CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: THE MUG-O'-DOOM

Buffy was trying desperately not to panic. The problem was, she had portkeyed into the middle of a mass of pitch-black water, and trying to determine which way was up was proving to be impossible.

She kept a firm grip on the cup as she kicked and stroked her way, hopefully, towards the surface. Forcing herself not to swallow, and to try to calm down, she continued to swim, silently thanking the higher powers that she could finally see lighter water. She swam furiously, her lungs burning, desperate for air. As she neared the surface, she hastened her speed, unwilling to give in and drown when she was nearly there.

She broke the surface of the water, gasping a lungful of air. It took her a moment to realise that she was inhaling smoke, and her eyes watered as well. She coughed painfully, wondering how on earth she could possibly have this much bad karma. She put out the hand with the cup, trying to remain buoyant as she continued to tread water. With her spare hand she pulled up her saturated shirt and covered her nose and mouth, breathing through the wet material. It filtered a lot of the smoke out, but it was hard to keep up the position while still in the water.

Squinting through the smoke, Buffy looked around frantically, searching for land, or just something she could use to remain afloat. The smoke was too thick to see through, though, and Buffy resorted to ducking beneath the water and looking around for something below the surface.

She spotted what looked like a wall, and she began swimming towards it, trying to keep her grip on the cup as well as remain above the water, with her shirt covering her mouth.

She grabbed hold of the wall and swam along the length of it until she found a spot to pull herself up and out of the water.

She wiped water from her eyes, but found they still stung from the smoke. Annoyed with her heavy clothes, she pulled out her wand and quickly cast another spell. "Ademptio madesco." Her clothes, hair and skin dried, and Buffy found it easier to move. She shrugged out of her jacket, pulled off her jumper, and stripped off her t-shirt. She quickly ripped a large strip away from her shirt and tied it over her mouth and around the back of her head, robbery-style. It meant she could breathe without having to hold the material to her mouth. She replaced the jumper and the coat and moved through the smoke carefully, trying to work out where she was, and how on earth she'd got there.

She looked at the cup in her hands. A portkey. She stopped and put the cup on the ground, stepping away from it. She waited several moments, knowing that portkeys were often programmed to return to their original point of departure. After nearly half a minute, Buffy picked it up again.

Nothing.

She tried three more times, waiting longer at each attempt before giving up. Obviously someone wanted this to be a one-way trip.

She continued on, knowing there was no point in delaying the inevitable. She moved forward, but found no trace of where the smoke was coming from. And she couldn't get rid of the smoke without getting rid of the fire.

"Note to self: learn to apparate," she muttered.

The more she walked, the hotter it became. She took off her coat and carried it at her side. She rolled up the sleeves of her sweater and rolled the cuffs of her jeans as well.

Sweat trickled annoyingly down her face, in the small of her back, and other uncomfortable places as well.

She followed the wall, walking carefully, tripping over loose stones that she couldn't see. And even though the temperature continued to soar, Buffy found herself no closer to the fire than when she'd begun.

Ten minutes later, nothing.

Twenty minutes later, nothing.

Buffy couldn't take much more of this. She fell to her knees, coughing violently. She flattened herself to the ground, desperately hoping that there would be a small gap between the ground and the smoke. She breathed in semi-clean air and tried to concentrate.

She was losing sight of why she was even here. Panicking wasn't helping her. She needed to focus.

She placed the cup in front of her face, keeping one hand on it, frightened it would vanish at any moment. She stared at it, hoping for some kind of sign of what she should do. Giving up was out of the question. Moving forward seemed fruitless, and moving backwards was impossible. The portkey seemed to only work one way, and returning to the chamber with the cups wasn't a possibility.

Buffy tried to work out what it was that Voldemort wanted with a cup. And while it may have held a pretty good monetary value, Buffy was fairly certain that the Dark Lord was above greed for money. Power, though…that was an entirely different barrel of fish.

So why had Voldemort gone out of his way to hide the cup of Hufflepuff? Why bother hiding it in a forest in Albania, hidden after a labyrinth, and camouflaged with three identical but fake cups?

Dumbledore had known that they would need to go to a fair amount of trouble to get at it, which was definitely true. So, Voldemort didn't want someone to find it. But, he needed to be able to get to it himself. Which meant that there must have been a way out of the cave.

