Chapter 3
Day three of Kraken-Malfoy started similarly to day two: terrorizing any male staff that dared to step foot in his domain, and terrifying at least half the female healers that dared to cast a diagnostic.
Hermione had arrived an hour early to try to get some research in before her normal duties and do a more thorough changeover than the typical five-minute stand up. She glanced through the notes on his overnight diagnostics. No changes. Really, he was the picture of perfect health other than the tentacle-y bits and amnesia with a side of animalistic personality change.
Her brow furrowed by the time she reached the end of the third page.
"Why haven't his bandages been changed?"
Susan shifted uneasily.
"He wouldn't let any of us get close enough to touch him. Four of us tried, and he became a mite tetchy. There's a report on page four. Getting the diagnostics were hard enough."
Hermione groaned as she read over the incident report on the last page. Tetchy was an understatement.
She needed Malfoy out of her hospital sooner rather than later, or he would definitely run off all of her staff. As it stood, she mentally finalized her plans to stay overnight to forestall any additional issues.
It wouldn't be so different from staying during an emergency. It's what the uncomfortable cot in her office was for, after all.
"Thanks, Susan. Go ahead and head home. I'll take it from here."
The relief on the other witch's face was tangible.
Hermione felt a bit miffed as she walked into her problem patient's room.
"You've been terrorizing my staff again," she said by way of greeting.
Malfoy emerged from his space under the water, his chest rattling with an odd crooning sound that was new. She made a mental note to start cataloguing his vocalizations to discern their various meanings.
Having nothing to otherwise entertain him, Malfoy's eyes were glued to Hermione and her every move. She began to narrate everything she was doing so as to feel less self-conscious.
"I'm going to change your bandages now, Malfoy. Please cooperate, would you?"
Hermione approached him confidently, her hair carefully plaited today offering none of the distraction from the day before. After reading the most recent report, she took care not to show any signs of her wariness. She was partially certain that this made her far more successful in approaching him over her other healers. When you grew up facing off against three headed dogs and making daring escapes on dragons, what was one single krakenized wizard by comparison?
"You know, it almost funny," she continued conversationally, emboldened by the fact that he reacted more to her tone rather than her actual words. "When we were younger, I'm certain I would have been the absolute last person you would allow near you. You'd almost think I was diseased."
He made the crooning rattle again.
She vanished the used bandage and set about wrapping the new one. The bite mark was still puckered red around the edges, but she didn't find evidence of infection. It needed more time under cover, she decided, wrapping the fresh bandage around his bicep.
"The reason it's funny is, well, look at us now. You won't let anyone else near you, and yet here I am tending to your wounds. Is that irony? I haven't had enough sleep in the past few days to tell."
She glanced up, finding Malfoy's face much closer than she expected, his eyes hooded with a predatory glint. Hermione jerked back on reflex. Malfoy's tentacles reached out for her.
"No!" She swatted at the appendages, landing a few hits, "tentacles to yourself, Malfoy."
Hermione stepped back out of easy reach before any could snare her, expression stern and hands on her hips.
She received a mournful rattle in reply, the inky-black appendages retreating back under water.
Oh Merlin, he's actually pouting!
Hermione sighed, turning to the cooler that she had the presence of mind to snag.
"Now, don't sulk. I brought you breakfast."
She attached her peace offering to the side of his tank, and the promise of fresh fish soon took the bulk of Malfoy's attention.
Hermione's eyes were drawn to the water, which had become noticeably more murky. She was abruptly reminded of the goldfish she had won as a prize at some fair or another as a child. Initially kept in too small a bowl before she researched how to properly care for it, the water had not been a pretty sight.
"I'm going to clean your tank," she announced," though I've never tried to scourgify water before, so this will be something of an experiment."
He kept one eye on her as he helped himself to his fish, at one point outright screech-laughing at her when she managed to explode a large column of water upwards and drenched herself.
He ended up leaning against the far side of his tank, watching her progress with a smug expression.
"Yes, yes, laugh all you like." She muttered, wringing the last of the water out of her hair.
She tried not to think about the grossness as she ended up banishing the lot, wiping down the surfaces with an aggressive tergeo- how could there already be algae?!- and refilling his tank anew before thoroughly scourgifying herself.
At least the tank was clean. Even if the ordeal has taken the better part of an hour.
She had just finally gotten around to casting the morning diagnostic charm when the door pushed open.
"Healer Granger? We need you in-" a male healer asked nervously.
The rattle in Malfoy's chest was dangerous as he let out a warning screech.
Hermione shot Malfoy a withering glare, but his attention had fully shifted to the intruder. He was not pleased and was poised to attack if the hapless man took a single step inside.
