Chapter 37 – Fairytales, Part 4
Snow White put her head out of the window and said, "I cannot let anyone in, the seven dwarfs have forbidden me."
"It is all the same to me," answered the woman, "I shall soon get rid of my apples. There, I will give you one."
"No," said Snow White, "I dare not take anything."
"Are you afraid of poison?" said the old woman, "look, I will cut the apple in two pieces, you eat the red cheek, and I will eat the white."
The apple was so cunningly made that only the red cheek was poisoned. Snow White longed for the fine apple, and when she saw that the woman ate part of it she could resist no longer, and stretched out her hand and took the poisonous half. But hardly had she a bit of it in her mouth than she fell down dead.
Then the queen looked at her with a dreadful look, and laughed aloud and said, "White as snow, red as blood, black as ebony-wood, this time the dwarfs cannot wake you up again."
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May 2nd 1990
Keating Estate, Virginia
"What's wrong, Rick?" Bev asked, concerned, as her husband came through the door. The color had drained from his face. His eyes searched wildly for something and fell on their daughter, who was playing with chess with Will. Rick breathed a sigh of relief. "Rick, what's wrong?" she asked again.
"I – I need to talk to you – in the kitchen," he said taking off his wet coat and hanging it up by the door.
"What's going on?" Bev asked, frowning and concerned. She followed him into the kitchen and tore off a sheet of paper towel, wiping at Rick's wet face. "Where are the groceries?"
"Bev," he said, breathing deep, "At the store – the sheriff, Dewey, you remember?"
She nodded recalling vaguely meeting the town's brawny sheriff at the Mayfair two nights ago.
"He told me – he told me, Tabitha – Tabitha is dead, Beverly. She drowned in the creek."
"What? No!" Bev gasped, placing a hand over her open mouth. "No," she said shaking her head. "It can't be."
"Dewey said Tabitha snuck out of her house last night to go to the clubhouse. The rope – the rope the girls use to swing across the gully, snapped. They think she must have hit her head. The rains flooded the creek and she drowned."
"Oh my god." Bev murmured. "Oh my god," she said, picturing her own daughter drowned. She covered her face with her hands. "Oh my god." she said again, "Natalie… Kevin." She couldn't think what they were going through – to lose their only child.
Rick pulled her into his arms. They were anchors for each other. When it seemed like the whole world was crashing down around them, they just held onto each other for dear life.
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December 11th 1995
The merpeople captured what they believed to be the guilty grindylow. Although the warriors that the Merchieftainess Murcus commanded had been skeptical of Dumbledore's claim that the grindylow was venomous, they had taken precautions that proved beneficial to them. They had gone out to capture the beast dawned in full armor but the ferocious grindylow had had to be killed before it could claim another victim. They believed the culprit grindylow was a foreigner to their waters. Native grindylows had pale green skin. The one they caught had a reddish tinge to its coloring. It had probably latched itself onto the bottom of the Durmstrang boat. It was used to colder waters, so it did not retreat to the deeper parts of the lake like other grindylows during the winter months. It was a perplexing mystery. Even grindylows from the north were not naturally venomous.
The corpse of the "red grindylow" was brought to St. Mungo's. Healer Addison performed the autopsy extracting tissue samples for Healer Tanabe, the toxicologist. Tanabe normally enjoyed a good challenge but not under these circumstances. A thirteen-year-old girl's life hung in the balance. The odds were against her with a preexisting neurological condition, a weak immune system, and only recently recovering from an earlier attack.
"Poor little girl," he said to himself, as he examined a small jagged tooth taken from the red grindylow.
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December 11th 1995
Neville Longbottom summoned all his Gryffindor courage and knocked on the office door of Professor Snape.
"Who the devil is it?"
"Longbottom, sir," he mumbled.
"Who?" rapid steps approached the door and it swung open, revealing the towering figure of Professor Snape.
"Neville Longbottom, sir," he said more clearly.
"What do you want, Mr. Longbottom?" said Snape, his black eyes glinting malevolently in the torchlight.
"I – picked these up. Her things," Neville said meekly, holding up a box containing Sera's shoes, cloak and her locket laid carefully on top. He had cleaned and charmed the dirt and sand from them.
Professor Snape took the box from him with an implacable expression. "Thank you, Mr. Longbottom."
