Hermione did eventually let out that breath—and quite a few more after that. It was difficult to say how long they waited, floating mostly in silence and, in Malfoy's case, sweeping a relaxed gaze across the surrounding landscape or peering intently into the depths as though he could will the eerie faces into existence below them. She had given up trying to catch his eye after the first couple minutes—Hermione understood well the bone-deep desire to hide after a night terror was witnessed by another person.

Instead, she lay flat on her back and took a deep breath, focusing on feeling her diaphragm inflate until it was fully engaged beneath her ribs as her arms floated gently out to either side, the soft waves lolling her body with ease. Physical self in order, Hermione shifted her attention to her mind and its connection with Malfoy's. She refamiliarized herself with her own open expanse of meadowed land—which, she now realized with surprise, looked an awful lot like the clearing Unn had brought her to—and poked the boundaries of her station, testing for weaknesses. Everything felt strong, and Hermione didn't try to quell the blush of pride that prickled through her at the confirmation.

As she surrendered her body to the rocking of the waves and wandered her own mind and mused over the delightful strangeness of her current state of being, a misty rain began to fall, the larger drops every so often making soft plinks as they met the water. She smiled benignly as the fresh water hit her warmed face. A familiar melody swelled softly in her head and clenched a gentle fist around her heart for a beat. Something permanent in her panged with a nostalgic ache, yet at the same time she felt the unwavering peace this song always brought her.

"I hear the drizzle of the rain, like a memory it falls…"

Hermione's own voice echoed in her watery ears as she hummed along and floated on her back in the calming pool, idly playing out scenarios in her library nook where she told Malfoy it was okay, and of course there was nothing to be ashamed of; how she still had nightmares, too, and had he found any strategies that had helped suppress them, because maybe they could share notes.

She was just indulging in a particularly healing scene where a single tear had slid down his stupidly pretty face (lining up perfectly with the lyrics "and so you see I have come to doubt all that I once held as true") when the voice of the man in question pierced through her mind, quite abruptly and in a tangle of languages.

Cor—FUCK! Gallus sleekit bloody—

Hermione bolted upright—or, she would have, if she hadn't been drifting along the surface of a small lake. In reality, she thrashed to right herself, resulting in a fair amount of flailing and a regrettable amount of water going up her nose as Malfoy's voice panicked incoherently in the background of her mind. When she was finally vertical, she shook her head to clear the water from her eyes, sputtering obnoxiously all the while.

Until her sight cleared, that is, and she saw that a group of five merfolk bobbed not four yards away, arranged in a half-circle around them and grinning quite mischievously.

Oh, she thought—whether to herself or Malfoy, she wasn't sure. Hermione was blanching rather stupidly when his voice, which had finally silenced sometime during her struggle, found her mind again.

Granger. The cool intensity was a jump start.

Oh my god, how are we supposed to bow to them?

I don't think we are.

She chanced a glance at Malfoy treading water nearby (but not within reach, her mind automatically noted) and was horrified to find that he was doing an absolute garbage job (if any at all) of hiding a broad smirk. She felt her eyes widen and watched his smile grow as he somehow managed to send her the mental equivalent of a shrug.

It was funny.

And with that, he lowered his eyes and dipped his head to the merfolk so that his mouth was completely underwater, the tip of his nose just skimming the surface. Hermione automatically copied the gesture, and when her chin lifted out of the water once more, two things had changed: Malfoy was much closer, nearly brushing her arm with his, and there was a small, genuine smile on her lips. She supposed she had made a rather ridiculous scene. Though how she was managing to find humor in the situation when her heart was currently attempting to catapult itself out her throat, she didn't know.

The merperson in the center of the half-ring floated forward. Hermione could discern no gender by appearance alone, only a vicious sort of ethereal beauty that sent a shiver down her magically warmed spine. At the movement, she heard Unn's words echo in her mind and passed them along through her connection to Malfoy: "Give way to deference, in its entirety, or they will reject you." As with his earlier shrug, she felt rather than saw him nod slightly, and she watched from the corner of her eye as his body relaxed further, his arms floating palm-up to the surface at nearly the same time hers did. The being stopped at the gesture and quirked their head, eyes almost white in the sun, their crown of weedy locks defying the laws of wet hair as Hermione knew them and the smile on those beige lips twitching at the corners.

Here we go, Malfoy sent, and then he was speaking.

