pockets with numb fingers and that a gentle current was making her drift further and further away from the minimal cover provided by the icebergs. Her only comfort was that if there was something out to get them, it wouldn't be able to see them any better than they could see it in the vast darkness. Of course, this didn't mean a predator couldn't rely on other senses to find them and eat them.

She looked around them once more, still not finding anything but ice, darkness, and an increasingly irritable partner, an irritable partner who, in a flurry of motion, suddenly drew his wand.

When Draco saw that Hermione was staring at him, he jabbed a finger downwards.

It was like something out of a nightmare. Hermione appreciated all wildlife, but she understood that some creatures were best appreciated from a distance. The giant squid was one such creature, which was why Hermione's heart was in her throat as she struggled to gain access to her pockets, desperately searching with numb fingers for her wand.

The giant squid in the Great Lake at Hogwarts had little in common with its wild counterparts. From time to time, the giant squid of Hogwarts had been known to fish children out of the lake and put them back on the safety of the shore. So much time exposed to magic had given it an understanding and care for humans that wild squid just didn't possess. All this squid saw was an easy bite to eat.

Just as she found her wand, one of the squid's tentacles darted out and wrapped around Draco's leg, tugging him towards the beak waiting to consume him. Draco tried to use magic to sever the tentacle, but either his aim was worse than normal or, more likely, he didn't have the energy to put any force behind his spells while still maintaining his bubble head and warming charms. He was without his sword and didn't have magic either.

Draco was almost to the sharp beak when Hermione finally found something in her pocket. Unfortunately, it was the Portkey instead of her bloody wand. Still, getting them out of there would save them from the giant squid just as effectively as fighting it. She was trying to work out a way to get to Draco as she pulled out the Portkey when her wand dislodged from wherever it had been hiding.

She was just as exhausted as her partner, but she dropped her heating charms. The sudden coldness of the water took her breath away for a beat. Knowing that Draco was depending on her, she forced back the shock and cast a nasty Stinging hex at the giant squid to make it release Draco. She knew that he wasn't going to approve of her lack of force, but she wasn't going to kill an innocent creature just because it had been hungry and found what it thought to be easy food.

As soon as the squid released Draco, she rushed forward and touched the Portkey at the same time as she pressed it to Draco's palm.

For convenience, they'd had the Portkey programmed to take them to the bathroom off of Draco's bedroom. Their theory had been that they would be able to easily change their wet clothes and then warm up in the bath.

They lay on the floor, tangled together and dripping like a pair of fish out of the water. Hermione couldn't feel much of anything, but she knew they needed to be warmer.

Her numb limbs didn't want to cooperate, but she forced herself to her feet, slipping on the wet tiles and stepping on Draco's fingers. The fact that he only grunted in complaint was more worrying than anything else. She couldn't see the extent of his wounds, but his lack of complaint and the pink tinge to the puddle beneath them was greatly worrying.

Finally, she managed to wrap her swollen and clumsy fingers around the faucet and hot water poured from the tap. Normally, she luxuriated in the feel of hot water, but in this case, the sudden change in temperature sent pain raking across his skin.

"A-a-a-a-are you all right, D-Draco?" she asked, her teeth chattering so badly that her words came out fractured. She was so cold that it felt like her bones were trying to do the same thing. Her shivers were trying to rip her apart.

"A-as well as I c-can be considering that a b-bloody huge calamari just tried to eat me." Draco's teeth were chattering just as badly as hers, but he clenched his jaw tightly, determined to get the better of his temperate instead of the other way around. It wasn't working.

The steam from the bath warmed the air, stinging their skin as they started to get feeling back into their limbs. Draco levered himself up beside her and they both worked on getting off their wet clothes as the bath filled. They had no strength and their clothes were sticky and stubborn with water weight, so it was quite a battle.

Hermione fought with the buttons on her shirt. The pesky little things were so tiny and slippery that it was virtually impossible to manipulate without the ability to feel her fingers. It didn't help that she was completely exhausted and borderline hypothermic.

Draco was having more luck. Both of them had shucked off their parkas prior to jumping into the water since they would have only weighed them down, so they were left with just their bulky winter clothes. Draco, unlike Hermione, hadn't bothered with undoing his buttons. He'd just ripped his shirt open, not caring that his buttons popped off and littered the floor.

When he saw that Hermione was having difficulties, Draco rolled his eyes, reached over, and ripped open her shirt just as he'd done to his own. He was a little too enthusiastic about the undressing her thing though, because he didn't stop there. Draco leaned over to kiss her, somehow managing to unclasp his bra with numb hands – an impressive feat, all things considered. Apparently he wasn't cold enough for his sex drive to be affected in any major way.

Lost in the kiss, Hermione pressed herself against him. His shirt was already on the floor, but she went to work on his pants while he pulled her bra down her arms and tossed it to the side with the rest of their clothing.

Hermione gasped when he stepped out of his pants, but it wasn't because she was impressed or whatever he probably assumed.

"D-Draco, you're bleeding."

She couldn't believe that she'd allowed him to distract her from his injury.

There was a large gash on his upper thigh that was bleeding quite heavily. Hermione knew that the suction cups along the underside of giant squid tentacles actually contained rather nasty claw-like protrusions. From the look of Draco's shredded thigh, one such claw had nicked an artery or something.

He looked down and then frowned. "I-if it isn't Lovegood, it's something else," he growled. His leg was still too numb for him to really feel the cut, but once Hermione had pointed it out, his injury really made itself known.

Hermione was already trying to get her shirt back on while Draco pulled his pants up once more.

By the time they were both passably clothed again, Draco was leaning heavily on her. Between the blood loss, the exhaustion, and the borderline hypothermia, Draco was in no shape to Apparate to the hospital, so it was up to Hermione. She wasn't much better off than him, but Draco didn't know that. He had no idea she'd been forced to drop her heating spells and subject herself unprotected to the frigid temperatures of the south arctic.

In a puddle of salt water, Hermione and Draco appeared in St. Mungo's. No longer able to hold up the combined weight of her own body and Draco's, Hermione collapsed in a heap right in front of worried Mediwitches and Healers.

Of course, the medical professionals immediately rushed forward to assist, and because they were professionals, they only argued for the briefest moment over who was going to deal with "him."

Having used the last of her energy to transport them to the hospital, Hermione fell unconscious just as she was levitated towards a pair of gurneys that had been summoned.

When she woke up again, Harry was sitting at her bedside.

"What are you doing here, Harry?" Her voice was scratchy, but it was much easier to talk now that her teeth weren't chattering. She still felt little pinpricks of pain throughout her body as it got used to being warm once more, so she couldn't have been unconscious very long.

"Malfoy woke up before you and they wouldn't tell him where you were." Hermione cringed at the mental picture. "He wasn't pleased."

Sitting up carefully, she wiggled her fingers and toes, mentally going over her body to see if she was experiencing any major pain. She was still exhausted and suffering from those little pinpricks, but other than that felt perfectly fine.

"They called in Aurors?" Once she was no longer concerned about missing limbs and whatnot, her full attention focused on what Harry was telling her and what his presence meant. "What did he do?"

"Let's just say that it was only as a favour to you that he isn't in custody right now."

Rubbing a hand over her face, Hermione sighed. She levered herself up from her bed, pleased that she was only a little dizzy after an adventure that could have easily been deadly. "Where is he?"

The only comforting thing about the entire situation was the fact that Draco hadn't had any weapons other than his wand with which to assault the people who had saved him. He'd been so exhausted that, in the event that he managed to use it, his spells wouldn't have packed their normal punch.

"What exactly did he do?" She needed to know how bad it was or else her mind was going to immediately jump to the worst case scenario. She really hoped that Draco hadn't found a weapon and beheaded a Healer.

Harry sighed. He knew that look and understood that she wasn't going to let him leave until she got the information she wanted. He was going to have to tell her.

"You probably know better than anyone that Malfoy hates the hospital." Hermione nodded. "Well, the staff here – as I'm sure you also know – have certain measures in place for difficult patients such as him, especially after the stake incident last time." Again, Hermione nodded. "They only go into his room in pairs and he's strapped to the bed at all times for his safety and everyone else's as well."

This was sounding worse and worse. While Hermione understood why the staff of St. Mungo's had put these measures in place, she knew they would only serve to make Draco angrier and probably wouldn't even stop him. It was really in the best interests of everyone that she find him and calm him down before he escaped and unleashed himself on the hospital.

"Even with all those measures in place," Harry continued, "Malfoy managed to free an arm as they were putting the healing potions on his leg. He grabbed the Healer's robes and yanked down, bashing the man's head on the edge of the bed."

Hermione wasn't sure whether she should be relieved that Draco hadn't killed someone with a pudding spoon or furious that he had assaulted a Healer as the man tried to heal him. Either way, she was going to give him a stern talking to.

She started across the room. Her limbs still felt a little heavier than normal, but movement wasn't nearly as difficult as it had been before the hospital. She was back to a normal temperature and no longer numb.

Harry jumped from his chair and had his hands hovering at her shoulder as if he expected her to fold up and collapse at any moment. "Hermione, are you sure you should be-"

He cut off when she whipped her head to the side and gave him a nasty glare that was just daring him to push her. Harry was not a stupid man and he hadn't survived so long because he lacked the self-preservation instincts. He immediately backed away from his friend, but still remained close enough that he would probably be able to catch her in the event that she collapsed.

Hermione stormed out of her room but only made it to the hallway outside her door before she realized that she didn't know where Draco's room was. Usually she just followed the yelling and things being thrown and Draco was at the center of it, but this time the entire floor seemed suspiciously silent.

She whirled around on Harry, resisting the urge to steady herself against the wall. Harry would use it as an excuse to send her back to bed and she wasn't having that. "Where is he?"

Knowing that she would just exhaust herself searching for her partner if he didn't tell her where Malfoy was, Harry told her what she wanted. "He's down a floor in room 217. I think they sedated him."

Harry was right; Draco was sleeping peacefully when Hermione finally entered his room. While it wasn't unheard of for him to be sleeping in the hospital after losing a significant amount of blood and magically exhausting himself, it was when Ron was sitting in the corner.

"Are you okay, Hermione?" Ron asked. He shot Harry a look he probably thought was subtle over her shoulder.

"I'm fine," Hermione snapped. She didn't appreciate the two of them ganging up on her. Exhaustion and mild hypothermia. She'd certainly had much worse in her time at Hogwarts and during the war. Besides that, she'd recently proven to the two of them that she and Draco were capable of handling dire situations together.

Her attention turned to her partner. He was looking a little paler than normal, but otherwise appeared okay.

"Can you two give me a minute with him?"

Ron, a little slower than Harry, had taken a few seconds to catch on to her mood, but was now fully aware of it. He meekly filed out of the room after Harry, only stopping to give Hermione a quick hug and tell her that they'd both been worried when they'd found out that she was in the hospital.

She rounded on the sleeping form of her unsuspecting partner. In the past, she had lectured him on his childish aversion to hospitals but had kept the extent of her opinions to herself. This had been fine while they were just partners. Now that they were dating, there were a few things that needed to be said.