A/N: **PLEASE READ ON AO3 if you want the full, uncensored version.** This chapter has been edited and truncated to comply with the maximum "M" rating allowed by ffdotnet.

Chapter 6

Thanks to the temporary access wards, Hermione apparated straight into the former ballroom, the small beach at the top of Malfoy's enclosure, to be precise.

Clutching her bag, she braced herself for the inevitable screeching, rattling, and grabby tentacles. Contrary to her expectations, however, Malfoy did not pop out of the water via some sixth sense at her sudden appearance.

So, Hermione instead took a moment to take stock of her surroundings. Unlike his hospital room, the ballroom turned ginormous fish tank exhibit was not in shambles upon her return.

In fact, everything appeared immaculate.

She saw a light and dark shape cutting through the water far below. For a moment, she felt a shiver of fear; what was that about Finn saying a turned kraken might go native? But perhaps… perhaps he just didn't realize she was here. This room was far larger than his hospital room had been, after all, with far more entertaining distractions.

Vaguely nonplussed, Hermione took the stairs down to ground level. She spotted her charge hunting in the deep front portion of his tank, with his back to her, almost pointed in his nonchalance.

She caught him glance ever so briefly over his shoulder before returning to his self-appointed task of… terrorizing the fishies. Likely because he no longer had her hospital staff to terrorize.

But terrorizing them was definitely what he was doing at present because he wasn't hunting them at all, not to eat, at any rate. He was simply chasing them around, keeping his back to her all the while.

Was Malfoy ignoring her? Now that she had finally gathered enough data to define a course of action? Now that she'd gathered every bit of her courage to follow through? Now that she had taken every reasonable contraceptive precaution, muggle and magical, for her plan to enact her inexorable S.P.E.R.M.I. Protocol?

An unladylike growl of frustration ripped from her throat.

Malfoy turned fully then, and Hermione momentarily froze the sight of him.

He'd been completely and utterly out of place in the hospital, but here, he was master of his small domain. His tentacles writhed fluidly around him, and he looked every bit like a mythical creature from the deep. After giving her a quick once over, he lifted his nose higher in the water, his eyes narrowed into slits before he turned back to his invented game.

Definitely ignoring her.

Hermione stood, flabbergasted.

Of all times! Of all days.

Well, then, she might as well settle in. She could out-stubborn Malfoy any day, whether he was presently a semi-eldritch tentacled menace, or not.

Obviously, she had somehow offended him in their most recent interactions. Was it the sedation potion? Moving him while he was unaware? Rebuffing his many efforts to… get close to her? It ultimately didn't matter, but it did put a wrench in her S.P.E.R.M.I. plans.

Hermione sat on the chesterfield sofa and watched him hunt after he got tired of his chasing game. Perhaps he'd simply been tiring them out before. Regardless, it was fascinating to watch him stalk the small fish and freeze, using his tentacles as a tempting, undulating lure, waiting for them to come close enough before snatching them.

Truth be told, seeing those sharklike teeth in action was a mite unsettling.

After a quarter hour of being ignored, she fished books she had brought with her out of her bag, spreading out the literature most pertinent to his situation. It couldn't hurt going over it all again while she waited for him to crack. There was the most infinitesimal chance that she'd missed something and she would have a sudden epiphany.

Occasionally, he would disappear from her peripheral vision, but he always popped back out in a minute or two. She read and watched and nothing changed. Involuntarily, after some hours of ultimately-the-same-as-the-first-time-she'd-read-it researching later, Hermione yawned.

Perhaps, she could just close her eyes for a second-

Hermione nuzzled into her pillow. It was firm and smelled nice, and she tried to stretch, but found her limbs oddly encumbered. Not a bed. Not a pillow. She railed against every instinct she had to extricate herself and get away as she took stock of the situation.

A sense of déjà vu assaulted her as she opened her eyes, finding herself floating on something, someone, warm. This time, she didn't panic, scream, or flail, but the tensing of her muscles was completely involuntary and utterly reasonable.

She was, of course, lying on Malfoy, who was no longer ignoring her. This was what she had been angling toward, after all, now that the S.P.E.R.M.I. was most probably a go. Though Hermione was vaguely annoyed that he'd moved her in her sleep again.