"Very well met," he said in a drawl that seemed quite theatrical, even for him. There was a sated humor obvious in his voice, which now lilted with a gentle Scottish brogue and something Hermione couldn't quite place that drew his words out longer than typical. The darkly impish grin expanded as their eyes flashed to Hermione once more, exposing rows of sharp teeth the color of the rocky hills around them. She blushed slightly, but would happily take being the butt of the joke if it helped their cause.

"We have learned of your community and your kindred connection with the villagers of your shores over a century past."

Hermione's felt her mouth fall open (and only a little lake water spill in) when she placed the elongated influence. Malfoy was speaking whale.

"With great respect," Malfoy continued in that same slow cadence, and Hermione only barely contained the chaotic bubble of mirth that currently threatened to suffocate her mind's entire station, "we wish to parley and, if you are amenable, begin to reforge relationships between our kinds."

The same merperson seemed to snarl at that (although Hermione supposed it could have just been a wider smile) and moved toward them with distressing speed. She didn't feel like laughing now—it took everything in her power to remain relaxed and deferential when her instincts screamed for self-defense. They stopped short, a series of yelping screeches coming out of their mouth and echoing off the surrounding land. Hermione forced herself not to look around to see if the sound had drawn attention while, as politely as the action could be done, Malfoy shook his head.

"I apologize for our ignorance. We do not know how to understand you above water."

The mouth twisted into a new sort of shape, and a moment later they stretched out a hand to grasp Hermione's outstretched wrist, then looked between her and Malfoy and gestured casually to the water below them.

I think I'm to go with them, Hermione sent.

Are you alright with that? Malfoy was looking calmly between the two of them.

As long as you're still with me in here.

So they each nodded to the merfolk, and Hermione was glad for the excuse to quickly scan the surrounding landscape. Seeing no one, she cast a wandless bubble head charm and allowed herself to be pulled down beneath the surface.

/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\

They had only descended a few yards when they stopped. A second merperson grabbed Hermione's ankle from somewhere behind her and tugged, bringing her body suddenly vertical with the force of it. The one with gravity-defying hair let go of her wrist and cocked their head, pale eyes sharp with very reasonable suspicion.

Three of the five merfolk had escorted Hermione below the surface, one of whom was now swimming idly nearby while the first floated in front of her, the third restricting her movement from below. Malfoy was sure to have received the brief panic that flared through her at being restrained, and she hoped it didn't distract him from his due deference.

Because really, they were just helping her maintain buoyancy below the water's surface. She and Malfoy hadn't brought their stone weights for this round, not knowing how long they would need to be treading water, or even whether they would interact with the colony at all. Instead, if they had been invited to descend, they had planned to make the swim downward until they reached the rocky bottom, there able to adjust their carried mass.

This works, too, she thought to herself, doing her best to open all that she was seeing and hearing and feeling (physically, of course—the rest would just be overload) to Malfoy's mind. She felt the connection widen from his end, as well, and his verbalized words came through in her mind.

"We thank you for your audience. You have our gratitude."

Suddenly, there was a flicker from the surface and one of the topside merfolk swam idly down to the leader of their group and opened their mouth to speak. Hermione had never before heard the likes of the sound that floated around her, dark and chasmic and rolling like a swell underneath a glassy surface. It wasn't a song, more like an elongated consideration in an important debate. When they finished, they made their ascent with the smallest flick of the tail, and the leader turned back to Hermione, forming languorous words that radiated through the surrounding water and sank into every crevice of her mind.

"Heee thanksss usss, thooough wee haaave taaakennnn youuu fromm hiiimmm. Howww caaan hee knowww youuuu arrrre saaffffe?"

Hermione was abruptly very grateful for her underwater role; had she been required to speak in that moment, she was certain her voice would have failed her entirely. She swallowed, willing moisture back into her suddenly dry mouth. We should probably let them know how we're communicating.

Malfoy's reply in her mind was breathless. Agreed.

"In our partnership, we share a mental connection, through which we're able to communicate." Malfoy's response floated through said connection, a sort of echo of what he sounded like above water.

It was a bit awkward of a way to spend the time, Hermione admitted, being held in place and quizzically examined like an extremely rare (and potentially dangerous) animal while she heard Malfoy's response in her mind and waited with the remaining merfolk for their brethren to return with the translation. But the discomfort was minimal. She was focusing most of her attention on remaining calm and respectful and trusting and open and anything else she needed to be to not mess up this deeply unusual opportunity.

When he had finished speaking, the other surface merperson came down and relayed Malfoy's words in that haunting, melodic way. Hermione felt an outside shudder ripple across her mind and her own small pang of regret that whatever Malfoy was hearing, it was a distortion of the true sound and resonance and feel of these other-wordly voices.