Neville bit his bottom lip unsure of how to get the words out.
"Is there something else Mr. Longbottom?" Snape asked impatiently.
To the professor's surprise, Longbottom pulled out an academic journal, Herbology Today from his school robes. "There's an article here about red tide. It's what they call red algal blooms. They contain dinoflagellates that produce toxins. I thought it might help," he said shrugging and handing it to Professor Snape.
"Thank you, Mr. Longbottom. For your – assistance," said Snape.
"You're welcome, sir. Er – I wanted to know how she is. Is she going to be alright?"
"That remains to be seen, Mr. Longbottom," Snape answered shutting the door.
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December 12th 1995
Rick and Beverly had been separated for almost a month. Rick was living out of a suitcase in a hotel and had started to look for suitable apartments in the area to rent. He buried himself in work arguing for the equal treatment of goblins in financial transactions with mages. Bev likewise buried herself in work at the museum. They were trying to live one without the other. Something neither of them had done for twenty years.
Rick couldn't trust Bev if she could go behind his back and make what he felt were horrendously unethical decisions. How could he live with someone he didn't trust? He loved her still, but it didn't seem enough. She had given Anselm von Rothschild a foothold into their family. And there was no doubt in Rick's mind that the crafty old man would take full advantage of it for his own sick twisted purposes. There was no way he would allow Rothschild near any one of his children.
Danny, he knew, wasn't coping well. Rick saw him on the weekends and took him to Quidditch games or the movies, but Danny wanted his parents to get back together. Rick and Bev had tried to explain to Danny and Will that their relationship was something they had to work out with each other. Will seemed to understand more, but he was away at school and two years older than Danny, who still needed to finish high school. Their youngest son had become moody and defiant, staying out late, getting into fights at school and telling his teachers off. The entire Keating family came together for the first time since a rocky Thanksgiving dinner and a funeral at the bedside of the sick little girl.
Professor Snape entered the Sera's hospital room to find it crowded with Keatings.
"Hello, professor." The eldest boy greeted him, which he acknowledged with a nod.
"Professor Snape." Mr. and Mrs. Keating said in turn.
The youngest boy glared at him disdainfully.
"Boys, would you take Roscoe for a walk?" Rick asked in a manner that indicated it was not a question.
Will called the dog to him, but Danny leaned against the window.
"It only takes one person to walk a dog," he muttered.
"Daniel, please," Bev said.
"Fine, whatever," Danny said throwing up his hands and following behind Will and Roscoe.
"How could you wait so long to tell us?" Rick demanded, once the door was closed. He rose from his seat to confront Snape.
"It is my prerogative as Sera's natural father to decide if and when to contact her foster family," Snape replied coldly.
"Your prerogative?" Bev repeated, "She needed us and you kept us from her."
"And what could you have done?" Snape sneered. "Do you possess some medical expertise I am not aware of?"
"Don't talk to my wife like that," Rick said, "How could you let this happen to Sera?" he accused. "You had her for less than two months. Why didn't you watch her? Why didn't you protect her?"
"Then tell me. How was I to know she'd jump into the bloody Black Lake in the middle of winter? Was I supposed to divine it from a cup of tea leaves? I didn't even know the girl could swim." Snape sneered.
"That doesn't matter," said Rick, his voice rising in intensity, "You called Sera 'your responsibility.' You told us you'd take care of her. Where the hell were you, when she needed you? You don't deserve to be her father. You don't know what the word means."
Snape's black eyes bored into the man standing before him and his hand itched for his wand. He opened the door behind him, "I shall return in one hour. I expect all of you to be elsewhere."
"Wait." Bev pleaded, letting go of Sera's hand and getting up. "This is wrong. It's not going to help our daughter. We need to work together. Pool our resources. Rick and I aren't Healers, but we know a lot of them. We know you've asked Elaine for help. We're having her computer and lab equipment transported to St. Mungo's so she can access any Muggle databases that might be helpful. Rick and I have money and contacts. Everything we have is at your disposal."
"What are your conditions?" Snape asked.
Bev rolled her eyes. "I'm not negotiating with you. This is isn't a treaty. We all want the same thing. We all want to save Sera."
"We want to be kept informed about Sera's condition," Rick interjected. "We want to be a party to any conferences you have with Healers Tanabe, Addison or Elaine. And we want to take shifts staying with Sera, so she won't be left alone. Is it a deal?"
