[CookingwiththeCobra]

The humidity was suffocating and had put Draco in a right foul mood. It was sweltering hot as he trudged through the forests of Japan. His hand went up to his forehead to shield the sun from his eyes as he looked around at his surroundings. His partner was ahead of him being far too perky for his liking. He had been staring at the back of her head for the better part of the day. “I think it has grown.”

[CookingwiththeCobra]

“What are you on about Malfoy?” Hermione asked as she maneuvered around the foliage, careful not to get her map caught in the offshoots. She was a little surprised when he spoke. He had been quiet the whole day. She knew it was because he had been pouting. He was being forced to do a job that didn’t involve doing anything exciting.
       
He walked closer to her and grabbed a tendril of her hair, “your birds nest here. I think it has grown.”

[CookingwiththeCobra]

She casually swatted his hand away, “yeah I know. The humidity hates me.” Brushing over her hair she felt how out of control it had gotten and she stopped to try and tie it back into a bunch. When she was done fiddling with it she moved her hands out of the way, “eh, better?”

He gave her a small shrug and started off in front of her, “yeah, if better means worse.” He lied. Her hair looked fine even before she touched it.

[CookingwiththeCobra]

She chose to ignore him. He seemed to be in a mood where he wanted to start a fight from nothing. He did however take over clearing the brush from the path. A little more aggressively than she would have but it gave her shins a break from all the low branches that had been attacking her for the past few hours.

He pushed through some tree seeming to know where he was going even though he had never been there before. His ability to navigate places made her miffed. Partially due to the fact that she was awful at directions and partially because she was sure he didn’t know either he just had really good luck.

[CookingwiththeCobra]

It wasn’t long before Malfoy stopped, “I think we are here.”

She turned the topographic map from side to side confused, “how do you know?” The Mitsuishi River was luckily not that long. The river only stretched for roughly a hundred kilometres. She wasn’t the most knowledgeable when it came to Japan but she made the decision to only request a day pass. She couldn’t see them needing to stay any longer for what they were doing… hopefully.

[CookingwiththeCobra]

The Japanese Ministry of Magic followed suit with it's muggle counterpart after the second non-magical world war. Their entire governmental structure had been remodeled to imitate that of the western world. They held a similar strict policy of the United States when it came to using magic. It had taken them weeks to fill out all the proper papers and finally get just a simple permit for a day's use with their wands in the country.

“Consider it intuition.” He watched as she walked past him not paying much attention, “Granger.”

[CookingwiththeCobra]

His serious tone made her put the map down. Spotting the issue she said,” oh.” Her feet were on the edge of the river.

“Please be careful. I don’t want you falling in.”

Before all the words left his mouth he watched as the sand started to slide under her weight.

“Oh crap!” Hermione didn’t have time to catch herself as she fell. She threw the map and her wand behind her in a last ditch attempt to keep from losing them in the water.

[CookingwiththeCobra]

Amused, he didn’t move as he watched her fall in. He waited a minute expecting to see her head pop back up. She was completely capable of taking care of herself and had seen her get out a whole lot worse than a river. The minute went by and his curiosity turned into concern.

“Damnit Granger. I didn’t want to get wet today.” He made his way down to the water and waded after her. When he got to the spot where she went under he was only waist deep. Why hadn’t she stood up?

[CookingwiththeCobra]

Suddenly her hand flung up in an attempt to grab a hold of something and he sloshed towards her. Snatching her hand in his he tried to pull her head above the water but something strong was keeping her pinned down.

“What the hell,” frantically his eyes darted around to locate what was causing the problem. He stopped when he made eye contact with a green scaled creature as it surfaced from the river. He thought it looked a lot like a monkey. He was sure at some point he had learned about the creature but at the moment the information wasn’t coming back to him. It had its claws dug into her as it held her under.

[CookingwiththeCobra]

“I can see why she appealed to you but I sort of need her back,” he flung water everywhere as he gave a hard kick to the creature's face. While the thing lost its balance he yanked her free from its grasp. Hermione shot to the surface letting out a loud gasp as she sucked in air.

Draco quickly hoisted Hermione out of the water and they both stumbled onto the shore.

Hermione was on her hands and knees as she coughed up water. She rolled over in time to see the creature slowly wading out after them. Draco grabbed her around the waist again to get her to her feet. They both backed away as the thing had its eyes set on Hermione.

[CookingwiththeCobra]

She pushed her wet hair out of her face to finally get a good look at what had tried to kill her. Recognizing it immediately as a Kappa she put her hand out. Palm facing the creature. It stopped approaching and held eye contact with her, curious.
       
“Hermione?” Malfoy asked slowly as he moved out of the way.
       
“Shh, it’s a Kappa. I know what I’m doing,” she whispered, barely moving her lips.

Carefully she started to lower her head. Kappa’s similar to Hippogriffs liked respect and polite etiquette . Most of the time bowing to a Kappa would lead to it returning the bow. The small dish indented in its head held water and if the Kappa bowed the water would empty. Without the water it would become weaker and more docile.

[CookingwiththeCobra]

The Kappa after a moment of consideration seemed to have accepted Hermione' bow and chose to engage in the process. Draco watched carefully. He trusted her in her abilities but he never liked to take chances. Now that she had pointed out what it was he remembered that the locals considered them as river demons and that iron would kill one.

Hermione due to the lack of time had not been fully aware of her surroundings. She had positioned herself right in front of a tree that was half uprooted and falling over to the side. When she moved slightly to readjust her weight her foot caught on a protruding root. She tried to catch herself but ended up falling backwards against the tree.

[CookingwiththeCobra]

The Kappas head shot up in surprise before the water spilled from the dish. It's eyes narrowed in anger and charged at her snarling.
       
"Oh shit," Hermione braced herself for the creature to sink itself back into her.
         
Malfoy came up behind it with an iron spike and impaled the creature through the back. Slicing through it completely with the spike protruding out its chest. Little specks of blood landed on her face.
       
She watched wide eyed as it slumped to the ground, “Malfoy! What the hell did you just do?”

[CookingwiththeCobra]

After making sure it wasn't moving anymore he held his hand out to help her up, “that’s an interesting way of saying thank you Granger.”
       
She took his hand and he hoisted her up, “you killed it.”
       
“It was going to kill you.”
       
“I was going to pacify the situation without needing to stab it,” she walked over to the side of the river and retrieved her wand from where she dropped it. The map was gone having floated off into the water.

[CookingwiththeCobra]

“Yeah and then circumstances changed and I stepped in. I’m not going to apologize that it’s dead. I’d rather have a dead creature over a dead partner,” he pulled the iron spike of the creature's body. He cringed at the squelch sound that the spike made.
       
Hermione waved her wand and mumbled the hot-air charm on herself. Once she was dry she walked over to Malfoy and repeated the process. Normally he would have enjoyed being dried off but with how hot it already was the hot air from the charm just made it worse.