The water is gleaming sickly, a dull green tint to it's murky depths, and I can see something moving below the surface, pale milky flesh and spidery fingers and thin hair floating through the dirty water. Up ahead in the island we're heading towards; a tiny scrap of land with a pedestal, surrounded by inferi infested waters and the smell of dankness, rot, and death.
We reach the island, and Dumbledore tells me to make sure he continues to drink the eerie, silky looking potion in the bowl that rests on the pedestal, to not let him stop no matter how he wants to. And then he begins to drink, and soon after that, begins to beg. It's utterly horrible. But I have to make him keep going. Eventually I have to force him, and he just keep begging, and when it's finally over the silence is overwhelming, because I've somehow gotten used to his miserable ramblings.
I go to fetch him something to drink, but all that's near is the murky water; it will do. I cup some in my hands, and then movement just erupts. The water begins to roil, splashes and ripples, and the pale bodies beneath the water begin to move. Before I can even properly take a step back, a long fingered hand with chipped nails throws itself at me and grabs my forearm to drag me closer, and next a woman hauls herself up by my arm.
She has what I imagine was once dark Indian skin, but it's now a sickly pink, and her black hair is long and thick, formed into two long braids on the back of her head, and her mouth of sharp teeth is coming quickly towards my arm where she holds me, framed by swollen and split, petal pink lips. It's just a moment before her mouth connects with the inside of my elbow and pain explodes from my arm, and now I can feel more hands grabbing me, around the waist and by the legs, and I can hear Dumbledore yelling before I'm pulled into the water.
It's darker underwater, and every now and then, as rotten bodies swarm around me, I can see a glimpse of a glowing green light. Hands are holding me, hands of every size and shape but all in a death-grip, and yet there is only one inferius biting me, the first. The pain in still coursing through my body, originating from my arm, and I can feel myself slowly drowning. I think for one moment that I see Dumbledore trying to rescue me, but my the next moment, I've been turned in the water and am being dragged towards the green light, inferi tugging me lower in the water, and I feel everything go light and numb before we even get there, and I let my eyes slip slowly shut just as I feel the jaws release my arm.
xXx
When I next awake, it's to an angry Voldemort blasting the inferi around me to pieces. Arms and heads float in the water around me, and I can see through the water as he next aims his wand at me before he pauses, a disbelieving look on his face for a moment before he lowers it. I see his lips move, and then they move again, and I can't hear what he's saying, but my body starts to move. I swim closer, my limbs moving without my control, and crawl out of the water to look up at him. Out of the water, every move makes me ache but I cannot make myself stop, and I crawl closer to Voldemort on my hands and knees. When I get close enough that I have to crane my neck to see his face, and the water running down my face has slowed to a trickle, I finally stand.
"Potter." Voldemort says, before his face twists in triumph and a little bit of disgust. "Who would have thought I'd find you here. Fitting though, isn't it?"
I want to smile. To laugh. To spit in his face and kick his shin and attack him, all the while laughing hysterically. But for some reason, my body still won't move.
"Oh, how enchanting that vacant look on your face is," Voldemort says now, a nasty grin on his serpentine face. "Your eyes dull with death and your cheeks sunken. You look as good as a corpse, Potter." He says, and it's like a light bulb goes of in my head, and I piece it together.