Chapter 36 is here! Read. Enjoy. Reveiw... Please
The Slytherins took it worse than Teddy. He'd been calm and collected when he heard the news but the Slytherins, even they already knew that he was missing only became even more incensed when they found out what efforts were being made to find him. Anyone would have thought that they were being told he was being left for dead! It took Trix five minutes to regain their attention.
"All that is being done is done, there is no use complaining about it. I'd like to know when he was last seen by any of you."
"Lunch." The remaining fourth year boy, Ewan, said. "He was with the Cassandra girl he's friends with."
"I knew there was something strange about her." a fifth year girl muttered.
"Alya?" Trix asked. "Hit her for me."
Grinning, as if she'd been wanting to do it for a long time, Alya hit her, hard, round the back of the head.
"Cassandra did not kidnap Scorpius. Now, I'm going to talk to her and no one is to leave these rooms. Alya, keep an eye on everyone. Chose someone to help you."
Trix exited the room and quickly made her way over to the Hufflepuff home rooms near the kitchens. On the way paintings whispered amongst themselves and took surreptitious looks at her. She knew that they were talking about her and wondering how she was coping with Scorpius being missing, but she didn't answer them. If she did she would be stuck there for ages instead of finding Cassandra and asking her questions about when she last saw the young Malfoy.
Just as she reached the moving staircases Professor Dashworth caught up with her. She was looking more worried than she deserved to be with flushed cheeks and hurried steps. Trix ignored her for a moment hoping that she'd ignore her right beck. Tonight, however, wasn't her lucky night.
"I saw someone in the castle earlier." she said.
"Did you tell the headmaster or Filius?" Trix blandly asked.
"Not yet I –"
"What? Why? … Never mind. Where and when?"
The staircase stopped moving and they turned back down it to walk to the headmaster's office.
"Third corridor at a quarter to nine and if you must know they had concealed their face so there was no way of telling who it was." she snootily replied.
"Now's not the time to act like that; a student is missing, Pricilla. And 'if you must know' anyone who thought it wise to break into Hogwarts castle and kidnap one of the students would also think it wise to use disillusionment charms so there would be no way to discern who it was." Trix spun on her heel and in a swirl of her skirts and cloak stalked towards her father's office.
Dashworth turned in the opposite direction.
"Do not think you are going anywhere, Pricilla, unless it is with me." Trix called and carried on her way smirking to herself when she heard her former professor hurry to catch up with her.
She made Dashworth go up the stairs first and then followed her. Severus was sat behind his desk talking to Cassandra Withers. She looked graceful as she sat in the chair even though worry filled her features and she had let a few tears fall free. A baby blue dressing gown and slippers covered her garishly green and pink pyjamas. Dumbledore would have been proud. In fact, looking at his portrait he was grinning even though the situation was grim. Trix looked back to what was happening and saw that Neville was sat by her side on another chair giving her encouraging glances.
"When we left the library he offered to walk me to my common room but I said I'd be alright and that he'd be late for curfew if he did. That was the last I saw him, Sir. Just before twenty to nine." Miss Withers said to conclude her story of what she and Scorpius had been doing since lunch. "Do you know who they are and why they took him, Sir?"
"We can assume things, Cassie," Neville began. "I will tell you what's going on as it happens. Back to the common room now with you." He stood up and led his young Hufflepuff out of the office. He gave Trix an encouraging smile as he passed her.
"More information, Trixabelle?" Severus asked.
"Not me but our dear friend, Pricilla. She decided to wait until just moments ago to tell me that she'd seen someone sneaking around the castle at quarter to nine."
Severus snapped his head round to look at the Ghost Studies professor. She began to fidget feet and tuck hair behind her ears. Her skeletal frame seemed more pronounced as she slowly withered before the headmaster. Severus' gaze became deeper and darker the longer he looked at her.
"Have a seat, Ms. Dashworth." He said and lithely gestured to a chair.
Pricilla scuttled round to it and sat down. She tapped her toes as she waited for someone, anyone to speak.
"Trixabelle, bring Filius if you would."
She nodded and silently swept out of the room. As soon as the door was shut she began muttering to herself.
"Bloody useless, insufferable, idiotic, inscrutable, stupid, moronic, time wasting - Gah!"
Hermione appeared in front of her from behind a statue.
"Bloody hell, Hermione! Are you trying to kill me?"
"Sorry." Hermione smiled and brushed a clump of her unruly hair behind her ear. "I take it you have had another spat with Pricilla."
"You could say that. Come with me and I'll tell you whilst I find Filius."
Ms. Dashworth sat in her chair most like a student who was about to be punished. She shifted, fidgeted, looked out of the window and ran her hands through her wispy hair.
"Pull yourself together woman!" Severus snapped. Not even most of the students who came up here acted as scared as this. Then again they were brought up here for breaking the rules, not endangering the chances of rescuing a student.