The leader narrowed their eyes.

"Youuu speeaak innn siiiilennnce?" The k of speak popped in Hermione's ears. "Weee did nottt knoooww thisss to beee commonnn of youuur kiiiind."

"It is not typical of our race," Malfoy responded to his companions in that delightful Scottish-whale dialect. "Our connection is an unusual one, built intentionally and with great care." A brief pause, and then, "Has your colony been known to practice such an ability?"

His words were brought below the surface and formed into that eerie speech, and when the reply came, his question went unanswered.

"Whaaat isss iiit youuu seeeek frommm uuuss?"

The conversation continued on in this way for… well, Hermione wasn't sure how long. She could see the light changing above her as she and Malfoy communicated the details of their expedition, Hermione mentally supplementing his explanations and questions with adjustments and corrections when appropriate, but the pacing of the conversation had confused her sense of time. At some point, the merperson swimming around them had begun to sing, soft and low and different from the tune of the Black Lake, and it carried across the water and seemed to reach Hermione from all sides. She had closed her eyes subconsciously and let it fill her mind—the very act of it bringing forth memories of a comforting arm through hers, a teacup taken gently from her fingers—and relinquished the rest of her time-tracking abilities to the languid passage of whatever current there might be.

And then two voices reached her at the same time, one in her mind, the other so close that it wrenched her eyes open.

Someone's here, Malfoy said, at the same time the merperson in front of Hermione stretched out an urgent "Beloooow!"

Best bubble up and come down and hope they haven't seen you lot, Hermione sent back to him. The merfolk from the surface had already joined the speaker underneath, and a few moments later, Malfoy's enclosed head appeared as he shrugged himself beneath the water with his arms, his body maneuvering awkwardly but intentionally to avoid attracting any attention to their general area.

As soon as he was within reach, the merperson still holding onto Hermione's ankle reached up to grab Malfoy's, pulling him down the rest of the way until the two floated side by side, upright and eerie in the underwater gloom.

Alright? she asked, taking a moment to look at him, to reinforce their minds' connection—though what she really wanted was to reach out for his arm, to feel him solid under her fingers and prove to herself that this was all really happening, and that he was really experiencing it all with her. His gaze shifted away shortly after their eyes met, his arm floating gently upward next to her, and for a moment Hermione wondered if she was broadcasting her desire for human contact and Malfoy was acting on it. But—no, he was raising his arms, palms toward the surface, re-establishing his diplomacy with the merfolk as he entered further into their territory.

All fine, he sent back with a mental nod. Though how do you suppose—

The question was cut short by a new, echoing voice pressing into their minds, outside of their connection but prodding it, seeking admittance.

Maayyy weee jooiiin youuu?

Hermione heard Malfoy bark a laugh beside her, the sound all but muted behind the bubble around his head, as she felt her mouth drop open and her eyes widen. Merfolk—at least these merfolk—could communicate telepathically.

All in, Granger? Even in her mind, Malfoy's voice tickled with laughter, and she found herself smiling at the hours-in-the-making punchline that had been entirely at their expense.

Obviously.

And without really considering the how of things, she reinforced her station and then just sort of… opened their connection to the space around them. She felt new energies join her mind's awareness and tried to identify where the individuals began and ended, whether they had all decided to enter or any had stayed removed. She could still hear mersong in the waves around her but not inside her head, which might imply the one still circling their group had decided against joining the discussion. But all of this was conjecture, and regardless of her hypotheses, the incoming energies were just different enough from Malfoy's familiarity that she couldn't parse through the amalgamation. Instead, she reveled in the oddness of it, of the newness floating around in the public (for lack of a better term) space of her mind.

And then they were speaking together.

/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\

Communicating with the merfolk telepathically was, to Hermione's surprise, vastly different from hearing them speak aloud underwater. Instead of stretched in a wailing cadence, their words came in choral waves, amplified and multiplied in harmonies too interwoven to count, resonating as though her very skull was an amphitheater built specifically for their music. The sound positively flowed through Hermione's mind, reaching into every corner with a graceful swell, carrying back her responses like the pull of the tide. She felt her eyes close again and allowed herself to relax, embodying the pacifying nature of the conversation while holding in her station truths she forced herself to remember this time around: that merfolk delighted in trickery, and that she'd had her own hypnotic experiences with the song from the Black Lake—both during the Triwizard Tournament and through Unn's connected pool of water. She had no plans to lose herself to this magic of the depths today.

When she next opened her eyes the light was beginning to fade, and Hermione felt their time with these enchanting beings was drawing to a close. She held her palms out and dipped her chin before sending her request through the channel.

We came into your waters hoping for insight to help us reestablish a lost connection with a colony near our own home, she began. Now, we also humbly ask your permission to return to your waters, and continue to grow a new relationship between our races.

That statement was met with cool, unblinking stares, the eerie singing the only sound in the darkening space around them. Then the voice—voices?—echoed:

Aaand whaaat innnsiiight haaave weee giivvennn youu, humaaanns?

Experience, Malfoy responded simply, the word drawn out in his bastardized lilt. Few alive of our kind have been granted the opportunity you extended to us on this day. We will bring this encounter with us in our future efforts to build community with your kind.

Annn aanswerrr bothhh gennnuuiiine aaand taaame, the harmonies sighed, and the one who had previously been the group's speaker did look a little bored. Aaas fooor youuurr reequuueeesst…

The merperson circling their group, still singing lowly, adjusted their trajectory suddenly downward, disappearing into the depths. After so long hearing the music around them, the rocking silence that now filled the waters was unnerving. Hermione breathed deeply, trying to hold the song's calm within her.

She heard and felt the music returning before she saw the merperson swimming back up from the darkness, somehow illuminated by a soft glow. As they got closer, the source of the glow became clear: they were holding Malfoy's water bottle, the small torch on its side still pulsing realistically with a pale green light.

The singer approached Hermione and Malfoy and held the bottle out to them, and Hermione couldn't help but shiver at the parallel of the colony presenting them with a representation of the traditional blese that, for all she knew, was still burning somewhere in the depths below them. With that motion, one singing voice became five, and the song swelled to fill the body of water that held them, seeped into her mind and her bones and her very blood, and she might have been overwhelmed by its sheer resonance had Malfoy not grasped her forearm in a very Hermione-like fashion. She reached out with her other hand and took offered bottle as though in a dream.

Yoouuu maaayy reeetuuurnn.

And then the merperson holding their ankles let go, and as they began to float to the surface, Hermione curled her shin around Malfoy's leg and used the weighted bottle to swoop them into a bow that was, at best, a bit clumsy. And by the time their bodies had righted, the music had faded and the merpeople had disappeared entirely, and the two humans were left bobbing back on the surface of Lodan Stiomrabhaigh with no one around for miles.

/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\

Malfoy swiped the bottle from Hermione's loose grip as soon as they had hauled themselves ashore, uncapping it quickly and taking long, deep pulls as their tired bodies dragged both of them to seated positions on the rocky ground. Hermione realized with a start how very thirsty she was, how dry her mouth and throat felt in the chilly evening air, but before she could dwell even a little on the discomfort, Malfoy was passing the bottle back to her. She finished off the cool, refreshing drink and reached her open hand in his direction, too heavy with the movement to verbalize her ask, but he plopped the bottle's cap into her open palm all the same.

She shivered as another gust blew across the stony beach. Neither she nor Malfoy had moved to recast the warming charms during their congress with the colony, yet the water's chill had been kept at bay far longer than the charm's effects typically lasted. It excited Hermione to think this might be an example of heretofore-unwitnessed merfolk magic, shared covertly yet considerately to draw out an intriguing interaction with a race they had not encountered in over a century. Regardless, now that they were beyond the reach of the merpeople, the wind raked their exposed skin in a cruel reminder that it was springtime in the Hebrides, and that meant something rather unpleasant, all said and done.

Hermione reached to her leg and surreptitiously pulled out her wand in the dying light, casting warming charms on herself and Malfoy before holstering it again. She heard his groan of appreciation over her soft sigh and let herself sit just a moment longer, simply existing in a (quite reasonable, thank you very much) daze. Then she pulled her energy together and rocked to her feet, pushing herself off the ground with her hands to make sure she didn't fall right back from lack of effort. Malfoy moved slowly to join her, shifting to his knees before bringing one foot forward to drag himself upright. She turned back in the direction of their camp and began walking, holding out the bottle—once more filled with clear, refreshing water now that the cap had been screwed back on—as soon as his stride brought him alongside her. In return, he handed her one of the sandwiches they'd packed and stashed among the rocks that morning.

By the time they made it back to camp, Hermione barely had the presence of mind not to summon her hygiene bag. Instead, she unzipped the tent flap and ducked inside, leaving her shoed feet on the ground outside as she reached for her essentials and her water bottle. She managed not to stumble as she straightened, and even avoided bumping into Malfoy as she turned to find a place downwind to brush her teeth and relieve herself.

When she returned, Malfoy was standing next to the tent, wearing sweatpants and a thermal shirt and stretching his arms upward and out in slow, sleepy motions, his own hygiene bag by his feet. Hermione took this to mean he was finished in there for now and made her way back inside, removing her shoes just outside the entrance before closing the tent flap but not zipping it behind her. She squirmed out of her base layer and into her pajamas, pulling out her notebook and pen and settling herself as comfortably as she could in her soft sleeping bag atop the hard ground. She had just started writing down a summary of the day's events when the water bottle next to her began to glow.

8:17am portkey arranged for your arrival nearby North Sea Voyages. Coordinates to follow. Turn in early tonight.

Malfoy chose that moment to enter the tent and she held up her bottle. He lifted his own and grunted in acknowledgment of the message after he'd read it, both of them taking a swig to bring the details forth. Hermione sent her supervisor a confirmation of receipt, then added the portkey departure sight and timing to her agenda before casting a tempus. Good—they had just about twelve hours before they'd need to set off for the remote location, accounting for possibly challenging terrain. Her body only needed a solid seven, even after a physical day, so that left plenty of time tonight for taking notes.

Malfoy rummaged around on his side of the tent, bent at the waist, before turning to flump down next to her and stuff his legs into his own sleeping bag. He looked at his closed notebook and heaved a sigh.

Not sure where to start? Hermione asked. His head snapped up, eyes darting to hers. Then he began to laugh. She looked at him, bemused.

We never closed the fucking connection. His tired eyes crinkled at the corners as he shook his head in disbelief.

Oh! She hadn't even noticed, hadn't felt his presence as foreign, as something temporary, as anything at all. They'd clearly both been thinking within their stations and never in their outward thoughts, and Hermione took a moment to marvel at their individual and combined abilities. Well… gosh, we're quite impressive, aren't we?

He rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling. Ready, then?

She nodded and he swiftly withdrew, and this time she did feel it, the whoosh of his exit and the brief hollowness it left in its wake. She gently eased the walls around her station until they disappeared, her consciousness once again filling its intended space, and let out a small sigh as her mind righted itself once more. She shot Malfoy a quick smile and bent back over her notebook.

They had learned quite a lot from their visit with the Stiomrabhaigh colony. It turned out that the merfolk had established relations with the neighboring villagers more out of boredom than anything else. The two civilizations had exchanged small delights, swapping trinkets and oddities by way of children's games and intentional trades, but had ultimately shared minimal knowledge between their kinds. Those same children who unwittingly started it all were elders by the time their small community had abandoned the village (for reasons explained yet forgotten by the merfolk in the lodan, and not recorded in the hearth-hidden tome). To them, the humans were not much more than a pleasant diversion to partake in at their leisure, and their departure had had little impact.

Hermione read over her notes from the day one last time, willing her eyes to stay open to the end, just so she could be sure she hadn't missed anything between the insights gained and the experience as a whole. Satisfied, she let out one last heavy sigh, closed and set aside her notebook, and slid down into her sleeping bag with her back to Malfoy and her head cushioned on the rarely used pillow.

She hadn't realized she'd fallen asleep until she awoke to the feeling of her headrest shifting under her as a forearm slithered into place. Malfoy's other arm curled over her body, anchoring as he shuffled closer until his chest pressed against her back, the fabric of their sleeping bags cushioning the otherwise-nonexistent space between them. Hermione was nearly off again when his quiet voice behind her broke the silence of the tent, sounding strange after an almost fully nonverbal day.

"That song… the one you were humming, I mean, before they showed up." It was hard to miss the laughter that edged those last words. "What is it?"

Had she been humming through their connection? Or had his ears, too, been below the surface, and the acoustics of the water were just so that they had carried her voice to him? Regardless of the how, that familiar ache throbbed once at his question, but Malfoy's arm was wrapped around her at just the right placement to counter the pain with a comforting pressure, and Hermione tried to keep her body relaxed and her words even as she said, "It's something my dad used to sing when it rained."

He was silent for a few moments, perhaps giving her the chance to say more, but she didn't. There were some things she just didn't talk about, and that was okay. He exhaled into her hair.

"It's pretty," he said simply. "Add it to the list."

And by the time she realized what he meant by that, and mentally added Kathy's Song after Finding Nemo and cassette tapes under MUGGLE THINGS TO SHOW MALFOY with a roll of her eyes, his breathing had deepened and his arm had grown heavy across her waist. She allowed herself an indulgent snuggle into his slumbering form and, before long, followed him into what she hoped would be a dreamless sleep for both of them.