Gratuitous Squid Hickeys!
Since isiscolo, thistle_chaser, aleph_0, and _greenie_ all responded to my request for pairing fodder, I think I'll pick and choose pairings from all of their suggestions and perhaps eventually get forty rather twisted drabbles/ficlets written. I've only done one so far, but I'll post it now since it refused to remain a one or even two hundred word drabble. ("A one"? That can't be correct but it sounds so much better to me than "an one.")
Note: My squid is biologically inaccurate, I'm sure. But isn't canon!squid, too, since he's in what I assume is a freshwater lake?
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The Art of S(ed)uction
For years Newt Scamander had heard tales of the merpeople who were rumored to live at the bottom of the lake. By the spring of his sixth year he'd finally mastered the Bubble-Head Charm, having practiced it nightly in the prefects' bathroom. (The other prefects had simply added 'obsession with cleanliness' to 'silly name,' 'writes letters home to mum's hippogriffs' and 'keeps stuffed, mounted fwooper on nightstand,' which were the pre-existing Reasons Why Scamander is Eccentric.)
Early one morning, as soon as the lake was completely free of ice and Newt felt certain he wouldn't die of hypothermia, he slipped out of the castle and down to the shore. He waded in as the sun crested the hilltop and splashed light across the lake, performing the Bubble-Head Charm as the water reached his thin chest.
The frigid water had been a shock at first, but Newt slowly adapted to the temperature as he plunged his head beneath the surface and dove down. He swam quickly, fish darting away from him as he approached, and he lit the tip of his wand as visibility decreased.
Although the Bubble-Head Charm provided him with a steady supply of fresh oxygen, the warmth of his breath eventually began to cloud the inside surface of the bubble, rendering the cast Lumos entirely unhelpful. Newt knew there was a spell that might clear the bubble, but the incantation hovered in the back of his mind, just out of reach.
"Impervius?" he tried, certain it was the wrong spell. His voice resounded oddly within the bubble as he continued to kick his legs, swimming blindly and descending deeper into the lake.
Newt's right leg bent back at the knee and then swung straight against the water's resistance, unexpectedly meeting something solid. Slender fingers gripped his calf, and his search for the spell was interrupted with the thought, Grindylow. He thrashed about in an attempt to shake the beast away, and after what Newt felt was a dreadfully long time, the grindylow finally relented. It didn't seem as though he had shaken it off, though, and Newt sensed something else, something larger, floating beside him now. No, it had almost seemed as though the grindylow had released Newt out of fear.
The spell! What was the spell? It started with a P? P!
"Petrificus!" Newt cried, narrowly missing his new companion. Could it possibly be a merperson? He strained his ears for any sounds of Mermish, but he heard nothing.
"P--!"
Something grasped his leg again, but this wasn't the bony clutch of the grindylow. Instead there were points of pressure around his bare calf, his robes having bunched up around his thighs as he fought off his previous attacker.
The words that had been flitting frantically around Newt's mind scattered, until only one thought was left. "How very curious."
Newt felt another long, supple arm wrap around his other leg, up beneath the robes that floated around him. At all the places where this creature touched him, there was a strange, slightly painful yet oddly enjoyable suction, like the time that weird girl Porpentina had cornered him on prefect duty and attached her lips so securely to his neck that for a moment he was quite concerned she was a vampire. She wasn't, of course, and even though she had left a bruise, it hadn't been a completely awful experience, really.
But at least during that incident he could see his attacker. Besides, he thought, he really ought to identify the creature in the name of science. Yes, science. It had nothing to do with the fact that he found this perversely pleasurable, the weight of the arms and the tug of the suckers.
Plimpy! Protego! Presto! Perspiration! "Perlucidio!"
The bubble cleared. Heart racing, Newt raised his still-glowing wand to see.
And thus it was discovered that a giant squid had come to inhabit the Hogwarts lake and, upon returning to shore some time later, Newt Scamander determined to dive right back down there the next morning to search for the merpeople again. Or, well, that was what he would have claimed to anyone who might have asked.
Note: My squid is biologically inaccurate, I'm sure. But isn't canon!squid, too, since he's in what I assume is a freshwater lake?
-------
The Art of S(ed)uction
For years Newt Scamander had heard tales of the merpeople who were rumored to live at the bottom of the lake. By the spring of his sixth year he'd finally mastered the Bubble-Head Charm, having practiced it nightly in the prefects' bathroom. (The other prefects had simply added 'obsession with cleanliness' to 'silly name,' 'writes letters home to mum's hippogriffs' and 'keeps stuffed, mounted fwooper on nightstand,' which were the pre-existing Reasons Why Scamander is Eccentric.)
Early one morning, as soon as the lake was completely free of ice and Newt felt certain he wouldn't die of hypothermia, he slipped out of the castle and down to the shore. He waded in as the sun crested the hilltop and splashed light across the lake, performing the Bubble-Head Charm as the water reached his thin chest.
The frigid water had been a shock at first, but Newt slowly adapted to the temperature as he plunged his head beneath the surface and dove down. He swam quickly, fish darting away from him as he approached, and he lit the tip of his wand as visibility decreased.
Although the Bubble-Head Charm provided him with a steady supply of fresh oxygen, the warmth of his breath eventually began to cloud the inside surface of the bubble, rendering the cast Lumos entirely unhelpful. Newt knew there was a spell that might clear the bubble, but the incantation hovered in the back of his mind, just out of reach.
"Impervius?" he tried, certain it was the wrong spell. His voice resounded oddly within the bubble as he continued to kick his legs, swimming blindly and descending deeper into the lake.
Newt's right leg bent back at the knee and then swung straight against the water's resistance, unexpectedly meeting something solid. Slender fingers gripped his calf, and his search for the spell was interrupted with the thought, Grindylow. He thrashed about in an attempt to shake the beast away, and after what Newt felt was a dreadfully long time, the grindylow finally relented. It didn't seem as though he had shaken it off, though, and Newt sensed something else, something larger, floating beside him now. No, it had almost seemed as though the grindylow had released Newt out of fear.
The spell! What was the spell? It started with a P? P!
"Petrificus!" Newt cried, narrowly missing his new companion. Could it possibly be a merperson? He strained his ears for any sounds of Mermish, but he heard nothing.
"P--!"
Something grasped his leg again, but this wasn't the bony clutch of the grindylow. Instead there were points of pressure around his bare calf, his robes having bunched up around his thighs as he fought off his previous attacker.
The words that had been flitting frantically around Newt's mind scattered, until only one thought was left. "How very curious."
Newt felt another long, supple arm wrap around his other leg, up beneath the robes that floated around him. At all the places where this creature touched him, there was a strange, slightly painful yet oddly enjoyable suction, like the time that weird girl Porpentina had cornered him on prefect duty and attached her lips so securely to his neck that for a moment he was quite concerned she was a vampire. She wasn't, of course, and even though she had left a bruise, it hadn't been a completely awful experience, really.
But at least during that incident he could see his attacker. Besides, he thought, he really ought to identify the creature in the name of science. Yes, science. It had nothing to do with the fact that he found this perversely pleasurable, the weight of the arms and the tug of the suckers.
Plimpy! Protego! Presto! Perspiration! "Perlucidio!"
The bubble cleared. Heart racing, Newt raised his still-glowing wand to see.
And thus it was discovered that a giant squid had come to inhabit the Hogwarts lake and, upon returning to shore some time later, Newt Scamander determined to dive right back down there the next morning to search for the merpeople again. Or, well, that was what he would have claimed to anyone who might have asked.