They were floating in the deep end of the aquarium, and she was annoyingly damp, her trousers and knickers sodden, her top half mostly dry. He'd freed her hair from the confines of its plait, and she could feel it already trying to defy gravity, so close to water.

Malfoy sounded an inquiring hum.

Hermione finally raised her head to look into his eyes. The kraken tracked the motion of her tongue smoothing over her dry lips. It was completely and utterly unfair that even transformed into a mythical seabeast, Draco Malfoy still had perfect hair, and unlike her, did not look like some bedraggled wayfarer.

"Er. Hello. Finished being mad at me, then?" she asked.

The answering rattle indicated that his general mood very much depended on what happened next.

"I'm not going to run away again." Probably. "I'm here to help you. However you need."

Hermione traced her fingers over his clavicle as he settled them in a more upright position. The water was far from an ideal setting for this sort of impending activity, but she would make do. Her nerves rose to the surface. She could, she would, do this. It was completely natural. Normal, even. Well, maybe not natural or normal in the general sense, but it would be fine. Probably.

If she didn't have a panic attack first.

On impulse, she pushed up on his shoulders for leverage, planting a peck to Malfoy's lips- anything more would invite those teeth, and they were a little too sharp for her to willingly put her tongue anywhere near them- quickly letting herself drop back into the cradle of tentacles and water surrounding her.

For several tense seconds she waited, looking for any changes, any signs at all.

Of course, nothing happened; there would be no easy, child-friendly, fairy tale endings here. Hermione laughed to herself, and Draco cocked his head, sounding another questioning noise from the back of his throat.

"Sorry, I had to try," she shrugged, biting her lower lip.

Here goes nothing.

For the first time in far too long, Hermione intentionally relaxed. She was still admittedly a bit stiff, but compared to how rigid she usually was around him, she was positively boneless.

Sensing her capitulation, Malfoy's chest rattled and his voice let out a low, deep croon that made her lower belly flutter. She allowed herself to get lost in the sound and sensation, doing her best to turn off her highly excitable brain.

That strangely intoxicating spicy scent of him grew in intensity, and Hermione gasped at an answering throb deep in her core.

The first tentacles slipped up her shirt and down into her sodden trousers, and for once, though the impulse was there, she didn't swat them away. Instead, she let out a shaky breath as the tentacles began to caress her, feeling the lightly bumpy texture of their skin against hers. She marvelled at the strange light suction of the suckers as he explored.

They moved with such fluidity and precision that it was like they had a mind of their own. She gasped and started to squirm under his attention; the tentacle pressing more firmly and suctioning on momentarily before peeling away with a tantalizing pop. Oh, that. That was going to be very exciting. He repeated the motion, and it was fascinating. Odd but amazingly tactile. Hermione desperately wanted more.

She didn't even care about the first ripping sound; it only made her realize that she didn't know when her eyes had slipped shut. Her heart stuttered when she took him in.

Draco's strange silvery eyes burned with triumph, his hands and other limbs began to divest her of her cloth impediments, making short work of shredding the fabric of her blouse and trousers as though they had personally offended him. Her underthings swiftly followed as casualties to his precise destruction.

In no time at all, she was as bare as he.

And there was no need to have a sudden existential crisis. It was only sex… with a lot more limbs than usual. But it would be fine, and oh, so that's where he'd been hiding it.

Hermione swallowed hard.

Malfoy, likely realizing that her nerves were getting the better of her, took action, his previously-idle-since-viciously-dismantling-her-clothing tentacles began caressing, that scent of salt and sea growing even more concentrated in the air around them. Her relaxation wasn't so intentional now, and she idly wondered if krakens had some sort of sex pheromones. But her analytical mind was ultimately interrupted by the tentacle slowly but surely curling its way toward her mouth. It was somewhat different from most of the others, slightly blunted and swollen at the end.

There was something she'd read somewhere about octopi and their hectocotylus…

But whatever she'd read was immaterial as the tentacle prodded at her lips, and in her growing haze, letting her tongue dart out to lick it seemed like the most amazing idea in the world. It tasted like that elusive spice in the air, and despite the dim part of her mind shouting that this was a fair bit concerning, she allowed the limb to push past her lips while she licked the underside, her tongue darting along the bumps and ridges and suckers.

This must have been the right thing to do, because his low rattle vibrated through her, the heat in her core growing into a throbbing persistence. With salt and spice coating her tongue, the tentacle squirmed and pushed further, the substance it secreted suddenly coming in a wave that had nowhere to go except down.