"Calm, my boy." Dumbledore soothed from his frame. "Being rash will do nothing for you now."
Finally Filius arrived and took his usual chair but not after taking a good long look at Ms. Dashworth and making a few well educated guesses as to why he had been summoned. After clambering onto his usual stool he leaned forward and waited for Severus to begin.
Only he didn't.
"You are at a loss for words, Severus?" he squeaked. "The situation seems clear to me. Ask the portraits if they saw Pricilla and then we'll take it from there."
"It has been done, Filius. What escapes me is why Ms. Dashworth did not alert everyone in the castle when she saw the intruder."
"An interesting question indeed, Severus. You saw the intruder, Pricilla?"
"Yes." She snootily replied suddenly finding herself again. "I was taking the rounds that Miss… Professor Snape should have been. I still do not understand why you saw fit to take her from the castle at a time such as this, Snape, with the werewolves intent on revolt."
"That, I assure you, is none of your business." Severus silkily replied. His voice was carefully measured so that she would only hear what he wanted her to hear – calm confidence and authority. "Your reason, Pricilla."
"I did not see why I should answer you if you do not answer me."
He took a slow breath in wondering how anyone could be so uncooperative at a time like this. Someone who was supposed to be on his side. "I will accuse you of being a Quirrell of you are not extremely careful, Ms. Dashworth."
Dashworth looked affronted. Her nostrils flared and her lips went white. She too took a deep breath and slowly let it out.
"I did not realise that anyone had been taken from the castle."
"Pricilla," Filius began. "Not telling us still would have meant that we would not know that someone has breached our wards or used one of the seven secret passageways. You have to have known that the course of action you took was wrong."
"Perhaps Severus should have talked to all of us upon his return instead of just you heads of houses!" Dashworth snapped.
"You're supposed to tell a head of house something if the headmaster is not here in the event that something happens."
How Filius was being so calm Severus would never know. Then again innate calmness was a quality Filius had always possessed whereas he had not. He watched Filius continue his line of questioning for some time all the while having to remind himself that no he could not kill the woman just because she was being annoying.
The whole twenty minutes that Severus sat and watched Dashworth denied that she had done anything wrong and that it was Severus who should be questioned about the way he worked with his staff. He kept his acerbic remarks to himself and made sure his face betrayed nothing.
"I believe Pricilla is guilty of nothing except lack of judgement, my boy." the portrait of Dumbledore eventually said. Even in the painting his eyes twinkled.
Severus calculated a few things. Dashworth had always been very close to Macmillan and could be wanting revenge for the loss of his job, taking one he was all but family to was a way to get revenge. Or she could be working with the werewolves and it was they who had taken him. He could submit her to versitarium to gain the truth now, or, he could allow her to roam the castle so that he could keep an eye on her and tell the Aurors of the werewolves plans should he learn anything new from her.
"You may go." He slowly interrupted one of Filius's questions.
Dashworth made a show of getting out of her chair and walked out of the room doing her best to mask her relief. She didn't quite succeed.
"Abrupt." Filius noted having already figured out what was going on in his former student's brilliant mind. "I will ask Trixabelle to watch over her on your behalf. Now, I believe I can here Harry stomping up here."
"You should stay, Filius. Perhaps then you can ensure Ms. Dashworth is immediately informed of what is happening." Severus in a rare show of friendliness jested.
"By all means that would be my greatest pleasure, thank you for giving me such an important task."
"I admit that I had worried it would be too arduous for you, Filius. Your determination is most impressive."
Filius chuckled just as the door opened. Harry walked in to see an almost smile on his former potions professor's face and it stopped him in his tracks for a moment. He looked at the older man bemused until the impatience on Severus's face registered with him. He stepped all the way into the office with Millicent, Draco and Trixabelle following him. All four were muddied from head to toe and looked almost as if they had been petrified – white as chalk and statue still.
Severus allowed them to find seats and collect themselves for a moment before even thinking of questioning them.
"Basilisks." Harry muttered. "Breeding basilisks. They're brilliant! Bloody mad but… brilliant."
"Please do explain, Mr. Potter." Severus had to work to keep urgency from his voice.
"In the tunnel that begins in the dungeons." Millicent started. "We got about half way down it and there were all these eggs growing on the walls with this huge mother basilisk guarding them." She swallowed a lump that had formed in the back of her throat. "We would all be dead if it weren't for Trix."
"She looked it in the eye, Severus!" Harry exploded. "She just turned round and looked it in the eye! I don't know how she did it, Sir, but she looked it –"
"In the eye." Severus drawled even though his heart was beating at a million miles an hour. "I think we all here understand that Trixabelle has just committed an act of great Gryffindor idiocy and somehow live to speak of it. Now continue with your most interesting tale."
