Letter Perfect

Not many people knew that Olympe Maxime had a daughter. Even in France, land of the mistress and the quiet accommodation, youthful indiscretions were best kept concealed as much as possible. Particularly when one was headmistress of a renowned secondary school. Particularly when one was half-giant. Particularly when one was a witch.

Particularly when one's daughter was not.

Ondine Maxime was a lovely girl, if you liked them large. Big-boned, her Maman would say, but the truth was she was three-quarters giant. She had towered over even Olympe ever since her fourteenth birthday, and could have presented a serious problem in child-rearing had she not been utterly and completely without magic. This gave her quite magical Maman a means of discipline, but truth be told, she would rather have had a magical problem child than her well-behaved Squib -- or, as they say in France, Cracmol.

But Ondine was her daughter, after all. So although she was not allowed to take the magical courses at Academie Beauxbatons, she lived with her mother in her palatial quarters, and was tutored in the more ordinary subjects of Arts and Sciences. When the Triwizard Tournament was held at Hogwarts, she accompanied Madame Maxime and her students to the Scottish school, but stayed behind in their magical carriage when the others went inside for the feasting and merriment.

"After all, ma cherie, you have not the magic." She did not mean to be harsh, only factual. But Ondine pouted.

"I want to see the students. Perhaps there is one boy who might like a big-boned girl?" After all, she was nearly eighteen, and there was only so much hanging around in a carriage she could take.

"Perhaps one might like a big-boned witch. But none would want a Cracmol, my child."

So she sulked in the carriage, by the side of the lake, while that vapid slut Fleur and the rest of those stupid willowy girls got to have all the fun.

Not many people knew that the giant squid that lived in Hogwarts Lake had magic. Of course, it was a magical creature, to some extent -- how else could it survive in a Scottish freshwater lake? -- but in addition it had some ability to do magic, just enough. Untrained, undirected, and none too strong, but the ability was there nonetheless.

Not many people knew that the giant squid was lonely, either. But what would you expect? Surrounded by merpeople and grindylows, each race preferring the company of its own kind, the squid lived on the fringes of what passed for Lake society. It was almost bearable until the Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament.

The squid watched through the rippling lens of the water as the human champions rescued those most important to them. How wonderful, it thought, to have another creature that one cared about so deeply. How wonderful, it thought, to have another creature that cared so deeply about oneself.

The squid had an inkling that it had some magical powers; in consultation with the merpeople, it understood that these powers could be used to perform spells, which could accomplish things. Never before had it a reason to accomplish anything that could not be done by use of its sheer size and strength; collecting food, swimming about the lake, and scaring small humans were all easily done with a wave of enormous tentacles, after all. But now the squid pondered the possibility of finding a mate. And as there were no other squids in the lake, it seemed that magic would be the only way.

Humans, it knew, amplified their magical ability using little sticks of wood. The giant squid no doubt needed a giant stick of wood, so one day shortly after the Second Task it slid up to the edge of the lake, reached one giant tentacle out and looped it around a tree, uprooting it and pulling it into the water. It took less than half an hour of work to strip the branches and break the roots.

The proper spell, of course, was a necessity. Fortunately the squid was able to communicate its needs to one of the merpeople, who talked with Moaning Myrtle the next time she flushed down to the lake, and eventually the proper summoning spell was transferred to water-resistant parchment and sent to the squid.

Of course, giant squids speak neither Latin nor English very well, preferring their native Calamarese, and water-resistant does not mean waterproof. All things considered, it was remarkable that the spell worked as well as it did. But it certainly wasn't letter-perfect.

One afternoon, Ondine was quietly walking around the lake. The Beauxbatons students were being tutored by her Maman, the Hogwarts students were in their regular classes, and she, as usual, had nothing much to do. It had been a fairly boring day, all in all.

The day abruptly became much less boring as what appeared to be a tree trunk poked out of the surface of the lake. Ondine watched in interest as it thrust completely out of the water, its lower end held in the grip of a huge tentacle. The tips of other tentacles slowly became visible, roiling the surface -- and then, suddenly, a strange noise split the air. It was a kind of burbling noise, clearly emanating from the lake, and to Ondine's ear it sounded sort of like, "Aseejaiunswib," which made absolutely no sense at all to her in either French or English.

Suddenly, she found herself flying through the air toward the thrashing giant squid. Unsurprisingly, she screamed. She screamed as a tentacle wrapped itself around her waist. She screamed as it pulled her down toward the water. She screamed as another tentacle poked its way between her legs.

But that last scream sounded altogether different.

When the Triwizard Tournament was over, the delegations from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons returned to their homes -- with one notable exception. One very large -- or shall we say, big-boned -- exception.

Hagrid built a very nice little cottage on the shore of the lake, planted all around with gillyweed, and there Ondine lives to this day. Every day she plucks some gillyweed and dives in to visit her lover. I hear that she's even learned to speak creditable Calamarese.