Voldemort, being arrogant on the issue of power, would have chosen a way out that only he could activate. And the one thing that Voldemort, and the rest of Salazar Slytherins line had been proud of, was the ability to speak to snakes. Lying on the ground, with barely an inch of air, it was almost painfully obvious. Her spells hadn't worked because she was saying them in the wrong language.

"Bastard," Buffy muttered.

She'd never spoken Parseltongue. She'd never found a snake to try it on, nor had she been all that tempted to try. She'd heard about the hell that Harry had gone through in his second year when the wizarding world had discovered his unusual ability.

As his twin, and sharing an unusual connection with the Boy-Who-Live, Buffy could only hope that she'd picked up the strange talent of Parseltongue that Voldemort had so greatly valued.

What she needed was a snake. That was the easy part. She aimed her wand at the ground in front of her.

"Serpensortia!"

A small green snake shot out of the end of her wand and hit the ground. It looked around and flickered its tongue, tasting the air. Buffy assumed that he didn't like it any more than she did.

She coughed and held her faux-bandana over her mouth. She looked at the small snake, concentrating on the serpent as it slithered towards her.

"Stay," she whispered.

And to her absolute shock, it paused and sat still. She tilted her head, trying to get a better look at it. And while she was looking at the snake, every word she said was coming out in Parseltongue.

"Abscido tabesco."

The spell was simple spell, but said in Parseltongue, and the smoke cleared instantly. Where it had gone, and how oxygen was replaced in the cavern, Buffy couldn't have explained, but she didn't need to know the whys and wherefores.

She struggled to her knees, coughing up the leftover smoke. She had a feeling that she was going to have a smoker's cough for the next week or so, but that was a problem for later. Right now, she needed a way out.

She glanced down at the snake.

"You don't know where the exit is, do you?" she asked it.

The snake seemed to pause, as though to take stock of its whereabouts. It lifted its head, nodded and began slithering away. Buffy figured that there was really no harm in following it as her other options were fairly limited.

She followed the snake through a cavern, and eventually found something very familiar. 'X48'.

She was back to the labyrinth that she'd come down earlier. She continued following the snake, checking every now and then the marks on the walls, watching the numbers get smaller and smaller until she came to where she'd first arrived.

She looked down at the snake. "You're pretty damn cool for a conjured snake," she mused.

The snake looked up at her and flickered its tongue out. She reached down, putting her arm in front of it. "No biting," she ordered.

The snake nodded and curled itself around her arm. It nestled its head against the crook of her elbow and curled the very end of its tail around her pinkie finger.

"Alright…pray this works Sly," she whispered to the snake.

She pulled her wand out and jammed it into the earthen wall, hoping like hell that the words that had got her into this mess would get her out.

"Scindo sordesco."

The wall pulled her in and, to her great relief, spat her out back in the hole she'd begun in.

She looked up, and Remus's head looked over the edge of the hole.

"Are you alright?" he asked frantically. "It's been hours, you have no idea how worried I've been."

Buffy grinned and held up Hufflepuff's cup. "One mug-o'-doom, as ordered. Don't touch it though, it may still be a portkey."

"Still?" Remus repeated.

Buffy nodded. "It's a long story. We'll save it for the trip back home. Now get me outta this hole!"

Remus grinned and reached down, pulling Buffy up and out of the hole. He jumped back when he finally noticed the snake coiled around Buffy's arm.

"What's that?"

"A snake," Buffy replied dryly.

Remus glared at her, and wondered just where she'd picked up such dry snarkiness. It reminded him of Severus Snape, and Remus knew that Sirius wouldn't be impressed if he ever heard the girl imitate the Potions Professor.

"Yes, but why is it on your arm?" Remus clarified.

"Sly? He's a friend," Buffy replied. She looked down at the snake, who almost seemed to smile at her. "Aren'tcha Sly?"

The snake hissed and Remus's eyes widened. "You can understand him?"

"Well, Harry learned to share, apparently."

Remus could only answer that with one word. "Oh."

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PS: every time I upload, my whole chappie is immediately put into italics. Is this a normal thing, or am I just special? Is there a way to stop it from doing that?

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