"Draco killed it." Harry continued. "Made it see its own reflection and then chopped its head off."
"We used fiendfyre on the eggs." Millicent interrupted. Honestly it was like watching the Weasley twins converse! "Trix pulled herself together enough to control it and then we scooted on out of there. She's been kind of comatose ever since."
She gestured to the statue still Trixabelle. She was evidently alive and breathing, not at all petrified. Apart from being chalky pale, barely moving and still had bright amber eyes she looked fine. A quick, discreet medical scan showed her to be in perfect health.
"You know the phrases 'scared to death' and 'scared stiff'?" Harry asked. "Well I think she's just been 'scared silly'."
"Don't talk about things you know nothing about, Potter." Draco pompously began. "That's not how it works."
"Then how does it, Malfoy?" Harry spat back.
Severus ignored their argument and moved to kneel in front of his daughter. She was cold, a result of sitting in wet clothes and being so long in a tunnel that was deep under ground and her pulse was slow. Her eyes were unfocused and didn't follow the finger he slowly moved from one end of her field of vision to the other. Slow breathing matched her heart rate. Filius joined him and they quietly talked about Trixabelle's condition and quickly came to an agreement.
"Shut it!" Millicent snapped at Harry and Draco. "Neither of you are helping. Professor," she turned to Severus, "what do we need to do?"
"It appears that Trixabelle survived staring at the Basilisk because she, at the moment, has werewolf eyes. Until she consumes the restorative potion she will remain in this state. Draco, find Longbottom and tell him what we need, he has Mandrakes that are of the proper maturity." Severus explained.
"Yes, Sir." Draco said and swiftly left.
In the time it took for Draco and Neville to bring up the ingredients for the restorative potion Harry and Millicent told Severus and Filius that only one of the tunnels besides the one they had just been down had been recently used. It was the one that Fred and George had told him and collapsed before 1993. Millicent had been down it earlier before she was swiftly called away. The debris had been cleared to reveal a tunnel wide enough to be a DADA practice room and had evidence of recent habitation. There were now several Aurors stationed inside it investigating as well as a group at either entrance to stop anyone entering or leaving it.
"They've been right under our noses the whole time!" Harry exclaimed and then muttered, "Why didn't Dad and Sirius put them all on the map? I've asked Mr. Filch to show my Aurors where all the passageways are so we can check the rest of them out. Unless something happens you have all my Aurors for now. Even the final year trainees are here to help."
At that moment the door burst open revealing Draco and Neville carrying a couple of crates of ingredients and enough ear muffs for everyone in the room. Severus pulled his workbench out – he'd specifically installed it for brewing his daughter potions when it became clear that she would not go to the hospital wing – with a flick of his wand and filled the cauldron with water which instantly boiled.
Neville gave everyone earmuffs and Draco held the terracotta pot that held the mature mandrake plant nervously remembering that if anyone didn't have the muffs on correctly they would instantly drop dead. Severus gave it a firm tug and quickly put it in the vat of boiling water. Five drops of cactus oil, a puffapod flour and various routs later the potion was stirred anticlockwise at a moderate pace for five minutes. When the mandrake stopped moving the potion was ready.
Everyone tentatively took their earmuffs off and looked into the cauldron. The potion was a dark, sickly yellow and gave off mouldy green smoke. It smelled not unlike horse manure but had the consistency of runny icing.
Severus took out a cone shaped ladle, filled it with the potion and took it over to his still statuesque daughter. He transfigured her chair in to a recliner that was ever so slightly laid back so that she could easily swallow the potion.
Everyone watched as Severus held the ladle to her mouth.
Seconds later colour began to return to her cheeks and her eyes slowly began to lose their wolfish qualities. Her muscles began to obviously relax and she began to drink the potion by herself.
"Come." Filius quietly said. "I believe Severus requires a quiet word with his daughter."
When the door closed behind everyone Severus let out a breath he did not know he had been holding. He began to tremble all over and had to steady the hand that was holding the ladle lest he spill any of the precious restorative.
It took Trixabelle a few minutes to swallow enough to bring her fully back to her normal self.
"Would you care to explain yourself you stupid girl?" Severus demanded.
"Err… I had a feeling?" she asked hoping that it was a good enough reason for her actions.
"You 'had a feeling'?" he asked with a characteristic raised eyebrow.
"Yeah." She shrugged ignoring her father's disapproval of the action. The way she figured it he'd be too glad to still have a daughter to tell off. She then went the whole way and kicked her shoes off without untying the laces and put her feet up on the ridiculously comfortable chair she was in.
"By the time I have made tea you will have a reasonable explanation."
Oops. Trix is in trouble - again. Please review!
Next time... Trix explains and things happen that help pick the pace up. Oh, and Divinations abound!
J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter!