Lost or Not, They're on Their Way

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Thanks to my wonderful Beta, June. I couldn't do it without you!

Thanks also to ancientgirl and bekbek01 for all your help and encouragement!

Chapter 3 - Lost or not, they're on their way

Hermione opened her eyes under the water, only to see the back of Severus's tail swimming away. Goodness, did he have to be so fast?

She gave her new tail a few flicks and swam after him. It certainly wasn't like any way of swimming she'd ever known. A few swishes of her powerful tail had brought her several feet from the shore, and the breaths she took with her gills felt perfectly normal. Pleased with her progress, she looked up to find Severus... well, no place at all. He apparently had swum on without her.

"Professor? Professor Snape?" she called out nervously. She didn't like the idea of being there all alone, with a helpless merbaby.

Severus, who had been swimming at a good pace, hesitated when he heard the sound of Hermione's voice. He turned, ready to warn her against impeding their progress, only to find no one behind him. Blast! The girl had already slowed them down. He frowned and swam back in the direction from which her voice had come.

He saw Hermione in the distance, her curly and unruly hair floating about her in enchanting waves, the length of which was covering the intoxicating bosom he had seen only a short while earlier on the surface. Severus shook his head as if to clear it and then swam over to where she was.

"What is the meaning of this, Miss Granger?" he asked sternly. "Why are you taking so long? Are you incapable of keeping up, or have you stopped to admire the surroundings?" he asked, angrily gesturing at the underwater plants.

Hermione felt her temper boiling. It was one thing to swim as a newly transformed mermaid. It was another thing to swim while holding a tiny merbaby with a sack of bottles over your shoulder.

"Well, in case you haven't noticed, Professor, I happen to be carrying a small squirming child in my arms. I'm certain it's much easier to swim with one's arms free, but I don't have that luxury."

Severus's eyes fell on the child in her arms. "Well, set it free then, Miss Granger," he said with exasperation. "I'm certain it can follow along. This is its own habitat."

Hermione frowned as well. She pondered whether the merbaby could keep up with Severus's unusually fast pace. Hmph! The chances were about as likely as Draco giving birth to a Hippogriff, but she decided to give it a try.

She gently let go of the wee merbabe and watched to see what it would do. It did indeed appear to be able to swim. It swished its tail and floated a bit to Hermione's right, stopping for a moment to give her a happy little grin. Then it turned its eyes upon Severus.

The merbaby had never seen anyone like him before. He had dark long hair and something pointy sticking from his face. He was strange, yet he was the one who had spoken the kind words to her and made her pain go a way. Surely such a person had to be good. She swam slowly, in not such a straight line, towards the strange looking merman. He continued to stare at her with a funny look. Not knowing what this meant, she continued on, frequently getting distracted by something bright or colorful in the water.

After about five minutes of her swimming-and-stopping, the merbaby finally closed the distance and reached out for him. She grabbed onto the one thing guiding her the whole way – that pointy thing, his nose. It just needed grabbing. She reached out with her tiny merbaby fingers and grabbed hold of it. Had she been anything other than an innocent merbabe, she would have known she was in dangerous waters by the glare Severus was giving her. Instead, completely unperturbed, she proceeded to take a bite of it. Surely something so magnificently large would be good to chew on.

Hermione watched the entire proceedings with frustration, surprise, horror and finally amusement. Who could have seen this coming?

Severus reached up to the small merbabe who was now gently gumming his nose. He removed her quickly and held her out as if she were something quite disgusting.

"Remove her, Miss Granger," he demanded while holding the baby out to her. "Remove her from my presence at once!"

Hermione did her best to not giggle as she swam to take the baby away.

Severus noticed her smile and glared at her angrily.

"Sorry, sir," she said, not at all sorry. "You've been referring to the baby as 'it' all this time, and now you've decided this is a girl."

"Of course it's a girl. One can tell by the subtle blue shading on her fins, see?" he said pointing to the blue shading around her small fins. "It's basic university level, Care of Magical Creatures knowledge," he said gruffly as he rolled his eyes.

She hid her smile, deciding that for now, the baby was a girl; after all, the professor said so. She reached up to take the child from his grip and watched while the merbabe, seemingly unperturbed by his furious glare or booming voice, smiled a huge toothless grin at him.

Hermione's heart melted. What a sweet merbaby she was. The Gryffindor looked back up to see if Severus was watching, only to find he had turned his back to her once more and seemed as if he was preparing to swim off again.

"Well," he said, clearing his voice. "I see that you are right, Miss Granger. We shall have to slow our pace to accommodate you carrying the babe. It is obvious she cannot possibly keep up with us."

"Well, I'm glad we got that straight," she said, gathering up the merbaby and her things again. "I told you..." she started to say but was quickly cut off.

"Yes, yes, let's just be on our way again, shall we?" he said gruffly, picking up the bottle bag.

"Just one moment, Professor," she said. "Let me just finish getting Crystal settled and we'll be on our way."

"Crystal?" he questioned. "CRYSTAL? Don't tell me you've named the damn thing."

"Well, of course," said Hermione. "I had to name her something."

Severus snorted through his gills. "Well, I happen to think Crystal is a horrible name," he grumbled and turned to swim off, albeit at a slower pace than before.

"Coral," he said rather facetiously over his shoulder, "is much better."

~*~*~*~

Several hours later...

"We're lost, aren't we?" Hermione said, slowing her pace and glancing around at their underwater surroundings.

"We are not lost!" Severus said grumpily. "Maybe, just a little off-course."

"Off-course? Off-course? Professor, the Hogwarts lake is a half-mile in diameter; we've been swimming for the past two hours now and should have found the merpeople's village. And I could swear we've been by that big rock formation before," she said, pointing at an outcropping of rocks.

"I'm telling you, WE ARE NOT LOST!" shouted Severus.

At that moment the merbaby, who had been sleeping soundly, woke up startled by all the shouting and let out a loud wail.

"Oh, great. Just great!" Severus said. "Now the baby's awake."

"Well, she wouldn't have wakened if you hadn't been shouting," said Hermione angrily. "Please, just hand me a bottle," she said, pointing to the bottle bag on his shoulder.

Severus removed the bag and rifled through it until he found a bottle, which he handed to her with a flourish.

She gently pushed the bottle into the baby's mouth, and the crying stopped instantly.

"We'll never get anywhere at this rate," Severus said grumpily.

"It's getting dark now anyway," said Hermione, eyeing the distant sunlight through the water. "Couldn't we just stay here for the night?"

Severus took a good look around them. In truth, he didn't really know where they were. He must have gotten lost several hours ago when they were navigating the underwater caverns. He had been so concerned with Hermione and the baby making it through unscathed that he must have made a wrong turn. The underwater cliffs and rocks were razor sharp. One brush against them would surely cut their tender scales. The sun up above was setting quickly. Soon there would be no light to travel by.

"Lumos," said Severus, lighting his wand. He looked carefully around at their surroundings. He didn't like it, didn't like it at all. He looked at the feeding merbaby and exhausted Hermione. They needed to rest.

He would have to be on guard tonight. There were too many opportunities for other things to be living and feeding amongst them.

"Yes, Miss Granger," he said hesitantly. "Tonight we'll stay."