"Done. I shall return in an hour." Snape said shutting the door.
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December 12th 2005
Professor Snape read the journal article Longbottom had suggested as he waited in the cafeteria of the hospital for the Keatings to vacate Sera's room. He wasn't in the mood to read imbecilic third year Potions essays on the uses of Murtlap tentacles. A floating teapot refilled his cup with Earl Grey as he turned a page.
Red tide was a toxic algal bloom consisting of an insidious specious of dinoflagellates, called Karenia brevis, caused by coastal water pollution and global warming. Muggles destroying the natural world, Snape thought irritably. There had been a rise in the occurrence of red tides, some of which produced large quantities of brevetoxins.
What connection did Longbottom see between poisonous red seaweed and the grindylow that had attacked Sera? Grindylows were not vegetarians. They were carnivorous eating small marine animals: various kinds of small fish, the occasional jellyfish, and its particular favorites were clams and oysters. However, Snape, brilliant Potions Master, recalled that these shellfish belonged in a class of aquatic animals known as filter feeders, so named because they fed by filtering particulate organic material from water. What if the grindylow that had attacked Sera ate shellfish that had bioaccumulated the toxins from the red tide? Professor Snape contacted Healers Addison and Tanabe, and Dr. Engels.
By that time Healer Addison had autopsied the "red grindylow," supplying tissue samples for Healer Tanabe to set to work isolating the poison and examining its chemical composition and molecular structure. Dr. Engels set up her makeshift lab to help identify the neurotoxin using Professor Snape's working theory as a starting point. By the day's end, they finally had an answer for the family.
"The red grindylow," Tanabe explained to them, "was not naturally venomous. Through some means, either by swimming in waters affected by red tide or feeding on affected marine life, he accumulated the poisons in the fatty tissues of his body, mainly in the liver and pancreas. It did not kill him, because the biological half-life of the toxin reacts differently in the grindylow than in a human being."
"The toxin we've identified is tetrodoxin," said Dr. Engels solemnly.
Professor Snape blanched.
"I'm sorry, Beverly, Rick, Professor Snape, but there is no known antidote," said Engels.
"What do you mean there's no antidote?" Rick asked.
"Tetrodoxin usually kills within minutes, Mr. Keating," explained Tanabe. "It's lethal at less than half a milligram. There are cases where people have lived for three to four days afterwards in a state of paralysis until their respiratory or circulatory systems fail and they die of asphyxiation. I'm sorry, Rick. Healer Tanabe and I will try to work on an antivenom but it's very unlikely. We do not wish to give you false hope."
"We'll try to make her as comfortable as possible," said Healer Addison trying to reassure them.
"What are you saying?" Bev asked. Her voice had a hysterical edge to it.
"Mr. and Mrs. Keating, Professor Snape, your daughter is dying," Addison said.
"There's a chance," Engels said, "Sera may be at least partially conscious; the toxin may not have passed the blood-brain barrier. That means she might still be able to hear and understand you at times."
"My mother," Rick said, "when she was with Sera, she said her hand moved. If she can move, even in a coma, doesn't mean that she'll come out of it."
"Those are involuntary muscle spasms," Engels said fidgeting with her pen, "her nerves may still be sending messages to her brain. It's – it's an indication that she's in pain, Rick. Healer Addison has prescribed her Morphus drops every three hours."
Rick covered his face with his hands.
"You're saying," Bev said the tears caught in her throat, "that my daughter's dying and she's in pain."
"I'm sorry, Beverly," Elaine said.
"You're sorry," Bev repeated bitterly. "He's the one that should be sorry," taking out her wand and pointing it at Professor Snape. "You killed her! You took her from us and you killed her! You killed my baby!"
Rick took her wordlessly in his arms and they both wept.
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All Hail LordAnubis485 the beta-reader.
TET – Nothing like a good coma to add drama to a situation.
dancer8428 – I was on the track team too, so I forgive your lack of reviews. Unfortunately, my foray into the world of athletics only lasted for two days. Every bone in my body hurt after day 2 and I took so long to run laps that the coach stopped timing me. Coach looked so sad. I had to end our shared misery. But kudos to you for sticking with it. Bella and the Malfoys shall be in the next chapter.
ShyOrangette – Same day update but another cliff-hanger.