"I'll be right there. Please shut the door," she said, snapping her fingers in front of Malfoy's face to bring his attention back to her, "and you stop it! There is no threat, now behave!"
His face twisted in confusion, and he offered a conciliatory croon.
"I do have other patients, you know. I'll be back to check on you in the afternoon. Do not terrorize anyone," she chastised one last time for good measure.
Hermione was exhausted by the day's caseload. The only bright spot was the dozen or so very old books dropped off in her office, courtesy of Mrs. Malfoy. A couple were even personal journals, which made them the highest priority in her reading list.
Against her instructions, and perhaps further proof he couldn't understand her, Malfoy had again been an unholy terror to all of her staff by the time she made her afternoon rounds. Hermione was beginning to suspect her patient had formed something of an attachment to her in particular, which was troublesome at best. Ethically detrimental at worst.
"Let the healers tend you as I do. They're just as capable," she had told him earlier before she excused herself to her office, "I will be around in case of an emergency, but if any of them have to fetch me in the night, I will be quite cross."
He gave her a chest-born rattle that either indicated his agreement or he was cheekily mouthing off in kraken; she wasn't quite sure.
In either case, she retired to her office to pour over her pile of books before bed.
The first-hand account from the seventeenth century looked promising, so Hermione decided to start there.
Me bonnie lass were taken by the sea and come back changed.
Oh, yes, promising indeed.
She rode me like a stallion takes a mare, rough and claiming, with binding stre-
Hermione slammed the journal closed, face blazing. Perhaps not that one, after all.
A blue and green, gold gilded volume captured her attention as a less salacious and more usefully informative candidate.
It was late when she dragged herself and her book to the sad little cot, and she fell asleep absorbing everything she could from the volume. Hermione dreamed of floating, safe heat, and a purr of contentment.
Then, with time, the dream changed. There was stroking and a fire low in her belly and need.
She woke up to these sensations too, and promptly panicked.
It took her several seconds of flailing to realize she was in Malfoy's tank, laying flush against him, and his tentacled appendages kept her secure in a firm grasp around her waist, hips, and legs.
And some of those tentacles were stroking and nudging in places they definitely had no business being.
Hermione reacted as any sane person would: she screamed bloody murder.
Draco jerked at the sound, -had he been touching her in his sleep? Of all things!- but his appendages only tightened in their hold as he tugged her more firmly against himself, letting out his own terribly dangerous sounding ear-splitting screech as he swung into action.
When no danger was forthcoming, he glared down at her blearily for interrupting his beauty sleep.
"Malfoy, you need to let me go. Now," she put every ounce of authority into her tone.
Malfoy snorted, cracking his neck. He resumed floating at the top of the tank, hiss chest again picking up that rattling purr that made her feel highly inappropriate things.
Hermione redoubled her efforts, writhing and bucking against him. He made a pained hiss, and Hermione froze, feeling something hard and warm growing harder against her lower belly.
Ah, that wasn't a pained sound, was it?
"Oh no, absolutely not!"
He groaned as she tried to shift away and only managed to rub herself more firmly against the anatomy she was pretending didn't exist.
"Malfoy. Let. Me. Go."
She threw elbows and knees, and the tentacles holding her suddenly released as he made one last pitiful whimper. Hermione pushed away to the other side of the tank.
The water was slightly above waist height, which made her strategic retreat near farcical.
Inky black tentacles surrounded her again, and she thought she was going to have to fight him off, but before she could even buck against them, they were withdrawing and she was dripping saltwater onto the floor on which she was standing.
"Thank you," she bit out begrudgingly. She didn't have her wand, so it looked like she would have to suffer the indignity and discomfort of being sopping wet for the moment.
She made sure to avoid looking at anything below his neck. The absolute last thing she needed was a visual of the organ that had been so intimately pressed against her. Especially when she was so curious as to where it had been hiding all this time in the first place.
But that wasn't important. No. No more thoughts about little Malfoy. She needed to get some distance from her patient and re-establish a professional boundary. That was what was important. She could forgive his indiscretions. He'd been asleep for most of it, and he'd stopped when she had been in distress. Even though he presently seemed more animal than man, he didn't want to hurt her. Which was oddly... sweet?
Headache inducing, definitely.
"How did I get here?" She asked her patient, uselessly. "How did you bring me here without anyone seeing?"
Hermione shook her head, making her way to the door, ignoring the exasperated rattles and entreating little crooning noises coming from behind her.
Surely someone should have noticed her presence in here when they did the nightly rounds-
The door was warded. It wasn't a typical ward, but without her wand, she could not work on analyzing or dismantling it.
But who? And how-?
Hermione swung back to Malfoy, "Did you do this?" She gestured at the door.
Obviously, he had, and his prideful expression only confirmed it. This was definitely something to look into further.
Glancing at the clock, it was time for her to be getting ready for her shift, but first, she needed to escape her unaccountably clingy patient.
"I need you to drop the ward. I'm wet, and utterly annoyed at you."
She was also utterly unsettled, but it was best not to let him know that- whether he understood her exact words or not.
After several minutes of miming leaving to various levels of success, Malfoy sighed, and the eerie greenish ward shimmered out of existence.
Hermione blinked, tried the door, and to her surprise it opened. Glancing back at her patient, he gave his parting croon-rattle before he settled back into the depths of his tank.
Hermione scrambled out without looking back.
She glared at the salacious journal sitting in the center of her desk. After her rather alarming wake up call this morning, she couldn't deny that it might prove to be useful reading after all.
Then again, she had spent the past hour writing pro and con lists of resigning as Malfoy's healer.
Just minutes ago, she had even tried to have a tentative conversation about it with Narcissa. But for all that the elder witch had wanted to be rid of Hermione and St. Mungos mere days ago, now it seemed she was unwilling to part with her.
"Money is no object when it comes to my son's health and recuperation, Miss Granger. Name your price, and I will exceed it."
"It's not about money, Mrs. Malfoy. I'm concerned your son has formed an unhealthy attachment to me in his current state. And while I understand be is not in control of his actions, it would be better to distance myself to prevent any occurrences that may be an ethical violation of my oath."
Narcissa stiffened.
"What are you saying, Miss Granger? You plan to simply abandon him when he is released into my care?"
Hermione offered a compromise.
"Of course not. I can remain on his case in a research and advisory capacity, but his day-to-day care needs to be delegated to someone else."
She worried her lip, knowing in the back of her mind another healer caring for him was going to go over like a niffler in a bank vault- that is to say, not well at all.
"I understand your role is as a healer and not a caregiver, but I still expect you to perform your duties in person. You already promised your services. I will, of course, hire someone to take care of his non-medical needs, but you are his healer. He is used to you, and I will not allow you to back out and cause potentially more harm by leaving him to some inexperienced charlatan."
Hermione sighed. There really was no gracious way out without coming out and admitting how she'd woken up that morning, which she was loath to do.
Embarrassment aside, mentioning the warding and her inexplicable displacement to anyone else could trigger an investigation by both the DMLE and DRCMC. An investigation, and possible detainment of her patient, would definitely hinder the process of setting Malfoy back to rights.
Besides, it wasn't like the same thing would happen off site. After a great amount of thought, and a significant amount of conjecture, Hermione reasoned that Malfoy had absconded with her because she had still been present in the building. It's not like she would ever spend the night at the manor, so a recurrence of this morning was wholly unlikely. Though the why was admittedly a bit murky.
Regardless, the tank at the manor would be ready by tomorrow, and she would at least get him out of her hospital and away from her staff.
Thus leading to her current predicament of reconsidering the usefulness of the journal she had discarded the night before. It didn't hurt to have all available perspectives.
Skimming it caused her face to heat; the author had spared no details on his newly tentacled and insatiable partner. She returned to the sea every day, his bed every night. After a period of time, her passions waned, and ultimately, the witch's tentacle-y little problem magically resolved. The journal ended with a much later entry about how they went on to have a daughter with perhaps a more fierce than average love for the sea.
No mention of amnesia. No notes about attacking random townsfolk or an altered appetite for fish. Nothing about wards and being magically locked in with his lover.
"Well, that's just utterly unhelpful."
Hermione bit her thumbnail, mulling over the dearth of information.
Was it simply a matter of time before Malfoy returned to normal? What did the witch in the journal do when she went back to the ocean? There was no way they could return Malfoy to the ocean; it was too much of a risk they would lose track of him, and he wouldn't come back.
Did the overly amorous couple actually do some sort of ritual to return her to herself? The only beneficial thing she got from the text was that it was possible for the witch or wizard to go back to their normal self. Which was something.
Hermione moved on to Cracking the Kraken: Decoding Behaviors of the Rarest Mer-Beastie. It was a lofty claim, but how much worse could it be than the last book?
The style was unusually conversational and modern for a nineteenth century volume. Skimming through the chapter index, Hermione noted the section on witch and wizard transmogrification. Intrigued, she flipped to that section and read on.
So your partner has been turned into a mythical ocean beast with an insatiable libido.
The kraken's bite is a transformative phenomenon that occurs when an unmated kraken enters spawning season unattached. Witches and wizards are susceptible, and if separated from their kraken-sire before consummation, will naturally seek out their human mate instead.
Kraken magic is such that it will not abate until the affected witch or wizard's mating urges are fully satisfi-
"No," Hermione denied, "absolutely not."