The heat of magically induced want started at the base of her skull, shivering down her spine, a fire of need settling in the core of her being.

She choked against the onslaught, and Hermione jerked back, sputtering and gasping for air.

What in the-!

Before she could work up proper rage or indigence, she was pulled below the surface of the tank.

Draco tugged her with him deep underwater, and Hermione screamed, numerous precious little pearls of air escaping up toward the surface before she had the good sense to shut her mouth. She punched at Malfoy's shoulder, but if he'd noticed, he paid it no heed. She struggled against him, trying to free herself, but his grip was far too secure and they went further and further into the abyss.

This was just fantastic. She'd finally resolved to help him in the only way she'd discovered how, and now Draco Malfoy was going to drown her. Just her luck.

All good deeds going unpunished and all that. Wait, no, that's not right.

They zoomed to the bottom of the tank, and Hermione was growing increasingly lightheaded. Until finally, she could hold her breath no more and her lungs made the choice for her, sucking the water down that would invariably end her.

Only, it didn't.

Experimentally, she inhaled more water in through her nose, expelling it through her mouth. She was breathing water like it was air. It was strange. It felt kind of weird. It shouldn't be physically possible.

And yet, Hermione was breathing water and very much not dying in the process.

Malfoy laughed down at her, and she slapped his arm.

"That wasn't very nice. I thought I was dying, you arse!" she tried to yell at him, though her words came out garbled and incomprehensible. Whatever magic was allowing her to breathe down here did not extend to speaking.

He nudged her, nuzzling down against her neck in apology.

"Safe," Draco said, in a familiar baritone, against the tender skin of her neck.

Hermione's heart skipped, and her head snapped up to his face.

"You can talk!" She screeched, her words lost to the water.

Hermione slapped her forehead.

A tentacle pulled her hand down and his concerned face looked her over. "No hurt."

"I'm fine," she mouthed.

She'd been an idiot. A complete, blithering- Of course! How could she have forgotten the stupid screeching egg with the mer-ish song from fourth year? We cannot sing above the ground. He'd been screeching and rattling all week, and she'd been too daft- she hadn't even considered- to try to listen to his vocalizations under water.

Of course, it would happen that now that she could understand him, words were lost to her.

Draco was far less taken with her sudden revelation than she was. Once he'd satisfied himself that she wasn't injured or trying to injure herself, he'd begun tugging her along through the kelp beds to a portion of the tank that had been obscured from view. All the while, stroking her arms, and repeating the words, "safe, Mine, mate."

That answered her second question as to if he remembered who exactly he was. He could speak, but it seemed she wasn't totally wrong about the amnesia. In his right mind, Malfoy would never dream to say those words in reference to her.

And now that she didn't think her life wasn't in imminent danger, the heat from the magic tentacle fluid, that she really did not want to think more deeply about, thank you very much, reasserted itself. Her nipples tightened, and she felt flushed all over, and if she didn't have sex immediately, something terrible was going to happen.

"Almost there," he said, finally stopping at a depression in the sand and rocks.

He'd made a cave. Nest. Thing.

Was that what he'd been doing while she'd been away? When he periodically disappeared while he'd been ignoring her?

He settled them in his soft, hidden area and began to stroke and pet.

"Mate," Draco crooned in her ear, and her mind hazed further. If she had thought his tentacles had been everywhere before, she was sorely mistaken what they were capable of with free access unrestricted by clothing.

Hermione moaned as he gathered her to himself, her eyes catching his quicksilver, pupil-less ones.

It was some indeterminate period, and some indeterminate bouts of wildly uninhibited tentacle-y enhanced sex, later that they finally broke the surface of his tiny sea. Hermione caught her breath, properly this time, her arms looped around Draco's neck. While breathing underwater and not drowning was a plus, air was far more preferable.

They hadn't tried it at the surface yet, and she was eager to see how different it might be. She ground against him, eager to start again. He groaned, but it was oddly strangled- almost like a whimper.

Well, that was a bit odd-

Her attention was swiftly drawn to Draco's face because then he also gasped for air. Hermione froze, staring into the very alert, now almost human looking grey eyes of her patient.

"Granger, not that I'm necessarily opposed to waking up buried between your thighs, but what the fuck is going on?"